Serpentine | ✓

2 | upon

*** U P O N ***

I COULDN'T BREATHE.

With my hands tuck firmly on my stomach, eyes squeezing shut while the throbbing pain of where the golden arrow pierced my shoulder begins to eat me away. My snakes had gone silent - and then I feel something shift underneath me.

"Nidus." he calls my name and for a second I forget everything that happened.

There is always a certain lull to his voice-like magic, like sorcery. He could get me to do anything, do things in ways I never thought I could.

In a way, he is my curse, I realized that as I lay restless on his lap. It wasn't the snakes on my head that could turn any on looker to stone, it wasn't the immortality in my blood either-it was the love I have for him knowing full well of the consequences it brought.

Now I am paying the price, but I don't mind. I finally know what it feels like to do something great for a person you love.

"I was scared for a second there-" I hear his voice croak. We are alone, but something tells me neither any of us will have the best of both worlds. "I got just in time before the second arrow could-"

And then he freezes. My eyes tremble and my lips give out a silent scream. There are words stuck in my throat and these are phrases that I don't want to say, and phrases he doesn't want to listen either.

"N-nidus?" his trembling hands caress my face, I could picture the way his eyes break in half, the way his lips tremble with unspoken words-thoughts that never made it past his mouth.

I don't like to admit it but perhaps this is the end of my tale. The end of the siren's song, the penance for my sins.

I have lived a long life of self remorse and self-destruction, and yet when it's slipping right infront of me-why do I feel like none of it was enough? Is it because of the man wailing beside me? The taste of his tears against my lips? The sound of his cries pelting my ears?

Is it because of this tightening feeling in my chest? Like roots twisting in soil and leaves falling off branches and stems?

In another time, I might have loved the feeling of my own fingers turning into stone. A taste of my own medicine-just like what they say. But not today though.

My fingers ache with grief when I let it slide against the back of his hand. I'd like to recall where it all began, before the end catches up to me.

Before I realize that not even my own curse could save me.

∞

I'd like to say it all started during the night, on a cloudless icy night just a week before the Winter Ball. The woods provided extra comfort and security, everything was found in Holloway, except the presence of any other living person.

For the common folk, to venture deep into the woods of Holloway is unwise - it might as well be suicidal. But for the years I've lived in this place, with nothing but the smell of Oak and the earth, I could say that Holloway was anything but cursed.

What could swindle these people's beliefs anyway? No one has ever returned from Holloway to tell their tale. Foolish men they are.

With their foolish ideas and their foolish circumstance.

What lies they have told, tainting the petals of a flower without giving it a chance to bloom.

In some ways, the common folks, are even more twisted than Holloway's brittle tree trunks. No one visits the "bewitched" forest - with acres and acres of decaying trees and vicious howls that could tear you apart if you weren't looking clearly.

I didn't mind, I have always liked the solitude. The silence gives me time to mull over my own thoughts. Living my years with untarnished time, seconds wasted away hiding from the binds of superstition and fear, minutes spent on getting to know myself more and more.

I have always thought I knew where I was going - what path I had to take. Time makes sure of that.

But just like the old tale of Red Riding Hood, I've strayed too far from the House of Solitude.

There were no beautiful flowers to tempt me.

No charming wolf to taunt me.

There was however, a prince. . .

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revoking the rule of making each chapter 6000+ words because its too much for a short story and i dont have the time. there will be however, long chapters ahead!