Princess Nunez, creative fiction, 2023
I
Eliana was not unfamiliar with the sight of blood nor its stink. Its rotten, metallic stink. But the way it stained through her layers, streamed along the lines of her thigh — that to her was alien. As alien as the dark red goo her insides occasionally expelled, an unborn that could not be given shape. Unborn baby, unborn baby. Pricking through her navel: a persisting pang she could scarcely ignore. Though, if only to bear and fight the pain, she tightened her stomach, straightened her back.
By the time she had begun bleeding in such a manner, Eliana was already twenty.
“Aren’t you a lucky girl?” said one of her sisters. Moth wings jutted from the socket of her right eye. “You call it ‘menses.’ It’s a pain, but you get used to it.” Her face grew puzzled after a moment’s pause.
Eliana frowned. She did not like this — her sister’s scrutiny, how those yellow eyes on brown wings traveled down her face, chest, and legs. It compelled Eliana to shrink away, to wrap herself with her arms.
“Did,” her sister hesitated, “Did no one ever tell you this?”
No one did, in fact. Not her late father, not her guardian Mister Lian. Perhaps they had not been so well-informed on the matter and understandably. For a time, there had not been any need for it, but then her body began betraying her. And it betrayed in more ways beyond the twisting hurt of her insides spilling out.
Eliana used an old floral handkerchief to pad the flow, but of course, that went as well as you would expect. It took great effort to rid the blood on her clothes. She squatted by a riverbank, scrubbed her trousers so vigorously her motions resembled the act of drowning a child, head kept under. Splish, splash, splash.
At times, a woman would appear in the river’s reflection. A pale, delicate face with droopy, blue eyes and dark hair. A face not her own, one Eliana just so happened to be stuck with. Glued to the flesh.
Washing her clothes, bits of sweat dripped on the water, mixed with it.
Traveling on the road with her band of outcasts — her brothers and sisters as she had come to call them, though they shared not an ounce of blood — Eliana did not carry much on her person. Unfortunately, the daisies on her handkerchief grew too stained, too brown to wash out, so she banished the rag to the currents, letting it drift out of sight.
The girl in the water watched, her face red from the blood.
Eliana later learned from her sisters that t-bandages made for better protection. They were a thing of muslin you press between your legs, attached with ribbons to tie around your hips. With this, she did not have to waddle around, concerned that the cloth from her constant movements would grow crooked — an opening in her defenses, one in which her blood could seep through and make itself known. She needn’t worry about all that. So long as she had a constant supply of them.
The scarcity notwithstanding, Eliana could at most shroud the stains, never smother its existence, the bleeding completely. Like a curtain too thin to stop the light, too thin to hide the pair of silhouettes and their affair. The people she called her brothers and sisters, they caught her stink. Her fishrot stink, mixed with sweat, must, and iron. Twitching their noses as she passed by, in ways not unlike dogs — and a few did look more like dogs than humans. But mostly, the lot of them bore extra eyes. Eyes in places where they otherwise should not have belonged: eyes on the stomach, the hands, the cheeks, all born from a disease. That only made it worse for Eliana, more suffocating. The staring, how the collective built a wall of eyes, casting her looks. Some curious or confused, others hungry.
At the blood or her specifically, she couldn’t tell.
The air carried her stink, relayed it like a message. And all she could do was pretend ignorance, at the wetness clinging onto her, blood and sweat the adhesive. No, not lower her head. That would signify a confession. The better option, the only one really: to tighten her stomach, straighten her back despite the growing aches. To walk straight.
To bleed.
II
“Wipe your mouth, dear. You’re a girl. It’s improper not to.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Eliana sat staring at the vanity’s mirror, a fine decor of mahogany and lacquered cabinets. Her handkerchief came away red after cleaning her mouth. A slight blush remained on her lips, but she folded the cloth on the vanity, set beside a goblet of blood. Eliana’s father stood behind her, diligently brushing her white hair, which was so long it draped past the stool and touched the floor.
She hummed and swung her little legs. Her eyes stayed glued to the mirror, vines and flowers framing the glass. Her reflection: a girl with a pale, round face; with deep blue eyes and jagged pupils; with ram horns curling from her head and sunken cheeks that exposed her molars.
Her father paused to scratch the straws on his jaw. How strange that hair could grow elsewhere besides the head, Eliana thought, and despite her father’s constant reassurance, she wondered if a bush would someday start sprouting on her face. She would not like that very much.
Eliana kept humming, but a bird’s chirps drowned out her tune. There was a curved stand suspending a cage on Eliana’s left. Inside, a sparrow stretched out a foot between the bars, wings flapping, desperate to find purchase outside its brass cage.
“That little pet of yours,” her father remarked. “It appears his wing has finally healed.”
Eliana had found the baby sparrow during one of her supervised walks in the forest. Mister Lian was her chaperone that time. Even now, the softness of the sparrow’s feathers lingered on her skin. More lasting, however, was the warm wetness of his blood. Eliana fiddled with her nightgown, her red claws poking the fabric.
“What did you call him again?” Her father asked.
“It’s Li,” she replied.
“Ah, of course. Mister Lian was quite flattered by such a namesake. Though, I will say, I am quite hurt that you chose him over me.”
“Oh!” Eliana perked up. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t think your name is very, um, nice-sounding. For a sparrow, I mean.”
“Ho? I think ‘Ivis’ is a fine name.” He stepped back a pace and puffed his chest. “It’s refined, full of class, and—” Seeing Eliana’s blank smile in the mirror, “Hmm, don’t think so?”
Eliana shook her head. The sparrow chirped. Her father sighed, continued combing.
Eliana could not bring herself to hum anymore, not with the sparrow squawking every second and minute. An impressive feat from a small bird with such small lungs, but it took her father so long to brush her hair that Li lost his voice and stopped fighting his cage.
Her father pressed against the back of her head, careful not to pull too hard. He was almost done. Eliana watched him in the mirror, how he ruminated in the silence, his lips a thin line. Finally he spoke, “There’s a child out there, somewhere beyond this tower. A boy, a girl — I cannot tell you, let alone know for certain if he lives. Likely not. So often the one born centuries before and the infant before him do not live long. People call them the Child of Evil, all because each one just so happens to be born with red eyes.”
“Red eyes? Is that it?” Eliana’s reflection gazed back, unimpressed.
Her father chuckled. “Well, I hear their hair is sometimes white. Like yours, my dear, but I say my little one is far more special.” He rubbed her head, then fixed the messy strands. “But no, it’s not just the red eyes,” he continued. “It’s his blood that the people want, his blood that makes him so very prized. Not only by people like you but humans too.”
The goblet remained on the table, empty now. “It must taste very sweet then.”
“Just a few drops can fix your broken bones, heal your wounds and ailments. So the stories say.” He met Eliana’s eyes in the mirror. The only semblance they shared: the sapphire blue. “It can cure your disease too. Wouldn’t that be nice? Then I could take you anywhere you like.”
Eliana blinked. Instincts had her feel her teeth, at the exposed molars and their slickness. “But I thought I was pretty.”
“Of course, you are, dear.” Her father turned his head right, in the window’s direction. Moonlight seeped through the glass, a stark white against the sconces’ orange. He sighed. “To me, you’re fine just the way you are.”
Li lay silent, resting on a perch.
*
The night settled in the room after Eliana’s father extinguished the candles. “Goodnight, little one.” Standing by the bedside, he tucked Eliana in and kissed her forehead.
“Night, Papa.” Eliana sprawled her hair over her pillows.
The doorknob clicked after he left, followed by footsteps clicking against the stairs. The night and silence made Eliana only aware of her space, as it always did. Staring at the ceiling, her vision did not falter in the darkness. It grew clearer, more acute.
The chamber was a circular, decently-sized room, neither too big nor too small, its stonewalls scribbled with mountains, rivers, and flower fields. Eliana rolled in the bed, pulled the blanket over her head. Goodnight, her father had said, yet Li resumed crying, louder than before.
She jolted up. Just then, her long, white hair sprang to life and floated. Countless strands clumped together, and under her command, a thick thread reached the cage, unhooking and bringing it to her bed as though a tendril or arm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked the bird. “Are you hungry?” Except Li’s feeder, a small porcelain vase, remained full of seeds. “Do you need some fresh air? Is that it?” Eliana walked toward the only window in her chamber. The scenery: fifty feet of bricks and stone, the grass a shadow in the night. Over the distance stood cedars upon cedars, alongside Ivis and his lantern light fading into the stretches of the forest.
The sparrow jutted his feet toward the window.
“Oh.” A realization struck her, then an emptiness gnawing within. “Is this what you wanted all along?”
Li chirped, calmer this time as if understanding her.
Eliana set the cage on the windowsill. She pushed open the shutters, the wind cooling her skin, then unlatched the cage’s door. The sparrow peeped out, hopped along the length of the ledge, bit by bit. Eliana raised her hand to stroke his brown feathers, to acquaint herself with his softness, but stopped. The last time she had touched him, her claws had pricked his wing. Li had approached her, curious, yet she’d stabbed him. Eliana bit her lip, rested her hand by her side, and nudged him with her hair. She felt nothing.
“Go on then,” she whispered. “Fly away now.”
And that he did. Spreading his wings, he leaped and soared over the trees, toward the skies. He erased the distance between him and the moon — the sole trace of light. Soon the sparrow became a black dot. Sooner still that dot grew fainter than a distant star.
Eliana leaned against the window, humming. If a cage was all he knew, then likely the sparrow would die. Maybe he would hit a branch and hurt his wing again. Maybe he would fall prey to a hawk, talons digging skin deep, or starve because he lacked the skills to hunt a worm.
Eliana knew that much. The risks, the odds. Yet the more a girl veers toward death, skirted over it, the freer she may become. Perhaps she would die young, but at least she would die having lived. Eliana studied the depths and the shadows below — the stalks of grass, the way each one swayed to the wind, how they whispered temptations.
And like the bird and the moon, they told her to close the gap.
III
Look. Over there. Just below the hilltop, at the blood-colored grass. The vast expanse of it reaching to the knees. How gradually snow stretched over, became one.
Today marked the advent of a new year. See then the bonfires below, how they left their mark on the land: an orange glow, a veil of smoke. Listen carefully to the playing of music, the beatings of frame drums and tambourines, the singing of folk. Look carefully at their silhouettes, how freely they dance. Imagine a scampering child. A man and woman sharing a moment, heads pressed and laughing.
Eliana sat far away on a hill, a tree at her back, bare of its leaves. Beside her was a small fire to keep her company. The only thing, really.
Brothers and sisters held hands, spinning and circling the fires. The sprawling tent — a greater circle. Observe. Watch. Listen. They needn’t hide their faces here, these creatures.
The grass rustled. Someone approached from her peripheral. A man with a soft face, his cheeks pink from the cold. A human. He warmed his right hand in the pocket of his coat, the other hanging at his side. A bandaged stump.
“Will you not join them?” Kyrel asked.
“No,” Eliana said.
“They’re your people, you know? Not mine.”
Eliana made no response. He kept her in his gaze, hers at the cloud escaping her breath. It brushed against the flame, made it flicker. Then at length, she spoke, “Why are you here? What, the drink’s not to your liking?”
“Too sour.” Kyrel rubbed at the hints of skin near the bandages. “And I needed the quiet. Desperately. Lost all my coins in a game gone terribly wrong, and here I am. Piss-poor as ever.” He kicked the snow, muttering, “Those cheating bastards.”
“Admit it,” Eliana said, disinterested. “You were cheating too.”
Kyrel blinked. “I only consider it cheating when someone else does it.” His face was so still and unapologetic that, oftentimes, Eliana could not decipher whether he was joking or not.
Sighing, Kyrel sat slowly but kept his distance, far enough so that the fire did not reach him. He brought his red scarf to his nose. Someone knitted it for him when he first came with the group with hardly anything. Certainly not with the best winter clothes. Neither with both hands for that matter.
Everyone had their reasons for joining the merry band of wanderers, reasons which could aptly be summarized as the need to run or hide for survival’s sake. Kyrel, though seemingly more human, was no exception.
Kyrel undid the bandages, pooling them on the grass. From his pocket, he took out and popped open a red perfume bottle. Red because blood filled the glass. Motioned by two fingers, the liquid crawled out, slowly at first, then quickly. It glided toward him, swirled around his left wrist, moving upward into a vortex until a hand formed. A red, makeshift hand. He curled the clawed fingers one by one. His face grew relaxed, the phantom pain likely subsiding.
Eliana huffed. Then she found a stray twig from the tree, fiddled with it, held it close to her face.
What does it mean to be a lady? She thought about the woman dancing with the man. The question clung to her, like an insect bite she could not scratch away, that no amount of picking, tearing, and eating could mend. Someone with class, as her father had once said? Someone pliable? Someone prim and proper and beautiful?
In silence, Eliana moved her eyes to Kyrel. How curious, mocking even, that he began to resemble her. The clawed hand. The pale skin. The way his hair, having grown past his shoulders, was white. White like a rabbit — and rabbits tend to die when lonely.
“It’s getting colder,” he said, dusting the snow from his hair. Until then, the bits had been invisible. “We should head back.” He didn’t move.
Eliana drew closer. She pulled away his scarf, letting it slip on the grass. Cold, thin fingers slid through his coat, at the lower side of his neck. Then she felt it: a ring of hollows on the skin. An ugly bite wound. A scar she had made, though evidence of it was quickly disappearing.
“You’re really pretty,” she whispered. Kyrel held still, simply regarding with red eyes, without resentment. “Really pretty,” Eliana repeated. She leaned in so that her lips were almost touching the scar. “Won’t you push away?”
“I’m really too cold for this,” he muttered. “But no.”
“Good.” The chance to be made whole again, if only momentarily — she seized it, burrowing her teeth into the ring. Kyrel pressed his chin on her head; blood seeped down.
They moved elsewhere not long after, someplace warmer because staying would mean begging for a case of hypothermia. By then, Kyrel was not so passive, and Eliana could no longer pretend confidence or experience. It would have been easier if he’d made her bleed, the same way she had done to him, but she didn’t, and that made her feel worse. More crooked, more warped.
But she wondered what she looked like from his eyes, a curiosity that had once never plagued her until this very moment. What did he think of her waist? Without her corset to refine her shape, unveiled like a secret? His right thumb traced along the curve of her ear. A cold jab that left her shivering.
Come morning, once the fires neither of them would speak of this, and Eliana would never find her answers. But she wondered, wondered, wondered.