The Last Fall

I envy her pride.

How do you see her by dawn?

Beautiful, confident, royal-mannered maiden with a bunch of admirers that curl around her like poison ivy ...

And now? Now what?

Now she is laying by your feet.  Her royal dress torn to shreds, hair all disheveled, furious gaze lingering on the floor. She is weak, powerless. You tamed her. Turned a panther into a kitten by the dusk. And then what?

Your eyes glitter in a fit of held-back violence surfacing, as you strike her across the face, open-palmed. It will bruise later, but she won't tell nobody. She'll weep and sob, she'll crawl to the furthest wall.

You will examine her, drink her in... Locking away memories of everything. Movements, demeanor, her jagged and angled face. You cannot make her belong to you.

Coping her last nerve, she gets up and attempts to run. You refrain from interference, pulling out your wand, you return decency to her dress and hair. She turns around ans smirks at you, lip broken, bleeding, and goes away, never once looking back.

As every last autumn.

Author's Note

I apologize in advance if I made some confusing sentences, as my primary writing language is Russian, so please feel free to make me know where I screwed up. (:
Note that this is not a fan fiction, but it is related to the HP universe.

Reviews

[fwvalidus]

Very good short piece of writing. You are great with description, the fact that English is not your primary writing language is not obvious throughout most of your writing as you are able to employ very fitting word choice. I congratulate you on that. And I particularly liked "It will bruise later" and "she'll weep and sob, she'll crawl to the furthest wall." with a *host* of admirers (this one is very picky, all I am trying to communicate is that you could use a better word than "bunch")

Also I don't quite understand the last line.. I'm missing something that I am assuming I should be understanding.

One last suggestion... " lip broken, bleeding, and goes away, never once looking back."
The "goes away" doesn't flow right in my opinion. I would suggest "and turns away", but ultimately this is your choice! Hope this helps out a bit. I invite you to check out some of my writing.

[Blu]

Thank you for your time spent on this story!

I did not like the 'host' because it sounds stiff, rigid. What I am trying to say, is, that she is a young girl in school, not a lady in an abbey in XVIII century. So, her admirers are a bunch of teenage boys, just regular silly creatures they are. It's like a small bridge: they are a bunch, a bunch of troublemakers.
'Turns away' didn't really fit in, as this is a short piece that uses small phrases with concealed meanings, and I wanted to let the reader know She left. A strict exit out of the situation, the one that has epic, sad music in the background.
The last line literally means 'They think this fall is going to be their last, strictly forcing themselves to get rid of the obviously unhealthy relationship in the spring, when they leave the school for summer, yet upon meeting each other in the fall again, the couple cannot resist the mutual... attraction, and, like drug addicts telling themselves 'the last hit before I get clean', have the scenery of the affair repeat itself over&over.'
I hope you understand it now, and I am happy that someone actually asked/suggested edits. (:

[fwvalidus]

I'm glad you appreciated my feedback and it's good to know that you put serious thought behind your choice of words, I understand your reasoning. Hopefully you will get a chance to look at some of my writing when you can, might be able to point some things out for me too :)

[Blu]

Sure, I will gladly do it, after I've translated the (likeness of) prequel to this one-shot.

[Regina K. Pride]

I love your description of the scene and of the girl. You began so strong with the first line and ended strong as well. I never would've noticed English wasn't your first language had you not said it. I don't really know anything about the HP universe, so I would kind of like to know more about the two characters you wrote about and why their story is so important and what this scene means between the two of them. Good job! :)

[Blu]

Hello, and thank you for your review! :3
Those two characters were planned to be Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, and in the books they aren't pretty far from being enemies, with Draco being the typical Slytherin - proud, owner of things, very egoistic, even vile at some point. Hermione is proud, too, but in a different way - her pride is more like admitting her own talents, knowledge and so. If Malfoy tends to hide his emotions behind sneers and putting oneself in first order, then Granger is open, and tends to get too emotional at times, although she still would not admit humiliation in some points.

And then I realized that while it seems to be kinda like them, it is not.

So instead I just made up some wobbly sketches of characters that I may write when the mood is right. I see them like this:
They are both introverted, not loners, but prefer to live out of the crowd. While he is typically quiet, calm and sufficient, has his own values and some parts of his personality carry the status traits of being pureblood, t. i. on top of the social ladder - for example, the same thoughts about owning things and people. People in particular.
She is bipolar. Usually quiet and by herself, but at times she loses it and begins to uncontrollably seek adventure, often getting butt-spanked afterwards. The girl is daring, her appearance lingers somewhere between the craving to attract and repulse.
Think something wild... I think of blue hair, piercings, but a classy, non-tacky, style; think Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood mixed with Moschino and Viktor&Rolf.
And that how it is with their relationship. Really, it is that simple: He want's her, but doesn't want to admit it, she wants to have fun, but not him. She wants power over the other, but so does He.

I hope my rambling made sense. I wrote this piece five years ago, when I was eleven or twelve, and I was a completely different person at time. I tried to closely resemble and share the ideas I had about them at the long-gone time, but I may not be able to recall them completely authentic.

Melancholy made me dig this up and translate it, and there is another one-shot coming soon.

Anyways, thank you for spending time on reading this story. (:

[Regina K. Pride]

You're welcome! Yeah, that certainly cleared things up and I can see the characters quite clearly now.