Matthew | Чернобог (chernobog) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2011-09-22 10:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | chernobog, marzanna |
And at the closing of the day
Who: Marzanna & Chernobog
What: A shared dream remarking on past histories.
Where: Outside of an unnamed village in Poland, near the Masuria Lakeland area.
When: A long time ago
Warnings: Vague shadow sex implied
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott
Her foggy breath cut a cloud into the frigid air, toes nearer than she would like to the edge of the frozen-over lake. Its smooth, white top was almost unbroken, a jagged-edged hole marring the snowy perfection. Even with the break marking the obvious danger, ice-imbued limbs trembled at the sight the static inland sea. So clearly she could remember running, running from the people she’d once called family and friend, forced onto the lake with nowhere else to go.
She could remember the cracking noise splitting the air, the spiderweb that appeared under her feet as her weight proved too much for the unsteady surface beneath her.
But it was her way home now - the path to the dark place, the only one that would lay claim to her now that she was no longer among the living. Her fingers, frostbitten and black, rose to smooth back a strand of dark hair sprinkled with snowflakes, the action causing her feet to move away from the dangerous ice, her heart filled with the conflicting emotions of longing and trepidation.
“Can I come home now?” The voice moved through the air in a similar fashion as that of the ice cracking, in fits and starts, though to whom the dead young woman was speaking was not immediately apparent. All around her, the snows were melting, and small signs of the end of winter were making themselves known. Hands clenched into anxious claws, ears straining for an answer.
“Of course,” the voice came softly and appeared from no direct point. It rose from the earth, from the icy lake, and surrounded the woman. The voice was so smooth and soft, yet held a quickness to it that caused the ice to pop and crack. “Darling, I have missed you, come home.”
Through the dark ice came two glowing points. It was blurry at first and then, as the points rose to the surface and grew nearer to the ice, they became the form of eyes. Shadowed hands pressing along the ice under the water, a finger crooking back, beckoning the woman forward. The shadow seemed to speak, wavering as if a mouth moved, and the voice was comfortingly soft. “Come now, come down with me.”
The form under the ice was not the cause of her fear - no, that was the water lapping at the maw of the lake, where she had fallen in before. Where she had drowned before. What little heartbeat was left to her began to increase, her eyes widened and begging another way. Her head shook in response, hands rising in a pleading gesture.
“Please, no, just take me home, as you did before, as before!” The cracking broke through the still air, beseeching the shadowy creature under the frozen water to give her any other answer than this. Though she knew there was no other way, she still fought against the current of fate that she had purchased with her own coin of deceit.
The shadow seemed to shake its head. “You know of your punishment, my dear,” he replied with silky smooth words. “You have to leave behind what little life you have to come home, you know this, and your punishment ends by this. Come home, come home, darling.”
The repetitive wish for her return nearly sounded like a song and the ice around the shadowed form cracked and buckled. Breaking the shadow free it still only lingered near the darkest of the water, a glimmer of a shape still beckoning her forward. “I cannot come to you, not now. Step into the water my dear and I will take you home. I will be here to receive you.”
A sob broke through chapped and ice-lined lips, the memories flooding her mind with regret. She had believed herself so wickedly smart, out maneuvering a god, manipulating his desire for her. Of course in the end she had lost - how had she come to think she could outwit a force older than the world itself? The water lapped at the edges of the ice, mimicking the shadow’s own summons; or maybe it was laughing, a cruel thing to do in her predicament. It knew it would win, in the end, or else she would be trapped here, in the land of the living.
All she wanted was the soft darkness of his realm, the safety that it offered in both his home and his arms. At first the idea that she was loved by this metaphysical force had frightened her, turned her mind against him. Now all she wanted was to feel wrapped inside of that presence, fully engulfed by all that he was.
“But I’m frightened...”
“But this is part of what must happen, sweetling,” the voice cooed from the water, the shadow drifting over the small waves. “I will be here through it all. You will never be far from my grasp and you will certainly not be alone.”
The shadow seemed to come closer, a gloomy hand reaching from the water to touch her, if only it could reach but it seemed to lose its strength and sink back beneath the darkened water where the glowing eyes stared at the woman. He sang out again to her over the ripples and waves. “Come, come. Come home.”
Slowly she crept forward, each movement labored and hindered by her fear. Arms stayed close to the body, as though unwilling to be the first sacrifice to the suffocating liquid that was required for her passage back to her resting place. His voice was soothing, words reassuring, but she also knew that he was far more canny than she. How had she ever thought she could defraud him? If only she’d agreed, fully, in both word and soul, the first time around, then this fate would not have befallen her.
Kneeling by the maw, her fingers stretched out, brushing the surface. The cold rammed into her, though temperature no longer held much sway over her body. It was a cruel thing he was doing, and yet she knew she deserved it, for what she had done. Maybe in her own way, what she had done was cruel, and thus the punishment fit the crime.
“Are you sure? Do you promise me?”
“When have I ever lied to you, darling?” He voice crawled through the water and to her corpse’s hand. Again the shadowy appendage reappeared with the very tips brushing over her own fingers. The shadow wrapped around the cold skin, sinking in to each pore and under each nail. “You’re almost there. You’re almost in the water. Come, come home. The sooner you come into the water, the sooner you’ll be with me. Darling, I’ll protect you but I can not do it while you are on earth, not this far into the start of spring, not without mortals calling for me.”
He wanted her now, was eager for her touch, he loved what he possessed and she was his most treasured prize. It had twisted his unbeating heart when she had fooled him; it only hurt him more when he punished her, sent her away at the end of each fall. He did not want to be without her, but she deserved to understand who was the master and that she, although now a goddess in her own right and immortal compared to those still breathing, was little more than a servant.
The sensation of his form slipping into hers brought a gasp from deep within her, making her form shudder and ache for more. Parts of her long since dead woke, clenched, demanded, but still her fear held her from going further.
All too clearly she could remember the feeling of the water sliding down her throat, pressing cold hands to her nose and eyes, blocking her vision and consuming her until the darkness came. The darkness was something she craved, but the journey to her desire seemed like more than she could complete.
Carefully, as though expecting something to wrench her into the murky depths, she sat and slid one pale foot into the cold waters, which moved and lapped up the calf, drenching the skirt of her dirty gown. The look of fear on her face was etched with the finest of brushes, carved into delicate bone and flesh that longed for rest. Her second foot followed, and she paused, needing a moment to orient herself, to push herself further.
He immediately rushed to her feet, unable to pull himself from the water but still able to brush against her skin. He covered her, crept into her, just as the water did as it kissed her skin. The joy of feeling her after so long made him excited and more eager. He understood her fear; it seeped from her and into the water. But still, he wanted to take away that fear and it could only occur if she were to embrace the death that was waiting.
He tried to urge her forward by making her feel himself there, waiting, pressing in. His erratic movements in the water caused little disturbance in the water itself, but his impatience made his powers spark and the light around the lake seem to dim.
“Come to me. Come, Marzanna, now,” he whispered quickly with growing impatience. “My arms are open and waiting. I am weary from them being empty. Come.”
The angry tone of his words caused a wince, a delicate fracture through the porcelain mask of disquietude that covered her features; with the same, slow grace she continued to slip into the water, the feeling of him around her, in her, causing reassurance untold, though rather than abating her fear, it merely battled with it. Inch by excruciating inch her form sank, both his and the water’s hands clutching at her limbs, her curves, what little clothing covered her.
Up to her breasts, then shoulders. Finally her neck, and her eyes rolled upward, as though searching the sky for some salvation as her greatest terror slipped over her face. It seemed such a simple task - go to the water and die. She was already dead, so what possible affliction could touch her? And yet she still felt her lungs straining against the darkness, a beating in her chest that threatened to break free of her ribcage.
Hands pushed at the ice above her head, seeking the opening once more, but it was gone, lost to the unmapped movements of the water she was trapped in. Black hair swirled around her like a cloak drifting on soft winds, and her mouth opened in a soundless scream.
Immediately he was there with her; he surrounded her, feeling her fear and shriek through the water as he pushed himself into her and forced the air from her lungs. He tried, he truly did, to make the death as quick as possible. He didn’t enjoy seeing his dear one frightened. He didn’t want her so scared.
But he was also avaricious, and wanted her back quickly.
So he pushed the air out, causing her pain that she struggled against before all of it ceased; he pulled her truly dead form happily into his arms. He pressed his shadow-lined lips to her mouth, breathing a different sort of life into her; eyes wide and unmoving, her form gave no resistance. Then her chest heaved, hands rising in the water to wrap around the body that wasn’t there. He brushed back the wild wisps of her hair as he brought her down, deep into the darkness of the lake until it swallowed them entirely and they entered his kingdom.
There was no need for breath, for life where they were; instead, dark sounds filled her throat as he took her, brought her back to where she desired to be. His dark lair, where the souls rested after their earthly forms were spent; the place she’d tried to avoid, tried to run from.
Much like the water had, his form enveloped her, but rather than causing harm it invoked pleasure, the endless fathoms of his ardor expressed in ways indescribable. Parts of her were caressed that had never seen daylight, let alone the touch of another, and yet it caused shudders to run throughout her limbs, words pulled from her mouth like hooks, begging for more.
“I missed you, Chernobog, I missed you so,” her voice whispered, a million echoes battering at the words, breaking them and dragging the remains away into the darkness.
“And I’ve missed you, darling,” he whispered against her skin as he wrapped himself tightly around her and settled into the penumbra filled realm that he controlled. “It has been a long winter without you. Realize, you aren’t the only one that suffers during these months.”
His glowing eyes appeared before her and the shadow separated to grace her with a smile. “You have done well with your task, darling, and now you can rest, with me.” The smile broadened as umber colored tendrils sank deeply, slowly into her, his wife, exploring her body and taking in every inch. This was his idea of quiescence, at least for the moment, when so much time had passed without her; did no one have a thought or care for how lonely he could grow, here in his own kingdom?
Though her form was no longer tangible, it still writhed from his ministrations; the spine arched, internal organs shivered, legs spread to admit him without further cavil. Ethereal arms stretched, curled overhead, her body little more than the obscure figure playing her like a violin. Music in the form of her voice created eerie moans of gratification, causing the darkness around them to vibrate and mimic the sound a hundred times over.
Another winter passed, and her homecoming was more than reason enough to celebrate; the divine beings gloated over their reunion, the darkness well sated with his sacrifice for another year.