Naked Queen (freewrite)

You were warm but I've forgotten you. He sees you in her eyes and it all mounts up to ash. You are indebted to him. No, you are indebted to me. Or is it me to you? I don't remember you, so how could I owe you anything?
But I do. You say I do and I find myself on you lips, traces of loss and mistakes we'll never be. Have you remembered where we were going? No, I'm not making any sense, but neither did you. You'd stumble, wordless, lost in hazes of forgetfulness. Good morning has become goodbye.

One more mirrorless morning greets her as she opens her eyes and blinks into the dawn light, burning against her crisp skin. She sits up and looks into the world and the world looks back, all its children wailing at her feet. Her, the one who shall lead them all to their deaths, whether she wants to or not. But hush, we do not speak of that here. Nobody asked her if she wanted to be herself if she would've liked perhaps to head off into some other distant world and be someone else. A different woman, or maybe just herself?
It does not matter.
So she doesn't think about it. There is no point in thinking of things that will never get to happen, all her dreams now dead in the womb and she buries them, one by one.
By one.

And slowly, her eyes glaze over and become the stones the world expects of her. Soon, she sees nothing on the outside, just what she has to do. Soon, the agonizing cries of all her damned subjects become balm to her ears as she grits her teeth and steels over all the ones she herself once loved. She steps on each one, now little more than cracks under her feet. She bears the weight of the music in her ears, almost oblivious to the necks that snap under her. They love her, she sees it in their eyes as they clamor and break each other in their struggle to touch her glow-soft skin.
What they wouldn't give to kiss her? On the neck, once, just once, just so that they can die happy. But that's exactly her problem, where would her desire be if they were willing to pay any less? She wants them each to die because that is the price they've agreed to pay for her.
Anything and everything and when there's nothing left in their pockets, they reach in deeper, tearing at their skin and at their very souls until there is nothing left of them and she is content.
Satisfied, once more, by their arduous deaths. All for her, just as promised.

But no, we do not think about that. He's dead now, isn't he? Or at least, as good as, the one she loved now buried deep under her mountain of knights. All who would've died for her. All who did die for her, gave everything for her.

And yet all their deaths, all their pain and agony is not enough to erase the debt of the one who did not.

So, the killing goes on, day after day, she wakes and dons her perfect skin, slaying them with her mismatched eyes, bursting with fire and sometimes, she drowns him out. Sometimes, she can go for hours, she can bathe in their adoring looks, in the passion under their lips, and she can forget.

For a second or ten, she can forget he was ever there, she can forget that once she was no queen, but a mere mortal girl.

It's been such a long time since I've done a freewrite. More than a week, I can't even believe that, it feels like an age. Oh well, I'm back to them now and while I miss SF, I'm really glad to be back behind the keyboard. Today's prompt was 'debt' and you should really check out @mariannewest, who's hosting this crazy freewriting trip.

Thank you for reading,