"Why are you so obsessed with me?"
She could ask (scream at you) you the exact same question but doesn't. And are you obsessed with Merula Snyde? Perhaps not in totality, completely, but for the most part, yes.
She stands in front of you, spine rigid, mouth set in a stubborn little line, eyes alive with the frightened tears of a lost child.
They're so enchanting, those eyes. Dark scarlet, swirling like the most unique whirlpool, darker than the shiniest well of liquid candy.
Oh she's ruined you, this girl. She's ruined you for everyone else.
"Don't look at me like that." she whispers. "Not with those eyes."
Your heart skips a beat, it resounds all over your body. Are you mirrors of each other?
"Eyes?"
"Like that, full of desire. Stop it. It's a lie, that-"
"But you have me, beloved." (She flinches at the nickname), you hold out your hand, grinning wickedly- effectively silencing her. You want to hold the hand inside of her. "All of me. I'm yours for as long as I am."
"Say something fucking real for once," she spits back at you gallantly, not very convincing with wet mascara running down her oh-so-smooth skin. "And that makes no fucking sense, that-"
Let her come, you think. Let her advance into the air you breathe- let her plunge her shiny black fingernails into your chest and stop it if she wants. Let her feel how your heart beats and twists and turns and needs and wants. Let her feel the warmth of your skin stretching on your upper ribs, the burn on your teeth where she hit you. Let her see how much you love her, breathe her, how much you own her by this very fact. Let her know love is not only violence.
She doesn't. She simply stands there, a ghost smelling of milk and blood, carrying thorns in her arms. Let her drop them, you think. Drop them, Merula. I love you.
"For once..," her voice trails off like you'd hoped (you are allowed to hope), voice tears and glass as she looks at the ground in defeat. Finally.
You waste no time in gliding up to her. It's difficult. They have raised her well, you realize bitterly as she barely flinches at your fingers on her delicate collarbone, or she has, anyway. How many years has she stared out of windows in that cold, dark nightmare she was forced to call home? You cup her wet face in the plush of your palms and stare into the scarlet wells of her eyes. Look at me, look at me. See the truth that fills my body like water. I love you, do you hear me?
You're so tired of the games she refuses to abandon like she was because that's the only way she knows to scourge affection. You're just so exhausted, you just want to be by her side and her on yours. Why must everything be so difficult? Why can't anything come easy with her? And why can't you bring yourself to care?
This is how you love her, trailing blue flames on her neck as she whimpers very softly and closes her eyes. This is how you love her, you think, kissing her forehead- with every cell that vibrates inside of you. This is how you will always love her, you think as you hold her flush against your stomach, no matter how much death or sorrow or fire comes your way.
Mine mine mine mine mine. This her and every other her that dare exist, cowering behind the Her you know, the lips and flesh and bones the gods took long to craft and even longer to perfect and the fire and poison under her breast you so desperately need to swallow. All of it, oblivion and apotheosis and earth-shattering affection and whispered tears on your left shoulder, tender as a butterfly.
No one, nothing else could ever come close to this, this heat that licks your side when your eyes meet, when she kisses you like she's stealing your breath, like she wants you dead (she is), when she hurts you so delicious you melt against her strong shoulders, when she loves you like she worships you but is terrified of you hurting her- when she reminds you of that which throbs inside, that you are definitely, absolutely human (and in love, in love, sings a naiad from far away).
"My girl." You whisper gruffly against her pierced earlobe and feel her tremble against you. "My pretty girl. My beautiful little girlfriend." You feel like god.
So are you obsessed with Merula Snyde? Not in totality perhaps, certainly, but...pretty damn close.