White.
No, grey.
No, wood. Wooden planks.
Dark wood?
Cio conjured a flame from her fingertip and lit the cigarette hanging from her lips. She drew a long puff and let the smoke seep right back out between her pointy teeth while she observed the small fire atop her fingers.
No. Not dark wood. Light wood. Something the candlelight will paint in dancing shades of red and yellow.
The plants would probably radiate their liveliness more clearly on a darker background. But the same is true for a very bright background, Cio supposed. The walls could be light and bright. A nice white. Classic. White with a ceiling of light wood.
Yes, that could work.
And the plants. Everywhere. She meant it. Everywhere. Even more than she has now. In every corner. On the kitchen table, in the bathroom, in the bedroom. Luscious greenery everywhere, too many to count. Maybe she can get some climbing plants, too. Or vines. Something to cover an entire wall with, several walls even. Maybe a ceiling too. She can look after all of them while Allison sleeps, water them, re-pot them, and snip off the wilting leaves and blossoms periodically.
Allison slept. Yes, Allison needed sleep. The soft weight of her head on Cio’s torso was a pleasant reminder of what that could mean. Knocked out, unconscious, but so tranquil and peaceful. Cuddled and nuzzled into her without a care in the world, donning that inexplicably soft expression like she wasn’t sought after like a criminal by the rulers of the universe. That’s what she wanted. For her, for herself, for both of them. Until the end of times.
Sometimes she envied Allison for her sleep. She never looked like that awake. She wished she could. It was so sweet. She wished both of them could. But then again, if she had to sleep too, she wouldn’t get to see her like this, drool running from the corner of her mouth and all. And was this ever a sight worth seeing. Cio drew on her smoke and took in the quaint image presenting itself on her chest. Not sleeping wasn’t too bad a thing, indeed.
But Allison needed sleep. Therefore, she needed a nice bed. A nice big comfy bed, so big it would barely leave any room to walk beside it in the modest room it would be placed in. With some nice fluffy pillows and cosy blankets so her smoothskin doesn’t catch a cold. Her tough but fragile smoothskin, Cio smiled softly. Will take becoming a demiurge’s pincushion, but a night without a blanket leaves her shivering and snivelling snot. Her sweet soft and fragile but tough smoothskin. Cio ran her fingers through Allison’s hair.
Her eyes wandered across the numerous scars on Allison’s skin. She wished Allison wouldn’t do this to herself. There were even worse fates out there than becoming a pincushion. But the windbrain’s mind was on a single track. Cio sighed. Stubborn crackawit. She had to walk her path, and that was fair enough. But did it need to be the path of spilt blood? Why not choose blue skies over pain? Trees over hot ashes?
Cio knew it wasn’t her decision to make. But it was her decision to not partake. And yet, it left her feeling so alone. Allison, resting her head on her chest, was so far away. Cio wished she was here.
But it wasn’t her decision to make. So at least Cio could ensure their future bed she was daydreaming about was nice and and big and comfy and cosy so her smoothskin could get a good rest. Besides, sleep wasn’t the only thing beds were good for, Cio smirked and let her knowing look wander over the wet patch beside them.
“Mmmghlap?” Allison lifted her head and looked at Cio with closed eyes.
“Sleep, tha wobblebrains,” Cio guided her head gently back onto her chest and stroked through her hair. ” ’tis still too early for tha.”
Allison nuzzled into her and dozed off again.
“Fucking say something!” Allison barked. “I’m so sick of you just pulling away from me all the time. What is wrong with you?”
Cio’s shaking shoulders stiffened as she turned abruptly to face her.
“I’m happy, ok?” she screamed at Allison. Cio’s salty tears reached her tongue.
Allison froze in her tracks, leaving Cio’s panting to amplify the paining silence in the room. As Cio’s breath quieted, her ears sank low. She pulled her tinted glasses off to wipe her tears off them, but her fingers got stuck awkwardly fidgeting with the spectacles instead.
“For once in my blasted life, I’m not hurting someone,” Cio whimpered. “I’m safe. I’m happy.”
“Cio…” Allison approached her. “I have to go,” she spoke calmly but firmly. “I… I get it. But I don’t think I can be happy right now. Not until it’s all finished.”
Cio’s head slumped down further. She knew. She had known before Allison had even opened her mouth. The stubborn stockmonkey just had to walk her path of destruction. Why did it need to be that? Why did it need to be the path of spilt blood? Did it need to be the one thing she didn’t want? Did she have to take this away from her? Now, of all times? When things were finally working? To go die trying to save some man? Throw away everything they had built to go die for nothing? Why was the path of violence and death so much better than staying safe and happy with her? Why was she not enough? What did pain and hurt have that she didn’t? Why did they always win over her? Why couldn’t she get it right at least this once? Once, by Aesma’s cunt!
“Can we just talk about it?” Allison reached for Cio’s shoulder.
“Nae touch me!” Cio recoiled violently, rage flickering in her eyes and hoarsening her voice. Staring Allison down with tears running freely, she straightened her back and put on her glasses, facing her brazenly and coldly. But she couldn’t suppress a faint tremble in her voice as she spoke.
“Go on then. Go right back into it. Get hurt. Tha’ll have to do it without me. ’cause this time, I’m not coming.”
In the days to come, Cio would often wonder whether she should have instilled more or less poison into those words.
Big snowflakes. Really big snowflakes everywhere you look, hindering sight with its curtains of ever-moving white. Her breath rises in front of her like smoke.
The snow crunches underneath her feet. She leaves her footprints in the blank unspoiled canvas covering the road. The snow brings quiet and silence with it. It’s a happy and safe quiet and silence. The town, the voices, and the noises are hushed and content. Cio hears the snow crunching cheerfully under her weight, she hears her own breath. Her rattling breathing reminds her that she ought to quit smoking one of these days. There is nothing left to smoke about, after all.
The door is unlocked. She enters. The warm inside air makes her shiver and her glasses fog up. She shakes the snowflakes off her coat and takes it off to hang it on the hook by the door.
“Cio, is that you?” Allison appears behind the corner in front of her. She wears a big fluffy woollen pullover underneath an apron. Carried by Allison, a waft of heated oil and spices mixes into the warm air. They tickle Cio’s cold nose and the rumbling of an empty stomach about to be fed with delicious, delicious dinner vibrates through her.
“Aye, ’tis me, honeyears,” Cio calls back. Before she can lower them onto the ground to take off her boots, Allison takes the bags off her hands and plants a resounding kiss on her forehead.
“Did you manage to find it?”
“Aye, ’tis all there, plentysome,” Cio wheezes as she forces her boot off her foot.
“Great! You’re amazing, love!” Allison beams and waddles back into the kitchen with the groceries in her arms.
Cio follows her. The smell of fried vegetables and meat gets stronger with every step. They sizzle in their pans on the stove while Allison stirs them vigorously. Cio approaches her by the stove and looks at their dinner to be. The stirring makes Allison’s butt shake, and Cio observes hungrily. Standing next to her, Cio places her hand on her back.
“How’ta things?” Cio’s hand glides downwards along Allison’s back. Her butt has become softer and squishier, as they both finally have.
“It’s almost done. Can you chop the harrowwort you brought? And put on the kettle?”
“Suresome,” Cio raises herself on her tiptoes to give Allison a quick kiss and then scuttles off towards the bags on the kitchen table. As she reaches for them, a sharp pain stung between her fingers.
“Gobbering gubberwash!” Cio yelled, adding further profanities and shaking her hand violently. Her cigarette, slowly burning down to the filter in her absence of mind, had singed her fingers. She looked at them and hesitantly put them in her mouth. There was no one here to witness it and judge her for it, after all.
Yes, there was no one here. The looming quiet was proof enough of that.
There was no soft music playing from a devil box somewhere. There was no dinner being made to sizzle in the pans and pots. The fires in the stove were extinguished. There was naught but silence and whatever street light made it through the windows.
Cio, with her neck on one armrest of the cushioned armchair and her knees on the other, raised slowly, still sucking on her burned fingers.
There was no chatter, no footsteps, no creaking floorboards. No cards being played, no water boiling in the kettle. The bed was empty, the kitchen was empty. She could hear the dust gather.
They had all gone with her. Allison just had to walk her path, and they went with her.
And that was fair enough.
And here she was, Ciocie Cioelle Estrella von Maximus the Third, with all she had asked for - a quiet peaceful house full of plants. The death and violence had walked themselves right out that damn door. All she had asked for. Right here, just as she had wanted it. Right here, steeped in misery and agony nevertheless.
Cio let out an exasperated groan, which turned into a growl. Why did it have to turn out like this? Why can’t it ever be a path of green fields, blue skies, and a cool breeze? Why is it always the same hell, the same old fears?
She tiredly slid onto her feet and shook her head. This wasn’t it. This was so far removed from what she had desired so feverishly it may as well have been a cruel parody, a wish granted by a diabolical djinn meant to torture, not please. She stared at her feet. Maybe there wasn’t a path ahead of her that got her to that small house with light wood ceilings and white walls and plants as far as the eye could see without walking amidst more and more death and destruction first. Maybe there wasn’t a path taking her there at all. Maybe all she’d ever find would be a house full of emptiness.
But she had found this house already, she reminded herself. This house hadn’t been dead until they left a few days ago to seek out death. So maybe that small house with light wood ceilings and white walls and plants as far as the eye could see was in there somewhere in that path of hers. Right behind a corner Cio couldn’t see just yet.
Or maybe it wasn’t. Either way, she’d have to walk all the way there to find out.
Cio dragged herself to her quarters. Fuck walking the path. She begrudgingly sought together a change of clothes and some trinkets and shoved them forcefully into a backpack. Once filled, she threw it onto the mattress. Fuck walking the path of blood and blades just to get to that small house.
The thump of the backpack hitting the bed rang through the empty house into nothingness and gave way to silent suffocation again.
Who are we flabgobbering, there wasn’t a path. There never had been. That small house with light wood ceilings and white walls and plants as far as the eye could see and Allison in cosy woollen pullovers would never be. Probably. Maybe. Most probably not. Fuck that. Fuck the path.
But this empty house, devoid of life despite the hundreds of plants Cio had nurtured on every free surface she could find, was already here. And it was here to stay. To stay dead.
Cio looked at her singed fingers. She didn’t have to stay amidst this death. But she didn’t have to go seek out death and violence either. Do as tha wilt.
She didn’t want to stay. She didn’t want to go. “Then what?” Cio yelled at herself. “What does tha even want?”
The backpack lay motionlessly on the bed they used to share. Cio’s ears slumped down. She wished she was here.
But she wasn’t. She had walked out that damn door.
Cio looked at the desolation around her once again. The dark silence licked her and Cio cursed in seven languages. What use was that small house with light wood ceilings and white walls and plants as far as the eye could see if there was no Allison in cosy woollen pullovers to share it with, to come home to? Even if the alternative was the accursed death and violence. Even if the alternative was a path of spilt blood. Even if the alternative was a path Cio was tired of treading on. What use was any of it.
Cio cursed in eight languages this time and threw on her backpack. She stomped out the front door, slamming it shut behind her, and hurried towards the nearest King’s Door mumbling curse after curse. Who knows, she thought upon seeing the portal’s mountainous arch, maybe that small house with light wood ceilings and white walls and plants as far as the eye could see would be in there somewhere, past that damn door between worlds. Right behind a corner she couldn’t see just yet.