The morning was littered with wet specks of white. 

Epona’s hands touch the fingers unconsciously. She pulls back, feeling like she’s just touched fire. Her father is scrambling around the boxes he’s bought inside, and after searching hard and losing a handful of hair, he pulls out a black binder that stains his fingers with ink. 

“Here it is!” He exclaims happily, opening the binder and having stained yellow, white, and tan papers from all throughout time fall around like the leaves of autumn. He twitches madly, falling to the ground hard and struggling to pick up the papers in messy bunches in his arms. 

Epona stares over at her father killing himself over thin trees and she runs over to him, almost falling herself. They both say nothing, only pick up the papers and set them down on a small glass and mahogany coffee table. 

“Thank you Dear…” 

Epona smiles sadly, looking down at the papers he’s looking through. Receipts, reminders, old letters… They were littered behind and forward and bended in many kind of strange shapes. Some were so wrinkly they were unrecognizable. 

“I found them!” 

Her father was clearly exstatic. Epona couldn’t help but then wonder what he’d very suddenly been happy about. “What is it?” 

He’d opened up a book, a book that was home to many checks, all unused and looking like they’d been that way for the last century. “My checks, they’re from when I was a kid.” 

“You had a job back then? But I thought kids couldn’t get jobs.” 

Epona tilted her head, anticipating a reply. 

“Oh, you could get them, getting them just wasn’t too easy, and it didn’t pay much.” 

Epona observed him flip through the checks, it looked as if there may had been hundreds of them. “How much do they even have? There are so many.” 

“Oh,’ Her father scratched his messy hair hard. “Only pennies and dimes. The most here is ninety five cents.” He laughs and pulls on the collar of his shirt. “But I was going to go get the money from them now. Hopefully we’ll have about twenty five dollars from all that time. You can spend it on whatever you want, Dear.” 

Epona’s father went over to the coat rack, putting on his jacket, and then his hat. He stuffed the old checks into his right pocket, and grabbed the door handle. 

“You can go outside after I’m gone. Just promise you’ll eat something and don’t wander too far.” A huge wet kissed was placed in the middle of Epona’s forehead and she flinched. She looked into her father’s eyes. The subtle grey pools looked so shallow.

“I’ll see you soon.”

There was a reassuring smile for a second, and the nervous man was already on his way. The door closed with a glassy thud. 

Epona only stood there. She was in a pastel pink nightdress, and her bare feet were tapping on the wooden floor. What was she to do now? Maybe go out, yes, that would be sweet. 

She grabbed her clothes from unkempt boxes, all ripped up in a tornado. She threw on a static grey hooded sweatshirt and tight pitch black leggings, and small brown leather boots. She’d dug her light hands deep into all the boxes, looking for one more thing. Where was it…? 

She must had pulled out ten wardrobes, and yet, she stopped. Eyes wide open, and all of the sudden she was holding eight pairs of socks and a ripped up orange t-shirt too big for her. “I guess I’ll never find it.” She sighed and threw the clothes on the faded flower-print sofa behind her. “It can’t be that cold anyway.” 

Epona walked out the door, and the moment she did she was bombarded with such a large gust of wind she was blown back from the ground and onto the floor behind her. 

“This world is an absolute circus! There is no limit to what strange oddities you will encounter here~! Be careful coming here, you may not want to leave!”

___________________________________________________

Epona had moved into an old home, 

and by old, it truly was old. 

White paint was peeling off the walls, blisters rose from the corners of rooms, and tiles were stained with dust. A large hole in the second floor added a nice touch, there were still some splinters that fell every now and then. Not to mention, it smelled like a basement, although there wasn’t a basement, and the basement smell was the kind of smell you’d get a whiff of if you left milk out to long and some poor alley cat decided to drink it up and just end up spilling it again. 

The odor of decay, strangely enough it felt like home already. 

“So, Do you like it?” 

Her father had an uneasy smile. His frazzled blonde hair, and big frightened eyes. His teeth were shaking with his smile. He had on a dirty coat and his hands were shaking as well when he tipped a hat around, and hung then hung his coat on the ugliest red-rusted coat hanger you would ever see in your entire life. 

The hanger quaked, getting sick, then fell over for a dramatic faint. 

“…It’s alright.” 

Epona’s father gulped and wringed his hat in his hands, squeezing the poor life out of it. There would have to be a funeral later to remember such a small little hat. 

“Y-you don’t like it?” His lips quivered, and Epona’s eyes widened. “Oh, father…” She grabbed a lonely padded chair with stuffing spilling out of it and pushed it behind her father, and instinctively he fell down onto it. His hat ended up falling back on his head, and he kept it there with his panicking hand. “I-if y-y-you don’t l-like it,” He gulped. “I can always just take us to a motel for tonight and then I’ll go house hunting again first thing in the morning!” 

Epona looked down. Old white powder had already been settling down on her reddish-brown dress shoes. Probably because of all the anxiety her father was feeling, it was making the house a bit startled as well. 

“Please don’t do that, Father. I know how hard you’ve been working to get a house for us, especially one this big. Don’t throw this away because of me.” 

“But, darling,” Sad puppy eyes, that’s all Epona could see as her father placed both his shaking hands on her cheeks. His hands were big and calloused from working so hard, and like a brittle branch in the wind he looked like he was about to break any second. “I just want you to be happy.” 

Epona’s eyes narrowed softly. She could feel them burning, but she just smiled, trying her best not to spill a tear. “I’m always happy with you, Father.” She leaned over, and gave the worried man a sweet kiss upon his pale cheek. 

Her father, who was settled down most likely due to the kiss, smiled back at her, and returned the kiss, settling them down in many bunches on her whole face, ending with her nose.

“Really, dear? Oh you have no clue how happy that makes me!” 

Like a little child, he had pulled Epona into a hug, snuggling close to her and inhaling the scent of fresh pond water and lavender. “It’s getting so late… I was going to take you to the river tomorrow. I know how much you love it there.” 

“What what about our things…?” Her voice was quick, and she sighed. 

Her father stared ahead unblinking, then looked over to the small pile of boxes sitting outside on the creaky porch. “We don’t have too many things anyway. We can do it some time soon, just not now.” 

He plants one more kiss on her forehead. 

“Let’s get some rest now. There’s a couple of blankets that were left by the old residents here. We’ll just dust them off and nap in the living room. Okay?” He grinned, his shaking finally over with. 

Epona looked at her father, absorbed in a though of worry, but she quickly nodded and grinned alongside him. “Alright!”

The winter was dead, 

as was she. 

She had waited and waited

for her prince to come

but no one ever dared

to break through the icy bricks

encasing her

and she was left 

frozen. 

I watched you come to life, 

breaking out of your shell, 

like a newborn butterfly. 

Wet wings soaked in frozen dust 

you had just woken up from an endless sleep

but with the tender thought

It’s made me truly think

Even though your eyes are open,

you could still be sound asleep. 

“Link… We shouldn’t be doing this.” 

He was drunk, and you could just smell it on his breath. Coors Light and cigarettes, lethal overdose of Mary Jane, and white powder stained his cheek. “But I thought you wanted this…!” 

He kissed her softly on the cheek, making his way down to her neck. “I mean… I know you’re sick of being a virgin, Epona. Or is it true?” 

“H-huh?” Epona blinked, and Link licked behind her ear, making her twitch and melt over him. “Ahhh~…” 

“…Is it true…” He started pulling down the zipper of her metallic grey hoodie. “…That you’ve been sleeping around anyway?” 

You could hear the smile on his face. “Because if you have I’m going to have to punish you!” He giggled and began kissing her most sensitive spot, her collar bone. 

Epona held back a yell as he kissed it harder and harder and kept running his soaking wet tongue over it. She placed a hand on his chest and looked at his plain skull t-shirt that still had an old basement smell. It had been his brothers. 

“You didn’t loosen up the whole party!” Link had finished unzipping her sweater and he pulled it down her arms and let it drop behind her. “You never even had a drop of alcohol.” He touched her bra strap and twisted it around his thin fingers. “But you’re such a dirty girl anyway.” 

Epona looked away from him. He tried to peer over his shoulder, but the tears in her eyes made it hard to see. Link interrupted her vision to lay a smooch on her eyeliner-covered eyelids. She couldn’t stop blushing. 

“It’s okay. No one will find us. You just stand there and I’ll take care of everything.” 

In the same way Epona couldn’t stop blushing, Link couldn’t stop smiling and talking. He had never been such a chatterbox before, but if you gave him a beer and access to all the pills in the Northside pharmacy he was set. 

Epona buried her face into Link’s shirt as he removed her bra and set it aside, rubbing up against her roughly. When it came to such close encounters everything was a turn-on, from a touch on the hand to a smooch on the forehead. It didn’t matter, as long as it was from someone she truly loved. 

“Link, please, don’t…” 

She could feel him fumbling with her skinny jeans. 

His shaggy blonde hair fell over his dead eyes and he pulled them down. “You’re not wearing panties, as usual~!” He pulls down only halfway, snickers, and gets on his knees, licking the front of her womanhood. She instinctively perks forward into him.

Epona feels his teeth as he moves his head and digs deeper into her cunt, licking up and down until the spikes of pleasure throughout her body. It was an endless electrical charge and she feels him drinking up  all her cream. 

His tongue pushes up into her front entrance and she has to clasp her hands over her mouth from the intense emotion boiling up inside her. He rams his tongue into her and thrusts as if it were his own hardness. It was truly difficult to tell the difference. 

“I-I think I’m gonna…” 

She trailed off, and she let her juices spill onto Link’s tongue and he slurped them up like a dog who hadn’t had a good meal in days. 

“You’re so delicious!” His overly positive expression as the only thing that left Epona smiling. She lowered her own fingers and felt her wetness pouring down at the cement below her. She trembled and bought them back up to Link. He kissed her fingers and Epona’s slickness poured down his chin

“Wanna go again?” 

Inspiration

I saw her standing all alone at the end of the room covered in swarming people, and her silhouette must had been caught on something, because she never moved. 

She had a strawberry margarita in one hand and a cheap cigarette in the other, and a shy expression, which she wouldn’t have too often. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, and when she turned to face me, although I had been wearing a mask, I couldn’t let our gazes touch. 

She had continued having her drink, 

she was just no social butterfly tonight 

and her milky dress spilled into the red carpet. 

as she tried to fade into the background. 

Yes, an unusual wallflower, less like me but all about me. Behind black and blue lace and sewed-on dry butterflies were deep jade eyes that called to me, yes, they spoke to me. 

No one knew who was behind the mask she was wearing, 

but I did, 

it had been the person I’d been looking for all night

and all my life. 

Adjusting my bowtie, 

braids,

and a heavy pastel milk skull mask

I began to walk towards her, and my breath was heavy.

Did she still love me? My head whispered to me. Will she run away, like everyone else? My dress shoes tapped slowly on the floor. Am I still beautiful to her? Paranoia, and my nerves had made steady perches on my shoulder. 

Everything felt so slow, the music, the excited screams, the heartbeat I had that I was sure should had been beating so hard it could burst out of my chest. 

Hope made its way into the sky, 

our eyes met,

and she lit up, 

her beautiful body, 

her lovely mind, 

and heavenly eyes, 

“It’s still all there, 

she’s still here.” 

And a smile, 

a smile as bright as a room of diamonds… 

It shone for me. 

“I’ve missed you…” 

“Still waiting?” 

Vivian’s head made a swift turn, and she was faced with a yellow eyed demon whose smile seemed to mock her very existence. Gracefully, the shadow walked out of the darkness, feet barely touching the ground, and a sweet airy smile floated its way to her, and she nearly backed off with a jump. 

“Oh, dear Ringleader, how long has it been now? Three hundred years? Three hundred years waiting for your friend to be set free?” 

His glassy stare stained the encased corpse. “Up here in your canvas, all alone? I’m not surprised you haven’t given up though… Always one to persist. So stubborn.” 

Vivian said nothing, her eyes averting back to the figure frozen in comatose. 

“It hasn’t been night for all of those years. Sun’s never fallen…” 

There came a low growl. 

“I hate it.” 

There came low breathing, and endless blinking, as if tears were trying to be held back. “So? No one else minds it. I don’t care if you don’t like it.” 

“You don’t?” The voice ran over to Vivian, and faded from one ear to the other. Her spine quivered. “I said I would no longer bring the night if she was not able to see it. I will not do it until I have her here with me. I just… I just can’t do it without her.” 

The iris with the lunar eclipse reflected her hate inside, and they then darkened. “Let’s trade then.” 

What?

“If you want her back so bad, then let’s trade for her soul.”

He held up one of his this thin grey hands, and made a fist, something dark and red seeping out of it. Blood? No… It was something else. “You don’t want her in a cocoon forever, right?” 

The red substance floated over to her, and it stopped in front of her, as if being stopped by some kind of invisible force. “Trade me your power, your love, your sanity, and I will trade you her soul.”

….

Vivian had been pacing for hours. Her limp baton was held firmly between her pastel fingers as the cold metal tip went tap, tap, tap on the royal red carpet. She’d tapped and tapped, but no one listened in her Study. The doors were all closed and she was completely alone.

Even the birds were not there, they must had all been still overseas taking a longer break then usual for this year. Perhaps it was just still too cold to relax and say everything was sweet. 

But nothing had fallen sweet, no berry, jam cookie, or a stroke of genius in the study. The night was blistering with cold and the Spring flowers that Vivian had planted with her friend must had still been underground. 

And it happened, it happened before but not to her, but to her friend. She swore she’d read the book all right, she’d even done what everyone else did but for that June not a single stem rose from the enriched soil and she had received an F for the assignment being told that she’d been fooling around too much.

Sympathetically once Vivian had received the expected sparkling A she’d simply rolled her eyes at the teachers who praised her like some kind of perfect being and she’d given her friend the orange Snapdragon that had been sitting the farthest from the sun. 

“But you worked so hard to make it grow…”

She shrugged. “Not really. He was barely in the sun anyway. I’m surprised he even sprouted at all.” 

The flower never lasted more then a weak in the quiet apartment complex in a usually dank alley in the downtown area. The air was thick and musky so the windows had been kept all shut. The poor dragon breathed no fire, it had simply inhaled cigarette fumes and the scent of cheap beer. 

No one had ever had a funeral for a flower before [atleast in the city] so this had been the first. 

It took place outside the real cemetery and the service didn’t last more then five minutes. There was no priest to bless its poor soul, of whatever it had, and there was no words spoken. Just a few useless tears from a sad heart. It mostly wasn’t for the flower though. 

“I’m so sorry!” She’d rubbed her eyes and messy autumn hair fell over her eyes. “I killed it! I didn’t mean to! Oh, it’s all my fault!” 

To some consolation Vivian had been sweet enough to just hand over a hug and nothing more.

But now, Vivian had a home filled with flowers. Roses that hung of blue vines across the moss covered walls and tulip bouquets that reached to touch ceilings. They covered the home so dearly she feared they would swallow everything whole. 

Nothing could swallow her Study though, except maybe her books, all of them lined up wall to wall, floor and through the sun roof and maybe to the sky. And, maybe if her ladder reached high enough, she’d finally finish the Sherlock Holmes series. 

He’d been smoking in the other room, 

half living cigarette in one hand

and a Starbucks Green Tea Frappuccino in the other. 

A quiet concoction that could be deadly

but heavenly