Roval'Morn Duskwillow

“The gall of you,” he whispered to the young man. “A guest in my home…I treated you with honor…because we share blood and I thought you noble.”

He closed his eyes, grinding his teeth so hard they squeaked. Tendons stood out on his neck. Tristan felt the freshness and strength of his own, newly remade flesh. Caroline Nubbins had killed him three times and now, he was new again.

“You’d think I’d learn,” he murmured, sliding fingers in the gash that opened Roval from shoulder to hip. “Mortal things have treacherous hearts. They know nothing but betrayal. Do you know why?”

Roval’s answer was a pained groan, his eyes rolling back as Tristan squeezed something vital, feeling the organ squish between his long fingers. Tristan tsk’d, yanking his hand out of the wound’s cavity and slapping Roval back to awareness, smearing the man’s blood on his cheeks.

He leaned over his nephew with a sneer. “Because you’re all craven…little…cunts,” he bit out, his composure melting away, disintegrating in the sheer force of his crushing disappointment . “Look at you…so afraid. Death darkens your eyes, slows your heart. And you’ve no idea if it’s the end. Your light is about to be snuffed out and that could be it. And under the unbearable weight of your own ego you are crushed with the terror of not existing. Of being meaningless.”

He sighed, feeling the press of seven thousand years. For a moment, he considered defying Nesnora…or worse, killing her too. What did literally any of it matter? They would all die by his hand or the surly grip of time and he would remain. Alone.

But love confounded him and his eyes stung. He dragged his sleeve over them, angrily swiping away the tears. “There’s nothing to fear,” he told Roval with a terrifying pastiche of paternal gentleness. “Death is a gift. The pain doesn’t last. I have reached for death a thousand times. I have SEEN the gray river of souls that will not take me. You think it would deny a noble boy with a golden heart?” Tristan laughed…and sounded unhinged even to himself.

“I am now going to SHOW you why the river rejects me, Roval. For all the magic I possess, I cannot heal. I can only erode, control, dominate…decay,” he murmured, tenderly smoothing back sweat damp curls from the other man’s forehead.

Tristan’s features crumpled in anguish. “I’ve always wanted children. A son or daughter. Instinct this body isn’t meant to carry demands it. For a moment, I had hoped with Ahnariel…with even you, I could…be a father…”

Rage was a relief, a balm to the twisting, gnashing blackness of his grief. His fingers tightened in Roval’s hair. “But you are a vile…traitorous bastard. Oh yes. Son of Heathcliff Dracone and a common harlot. I've been to your mother’s brothel.”

Roval shook with impotent rage, weakly thrashing on the stone slab in the bowels of Tristan’s ever shifting tower. The structure constantly unmade and remade itself to the whims of Nesnora who held the reigns of Tristan’s black heart.

“What a sweet thing she was. Well worth the gold.” He smiled, cold and brittle as he laid his hand on Roval’s chest.

“Perhaps we are even then. I fucked your mother. You fucked my sister.” His smile was drawn from pure wicked, sadism. “But you have doomed her, Roval. You woke her need, the biological imperative to breed. But she is the only dragon. She will go mad. You…you’ve killed her. After I heal you, I will let you plead for your mother’s life. I will fairly hear you. Because…I think her death is the only justice that will satisfy me.”

He wept then. Regret sat bitter in his soul. “She was innocent. And she loved me.”

He covered his face with bloody, trembling hands. He’d thought he’d been prepared to sacrifice all, even the sister he’d raised. But it was a price that hurt too much. His mind’s eye supplied him with sweet flashes of her childhood, her little trusting hand in his. Her wide eyes as he told her thinly disguised propaganda against house Dracone as bedtime stories. Her insistence his birthday was on Winterveil and his strange inability to tell her he was born in summer. The homemade card in her child’s scrawl.

“My little Ahni,” he whispered, voice a thin sound of grief.

He wept loudly, doubled over the knot of agonized self loathing twisting his guts. “I am a monster,” he wheezed, seeing the faces of those who’d called him such. How many had he lived? Loved and ruined. Anya. Brilliant, love starved Anya. Nesnora…twisted into wickedness because of what he’d done…

“Let me show you,” he repeated to Roval who was only barely conscious now. “How a monster heals.”

He placed a gentle hand back on Roval’s chest. “Wounds fester to drive the body’s defenses. Let us hope you are strong enough to endure this.”

All at once, every scrape and laceration festered, soured, wept pus. Roval burned with fever as his body rallied to save itself.

Tristan, with brutal efficiency, cleaned and stitched the festering wound as Roval screamed in agony and horror.

But like most mothers, Mira inherited the feeling of the most precious piece of her heart floundering in the sea of worry. She couldn’t do what love and instinct demanded. She couldn’t protect Roval and monsters had taken him away as they had countless times in her worst nightmares. It was a grief unique to a mother.

And she was so afraid. So terrified she would outlive her beautiful child that the breathless pain of heartbreak couldn’t reach her. It had merely softened her for this blow.

Sick with worry, face pale, Mira stared helplessly into the only hearth she’d found lit in the castle. Someone must have started a mundane fire in it before the attack on the castle. It seemed the only living and animated thing, like the flickering heart of the place. She wanted to be close to this. To remind herself she could feel something other than her failure to protect her child, to give him anything other than the disappointment she feared Roval had towards her. Her fears were without merit, but all mothers felt they let their children down because they couldn’t live up to impossible standards.

Manus, she knew, would understand better than any other soul in the castle. In a way, all the Dracones were his children even if he hadn’t sired all of them. He’d lost so many children. He had outlived them all. She couldn’t imagine a more devastating horror. Manus must be perpetually grieving and broken hearted. And like her, he did this alone. Always alone.

She could have easily given in and wallowed in her own pain, but Mira could never be so self indulgent in the face of another’s suffering. And while she imagined Manus’s pain, she knew she could never understand the full measure of it. And this brought her to a place of worry for him. Another soul far from her reach. Someone else she wanted to save and couldn’t.

The white kitten was out of place. It’s little, plaintive mew broke through a drugged, sodden haze to be cradled and given comfort. When it continued to cry despite being loved on, Mirabella set it down and then she knew. It was out of place because it was magic. She felt the lingering tingle of it on her skin.

Manus. This kitten was his projection and she knew the purpose it served so she followed, wiping the tears from her face to be strong when she felt so weak. Love compelled her to do this. As it had driven her all her life. It never felt like being brave when love walked next to her. Even when she understood love’s gifts to her had only been pain. Her heart may have been broken, but every sad fragment sang with it.

This tumble into love hadn’t come with the giddy rush. It was not gradual. It didn’t start with attraction or infatuation. It hadn’t even been forged in friendship. Just a sudden certainty. Then the terror of having to place the pieces of her heart in another’s care and hoping that this time, it would be different. This time, she’d be safe. That she could rest her weary soul. Because more than being heartbroken, she was tired and so disappointed. Mostly in herself.

To fail her son so profoundly, in her eyes…to never be able to provide for him properly even tho she had given him over to a better life, gave her unique guilt. All she’d done after Roval’s birth was desperately try to be a good enough woman to hold the honor of being his mother. It drove most every action…so that one day, she could be there for him when he needed her. Instead….she had cowered inside a broken down ruin, the bones of a love that terrified her, while her brave and beautiful boy faced down horrors. She hadn’t begged Roval to stay inside with her. This had been done out of respect to his agency. She felt she had no right to pleading with him. But now that he was gone and in real danger, she wished she would have and the regret was suffocating.

So now that Manus needed her…well, she would try not to let him down too.

With some effort, she heaved the lid off the mysterious box to lay bare the surface of dark water. Nothing looked more unwelcoming.

She smiled all the same because falling in love was never like it was in the stories she adored. It was always a plunge into dark water. It was surrender of control. It was putting the knife in another hand and hoping it would not be used to hurt her. Mira, from experience, knew she would be hurt again.

Even so, without hesitation, she heaved herself onto the rim of the box, swung her legs over the side and plunged herself into the water. To her, it wasn't even a choice.

Love was not a word to say. It wasn’t a promise to make. It wasn’t a feeling. Love couldn’t live on without action, without the leap. Someone had to be brave and Mira knew that this was for her to do, even if it wasn’t fair (and it wasn’t), because Manus couldn’t himself.

Love saw her bear many burdens that felt so heavy Mira thought they’d grind her bones to dust. Just as it made her stronger than she realized. Mira simply didn’t feel entitled to returned feelings. Even when it hurt, and it always did, Mira knew pain wasn’t the currency of entitlement. No one was keeping score.

The water was dark and deep and there was no direction inside of it. Time had no meaning inside the box and it could have been seconds or a hundred years. Her chest burned and Mira became certain she’d drown. But love was always surrender and weary acceptance of more pain and hurt made it so that there was very little panic. She got what she paid for, after all. Her heart of golden coins would find rest this way and she supposed her unfinished business was finished whether she wanted it to be or not.

Briefly there was despair.

Then, as we all are born through the water of our mothers, Mirabella emerged, pulled from the dark in between and despair into a heart as broken as hers. Manus told her she’d saved everything and kissed her in a way that doubt couldn’t survive.

There was a bitter gratitude in being held by a soul who perfectly shared her pain. She wept into the kiss because her son had been taken away by a heart of such twisted darkness that it had dashed all hope she’d see Roval again.

“They took Roval,” she said when the kiss was broken. It could be no coincidence that Manus’s magic had vanished from the castle at the same time.

She looked up at Manus, unable to give herself fully to despair because…he needed her. “Tell me what to do,” she begged him. “How do I save you?” She knew she couldn’t save her son alone. It wasn’t weakness to admit this.

Even through wild and frantic worry, even brought through the shadow of death to another world, all Mira could do was look into Manus's dark eyes and see a universe of hurt and longing mirrored in her own inner world. And how unbearable it was to see a loved one suffer. It opened her chest, ready to take it all in herself because love demanded this.

Mirabella would be the alchemist. She would take this life of almosts and disappointments, and turn it into something that meant more.

Having no flesh and blood or bones to move through the world, there was no barrier for what Lottie could perceive and feel. There was no way to stop agony or longing. No way to block the vibrations of magic.

Lottie was the only one who felt the branches of the iron tree as they were brought into and hidden in the castle. She had never felt anything like it. It felt like death in a way she had never before experienced. Every dark, shadowy hungry thing that writhed in the in between woke and drenched her world in blackness. Fear made her condense her spirit and she focused on what mattered to her most. What made her herself.

“I love you, Seralah,” she said to the dark that encroached on the small twinkle that was her soul. “I love you, Roval. I love you, Daddy.”

The golden threads of her love banished the shadows like mist facing the rising sun. Her victory would mean nothing because more took their place and experiencing love drained her. She was going to weaken and be overcome.

At the moment she felt herself being pulled apart, her existence being consumed by the entropy of the in between, Lottie felt Manus…vanish and knew only despair.

The pain of having her spirit ripped to shreds nearly broke Lottie’s consciousness. She tried weakly to feel Roval. Sera. Anyone. To say goodbye, to beg for help, hoping their belief could save her somehow. For a moment, all was darkness. Beyond darkness. Lottie drifted in a cold void…alone at the end as all must be.

And then….Lottie opened her eyes.

It was so disorientating that she swooned, stumbling forward. Hands grasped her forearms, steadying her. She was…alive. Breathing. In a body…her body. The contact of strong hands and long fingers pressed into her forearms made her gasp and tremble. To be touched…

Lottie raised her eyes and saw a man with cherubic dark curls and a wicked, crooked smile.

“There you are,” he said, deep voice soft with amusement. In a body, she couldn’t feel who this was.

“Roval?” She whispered, scared of her own voice, fascinated by it.

The man shook his head. “No. Leo. You’ve done this a thousand times at least now. Usually, I have more time to explain…but I don’t this time. Look around, everything is breaking apart because the future is no longer certain.” He spoke quickly and she felt herself struggle to process, to understand. Her eyes stung with tears. And there was conflicting joy in being able to cry.

“Shhh…it’s all right, Lottie,” he said, releasing her arms to cup her face. “All you have to do is listen. You’ll know what to do…or we wouldn’t be here. Don’t be scared.”

She nodded, trembling. “Because you’ll always catch me,” she said. She didn’t know how she knew this…but she did.

Leo nodded, expression softening. “Always. Because you caught me first.”

Just as she began to calm herself, experiencing being alive less of a shock and more of an overwhelming pleasure, the world around her went gray and colorless….it began to crumble, devoured by shadow, the veils between worlds tearing apart.

Leo’s fingers tightened on her face, his expression serious again. “Time’s up. Go find me in the present. You know how. Follow the feeling you have for me now. The golden threads you’ve called it,” he said quickly as a roaring, rending sound began to drown out his voice. “Sink into my body. You’ll be safe there,” he shouted as entropy pulled them apart. “Find what I am! Tell me!”

She tumbled through a whirling tunnel of light that disintegrated into darkness and in that darkness were thousands of shimmering threads. An entire universe of love. All her love made manifest in a tangled labyrinth. Despair threatened again. She was literally no one, just a small spirit. If Manus could be diminished what could she possibly do?

Then she saw it, the bright golden thread that was the manifestation of her love for Leonardo. With her entire, exhausted being Lottie grasped this thread and let it pull her through time. Images of a life she had yet to live flashed by.

There was pain. So much pain and grief and disappointment that Lottie feared it wouldn’t be worth it…until she saw the love and joy too. She saw her sister, happy at last…with children. She saw Roval…but refused to look too closely. She wanted to experience all the joy and pain fresh with him.

Then, she was in the laboratory, sinking into Leonardo’s prone body. The shadows couldn’t find her in this hiding space. They recoiled from him because he could command them.

More than just being in his flesh, she went deep into his soul where he was adrift in his own pain, blinded to his nature by indulgent, rancid self loathing. All these hurts, large and small keeping him diminished. Wicked.

The root of all evil began with the self.

So, she caught him, wrapped her being around him. Lottie loved him. In the future she loved him but the only time was now so she gave him all the love that would be.

There, in the darkness of Leo’s soul, she saw the great eyes of a serpent…no. A dragon, coiled and black. It had been there always because it was Leonardo.

“Leo. You have to wake up. Your family needs you. I need you,” she said to the great draconic spirit.

And she knew.

He would catch her too.

She made no effort to hide her communications with her sister. She spoke out loud to Lottie, laughed at her jokes as she worked feverishly in the lab. She rarely slept and took all her meals there. This would be how Aronsen found her in the evening when he rose with dark circles around her eyes, a piece of cold toast half hanging out of her mouth as she poured over notes. She loomed over Leonardo, crumbs from said toast on his bare chest which she brushed off in annoyance.

Leonardo was pierced at every joint by long, thick silver needles she’d had Manus create. Munching on her toast, she snapped her fingers at Aronsen. “His ankle bones are giving me fits. If you could, my beloved…just…ram those two needles in…in between the bones preferably but if you miss…you miss!”

Hazel went even paler, standing on the other side of Leonardo’s prone form, trying to pry his mouth open to shove a rubber bite guard between his teeth. “Sera,” she whined, “I’m going to faint if I have to hear that horrible crunch sound again!”

“Shove some cotton in your ears!” Lenora said, stuffing cotton balls in her ears and then handing two to Hazel.

Aronsen had been told once what this was all about. Something called Anima transference…but he had no idea what that meant and how it was supposed to help Leonardo. Not that he was concerned. Sera seemed to know exactly what she was doing. While her explanations were fascinating and interesting, they were so rapid fire and often went down wild tangents that he could only appreciate her passion for…whatever it was she was doing exactly. He’d never seen her so fired up.

So, Aronsen did as she instructed. Indeed, it made a terrible crunching sound when he rammed the needles into Leonardo’s ankles. It rather seemed the opposite of healing him, but the prone man didn’t seem to be in pain…probably because of the IV drip of tranquilizer constantly pumped into his veins, but Seralah was happy the work was done. He sat in a chair by Leonardo’s head and watched her work.

When Hazel finished putting the bite guard between Leo’s teeth, Seralah tried to get her attention by snapping. But the cotton in her ears prevented her from hearing. Seralah scowled, annoyed with their prissy, silly behavior. So the ankle joints made a gross crunching noise when pierced by thick needles? The world was full of gross things!

“HAZEL!” Seralah shouted which finally got the girl’s attention.

Hazel’s big eyes widened. “What?” she asked too loudly, unable to hear the volume of her own voice. Notably, she didn’t take the cotton out of her ears.

Seralah mimed pulling the cotton out and this finally did the trick.

“You are utterly useless today! Go fetch Roval, please. If you can’t find him in his room, then ask Manus where he’s at.” Seralah waved her cousin off.

But Lenora wasn’t having it. “Hey! Why does she get to go! I want to fetch Roval.”

Pouting and huffing in annoyance, Seralah watched her cousins fight over who would get to bring Roval to the lab. She didn’t care which one of them did it, just as long as it was done. Throwing up her hands in exasperation, Sera stamped her foot. “Enough! Both of you go and make it quick! I had to up his tranquilizer dose because those needles are likely excruciating! Can’t have him moving about so make haste and stop being silly! Please!”

They both wore hang dog expressions as they fled the lab and Seralah’s tyranny.

Aronsen made a face at the talk of excruciating pain which Seralah didn’t seem to notice as she poured over her notes.

“I don’t expect this to be permanent but the idea came to me in a dream!” she said excitedly. “I always keep a dream journal. I like to think my brain is trying to solve problems even when I sleep and this will solve two problems at once…well. If it works. And it probably won’t. It’s a very…ah. Wild idea.” She scribbled down a formula and then ordered Aronsen to fetch the various chemicals and extracts she needed.

“Fire salts too, please,” she said. “Can’t forget those!” she chuckled. “I’m such a bonehead. It likely would kill someone without them!”

As Sera prepared some foul smelling tincture, the twins brought Roval into the lab. He had a girl hanging off each arm, cooing up at him, flirting and simultaneously badly reassuring him that he would come to no harm.

“Oh, it shouldn’t hurt,” Hazel said to him, patting his hand. “You don’t have to have the needles shoved into your joints. You just have to hold something and get your blood drawn.”

Lenora scowled, making a mean face at her sister, yanking on Roval’s arm to get his attention. “I just learned how to draw blood and Seralah said I was a light touch. So, I’ll be sure to do a good job and not jab you too roughly!”

Roval looked very flustered. And nervous. “And just…ah…how is this to help Leonardo?” he asked awkwardly, grimacing when he saw that Seralah had made a grisly pin cushion out of the man.

“It’s science, Roval,” Hazel said with a roll of her eyes as if he had asked the stupidest question in the world. “You couldn’t possibly understand. Now…let’s get your clothes off!”

Sera wasn’t in the mood to soothe anymore nonsense. Roval weakly protested being methodically stripped by the twins until he was just in his small clothes. She ignored this, not even bothering to explain why he needed to just be in his skivvies. And to be fair, Leonardo was only wearing a sheet over his groin…which Hazel and Lenora took turns peeking under and gasping.

The twins fawned over Roval. Pinching his biceps, trailing naughty, little fingers down his stomach, tracing ridges of muscles until the young man was red faced and sputtering. Once they finally had him undressed, the girls guided him to a gurney and helped him sit on the crinkling paper. Seralah shoved a silver rod into his hands.

“Hold this very tight. Don’t let go. Even if it burns or…tingles. Or shocks you a little. Do not let go. You will RUIN my experiment. And maybe you’ll die. And that wouldn’t be very nice, would it?” Sera asked ominously. He wouldn’t die, but she figured he’d take her more seriously if he thought he might.

Roval’s eyes went wide and his flush drained from his face. “W-wait…I might die?!”

But she had already flipped a switch which sent arcane and low electricity into the silver needles (which were now clamped by wires and hooked up to an arcane battery, something else Sera had invented over the past week). There was a horrible, unsettling buzzing and the smell of burning hair. A single wire went to Roval’s silver rod and his dark curly hair stood up on end with static.

“It tickles,” he said with relief.

“Lenora, tie off Roval’s arm with the rubber hose and prep for a blood draw,” Seralah said, tapping the gauges on her arcane battery. “Hazel, fetch me a scalpel, if you please.”

When the scalpel was in her hand, she used her free hand to shut off the battery. Roval asked if he could let go of the rod, but Seralah ignored him. She swabbed Leo’s right forearm with antiseptic and…just sliced neatly and shallowly. His blood was no longer black, but a merlot color. It smelled different too. It didn’t look like living blood, but it was an improvement from its natural state. Sera collected this in a test tube.

“After you draw Roval’s blood, draw Mister Leonardo’s, Lenora. I think…we were successful! We won’t know for sure until tomorrow. I have to distill the samples.”

Aronsen peered over her shoulder to see what she was doing. Seralah set aside the scalpel and blood sample and yanked off her gloves. She turned to beam up at him. “If it distills properly? It will make a potion that will make you mortal. For a time. Like I said, I’ve not figured out how to make it last yet. But I will,” she told him, taking his hands and giving them a fond squeeze. “Look…his blood flows faster. His skin color is less gray toned and more pink. Isn’t that amazing? And because the three of you are related, I figured it would help lessen the chance of a strange outcome or rejection entirely!”

Seralah felt so driven by purpose. By love. And without judgment or anyone telling her to exercise caution or…decenct practices, she felt truly unstoppable. At last, she would conquer death in every way it could be conquered. Her necromancy and her science, wed together to give her sister a body and Aronsen a chance at a normal life.

@wraaronsen

Mentions; @wraleo @wrarovalmorn

Intently, she listened to Manus, appearing before him as she wanted to be seen should she ever get to be alive. She was a slight little thing, like her twin, but her face was softer, more of the idea of Seralah instead of an exact copy. Her hair was wavy, something Lottie changed herself because she liked wavy hair.

“I’ve many ideas,” she said excitedly to Manus who currently had the shape of a cat. She had seen him take the shape of a handsome elf and would have preferred that, but she wasn’t about to suggest it!

”It is very clear to me Lady Lucretia is a vain person. I shall torment her using her vanity. I must be subtle. I want her to think all of this is her own mind, not an outside force. All I require is the energy to do these things. I exhaust myself quickly with big displays. If you could assist me, lend me some energy, I would appreciate it greatly.” She sounded very much like Seralah, perhaps a little less confident and more eager to please.

Her entire being vibrated with excitement. She wasn’t sure exactly what Manus was offering, how it would work, but she knew she wanted it more than anything she’d ever wanted before.

“I’ll impress you. I promise,” she said, smiling shyly with her ghostly visage. “Lady Lucretia can’t be allowed to behave that way. She violated Mister Leonardo and he did not care for it.” She wasn’t sure how she knew this. It wasn’t as though Leo said anything, he couldn’t, but she could feel his feelings when inside his body.

Manus answered her enthusiastic tattling with a rush of energy. She felt it hum along the ephemeral fabric of her being. “Thank you!” She exclaimed, picking up the quill with ease and writing a parting message to Roval.

I’ve some work to do. I won’t be long. Please wait up for me!

She hesitated, the quill hovering in the air over the parchment. Then, boldly, with a giggle that would be audible to Roval, she signed the message XOXOXOXOXO Lottie. She passed through him on her way to Lucretia’s room. It was a wild flirt, though she wasn’t sure he would take it as one. He would feel the chill of her pass though him in his bones, feel the tingle of her spirit sliding through his flesh, leaving behind the cloyingly sweet scent of funeral lilies.

She found the woman getting ready for dinner, hair wet from a bath, dressed in nice lingerie. Lottie thought she was a stunning, beautiful woman and thought it a shame she was so rotten. Lottie would have taken an ugly body to walk the world in. Anything to be alive. Seeing the living waste the precious time they had on being cruel and mean angered her.

Lottie came to hover very close to Lucretia, but not so close the other woman could feel the chill of her presence. This was a trick she’d learned from demons who frequently phased in and out of the In Between. If one vibrated the air a certain way, the living found the smell very unpleasant. Demons did this naturally when phasing. Seralah said it smelled like rotten eggs. Lottie could mimic what they did naturally. So she did!

Primping in the mirror, Lucretia wrinkled her nose suddenly. “Ugh…what is that stench?” She murmured, waving her hand in front of her face.

Nothing Lucretia did helped the disgusting odor. It seemed to be coming from her very person. After dousing herself in perfume, Lucretia took another bath, pouring an entire bottle of perfumed oil into the water, scrubbing roughly at her skin until she was pink, her skin raw.

Lottie watched with grim satisfaction as the woman dried off and dressed in fresh lingerie. Lucretia raised an arm to get a whiff of her armpit and Lottie focused on making the odor again, but even stronger. Lucretia recoiled away and blanched, gagging.

The woman went to the sink and frantically used a bar of soap and water to wash her armpits. She did this four times. Nothing decreased the rotten egg smell that was so strong it seemed to ooze from Lucretia’s very pores.

By the time Lottie had finished tormenting her, the woman was in hysterics, tearing things apart in her room, smashing bottles and sobbing. Lottie stood in the midst of the chaos and fed on this energy, replacing what she had expelled to perform her little parlor tricks.

I do hope that impressed you, Manus! I have many more ideas in mind!

Mentions: @wrarovalmorn

Hands clamped on her shoulders and she was bodily turned around. Roval looked down at her, his face pinched with worry. “Mother…are you all right?” He asked, eyes searching her face for every minute expression.

Guilt only mothers understood filled her. She should be asking him this question. He had an angel’s face that perpetually looked thirteen years old to her, and reached up to smooth his dark, tumbling curls from his forehead. He needs a haircut, she thought absurdly.

“Oh, my darling,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry.” Her throat tried to squeeze closed, aching and tight. She kept the tears safely shuttered and pushed down deep. Not in front of her son. Never in front of her son.

She had to get away from him to be alone to gather herself and her thoughts. Mira had to make him believe she was just fine. She always wanted him to believe she was all right. She couldn’t bear to be a worry. It wasn’t his fault and it was her duty to spare him this.

“You don’t need to apologize…and if I’m honest, I’m not sure what’s going on.” He gave her a crooked, sheepish smile.

She mirrored this. “We’ll sort it together,” she promised. “You should go get freshened up for dinner,” she told him, tone kind but firm. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He nodded, pulling up to his full height, squaring his shoulders. Always her brave boy. “Right,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

She nodded and patted his cheek, making sure to smile. To breathe. Mira could fall apart the moment he was safely away. She only needed to maintain the facade for a few more breaths.

Mirabella watched Roval stride away, happy to see his head held high despite everything. The moment he rounded the corner, her stiff smile vanished and her features crumpled. The only thing that kept her eyes dry was the horrible copper stench of blood nauseating her. Without further delay, she swiftly left the training room and followed the trail of blood smeared on the floor.

She didn’t know if Leonardo was alive or dead, not for certain, but she wasn’t sure how he could have survived such horrific injury. Her mind couldn’t process the fact that Anya had done this to him. She kept seeing her beautiful face twisted in animalistic fury, teeth bared, as wicked magic poured out of her. Anya had meant to kill Leonardo, and Mira wasn’t sure why. But she had her theories.

Nasty thoughts curled in her mind, but she pushed them away. It was selfish of her to think those things when Leonardo could be dead or dying. The trail of blood led to a ruined laboratory. She hung back, watching from the entrance, listening. She didn’t want to interrupt anything. She waited in the dark hallway when the conversation between Seralah and Aronsen turned personal and she heard Anya’s name. It felt invasive to eavesdrop and she didn’t want to know anything else about the little girl she had cared for and worried about. She couldn’t bear the guilt of it. Things could have been different…if only…

If only. Sometimes, Mirabella felt all she had was a sad collection of if only’s.

She stepped back into the corridor as Aronsen and Seralah left the laboratory. Stealing herself for what she would see, Mirabella took a deep breath and entered.

Leonardo was still on the steel surgical table, his clothes sticky and soaked with his blood. Other than the blood, he looked…like he was asleep. Beautiful. Mirabella stood over him, heart racing, feeling ill.

His face without expression was angelic. There was certainly a resemblance to Roval, but more distantly. Even unconscious he looked wicked, a fallen angel, she thought. The dark slash of his brow and deep set eyes held all his pain and heartbreak, shuttered now, the dark fan of lashes resting on his cheeks. His generous mouth meant for telling lies he sweetened with kisses…his soft, coiled curls that would wrap around her fingers as if this part of him wanted to take from her too.

To keep from falling apart, she busied herself. She soaked a cloth in water and cleaned his face, trying not to think, to wonder why he had told her a lie so profoundly foul that she’d been afraid she’d not be able to stand the sight of him. Even if he could answer her, she knew it wouldn’t satisfy her. Wouldn’t explain what she had done to deserve this.

For a moment, for a few hours, she had been so happy. Her heart’s fondest wish had come true. And more than that, the lie had retroactively gone back and made so many hurts worth it. She had been right to be patient, to believe in the magic of the world. All the horrible, aching loneliness vanished in an instant because the lie had created a family for her when had never truly had one. How complete her fairytale had felt.

She no longer had to wonder about what if’s. Fate hadn’t been unkind, after all, it had merely needed time.

Mirabella hadn’t needed Anya’s burst of fury and violence to know it was all a lie. One look into Heathcliff Dracone’s eyes told her the truth. It didn’t matter that Leonardo’s face was in her memory of that night. Heathcliff’s eyes were Roval’s eyes and they cut right through whatever magic had tried to hide this. It was a sacred connection that could not be subverted.

But it wasn’t the connection she had hoped for. It wasn’t the connection she had pinned her lonely heart’s hope on.

Heathcliff had not taken her into his arms and made amends for the years lost to them. Mirabella had thought they had been made for each other. That night had been the most beautiful of her life and she had always believed they would reunite and then…everything would be all right.

Now, she knew it was only a fantasy she had made to keep her going. There had been no magic. Only a little luck a doctor had been present at a party she’d been hired to attend to save her life when Dawnfire had pushed her off that balcony. There was nothing particularly romantic about it. Just two young people being attracted to each other and the biological consequences.

Maybe he’d forgotten about her entirely and she couldn’t fault him for this. Heathcliff Dracone was a beautiful man, wealthy and well mannered. He’d likely had dozens of such encounters.

And he was so obviously in love with Anya. The way he looked at her…in the way Mira had always wished someone would see HER. As if Anya was the only thing in the world that held color. As if she was the meaning of every story and poem and song. Mirabella smiled as tears slid down her cheeks. Anya was the girl on the beach and Heathcliff was her dark prince from across the sea. The old magic was real. She saw it in them.

It just wasn’t real for her this time.

It was another thing she could not give Roval. Perhaps that’s what hurt most of all. If anyone deserved to have a mother and father in loving union, it was Roval. Good despite her absence. Good despite all her mistakes.

Her tear-filled gaze trailed down to Leonardo’s face as she cleaned the blood off him. Another mistake. No one had ever hurt her so deeply because…for just a minute…he had given her everything she had ever wanted. And none of it was true.

Perhaps if he loved her it would sting less. But she had seen the way he looked at Anya, with such naked, hungry longing and anger it could only be unrequited love. And if not that, he clearly thought it was.

She wasn’t even angry with him. She had told him to lie to her. And so he had. She stroked his hair when she’d cleaned the blood off his face. If only she could stop her heart from loving him anyway.

Her mind recoiled from the pain. It tried to rationalize. To find a way to circumvent the inevitable grief of heartbreak it was far too familiar with. It tried to remind her she had some pride, that she should be furious and disgusted. That she should leave this place with her dignity and never speak to anyone here again. But she knew she wouldn’t run and dignity was a bitter pill when all she wanted was…

What she could not have.

She let herself quietly fall to pieces. Mirabella covered her face with her hands and sobbed, shoulders hunched and shaking. There was no way out of the pain or the grief that was coming. Just another thing to get through, to get over. The answer was always the same and always so simple. One breath would follow another, one day would pass and then the rest until it hurt differently and she could breathe again.

But it would never not hurt. Like a piece of sand under her shell. One day, the rough edges would be smooth and maybe it could be something beautiful, a pearl she would hold in her heart.

“Oh sweetie,” came a woman’s sultry, mocking voice. “Don’t waste your tears on him.”

Mirabella dropped her hands and hastily wiped her face. A dark haired woman in a slinky, gold dress and a fox fur stole lazily strolled into the lab, stilettos clicking over the floor. She smoked a cigarette, cruel, cold eyes narrowed as they swept over Mirabella.

The woman then looked at Leonardo with an arched brow and a slow smile. “He’s always been such a snake. Imagine, inviting you here when he invited me here too. Maybe he wanted us to fight over him. He does so love having his pathetic, little ego stroked.” The woman’s gaze slid to Mira again. “But let’s not give him the satisfaction, hmm? Honestly? You can have him. He’s good in bed, but that’s the end of his redeeming qualities.”

All of this was delivered in the most casually devastating way. There were no surprises. Mira didn’t even think it hurt. Not yet, anyway.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Mira said, needing to be away from all of this at once. She knew this woman was hurt, but she was too wounded herself to offer comfort. They weren’t enemies. Mirabella had been the other woman so often that she never felt sour towards the wives and girlfriends. It was always the men that were to blame.

She just wanted to see Roval, the only good thing in her world. The only gift the Old Magic had ever given her.

Mentions: @wraleo , @wraheathcliff , @wrarovalmorn

All the same, it was like being out in the frozen cold, looking through frosted glass. Forgotten. Alone. As she moved through Dracone Castle, only amusing for parlor tricks. She drifted around the enormous Winterveil tree Seralah had made Manus conjure. It was at least twenty feet tall and ringed in brightly colored gifts.

She liked many of the ornaments. There was one that drew her in particular, a glass teardrop with a miniature angel inside, surrounded by a nest of gilded tinsel so it looked like a captured cloud. The angel was pretty with golden wings and long, dark hair. But the ornament made her sad in a strange way she couldn’t understand. A little toy, steam locomotive chugged around the base of the tree, weaving through a candy colored city of gifts. She read the names on the packages.

There weren’t any for her, not that she expected there to be. What could one even give a ghost? Still, she wished there was a present under the tree for her. Just an empty box with pretty wrapping would have sufficed so she could feel included. Thought of.

A ripple of sharp sadness went through her when she saw there wasn’t one for Roval either. Of everyone there, she thought he deserved the most gifts. To see him not even get one…upset her.

Again, she felt so helpless. She would give him a hundred gifts if she were alive. Thoughtful ones to reflect his noble character. In the parlor, when the magic was a storm he bravely protected everyone. Even her, though he didn’t know it. It had hurt him too, made him bleed.

That moment, watching him stand tall even when afraid and hurting sent her from infatuation into love. She couldn’t bear it if there was no gift for Roval on Winterveil morning. She knew how it felt to be left out.

Lottie spent some time in thought, drifting through the castle’s crypt. She liked it there, the spirits were not mindless or fearful and simply curious and tolerant of her. It felt like the only place belonged, though she knew this feeling was dangerous. To belong to the grave was to eventually disappear.

It was easier to move through walls and floors. She felt much stronger.

This gave her a dangerous idea.

She was going to go home and try something.

Traveling outside felt very strange and it took all of her will to stay together. The natural world wanted to disperse her spirit as was the order of things, but every bit of her energy resisted this. Love, she thought, that’s what made her stronger than the will of creation to see her move on.

She flowed over the land, startling nighttime creatures who could see or sense spirits. Bloodhaven manor no longer belonged to her sister, but the man who had taken it from her had not yet set foot on the estate and everything remained untouched.

Lottie could feel her strength return and it was easier to hold herself together when she crossed through the door over the threshold. This was home, where she had spent most of her existence.

That night, the spirit of her mother was not there, much to her relief. She had been her murderer and she supposed her mother would not be pleased to see her. She hoped that she’d moved on to whatever punishment that surely awaited her.

Lottie sank into the floor, deep into her own family crypt. She hadn’t gone down there since her father’s death. If his spirit had been tethered, she would have been sad for him to be trapped in the In Between like her. If he had been gone, she would have been so sad she had missed a chance to speak to him. Now, surely, he was long gone, his energy returned to the beautiful world.

Inside his tomb he was only bones and rotted cloth, his skeletal hands grasping the sword that had been his father’s, passed down from the first Bloodhaven patriarch to the last, over his chest. The golden stag of her House decorated the hilt, antlers holding a ruby blood moon. Sanguis Meminit was inscripted on the blade, her House motto. Father didn’t need his sword anymore and had left no son to pass it to.

Roval should have a noble blade with heavy history and honor. If she could have asked her father, he would have agreed, she knew this deeply within her soul.

With these thoughts, golden threads spilled out of her being, winding around her father’s remains, trailing off and upwards, leading her to the place the heart of her called home. Lottie knew she could move the sword and herself. Distance was for flesh. Time was for the living. She could transcend both as all of her vibrated and sang with the joy of seeing these golden threads of love leave her being, feeling them connect to Roval and her sister.

She curled herself around the blade and sent all of her energy home to Dracone Castle, to Roval where he slept, his dark curls spilled across his pillow, his angelic features soft with sleep.

I will never love him more than I do right now, Lottie thought, the room lit with the gold of her love, the threads winding around them both.

The sword of House Bloodhaven lay at the foot of his bed, softly gleaming in the winter moonlight. A noble blade for a noble man as the ghost of Charlotte Bloodhaven faded softly, exhausted, thin and pale in the In Between.

Humming to herself, Sera rolled up her sleeve and used her free hand and teeth to tie a rubber hose around her upper arm.

Seralah…please don’t. You passed out last time, Lottie’s tinny, wispy voice floated into her ear.

Sera ignored it, as she always did, swiping an alcohol swab over the inside of her elbow. She sat in the middle of her now much bigger feather bed inside her room. She wouldn’t do this in the lab in case Heathcliff came in to scold her as he would invetiably do. She would not be deterred.

She looked down at her blue vein and whined. She hated needles. But this was so important and she knew she was being silly, so she jabbed it in and let her blood fill the vial as she yanked off the rubber hose.

“Ten vials tonight and I’ll have it all,” she murmured. “Manus, if I pass out, could you please remove the needle from my arm and bandage it? Thank you,” she said, laying back, arm extended.

Sera…that’s too much! You only did eight last time! Lottie rattled her teacup on the nightstand in agitation, but Seralah ignored this too.

Seralah nibbled a sugar cookie meticulously decorated by herself for Winterveil. It had those little, metallic silver ball decorations that were too sweet and threatened to crack a molar but she loved them anyway. She sipped fruit juice too in hopes the sugar would keep her from passing out.

“I suspect I’ve anemia now because of this project. Manus, if you could please remind me to eat more red meat, I’d appreciate it. Perhaps some vitamins too. I’ve been dizzy lately.”

Seralah could sense the spirit of her sister fretting. It…stung a little. Pricked at her with guilt. She should forgive Lottie. Talk to her. Little Sister had seemed much more melancholy lately.

“I…,” she started with a sigh. “Lottie.”

It was the first time in over two decades she’d directly spoken to Lottie without telling her to stop doing something.

I’m here! Right next to you! Lottie said excitedly.

“Well. I just wanted to say I forgive you, but I never wish to speak of it again. I am ready to talk to you,” she said stiffly as she changed out the full vial for an empty one. She winced. Her arm was sore from repeated blood draws. Aronsen had frowned at the bruises on the insides of her elbows, but she distracted him with kisses until he dropped it.

Okay. We don’t have to talk about it. I’m so glad you’re talking to me again. I’ve missed our talks. I really like Aronsen…he’s very nice. Much better than Rhuen.

And just like that, there was no awkwardness. It felt wholly natural to talk to the spirit of her sister. Seralah supposed she owed her an apology for going so long without doing so, but that could come later. For now, she wanted it to be nice. Easy.

“Yes. Far better. He would never hurt me,” Sera said with a sweet, girlish smile. “I’ve never been in love like this before.”

I can tell! You’re whole being shimmers gold around him. Little gold threads connect you to his spirit. That’s how I can tell people are in love. The threads.

Seralah hmm’d. “That’s very interesting. I don’t believe I ever asked you much about the In Between. I’ll have to remedy that with study.”

She could feel Lottie’s excitement as glass trembled in frames in the secretary by the bed. This was contagious and Seralah grinned as she changed out another vial. Her head started to swim. “Are you alone there?” She asked, fretting a little that her poor sister’d had no one to talk to in all these years.

No. But I wish I was. There are…very scary things that lurk here with me. They’re waiting for me to be weak to drag me away. That’s what happens to earthbound spirits over time. They get weak and confused. But the more people talk to me and believe in me, the stronger I get! I think I’m the strongest I’ve ever been since…

“Roval,” Seralah finished. “You fancy him…but Lottie…it will just hurt you. He’s young and alive and will want…” she trailed off again because Lottie seemed hurt enough. She didn’t want to rub it in. Seralah worried for Lottie, though not because of her ill placed crush on the young and handsome Roval. To know that things waited for her to be weak to hurt her disturbed Seralah beyond measure.

Remember when you were little and you told me…that you’d make a body for me? You’d learn science and alchemy…

Seralah drew in a deep breath, blinking to clear her vision. She replaced yet another filled vial and watched her blood slowly fill the new one. “I promised, yes,” Seralah said. “It’s very complicated, Lottie. It requires so much anima and raw materials. Fresh, preferably. It would be easier to make you undead, but I don’t think you’d be happy with that…and…I…” Seralah’s lashes fluttered on her ashen cheeks. She went limp an still.

Sera? Sera! Oh no. Please wake up.

Lottie looked around for Manus, though he was technically IN everything. She worried with all the guests he wasn’t paying attention. She felt him, but not entirely, as if he had his ‘back’ turned.

Without another thought, Lottie sunk herself into her unconscious sister. She felt the flesh knit with her spirit, making everything strange and heavy. With a gasp, she sat up and yanked the thick needle from her arm, pressing her fingers over the puncture to staunch the flow of blood.

It didn’t feel good to be in Sera’s body this time. Lottie felt ill, dizzy, two things she’d never experienced before. “Manus,” she said weakly, “Sera’s drawn too much blood and…this feels very bad. Can you help her, please?”

Lottie sat, shaking her head, trying to keep her eyes open. The dizziness, while largely benign, certainly felt like dying to Lottie who began to cry. She’d…never cried before.

Trembling, pale fingers touched the tears on her cheeks. She tasted them. Salty. Her heart raced and her vision sparked and tunneled. She could feel herself being tugged and pulled out of Seralah. Before that happened, she stuffed a cotton ball on the puncture and taped it. Then, she was ejected and Seralah collapsed back on the bed, passed out, but very much alive.

Lottie could see the bright spark of Sera’s life force and knew she was all right. She’d endured her sister’s horrible self experiments for Seralah’s entire life, so she knew when to worry and when to relax. Horrible temptation called to her then. Maybe Seralah would let her borrow her body again. So she could have a real conversation with Roval.

Lottie would ask when she woke up.

Mentions: @wraaronsen , @draconecastle , @wraheathcliff , @wrarovalmorn