Relax, Try a Bonsai Garden

[beautysleep4.livejournal.com]

~Beauty had almost time to reflect on how gallant a knight Hal was in tending to her before the next wave of horrid stabbing pains had taken them both. She had taken the next opportunity to suggest that they leave while they still could.

Now they sit in a dark recess of the outermost building in the city. She is completely exhausted from the now relentless pain, knowing he must be the same and she has never missed the comforting touch of her mother so clearly as now. She turns to Hal and opening her mouth to speak gives instead a piercing scream which reverberates off of each bull and building. The cause of the scream is evident as small green shoots erupt from her midsection, chest and even her open throat. The scream is replaced by choking and gagging as with a desperation that none have been witness to before she grabs hold of the quickly growing stalk and tears it from her throat. The screaming is back, along with a spattering of blood. She looks to Hal, knowing what she will see but hoping with that small glimmer of optimism she still clings to that he may somehow have escaped the worst of the punishment.~