Of Snakes and Statues

[𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑠 820]

 

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OF SNAKES AND STATUES

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This information is not publicly known. This is a POV post. Please do not metagame.

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Had the world always been so dry? Hot and untempered, temperamental, unfit for her form? When was it that her shed skin no longer felt like her own? Would that she could dig her claws deep within herself, tear the flesh from her form and finally…

 

The sand bites with every step forwards, arid heat a raw ache in the back of her throat. It labors in her breath, deep within her lungs which protests against her with a raspy gasp. The golden eye of the sun above ever watches, ever turns. How many times had it greeted her here?

 

Yet it should not be such a difficult thing, of all the things asked of her. 

 

So her feet continue onward, searching for that which was just out of view. The moments of her mind turning, slipping in between then and now. All she knew was the ache, the quiet thing that nestled into her chest and buried itself deep. Perhaps it was that, that she wished so desperately to dig out.

And in the presence of the midday sun, she stumbles, though she does not recall how she finds her cheek pressing to the blazing hot sands- the world at a vertical and spinning. That single eye closes  as she rests, or perhaps it was giving in to the exhaustion. It is unclear to her, when she opens her eye next, if it was moments after the stumble or hours.

 

But she hears it all the same, the rattle of scales and the movement of the sand next to her. The tough muscle of a black snake that glides over her fingertips where they rest in the sand.  It was only a couple inches long, at that, a small thing. “Who are you?” Her own voice croaks out, weak.

The blackened head of the creature turns back to her, maw parting with gleaming fangs. Though no sound resounds from it’s throat, she hears it echo all the same;

 

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”Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?    

     Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?" 

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Though, before she could answer, the snake's head snapped away. It continues onwards in its writhing along the sands, as though it cared not for her answer. Did the answer even matter? With a groan, the devil lifts herself to her feet, vision swimming as the sun refracts harsh light off the orange sands.

She didn’t want to be alone here, where her mind conjoins the empty space within the horizon. Sand and ash mix to an untenable palette, and statues rise on the horizon. Larger than life, imposing giant works of things she once knew.

Her gaze skitters away from them, they needed no plaques or words of great deeds for her to know. People that have passed on, heroes that should have slain her. And the answer, to the snake’s question, it twinged on her lips. “I am guilty.” 

 

The thought thrums in her blood, it nestles there deep in her heart as she continues in stride behind the black spot in her vision, that snake thick and several feet in length. Her bones weary as they trudge through the trail in the sand it leaves.

 

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“Is that really all you are, Laelia?”
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The voice cracks from one of the nearby stones, its form shifting to rise with slow movements. It was a familiar voice, soft and caring. As the hands of the statue cups together it begins to overflow with golden fire, pooling together in her hands before spilling out into the sands at its feet.

She knew without looking. Without sound, with just the buzzing white drone that strikes through her heat-struck mind. Two queens past and two long generations. The squire, The handmaid, The queen, The knight, The lord-marshal. None of those pieces of that fairy-tale story remained standing. Just her, the devil. Just her, the martyred statue.

“Why did it turn out like this?” Her voice chokes, heavy with grief, as she stumbles once more to her knees. Though the snake she had been following knows no such weakness. Those blackened scales skirt the edge of the flames, rounding to coil up the statue of the saint-queen’s form.

“You’ve forgotten.” The statue responds in kind, though its lips do not move, there is a solemn sadness about her features.

“... It doesn’t matter now.” The devil retorts, tired, exhausted.

“It doesn’t matter now.” The statue affirms in kind. “But, I forgive you, all the same.”

 

It was never really her, afterall, it couldn’t be. She did not remember the queen that the martyr-statue stood for. Those memories were long stripped from her person. Yet still, that thought of forgiveness causes the blackened snake to recoil, a deep guttural hiss as its body constricts about the statue.

 

And so too, does it coil deep in her chest. An untenable grief that chokes her throat. Where she curls inwards on herself at the pools’ edge. Her claws seek purchase in her skin, that ache that surmounts all other emotion. As she’s swallowed by it, the blackened form of the snake grows in kind, its large scaled mass coiling like a cage about the devil, the pool, and the statue.

 

 

“When you look at yourself, what do you see?” The statue continues, in prompting. It cared not for the ache that reverberated in her chest, and made it difficult to breath. It cared not for the guilt, or the pain. These facets of her laid neatly cut in their own notions. Distinct and separate boxes meant to keep the other at bay. So it continued, as it had to. As she had to.

 

It is the exhaustion that hits her first, ringing loudly in her ears as she stumbles to the edge and kneels in the sand just on the threshold of those golden flames. Shaking hands dip into the flames, pooling as though to drink. Only to find when they are pulled out that only sand slips between her fingers.

She bites back a groaning noise of despair, all too much, as her fingers tremble. “It doesn’t matter… It doesn’t matter.” She responds in turn, as her singular gaze turns to the fire. Though what she sees within it is not herself, but the reflection of two parts. Snake and statue.

Yet it looms overhead, that scaled creature, the large shadow it casts offers no relief from the heat nor the fire. It’s maw parts, before slamming itself down into the sand, just narrowly missing the devil where she begins to crawl backwards, pulling herself to her feet.

“Why are you doing this?” She croaks out, vision blurring at the corners, in the fear that shoots white-hot through her and seizes at her spine. As the snake lifts its massive form once more to attempt to bite at her.

 

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“Why do you nurse this injury, Laelia?”
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The question echoes from within the statue, creaking of stone crumbling and giving under the intense coil of the serpent, as the golden fire begins to spread, licking outwards along the sand. Where the caged body of the snake tightens inwards. Pressure, applying.

 

The frustration rises in her throat, where her legs scream in protest to her running from the sluggish attempts to have that maw close about her, frustration- rage, guilt, hurt, the ache in her heart. “I can’t- I can’t-” She wheezes out, labored and exhausted, where she falls to the sand for the last time, curling inwards upon herself.

Knees drawn to her chest, “What do you want me to do?” The question clips out of her in anger, as she turns to open her eyes to see her vision flooded only with those black scales of the beasts looming head.

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”What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?

What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?" 

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The snake echoes her pleading request. It waits above her, motionless, its features do not move as her own voice plays back at her. For it, too, was only a facet of herself. What could it do, on its own? What could she do, on her own? It hadn’t needed to fester, to consume every inch of her thoughts.

And the thought floors her, would she have had room to be floored, but with her back to the sands and her gaze focused up to the shadow and bright skies of daylight above. Her vision blurs in and out of focus.

“I want- I want… to accept you.” She whispers, voice shaking, where she lays. “I want… to be accepted.”

The guilt, the hatred, the self-loathing, the ache, the darkest portions of her. So too, in this, did she accept the fire, the statue, the potential that shuddered inside of her.

And with this uttering…

 

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A blackened snake uncoils itself from the statue and drowns itself in golden fire.

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