Lost, pondering

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

The sounds of the ornate grandfather clock gilded in gold that sat in the corner of her room were endlessly repeating. In turn my head began to think about them. They were layered over each other, the sounds and my thoughts, and everything began to seem too loud amidst gnawing silence.

The heiress of thorns sat across from me, a huff of breath leaving her puffed chest as she sat back in her seat. Even without the table that stood between us, she felt wholly distant.

“What is it that you enjoy, Ms. Lihal?” I asked of her, turning my gaze towards her callous eyes in that moment.

“Who told you in detail that you could refer to me in that way?” Lihal spoke coldly, her eyes filled with icy glare. “Your brain must have been dulled to think such a thing.”

“I think my mind is sharp.” I grinned. “Do you not think such a thing?”

“I do not.”

“Then perhaps I should fix your perspective to match mine.” I spoke simply in response.

“And how would you propose to do that?”

I glanced over towards a spectacle that sat quietly and unnoticed on a side table at the edge of the room. It was a slab of simple marble, checkered upon its surface by carefully-lain black and white paints.

“You want to play Chess?” She asked of me with surprised eyes. “To think a dullard like you would even know of it...”

She walked over to the table, and brought over the board. Sitting across from me, she grinned suddenly, a switch in her mood apparent.

“Then, would you like to play out the Uepris-style, or the Esprium-style?” She asked of me.

I shook my head I response, as if it did not matter to me. No matter which style of chess we chose to play, I was sure I knew of neither.

On each side, around fourty pieces were placed carefully. Immediately, Lihal began to rearrange her own army. It was as if it was the chess I had once vaguely known, but had been grander in scale to simulate the genuine strategy of warfare.

Chess was not a game I had played often, for it had no true place within my country. I knew of its basic rules, but nothing more than that had crossed my mind. Rather than agonise over grueling strategy, I simply allowed myself to fall into the role. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.

As I reopened them, I no longer sat at a table across from the Heiress of thorns. Instead, a stark board of black and white stood before us.

Stepping onto a darkened field gilded by blood, I let a grin fall across my wild expression. The sky was a dark gray, thunder roaring in the distance to match the mood of warfare. Cannons boomed on either side of me, operated by the rooks who stood as bastions of defense.

Men on stallions stood at my side, seemingly waiting for a simple word to cross my lips. I turned to one of the men who sat upon his horse, and smiled softly towards him.

“Hm.” I spoke softly, gazing upon the man who stood before me, high upon a stallion coloured midnight. "How interesting, is it not? War is the same, even in imagination. Its a cruel portraiture of bloodied paints."

I let out a sigh, and let my eyes fall upon the battlefield before me.

“Then, let’s attack.” I spoke simply.

He only nodded in response. There was no communication between them, and they all seemed to hop into attack in unison. Behind them, the pawns clad in silver armor used as sacrificial pieces ran forward blindly.

Cannonfire flew through the air, lighting the greyed sky a bright-vermilion with flames like shooting stars. Simply and brightly did they fly through the air, until they fell through the air, and then landed far below against the emerald plains. Dirt and sediment erupted from the ground, filling the air with a mist of soil that would not cease.

I climbed atop a horse that had been left for me, and digging my heels into its sides, cascaded through the bloodstained grass around me with a grin on my face.

Through the haze of sediment and smoke, I could see a rose blooming in the distance, with a thicket of thorns around her grace so obvious in their sharpened demeanor.

Her eyes widened as I approached, flying past her silver soldiers who acted as pawns. My horse stopped its movement suddenly, and I was thrown off of its back in turn. Flying through the air as if I was mimicking cannonfire, I landed simply and harshly in the grass beside Lihal.

As if brandishing a blade, I held my hand to her throat, which was completely open to the air as if unexpectant of danger that transcedes the thicket.

“This means the game is over, right?” I smiled, extending a hand towards her.

“Yes, I suppose you’ve won.” She sighed. “You can laugh about it all you want now.”

She took my hand within hers. Unlike mine, which were soft and trim, I could tell that her fingertips were unusually calloused.

I lifted her up gently, and we stood opposed once again atop a battlefield of blood.

“I think its better left as a draw.” I smiled.

She let out a simple sigh, and turned her gaze away from mine in embarrassment.

“How can you wear a smile on your face, even now? I’ve been nothing but cruel to you.” Lihal muttered. “How can you enjoy the time we spend together?”

“It is more fun to like things.”

She held an expression of shock, and she had to bite at her lip as if it was only to keep her mask in check.

“How can you be so kind all of the time? Is it just who you are?”

“No. I am bitter, vain, and possessive. I am all of the things that would make someone a person that most wouldn’t like.” I shook my head in response.

“Then... why?”

“It is my own choice to choose to be kind.” I smiled. “To be better, to strive to be a better person, to seek to place smiles on people’s faces... all you have to do is choose to do so.”

Lihal seemed to look at me with softer, gentler eyes in that moment. I knew then that my carefully-crafted words had shaken her heart.

We sat in silence, for a time. The window which had been opened allowed the warm breeze to flow in softly, filling the quiet with a whistle longed for to split up the dread of a muted gathering.

“I surely would have beaten you, given more time...” Lihal bit at her tongue. “You are more aloof than you were previously. Your head seems lost in the clouds.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re surely thinking about something a great deal, to be so disconnected from the present moment.” She groaned. “It’s annoying. If you’re going to be in my presence this much, the least you could do would be to pay me attention.”

I was confused.

“Do I seem different to you…?”

My face suddenly lit up a bright-red, and I knew well what had been on my mind in that moment.

There was only one thing, one person that had always been on my mind.

///

Lihal walked silently through the halls of the manor, a softened smile sitting upon her face. Even with thorns did a rose hold beauty.

She stopped within the bright-lit corridor, looking straight with a darkened gaze that drew her smile away from her face, fleeing like a scared animal towards her heart hidden deep within her chest.

The woman before her looked nothing alike to her, for she was a woman who was nothing alike to her.

“You wear a smile on your face now.” The woman spoke coldly. “You’ve changed so much in my absence.”

“Sorry, stepmother.” Lihal spoke quietly, chiding underneath her breath. “It was a lapse in judgement to feel happy.”

Before Lihal could even exhale a quick-drawn breath, her stepmother appeared before her, leaning down close to meet her gaze. Lihal quickly looked away toward the ground, but she could feel the piercing of the woman’s sharpened eyes upon her skin.

“Perhaps I’ll need to remind you how to act as an heiress, hm?”

Lihal did not respond, steadily gazing towards the ground. She could feel beads of sweat collecting against her brow, and her hands sat shaking against her sides.

To live a life covered in thorns was to protect herself from this woman.