Take Comfort in His False, Twisted Love

By: Shattered Hourglass

Disclaimer: Shaman King does not belong to me.

Whimper; you can't help but whimper and pull your knees to your chest. Can't help but bury your head in the hollow between knees that cradles your tired head and offers what little comfort it can.

Freeze as he enters. Freeze like the ice that runs through you, used to run through you before he destroyed her. He fed her to his pet. His first pet since you are his pet also now. You don't like him. He scares you.

Wince when you feel his hand on your face. Even though his fingers and palm are incased in the slightly rough material that make up his gloves. Try not to move, to breath, when his fingers encased in gloves move to trace the outline of your ear; weave through your now limp, blue and black spikes of hair.

He took you headband long ago. He took it from you when he took you.

You can feel the warmth of his hand as it trails down your back; your back covered with a thick, warm blanket embroidered with a moon of ice surrounded by many stars of fire, because you are very cold, even if the temperature's higher here than home. You do not understand why you are so cold when he is right next to you, touching you, and he is fire. He is fire like you are ice. Opposites. He is warmth. You are cold.

Try not to let your breath hitch when he removes the blanket from your body, leaving you cold and exposed. Fail miserably when you try.

Close your eyes when he comes to kneel before you, tilting your face to meet his. Open them when he commands. You must listen to him when he commands you. If not, he will hurt you. But more importantly, he will hurt those close to you. He fed her to his pet when you refused to serve him. He killed many close to you. Not all, but many. So many he killed and fed to his pet when you didn't obey. So now you must obey or the few left will be killed and fed to his pet as well.

His eyes are staring into yours. His warm honey eyes that look so kind and wise bore into your ebony black voids that lost their light long ago. How can eyes that seem so kind belong to such an evil, malicious man?

Wonder how you still have tears left to shed when his lips touch yours. Wonder why he speaks and touches and kisses and shatters and tears so gently. Wonder why he comforts when in the end he'll hurt and shatter all that remains of you even further.

Whimper again. This time, not from the cold and the loneliness and the fear; whimper as fingers no longer encased in gloves trace and travel and explore what they know so well. And cry out softly when his fingers reach down to tease sensitive flesh which no one should touch without your approval.

He does not need your approval. He does as he wishes.

Scold yourself for letting yourself enjoy his touches, his false gentleness.

Whine when he brings your naked body flush against his and his teeth begin to tease and mark the skin of your neck that still aches and is bruised from the last few times he has preformed this ritual. Whine because it hurts and yet you find a sick, masochistic pleasure in it.

Hold your breath when he lowers you to the ground and brushes the limp blue and black spikes from your face. Hold your breath because you know what comes next.

Become silent as he enters you. Don't show him how much it hurts you. Don't show him the pain because then he'll be gentle again and even though you let yourself enjoy his touches, you don't want them. Yet you must take comfort in the soft words he whispers to you. Because even if they are dark, tainted lies that mean no more than those he destroy you can pretend that he means them. And that lessens the pain enough that you can bear it.

Then gasp. Gasp and moan as he takes pleasure from your body. Even if it hurts and burns within you. Even if it disgusts you and makes you want to vomit. Even though it does not hurt as much as it did the first time he preformed this dance of the ritual, because even though he forces you he is gentle and tries to consider your pleasure.

Cry out to the skies. Cry out like a whore. For that is what you are, what he made you. A whore. Because if you don't act like a whore, if you don't act like you enjoy what he does he will be gentler than he wishes to. And if he needs to be that gentle for more than a moment or two, he will become cross.

And he is terrifying when he is cross.

Moan and gasp as he moves within you. Gasp and beg as tears stream down your cheeks. Scream as each touch shatters you into smaller and smaller shards that you can no longer piece together; shards that no one can piece together.

Shards that he puts together the wrong way and then shatters again.

Shriek as you find temporary release as the dance of the ritual ends. Shriek louder when he finishes his own dance. Shriek because he wants to hear it.

Whimper yet again when he removes himself from you and leaves you emptier and more broken then before.

Bury your face in his shoulder when he offers it, after he wipes away your tears, and let his strong arms bind you to him. He will never let go. You find a strange comfort in that fact. That even if you are broken, lost, and empty, he will never let you go. Even if you wish he was anyone else in this big, wide world filled with so many different people, cling to him for he is the only one you may touch and may touch you.

Take comfort as he sings softly and cradles you to him gently, always gently. Almost as if with his gentleness he is asking for forgiveness for hurting you, even though he regrets nothing.

Let your eyes begin to close as his hands no longer encased in gloves cover you and him in your thick, warm blanket embroidered with the stars and the moon, the fire that keeps the ice captive and alone.

Take no notice as he takes the pieces of your shattered being and puts them together the wrong way, his way, the way he thinks you should be. Do not think of how later he will break the pieces he so meticulously put together again and again.

Feel yourself begin to drift when his bare fingers snake through your hair; massage your scalp. Do not fight it when he lays a gentle kiss to your forehead now bare because he took your headband from you when he fed her to his first pet and start to sing a different song. His songs are all the same; soft and sad and ancient and filled with love and tenderness.

Do not cry again when he says he loves you.

Because he performs this ritual because he loves you. Because in his own twisted way that shatters you and leaves you broken and empty, he does. And though you regret it, you too find yourself falling into this twisted, perverted love that claws at your soul and grasps you and will never let you escape. Like he will never let you escape.

Do not hesitate to let your eyes fall shut and end the ritual as he sings and cradles and holds and pets. Take joy that you dream of the happier times of your past even though they are past and the joy is bittersweet. Ignore that times like those you take joy in dreaming will never happen again because many that are in those dreams are dead and were fed to his first pet.

Don't be surprised when you wake up and he is not there. Do not try to leave because soon he will be back and if you are not there he will not become cross.

He will become infuriated and find you.

And then he will kill all those who remain. If any still remain. And you do not want them to die and be fed to his first pet and witness it all as he holds you to him and makes you watch. So you will learn your lesson. A lesson you learned long ago, many times, and cried so helplessly every time.

Whimper one last time before I leave, because you are alone with no one to comfort you but yourself and space between your knees and the thick, warm blanket with the moon of ice held prisoner by the stars of fire until he returns with his false, twisted love.