your grievance shall be avenged.

     “ Is hell really hot? Because if so…. ”

               “ You want to go? ”

     She did, at one point.

             “ No, never, ”   Elsa insists.

            ━━━   ┆  ♛♕  ┆   ━━━          

                     xx .            His hand reaches out, fingers catching around her pale wrist. It burns, where his skin touches hers, but Decim ignores that, pulling on Ai’s arm with a strength he seems almost incapable of, considering his gentle stature, yet his grip is iron tight as he keeps her small hand pressed against his chest, forcing her immobile while he bears down at her with tight lips and eyes that are both arctic and ablaze.                     ❝ Mistress, this is too much. ❞

             She cannot hide her own surprise at his sudden action –– scarlet gaze grows a fraction wider at the sudden entrapment of her hand against his chest, her pale fingers held against him so tightly that she can't manage to ball them into a fist or free herself. Were she in a worse temperament… perhaps she might not have been so easily made immobile. 

               Decim is her assistant, he has no right to question her directly… and yet her assistants are something very much like family. Perhaps the softer part of her heart whispers that his own possesses good intentions, perhaps she cares just enough to treat him kindly. 

                                       ❝ It is what is necessary, Decim. ❞ 

for a brief moment, she glances over at

the scarlet-eyed girl,    gathering her story as pain     shoots    through    her    own    head.  omniscience raises a hand to a glowing  tem- ple to wait for it to calm,    and after a minute the light gathered in her body fades. 

       ❝ you may call me elizabeth.  is this your        domain? ❞

      The enigma looks to the mistress and speaks        as if she might come and go as she pleases. Such        might  be  taken  as  an  affront  to  another  being.        Porcelain features align in perennial neutrality.  

        Sentarou. At the beginning of all things, there is Sentarou. A young girl’s heart is a fragile yet powerful thing— easily broken and turned into a force of destruction. He owned her heart entirely, in a village of whisperers and those who had always hated her. Even when the damaged butterfly had flown from her fingertips in the image of resurrection ( an evil magic that Ai had not even known ), he had known his sweet cousin to do no wrong. 

         He was the first to shovel the dirt onto hers and her parents’ faces, he was the first to shove the earth into her eyes and into her throat; she coughed so desperately that her insides upturned and tore with the effort and spilled in scarlet upon her chin.

                                     He cursed her as the rest of them had.

        THE FIRES, she remembers the fires with such clarity that the memory of her village turning to ashes still scorches her cheeks and fills pale nostrils with the acrid scent of smoke. Their screams echo in still-hateful ears. 

          She does not speak, she does not answer, she hides away the heart that had long ago been reborn in fire and blood. 

       xx .    He’s never stood in a room so warm and felt so cold, or seen a girl so delicate with eyes that could cut glass. She’s right to ask why he’s come here, and Decim tries to remember while he follows each doll’s movements, silently watching as they topple and fall, again, then again. Only when the third doll falls does his eye snap up, warm blue meeting cool red.

                 ❝ I —— pardon me, I haven’t introduced myself yet.  I am Decim. ❞ 

    Polite as ever in any situation, regardless of how absurd, he bows low. When he straightens again, Decim regards the girl with down turned lips and brows, looking almost… apologetic.

                        ❝ As for why I’ve come here… please forgive my bluntness,                   but I’d like to ask if you could kindly not kill so many people. ❞

    She remains in her place on the floor, watching the uninvited guest. For a long moment, she can't quite manage a response         there's only silence. Irritation festers in her core, unbidden and unwanted; bitter indignation. Who is he to ask of her such a thing ? The mistress remains unmoved, dainty countenance decidedly neutral ( as always it is ). 

     She has hidden her heart for four hundred years-- she can hide a little bit of annoyance. 

     Ai takes Hone Onna into her hands, setting the red doll on her feet. The action itself serves to distract her from her own little bit of contempt. Red eyes fixate upon her assistants on the floor instead of the stranger as Grandmother spins away in her room.

                                                                    ❝ I cannot. ❞