Bonded
Alexia knew she had gone too far in questioning her husbands motives in the business deal, she had spoken out of turn she would have to work hard to make it up to him. She brushed her strewberry hair with a gilted hairbrush, her long pale hands gripped it too hard. Surely she was safe? The children were still in need of a mother and he had married her after all. That must give her some protection. At the school they had taught her how to behave and how to try and secure married.
She had acted like a free woman though, acted like she was not owned and that could be fatal. She didn’t even have human status, and she knew there was something more to her, even her children could not see things as clearly as she did. But she loved them, she loved him too, surely he wouldn’t choose his pride so?
She climbed into the dark green statin dress, gathered in a slight rippling affect around her upper body, it showed off her luminous skin and brought out the colour of her eyes. ‘Ah Alexia, you are so bueatiful,’ he sighed stepping across the room holding a box. He laid it on her dreeser and removed the contence, gold encrusted with little diamonds, to sit on her neck, his gentle hands placed the necklace and did the catch whilst she held the hair out of the way. His hands rested on her shoilder, they were warm, but they rested too long, he let out a long sad sigh. And kissed her neck.
‘I will walk down with you on my arm,’ he said.
She placed her feet into gold strapped sandles and linked her arm with his. They gluided over to the stair case and down the hall. They entered the dinning room. Alexia caught her breath at the site of the gold and cream sashes draped from the ceiling, wedding sashes. Her foot steps faltered but he forced her forward, she dared not ask who the sashes were for their children were far to young to marry. She feared the answer but prayed it was something benign, he had told her loved her that morning.
The table was lain extravigantly, not with the fayre she had ordered for the business meeting the meal really was. A dark haired woman stood under a canopy, her long neck and slender elegance told Alexia she was another bounded, she could smell the other woman now she thought about it. Cinnamon and butter. ‘Alexia,’ he said turning her towards him. ‘Did you kiss the children good night?’ she nodded mutely.
He sighed and took her thick arrangment of hair in his fingers and yanked back, she didn’t even scream, ‘you silly thing,’ he snarled, ‘in private I could have ignored it but we had guests.’ He hissed. He crushed her too him and kissed her and then a wave of tightness choked her from the necklace. He let her go and she spasmed on the floor. Inside the shocked pain she curled up and slept.
‘Master?’ said a voice to her left, a young man stepped forward, ‘are you sure you want to do this? The bond you have with her… it is not usual with her kind.’
‘She has to go, I have Rachel now, take her to the cliff, I have had orniments made of the weights, nothing is every too good for her…’ he hesitated but nodded and set his jaw.
Alexia was not really aware anymore, her eyes were open but clouded. Her heart was broken, and her soul was shattered, James has not been a bad man. He was better than the others she had seen since leaving the school. But something always twisted them, that was what her teachers had said, had it been her?
She was scared but unable to move. He was fullfilling the contract. This was the way of disposal for the bonded, electricution and being dumped in the sea. There was myths about them becoming mermaids, Alexia wasn’t sure she wanted to be a mermaid, if she could of reacted her heart would have been erratic instead it seemed to have slowed to almost non existance.
Weights were attached to her feet, they were gold, she knew they would be solid, the dress she was in was worth a fortune, this was his way of morning her. Anger flared in her imobile form. Surely it didn’t have to be this way. She would get him. Somehow. Fear choked off thought as she plunged the short distance into the shockingly cold water. Drowning was not a nice way to die she had looked it up out of morbid curiocity. But the burning, bursting pain did not come, water flooded into her mouth and nose and if she could have moved she would have thrashed in panic.
But it was slippery, like thick honeyed air, salt quenched her thirst and finially after lifetimes of nothing she swollowed and blinked and moved her hands. The world was a shifting mass of greys and greens, sunlight rippled down and her hair and dress danced in the currents. Shapes lurked in the dark, her eyes went wide as she saw the preditory way they moved, she was still alive! She was damned if she was going to be eaten by some sea creature.
She pushed herself down knowing instictually how to move in the brine but the weights were attached fast with chains, dispair consumed her in a wail of no air as the shapes emerged. But they did not eat her, instead she looked from one to the other recognising two of her old teachers, they cut through the chains that bound her, swimming freely, they stripped her dress which dragged her back and swam into the depths until it was too dark for her to distingish anything, they held her hands and led her to a brighter piece of water, a cave entrance. She emerged into a cavan full of fresh air.
‘You are home Alexia,’ an old woman, the Matron of the school said, Alexia tilted her head elegantly in acknowledgement.
‘The reset worked perfectly again Madam, some of the men must not be disposing of the girls in the prescribed way.’ Said one of the women, she was shaking with rage.
‘My children?’ Alexia asked.
‘Are in good hands, they are 60% you and will respond to a bonded queen naturally. If you wish it we will exterminate your husband? He is half bonded himself so we had hoped to bread from him some more but the decission is yours.’
Alexia hesitated, ‘I want my children,’ she said with tears burning her eyes a luminous shade. ‘I can not deny them their father as well.. but if he does this again… if he disgard her or hurts them can I exterminate him?’
The Matron smiled and nodded. ‘Come there is a lot for you to learn about your true nature and what you have achieved.’ Feeling sure she must have died or be in the mists of an asphyxiation dream. Alaxia left the cave only to find herself in the elegant world of the school she had been born into, she laughed at the myth of mermaids, they weren’t mermaids they were sirens.
Prideful men who thought they controlled everything would meet their end in a bridal song.
Posted: Thursday, February 14th, 2013 @ 3:24 pm
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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