Indigo: Abraham, Emotion Vol. 1: Emotion, Chapter Five: A Faerie Tale Finish

Chapter Five: A Faerie Tale Finish

            Alex woke in pain.  Her right arm burned, the raw, pink flesh exposed to the air around her.  Sand and dirt had gathered on the flesh, feeling gritty and hard against the ripe skin.  It hurt to move, to breath, and even thoughts were a struggle.  When she opened her eyes pain spread through her, and she curled up, letting it dance down her spine and spread into her limbs and digits.

            She swallowed and found her throat dry.  Her mouth tasted of metal, and she rolled something thick and wet across her tongue, forcing it with effort through her dry lips.  Blood trickled down her cheek and gathered with what was already crusted and dry beneath her head.

            Another swallow, and she forced herself over onto her front.  The world spun, and she fought a renewed wave of nausea.  The battle was short lived and ended in failure as she vomited, first into the dirt and then onto herself.  Slowly, she crawled through the fresh vomit to a nearby wall, where she managed to push herself up.

            The stones were cold against her skin and helped to ease the pain.  She lied back and opened her eyes again, holding them open against the dry, hot air.  The wall gave her a shadow to hide in.  Wherever she was, she was somewhere else entirely.  The air was dry still, but not so dry as it was before, and the colors different, more vibrant.  She couldn’t focus on it, though.  Everything blurred and blacked, and her last thought resting against that wall was of Shana, lost in the woods, looking for home.

: EMOTION :

            Samantha led Shana by the hand.  They walked beside the stream, following it deeper into the jungle.  The sun stayed high, blades of light forcing through the canopy and lighting the forest floor just enough to see by.  The air was moist and thick, and the deeper they went, the hotter it became.

            Shana was different now.  She could feel the life around her, breathing with her as the world did. It was an infinite ocean of lights.  It was and endless song, expertly sung.  More than all of that, it was everywhere, and she could see each of the individual lives separate of it.  She could find them in the haze.  She could find Alex.

            As they walked Samantha slowed.  She no longer needed to guide Shana, as Shana knew exactly where she was and where she was going.  This change brought a change in Samantha, too.  When Shana first heard her Voice and materialized in her hand Samantha was so proud she could hardly stop talking about it, but the longer they walked, the worse her mood became. She carried storm clouds with her wherever they went, and Shana could feel those, too.

            They came to rest beside the stream.  Samantha soaked her feet, and Shana joined her.  She nudged the other woman, staring at where her hair fell and exposed soft, ivory flesh.  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

            Samantha looked at her, allowed a brief smile, and then sighed heavily.  “Nothing.  Nothing at all is wrong.  If something were wrong, I would look sad, but I don’t.  I’m smiling, see?”

            “Maybe, but you weren’t smiling earlier.”

            “And I am now.”  Samantha kissed Shana on the nose.  “I don’t want to worry you, my love.”

            “Then tell me what’s wrong,” Shana said, and she leaned forward and caught Samantha in a kiss.  Their tongues met and, for a moment, the world stopped for them.  It always did when they kissed, and that is how Shana knew it was real.  They parted, and the stream burbled again.  Birds sang just for them, and Shana took Samantha’s hand and kissed her fingers, each of them, individually.  “Come on.  You’re already making me worry, so just tell me.”

            “Well,” Samantha chewed her cherry red lips, and Shana stared.  She wanted to kiss her again, but she saw the sadness in the other woman’s eyes and knew there would be time for that later.  “I am being spoiled, I suppose, but I am afraid, even jealous, of that woman, Alexandra.”

            Shana paused, lips on Samantha’s knuckles, and then burst into laughter.  “Why would you be jealous?  Do you think that—No, no, nothing like that.  Alex and I are friends.  That’s it.  I promise.”

            Samantha held her gaze, but she didn’t smile.  She didn’t say anything, she just stood and started walking, arms crossed and holding her hair to her body.  It accentuated her curves, and here or there glimpses of bare breasts showed.  Shana trailed after.

            “What did I do now?”

            “Nothing.”

            Shana caught Samantha and turned her, and she held her in place by the shoulders.  “Please.”

            Samantha shook her head and stood, staring firmly, silently, into Shana’s eyes.

            Shana did her best pout.  “Pretty please?”

            A few more seconds of silence, and then a sigh, and Samantha teased her hair.  Every movement showed another part of her, and she wore it all so bravely and so well.  Shana saw where the scars were formed on Samantha’s wrists.  “Fine,” she says, turning sideways and staring into the stream, where the water glistens in the sunlight.  “You’re just so happy when you think about her. Too happy.  It makes me worry that you love her more than me.  And I trust you when you say you don’t love her romantically, but the thought that you might love her at all is still hurtful.”

            Shana leaned in, hugged Samantha from the side.  She wanted to say something, the right thing, the thing that would comfort her, but she didn’t have the words for it.  Any assurance would be a lie, and Shana couldn’t bring herself to lie to Samantha.

            Samantha turned in Shana’s grasp and lifted her hands to cup Shana’s face, pale fingers on pink cheeks, and she pulled her forward until their noses touched.  They could taste each other’s breaths.  Samantha licked her cherry red lips.  “But that isn’t true, is it?  You love me above all else, don’t you?”

            Shana stared into Samantha’s eyes, got lost in them.  They were blue, but a darker shade of blue than Shana had ever seen, bluer than the ocean’s depths, and whenever the light caught them, they changed, like Shana was changing.  Alex was important, but the more Shana thought about it, the less she knew how important.  In that moment, at the very least, Samantha was the brightest star.

            “Right,” Samantha said, voice urgent and husky.

            “Right,” Shana said, and they kissed, and Alex faded a little more.  They part, and Shana smiled and laughed to herself for being so silly.  “Right, of course.  You’re the most important person in my life.”  Another kiss.  “I love you, Samantha.”

            Samantha smiled now, large, red, and silky, and Shana felt weak in her grasp.  Another kiss, this one deeper and longer, and Samantha followed it by kissing along Shana’s face, along her eyes, along her nose, along her chin.  She whispered to her, “And since you love me so much, you would never want to make me suffer.  You would never want me to be sad or angry or jealous, would you?”

            Shana nodded.

            “Then kill her.  Kill Alexandra for me.”

            Shana swallowed.  She could feel Samantha’s smile in the breath against her ear, just like she could feel the warmth of her own cheeks, the beat of her own heart, and the breaths of her own lungs.  They weren’t so much separate anymore as one single entity joined at the hands and, sometimes, at the lips.  That was why Shana’s first instinct was to agree, but her heart did not remain silent.  It spoke out, and she managed to twist out of Samantha’s grip, but the sight of her beautiful lover stilled her defiant heart.

            She stammered before speaking.  “No.  No, I couldn’t do that.  I—Why would you even ask me to do such a thing?”

            Samantha met her again, held her tight and kissed her one more time.  The world went dark, and only they existed in that moment, perfect and private.  Shana held Samantha now, held her small hands, her slender, pale fingers.  They parted, and Samantha looked now at the ground.  Shana traced one hand along Samantha’s palm before she felt the scar tissue on her wrists again.

            “You would rather see me sad, then?”

            “No.  No, of course not.  I just...I can’t kill, Alex.”

            “And why not?  Because you love her?”

            Shana breathed through her tears, tears that came to her in an instant.  She shook her head, and she held Samantha tighter.  “Of course I love her!”

            “But are you in love with her?”

            “No!”

            “And you are in love with me?”

            Another breath and this time hesitation.  Shana looked away, stared at the stream.  She needed to think, to focus, to escape Samantha’s hypnotic, ocean-deep eyes, but now she could smell the other woman, and the powerful, musky, feminine scent fogged her head further.  She couldn’t bring herself to speak, so she just held Samantha tight and hoped that was enough.

            “Shana.  Are you in love with me?”

            “Yes,” Shana whispered back, and she knocked the tears from her eyes as she blinked.

            Samantha took her chin and brought her back, and she stared into her eyes.  “But you will choose her over me?”

            “No.  Of course not.”  Shana groaned, and she fell into Samantha, sobbing into her shoulders.  She kept repeating it, “Of course not,” over and over.

            Samantha shushed her and soothed her.  She petted Shana’s hair gently until she eased the other woman’s tears, and then she kissed them away.  Smoothing away Shana’s long hair and exposing one ear, Samantha whispered to her, and she smiled.  “Then I will ask you only one more time.  Kill Alexandra.  Kill her and, once she is gone, we can finally have our happily ever after.”

: EMOTION :

            The vomit and blood had dried her shirt against her body, and it flaked off as she moved.  Her chin felt sticky while the rest of her was cold and sore, but it no longer hurt to breathe so much, and the pain in her arm and turned to numbness.  When she tried to stand her legs held her, and that was enough for her, so she braced against the wall and stumbled forward, in the direction she thought Shana might be.

            She was in a forest in the morning.  The air was warm because of the sunlight.  Smoky grey stones were scattered around her, and she moved tactically between them, not trusting her legs alone.  They were cold to the touch and, here or there, she felt runes etched into them but didn’t have enough interest to look.

            Her joints ached as she moved, and she wondered how long she had slept.  Shana was moving toward her, drawn by some magnetic force between them that Alex has always known was there but was never brave enough to admit.  Sometimes, she imagined they were bound together by an invisible string, red when she imagined it, knotted at birth.

            These thoughts made her smile and helped her move faster.  Sometimes, she moved so fast that she worried her feet wouldn’t keep up.  The ruins held her, though, until she could hold herself, and by that point she could breathe again without coughing.  By that point, she was strong enough to stop nursing her wounds, and that is when she started to run, because Shana was close, and she refused to arrive late.

: EMOTION :

            They met on a deserted highway at noon.  The sun was high and warm, a blazing golden eye glaring down at them with the fury of the gods.  Heat distorted the dark, cracked asphalt.  A street sign stood between them on the right, its face bleached off and steel creaking in the wind.  Alex shuffled forward on unsteady legs and came to a stop when she saw her.  Shana had been waiting for some time.

            It wasn’t how either had imagined.  Shana wasn’t alone.  She stood with a woman wrapped only in the dark curls of her own hair, and she looked different.  Alex couldn’t describe what it was exactly, but Shana shined like a star whenever Alex closed her eyes.  She shined brighter even than the sun above them.  She was stronger now, brilliant, and deep-down Alex could feel the change, too.

            Black clouds gathered in the distance and the air was hot and tense.  A breeze teased their hair and stirred dust devils across the shifting orange landscape.  It still hurt to breathe, but Alex was managing. She didn’t know how much time had passed since her fight with Goliath and was even less certain of when she had fought Carolyne before him.  This was the first moment of relief she had since, though.  In the back of her mind she waited for the shoe to drop.

            They made eye contact and smiled, but Shana’s smile was off.  She looked sad, even mournful.  The woman beside her smiled, too, but hers was more earnest.  She stepped in close to Shana and whispered into her ear.  “You know what you must do for me, my love.  So, do it.  Prove to me your undying devotion.”

            Shana’s lips quivered.  She wiped the tears from her eyes and traded a look between the two women, the two loves of her life.  Then, she held out her right hand, fingers parted and stretched.  The light around her distorted as her Voice appeared.  She caught it and pulled it in, gripping the haft with both hands and holding it to her chest, and she stared at Alex.  “I’m sorry.”

            “Sorry?  Shana, sorry for what?”

            Shana charged and leaped.  She brought her hammer up over head and then down on Alex, but the blow didn’t land.  Alex sidestepped and rolled to the side, coming to a stop on one knee a few feet away.  Already, she was winded.  The burning in her lungs was starting anew.  That was how the battle started.

            This was not the meeting Alex had imagined, nor was it the woman she knew.  There were no hugs, no God blesses, only violence and sorrow. Shana’s blow had shattered the pavement, the hammer’s head being denser than it looked.  Alex called Three Gods out of instinct before she spoke.

            “Shana, what are you doing?”

            The question was left unanswered.  Shana turned and brought the hammer with her.  Alex caught it across the blade and while the blow didn’t hurt, it was enough to knock her sideways.  Her legs were shaking again, especially as she tried to hold her ground against another blow.

            Another swing, and this time Alex was staggered back.  Another after that, but Alex was able to duck under and put distance between them.  Shana followed steadily, making each movement slow and deliberate.  She couldn’t hold back, not in front of Samantha, but she still didn’t want to hurt her best friend, let alone kill her.  In the back of her head she kept telling herself to stop, to tell Samantha off and take Alex home, but by that point her body was moving of its own accord.  It was all she could do to slow herself down.

            Alex lost her footing and fell to her knee.  She looked up to find Shana’s hammer head falling.  That was it, the killing blow.  It would leave Alex’s grey matter spread across the asphalt, and then she would be little more than a bloody memory that seeped into the cracks.  Alex lifted her bracer just in time to catch the blow and angled her blade in a way that sent the hammer sliding off in a shower of sparks.

            Shana screamed and spun around, bringing her hammer in low this time.  Alex caught it again, but the angle threw her.  She sailed backward and managed to slide to a stop on her feet.  She stabbed Three Gods into the earth to come to an gain her footing.  Shana followed with tears in her eyes.

            “Fight, damn it!  Fight me! Fight back!”  Shana bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and struggled to swallow her sobs.  She made another swing, which Alex managed to avoid.  The one after that made contact but not well.

            Alex felt something in Shana with each swing.  Despite her screams, despite the violence, Alex could feel in her something familiar.  Deep down, it was the woman she always knew, she just shined brighter than before.  This anger and hate wasn’t natural to her, though.  It was forced on her, and it was that foreign force that moved her.  Deep down, she didn’t want to fight any more than Alex did, she just couldn’t stop herself.  Luckily, Alex knew just how to save her.

            Another blow knocked her back, and then Alex came to a stop.  She lowered her arms and willed her Voice away, and she kneeled down in front of Shana, head forward, hair draped over her eyes.  She could hear Shana’s approach, feeling the light of her charging the air.  The hammer was overhead, shining just as bright as Shana, and then she screamed.

            “I’m sorry...”

            The asphalt beside Alex was fractured and the hammer lost inside of it.  Shana shook above her and began sobbing.  Then she fell forward, into Alex’s waiting arms, while her Voice dissolved into the air beside them.  Alex held her and hugged her, and she soothed her as she cried.

            “I’m sorry, Alex.  I’m so, so sorry.”

            The air, heavy as it was, began to settle.  Thunder growled in the distance as the storm stirred.  A cool wind was coming in, and Alex held Shana tighter and was held in return.  She rubbed her back and wiped away her tears, and she kept whispering to her that it was fine, that it was okay, and that she was alive.

            They stayed like this, together, and cried like children into each other’s shoulders.  Alex didn’t understand, and she didn’t need to.  She had done something important that day and actually succeeded in saving someone she loved, and that was enough. 

            Distracted as they were, neither of them were even aware of Samantha’s timely disappearance.

: EMOTION :

            When it became clear that the spell was broken Samantha ran. She ran and ran until her feet bled and her lungs ached, and then she kept running until the landscape shifted from one to another.  It should have been impossible to lose the battle that way.  She owned Shana’s heart.  At least, she should have owned it.

            She came to a stop and bent forward on her knees.  The highway was gone, left behind her somewhere else, in some other time, and she found herself on a rocky overhang that looked out on an empty lakebed.  Fog and clouds obscured the sunlight and cast rainbows across the valley.  The air was cold, wet, and reeked of death.

            Boots clicked on the stones behind her, and she turned to find a tall, dark-skinned man with high-cheeks and ivory hair.  He was well-built, muscular in the torso and broad around the shoulders, and he wore a twisted sneer.  It looked like a knife-wound across his face.

            Samantha backed away from him, to the very edge of the rocks.  “Crest.”

            “Samantha.”  His voice was rough and his eyes the color of amber.  He moved slowly toward her, his long hair fanning around him like a cape caught on the wind.

            She gave a smile.  “May I help you?”  Her voice was shaky and broken, but she hoped he didn’t notice.  Judging from the hunger in his eyes, however, he had.

            “Well, dear, I’ve come to take care of a loose end.  You see, we have no room for cowards in...”

            “You don’t understand!  I’m not strong enough to...”

            “...our ranks.  And it is my job to cut away those ends, because if they are left unattended to fester, well, they make us all weaker for it.”

            “...fight them off.  I have nothing outside of my Soul Kiss.”

            “You could have tried something.”

            “And what do you expect me to try?  Kiss them both?”

            His sneer twisted further, leaving his face a ridged with shadows and hardly human.  “I expect you to fight.”

            “Fight and die?”

            He paused as if in consideration, and then he nodded.  “Now you only have the one option, don’t you?”

            She looked back into the fog behind her and realized she couldn’t see the lakebed below, and she considered jumping.  Then she looked forward and ran toward Crest instead.  He grabbed her by the neck as she came close and pulled her toward him.  His hands were strong and his fingers long.  He had her off her feet with little more than a grunt and held her above him, staring into her eyes as he squeezed the life from her.

            “And do you know what that option is, Samantha?”

            She coughed and reached for his face, clutching him tight and pulling him closer.  Her limbs felt numb.  Her toes were cold.  She stared him in the eyes, his hateful, angry eyes that were amber iris around black holes.  He looked so empty, like death.  She turned her gaze on his knife-cut mouth.

            “Ah-uh,” he said and held her away again, still suspended in the air.  The shadows around him swelled to life, swallowing the sunlight that touched them.  Soon, they were eclipsed by those shadows, but by that point Samantha’s vision was blurred and fading.  She wasn’t dead yet, though.  He gave her just enough air to keep her alive, awake, even if the world was dancing.

            The shadows circled the area below her, long tendrils stretching up like giant, ancient teeth.  He held her a moment longer as they licked at her feet, leaving slender cuts in her pale flesh.  They felt cold against her flesh.

            He released her, and the shadows caught her in their gentle, frosty embrace.  They parted her skin and seeped inside, gathering around her and pulling her in.  She gasped for air and began to scream while he watched her, the shadows rolling along her flesh and swallowing her to the shoulders.  They weren’t so cold anymore, not while they burrowed into her bones.

            She coughed.  The rush of oxygen had made her momentarily high.  The world continued to sway.  She tried to scream again but couldn’t.  There was something in her throat, wriggling and writhing through her, rending flesh as it went.  Then it crawled out of her mouth, whittling down her teeth and pulling her apart.

            Crest watched until she was gone and flexed his hand after.  The shadows compressed around her, and she hardly made a sound.  Then, they receded, leaving a broken bag of meat and bone.  He smiled and turned, and he left her there in the daylight, his shadows trailing, always at his heels.