Chapter Text
Verse I
Poppies' Ichor
I need my golden crown of sorrow
My bloody sword to swing
My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology
I am no mother, I am no bride, I'm king
– King , Florence and the Machine
𖥸
She must be punished
It is not her fault
It does not matter
It is destiny
𖥸
There is a monster hidden on the corners of the cave.
The walls are cold, the ceiling dripping with debris and freezing tear drops of water. The air smells like rotten fruit and decay, like old stone crumbling in darkness.
There is a monster curled up on the floor, knees pressed to the chest, arms around her face. There are poppy petals crushed under her feet, staining her skin in red.
There is no sun under here, no sunlight, no golden rays that bring warmth with their touch. There are no greens, no yellows or blues.
There is a monster racking her hands through her head, pulling and gasping and tearing apart, bleeding herself into the floor, ripping herself apart until she can't do it anymore. It does not matter, the monster remains in her, blood in her blood.
The walls are cold, the water cuts like swords. There are stones shaped as fake heroes crumbling into pieces all around, some of them falling, some of them rising as the gods’ shadows that had once carried her and later had cursed her. They surround her, trapping her into a circle, inside this exile that has become a grave for those that seek glory with her blood.
There is a monster crawling on the floor, her eyes no longer blue hidden under the dirt stained skin of her palms. She was a princess and now she is a demon. If you look at her face, she will turn you into stone.
And it was not her fault.
𖥸
For Adora, the world is dark. Dark in a way that aches.
It hasn't always been like this, but for that, we must return to the beginning.
First, everything was golden. Golden air, golden curtains, golden grass. Golden crib. Golden kingdom and sapphire eyes. She had been born in a world of rich wine and fresh figs on colorful mosaic plates. She had been born among silks and peacocks singing in the gardens; and evergreen crowns of laurels on even more golden strands of hair. She had been born in a world where richness and beauty were pride to be taken and where she, Adora, was the crown jewel of it all.
She is the only daughter of King Randor and Queen Marlena, and the twin sister of her brother, prince Adam. A princess, a wish, a prize.
Her family and the people of Eternia saw her be born and grow from a small thoughtful child to a smart young woman and they all loved her and praised her the same.
She is loved for the sharpness of her mind and for the kindness of her heart, but also sorrowfully and most of all, for the beauty of her face.
Princess Adora of the Great City of Grayskull is the most beautiful woman of Eternia
Adora's hair is golden. True gold, not like wheat but like pools of the sunlight spilled over her royal head, long and falling free in gentle waves over her hips.
Her skin is soft, cheekbones and collarbones dusted in pale freckles; moles scattered from her chin, all the way down her strong arms and elegant hands. Her lips are full and red, always curved in kind smiles, passionate words and sweet words.
And her eyes, her eyes are turquoises swimming in pools of light, goddess's ichor trapped in her irises, raw ambrosia for the famished.
She is smart, smarter and more cunning than any high ranking member of the First One's council and its politics, with their red and golden robes. She is passionate about her beliefs and her ideas, always looking for a greater good and for helping her people have a better life; always putting herself in the line for everybody else. She will stand tall and confident in the face of anyone, cocky and beautiful as a sun and defend what she believes is the right thing to do with everything she has. Yet, is always there to reach with a gentle hand to those in need of help or guidance.
And she loves the gods. During the most tender years of her life and later her young adulthood, she is grateful and she is devoted. She spends long hours on the temples, lighting incense and candles, dipping her fingers in sacred oils and placing fresh flowers on the feet of the golden statues, the poppies she so much adores brushing against her fingertips with the last linger of dew. She lives surrounded by the smell of myrrh and lit sandalwood, her feet bare over the cold marble of the well cared floors, her hair loose and her hands open and pleading, sacrificing the best of her banquets to the gods everlasting lightened fire, never asking for anything but a single secret wish and the safety of her people. Adora plays the part, because that is what she has been disciplined to believe and follow, because that is the way her life has been led and Adora accepted it. Because, after all, it is what the people she loves have taught her.
When she is not in the temples Adora spends her days walking through the evergreen gardens of her parents home, scrolls of written poetry and politics alway nestled between long fingers. The strands of her sunlight hair will be tangled with fallen leaves and the twinkling lilac jewels of her crown. The gold accentuates the rich purple of her tunic and robes, enveloping her in sweet swirls of fabric all the way down her, most of the time, bare feet. Now that she is older, no longer a child chasing frogs and crickets in the grass, Adora has taken a liking to sit down near the pomegranate trees and read in silence, most of the time unaware of the prying eyes of the people that walk by, dragging their eyes up and down her figure in undesired want.
Adora dreads it, she doesn't want it. Since her coming of age, she has been subject of the highest honors by every single person not only from Eternia, but of the entirety of the Realm. At some point between her maturity and the loss of the last softness on her cheeks, hundreds to thousands of gifts have been placed at her feet in praise of her godly beauty. First Ones and hundreds of other habitants all the same, singing choruses to her hair and eyes and hands, thrown to their knees in front of her feet, loving her as a nymph, a muse, a goddess. As an object. And Adora can only smile small and tight to them and gracefully accept their presents, glancing every once in a while with an uncomfortable and tired look to her parents, fidgeting with the wish to escape, holding her breath as to not scream.
This is not the way she wishes to be loved. Not like a prize to be won or a statue too far to be touched. She wants to run away and hide between the walls of her home and the pages of her poetry, or in the foot of the altars she puts so much love into, begging the gods to not forsake her. But her parents are the kings, and she is a princess, so Adora can only hold her tongue and close her eyes and hope it’s over soon so she can go back to the warm refuge that are her lonely chambers.
This is how she spends her days. Accepting praises. Reading with her father, wrestling with her brother and practicing sparring with her mother. Sitting on the floor of the temples and sleeping at their flower adorned altars. Days are hard sometimes but they are good. They are happy. She has no right to complain; she is a princess, she is a golden treasure and she has everything.
It doesn't last. As many things in tales and myths, Adora is destined to tragedy one way or another and it catches her before she can even take a breath. The rumor of her beauty travels as quick as a fire on dry leaves and reaches even the most rotten souls, tempting them to drag their pride drenched bodies to her home.
The first time she sees him, he is white. White robes, white sandals, white hair, white hands drenched in blood she still can’t see. It clashes against the green of his sharp eyes and drives a shudder down Adora's spine that she can't differentiate between fear and disgust. He comes as a token of supposedly peace, an emperor of the foreign kingdom, who arrives in Eternia to form alliances with the kings and their people.
Adora looks at him from her place besides her parents, fidgeting with the hem of her red tunic. From the edge of her gaze she can see Adam on the other side of the throne chamber wriggling uncomfortably on his feet, throwing worried looks between the man and Adora with squinted eyes and a snarl in his lips. But before Adora can fully turn her attention to him, the white man steps in and presents himself with a husky voice full of heavy confidence.
"King Randor and Queen Marlena. Prince Adam," but he is not looking at them, he is looking at Adora, his eyes piercing directly on hers like swords. "Princess Adora "
That's how it starts.
Emperor Prime doesn't kneel to her feet or kiss her hand. He doesn't pray to her beauty or listen to her mind. But he speaks. He is charming, he is slick and sweet. He is clean and pure. He is corrupted. He pours sticky rotten words into her ears and the ears of her people, poisonous thoughts clouding them like a poison. He speaks about violence and anger and oh so called justice that frightens her. About the strength of fighters and the glory of wars, about the past of First Ones and the need of order. About violence and beauty as equals. His presence hovers over her like a falcon, covering her in tight heavy darkness until all of Adora's senses are overwhelmed by him and his voice, wrapping her and all that she wishes for her life in fear.
And for some dangerous months, he is allowed to. Everyone allows him too. The kings and the council are besotted by him, by his ideals and his passions. By his strangeness. He is different to anything they have ever known, exhilarating for a kingdom who has stayed inside the safety and warmth of the walls for too long, aching for the chase, for the hunt that had characterized the First Ones for so long. They allow him to wander in the bright walls of Greyskull Castle, to step foot on the libraries and the holy gardens, to turn an eye away from their temples, staining everything within his reach without them ever noticing it. They allow him to step close to Adora.
It is not a secret that the princess has no interest in the men-kind. After all, she has been seen and heard, talking softly to the ladies of the kingdom or the loyal guards of her palace in their golden armors. They all have seen her flustered and shy or confident and attentive, bright as she runs her eyes down the angle of an ankle that escapes the fabric of a dress, or the curve of a perspiring bicep during a mock battle, always looking for something, always marveled by their fierce beauty. For a long time, Adora wishing for the soft swell of a breast it's not a problem or a gossip inside her kingdom. It is not a cause of confusion or anger in this world and, after all, there are plenty of ladies of royal crib that will do excellent consort princesses with time as the Council whispers among themselves in agreement. It is not a motive to cause her pain, until Adora stops being a person and starts being a medium to join this foreign king. To a king that wants her.
That is the first time the First Ones, her own people, betray Adora.
Sometimes, for rotten and painful moments, Adora wishes. For a second, buried in the blankets of her bedroom and in the hopes of the people she loves and the responsibility that weighs over her head, she wants with all her heart that this would be different, that this person her people push her towards would be someone else. She wishes to be able to want this too. Because after all, who doesn't want to be loved strongly, unconditionally. She has read and heard all her life glorious tales of lovers and warriors, people who risk their lives and their souls for love. Stories of tragic lovers thrown themselves to the sea, of promises in the form of sea shell rings and shielding golden dragons in blue waterfalls. Stories of heroes slaying down cruel and soulless monsters and the infinite tenderness that follows inside the arms of their beloveds.
This, this putrid sweetness, this is not that wish and Adora can't. It is not who she will ever be, it is not who she is looking for.
She has always known that she is destined to love someone in particular. She has dreamt of her, since she was a little child and all the way until now, the fragment of a wish, the light of a dream that she can't quite remember in the morning. She knows the curve of her soles against the grass, she has met the creases of her collarbones and the warmth of her palm. She knows the bounce of her curls like spilled earth over moss. She knows exactly how many freckles there are on her face and the secret dimple on her smirk when she smiles. She knows the song of her laughter, the smell of her breath, the taste of her closed eyelids. Adora knows her, even if she can't remember what her eyes looked like, what all of her looked like. Like looking at a deity to the face and knowing she is the single most beautiful creature in the world yet not being able to put words into her mouth or brush paints in her body. A blurry cloud against a midday sun that accompanies Adora like her own kind of miracle.
“She is a gift from the gods. A merciful miracle,” Marlena says to her daughter the first time tiny little Adora wakes up with the dream of a tiny little hand cradled inside of hers.
Adora is still young, too young, and she doesn´t understand completely, but her mother´s words comfort her as she tucks her back into her silk soft bed.
“When the gods made us, we were one being, too beautiful and too wonderful, too dangerously close to the gods' divinity. So Zeus, in all his wisdom, turned us apart. In a way is a curse, Adora, and in a way it is also a blessing because we are to seek for the other half of our soul across our life and the world. Many never find each other again, not even in the Elysium. That is our payment for being mortals.” Marlena runs her fingers over her daughter´s honeyed hair, her eyes silver and tender. “You are lucky, my daughter, so lucky. She exists because you live and you exist because she breathes. The gods must love you so much and they will guide you to her when it is time. Cherish her.”
“Yes mommy,” Adora whispers back, sleepy and only six and with her heart full.
And so, Adora falls in love with a dream, with the promise of a beautiful miracle. Adora knows that she is to love and nurture this person, even if she is not in her life yet. Adora knows she loves her, even if she might not exist at all. And in order to be able to be with her, Adora needs to survive, to make it out of this alive.
Adora remains quiet and she never supports Prime and his speeches of freedom, even if those very same speeches seem to please and manipulate her own people. She looks at him, teeth clenched and nails dug on her palms, as he walks around her gardens and her streets like a peacock followed by hordes of his followers and soldiers and, later, by her own people and she becomes afraid.
Because she knows what he is, almost as quickly as he steps foot into her life, she knows what he is. A dictator, a conqueror. A murderer. She knows what he wants of her city, of her parents, of her ; the power that the First Ones possess to rise war against other realms, the power to tumble everything down, the power to become the emperor of it all and never look back.
She speaks about it in hushed rushes of whispers with Adam, hidden both in the secrets spots that had once been they playground around the castle, tangling her fingers with her brother´s so much alike one to the other, daring to speak the words and worries that tumble out of her mouth like shivers.
They are, after all, so much like the other and they love each other just as deeply. And Adam, just as stubborn and smart as his sister, stands with her.
They walk around the castle side by side, murmuring between themselves things only siblings and twins know about, his hand always resting over Adora´s back when the green eyes try to find her again. They go to meetings together; spar next to each other until their muscles are protesting with exhaustion; and later take dinner together, always twin chairs, always Adam´s sharp blue eyes keeping Prime´s away.
In the months when Prime latches himself with even sweeter smiles to the sweet ears of their parents, Adam is the only one that listens and the only one that stays by Adora´s side.
“I will never allow him to hurt you,” Adam says one day, sleeping over the makeshift cot on the floor of Adora´s chamber.
Adora has never felt like this before, scared of even sleeping alone in her own home, but Adam stays and it reassures her enough to fall asleep. Adora stares at her brother's face from her place on her canopy bed with sleepy eyes, eyelids heavy after so many sleepless nights.
“And our parents?” Adora whispers back, fighting the need of running her hand over her damp eyes. “They believe him, they praise him as everyone else. I love them, Adam, they are our parents. What am I going to do then?”
“It doesn't matter,” Adam cuts her off, gentle but just as firm. He has always been the braver one between both. “You are my sister and you are a fighter, Adora. You are braver than you think, you´ll survive this.”
The twins share a long stare, charged with unsaid fears and strong affirmations. This is how they have always communicated with each other, how they let the other know they are there, with long looks with the same blue eyes.
Adora loves her brother and Adam loves her.
Adora looks at her brother and eventually falls asleep and Adam stays.
That is, until Prime waltz outside of a meeting with the Queen and King and Adam is promptly sent to the other side of the kingdom to support the Harvest, because he is a prince and Adora is a princess and they are not children anymore; they have duties they were born to fulfill.
Adam away, playing the prince; Adora here, playing the trading coin.
As much as Adam fights to bring Adora with him, their parents won't listen, too kind or maybe too stupid, too besotted in the power of this fake King promises to look at the darkness pouring out of him. Unaware of the walls he builds around them and their daughter. Unaware that he is a monster until it is too late.
He drives her friends away when she is not looking and no matter what Adora tries they step back with apologetic eyes and quick glances to the man always lurking in her shadow.
When Adora is not there nor her parents to see what is being done, he snarls and snaps at people that try to come close to her to admire her beauty, jealousy starting to drip from his eyes in lava rivers, treating her as if she was already her belonging.
He starts to become volatile, dangerous, violent. Every night's banquet with his followers is just another wine drunk fist fight. Loud hubris screams, speeches of greatness and of want and lust.
It doesn't even matter how much time Adam tries to spend around his sister the remaining days he is in the place before having to leave, sheltering her from Prime's sickly green eyes.
The Kings grant him a blessing and he starts to look at Adora sharper, harsher, wanting. Like a hunter that has spent too much time playing with his food and now just wants to devour.
“I do not want this,” Adora says one night, unable to contain it anymore, closing her hands on fists as the maidens in her room swirl her into green robes and golden jewels.
She hates green, she hates gold, she hates her sun-like hair and she hates herself. Nor the smell or the candles or the sounds of the last day of the Harvest can even reassure her now, not like they had done once upon a time, when she was younger and she had not yet learnt she wasn´t free in the first place.
That the place she once called home was nothing else but a prison now. The tapestries in her room with the embroidery of past heroes and past monsters´deaths are nothing but threats now. The bracelets in her wrists are chains and the looks in her mother's eyes are poisoned stares that return her rageful gaze.
“It does not matter what you want, Adora. It never has,” Marlena walks towards her and tightens the knots of the golden ribbons that lace around Adora´s waist, robbing her of her breath.
There is not a single wrinkle that hasn't been done on purpose, not a single strand of hair out of place; Adora is perfect like a golden statue and it makes her sick. Her own mother´s hands over her skin make her sick.
“You think you ever had the right to choose? You think I ever had a right to choose? You are a First One, Adora. You are a princess, my daughter. You have obligations with your people, with this kingdom and with its future. You have been blessed by the gods, Aphrodite, Athena, our lady Artemis, by the godly ones themselves with beauty and wisdom. You are adored, Adora, and it makes you powerful, don´t you see? The people will follow you like they followed Helen, to war and to glory. Whoever that has you will be powerful and it will bring victory to the kingdoms he favors. You have never been destined to choose Adora unless it was the best for the kingdom. And now, your destiny, our destiny, it's finally here. You are our medium for greatness, Adora.”
“That is not what you taught me,” Adora snaps, walking away from her mother for the first time in her entire life.
This is not the person Adora knew; the one that taught Adora about the First One´s mistakes, about justice and mending mistakes. About being humbled and about love.
This is not the woman that helped Adora lit the gods´altars and helped wish for a love that was honest and tender like a bloom.
This woman is harsher, colder; she is prouder and calculating. Cruel. If Adora looks too closely to her eyes, she thinks she might find green among the silver.
She is still Queen Marlena, and she is still Adora´s mother, but she is not herself anymore.
“That is what he told you. You and father have let him tangle himself in our home, in our beliefs, in your minds. Look at you,” Adora points at her mother and the maidens gasp. “You have never wanted glory, you´ve never wanted war. I don´t know who you are anymore. You´re not worth calling yourself queen anymore.”
Marlena slaps her, so violent and strong that it echoes across the entire chamber. It makes the maidens' ears to deaften.
It makes Adora stumble back and tremble from head to toe. It makes Adora bleed. Adora´s mother made her bleed.
“I raised you wrong,” Marlena says, scowling.
Her palm burns from where her hand hit Adora, stained with the blood that drips from her sliced mouth. This is the first time she has hit her, it will be the last time she touches her but she doesn't know that yet.
“I let you chase after meaningless dreams and it made you selfish. You are not allowed to want, Adora, and you are not allowed to bargain. You will do this for the future of your people and you will be grateful for it.”
Marlena walks back towards the door, scowling at the shivering maidens that quickly make themselves disappear behind the frame. She doesn't even stop to check on Adora, doesn't even slow her steps or glance at her.
Adora is still standing in the middle of her room, eyes casted to the ground, hair tousled over her shoulder; she is breathing hard, chest heavy with the broken pieces of her own heart. There are blood drops smudging on her lips but Marlena's own heart doesn't even flinch at that.
“Clean yourself and join us at the Hall. Emperor Prime will have the honor to make the offering to the gods today and you'll be there to support him,” Marlena regards her daughter one last time and then snaps her eyes away, head held high. “Do not disappoint your father. Do not disappoint me”
Marlena steps under the frame of the door, holding the last word until Adora gives a shaky breath, holding herself to all the bravery that lives inside her heart.
She is shattered but she is not broken yet.
“You are not my mother anymore,” Adora whispers, low enough that is a doomed secret, high enough that echoes like a war horn on the childhood walls of her home.
She hears Marlena hold her breath and absently waits for her to do something, anything at all; turn around and slap Adora again or hold her inside her arms like she used to do.
Marlena does none and she leaves Adora alone in the room, with her golden laurel crown and her fingertips tinted on gold dust.
Adora runs.
Adora, who has never run away from battle; Adora who is smart and brave and stubborn, Adora the noble princess, the undefeated warrior, runs away. Because she is afraid.
She makes it past the halls cradled with tapestries, further away from the lit fires on their metal pedestals, across the empty gardens where flowers have gone rotten and dry, barely making it past the loyal guards that once had seen her with tenderness and mirth and now only give her judgmental charged looks.
She runs, tripping with the freezing cold floor and scraping her bare ankles and knees when she falls on the floor, standing again and running once more.
She doesn't go far and nobody follows her.
Maybe no one actually considers her capable of actually leaving. Why would she, when she has everything anyone could ever possibly wish for?Maybe they think she is a coward, maybe she actually is one.
Because, even though Adora runs, she doesn´t make it past the high stone walls around the palace, once built by the gods themselves to keep her city at peace; she doesn't climb the trees or throw herself to the deadly quiet oceans that like the shores of her home.
She can´t, because even between her rage and her fear, she loves these stones and these trees and these waves.
Because, after everything, she loves her mother and her father; she loves her brother. She loves her people. She is as devoted to them as she is to the temples, she owns them herself and she can't leave.
Adora stands up from where she had curled at the bottom of the steps that lead to the temple, rising colorful and magnificent in front of her, frighteningly white and cold.
The fires are not lit tonight, nor are the myrrh or the incense. Very few people come here anymore, not even the priestess and their maidens, not when they can follow the vivid light that is Prime and his teaching, not when he drips words like gold coins into their hungry hands and spits lies of greatness into their ears; not when the promise of war and conquer of the rivals that once were their neighbors is almost granted.
Adora walks inside the quiet temple, barely even hearing the muted brush of her feet against the marble, following the paths that lead to the altars by sheer memory and desperation.
It is so quiet here, so silent, like a tomb made a long time ago, like something meant to be buried and hidden away. If Adora breathes, she thinks she might just disappear among it´s stillness; she wishes she could.
The flowers are dry and the golden plates are empty when Adora makes it to the center of the temple, not a single light illuminates the space around her.
She holds her breath, just a second, just enough for her lungs to scream and her heart to rage against her ears like a furious ocean. And when she can hold it back anymore Adora breaks into two and sobs, sinking into her knees with a quiet fall.
“Help me”Adora whispers, Adora cries, Adora begs; bowing until there is nowhere else to go, stretching her arms over the floor in front of her.
The marble floor is freezing cold where it touches the skin of cheek where she has rested it against the tiles. It makes her mouth go numb and her body to lock into a perpetual shiver.
“Help me, please”
The silence it's so overwhelming that folds her down and Adora sobs, digging her nails against the tiles.
She begs again but nothing comes, not a sweet breeze or a reassuring whisper or a devastating earthquake. Adora is here, curling on the cold floor and alone.
If she could scream, she would scream, high and high until it ripped her apart and the gardens and the castle as a whole. If she could throw herself from the cliff towards the ocean, she would, swirling on its mercifully lethal waves until there was nothing left of her.
But instead, Adora is here, begging for help that does not come.
Seconds turn into minutes that feel like unstoppable eons of time. Adora can´t hear anything else but the sound of her own ragged breath and the tears that spill from her narrowed eyes and into the ground.
She feels numb and she feels heavy, the too soft fabric of her green robes wrapping itself against her neck and her body, unable to move or run or cry anymore.
For a moment, Adora considers staying here on this spot at the feet of the altar like an offering all on its own. To open her throat and sacrifice her own blood over the cracks of the marble; to run the sacrificial dagger over her wrists and drink from the gods´ tears and lay her body to rot and decay before letting a single man lay a hand over her.
For a moment, Adora drags her heavy soul and her living corpse over the floor and lets herself fall against the steps of the statues like a martyr of its own, because maybe she cannot sacrifice herself in life for her people but she can do it in death. Maybe, if the gods are pleased, her death might chase the shadows and the poison of that man away.
Adora grinds her teeth, her crystal blue eyes shimmering with tears under the dark, one last act of bravery as she reaches for the black knife.
A hand shots forward from the darkness, wrapping Adora´s wrist between its fingers. It's an old hand and an even older touch, cold where it meets Adora´s pale skin yet surprisingly strong when it pulls her arm away from the altar.
Adora looks back, halfway startled that it might be a priestess or a guard, halfway hoping it is Death that has come to take her away. But it is none, if fact, the eyes that look back at her are almost frightening, mesmerizing in the way looking at the gods' faces mist feel like, except that this woman is neither goddess's nor mortal.
The old woman regards Adora in silence, quietly but firmly placing her arm back into the cold step, palm up as she studies the inside of Adora's hand with cautious eyes.
Her hair has gone silver and white, long ago aged out by the pass of time; her tunic is simple and practical, old also by the look of it with the beautiful pink color washed out long ago, so long it brushes the floor every time she moves; or maybe this woman is just tiny, with her knotted hands and her earlobes heavy with earrings.
There is a kind of kindness with which she carries herself in the spot next to Adora, tender but also firm, her back long ago bent by the weight of the ages and the memories.
Adora snaps her eyes towards hers, looking at her old face through the honey strands of her hair, silver eyes meeting the woman´s with a shivering gasp.
The woman's eyes are golden, pure gold, from the pupil to the sclera, so bright that they are painful to look at, like looking at the very sun with bare eyes.
“Don´t do that, Adora dearie,” the woman says, turning Adora´s wrist gently so she can rub tender circles over her palm. “It is not worthy. You are so needed and so loved, you have no idea how much.”
Adora chokes with her own breath, hiccuping against a dry sob. There are no more tears falling down her face, stuck to her eyelashes and fallen on the marble floor.
She digs her nails into the ground, holding the old woman's hand with eager desperation.
“You're a prophet,” Adora exhales. The steps of the altar dig painfully on her knees. “You are the Oracle, Apollo blessed you with vision of the future”
“Is it really a blessing hidden as a curse, dearie? Or a punishment cradled in power?”
The Oracle doesn´t let go of her hand, instead sitting on the steps next to Adora. She leans closer towards her, grasping a lock of golden hair between her own fingers and placing it gently behind her ear.
“I was like you once, my dear, I was young and I was innocent too. I don't think I´ll ever understand why it happened, why it will happen.”
The meaning of the woman´s words crush Adora to the bone, even if she is not aware of the full weight of them yet. Instead, Adora snaps her hands away from the woman, anger making its way back into Adora´s skin and marrow.
“Is this really my fate?” Adora asks, furious, digging her nails into her own palms when she closes them into fists.
Ire and despair are eating her alive, indignation and pride keeping her in one piece still. It is not supposed to be like this, none of this.
Adora´s life is not supposed to go or even end like this, at the hands of people she loved or in the end of the blood drenched sword of greed drenched men.
She is supposed to be a warrior, a fighter; she is supposed to bring honor to her people and protect them, not being traded by them.
She is supposed to find love, to hold her inside her arms and nurture her. Adora´s fate wasn't supposed to be this .
The old woman, the Oracle, sighs heavily, tangling her fingers together over her lap. The hem of her tunic and her sandals are drenched in mud, as if she had walked all the way across the very woods to reach Adora here.
“Someone that loves you has given you a gift, my darling. Do you know what it is?” The Oracle´s voice lingers inside the temple, echoing through the columns and the small golden fire that burns in the myrrh above their heads. Adora doesn't even know when it started to burn.
“Beauty?” Adora scoffs, pulling from the silk strands of her hair until it hurts. “Wisdom? Power? I don't want any of it”
“None of those are gifts, darling, they are just circumstances and they do not matter in the end. None of them."
The Oracle shakes her head, her golden eyes looking far away, past the tree crowns and the moons circling the early night.
“No, no, you have been given something so much more important, much more powerful than any crown. You have been given hope. Sweet as a dove and sightless as faith. Hope on the form of a dream and a dream in the form of a miracle.”
Adora's breath hitches on her throat, her heart screaming inside her chest tugging from it's string cords as it claws and beg home, take me home, set me free.
“ What a wonderful thing it is to love until we ache, a privilege handed to so little, most of the time destined for tragedy. This is and will be the only devotion of your heart, my dear. It will be your greatest joy and your most tender sorrow, and in the end, you will need to let her go too”
Adora sobs, burying her face between her palms, tears dripping down the bridge of her nose.
Even after everything, the only thing capable of breaking her into pieces is the ghost of a love that she craves for; that she so desperately wishes to hold; the shattered pieces of a promise Adora made to her dreams when she was only a child.
The woman doesn't touch her and she doesn't reassure her, instead still looking far away from them, to something Adora cannot see but will have to face.
Adora grunts, grinding her teeth as she raises her head again, following the Oracle´s gaze. Her eyes are sore and red as the poppies drying on the altar, their powder staining the pristine green tunic in crimson.
“Tell me. Tell me what you see,” and the words feel like a sentence all of their own.
She still wants to hear it, all of it, she wants to hold herself to any kind of remembrance she can get, any breeze of long lost love she cannot reach. Any hope that, if Adora is to fail before even touching her, she might carry her inside her heart like a shield and an armor and never let anyone break her down.
“I see children seeking each other among light. I see pain and injustice. I see you betrayed, I see you grieving. I see darkness and rot and the death of hope."
"I see a woman like a sun and the blind loyalty of love. I see tenderness, I see punishment. I see a sword against snakes and blood in the ground. I see salvation but not from your hand”
The woman blinks and turns towards Adora, watching her with her gold filled and soul voided eyes and, for a second, Adora feels looked down by all the gods themselves.
“I see you and I can't see your face. I see you and you don´t know who you are anymore.”
Adora's breathing shivers, trembling from head to toe. Her shoulders are raised in goosebumps, her skin damp with cold sweat.
She wants to scream and break the earth and curse at the sky, she wants to run away, past the woods and the walls. She wants to stay here, on the halls that saw her be born and the family that raised her, with her scrolls of parchment and her white horse and her brother.
The Oracle is looking at her again, but her eyes are not glowing anymore, still liquid golden but apologetic, as if they held all the answers and the sorrows in the world.
“I am sorry” she says, wrapping her old hands with Adora's. “It won't be your fault”
The Oracle has seen many younglings, all of them beautiful and kind, all of them full of desire and want for something else. Some for hubris, others for glory, even for fame and glorious death. And others, like this girl, heroes and legends that will live for thousands of years, in tales from mouth to ears and parchment pages.
But this girl is not a hero destined for glory, not in this life, in this life she was meant for love and now is doomed for tragedy.
“What should I do?” The girl with golden hair asks her, and it is not a myth asking a prophet for her fate but a young woman begging her to guide her because she is lost and afraid.
“Go home” the Oracle says back, because this she can do for her. “And fight back”
It comes down on the last night of the Fall Harvest.
There is a huge banquet, bigger than any other in the year. The Queen and King walk around the huge chamber with their golden tunics and laurel crowns, greeting people that gathered around the fire that burns warm in the center, orange and red flames dancing around the logs of wood.
There is music everywhere, lyres and flute rising songs of charming times and seductive glory. It won't take long for everyone here to be drunk after the first offering is done, a heavy sense of urgency hovering over everyone already.
Adam follows close behind his parents, back tonight from his unspoken exile on the countryside, throwing weary glances at the open corridors around them, his heart straining inside his chest with the clear absence of his sister.
“You'll come with me after the banquet, I don't care what mom or dad say. We can grab Swift Wind and go,” Adam had said to his sister before going to the hall, squeezing her hand reassuringly.
She was still in her chamber, standing without speaking next to the open window, her face thin and pale but her eyes firm, full of the same kind of fire Adam had always known since they were children.
She was quiet, frighteningly so. Adora is never quiet, but there was something boiling under her very skin, the need of rebellion or a different kind of war maybe.
“You'll like the countryside. Menagerie is quiet, it's hard work but I know you'll be happy with it. There are good people there.”
Adora didn't answer for a long time, eyes lost on the woods but with her hand tightly wrapped around her brother's fingers.
“Alright,” she said at the end, resting her temple against her brother's shoulder. “Alright”
Adora has been wandering the dark corridors of her home in silence, her gaze lost in the braces lit around her.
She has always loved the warmth fire brings, it reminds her of a happy childhood and joyful dances. It reminds her of golden dreams and the ring of a long lost laughter. There is a pull on her chest every time she is near a fire. What may be a potential danger for her is a safe place to stand besides. The caress of a hidden lover.
There is a sudden hard noise and Adora snaps from her contemplation with a jolt, hands fisted in the fabric of her clothes, feeling the edge of the knife held to her leg with the tips of her fingers.
She is a princess but she is also foremost a warrior, a daughter of Eternia, a fighter. She knows who she is and she knows what she is worth and she knows how to defend herself. She will not go down without a fight.
“My darling”, comes the thick voice of Prime, slick as a snake when she steps out of the shadows and right in front of her.
He is standing next to the fire, in the center of the corridor, blocking the path almost completely. His green tunic is draped over his shoulder, falling down to his feet, and he wears a golden laurel crown atop of his head, so much like the one Adora's parents wear that it makes her want to barf.
His eyes are slightly covered by the shadows but Adora feels it’s burnt through the sheer cloth of darkness and into her very bones, studying her with poisonous gaze.
“Took you long enough” he whispers dangerously low, bringing goosebumps down her arms. He scowls at her clothes and hair, frowning deeply. She is not wearing the plethora of green tunics her mother had given her but a red one, blood-like and rich, and she is not wearing any gold, nor crown or bracelets or belts around her waist.
She is a stricken contrast to Prime's green and white, where he fakes purity, she screams war. Her hair is loose, void of the complicated loops and braids the maidens of the temples had tried to put her in, falling like tendrils of gold around her face, clean and wrinkled in unfiltered anger and disgust.
“I fail to see how that concerns you, Prime. This is my home, I can take as much time as I want,” answers Adora, unable to contain it, sharp and cutting.
It displeases him greatly. He snaps his mouth shut before stepping forward suddenly, almost pressing himself against Adora in the reduced space between them and the columns. Adora's breath hitches in her throat, adrenaline rushing through her veins freezing cold.
“Don't shake away from me, Adora" Prime snarls, opening and closing his hands at his sides, his sweet facade fallen.
He knows Adora knows what he is and he feels invincible in his position above her. He does not care about Adora's disgust anymore.
"Your kingdom loves me, praises me, just as much as they praise you. They wish for our union, for me to take you in marriage. They count on it and you know that, it is your duty. Our wedding will arrive sooner than you think. So behave, Adora." Prime raises his hand, making a movement as if he were to either slap her or run his knuckles down her face. "Don't force me to break you”
She hates him, she hates him, she hates him. She wants him gone off her kingdom and her land and her life, but nobody has listened to her and she wants to scream, so she does.
She slaps his hand away and steps back, almost crashing against the lit fire when she walks away from him.
“Who do you think you are?” Adora commands, loud and without trembling. Tired, she is so tired and so angry, holding herself to the Oracle's words like a temple burning to pieces all around her. “Do you presume yourself of being the king already? I've heard what you say to your followers when my parents are not there; I know what your speeches of freedom truly hide. I'm sick of you, this is not your kingdom and I'm not your wife. Neither of us will ever belong to you so step back and never dare to speak to me like that again”
“I am an Emperor!” Prime exclaims between his teeth, red flashing on the pale of his eyes. “I am the owner of the greatest empire on the earth”
“And I am the future Queen of Eternia, and you are in my domain. And as long as there is breath in my lungs you will never, ever, get your hands on my kingdom.”
That makes it enough to cause Prime to snap. He rushes forward, trying to grab Adora by the upper arms with bruising brute force. This is the first time since the cursed day he arrived at her home where Adora has seen him break his facade of perfection, shattered in the edges by Adora's words.
“You are mine, Adora. Mine,” Prime growls, wrinkling the tunic around Adora's shoulder.
But Adora is faster than him and she is also angrier. She is tired of being treated as a threading object, she is tired of being silent to not upset the stupid people that make their council. She is tired of her parents not listening, of her brother's quiet frustration.
She is tired of dreaming at night of running her fingers through the hair of someone she is supposed to be looking for and instead being here, forced to look at this man's face one second longer.
So she does what she knows and pulls the knife out of its shed, swirling it expertly on her hands as she presses it tightly against Prime's throat. It's not hard enough to cut skin, but just enough to make the skin angry and spotted in patches of red. Enough to keep him away from her.
“I am no one and certainly not of you. My body is not your temple.” Adora snaps, breathing hard through her nose.
She pushes him away before Prime can even muster a word, turning on her elegant ankles and walking the opposite side of the corridor.
Now that there is distance between them, Adora can feel herself trembling from head to toe, skin covered in cold perspiration and chest heavy with the violent drumming of her heart, her knees shaking so hard they almost knock her to the ground by the sheer effort of keeping standing tall and above.
She is afraid, she is the most afraid she has been in her entire life but she doesn't doubt her steps and she doesn't look back, not even when she hears Prime moving behind her, yelling.
“What do you plan?” Prime exclaims, his voice echoing across the corridor. “Letting those whores fuck you until you feel less pathetic about yourself? Is that what this is?”
Adora feels herself flinching but she doesn't stop, balling her hands into fists, holding her own heart inside the light that lives inside her dreams.
“Adora” he yells, dangerous and commanding. Adora doesn't look back or stop or shrink in fear and it drives Prime mad.
“Adora!” Not even a single glance. Prime screams and throws the blazing torches into the ground, boiling red rocks and blue flames scattering across the floor.
“Adora!”
The corridor changes around Adora, from dark obsidian to bright marble all around her. There are more sounds now, loud laughs that shake the flames of candles, banters and music from lyres.
Adora throws her shoulders back and the simple wing earrings on her ears twinkle when they clank one against the other. There is no loud advice when she enters but the chamber immediately falls quiet when she steps foot on the full floor.
Every head turns to see her, drinking in the sight of her and her rich golden hair. Is not uncommon for Adora.
She gulps down the acid in her throat and walks forward, ignoring everyone´s gazes and marveled chattering until she reaches Adam, already making his way through the chamber to reach her.
“Are you alright?” Adam questions between his teeth, wrapping his arm around her back to try and keep her away from sight.
They are the same height yet Adora feels herself shrinking next to him, curling around his arm as she tries to pull out a polite expression in front of everyone else. The green and white drowns down every single patch of the rich chamber, tunics and crowns and jewelry and Horde flags on the walls.
Adora is the only one wearing red.
“We are leaving for Menagerie tonight,” Adora answers in an exhale, digging her fingers on Adam´s forearm.
Adam doesn't even flinch, looking at her with heavy eyes for a second before nodding, body and mind already completely alert.
“Alright. Do you want to go right now?”
“No, after the Offering,” Adora presses her mouth into a firm line, glancing at their parents already making their way towards the twins. “If I have to go, I'll do it with my head held high.”
Her parents are standing right in front of them now, unconsciously getting closer to their daughter and eyeing her tunics with recriminating eyes when the noise startles the attendants.
Their faces are sour when they look up from Adora´s face to the entrance of the hall and it’s obvious from miles away that their patience is just about to run low but it is already too late to fix it.
Adora, however, doesn’t see them, looking around with exhausted eyes to the place already waiting for the next drunken confrontation to break off. Instead, she sees Prime, completely sober and alert, an expression in his eyes that freezes Adora's blood.
“King and Queen Grayskull” Prime's voice rumbles in the chamber.
Every single one of the First Ones there turns to him, alert and already excited by the speech-like ring of his voice.
Adam clenches his teeth next to Adora, trading his fingers with hers into a firm hold at the same time her mother rests her palms over her shoulder, unconsciously pushing her forward. Prime's smile grows.
“I want to express my complacency on the work you have done to prove yourselves and your people worthy of the great Horde Empire's trust. You've truly exceeded all of my expectations about your kingdom”
Adora hears her parents take a sharp intake of breath and she can feel the vibrations of Adam´s contained anger in the fibers of her own skin.
“I’m sure the joining of our kingdoms will be of great celebration and it will bring freedom and justice to the First Ones like there hasn’t been before. Together, we will bring down those that are beneath us; together we will make them obey and respect us as they should have done always. Together, we will bring glory and conquer, to all of Etheria”
The whispers of the people buzz and raise into loud cheers, people chattering among themselves about the Emperor's words, agreeing and nodding, already discussing which cities will they take over first, which friends and neighbors they will backstab for their own gain.
“And for that, it pleases me deeply to announce this to the rest of this kingdom, as the regal Regents and the honorable Council of this Court have already agreed with me that this union needs a stronger pillar than simple words and signatures in scrolls. That it needs something much more permanent.”
He turns now to face Adora's position directly and she stops on her track midway. The murmurs die down and so does her breathing.
"Princess Adora, the dowry I have given to your kingdom pales in comparison with you"
He stands next to the fire, huge in the middle of the chamber where the first offering to the gods awaits. He snatches a plate filled to the brim with ripe fruit and wine into his hands, hovering it over the flames that shimmer sudden blood red.
His posture is rigid and his expression sober, he knows what he is doing. Sudden fear drips down Adora's spine, freezing cold. Next to her, Adam holds his breath.
"I am sure of the honor you will feel now. The most beautiful woman in the world, joined to the greatest kingdom that will ever be. Joined to the Horde. Joined to me.”
A copper goblet falls to the floor with a clank but everyone ignores it, the chamber charged with unspoken tension. Somehow, even the very sky seems to be awaiting.
Adora looks around her, at the faces of everyone standing around her but she finds no surprised gazes; instead, there is only unspoken eagerness, satisfaction and agreement.
Her skin is damp with cold sweat and her head spins, pulling together the words like sick puzzles, looking at her life the last months like a curse on a dusty scroll. She understands and everyone does too, why the molasses sweet words, why the possessive closeness and the jealousy.
She is a fairytale, a princess. She holds positions and most importantly, she holds power. The Oracle said it, her own mother said it. Prime has bought a place on his kingdom, on her kingdom, by wooing her parents, by preaching to her people; by possessing her, by forcing her to marry him. He is buying her.
This is the second time the First Ones betray Adora.
“Your beauty rivals any other. There is no other woman as beautiful in all of Etheria", Prime steps closer to the fire lifting his plate on the way. The truth slips down her throat like a disease.
"Emperor", she hears herself saying and is surprised by the calmness and steadiness in her voice, completely different from the turmoil she now feels.
She thinks in the loneliness in her heart, on her abandoned readings, on her voice silenced. She thinks of the gardens where she dipped her feet in mud; on the patches of golden fields where she raced with her horse.
She thinks of her parents, dead inside her heart even though they stand behind her; on her brother still holding her hand. She thinks of the Oracle's saddened golden eyes, of the cold temples with cold altars.
She thinks of dreams and knows she can't bring this poison with her, not to those dreams, never to her.
Adora knows she has to fight and she knows in the end she will die. From the brim of her blue eyes she sees Adam giving her worried looks of confusion, from the fire to Adora´s face. She thinks about all of it, gone forever from her grasp to a man that sees her as sacrificial meat.
"But let's be honest here among us, you rival even the most beautiful of the Gods, of the entire Olympus itself. Not even Aphrodite herself could compare to your beauty"
"Prime.” As his dangerous pernicious words keep coming there is only one thought that is left in her mind, “That’s enough”
“Why pray to selfish Gods that turn their gaze from us when the only goddess we need is standing right here. Next to me”. Adora moves as fast as she can, letting go from Adam´s hand, but Prime is already tossing the offering to the fire, turning to her with mad victory in his eyes. “To your name, goddess”
There is a stunned silence in the palace. Adora looks at the burning food in the flames and she feels the dread of the offense on her very bones.
The air itself seems to cease to exist and the flames don’t move at all. She looks at Prime with a vicious glance, eyes burning bright amber in her anger.
“Get out. I’m not going with you anywhere,” Adora snaps, full of anger. She is golden among all of them and she is furious, there in front of everyone. “You are not worthy of calling yourself a king, or an emperor, or a god. You are just a man, you´re nothing. You are a monster.”
People are talking again now, alarmed and angrily, staring down at Adora as if they didn't say to love her, as if they hadn't seen her grow up.
For Adora, who for the first time is standing for herself in front of them, it doesn't matter anymore.
“I have given everything to all of you, everything, my entire life,” she says, looking from her people to her parents, eyes bright blue among the red in her skin. “But I won't give you this, not like this. You are not taking a single thing off me anymore. You're not hurting anybody through me.”
Now she turns towards Prime, narrowing her eyes like swords.
“In the morning, you'll take your men, take your boats and get out of my Kingdom. This is an order, Emperor Prime.”
Many things happen at the same time.
The Kings rush forward to pull Adora back and Adam steps between them, guarding his beloved sister´s back.
The Council and the rest of the people in the charmed clamor in anger, damning Adora and her words. Prime opens his mouth, maybe to curse her, maybe to hurt her.
The Oracle steps from behind the marble columns, looking at her face with golden eyes. Nobody gets to reach for her, not for anything, not in time. The fire crackles with a vicious screech and it dies down completely, drowning the chamber in darkness.
And then, Adora starts to scream.
𖥸
... She must be punished ...
... It is not her fault ...
... It does not matter, she must pay in their name ...
... It's not her fault ...
... It isn't but she must suffer or their kind will never fear us again ...
... They must learn ...
... She doesn't deserve it ...
... What about the other one? Hasn´t she suffered enough too? ...
... Your love games with mortals are not of our concern ...
... What is a mortal to a god? ...
... What is a god to a lover? ...
... At least give her love, at least gift her of hope ...
... That love won't escape sorrow ...
... It is not her fault, it is not their fault ...
... But it is destiny ...
𖥸
Adora is screaming.
She bends over herself and screams, howls, jowls until her jaw bone hurts and her lungs are burning, until her eyes are drowning in tears falling down her eyes and soaking her cheeks, until her body feels like it is breaking in two pouring ichor and venom and mortal blood into the floor.
People are moving around her, stepping back and away, shouting to each other to fire up the flames again, guards, guards!
But Adora can´t pay attention to them, can´t make sense of their rushing voices above the strength of the ocean that washes over her, all alone on this single spot of the palace that was once her home.
Among the darkness nobody can see it, but Adora runs her fingers over her face and she can feel her nails sharp, breaking the skin in shallow scratches that heal immediately, skin cold as the very stone of the floor where she is kneeling.
Her tears pool in her chin and fall on her bent knees and they burn, acid and sizzling. There is pain flaring inside her chest, inside her muscles and very bones.
There is something crawling in her head, slamming inside her temples, cracking her skull open and running down the shell of her ears and the back of her shoulders, cold as silver, sharp as ice, cutting as a sword.
It aches, it is killing her, desperation and fear making its way inside her soul, tearing her apart with desolation and the overwhelming feeling that she has been left alone. And she doesn´t understand why.
There is a single patch of the roof where the palace has been designed to remain open, an open circle where the light of the moon shines bright through to honor Artemis and that now falls trembling and dim with the new moon over Adora.
It is because of this light that she shouldn't be able to see but that now she does that Adora can blink down at her own hands, blurry sight misted by something else than tears, palms stained in her own blood when she runs them desperately against her head and thick strands of golden hair fall down, tangled in her fingers like decaying honey and rot.
She is changing, this much she knows, deforming and breaking apart and pulled back together like a doll made of clay that the celestials have decided to play with. They are tearing her apart, punishing her for something that isn't even her fault.
It won't be your fault. This is the will of the Gods.
This is the time the Gods that Adora loves, betray her.
Someone falls heavily on their knees next to her, their hands hovering above Adora among the darkness, unable to see and not knowing where to touch her.
Adora is hiding her face between her palms, panting heavily when she is unable to scream anymore, when her body has started to give up and the air inside her lungs is acidic. She can barely hear outside of the raging in her ears but she feels the warmth of sudden calm fire next to her, a lit torch of green and blue light followed by another and a single one more, dim still but enough to illuminate the space.
Adam leans closer to his sister, their knees knocking together as he slides over the marble floor, slippery and tinted in gold and crimson red, the sight seizing his throat.
He shivers from head to toe, raising his trembling hands again just so he can rest them over Adora´s wrist, grounding her down.
Under this light it is so hard to see, but so close Adam can hear the sizzling, low and menacing, the sound vibrating against his skin when he brushes what once was Adora´s hair. He holds his breath, tears stuck on his own eyelashes, biting back a painful yell when he makes off the figures sliding down Adora´s shoulders.
“Adora,” Adam whispers, voice breaking in the middle.
He is scared, terrified even, but not of Adora, never of her. She is his sister no matter what and Adam adores her with all his heart. No, Adam is scared for her, for the trembling of her body and her blood in the floor; for the people that surround them that make sense of the situation as every second goes by; for the whispers that linger in the chamber, for the confused stare on their ignorant parents that will sooner or later become disgust and rejection. For the flash of green still lingering in the now extinguished fire, weighing them with calculating gaze.
“Adora, it´s alright, let me see.”
Adora whimpers around her brother´s touch, shrinking into herself. Warm ichor and blood slips down Adam´s fingertips and wrists, his heart hammering inside his chest painfully.
He doesn't even know if Adora is fully aware of what has happened to her yet, he doesn't even know fully yet. It is not safe here, not anymore, and the urgency of getting his sister out is starting to make way inside his bones too.
“Let me see. It doesn't matter, Adora, it doesn't matter to me. I´m here and I love you so much. You are going to be alright.”
Among the blood and the ichor he can also feel Adora´s tears, falling down her hands and into Adam´s, cold to the touch. Adam pulls down from Adora´s wrists gently, cradling his sister´s face between his palms and rubbing gentle circles in her cheeks. Her tears are black stained, marking paths like water over rocks over her face, her eyes still vehemently casted to the ground.
The voices around them are getting closer, seeking to take a glance at the fallen princess with eyes full of morbid curiosity. Adam leans his forehead against Adora´s, whispering softly at her as he tries to drown the sounds behind her with reassurances.
“We are going to the countryside, remember?” Adam murmurs, pressing a swift kiss over his sister's forehead. The smooth surface of a slim body brushes against the bridge of his nose when he does so.
“We are seeing the lakes and the trees. We are going to eat figs until we are sick and then eat some more and we are going to stay together no matter what. I´m not letting you down, alright? You are my sister and I love you, always will.”
He can feel Adora´s faint and rapid breath against his own cheeks, hesitating as she listens to him beyond the noise and the pain inside her head. He presses one more kiss against her temple, cooing her face up with gentle hands, sighing when his sister´s eyes meet his.
He is the only person Adora loves that will ever see these eyes, nobody will get to know them again.
“It's alright, it's alright see? You are alright, Adora, I love you. I love-”
It happens very quickly. Painless. In a way, it is a mercy, a small gift from a benevolent yet selfish hand.
After all, not only Adora was loved between the celestials but her brother too. And when he goes, Thanatos themself extends their hand and touches the young man on the heart and carries him away, tearing their celestial eyes away as the warm body goes still as stone.
He will be carried over the five rivers without any of them really touching him, presented before Hades and reassured by Persephone and then he will walk into the Elysian Fields, as he never fought a war but this one, quiet and relentless, dying loving and protecting his sister until the very end and that is as honorable as any battle could ever dream to really be.
In another part of the world not too far from there, in the calm edge of a lonely Menagerie home, another kind of warm body jolts awake from the touch of Hypnos. Her dark hair falling over her face in loops, her breathing confused and scared by dreams too real and cruel to truly remember, her heart aching with the quiet tears that fall down her sightless eyes.
She is alone there but not really, guarded in silence and without knowing it by Eros, a god mournfully sitting at the frame of her window. Even among the tragedy, they are still watched over by someone.
In the palace, Artemis´ moonlight tries to shelter Adora but what it's done is done and there is no miracle for her tonight.
Adora´s breath hitches on her throat as she leans forward, running the tip of her raw fingers over the planes of her brother's face, forever casted in the marble surface of one last love word.
“Adam?” Adora calls for him, but he is not there anymore.
His golden hair has gone white, shimmering almost silver under the fire lights. His face has gone still, never moving again, the edge of a reassuring smile still lingering on his stone sculpted lips. His robes and tunics are hard to the touch and his hands, still halfway raised to cup Adora´s face in them, are cold. His eyes, silver rimmed and ocean blue depth, have gone blind, never again free from the tomb his own sister has placed over him.
“Adam?” Adora repeats, blinking dark tears off her cursed eyes, trying and failing to make sense of what has happened, to find an explanation, a reason strong enough for being punished like this. She finds none. “Oh no. No, no, no, no.”
Adora´s eyes are not blue anymore, neither silver, nor liquid gold. There are faint lines on her face that will scar by the touch of her own hands.
Her hair has fallen down, pooling down in gold and red around her knees, and where the silk strand used to be now only linger the smooth scaled surface of snakes, blue as midnight skies and golden as gods´ judging eyes, white as the marble this cursed has turned her brother into.
They slither among themselves and fall heavily over her nape and back, staring with sightless eyes at the people looking in horror around them. They sizzle and shrink against their own cold bodies, scared of their own existence as they are also a part of Adora and they are innocent as she is too.
Either a gift or a punishment as Adora will never be looked at without sacrifice.
Adora sobs and curls herself around the cold and lifeless statue of what once was her brother´s body, mourning him against his shoulder, keeping her head low and her eyes closed, fear overwhelming her.
Two guards approach her unexpectedly, seizing her by the arms and yanking her away from Adam's side with violent pull. And it is unfathomable to even think that these very same guards were once Adora´s friends and now they drag her away, slamming her against the floor so harsh her shoulder screams in pain.
She tries to, she really does, but the pain and the grief and the betrayal make her open her eyes just a slit, just enough to glance quickly at the guards hovering towards her with heavy hands before they still too, golden armors into gray stone, hairs of granite and faces of porous stone that crumble down almost as soon as they change into them.
Someone screams, followed by another and another, feet stomping on the ground as the court and the council rush their way own of the crowded chamber, yelling among each other, screaming and pointing fingers, not daring to look at her ever again even when, for years, they did nothing else but looking and never speaking.
Several guards are making their way inside the chamber, raising their swords and spears towards the curled up body of their once princess, who now covers her face with her hands and flinches when the edge of a sword brushes on her forearm.
“Don't look at her!” A voice raises in the crowd, commanding but not afraid.
Condescending even. Enjoying. A voice that knows that, one way or another, he has already won.
“Don't look! She is cursed! The gods have punished her.”
Adora grunts and crawls to her knees, searching among the level of the ground until she finds the familiar hems of her parents' tunics.
They are circling Adam´s stone and Adora won't dare to look up and search for their faces but she can hear her mother weeping against Adam´s marble shoulders.
“Mom? Dad? Please,” Adora calls for them, a young woman and now a monster but once the small child that played among her parents' legs as she chased for her brother. “Please”
“Go,” Randor says, low and very, very slow. A grunt, so gutural on his throat that it sounds like a growl, like a barely contained scream. “Go.”
“Dad-”
“I said go!” Randor turns around and Adora snaps her head to the ground, closing her eyes tightly. “Get out, Adora. Out!”
The guards aren't looking at her either, the chamber is still as the King´s shout echoes on the walls and so, Adora scrambles to her feet and does as she is told, as she did towards a cold temple seeking for help where she found none.
She raises, digs her nails on the columns and runs.
The walls are dark and quiet, the halls still and empty. There are shouts somewhere in the distance, yowls of orders and instructions of hunt that she can't quite place.
Smells are gathering around every corner or the palace, burnt logs of wood and metal in forges, swords pilled out of sheads that she can't see yet, all of these heroes that with time will gather around to hunt for her head already making a line on her fate.
Her feet are light over the slippery ground, carried across the paths by some kind of benevolent wind that brings her to the door of her chamber, where she trips and falls into, closing the door loudly behind her.
Adora tries to stand up again but this time her legs fail her and she stumbles painfully into the ground covered in tapestries, knocking fabrics and parchments to the ground.
She raises to her feet and falls again, weighed down by the mournful sound of sizzling following her everywhere. She crawls on her hands over the ground, ignoring the turmoil gathering below her open window or anywhere outside, just so she can reach the frame of the polished surface of the copper mirror that has fallen too with a loud crack.
She holds her breath and turns it around, staring at herself for a second too long before the scrambles back down, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Adora brings her hand to her head, wrapping her fingers over the body of the snakes and yanking her nails down them, pulling from their bodies with as much strength as she can, seeking to tear them out of her one way or another.
She can feel the strain of the self inflicted wounds over her own skin, flaring and painful, like a slash done over her own body even as she rejects this new part of herself with her entire being. She pulls and tears down and feels the way the snakes bite her on fingers in defense and fear but none of them come out.
She cannot think of what he has just seen, what she has just done to Adam, to her own brother who loved her. She doesn't want to understand why and she can't do anything else but to close her eyes and think of Adam´s marble expression and her own face against the mirror, scarred and changed and monstrous.
She has been stripped of herself without a chance to protest of defend herself. She doesn't know who is looking back through the surface.
A soft knock comes from the other side of the door, too hesitant and kind among the violence of what is happening.
“Adora,” It is Marlena, the voice of Adora´s mother making their way inside like tendrils.
She sounds quiet, hesitant even but soft, sweet as she speaks Adora´s name. Adora looks towards the door from between her fingers, cornering herself against the wall.
“Mom?”
“It's me, Adora, it's only me” Marlena tries to push the heavy door open but it won't give up that easily from her side, her voice mellow when she speaks to Adora again. “Let me in, sweetheart. Please”
Adora shakes her head even though she knows her mother cannot see her, balling her hands over her own chest. A snake brushes gently over her own cheekbone and she fights the urge to puke.
“I don't want to hurt you.”
There is a moment of silence there, a quiet second where Adora cannot hear anything else but the rush of fabric and a faint murmur that dies down as soon as it starts.
“Tie a rope over your face, sweetheart,” Marlena says again, her voice closer to the wood of the door. She sounds louder, the sweet tone melting on the edges of something harder.
“But mom-”
“Trust me, Adora,” Marlena cuts her, a sense of urgency washing over her. “It’s alright. You are my daughter.”
Adora flinches as Adam´s last words make their way too inside her mind, bending and mixing with her mother´s, the words of someone that loved her, of someone that was supposed to love her. And she believes her.
She trips as she searches for a loose piece of red fabric misplaced somewhere after she bursted inside the chamber, ripping it into pieces with eager hands.
She is trembling still, scared and confused out of her mind; she feels pain and sorrow and mourn and unbelievable loss but right now she needs her mother more than everything, so she ties the rope twice around her eyes until it hurts, until the already dark world becomes darker and she can't see past the merciful surface of the fabric.
Adora doesn't even know if this will help but Marlena is already pushing the door again, the click of something and the heavy weight of the wood against marble following the room when she steps inside.
“I´m coming in,” Marlena whispers, though her voice sounds still so far away Adora can almost feel the void that lives in it.
Adora waits for several seconds, kneeling in the middle of the room with her body and soul vulnerable and her eyes covered by fabrics, awaiting for her mother´s reassuring touch to cradle her in and help her where the gods have denied her mercy.
She waits and waits and she is so scared and distracted by the sizzling of the snakes suddenly snapping and swirling in her nape that she fails to listen to the silent rush of several steps inside the chamber, circling her until they are behind her.
She fails to feel the change of air until the acrid smell of sweat and heavy panting crashes against her nose and by then it is already too late.
A heavy weight falls over her head completely, enveloping her from the nape of her neck to her chin, covering a portion of the still young snakes on her head and her entire face with its cold surface.
It smells like metal, jarring and still hot and sizzling from where it had just been changed by forge fire from a theater mask to a prison. The iron mask devours her face whole and claps on the back of her head click and tighten into place so quickly that she barely has time to react to the several hands grabbing her by the shoulders and arms, shoving her down as she jolts and tries to struggle away from their touch, kicking at their hold with all her might.
“No. No. What is this? What is this?!”
Adora is screaming again but it sounds muffled, drowned out even for herself. Because the mask has been left without a mouth and the place where the eyes should see through has been covered by raw iron, imprisoning Adora inside her own curse without being able to say goodbye to the sunlight or take one last breath of clean air.
Her breathing speeds up, her heart beats so fast inside her chest it threatens to rip itself out of her chest.
She kicks and lashes, whispering when the hold of the people grabbing her digs sharply in her skin and she tries to snap their hands away only to be held down again with so much force her muscles protest in pain.
She struggles again and manages to set free one of her arms, running her trembling fingertips over the crude surface of the iron mask, feeling the depths and crevices of the metal against her skin, biting on whatever is left of her to be delicate.
She pinches at the melted metal and digs her nails into the iron straps that close over her ears and across the back of her head, pulling down without success. No matter how hard or violent or desperately she crawls and pulls the mask won't give away, it won't set her free.
She is no longer a princess, no longer the daughter of her parents or the sister of a now gone brother. She isn't even a person anymore.
Now she is just a creature the gods have turned their back to, no matter how devoted and loved she was once, they have abandoned her. And in return, her own people have abandoned her too.
“Take it off! Please! Please, take it off me! I swear I'm not going to hurt you, just take it off!”
Adora is openly sobbing now, choking with her own tears and the ichor still dribbling from the wounded snakes, salt and copper and iron smell making their way inside Adora's nose and mind and never leaving again.
“Mom, please. Please take it off!”
“I´m sorry, Adora. I´m so sorry,” It is her mother´s voice now, clear among the myriad of people that are speaking too, shouting orders to each other and breathing hard on Adora´s iron covered ears.
She sounds strained, like a heavy weight has been placed on her chest, yet she doesn´t sob or sound remorseful, standing somewhere in front of Adora´s kneeling body.
“You must understand, please, you must comply with this. The Gods are testing us, they are testing our resolution and our strength. Your brother, Adora, your father has not parted from your brother's side. Your brother is gone because of you.”
Adora flinches, pain washing over her worse than the iron mask and the snakes biting themselves over her skin. Marlena´s voice breaks down in the end and when she speaks next she doesn't even try to contain the venom inside of it.
“We´ve done so much for you, Adora, we have sacrificed so much for you already. This is the best we can do to protect our people.”
“No, that is not true!” Adora exclaims, fighting to stand up and failing completely by the hands holding her back and the mask asphyxiating her.
She drags her fingers over the neck of the mask, yanking it everywhere until she feels her own face raw and peeling underneath, scratched by poorly filled corners and sharp edges.
“This is not who we are, it's not who you are. You know this, mom. You know it wasn't my fault. Please, take it off!”
“Do not doubt, your Majesty,” there is a second voice now, right next to Adora´s mother. Sultry and sharp, Prim speaks every word with false sorrow dripping in satisfaction. “It is painful but sacrifices sometimes must be made to protect the rest of our people, of our nations.”
There is a ruffle of fabrics where Prime kneels down, grasping the iron cradled chin of the mask, yanking Adora´s head back painfully.
Somewhere inside Adora´s chest she feels about to be sacrificed too, like a goblet of wine or a horse or a legendary creature, about to be slashed down and beheaded to please a thousand gods or a single man.
“I am so, so sorry Adora, I truly am. You would have been adored under my sight but these are the gods wishes and we must obey them. Rest assured that I will look after what is left of your family and your city as they deserve.”
Adora´s eyes widen under the iron, shaking her head until she is dizzy. “No, no! Mom!”
“We´ll take you somewhere where you can never hurt anybody else. Then, if you still want to be free of what the gods have cursed you with, you can die by your own hand.”
Prime turns around, not sparing a single look more on Adora. The guards around her raise her up, struggling when she fights until she is exhausted to the bone and they drag her away, scraping her knees against the floor and catching the hem of her red tunic with the rocks scattered on the floor.
Adora calls and begs for her parents Mom. Dad. Please. Take it off. Please! but none of them answer, instead standing side by side around the kneeling figure of Adam´s statue, their own fate already falling over them cold and merciful, swirled by the Moiras fingers in green stained thread.
They never once dare to glance back.
This, this the last time her parents betray her. And then Adora becomes a monster.
𖥸
The cave is damp and cold where Adora´s feet step over the slippery stones of the floor, dodging freezing water drops that fall from the erratic ceiling and puddles in the ground.
Nothing beautiful grows here, nothing colorful and sweet and warm, but Adora has spent enough years inside this nature-given prison to learn her way across the sharp formations of stone.
She has earned her place among these cold walls after tripping and falling in her knees a thousand more times, climbing the high columns of a once underground temple that now are nothing else but crumbles, seeking for sunlight until she fell from the end of a cavern into what later would become a refugee.
There are many stones here, rising high or falling down into pieces to the ground, surrounding the entrance of the cavern as their own kind of warnings, keeping those who want to take a glimpse inside far away and Adora here, quiet and completely alone.
There is a corner of the cavern where nor water or light ever reaches, hidden and buried among stone and shredded pieces of red fabric, where the torn pieces of iron and long ago dried blood still remain, pried open by exhausted hands and nails and screams full of desperation.
That corner remains untouched, unvisited and silent.
Adora steps over a patch of blue moss, digging her fingers in the soft earth underneath with a small hum, the hem of her white tunic damp where she walked under the soft drizzle that slips inside.
The snakes that curl over her temples and forehead sizzle curiously over her skin and Adora tampers them down with the back of her palm, shushing them as she tucks them back inside the veil she wraps over her head.
She bends down and plucks out the broken end of an arrow that has found its way dug into the rock of the floor, sneaking under Adora´s sigh. She rubs her finger over the polished end, frowning at the colors wrapped over the thin wood, purple and pink and blue.
She doesn´t recognize this city but then again she has been here for over five years now, she doesn't even remember the last time someone raised a bow against her, except that she does, she remembers them all.
Who knows what cities have risen and fallen since she was thrown into this cave like Kronos to the Tartarus.
Adora carries the broken end with her for a few more steps and then tosses it aside against the walls, the gold tip falling carelessly among the other´s, swords and shields and broken bows gathered in dozens, their copper and gold and silver surfaces gone dusted and molded with the pass of the years, devoured by the rush of time against them.
Adora wraps her hand over the broken end of a column and pushes herself upwards, climbing easily into the soft patches that live there, barely even breaking a sweat.
There are no spaces for fire here, nor offerings or sacrificial pyres; she doesn't pray or ask for help anymore, doesn't cry. Adora is already a living sacrifice on itself anyway.
She is about to scrunch under the heavy fabrics hanging from the hole on the wall when she hears it, hears them. Shouts and exclamations, loud cheers and yelling getting closer and closer to the entrance of the cavern.
Adora stills, frozen in her place, waiting with her heart on her throat as she listens. She waits, begging that they are just an errand caravan walking by, lost on their path and that will be long gone in no time.
After all, the entrance is covered with thick trunks covered in sharp thorns, vines of rotten colors and sharp fallen rocks. Nobody would walk inside this place unless they know what they are looking for.
Adora´s heart hammers inside her ears as she listens to the voices closer and closer. She can't make out what they are saying but she can distinguish someone yelling, loud and harsh and extremely angry, words getting lost among the noise as whatever they are traveling in stops right in front of the cavern.
Adora sighs, very slow and heavy, resting her forehead over the cold surface of the pillars with an exhausted and mournful exhale.
The yelling picks up again, clear struggle happening outside of the cavern. She hears a heavy thud and then something that sounds pretty much like a kick on someone's private parts because someone very clearly groans in pain and falls into the ground, followed by someone else cursing them in a very ancient greek curse.
It would be kind of funny actually, if it wasn't for the fact that the turmoil on the entrance of the cavern gives way to stumbling steps inside and a heavy, painful fall against the ground.
Adora shrinks in her small corner, not risking a glance away. She knows she needs to move, this is the worst place she could have seen herself cornered into, but she remains here, hidden partially by the column and the natural formations of the cavern´s wall.
The person inside the cavern groans, giving clear depth breaths for a few seconds before quieting completely again. Inside this silence, Adora can hear the frantic beating of their heart, rushing blood and quiet breath as the person stands up from wherever they have fallen into and then takes a step forward.
Adara waits for the chase, for the rush of adrenaline down the person's body as their mind catches on their body and they sprint forward, chasing the shadows as they search for Adora, for the monster that lives here.
Adora has seen many heroes waltz among this walls, alone and in groups and legions, all of them bringing new smart ways to try to evade her stone gaze, all of them trying to corner her and kill her and take with them her head as a trophy because, after all, who doesn't want to take the glory of bringing dead to Eternia´s most feared monster?
Adora has seen it all, has begged them to stop enough times; she has had to fight her way out. The scars in her body and the statues clustering the cavern are testimony enough of that.
The person is still walking inside the cavern, careful steps that seem almost hesitant and, not for the first time, Adora hears them stumble and almost fall, their heartbeat rising with each step.
The cave is dark but not nearly enough to be impossible to navigate into, and at least for the first meters between the entrance and where Adora is perched over, the path is mostly straight forward. But then again, maybe this is just another strategy to catch Adora off guard. Adora has always been an excellent strategist herself.
She slides off the column elegantly, standing behind the crumbled and thick backs of two of them that have long ago fallen into each other, leaving a perfect triangle for Adora to look through if she wanted.
Adora´s sight remains away though, staring at the pink quartz in the ceiling, Adora´s only source of color for many nights, when she laid here in the grounds with her face wounded and her hands raw, waiting for the Gods to take mercy or disgust on her and let her go.
The steps are closer now, just as hesitant as before but never slow, and Adora holds her breath, waiting for the challenge, the rail up or the insult, or even the sweet words trying to hypnotize her out of her spot and into the end of a sword.
Instead, she starts getting yelled at. Quite angrily, too.
"We'll then! Go on!" the person exclaims, loud and almost offended and Adora´s heart seizes in her chest, all of her thoughts jolting to a stop. "Get over with this already!"
Adora gulps around the knot on her throat, closing her eyes tightly before daring to open them again, turning away on her spot just so she can glance through the columns to the person now standing in the middle of the cavern.
Adora strains her eyes, looking through the thick shadows and then gasps, very low in her throat, a new kind of fear falling over her like it has never done before.
Because there, standing precariously in the loose stones of the cavern, is not a hero cradled in gold or a general seeking glory or a poor idiot looking for self satisfaction.
Instead, with her hands on her hips and her ears twitching nervously, there is a woman.
There have been many kinds of people walking inside this place and never leaving again. Men, women, both, neither and new, it doesn't matter it never did all of them were searching for the same thing.
But this person is different, completely different to all of them, clear to anyone that is seeing, mortal or god perched on their golden thrones.
She is not wearing gold or copper, she is not carrying swords or arrows, she is not cheering or alluring her. Instead, she is soft.
There is a certain kind of sharpness on her, a pride in the way she throws her shoulders back and her head tilts towards the ceiling when water drops fall over her cheeks, but everything else is soft for Adora to see, hidden on this secret spot between the columns like a longing lover gazing to a forbidden love.
She must be around Adora's age, elegant as a panther or a forest nymph standing in the middle of Adora's prison. She is wearing the color of grapes on her tunic, of a red so deep it almost looks purple, held in place by straps and belts of leather around her waist. They mirror the wraps on her wrists and her feet, dark colored and well worn after days or years of use.
She is a magicat, this much Adora can say, her dark tail and ears flickering nervously as she takes in the sounds around her; elegant hands with sharp dark nails that prick tiny holes on the fabric of her tunic.
Adora can´t make out her face among the shadows, but she can see her thick hair falling in heavy loops towards her hips and at either side of her temples, slightly in disarray after some kind of struggle Adora could only begin to understand.
She is prideful and tender at the same time, and Adora´s heart sizes painfully inside her heart suddenly, tethering her into something dangerous.
“I know you are here, just-” the woman calls again, strained between clenched teeth.
Her voice is full of some kind of soft pridefulness too, slightly high from where either exasperation or anxiety are eating their way on her chest, with a tender squeakiness in the edges that makes Adora immediately fond of it.
There is a kind of familiarity that lives inside this voice, in those shoulders and dark loops of hair. A familiar sense that overwhelms Adora from one second to the other and, for a moment, she thinks that maybe, maybe , a voice that for many years has only breathed inside Adora's dreams has taken an exhale into the real world.
A voice Adora adored and searched for before everything came crashing down around her. The fragment of a dream chasing her, looking for her, founding Adora even among the pits of Hell. Maybe.
But not even the Gods could be that cruel, could they?
The young woman stomps in the ground angrily as she runs her claws over the strands of her hair, letting Adora see the glimpse of a button nose scattered in freckles, pink blush dusted over the soft brown skin of her cheek.
A sight too close to her face, somehow too private and intimate; like looking at the naked ankle below the hem of her dress or the soft swell of her breast under the wrinkled fabric of her tunic, raising and falling with every warm breath.
Adora snaps her eyes away sharply, both scared by the danger of being caught lingering her lethal gaze over her, and embarrassed by the way the skin of her monstrous face tingles with sudden warmth.
“This is what I'm here for, isn't it? To die,” the woman's voice breaks and splinters in the middle, fear betraying her. It makes Adora´s own heart to mourn in phantom pain.
Adora has never wanted this, not ever. She just once has wanted to use this curse that has been placed over her against someone else, just one time, one opportunity that escaped her by being too trustful and too naive. Too young still.
But she has never wanted to hurt anybody else, not the warrior with their lion shield, nor the soldier with their sword. And especially not her, not this person carefully stepping down the rocks.
“Well, though luck you asshole, because I am not going to go down without a fight!” The woman exclaims again and this time, it does bring a small breathless laugh out of Adora, nervous and slightly historical, catching the woman´s sharp attention. Her tail bristles with the sound, head tilting slightly towards the side as if she couldn't place where the sound was coming from. “So?!”
"Please leave," Adora says, resting the back of her head against the column, looking up again with eyes misted in sudden tears, gathering in the corners.
She misses the way the woman jumps in surprise by the sudden echo of her voice, her head framed in curls snapping towards the columns.
There is a moment of silence where the only sound inside the cavern is the breathing of the woman and the quiet sizzling of the snakes curling below Adora's veil, curious as they try to peak out of the fabric and take a quick sniff at the newcomer tiptoeing on the the floor.
For a moment Adora hopes she has frightened her, as much as the thought stabs into her own heart she hopes this person's bravery is not as strong as it seems.
Sadly and exhilarating all on its own, Adora is wrong.
"Who are you?" The woman asks again, her voice lower, much calmer, weighing her words as well as she weighs her steps.
She doesn't sound scared anymore, not as much, with anxiety still lingering in the edges but something firmer falling into her tone.
"Leave" Adora repeats, louder this time, pressing herself tighter against the column. "Please,” and it comes as a plea, "I don't want to hurt you"
The cave goes quiet again, the water falling from the ceiling loud among the stillness. It is so silent so suddenly that for a moment Adora thinks the young woman has actually left, with her careful steps and her wild dark hair and for that very same second Adora mourns her like a broken heart crawling through the ground.
It doesn't last long. A small bunch of rocks scatter suddenly across the floor of the cave as a pair of elegant feet trip with the crumbled pieces of a tall stone, making the young woman fall harshly against the ground.
"Ouch" the woman groans, catching herself on her hands and knees to try and cushion the fall.
Adora flinches at the sound, already knowing she has scratched her palms with the sharp splinters on errand rocks. She risks another glance, the end of an errand vine tickling on her forehead when she catches sight of her.
"Fuck,” the woman complains, feeling the edges of the stone she had just tripped into with her fingertips. "What the– what are these rocks?"
Adora looks at her running her palm over the long surface of the rocks, holding her breath when the woman starts to make sense of the smooth curve of an arm dressed in armor, followed by the forever frozen palm of a hand and the long ago broken length of uneven and incomplete fingers.
She looks at her snatching her own hand away and towards her chest, heartbeat speeding up inside her chest.
“Oh. Oh gods”
Adora shrinks in shame, hiding her face against her own shoulder.
“You can leave” Adora insists, screwing her eyes shut. “I'm not going to hurt you, I promise.”
The woman hums as she considers Adora's words, still lingering around the fallen stones. She stands up from among the debris, shaking dust off her tunic.
She brushes the stone for support when she circles it, coming to sit on the smooth surface of one of them. She chuckles lightly, a sound like bells around the entire cavern that makes something long ago buried inside Adora by Adora's own hands to stir awake again.
“Well, thanks. That sounds great and all but the thing is that I can't,” even with everything happening right now and the edge etched on her voice, she still sounds way too calm, letting her face fall between her palms. “If I go, I have nowhere else to go. My village will definitely not want me back.”
“Why?”
Adora finds herself asking, pulled forward to this person by something she can't even begin to understand. The strands of a long ago dream drowned by the tragedy of pain making their way back around her heart again, something that had never died inside Adora to begin with.
“They have been suffering through tons of disasters for months now. And, for some reason, the wife of the governor convinced all of those idiots that it's my fault because the gods resent me or something. So they had the brilliant idea to, well, ditch me here with you as an offering to regain the gods' favor.”
Adora's blood runs cold, even the snakes curling and peacefully napping against her shoulders startling awake by the sudden fury running on her body.
She knows everything that there is to be about being sacrificed in order to please the gods, prideful and bloodthirsty. She has been forced to do horrible things in order to survive. And now, even after everything, she is yet again being used as some kind of godly punishment for someone innocent.
Rage pools in Adora's throat and spills out, a word like a sizzling snake breaking through her lips into a growl.
“Why would she ever do that?”
“Because she is a massive bitch, probably,” the woman answers easily, venom that mirror's Adora's own falling off her tongue, like she couldn't contain the words either.
Adora breaks into a breathless laughter and, after a few seconds, the woman giggles too, wet and drenched in unspoken sadness.
“I mean, all things considered it could have been worse, no offense,” the woman says with a shrug. Her back is slightly turned to Adora and there is a wild curl bouncing over the freckled skin of her shoulder. “They could have opened my throat over the pyres.”
It doesn't really help to calm down the burning fire in Adora's veins. She sinks her nails into her palms, feeling the way the sharp ends cut lines on the skin there pooling and falling down her fingers.
Even the snakes start snapping blindly at the marble column, shaken awake and angry at the sudden want to dig their fangs into something.
Adora doesn't notice how silent she has gone, lost inside her own thoughts, until the woman speaks up again, confused and slightly hesitant.
“Are you- are you still there?”
“You can go anywhere” Adora snaps, biting on her own tongue until she tastes copper and salt. Her words trip with each other with how fast she pronounces them, charged with all of the passion and fire she thought she had lost years ago. “You can go anywhere you want, you don't have to go back there. You don't have to stay here, it is not fair. And I won't be another one of them, stripping you of your right to choose or to be free. You can go.”
The woman's breathing is heavy suddenly, her feet falling over the ground with a soft thud when she stands up again.
“Who are you?” she asks again, this time firmer. Her voice is calm but there is an edge in it that wasn't there before, inquiring as Adora's breathing speeds up too.
“I'm nobody important.” Adora mutters, loud inside the silence of the cave.
The words must displease the woman deeply because she clicks her tongue, giving another step forward over the stones, this time in Adora's direction.
“I’m starting to find that hard to believe”
“Why?”
“You're kind.” The woman hesitates for a second on her walk, feeling the surface of the ground with her sole to avoid falling again. “Kind of dumb too”
Adora would have snorted on offense if fear weren't suddenly eating its way inside her bones.
“You don't even know me”
“I know you haven't hurt me.”
The woman sounds closer now but she stops suddenly, weighing her thoughts. Adora can't see her anymore, closing her eyes until sparks of light shimmer behind her closed eyelids.
“You don't know me either, how do you know I'm not trying to manipulate so you let your guard down?”
“Are you?”
“No.” And the woman's voice is soft then, the brush of her hair against her back the only tell that she has given another step forward. “I know what everyone says about you, about the… mystery of the creature living here. I know the tales about heroes coming in and never living.”
Another step, this time much closer. The snakes hiss in warning against Adora's ears and her head pounds with pain.
“Yet you are still hiding on that corner as if you were afraid of me.” She is right next to the column now, her hand hovering over the marble surface without reaching completely yet. “So who are you?”
There is a patch of light falling where Adora is, coming from the only place of the cave where Adora has found refuge. As the sun moves in the sky outside of the cavern it washes over both of them, golden among the dark blues and blacks of the cave’s walls.
Adora covers her face with her palms and curls over herself against the column, pulling absently of the thin veil in her head to try and keep the snakes, now completely aware and deadly curious, in place.
“Don't step closer,” she grunts, but instead of a growl it comes as a plea, broken in the edges by fear.
The snakes hiss dangerously loud now, feeling Adora's own anxiety, and Adora hopes that might be enough for the woman to stumble back and give up on her approach.
Except that it doesn't.
“Why not?” and she almost sounds haughty, railing up some deep part inside Adora.
Adora feels the woman's palms now, warm against the cold skin of Adora's wrists, softly trying to pull down from where Adora is covering her face.
The touch sends thunderbolts over Adora's skin and she knows the woman can feel them too because she gasps, her sweet breath brushing against Adora's cheekbone where her own fingers don't reach to hide.
She is too close, too dangerously close to the danger of dying, forever casted on the most precious marble, just another soulless statue torturing Adora.
“You are trembling,” the woman whisper's under her breath, seemingly much more concerned by Adora's own fear than by the danger of her mere existence so close to her body.
The woman is not trembling when she touches Adora; instead her long and elegant fingers are rubbing circles on the inside of Adora's wrists, gentle and reassuring. And Adora feels like she was here before, with someone gentle trying to comfort her, even when Adora is supposed to be the monster.
“Why are you covering your face?”
“I can't control it, I can't stop it, no matter how much I try to.” Adora tries to yank herself away from her touch but it falls quiet and without strength.
Instead, Adora lets the woman pull from her hands until they are hanging at either side of her body, defeated by a single tender touch. Adora's eyes are still vehemently closed though, pressing together so hard her head spins, lighthearted. The woman smells like sandalwood and lavender.
“You can't stay, you need to leave. Please, please.”
Adora can feel the way the woman stretches her hand, her fingertips brushing gently over Adora's closed eyelids, calloused skin caressing the fragile skin and fluttering eyelashes gently.
"Ah. I understand,” the woman whisper's under her breath, almost as if she was speaking to herself.
She exhales, running her fingers from Adora's eyelids to her temples and back.
“Open your eyes,” she coos her, voice falling into a silent plea, like a siren that has found her way inside Adora's hell either as a final punishment or an ultimate salvation.
Adora inhales sharply and shakes her head softly inside the woman's hold, still trying to step away but incapable to test herself away from her.
“You don't understand.”
“I do. Open your eyes.”
“You'll die.” Are monsters supposed to beg? To plead inside the hold of a warm woman?
How many others have wandered through these very same stones? How many others have come dragging swords and arrows, looking through the polished surfaces of shields to seek her head?
Why her now, then? Why her, with her hair that bounces against Adora's forearms, with her witty words and gentle steps?
Why has Adora, who has been abandoned by the gods and cursed to die, suddenly been given this?
Should she suddenly relish in the whisper of dreams long ago buried in order to protect them? Should she give voice to the thoughts rising inside her head that maybe, even after everything, the miracle that Adora's mother once spoke about has found her?
Beatriz to Dante. Orpheus to Eurydice. To feel like she knows her, in mortal ways, in prophetic ways, in celestial ways, in promised ways?
What if she doesn't? What if it was all really just a dream? Another godly promise broken?
What if she does? What will Adora's heart do then?
Is Adora supposed to want this? The temptation to let her sight roam and glance at this woman's mysterious face, even for just a second? To have appetite?
To want to rest her hands on this woman's waist and the curve of her shoulders. even though she has just felt her warmth close for the first time?
Is Adora supposed to open her eyes?
“Trust me. It's alright.”
It's alright, Adora. Adora can hear the words echoing inside her mind, this woman's, who smells like a forest, and her brother's and maybe even the echo of other voices, reassuring her to move forward. It's alright.
“Look at me”
Adora holds her breath and then exhales, shivering air that ruffles the loops on the woman's temples. Adora digs her nails against the column and prays to the golden and turquoise snakes to remain hidden and then she opens her eyes, face to face to this apparition in front of her.
She has the moon nestled in her eyes.
This is the first thing Adora sees. They are two full moons, shimmering under the merciful sunlight that falls over both of them, huge and beautiful as starried owl eyes.
Once, they were ringed by color, beautiful turquoise and amber, but now the precious silver has overtaken them completely, twin mirrors that focus on Adora without actually looking at her at all.
And she is stunning, absolutely completely beautiful.
Her eyes are candles in her face, fallen stars nestled at the sides of her button nose. Her skin is soft and rich dark, scattered in freckles like kisses over her sharp cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, down her temples framed in thick loops of dark hair.
Her face is tilted to the side, considering Adora's silence with a tiny smile etched on the corner of her red lips, the ever so slightly tip of a fang catching cheekily on the bottom lip and Adora's want nothing else but to run her thumb over the frail skin.
Something has gone numb inside Adora's head. Whatever voice that screams at her that this is wrong, that this is dangerous, that this beautiful woman in front of her will slowly turn into stone in her hands, has gone quiet, drowned by the fast beating of her heart inside her chest.
Adora raises her hand, hovering her trembling fingers above the woman's face before daring to move at all. The tip of Adora's fingers brush the curve of her cheekbone, a phantom feeling blooming inside her chest at the touch, caressing the skin under the woman's eyes that raises in goosebumps immediately at the touch, followed by a faint blush.
This is the first time someone turns her eyes at Adora's monstrous gaze and keeps breathing.
This is the first time Adora sees her face, surrounded by a halo of light.
This is the first time she meets her outside her dreams.
This is the first time Adora falls in love.
“Oh” Adora gasps, wet as tears start to drip down her cheeks, staining the beautiful blind woman's hands in ebony. “You can't…” a breath “Can you see me?”
“No,” she answers, full of knowing mirth, and the corner of her lips twitches in a sorrowful smile. “Can you?”
“Yes.” Adora sinks to her knees, tears falling unstoppable down her stone cold cheeks, unable to ever tear her gaze away from her ever again.
There she is, there you are, bright as a sun among Adora’s curse.
“You are so beautiful”
This is and will be the only devotion of your heart. It will be your greatest joy and your most tender sorrow, and in the end, you will need to let her go
𖥸
Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.
– Tamsyn Muir , Gideon the Ninth