Balanced Relations

Balanced Relations
-MAS


This was his work.

His art.

From the top of the barren skull to the tips of her scarred feet, where many of her toes had been removed many a time with slow delicate cuts from a quite dulled blade, this child was a work of art, her skin a canvas, every deep slice being a rough stroke of the brush - crimson and blackened gore his paint, the pain that wracked her fragile form his prideful signature, a pale rot despite the still living body highlighting each plane and dip in the graceful texture of the flesh - all of it a singular composition of his masterpiece.

A rare moment that Ralph truly held pride in his work, true he held the highest regard to his abilities upon the battlefield, but here - upon the singular - more personal level, his eye for the smallest detail shone brilliantly. All of it was his, the tiniest of punctures that spun themselves into delicate patterns upon her arms, thick wires stitched through her shoulders which hung thin runners of silk, the slender lines crosshatching her bird's chest, if she was still able to run, this child would have truly been a vision of perfection while he hunted her down, a true goddess of suffering.

Which was why he now stared in shock at the woman upon the bed, straddling the child, studying each and every line that encompassed this child's being.

This intruder was Jemima, his sister, they being spawn of unknown origins - his partner, both upon the battlefield and in similar mind - sharing the respect of their employer, the obstinate Lord Burroughs. But this was not her place, not in his room, not in his bed, not upon his work - and not with a look akin to a carrion bird and it's slowly dying prey.

She was his sister, and she had no place here.

He growled, otherwise remaining silent as she finally looked up at him, long done in staring down at his handiwork with amusement and curiosity. Her art was more to speed, the quick kills and slow tortures of a professional, no true beauty except for herself, her movements, her grace. She had completed taking in the delicate mask of china newly anchored to the child's otherwise plain and mangled face with short silver nails. The brown curls that spilled around her head like a filthy halo upon the silken pillow - not hers, Jemima perhaps had found out after a soft stroke of her hair - the child had been scalped early after he had acquired her from the stock of ten villagers brought to them for their amusement. Now the hair upon her bare skull was a leathery scalp saved from a previous victim, tightly stitched to her own deteriorating skin and muscle.

From under Jemima's weight as she shifted, the child gave a low moan, feebly attempting to turn her head, but was unable to move more than a fraction. She being too tired to put up much of a fight being denied real sustenance for days, unable to rest despite how her injuries left her skirting the edge of unconsciousness.

Jemima looked up at her brother after this small noise, her blue eyes sparked with malicious glee as she finally spoke. "She's pretty Ralph."

"She's not finished, Jemima, now get back on your side of the castle and mind your business."

But she merely threw back her head and laughed in her prim voice, laughed at the absurdity of his words, laughed at him - until color arose to her otherwise pale cheeks. "Mind my business? You're the one who can't mind his business! Breaking my last toy, leaving it in my room like I wouldn't notice."

"You're upset over that stupid little..."

"It was mine! You had plenty of your own."

The pair stared at each other from where they stood, calm and enraged, sadistic and coy, considering factors unknown to any creature blessed with a stable mind. Perhaps it wasn't the little girl under Jemima, Ralph considered, his sister loved creating dolls that could fool anyone into thinking they were alive, to take that rash step into her traps. Was this her childish attempt at a bluff, in hopes of getting him to admit to the destruction of the last villager she had claimed for her own?

Indeed he had been the one to slay the last villager in spite, but it was her own fault she had garnered his attentions this way, his anger - he was her brother, there was an obligation to watch her - watch over her - regardless if they were subordinates, to hell that she could care for herself.

And be damned if Lord Burroughs held faith in both of their abilities as warriors. The old man had always considered them as one singular creature considering their efficiency in dismissing his enemies - in the end however, one always needed the other.

She was his sister.

A teasing smile slowly returned to the graceful curve of her lips, as she lowered her hands down over the faint scars that marred the otherwise flawless skin of her bare mid-drift, many of them his own doing while they sparred with their wicked blades, never brea her her sibling's gaze.

Delicate fingers sliding past the ornate fabric that rode her hips and slender legs, down to the filthy bedding, the ornate twists of silk - picking up the trademark weapons of their office. That smile and expression which smoldered from under a short curtain of brown hair held him. Ralph still watching silently as her twin weapons arose - finally breaking the stare as they were lifted above her head. Daring him to stop her - to say anything in protest to what he knew was coming next. "It's only fair that I break one of your toys, brother - only fair."

"Jemima..."

It was too late for reasoning - the blades arched down as one, tearing into the already battered and rent body of the girl - a muffled screech arising from under the delicate mask. It hardly mattered if this was the battlefield or the bedroom - these were familiar motions to them both and wouldn't take much more until the thing under Jemima would be beyond help. Quickly again and again into the body she drove her blades, sending up a fine mist of blood as lau laughed. Speckling her white skin with its crimsoned colors - leaving her a vision of gore by the last rattle of breath from the little child, or would have been the final noise had she not placed the blades together and effortlessly scissored through the girl's thin neck as she cried out with triumph. "Snicker snack!"

Ralph stared down at the whelp's head from where it landed at the foot of the bed with a dull clunk upon the flagstones, than back to his sister who proudly admired her own handiwork. Her cackling softening to an occasional giggle as she began cleaning the blood from one of her blades with careful little swipes of her fingers, immediately placing the bloodied digits to her mouth, careful not to waste a drop of her kill while faithfully awaiting her brother's fitful screams of rage at having his precious work destroyed.

But he felt no familiar burn at having a life taken away from his tally astooktook the first step into the room, allowing the heavy wooden door to close behind him. There was no anger as he slowly crossed to where she resided, watching as Jemima tossed aside her partially cleaned weapon to join its other, never dismissing that smile as she stretched backwards, languidly resting upon a crooked elbow besides the corpse, still watching him with smug pride, ignoring the new blood staining her fine clothes. Offering him a comparison between the child's dumpy and boyish form and the perfectly formed creature that trailed her soiled fingers even now upon the bedclothes, over the soft rise of her stomach, making him wonder if the wasted time with a mere child was even worth the effort, she tempted him without a beckoning word.

Nothing of irritation as he finally reached the bed, meeting his sister\nternterested gaze, did she expect him to be angry? Catch her by the hair and throw her out of his room? To fetch his own blades and finally cut her down for her insolence?

"We could have done that together." He finally spoke, watching her for any trickery, but she dismissed her smile, finally speaking with hurt tones as she looked back to the ruined work, the useless pile of flesh.

"No. We couldn't. Why do you always seek to deny me of what I enjoy? Are you that jealous over what I do?"

That had caught him unguarded - as he blinked with surprise at finding a nerve deeply struck. How did she always manage to find the tiniest detail and pull it from almost thin air, and than use it to wound him so?

Jealous... he always had pride in his sister, in her abilities as a killer - her sharp mind, the detail she placed in honing of her own body into a formidable weapon. But was he honestly jealous of her? Jealous enough to view any fool that attempted to possess her as unworthy?

Had he been jealous when he first found Jemima those long nights ago, the curve of her alabaster neck exposed as she threw back her head in the midst of a gasping laugh, twisting her blades again into the flesh of the man she had felled in the catacombs of the Burrough's castle, her skirt hiked high as she brazenly rode the screaming man, his member buried within her just as deeply as her blades where in him. It had been a side of his sister rarely seen by him, her tempered surface brightened by something other than the heat of battle, the thrill of the chase and impending demise of the hunted.

Had he been jealous when she had opened those beautiful blue eyes than, slightly glassy with pleasure and stared directly where he had been hiding like some skulking vermin, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth that demanded to be kissed away as she slowly dug out the innards of the dying fool. Finally closing her eyes once more as she uttered a rumble of a groan, intertwining with the rattling scream of agony as her victim expired. Had she raised her gory hands to some unknown god, in tribute for a successful kill - or had she raised them to him, entreating him to come to her - though he instead turned from her than, seeking solace for his frantic thoughts, a sanctuary to release his wounded rage elsewhere.

Had he been jealous that these stupid insignificant creatures could be deserving enough to take her virginity as if she was nothing but a common grifting whore, and to continue to be deserving of her attentions?

Had he been jealous when he cornered the last villager in his hiding place - cowering in place from the screams of his countrymen - taking his blades to the hapless young man in a blind rage - a man about his own age, confused as Ralph had screamed at him for his transgressions, the audacity to lust after something he would never have the honor of possessing. Blindly cutting him to ribbons as the waste of flesh begged for mercy, seeing nothing but the vision of his sister smiling at him, a goddess of destruction mocking his doubts, his fantasies. There had been that vicious feeling of victory when he had deposited the remains into Jemima's room, upon her bed, a message that there would be no others for her lest she wished to incur his wrath again, and that he had finally gotten his sister's attention. Indeed had he been jealous?

Oh yes, there had been jealousy. He offered a smug grin, and slowly crept upon the bed as the gore soaked into the sheets stained his bare knees crimson, forcing back a low growl as her always mischievous fingers found their way down his stomach, lower to the hardness trapped so restrictively behind his uniform, teasing him still with idle petting, sharp drags of her nails. Moving until Jemima's long legs were trapped under his own and she stared up at her brother with unmasked lust before their mouths claimed each other in a rush of passion that battle nor the wrath of the heavens above could ever pale, mingling between them the goddess of suffering's blood, their hands as they wrapped around each other, neither being the dominant or submissive, each being the equal part of the other.

She was his sister. He damn well had a right to be jealous as they hissed each other's names, continued to worship each other in that moment with hands fearless in their explorations.

Next time they would request for twenty villagers, and they would kill every last one of them together.