23 - And what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?

[notdreaming]

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[ For all the time Kara spends in her room, she spends at least an equal amount of time in the Enclosure, soaking up the sun and enjoying the sights. She's very content these days, satisfied with the friends she's made on the barge and the progress Kyle has made toward graduation. Some day soon she will be able to return home, she can feel it.

Those who frequent the pub know where to find their bouncer and amateur drink mixer. She is merciless with troublemakers and any who aren't supposed to be drinking. She can still be found in the library as well, continuing her studies of Terran medicine as well as that of other species. She's always been passionate about learning: it's as natural to her as breathing.

If she's been having bad dreams, it doesn't seem to have dented her mood yet. ]

[ Dreams are in comments! ]

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Beheading, ft. Kylar Stern

[notdreaming]

It’s late, but you’re restless. A day of fancy parties and dinners with your father’s business partners and noble ‘friends’ just doesn’t do much for you, now that you’re old enough that you aren’t excited by the chance to show off the latest fashions or wear pretty dresses. If one of the maids found you wandering at this time of night they would no doubt alert one of your parents and usher you back to bed, so you walk quietly through the halls in your bare feet. Most of the floors are stone, and while they’re cool the internal heating system is always on high enough that it doesn’t bother you. You secret yourself into the kitchen for a glass of water, just an excuse to stretch your legs.

Talk has been worrying you, of late. You never used to listen before, but you’re getting old enough so that not only are you supposed to know enough about current events to keep up conversation with the other nobility, but you’re interested on a personal level. As the only child of a fairly prestigious family, you know that one day your father’s problems will be your problems. And they are your father’s problems. Your mother helps with business, of course, but she only married into the family. She doesn’t have a name to uphold. A name that you begin to suspect isn’t quite as clean as you would like it.

Glass in hand, you find that you’re still too restless to want to head back to bed just yet. You wander the halls, the wide open areas that are really only used during the day when there are people about. This is the part of the massive estate where your parents have offices and libraries, and the servants either don’t need to or aren’t allowed to clean as often. You’re unlikely to be caught wandering here.

The war raging in the outer planets has always seemed like a distant fantasy to you: fodder for cheap novels about the glory of battle, but no genuine threat. Now you start to wonder, about the emperor, about the Rix and the Worldminds, and about the political world your parents live in. It’s unpleasant to think that your own family might be corrupt, responsible for the suffering of those that have always been considered beneath you, but you’re too old to simply ignore those thoughts. It’s part of what troubles you in the pitch dark of night.

You wouldn’t have seen anything at all if you hadn’t noticed the door to your father’s office slightly ajar. Just a thin bit of light between the door and the frame shows that it’s open when it never is at normal hours. Father is secretive about his work. He told you he was for bed hours ago, but you aren’t surprised that isn’t the case. You are surprised that he forgot to close the door all the way. Whatever kept him in his office late at night must have been disturbing for him to be so distracted.

You’re well aware that he will scold if he finds you awake, and even more so if he finds you peeking into his office late in the night, so you look carefully through the crack to see if he’s truly there. So long as you don’t move the door, he shouldn’t be able to see you from behind his desk.

There’s the edge of his desk, one arm resting on the wood, a pen in hand. It doesn’t move. From the way the pen is slumped a bit, he might have fallen asleep. Then motion catches your eye, and you look a little further away from the desk, to the floor by your father’s side.

Your mind refuses to register what it sees at first. It’s simply a large rounding object, a little furry and wet. Reality sets in as the features become clear, focusing in a slow motion that you note is more real than you had believed such a thing could be.

Your father’s face stares up at you from the floor, eyes wide and pointed up at the ceiling. You can’t move your eyes away from that startled expression, and only register the blood dripping across the floor in your peripheral vision. You hear a strangled noise and are surprised to find that it came from your own mouth.

The sound of quiet footsteps from inside the room snaps you out of it and you stumble backwards, suddenly terrified. The door swings open soundlessly. You know you should do something, run, scream, anything, but all you can do is stare at the disembodied head of your father staring sightlessly up at the office ceiling.

The body that moves towards you is fast, too fast. Human+. The glass is snatched from your hand as you finally look up into the eyes of your father’s killer – lovely blue eyes, far too close to your own. Your body keeps moving backwards with little other direction. You feel yourself starting to fall in the effort to get away from it all. Another sound escapes you, a cross between a sigh and a strangled scream. It’s cut off almost immediately by a strong (too strong) hand gripping your throat. Your mind stops working entirely as your fight or flight reflex takes over. It’s the only thing that makes your body struggle and flail before the blade comes into view and cuts mercilessly into your neck.

There is a moment of pain, the slight pain of a sharp cutting edge combined with the strangulation that has already made your lungs burn with need. Then he slices your spinal cord, and there is nothing. For a brief second your brain continues to function and you are aware that you cannot feel anything, and you are falling while your body is not. Then there is dark.