i. The Princess of Tears and Light
Lies were the indelible remains of naked corpses burrowed beneath the skin, its shame crawling like blood into a stream, forcing oxygen into the brain. Forcing the thoughts to chitter chatter, chitter chatter, chitter chattering and chipping away at your sanity. And God, whatever Gods there may be in this realm or the next, Rui had none left.
Listen, she wanted to scream. Listen not with your ears, but with your heart. But how could you teach the born-blind to see red? How could she be any less a liar than a tornado could a force of destruction? Thus she scratched her pen into her small, weathered notebook. It was a flimsy thing, and the only thing besides her blood-stained dress she'd had on her when she was exiled from her home with acidic words and a wave that welded the untruth into her bones. The bitter pain of the curse was a familiar companion, chip-chipping at her bones. She hoped she would turn into ash soon.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, she scribbled into her book. The gold crown feathered into rust. Her left fist moved frantically over the black pages as she raced to the beginning. Lies are the indelible remains of naked... Words sat atop words napping upon words and she thought, I should get a new book, she thought, but the coherent phrase slipped from her grasp like a disobedient eel. She scolded it, and returned her thoughts to the chaos that beckoned her from the pages of her notebook.
A sudden noise from somewhere far, far away wrenched her from her reverie none too gently. She leapt half a metre off the ground before jumping to her feet, knocking over the stack of boxes she'd recently vacated in the process. Rui wrapped her arms protectively around her journal as her eyes darted so fiercely from side to side, up and down that she had to clasp her palms over them to keep her eyeballs from fleeing.
The voice traveled like little footprints over Rui's skin, tickling and tinkling. She released a nervous giggle. "Oh! It's the Dreamers! Look at them!" She jumped before hunching her shoulders as if trying to paint herself into a smaller target. Dreams? Where were the dreams? Her thoughts floated out the door despite herself, guided by a childish curiosity. Rui raced to follow. Would the dreams be colourful, she wondered. Would they leap over her head and nudge her back, tripping her forwards into the unknown?
"There you are!" A familiar hand wrapped around Rui's flimsy wrist like a crab's claw the moment she stepped out of the storage room. "We've been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been? What were you doing?"
"The gardens. I was burying a body," she replied as she was dragged down the steps two at a time. She was busy tripping over her short legs when a laugh burst from the plump doctor. Rui frowned. "What? I'm serious."
Sybil snorted in response and Rui allowed herself a small smile. She didn't mind Sybil, who merely scattered her lies in the wind with a bout of humoured exhalations. More than not minding, Rui thought she might've been halfway in love. The doctor was the only person who'd ever treated her compassionately, as if she were a person and not some halfway gone tool to be hammered against stubborn nails. They always wanted something and then some. She felt the pick axe in her flesh, clawing at what remained of her until soon, there would be nothing left but a bloodstain on the floor from where she stood, and that, even, she was certain they would take eventually.
"Found her!" Sybil chest puffed with pride as she slapped Rui on the back, causing her to stumble forward. Dreams, Rui hoped, did not shove as fiercely as Sybil did.
"You're late," the receptionist barked. Rui imagined a dog snapping at her heels.
Rui tripped into a standstill and resisted the urge to curl into herself in an attempt to shrink her 4'11" frame by another good inch or two. She had an audience. Instead, she straightened her spine, lifted her head, and summoned her most apologetic smile.
"This is one of our healers," Eleanor explained finally, after giving Rui a long, hard glare. "She'll be accompanying you for now in case anything... Goes amiss," she said slowly.
Rui's fingers whitened against the desk as her entire body tensed. The breaths of so many bodies pressed around her rustled her grip on her facade. Rui missed neglecting their existence. Her index finger twitched against the wood, scratching subtly at invisible words, thoughts that flitted down her spine like jolts of electricity. Look up, look up, look up, she thought. Her head dropped lower in response, her eyes focusing on a speck of dirt on the desk. Out of place, her mind screeched. She scrubbed it away with the corner of her sleeve and jerked herself upright, jolting her head towards the rest of the room before her mind had the chance to tell it otherwise. Her azure eyes acknowledged every individual before her, but her mind pushed them aside before they had the chance to take hold.
Rui finally nodded at a pair of emerald green eyes inches from her face, and screamed. The edge of the table stabbed into her hip as she threw herself backwards, nearly tripping over a gorgeous, leggy blonde before her back smacked into a wall. The slippery floor gave beneath her feet and she slammed into the ground, knocking her head against the corner of the desk in her descent.