la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

62

Minerva, oddly enough, slept extremely well. Though she woke up with a layer of cold morning dew covering every inch of her and a snail on her arm, she was rested. She slowly pushed herself up, rubbing her face as she looked around the yard. It was just her, the sigil burned into the lawn and a pile of charred branches.

For a long time she didn't move, though she shuddered with a chill every time the breeze brushed past. The sun still hung low in the sky, peaking through the gaps in the trees. She suspected it must be at least eight.

Her face pressed into her knees as she sucked in deep breath after deep breath. The last thing she remembered was suffocating, it was pretty hard to forget. It'd been a long time since Hecate had gotten hands on with her.

Minerva got the message loud and clear: Don't fucking question me. They'd been over it a hundred times.

Hecate had done similar things over the years, particularly when the first signs of Minerva's skepticism began to emerge. It'd been years since anything to that degree had happened. The God had settled for expressing her dissatisfaction during the pacifist period. Why now, now that it was over, now that she was doing exactly what was asked of her did she deserve this?

Minerva had no greater idea of her purpose now than she had the day before. In fact she had fifty new questions. Living to serve didn't sound right, it never had. She didn't think the title of 'champion' was warranted from a lifetime of service, there was more to it.

It was like a switch had flipped as soon as she questioned her. Though Minerva knew quite certainly her tone had been leagues from appropriate. She was quite lucky a brief suffocation was her only punishment.

The mood swing gave her whiplash. One second she thought she was in a dream, hearing the praise she'd been starved of her whole miserable existence and the next being reminded that she was replaceable, the world's longest running disappointment. Even if she did think the expendable thing was a bit of a bluff, she couldn't be sure.

She sat motionless in the damp grass for a long time, perhaps it was the grog or a bit of shock. Whatever it was she wasn't moving. Her cigarettes were damp, having been pressed between her and the earth for the last twelve hours. If she'd used a lighter, it might have been a futile endeavour trying to get the flattened, soggy cigarette to light. Cupping her hand around the end of it, with the filter held between her lips, flame crackled in her palms, unnaturally lighting the smoke.

Her mind couldn't wrap around any of it. Least of all the disparity she felt between yesterday's mood and the morning's gloom. Reasonably, she'd known it couldn't persist. The euphoria wasn't sustainable, it wasn't hers. This— the hollow feeling in her chest, the dull throb in her head, the raw burn of the cigarette's heat against her sore throat, this was hers.

It'd been a pleasant interlude, slight reprieve from her usual monotonous misery. Yet it settled so much heavier on her shoulders, nearly convincing her to lay back down for a spell. It was cruel, really: That her reward for 56 more or less innocent souls was an metaphorical emotional and spiritual kick in the fucking teeth.

When her soggy cigarette was gone, she flicked it into the long burnt out fire pit and slowly drug her aching bones from the ground. Her bones protested, a low groan slipping from her lips as she drug herself inside. A dismissive wave of her hand behind her rejuvenated the burnt grass, leaving only a shadow of ashes behind as fresh growth pushed through.

A look in the mirror told her it'd been a rough night. A smudge of soot streaked across half of her face from where it'd been pressed into the earth for the night and small bit of blood had dried under her nose. Only a shower would wash away the evidence and alleviate the chill from her bones.