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The words are pounding, chilling and shameful in her head.
Why don’t you just come with me, give in like a good girl…
She is in darkness, and all that she has are those words, snaking through her veins and intensifying with every beat of her frantic heart.
You are mine now.
She suddenly sees a dim light, but it does not bring hope - it is eerie and unwanted, for because of it she now sees the hands. Every hand she’s ever resented - some smooth, some rough, some calloused and scarred - reaching out for her, clawing at her -
She can’t escape, the hands are everywhere, demanding and disembodied. She feels them push and pull against her skin, but most of all, she feels them raking through her hair, tearing at it, picking every strand from her scalp until she fears there will be nothing left –
“Leave me alone!” she shrieks, trying to fend them off only to find that her own hands are weak, bruised, broken. “Let me go!”
Oh, Little Red, the voice sounds again, don’t you know this is your fate?
She’s sobbing now, screaming, praying to any god with any power that these hands will leave her – that they will stop their incessant plucking – that they will take what they want from her and leave -
And when hands grab her shoulders, she’s screaming louder, pleading as they shake her, let me go, please just let me go -
But the hands on her shoulders feel different, and another voice comes, not quiet and taunting, but yelling back at her, familiar words -
“Miss, wake up!"
Miss?…that's….me?
“Miss, please, it’s just a nightmare!”
Just a nightmare?
“Shirayuki!”
Her eyes snap open at the sound of her name, and the dream hands fade from her body, leaving only a very real pair still clutching her shoulders.
“Get away from me!” she says, rasping, the haze of the dream still fogging up her head. She quickly pushes the hands away from her, relieved to find that her own are fully functional.
The hands move back quickly, as if stung; she hears soft words in the darkness, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Shirayuki’s eyes adjust slowly, and the color of terror drains from her vision. In the moonlight she sees only Obi, his arms raised to head level as if in surrender. There is a look of pain on his face that weighs on her still-pounding heart.
“Obi,” she whispers. “Obi - I - I’m sorry - ”
Obi is silent, staring back at her, mouth slightly open like he wants to say something but can’t find the words. Shirayuki stares back, realizing for the first time that he isn’t wearing a shirt.
“Did I – did I wake you?” she asks him, a tiny quiver to her voice. She still feels like she’s teetering on the edge of tears.
“Yes,” Obi says, his hands finally lowering to his sides.
“I’m so sorry,” Shirayuki says again, and the tears start to fall. “I’m really so sorry, Obi, I didn’t mean to – ”
“No, Miss. You don’t need to apologize.” He’s blinking like he’s just woken up, too. “I – I’ve just never known you to have a nightmare.”
She’s wiping tears from her eyes, trying to compose herself, trying to shake the lingering sensation of her hair being torn out, piece by piece –
“They – they don’t…happen often,” Shirayuki assures him, her voice breaking. “But I have them."
Shirayuki senses him just standing there, and she thinks to herself that he has to be at a loss. She knows just on instinct that he’d probably been by her side the second she’d made a noise louder than whisper – hence forgoing a shirt – but he also probably thought she was in some kind of danger, immediate, real and tangible. He has always been great at handling that. But Obi didn’t sign up to be on any emotional rescue team, and so Shirayuki understands now why he might feel like there’s not much for him to say.
She takes a deep breath to steady herself; maybe she can make it through a sentence without crying.
“I’m fine,” she says quietly. “You can go back to bed, Obi, I’m – fine.”
She expects him to walk away, to go back to bed and get some much needed rest from their journey – but instead she feels his weight on her bed, and she looks up to see him sitting across from her. There is worry on his face still, but also - desperation?
“Would you like to talk about it?” Obi says, and the words are almost forced, a little awkward, like he’s not use to saying them in seriousness. “If it’ll help, you can…you can tell me about the nightmare."
Shirayuki watches him for a moment, and sees a flicker of something as he looks down, away from her gaze.
“Well – I – there were – hands,” Shirayuki says.
“Hands.” Obi repeats the word almost as a question, but doesn’t press further.
Shirayuki swallows, trying to put her dream into coherent words. “There were a lot of hands. And they were all grabbing at me. And there was a voice, telling me that I belonged to him, and the hands were pulling out all of my hair – and the voice said that this was my fate – ” She pauses for a moment to let the panic subside again. “It felt very real.” She reaches up and tugs at her hair, almost as if to reassure herself that it’s still there.
Something flashes in Obi’s eyes that Shirayuki doesn’t understand.
“Is it this place? Is it being here?” Obi's shoulders tense when he speaks, and he looks almost angry. “We don’t have to stay. I can make your excuses to Raj and we can get you out of here, tonight – ”
Shirayuki shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s being back in Tanbarun. I’ve been able to stay here just fine before. You don’t need to worry anymore, Obi. Honestly, it’s probably just a stress dream.” She feels it now, the clarity she’s been waiting for. Suddenly, it seems silly that she was even screaming and crying at all. She’s removed enough from the dream to realize that what she’s saying is true – stress is probably the reason these feelings chose to resurface tonight.
Obi doesn’t say anything for a long while; he looks conflicted, like something is not sitting right with him, but Shirayuki doesn’t know if she should pry or leave it be and simply keep assuring him that she’s fine.
When Obi speaks, his voice is soft. “Do you think…it’s because…you feel used?”
Shirayuki looks at him, wondering why he casts his eyes down again after voicing this thought.
But she thinks about it.
She’s more than willing to assist the elder prince, always, but she can’t help but wonder if the immense load Izana has placed on her shoulders is beginning to seem like too much. Izana has been pushing them hard lately. She feels like she’s doing so much in so short a time to accomplish Izana’s designs, and she starts to see what Obi might be saying – does she feel more like a pawn in the elder prince’s games? Less like a human being with purpose and more like…a tool?
When she sees Obi now, her eyes are drawn to the large scar splayed across his chest. The way he’s looking down, shy almost, embarrassed, like he’s just told her a secret about himself and thinking that she might reciprocate – it dawns on her.
Shirayuki reaches out and touches her fingers to his scar. She’s looked at it many times when treating him for injuries, but she’s never really touched it. Obi immediately pulls his head back at her touch, and she can feel his stare, but she’s focused.
Obi, better than anyone, knows what it feels like to be used. And maybe he has nightmares, like hers, so much worse and much more frequent, but he doesn’t scream or cry anymore. Maybe he thinks he’s alone, the only one who struggles trying to see himself as anything more than his skills and his scars, and maybe – maybe tonight he thinks he sees that there’s something in her, too, a similar battle she’s fighting –
Shirayuki can’t help but think that in trying to comfort her, he’s seeking comfort too.
She gently drags her fingers across the length of his scar, feeling the tautness of the skin and wondering not for the first time what he’d done to merit such a fearsome mark.
“Maybe I am,” she says softly, and she hears Obi’s breath catch. “Feeling a little used, I mean.”
Obi is very still; they both are, except for their breathing and the tips of her fingers tracing his skin. Shirayuki can’t think of anything to say, and she can’t bring herself to stop. She needs to show him that he is more than his scars, and she is more than her rare hair, that neither of them are possessions, but people –
Obi’s hand finally moves to grab her wrist, his thumb sliding up into her palm. He pulls her away from his chest, gently, and holds their hands in the space between them.
“We need to change that, Miss."
The way he says we pulls her eyes back up to his face, and he’s looking at her with so much certainty and so much fire that her heart forgets to beat.
“You, uh – I – should get back to bed.” Shirayuki finds her voice, quiet but insistent. She finds it odd that neither of them let go of the others' hand for a long moment, but when they do, it’s at the same time. Obi slides smoothly off the bed, staying close to the edge.
“Will you be all right?” he asks, and she almost wants to say no so that he’ll stay.
But Shirayuki nods.
“I will. Thank you, Obi.” She wants to reach out to him and touch him again, grab his hand and ask, but will you be all right?, but she holds back.
“Of course, Miss,” he says, and his eyes finally soften. “I’m right there if you need me.”
Obi takes only a few steps before Shirayuki finds herself out of bed, going to him, not even sure what she wants but she says, “Obi, wait – ”
And as he turns, she runs right into him, locking her arms around him. Obi responds quickly, surprising her, like he’d thought about this too – he wraps his arms around her and holds tight.
Shirayuki finds herself before his scar once more, her face level with his chest. She can’t help it; she presses her lips to it in a soft kiss, and she feels the muscles in Obi’s back tense up again. She doesn’t linger too long.
“And I’m here, if you need me,” she says, putting her cheek against his skin instead.
Obi breathes out in a half-hearted laugh. “Right.”
Again, when they pull away, it’s mutual; neither of them seem to step back first. But Obi lets his hands fall last before giving her one more smile and turning away.
“Good night, Miss.”
“Good night, Obi.”
Shirayuki watches his retreating form, noting that the muscles in his back are still tight as he steps through the door to his adjoining room. She crawls back into bed and pulls the covers up over her mouth and nose, squeezing her eyes tight against the burn in the back of her throat.
For all she’d thought tonight about being a person and not a possession she still couldn’t stop herself from thinking she really wouldn’t mind being his.