Dame Blanche Melusine Arduinna

A preview of one of my future projects, which will be a collection of short stories. This is one of the pieces that will be featured in the collection!

A la vérité, I can speak to the winds and with no hesitance they speak back to me, drawing down tales from the sky long forgotten by man and beast. That tiny splash on your cheek is how you recognize my presence, carried not from above but from below, to the West to seek you. Remember that chill Traveller, whispering softly your secret name no one but your mother knows. Reach out once and stop to listen, catch your breath and you are mine.

Je n’oublierai pas the heat your body gave to mine, I keep it close now at all times to linger in felicitous design. My own body fades from water to steam, to flesh and soil and back again; to entwine is my only hope to feel, to dance, to want to love. I used to have a body, mine own, warm and soft and graceful like yours, until they came with horses and swords and finished us all, forever now a myth birthed out of awe.

Je luis imperceu by the mouth of the earth; her loving and villainous, terrible teeth just waiting to crash down to inhabit my speech. Traveller listen, now I have you here, I need you to stay, to take hold of my watery hands, to dance me round a circle before I allow you to pass. I wish not to hinder but understand my desolation; if you cannot take pity I must summon a howl you shall never forget.

Suivez de l’ange, oh Traveller caught in my tar, how else can I tempt you away from your world? I am a light no mortal woman could ever possess, I am otherworldly beauty and spirit so boundless the stars themselves tremble when I scream for them to shed their arrogant stares. The lake obeys my wish, it rises and falls with my breath and if I desire it shall sing a song you cannot resist and gone you shall be to its chthonic depths…

La mort me suit, here in riparian woodlands and I am sorry, I am so sorry for your loss. You cannot swim to my shores, not here, not now, you are smothered, you are drowned by my fever. Just one dance!

Arrêt!

…

Chéris l’espoir for it is all we have in times like these when you and I and she and her have faces painted demonic over white sheen. Hope that when he comes he will not see this terrible thing, this affliction that could cause my death and condemn my life to tales and myths. I am not a fable.

Il l’a prise, my heart, when at last he came and my hope was rewarded with revitalization of faith in mortal men. Priests would speak of unnatural thaumaturgy but as he allures my heart I ensnare his and I see nothing but nature in the act. Speak of your evils elsewhere, far from my wedding day. Home and hearth I am taken by this kind mortal.

L’amour est nu but there are these secrets I cannot tell in punishment by my mother’s pain; to cut, to slice in half, to skin and flay would be consequence of candour. I am his wife, the woman he has chosen over every other, not a succubus as they would believe, yet he would not have the whole of me, only the half he is accustomed to through his birdcage existence. Am I a product of ignorance?

Qui tout me donne is the one I shall give everything to, the children he has always dreamed of to strengthen his kingdom and a wife so desirable that other, lesser men and enemies fall on their own swords in despair of their wretched inadequacy. All I asked was for the veil day, the bath of lies to shield him from deformity.

J’ai tout vu, I saw everything as water and screams and curses of faith crashed down around me, as fear and betrayal lashed up like a wind. I saw what could not be and what had tried to force its way out of love, what could only cause yet more pain to those who had already suffered; children, husbands and wives. It was no devious trick, it was a crime and a punishment of love.

Si tu m’aimais it would not have ended like this, with your incomparable temptation. Forbidden was I to you for just this day, a tail for a tale I can no longer tell. Bride no more, mother no more, I am gone with a scream!

Arrêt!

…

Comment serais-je malheureux? La femme naît libre et ce sont eux qui sont beaux. La liberté c’est moi. Rien de moins.

Je ne cherche pas a way to rehabilitate my stature, strained to a point of equity and discord. My people are long dead but I am here in the trees and in the rivers and in the mountain bosom and I am watching, always watching this never-ending hunt. Consumed by a hateful nation I no longer run by your side, but I am in your spirit and in your mind and I am huntress and I am free. What man could conquer me?

Je suis fait pour combattre a battle which need not be won on his grounds for my battle rages in places where he cannot tread; in the depths of blood-pumping hearts and blazing stars so far above. What is that voice? I hear it calling now, released from unearthed tombs and caves, spirits he thought he had laid to rest many years ago under self-assured victory. This voice is not vengeful, it is strong and feminine and prophetic, it is calling to those who still see the trailing lights of burned-out stars.

Dans la graine a new hope is grown, sparks of lingering doubt in all that came before, what they know led to these wars and these failures and this collapse and this mordant exaltation. Joyful is your impending defeat, a battle I never raised nor inflicted on you and your people as you did to me and mine. Your own people will betray you; him and her and her and him.

Ce que l’homme redoute is the power that we possess, mine and hers and hers. What could become of such a shining light, would it sink the sun from the sky with its blinding rays? My bow raised in battle or in hunt is an affront to your manipulative masculinity, my worship an affront to your greedy gods. Or is it you who is greedy in the illusions you have made?

Mon prix n’est pas your crown, nor your people. It is far too late for inconceivable alliances, hands exchanged over murky streams. Silver fish would fight you off. All we asked was for our freedom and yes, we fought to the death for everything worth fighting for. Still we fight in those secret places; come Victor, come, the time has come, the end has come!

Arrêt!? Non!

…

A stain has been left on these sorry statues, a stain no rain nor river can remove. Sorry they sit, perhaps forever, to face a fate they cannot reprieve. What chiselled marble can smile softly in knowledge of defeat? What smothered rocks face smooth erosion kindly, blindly following a current’s pull?

Perhaps there is hope in degeneration, if we only have faith in frailty and fools. Lead them to the clear waters where healing is sought, lay them at the banks and tell them tales of truth. Who led who in the Fall? How unforgivable. Decadence has no day without design. It is our truth to tell, so tell it we shall in tall, resounding words. Be it blunt or be it sharp our tales are saplings among giant redwoods, only waiting for a chance to grow.

Seeking wild old words is worrisome to some in changeable climates, cold and warm, warm and cold. But to seek the strangers is the only way to settle old thoughts, settle old swords and spears. Lay down your weapons, not your fight, future fires may set alight that torch we need, that torch we crave to light the way up from graves and streams. There is no other way out.

They tried, they tried, they dug and clawed their way through soil and rock and splashed through streams and drew hard breaths. But this was not the way.

I do not know the answers, I do not know any answers. I am only a voice of reason and a voice of hope. The day is coming, I feel, when woman and man will reveal their crimes against each other, against themselves, and pay in accordance and congruence. We are done.

Arrêt!

Comme les hommes aiment la justice, je doute. Le vrai est simple; on m’attaque toujours, donc je suis encore.