Fatality ━━ Matt vs Chris Sturniolo²

𝖎𝖎. The Rotting Month

[ tw: (brief mention) of suicide, (brief mention) of suicidal thoughts ]

𝖎𝖎. The Rotting Month

Maeve

MAEVE IS NEVER ALONE.

The jailers don't leave. Always two, always watching, always keeping what she is silent and suppressed. They don't need anything more than a locked door to make her a prisoner. Not that she can even get close to the door without her being manhandled back to the center of her bedchamber. They're stronger than she is, and forever vigilant. Her only escape from their eyes is the small bathroom, a chamber of white tile and golden fixings, with a forbidding line of Silent Stone along the floor. There are enough of the pearly grey slabs to make her head pound and her throat constrict. She has to be quick in there, and make use of every strangling second. The sensation reminds her of Blake and her ability. The Scott girl can kill someone with the strength of her silence. And, as much as Maeve hates her guards' constant vigil, she won't risk suffocating on the bathroom floor for a few extra minutes of peace.

Funny, she used to think her greatest fear was being left alone. Now she's anything but, and she's never been more terrified.

She hasn't felt her lightning in four days.

Five.

Six.

Seventeen.

Thirty-one. 

She notches each day in the baseboard next to the bed, using a fork to dig the passing time. It feels good to leave her mark, to inflict her own small injury on the prison of Whitefire Palace. The Salems don't mind. They ignore her for the most part, focused only on total and absolute silence. They keep to their places by the door, seated like statues with living eyes.

This isn't the same room she slept in the last time she was at Whitefire. Obviously it wouldn't be proper to house a royal prisoner in the same place as a royal bride. But she's not in a cell either. Her cage is comfortable and well furnished, with a plush bed, a bookshelf stocked with boring tomes, a few chairs, a table to eat at, even fine curtains, all in neutral shades of grey, brown, and white. Leached of color, as the Salems leach power from Maeve.

She slowly gets used to sleeping alone, but nightmares plague her without Matt to keep them away. Without someone who cares for her. Every time she wakes up, she touches the earrings dotting her ear, naming each stone. Greyson, Archer, Cassian, Weston. Brothers in blood and bond. Three living, one a ghost. She wishes she had an earring to match the one she gave Emira, so she could have a piece of her little sister, too. She dreams of her sometimes. Nothing concrete, just flashes of her face. Her words haunt Maeve like nothing else. One day people are going to come and take everything you have. She was right.