Scars
By
Chinangel
I could feel her fingers dragging across my back, playing a silent tune on my ribs while the rain battered our window uselessly.
"This one?" she asks, rubbing her thumbnail across four paralell marks carving a cruel diagonal trench from my left shoulder all the way down to my right hip.
Thunder flashes.
A blur of fur. The stench of gunpowder, and dirt sprays. A miss! Where? Left? Right? Up? Where? Back. Pain. Blood. Adrenaline. Turn, FIRE! QUICKLY!
"Balvarine." I respond softly.
Her fingers trace around my hips, running up my belly and two my breasts, but she stops. Again. More claw marks, running over the top of my right breast.
"This one?" she asks, running her index, middle, ring, and fifth fingers over the path of the claws.
People cheering. Gold hitting the gold. Gunfire. One falls! Good, now where is the other? Wait...turn around! YOU IDIOT NOW! twist, fire! Hit, but not enough. Claws raking. DODGE!
"The Arena. They had a white balvarine, and I almost dodged it." she nods slowly while rubbing the marks.
Her fingers continue their exploration, and she pushes a few strands of hair from my face, tucking them behind my ear, then she pauses. A series of marks across my left cheek. Her fingers explore each and every one of them.
A ridge, they yell and taunt, I silence them with my rifle. They get angry. Gunfire, smoke, pain. PAIN! BLOOD! PAIN! BLOOD!
"Bandits. One had a blunderbuss. I was lucky that's all they did."
Her fingers push down to my nose, and she flicks it, before rubbing my violet lipstick, but one of her fingernails find a pit, traveling diagonally: bisecting my lips, travelling up and ending underneath my right eye.
Fire. Shatter of bones. Fire! More bones. Back up, reload? No time! Sword. Block, slash. Block, look up. NO!
"Hollow Man. Killed it, but it left me a souviner."
She nods and rests her head against mine.
"Will you be back again?"
I shrug a little.
"I'm heading out to hunt balvarines
again...so I can't answer that."
"I hate it when you
leave." she whispers, "You always come back..." she
kisses the claw slash on my back.
"I'm cursed." I respond, half-bitterly, "With an exciting life."
"I'll
pay you later." I finally answer. She nods.
"I know."
she then lays her head against mine as we listen to the rain.
I had all the dreams a normal child did; to have 3 meals a day, to have a warm room to sleep in, and to grow up with my sister.
Now...all I have is a gun, and a collection of scars. Sorry Rose...your Little Sparrow has turned into a tired old Raven, who's only emotionally solace is in a cheap inn, wrapped in the arms of a prostitute.
Some Hero.