#faraine

Even though I have Faraine back I still have nightmares of her death. I never saw her face when she was alive but I remember the feeling that will haunt me to this day, like I was drenched in ice cold water and shoved into a fire at the same time. I remember the scream that filled my mind for hours as I searched for ways to bring her back. I remember my own anguished crying as I held her body close, praying and begging for her to come back to me. She was all I had left in this world when I cut off ties with my parents. I couldn’t afford to lose her. She was my everything. But she was gone.

I fell in on myself on the years that passed. I became a recluse, a shadow that merely lurked in the home that had once been filled with love and laughter. To dull my pain I practiced my magic, I read through Faraine’s Book of Shadows and attempted to bring her back. With each failed try I could feel the hole where my heart once was grow darker, colder, shrivel up; I did not know how I endured the pain as long as I did. With a sick sense of morbidity and hope, I took Faraine’s head and used her skull to channel my magic. I thought perhaps using it would allow me a better chance to bring her back. It didn’t.

Desperate I became. I searched for all manner of items that I could use in my quest to return Faraine to me. Slowly my home became filled with a menagerie of magical objects, lining the walls and shelves first of my basement before making their way upstairs into the halls and various rooms I could fit them in. Collecting became an obsession of mine, something to fill my grief riddled life. Something had to bring her back. I wouldn’t give up until it did.

In my search I made useful acquaintances, hunters and witches alike, dark and light. All were useful in their own way, supplying me with things I could use in exchange for my spiritual prowess. In this time I learned people would go to many lengths for a chance to speak with their loved ones again, even going against their own morals to help one they perceived as ‘dark’. I sympathized with them but that did not stop me from using them until they had no more use. Most went their own way when the deed was done, but a few were like me. Obsessive in their ways of communing with the dead. Perhaps I was jealous they could easily speak with their passed love one while as hard I try, I could not retrieve Faraine from wherever she went in death. Or perhaps, their obsession was so different from mine that it annoyed me. They would continually come back, try to use me as though I were just a puppet to speak for the deceased, while I could not bring myself to seek out another medium. If I could not speak with her, I would not let anyone else do so for me.

Those that obsessed more than I did, those I felt most jealous of, were disposed of.

Years went by, my hope slowly dwindled, the memories I had of Faraine I cradled along with her skull that stayed close to me. I had no pictures of her to look at, I only had the memory of her voice speaking to me that she loved me, the feel of her soft, naked skin against mine in moments of tender passion, the scent that lingered on her clothes that I could still smell when I opened the closet. No pictures, only memories that I was afraid would fade in time. “Do not let me forget.” I would whisper to her head during the countless sleepless nights I had. “Do not let me forget her.” If I forgot her then what would I have left? Clothing that should have been thrown out long ago, a book that should have been burned within the first week, and a polished skull that silently reminded me that I was indeed a dark witch and that I had no one left for me. You don’t cherish your memories until they are all you have.

When it seemed all hope was lost, that my dear darling Faraine would never return to me, a light broke through the darkness of my heart. Once again I was attempting to bring her back. I held her skull close to me, I whispered to it as though it and not her were my one true love. I caressed it with tender words, lulling it with a spell I made myself, perfected over the past few months. I kissed it and I begged for my Raine back...and finally the magic obeyed. As I opened my eyes, for the first time in my life, I saw Faraine. She was beautiful and she smiled to me. And though it was not perfect, for she would never truly return to the body she once inhabited, I was happy. She was back and the hole where my heart once sat, disappeared. Replace by the loving gaze of my Raine.