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Blood Roses (Muse) They raged against wild things, which they could not change. They raged with war and thunder against the passage of time, the aching slowness that seeped life from flesh. With arms outstretched, fingers pulled into hard, tight wires of conviction, they raked nails across the bricks of the cage that held them. But they did not change. Anything. Their little storms brought the chaos of collision, but no solution. The world moved inexorably on, without thought, worry for pain, death, loss of the dear one. No; Anabelle had lost enough dear ones to know that. Grief might paint a shadow, streak it across the sun, but time still continued its relentless ride, in darkness. It did not even slow its pace. The beast continued tearing away. She'd always watched them, standing above in her room, fingers pressed against smudged glass; her ever-washed windows had never been clean. Even as a child, she'd watched them, imagining angels in the sunlight, riding low tides of day, evaporating when night came, leaving that soapy spill of moonlight. Leaving others in their stead. In the darkness, though she could not see them, they were there. No. Angels were not made of light, demons formed from darkness. There had only been people: They spiraled toward heaven with their weary smoke signals, racing toward an end that only hurt, extinguished the fire that burned them. Left them cold and old and angry, bitter violin strings stretched taut. The poor, the rich, the slowly sadly dying: going about the everyday business of simply living, while they dreamed breathed swore they would find something more beneath the ashes. Well. Anabelle stood upon the top rung of the ladder, and she felt the distance beneath her. How she would plummet if she lost her stance? Well. She didn't have time for such things. She had work to do?and little time to do it in; if war did come, it would not wait for her to be prepared. God. Preparation. Must we? Yes. She felt the subtle movement of wind against her arms, felt the pinprick razors glide across skin: the air was changed, slightly. There was a difference in the way the city breathed, in the glow of the sky. Sun-drenched in the early hours, the great bulk of it yet lay sleeping, before the gold of dawn gave way to the streaks of day. And even that sleep was different. Restless. A match, held above dead wood, ready to be dropped. And sometimes it felt she held the fire in her fingers. If she let her hand slip, if the flame touched her flesh, she might drop it. Anabelle knew better than to hold the flame too closely. "Good morning, Lady Anabelle." In abrupt movement, she swirled, swung on hinges of wintry impatience, smiled politely. "Good morning," she replied: a crisp, quiet fragment of a whisper. "It's a fine day," the man said through closed lips, eyes cast downward. "As fine a day as any," she said, in agreement and in disagreement. All days were fine, but perhaps not as fine as this would be. Lady Anabelle clenched her hands into tight fists, released them. She had no time for this. As the slow movement of the sun, higher, higher, ever higher, bore witness to. She did not have time for idle chatter in the street. "You are well, Lady Anabelle?" I won't be much longer if you prevent me...I am quite well, thank you. Muse keeps me busy?" "Oh, aye." As though you know? "I should hope so." She felt impatience trickle down her arms like sweat. It flickered in the air: she could almost taste her own desire to be moving once more. "Thank you for your kind concern," she said, moved past him. Her goal was in sight. An empty alley. No movement, not even the quick shuffling-scattering of rats as human feet approached. Clara, Clara, where was that girl? "Lady Anabelle." Another voice, this one soft, not much of a ripple in the silence. Anabelle turned, eyes seeking...clasped onto the object she sought. The girl was slowly walking near, blonde lashes lowered. Anabelle awaited her arrival in silence, eyes flickering past narrow shoulder: making certain this was not witnessed. Clara was a wisp of a girl, standing only to Anabelle's shoulder. Scarcely sixteen, she was neither remarkably beautiful, nor overly plain; she had wide gray eyes that always reminded Anabelle of seashells, washed up by a storm, and she wore her hair like a halo of feathers: light curls of blonde trickling up near her ears, trailing down to rest upon slim shoulders. The goose-down substance framed her face, obscured her eyes with slight shadow. Pale as porcelain, Clara moved like a ghost: silently, feet playing across the ground with only the barest hint of movement. As a spy, she was flawed. And because of that, she was perfect. "Good morning, Clara," said Anabelle, inclining her head slightly. "You have need of me??" A reply, in hushed tones, though there was no one there to listen: "Indeed." Though Anabelle knew she is sending the child into danger. Though Anabelle knew the girl might not return. "You can find a way into Highland?" Clara nodded. Clinging to her face, her feather-hair bounced, crawled its way into her eyes. With hurried fingers, the girl tucked curls away again, spoke. "I will find a way into Highland. What do you need to know?" She could send Fitcher as a spy: should. But Fitcher was known?thought stupid, thought incompetent, but known?whereas Clara was the mayor of Muse's own quiet secret. Not even Jess knew. That he had his own spies, she knew: he might think her blind, or too busy to notice, but she saw more than he would be pleased with. And she knew that he knew of secrets she did not share with him. There was a silent tug-of-war being played, invisible: but he did not known who Clara was. No, one did. And no one would guess. Because Clara was a wisp of a girl. Because no one would expect the mayor of Muse to speak with the child in an empty alley at dawn. Because Clara could vanish like smoke, like fog, in the silence of day?s movement. "Go into a town and find what people are saying. Is the Highland army on the move? I have sources...but I still need you. There have been rumors in Toto of Highland soldiers in the mountains...there is unease all through that City-State. We need to know, if we can. And what their plans are." "Lady Anabelle, Ruka Bright is not human." For a moment, Anabelle's heart skipped a beat. What are you doing, what are you doing? Can you really trust this girl? But it passed. "No. Ruka Bright is all too human... He is the embodiment of all that is wrong with humanity. And it frightens me, more than I'd care to admit to you, Clara. ...When can you leave?" The girl's reply was a nod, then a half-turn, a skip out of Anabelle's sight. "Hurry. Please." A dream. It was a dream, though she was awake. Though sunlight spilled in upon her with a sort of graceless glaze. But beyond the blue of sky, Anabelle caught that glimmer of a memory. She was five. Cotton stretched across feet, across scrawny legs, pajamas that fit like a blanket upon her small form. Running. Laughing, skipping over ground: falling. Her world cart-wheeled, spun. Flesh impacted upon stone. That same spinning world darkened, blurred, became light...white...glowing...burning. And for the first time in her life, she had known true fear. Little Anabelle picked herself back up and ran. She could hear hounds behind her?and they were orange as fire and they were red as death: all her little monsters climbing out of their tiny pockets of nowhere, to bite at her heels, her cotton-covered heels. The little girl had chanced to glance behind her, and slipped again, and found nothing there but the darkness of the hallway. And Little Anabelle had swallowed the salt that streamed down her face, pushed her feet out in front of her, and lay there on the ground, till, in the morning, a maid had found her and tucked her into bed. Anabelle shook herself, bringing herself closer to the present. “You will die a cold, lonely, bastard,” she’d told her father once. “And how will you die, little girl?” With starlight in her eyes. That was how she wanted to die. Washed by moonlight, washed by the blackness left by the absence of day. All of her monsters were safe in their pockets, sealed there, but one. “And how will you die, little girl?” Speaking aloud, Anabelle turned back to her desk. “I won’t.”
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