The Emperor and the Queen: Nightingale, 1 of 2
Caelum likes to bend time. Not in a fantastical or impossible sort of way, but maybe in the way a blossom finally sprouts from its vine after much twisting and curving. Time, how most others measure it, is far too strict for Caelum. It is sixties and twenty-fours and sevens and tick tick ticking.
If his garden were so ordered it would be a something horrible like a farmer’s field. He needs thorns beneath petals and weeds amongst prized orchids. He needs a tangled mess of viridian and violet and crimson and faint faint blue. Caelum likes his time much the same way.
He counts his time not in ticking, then, but in the space of sighs and the absence of whispers and, on off days, by the servant’s clockwork schedule of stalking the castle. She’s off to her library now, hissing about something or other. And if it’s library time for the servant, then for Caelum it’s time to find his little white dove. The pull of his skin and the quiet echo of the air confirm it. Library, skin, echo. It’s seven o’clock.
She’s been in his garden again, little lost bird. His plants lovingly shrink away from him as he walks, but she’s left her own soft footprints. He follows the bent blades of grass in a curious path, as if she had been twirling and spinning as she wandered through the trees. His lips twitch, and he stops the half-smile from forming even if there’s no one to see it.
Up, up, up the Cyprus tree is his princess. He tilts his head, watching, before schooling his expression carefully. When she finally feels his gaze and looks down, his face is sharp with disapproval. He can see her trembling even from where he stands.
Collected from the highest branches, Caelum motions her back down calmly.
Snap her wings, remember. No more flying.
How to break a Mika’s wings: Hold her close for this one moment. Your hands on her shoulders, light and gloved. She’s looking at you with eyes wide and nearly brimming tears. Curve your mouth into something kind, into something sweet (honey and rose and she licks her lips), and tilt your head now. But… no need to actually break bone or tear skin. There are other ways to keep her grounded. Pluck her feathers out.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles to the ground, head tilted but eyes up because she can’t look away. She’s been caught, and she hasn’t bothered to find an excuse for her capture. Only an apology tumbles from her lips, and he’s grown surprisingly tired of hearing the word from her.
What is she doing here? She’s been up in the trees, maybe hiding, maybe playing. Eating, without a doubt.
There’s berry juice all around her mouth, pulpy and flesh red, stuck to the corners of her lips. There’s a world, somewhere, where such things are binding. A girl eats from your garden, she becomes yours. The juice on her chin (Caelum could lick a quick path with his tongue) is not pomegranate, but no one need know that.
Pluck her feathers out.
He steps forward, as if to make that lick, and she twitches, doesn’t quite pull away. That’s one feather, now, pulled from her wing and fluttering to the ground. That’s how he pulls her wings apart, keeps her away from climbing trees and dreaming high… He knows how to break her slowly and careful. He’s been doing it for months. She is his lyre, and he knows which strings to tighten, which to tug, and which to stroke smoothly for the most amazing music.
“This is my garden,” he tells her, though she knows. His tongue is actually along her lip now, curving the bottom where the berry juices have gathered and clung. Her lips slip to his own mouth sweet and forbidden and mingled with the slightest of whimpers. “You were told not to come here, to stay inside. It’s not safe here.”
“I know.”
There’s teeth in his move over her mouth, digging out the berry that stains across her skin. She looks sinful, red dripping down her chin and some running along the sharp curve of her neck. It could be blood if it weren’t so sweet.
Mika’s blood is not sweet, he knows. It is bitter and quiet and laced with resignation.
If she truly had wings, long feathers instead of smooth, pale arms, he could build a small pile of them at her feet as he plucks. Instead he has to imagine them gathering. A second feather from his lips along her jawline, a third as his tongue darts there. Maybe a fourth as his teeth catch on her lip.
“I wonder why you do things when I ask you not to. Do you hate me so much?”
“No,” her voice breathes while her eyes glance at him, blinking yes yes yes. How many feathers if he tore her eyes out?
He walks her forward until her back meets gnarled tree. The berry bushes are just nearby. He wonders, for a moment, what she looked like in her thieving. Cautiously fluttering to the bush, gathering red in her small palms, then flying to the leaves above. How fast did she push the fruit to her mouth? How quickly did she swallow, licking at her palms to gain every last drop of flavor? How thoroughly would she have licked her chin, her lips, her skin, if he had not caught her first?
He moves his hands from her shoulders, sliding down to her wrists to hold tightly. She’s watching him, waiting. She’s so used to his anger coming from his words, sharp as knife’s edge, she’s unsure what to do with his touch. But words don’t break wings, only hands can do that, so it’s his fingers that begin.
Thumb to the inside of her wrist, pressing, pressing, hurting, and once there was a pulse there. Up her arm again, along the indent by her elbow, up and up. Across her collarbone, sharp and jutting with her quick breaths now. Five… six… the seventh feather wears the very smallest drop of blood, plucked too hard and fast. Caelum smiles at her.
“Do you know the story of the Nightingale?”
The tale is a spider web of worlds connected. Before the war became the reason for many people to remain indoors in safety they were made to walk the thin silk between lands, the only things that could fly between one and the other were Stories. Tales have wings of their own and they fly where best they please.
Mika remembers very little of her life after she had been taken by him, but real bedtime stories don’t pay attention to such things as memory. He waits, seemingly patient as she swallows and nods slowly.
“The Nightingale,” he begins, ignoring her nod, “was a soft, sweet, beautiful bird that caught the mighty emperor’s notice. Its song was like spellwork. So the emperor took the little song bird into his care. He made it a golden cage and let it keep his company. But the nightingale soon became ungrateful. It pined and disobeyed and stopped singing. Then one day it broke the emperor’s heart by sneaking out if its cage and into the outside garden, and it flew far away. Do you know what happened next?”
He waits for her answer, a pause that lasts the space of a furtive glance to the side and a deep deep breath (six seconds, his bent clock counts).
“There’s a golden clockwork bird that comes,” she stammers, “a machine-”
“I’m afraid not. No imitation for this emperor. He wants only his true nightingale. So do you know what he does?” No pausing for reply this time. “He burns the garden. He sends his men with torches and blades and he destroys the outside world looking for it. Every tree, every flower, every other bird around is killed.
“I have my own little nightingale,” he whispers, palm to her cheek, fingers brushing. “Do you think she will fly away? Do you think she will enchant me so heavily and then leave me lonely?”
“No,” she whispers, shaking her head so the ends of her hair brush his hand.
“Will my nightingale make me burn the worlds to find her again? Because she knows that I would not stop searching.”
“No.”
“Then sing for me.”
Mika sings with no voice at all.
Her hands are a soft lullaby, gentle and frightened fingertips that ghost across his jacket-covered arms. The lullaby melts into something else, seamlessly, transforming into a quick rhythm as she tugs him hesitantly more towards herself. She can only reach so high on tiptoe. No flying up to him, there are too many feathers gone.
He hums softly, warningly, when the fingers on his cheek hint at nail. She spreads her hands, pushing her fingers straight to keep only the soft pads stroking down his jaw. Her breath is even and lonely and so loud to his ears it seems to be keeping time to her singing. There’s not enough time.
He catches her hand, not tightly. His gloved fingers maneuvering her own, clasping them to the top zipper of his coat. Gravity pulls though she resists for a moment. Down, down, the sound of zipper teeth tearing apart could echo if the wind in the trees didn’t overpower it.
A quiet melody, as her hands press tightly. Tempo rising as she leans forward, her heels leaving the damp grass and toes curling tight for purchase. Staccato rhythm as her lips move across his collarbone, quick little brushes against his skin. All the way from one shoulder to the other, then back again, a held note as her tongue traces the hollow of his ribs.
Sing, sing, singing.
His hands are still on hers, lightly, and he moves them from their hold on the seams of his jacket to more important zippers. The release of pressure as his belt is unbuckled almost makes him sigh aloud, but Mika’s must be the only voice here. And, yes, there’s that slight sound of protest in her throat even as her tongue is focused just above his n****e, and even as her fingers work the button of his pants and then begin to pull them apart.
He moves his hands from covering her own and threads them through her soft hair. He tugs, as if his fingers were a comb, and they only get tangled at the tips where stray berry juice has dried and knotted the strands together. Her face twists with his tug, but she makes no sound.
She is a stubborn little thing.
Caelum pulls his hands back to her scalp, letting her know exactly what he means her to do now. His palm pressed by her ear, guiding down, and the nudge of his knee against her body… she knows the language of his body as well as he knows hers. If he measures time by her reactions and her movements, he wonders what she measures with his. He’s not entirely certain he should know.
He will never, never tell her, barely even thinks it in her presence in case she’s as witchy as they all call her and can hear his thoughts, but- It’s her careful blend of distaste and willingness that feeds his addiction, makes him crave more. If she were so very unwilling… Caelum isn’t fond of that sort of play. It’s too easy to force someone with strength and power. If she were willing, happy to please him, why, that’s nearly as bad. The day his little Mika actually wants him is the day he stops wanting her.
But this, this reluctant acceptance, this consent covered and buried in resentment is too much for Caelum to turn away.
Her fingers stroke like a talented lover, but they shake with fright and sadness. They cup across his torso, starting at the end of his ribs, sliding down. Tracing a line, they curve along his sharp hips, skittering in-over-down-oh. He swallows the sound in his throat when she finally touches him, not giving her the satisfaction of knowing she’s done well. He likes her to think him indifferent, detached, like maybe he doesn’t even notice where she’s placed her hands. How frustrating for his Mika, to not know how far along she’s coaxing him.
This plan to be silent always begins to fray a bit when she leans forward, her breath ghosting across his groin and it’s so warm so heated so right there as her tongue darts out and marks a careful trail from where her fingers hold tight to the very end of his flesh.
The seams of his plan are torn in two, as if someone cheerfully took a pair of scissors to it, when she opens her mouth and takes him in. He clenches his teeth, his jaw shifting in protest but keeps his face calm. If she looked closely, maybe she could see the twitch of his mouth as he tries to keep his breathing steady and his voice silent. But not since the first time has she ever raised her eyes to meet his.
If Mika were a songbird, this is where she becomes the emperor’s best. Her fingers are heated and urgent, her lips tight and trembling despite her fearless tongue that darts and strokes and pushes against sensitive skin.
Physical touch never quite takes him all the way. It certainly helps - hands cupping, mouth vibrating on a noise from her, teeth scraping so very very lightly - but it’s always always always this thought that does Caelum in: Mika may hate what she’s doing, but she does it anyway, because she’s afraid of him.
All her feathers torn and bloody, scattered on the ground where she kneels, dirt digging into her knees and the hem of her white dress. He’s plucked and pulled until she’s only left with a grotesque skeleton of what wings should look like. Bone and pricked flesh, exposed to the entire world in nakedness.
She’s the white witch on this chess board of the world. Untouchable by every other player because such a piece doesn’t exist. And yet she, this girl who could turn anybody into whimpering, drooling, imbeciles if she ever put her mind to summoning the sky serprent... this girl, is afraid of him.
It’s enough. More than.
The song he makes her sing is a symphony played out in her nervous hum, in the pulse of his blood, in the whisper of wind across their sweating skin. There is no conductor guiding the notes, it is a mess of a hands and sighs and off-beat movement.
This song ends on a choke, a desperate cough and gulp for air as she pulls away from him. Poor thing. She still won’t look up, her hair sticking sickly to her skin, and her chin a hopeless mess. There’s more than just berry juice spilling there now.
She sings in his ear, marking the time like the actual hands on a clock. In Caelum’s bent time, this choke-cough-gulp of Mika’s is like an hour’s chime - eight o’clock. Time to move on.
“Do you know what the emperor did once he found his nightingale again?” Caelum asks, head tilted to gaze at her. She’s kneeling in front of him still, almost sitting, face turned away. She doesn’t answer.
“He ordered the nightingale’s gold cage destroyed. He refused to cage it anymore. Do you know why? Because he knew it would never fly away again.”
His hand on her head for a moment, a light weight that still makes her bend forward, as if she were nodding. His fingers stroke, and he smiles where she can’t see it.
She won’t fly away again.
Caelum likes to bend time. Not in a fantastical or impossible sort of way, but maybe in the way a blossom finally sprouts from its vine after much twisting and curving. Time, how most others measure it, is far too strict for Caelum. It is sixties and twenty-fours and sevens and tick tick ticking.
If his garden were so ordered it would be a something horrible like a farmer’s field. He needs thorns beneath petals and weeds amongst prized orchids. He needs a tangled mess of viridian and violet and crimson and faint faint blue. Caelum likes his time much the same way.
He counts his time not in ticking, then, but in the space of sighs and the absence of whispers and, on off days, by the servant’s clockwork schedule of stalking the castle. She’s off to her library now, hissing about something or other. And if it’s library time for the servant, then for Caelum it’s time to find his little white dove. The pull of his skin and the quiet echo of the air confirm it. Library, skin, echo. It’s seven o’clock.
She’s been in his garden again, little lost bird. His plants lovingly shrink away from him as he walks, but she’s left her own soft footprints. He follows the bent blades of grass in a curious path, as if she had been twirling and spinning as she wandered through the trees. His lips twitch, and he stops the half-smile from forming even if there’s no one to see it.
Up, up, up the Cyprus tree is his princess. He tilts his head, watching, before schooling his expression carefully. When she finally feels his gaze and looks down, his face is sharp with disapproval. He can see her trembling even from where he stands.
Collected from the highest branches, Caelum motions her back down calmly.
Snap her wings, remember. No more flying.
How to break a Mika’s wings: Hold her close for this one moment. Your hands on her shoulders, light and gloved. She’s looking at you with eyes wide and nearly brimming tears. Curve your mouth into something kind, into something sweet (honey and rose and she licks her lips), and tilt your head now. But… no need to actually break bone or tear skin. There are other ways to keep her grounded. Pluck her feathers out.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles to the ground, head tilted but eyes up because she can’t look away. She’s been caught, and she hasn’t bothered to find an excuse for her capture. Only an apology tumbles from her lips, and he’s grown surprisingly tired of hearing the word from her.
What is she doing here? She’s been up in the trees, maybe hiding, maybe playing. Eating, without a doubt.
There’s berry juice all around her mouth, pulpy and flesh red, stuck to the corners of her lips. There’s a world, somewhere, where such things are binding. A girl eats from your garden, she becomes yours. The juice on her chin (Caelum could lick a quick path with his tongue) is not pomegranate, but no one need know that.
Pluck her feathers out.
He steps forward, as if to make that lick, and she twitches, doesn’t quite pull away. That’s one feather, now, pulled from her wing and fluttering to the ground. That’s how he pulls her wings apart, keeps her away from climbing trees and dreaming high… He knows how to break her slowly and careful. He’s been doing it for months. She is his lyre, and he knows which strings to tighten, which to tug, and which to stroke smoothly for the most amazing music.
“This is my garden,” he tells her, though she knows. His tongue is actually along her lip now, curving the bottom where the berry juices have gathered and clung. Her lips slip to his own mouth sweet and forbidden and mingled with the slightest of whimpers. “You were told not to come here, to stay inside. It’s not safe here.”
“I know.”
There’s teeth in his move over her mouth, digging out the berry that stains across her skin. She looks sinful, red dripping down her chin and some running along the sharp curve of her neck. It could be blood if it weren’t so sweet.
Mika’s blood is not sweet, he knows. It is bitter and quiet and laced with resignation.
If she truly had wings, long feathers instead of smooth, pale arms, he could build a small pile of them at her feet as he plucks. Instead he has to imagine them gathering. A second feather from his lips along her jawline, a third as his tongue darts there. Maybe a fourth as his teeth catch on her lip.
“I wonder why you do things when I ask you not to. Do you hate me so much?”
“No,” her voice breathes while her eyes glance at him, blinking yes yes yes. How many feathers if he tore her eyes out?
He walks her forward until her back meets gnarled tree. The berry bushes are just nearby. He wonders, for a moment, what she looked like in her thieving. Cautiously fluttering to the bush, gathering red in her small palms, then flying to the leaves above. How fast did she push the fruit to her mouth? How quickly did she swallow, licking at her palms to gain every last drop of flavor? How thoroughly would she have licked her chin, her lips, her skin, if he had not caught her first?
He moves his hands from her shoulders, sliding down to her wrists to hold tightly. She’s watching him, waiting. She’s so used to his anger coming from his words, sharp as knife’s edge, she’s unsure what to do with his touch. But words don’t break wings, only hands can do that, so it’s his fingers that begin.
Thumb to the inside of her wrist, pressing, pressing, hurting, and once there was a pulse there. Up her arm again, along the indent by her elbow, up and up. Across her collarbone, sharp and jutting with her quick breaths now. Five… six… the seventh feather wears the very smallest drop of blood, plucked too hard and fast. Caelum smiles at her.
“Do you know the story of the Nightingale?”
The tale is a spider web of worlds connected. Before the war became the reason for many people to remain indoors in safety they were made to walk the thin silk between lands, the only things that could fly between one and the other were Stories. Tales have wings of their own and they fly where best they please.
Mika remembers very little of her life after she had been taken by him, but real bedtime stories don’t pay attention to such things as memory. He waits, seemingly patient as she swallows and nods slowly.
“The Nightingale,” he begins, ignoring her nod, “was a soft, sweet, beautiful bird that caught the mighty emperor’s notice. Its song was like spellwork. So the emperor took the little song bird into his care. He made it a golden cage and let it keep his company. But the nightingale soon became ungrateful. It pined and disobeyed and stopped singing. Then one day it broke the emperor’s heart by sneaking out if its cage and into the outside garden, and it flew far away. Do you know what happened next?”
He waits for her answer, a pause that lasts the space of a furtive glance to the side and a deep deep breath (six seconds, his bent clock counts).
“There’s a golden clockwork bird that comes,” she stammers, “a machine-”
“I’m afraid not. No imitation for this emperor. He wants only his true nightingale. So do you know what he does?” No pausing for reply this time. “He burns the garden. He sends his men with torches and blades and he destroys the outside world looking for it. Every tree, every flower, every other bird around is killed.
“I have my own little nightingale,” he whispers, palm to her cheek, fingers brushing. “Do you think she will fly away? Do you think she will enchant me so heavily and then leave me lonely?”
“No,” she whispers, shaking her head so the ends of her hair brush his hand.
“Will my nightingale make me burn the worlds to find her again? Because she knows that I would not stop searching.”
“No.”
“Then sing for me.”
Mika sings with no voice at all.
Her hands are a soft lullaby, gentle and frightened fingertips that ghost across his jacket-covered arms. The lullaby melts into something else, seamlessly, transforming into a quick rhythm as she tugs him hesitantly more towards herself. She can only reach so high on tiptoe. No flying up to him, there are too many feathers gone.
He hums softly, warningly, when the fingers on his cheek hint at nail. She spreads her hands, pushing her fingers straight to keep only the soft pads stroking down his jaw. Her breath is even and lonely and so loud to his ears it seems to be keeping time to her singing. There’s not enough time.
He catches her hand, not tightly. His gloved fingers maneuvering her own, clasping them to the top zipper of his coat. Gravity pulls though she resists for a moment. Down, down, the sound of zipper teeth tearing apart could echo if the wind in the trees didn’t overpower it.
A quiet melody, as her hands press tightly. Tempo rising as she leans forward, her heels leaving the damp grass and toes curling tight for purchase. Staccato rhythm as her lips move across his collarbone, quick little brushes against his skin. All the way from one shoulder to the other, then back again, a held note as her tongue traces the hollow of his ribs.
Sing, sing, singing.
His hands are still on hers, lightly, and he moves them from their hold on the seams of his jacket to more important zippers. The release of pressure as his belt is unbuckled almost makes him sigh aloud, but Mika’s must be the only voice here. And, yes, there’s that slight sound of protest in her throat even as her tongue is focused just above his n****e, and even as her fingers work the button of his pants and then begin to pull them apart.
He moves his hands from covering her own and threads them through her soft hair. He tugs, as if his fingers were a comb, and they only get tangled at the tips where stray berry juice has dried and knotted the strands together. Her face twists with his tug, but she makes no sound.
She is a stubborn little thing.
Caelum pulls his hands back to her scalp, letting her know exactly what he means her to do now. His palm pressed by her ear, guiding down, and the nudge of his knee against her body… she knows the language of his body as well as he knows hers. If he measures time by her reactions and her movements, he wonders what she measures with his. He’s not entirely certain he should know.
He will never, never tell her, barely even thinks it in her presence in case she’s as witchy as they all call her and can hear his thoughts, but- It’s her careful blend of distaste and willingness that feeds his addiction, makes him crave more. If she were so very unwilling… Caelum isn’t fond of that sort of play. It’s too easy to force someone with strength and power. If she were willing, happy to please him, why, that’s nearly as bad. The day his little Mika actually wants him is the day he stops wanting her.
But this, this reluctant acceptance, this consent covered and buried in resentment is too much for Caelum to turn away.
Her fingers stroke like a talented lover, but they shake with fright and sadness. They cup across his torso, starting at the end of his ribs, sliding down. Tracing a line, they curve along his sharp hips, skittering in-over-down-oh. He swallows the sound in his throat when she finally touches him, not giving her the satisfaction of knowing she’s done well. He likes her to think him indifferent, detached, like maybe he doesn’t even notice where she’s placed her hands. How frustrating for his Mika, to not know how far along she’s coaxing him.
This plan to be silent always begins to fray a bit when she leans forward, her breath ghosting across his groin and it’s so warm so heated so right there as her tongue darts out and marks a careful trail from where her fingers hold tight to the very end of his flesh.
The seams of his plan are torn in two, as if someone cheerfully took a pair of scissors to it, when she opens her mouth and takes him in. He clenches his teeth, his jaw shifting in protest but keeps his face calm. If she looked closely, maybe she could see the twitch of his mouth as he tries to keep his breathing steady and his voice silent. But not since the first time has she ever raised her eyes to meet his.
If Mika were a songbird, this is where she becomes the emperor’s best. Her fingers are heated and urgent, her lips tight and trembling despite her fearless tongue that darts and strokes and pushes against sensitive skin.
Physical touch never quite takes him all the way. It certainly helps - hands cupping, mouth vibrating on a noise from her, teeth scraping so very very lightly - but it’s always always always this thought that does Caelum in: Mika may hate what she’s doing, but she does it anyway, because she’s afraid of him.
All her feathers torn and bloody, scattered on the ground where she kneels, dirt digging into her knees and the hem of her white dress. He’s plucked and pulled until she’s only left with a grotesque skeleton of what wings should look like. Bone and pricked flesh, exposed to the entire world in nakedness.
She’s the white witch on this chess board of the world. Untouchable by every other player because such a piece doesn’t exist. And yet she, this girl who could turn anybody into whimpering, drooling, imbeciles if she ever put her mind to summoning the sky serprent... this girl, is afraid of him.
It’s enough. More than.
The song he makes her sing is a symphony played out in her nervous hum, in the pulse of his blood, in the whisper of wind across their sweating skin. There is no conductor guiding the notes, it is a mess of a hands and sighs and off-beat movement.
This song ends on a choke, a desperate cough and gulp for air as she pulls away from him. Poor thing. She still won’t look up, her hair sticking sickly to her skin, and her chin a hopeless mess. There’s more than just berry juice spilling there now.
She sings in his ear, marking the time like the actual hands on a clock. In Caelum’s bent time, this choke-cough-gulp of Mika’s is like an hour’s chime - eight o’clock. Time to move on.
“Do you know what the emperor did once he found his nightingale again?” Caelum asks, head tilted to gaze at her. She’s kneeling in front of him still, almost sitting, face turned away. She doesn’t answer.
“He ordered the nightingale’s gold cage destroyed. He refused to cage it anymore. Do you know why? Because he knew it would never fly away again.”
His hand on her head for a moment, a light weight that still makes her bend forward, as if she were nodding. His fingers stroke, and he smiles where she can’t see it.
She won’t fly away again.
