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Plucked ... part the first.
To say that she had been careless of late was an understatement. Oh, Rose was never entirely unaware - the enhanced senses granted by her heritage saw to that - but when business got too hectic, or the nights were too long, it was not uncommon for her to leave a door unlocked, or to be in such haste to outrun the threatening dawn that she had no time to question the absence of her usual bodyguard at the entrance to her private chamber. Such was the case on the morning following the grisly, unexplained murders of two guards, their bodies found with jugulars severed on the front terrace of the estate. The night ensuing had been one long juggling act of business negotiations and diplomatic meetings, and the sky was already mottled with tangerine and orchid by the time the glossy toes of her patent leather shoes reflected the light of the threshold lamps once more. As she made her way down the centermost hallway, she clung to the few remaining shadows, her back pressed to the cool stone of the walls where need be, to avoid the malevolent shafts of sunlight pressing hard on her heels.  The Byzantine door was unattended, but with daybreak already well underway,
she had no choice but to slip the brass key up from the neckline of her suit,
wedge it into the lock, and swing the entrance wide. The hinges creaked and
groaned in protest, of course, all the more at the speed with which she rushed
in, but even louder was the resounding [SLAM], the reverberations of which
could be felt throughout the entire estate, announcing most assuredly that
Rose was home for the day, and as that solid thud sounded, a single ray of
morning's beaming crawled up the surface of the door, outlining the intricate
inlays of ivory in black walnut.
At the other side of that door, Rose was captured still, a statue of frozen panic, her chin lifted resolutely, but quivering inside with the realization of how close she had come to becoming a pile of charred dust on the serpentine tile, never to be seen again. The molten emerald of her eyes swam with the black tides of terror, and her throat was constricted and dry as the desert floor, allowing no sound to escape, not even the silken sigh of relief that she fought so desperately to allow herself. But as the moments passed, and her gloved hand rose at last, to caress the cold stone at the top of the staircase, brief light returned once more to her gaze, a reflection of her impending weariness more than anything else. The tension in her shoulders eased, and with one hand still carefully braced against the stone, she began her descent down the spiral that would lead to her repose. Stiletto heels clicked an impatient cadence, silver chains giggled merrily, like chimes in a breeze, and the candles in her tomb crackled to life, all the sounds in concert creating an ominously peaceful welcome, a requiem call that only stirred her anxiety anew... perhaps it was only her close call at the hands of the deadly sun...perhaps it was the way the ever-present draft in this chamber howled, its mournful whisper seeming to call to life the unholy spirits of a thousand former denizens of this blasphemous ground... No matter. The call of her bed was stronger, far stronger than the chill that ran through her, causing her already cold blood to shiver for the briefest of moments, as she made her way towards the promise of much-needed rest. Pausing only long enough to kick her shoes off and nudge them carelessly to the side, and to drop her belt in a jangling heap on the floor, she dove towards her cushions and furs, parting them to reach the rough comfort of her jewelled coverlet. With a low groan of rapture, she rolled to her back, gloved hands flexing, kneading, like the paws of a kitten, against the gemstones and embroidery. Her spine arched the slightest bit, bringing the swell of her bosom to strain against the thin coating of candy-apple latex, and she thrust her head back into the pillows, sending the cascade of curls writhing like flaming serpents as she tossed and turned. Still gloved, still clad in the slick red suit and caged in the heavy wrap of her cincher, she allowed her eyes to drift closed at last, and as the first crows of the cock sounded somewhere in the distance, Blood Red Rose succumbed to the unyielding bonds of sleep. Plucked ... the sequel.
On kitten's feet they came, two cloaked figures, their faces swathed in black silk with holes for sight and breathing. Their tread across the rugs on the chamber floor might have disturbed lighter ears, but for Rose, captured in the netherland of sleep, the world was a silent void... With nervously darting eyes and twitching fingertips, the intruders circled the bed, hovering over Rose's sleeping form like a pair of predatory birds. If she sensed their presence, she showed no sign of it... she might have been a mere ornament, a statuary decoration carved for the top of a sarcophagus, for all the movement she offered. No breath issued from between those pouting lips, no amount of blush tinged her pallor, her eyelids did not tremble with the rollicking chase of dreams... Dead she appeared, for indeed, dead she was, the only stirring being that of the shadows as they waltzed over the gloss of her suit... Swimming in their black trench coats, with black felt fedoras shoved firmly down over their crowns, the two kidnappers closely resembled crows whose bills had been rudely snapped away, and as they approached ever nearer to her sleeping form, fingers twiddling in eager anticipation, they took on the countenance and manner of a pair of fiendish insects, about to snap up their prey. A glance from one to the other was the silent signal, and while one withdrew what appeared to be a flimsy square of rubber from the inner folds of his coat, the other tugged a large jewel-encrusted crucifix from his pocket, holding it at the ready, should she show any signs of waking. The other fellow, keeping one watchful eye on his partner, began to unfold the rubber parcel with careful and deliberate fingers, to minimize any potential squeaking. Fold after fold, the square increased in size, until at last it was extended to its full length, and it became apparent that the object was actually some sort of inflatable cushion. With another brief glance to his mate, who was still wielding the cross in silent warning over Rose's forehead, he laid the rubber mat down across the bed beside her, and reached once more to the inside of his coat. This time, what appeared was a long, cylindrical bottle, of clear plastic and filled to the neck with water, along with a thin latex hose. In a matter of seconds, one end of the tube was inserted through the plug on the rubber mat, the other end stretched over the now open mouth of the bottle. Tilting the bottle up, he began the tortuous process of filling the mat. The water dripped down with all the hurry of medication feeding through an IV tube, and in wary silence, the pair waited, each stealing glances at the sleeping Rose, starting at the slightest gurgle from the water bottle, until at the end of their long wait, both were so unsettled that the very whisper of their own breathing caused the one with the crucifix to stumble, and he slipped forward, bringing the cross to within a hair's breadth of searing into Rose's unprotected porcelain skin before catching himself and drawing back. But at last, the mattress was filled, certainly not to capacity, but at least enough to provide a thin cushion of continually moving water. While the one intruder swiftly detached the apparatus and sealed the mattress, the other looked on with hesitant eyes and at last brought the chain in his hands up, to drop it around his neck and let the crucifix fall pendant against his own chest. The time was at hand. The act would have to be executed swiftly, or the attempt would not be successful at all. Gloved hands flexing, the two stared across the bed at each other, until one nodded, and then they swooped into action. One wrapped his hands around her feet, binding them as best he could, and the other tugged at her upper arm, pulling her towards the mat. In that moment, Rose's eyes snapped open at last, and her lips parted, but the banshee's wail of alarm that welled up in her throat was caught short, and choked back, stilled, as was all of her motion paralyzed, as her curvature molded itself to the gel-like cushion of water... moving water... Screaming somewhere in the depths of her mind was the realization of what was happening to her, but she was powerless to stop the kidnappers as they lifted the respective ends of the mat, and behind the frozen glass marbles of her eyes, terror ripped through her at the sight of earthen ceiling passing overhead in lazy progress. She recognized the path - she was being carried from her own chamber, back through the room that had once been her son's. At the far wall of that sanctum, the kidnappers paused, and Rose heard the sound of a makeshift door being pulled aside on crude hinges... She was helpless against her amazement as she began to understand where they were taking her... a tunnel, burrowed through the far wall of Traevyn's old room, scantily lit with a few guttering torches, and braced with rough-hewn beams, obviously thrown up in a hurry... and who knew where it would lead - most likely to the catacombs beneath the estate, but after that... As her body was moved from the room, her very essence dissipating from the confines of the earthen walls, the candles began to flicker out one by one, and the chamber was pitched into utter darkness... and all that was left to indicate that she had ever been there was the faint scent of roses, and a few scarlet petals left floating in the draft at the far edge of Traevyn's room, where the wall appeared undisturbed, no seam of a door, no traces of any sort of entry, save a brief disturbance in the dust... Plucked ... chapter three.
A dizzying array of spots and streaks dapple the surface of an otherwise
black pool, giving the rippling ink the appearance of stained glass distorted
by the shadows of night. The pool itself stretches some thirty feet in diameter,
and rimming the perfect circle is a lip of glazed black tiles that glisten
with the moisture of every gently lapping wave. All the way around the perimeter
is a walkway, some three feet deep, dotted by the occasional ficus, the only
sign of life in the otherwise sterile, albeit frigidly elegant, landscape
of this cavernous room. To the sides and overhead, a rounded ceiling hewn
from the surrounding charcoal limestone caps the chamber, and dripping from
the apex of the dome, like so many rivulets of melted glass infused with
fairy magic, is an elaborate crystal chandalier, its prisms swaying almost
imperceptibly, tinkling in the faint breeze that seems to watch over the
room.
~ From the first day I saw her, I knew she was the one ... As she stared in my eyes and smiled ... For her lips were the colour of the roses ... That grew down the river, all bloody and wild ~ Light and breezy as a child's whisper, the song echoes through the cavern, reverberating off of the stone walls and rippling across the pool. ~ When he knocked on my door and entered the room ... My trembling subsided in his sure embrace ... He would be my first man, and with a careful hand ... He wiped at the tears that ran down my face ~ A shaft of light strikes the chandelier prisms, and that beam glances off in a kaleidoscope glow over the surface of the water. ~ On the second day I brought her a flower ... She was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen ... I said "Do you know where the wild roses grow so sweet and scarlet and free?" ~ Terror fairly radiates from the glass sarcophagus, offering a silent scream from frozen lips that stretches into the nether regions of eternity and winds back again, to burrow at her own tortured heart. ~ On the second day he came with a single red rose ... Said: "Will you give me your loss and your sorrow?" ... I nodded my head, as I lay on the bed ... He said, "If I show you the roses will you follow?" ~ A raw, cruel wind whips across the chamber, disturbing the chains and sending the plank upon which her coffin rests to gently swaying. ~ On the third day he took me to the river ... He showed me the roses and we kissed ... And the last thing I heard was a muttered word ... As he stood smiling above me with a rock in his fist ~ As quickly as the wild draft appeared, it retreats once more, leaving the air as still and quiet as her own rigid limbs. ~ On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow ... And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief ... As I kissed her goodbye, I said, "All beauty must die" ... And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth ~ The song dwindles to meek nothing as the slender, aristocratic figure of a man appears, veiled in darkness, on the far side of the room, and a thin tendril of cigar smoke rises from the shadows of the doorway. ((Author's note: The song lyrics quoted above are from "Where The Wild Roses Grow", by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.)) This Side.
"Mirrors…," she muses. Her lips barely move; the sound is hardly above a whisper. "…how long has it been since I last saw myself in a mirror?"
That Side. Her mind is a mystic pool of shadows and sin… demons bathed in black flame dancing to a tune played on an off-key calliope, waltzing over the heads of serpents… children impaled on a forest of pikes still writhing in their final spasms and calling for the mothers who will never come… the sweet scent of terror rising like smoke in the updraft of a funeral pyre for the corpses of saints that played blind man's bluff with the devil and lost… a carnival midway where the fun house mirrors come to life and spill out all the sinister desires of your own soul, so that they puddle like so much congealed blood at the feet of the clowns… Hunger's yearning... Even across the barren stretches that mark the way to Merentha Keep, a haunting siren's call lilts into the air and wends its way down around the jagged spires, almost seeming to seep into the masonry as it envelops the star-clad velvet of night with its requiem song... the melody is somber, yearning, a cry for help so painful in its insistence, yet barely audible above the faint lapping of waves that might be no more than a stirring breeze rustling the treetops outside… Outside. A set of pampered fingertips dangle over the tiled rim of the pool, flicking water and testing for temperature… moments later, the ink parts with a splash, to welcome the bare, firmly-muscled figure of a man as he dives into its obsidian depths… his strokes create a rippling swell across the top of the water, and when he emerges, it is with another splash at the center of the pool, just to the side of the platform. He lifts a dripping hand to brace himself on the wood's edge, as the other palm cups over the back of his head, slicking back his raven locks and sending droplets of water skittering over his broad shoulders… brushing away a film of water from his forehead and cheek, he fixes his eyes directly ahead to peer through the side of the glass coffin. The man's features are chiseled aristocracy, frozen in stern contemplation… how he yearns to set her free, only because her current state is a pale comparison to Rose in bloom… but to do so would be far too dangerous, and so, if he must, he will keep her as a water-bound trophy, to enjoy in limited capacity, but to enjoy at his leisure. ((Author's note: Clearly, there's a big gap between Rose's imprisonment and her awakening, but since this story was posted a loooong time ago, and her rescue was written by someone else, I'm having some trouble finding the files. I promise, though, once I've located them and gotten permission to use them, I'll fill in.)) Rose's Awakening. She has been cognizant of her own movement through space for some time, but the weight of the ordeal still hangs heavy on her limbs, and through the course of her travels down the tunnel, in her best friend's embrace, she has only managed to utter a few mournful sighs, and blink her eyes sleepily once or twice. But as the smooth ivory of her skin touches down on the subtle rasping of jewels and embroidery, awareness comes rushing at her like the enthusiastic jet of crimson from a severed limb… the glass shatters into thousands of pieces of void, each one a keyhole view to the nothing of soulless eternity, and she is surrounded on all sides by the thunderous roar of static, cutting at her, grating over exposed nerves with pin-prick accuracy… when at last the sound begins to recede, eddying backwards as though it were being sucked down a drain, then disappearing with a pitiable [pop], her eyes… twitch… open…
Those emeralds are threaded through with trails of jet, veined like marbles… her back arches, shoulders digging into the coverlet and cushions, as she tenders a low, agonized moan… then, with a brisk shudder, she snaps upright, sending the tangle of molten curls forward over her shoulders, as she draws her knees up, hugging them protectively to her bared bosom.
Rose's Awakening. (Llyra Draco)
It's the rabbit's lucky day.
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