☥ 404 ☥

The content is not found or available...

The requested chapter is not completed or I forgot to replace the placeholder (this).
Either way, it should be fixed soon OR the content will be completed soon!

Come back soon! ♡

The Nothing of Her

(Click Here to Return)

She stood above the barrow, peering down into the natural world below. This world was not hers, and it wasn’t theirs, nor did it have to belong. The bodies under her feet were lovely and lively once, but now they stood still as she kept moving.

They were hers, her people, whom the Others called the Nothing. It was a race of people who were nothing, referred to themselves as nothing, and lived for no purpose. And yet, they were beautiful, glittering androgynes whose faces were those of gods. They were nothing, as they said to those who asked, so they got treated like nothing. And now, of the Nothing, there was only one left.

She trodded along slowly, looking around at this world. The mud soaked its way into her shoes and socks, but she still moved onward. Her tail once swished along these leaves, she reminded herself, and then she chopped it off and sold it for some fruit. 

In this world of hers, she said, coming to a halt as she would dance, try new things. She would bite at the corpse of her mother, killed just the night before, and throw her to the fire. She could stomp at the bears in the wood, kill people, and become a vicious monster… and then she would embody all of their people in the process.

“Ho-ho,” she smirked, plucking a lizard from the tree she stood under. It was a gorgeous thing, bright yellow and spotted black. “You’re a little thing, aren’t you?” 

She crushed it in her fist and dropped it, curious to see what would happen to it. She hissed at the dark, black blood in her palm, and she furrowed her brow as she wiped it on a tree. 

Her people, as they used to be, didn’t understand or feel pain. They did not lack emotions, but they lacked nearly everything else. Without a heart, even with the best of the brains, they failed to feel anything at all for anything else. 

Perhaps this is why She crushed life underfoot when she was alone, for now she had no one in community to feed her apathy.

She turned to humanity not soon after, observing them from afar. She wanted to toy with them, to kill them and stalk them like prey. She ate the baby of a passerby woman, and then spit it back up and healed it when she complained.

And then, in the same day, she claimed that she could jump over the moon and bring back down a star; instead, she leapt onto a shaped tavern sign and picked up a pebble.

In the end, she found Man boring, and there was nothing left but to move on.

“Why have you made me alone,” she said to the water she stood in front of now, her phantom tail wagging behind her. “I… fear for it all, if they come for me, I will be killed, and my sovereignty will collapse… do they not know I am better than they?”

She stood, bitterly looking out at human lights in the dark. She could snuff them all out, steal them and burn up all their candles. 

But, she did not. Instead, she sat again, crouching low as she lapped up her freshwater.

A man came by the next day, and she crept up on him slowly. She wanted to eat him, for he was so vulnerable and easy, but she waited. A creeping feeling of curiosity came over her, just this once, so she covered her form and imitated him.

“Good morning,” she purred, smiling as she approached him. Her form was dressed in oversized blacks, stolen from one of her butchered victims. “I… heard there was a monster here, no? Surely Sire would want to leave?”

“Heavens, no,” he said, chuckling. “You must be joking… that thing is draped in silver, or so they say in the letters they sent me.”

“Silvers? Like devils, no? They say the devil is silver or… a thing along that line.”

“A silver tongue, the devil has a silver tongue,” he corrected her, to which her gaze grew darker.

“Are you going to kill Her?” Her hand came to her chest, resting regally like she had seen of the noblewomen in the past. “Perhaps she is Devil?”

“Devil? Devils aren’t real,” he said, smiling a little as he stood to stand face to face with her. “Even still, I doubt this is more than another creature of some sort, no different than the last.”

She tilted her head, coming to follow him as he strode along on his own path. Humans had autonomy, but she influenced his path as they walked. “So, so. Demons are real, they are.”

He chuckled softly, his eyes on her as she moved to his front, walking backwards. “Devils or demons? Either way, I’ve killed these silver beasts before.”

At that, her arm twitched, a small stutter in her step. “You… killed the devil?”

“Not the one, no, but a few before this one. But it’s hard to tell when they all look alike.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she turned around once more, not moving. Her phantom tail would have been twitching, itching for her to get the nerve to pounce.

But no, instead she just smirked. “They are silver creatures, with glassy skin and yellow eyes.”

He nodded softly, before taking a step closer. “You’ve got a nice pair of them yourself,” he uttered, clasping her wrist.

She let him hold it, curious if this was a bluff. If it was, she would kill him. And if it wasn’t… then he was stupid to grab Her. But it was not to be.

“I… I'm sorry,” he said suddenly, letting her go while chuckling again. “How… intense of me. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Her eyes widened for a moment as she slowly drew her arm back, cradling her wrist to her chest. “What are you sorry about?”

“I… look, you’re just… I don’t know.” He said at last, scratching his head. “Are you hunting the beast, too?”

At this, she narrowed her eyes in a small smirk. It was victory, but she would not name it so soon. “No… I don’t hunt Devils.”

“Shit, you might as well be one…” He kept walking, clutching his bag a little tighter as he watched her move beside him. “Never seen one that moved, though, so can’t be. They’re funny little things to crush.”

“You crush into them? How human of you,” she giggled, pushing his stray hairs out of his face. 

“Y-Yeah,” he muttered at the action, peering at her hands. 

“Did you know I am the Devil?” She giggled, pushing her face closer to his. He immediately squeaked as she pushed him against a tree, and she grinned at the sound. “I’m a witch, too. I jump over the moon for a rocks and everything.”

He didn’t speak, so she stopped laughing and looked into his eyes. His gaze was something foreign to her, and she felt inclined to retreat from him at once.

He stared up at her, his face slightly tinted a red. They peered at each other for once, and she bowed her head and looked away. 

“You’re disgusting.” She hissed, before shedding her clothes on the spot and hopping away.

The next day, as she slept, the man came to her once more. She could smell him, but feigned sleep to understand him.

However, he just seemed to idle near her, staring at her in wait. She growled when she opened her eyes, annoyed at his perception.

“Human man,” she yawned, stretching fully in a way that made him turn his head. “You come to me again. Do you feed me?”

“I… not me, no, no. But…” He trailed off as he reached into his bag and pulled out a dead lizard, which she gobbled up immediately.

She stood tall as he lay crouched, and she eagerly took in his prying gaze. She sensed that he wanted her, perhaps to possess or to hunt.

“Go home,” she said, flipping her curly hair. “I will kill you and suck the blood from the face if you don’t leave me.”

“I… have to kill you. Those scales are going to be my next pay. I’m on contract.”

She snorted, grinning as she kneeled back down. “Contract? Humans make deals with Man?”

“It’s for money.”

“Does a human need money? I don’t need money…”

“Hold on,” he said, suddenly looking around. He drew his blade for just a moment, flanking a leftward tree, before she heard the sound of a death. Curious, she moved over to him, where he held out a bigger, fatter lizard. “If I give you this, you will not kill me today.”

“Ho-ho,” she said, biting into the lizard without hesitation. Or agreement, for that matter.

“You lot like these things,” he said, grabbing his things to follow her wherever she went. 

“My lot? I have one of Myself,” she interjected, softly looking over at him. “My ‘lot’ is extinct, so I will have to mate to make a ‘lot’.”

“Y… you got a funny way of talking,” the man said with a slight rasp, his head tilted right as he avoided her direction.

“I do not speak your language… I speak no language naturally.”

He smirked. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Oh-ho? Is the money coming to your head?” She laughed at this, and he at least cracked a smile.

He failed to kill her for five more days, each day bringing her a kill. On the sixth day, he sat aside her in her nest, watching her like the beast she was. She stared up at him, eyes curious but at least a quarter trusting, as he went about his day.

Humans were strange to her with what they did, and she knew not why this one stayed. She wanted to eat him, kill him and leave his body near the village as a warning. And yet, he kept her full and lazy, so she never made a move.

She wondered if he could feel her conditions she kept for him, feel fear instead of Humanity. She wanted to replace his heart with pure fear of her, but he never let her begin.

By day eight, she let him touch her body, and she began to understand him.

Through such a process so foreign to her, who had never mated, he touched her very soul. The pair, deep into the woods and enthralled by an air of lust, were forced to be one at the moment.

Vulnerability, in that moment, made her open her eyes for once. And he stared back, devoted and trusting of her. In that haze, she almost felt something that she could touch, if only she knew how…

And, tempter that he was, he seemed to be filled with the same sense she lacked.

He kissed her several times over, obsessed with her in a way that paralyzed her. She was aware she was beautiful and loved by those who saw her, but she was also aware she was a monster. Even her lover, when approaching her before, called her a beast.

And she did feel like one, somehow. Before, even though she could never explain it now, she was Nothing… in the eyes of this Other, she was allowed to feel something.

And yet, she still looked at him with pangs of malice. She wanted to kill him, as was her nature, and consume his body. He loved her so much, but she, of all creatures, did not need or deserve such love.

“What would you do… if you slayed me?” She started giggling again as she lay bare beside him this night.

He stared up at her for a moment, before sighing. “Well… you’d be dead, and I wouldn’t work a day in my life again,” he whispered, cradling her with a kiss to her earlobe. “But, please, that won’t happen…”

“You will have to kill me sometime,” she mused as she stared up at the treetops. “And then you must return home.”

“That… could be true, that’s fair,” he started, shuffling himself so that he hovered above her. “But I could also remain here…”

“You could,” she echoed. She looked into his eyes, wanting a moment of connection like before, but he just smiled and took him in her embrace.

In time, everything she thought she was learning faded into the background. She became Nothing again, and he returned to being human.

How humans could devote themselves to empty ideals out of desire…

“Bring my three lizards,” she spoke to him, smiling as she commanded it of him. Her voice was. Calmer now, much more even as she dipped her head to the side. “Each has to be bigger than the other.”

He hunted well for her, but she had a heavy feeling in her heart. She ate the lizards, and she watched as he watched her. His dark eyes were always upon her now, never leaving her side. She had been used to being alone in company, she thought as she lapped up more water, but never so perceived in a quiet, shared solitude.

She found herself laughing at him, and, for once, it was not a crude and empty sound.

“I will have to leave soon,” she said one day, unprompted. “A human can’t follow.”

That caught his attention, as he sat up in their nest, eyes wide like a child. “What? I… I don’t understand, why? We’re doing so well together, and you’ll just be hunted again if you leave!” 

Her eyes lowered to the ground as she stood, looking at the moon. “If I sold every last of my scales, would you take the money?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“You do…” She slipped underneath her blanket he had made for her, content to just stare at him as he did her. “I will give you each and every one… and then special will be my skin no longer. You will sell them, and then tell me what my worth is to you…”

He stared at her for a time, not understanding, before his brow fell. “This… I won’t skin my wife alive.”

“Wife? I am a wife? So you give me Widow, then?”

“Widow… you’re joking. Answer me.”

She grinned deeply, a trilling chuckle coming from her chest. “I joke a lot. More than you realize that I do. But it is dark, darker than you and I.” She pressed herself to his back, leaning over to peer at his reflection in the nearby river. “I’m more important, so you become drawn to me… If I give you every last of my skin, will you trade Fortune for She?”

“I.. Don’t joke about that, stop it.”

She slunk back down, away from him to peer into the water on her own. It took her a minute, but she chuckled once, a darker, more reflective pitch. “I don’t joke like that.”

The both of them, after this exchange, settled down in a very prickly, unsteady manner. 

She, for example, was upset by her own words, for once. Sentiment was heavy on her heart, and she felt it dearly in how cold it made her chest and throat. He pet her head, the cause of which she knew not, and fed her something from his travel bag. His eyes were always so bright when he looked at her, and hers, in response, always glittered with curiosity. She knew then, when he did this, that she would miss him if she murdered him. But, even that wasn’t strong enough to cull the urges.

So, she reasoned, standing from their embrace, that she didn’t love him, and never would. He talked about love, called her his love in their trysts, but it was just talk to her. 

“I will sell you the scales if you ask it of me,” she said quietly, staring out beyond the treeline before her. “I will… become nothing.”

“Nothing?” He said, yawning as he sat up to lean on her legs. Her metallic skin reflected the soft moonlight on his darker skin, and he traced the sparkling outline with his thumb. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

“But.. I will. I have nothing here to live for.”

At that, he looked at her face for just a moment, and she kneeled once she felt his gaze. He wanted to say something, she could tell, but it died on his tongue. 

“Either way, I…”

“Don’t. You don’t love me, I know it…” He sighed, and she nuzzled against him. 

“I…” Her voice faltered as she felt her phantom tail still for once, eyes settling on his. “I think it’s fair…If… I were your wife, I would be shot down, dead and skinned… set on fire, and tortured in life and a death. Every piece of a She is taken for meat or envy… and my blood is mercury in the end, to regret in time.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

“I… know.”

In the next evening, as he slept, she slunk  far away, farther away than she intended to go from him. She collapsed in the weeds, cattails tickling her leg as she stared at a different, dirtier lake. Children, behind the trees from where she sat, played and screamed. Eager, happy sounds.

She, however, laid bare in silence, not even a tail to twitch or a body fit for subtleties. 

With a sigh, she brought her hair to a closed fist and tore into it with her claws, setting it loose in the river. She didn’t care where it went, or what happened to the silver locks in the stream. She let it down into a shorter, more burdensome cut around her ears, fluffing it out as she had seen her mate do. Next, experimentally… No, she couldn’t…

But.. she did. With careful claws, she dug into her skin and picked off a scale.

It didn’t hurt at all. So she could do it again, if she wanted. He talked about a fine he had to pay… she didn’t know what a ‘fine’ was, but she understood payment. So she would help him pay, as she was instant wealth in a bottle, as long as she was alive. Humans were stupid, thinking they had to kill to skin… her scales would grow back in time.

With a sudden gasp from the realization, she understood that this was a horrible thing, to leave someone who loved you like he loved her. So she returned while he still slept, but then picked her skin off, scale by scale…

When he awoke that night, she was bare all across her torso and legs, peering very curiously at him. Her skin was dotted like strawberries, but the marks would most likely fade in the sun.

“I collected your payment,” she said softly, clearly drowsy from her evening’s work.

“Payment?” He said, squinting as he grabbed onto her form. “Payment? What the hell have you done to yourself?”

“Nothing that will last,” she said, covering her breasts with his before-now-discarded cloak as she stood up. “I do not want to be a wife. But I will be a mate,” she said, settling into his lap. She thought of the children from the creek and frowned. “My body is not ready for children… yet I am surely pregnant by now.”

He scowled a little, pushing her hair from her face and cradling her between his palms. “Your hair… That… So you bore scales to pay for the child? I don’t.. Why?”

“...No.”

“No?”

He sighs. “I don’t think I’ll understand you, ever. Is this what you were trying to tell me?”

“I don’t want… please never understand. I don’t want you to know what I think about of you..”

“By God.. I need to, now you don’t understand… I need to understand, and now you’re coming here with your gorgeous scales plucked off, talking about mating and money? These are serious things, and you–”

“Enough. I don’t want to speak of it.”

“Stop, stop saying that! I… are you…” He trails off with a sigh, and her eyes narrow just slightly with the sound. “Are you pregnant or not? Can you tell?”

Her eyes narrowed even further. She did not know. 

“Yes… I am pregnant,” she hissed out, tasting the words on her tongue. “I feel it…faintly.”

“That’s good… That’s good.” His voice wavered a bit as he backed off, simply holding onto her lower waist. “That’s good, isn’t it? Now you won’t be…”

“Alone,” she interrupted with a breathy whisper.

He smiled at her, taking a breath before embracing her fully. “I’ll take care of you if you take care of me and stop scaring me…” However, she laughed at that, which made him retract his smile. “What’s funny, my love?”

“How dare you tell the devil not to sin,” she said in a voice, clearly imitating him in jest as she settled in to nuzzle him. They, again, would be intimate that night, and she would command him. She needed him like this, for she loved him dearly as he was…