blood in her shoe

more weird fairy tale stuff yay

So a while back I led this workshop on scene description for Inkwells & Anvils which mostly involved me churning out a description based on random images found on Pinterest (like the one above) in five minutes and making everybody else in the workshop do the same because abusing power is fun. The following is an expanded version of one of the snippets I wrote for that workshop.

There she is, how lovely, in that dress ten years out of fashion. Stolen from her sister’s closet, I expect, but it fits her like a glove—must have been some clever tailoring to that. But then she’s always had clever fingers, hasn’t she, and they’ve gotten no small bit of practice since her father died.

Do you remember her father?

Oh, certainly. I’m not so sure his wife does.

And wasn’t it—

Well of course it was awful, but what was anyone to do about it? And anyway, surely it is better she turn out like this than like her sisters. Do you know, when I look at them, sometimes I think I am not really looking at them? Beautiful girls, yes, but I can’t always convince myself their faces are anything more than ingenious masks, wonderfully hinged and jointed to create every sort of expression a human face is supposed to make. And then I think one day they will fall, or shatter, and whatever will we see beneath them? I can’t imagine it.

I imagine teeth.

Yes. Teeth, mainly. And she—well, it is almost the same, and almost the opposite. I believe if she could she would make herself just such a mask.

She has tried, I think, with the ashes.

And even then she cannot hide. Look at her. Look at her—I swear there is a light beneath her face. She is unbearable; she is the bird and the cage and I fear she will break open and fly away. And I will rejoice for her, and I will hate her for leaving us.

I heard her sing, once.

As did I, so don’t speak of it. Don’t.

She looks like a ghost.

She always has, a little, but never more than now. All her dreaming for people and parties and yet the moment she gets her wish she can only haunt.
But look! Look, he sees her, too—and better, I expect, than you or I. These great halls have haunted him for longer still; she is a ghost but a new one and he knows all the old ones as well as the itch of his skin when it’s longing to come off.

How long it has been since he has seen anything new, all his days spent in the long spidery shadows of his ancestors, in these great halls that tell him who he is as plainly as halls of mirrors. It has been a long time since I have seen him smile.

He isn’t smiling now.

No, he is much too afraid. And wouldn’t you be? One wrong move and she’s certain to fly away.

Oh, but I have seen him with birds and ghosts. He is gentle. He is careful and quiet. And there is his hand. That is the same way he reaches to them, the same way he reaches to his horse when she is frightened. He has a way of turning his hand into a place of rest.

Take it, oh, please take it. I think she has not rested in years. I think she has forgotten how.

I do not think she will fly away tonight. Not alone.

I have never seen her dance before. I have never seen him dance like this. And oh! Look at her shoes!

You would think of shoes at a time like this?

Of hers I would. Look at them. Have you ever seen anything like them?

There is a light beneath his face, too. I have never seen it before. How do they bear each other’s gaze? I think if someone looked at me like that, looked at me with eyes that clear and gleaming, eyes that can see down beneath flesh and bone, I would run before I let them see what lay at the bottom. Even those two must have something terrible within, mustn’t they? Do you think they will let each other see even that? Do you think they will let each other see everything?

I think her shoes will break.

The glass will become a grand coruscant flurry across the mirror-smooth dancefloor; it will blaze in the light of the chandeliers and her blood will stain every last piece and make it red and holy fire.

He will gather the glass in his fingers and slice them open. He will wander the earth to find who spilled such precious blood.

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