Blackfoot Forest and the things that i've loved are the things i have lost

the hands, his hands, ashblack hands groping her throat. the kartika bit between his teeth, the scale already weighing her heart—

fear was trying to overmaster her, but she was loath to allow it to deglove her artifice. the more frightened she became, the more affectless her expression grew and her chin tipped upwards. 

 

"me as well, i help the murdering," she said, pounding down a particularly acrid and thick rise of bile. she glanced over to aerasha, who seemed a little bit away with the fairies at the moment. they were plainly speaking of homicide and she was just watching the precursor to foul play unfold with a bemused smile. phaedra's head began to swim, butterfly strokes and backstrokes and sidestrokes.

she looked back to the man and he was now abreast of her; she froze. insinuating himself into her headroom, he was tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in speech, knuckles brushing her clammy cheek. she held her breath until he moved away, then sighed it out with a watery rictus grin once he admitted to his ignorance of the "ainaflockt". 

"oh tha's fine, i'll go-" "but we can't let you leave so soon." her nostrils flared, her smile wobbly in its tested grasp on charm, "... soon though, prollably," she said, losing her confidence as the pit in her stomach widened. she tried not to stare at the vacant socket in his skull, or at the shorn, moth-eaten condition of his ear. these things did embolden her some with the realization that he was not the invincible kind of grotesquerie she'd heard about in den-tales from mother (because gothic literature was so much better than fairytales). he could be hurt.

murdered even, she thought.

merrick lost interest in her for a brief moment in favor of aerasha, which gave phaedra a small margin to glance through the trees again. cain, drop on his head and rip out his other eye, do it now! she begged in her head, but if the marten was still in the area, he wasn't giving her any indications.

phaedra shifted a step away from the duo, gazing away from his reptant smile with a clenched mouth. her chin fell when he asked after her father's name. she wasn't very good at coming up with names. mama had thought tulip was a stupid name for a snake  giant pink worm, when she thought it perfectly suited him.

"h-his name?" she looked at merrick unsurely, dull, eyebrows furrowing. she knew papa was mahler ... "father? some of the d-time, daddy. mosly only father." phaedra blinked, eyes drifting in the direction straight past him before snapping back to attention. "are you a daddy?" she suddenly asked in turn, wondering how much sand was left in the hourglass before would she lose all nerve and begin to cry out for help. intuition told her not to go to a second location with him.

"ohhhh, i wanna visit the pack tooo," she swept her glance at the woman, brows twitching. "we like to be lef' alone, only me and him always,"

i wish it wasn't a lie, she considered dejectedly in her mind.