Dancing Blades

 I promised her I’d never turn my blade on anyone I loved. I was lying. I promised her I’d never use it unless I had to, I was lying. It's not my fault.

 The blade is always dancing, whether it’s in my head twisting, turning and waiting. Or in my hand spinning round and round sharp, deadly, and wonderful. It’s almost hypnotic. The motion of it. The control you need. One wrong move and it doesn’t exactly end well for you. 

 When Alisa walks in, her face is full of a concern I’ve seen a hundred times before. I’m quick to hide my blade beneath the inn’s straw mattress that has to be older than I am. Her brow furrows further at that movement and she takes a step further into the room. Her mouth pressed in a thin line that opened to speak words I know by heart. “Claire, when are you going to stop lying to me.” It’s not a question anymore, not really; just a statement of disapproval and worse disappointment. She doesn't say it like she expects an answer. I guess by now she knows even if I gave an answer it sure wouldn't be an honest one.

 I brace for the mini interrogation I'm sure will follow, Alisa questioning everything from why I've got a blade, to how, and just about every question beginning with “why” that she can come up with. From why I won't listen to her; to why I'm not laying low; and why I’m going to let the guards catch us; to why I even became an outlaw in the first place. I'm ready for another lecture on what I should've done better or why I shouldn't have become a criminal in the first place. 

 Instead all I get is cold silence and her hard stare. It's almost worse when she does that; when she doesn't get angry at me, or at least when she's not showing that she's angry, I know she is but she won't raise her voice or yell.It scares me a little bit too because I never know what she's gonna do or how far from the edge she is. She might start screaming at me or she might just stand there staring at me for hours or she might just decide for the hundredth time that I'm an absolute hopeless case. Make a whole show of not showing up for dinner and be back by dawn. This time, though, is different. Instead of yelling or the silent stare or the numerous threats of the past, Alisa just walks over to the mattress and slips the blade out from under. 

 My mouth goes slack and eyes wide as my best friend takes a stone from her pocket and blunts the point of my blade until it's completely useless.Then as she meets my gaze, a single eyebrow raised.She doesn't yell but her voice is dangerously quiet. “Maybe this time you'll actually have to listen to me Claire”. Then she tosses the blade back and I catch it. The familiar weight settling into my hand except the rounded curves of the side don't end in the familiar point. Instead they meet in an almost triangular dome shape; it won't do any real damage now. 

 I look down studying the blade as Alisa takes a few paces closer. She lifts my chin so I'm forced to meet her icy blue eyes.There's such a contrast to mine which shine nearly an electric violet.Yet despite the natural color of mine, hers are infinitely scarier, like looking into an ocean Vast and beautiful but that in the end is meant to kill.I run my finger along the edge of the blade coming to a stop out of habit at the point. Alisa studies me for my ink black curly hair and pale skin to the violet eyes that she knows from hours of our time spent in the darkness together. 

 Then she does something I don't expect, Alisa leans towards me so close I can smell the scent of daisies that clings to her from hours of working in other people's gardens for whatever coins she can scrape up. My breath hitches slightly and my heart starts to race. I don't mean to do it. I don't know why I did it. One moment Alisa is leaning closer and the next my blunted blade is positioned near her throat. Her eyes are wide with something that might be fear and it makes my stomach hurt, heart ache, to think that that fear is directed at me.

 She smacks the blade away and sends it flying across the roomI hear it skitter against the room's uneven cobblestone floor. I turned my gaze, following the noise. When I turn around, Alyssa's hands are shaking. As she hands me a cup of tea that smells vaguely of something floral. 

 I drink it in nearly one sip, grateful for the distraction and to buy myself a few moments to think.I feel it soon enough, a heavy warmth spreading from the tips of my fingers to my cheeks making them cherry pink with a faint blush against my pale skin. Alyssa guides me gently into a sitting position on the mattress and takes three strands of my hair. As she braids it, I lean into the gesture. It was so familiar; a gesture I'd missed in the past few weeks and months that feel more like they happened a lifetime ago.

 To people who weren't us in a place that definitely wasn't here and in a time where things were so much simpler. Before poisons and monarchies and entire lines of kingdoms were completely destroyed. Before my father started experimenting with the rat traps and no one knew what he was planning. Most importantly, before a silver blade danced in my dreams and in my hands wishing, praying, and begging for me to use it. To finish a war I had nothing to do with starting.

 To break the heart of the person I cared about most in the world over and over and over again.To take a sinking ship and light it on fire. As I fall into a sleep, even magical tea and all the love in the world can't block out the screaming and the memories of that fateful night, 3 years ago. Back when Alisa was merely another maid in a village full of them instead of my only link back to my old life.

 It started out innocently enough, a nice family dinner. Just me, mom, and my little sister Kathy. Even John, my older brother, had managed to show up. Normally he was at the palace making sure the king, queen, and princess stayed safe in their castle while the rest of us died from starvation and disease. 

 John was what my father would call a traitor. My father's name was Magnus. I hadn't seen him since I was 13 or so as he had been banished for treason against the king. He was a merchant, who had been invited to a feast with the king and not a week before my youngest sister Margaret had died. Dad blamed the king for not letting us keep more of our crops. 

 There had been a terrible storm that year and the king had raised our food taxes. As my dad put it. “Keep himself filthy rich while he lets us starve half to death when we grow plenty of food for ourselves”. My mom convinced him it was a good idea to go. Maybe we could get some extra food to last the rest of us through the barren winter. Dad decided he’d rather play rebel before they even sat down for dinner. 

 My dad had slipped poison into the king's wine before the first course was even plated slipped away between the palette cleanser and the appetizer. It was colorless, odorless, and perfect. He didn’t put in enough and days later we were down to a three person family: me, mom, and Kathy. The only reason John kept his position at the palace was that he had been the one to escort our father out of the city’s gates. 

  It had only been one year. Or had it been two, it was the night before Kathy’s 15th birthday. We were celebrating with whatever cake mom had managed to scrape together when Julian, one of my father’s oldest companions, showed up at our doorstep. He was the only one who had known about my father’s plan and I faulted him for my father’s exile. 

 John stood from his seat directly beside mine and put a hand around my wrist already, reaching for an old chipped cup on the table or maybe a butter knife. Something, anything to make Julian feel how I felt hurt and exposed and vulnerable just like I had when I’d lost my father and sister. It was John’s turn to feel that cause I was sick of feeling it myself. John told me “Claire no”. Just those two words like I was a child reaching for a hot kettle. Alisa had used those same words with me. Since then told me “no” when I reached for a dagger, a knife, or a match. 

 Alisa was the thought that jolted me from my dreams back into my current drowsy, dreamy, compliant state. Whatever Alisa had put in that tea had done wonders on my ability to think clearly. I was curled up on the mattress, my back pressed against her chest as she braided my hair. I turned craning my neck slightly to see her, I spoke slowly and carefully 2 simple words. “I’m sorry”. Two words that meant everything and nothing at the same time. “I'm sorry for lying, for being difficult, for pointing a blade at you for everything”. Alisa pressed a finger to my lips gently silencing anything else I was going to say and whispered “I know”. She smiled sadly and tilted my chin again so I had to look at her. “But you have to remember you're not alone anymore. We’re not alone anymore. We have each other and you're my best friend. No more knives, no more running; ok?”. Her voice was soft, kind, and gentle. I wanted to believe every word of it. 

 I closed my eyes and repeated the words to myself over and over again. As they danced around in my mind, beautiful and kind and loving and safe. Wonderful in the simplicity and care in every syllable. That was when I finally stopped thinking about the dancing of the blade. Instead I just thought of the beautiful quiet in my head that was back for the first time in a long time.