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 Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 6:51 pm
Ian didn't try to halt Emerwyn as she went to the other, also confused as to the unspoken question. And why was he reaching for his watch.
He ran from the house with the wristwatch glinting in his hand. "Come back!" His mother's voice called after him but he continued to run, deep into the woods. He stopped in his clearing and set the watch on the ground as the tears ran freely down his young cheeks.
Marcus was gone, first father, now Marcus. He lost everything, and for what? Ian looked at the silver watch lying in the dirt.
For what?
He frowned at the watch on his spear and looked at Julian, perhaps they were one and the same, him and this boy. Both dependent on the watches they both carried for some reason or another. He touched the polished silver slowly and set his spear down again.
He didn't need it right now. Just as he didn't need the watch, but he would,
for what?
Frowning he unfastened the watchfrom his spear and held it in the palm of his hand watching the seconds tick away silently.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 6:59 pm
Julian nearly took a step back - but stopped. He would be stepping into the Tulgey Wood, then.
His face was completely devoid of color, the red rims of his eyes and the darkness of his blood and bruises poignant.
"...No...I...I...." His voice was scarcely a whisper. His fingers slowly moved, turning the hands of the watch. Forward....
The floor of the jungle was weaving itself into a checkerboard.
Backward....
It disappeared again. His voice caught in his throat completely, and he sobbed in spite of himself.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:11 pm
"Julian!" She took him around the shoulders, trying to seat him by the tree.
"Julian, what's wrong? Who's there?"
She was consumed again by Julian, and helping him. But still in her mind always, and in her throat, Ian remained.
She was torn between two people. Ian still waited behind her, he had just declared that he could not make it without her. He needed her.
But Julian needed her, too.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:18 pm
Ian could see that Emerwyn cared for that other man,but what was he to her?
He could see her in his thoughs, he could remember kissing her so long ago. He also remembered running away from her, asking to be alone.
His heart ached and a tear rolled down his cheek and he stared at his watch. "Emerwyn," he whispered softly not wanting to interfere hoping that she knew what she was doing.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:27 pm
Julian flinched away from Emerwyn, eyes wide.
"...No one is here...not right now...."
He looked at Ian again. "...Except you...and him...."
His tone might start to hint at what he was getting at...but...it was hard to say.
He couldn't seem to stop winding and unwinding his watch. His eyes were glazing over.
...And behind him, he could hear the faint crash of footsteps. Lots of them. The...the card guards?
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:43 pm
There was something about Ian... Something bothering him.
"Listen, Julian, sit down here, please. I think you need to rest."
She didn't try to force him.
"Ian..." she turned to him. Then she stopped.
... a tear?
What was this... These two... were they aware of something that she was not?
Emerwyn didn't know what to say... to either of them. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place - two men whom she...
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:50 pm
Ian quickly wiped away the tear when Emerwyn looked at him.
For what?
His past was haunting him, forever facing its glowing eyes right into his heart. Trying to figure him out, trying to hurt him, or was it to cure him.
For what?
The seconds ticked by slowly, Ian could count them in his head, one, two...twenty.
Father died, Marcus died, Uncle Sean died, and Ian had died. Ian had died, part of him was dead, the part that mattered most,
"FOR WHAT?!" He shouted exasperated into the air before breaking down completely. He loved Emerwyn, but how much did she care about him?
The sobs wracked him and he curled up "for what?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:10 pm
Julian looked to Emerwyn desperately, biting his lip again.
He pulled away from her, his hands antsy and jittering over the watch.
...Then...he saw Ian break down crying.
Quietly, he glanced over his shoulder, looking to where the guards were waiting...two figures walking behind them in the distance. One female, one male.
He looked back to Emerwyn, his voice going softer still. His tears continued pouring.
"...Do you...and...and him....?" He needed to know.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:17 pm
And it all came sweeping over her at once. It all occured to her.
And she was horrified. And she was heartbroken.
And she couldn't tell him. She could not tell him how she felt.
How she felt about Ian.
Ian screamed. Julian asked a question she could not answer. She backed away from them both, so she could look at them both, see them both at once, on either side of the dying tree, looking back at her with broken eyes.
Broken green eyes.
"I... love him."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:28 pm
Ian was vaguely aware of what Emerwyn had said, caught up in his emotions as he was.
She loved him.
That was all that mattered right then, that Emerwyn loved him. Him, crazy, demented, lost, Ian. And Ian he was, not Cernunnos.
For what?
It hit him. All he had lost, everything that had shaped who he was. It had led up to this moment in time.
Ian closed his hand around the watch and stood up, the tears still falling though not as heavily.
"Emerwyn," his voice was very quiet. "I understand now. Here." And he held out the silver wristwatch to her. "I want this to go to thee."
And he waited, Julian didn't exist to him anymore, all that mattered was the present, not the past, not the future.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:49 pm
But Julian wasn't faring nearly so well.
His hands stilled on the watch.
"...Oh...."
He broke into fresh sobs, dropping his hands. "...Well...then...I...."
He turned around, standing on the line that divided Wonderland and the Island. Sanity and insanity.
He looked at the place where it joined together.
"...Then...I want...I want you to be happy...." His voice was very quiet. Broken.
"So...I'll...I'll...."
He gave a loud sob, shoulders twitching. Very softly...he spoke. With a familiar spin to his words....
"...I wish that the girl...
The one that I've known
Would light me my way
From the Queen and her throne.
I wish I could have her...
But there's too much cost....
...I just hope she'll be happy....
...Though my battle's been lost."
He stepped over the line...which to them would be a mere twig.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:58 pm
"Ian..."
Her hand began to close over the watch.
She tried so hard to smile at him.
"But..."
She thought he understood, that she couldn't... She couldn't.
And Julian.
She heard the verse echo hollowly in her hollow soul.
She backed up, the watch falling from her hand. It seemed to freeze mid-fall, the hands still moving.
Her hands reached out behind her, something to lean on.
A tree appeared. She clutched it tightly, her own brown eyes finally breaking, too.
"But, I can't." What she was referring to, maybe the two young men would interperet differently, for it was unclear just who she was speaking to.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:09 pm
Ian watched as the watch fell, unable to grasp it. Perhaps he didn't understand after all.
He didn't move to pick up the fallen watch, he wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
For what?
For everything.
For nothing.
He backed into the dead tree and stared blankly at Emerwyn. All this was happening too suddenly for him to accept and he wasn't sure what had just happened.
Then his eyes darkened and all the tears dried up. He was done crying, done with being afraid.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:21 pm
Julian barely moved as the card guards marched toward him.
At Emerwyn's words...his heart managed a feeble leap. He tried to open his mouth...but it was too late. The Guards had him, and they bound his wrists, wiring his mouth shut with some horrific device cobbled together with pieces of clockwork and springs.
...Of course...all Emerwyn and Ian would see was Julian...struggling against the air and with his jaw locked shut.
And all Julian could see...was the Island fading away before him...and Emerwyn, broken, leaning against a tree.
Julian screamed behind the horrible gag, the delusion all too real....
And felt a freezing cold hand on his shoulder.
He turned his head and saw Madison...the Queen of Hearts...leering at him with cold eyes. Beside her was...
...Him.
The Cat. In his body.
But if the Cat was in HIS body...then...where was...he?
Looking down to his hands, he shrieked again at the sight of gigantic claws. A monster.
The Queen pointed to Julian.
"...OFF WITH HIS HEAD."
The executioner walked closer...antlers pricking out from beneath the black hood. But as he raised his silver axe to make the cut....
"No."
The Cat grinned at the Queen, looking affectionately at Julian. Of course! He would...he HAD to protect him...had to....
"...Out with his heart."
Eyes widening...Julian gave a jolt, 'bound' hands rising to his chest...and slid down the side of a tree, sitting like a ragdoll on the ground.
"...Out with...his heart...." Julian echoed, faintly and repeatedly.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:33 pm
Emerwyn was dying.
She couldn't look at either of them.
Ian's watch glinted on the ground. Her hand seemed to burn where she had once held it.
Julian's words. He loved her.
Ian loved her.
She loved...
No, no, NO!
"no." she whispered.
And she did not cough. She had no spasms. But still, still, a trickle of blood came dripping out the side of her mouth, slowly.
As though someone had punched her in the stomach.
She crumpled to the ground, grabbing her head.
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