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Rare are the days when Mythag's campus is clear and sunny. Leonora finds Leigh standing at a window over the central commons, looking over it with an unreadable expression. She slips next to her Awakener, looping her arm around Leigh's. “It's nice out,” Leonora chirps. The Kingdom is known for clouds and rain, dreary skies. “Do you want to come on a walk with me? I’ve got a parasol.”
Leonora's appearance is responded to with Leigh breaking immediately out of her reverie and smiling over at her new companion. Pale fingers lay delicately over Leonora's hand. “Aaaah, with the company of my dear Keeper? How could I refuse, eheh.” She tilts her head with a squinty smile.
Leonora curtsies. “The honour is mine,” she says. She and Leigh walk arm in arm out to the Mythag gardens. The commons are simple grass and hedge, but they lead into a garden arranged more or less under the personal direction of Dexter, who displays an appreciation for flowers. Many are in bloom now, roses giving splashes of pink and red. Leona’s parasol bobs over Leigh to keep her from being entirely blinded.
The sun is warm. It puts Leonora in a good mood, a pleased humming bubbling up as she meanders over the garden paths. Leigh’s slow walk determines their speed, as Leonora is still determined to go arm-in-arm with her, but Leonora controls the aimless direction. She's just glad that Leigh doesn't follow the vampire stories of dying in the sun. “What were you thinking about at the window?”
It’s odd to see Leigh pensive. The expression comes back to her. She releases Leonora’s arm and takes a few steps forward on her own, reaching out to lightly touch the petals of an azalea before her. “I was thinking about my home. My family home.” Her voice loses the exaggerated pitch she usually takes, slipping into something a bit dreamy. Leonora watches, silent and waiting.
“I came from nobility. Did you read the files Mythag keeps?”
“No.” Leonora figures if something is important, it will be brought to her directly. It seems rude to study someone without their permission. If there’s something she’s supposed to know, Leigh can tell her herself.
Leigh hums, closing her eyes and rocking side to side along a tune only she can hear. She seems caught in the wind for a moment. “We had a lovely house. Grand, since Father was a baron and money had been in the family for a long time. It had wonderful grounds that were kept in a garden. We even had a little hedge maze. Any time I could, I would go into the gardens. Walk along the maze, read and take tea in the gazebo. I loved it a lot.”
She ambles off, a hand held out to trail fingers along the leaves growing at her side. Leonora follows along. “It was… the first thing my family took from me when I fell ill. My brother dragged me from a bench and took me to the basement. Apparently, there was an argument and Father decided I couldn’t be allowed outside. Someone might see me and know the rot came.” She smiles sadly. Her feet stop walking as her hand lands on another flower.
A twist of her fingers and the flower is plucked at the head. Leigh crushes it in her hand. Another sin to the count. “Leigh…” Leonora’s voice comes from behind her.
“Oh, it’s alright.” She turns to her Keeper and smiles widely. “I still had company. My brother came and visited often. He loved me. He hated me, too, but he loved me. He brought me food, let me out at night to eat, punished me. For my transgressions.” Something in her voice wavers, and when she looks at Leonora, Leonora feels like Leigh isn’t seeing her or anything around at all. “I once wanted to be saved, like a princess in a tower. Soon, though... I wasn't a princess. I figured out that I couldn't be saved. I was the witch, the dragon, too dirty for a prince."
Leonora takes Leigh’s hand in both of hers. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to, Leigh.” Something in Leigh’s spirit is wavering. It echoes down the link. Something deep and rotten within her, the pool of fetid blood deep at Leigh’s core. It doesn’t frighten Leonora. Very little does. She just doesn’t want Leigh to be hurt. Whatever this is, whatever is between her words, is a wound that was never stitched and instead festered until it replaced all of her.
“I’m going to tell you a secret,” Leigh says anyways. “My brother. My dear brother, the only person who loved me. I held his corpse close for days, because I wanted to eat his blood and couldn’t let myself. I was relieved he wouldn’t have to touch me again. Rodgers sewed his Dissolution into me.”
She leans close to Leonora, letting the parasol drop. The sunlight blinds Leigh, both of them know it hurts her. Not badly enough to burn, but enough for her discomfort. “The secret is: I was happy he was with me. I was happy we were reunited this way, where he was trapped inside of me now. The disgusting, rotten sister. He trapped me in the basement, rotted me. I became someone who doesn’t deserve salvation. Then he died for me, and I–” she takes Leonora’s hand and holds it over her heart. The skin is warm under Leonora’s hand, and the silver core pulses rapidly.
Leigh smells heavily of blood. “I jailed him here. Until I die.” Under her skin runs the remnants of Dissolution, the blood she feeds on providing the blood that fuels her when otherwise her veins only carry black sludge. How much of it is her brother’s mixed among her own, she pictures it being most. Absorbed inside of her. They live entwined, inseparable for their crimes.
Because, Leigh has fully internalized and accepted, she is a blight and her brother both made her that way and accepted her that way. Disgusting, mold on the skin of an apple. Black eating away at pristine clarity. Leonora never looks away from her.
Gently, gently, Leonora moves her hand from Leigh’s heart to her neck. She pulls Leigh close to her as if she’s afraid the other woman is made of glass and could crack into cutting shards at the slight misstep. “It’s not a sin, Leigh. Nothing you’ve done has made you unsalvageable. Hate him, love him, trap him all you want. I’ll accept you, but I won’t punish you.”
Leigh shifts her head, her nose along Leonora’s neck. “What if I bit you now? Proved I was the monster. You’d punish me then, wouldn’t you?” The more normal manic edge creeps into her voice, the exaggerated airiness.
“I'm sorry, Leigh. If someone is hungry, they should eat. You’re not an exception. If you took too much, I would seal it up and take you to the infirmary for a supplement.”
“Aaah, Keeper, you should keep your pets on a firmer leash.” She nuzzles Leonora’s neck, but doesn’t bite. She just stays there for a moment.
Leonora doesn’t reply. She only pets Leigh’s head and waits. Eventually, Leigh steps back and gives a tight smile. Her eyes seem a bit red, though she hadn’t cried. “It’s a bit bright,” Leigh says. She returns the parasol over her head. “Let’s get back to our walk.”
“Of course.” Leonora holds out her hand for Leigh. Daintily, hesitantly, the offer is taken with Leigh’s free hand. Thin fingers rest like a bird ready to flutter off, but Leigh stays with her as they start walking once more, down the path to the elm trees.