INCIPIENT ➵ EDMUND PEVENSIE

01 | The Problem of Kinship

01 | THE PROBLEM OF KINSHIP

She slams her against the chairs.

    Helplessly, she blinks, every last iota of energy torn from her veins as her arm draws her in towards herself before pushing her out like she is nothing but a ragdoll.

    She makes out smudges of amaranthine liquid along the sharp corners of the chairs through her blurred vision. The pain, the sore is everywhere - along the creases of her skin, at the back of her watering eyes and deep in her heart-

    A heart that loses a little faith with each blow upon her.

    "Please, stop!" she begs, reaching up to grapple at the acuate nails that grip her shoulder and bite into the flesh.

    And let go of her she unexpectedly does.

    Now she's unhinged, confused and shaking, yet, she steadies herself and scampers towards any refuge she can possibly acquire-

    Until she kicks her in the back.

    She stumbles forward, knees colliding with the cold marble tiles, a bout of shock ricocheting through her. The older woman sets her clinch on her shoulders again, flips her around, throws her onto the floor.

    A tidal wave of nausea drowns her senses, smothers her senseless. And all too weary to follow-up with the useless struggle, the girl can only shut her eyes and take in what more has to be offered.

    Breathe, breathe, breathe, she attempts to tell herself, Embrace the screams in your head, Elliott. You've done it before. You can do it once more-

    Well, if only it is that easy to take in such a large pinch of sugar - sugar-coated words - when there is a metaphorical rope chaffed tight round her throat...

    Slow, she lifts her weighty eyelids now, her chest still suffocated by an agonising sorrow.

    Gazing into her eyes, she sees nothing she can recall. 

    No vestige of the loving mother she once meant to her.

    She sees nothing - the brown eyes she used to know are now lackluster abyss of dark.

    The older woman proceeds to mutter in her ear, sentences, fragmented and bleak in tone. She condemns her for everything that has gone out of its order, and as she breathes down her skin, an odour of burgundy attacks the girl's nose - hard liquor.

    She is utterly abhorred by the stench. Stomach convulsing, she fights back the urge to throw up, as if she doesn't already have enough to brawl with.

    Now her mother tugs on the blood embezzled tablecloth beside them and drags it down. Perhaps she wishes to make the metaphorical rope literal, perhaps it is an action of absent thought, but that really doesn't matter much at all-