[ WATTYS '18 LONG-LISTED ]
❝ I have slit throats far more beautiful than yours.❞
In which a thousand brides have fallen, and she is the last, so she spins a tale as old as time to live the dawn.
| an arabian nights x beauty and the beast crossover...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SHAHRAZAD RESTS ON A lounge of feathery cushions and expanses of silk in what remains of her chambers as the cold, worn palace attempts to rebuild itself on the ashes of ruin.
Muscles aching, head throbbing, her breath flutters softly. Dusk has begun to settle in, and she turns, eyes finding amber ones that graze her silently, leisurely.
"You should rest," Shahryar mutters, fingers raking the abrupt ends of her hair, absently dipping. "Who did this?"
The ceiling etched in stories glares at her, the hollow dome painting crimson roses, monsters, and kings. "I did," she answers absently, "a man dragged me by my hair so I chopped it."
He flinches, jaw clenched, but his expression shifts into something else, something she cannot decipher. "I believe my Queen put up a fight and she won."
"She did," a smile breaks through her weary tone. "She did."
Shahryar takes her hand, thumb rubbing patterns over her tired skin, gaze unmoving. "And for that, the King owes her a tale."
Turning to her side, she winces, taking in his demeanor. "Tell me this story, then."
She peers at him, a quiet smile brushing her lips as the words leave her, and his eyes widen in recognition.
"There was once a little boy," he begins, rubbing the edge of jaw. "He was ten, or twelve, he does not remember. For him, everything was at his feet, the land, the throne, the crown, until it wasn't."
A deep sigh brimming with regrets escapes him. "At nightfall, his father – at least, the man he thought was his father – barged into his room. In his hands he grasped the ends of his mother's hair as she screamed, and in the other he held a sword. 'Kill this woman,' he hissed, voice calm and collected. And that terrified the boy more than his anger, that hushed ruthlessness. The boy couldn't stand it. He cried and cried, eyes glimpsing a girl around his age standing at the corner of the quarters, her arms around her mother who held a purse of gold coins between hers."
Laleh. It was Laleh.
The queen allows her fingers to skim the inside of his wrist, silently urging him to discontinue if he wills. But he clasps them instead, shaking his head. "It was not difficult for him to figure that the girl and her mother had somehow started this. When the boy refused, his father turned his wrath towards him, shoving him, grabbing his arm, pushing him forward. And as they watched from the corner, his father forced his hand around the hilt of the sword, and made him slit his mother's throat as she screamed her throat raw. He watched her bleed, and he would never forget. He could never forget. That day, he swore he would not allow anything to make him weak, no weaknesses."
Shutting his eyes, he breathes deeply, as if the recollection pains him.
"So falling was for the weak?" She asks, eyes roving his.
