In Shadow and Death

005

Like the fog of a serpentine sky, Nesta's steeled eyes, silver and malefic, seemed to fluster Merikh's secure sense of direction, her barbarous glare nothing but a promise of leisurely death. A fire seemed to vehemently kindle there, great and eternal, as she bared a gracious row of ivory teeth, the gag cringing between them.

Her embrittled sister sobbed beside her, lustrous tears teeming down her little, bambi eyes, rampant tremors jouncing her billowy bones. Elain was an obliging contrast in comparison to her wilful sister, grovelling at every one of Merikh's demands while Nesta merely glared, willing those leaden flames to life.

Elain's umber eyes still seemed to blush within the shadows, burnished and unbarred - the cavernous windows to her benevolent soul. They were capacious with terror, the rims red and raw with unabating tears.

Merikh felt that devoid extent of her chest wrench, those affluent, brown eyes rousing a redundant feeling of poignancy, unwarranted emotions plugging her narrow throat.

Clouded and fortified recollections of her blithe past breached her impenetrable shields frenziedly, a plentiful amount of blurred faces staring back at her, distorted and fraught.

It seemed to be a berth of brume, unclear to her mechanical mind, or through her unseeing eyes. Merikh stared ahead of the crowd, to the heart of the room, to those hazel eyes - brilliant and warm.

The sullied scraps of cloak stuttered involuntarily in her coarsened hands, the material rough and twisted before she let it fall, the scraps floating to find permanence on the bleak cell floor.

Nesta's brash hollering severed the memory fully, those obscure figures disintegrating to mist, those chasmic, hazel eyes blearing with them.

Merikh looked down her nose at the chafed woman, whom kicked and jousted with disobedience, winding her slender wrists frustratedly against the abrasive rope.

Her jaw locked in frustration as the woman continued her chronic uproar, grinding her legs against the coarse floor and coaxing an unwilted odour of blood.

"Fine." Merikh sighed vigorously, her hands oscillating in exasperation by her hips. Nesta had truly conned herself if she thought acting the hero would get her anywhere, particularly with those feeble kicks and hearty hollers.

In a stilling motion Nesta was censored and dulled, an aching silence lapping the caliginous cell as she limped doltishly to the rigid floor, dormant and inactive.

Elain's abashed sob rumbled the hushful cell, neurotic and despairing, those relentless tears starting anew. Some unchecked part of Merikh lamented pitifully for the girl, in such a situation that had once mirrored the worst night of her own life.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Elain." Merikh insisted, a passionate sigh fleeing through open lips as she took a singular, creeping step toward her.

Elain watched the woman's ambiguous eyes as they paused on her for a moment, contemplative and unassured, as if deliberating on her fate. She unknowingly shuddered under the spiritless stare, blinking away distorting tears and making an adequate effort to compose her distrait body, now mindful that Nesta couldn't save her.

"I knew this little girl.." Merikh began, her face and voice without such feeling. "She looked like you, only she was young.. very young, even for fae terms." Her cold eyes never veered from her own, nothing but darkness to veil them. "Two-hundred or so years ago now. I met her before i came here, in a meadow full of sprouting flowers, much like herself. She was young, naive and dare i say incredibly stupid."