[P] the rose and the viper

[Manon]

come a little closer,
why don't you hold me a little tighter


What happened?

Why?

What did she do?

She paced the spaces of the hall before her door, the red rose painted across the wood seemingly more dull than usual as her mind raced and her heart felt like it would overflow with emotions she didn't often hold onto. If she could scream, if she would allow herself to scream, her shriek would have expanded down the halls and shattered glass, raise the hairs on even the most solid statues. She was confused, she was angry, but even more she torn; what happened in their letters? What had she said that turned him away so quickly, so subtly, in such a manner that he wouldn't even tell her? She had felt like maybe he was someone she could rely on, someone she might have given her heart to... but cautiously, for she was not one who dove in to the deep end so recklessly. But from their first meeting, the first moment she saw him against that countertop at the Scarab, her heart had skipped in beats in ways unknown to her, new patterns that wrote songs she was unfamiliar with. She knew love, of course, she knew the desire for pretty things and to be called loving names, each one a curse added on top of the one before it, but she hadn't known what heartache could be drawn from the depths of things she didn't understand. It wasn't possible, then, for her to work her way through the thoughts that overwhelmed her in that moment, steps hard as concrete against the carpeted floors.

She was trapped, effortlessly, in all the ways that he spoke and moved, all the letters that had be scrawled once so neatly, and then the slightest shift in scribble and tone, perhaps to others indistinguishable, stark and bloody in her gaze. She should have burned them, burned every single one of them, left them and him behind on her path to vengeance. But they consumed her, both body and soul, and she couldn't release herself from the torment of not knowing...

Why?

She had to leave--it wasn't her fault, it was never her fault. If only he knew why, if only she was able to tell him all her secrets and expose him to the world she was consumed in. But she couldn't, not fully, for both the reason of trust and fear of turning him away. Surely he wasn't the best of their kind, and neither was she, but the thought of losing him so quickly after making his acquaintance, after allowing her heart to pound those notes, was not a question she would consider answers to.

And so she moved, her legs twisting and twirling at the end of that hall, mind racing and wondering if she should retire, if she should let it all go, let him go, and put her heart in someone else's hand to hold. He wasn't going to show, might not have even received the last of her notes sent so delicately to him: find me.

A shadow passed over the backlit stairs and for but a moment her heart calmed at the outline that appeared there. Her crown wavered on the verge of concealing her, holding out hope that perhaps she would find what she was waiting for.

Tou?

CREDITS

@/toulouse for the bby <3