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 Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:31 pm
Face hidden in his mother's blouse, Nikolai wouldn't turn around to look at her. His whole body, even his wings, cringed when she called out his name; there was no looking at her now. All he wanted was his mother's comforting arms, to be told everything was all right-- he didn't need anyone else but Jade close to him. Only that felt right somehow despite the odds. Shaking with sobs, the boy tried his best to stop trembling when Jade's arms wrapped around him tightly, securely, comfortingly.
"My god, what happened?!" Jade called when she saw what had become of her son. Holding him close, she coddled the little Herald and looked to Guin as she appeared from the hall. "What did you do to him?! Why is he crying?!" The woman demanded, scowling at the little girl when she knew Nikolai wouldn't speak a word to her. "Answer me!" The sweet nature she had boiled away over the flames of a mother's anger. Something had happened no longer than five minutes after they had gone to look at pictures, and there was no knowing what had transpired without Guin to tell her.
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:47 pm
Guinevere paled as Jade demanded what had happened. She didnt know what happened. The little girl playing at witchcraft had run into something inexplicable, and the more she thought about it, the less sure she was about it. She had never displayed magical abilities before. She had never had visions, seen demons, or walked between worlds. Whatever had happened in that room had not been witchcraft.
But she was sure of one thing. It was all her fault. She opened her mouth and closed it. She didn't want to see Nikolai twitch like that again, even her voice seemed to send waves of disgust through his body. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, but she climbed onto the counter and found the ruined book and a pen. She scrawled out an explanation of what happened as fast as she could, the wordy mind she had thought she needed to be a witch coming to her aid. She paused when she came to the details of the vision though. She didn't want to betray Nikolai's secrets any more than she already had, so she merely wrote vaguely. The end result was the awful truth and she tore out the page, handing it to Jade.
'I was looking at his pictures and then I put them down, and something strange happened because the more I looked at them, the more distant I felt and the room started getting dark and all of a sudden things started swimming before my yes and the last thing I remember feeling was that I was afraid so I reached out for Nikolai's hand, but that only brought him with me, and I ended up watching a vision of Nikolai's past, but he saw it too, and I don't know why or how it happened, but I don't think he ever wanted to see it again, and then we woke up and he was looking at me strangely and he ran in here. It was my fault. I grabbed his hand and I didn't even think about it, I just didn't want to be alone.'
She couldn't look at Jade. She couldn't look at Nikolai. She just looked down at the island and wished she had something cold to hold on to. Something that would remind her of Aaron, anything, because she felt like she might burst into tears if she couldn't just feel something cool against her skin to remind her of the comforting long-absent guardian. She pressed the metal of the pen into her skin tightly, clamping on it like a vise. The tears came anyway, but she bit her lip and they were reduced to a stubborn trickle.
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 9:13 pm
Staring at the little girl's note, Jade took a moment to gather herself together and keep from shouting again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell...." She murmured after a very long breath was released. Looking down at Nikolai, the woman brushed his hair back gently. "Guin, tell me just what you saw, please? I don't know anything of Heralds no matter how much I've looked. Please..."
Nikolai clung tightly to Jade, his tears unabated. His head was whirling so quickly with emotions and unusual feelings of unease and despair he didn't know what was going on any more. He began to feel dizzy before slumped against Jade with a whine; slowly beginning to black out despite his best efforts to stay away from the darkness of his mind.
"Nikolai!" Feeling the weight of her son against her the woman carefully moved to pick up the nearly limp boy who refused to let go of her and held him tightly. "Guinevere, you wait right here. I want to talk to you as soon as I put him to bed." She'd always known Nikolai was of a fragile constitution, and by now she was used to looking after him. Carefully she carried him, watching out for his sagging wings, back into his bedroom to tuck him in bed.
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 4:11 am
Guinevere's eyes widened as Nikolai slumped, and she bit her lip to keep herself from calling out to him. She sat in her chair on the island as Jade left, clutching the pen tightly as she could as things fell apart. She didn't know what to say to Jade. She wanted to explain to her exactly what happened, but it was Nikolai's business. And she was afraid of making another mistake and hurting him even more than she already had.
She felt a sharp pain in her hand and loosened her grip on the pen reluctantly. On the other hand, Jade was Nikolai's guardian. If Aaron had wanted to know something that upset her, she would have wanted someone to tell her, especially if she hadn't been able to herself.
She didn't know what to do.
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:56 am
Falling into complete unconsciousness by the time he'd been dressed and put to bed Nikolai was left to uneasy dreams. His pale face had looked pained, and it took Jade to loosen his grasp on her blouse.
When Jade returned her face looked grim, though she did try her best not to look too upset at Guinevere. Walking to the little girl, the woman crouched so that she was looking up at the distressed Herald. "Guinevere? Will you tell me just what happened?" She asked in a quiet voice, grasping the little girl's hands if Guin would allow it. The mother was clearly worried, and her eyes held fear for her little boy. "Please... Nikolai won't speak, you know he won't. So you have to tell me what happened."
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 12:38 pm
When Jade said Nikolai wouldn't speak, a pained look flahes across her face. She knew it was true. But what if this hurt Nikolai?
But Jade loved him. She wouldn't ever do anything to harm Nikolai, no matter what, right? So Guinevere began, carefully, voice ragged. "It started with blackness," she said painfully, "And falling feathers, lots of them. And... Pain. And the being was about to die, and he was thinking as he fell... Thinking back to when he was whole, and there was this man." She paused. "He was telling him... Nikolai was telling him, out loud, that the man was going to... To die." She took a deep breath, biting her lip. "And-And he told the man, but th-the man d-didn't want to hear it." Her voice broke a little as she continued. "H-he said Nikolai's words were h-harmful. And he called Nikolai a monster." She looked up at Jade, blue eyes dull with sorrow. "Nikolai... I don't think Nikolai remembered this." she told Jade, quietly. "But h-he saw it all... W-when I grabbed his hand!" She buried her face in her hands, and her voice came out, muffled from within them. "It's m-my fault he s-saw it." she murmured. "I wasn't b-brave enough..." What kind of a witch was she? She was a coward, that's what she was.
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:48 pm
Jade's face drained of color when she heard just what Guin said, but she didn't try and force her away. This was a lot to take in, especially when she thought of what this might mean. Was Nikolai some sort of angel of death? Is that why he clung so tightly to her? It almost seemed ironic that all her life she'd known sorrow- people dying in accidents all around her- and her little fallen angel had brought about someone's death before he became her Herald.
Lifting a shaking hand, the woman gently brushed Guin's hair back and tried to give her a smile that didn't tremble as badly as her hand did. Tears wet her cheeks while a pained look never left her eyes even while trying to calm Guinevere down. "Shhh...." She murmured, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying harder. "Guinevere, this is not your fault." Her voice didn't sound as if was stable enough to coax a horse to water let alone calm the nerves of a small child. "You didn't know this would happen and Nikolai didn't either. L-let's just take a deep breath and... and we'll think of something."
If it really was Nikolai's past before he had taken in those falling stars there was no way of knowing what this would mean. Who was it that had been told they would die? Could it be the man she'd cared so much about before Nikolai came into her life? No, that thought was insane-- how could Nikolai do anything like that? Jade tried her best to put the thought from her mind, but somehow she just couldn't shake the feeling of dred entirely.
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:06 pm
Guinevere looked down, composing her thoughts. She wondered if she had any memories like that, buried deep inside her. "Heralds are messengers." she told Jade, slowly. "I suppose... Sometimes the message is hard to hear." She frowned. "But he hurt Nikolai." she said. "He hurt Nikolai and it wasn't even Nikolai's fault... And now Nikolai hardly ever talks and it's all because of that man." She clenched her fists. "And the man might be dead, and all he did was injure the thing that tried prevent his death! It's so pointless." she said sullenly. "It's pointless."
She looked up at Jade for the first time since she had seen the vision. The woman's face was pale and haggard and she was crying more than Guinevere was. Guinevere felt a lurch of guilt as she remembered how Jade had welcomed her so kindly into her home. Guinevere reached into her pocket and took out a clean white handkerchief, offering it to the guardian wordlessly. It was the only thing she could think to do. Finally, she said "What are we thinking of?" She couldn't see anything she could do. "He won't even look at me." she said forlornly. "I can't do anything."
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:18 pm
Taking the handkercheif, Jade cringed slightly as she dried her eyes before looking back up at Guinevere. "How... how did he hurt Nikolai? Just by what he said? Or... or did you see him get hurt?" Jade didn't know Heralds were more or less discarded once their message was delivered, however unwilling the person was to hear it. "We can keep him company now... it's-it's about all we can do for him. Nikolai's asleep now..."
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:32 pm
Guinevere looked down. "Well, he said that thing and he frightened Nikolai. And Heralds..." She didn't quite understand how Heralds worked, herself. How did a Herald die? Why did a sacrifice keep them alive? She grimaced. "Of course, you know how a Herald survives. I'm not sure how a Herald falls, but I don't think a Herald that wouldn't talk would be of much use to the person sending the messages." She had calmed down. Guinevere was not someone who clung to sorrow when something else needed to be done. She worked through it. It was one of the qualities that she had not thought witches had, but happened anyway through the series of unfortunate event that led up to the creation of a girl with what were essentially scissor blades ripping through her back. When your body is growing sharp, jagged wings, you soon become used to working through emotional and physical pain. She had created a problem in Nikolai and Jade's life. She would do anything to help fix it.
Guinevere nodded. "If it helps," she said wretchedly, "When my caretaker is upset, she makes tea." She wasn't sure if all grown ups did this or not. But Kotatsu always did it, and so maybe it was just one of those Things. Maybe it would be useful. Guinevere just wanted something, anything to keep her busy, keep her mind off of the awful turmoil that were her emotions. "I can tidy up, too, if you'd like."
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Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:43 pm
Managing to calm her tears enough to return Guin's hanky, the woman stood and sniffled slightly as she tried to clear her sinuses. "I-I'll warm up your hot chocolate for you, shall I?" She murmured quietly with yet another fake smile before turning to take Guin's neglected cocoa to the microwave. "Let's.... let's leave it be Guinevere.... I don't know what happened, but... I want Nikolai to tell me." Even if it was impossible, Jade hoped that eventually Nikolai would speak to her enough to have a conversation with her. The boy's silence made some sense now; it was just part of his old life carrying over into this. "He's very stressed right now.... His health has never been very good. Maybe when he wakes up he'll want company?" The microwave beeped and Jade removed Guin's cocoa and went to return it to the little girl. "Here you go sweetie..."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 5:12 pm
Guinevere nodded, with a feeling that somehow the last thing Nikolai would ever want again was her company. "Thank you." she said, sipping the chocolate slowly. She looked down, unsure of what to say. She didn't want to leave. She was worried about Nikolai. But she wasn't sure what to do. Jade didn't want to talk about it and neither did she, but she felt that saying anything else would be inappropriate. "Thank you." she said again. She felt tears climbing back into her eyes, so she made a pretense at yawning and rubbing them to wipe them away.
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Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 9:19 am
Nodding, Jade watched Guin drink her cocoa a moment before reaching towards her wall phone. "Guinevere, would you like me to call your guardian to pick you up? Nikolai... he needs his rest sweetheart. I think it might be best for you to head home."
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