the game is not played alone. life has a hopeful undertone. She is a timid doe trained into the pack of hungry wolves. She has to put on the mask of the wolf in order to stay alive, rubbing herself against them so they don’t turn against her. She has grown up in their roughness (a smooth panel of glass among the harshness of concrete walls) and she is used to the feeling of darkness and evil and chaos.
The meadow offers something of a break from the pretending and masquerading and acting. Here (once she is past the borders of the Valley, once she is away from their snapping jaws, once she dances onto the trail and hears the murmur of voices in the distance) she can finally be herself. Her steps are light and graceful and flowing, poison ivy tendrils tangled against the knots in her mane. They move gently, brushing against her neck and coddling the slenderness of her cheek.
She is the daughter of the spring goddess. She is the daughter of the Valley’s magical king. She is a pretender. She is a doe. She is a badger. She is a plant.
She is many things and yet she feels like nothing.
She’s lost in her thoughts when she runs into him. A solid form, a deep chest, a manly smell – all of it colliding against her slender form, gentle chest, feminine and ivy smell. Her thoughts clash until she’s standing stock still, bright green eyes wide against her white bark blaze and bay face. She can’t think of anything to say for a moment (or anything to do, for that matter) and so she stands completely still, every muscle seizing up until she is frozen.
The cooing of an ivy branch against her jaw snaps her out of the petrified state and she sucks in a deep sigh. “I’m sorry!”cerva eight & noori
Belgarath certainly isn’t watching where he’s going. No, it’s up to the others to get out of his way. She is such a little thing anyways. Hardly worth his attention (not till she grows older and adds some curves to her hips). He is not a wolf; he is a polar bear, a glacier, an ice kraken. Does anyone know what an ice kraken can do? The destruction he might be capable of?
No?
Neither do I. Want to find out?
He halts suddenly when something bumps against his chest and glares down. The half-grown girl is all wide-eyed and trembling, though whether it’s because her nose might be hurting or his terrifyingly (in his mind) large stature. The first thing he notices isn’t the freakish bark on her face, but her eyes, and how strikingly green they are. They catch him by surprise for a moment, but he shakes it off more quickly than she does. Oh, oh wouldn’t she be a lovely addition to his collection when she gets older? She reminds him vaguely of Spyndle, that useless, flighty woman, and the way she froze when Ruin replaced Belgarath. She was loads of fun.
His mind briefly goes to their daughter and he wonders what that unfortunate girl is up to. Probably dead somewhere.
“Quite alright, dear... Tell me, where are you going in such a hurry?” And all of a sudden, he feels like the big bad wolf. Huffing and Puffing and waiting to just Gobble Her Up.
BELGARATH
No mercy to what we are doing, no thought to what we have done
No need to feel the sorrow, no remorse for the helpless one |
the game is not played alone. life has a hopeful undertone. Just as she is fragile fawn, she is also a delicate china doll. She is the ivory-skinned doll sitting in the corner with the rosy pink cheeks and bright red lips and green eyes that reflect the brilliant color of her mother’s. She sits perched atop a dusty little shelf while the snapping and rolling of the other angry fighting toys of her home bicker and war and kill. She is a doe, she is a doll, and she is a princess.
When she regains her composure, she comes to the conclusion he is a different type of evil. She can sense the darkness behind his eyes, but he is a foreign breed compared to what she lives with. He is not a wolf. He is not a fighting toy. Perhaps he is a jaguar or perhaps he is a kitchen appliance.
She can feel his eyes trace the young lines of her body, but she doesn’t yet understand the purpose. However, the unyielding, childish curves of her body will soon give way to something more womanly; something very close to the wild beauty of her mother. She will certainly be a looker when she is fully grown – poison ivy decorating her slender curves like the ivory of a bride’s dress, intense green eyes standing out against the white bark and bay of her face, long legs dancing across the ground in light movements – and there is no doubt she would be a priceless collection to anyone’s harem.
He asks her where she might be going and she glances down toward her feet, licking her lips in a sign of submission. “Just… exploring,” she says quietly, a soft murmur against the breeze of loud voices surrounding her. “Where were you going?”cerva eight & noori
Bel would have been the schoolyard bully that broke the little china dolls, gleefully holding the delicate creatures out of reach of grasping, desperate hands. He would have told them to run and catch it, flinging it so far away they hadn’t any hopes of saving the toy before it came smashing down to the ground in smithereens. He would have laughed. The teachers would have to make him stop. Belgarath was never a nice little boy.
The girl, the fine-boned and slender doe, licks her lips as if he scares her. He wants to ask if he does. Does he make her want to run away? Flee back to Mommy and Daddy and the safety of wherever she’s from?
“Oh, I was just out for a little walk…” he lies through grinning teeth, painting the picture of an only slightly creepy older uncle. The one that looks at you sideways, but you've never caught doing anything inappropriate. I am hunting, he thinks, though that wasn’t his original plan. But when opportunities knock, he isn’t one to lock the door. I am lurking. I am the fear of the open ice and drowning. “What’s your name? I’m Belgarath.” His voice rumbles like the crashing of an iceberg into the sea, or the long-hidden voice of some sea monster.
It wasn’t time to rise. Not quite yet.
BELGARATH
No mercy to what we are doing, no thought to what we have done
No need to feel the sorrow, no remorse for the helpless one |
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