beloved

As if the new pool remembers that Loveless had wounded its soul further back, the end of their venture to the blood stones leaves them standing amidst thick fog, thick and cold and which leaves the ivory damsel with the sensation of being watched more permeating than the twinkling eyes of the water had ever managed.

Her babbling stops instantaneously, her flesh prickling tight as if to keep the bitter air from reaching inside of her and further corrupting the soul within; a tinkling sound near the waters draws her eyes to the splendorous sight, a basin of blood, ethereal in the red light of the moon and the drifting dance of the cruel fog. Beloved is taken, her eyes wide and starlit, a low, adoring row of giggles sweeping out towards the rippling surface of the water, breaking away the mist in its passing as her nose settles earthward and she nearly hovers to the bank.

A fish rests lifeless on the earthy shores of the red pool, silver and perfect, newly risen from the water in its wetness that flashes like diamonds on its scaled body. She does push it in, hoping to watch it float, to watch it linger dead as death among the blood stones.

But it returns to her.

A cry of outrage makes it from her lips before dozens of fish vault from their home, startling the little mare and pulling her back on low tucked haunches with mouth agape and bichromatic eyes wild. Gleeful laughter finds her once the surprise settles and she can focus on their bending, dying bodies, as she lifts her eyes to find the center of the bloody water broiling and seemingly alive.

With a moan of ecstasy, she watches the rise of the corpse from the water, how the light is orange and burgundy in the moonlight, refracting from the water, from the fishes that fretfully die on the grass. Its eyes, they are hauntingly beautiful, she will see them for nights to come as they turn to look at she and the Loveless one who stands silent as death behind her, silent where Beloved is entirely gasps and awes and laughter at the spectacle her Gods have delivered her this night.

She steps forward to meet the corpse as it ushers from the water, she longs to touch it, but the mists beat her in their embrace and she is left with only the stench of decay and the befuddling sensation of nearly touching another, muzzle pale and hovering merely centimeters from the bloated and ruined flesh of the living dead.

It was gone. Gone!

"Noooo!" she groans, she pants, an unicorn’s version of a crawl buckling her limbs and sending her splashing into the shallows of the red pool, the water covering her pale flesh and tinting her pink, for even the fish were vanished into nothingness!

As suddenly as they disappeared, they returned, like rain, like glorious, heavenly rain, but the body was not among them to her dismay as she turns her wide and hopeful eyes upward, as she searches the deluge of dead fish for her prized lover in the night. But it is gone, gone even as they smack into her in gore inducing splatters, as they erupt against the earth and shatter the smooth surface of the pool, cascading droplets over the small porcelain one who kneels in the water.

Her cries of anguish at the loss of the things fades only momentarily, the rain of flesh ceasing slowly and pulling her eyes finally to the Loveless, questioning and full of wonder.

When she looks back at her hooves, the fish are gone again. The sound of their splashing remains in her mind, taunting, mocking, a song she will sing to the Moon for many nights, because it was beautiful, it was perfect, and it burns within her that it is gone.

A roar of sorrow breaks her stillness, ripples the water so near her pink lips, and as quickly as the sound erupts it is stifled as she plunges her face into the depths of the water, muffled cries breaking from the water as she dives in and out and bounces through the shallows searching for the dead things that had just been so plentiful.

She finds none.

"Where?!" she cries to the night, before she splashes back into the water, "wheeeeere!" Howls the mad one, a tantrum ensuing in the water for many a moment until she is left panting and hopeless, cold and miserable.

Icy, hate filled eyes turn to the pale one with the red tinged mane.

"Did you see what you did?" she hisses, her voice suddenly rising into a crescendo, "bring them back!"


@[Ophelia]

die like God, on the cover of time