Of Monsters and Flowers [Sihtric Kjartansson]

Act I: Chapter One

SIX YEARS LATER

.𖥔 ݁ ˖☾𖤓.𖥔 ݁ ˖

Dunholm
Kingdom of Northumbria

The years had passed blurred and hazy and Lynette, whose eyes were ever unclear, had woven herself into a form she scarcely recognised yet it was all she now knew of herself. Broken pieces of her sorrow strewn together in force by a thread into a distorted shape, one which could bear witness for her- to endure all the pain that had come and is yet to come with a secure and stable core. Blood boiled and tethered to the deepest parts of her very essence; Lynette had found a way to exist banishing the fear that had fostered in her, entombing the memories of past days and forgetting the shadows of years ago. She threw herself into the role she was scorched with here, Dunholm, the place that she had to force herself to declare as a home.

Amidst the years that passed Lynette had grown older and quieter she screeched less and her defiance withered as did her hope of any escape, having morphed into an anchor of strength for her own liveliness or any piece of it within her she had left. A false form of contentedness she had to repeat to herself each dawn like a vehement prayer entrenched into her flesh, hardened and ingrained at a depth so lasting.

The crescent moon shape pierced into the palm of her hands, pressed into each engraved line serving as a reminder of her strength- the force it took for her to not cry as she had done before.

"I want to go back!" Her voice trembled.

"You cannot go back, you fucking pest, your father gave you away, he cares not for you." It was the same Dane that had brought her to Dunholm, the one she had ridden on a horse with- the one who had held her with a grip so firm she could still feel it on her skin.

Lynette looked away as tears drowned her face beneath them, draining her yet they did not relent- she knew her father did not want her, she needed no reminder of the fact. "Please, I want to go, let me go." She pleaded.

He sneered "And where will precious little Lynette go? That is your name, I heard you tell it to the bastard boy."

Bastard boy? Lynette thought for a moment and then she remembered the dark haired boy, slightly taller than her and not much older- Sihtric, his name is, he was kind to her.

"Lynette, Lynette, Lynette...." The man repeated the name- testing it on his mouth, his foul lips as he grabbed her face in his hold and leaned down so close his forehead could almost touch hers. Lynette squeezed her eyes shut, and dug her nails into the skin of the palm of her hands- fiercely. "I happen to like your eyes and now you hide them from me?" The man mocked her, "Open them."

She did not, she took comfort from the darkness and so she just shut them even more tightly. The Dane did not like that and so he let go of her face and his hand, roughly, tried to pry open her eyelids. Lynette gasped in pain at his harsh grip, her eyes opened and she stepped back- fear radiating off her.

"Your place is here now, best get used to it or we will have to force you to." He taunted.

Her hands shook and her stomach filled with a dread she had felt first a few days ago when her mother had left her- she had left her to this, she cannot have. She wanted to scream at the man, kick and cry like a child in hopes he would tire of her and let her go but the sneer on his face stopped her from doing so.

And so she did.

She who had taken stillness as a companion witnessed each sunrise and set with a hidden vulnerability to her irises -a watcher in the corner- the light of the rising sun threaded into the cerulean ocean that is her eyes as she would gaze upon the aureate gleam watching how gently it would pass through the towering blades of grass. Yet the silence, too, is not faithful in the dark of the sombre nights it would form into a shape that would bring with it whispers of sorrow and pity as if to mock her yet deceive her, ripping at her skin to unveil the rot, into believing it was comfort it carried, all for her.