Many sleepless nights on the road full of coffee and music bred this piece. Enjoy!

Sunder

I: Belonging

It crept towards her slowly but surely: a tide that was silent and cautious only until it knew that there was no escape. Against the shoreline it shattered and seized the thing it had been stalking all along with a mighty roar, engulfing its prey in whitewater and dragging it back into the depths of the ocean. By then, it was too late to hope for another fate, to scramble to the surface for breath; there was only an infinite ocean and fleeting time.

The thought came to her in the same predatory way, slowly unfurling like a melody in the depths of her mind, until it struck suddenly and consumed everything in its path. A wicked idea rooted itself in her brain with no intent to let go, and she began to slowly wither as it feasted on her.

I don't belong here.

Mindless chatter filled the room with a pleasant hum. On either side of her, her family—though she was beginning to have her doubts—lightly conversed, their words interspersed with soft clinks of metal utensils against porcelain. The weather had grown particularly unpleasant in the recent days. A knife cleaved through the flesh of a chicken. When the next soiree would be. The hilt of a spoon thudded against the wood tabletop. If she was ready to bear children. A glass stirring rod rattled against the sides of a teacup.

Wait.

"Oh," she blushed, realizing that the last question had been directed at her. "It seems rather early for that, doesn't it?"

Across the table, her husband raised a white brow and paired it with the slightest smirk, almost amused at her embarrassment.

"Six years? It seems rather late, if anything." Esmeraude's lips puckered as if she had just tasted something sour. Huffing a breath, she upended a silver saucer over and drowned the contents of her plate in a deep burgundy-colored sauce.

True, most queens had flourishing broods of heirs to care for by the time they reached her age, but she had remained steadfast in her decision to only consider having a child when she felt that she was ready. She had always assumed that her reservations were natural, but now it occurred to her that perhaps there was a reason as to why she had never felt ready despite it all.

Buying herself time to formulate a worthy retort, she quickly cut off a sliver of chicken and guided it into her mouth, taking care to chew extra slowly. As words, excuses, swirled about in her mind, she silently cursed Esmeraude and her compulsion to argue whenever the opportunity arose. Many an unpleasant conversation could have been avoided if the woman had any mind to hold her tongue.

"Surely you've grown impatient with this, Demando." When she failed to rouse a response from Serenity, Esmeraude directed the topic at the man seated at the head of the table. "Every other king has an heir except for you. What would happen if you were to fall ill?"

"Then I should hope that the others have learned very well what it means to cross me." He mused, chasing his words with a torrent of wine.

Esmeraude frowned. "Still, does it not concern you that your..." Her lips twisted in disgust, "...wife isn't willing to bear you a child?"

The pleasant, light-hearted air around him froze instantly. His smirk hardened into a grim line, his brows knitting together. Serenity could visualize the storm clouds settling above his head, gray and brooding and purring with thunder. As if pondering the question asserted by his general, he sat quietly, watching the wine in his glass swirl in an eternal loop as he tipped the glass back and forth.

"Are you suggesting that something is wrong with her judgment? Or mine for the matter?" He finally asked, tone cool and laced with threat.

"Never," she gushed. "I would never question your judgment."

Saphir grumbled from his place at the table, and Rubeus directed a venomous glare at her.

Brushing off her words, Demando looked to his wife. "My love, your thoughts?"

Pride swelled in her breast at the term of endearment. He could have had any woman he so desired, and he chose her. For a moment, it was almost enough to bay the uncertainty that flourished in her head. But soon the little fiend had found its place ruling her thoughts once more, and so she shyly offered: "I'm not ready."

"Then you have your answer." He declared. Violet eyes, little pools brewing with triumph, flickered back to the subordinate whose shoulders were hunched and whose head was ducked to hide the scarlet that bloomed on her cheeks.

A little murmur of agreement was all that came from her lips.

Victorious, Demando settled back in his chair and smirked, satisfied with himself. He locked gazes with his wife and tipped his glass in her direction, winking.

It should have been enough. His love and all the glory and grandeur that accompanied it should have been enough. He could quiet a room with a single glance, and would happily do so if she desired. She could ask for an entire planet to be razed, and he would never think twice about her request. He would hand her his bleeding heart if it were the only way to prove his love. If he knew about the fears that festered within her, he would force everyone to smile at her and offer infinite pleasantries and be merry, welcoming, every time she entered a room.

And it was that thought that made her recognize that perhaps she truly didn't belong.

Crimson light enveloped her, suspending her in an ocean of blood. All at once she felt her spine snap in two and her muscles lose their resolve and all of the thoughts in her mind empty into the air around. Ravenously, the darkness overtook her, leaking into her veins and slipping into the crevices between tissue, blighting her gentle form. As shadow poured into her and obliterated her light, all she felt was pain—devastating, overwhelming pain.

"Mamo..." her lips moved of their own accord, muttering a name whose owner she could no longer remember.

And then she fell into a deep sleep.

Her nightly serenade was the relentless whisper of uncertainty in her head; it filled her with endless fears: she wasn't good enough for everyone to accept, her resolve in not having a child was unfounded, her husband would grow tired of her antics and leave her for a more accommodating woman.

But haven't I accommodated you enough, agreeing to live in such a harsh place?

She never understood why, especially when she looked out into the inky void beyond the terrace doors, her husband had chosen Nemesis as the capitol of his galactic empire. There were planets far more temperate than their current home, including the damned Earth that wavered between being mostly unpleasant and slightly uninhabitable. At least on that planet there were things to see: ruins of a once-magnificent palace seemingly crafted entirely out of glass, a sky mostly eclipsed by smog but that offered occasional glimmers of blue, little blades of green amidst the ocean of obsidian monoliths.

"This place used to be beautiful?" She inquired, on a rare visit to the planet.

"Once, but it was very sick." He replied at length. Some unintelligible emotion cast a shadow over his features. "I had to destroy it to stop the plague from spreading."

Even in decay, it was still undeniably more beautiful than Nemesis, which was hardly anything more than shadows shrouded in darkness. Often, she wondered what Earth was like in its prime, before her husband laid waste to the land, and why he never considered the possibility of restoring it to its former glory.

"Why do we continue to stay here if there's a whole galaxy of planets that is ours for the taking?"

"It's our home."

She never argued, but at the same time never truly believed him deep down. If she thought back far enough, she would always hit that hole in her memory where things like her home and her family and her childhood existed; daring to explore what lie beyond her earliest memory of waking up in bed the morning her life changed only met her with emptiness and oblivion. And so she had to accept it when they told her that she was born on Nemesis, that she was a daughter of one of the royal houses, that she had miraculously survived the plague that killed off all her relatives despite how wrong all of it seemed.

The door leading to the adjoining bathroom swung open, grabbing her attention. In the doorway, white locks dripping with water, Demando stood with a towel loosely hanging from his hips. "Did you miss me?"

"Always." She smiled.

A pleased grin playing on his lips, he crossed the room with ease, arriving at the bed in only a few strides. Easing himself onto the side, he ran a hand through his white mane and gently shook the water from his locks. Droplets soared, falling to the dark sheets below.

From underneath the covers, she crawled and breached the barrier of space between them, tackling him from behind. Serenity curled her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into the hollow of his neck, peppering his skin with feather-light kisses. Cool beads of water dripped onto her neck and bare shoulders, evoking whispers of chills that slid across the surface of her skin and murmured in her muscles. She felt his hands claim hers, all cold and rigid, so inhuman. She had always thought of him as her perpetual winter: forever cold and white on the exterior, beautiful and dangerous, hiding a realm of warmth that slept beneath.

"Esmeraude," He broke the comfortable silence that had fallen between them, "she's just irritable."

"And jealous too, even after all of this time." She murmured against his skin. "Are you upset with me for wanting to wait?"

He grew still in her arms. Unwinding himself from her grasp, he turned to face her, bringing a hand to her cheek. His palm was ice against the warmth of her flesh, and still, even with six years time to grow accustomed to the sensation, she struggled to bay the cringe that threatened to possess her body.

"I could never be upset with you, my love." He insisted. Violet eyes held all of the softness and warmth that his body lacked. "But I do hope that you'll reconsider. Soon."

Brushing the pad of his thumb across the supple skin of her cheek, he placed a gentle kiss on the inky crescent nestled between her brows.

Guilt flirted with her resident uncertainty, mingling with one another until an awful, aching brew throbbed in her chest. He would be so disappointed with her, hate her, even, if he knew the nature of her reservations. As he pulled back the coverlets and guided her down onto the sheets, she couldn't help but let a new but all too lofty fear nag at her. Winter he may have been in his penchant for apathy, but winter he was in his capacity for ruthlessness. Would all of the love in the universe protect her from him if he suddenly decided her obstinacy was vexing?

The dim candlelight perished as he settled next to her beneath the sheets. He draped an arm across her waist, a motion usually so comforting, but now practically suffocating. The weight resting upon her was but a physical manifestation of all of the wicked storms of fear in her head.

Immersed in total darkness, she was left staring at the one thing that she could still see: those violet eyes that seemed to glow even in the realm of night. Again, they were a usual comfort that now seemed so menacing. The eyes of a predator, not a lover, who seemed capable of devouring her with a single gaze.

And to add insult to injury, in the darkness of her mind, there was a little whisper of water against sand.

Usagi.

Catatonic. Wounded. She was in his arms, bleeding ichor all over his clothes, his skin, his wicked heart. Gold weakly assaulted all—her last pitiful fight—slathering the sleeves of his jacket, eclipsing the lavish embroidery encasing his chest, spilling onto the floors below. Crimson ribbons dripped off her body and fluttered in the false breeze around them, taunting him with the idea of wings.

The very things she no longer possessed.

End

This will probably shape up to be one of my stranger stories, so I'm interested to see what everyone thought. If you would please take a moment to review, I would greatly appreciate it! See you next time!