Drowning

A scene from my Sisters Grimm fanfiction Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned.

I'm back in Faerie, on my cloud-soft bed in my richly decorated room. I stand. I exit and wander down the hallway, soon finding myself in Titania's room. She motions for me to come to her, and I begin to arrange her hair, as I have done so many times before.

Suddenly, Mustardseed walks in, carrying a figure in his arms.

"Mustardseed, if you are looking for your father, he is not here," Titania says without even looking at him.

"Thank the heavens for miracles. Puck has returned."

The moment I hear Puck's name, I race over to him. He looks much like he did all those many years ago, but there's something, something different... it's no matter. I stroke his face tenderly. At last, at long last, he's back...

"Moth, find Cobweb—quickly!" Titania orders. "Tell him to bring his medicines!" I turn and race from the room, desperate to find Cobweb as soon as possible. Puck must be saved! I search and search, but nowhere do I find him. I panic. Where is he? I turn too many corners to count, race down so many hallways I don't even recognize. I never stop looking, I never stop running.

I'm not sprinting through the hallways of the Golden Egg anymore. I'm in the old palace of Faerie. The walls are upholstered with red velvet and rich tapestries, and even in my hurry, I can't help reaching out to rub my hand along them.

I crash through doorways, flinging them open and not bothering to close them behind me. Before long, I'm in Titania's royal bedroom once again. Cobweb leans over Puck, and Oberon yells at Titania. Without taking in even a single word, I know what he's saying. He won't let Puck stay. He'll kill him.

Once again, I'm racing through the halls of the palace, ending up almost immediately in the kitchen. I can hear Oberon's voice, several rooms away, a low and steady rumble. The kitchen is crowded, full of people bustling about to prepare the feast, but nobody looks at me. Nobody pays attention to Moth, the princess reduced to a handmaiden, the fiancée left behind when her intended left her for a human! I pull out a small leather sack of herbs from the old Faerie homeland, choose the ones I want to use, and hold them above the cup.

I hesitate. Do I really want to do this? Do I want to kill the man would be my father-in-law, who is responsible for my even being betrothed to Puck?

Yes. To protect Puck, I will do anything.

I drop the herbs into Oberon's exquisitely decorated goblet. He never drinks from anything else. Even while the rest of Faerie suffers, he drinks from his golden goblet. I lift the glass and swirl it a few times, then dodge aside just as Cobweb comes. Unseen, I follow the servant to Oberon's room. The king takes the goblet with nothing but a grunt of approval, and Cobweb leaves. I stay and watch.

Oberon takes a sip. Immediately, his face puffs up, his eyes bulge out. He collapses on the floor, sees me, reaches for me. I stand triumphantly just out of his grasp. "I win." My voice is a whisper.

He continues to crawl along the floor. I'm confused. Shouldn't the poison have worked by now? I back up against the wall, my fingers clinging desperately to a tapestry behind me. Oberon squints at me. "Moth..." His voice is halfway between a whisper and a growl. It sounds nothing like him at all. I scream. He keeps crawling forward, and I can do nothing. He lunges forward, grasps my ankle. His nails dig into my skin. Still screaming, I kick and struggle, trying to shake him off. He opens his mouth again, but makes no sound. Instead, a stream of red liquid flows out. It's the wine, the poison wine I gave him. It flows out of his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his ears. I'm too terrified to scream now.

I start bleeding where his nails dig into me. The blood mingles with the torrent of wine flooding around my feet. Soon the liquid rises to my ankles, then my knees. I can't see Oberon any more, but his nails still hold me to the spot, and the flood still rises. It's at my waist, my chest, my neck. It bubbles higher and higher, and I try to force sound out of my mouth, try to scream for help, but nothing comes. The wine and blood are at my chin now. In seconds, it will reach my mouth, and I will die too.

I tilt my head back, trying to keep my face out of it, but there's no point. Drops fly into my mouth, my nose, and I go under.

I can't breathe.

There's nothing but red swirling around me, everywhere. I try to take in a gulp of air, but there's nothing, nothing. There's not even a world outside of this unending redness. I flail my arms, but no matter how fast I swim, I don't end up anywhere. There's nothing.

A body looms up in front of me. Oberon? I turn and run, swim, do anything I can to get away. But every time I look back, he's still there. I move harder, faster. There's a long hallways up ahead, and I race down it, but it ends. The far wall is a mirror, framed in black. As I approach, my reflection gazes back at me, wild-eyed. I come closer, and suddenly the girl in the mirror reaches out and grabs me. I struggle, once again, to get away.

But the arms around me aren't my own anymore. They're Oberon's. Then suddenly, they belong to an old, short little man I don't recognize. I struggle, and the person holding me turns into the old woman in the prison cell. Then the woman from the park. Then Mustardseed.

Intrigued? Want to read more? Click this [link] to go to the first chapter!