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[ waiting for the day i lose it all
and, by this dread, it’s coming soon
is there any need to fear the inevitable?
i already know that i am doomed
no such thing as fairer chances, quench that naivete
chin up, now! the odds against you…
you better take your aim! ]
~
Your first memory is pain. No, not quite. Your first memory is excitement, wondering where you will go, what you will do. What places you will visit and what people you will meet. And then the man appears behind the counter, the man with the masked face and crooked smile, and something about a man with long, black hair feels unbearably correct, deep in whatever bones you have. And you are passed to him, and you go with him, giddy anticipation bubbling in your chest.
Your first memory is wondering if he loves you, and your second memory is learning he does not.
But you didn’t know that as he was staring at your image, tracing an appraising finger over your art, your face stuck in still image, unable to smile, unable to say a word. You were alive of course, but you could not speak, could not petition of him, ask of him: am I loved? Are you deserving of this loyalty I feel?
Because you were born with loyalty, with the spark of it burning you, the lengths you would go to for your master already hardwired. You wanted to love someone enough to die for them. You hoped it would be him. You saw your two companions as he put you all out on his table like a tarot spread, past, future, and you in the present, staff outstretched, heart bared. You felt the trepidation building, seeing those others. Knowing you weren’t one of a kind, knowing you weren’t special to him. Just another piece of a set, expendable even. You considered it a worse sign than the grime on the walls, faded circus posters and wigs tossed in the corner. You considered it more frightening than being in the home of a stranger, laying on his table like a corpse at an autopsy. So vulnerable.
You were still surprised when he pulled out the knife.
~
After he cut away your borders, everything hurt all of the time. It wasn’t much, for the most part, but enough that you could always feel it in the background like the dull roar of a waterfall. You didn’t know where those metaphors were coming from, because they didn’t feel like your style, like your type of symbolism. But perhaps you didn’t know your type yet, because you were just a copy of a copy of a copy, and you never had anything to yourself. A printing of a card, forgotten to your famous counterpart. You didn’t even know the Other yet, and envy burned you.
The pain made you ache, and perhaps you leaned on your staff more heavily than a regular version of yourself might. Perhaps you had difficulty getting to sleep, because everything was sore, and felt disjointed, and you could feel those raw edges like they were brand new. Imagining the knife against your border made you shudder, and remembering the feeling of the original pain made you cry yourself to sleep. But still the loyalty burned on, no matter how much you hated it. It glowed in your chest like an ember, pulsing where your heart should be, if you were to have one. You didn’t know why it was still there. He had broken your trust, broken you. You didn’t want to die for him.
You justified it. You’d never known another life, so it wasn’t hard. It was just a thing that happened to cards. It was part of the process. You had wondered in the back of your mind, then, if it was so common, they why had he done it in a dim underground room, the smell of mildew sharp and the crackling of dying overhead lights like flies? If it was so common, why was it only you and your companions whittled down to shape? You told yourself it was because you were special, and you tried to put it out of your mind. Tried to lock away traitorous thoughts. You were loved, surely. It was love, and you wanted to serve him.
So you pushed the pain aside, even when it left you panting on the floor of your little room—your cell, you refused to call it, even as your hands clasped around the bars—even when you could barely stand and walk and surely didn’t have it in you to utter a spell. You pushed away the pain, and the feeling of missing parts of yourself, tiny bits of your being cut away with your seal. You let him stroke your face and call you Catherine in a desperate and breathy voice. You’d never had a name before, and you liked it, even if it didn’t feel right. Like a language not native to you, but you didn’t know what you were truly native to, no home but cardboard and pain, and recreating knife tricks alone in your room. You resented the way he called them magic tricks, because there wasn’t a hint of magic in them, but what could you know about magic? You weren’t a real magician either, just abilities printed on paper, informed attributes, such a high number of points for someone too weak to even raise a staff.
You didn’t like the knives, of course, because the way that their edges nipped your fingers felt like the blade at the side of your soul, that razor thin verge between reality and oblivion. But you played with them anyway, because they were what you knew, and he left them so available, and there were so many it wouldn’t matter if you took them back to your room with you. And you trained yourself not to flinch, like a stage magician’s assistant, and you trained yourself to continue keeping quiet. You loved him. You had to, because otherwise the loyalty wouldn’t be there, and it was always there. Always, a constant presence. You didn’t quite knew where it ended and your own feelings began. How much of it was you, and how much was a textbox written by a man who’s unyielding love of a dead woman propelled him to madness.
And so you began calling yourself Catherine in your head, over and over until it fit, and you put yourself into it, cutting yourself down until you fit the shape he needed of you. How ironic, how symbolic, that. Perhaps that was your symbolism—blades, cutting, self-mutilation of the soul—perhaps because, in a twisted way, you applied what you knew. You hated the way the name sounded in your mouth, like hard candies and feathers, a dancer in a snow-globe, a parrot in a cage, a volunteer pierced by swords. A captive performer, on display for the entertainment of others, a trained circus animal. A blank canvas desperately splattered with false selfhood, like the splatters of blood you sometimes see in his backrooms. A Jackson Pollock of identity. A mannequin with smeared makeup and dislocated limbs. And you hated the way it sounded from his mouth even more, pathetic lust for someone who was not you, a persona of someone he could never have and you could never be. You could never do enough to please him.
But you would try. You practiced the knife tricks until dawn while he put the saw blades in place. You didn’t know what they were for, but you wanted to help him. Perhaps, if you won this duel, he would love you. He would see how loyal you were, and perhaps he would award you a real name. Perhaps he would smile genuinely, perhaps he would put your sliced edges back, make you whole again. You wanted to love him enough to die for him.
You wouldn’t die for him, he would kill you.
~
And kill you he did.
~
The moment you laid eyes on your Other, you felt such a pang in your chest that you thought you were going to die. Such a longing, a longing that had always been there like a time-bomb of envy waiting to go off. Like waiting backstage for the curtain to rise, for your name to be called. Your Other was pale and purple, a color-wheel counterpart, different and yet not too different. He stood with such confidence, stood like he wasn’t aching and like he didn’t carry a wound with him wherever he went. He lept to action so readily, no hesitation to protect his master, the boy with the strange hair and the regal eyes. You felt a yearning in you for those eyes, but you pushed it aside like you did all of your other yearnings. You couldn’t betray yourself now, not when you were so close, not when you were going to prove how important you were, and how your master should see you for who and what you are. Your counterpart stood beside the boy like he was shielding him, and it was such a practiced thing, like he had protected the boy countless times. Like they were made for each-other, like they had a bond. You felt no bond but the loyalty, reaching out in every direction, piercing you from a thousand angles.
You stared down your Other. You were going to defeat him, show him where his loyalty belonged. How dare he think himself better than you, just because he had been around for longer. Just because he was an original and you were a copy. A replica that couldn’t even get the colors right. You were going to defeat him, you had to. You had to because Pandora told you that if you lost, the boy would get to keep you, to take you away from him, to some unknown place to do unknown things. You remembered vaguely your very first memory, how the idea of adventure excited you. Now the thought only made you sick.
You were put away into the deck again, felt yourself brush against one of your cohort as you were shuffled. The other two of you. They never talked to you. One time, you had tried to visit them, knocked on the bars of one of their cells. He was laying on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, saying: Tell me more of the stars, your Majesty. You didn’t know what to think of that, and you never saw one of them speak coherently again. But you wondered how special you really were, if your master looked at them with longing too, if he called them Catherine too, your special name that he had for you. He shuffled you in a rough way that made your still-raw-how-are-they-still-raw-how-is-this-still-painful edges scream, and made the regal boy wince, his eyes narrowed.
He cut the deck, and you rose to the top. You could make a metaphor out of that, if your metaphors didn’t all taste like cut edges and being impaled with swords and pulling dead rabbits out of hats. If your metaphors didn’t smell like cheap firework gunpowder and the sharp bitter of blood and old basement with a leak in the corner somewhere spilling water all over a rotting blonde wig. You rose to the top and he held you in his hand. You rose to the top because he had cut your edges off, you realized. It was by that suffering that you were able to be by his side, to be so close to him already. You could see him smiling at you, humming to himself. You could hear the whirring of blades, but it didn’t make sense over the pounding of your heart, the fire blazing out of control.
The regal boy—the Prince—was staring at you, and you could tell. At you specifically, sizing you up against the other cards beside you, full width. His eyes moved from narrowed to horrified as you loyally stepped onto the field, pushing pain aside to stand with your full confidence. Your power. The power of your trust, and your love, and your everything.
The scenery hit you all at once, as you categorized everything, as you put the Prince’s reaction last on the stack, sorting your thoughts like cards to force down a sensory overload, because the hologram made you real, you could touch and feel and speak. You’d been physical before of course, testing the duel ring, supposedly, but never in the middle of a duel, never with so much to take in.
You longed to use this physicality, like you tended to do when you could, to embrace your master, to show him how much you loved him. To feel him gently pet your hair and hum in approval. He was always humming My Darling Catherine , which was a rework of Clementine, and you suppose it ma de sense, because you were a rework, and his song for you ought to be one too. A parody, a farce. A cheap copy, a stage magic show beside genuine sorcery. You wanted him to hold you and to kiss you, and to see you for once.
And then you registered the blades, the chains, the scent of excitement in the air, and it sank into you the stakes, like daggers. You would protect your master’s life with everything possible, remain loyal to the end. Prove yourself. You would save him from whatever awful death game the Prince had set up—it had to have been the Prince’s doing, because his eyes were cruel, and nevermind the way Pandora excitedly talked about how he had set it up, you filed that away with all the other secret memories.
And then that all crumbled. You watched the Prince across the field summon your purple counterpart, your Other, and you felt a crack in your faith, a nail in the coffin, a sword in the box. Your Other had risen to the top on his own mobility. There was no trimming of his edges, no agonizing “stripping ” done to him. He had chosen to ascend out of love for his Prince, who closed his eyes in prayer before every card drawn. His Prince had trusted in him, and he had answered with unswerving devotion. The Prince hadn’t needed to hurt him to force a false-loyalty. It made you tremble with hidden want, hidden need . Such powerful envy, staring into the hard eyes of your Other, the passion with which he defend ed his Prince. You wished you were capable of such faith. You wished you master had the same faith in you, faith that you would come forth for him, out of a desire to protect him.
And then you noticed the Prince’s face. He was still staring at you, then at Pandora, then at you again, and then back to Pandora. His eyes hardened. “If you want a death game, we will have a death game!” he was saying, voice cold, and you trembled before it, trying to ignore how awful the ever-present pain was in a new body, trying to ignore your fear. He truly meant to kill your master, who loved you so, so much…
“I knew you didn’t care about your cards,” the Prince was saying, and that blindsided you, made a pain spread through your heart. Was it true? Had he never cared about you? Never wanted you? And of course he didn’t want you, he wanted the facsimile that was Catherine, but it was still partly you, wasn’t it? There had to be something about you he loved, something that made your loyalty justified. But staring at your Other, you felt the knowing start to set in. it wasn’t normal to cut your cards into shapes you desired. It wasn’t normal to mutilate them so. To destroy them for your own means. A means. Were you nothing more than a means to an end for him? The thought made your blood cold, made fear lance through you. The thought that after this, he would discard you, never look at you again. Your grip on your staff began to loosen, and then his voice snapped through the haze, saying “Oh, to hold Catherine in my arms!”
And that was what spurred you on, waiting patiently for his command as he and the Prince set traps for traps for traps for counterspells and so forth, the anticipation gnawing at you. And then it was go ! Trick begin, you and your counterpart, your Other, locked in battle, a brutal struggle as Pandora and the Prince fought to gain an inch on each-other. You held fast, even as staring into the eyes of your Other nearly faltered your resolve. You had to win. Even if the name Catherine evoked an audience member sawed in half, and all of the agony of metal cutting your soft places, it was your name that he called you, and he wanted to hold you. He wanted to win so that he could be with you, he was saying that even now. For all of your conviction, for everything he had, it was a tie, and your vision blacked at the same time as it smashed back in sharp relief. Your deaths had barely resolved, the agony of dark matter funneled into you, breaking you into negative, before you and your counterpart were yet again face to face, right where you had been.
Every single attempt to kill him failed. Each more increasingly violent then the last. The culmination of your practice with your knife tricks, and yet your Other deflected them with ease. The guillotine, to behead a servant of the cruel nobility—Pandora always had a fondness for France, would often speak to you in French, or in a delicate accent. The words always felt off in his voice.
Mon Cheri , Catherine. It sounded romantic, but thinking about it made your skin crawl for reasons you didn’t want to finish understanding.
The more you watched your Other survive everything you threw at him, you knew why. The Prince was protecting him with all of his power, all of his might. The Prince was protecting him with spells and traps, just as your Other protected the Prince with an outstretched staff and firm resolve. They both relied on each-other, both needed each-other to win. And it came to you, watching your Other evade every last attempt on his life, that he was not part of a playset, that he was unique and special.
He was not a copy of a copy of a copy. He was not an inmate with two identical replicas who learned equal and opposite ways to cope with their pain—the one who you saw speak liked to hit his head against the wall and cry, babbling about memories you should have too but don’t, who never listened when you tried to comfort him, and didn’t listen to Pandora either: hear no evil . The one you’d never seen speak, who pushed through it by tramping down his every emotion. He never spoke, but he learned sadism as a form of love, not an I will die for you , but I will kill for you . He used the crying one as a target, practicing his aim on one of those giant dartboard wheels, and you always winced every time the knife perfectly graze the quiet one’s edge. Speak no evil . And you felt envy towards them, and hatred towards them, because you weren’t one of a kind. And your counterpart wa s.
And then, you finally pushed something through, exhausted the Prince’s endless well of answers. Drained it dry. Knelt at the basin and greedily drank every drop. There was something unsettling about it to you, despite your loyalty. You saw the fear on your Other’s face—a pure desolate horror as he was strung up on the cross. You saw panic seep through his perfect composure when the chains tightened around his arms and legs, holding him in place, leaving him helpless. He hung there, his eyes flicking to the Prince, and then dead ahead. The agony of knowing his master was in mortal danger, and that he could do nothing at all to help. That he had to watch his Prince die, arms wide in the ultimate display of martyrdom. You didn’t like that. Even as you tried to hide it, you found that cruel, imagined if it was you, remembered every time Pandora had tied your holographic hands— so that you can’t leave me, Catherine—and shuddered. That had felt wrong even then, even if you didn’t quite have the words for it. So that was another straw, watching your Other so clearly forcing back tears, struggling feebly against his bonds. You didn’t like it. It made a visceral guilt writhe in you where the loyalty usually purred, like a parasite had eaten every last bite of it, and the aftertaste was so, so bitter. Cotton candy made of cobwebs and popcorn covered in mold.
The final straw was the spell card, of course. What else could it have been? At the beginning of the duel, you were blinded by loyalty, convinced Pandora could do no wrong, even as he hurt you in such horrible ways, stripped you of agency even more than your border; see no evil.
But your loyalty was all dried up by the time he played it, loyalty evaporated by the love of your Other for the Prince, by the way that the Prince spoke of pouring love and heart and soul into his cards, the violence with which he viewed Pandora after realizing what had happened to you. The boy across the field who had been disgusted seeing your stripped edges. He had been willing to kill for you. He said “I will make you feel the pain you have inflicted on your cards”, and you fell in love, even if you didn’t realize it. That was where you wanted your loyalty to go. To the one willing to defend you, even when you were against him. The natural pull of some ancient code drew you to him. You wanted to serve him, even if you did not understand why. Just like your Other in purple did.
And then Pandora slammed down his edict. At first you didn’t realize what he was going to do, because you were so good for him, he couldn’t just do something like that to you, throw you aside like a useless prop. Even as your loyalty drained, it wasn’t like he could see it, but it felt like he knew, like he was punishing you for doubting him, for starting to side with the cruel Prince across the field. You wanted to love him enough to die for him, but you didn’t. You didn’t love him anymore, you were afraid of him.
You wouldn’t die for him, he would kill you. And he wouldn’t give a damn about it. It was never you he wanted, never, even when he knelt before you weeping and pleading that awful name he had given you, tugging pathetically at the hem of your robes. Even when he had you backed into a corner. You didn’t want to die for him. You’d died before during this duel and just imagining again how it had felt made tremors rocket through you, stronger than stage fright. The anticipation before the blade touches, and it won’t really touch you, because this is a magic trick and you can rest assured that it’s safe, and then you’re bleeding from the clipped edges of your soul, curled up on a cold floor. There was no such thing as a pleasant end for a Duel Monster, you knew. It always was painful, always brutal and violent—the ripping and tearing sort of pain of being torn to pieces and the feelings of things that should stay connected being no longer connected and the strain of it, like being drawn and quartered. The eaten alive type of pain, the stinging of saliva and the feeling of something entering a place it did not belong, the feeling of vital places touched in such a careless way. Nightmares of being sawed in half made holographically real.
You feared death. You knew it was supposed to be natural, for a trapped soul as yourself, natural for you to die if he commanded it. But you didn’t want that. The thought of dying so loyally for this man, who dared mutilate you at his whim, it repulsed you. It horrified you.
The Prince was staring at Pandora in horror, staring at you, at the expression of betrayal and terror and tiny remnants of loyalty, trying to cling to you like possessing spirits—all of it so plain on your face. Wide eyes and parted lips and a sudden posture of defense. You didn’t have time to plead with him. It was agony, just as you had expected, but in an entirely fresh way, a type of pain you hadn’t practiced yet, hadn’t goldfished into yet, hadn’t become numb to. It felt like your soul was being stripped—that word again—from your body—and in a way it was, as your hologram left the field and you collapsed into cardboard again—like something in your heart, perhaps where that loyalty was, was being ripped out of you, like your master’s hand itself was plunged into your chest, and you almost wish it were more like that, more hot and wet and desperate, more of him needing to feed off of you, because at least that would be some type of caring. No, this felt cold, like he didn’t care at all, like this was some toss-away combo that wouldn’t matter.
You retained a gauzy sort of consciousness after death, a blurry feeling of what you were seeing. Your dutiful Other, standing between his Prince and the certain death you embodied. You didn’t want this, but your Other did . Your Other gave his life so effortlessly, so determinedly. He loved his Prince enough to give his life, his final act of unyielding servitude. It made you ache to your core. And then you were laying on cold, hard gravedirt, spitting out the taste of bile and your soul’s essence. Your stripped sides burned with pain, and you simply curled in on yourself, too tired to push it away. You cried. You begged for the Prince to win, to win and take you somewhere far away from Pandora, and from Catherine, and from being forced to die like you were nothing.
And then you heard a squeak above you, and a pale hand in your dark one, big eyes staring down at you. A little girl. No, not little, but younger. Teenage, perhaps. She was giving you a huge smile, and holding her hand, you followed her down a dark corridor. And so it was you and your Other, and this girl, facing down the crueler of your playset companions—it hurt you to see him there, the agony of replacement, that he effortlessly summoned another in your place, like you never even mattered. The girl was giggling like she didn’t quite understand the stakes, and she seemed a little worried she wouldn’t be able to do it, tugging at your Other’s ghostly sleeve. And then you stepped in, ready to lend her your strength. You wanted to help the Prince, wanted to show Pandora what loyalty really was. Loyalty was not forcing yourself through abuse for the sake of it. Perhaps the loyalty you’d always felt was to yourself. You stood back to back with your counterpart, and he smiled at you. For all of your exchanges, all of your tricks and knives thrown, he didn’t hold a single one against you. He knew it wasn’t your fault. He understood.
And together, you lent the girl your strength, and not only because you hated Pandora, but also for her sake. You realized, staring at her happy eyes, taking in her ability, what could happen to her. Pandora already had three of you, and could not add more, but a card of your creature type that benefited from the deaths of copies of you? No doubt more awful sacrifices. He would take her if he won, you were certain. Take her and strip her edges and kill the innocence in her smile. Kiss her blonde hair and call her Catherine dearest. You couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t let another card share your fate, and certainly not a girl as sweet and young as she, the girl who smiled in graveyards. The student who outlives the teacher and thus keeps the teachings alive. Like a bright flower, the scent of raspberry lip gloss. You felt safe behind her, her big staff and her big boots. And you felt safe at the side of your Other, envy forgotten as you joined hands for a common cause.
You felt such a rush of joy when Pandora’s life points hit zero. You had never truly desired the death of another person, but watching that blade move closer to him, you felt a freedom you had never known. A bliss. You watched, waiting with baited breath. Your vision fizzled out, then, feeling the duel ring’s hologram systems start shutting down. You didn’t get to watch him die. He watched you die, and you didn’t get t—
~
You came alive again in a warm hand, the touch of someone gentle waking you from cardboard. It was the Prince. He traced your raw edges with a tenderness, a pained look on his face, so far removed from the near-sadism he’d sported before. Before…that had been in your honor, he had fought for you. Fought to win, and he was going to take you, you realized, as his prize. You’d feared that, at the duel’s beginning, but now it was all you could dream of. A mannequin’s head lay discarded on the floor, blonde wig gross and matted with grime and mold, face painted with a grotesque approximation of human life. It made you tremble, slightly.
And the Prince reached into his bag, and pulled out a thin card sleeve, and nestled you inside. It didn’t hurt your edges, the glide was smooth and gentle. He said: “I know you aren’t exactly playable, and I’m so sorry he did that to you. I’m gonna take you with me and keep you somewhere special where you can’t get hurt again.”
“I thought I was going to be the one protecting you,” you found yourself saying. You said it mostly to yourself, didn’t think he could hear you. He smiled.
“I have Mahaad for that. You need to rest, you must be worn out. Maybe he can drop by and get you something.” The Prince gently tucked you, sleeved, into a slot on his belt, and then you couldn’t see him anymore, but you were warm with your love for him. You knew he was the one, someone who put such love and care into his cards.
You were in a room, your cell, supposedly, but it had none of the resemblance. It was a large room, with pretty, ancient furnishings. Beautiful red wood, a huge bed, linen and silk, with piles of cushions. Tassels and beads, a vanity already set with kohl and jars of colored powders, charcoal, elegant brushes. Stacks of magical books—real magic, not the fake stage-magician tricks you never wanted to see again—scrolls and heavy leatherbound things. You felt exhausted, just as the Prince had said, and could barely take it all in, this transformation of your dour cell into such a lovely and homelike place. Somewhere comfortable.
The windows—there were windows where before there had only been claustrophobic, damp walls, a mirror to Pandora’s basement room. You’d never seen the world above ground—were open, warm night air rustling woven red curtains, the dark sunset glowing red and deep purple over a shining desert landscape. You rested at the window for a while, sitting in a cozy windowsill alcove, several candles glowing, resting your aching legs on soft cushions. You picked up one of the books, but you were too tired for arabic and hieroglyphics, so you just leaned back and let the gentle wind tease your hair, trying to not think of Pandora’s possessive-yet-mocking caress. You sighed like the breeze, the scent of exotic flowers blooming in your lungs. Exotic, yet comfortingly familiar. You hadn’t needed to change from your armor, you found. Your staff rested against your bedpost, and you were dressed in a light linen dress. You stripped gently undid the sandals winding around your tired feet and tossed them aside somewhere. You slipped off the gold bands around your arms, and the red beads around your neck. You had never had such pretty things before, but you couldn’t sleep in them.
Now that the adrenaline of the duel had fully worn off, you felt like passing out, falling asleep. You pain tore at you, even as you tried to relax, as it often did. It was simply something you had to live with, something to listen to. The stars glowed dimly outside the window, but everything else remained the same, a perpetual sunset, fading from gold to crimson to purple to black. You went to move back to your bed, but the pain lashed out at you for rising, like a snake stepped upon. Agony shot up your side, and you crumpled against your bedpost. You sighed, managed to pull yourself onto the sheets. They were unbearably soft, gentle. For someone with such tender edges as yours, they felt like bliss. Nothing here was designed to hurt you, only to comfort.
As you were laying back, the door creaked open, and your Other—Mahaad, the Prince, your beloved rescuer—had called him, stepped in. Warm light poured in from the hall, and it was all so different from how it had always been that you began crying. You couldn’t help it.
He startled for a moment at the reaction, then softened. He walked lightly to the bed and sat down by your side. He was holding a golden tray, laden with bites of cheese and small chocolates, and figs and pomegranate seeds. You felt unbearably hungry looking at them all, and you slowly lifted a fig to your mouth. You could taste it, real, delicious, nourishing. Sweet. He set the tray down on the beside you, so you could take what you wanted, while he poured milk and honey into a small cup. It was warm when you held it in your hands, and it smelled so soft. A single sip made tears bubble up in you again. You were so hungry, so tired. You had never known such gentleness.
“Did Pandora not feed you?” Mahaad asked, horrified, and then, “No, no. You don’t have to answer that. You don’t have to think about it. Do you have a name?”
You froze. The warm air felt oppressive then, Madhaad’s gentle presence stifling. You opened your mouth to form Catherine , and out came instead: “I think I like Desher .” An Egyptian name meaning red. You didn’t know how you knew that, like the way you’d been able to understand the words in the books.
It felt good to say that, but even better to hear him reply:
“Desher, then. That’s beautiful.” He smiled so kindly, reaching out to touch your hand, then pausing, asking silently. You nodded, stunned. Hearing your new name in that soft voice, accepted without a single hesitation. An affirmation of your identity, your personhood. It made you feel so warm, and it made all of the fear melt away. The way he asked before he touched you, the respect of it, like you were something sacred. It made you relax. He had no intention of hurting you at all.
“Mhm,” you murmured, eating a small cube of cheese. It tasted so good, any food would have been good of course, after so long with nothing, but you were sure even a wealthy man would have savored such a treat, and so many were laid out for you. Expected of a Prince’s kitchen, perhaps.
“You’re in pain,” Mahaad observed, carefully watching you. There was a certain elegance to him, even when he was relaxed, a beauty to the way his purple hair dripped around his shoulders, the way his face flickered in the dim candlelight.
“It isn’t a big deal,” you assured him, and he paused again, thoughtful.
“No, but it is still pain,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?” He sounded so genuine it made your heart ache. Your love for the Prince and your love for Mahaad. So much love you didn’t think yourself capable of. And they loved you in return, the Prince rescuing you, and Mahaad, now, watching you with the softest of eyes. You wanted to be loyal to the Prince and to serve him with your love, and all of your life. And you wanted to collapse into the man beside you, your shared convictions, your shared abilities, his understanding.
All you asked of him was: “Please, stay.”
He rose to light some incense, warm smoke and the scent of jasmine curling through the room. Something about it made your pain subside, and you wondered if he had put magic into it, because a purple glow had spread from his fingertips to the fire, and the smoke was tinted a pretty plum. He laid down gently beside you, and you drifted asleep in his arms. Perhaps it was him, perhaps it was the room, or the smoke, but you didn’t have nightmares that night. You dreamed of attending the Prince, walking with him through vivid gardens, sharing honey and berries. You dreamed of the young girl, laughing and teaching you magic in a cute and clumsy way, and of Mahaad appearing to correct her, and her laughing. Dreams of Mahaad pulling you away for a kiss in the blackberry bushes.
You didn’t dream of Pandora at all. For the first time in your life, you felt truly, joyfully free.