maskedmelody

[maskedmelody]

One day I will not remember this. When I am lying on my death bed, I cannot imagine that this moment will come to mind, and I have not decided yet if that fact brings peace or anxiety. Either way, this moment right now is life, and so I have not yet forgotten it.

[maskedmelody]

Lady Air Aesthetics

Read the story here!

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Lady Air: Table of Contents

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Prelude (Prologue)

Chapter 1

[maskedmelody]

Lady Air: Chapter 1

As per popular demand (literally one person) here is the 1st chapter of my book! This chapter follows the prologue and marks the real beginning of the story. But to better understand the story, please read the Prelude (Prologue) first!

I hope you enjoy it!

As always please feel free to dm me with any critiques, ideas, or anything else!

Reblogs are encouraged but please don’t steal my stuff! No reposts in any fashion. Any reposts will be reported!

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My corset nearly suffocated me as I stepped out of the carriage and onto the gravel drive.

Dressed in deep green uniforms, the house staff quickly made themselves busy, packing all my bags and trunks.

My father and I stood, watching as they buzzed about, almost frantically, as if their queen was watching from her hive nearby, ready to sting those whose quality of work did not meet her standards.

But I know I am foolish to even think that a woman might be head of an estate like this.

What a time to be alive.

I looked at the palace, the monstrosity that completely obstructed my vision of anything beyond it with its dark, moss-covered walls. The whole thing seemed to scream with every gentle breeze that blew past. Not because it was weak, but of the horrors it surely hid inside.

It was far too easy to imagine it. Burglars, murderers, traitors alike all stuck. All cemented to their cell for as long as the Court would hold them, for death would never claim a life without purpose on her own.

This was where they were all sent–where I would spend my summer and begin training back into the daughter that my father wanted me to be.

The three months already felt endless. An ever-stretching span of time that ran right alongside the castle’s walls.

I couldn't find their end nor beginning either.

But this beginning was easy enough to spot. I saw it coming, saw it take the form of the double mahogany doors beyond the grand steps.

Or at least, what I assumed was supposed to be grand. Like the walls, they too had fallen victim to the overgrowth that reclaimed the land.

The place looked abandoned apart from the bustle. I imagined that once my father left, the estate would fall back into dormancy and would truly look dead—a sleeping beast.

Something to look forward to, I suppose.

“Niamh.” My father spoke gruffly, though I paid no attention to him, allowing my gaze to wander to the valley that lay below the jagged cliffs and the forests that surrounded the mountain in which the castle stood.

“Niamh.” He said again. A growl. I fought to contain my smile, not hard, but one could still claim that I did try.

Sort of.

Of course, it would be ingenuine of me to not make my father’s life as close to the misery of the Realm as I could bring him without murder.

And who am I but a genuine, proper lady of the Air?

Despite their appearances, the stairs held as my father and I transcended them, the double doors opening with an ancient-like creak.

As far as I was concerned, whoever was employed to do maintenance on this place should be fired. Or perhaps given a raise. The creaky door and overgrown shrubbery really did sell the idea of impending and ever-long doom.

“This place should be able to handle you, Niamh,” Father said, breaking his silence. And what a shame, I thought he might be able to last five minutes without forcing me to hear his grating voice. “The Tìarmhor says that you will find much to keep you busy. Hopefully enough so you do not have time for your usual problem-creating that you so love to do.”

I cocked my eyebrows.

“The Tìarmhor? The ruler of this court?” he said, his tone condescending in every way that it could have been.

Perhaps this deportation would be closer to a vacation than a punishment after all.

And what a stupid thing it was that I was being punished for. He shouldn't care, it's not like what I did affected him.

Yet here he was. Here I was, walking soulless hallway upon soulless hallway.

I didn't know where we were going and I could only hope that he did.

I also had to trust that I wouldn't be responsible for leading us out of here. I had already lost track of how many left turns and rights we had taken down these infinite halls, each one looking mostly the same except for the odd painting or pedestal supporting what surely was outrageously expensive art.

The dark walls swallowed almost all of the light entering each room from the windows at the ends where one hall met another.

Door after door, we passed; I wondered how much space in the castle was used for only halls. If you lined up all the halls in a straight line, removing any curves or bends in them, I thought there must be enough to stretch across the Cuain Dóite sea.

Back home.

It was not longing I felt, per se, but a certain displacement. I felt odd here, it wasn't comfortable, at least to the degree I was used to at home—which was really setting the bar low.

Interrupting my thoughts, my father’s fist knocked at a door he had stopped in front of us.

The door creaked open, revealing another member of the staff—older and shorter than the rest, with a bowed frame and thinning hair.

A man. Yet, he looked harmless.

I couldn’t be sure.

Father and I stepped inside. Another person caught at the counter of my eye, another man sat behind a massive wooden desk.

I flicked my eyes away. Surely he too was harmless.

Instead, I focused my attention to the towering shelves that lined every wall of the study, crammed with cracked leather spines and yellowed pages. The sheer weight of knowledge pressed in around us was enough to distract me from the second man.

At least for a little while.

Once again pulling at the corner of my left eye, I watched as the man shifted. A simple movement. Surely just go get comfortable in his seat.

But my brain, though it was the creator of the assurance that the man he was harmless, did not believe her own pretty lie.

My eyes betrayed me, looking up to see who sat at that old wooden desk.

He was an older man too.

My breaths grew light as if it might save me.

“Mr. Balor,” he greeted flatly. His voice. I could feel as the self-proclaimed power oozed from it and onto every neatly stacked piece of paper on his desk.

His eyes flicked past us to the man who had opened the door. No words were exchanged, but the old man slipped silently out of the room, the door clicking silently behind him.

“I trust your journey was comfortable,” the man said, more statement than question.

“Oh, yes–quite comfortable,” my father replied. He stammered. I had rarely seen him nervous—even around me, which he should by now be afraid of, he was never this tightly strung.

Something was at play. I nearly see it glinting in the air. Maybe not magic, but something stirred.

I could feel it.

It was not just the unnamed man or his voice. Something was here. Something lingered.

“Very well.” The man said, his watchful gaze shifting to me, cold and unreadable.

I took in a breath.

His lined face lacked warmth. Unlike the doorman, whose wrinkles softened his expression, this man’s features seemed carved in stone. He radiated authority. Hardness. Power.

Such traits that my father definitely did not possess.

“And this must be your daughter.” He stood.

He was massive—easily over six feet tall—and as he approached, that primal flag, that heed of danger began to scream.

You aren’t safe here. No matter what you do—history only repeats itself.

I couldn’t look away, one glance to my father or to the bird that sat outside the window might be the difference between a stalemate and him gaining the he upper hand.

No part of my brain and soul chose to stay stilll without cowering. It was pride. It was arrogance. Two nipping, cold feelings that wouldn’t ever leave me be.

I truly did want to shrink back, to disappear. I was given no other chance to decide before the man began to slowly circle my father and I. A deliberate game. A tease. A predator watching his lowly prey.

It felt wrong. Glints in the air became fragments, tiny shards of silver floating through the air.

Movement. Who or why I was not sure.

“She seems well-behaved, Lorcan. Far more so than you described in your letter.” The man spoke, stopping in front of his desk.

“She has her moments,” my father murmured. His eyes were wide, his emotions obvious.

He was terrified. I was watchful.

We were not the same.

The stranger gave a small, satisfied hum and returned to his chair. He thumbed through a stack of papers, then tossed them into the trash with a flick of his wrist.

“She’s no match for the rats loose in the catacombs but she will do nicely,” he said. “I’m pleased.”

My father said nothing, only nodded and stared down at his shoes.

I recoiled.

Rats?

I met the man's gaze and he held mine. Only after what could easily have been an hour of mud-thick silence did he dismiss us.

“My nephew is waiting in the foyer to go over the details of the arrangement, Mr Baylor,” my father nodded. “And Miss Balor, you’ll be shown to your room shortly.”

Father turned without a word. I followed closely behind.

Numbness was something I was accustomed to–the much preferred sister of misery and suffering.

This was not numbness. But it was not feeling either.

It was a middle ground in a battlefield, one where no matter the winner, I was destined to lose.

I could feel it around me, the walls closing in. Each breath feeling rarer than the last.

This wouldnt be the end of me, I knew that, but it also seemed far more like death than a beginning.

In the hallway, the old man was already waiting.

“Yer room is this way, miss. If ya’d kindly follow me.”

I took a step, then faltered. Glancing back.

My father hadn’t looked at me once. His face was still lowered, his shoulders drawn in. My arms ached to hug him—to do something, say something. Three months. I wouldn’t see him again for three months. A goodbye didn’t seem like too much to ask.

I knew he hated me, and I him, but there was an ache.

He was my father.

I hadn't let him go completely yet.

A strange emptiness settled in my chest. He didn't look back as he turned the hall’s corner.

The sensation was strange. I had never longed for his love before—never needed it. So why now, of all moments, did I feel wounded by his absence?

I supposed it was my fault, expecting him to have any love left for me after all I had done to him.

But he wasn't innocent either.

“Miss Balor?” The old man’s voice broke through my trance.

I wet my lips with my tongue and stared at the man. His expression shifted—soft, then sharp, then soft again—all in the span of a few seconds.

The old man didn’t say anything else. He simply turned and led me up several flights of stairs and down a long, narrow hallway before stopping at a door.

Up. Not down to the catacombs.

Was this worse? Perhaps he wanted to tell my father of a lighter punishment than he was truly intending on giving me.

It didn’t matter now. The old man and I now stood in front of a door.

I looked at him, waiting—hoping—for something more. A goodbye. Maybe a wish of good luck. The sentiment seemed appropriate.

A nag. A gut feeling. This place seemed loaded with them.

There was no way to predict what lie beyond the door.

“Wha’ ye starin’ fer, miss? Master done give ye one’a th’ best rooms.”

I swallowed hard and reached for the doorknob. My thumb brushed the intricate cast brass before turning it slowly.

Images flashed before my eyes. There was only so many abominations that could fit within a jail cell.

I would need a desk, obviously, to keep up with my studies and to write home. A bed was a guarantee. Or at least I hoped it would be.

A light would be nice so I might not be haunted when night arrives. Castles like this seemed to me like a breeding ground for creatures to crawl in the night. Long legged, winged, furry, scampering creatures that don't come knocking but enter anyway.

I only had to make it three months.

Anything else in the room would be extra. I just hoped that the ‘extra’ would be a good thing…

This door, what I could claim as my door, opened without a sound.

Inside, light poured in from a large bay window, scattering what remained of daylight across the wood floors and upon the most beautiful room I had ever laid my eyes upon.

I was not raised in poverty. I was the daughter of an aristocrat, the proclaimed Lady of the Air.

I knew of luxury.

But what I thought I knew looked like rags compared to what lay before me now.

The walls were painted a deep, rich forest green that wrapped the space like the last kiss of summer before autumn turned her red. The bed took up the most space in the room, shielded by thin, gossamer curtains that made it look ethereal.

But I was only supposed to be a prisoner.

I turned, hoping to catch the old man before he left. As I did, the door clicked shut.

I was alone.

Then I lay back slowly, letting my hands glide across the softness of the blankets. I smoothed the wrinkles left by my body, feeling the fresh, clean linen beneath my fingertips. Cloud-like. If my mind weren't so bogged, I would feel nearly weightless. Floaty.

But for all its beauty, it didn’t feel right. These weren’t my blankets. This wasn’t my bed. This wasn’t home.

It didn't matter how many times I told myself that home was not such for anyone but my father, I would never believe it. The word was engraved, a forever carved tombstone that stood atop the death of my childhood and innocence and everything else good about me.

Looking to the past felt only like visiting a graveyard. The future did not seem to me much brighter.

The whole thing was odd to me, I realized as I stood and glanced at the door.

My father had explained this summer as a teaching experience, one in a place where the worst criminals in the entire land were held.

Yet, my bed was enveloped in something comparable to clouds themselves and the room was filled with the sunlight of a land that did not know of such horrible people.

I was supposed to be a prisoner to the estate. Something to train, to manipulate and assimilate to be just like every other aristocrat's daughter who acted as they should on their own.

This was force. This was pressure.

I was not a guest here.

So why the Realm was I being treated as one?

Thoughts continued to pour down onto me in steady pelts of rain. I didnt move. Didn't eat.

I remained there for the rest of the night until a housemaid came tapping at my chamber door.

It was time for dinner.

I blinked at her. She opened the door wider.

And I walked, ever so slowly as the thoughts continued their reign of rain.

My father had left me without saying goodbye.

Perhaps this really was numbness. And perhaps it too was abandonment.

I was alone.

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Next chapter soon!

[maskedmelody]

Lady Air: Prelude

Hey, scooby gang. I’m tired of posting low quality emo shit just for notes so here’s the prologue to my book. Any thoughts and/or critique is welcome. Please just be kind!

Reblogs are encouraged but please don’t steal my stuff! No reposts in any fashion. Any reposts will be reported!

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Her dead body was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes upon.

I stood above her, painting red, inky patterns on her skin and silken gown with my thumb. It was sticky.

She was so beautiful like that–lying amongst the shards of broken vase and her own blood.

She was beautiful—but not like mothers, or the princesses in fairytales. Her beauty was something stranger, more impossible. Surreal. Her pale face caught the moonlight that streamed through the arched ballroom windows in a distant, yet present, gleam.

Her dress was made of something I didn’t know the name for, something softer than silk and rippling like water. She walked through the crowd with a grace that I knew someone like me would never be able to harness.

I don’t know how I got close enough. I don’t think I was supposed to. But no one tried to stop me.

I reached up and held out the little scrap of paper, hands trembling, half hoping she wouldn’t take it.

“Why am I cursed?” I had written in crooked, careful letters. I'd written it three times before I got it pretty enough to show her. I don’t know why I thought she would understand—but I knew. Somehow, I just knew. If anyone could would know why, it would be her.

She smiled. Not kindly—politely.

I knew the difference, even then.

I was only a child.

“Cursed?” she had said, tilting her head. Her eyes scanned around the room behind me. “Why don't we take this somewhere more quiet?”

I followed her. She was the one leading, not I.

She stopped in a hallway just outside the grand ballroom from which we left. Inside, the party still swirled with its beautiful people, glistening with summer sweat.

“What makes you think you are cursed, child?” She asked softly. “How could such a child as yourself be cursed?”

It felt like a test. Or maybe like a trap. But I didn’t want to fail��couldn’t afford to.

I hesitated, then reached for the eye-patch. My secret. My shame. The thing they told me never to show anyone—especially not someone with as much power as she.

But she had to see to understand.

So I showed her.

Slowly, I raised it barley enough for her to see what lay beneath–a thing of horror. Of shame and fate.

Her mouth opened—wide at first, and then tighter. I watched her try to scream, the shape of the word trembling on her lips. But it didn’t come. Only breath. Then not even that.

Silence.

She staggered backward, her hand pointing. Blaming.

“It’s you—“

She was no different than the others. My now uncovered eyes widened.

Her breaths heaved ragged, as were my own.

“You,” she repeated. It felt like a curse.

As she opened her mouth, once more, I could see the words forming on her tongue. I could imagine them as scrolly cursive with loopy Y’s and G’s.

She was going to scream.

So I waited. Waited for the inevitable. Waited for a sound or breath, but neither ever came.

Her hands flew to her throat, only desperate sounds of gasped breaths escaped her. Trimmed fingernails dug clawed red splotches onto the skin there. Her eyes were wide, wild with fear rampant under the skin.

Each minute, those gasps became further apart until there were none.

She tumbled onto the cold hallway tile, hitting a vase on the way down.

Shattered. Blood pooled from her perfectly shaped head of auburn hair.

The blood felt sticky on my fingers. Warm, still so full of life as it spread across the floor, finally reaching my shoes. What once was a pastel pink, now sodden with her royal blood.

I did not feel the hands wrap around my waist and hoist me into the air. I felt only the warmth of the blood on my fingertips and the tickle of it on my toes.

My father’s curses had always been sharp, his words laced with venom, but never more than when his gaze fell on me after that night. His slung words of hatred did little damage more than the rift that was already there.

I rested on his hip as he walked us out of the castle and back into the rented horse and carriage. Appearances were always so important to him.

Slowly, like a throb growing from naught to an unbearable ache, something formed my mind. A tug. A pull. A contortionist tether to the house itself. My business was unfinished, I had to go back.

“Don’t leave–not yet.” It whispered to me.

I kicked and bucked against my father. He remained wordless. As I looked back upon the estate, my mind was not.

New words, my own, echoed alongside the call back to the castle. Mine, louder, brasher–having no trouble of pushing the other pleads nearly out of my mind completely.

They were too weak for the hunger that consumed me.

I didn’t know where the words came from. The ones that pulsed through me like a prayer. I knew only that they were mine now. Perhaps i knew that they always had been.

And they were so simple. So easy to let slip through the mind and curl down the spine of their holder. They were chanting. Haunting.

Down with the Queen.

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Next chapter

[maskedmelody]

Watch as I shed my skin. Watch as I finally stand from the shards of shattered you that I have writhed and wallowed in for so long. Watch as a devour every piece of myself that you touched.

Watch me.

Watch me.

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You feast upon my marrow while I starve for a simple touch.

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Please, let me out of your shadow.

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It seems that the best kind of internal change hurts the most.

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Why couldn’t we have been good together?

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I hope that whatever love comes into my life will be worth the wait.

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I’m afraid to let you in. That’s never ended well for me before.

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Inside you, there are two wolves—

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I have an unnamable carnal desire for someone whose silence is comfortable and satisfying.

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Maybe someday I will find someone who talks like you, laughs like you, and breathes like you, but it has it within themselves to find beauty in my breath too.