The Flaws In Everything

4 - Requited Guilt

Chapter 4 - 'Requited Guilt'

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The day that followed was filled with pain. As punishment of the night's endeavours, Lyre was to stay home from school for a day, albeit this in itself was a blessing to her. This sentence served alterior motives however, as she was gifted with a new set of lashing from her father in the afternoon.

Although an official sentence of public whipping was not permitted for the youth, this rule was only in place to make their society seem civilised and perfected, when truly they called for blood, especially Lyre's. They expected to see her return to school the following day with a pained face and a stiff walk and, if they were to somehow look, they would expect nothing less than twenty new marks to caress her already littered back.

That is why her father, as the Chief, was not kind on her with their private lashings that took place in the basement. Instead, he followed through with an unrelenting vehemence of thirty painful screams from his daughter that his whip, now painted a deep red, heralded.

"You know why this has to happen, Lyre. It's the only way you'll learn. Stop rebelling, and the pain will stop too. We don't have a choice." Her father said. It was practically the same line she had been fed since her small rebellions began.

She nodded her head through the dizziness that overcame her. "I know." Was all she replied. She knew why he did it, she understood. Any yet, she could never bring herself to condone it. No matter how many times she tried to put herself in his shoes, she could never play the scared little victim. So once more, she bit down on the leather belt that drowned out her screams.

The tears in the skin of her back promised scars that ran as deep as the ones that came before them, breaking open the newly closed ones that were a consequence of a previous punishment a week before. An endless torrent of whimpers escaped the lips that she had bitten bloody, and her eyes caught with Yara's, her eldest sister who didn't even flinch.

Although Lyre and her father were ordinarily the only ones present in the darkly intimate affair, lately her father had invited Yara to watch her sister's punishments. As the heir to his title, Yara had to harden her heart, and despite the dislike she projected onto her younger sister, watching the scene had still deeply scarred her, though arguably not as deeply as the promise of scars across her sister's back.

Lyre was the only sibling of the Blake household that had ever been whipped, perhaps the only child in the entire town, and thus upon Yara's first viewing of the harrowing event, she had thrown up on the floor, the bile mingling with bitter blood. Lyre had attempted to laugh at the sight of her eldest sister's ignorance of the truth of her harsh punishment, the sound coming out as more of a gargle through her pain, but it had earned her another five, fast lashings which immediately ceased her mockery.

Today however, Yara stood stoicly, attempting to avoid Lyre's burning gaze. Their father had done well in moulding her to his taste. With the last sound of the whip, Lyre slumped to the floor. The sound of the door closing after a few moments silence allowed her to release her tears, since both her father and sister had gone, but not a minute later, her mother was sent in to clean her wounds and provide some relief.

Of course they wanted Lyre to the feel pain of the punishment, but being the cause of her death from indirect infection was not a guilt that her family coveted, and so they warrented their actions by providing her with medicine and relief, as if it mitigated the cruel circumstances. Lyre breathed heavily from her position on her front on the floor, as the stinging of the alcohol and then the numbing salve, made its way through her system.

They then left her there on the cold, stone flooring, as per the usual schedule of things, to think over her shameful actions. I say the word schedule, because it was one, practised to prefection and timed to the minute. The only thing that did not quite fit this slick machiene however, was Lyre herself.