Tantalizing Tribulations {Part 3}

"We produce books for the discriminating collector. The compulsive inmates set the type, the listless ones do the binding and prepare the ink."

Her hands jammed into the front pockets fingernails cutting almost half-moons into the delicate flesh of her palms. No mark, no callouse marks her hands a feature she would not be able to hide, even though all else of her nature, Highborne, hidden and covered with a back alley drawl. Her gait even straight and narrow with the gentle rolling of her hips, left, right, left right. The tattoo of her boot heels echoed her passage further, deeper into the Cemetery, iridescent green eyes flicked to the left and right, the looming head stones carving surreal shapes into the misted rolling fog that enveloped the pathway almost illuminated sadistic twisted visuals. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood erect all of a sudden, her nostrils flared in warning as the icy tingle ran down her spine, she quirked a brow stopping, her right hand racing out of her pocket. Armed. A glinting of silver caught the bestraggled moonlight above as the clouds flee across the midnight sky. A lady like dagger, the blade twisted to a fine honed point acidic etchings into the blade worn away from age. The hilt, white ivory, rolled fluidly in the palm of her hand as if welcoming an old friend. She once again continued her walk, her eyes shifted untrustingly to the unfathomlessness that surround here, muting her senses, twisting her thoughts. She thought she heard something, her head cocked to the right her gait slightly slower, but still self assured that she could handle herself. Guttersnipe, cut-throat, vagabond beware, she thought. Unruly locks of her coppery hair twisted about her alabaster face in which reflect naught of her terror but of her own heightened amusement; for she now knew she was not alone. What? Whom? She did not know, but she was sure going make sure they got the point firstly. Nipples instantly hardened, why? She knew not, but the fine points cut into the roughness of the black wool sweater tight against them, her breasts testing the tight confines, pulled taunt till the five glass buttons threatened to pop with strain. Withdrawing her left hand she felt out for the head stones as she now left the path, her boot heels sinking easily into the soft wet laden earth. Bramble snagged at her legs, she was not as quiet as she wished. A low growl came from her red tainted lips as her left hand snaked out onto a weather worn head stone of a head bowed Angel, wings tilted inwards to shadow the Dead that lay below. Her breasts heaved as she breathed deep; a bitter taste came up over the back of her mouth. Fear. Standing bold, upright, shoulders back, enough of this! Her voice a soft almost ancient accent filtered in and out of her words.

“Be you beast or man. Come out now and know outright that I bow to no man or god. “

Head up, chin level, the aristocratic poise was unmistakable, the attire a putt off, a sham. A wolf in sheep’s clothing perhaps was she. Her fingernails curled over the top of the head stone of ‘ I. B. Fine’ in almost annoyed beat she began to tap those long tapered fingernails against the hard gray stone.Twirling the dagger in that of her right hand, the blade flinting silver in the moonlight accenting herself as being armed. Unbeknownst to her, she had walked directly towards him, that silent calling that tugged her; this way and that till she was there and now. Waiting…waiting….