The Aesthete

LMar · October 2015

The Aesthete

She turned her head upwards, curving to follow the swollen bulk of the pillow. Twisting slowly methodically, following the notes of the music, which were themselves twisting in the air around her. She could feel them slowly whispering over her, passing the empty wine bottles, caressing her ears, her skin, moving the soft hair coming out of her skin. Her ears twitched and their black lustrous fur shone in the candlelight. She was alone in the room but the tavern next to her house was full and the minstrel was pouring out her heart.

She could hear the changing notes, lengthening and shortening, causing something inside of her to move and snap. Her tail betrayed her, twitching at random, showing she was lost, a prisoner behind the music. How could other people not feel it? She was enthralled, the melody washing over her, sheathing her inside a cocoon of moving sound. A purr escaped unbidden from her whole body, she was surprised by it but couldn't do anything.

Her half lidded eyes snapped open at a sudden crescendo of the music and her slitted eyes shone out with an intense emerald colour, intensified by the shifting shadows cast on her face from the fireplace. It was the middle of Sun's Dawn and nights were still cold, making the fire a welcome source of warmth. She watched the flames jumping and shimmering. The music was drowning her sense of hearing but she could see the flames, moving like so many dancers hovering above the logs. She watched them, entranced, the tail still flicking with the music and the flames.

She could feel her soul pulsating in tune with them, the music thrumming through her, the movement drawing her spirit out and then back in. She felt like she was touching everything in her room with all senses and at the same time she felt trapped in a black sphere unable to comprehend the world, the music blinding her to everything. Her body twisted amongst the sheets in a sinuous pattern, the black spots on her ginger fur sliding and vanishing, breaking up her form, making her just another moving shadow in the flickering fire light. She whimpered, she wanted to shout, fill up her lungs but as she took in a deep breath she felt the music enter with the vibrating air. It snaked inside of her, down in the centre of her then branching out twice, then more and more, a myriad tiny little trees blooming inside of her. She could feel it sliding against the inside of her lungs, at first a pleasant tingling but growing so strong almost like her chest was going to burst open and release those myriads of blooming trees. The music jerked her body in the bed again, a slave to it , and this time the sheets got tangled in her manic body. They twisted amongst her limbs and she could feel the fabric, each fibre rubbing and caressing against each hair of her Khajiit body. Her eyes snapped open again. This was not possible, her nerve endings felt as if they were being electrocuted, the music making each meeting of fibre and hair vibrate with the force of a thousand mages throwing bolts at her. She mewled out with something close to pleasure screeching on to something approaching pain.

The music, flames and the feeling of the sheets were combining into something alive that was encompassing her, caressing her and torturing her. Her eyes were looking out blindly and her tail was twitching. She could feel something warm inside her mouth, something flowing, something coppery but she was past caring, with her ears blind to anything but the twisting, flowing notes, sharp as knives, expanding her spirit, shredding herself.

A particular twist in the notes forced her upright and she focused her wild green eyes on the flames. The music was loud now, a masterpiece of pleasurable shrieking pain and a bright flame seemed to leap out of the fireplace gathering the shadows around it. It looked like it was coalescing into a single form and at the same time smiling at her. The rosy tint of the flame turned blood red and the figure whispered at her. A whisper, but it nevertheless cut through the loud music like a hot knife cutting through a tender roasted pork belly. A greasy whisper, chuckling amongst the furious notes "Child, I see you are enjoying the music eh? I will take you with me and we shall spend an eternity listening to such wonders eh? Let the music shred and tear, let it make you soar, I shall drown you in wine and pleasure". She just looked at him and her wild eyes closed. She nodded and fell back on her pillow, the wet fur matted down both with tears and sweat. Sanguine opened his palm and a bright mist in the shape of the Khajiit floated out of the lying figure towards the red fingers. He closed his fist and held it tight, laughing heavily as he dissolved back into the fire. It was after all Heart's Day.