Awake

She ran. It was a decision Cat regretted as she left the only man she ever loved behind, asleep with his dreams of a beautiful life. It pained her to think of the reality that greeted him when he awoke not to find her coiled up for warmth in his slumbering grace. How she wished he couldn’t wake at all, but life was cruel. The Hand had no love for innocence and in the darkness they waited, licking their lips with hunger like predators in the night. They knew she was alone now, begging for her to make one costly mistake.

Her heart thundered in her chest as the eerie forests around her grew darker then and backed her warily against a faceless tree; wishing the Forthright’s stone was with her as her skin turned to gooseflesh from the worsening cold of her surroundings. It was as if someone had slain the sun out of spite for simply kissing her hair. And then she heard it. That noise that defined death so well as it scraped together in the shadows not far from her. She wanted to close her eyes, ignore it, yet it compelled her to widen them as her body tensed up for the inevitable. She knew what came next, and she was always powerless to stop it; feeling naked even under her tattered wedding dress.

“Preeetty kitten.” The darkness before her spoke with slithery amusement as two glowing golden eyes revealed themselves with sickening delight. Cat’s breathing deepened as she tried feeling for something behind her, something sharp to fight back with. Yet the faceless one knew her fear and obsessed itself over her limbs, trapping them to its mercy all the while a branchlike tendril wrapped tighter around her neck and expose its soft flesh there, welcoming the shadows to feast upon. She gasped, knowing her limbs were no longer her own and the tendril about her neck made sure she had no other option but to watch what was about to have its way with her.

“Klaus... I...” She trembled before the eyes lunged at her. She screamed.

It was only a dream. Cat awoke to find herself still lying in bed, drenched in her phantom fear. The same dream, though. It kept haunting her and only grew more malicious in nature the further she ran away from home. Yet reality quickly returned to her mind as she sat up and ran her hands through her hair, blackened like her dreams now, she felt, after dyeing it to avoid the simple truth that the Hand were looking for a redheaded woman. Yet no matter what she did the eyes of one of their kind continued to haunt her. Those eyes. The eyes of her first assassin that for some reason wouldn’t go away even after her once sworn guardians destroyed its host.

“Calm down Cat... they don’t really exist anymore.” she tried reassuring herself as she laid a trembling hand on her breast for comfort. Her heart was still beating strongly, and the first thing she did was remind herself that she was no longer wearing a wedding dress anymore. It was enough to curb her fear at least. “Remember where you are.” she lifted her eyes to survey her surroundings at her mind’s urging. She was in a room paid for by her voice, even though there were at times she nearly paid for it with her body. She was determined to never go that far, however, and took pride in some small way that the last person to touch her in that way was the man she left behind in hope he would realise her reasons for it and settle for someone else The Hand had no interest in.

They were still looking for her, she knew. Even with solid walls around her, it did not hide her nakedness, her insecurity, even with the pleasant nightgown she wore after she found enough coin for it. After all, she felt, she was still a lady who liked good clothing. She had long since discarded the wedding dress she ran away with and apologised in her heart to Klaus everyday because of it. It was his people who tailored it and it was so beautiful on her. Yet she was a traveller now, and a dress like that, tattered as it was, only would have attracted the interests of unsavoury thoughts around her.

“Now...” she thought to herself as she slid from the sheets of her bed and stood on her own two feet. “They’re yours still; keep telling yourself that.” She continued to rationalise in her mind against the dream she had. She had long realised that it had been raining outside too, easing her also in some small way as she wandered away from the darkness at where she slept to stretch in the cold light of a window, placing a hand on the glass to feel it as water obscured her vision of the world beyond it. “There... silly.” She was sure now that she was in reality again and sighed relief. “At least I’m inside for a change while it’s raining.”

In the back of her mind, though, Marlenkai still awaited her. The Hand, nor the nightmares they weaved, would find her there. It was time to find it.


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Well here’s something a little different. I’ve created this with a bit more character prose in mind, illustrating a desperate time in Cat’s early life, shortly after she ran away from the comforts of Lysenia. So it’s roughly before she reaches the mage city of Marlenkai where she knows the best place to hide from The Hand is right under their shrewd noses.

As for the art side of things... it was annoying at first yet rewarding in the end. Designing/drawing her gown was a very slow, if not frustrating, process to get right...

Artwork // Catelyn Esther // Lore - © Kristopher P. Love