#nemo writing

"What are you going to do to me that hasn't already been done!?"

The mirror lay in pieces around me, a decisive blow to the wall having sent it scattering across the room. In my hand, a makeshift weapon, now being brandished at the Botanical Monstrosity blocking my only way out. My body aches, weary from years of running even before the Affini attacked this vessel. I'm backed into a corner, my hand, clutching it's makeshift weapon, pointing resolute towards my opponent, my most recent enemy.

The hardwood masklike face atop the writhing mass of vines gazes at me with an emotion I can't easily identify. In the moment, it looked as if it was sizing me up. Every flaw of mine laid bare, every scar, blemish, bruise.

She begins to speak, and my body stiffens. Vines begin to creep into the room and I feel just as likely to slash at them as I am myself to avoid the horrors that surely await me in her clutches.

She starts out slow, her voice an unexpected whisper, soft and gentle, contrasting the harsh red emergency lights and her monstrous form.

"First... I would take you from here."

I glower at the approach, shrinking back as far as I can into the room.

"Then. I would feed you."

A trick, kind words obviously meant to add mass to me for some kind of farm. My grip on my sharded blade tightens.

"I would bathe you."

My hands tremble. I know I am flawed, covered in the filth of years spent on a ship recycling the same water from it's crew for years.

"I would clothe you."

That one gave me pause, a tremor passing through my body. Why would you dress a pig meant for slaughter?

The vines have reached my legs, wrapping around my ankles, holding me in place, preventing my retreat, even as I've run out of room to cower in. Instead of feeling restrictive, holding me down like so many harsh hands I've felt before, they caress me. A gentle touch long forgotten. My skin prickles.

She's growing closer.

"What I would do that hasn't been done before?"

There's no hint of malice in her voice, a gentle sadness, an unspoken message. I could practically hear her thoughts brushing against mine, asking, probing, pitying, asking me 'What did they do to you?'

My grip on my blade loosens, hands trembling, blood slickening my grip on the jagged piece of glass. I can see my reflection in my weapon, it's peering back at me with doubt in it's eyes. It's small, scared, tired, weary.

"...I would hold you close, little one."

The vines pull me towards her, the most fearsome thing in the room, her figure now identifiable as more than monster.

"I would love you."

The glass shard falls from my hand, blood filling the gaps my own desperation wrought upon it. She wraps her hand around mine, warm, inviting, promising that my days of fear are over. She embraces me, holding me against her even as my body is wracked with sobs.

"And I would never, ever, let you go."

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