eatthepen | The Night Also Rises

[I originally submitted this to a competition, then posted it on cohost, and now it's here. Enjoy)

Staggering, stumbling, clawing thorns of pathless forest. Breath a pumice in her throat. Shoes lost, stockings shredded, dress soaked cold, she flees the men of the Light until at last gravity overcomes adrenaline and she plunges headlong into the undergrowth.

Whatever hits her on the way down is almost familiar. She knows that kind of bruise on her face, the hot weals around split lips and cheeks.

As she fell she screamed, but now she whimpers, her voice buried by the wind. "Please… help…" She sees nothing, the canopy above her shutting out the moon. Feels only the slimy, prickly ground and the pain.

The sound around her softens. She feels the approach of… something… as a shiver caressing her spine. For a moment she glances behind her, but there is no hint of the castle just fled. She has finally run far enough.

"Could you be the one to love me at last?" It is the most beautiful voice she has ever heard, haughty and fluid. With it comes a face, seen by darkness alone, a queen's cold, imperious cheekbones and piercing eyes.

Lifting her torso from the muck on trembling shoulders, she looks up, up weavings of darkness finer than any silk, past a mathematical curvature of hip and waist and bosom, into an abyssal river of hair around that domineering face. Flooding with relief and a night-cold desire she has never dared feel before, she reaches forward, finding the smooth leather of gleaming boot-toes, stretching to kiss them in supplication, but thin fingers with sharp nails catch her chin.

The Night says, "Stand, beloved. When I wish you to kneel I will tell you. But first, let me taste your lips. Then we shall see about overthrowing yonder light."