vinkuness-arch: “I should probably keep my pretty mouth shut.” {*lays on u & cries bc my muse has returned}
‘& FORwhat? to allow them to SILENCE you exactly as they intend? you may be born into ignorance, but you are not required to build your dwelling there. agreeing to the trap the set for you does not save you from its sting, it merely INTENSIFIES the stupidity you will later feel. ‘
THERE IS the slightest pause before the words soften in volume on her chapped lips.
‘ I DO not dictate your decisions, but I do believe I had seen more in you. ‘
ANOTHER PAUSE, before she turns away with some clear INTENTION, a sardonic grin hidden from the woman’s view.
vinkuness-arch: Death: My character’s reaction to your character dying. {*flings this @ you bc I hate us*}
PERHAPS IFnot for her, the soldiers would never have come. liir would not have had them to idolize, nor would not have been robbed of her innocence, and she would not have returned to an empty manner, one that she had never had any right to enter. just like the young mistress’s husband whom she hadn’t any right to sleep with, even in the concealed & hollow sheets of the corn exchange. especially because it had been NOTHING to her, it’d been rough fingers in the dark and desperation for ( contact ). not love. it had never been love.
BUT WHAT makes the guilt way heavier is that beyond her grief, the greater of her pains is one of pure SELFISHNESS. her own need disgusts her and plagues her. she never got the only thing she had comes for ;; ( forgiveness ). her fist nearly clenches in her blinding anger, confused emotions coupled with the hollowness of the castle which seemed to echo days after the abduction with rattling shackles.
LONG, HOPELESSLY tangled tresses of ebony hair are slicked to her neck by sweat. her vision is SOUR, teeth grinding against each other, a copper taste filling her mouth as blood pours from her sliced gums. a child born with DRAGON’S teeth. it’s probably been ( weeks ) since she slept. even nodding off for seconds, as she helplessly did, brought the TERRORS that shook her body with such force her brittle bones cracked. the smallest of noises echoed in her head like explosions. & the voices, the voices never left.
SHE COULDN’Tbreathe. the air was THICK and hot. she choked on gasps of it, colors dancing in front of her eyes like flames. she could feel the ( strength ) she had once had slipping. there was no fight left, no energy. only voices, and sick, pale skin. blood & bone. the SHELL of a girl whose sleep eluded her, whose nightmares consumed her. just the WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST. nothing more.
Surprise flashes briefly in her eyes before she quickly smothers it. Somehow, no one had ever asked Sarima about her marriage. They think they know all they need to.
Arranged. Selected. Child bride. Seven.
“I told you I was selected to be his wife,” The words leave her lips in an uncalculated rush, “I suppose a more precise term would be captured. Our tribe -the tribe of my birth- was misliked by most other tribes. We were descended from Gilikinese expatriates, we had fair skin. I assume they saw us as not truly Vinkun. We were attacked by Arjiki one day, the men and boys slaughtered. The only man spared was my father- I learned later that he convinced Prince Marilott to let him live by telling him that he had a daughter the same age as Marilott’s son. Me.”
A soft, bitter laugh escaped her lips. “I was traded-away like a heifer, my life sold to a stranger, because my father offered my maidenhood for his life. I was seven.”
HER OWN bitter narcissism seems to whisper it wasn’t so bad. that the life of ABUSE she herself had known, was far less comfortable. but she bit her tongue. somehow, even in such a state, she did at least ( feel ) for sarima. perhaps it was the part of her mind which KNEW the reason the woman’s husband was dead was she herself, and that it’d been from night after night of brutal, extra-marital sex they had both been aware of the implications of.
IT’S Acold laugh that escapes her, unable to form coherent words. she understood well that wile the fairer skin may have helper or hurt them, it ave her nowhere near the LUXURY of the gillikenese. and what more rang true was the woman’s father, how he had traded his only daughter at a chance to preserve his ( pathetic ) existence. she was certain her father would’ve done the very same, if not worse. her father had beaten her in his sinfully DRUNKEN stupors, scrubbed her skin black and raw with scalding water. her mother, before her passing, had simply said he couldn’t be blamed. that NO ONE could when punished with such a monster.
SUCH MUSINGS seemed to pull her from reality, her hands clasped together again, eyes vacant.
‘ MEN WOULD trade their only daughters for a pint of beer if given the choice. I suppose the good part is you kept your life. though, how can you ever FORGIVE ———– ‘
HER VOICEdried out. how was she to gather what she had come for in the first place? what was the point of drawing the last forgiving breath from a woman ( broken ) as she, who hid it so wonderfully well?
THE TERMINOLOGY makes her own stomach twist, but her face is as blank as if they were only discussing dinner. fiyero, to her, had been an ESCAPE, some man who, equally as alike and unlike herself, was colored and misunderstood and arrogant. he had been SEX in the heat of the city midnight, muffled moans and harsh touches, pushing and pulling and scraping and BURNING for something to make them feel ( whole ) again. but he was an aside. she had so selfishly believed it meant nothing. except to the woman whose entire life was given away for HIM, all so he could fuck a fugitive in a filthy corn exchange.
vinkuness-arch: “What I want most of all is to know what I want.”
SO DO I. it was all she could think. so do I. what had she WASTED such plentiful years on? what had she bled for, killed for, lost her ( mind ) for? was it something or nothing? she had set out for REVENGE masked as altruism. but it was so far from true. she had wanted glory, she had wanted a name which people knew. she had wanted to rise from the dust she was. she knew this now. she had never wanted GOOD, she had wanted revenge. on what she was less clear. but she had never been of good intentions. her father had been right all along, though such a thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. she was born of MALICE. nothing more.
vinkuness-arch: "Stop helping. You suck at helping. Plot my death instead, you'd probably end up helping me!"
‘ WHAT MAKES you think I don’t have other deaths to plot? really, I’m a busy woman, sarima. ‘
her head doesn’t rise from the dusty spellbook, however a grin does spread quietly over her face. it would seem she never lost her sarcasm, even when she lost her ( m i n d ).
the statement is partially true. while it was likely that the monkey would be through with such INCESSANT bothering and snap, it was also true that if chistery didn’t, elphaba certainly would.
what neither them said was what the witch WELL knew was held behind the dowager’s lips. ( f i y e r o ), they would never speak of him. though she longed for forgiveness as though it were her only supply of food, she could not simply BEG, her pride had walled itself too high. their cordiality was a ( m a s k ) under which both women’s wounds festered. but so it seemed, they both preferred it as such.
‘ YOU’D THINKat his age he would be intelligent enough not to meddle with MUTATED animals. ‘
vinkuness-arch: lowkey wants the k, but she's totally not gonna say anything about it
6: Gentle Peck
HER HEAD pounded like rocks tumbling against each other below the river’s edge. she knew without the children during daylight, and without her husband, sarima grew tireless and lonesome. if it wasn’t indeed HER FAULT that fiyero was gone, she’d have shuffled the housewife out without a second glance, but in this case, the guilt consumed her short temper.
in between her incessant rambling, between laundering and cooking, she lay a gentle kiss across the woman’s cheek, perhaps only to shut her up.
‘ HAVING HOPE with the absence of logic is a frivolous attempt to keep oneself sane. in most cases, those who need faith the most are those who will not be granted what they pray for, even if their hands BLEED at the altar.
I was once told, by someone so convoluted, albeit wise, that your FATE can only be written in the way you choose. the stars are no place to look for a map, sarima, they are only stars. ‘
vinkuness-arch:
