drink thy poison lightly dear; any

[Engelsfors]

Let's love like seventeen, I'm in love with poisoning. Only bring your pretty, frightful gifts to me. Let's love and kill like seventeen now. The weeping angels of the graveyard are covered in moss, forgotten in the shadows of a bent and bowed willow. Shadows line beneath their eyes and cracks form in their perfect alabaster face. This is me, willows exchanged for pines, and the shadows instead taint my golden frame all over. Even Killdare casts a shadow over me, a darkness, a welcoming swath of warmth that takes me to a whole different realm. Is that what sleep is? To be taken on the wings of nightmares and dropped off in a dazzling little dream? I swallow a breath that had began to sit rigid in my chest, moving like a fat stone to sit in the back of my throat. Achingly so. His touch sends me along the knife edge; every little kiss of his muzzle against my golden flesh sends more gooseflesh along, the cold, the ice inside of me thaws more and more until I feel like I am a sodden puddle, even my heart flops like some dying fish before my feet. I widen my eyes, gilt lashes framing sapphire eyes, still gleaming with tears that remain unshed. I bury myself even closer. Instilling into me, his very heartbeat. I nestle my nose into the throes of his ebony mane, I taste him. The ash and the earth of the chamber, the pine and the bark that he guards so rigidly. Each muscle of him shifts and tightens beneath my touch and I feel that this moment could not possibly be real. But then he speaks, his voice takes me back, grips me with his concrete voice, keeping me firmly in place. In the chamber, nestled in the darkest reaches of the pines, I am here, curled with Killdare. 'You're here.' I breathe and my throat feels closed, hoarse as thought the rough edge of the bark had been embedded deep within me, grating my tender flesh, throbbing my tongue. There is not doubt within him, and as I stare, eye to eye, soul to soul, I feel something, something unlike anything ever felt. It twangs like fine violin strings, falling out of tune, then gallops like raging hooves across stone. Oh, oh, that is my heart. It beats to a whole new tune, a whole new purpose. Through these raging heartbeats I whisper, 'Injured inside. My Heart, My Soul. I thought the Chamber had claimed them, taken them rightfully as it's own but now... now I am not sure.' I nest closer, like some lost bird finding comfort, solace in the arms of a rugged angel. I swallow again, that lump is irritant at best. My lips curl, twisting into some sort of a graceful smile. I give up when it seems more grimace than delicacy. I turn my nose and touch his face, gliding my silken muzzle across his cheek, touching the hollows of his eyes before finding the nook of his chin, and there I nestle deeper. Finding the warmth of his pulse the most comfort. I breathe in time with him then and I whisper, lost, broken. 'She was wrong. I do have a heart, somewhere, somewhere inside it does beat and... and Killdare I...' I refuse then to meet his eyes, my own tightly knit shut. Even sightless I see him, his earthy body, muscled and toned. His face, chiselled like the gods had word in his making. But those emerald eyes were hers, those precious gemstones taking her. 'It beats for someone, someone other than the chamber, someone else...' My words fall like glass fragments, slippery and delicate, crushed beneath the string of emotion. It seems so strange, this dream-like reverie. And yet, here I am, still here, still wrapped in his warm embrace. 'You.' barely a whisper, barely even a word slips my tongue. He is so close to me, I'm sure he may hear if, even if it is lost in the pounding of my heart, or the caws of the ravens above. Slithers of me hope he had missed it, and I would not have to dare take rejection. Then, then it would become a nightmare and I would fall into the bottomless pits of Hell's fire, like I did every single time. Let's love like seventeen, I'm in love with your new screams. Only bring those pretty, frightful gifts to me. Let's love and kill like seventeen now. - professor of the chamber -