To Keep You

Fire Is To Dance With Ice

Stella's P.O.V.

Life has a history of repeating itself. It's not very creative. Every love story is just a remix or rather paste and copy of the last. But there is one thing it is creative about, oh yes, it has gained quite a reputation for creating original and gruesomely unique monsters.

Life takes great time in writing the monsters' stories, and here is mine...

The table was long, clothed in a draping white linen that nearly reflected the candlelight of the chandler that hung from above. Lining the table was platters and dishes alike overflowing with traditional Christmas cuisines. Nearly ten high back chairs were pushed up to the table, and only three were occupied.

I felt so little, so fragile, and so peculiar as I sat at the head of the table. My feet dangled above the ground, and my shoulders barely reached the table. Ever so slowly, my upper teeth grazed over my bottom lip while the tips of feline-like-nails dug into the palms of my hands.

My gaze drifted on a phantom wind towards the other end of the table, and possessing the chair was a tall, oddly built, and older man.

Brone...

Anaana sat in a chair that was neither close to me nor close to the other end of the table. She was dolled up like some hand-puppet. Her black hair twisted and pulled into a crown of braids. Her fuller face, adored with foreign make-up and even her dim eyes, shined a bright shimmering glow as she remained focused on Brone, her beloved lover.

There was nothing she wouldn't do for him. If he asked her to rip out her own heart and serve it to him on a gold platter, she would do it with a smile on her lips. There was nothing she wouldn't do for him, nothing she wouldn't give to him. If there was ever a line drawn, it was as ghostly as a dead man walking.

Her dress was extreme. It was shimmering in thin pink material that clung to her body in ways that Brone could not look away from.

Sighing softly to myself, I focused all my attention on moving the over seasoned ham and under cooked potatoes around on the dinner plate that was laid before me. Anaana insisted on cooking this year's Christmas dinner, and Brone seemed uninterested in protesting against it.

And when she had a moment to spare, she used it to fuss over what I would wear to dinner. I didn't bother protesting the hands that tugged and pulled me this way and that. Whatever she wanted, Anaana got. Words spoken from my lips would've done nothing to stop her from dressing me up like some doll from her childhood.

Indeed, a doll I was, for my hair, was curled and thrown about as if I'd just finished riding my bike down a windy road. A sizable, satin white bow was intertwined tightly to my hair, and with every jerk of my head, the roots of my hair screamed in pure agony. But complain, I did not.

"Do you like your new dress, dear?"

A challenge, that was what her words were. Fire danced among the coals of her eyes, and that fire dared me to even consider disobeying her. Provoked me to challenge her with even the wrong words.

One day, I would challenge that fire, smother it even, but today was not the day to defy the hand that feeds me.

"Yes, I adore it."

Tasteless, that is how those words felt both upon my tongue and how they felt leaving my lips. But as I stabbed the thick piece of ham with the sharp tips of my fork, Anaana simply nodded before drowning herself in yet another pointless conversation with Brone.