Pleasures Poison (closed)

[Erlind]

The story was strangely endearing. It was easy to believe she might really unleash wolverines on the child, but oddly she was doing it to teach him. Maybe having someone who wasn’t afraid meant more to her than he realized.

Ruel obeyed when she requested her specific stance of him. His eyebrow had arched when she’d used the word “please”. It seemed something she did not often use and the traveler liked to think he understood what it meant that she used it with him. He was not hurt when he realized she’d been searching for weapons, but rather it piqued his curiosity. Ruel had experienced some of the mysterious power this woman held, but what had he not felt that Clarice felt she needed to search him weapons?

“I wouldn’t have hurt you.” The words sounded genuine, but not knowing what was coming next he couldn’t truly make that promise. Still … nothing could force him to turn back.

At first he’d noticed people scurrying past them or through adjacent halls, trying to satisfy their mistress, but now the halls were empty. Clarice was about to open a door in front of them and Ruel touched her back.

“Show me your world Clarice.” He knew with all she had shown him he hadn't truly seen it yet.

 

[Nina327]

“I wouldn’t have hurt you.” He sounded soft, genuine though she didnt believe it. People hurt other people, intentionally or not.

She stepped through, into her chambers. She didn't stop but continued through the parlor, past all the books and furniture and fireplace. Out into her private garden. She didn't know why but she just liked to walk. And his hand on her back felt wonderful.

“My world...? It is here. It is the same as your's. Only smaller and larger. I have the entire world if I wished it. But I do not. I have the safety of this Kingdom and its people. They are my priority and I am theirs, however displeasing.”

“I am something they are proud to tolerate, something greedily coveted but would not have chosen for themselves. They are something that gives me meaning and keeps me... busy?” Trailing off for a moment she thought more before continuing, “I am not queen but my word is law. I am not princess but I am pampered. They are protected and governed by the king with my shadow.”

“When I was more arrogant I thought them chattel. I did not understand them. They did not understand me.”

“Now I see them as ducks.” she giggled picturing people waddling through the halls. “Yes, more like ducks without the honk and waddle. They are free but seek to stay in this dangerously safe harbor among other men of the same ilk. I am not the farmer though. That is the king. I am the befriended wolf. All know that I would no sooner eat the flock and move on than stay without purpose. So they relinquish a purpose for me.”

She stopped among the roses and looked up into his eyes, genuinely curious. “What is your purpose?”

 

[Erlind]

Books. He’d never seen so many books. Ruel had spent a lot of his life traveling, so he’d never learned to read well, but he knew what was in those books. The stories were of a hundred ages, truths about the cycles of the moon and how to make roast pig taste its best. These books held the lives of heroes, villains and something in between. The young man wanted to ask about them, but Clarice had already moved past them in thought and place.

“Ducks? I’ve never thought as myself as a duck, really,” Ruel mused as they passed through her room into the garden. Her garden was beautiful. Roses, lilacs, and so many other flowers he could not name. Still, while the shaped bushes and perfectly placed flowers were arranged beautifully they made him miss plants and flowers of the wild a little bit.

“What is your purpose?”

She asked it like they were all just assigned one. Ruel shook his head and laughed a little.

“I don’t think I have one. When I was little the people around me had such little purposes. They were shoemakers or farmers. I didn’t want that so I went out into the world looking for something more.”

He reached out for one of the roses. One of the thorns grazed his finger and cut it. The young man pulled his hand back more out of surprise than pain. He’d barely touched it, but it had cut his index finger enough to draw blood. A single drop of crimson blood fell and landed on the petal of a rose.

“I guess my purpose is to find my purpose.”

 

[Nina327]

Her brow arched as she watched him speak of his view of purpose and smiled while his hand retreated abruptly from the pretty flowers. She had seen more than her fair share of pretty things with thorns, flowers or not and he just like most people still did not abide care with such things. Instead letting want and curiosity over ride self preservation; be it flowers, her, or other perceived desires.

Reaching out she took his dripping finger, raised it to her lips and licked the crimson drops from the surface before pinching his digit between the crook of her first finger and her thumb. “I can’t let you keep bleeding on the flowers, you’ll kill each one.”

Her free hand plucked the rose blossom from its bush and held it up to watch. Its color faded, edges of the petals curled and turned black before the entire thing withered as flowers do naturally only much, much faster. Looking from one hand to his finger she stopped and mused, slowly lifting her eyes to his.

“You say a shoe maker’s purpose is too small yet everyone seeks them out for their service, they are needed. Farmers grow food for themselves and the community, they are needed. Their purpose is grand as well. A king would have no province without those that serve him and the others within his domain. A farmer has limited need of a king on his own, only the safety a community provides. A king’s purpose should only be to bring balance and keep piece among those that are within his care. That is not always the way but that is what is right. You gather stories and share them from province to province, tell me… does that serve a purpose?” She thought of her library then and the stories within the pages. They had to be put there in some fashion. “You seem a living book, no?” her eyes fell to their touch. “A special, living book.” With that she let the flower fall from her other hand, its purpose in life complete.

 

[Erlind]

Somehow Ruel could almost feel his blood on her tongue as she licked his finger. It was the strangest sensation and was followed by her applying pressure to the tiny cut. The young man watched in fascination as she plucked the flower and it withered away in her hand. The feeling of her touch was nothing like before, not half as intense, but the soft pain curling inside of him from his finger still made it difficult to focus. As he listened, he felt as if somehow it really had been that drop of blood that made the flower curl up into a light husk of its former self and not her.
Ruel’s mind was beginning to haze, but Clarice’s words were too interesting for him to let pass unanswered. No one had ever questioned him and what he did, not in this way at least. Most were happy to have his stories and his music and let him pass on. The occasional girl made plea he stay and make a life in her little town, but no one had simply sought why the young wanderer did what he did.

“I could gather grain for the entire world and it would not be enough. I could rule a nation, or shoe an entire nation for that matter and it wouldn’t be enough. I think its in the nature of it, not the scale, Clarice.” He’d intended to say more, but his words trailed off and for a moment he could not get them back. The minstrel didn’t realize it, but his hand with the captured finger wrapped around hers as the feeling of her wrapped around inside him.

“You like your books, don’t you,” Ruel asked the pale dark lady dreamily. He could feel her in his blood and it hurt, it hurt all of him, but somehow it felt safe too. It would always feel safe no matter how much it hurt he decided.

 

[Nina327]

Watching, always watching, Clarice took in his changes the longer she held just one of his fingers. He was still greatly affected.

“I could gather grain for the entire world and it would not be enough. I could rule a nation, or shoe an entire nation for that matter and it wouldn’t be enough. I think its in the nature of it, not the scale, Clarice.”

“Everything is in the nature of everything, from bugs to kings. All people need is a name for it.”

As his hand encased hers she turned to his eyes completely fascinated as she’d never been able to just watch one person, the same person, within her grasp for so long. He seems like the longer he felt her the more his soul drank in the pain and that something more. He was pleased, seemed pleased, and fairly well into his cups. For her though, it was something unreal, his touch, anyones really. It had no purpose other than tactile response, no motive, no intent aside from remaining in contact or gaining a bit more but for no reason she had been part of as it was not strictly lust, not strictly want, not strictly need… just more in such an almost innocent way.

”You like your books, don’t you?”

Clarice stepped back and one hand swept out to display the gardens.

“Books, flowers, fabrics.. I like a lot of things but books I adore. Books are lives lived both big and small, books are magic and mundane, heros and saints, vulnerability and strength, logic and reason… but most of all books are lives I can never lead and never know no matter how much I study them.”

Her eyes drifted down to their joined hands and her lips curled into a small smile.

“Even with this, however surprising, It does not change the fact that while I will always be a character in those stories they are not written in love or romance but in what everyone perceives as tragedy and horror. I’ve not yet heard nor read the story of the happy death.”

Her hand lifted their joined ones and she kissed the back of his hand watching his eyes glitter as hers filled with mirth and her very sinister version of mischief.

“Though, you might be one that could tell the tale.”

 

[Erlind]

The young man could feel the muscles in his body relax as her lips touched his hand. It started right there with his hand, but quickly traveled up his arm and through the rest of his body. He had to force a conscious effort to stay standing and coherent, but it felt wonderful.

Ruel moved closer to her and whispered in her ear, “I’d be happy to tell such a story, sweet lady of death.”

She thought so differently than anyone he’d ever meant. There was a loneliness to her, but she did not let it consume her and strangely it did not even truly seem to sadden her. The wanderer in her parlor did not think Clarice deserved to be alone and she was so utterly enthralling that Ruel knew it needed to be him.

He slipped an arm around her slender waist and pulled the dangerously alluring woman close against him. Their lips met and that same invasive mix and pleasure and pain coursed into him, but there was one thing different this time. Even in this deluge of sensation Ruel found this time he could keep hold of himself and the world a little easier. As he pulled away his teeth briefly nipped her lip. Clarice was unique, but the young man wanted to show her he could bring a little bit of pain and perhaps more.

“How do you think such a story begins, Clarice?”