❛in which she kills❜
The Red Death was well-known. She was a tale used to scare children from talking to strangers, from wandering in markets, from venturing past the garden gates and slipping out of their mother's grasp. Her name was whispered arou...
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"no one understands your chaos better than you."
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NIMERAH HAD BEEN IN THE bath for a mere minute and had already stained the water an ugly shade of diluted red. Tiny whirlpools of it formed as she wiped at her shoulders, as she hoisted a leg up onto the porcelain edge and took a threadbare rag to her skin, blood drip drip dripping down into the red, darkening and darkening the waves until she could hardly make out the silhouette of her limbs.
She lowered herself into the water, letting her back hit the bottom of the tub, her legs folding to fit, her head lowering until she was submerged. The air that kissed her exposed knees was so chilled against the warmth of the water, the bloody warm that settled over her eyelids and her lips, that rushed into her ears until she heard only muffled silence. It was the sort of warm that was heavenly and sinful. Sinful because it was the warmth of victims. Of the dying.
Nim came up for air at that, unable to let herself bask in that sort of sin. But her hair was matted with blood, tangled and sticky with it, and so she fumbled for one of the two bottles on the ledge of the tub and then lathered her hands and then her hair with the product, the vanilla and irony stench absolutely nauseating as it permeated throughout the washroom.
She stared down at the deep red water, the floating hunks of flesh that had loosened from her hair, the inky strands that had been completely ripped from her scalp as she untangled the mess. Nim smoothed down her hair, ran her fingers down her neck. Five shallow lacerations tingled as they healed, the skin of her throat tickling, a reminder of that half a moment when she had lost control.
The door swung open with a thud - instinctively, she pulled her legs up to her chest, folded her arms around them, suddenly glad that the water she sat in had become such an opaque red. Beron Vanserra stared down at her with distaste, clutching a folder in his hand, the other reaching to slam the door shut.
Nim hated when he shut the door.
He wrenched a stool from beneath her vanity, sneering at its rickety, old appearance, and barked, "I thought I told you to get a new chair." He didn't like to sit on such things. They were beneath him.
She was busy, she was busy doing his work and she wanted to sneer back at him that a good chair was expensive, that she didn't have money. That a stool was all she needed in her washroom. Instead, she nodded, trying her hardest to keep her chest glued to her thighs.
Beron scoffed and sat down upon the stool. He opened his file, flicking through the documents, through the reports she had scrawled merely an hour ago. His russet eyes glared down at the blood-smeared parchment. Another scoff. "Still getting blood fucking everywhere, I see."
"My apologies," she breathed, lowering her head down, letting her cheek rest on her knees as she watched him.
The High Lord went back to reading through the file. His eyebrows were slightly raised, lips pursed and downturned, and she could tell that just like every time, just like every mission, her report was not good enough. He already held judgement.
