Work Text
Birds circle her heart as he ties her to the ritual slab. Forgiven creature that she is, she pulls tight the knots around her wrists. His glance is quiet as he binds her further until all movement requires persistence. Their breaths are mushroomed slow. Smears of color trail the beams of wood and dust as she looks around the candle-lit ceiling, stone cradling her naked body coldly.Flash of knife, then bloodied palm. His hand rises over her as blood streams down his wrist to his elbow, but he arcs his arm up so that the stream is redirected down his fingers onto her face. Exposed muscle sinews and the glow of white bone disappear in the red rain. She strains under the bonds, face scrunched to keep the liquid from getting into her eyes, until he coos at her to remind her that doesn’t she want to be good?Open face, licked lips, and he tells her to watch. The rain turns to drizzle so she can see his hand again. Slowly, the tumble of magic escapes his tongue and throat as he chants. The cut whispers itself closed to the tune of her approving gasp. Laughing, he reaches down and covers her face with his hand, blocking her nose and mouth with clotted blood, and trickster-shakes her head so it grinds against the stone. The sticky ache of his handprint remains when he takes his hand back and wipes it on his chest.“Repeat after me.”Clumsy-tongued and hallucinating, she struggles with the words in the arcane language. Mere sounds to her, their rhythm bobs away from her memory as the mushrooms lick it clean. When he puts his hand over her face again, and the sound of her breath no longer competes with his voice, the words stick better. Sweat rubs under the bindings, and the color of her face reddens underneath the drying blood. Released, she babbles the correct sounds.The knife reappears, and the birds are in her chest again, but their talons are digging and infected. Shaky exhales turn to a sharp gasp as he draws the knife across her thigh. Hot fire and the rush of feathers shriek across her body as her muscles fight to extend-release away. The knots hold tight, but the clarity of the words fades as she repeats the magic spell. The wound’s fleshy lips stay open as he carves another arc. She can strain and see yellow fat bulge out of the second cut.Dog-whimpers of his name bubble out of her quivering lips. He covers her scream with his hand as he slices a third cut in flesh still warm and untouched by stone.“Repeat it.”Tears slip heavily from her eyes, mixing with his blood, as she cranes her neck to wish upon the ceiling instead of the visage of his work. She moans the spell, but the wetness of the slab turns her magic to sobs. He doesn’t cover her face for the fourth cut that sinks so deep it swallows the knife, and her scream echoes dully against the dirt behind the walls.White static dances between her eyes and eyelids as the river between her legs coats the stone. Moaning his name yields no reaction. The abracadabra has flown away, and each pounding of her heart excites the river. More tears gurgle, and her chest shudders as she is clothed in sweat.“Please?” is the only other spell she knows.She cries out as his fingers silently caress her exposed insides, but as his hand moves across her thigh, the wounds sew themselves shut until there is only river, no springhead. Warmth returns. The woozy wool in her head comes undone under his tender administrations. Water still clings to her inner eyes, but it is full of gratitude despite the rigidity of his jaw.He unties her, and she throws her arms around his neck to collapse against his chest. Her crying picks up again until it is a storm that thunders against him as he holds her.