1 Glade 121
The start of the new year meant many things.
For one — Mino found his desk loaded with paperwork that contained nothing but numbers and mathematics that he would surely need to deal with. His only relief was the calls for meals, sleep, and field work. It wasn’t strange that he should called away as he was now. There was not a hint of distress or worry on Admiral’s face when she poked her head in to let him know he’d been summoned. But he should have known better that by now, she too would have been good at hiding truths.
The nonchalance of his steps had died as he stepped up to the doors. Lady Red’s perfume, and the faint drizzle of honey. He knew them well, though not often in combination. The two together only meant one thing. Beyond the doors, the crackle of fire and rise of smoke gave nothing away as to what was meant to happen. It was that which hid the tell tale buzz of an insect.
The door clicked as it opened, a slight creak in the hinges. Surely, Lady Blue would have him fix it. Perhaps that was why she’d called him in the first place. Despite his knowing that it was far from the reason of his summons, he still hoped.
It was a foolish thing to do.
She sat at her chair in front of the fire, the flicker of flames playing over the lines of her face. The blue upholstery of the chair matched the walls. Meshed well with the tigerwood floors. The dark panels lapped up the dance of Bumblebee’s shadow as she moved to close the door behind him and that’s when hope fled. The three of them in one room was never a good sign. Worse when the Lady he would have wanted to disappoint least. It was not disappointment on her face, though. No, she would have actually had to care for such a thing to show on her face.
Her sigh was soft, almost drowned out by the fire.
“Mino.”
She didn’t bother looking at him.
Instead, she raised a ringed finger and beckoned him forward. The compulsion to obey had his feet moving before his mind had fully caught up. She turned the same finger downward, and he was on his knees without hesitance. With no cushion, it would begin to hurt soon enough. His mind flashed back to the few true punishments he could remember. They’d all started much like this. But something was different. Something buzzed in the back of his mind, threatened to overtake his thoughts.
“Why do you feel like you have to hurt us?”
He blinked. “What—”
“Do you think...that if you behave as you have that we should just be done with you?”
He didn’t understand the way the Lady’s mind worked. Mino didn’t think anyone actually did. He struggled to grasp what she might have been talking about, mouth opening as he attempted to find the words. But nothing came because he didn’t — couldn’t — understand what she meant.
“We give you simple tasks — things you are more than capable of completing — but you squander them.” She sighed again. And then she did look at him.
Under her gaze, he felt small. He felt that urge to curl up and hide like he had when he’d been a child and more easily able to do so. But he wasn’t eight or nine and able to squeeze under the desk. He wasn’t a small kitten that could get stuck behind the shelves in his retreat from her. It was an empty, unfeeling look that had landed on him and he felt like he was an inconsequential speck of dust floating before her eyes. His relief was short-lived when she turned away.
“It’s okay, pretty kitty.” It wasn’t the ghost of fingers along his scalp that caused him to shudder, but the faint squeeze of his shoulder as Lady Red’s perfume grew thicker with her approach. Her hands were hot — blistering — over his skin. And there were still layers of clothing between them. The barriers he’d thought kept him at least minimally safe from her were useless. “Everyone makes mistakes.”
“This is simply a reminder of who you belong to.”
Lady Red’s white-blonde hair draped over him like a curtain as she leaned over his back to press a kiss to his forehead. Thick red shapes smeared over his skin where her lips had been. His shuddering turned to trembling as he tried once more to speak, to defend himself from whatever slight the Lady had seen from him. But what would he say? He was reduced to nothing more than I’m a good boy, I promise and I’ll be good again.
Mino might not have known what was coming, but he could feel it. Something painful. Something that would leave him with another scar. The last time she’d done this, with them all together in one room, his back had ached and the skin had taken over a week to heal. His fingers dug into his thighs as he pressed his lips together, then tried once more to open his mouth.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
He would say he’d forgotten she was there, but one doesn’t easily forget that Bumblebee is present. She lingered in the corner of his eye like a shadow, preoccupied with something on her hands. Little buds of pollen had stuck to it, and he became more aware of the buzz of her bees. Not hidden, but not fully present. Like they knew better than to show themselves. Lady Red’s lips turned down with her distaste, but she said nothing. Yet.
The golden glow of Bumblebee’s eyes haunted him as he shut his own. They appeared in the darkness behind his eyelids, peering into him like he were a curiosity. But focusing on them didn’t make him any less compelled to pull at the ribbon around his neck. To pop the buttons of his shirt and drag the material down over his skin slowly. When he opened his eyes once more, the wood of the floors stared back at him.
Even in reflections, the Lady is a pretty woman. A picture of gentleness and care. Tender around the edges if you didn’t look for the blade that lingered there. A sweetness he had been dazzled by before — when he’d been much younger and untouched. He might have held the same thoughts about Lady Red, but that was marred now by memories both clear and clouded. But mostly clear — she always wanted him to remember. He knew that much.
These were the same faces he could see reflected in the polished wood as Lady Red crossed to the fireplace. She pulled her signet ring off her finger with ease. Prongs of some sort — he couldn’t see much — were handed to her and she clasped her ring between them. It was held over the fire, and he shut his eyes once more. Until something tugged at him to open them again. Pleaded with him sweetly until he had no choice but to consider and by then it was too late.
It wasn’t the pain that got him. It didn’t take long for the ring to cause his flesh to bubble and pain to course through him from his collarbone down his spine. That — that happened fast. He tried sucking in a breath, but it felt white hot around the stench of his own skin sizzling. It was this, and the haze of overwhelming guilt that had him hunched on the floor. His stomach emptied itself out over the wood and the guilt hit him harder.
How could he have done it? Done what — he couldn’t remember. His eyes watered and his jaw ached from how hard he’d clenched it.
“I think this should serve as a good enough reminder.” She turned to look at him again. Her reflection was muddied by his vomit on the floor, but it was still the same insignificance that hti him when her gaze fell on him.
Lady Red’s fingers threaded through his hair, her voice a soft coo in his ear. Her hands, despite having been the ones to guide the ring to his skin, were gentle as a lover’s. Careful as a mother comforting her ill child. But he knew that she could be neither of those things. Would never be either. “Maybe we can avoid this next time by not making mistakes.” Her reflected smile was coy. “Otherwise I might need to find another way to punish you.”
Of course, this had been her idea. Lady Blue wouldn’t have decided on something so physical. Damaged goods didn’t turn a profit. That might have been the reason for Bumblebee’s presence, but he didn’t have the energy to ask. Or the desire; it was gone from him without so much as a hesitation. A flip from one mood to the next.
“I won’t — I won’t forgot, Mother.”
“Good kitty.”
