Fears

Betony Rue Jasons had joined the Autumn Court. The season where things began to chill, be harvested, and die. The Court of Fear.
In this court we seek to understand fear. To see it in ourselves. To embrace, overcome it, to create more so we can protect against even worse horrors. That was what she had been told once upon a time.
Yet within her fear still ran rampant and nearly uncontrolled. Fear of the joy she might feel, of the sadness she could cause. She was so terribly lonely, she yearned for a closeness and love. But she knew to do that was to invite harm to them. She could imagine herself slicing open a lover’s gut and retching out the pulsing organs within. And the visions sickened her with a sweet ecstasy and vigor. Should it ever happen, she’d enjoy the pain. She would become the Hag and take them away for torture in Arcadia with glee and laughter. And that frightened her.
Was it worth the risk of intimacy if all you could offer was pain in the end? She sought her brother but with little hope and that allowed her to go on. If the search would never end then she could never harm him. But she could still feel the love for the lost child in her heart without the threat of pain.
Betony clawed at her scars, leaving red trailing nail marks. She needed to overcome this without loopholes. It would drive her mad otherwise. She just didn’t understand how to do it.