Things You See in the Graveyard (Tag:Dahlia) FIN.

[dahlia]

Dahlia watched him stomp out the cigarette with a blank expression, but when she looked back up at him, he could see her complete dead-inside look. That look was about how close she could get to disgust. Slowly, she turned her face away, looking down at her fingers, which seemed to twitch on their own.

Her eyes opened a bit more as she watched the raven swoop down from overhead and perch. It was only then that her face was graced with a very small smile. She set aside her notepad and stood very slowly, the black fabric of her veil flitting around her like gauzy tendrils, the wind softly blowing through her black form. With the same smile, she seemed to glide away from the stone bench, one thin hand on the gate, slowly making her way over to the raven.

Hello, she thought, the voice in her head clear and beautiful... just like she had always wanted it to be. She wanted a voice... but she knew that it had been taken from her to serve as the voice of the dead, who had no tongues, who needed her.

But Dahlia had always wanted to sing...

Yes, she had left her notepad behind, and it was out of her mind. She didn't need it among the dead, and that man was not who she had come to see.

You're sitting on Riley Warner's grave. I wonder if you know... She stayed where she was, watching the raven, not wanting to scare it off.

[mephi]

It was hypnotizing, the way those clothes billowed around her skeletal form. He hadn't meant to stare, but it was all he could do when she walked with such grace and poise. It looked effortless for her, and the black garb she wore seemed to understand that, as it followed her every move without question. He blinked once or twice, to rid himself of the black vision of her hair. But the whole thing was like a dance, or a car crash. You just couldn't look away.

He had to turn his head, or else he'd go mad. What was wrong with him? It was like he was envious of her morbid gestures and movement. Why should he be? Why should he be envious of anything? It should be other people being envious of him, not the other way around.

His eyes fell on her discarded notebook. He picked it up in amusement, and flipped through the pages. They were mostly filled with scribbles and junk, and her writing down her words to talk to people. 'Damn, she must get some hell from carpal tunnel or something from all this writing.'

He stopped at a page lined with little drawings of graves and rain, surrounding a poem in free verse. The few lines he read were more than a little disturbing, but as he read on, he found a sort of sickening beauty to them, one he couldn't explain. They were made of magic. Silly, really, but that's what he felt when the words echoed on the page like the sound of a sheet of metal banging against concrete.

Who am I? Who's this voice of mine?
Nocturne, nocturne
Melodies churn through a sudden glance
Livid as slate
Nocturne, nocturne as dark as black paint

Suddenly, as he finished the poem, he found a drop of water staining the page, he looked up quickly to shield the sheet from the rain, but there was none falling. He touched his cheek and realized he'd been crying.

((Credit for the poem goes to mine and Izzi's friend Kenzie! Thanks hon! That's not the whole poem, though! XD))

[dahlia]

Dahlia smiled again at the raven, reaching out one frail-looking hand to it. Slowly, she came closer, until something shattered and the bird started, looked at her a moment, and then rushed off. Her eyes widened and her brain seemed to snap with words, clear and loud as drums in her head.

Who am I? Who's this voice of mine?
Nocturne, nocturne

Her figure spun and she caught him looking at her book. Most people, in that moment, would have rushed up and snatched the book from him, but all she did was watch him with a heavy, sad gaze.

Melodies churn through a sudden glance
Livid as slate
Nocturne, nocturne as dark as black paint

Dahlia edged around him, so that she didn't approach him directly, and took back her place on the bench. She didn't look at him, but held one hand out, palm facing up, for her notebook. Her eyes said nothing as they looked to the ground, but her air was expectant. But after a moment, when he didn't give it back, she gently took it from his limp hands. He didn't even resist at all, but she didn't bother asking why.

Dahlia picked up her pen and then wrote quietly a moment. When she was done, she folded up the paper and handed it to him.

If you knew all that I knew.

By the time he could read it, though, she'd already floated out of the small enclosure, and was lost among the dark fabric of the mourning and the cool silence of the headstones.

If you knew all that I knew,
My poor Jerusalem...
You see the truth,
but you live a lie.

While you live,
your troubles are many,
Poor Jerusalem.
To conquer death, you only have to die.
You only have to die.

((That last bit is just extra, she didn't write it XD I'm not sure what it is. Props to Jesus!))

[mephi]

The paper crinkled in his cold hands. He wanted to tell her to wait, don't go, stay with me in the cold next to these silent graves. But his voice caught in his throat, and he could only utter a small shudder as he wrapped his coat nearer to him. It was getting dark, and he needed to head home soon. Paperwork to file, servants to scold, brandy to drink.

Yet even when his mind was racing a mile a minute, there was only one image implanted firmly in his mind, and that was of Dahlia. It made him stop for a moment and examine how he'd behaved, and it was wholly unlike him to cry. It was also unlike him to not know what to say, as he'd always have some sort of quick retort or sly comment up his sleeve.

He looked at the paper finally, and read the words. "If you knew all that I knew" it said. What did that mean? Was she some sort of spy? No, that was ridiculous. She was just one of those morbid girls who people watched all the time, and thought they knew everything about the human race.

It frustrated him, as he balled up the paper and threw it to the ground in rage. He ran his fingers through his hair quickly and furitively, biting his lower lip with a scowl. He rubbed his cold cheeks and set his elbows on his knees, pulling out another cigarette. He sat there for a long moment, taking long, unecessary drags whilst staring at nothing. He didn't want to think at that point in time.

He sat there for awhile, and only decided to get up when he realized his cigarette had been burnt out. He stamped that one onto the ground with the other, and picked himself up off the bench. His bum was sore from the hard marble, and sitting for what felt like an eternity. He started to walk out of the small closed off section of the graveyard, but jumped when suddenly the raven from earlier appeared, squawking in his face, then settling itself on a very nearby branch.

He gazed at it for an undetermined amount of time. The eyes of the bird looked like her eyes, deep and as unfathomable as darkness itself. He felt they would eat his very soul alive if he stared long enough.

The raven tilted his head to the side, as if looking down to the ground. Damien followed its line of sight, his own dark eyes settling on the crumpled sheet of paper he had thrown to the dirt in haste.

He cursed himself for being so sentimental. But in the end, he picked up the discarded parchment, unfurling it to read its sprawled words. "If you knew..."

If he knew... Would he understand why she lays about in graveyards? Would he understand how he felt she knew all there was to know about him with only a single glance? Would he understand why he was frightened of those spindly hands and how they seemed to crawl over any surface they graced with touch?

Would he understand why his heart was beating so fast?