Bittersweet Heart (Ominis Gaunt x James Sharp)

Tale of Tommelise

He learned to be a ghost at the age when others ride their first toy broom. This house awakened his animalistic nature.

Inside was a stretched string.

He could hear echoes of what happened away. The muffled steps, the breath, the sleepless night.

He can walk unnoticed by anyone alive. It would be more convenient if he could walk through the walls.

Sensitive fingers slid along the railing, observing scratches on the inside.

"Disgraceful traitor. You don't belong here," the snake whispered to his right.

"You should be grateful. At my time you would've been dead by now", the whisper into the left ear.

He kept conquering the stairs.

"How dare you?"

"Filthy creature."

"Why did you come back?"

"It is a shame to be you", he heard his own voice from behind.

"You were never me", he responded to his own portrait.

The whispers fell silent behind the closed doors. At night was the only time when he felt more secure in the manor. In this space emotions became rudimental. If you want to save your mind.

He opened the closet. Parted the hangers. And hid in there, closing the doors. His head rested on the wall, his body shrunk as much as possible. The less of him, the better.

Something hard was under his feet. He reached it, fingers flattered by carved patterns. The wand tapped on the pages.

Rose-gold streams ran through the patterns, the book breathed. He placed it on the lap, pulling the first thing off the hanger and burrowing in it.

The sunny voice was murmuring a story:

"A long ago there lived the Witch in a house of gold, which no one could reach. She saw a lot though all her life: and rises, and falls, and warriors, and fools.

What she never had is a treasure, which will be valued more than light.

She was seeking these riches in beauty. She caught the Sun by her gold house. She bred the beasts with silky hair. She gathered all the flowers in the world and kept them in the garden.

But seemed it wasn't that.

One day she lay in the flower bed and heard a little noise. She followed it to the garden edge.

There she found a palm-sized flower she didn't remember planting. The little noise was calling her and shivered the petals.

She touched the flower and unwrapped it. She couldn't believe her eyes.

A little boy with the size of a thumb was sleeping in pollen. She took him home and made him a cradle from walnut shell and silk.

She called him Tommelise and gave the vow to care for him with great will. She brushed his hair and fed him with a spoon, she build him a pretty cage. The Witch thought she has the best in mind, but seemed it wasn't right.

He lost his shine, his skin went faint and his eyes were grey with throe.

One night, he crept outside the home to sleep in a flower bed, lulled by the wind and the songs of trees. The Moth then came and stole him from the home and from the sun.

It hid him deep in the cave, with darkness and no warmth. The Moth was blank, it had no dreams instead of bright soft light. It fed on Tomemelises' hopes and will.

He felt the end and then he thought of the Witch, where was his home. His mother might've been waiting and losing all her hope.

The silver tears flowed down his cheeks, he heard his golden voice. It carried messages from him to the bright blue sky outside.

The cave shone with brilliants and thousands of precious gems. The gentle Butterfly flew into the cave on a call of the song about his fate.

It picked up the boy and with all its might flew down the silver path. The song reached for the golden roof and Mothers' tired eyes.

She stretched out her hands up to the sky and felt the tinkling touch. The velvet-soft and tender wings revealed her greatest star.

— There'll never be the utmost gift that you are here with me. I lived an endless life and thought that I lost my core. But now I see: you are my heart that I should not betray.

He was beloved so much that he could only feed on the sun and felt no need."