Shattered
The damp, cold walls of my dungeon bother me little. The rats are entertainment. With my heightened senses I seek them out, toy with them, and then end their pathetic little lives. One currently dangles in the air in front of me, several feet above the ground. His cold, beady eyes glare at me with all the hatred his small body could muster. I chuckle. “All of the world, big or small, is powerless against me,” I tell him as he thrashes, “and yes, that also includes you. However, the king does not know this, and believes he has power over me. HA! You see, he blames me for the death of his precious father. His father was blind! Blind to the danger all around him. He made powerful enemies, and they killed him in the end, not me. But does the new king understand this? No. Fools, all of them.” I toss the rat towards the ceiling, then snatch him out of the air just before he crashes to the ground. Releasing him from my invisible grip, he scuttles away into some unseen hole in the wall. “You’ll be back,” I announce to his retreating tail. “You always come back.”
Alone now, I lean back against the cold wall and stare at the ceiling. I can easily pick out each stone’s shape, size, and features, even in the dark and from this distance. I let my eyes return to normal and the detail fades. I expand the rest of my senses and see every piece of my dungeon, including the castle walls beyond. Silhouettes of maids pass through my mind as they wander the halls of the castle, cleaning and serving. What simple lives everyone leads. The dear king hasn’t told them there’s a mage “trapped” under them. They might panic. Wouldn’t want that. This thought sets me into fits of cackles that crack my sides. I grip them to hold myself together. Now would not be the time to shatter, as I sense footsteps. Armored footsteps. Oh, poor naïve king. As if plates of steel will protect you from me.
The trap door in the ceiling above me swings open, and a cacophony of sounds, feelings, sights, and thoughts come charging through the opening. I slam my eyes closed and shrink the rest of my senses. The tidal wave retreats, if only to wait in the wings. Exile saves me, gives me gorgeous silence. The rest of the world has too much to say and not enough time to say it. The wave is always waiting.
The king lowers himself into my dungeon, like a mouse into the mouth of a lion. Such innocence and trust. Horrible. Ignorant. But he does it anyway, every day, demanding answers I don’t have through methods that do no more than make me laugh. I look up at him now, my unnatural lavender eyes meeting his ever so boring brown ones. A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. His visits sure are interesting, I’ll give him that. But what he wants from me is impossible to hand over. I didn’t kill his father, but that’s what he believes. That’s what he wants to hear. Because I was there, and because he knows of the abilities that make me red in his world of gray, he blames me fully and completely. Not that I mind imprisonment—it’s almost soothing—but I am nothing if not honest, and I am many things. Besides, confessing would get me killed. And that is something I do not have time for. The whole immortal part of my gifts would throw a loop in his plans for hanging. Literally.
I almost start cackling again, but manage to scold my lips into silence. Although he already hates me, it’s best to make it appear as though my mind is not scattered in several places around my darkness, held together with threads of sanity worn thin from use. Best to let him think me whole, and a murderer, than tell him the truth. That would break him, and as much as I like to break people, one more could break me too. And then we’d both be in pieces on the floor.
He’s reached my level by this point, his heavy steel armor having quickened his descent. He rattles infuriatingly as he marches across the floor to where I sit, my lips forced shut. I cover myself in my own armor—pain walls, as I lovingly named them. They surround each part of my body, including all the pieces of my mind, and guard them from feeling anything. I cannot be tortured. I am empty. Soulless. Cold.
The king is unaware of this, however, so he grabs a piece of my ivory hair and gives it a hard pull. I jerk my neck sideways convincingly, and allow my eyes to cloud with false pain. Good effort. He grins, as though satisfied, then grabs my wrist and flings me across the room, where I crumple to the floor. Nice try. He kicks me in the stomach, once, hard. “Murderer,” he hisses. Fool.
“How does it feel?” he demands, all full of power, face veritably glowing with satisfaction. I want to laugh. Crave it. The expulsion of my energy, the release of my darkness. But I receive a mental scolding. Laugh now, and you lose his false sense of triumph. Laugh now, and it all crumbles. So I let the king win, so to speak. I take the tosses, the hair tugs, the taunts, until he thinks I’ve had enough. I’m empty. My pain floats off somewhere outside my body, being ignored. I’ve felt nothing. But he is proud, and I am not about to correct him.
“I have you now,” he declares, as though awards will be presented to him this very moment for standing over my unaffected form. I scream internally—the desire to laugh nearly splinters my pain walls. I beat the desire to a pulp, and it submits. I am calm again, a husk.
“You killed my father,” the king states, kicking me again, “and I want to know why.” I remain silent—I have nothing to say to him that he wants to hear. This time, however, silence does not save me. It makes it worse. So, so much worse. For him. Not for me.
“Speak, killer! Speak, weakling! Speak, you ruthless freak!” Well now. That is where I draw the line. Call me a killer, a weakling, a murderer. Call me violent, ruthless, evil, for all I care. But I. Am. Not. A. Freak. My pain walls fall. The laughter bubbles up, hysterical, giddy, disturbing. Ah, sweet freedom. Save me. End him.
I rise off the floor, no longer a crumpled, weak heap. The stone walls around us shudder. My laughter continues, seemingly echoes off the walls. I glare at the king, grip him with my invisible fingers, and have him flattened against the wall in no time flat. “A freak, am I? Well, I didn’t kill your father! How many times must I iterate it before it gets through that empty, waste of gray matter in your skull?” My senses have increased—I can hear the breathing of every living thing around us, I can see the pulse of fear in the king’s neck, and I can feel it through his heavy armor. He’s not safe. He understands this now. Too little, too late, my poor king. He manages to find his voice, though, somehow calling it from beneath his layers of shock.
“You were there, though! You and your freakish abilities! I saw you! And now I have you locked away, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” His eyes are wide, and his pulse beats faster.
I sigh, all my anger and laughter expelled. I seek out the shards of my brain and string them together again before I speak. “You poor, poor, ignorant thing,” I say, my voice like the ocean after a typhoon. I release him, and he falls in a heap to the floor with a series of clangs that jostle my sanity. I clamp my teeth together to hold it in place before continuing. “I could have left anytime I wanted.” To demonstrate, I seek out the weak stones in the wall of my dungeon with my mind and let my invisible fingers slide them out. The entire wall crumbles to dust, letting horrid light take a sword to my beautiful darkness. I give the king a pointed look, and he cannot meet my gaze.
“No one traps me anywhere, you see. I come and go as I please, do what I please, then watch the consequences from a safe distance. Usually. But this time, I stayed. I don’t quite know why. Maybe after 300 years of wandering I wanted to stay in one place for a while.” I begin to laugh again, but the cackles no longer threaten to shatter me. Those had passed and done their damage. I wave a hand and grab at my scattered thoughts. “My dear king, I was indeed there when your father died, but I did not kill him. I had no motive to. I had been in the kingdom for a whole of three days, and while I am greatly honored stories about my prowess travel this quickly, I did not come here with the intention of killing your father, much as I have enjoyed the darkness and the solitude. I did, however, read him closely before he died, and he was mixed up in some seriously insane business. More insane than me.”
Laughter once more, clawing its way up my throat. I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell him and I’m going to regret it but he deserves to know. “Insane business the queen was none too happy about. You may want to have a little… chat… with your mother regarding the circumstances of your father’s death.” I wait, and the anger so deeply directed at me shifts completely. He sees me now as an… ally. Oh no. Nononononono. I so don’t do allies. The very idea of someone helping me and being there for me sends the shards of my mind spinning in hundreds of directions and I feel my threads of sanity stretch taut. No allies. Not after he went horribly wrong. I need to get out of the sun, and the light and truth it brings with it, before I spill all my secrets. The shadows and darkness are my friends. They shield me from the blinding sun. Although I told the king the truth, my lies to myself are ones I do not want to face. Ever. So, I seek out my friends, running far away, and leave the poor king to deal with his newfound truth alone, whatever consequences it may bring. I know what it brought to me, and I honestly hope he fares better.
Alone now, I lean back against the cold wall and stare at the ceiling. I can easily pick out each stone’s shape, size, and features, even in the dark and from this distance. I let my eyes return to normal and the detail fades. I expand the rest of my senses and see every piece of my dungeon, including the castle walls beyond. Silhouettes of maids pass through my mind as they wander the halls of the castle, cleaning and serving. What simple lives everyone leads. The dear king hasn’t told them there’s a mage “trapped” under them. They might panic. Wouldn’t want that. This thought sets me into fits of cackles that crack my sides. I grip them to hold myself together. Now would not be the time to shatter, as I sense footsteps. Armored footsteps. Oh, poor naïve king. As if plates of steel will protect you from me.
The trap door in the ceiling above me swings open, and a cacophony of sounds, feelings, sights, and thoughts come charging through the opening. I slam my eyes closed and shrink the rest of my senses. The tidal wave retreats, if only to wait in the wings. Exile saves me, gives me gorgeous silence. The rest of the world has too much to say and not enough time to say it. The wave is always waiting.
The king lowers himself into my dungeon, like a mouse into the mouth of a lion. Such innocence and trust. Horrible. Ignorant. But he does it anyway, every day, demanding answers I don’t have through methods that do no more than make me laugh. I look up at him now, my unnatural lavender eyes meeting his ever so boring brown ones. A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. His visits sure are interesting, I’ll give him that. But what he wants from me is impossible to hand over. I didn’t kill his father, but that’s what he believes. That’s what he wants to hear. Because I was there, and because he knows of the abilities that make me red in his world of gray, he blames me fully and completely. Not that I mind imprisonment—it’s almost soothing—but I am nothing if not honest, and I am many things. Besides, confessing would get me killed. And that is something I do not have time for. The whole immortal part of my gifts would throw a loop in his plans for hanging. Literally.
I almost start cackling again, but manage to scold my lips into silence. Although he already hates me, it’s best to make it appear as though my mind is not scattered in several places around my darkness, held together with threads of sanity worn thin from use. Best to let him think me whole, and a murderer, than tell him the truth. That would break him, and as much as I like to break people, one more could break me too. And then we’d both be in pieces on the floor.
He’s reached my level by this point, his heavy steel armor having quickened his descent. He rattles infuriatingly as he marches across the floor to where I sit, my lips forced shut. I cover myself in my own armor—pain walls, as I lovingly named them. They surround each part of my body, including all the pieces of my mind, and guard them from feeling anything. I cannot be tortured. I am empty. Soulless. Cold.
The king is unaware of this, however, so he grabs a piece of my ivory hair and gives it a hard pull. I jerk my neck sideways convincingly, and allow my eyes to cloud with false pain. Good effort. He grins, as though satisfied, then grabs my wrist and flings me across the room, where I crumple to the floor. Nice try. He kicks me in the stomach, once, hard. “Murderer,” he hisses. Fool.
“How does it feel?” he demands, all full of power, face veritably glowing with satisfaction. I want to laugh. Crave it. The expulsion of my energy, the release of my darkness. But I receive a mental scolding. Laugh now, and you lose his false sense of triumph. Laugh now, and it all crumbles. So I let the king win, so to speak. I take the tosses, the hair tugs, the taunts, until he thinks I’ve had enough. I’m empty. My pain floats off somewhere outside my body, being ignored. I’ve felt nothing. But he is proud, and I am not about to correct him.
“I have you now,” he declares, as though awards will be presented to him this very moment for standing over my unaffected form. I scream internally—the desire to laugh nearly splinters my pain walls. I beat the desire to a pulp, and it submits. I am calm again, a husk.
“You killed my father,” the king states, kicking me again, “and I want to know why.” I remain silent—I have nothing to say to him that he wants to hear. This time, however, silence does not save me. It makes it worse. So, so much worse. For him. Not for me.
“Speak, killer! Speak, weakling! Speak, you ruthless freak!” Well now. That is where I draw the line. Call me a killer, a weakling, a murderer. Call me violent, ruthless, evil, for all I care. But I. Am. Not. A. Freak. My pain walls fall. The laughter bubbles up, hysterical, giddy, disturbing. Ah, sweet freedom. Save me. End him.
I rise off the floor, no longer a crumpled, weak heap. The stone walls around us shudder. My laughter continues, seemingly echoes off the walls. I glare at the king, grip him with my invisible fingers, and have him flattened against the wall in no time flat. “A freak, am I? Well, I didn’t kill your father! How many times must I iterate it before it gets through that empty, waste of gray matter in your skull?” My senses have increased—I can hear the breathing of every living thing around us, I can see the pulse of fear in the king’s neck, and I can feel it through his heavy armor. He’s not safe. He understands this now. Too little, too late, my poor king. He manages to find his voice, though, somehow calling it from beneath his layers of shock.
“You were there, though! You and your freakish abilities! I saw you! And now I have you locked away, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” His eyes are wide, and his pulse beats faster.
I sigh, all my anger and laughter expelled. I seek out the shards of my brain and string them together again before I speak. “You poor, poor, ignorant thing,” I say, my voice like the ocean after a typhoon. I release him, and he falls in a heap to the floor with a series of clangs that jostle my sanity. I clamp my teeth together to hold it in place before continuing. “I could have left anytime I wanted.” To demonstrate, I seek out the weak stones in the wall of my dungeon with my mind and let my invisible fingers slide them out. The entire wall crumbles to dust, letting horrid light take a sword to my beautiful darkness. I give the king a pointed look, and he cannot meet my gaze.
“No one traps me anywhere, you see. I come and go as I please, do what I please, then watch the consequences from a safe distance. Usually. But this time, I stayed. I don’t quite know why. Maybe after 300 years of wandering I wanted to stay in one place for a while.” I begin to laugh again, but the cackles no longer threaten to shatter me. Those had passed and done their damage. I wave a hand and grab at my scattered thoughts. “My dear king, I was indeed there when your father died, but I did not kill him. I had no motive to. I had been in the kingdom for a whole of three days, and while I am greatly honored stories about my prowess travel this quickly, I did not come here with the intention of killing your father, much as I have enjoyed the darkness and the solitude. I did, however, read him closely before he died, and he was mixed up in some seriously insane business. More insane than me.”
Laughter once more, clawing its way up my throat. I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell him and I’m going to regret it but he deserves to know. “Insane business the queen was none too happy about. You may want to have a little… chat… with your mother regarding the circumstances of your father’s death.” I wait, and the anger so deeply directed at me shifts completely. He sees me now as an… ally. Oh no. Nononononono. I so don’t do allies. The very idea of someone helping me and being there for me sends the shards of my mind spinning in hundreds of directions and I feel my threads of sanity stretch taut. No allies. Not after he went horribly wrong. I need to get out of the sun, and the light and truth it brings with it, before I spill all my secrets. The shadows and darkness are my friends. They shield me from the blinding sun. Although I told the king the truth, my lies to myself are ones I do not want to face. Ever. So, I seek out my friends, running far away, and leave the poor king to deal with his newfound truth alone, whatever consequences it may bring. I know what it brought to me, and I honestly hope he fares better.