after witch & words

Real life means sitting on a throne kept off to the side while your parents meet with advisors, and you pretend to be interested in what’s being said because that’s what they expect of you. Even if your father’s highest advisor is constantly talking about boring things, like making war or sending spies out to other kingdoms. 

Real life means being told that you might marry such-and-such a prince of great renown and leave home never to return (what your father’s advisor prefers) or (what your father prefers) you might marry such-and-such a prince with lesser standing who comes to live here, and you’ll never leave home because why would a queen need to leave her kingdom?

Real life means rules and etiquette and maids tut-tutting when you ask to explore the gardens at night, because even though you have already come of age and ought to be treated like anyone else, everyone still treats you like a child to be minded and controlled.

It’s maddening.

It’s ridiculous.

“It’s bullshit, is what it is,” the stranger (but not so much anymore; his name is Axel) says, sprawled out on your pretty pink chaise in his black coat. He sticks out like a sore thumb, and you like him for it. 

He’s currently got one of your priceless antique porcelain figures in his hand, something you cared nothing for but that had been passed down from generation to generation in your family. A dowdy thing, a figurine of an ancient princess in repose. Did she find her days as awfully boring as you did?

Well. She didn’t have a handsome stranger to keep her company. (Or maybe she did. You hope she did.)

He looks up at you. Grins. The tattoos under his eyes wrinkle with the motion. “Sorry, princess. Didn’t mean to swear and offend your sensibilities.”

A hot flush works its way from your chest to your face. It’s not the first time something he’s said has made you feel this way. He doesn’t even need to say anything to make you feel all giddy and ridiculous. He’s just so–so different from anyone you’ve ever met.

“You didn’t,” you say, fighting a stammer. “I mean, it’s not like people usually swear around here.” Thoughts of the greater city walls outside the palace come to mind, a place teeming with more life and people than you’ve ever experienced in the close off palace walls. “Not in the palace, anyway.”

Axel ceases to fiddle with the figurine. There’s a brief moment where you think he might drop it. On purpose, because he can. Or by accident, because he doesn’t seem the type to normally hold such delicate figurines.

“Easy solution. Then let’s get out of the palace.”

Oh. 

Oh no. 

It’s the first time he’s suggested such a thing. A brazen suggestion. Completely against the rules. And you tell him so, voice all muddled and low.

“I’m not allowed. You know that. It’s against the rules.”

Axel raises an eyebrow, a grin threatening to twist his mouth again. “So is having a strange man in your room in the evening, and yet…” He tosses the figurine back and forth between each hand, and just when you feel a pang of anxiety that it might actually smash to the ground (but why should you care?) he sets it firmly back on your gilded side table.

When his gaze returns to you, it’s sharp and green, and you feel a particular squirming sensation wiggle its way down your body. 

“So? Wanna break some rules, princess?”

It’s impossible to say no.

So you don’t.

–

“Are you sure no one will recognize me?”

Axel looks back at you, a brief, twitching smirk. He’d vanished from your room in a cloud of choking darkness and returned with a dull brown dress and an even duller brown cap. There was a frayed ribbon on the cap, which might have been pretty, once.

Being pretty wasn’t the point, though. It was looking like someone else, anyone else, other than yourself. Axel donned a similar outfit; a dark tunic and trousers. 

“You look like nobody,” he says, easy, sidestepping your concern like nothing. “That’s the point. Who’s going to pay attention to you when you’re wearing something like that? Being nobody means you can do whatever you want, and people don’t notice shit.” 

His grip on your hand is a little too tight when he pulls you out of the quiet path and directly into the bustling city marketplace. 

And oh, lords, it is different here. The palace is… quiet, usually. Or when it’s not quiet, there’s an organization and expectation to the noise. The swell of ballroom music, the standard raised voice arguments of advisors, the steady sweep-sweep-sweep of an army of maids sent to clean the floors.

But here? There’s nothing organized at all. It’s dizzying, really, an assault to every single one of your senses as an entirely different world envelopes you in a beautiful mess. Countless voices intermingled with one another, punctuated by cries to sell wares or shouts for what must be unruly children bursting down the street; smells, good and bad, foods and wastes and a headiness that reminds you of mother’s perfume in the afternoon. 

“A bit different than daddy’s palace, huh?”

“It’s…” You struggle for words. 

The teasing tone in Axel’s voice is always present but here, in this hustle and bustle, it seems to blend right in. In your rooms it sticks out like a sore thumb. Just like Axel himself. But here, who would take notice of a man with a grin and a sarcastic voice? Here, the world is bigger. Different people and ideas and places and things and everything else besides.

Yes, it’s different. It’s different and it’s strange and it’s downright–

“Amazing.” 

Axel’s chuckle is lost to the din of the city as you tug him forward, eager to see what the world outside the palace has to offer.

–

The world outside the palace has, it turns out, plenty to give. People who don’t treat you like a porcelain doll, for one. Someone even bumped into you, and they didn’t even apologize; at your shocked face, Axel had laughed. After a moment, so had you.

But there was so much more to it than that. This whole world had been outside for your entire life, yet you’d known nothing of it. Good or bad. 

Nothing of the people laughing and jostling each other, people hawking wares, running to and fro with errands you couldn’t even comprehend. Nothing of children dancing in the streets and running around with dolls, nothing of people happily cooking up treats for others to buy, nothing of the endless tapestry of life waiting just outside the palace walls.

And, well. 

Nothing of the people in ragged clothes (maids sometimes had rough patches or tatters, but a bit taken out of their wages, and those were fixed right up) or children with thin limbs, standing on the corner begging for bread. Couldn’t something be done for them? Your father’s advisors never so much as mentioned hardship. You knew commoners didn’t live in grand luxury, but they didn’t deserve to suffer, either. 

Maybe during the next council meeting, you ought to say something. Ugh, but then… how could you admit knowing about this, if you’re not supposed to leave? Things were getting too complicated and maybe this was all one big terrible–

“Something on your mind, princess?”

Ah. Right. You’re standing in a narrow alleyway, the lingering taste of fried sugar dough from a nearby stand in your mouth, thinking about all the ways to right the wrongs in the world while your secret companion stares at you from just across the way.

Axel, despite his common disguise, still makes your heart race every time you look at him. And right now, he’s closer than ever, with just a step or two between you, in the privacy of this darkened space.

“I, um,” you say, quite elegantly, licking the bits of sugar from your lips. “Was just thinking about how we don’t really hear about certain things in the palace. I’m not even sure my parents know that there’s people who… need help. I was thinking maybe, at the next meeting, I might bring it up somehow…” 

Axel looks at you like you’ve got two heads for a moment, and then he snorts, that trademark grin quirking at one end.

“Aw. That’s cute. You’ve got a real kind heart, you know that?” 

It should feel like a compliment but somehow it does not. You shake off that feeling just as he sighs, stretching his arms above his head. 

“But don’t think too hard about that stuff. Not right now. We’re supposed to be having fun, aren’t we?” 

A low feeling in your stomach. How silly, that you’re worried about disappointing him. This mysterious stranger from who-knows-where (all he will say, when you ask, is that he’s from “Nowhere”; he finds it funny, you don’t know why) shouldn’t have such a hold on you. Yet he’s so different from anyone you’ve ever met. He doesn’t care about courtesies or your rank, doesn’t care about rules and standards.

“Aren’t we?” He repeats, and that’s when you realize he’s standing in front of you now, having taken that step to bridge the gap between you. He’s warm, or maybe it’s just the warmth of the summer day, or maybe it’s your own skin, flushed from the exertion of the day and the closeness and the near-contact.

“Axel?”

He doesn’t answer. Or rather, he does. Just not with words. 

His answer is a kiss. You think it’s a kiss. It must be a kiss. Your first kiss, but it’s not the pretty things from your romance novels, is it? This kiss tastes like smoke and sugar dough, and he’s not sweeping you off your feet, you’re up against a wall in some lonely alleyway.

It is a kiss all the same.

His lips meet your own, although “meet” is far too nice a word. His lips practically crash into yours, all force and hardness, a near-clanking of your teeth. The gasp of surprise opens your mouth and suddenly there’s something warm and wet in it–you realize with a jump that it’s his tongue–that feels both repulsive and inviting at once.

That low feeling in your stomach turns tight and as you gasp through the kiss, through the strange invasive feeling of his tongue, you realize that the tightness is pleasure. 

When he pulls back, you’re panting.

“You’re sweet,” he says, voice low, eyes staring at your mouth.

“You taste like cigarettes,” you admit. He barks out a laugh and presses his mouth against yours, just as hard, just as wanting. 

This time, his hands wander down your shoulders, calloused fingertips brushing against skin that had never known the touch of anyone but delicate servants instructed to treat you with the utmost of softness and reverence. 

Axel did not touch you delicately or softly. His hands began to grope, to pinch, unfamiliar in practice but familiar in the many books you’ve read under the cover of night. Was this how it was? Was this how it was supposed to be? 

Axel’s hands guide you further into the alleyway, where the sun does not quite reach all the way. The tiny streams of light illuminate his face, make the green of his eyes feel more piercing. It feels like the entire world bursting at the seams just a few feet away doesn’t exist at all. It’s just you and Axel in this semi-darkness; his hands on you, his lips on you, his body pressing you up against the wall in a way that makes every part of you feel fuzzy.

His knee slides up the brick, leather scratching, until it rests between your legs. The hem of your simple dress floats around his knee. 

You know what he’s getting at. You’ve read about it in so many books. Listened to it, snooping in the hallways, ears pressed against the doors of servants who had no qualms letting their sighs and groans loose in the dead of night.

“Ready to break some more rules, sweetheart?” His voice is against your ear and each word makes you shiver.

One hand reaches underneath your dress to grope at the bared flesh there, while another deftly unties his belt buckle.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you say, helplessly, almost the bleat of a dumb little lamb. You only say it because it’s what you ought to say in this situation. But you’ve let him into your room at night and you’ve let him lead you here; you’ve let him kiss you and touch you and why not seal the deal? 

Maybe he says this out loud, maybe you’re only thinking it.

His hands are warm but his flesh is warmer, and you’ve heard it only hurts for a little while, anyway. So when he keeps you pressed against the wall and you feel the wet heat of him against your thigh, you don’t stop him.

–

Part of you thought he’d stop showing up once the sex happened. But he showed up the next night, and the night after that. Giving you sex and telling you stories afterward. Only the stories he told were full of holes and you weren’t sure if they were even true.

Who ever heard of a girl with a fish tail, anyway? Or a talking mouse with a sword. Ridiculous. Still, he told them, full of holes and loose threads that you couldn’t tie together. 

There was still that prickling thought, that you ought to speak with your father or the council about helping those outside the palace. You would, you tell yourself. Just… not right away. Because they’d wonder how you knew about such things, and then they’d discover Axel, and you’d never see him again.

It was okay to be selfish for a little while. Wasn’t it? 

This night, you’re sprawled out in your bed together, warm and warmer. His arms are around you and you’re basking in that beautiful dusky afterglow. Sex was much better in a bed than in an alleyway. Even Axel could admit that, although he’d said, with a tweak of your nose, that he preferred the sounds you made up against a wall. (Was that a good thing? You daren’t ask.)

“Axel,” you begin, brain loose and words looser in the afterglow, “Who are you…. really?”

Because you know him, in a way. He’s the stranger who showed up in your bedroom in a cloud of smoke and a black jacket. He’s the stranger who’s kept you company when you’ve been terribly lonely. He’s the stranger who showed you the world and then ravished you in an alleyway. He’s the stranger, not-quite-a-stranger, in your bed now.

But beyond that… it’s like you can’t grasp him completely. Like he’s a wisp of a thing. A dream, the kind no one can fully remember once they’ve woken up from it. 

When you glance at him for the answer, he closes his eyes. Shrugs. Smiles. Lets out a little snort of a word–

“Nobody.”

–

There are bodies in the marble hallways. Servants and courtiers alike, all slumped over, some of them looking as if they are merely sleeping and others–oh the others, mangled, like something awful and sharp has been run through them. Blood spreads out underneath them like a terrible rug.

The monsters have claws, but you’re not sure if the monsters are the ones leaving mangled bodies in their wake. In their wake you see hearts. Not real ones, thank the heavens, but little ones. Pink little hearts that float in the air, all reaching up for the same destination–but where?--and leaving behind people with nothing in their eyes and no breath and are they dead? Or is this a dream?

Your slippered feet carry you from hall to hall, seeking refuge or safety. Your parents are missing. The advisors have fled. And the guards, well. Their hearts are just as pink and pretty as everyone else’s.

Which leaves you… who? 

Your heart flutters in your chest. There’s only one person in the world who might be able to help you. If he’s there tonight. Maybe he came when there was commotion and fled, maybe he’s waiting in your room to save you, maybe, maybe, maybe. Sure, the princesses in your books didn’t have knights in shining armor that wore black coats or kissed princesses in dirty alleyways, but that didn’t matter.

He was strong, and he possessed some sort of magic to teleport as he did, and perhaps his stories weren’t stories and there was something he could do. 

So you fly as fast as you can to your room, nearly slipping on marble, nearly slipping on blood. And when you manage to push open the heavy doors (ignore the hearts going through the ceiling–your maid’s?) something like warm, blissful relief because he’s there.

There, standing in his black coat, some large sharped wheel slung over his soldier. It takes a few seconds–one, two, three, four, five–for you to see the blood dripping from the spikes, landing on your pretty pink carpet in not so pretty droplets.

“Axel?” Your voice is choked with fear and confusion and the thought that well yes, of course this must be a dream. Because why would Axel be standing in your room holding some type of weapon dripping in blood, unless he was part of this strange attack. Unless he was killing people.

Unless he was a bad person and you didn’t see it until it was too late.

“But you…” 

The rest of the words don’t come, because even in the privacy of the bedroom, with anyone who might listen dead or fleeing, you can’t bring yourself to say it out loud. He kissed you. He kissed you and had sex with you (it was not, like the books, ‘making love’) and you put off saying anything to your parents about helping others because you liked it when he came to you in the night and touched you more and oh, oh, oh, why are you so stupid and selfish.

Axel’s grin makes your stomach flip for an entirely different reason now. Even in the semi-darkness of the night, with your bedroom candles long snuffed out and only the moonlight through the windows to see it.

“Gotta admit, I didn’t think you would be one of the seven. Whoever wrote that report was stupid.” The words make no sense. Like his stories. Mice and keys and merpeople. “But I figured I’d have a bit of fun before it all came crashing down.” 

His gaze turns towards the windows, where even now you can see hearts floating upwards, towards some distant destination. From the palace and from the city, too. The monsters must be everywhere. Inky black and claws waiting. 

“Hope you had some fun,” he says, teasing, not entirely mean. You don’t have time to think about it before he’s in front of you, quick as anything, and there’s a hard, steady pressure in your abdomen–he stabbed you, he stabbed you with that terrible wheel. 

Your own blood is what drips down to your pretty pink carpet now. 

Something from behind you slithers around and you feel a terrible twisting in your chest, only for a moment but what a terrible moment it is, before the world goes black.

You’re not there to see your heart float through your open windows, joining the rest. Pink with a hint of darkness, like most of them. Unremarkable and pointless in the grand scheme of things.

But, Axel thinks, it doesn’t really matter. Each little heart was building towards the Superior’s greater goal of Ultimate Darkness or whatever bullshit he was currently spewing. The speeches grew longer by the day, which meant they grew more boring, too.