la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

Seventy-Four

CW: Graphic imagery, burning alive

When Carlisle left, it was a lingering goodbye, even though he was being called away by an emergency. He just couldn't shut up. Every step he took toward the door he was pausing to say something else with that doofy little smile on his face, turning back when he was halfway out the door until she eventually said "people are dying, Carlisle." At that point, he finally left.

Minerva watched the lights of his car disappear before she took a deep breath and muttered: "I need a drink." Though, as she moved across the kitchen to prepare it, she was a bit proud of herself. Nobody living that wasn't stupid would say Minerva didn't have a drinking problem. She was just very good at it. Today, the sun had gotten entirely below the horizon before she reached for a glass, which made her feel quite well adjusted.

One glass turned into two, two to three. So it goes. There was something about Carlisle's company that made her feel just a little less monstrous, normal in a way she hadn't ever felt before she met him. Then he'd move to her periphery, grow a little too far for sight and she'd feel it come creeping in.

It was such a visceral feeling. Like her face would crumble away, her arms grow to an unnatural length and her knee caps flipped around. Underneath it all, how was she any different from a spawn of Echidna?

In a way, she was worse than a monster. Maybe that's why she belonged to Hecate. She wasn't born a monster, it wasn't inherited like grey eyes or dark hair.
It was an heirloom that skipped a couple generations. Those skips made her know better and yet, she gave into it anyway. Let her teeth gnash and her fingertips become claws.

The day would come when Carlisle would see her for what she was. Maybe he'd see the glint in her eye or smell the blood on her hands. She'd be the cyclops on the island that Nobody struck blind or Calypso abandoned on the beach or Circe alone with her cursèd cattle.

A stop on the Hero's journey, not quite Ithaca.

Minerva's drinks led her to bed early, a stumbling step leading her to bed with enough wherewithal to brush her teeth and set her alarm. Certified functioning alcoholic.

She should have known better.
That sleep wouldn't be the reprieve she needed.

Her dreams weren't what they had been in the winter. Less psychic torment by an unseen malicious force and more psychic torment by a familiar malicious force trying to make a point. The problem was Minerva was never really sure what she was meant to be learning. It seemed random, really.

This one wasn't random. The minute it began, she was running. Bare feet slamming into the dirt road, she was screaming. It was always weird when it was like this. She was in someone else's body entirely, feeling their emotions like they were secondhand smoke.

The strange thing was. She was screaming her own name.

"MINERVA!" Shrill, terrified. "MINERVA— WHERE ARE YOU?" Every corner the woman tried to turn she found people coming down the streets, pitch forks and torches, a musket or two. This was a long time ago.

These streets looked..

"MINERVA—" A pressure took her to the ground but the pain of the impact was lost on her. There was no sting of gravel in her palms, of her ankle twisting. Just nothing. When she pushed herself up on shaking hands, she couldn't feel the burn of the wound blossoming a red, bloody rose in her side.

Her breath trembled, words tumbling out of her mouth. "Save my soul, goddess. Please, please, save my soul. Save my girl."

"WITCH!" A foot caught her in the stomach laying her flat on her back in the middle of the road. "Ready the pyre."

"NO! PLEASE! NO! I'M NOT!"

Minerva realized as the pyre came into sight, the town square. This was familiar. Too familiar. She hadn't seen it from this angle though. She'd been peeking through a cellar window. Her head, but not her head turned, and caught sight of that barred little half window. The face peeking through in horror, a young woman's mouth open— speaking— but she was too far to hear a sound. Still, she knew every word. They'd lived in the back of her throat all her life.

We have to help her! Mama! Please! Please! Run! No! No! No!

Minerva never realized she'd been seen. Never knew what was going through her head as she was dragged off to the pyre. Now, she did. Now, she knew what it felt like.

The fear that wrapped around her heart like a cold fist, the anguish of orphaning her children, the desperation, the despair. Minerva felt every emotion infecting her heart, coursing through the artery and travelling through every vein, soaking through every tissue.

Her feet drug and heels dug as the pyre grew closer, the pile of wood, the stake. There was nothing to do. There was no rewriting history, even in a dream. It didn't matter how much she tried, how much she screamed. It wasn't her effort nor her agony. It wasn't for her to escape. It was just for her to feel.

Cheers and chants filled her ears, burn the witch! free us from the tyranny of the triple goddess! It was al just noise. Flames licking and biting up her ankles, catching at her skirt just before she lit like a candle wick. Minerva felt it all. The skin melting, peeling from her bones. The heat, unbearable and hungry, that chewed through skin and nerve, boiling blood and roasting down to the bone marrow. The breath that wouldn't come, the agony of shrivelling lungs. The scream that felt like it was coming outside of her because it was.

When she woke with a start, sudden and like she was being ripped from one reality into another, the scream was hers alone. A cold sweat covered her body, a sick contrast to the heat of the pyre, but one heat remained.

The amulet around her neck remained red hot, seared with the scream against her throat.

Note: Is this really short? Yes, am I working on the next chapter? Swear on my life. I've been applying for school and busy with the holidays and putting my delusion in unhealthy places but we're so back.