elfenmärchen
disclaimer: d. gray-man is not mine.
Between the green thorns and red petals of a rosebud sweetly scented across her skin, he manages to tell a story, brightening her eyes with words that chant an almost-melody. His thumb smoothes the ashen paper, soft tresses of her black hair, and his fingers trace the ebony scars, the prose printed on white sheets.
Pulling back, he's all too aware of her heavy-lidded gaze on him.
"What happened next?" She asks next, curious for more.
Eyebrows arch and a little crooked smile rose at the corner of his mouth. "You tell me."
(Sometimes she doesn't listen to his stories. Her mind is too far away; shadows creeping under her eyes and through her veins which are slowly turning blue.
But she hears his voice and wills herself to open her eyes, never quite succeeding.
He carries her away in a strange lullaby with tales of princes and princesses and girls and boys who were never there.)
His name is Lavi, Lenalee decides, as she places him on the window. This gift. This puppet. Hers. Translucent strings graze her arms; for a second, they almost cling to her, like specks of sand hugging the ocean floor, desperate not to leave their place called home. But it's only a second, only that and she lets go of him, and so, on the windowsill he stays.
His name is Lavi and he is her wooden boy.
She wonders if she can bring him to life.
(It only takes a kiss. This time and that. That was the price that was paid. One kiss and she'll be awake. One kiss and he'll be—)
They dance one day, when the world outside has a cloudless sky and sings sweetly with birdsong. There's a clunky sort of rhythm in the music they make, but her laughter is more than enough for them both. Through the clumsy bumping of wood, his arms awkwardly wrapped around her and falling constantly, she pretends he mumbles something in her ear, something charming, something flirty, something cheeky and makes her smile; and she pulls back, twirling as she giggles, hearing a heavy sort of thud trail across the floor. They could be walking in clouds and dancing through raindrops, and neither would matter—because this is her tower, shared with her pretty marionette.
This is her tower, trapped here, she lives.
(We could stay here, he thinks. Just you, just me. And he knows that he likes that thought far too much. For everything must come to an end sooner or later.
A hundred years she sleeps. A hundred years he stays by her side.
And both are ignorant to the snicker-snack of briar flowers twining past a vorpal blade.)
An enchantress comes in one day, soaring through the window with apples in her pockets, umbrella close at hand. Her smile is like a razorblade, jagged at every edge and eager to tear paper into shreds and break marble into clay.
She wants to play; wants to doll Lenalee up, with her soft doe eyes and jet black hair, ivory skin picture perfect with her skinny frame.
And the red-haired, green-eyed puppet is all but forgotten, tangled up in sunlight webs and cold zephyrs.
But the enchantress casts her eye on him; in saccharine tones she offers him a deal that almost makes his strings long to break from its hold.
(There are words written in her skin and strings seamed to his bones, and it seems there's something more than this that connects them. Something small, something big, something that only happens when he grins and she rakes her hand through her hair; his thumb brushes her lower lip, rose red, and once more, oh, once more, does he find a flower in her thicket of hair, it's colour as bright as his own.
He dips his head there and then, and for one second, she feels a prick of the spindle against her finger and the world of reality crumbles once more.
Yet the moment doesn't come.)
She's sixteen and far more lovely than anyone imagines.
Entranced, there lies a spindle, a gift from the enchantress who visited so long ago. Her cackles and sharp nails creak on the floorboards unbeknownst to either, hidden in the dusty wooden seat, and the wheel spins and yarn turns round and round, with a promise of gold.
Entranced, Lenalee reaches out—and her finger is pricked all too soon, and so, sleep makes it's way upon her, hazy and wrapped with dew.
Entranced, she falls into a puppet's waiting arms, and together they stay, in the only way they could be.
For slumber paints the vivid illusions of butterflies seeping into their skin and masquerades fumbling into ecstasy.
(But she kisses him all the same, her wooden boy that cannot refuse her.
Lavi, she breathes, and closes her eyes for this sweet bliss.)
And when she opens her eyes once more, waking from her century old dream, there's a boy with dark hair and dark eyes standing above her and there's no sign of a puppet on the windowsill with green eyes, red hair and cut string.