Will
by Hyel

Sometimes through these dark halls I can hear water dripping, water flowing and chattering somewhere beneath this cold stone. It is such a living thing, such a vivacious sound that it frightens me. In the long hours of the days and nights I listen to it, blubbering and dancing and singing down below, and it is slowly shredding away from me the last vestiges of my sanity.

I would prefer stillness. Stillness like that of my heart, like the eternity of these cold stone walls encircling my little room, the little kingdom of this dead girl, with only the stench of her rotting flesh to wait on her and her own slowly disintegrating mind to keep her company. I know with stern certainty that I will soon be forced to watch the last of what I have called my self fall apart and I will be no more. 'Tis a consummation greatly to be wished, for then I would no longer have to wait, despair, and remember.

Remember...

We would sit by the fire, my brother and I, and tell each other the stories we saw within the dancing flames. Father allowed us these moments, and although he thought it somewhat unsuitable for a lady like myself to spin yarns and altogether to talk so much, he commended us on our imagination. He was proud of us both, but especially of my brother.

Will was a handsome young man; willowy and fair, as lovely as any maiden, but with the vitality that drew maidens' gaze to his visage. His eyes used to sparkle whenever he had some mischief in mind, and that was quite often enough. Had I been a truly dignified daughter of such a dignified house, I would have stopped him, but I never did. I was a year younger than him, and his admiring lackey.

We shared a secret. A secret so grave that, had it been discovered, not only would our reputations and probably lives have been lost, but also the reputation of the house and our father and mother. I am free to speak of it now, for I am dead, and have nothing to fear from the concepts of propriety the living so prize; nor do I care any for the reputation of the living. May they rot in shame as they have let me rot!

Will's evil nature was endorsed by our father, who thought it most proper for a man, and was grooming him to be a warrior. If not a warrior of the battles where ravens cry and swords clash, he said, then at the least a warrior of the mind; an ambassador, a strategist or a merchant. Ruthlessness, he stretched, was of utmost importance in these professions.

As for myself, he was grooming me to become a bride. I was more of a disappointment to him. The ruthlessness I shared with my brother did not suit that profession.

I was happy that I was still a child. My fifteenth year was approaching, and the end of my childhood as suitors would be allowed to woo me forcefully. Then I was glad of my ruthlessness, for if indeed it befitted a warrior, I would need it in the battle to keep these very suitors away without being held to blame for the crime of insubordinance. I would never be touched by any of these men. I did not wish it, could never imagine wishing it. The only one my arms would know was my brother.

Do not be so surprised. I have told you we were ruthless; we were evil, truth be told, evil beyond redemption, even then. We wrapped our secrets up in a gauze of filial love and noble loyalty, and not one of our acquiantances ever cared to penetrate it. Snug in a nest of fabrications we hid, loving each other, hating most of the others; behind a demure smile, I lived with ferocious passion. He was mine, for I knew his secrets as he knew mine, and ours was an affair of perfect love and perfect trust.

On that year, my fourteenth, we broke the last barrier as one night, when he stole into my room like so many nights before. Our passions arose to the breaking point and from there downwards, and we tumbled each other on the cushions, our love-making fierce and foul and perfect. Like wolves meeting in the night we were, our fulfillment like the dawn after a clammy, death-chilled night. It was in the house of my father that I lost my maidenhead, and it was the seed of my father that took it. If there is any greater sin I know not of it, but to us it was the consummation of purest desire. Our love was perfected, even as our souls were blackened beyond redemption. Yet even now as I stare into the gaping maw of oblivion, I would declare with all that's left of my soul that any law that would deny us this is false and cursed, be it the law of Heaven or Hell!

I was still a child, may whatever force so degreed be thanked; but my brother, a year my elder, was already a man. A man - who needed a wife, our father said, to bear him children. No. No. NO! A demon of my mind screamed behind my cool eyes as he told us of his plans one night by the hearth. By the hearth, in that sacred place of made-up stories and warmth, the place of our most precious moments, he chose to tell us he would Will marry some noble family's cow of a daughter to bear him fat ugly brats, when he was my Will, my love, NO screamed the demon. But I bowed my head like any respectful daughter would, and in my eyes I'm sure none of my anger was reflected.

That night I retreated early into my chambers, into the very place where Will and I had loved and sinned so beautifully I'm certain even angels looked down on us in envy. We had made a secret of our humanity, of the wicked natures that gave us life and breath beyond anything the good ever reached. Now the world of lies and deception that made up everything beyond that little nest of peace we had created was intruding on our perfection. I waited for Will, for my love, my heart bound with the cold hard chains of fear as I thought of our future.

He arrived after midnight, a little later than he usually did. As our bodies entwined in an embrace I could feel his shiver, that slight rare show of weakness that my brother prevented so well under all circumstances except for these, for the moments we shared looking into each other in honesty. There were no lies between the two of us, no shackles of propriety to command our movements, words or actions. And so, when I noticed his shiver, and saw a little wrinkle like a pathway open across his forehead, and felt the strength of sorrow flowing from his eyes to mine, and my thoughts whirled and tumbled and screamed, for I knew something was wrong.

He spoke, his words painting a picture that did nothing to convince me. I let go of him slowly and stepped back. He continued, but the things he meant to make me believe drowned and died behind the luminous truth that shone beyond, in front and around his story. I knew my brother. I knew Will. He was lying. He was lying to me.

I always knew Will was wicked, ambitious and ruthless. I loved all this in him, as I loved his gentleness, his imagination, his laughter. But now he was betraying me, himself, us both as he told me he would follow his ambitions and marry this woman, give our house a noble name and set himself up high in the society.

His words were like daggersl, but nothing felt as terrible as the spear of his greatest lie. That cut straight into my heart, into my sanity, into everything I had come to perceive as beautiful and true.

He told me our love was wrong.

Sinful it may have been, but wrong it was not. He knew this as well as I did, I knew he did, but still he spoke these lies to me. It was a lie! He was marrying her because of his ambitions, because he had decided to play THEIR game instead of being true to our love, to the purity we had discovered in this world of filth and cruelty. Wicked he was, my brother, far more wicked than I.

And as he lied to me, so I lied to him. I retreated behind my eyes, hiding as I had never hidden from him before, and let my tongue form words I knew he longed to hear from me, words so disgusting to me that I could hardly stand their poison. I told him I understood; that I was a woman now more than a child and would do as my position demanded. He left satisfied; it must be that the stupidity of the world outside of ours was already affecting him with its blindness, that he did not see my deception. I had no intention of stepping aside. I was not a good woman; Eve's legacy lived strong within my young body.

He had betrayed us; on the shoulders of this woman, now, was the fulfillment of a new destiny. I swore I would not fail. We would not be parted.

We went riding the next day. I was propped up in an uncomfortable saddle, separated from my mare as I was of Will, by an artificial structure built just for the purpose of keeping apart. I leaned down to pat her neck, and she whinnied in response. Animals, if not humans, were honest and true, and I wished I could do more for her than just provide food and shelter. She should run free, but the fields where her kind first lived are a long way from here, and here her freedom would only mean her death. She was exactly like any woman here.

Will rode a stallion. He was propped securely on the animal's back, legs thrown around it just as mine should be. Men, unlike women, were free to act according to reason and their own desires. I wondered silently why, then, they so often did not.

As our mounts shot across the fields towards the forest path and the wind blew around my ears, whispering its tales of travel and distant lands (so many tales in the fire, so many in the wind, so many yet in my cold stone tomb and in the waters running below, singing their mindless ditties), I thought of tales of children left for the beasts, of witches screeching in the forest's depths calling for innocent souls. And as we penetrated the wall of trees and entered the forest, I knew not if I was an innocent or a witch, a child or a beast.

We slowed to a trot, and spoke. My brother seemed relieved at my choice of meeting place, for the forest had neither the intimacy of my chambers nor the dangers of my father's hall. Here, speech was free but there was no danger of it escaping to the side of things dark and forbidden; such, at any rate, was his thinking.

I spoke of matters of everyday importance, and he spoke of such things as well: economics, events and journeys. My eyes were on him, sharp, but he did not notice. He was truly blind. With an expectant ear, questions to make him feel important, and the guile of innocence I engaged his attention on himself so that he would not note the turns I took, the paths I led us down, nor the shadows as they grew longer. I lured him deeper into the forest.

I told you I have not been a proper lady, nor my brother a proper gentleman. He had, more than once, shown me men's tasks and how to perform them: how to shave wood, to ride astride, to manage a household's income - and how to handle weapons. His own long dagger was concealed underneath my cloak.

It was easier than one would have thought. Even now as I am experiencing for myself the mortality of man, or woman, I wonder at the ease with which the blade passed through his flesh. My heart hurt to see his beloved face twisted in horror, to see the flesh I had kissed rent asunder, but I steeled myself against my gentle woman's nature. Demons so long harboured within took over my body, slashing and laughing as he died. He was not truly my lover-brother, then. He was someone else, someone possessed with the lies of my lord father and lady mother, of the world outside that which had been ours.

I remember the rush, like a revelation, when I held pieces of his dead flesh in my hand, the heat of his blood (see, I knew they were right to call him hot-blooded) splattered across my face and hands and dress, and laughed. Never had such rushes of uncontrollable mirth flooded across me, and I giggled like a laywoman, the animal within me fully wakened. His stallion had run away; my mare stayed by me, faithful as any woman to a sister. A truly precious friend. I was a beast, I was free, I was running across those fields that had been denied my kind for so long, and I was running towards the fire, the eternal fire, rather than sit quietly and wait for it to claim me. I was facing the fire. I was free. I was powerful.

Laughter still falling from my lips, I cut and tore that precious head from the dead body's shoulders, then cut and tore that disgusting saddle from my beloved new friend, and I mounted her, sitting astride. I dangled the head of my lover by its hair, the hair, the mark of beast on man, and I laughed as I kissed its lips.

I hurried my mount forward, back to the castle, to my lord father and lady mother, to show them what I had done; to show them none could take my love away from me. I had been right. His world and mine had been true, theirs a lie; now that he was gone, I was the only truly existing person alive. Kill me they might, but I was happy to leave them to their illusional life. Mad I was when I rode back to my father's house, but fulfilled. I rode into the house, the guards falling to their knees in superstitious fear. I laughed as I galloped into the dining hall, raising Will's head up high. And something spoke through me, perhaps my demons, perhaps my soul itself, and it told them the truth.

Lord Father's eyes were frightened like a rabbit's, and he gazed at me as if I was indeed a hunter of souls come to claim his. Lady Mother's gaze was old, and I could tell she was a true sister, for her eyes showed me she saw in me a reflection of herself. She, too, remembered running free on endless fields in a distant past long forgotten by men.

I calmed down then, and cradled my lover's head to my chest. The comforting warmth of my friend's strong back between my legs, I petted Will's dark fall of hair with my blood-crusty hands, and a song fell from my lips, a children's ditty we had once sung together. I knew it would be our funeral song, now.

It was my father's arrow that ended it.

I still remember falling onto the ground, my friend dancing away from my dying body. Will's head rolled away from my hands. Everything seemed to slow down. I closed my eyes and entered the haze awaiting death, one from which I woke within this cold tomb. Even through the terror, regret and the still-burning hatred I then remember feeling elation; fulfillment like that of our love-making was there, too, in our deaths. Wicked we were, my brother and I; but none so wicked as the world that killed us.

Father. Mother. Their faces flash before me as my consciousness, my self, slowly slips away from me.

Flames. Wind. Bubbling water. Cold stone.

And then darkness.

-end-