Antithesis

Chapter 67: Picture

Make it stopplease mAke it stop'

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Adrian sat in grass, crunching stems and flowers under his nails. They were short, rippled in malnutrition. Adrian felt cold, unbothered.

"Why are you here?" Adrian asked quietly, murmuring low yet clearly audible.

The crunch of clawed hooves, the smell of sap in the air. Adrian read once that the smell of cut grass was a cry from the vegetation itself- that somehow grass knew it was being injured and was trying to warn its neighbours.

Did grass know, when it was reaching its end? When its stems turned yellow and crunchy and it powdered into flakes smaller than snow?

"I was sent," Mylla retorted with a huff, pausing before her wings and joints and knobbly bones folded sickly and she sunk to the ground next to him. She crushed daisies under her ribs, her long gnarled tail spilled over wildflowers like blood.

"Sent by who?" Adrian asked with a dry smile, his lips cracking. The sunlight burned, bright in the glare of the blue sky.

Mylla didn't respond, but a small huff from her large nostrils was clear enough to comprehend.

He had water, food. Sanity returned, whether he deserved it or not. It didn't matter to him anymore.

"I will tell you a story." Mylla started, hissing freakishly. It was unsettling, similar to how the skin stretched over her bones and the milky white of her eyes stared aimlessly. Her wings were leathery, large and cracked in the sunlight. He wasn't sure if any part of her would be soft, if maternal instinct still blessed her.

"I was born long ago," Mylla started. She talked in no rush, much more eloquent and intelligent than Adrian had suspected. She had talked so gruff, short without thought. Animalistic, or perhaps that too was an act. Perhaps she was cunning enough to wait and bide her time. "I was a good child."

Adrian couldn't talk. He grabbed a step with a flower, and he began to pluck each petal with purpose.

"I died painfully." Mylla spoke, softly for the first time. Adrian eyed her from the corner of his eye, spotting the long tongue and sharp canine fangs. "Adalonda was young, half my size and thick as my leg."

Smaller than Nagini. Adrian pulled off the petals, throwing the stem away from him. He wished it was an apple core.

"Adalonda bit me, and she killed me painfully." Mylla spoke calmly.

Adrian stilled.

"I wondered why for a long time." Mylla spoke, her tail swishing unnaturally. "I wondered why I lived. I asked, after. My sire said he bartered, his students created something and that created me."

"Which students?" Adrian asked quietly, swallowing thickly.

"Morgan le Fay. Merlin." Mylla turned her head, face twisted and wrong, "Father was so happy. He had me again. Adalonda was not."

Adrian's heart twisted. He breathed out choked, "what happened?"

Mylla blinked slowly, ears twitching around on her great reptilian skull. "She killed. She murdered children, and I took them as mine. Father found out, but I was not his child anymore. I was not his pride. Adalonda was something I could not be, but he could not kill her. He sealed her away, made her sleep because he could never kill her."