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Cerulean blue engulfs all.
Its lull is certainly one of its more attractive features— the ease of falling into the syrupy-thick void that is Penacony’s dreamscape. Diaphanous bubbles rise and fall like a child’s breath, colors mimicking the strangely dim, strangely endless, hallways. The feeling of being lost is nothing new to Acheron. She walks the same halls, month by month, night by night, without as much as a clue as to what lies beyond the next corner. This not-knowing feels much like drifting through the sea with the asphyxiant lack of clarity it brings: To a person like her, it was quite peaceful.
She wanders across the threshold linking the walls to the ceiling, heels clacking methodically against cold tile, watching the ornate crystal chandelier withstand the weight of absent gravity. With her hazy memory, the days and nights, reality and dream, seem to blend together in one, monotonous lump.
“Acheron,” the lilted voice sounds as natural to her ear as river water crashing downhill, “Why have you wandered this far?”
And Acheron does not know. The chill of the woman’s presence, how the graze of her long, manicured fingers against her neck raises involuntary goosebumps, does not help her declined recollection. Those same hands pull at her bare shoulder, then at her chin, leveling their eyes.
One could compare the sunset to Black Swan's eyes, but that of the temporary, short-lived wonder could only be half as beautiful as the eternal woman before her. Perhaps they, those purple-gold abysses, were more like a dream, a distant memory, by the way they utterly entranced her.
"I do believe I asked you a question, Galaxy Ranger.”
"Why I have come here..." Acheron searches for an answer, but the shelves of her mind only offer a thin layer of dust, “I do not remember.”
Black Swan does not seem surprised, nor does she seem disturbed or upset. By now, Acheron supposed that she had grown used to her shortcomings in remembrance, or perhaps, even more curious as to the cause. It seems quite ironic for Black Swan to be a memokeeper, one who has dedicated her life to recordkeeping, while she failed to remember the reason why she had left her hotel room.
“Nothing to do then?” She runs her hand down Acheron's arm, stopping only at the other woman's wrist, ending the fluid motion in a painfully slow caress, “Then, you should come wander with me.”
A pause, the only sound a faint bubbling from across the floor.
"Alright," Acheron agrees, moving away from the fascinating chill of Black Swan’s body and grasping the hilt of her katana, “You have my sword.”
Black Swan hesitates, "That... Isn't what I meant, but thank you."
Regardless of what she meant, she leads the way, effortlessly, down a painfully intricate set of identical hallways. Acheron follows close behind, uncaring of the never-changing scenery with eyes locked on the woman before her.
The way the black lacing of her corset, dark and opalescent as the night skies she often looked upon, emphasized the sharp blades of her back did not go unnoticed. Halfheartedly, Acheron wished Black Swan had chosen a longer veil to protect herself from the sin of her gaze, though, who were they to worry about retribution?
Black Swan did not attempt conversation, and neither did Acheron. Without a meter to gauge the time of their walk, it seemed to teeter on the bridge of a mere moment and an eternity. Perhaps it was better this way, with Black Swan's focus drifting between the way and their fate and Acheron balancing the acts of holding her sword at the ready and mentally worshiping the other.
It was only as they edged ever closer to a growing sound — an orchestra? — that Acheron spoke up.
“Where are you going?”
The music grows louder, clearly a waltz, and Black Swan pauses to turn around, "We are going to dance."
And Acheron lets herself be pulled through open double doors, golden and shined to mimic the glory of an age-old palace. She allows for Black Swan to initiate their first engagement, she is willing all the way to the center of the ballroom.
Now, there is sound: the sound of that beautiful orchestra, the muffled chatter of ball-goers with the occasional giggle of a wooed lady, the clink of champagne glasses, the synchronous shuffle of many people dancing at once. There is the sharp sound of Black Swan reaching across her body, forearm brushing against her bare stomach, taking the katana from her hand and sheathing it at her hip.
Perhaps the two of them should feel out of place, armed and without dresses among a sea of those donning tuxedos and gowns, but she finds that within Black Swan’s arms, she does not seem to care.
Acheron has never danced like this before, not that she would remember if she had, but she finds that Black Swan does not mind her atypical clumsiness. She murmurs an apology for stepping on the tip of her toe and receives a gentle half-smile, half-smirk as acceptance. She blushes when she lags behind and receives a squeeze of their joined hands as reassurance.
She would be a liar if she claimed that Black Swan never intrigued her. After all, she was a memokeeper, someone who likely journeyed to Penacony in search of the Watchmaker’s legacy, and ethereally beautiful. She would be a liar if she claimed that Black Swan did not puzzle her as she grew panicked within Acheron’s arms, letting the swordswoman take a brutal and passionate lead in their dance, panting as if she had been running when the music paused.
For the first time in what may have been an eternity, all Acheron could feel was warm. There was not the chilling cold of tormenting thunderstorm nor the frigid bitterness of blood seeping from her unfeeling body, only the sultry heat of two bodies pressed together. She likes this feeling, she decides, and pulls the other woman back in.
A new song is beginning. This dance, Black Swan is more distant, a faint tremor running through her which only becomes increasingly obvious as Acheron pulls her steadily closer. The expression she wears is no longer aghast and she could no longer feel her heartbeat, thrumming relentless, wild and terrified, but the goosebumps resting along Black Swan’s skin do not fade.
Still, as the night draws further on and couples come and they go, neither of the unfitting women are ready to call time. Acheron finds that her body has learnt the dance, muscle memory allowing her mistakes to dwindle to none. Acheron cannot tell if it's the drowsy of the end or the night creeping up on her or the result of an unoccupied mind, but she also finds Black Swan to be growing increasingly more breathtaking.
What she tells Black Swan escapes her memory, perhaps eaten by the clearly metaphorical monster of her mind, but does remember that half-smug, half-pleased smile returning to her face.
It seems that whatever she has said has given Black Swan enough composure to regain whatever control she had lost over the course of their first, fateful dance. The golden lights have dimmed, leaving only a bronze afterglow to illuminate the near-desolate ballroom. When the people live in dreams, where do they find rest and repose for the mind? Her thoughts are swept back out to shore with the reappearance of Black Swan, who Acheron does not recall leaving, with two flutes of bubbly champagne.
She drinks when Black Swan presses the glass in her calloused hand, though she feels nothing when she downs the pale liquid. By the other woman’s lack of reaction and nature as a memokeeper, she doubts that alcohol has any effect on Black Swan, either. Whether the act of pretending, running through meaningless checklists, is endearing or thoughtless occupies Acheron; she supposes its sweet, to take a break from the disaster that will be Penacony and embrace a typical romance.
“This cannot be the best Penacony has to offer,” Black Swan frowns, placing both empty flutes back on the bar counter, “It’s time we go, we have better places to be.”
Black Swan does not wait for a response, perhaps already knowing Acheron would follow, and she does. With her memory, she cannot do so much as guess where Black Swan has decided to take her, but a cautious hand at her sword would take more energy than she could seem to muster. So, they fall into a familiar movement, heels clacking, together, in eerie harmony.
The place they arrive is none other than Acheron’s room. Neither the impressively ornate door nor its surrounding decor piques her memory, but the keycard in her back pocket, which Black Swan fishes for herself with a twinkle in her eye and a lazy, matching grin, seems to open it.
Inside is spacious and dim, only illuminated by a tropical mirage behind the shell-shaped bed of water and a varied collection of subdued yet colorful lamps. While Acheron stands to take in her own room, Black Swan starts towards the gramophone, larger than standard and gleaming in the low light. Peering behind the memokeeper, there seems to be quite the collection of records stacked between empty glasses and bottles of SoulGlad.
“Pour for us,” Black Swan says, “I’ll choose the song.”
And Acheron follows, flipping over two finely textured cups and popping open the bottles. With the type of packaging the company had chosen, intended for one person and one sitting, there was truly no need, but she supposed cultivating the mood was worth the hassle.
Black Swan hummed as she shuffled through each record, considerate with her choice, before picking out an album Acheron had never heard before. She picks up her glass and Acheron replicates her movement, first the clinking of their drinks and then the downing, drowning in, the liquid.
To Acheron, this night is the closest to heaven she will reach, with numb, bloodstained hands grasping at pale lavender locks. For a brief moment she is worried about the dirty red of her atrocities staining her waxen plumage, but she recalls that though muddled in memory, she is physically clean. In this moment, she is set alight with heat, wherever Black Swan’s slender hands trace leaving marks as present and as real as a burn. People like her are not meant to feel nirvana as clear and tangible as this, but here she lies, submersed in searching touch.
Whatever music Black Swan had so carefully chosen was lost on deaf ears. Heightened focus on Black Swan’s bare body and the resulting, pooling arousal created a painless but desperate pounding in Acheron’s head, demanding and so dearly wanting. She rested, painfully aware of her skin against the quickly warming leather of the sofa, and painfully aware of the woman perched beside her.
If Black Swan was an angel, then Acheron would repent for every single sin she had wrought. Her long hair fell around her like the veil she had removed, curving with the swell of her bust and the smallness of her waist. When she leaned over, pressing their chests together and locking their eyes, Acheron felt as if she could explode with the torrent of emotion.
Their engagement is as intense as it is tender, as tender as it is rough; Acheron would not take it any other way. She keens into this dangerous embrace, lips cracked and yearning, throat aflame with the cost of asphyxiant desire and careless noise. Black Swan is talented, calling upon the ebbing and flowing tides of her rapturous pleasure as if she were the moon itself. Her manicured nails dig crescent into her jaw, her back, the sharpness of her hips, the softness of her breasts and thighs.
Acheron succumbs to the feeling, her feeling, to feeling . Wherever Black Swan takes her, she will follow: to gilded ballrooms, to the desolate bar, to her own hotel room, to unsanctioned and blasphemous nirvana. She follows, letting her head fall against the wooden arm of the sofa, watching as the other knelt before her. Her thigh is strewn over Black Swan’s unmarred shoulder, her other leg braced, bent, beside folded legs.
Perhaps Acheron was simply partial to liquids, from bubbly champagne to sickly sweet SoulGlad to the deluge of slick between her thighs. She echoed Black Swan’s movements, hips moving, jolting, to meet the reverent motion of her mouth. A true taste of paradise was closing in, nearing with every thrust of her tongue and the ever-tightening grip on her thigh.
From their position, Acheron only saw the intriguing elaborate ceilings, the underside of the room’s many lamps, and the insides of her eyelids. Black Swan could see the scene in its entirety, the way the ranger’s body twitched, roiling with heat and unbound hedonism. She watched as the muscles of her thigh flexed, as her hands flailed before latching onto the top of the sofa, knuckles turning white. To watch a woman as imposing and as tormented as Acheron come utterly undone by her own hand was satisfying as it was pleasurable.
And come undone Acheron did. She lay, utterly exposed and equally devastated, in Black Swan’s wake.
Only now did the gramophone’s music begin to register, notes pulsating in time with her heartbeat. To think that this was the first time in such a long while that she could feel such a reminder of her own humanity. With trembling thighs and all the assistance digging exhausted fingers into the sofa could give, she managed to sit herself upright.
Her neck throbbed from where it rested on a hard wooden bar, evidence of their poor choice in position. Acheron could hear Black Swan, rustling and running water in the bathroom. Even if she trusted herself to stand, she would still not move to meet her, for she trusted the only woman who managed to bring her warmth in the tumultuous blizzard she felt in this life.
It took some time before Black Swan emerged, clothed and fresh in contrast to Acheron’s still filthy nudity. And Acheron stares, taking in all that the woman before her is, knowing that she has seen beyond the public image she portrays and relishing in that truth. This, their time together, would not be a sin easily washed away, and unlike spilled blood, Acheron hoped dearly that this stain would not disappear.
“We will meet again, my dear, dream dance partner,” Black Swan says, promises, before she walks out the door.
By the time they next meet, Acheron will no longer remember the events of their first engagement, but the image of her smile and the feel of her fingers on her bare skin will never, truly, be engulfed by the ever-hungering abyss of her mind.