|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:13 am
solo
DREAMS It burns. It starts in her veins and it runs through her body, her spirit, her soul until it comes to rest in the hollow of her chest. And it unfurls there, a ragged, hungry fire that leaves nothing but ash in its wake. Deeper. The fire sinks deeper. Deeper than flesh, deeper than bone, deeper than her soul. Deeper and deeper until there is nothing left. Nothing but ash and the memory of fire.
This is a dream, a dream. Only a dream. She reminds herself. This is a dream. A dream. Only a dream.
She opens her eyes. The room has four white walls. Overhead a sharp light shines. The only thing in the room is a chair. The only thing in the chair is herself. Aithne twitches, tries to bring her hand to her face but finds that she cannot move. Her vision swims. Her head is foggy. A blink. Two blinks. The room is glaringly white. Again, she tries to shift. Her hand does not move, but a rope chafes at her wrist and a dull jolt of pain jumps up her arm.
Ah. The pain brings a moment of lucidity. Now, the light seems to have an edge, sharp enough to pierce. She closes her eyes. Breathe. Slowly, calmly. Focus on a single point. Focus. Breathe. Calm down. Think. She feels her heart slow, feels the fog begin to pull away when –
She screams. It is a ragged feral thing, her scream.
The pain is barbaric. With one blow, the fog in her mind has cleared, but now it is conquered with a storm of pain. Nothing but fire. No, not even fire can explain this pain. She feels it as if someone is ripping at her soul. Vaguely, through the pain, she is aware of the black thing nestled between her collarbone.
Leather soaked with so much blood it seems black. Or perhaps it was black to begin with. She is not sure. But if it is a glove, surely it is a glove, then this glove is on a hand. It withdraws. She screams again, is vaguely embarrassed that she can let loose such a raw ugly noise, when he pulls out. The pain seems to drag on for an eternity. Even when the man withdraws his hand, the pain still burns.
The gloved hand holds out a shining thing. Even in the room of white, it glows. Everything seems to fade then. She isn’t aware of the pain, the ragged hole in her chest, the chafing ropes, the fog.
“Do you know what this is?”
She coughs. Acrid blood sprays across the white floor.
The man laughs; it is a cruel cruel sound.
She tries to draw her mind back. Focus. Focus on the target. You must not let you mind quiver.
“This, is your starseed.” His voice is misleading. All honey and warmth and smoke, but she cannot forget the cruel sting of his laughter. “How beautiful.”
And he closes his fingers around it, makes a fist as if to crush it. Cold, wet, leather on her chin, the men is tilting her face upwards towards the light.
He mouths, almost lovingly, into the shell of her ear, “how tragic.”
It is over then. An explosion of fire and steel and ice and other things she cannot fathom, cannot explain. As if her soul is shattered. The girl’s body sags. Her wrists pull against the ropes. But she no longer feels any pain. It is over, and now, she descends into the house of dust and darkness.
She sits up. This is a dream. But she still feels the fire running through her veins. She still feels the sharp piercing feeling in her neck, an unidentified phantom pain that still haunts her. This is just a dream, she tries to convince herself. She lies back down. The taste of iron does not leave her mouth.
Just a dream. Nothing but a dream.
____wordcount 661
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:00 am
solo
CAN'T RUN AWAY FOREVER She had stuffed it into a drawer, one that she never touched, never went near. Had hoped that if it disappeared form her sight then it could disappear from her memory too. If she didn’t see it for long enough, then it would disappear, cease to exist, she could return to her normal life. Return to the status quo without any of the frills, skirts and magic that the pen seemed to symbolize. Then she could turn a blind eye to the events that were happening. The explosions, the disappearances, the injuries. They were no longer isolated incidents of “bad luck”. She’d realized that everything was tied to this secret battle and this somewhat simple pen. And when Aithne had realized that, she wanted no part, had wanted to make the thing disappear. So she stuffed it in a drawer and let it rot, hopefully, for eternity.
It had worked. For the most part. A month rolled by and the henshin pen lay in the drawer gathering dust. Another week. If Marlo, the one person she had turned to in her time of need, had guessed at what she was doing, he said nothing. That had been a month and a half ago and since then she had not brought up the topic of senshi and negaverse with him. But even as the days rolled past, there was still a part of her that remembered the pen, had she been shirking her duty? She shook her head and banished those thoughts.
It had been night, she had spent the day late in the library engrossed in a book of mythology. Aithne found that she’d been a lot more forgiving and indulgent since that day when she stopped being just Aithne and became something more. If it goes away, she thought as she closed the cover, I will spend an entire week in the library. As she left, the first thing she noticed was that the wind had died down. The second was the shape a person upon the ground. She walked closer.
The thing about causalities is that you are always afraid you will recognize one of them. She knew the girl. Someone in one of her classes, but beyond that, they were strangers. But she was alone, and the nights were cold. Aithne knelt down and pressed two fingers to the girl’s neck. A pulse, a small soft, weak beat but still, a pulse. She was alive. Aithne reached into her bag, searching for her cell-phone. But then, a chill ran down her spine. There was a rustling of leaves. The wind picked up. With a sudden certainty, she knew that this was no accident. It was no coincidence. Had she come out of the library earlier, had she lingered on campus out in the open, it could have been her lying on the cold cement. By the time the ambulance came, after she had given a quick summary to the paramedics, she had sped home.
The pen was where she left it. As Aithne reached to grab it, she realized that this was the point of no return. If she left it there in the drawer, it would gather dust and perhaps disappear before long. If she picked it up, she would have to stop running, would have to embrace the other side of this world and everything that came with it.
She took a deep breath and her hands closed around the henshin pen.
____wordcount 571
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:48 am
solo
ALONE He’d left abruptly. He’d taken the coward’s way out, hadn’t even told her to her face that he was leaving. Aithne was well aware of the perimeters of their relationship, even if she wasn’t willing to readily spill just how far she was willing to go for her friend. She’d assumed that, among other things, there was a certain amount of trust involved. She’d trusted him. Laid out her weaknesses in front of him, had been willing to fight by his side, would have been willing to die for him. And he’d betrayed her in the worst way possible: he left her alone. There was no apology, no explanation only a simple message left on her answering machine.
I’m going to New York.
She’d trusted him, but apparently Marlo didn’t trust her enough. That was the only logical explanation she could surmise and Marlo was a man who ran on logic, he didn’t act on whims or notions. Or at least, she thought he didn’t.
Anger surged through her. When Aithne had woken up from a bad dream, when Aithne had ran into a talking cat, when Aithne had been left to face her fate, when Aithne was wavering it was Marlo (or perhaps Pollux? Were they really separate entities?) who had coaxed her into this war. And when Aithne stopped running, Crux awoke. And Crux awoke into an unfamiliar world. Pollux was there. He’d taught her everything, the Negaverse, Youma, the Senshi and their courts. He had unveiled the twisted world that existed in Destiny City that she had never recognized before.
He’d stared her straight in the eye and told her to stop running, to fight. And she’d listened. She believed. And she trusted. He’d brought her into this world, this war, and then he left her. Crux had trusted Pollux. Aithne had trusted Marlo. She’d been betrayed on both fronts.
Damn you Pollux. She thought. Damn you Marlo. Damn you to hell and back.
There was exactly one person who she knew and trusted with her secrets. From the beginning, they both knew the other’s identity. Marlo had said it was dangerous, something that could get people killed. What had she said? She’d looked him in the eye and said simple, “I trust you.” It had been true. There was exactly one person who she trusted and relied on. But where had that trust led her?
Aithne sunk into the couch. The room was unlit. She draped her arm over her eyes and admitted defeat. She’d been stupid, perhaps, to trust him to such an extent. That Aithne and Crux had both relied on one person so strongly, had opened an almost devastating weakness was embarrassing. She knew better. She should have. To trust was to rely on. To rely on someone was weakness. Aithne could not afford to be weak. Crux could not afford to be weak. Pollux was gone now. She could not afford to make the same mistake again, could not allow herself to grow weak. If that meant she would have no one to trust then so be it.
After all, look where her trust had left her. She was alone. Completely and utterly alone.
____wordcount 532
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:58 am
solo
BATHS The water was running. She’d left the tap on while she looked around for bath salts, a soap bar and a first aid kit. It had been a while since Aithne had taken a bath. But she couldn’t think of anything else she wanted more right now. God, she ached. She found the salts she was looking for in her storage closet. Grapefruit. Aithne was fond of citrus scents but she rarely used lemon. The smell was too...strong? It was hard to explain, but she didn’t like lemon. Grapefruit and blood-orange, on the other hand, she favored.
She measured half a cup of bath salts and poured them into the steaming tub. The water quickly turned a mellow pink and the smell of grapefruit filled the room. Aithne quickly removed her clothes and settled into the bath. Sliding into the hot water was the most comfortable thing she’d done in a while. The girl let out a contented sigh. Enveloped in the water, she let go of all her worries. Aithne didn’t think about Howlite, didn’t think about senshi or negaverse, didn’t think about Carnelian or Polaris. It was almost as if she’d forgotten the changes in her life from the previous month and a half. She let the tension ooze out of her shoulders and settled into the bath. Aithne hadn’t realized how busy she’d made herself recently. All those “walks” in the night and subsequent battles and encounters, they were taxing. Maybe in the future, she’d spend less time wandering around aimlessly and just come home to soak in the bath tub. After forty-five minutes, she was contented.
Rising, she wrapped a soft white towel around herself and sat on the ground. With a reserved gentleness she reached out and felt her wounds. Though Howlite and her had parted on friendly terms, Crux had taken quite a beating. She had bruises everywhere, most notably where Howl’s kicks had connected. Damn those steel-tipped boots. Damn them to hell and back. On her thigh, a glorious black-blue bruise was blooming. There wasn’t much to do really. She could apply ice, but it would still ache in the morning. Everything would ache in the morning. That was inevitable. Crux was not yet strong enough to face down Negaverse agents.
Or even Senshi really. Wiping the condensation off her mirror, she stared at her reflected face. Did Crux have to fight the Negaverse? Was being a senshi an automatic draft into this war? She didn’t know. Aithne was lost without Marlo. Without Pollux, she wasn’t sure what to think anymore. She knew that she didn’t ask for this power, that she had never truly wanted it. It was more a burden than anything else. And now she knew that not all Negaverse agents were heartless fiends bent on chaos. Howlite had been reasonable enough. But where did that leave her? What part did Crux have in this world and for that matter, what part did Aithne have? She still wasn’t sure.
____wordcount 499
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:48 pm
solo
SOMETHING FAMILIAR She felt the cold of the day biting against her exposed fingers. The cold wind pulled at the strands of her hair that she could not tie up. Her cheeks and ears were already flushed red with cold. It was still winter. It was still winter, yet Aithne found herself at the archery range, target in front and carbon bow in hand.
She recalls, distantly, a dream world that seemed to be so familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. The white marble columns, the open window, the arches and bridges. Bare feet sliding across the cool mosaic floor. She remembered the trickle of water that filled the city, the sound of water rushing over the edge. In this memory, or perhaps it was a dream, she felt so out of place. In this large city, for some reason, she felt like a prisoner. She remembers the yew bow, a beautiful thing, burnished with care. She remembers the way she held it in her hand, as if she had always held it, as if this bow had belonged to her. She draws a fletched arrow from the quiver on the ground and aims. It is this moment that makes Aithne believe that perhaps this is not a dream, but a memory instead.
There are things in our lives that are familiar, things that you can always imagine even in the depths of your dreams. The bowstring is one such thing for her. The weight of the bow, the slight turn of the spine needed to send the arrow flying straight and true. Even in her dreams, the most foreign ones with bridges and arches, with stone and cold, rigid responsibility, she could find some measure of normalcy in the bow.
Sometimes, when she was scared, unsure, of what to do, she would come down and shoot. She’d imagine the target as the enemy, and she’d shoot them full of holes and. And sometimes she pretends the targets aren’t enemies, but people. She makes them Carnelian, infuriating person that he is. She makes them Camelot, and her cheeks burn with shame. She makes them Pollux, and she wonders if he understands just how he left her. But today, she shoots only because she wants to, and the target is only a target and not a person.
Aithne breathed out. She drew an arrow from her quiver and notched it. She closed her eyes and took a breath. There is a faint flicker of distant memory, of pillars and cold stone, of cloth and robes and water. She let go of her breath, opened her eyes, and let the arrow go.
It flew, hit dead center. But then, she had never expected anything less of herself.
____wordcount 455
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
