The Twelve Kingdoms

Move You Around

/// Cinderella

Telekinesis Kingdom ///

That's how they began. White snow outside the windows, tinged a dark blue from the night.

He sat and stared at her.

"Who am I?" He shivered.

She stared back. "Whoever you want to be."

"What if I don't want to be anything?"

"Then don't. Stay with me and don't be anything."

White and red. Red on white. It was always these two colors.

***

The steady drip of red blood from her nose unto the white snow after a beating by her stepmother.

It was because she didn't do the laundry in the specific way she was instructed. She never did anything right in her stepmother's eyes. And on bad days like today, all the anger was physically manifested.

Lacie's dad became a drunk when her real mother died, and then he died as well, when Lacie was seven, leaving her in the care of his second wife with severe anger issues and unquenchable bitterness. Her step sisters weren't much better than their mother.

Her life could be described as miserable, like all the other poor people in her village, but she didn't mind. Feeling sorry for herself wasn't something that benefited anyone, she'd learned that since she was young enough to understand words.

The wet scarlet of his lips a stark contrast against the pale porcelain of his skin after she'd kissed him so hard that it would bruise.

She had wanted to do that for two years already, since she turned fifteen and he stayed the whole night with her at the empty cabin, trying to nurse her back to health after she got into a huge fight with the village's gang.

He stared back at her with blown eyes after she pulled away.

"That's not how you kiss someone you love," he breathed and leaned forward again, capturing her lips in his, gentler than a summer's breeze, always so careful and tender in places she was reckless and rough.

The long trail of dark burgundy blood dragging on the polished ivory marble of the Frost castle after she had murdered seven princesses.

Yuki always cared so much, loved too much. Even if his own family members were manipulative corrupt creatures plotting to kill him, he always forgave them and loved them despite their contriving nature and charred souls.

Lacie wasn't like that, though. She wasn't above murder of her enemies. She wouldn't let his seven evil sisters try their tricks on him any longer, blaming obvious murder attempts on harmless accidents. She'd had enough of watching Yuki still treat them with kindness even though he knew what they were. Someone as good as him shouldn't be burdened with loving someone as evil as them.

The dark flame of his wrath against the smoky whiteness of the silence after he pushed her down to the ground when she told him what she'd done.

He was only ever capable of just anger. There was always a good reason for it. And she supposed this was as good a reason as any. She took away the people he loved, even if they were harmful to him.

He was disappointed that she wasn't, that she could never be, as good as him. He was so angry, and hurt, and disappointed, and sad, and lost, features struck with grief. He looked most beautiful that way, the rawness of emotion in his bright dark eyes taking her breath away in a way that pained her chest.