In Your Wake.

[Albireo]

Seems that I have been held in some dreaming state A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber Until I realize that it was you who held me under. Blinding by Florence + the Machine Summer 12, 512 AV A glance over her shoulder sent her back into terror and her head shot back in the blink of an eye. A deep breath strengthened her steps. The bridge swayed in a slight summer breeze, betraying the horror beneath. Mountains had never been her terrain; in plains He shone brighter and appeared larger between Akajia’s shadows. That long string of free hours pushed her towards Surya Plaza, the buzzing center of all nocturnal activity: silk strands of black hair, glassy horns reflecting the endless emerald of the Sea of Grass she had wandered seasons ago. But memories were distant and pale in the face of bright red lanterns and skyglass reflecting the millennia of stars above. Her Lord had come out too. As the Ethaefal was gliding through streets, still a few corners away from the crowd, voices slammed against her ears with sudden force. With a flinch on otherworldly features, she contemplated whether to run or stay. “Now, now what're we doing, widow?” Cobalt eyes widened. Black claws and fangs, fresh memories flooded an alarmed mind. Run! Yet a little voice tugged at her sleeve, prevented more than a small step. And around the corner she peeked. “Don’t try that again, ya hear me!” Metallic noise: Shinya carrying steel. Then a silhouette turned in the twilight and a pale face with intense eyes sent an eerie glow through the narrow alley. It was enough to send her flying. However, long and flowing fabric wrapped around her legs, slipped under her feet. Stumbling, the Ethaefal fled and grace was the last thing on her mind. Away from the pale and pointy, away...! However, solid rock made up the city over the mountains; and the battle between flesh and stone had always been a predictable one. Sooner rather than later she came tumbling down, victim of another sharp little monster in the way. A curse in an unknown language dared to leave her lips, but she bit it back while tears burned in the corners of her eyes. It’s my fault and mine alone! When turned upwards, her cobalt gaze met a stranger’s. Two or three corners away from Surya Plaza, darkness welled up inside. Oh Lord, give no more.

[Mara]

The night: a dark, vast awning with pinholes pricked through its burnished façade. Coming to Lhavit, it was as if he was acquainted with the stars all over again. It was easy for him to get lost in them; to venture out at night for a reflective gaze at sparkling crystal and find himself greeting Syna as she welled over mountain boundaries and ornamented building toppers with a stark spotlight burrowing into his pitted sockets. Kalinor had left him favoring the night, or dusk more accurately, his eyes stung in brighter light still. The cold glow of opalgloams had become a familiar friend, one that kept him up nearly every night and guided his steps down silken footpaths. Now upon this mountain he was lost in thought, buried deep in the sky that was close enough to taste and a darkness that felt as real as any dream.

Marvasa's fingers rattled over carved stone as he passed, black tips gave a quite chime with each scuff that hung over his head. He breathed in the warm thin air, a steamy breeze lapping at his bare arms. It was his only complaint that the city was too warm, he squirmed under lengthy layers. What Morwen had bestowed made him miss the bite of her icy winters, of ice structures that in his eyes envied the Skyglass.

For the leisure those passing seemed to embrace, the passing of stares that flitted over and around him, some great obstacle in their path. It less than bothered him, he quite enjoyed it, being left to his own. Though he was sure they could see, he had spent too many months watched, examined, and even the feigning of disinterest was a relief.

So amidst the subtle patter and somber chill of laughter, he heard hurried feet, uneven and dense. Instinctually he froze. What fear of past contravention and flight still clung too near, but he soon found its source. No angry Symenestra, or hurried guard, but another. A jumble of whitish marble and raven thread that he darted toward without a second thought as it sunk toward the stony floor. She had already uncurled over stone when he reached her side. The look of horror etched into her soggy lashes made him nervous, and he looked about for the culprit that would frighten her so. At better glance of her and he stared for too long, carved features and shinning stalks of forest green crowning her head. Since he had arrived he had seen perhaps one, maybe two in passing, and before then he had only read accounts. The fallen, Ethaefal, they were creatures from a tragic fairytale, beautiful and lost.

His breath slipped out in a ragged sigh, sorry that any harm would befall such a creature. He scooped her hand with caution, slipped about her shoulder to lift her. He drew away just as quickly, he knew the look of a frightened and injured creature all too well. His voice was tender, experienced bedside manner learned from years of observation. "Are you alright?"

[Albireo]

“Symenestra!” Foreign accent distorted her scream. At the sight of intense eyes her body shook uncontrollably. Another rush of adrenaline made her rise into shock, then knees stung and a wet feeling brought her back. What a question! “How could I ever be alright?” she echoed, tribute not to the problem at hand, but the whole overwhelming chaos. The other one didn’t show sharp teeth, didn’t raise black claws, didn’t grimace, attack or scream; after her pulling away he didn't even try to touch her anymore. Wide eyes stared into his pale face, yet he didn't attempt anything. It took eternity to collect shattered thoughts and pull the mind together. Eventually she mustered small gestures: pulling back the fabric over slim knees to reveal what the pavement had damaged, blood and dirt. “Can you do what the others detest?” A flinch revealed meaning. The others: those reflected in his eyes. If he could, Albireo would find a way around the paralyzing fear. If he could, he was the anti-villain, the one she had been praying for.

[Mara]

The half-blood winced, a subtle tremor that lined the edges of his blanching eyes. The cavernous scarlet lake of his sights melted into a cream of lavender. "I-I apologize." he stumbled on a nervous tongue. His approach was usually in the face of instinctive need, otherwise he kept his distance. It was not that he was a distinct timorous temperament; it was caution that held his reserve. Even so he was generally more elegant in these circumstances than on any other. Not so now, as the accusation of ‘Symenestra’ still resonated in his ears. "I was not trying to frighten you, Miss." the formality was aberrantly cordial, one he offered in the briskness of its delivery. Perhaps it was his amazement, or the fact that she was the closest to a god he had come to aside from his beloved Morwen. Some reverence seemed necessary in the face of her suspicion.

A nod was his honest answer to her blunted request. He looked her knees over. He had half anticipated her lifeblood to seem altered, brilliant in a way that any earthborn creatures could never be. Alas, the dribble was identical as any he had seen in the clinics he had been employed in, a bright shock of snowberry shaded tributaries slithering down her shin.

The healer dug into the folding of the dark silk robes embracing his waist by dual layers of black and smoky cloth. Within the fabric he carried his kit, basic supplies that were continually on his person. The wooden case cracked open with a clatter as his thumb flicked at the copper latch. Inside, precisely stacked sterilized cloth sat about the top, beneath them were needles and silk cord, and a small vial that wafted a mint leaf fragrance into the gust of the Surya Plaza.

"It does not look too damaging." he assured, with deliberate hands taking a cloth in hand a waterskin from his side. He glanced back to her face, his eyes recapturing the burgundy they had once held, looking for her fear or a mount of condemnation. "I need to clean the rubble away." his explanation was composed as he hoped she would be as he soaked a corner of the white cloth in a dispersal of water. "I promise it will only sting a moment."

The waterskin rose in his grasp to hang inches over the battered flesh. His focus was set, a look of calm that only surfaced in the presence of what he knew best set into his spirit and drew his features back into an intense silence. The water trickled from the spout as it was tilted, a few drops hurtling down before the stream was encouraged and a blushing liquid made a waterfall from her limb to the pavement.

It only took an instant and both slender legs were cleared of the debris. The wet corner of his cloth dabbed at the stubborn slices that pooled plasma as speedily as he had eroded it away.

"Almost finished."

[Albireo]

Eyes big and round as moons, not as pale, stared at the looming creature. He apologized? He apologized? It formed an endless spiral in her mind, down or up, it wasn’t clear. “F-for what you are?” she whispered, voice thin and half choked by the presence of a spider. She watched, mind torn and body paralyzed as a result, the Symenestra taking care of the scratches. Sitting on the ground, in the dirt, the Ethaefal didn’t know whether to laugh or to leave. The former would’ve been hysterical, caressing a thin line she dared not touch. High-pitched and otherworldly, not heavenly though. What did she truly become in the face of fear? A problem of some significance. Blood was flowing, trickling down her milky skin alive with moonlight reflection, yet the self-proclaimed healer behaved like a human. Not like a spider, not following the command of sharp fangs. With claws, yes, but hands barely touching her, even words were gentle. The sting shut her eyes for mere moments. After that, observations were ablaze even more. A dream? Reality of another world? And whose world if not hers? Always, always: questions. Unholy. Ignoring the voices, she said: “You choose to heal rather than destroy… why is that?” Tales of pale thieves haunted her thoughts, stories her neighbors told to others at the corners, at the markets, in front of shops, tales making up the current in the City of Stars. Lhavitians looked up to the stars, always, but they also noticed dirt in the streets. How come these surroundings defied a daughter of Leth again and again? Her only question, probably.

[Mara]

Her question floated over him, submerging progressively into recognition and consideration. Coagulated irises eroded away by swollen pupils inspecting for light against the grain of eclipsed replies. Common words with a tangled enunciation, the blend of travels and nurture soaking his tongue and every sliver of him was constructed from experience rather than blood. There was no answer, “I am only what you observe, a medic tending to a wound. Nothing more.” Even as the utterances bitterly left a drying mouth he felt their veracity as pronounced as a reflection staring back at him. It was what he had; therefor it had to be adequate.

He dressed a loose fabric about a leaking, sticky, abrasion and tucked the corners behind her knee so they slackly knotted. It was to be an impermanent bandage until the boundaries of the stubborn injury congealed together. Mara withdrew, concealing his hands against his stomach where they attained hold of one another, now tipped in another stranger’s flecks of drying blood. “It only needs to stay on for a brief time, then you can move again.” The half-blood offered a muttered explanation he felt was needed as he minded the thin fabric as it dotted with the stain of body fluid and he felt her enlarged eyes trace him over, summing up the degree of threat he may be.

“You choose to heal rather than destroy… why is that?”

There was a stolen pause and he found his way into a tilted stare back at her, from where his bunched posture shifted the points of his knees farther into the dirt. “Why?” he asked again, measuring the weight of the question actually being asked. She knew him to be Widow, and with this presumption there was more gore on his hands than what sprinkled them now. It was not an incorrect supposition, but his intentions were never out of achievement or tradition, because he was not Symenestra and Kalinor was well aware of his disloyalty beyond his mother’s adopted philosophies.

“Because it is my purpose.” His answer tumbled out before he could acknowledge its manifestation in his thoughts. A ragged chuckle followed in surprise of his honesty. He shook his head and placed a palm to his forehead, faintly moonlit tendrils of sapphire and emerald, fixed against a backdrop of obsidian thread, rustled along tensing knuckles.

“I have witnessed enough to know I would rather repair what is damaged, rather than be idle to or companion in its mutilation.” His hands sunk back to his lap rubbing against the hide of his trouser until his palms were scorching with friction.

A second glimpse to the Ethaefal’s shin and he could tell the drops were drying across the silken face of cream fabric and the wound was clotting. It was almost a shame it was not large enough to stitch, the healing would have been much faster. “It seems you are mending rather quickly. Is there much discomfort?”

[Albireo]

The words didn’t make the journey to her lips, yet her thoughts were so loud that Albireo was surprised he didn’t hear them. No, you’re a Widow. You make people disappear and your fangs are as sharp as your claws. The first thing one noticed at the sight of his pale kin. At the muttered explanation she hugged her knees and half-buried her face in her arms. Only cobalt eyes were watching every move and taking in every word. How strange, a Fallen sitting on the street, white bandages around her knee, and how fitting. Tears welled up, but she blinked rapidly, willing them to disappear unnoticed. Mortal, all too mortal! The blood on his hands was crying out to her and echoing endlessly in her head. Covering her ears never helped. Purpose. Joining the voices, his words sent ripples through her body. What did he know of purposes? Strange urges and longings overcame them from time to time, yet they never saw the end of it. Those ways were mysterious as well as treacherous. Albireo, the storyteller, preferred to tell stories instead of experiencing what her heroes did. Mizahar had been too cruel before and the stories were just that: stories. Bits and pieces, woven into beautiful patterns and destined to give sweet dream. Still, his concept didn’t occur to her. “Then your body betrays you daily: though claws and fangs.” The words made her tremble, yet she continued in a mere whisper. “Women disappear from streets and parties because of you.” Standing at the sidelines of glittering joy, she had watched and understood. People were talking behind their backs. Names were identity, so a name had been given: Widow for it was widowers they left. “Nothing”, she replied with a slight headshake. Pain had been greater in the past. Moonlight caught on the smooth surface of her horns. Even though he helped, even though his words were kind and friendly, silken, she couldn’t forget.

[Mara]

Flattened palms rested along the camber of each bent thigh where he kowtowed before her. The blackened fiber of his trousers fervently consumed her shed blood, washing it from the pads of his shuddering limbs as she spoke. His fingers coiled into fists mechanically, shrouding the blunted blade-like tips of which she allude to, as if it lessened the truth or made it any less fact.

An angry gust of wind tossed the slack fabric of his shirt against the hollows of his battering chest, attesting to the weight that was dwindling from his overextended form. The bleached ends of rolled sleeves curled against his wrists but were now unfashionably variegated with the dye of cherry blots. "Is it I?" It was a charmed whisper hoven halfheartedly from lips ill prepared to slip up and expose the fringes of pointed canines, "Or my race that you cast the blame upon?"

"I can only offer my apologies for one of the two, both of which I was given little choice in the matter of their predestination."

Accosted sight of Albireo's sealed skin taunted him; let him know there was really no need for his company. In an apartment not far from there sat a woman, with a distending belly and a mouth full of venom, waiting for him to find an answer, yet here he sat on the cold surface of rock and mountain soil. He exhaled heavy so his head was released forward, "Your hate is well placed, and I will not argue your words for I am sure your reasons are your own."

A decoratively speared brow twitched in amusement "Much of this city is in your good company." he raked up over her obscured face, bloodied caverns twisting with an odd brew of color from beneath straight lashed lids. "If you had the chance, the means even, what action would your heart express you to do? Would you take from a Widow? Harm?"

His chin tilted upward, searching for the dark cobalt, the gleam of Ethaefal dark green stalks catching Leth's shine so it gathered in his sights. "Even kill? Would that be fair?” it was earnest though his own embittered allegation bubbled from beneath the lid of his flaccid persona. “I hope that if your hate went so far, that those actions would bring you peace.”

The light left him as the pale face of the sky slithered behind a silvery puff and the pigment drained from the dark meres of his eyes leaving them placid and a colorless mauve. The compulsion to smear the moisture from her dampened lashes was momentary before a swift resolution against. There was nothing he could do that would give any relief. “All of you, creatures of the gods, your faces are all so sad. A tragedy I suppose I could never understand. It’s seems an indignity that you shed such tears.” He gulped roughly and shifted back on his heels pulling his reach further from her.

“If some pleasure could be found in your agony, I wonder if this existence would become bearable.”

[Albireo]

If there had been a way to curl up even tighter, she’d have done so. The wind flattened his shirt against his belly, revealing a thin form and wired muscle. His words came in a whisper, silken and charming, yet distorted by the tips of fangs visible behind parted lips. Albireo saw it all, yet she never knew how. There was no answer. Feelings, tender threads forming the big fabric of the mind, were tangled and tied up in patterns that didn’t make sense anymore. Many just hung loosely. She had lost sight of the beginning and the end was nowhere near as far as she could tell. A choked sigh escaped her lips. Apologies wouldn’t help. As he mentioned hate, however, she froze in epiphany. That word she recognized – with the mind, not in the heart. Clinging to its echo, she tried to discern what tugged at her consciousness. Urgent. His monologue went on and on. Was he talking to her or Lhavit? All the beautiful Fallen in the City of Stars? It reminded her of a far more significant shard from her shattered construct. Fragments rejoined. Out of that mess, she whispered: “I cannot, I cannot.” How often the phrase repeated, she didn’t know. Harm had come to her always, yet no harm would come from her. The Moon Lord had cast aside violence for his lover. Like that, it had never occurred to Albireo, precisely because of what she had endured. The trickle became a waterfall. “Don’t speak of hate, please… For it is not hate, but fear. Fear. My thoughts are not straight, my words don’t make sense at this moment.” Had they ever? Asking was too painful. “I should apologize. You’ve done nothing. Others have done… other things. I can’t understand how you are like that. Different. But I will try to change, I am trying. All I ask of you is patience.” Similar to the healer, she didn’t direct her words at him only, but also at all the others, the nightmares and monsters she feared. Then why hadn’t she fled? That was something to be considered. Albireo took a deep breath and raised her gaze to his features, slowly and deliberately. “I apologize. If you would explain to me why you’re different… I would understand the story.” Wide-eyed, she waited. If agony could be turned into pleasure and if her fear could be lessened, it was in his power to help with it.

[Mara]

Plunging over the heaths of fair alabaster film, each spindle of fresh tears stained her cheek, balled over the length of her mandible, and slapped chubby saline beads athwart her small hand and the peeking fabric that composed her chemise. The healer froze, guilelessly in his scrutiny. The moisture amassed and settled in her suppliant voice, beseeching the object of her fear to offer a chance, an explanation. Frightened and unsettled, his center cracked beholding her crumpled form.

The first unnerving notion his frame betrayed him with was the one that snarled at him to run, to hurry away from her and ease his own struggle in merely being in her presence. His eyes were desiccated but a pressure welled along the bridge of his nose and constricted his airway. He coarsely swallowed down the taut lump, all but gagging.

A stitch of unsoiled spun gauze, the same variety he had used to clean her gnashed foreleg, found its way into his uneasy hand. He hesitated; a fidgeting clasp unhurriedly extended the square of cotton in contribution. His overturned palm faced toward her, much like a stray mutt approaching to sniff a stranger's hand for the first time. "Here."

"Please, do not expend your apologies to me. You are correct though, I am different." it was his own apology obstructing his esophagus for he was never very competent at them even at the best of times. The sentiment was usually lost where he drudged through the callous of his misshapen communication.

The night cast suspicious surveillance of the two in their huddle of hushed banter, far from witty and mild. Mara could feel their looks and hear the murmuring as they passed. They speculated what this Widow was doing to cause this poor delicate Eth to weep so. Interference was moments away, violent or otherwise. Each Good Samaritan was slowly gaining the courage to approach the harder her tears fell.

"Can you walk?" he shifted onto a knee and reposed his mass along the raised limb. "Don't push yourself."

"I will tell you all that you hope to know if you care to hear it. A chance for us both to redeem our irregular first impressions, yes?" a smile tempted him but absconded with an unsatisfying grinding of tines. "First, let us please abandon our stay in the street." his sunken gaze rolled over the knoll of his shoulder to the onlookers now openly accusing him with their stares. He envisaged being dragged before the Shinya and petitioning his case. 'Of course I was not going to whisk this girl away. Harvest? I? Never. Please excuse me now while I return to the woman carrying my poisonous child.' No, his case would not hold up well and his traveling companion was now too ill to come to his aid any longer. Nor was he sure he desired to see him in his present condition.

A mumble trailed behind his stressed thoughts, "Perhaps somewhere public, where it does not appear that I am dragging you away."