[ 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...
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SHAHRAZAD FEELS THE fissures of chest tightening as she pushes past the doors, the rebels guarding it outside subdued by Anwar.
It creaks beneath her bloodied fingertips, resonating in the abject, eerie silence, and she studies the interior. As she recalls, there is a portrait that had been ripped mercilessly, yet it is the slew of dead roses that stops her heart.
And the silhoutte of the man staring out the window, his back rigid muscles, weight supported by the pillars of his arms against the shutters.
"Ah, so your Queen finally made an appearance," echoes the figure behind the curtains, one she hadn't noticed before, and she steels herself for an attack or ambush, fastening her fingers around her bow. "That won't be necessary, Shahr."
Heaving from exhaustion, Anwar rushes to her side. "Malika--"
Shahrazad places a hand on his elbow, shaking her head. "This is my battle."
"Listen to her," Afshar snarls, stepping towards the Caliph, a smile touching his face. "After all, you seem to abide by her words, traitor. Both of you."
She can almost feel the venom attached to his accusation, the poison curling around the word: traitor. "Shahryar?"
He refuses to stir, unmoving, and although she cannot see him clearly in the reign of chaos and shadows, she knows his fists have curled, veins visible.
Footsteps near her position, and disadvantaged in the darkness, she instinctively raises her weapon, aiming it in the direction of the source. "One more step and I will have your head."
A long sigh of resignation. "And here I was offering you an opportunity for redemption. I am a man of my words. You will be slitting his throat."
"And if either of you attempt to kill me, know that I have rebels outside who will spare none," he warns, and from his calling, two burlesque men capture a struggling Anwar. "Drop the weapons."
From the corner of her lids, she watches the King's brother subdued, held by his arms, and the inheritance of war and its loss washes over over her.
Trembling, she takes a deep, long breath, lowering her bow.
The whisper in her ear chills her bone, "Good, Shahr. Now," a sharp blade presses into the cusp of her palm, cold and threatening and real, "let me see his eyes as his bride destroys him."
Afshar lodges his fingers on her shoulder, pushing her towards the beast, the Caliph, her husband. "But since you forged your success through tales, let us hear one of his."
Shahrazad flinches, physically and emotionally. "No, I don't-"
"So you may have figured about the women slaying rampage," he begins, laughing darkly, "A haggard, scorned, old woman cursed him into killing his brides before sunrise. But did you know that the woman was my mother?"
