Tu Es Ma Lumière

122 - Poison

Her fingers burn. Small lips part in a small, whimpering gasp as the heat in her fingertips begins to grow and grow. The heat blooms and accelerates, crawling over inch after inch of her pale, glowing skin. Her fingers burn brighter to the point of paralysis, the letter from her mother falling from her fingers, fluttering to the ground in a sound deafening and silent at the same time.

It alerts her betrothed towards her. He turns from his wooden toy soldiers on the table. his eyes glowing in concern as he took in her face. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted. They were moving, but no sound left them. The tall, eight year old ravenette Queen of Scots didn't talk. Her long fingers twitched, having also dropped the parchment letter that her mother had sent her that morning.

The burning continued to crawl up the skin of her palms and wrists, leaving a paralysed blaze in its wake. Up and up and up, travelling up her forearms and biceps that were left bare by the grey lace bardot gown. No longer could she move her arms, no longer could she cry out in fear as the heat continued to incinerate her insides, up and up and up, her head and her chest becoming victims to the poison.

The small Dauphin blinked in confusion as the silver gown Mary was wearing moved faster as her breath increased in speed. He saw the shudder of her chin and the frantic swallows behind the skin of her small neck. The eight year old stood up, watching as his betrothed didn't even acknowledge the fact that he was with her. She had been talking to him beforehand, he and his two sisters. Granted, she had grown quiet when the letter arrived. But she spoke no longer.

Her breath increased frantically, the siring weight upon her chest comparable only to the entirety of her homeland had layen on her chest, not her shoulders. Gaining weight by the second, the scorching pain and the incomparable pressure pushing down onto her body. Her breath increased. Sweat and tears mixed, falling down her cheeks as the calcine fell down her body, burning her from the inside out. No longer did her legs move within their own power.

"Mary?" Francis whispered, walking over towards his future bride as she continued to convulse. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, staring down at that latter laying comfortably upon the tapestry rug. He walked closer towards her, reaching out a hand to touch her. Francis frowned deeply, seeing tears grow in her pretty golden eyes, sliding down her cheeks. "What is it? Why do you act this way? Why do you cry?" he had always hated it when that happened.

The Queen of Scotland answered him not. Her eyes rolled back in her head after his voice ceased. The invisible hand within her continued to squeeze down on her throat, standing upon her lungs. The fire and the flames engulfed her body. It fell untoward the floor, landing with a sickening thud. Francis gasped loudly, scrambling onto the floor at her side. Elisabeth and Claude shrieked loudly as their foster sister began gasping for breath frantically.

"Help! Help!" the Dauphin shrieked. "Help her!" he cried out, grasping at his future wife's hands, managing, with much difficulty, to pull them from her throat in which she had left half moon marks from her long nails. The door slammed open, and there are so many shouts. The Dauphin can make out no words as his future wife continues to cry out in pain, gasping for breath, her body ceasing up without her consent.

"You cannot let me die." she wheezes, gripping her betrothed's wrists in a grip so tight that it began to hurt. He stares down at her with wide blue eyes, tears sliding down into his mouth. They're warm and salty, his chest heaves with the fear and the shock and the uncertainty. He is afraid, he doesn't understand. But he is a half blooded Medici, he knows what has been done to his future wife. And he cannot forget.

"You must not die! You must not die!" he cries out, making out the screams and cries of his two sisters. He pays them no mind, continuing to wrestle Mary's hands from her own throat. The small Queen of Scots continues to cry out in pain, gasping for breath, her body seizing. Her legs kicked from under the heavy skirts, her eyes rolling back within her head, forwards, then back, forwards, then back.

People sprint inside the royal nursery, making Elisabeth and Claude cry out louder. He can hear them yelling and calling for others. The room gets hotter and stickier with each entrance. They try to pull her from him. He cannot let it happen. He can never let it happen. They cling to each other with a strength astounding for children who have only just reached their eighth anniversaries of birth.

"Are you afraid, Francis?" the small Queen whispers, blocking everything else out. The pain is horrid, each cell of her body telling her to just give up. Each and every breath is a struggle, a burn so horrid that it makes her wish to scream out with her pain. The pain, the pressure is overwhelming, astounding. She cannot hold onto it much longer. Her spirit may be one of strong Kings and Queens before her, but she has the body of a child. It will give up. She cannot stop it.

"Yes." he admits, holding onto her so tightly that later he would find her dried blood embedded underneath his fingernails during his nightly bath. The words are a whisper, choked out from a chest that was convulsing from his cries. The tears continue to roll down. He cannot stop them.

"So-" she whispers hoarsely. "am-" she struggles. "I."

He can not respond. For the Queen of Scotland's eyes roll back in her head one final time, and her body goes limp. She is lifted into large arms. And she is gone.