Beautiful

From WikiStory

The city was for so long ignorant of her presence - she may have lived within its borders her entire mortal life, or she may have crossed its threshold mere days before making her presence known. It was known naught whether she had ascended from from the putrid slime of the earth or descended from the very heavens themselves. The Journalists of the city hotly debated these and other topics, writing with the false expertise and swagger inherent in their profession. When she did make her presence known, however, whether by her own design, or by accident, every denizen in the city became aware.

She was beautiful in an almost divine mode - her skin was fair and smooth, and gave her the ageless appearance of an angel, and upon this even the pure white silk of her dress looked dully mortal. From her scalp flowed a river of obsidian locks, which framed a visage whose mortality was at best questionable. And her eyes, liquid and radiant, shone with a greyness that implied both inexhaustible kindness and gentle detachment. To call her, like so many incompetent journalists, 'a young, pretty girl', fails in ways uncountable and immeasurable.

With this celestial beauty, however, came little discretion. Perhaps she was too divine to care for such petty mortal concerns, but her caresses were felt by man and woman alike, her lips had no eyes to judge the countenance of who they kissed, her love had no price to divide rich from poor. She was ambivalent to notions of 'morality' or 'character' or any grounding we might stake to humanity.

It was precisely this lack of discretion which distracted so many of the city's journalists with pointless speculation and conjecture about where she was from, her ancestry, her beliefs, and other inane things, irrelevant in the shadow of her actions themselves.

Indeed, her actions had a deep impact on the people of the city - liars learned silence from her lips - thieves found contentedness in her caresses - her beauty gave celibacy to whoremongers and infidels. And the murderers who would callously forsake life learned from her its value.

I could not see why the city's journalists condemned her so. Until I felt her effect personally. I saw my friends become faithless in her favor. I watched her teach my love to forget my worth but remember my faults, until she too lost faith. And I could do nothing as she ripped innocence from the heart of my little girl.

She took from me everything of value that I had, and left me with nothing. My life is empty. And now I only wish to see her beauty for myself. To feel the caresses that so effectively ruined this city.

But I have no hope that such a wish will ever be fulfilled.

No, death is too cruel a mistress for that.