The Flames That Bound Us, And The Power We Shared

Written for Mistpaw/pool’s fanfic contest. Bonus points if you know who Rei is (i’ve written about her/the universe this is set in before). I actually didn’t mean for this to turn out this dark- I imagined Rei as naturally philosophical, but yeah XD mentioned killing in 7, so skip if you don’t like.

The Story
“I gave you too much power.”

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1. You were the queen, and I was your handmaid. Bound to duty. Trapped. Constricted. But of course, the scriptures make it sound glorious, because the scriptures (know nothing,  nothing ) are  always  right. (“At least you know where you’re going.” Arisa remarked one time, before she left.) I guess that makes us equal, your life force bound to the throne and crown and mine to yours.

2. I don’t know where it went wrong. I don’t know when, I don’t know how (…I don’t know…). Maybe my memory was wiped the moment I stepped into the room with Arisa’s sister in my hands and a knife in the other. Maybe I should’ve killed her like you said, maybe the scriptures have cursed us all (“for the one who lets the exiled in shall be exiled too”). Or maybe the scriptures are wrong, who knows?

Maybe we started out wrong, you and me and the power that surges through the air, electrifying. It spread to the tips of my fingers, burning, and the embers fall to the floor. You could see them too, the flames. You were the only one. Maybe this all worked back then, when the world worked the way it was supposed to and people met and saw eachother and fell in love and stayed in love, before the explosion and the ashes and the power.

3. You left me blank, the way you did. Like a half-coloured picture, filling the things the way you want, eyes red and hair streaked silver, a heart blacker than night (the colours faded with age, except for this one). A name half-scrawled at the bottom. Rei. You brought me to life more than anyone else, so why do I feel so breathless?

4. You never stuck to the rules, and in the end, it broke you. Irina was fading day by day, with “Irina” replacing her, replacing you. Always filling the things you wanted to believe and breaking the ones you didn’t, and you left me broken. The tape marks are still there.

5. “It doesn’t work like that.” You said once, after the inheritance. Snowflakes clung to your hair and clung to my heart, they melted away like the things I wanted to say.

“Who says it doesn’t?” I say back, quietly, and I relight the crown, a flickering flame from the tip of my finger to the flame-coloured jewel on your forehead. The fire is stronger near the source, the scriptures said. Maybe they were right after all.

6. You took too much, and now they were taking it from you ( what you have taken will be taken from you, they say, and they are always right). You knew power came with a price, so what went wrong?

7. I thought you were right, but in the end you were more wrong than I could have imagined.

The room was dark, but the power was darker, streams of shadow seeping from his blood into yours, silent. The flames in the crown and on your fingertips, burning brighter with every drop, and the flames in your eyes still hungry after you drained him, the shell of what was once a living, breathing man empty and lifeless on the floor. You did it, and I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that you’d been a monster all along, sapping the life force of those around you. Or maybe the crown changed you, the power, so why had I been so afraid? Maybe it was my fault.

I can still hear the screaming.

8. I shouldn’t have let you take it from me.

“Come on, Rei, it won’t hurt.” You said, lifting my fingertip to your forehead and watching it morph from flesh to flame. Her skin feels like water against my own sharp flames, even though I’m the one who absorbs the things I touch. “Your’s will be the best, I promise.”

“The best for you,” I scowled. So why did I let you?

9. I guess we were cursed in the end, your life tied to the crown and mine to yours. Phrases like “never meant to be” are so cliche, so why do they suit us so well? Our love was a hurricane, and the flowers were ripped apart. Dried petals, an intricate dance woven over the years, only to fall to its doom in the flames.

Sometimes I sit and think, Why us? Why does fate spend hours mapping out elaborate paths for each of us when every one of them lead to doom? Who wrote the scriptures, and how did they know? Why are they right?

Where did we go wrong? I have no answer for that question, except for the tainted innocence of my younger self. But I am bound to you, yours to power and to shadow, and so we will fall together.

When I go to the sky and am asked to be rebirthed, what will you say? Better to go through the fire once, like the world wreathed in power, and have something new born out of it.

But don’t keep the shadows around.

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QUESTION TIME 😀 😀 😀 (OPTIONAL)

1) on a scale of one to ten, with one being the cringiest thing you’ve ever read, how cringey is this fic? 2) what are some your favourite lines? 3) How would you describe the POV character, Rei? 4) What did you think were some unnecessary parts? 5) last question i promise XD Would you read again?