The Princess and the Goth
Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a woman too perfect to be really true? Do I want you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream, or are you really as beautiful as you seem?
The young goth was on the cold wooden floor of the gospel. His clothes were stripped and his make up smeared over his pale skin. The young Visigoth was 16, scrawny, but undaunted in spirit. Maybe that was why Paradise was drawn to the rebel.
Slowly the aristocrat entered the church, hearing the sagging and labored breath that fell from the Visigoth's mouth in plumes of mist. He paid her no mind, perhaps lost in a strange, pagan world that she couldn't begin to imagine was in this creature's soul. The chains that bounded his hands in a crucified fashion chuckled as the chain links were tickled by his struggles at air.
The young girl's heart went out to this boy, for she remembered him from the Summer Season, when she had fallen down a back path-- In Visigoth territory. The Visigoth found her, and could distinguish her fine clothing as a sign of her status. And yet, he did not strike her, or her fallen fruits. In fact, this was the very same Goth who showed compassion and helped her back to her feet.
And now here he was, naked and beaten in the floor of a church in the dead of winter. The Aristocrats and Visigoth's never seemed to agree. Aristocrats were too powerful, and Visigoth's too strange. Neither belonged but existed for no reason other than to hate the other.
Paradise walked over the echoing wooden floor that echoed her steps with the thumps of her boots. As she folded her dress to crouch down, the boy's head snapped to attention, with his ice blue eyes wide and pupils smaller than fallen snow. He seemed afraid only through his eyes, though his body itself acted as another being, staying stiff as though awaiting another beating.
The sight of his caged ribs that his skin barely streched over, his thin arms, and emmasculated form made Paradise feel both sorrow and sickened at once. With her jewel-dressed hand, the Aristocrat stroked the Goth's sharp features that made his face. Surprisingly, he pressed his cheek into her hand, realizing it was warm to his frosted skin. His only heat source was sitting in front of the window while the sun bathed him, though the winter air quickly consumed all warmth.
"Sorry... Sorry..." He mummbled, though his lips hardly seemed accustomed to speaking, barely moving durring his slurrs.
"Why?" Paradise was genuinly surprised. Her people beat him and left him to die in this forsaken house of God and yet he was the one apologizing to her! He had some nerve, that or severe modesty.
As she sat before him, the boy seemed to, or in the least try, shuffle in embarrassment. His pale cheeks flushing as her warm hand stroked away the smeared make up and tidied his messy black hair. If he had a bath or two, some fine cologne, and clothes, the Goth could pass for a human. But for now all Paradise could bring herself to see was a bag of bones that had nothing to live for (After all his people were fighting a loosing battle).
Perhaps she should leave and return to her estate before a maid realised one of the Lord's 13 children were missing, and act like she never saw the vicious act of her people. Act like such a boy never existed, like he was just a thing she dreamed about one cold night...
"Taltos..."
"What?"
The goth was staring at her with his glimmering ice colored eyes. They frightened her, the way they seemed so shallow, but dug at her by a simple stare. They were like ripples in the water, small but growing in dark blue rings. Now she looked away, towards the wooden sculpture of Jesus with his arms streached out for a warm embrace.
"Taltos." The voice rang more clear this time, though still worn and labored.
"Paradise." She replied, fluttering her eye lids in embarrassment. She felt like speaking with death. A boy of dark hair, pale skin and haunting eyes. He was the embodiment of dispair and death that seemed to circle his frail, binded form.
"I know you." He said, giving a soft smile, "Lord and Lady Daan's 11th kid, right?"
"10th." She said, appauled. Did she really look 13? Now he really had nerve.
The newly named Taltos gave a tired grin and let his head droop, his hair flowing over his eyes, "Sorry... Sorry..."
"Why are you sorry?"
"I don't know." He said simply.
"Then don't be." The young girl relaxed and began to actually search for Taltos's eyes. It seemed as though they glimmered when he showed his smile.
"Don't be nice to me..." He whispered, the smoke that fell from his mouth barely muted his spoken words.
"What?"
"It's not right, I'm not worthy of your kindness-- And you're not worthy of mine."
"It wasn't like that in the summer."
The Visigoth's head snapped up and he stared at her. His blue eyes were like an owl's as his jaw was left agap. Talto's hair was in tangles and the very vessels in his neck seemed to pulse quicker. "You...!"