MABEL
You are enough echoed and reverberated against her, and her brows furrowed, before her eyes were drawn downward again. Mabel wasn’t sure she’d ever been told that before in her life. There’d been plenty of times, of moments, where she hadn’t been that at all. And she didn’t know what to say to it, biting, grating, chewing it over in the back of her mind, readily applying a nod as the instructions came from a stranger.
She took them anyway; lifting her head, avaricious and greedy, covetous and mercenary, for any proportion of expertise, knowledge, or sagacity. The weapon her master; and she wasn’t in control. What a bizarre configuration.
And then the pronouncement came, so Mabel stilled, nodding abruptly, taking it all in stride, measure for measure. She lifted her dagger, and with no targets, it was just the Stygian air in front of her, and the ocean waves rustling back and forth. So the youth could only pretend, could only envision, could only imagine a beast standing before her – her sister’s murderer, perhaps – as she raised the dagger and shifted into the midnight overtures, into the shadows, into the pale flickers of moonlight. Perhaps she looked unearthly, unnatural then, some eldritch abomination in the midst, as she slashed against an invisible force, as she ripped it across an unseen torso, as she plunged it into an exposed neck.
She would only cease when asked, spinning, maneuvering, into her blade’s wild, wicked little dance.
She took them anyway; lifting her head, avaricious and greedy, covetous and mercenary, for any proportion of expertise, knowledge, or sagacity. The weapon her master; and she wasn’t in control. What a bizarre configuration.
And then the pronouncement came, so Mabel stilled, nodding abruptly, taking it all in stride, measure for measure. She lifted her dagger, and with no targets, it was just the Stygian air in front of her, and the ocean waves rustling back and forth. So the youth could only pretend, could only envision, could only imagine a beast standing before her – her sister’s murderer, perhaps – as she raised the dagger and shifted into the midnight overtures, into the shadows, into the pale flickers of moonlight. Perhaps she looked unearthly, unnatural then, some eldritch abomination in the midst, as she slashed against an invisible force, as she ripped it across an unseen torso, as she plunged it into an exposed neck.
She would only cease when asked, spinning, maneuvering, into her blade’s wild, wicked little dance.
Let's go to war to make peace
Let's be cold to create heat
Let's be cold to create heat
