The Ghost Of Solstice Past

*Apples. It’s the first and only thing I can smell as polished wooden floors give way to the plush carpets of a sitting room, the majestic set up of bejewelled evergreen standing guard in a corner, overlooking elegant couches and deep lush cushioned chairs, delicate spindled furniture and heavy mahogany panels casting the room in an Old Country air, wealth and luxury written into the apple scented surfaces. The young are in heaven, this room off limits ‘til now, their little hands seek out the small crystal ornaments dangling from pine branches, magpies drawn to the shimmering decorations as light refracts rainbows from glittering facets, diamond stars, emerald trees, pearl moons hanging from every limb. Everything was so damn opulent, iridescently festive, the Solstice celebrations starting in sparkling style. Even my mahmen looks to sparkle, diamonds and emeralds clasping her wrists, dripping from her ears, her tiny form encased in embroidered green velvet that cast her eyes to glitter in the glow of the fire. She is radiant with smiles, the young finally stilling enough to clamber up beside V and I, eager faces munching happily at toffee apples, sticky fingers clutching at leather as their excited bodies nearly hype themselves in a tumble right off the couch. Decked out in all its glory, the tree did have a little nod to the human festivities our freaklings have so been looking forward to. A crystal Rudolph hung on the lowest branch, watching over the meticulously wrapped gifts we placed beneath…So we’d make Santa some fat guy servant of the Scribe Virgin, rewarding well behaved young with Skelanimals and Begoth dolls…the presents are stacked, Xsy’s eyes glued on the bright metallic paper, thinking nothing could hold her interest more until my mahmen begins her tales….the same tales that had been woven and retold for centuries, praising the SV’s benevolence, her compassion, her mercy…her overall fucking goodness…It is the Scribe Virgin’s holiday after all, a time to worship her….and all I can think about is hurling one of her apples at her head. She seems to enjoy playing other games, the stories I heard in my lifetime, less of her kindness, more of her punishments, how one can be punished brutally for the slightest offense to Her Highness. But I will not turn our babies against their grandmother. They need all the protection they can get and it will be easier if they are willing to accept hers. A slight draft chills down my spine despite the roar of the fire, instinct curling me into V’s body, heat seeking in the bundle of young puppy-piling over us with excited chatters as the stories roll on and the snow continues its icy fall*

{Solstice Eve, Tory and everybody sitting round the fire playing happy fucking families, physically, I'm there...mentally? Stood apart from the gathering, a safe-distance observer, calloused fingers studiously working out the joints of gloved knuckles...wearing a tight smile that doesn't reach my eyes.. not wanting to piss on Tory's and the young's parade...but when a thing seems too damn good to be true...well, you know the rest. If three centuries with this fucking cursed hand of Midas had taught me anything, it was that everything I touched eventually turned to shit… and I just couldn't shake the fucked up feeling that the clock was running down for me and Tory, borrowed time slipping like sand through my fingers...diamond eyes lifted to the dark night pooling behind the glass sliders...a cold, stark contrast to the warmth within, and yet the darkness was calling to me, beckoning with icy fingers...fuck...maybe I just needed a damn smoke...and an attitude readjustment, true…patting down the pockets of my leathers for my lighter and smokes, offering a half smile as you turn to watch me stand} I'll be right back Tory…

Ok.....*brow furrowed, the cold left with V, that chill down my spine had been the trickle of your emotions against my own, my eyes tracking the retreat of V's broad back with narrowed emerald...I can only feel a turmoil that ices my skin with the chill of concern, worry written in the weight of my gaze. These things were hardly ever our thing, the festivities always shadowed by icicles of the past, rarely happy occasions...but something tinges this one darker than all the rest, something I cant touch on, despite the fact that whatever is eating at V munches along my own emotions as though they were his....a sticky smack of toffee fingers and childish laughter draws my gaze to curve a smile at our young....and an exhale is a silent prayer that whatever has V in its jaws, loses its appetite and leaves his emotions alone*

{Shitkickers crunching a trail of bootprints into the perfection of fresh fallen snow, the sudden drop in temperature raising gooseflesh on my skin, Turkish smoke exhaled into the frosty air...and then…she's there…before me…a black-robed apparition conjured from the night. Had I even blinked?} What are you...the ghost of fucking Solstice past? {The glow beneath the Scribe Virgin's robe pulses with the obvious anger I've incited, but I am beyond giving a fuck} To what do I owe the 'pleasure'? <<This is how you greet me, my son? With inquiry?>> {lips curled in a sneer} If you expect me to kneel...mother...you're going to have to make me {flicking the butt of the hand-rolled into the neatly tamed shrubbery, gloved palm scrubbing over the nape of my neck, carefully examining the steel toes of my shitkickers} I'm assuming this ain't a social call, true <<Let us dispense with the formalities for now, Warrior and cut to the chase. I came to you once to avert a war, I have need of your services once more...The male Rehvenge. The path of his ascendency to the Symphath throne threatens the life of your King and the stability of the race>> {Jesus. Christ...how fucking sad was it that somewhere, buried deep inside, the abused kid in me had hoped that maybe, just once, the female who birthed me might actually just want to see her son...quashing the weakness in the balls of my fists, head cranking up on my neck, incredulous diamond eyes locking onto the spectral glow of the Scribe Virgin's hooded face} You want me to assassinate Rehvenge? {thoughts rewinding to the last time I spoke with the male, him sitting in that bed at Havers' clinic, the connection I'd felt...pimp, drug-dealer perhaps...male of worth nonetheless…my answer is blunt} No. <<...No???>> You heard me. I am not your pawn. Nor am I the youth you came to three centuries ago with empty promises of rewards...how did you put it?... Oh yeah...{my parody of her voice is derisive} 'beyond my wildest imaginings'... {the Scribe Virgin's hood jerks up and her voice takes on a hard edge} <<Think you my promise was empty? Look inside there...{my head pivots round in the direction of her pointing hand, to the scene of Tory and the twins through the window laughing happily}…your shellan, not one, but two young...beyond your wildest imaginings...yes?>> {Fuck yes...but......feeling my stomach bottom out as a realization begins to dawn...}

*it's unsettling, feeling someone else's emotions tangled up with your own, makes the smiling facade harder to keep up as tension pulls in my gut, churning it as I fight to keep my head in the festivities, the young preoccupied listening to my mahmen, my mind with my soul outside in the snow...wandering back as my eyes catch on the pure white expanse, so like the Fade, so pure, so untouched, colourless beyond the glass doors, a partitioning of bright lit warmth and icy white nothing, caressing V in snowy drifts, leaving him alone on a plain of immaculacy....I'd been encased in nothing before and the words curl up in the back of my mind, dragged from the purity of the Fade....the Scribe Virgin in all her glory telling me clear as day, something I had tried not to believe <<I made you...everything that happened was to strengthen you enough that you could heal him..to forge you into a female biting enough to handle him...go...We shall meet again>> I'd been as good as dead, floating in that in between and her words had been her permission, her releasing me from the shroud of death she'd allowed me to float into...she took me away from and she returned me to V...Yeah...the Scribe Virgin likes to play games, and I cant celebrate her...my eyes are fixed now, on the pacing shadow tearing paths through the snow, a mammoth mass of conflicted male, the past on broad shoulders, arguing with demons I cant see, cant help him fight...the Solstice meant new beginnings, the starting of new lives....and it is always, always haunted by the ghosts of the past....and sometimes...the ghosts are more real than ever*

Let's just rewind here a fucking minute...what the hell are you saying? That Tory was my 'reward' for killing the sin-eater? {levelling the Scribe Virgin with a glacial expression, the contrast between the horror in my voice and her emotionless tone couldn't be more stark} <<That is precisely what I am saying. Had you not taken the male's life, the Primale would have avenged his female, a bloody war with the Symphaths would have ensued, Tohrture's mahmen would never have fallen>> {nausea coiling in my gut} You are NOT fucking telling me Tory's one hundred and twenty years of abuse, the scars she bears, the rape and torture....fuck...the young she lost were all part of some grand fucking plan executed in MY name...{fuck, my stomach surges, threatening to hurl the Solstice feast Tory's mahmen cooked all over the Scribe Virgin's glowing feet} <<Balance must be kept>> BULL. SHIT!! <<Sacrifices must be made if gifts are to be given. You know the truth of it. I made her, Vishous. In your image. Look at her. Tohrture is your perfect mate>> {haunted diamond eyes turn back from looking at Tory through the glass} So you're saying you engineered her? For ME? Like some bride of fucking Frankenstein for your monstrous spawn of a son? What about choice? What about free fucking will? Mother. {the words spat out, wrath building inside me like a fucking rabid animal ready to be unleashed and fuck the consequences} <<Naive boy. Would you honestly exchange her suffering in return for never having known Tohrture?>> You bitch. You evil sadistic fucking bitch… {My back hits hard on the snow-covered ground, forcing the air from my lungs on a grunt, and the Scribe Virgin is looming over me, her once beautiful features contorted into a mask of seething anger...never has she looked so like her brother, the distillate of evil…the Omega incarnate...her voice the sound of inevitability, the sound of my approaching death...} <<What I gifted you, I can as readily take away...>>

*It isnt so much as being strangled as I am hit by a truck, the damn thing parking on my chest and taking the air from my lungs in a breath that whimpers from my compressed chest, I'm being weighted down, buried under a mass of invisible pressure, the tumult of emotion I can feel roiling from a presence not my own turns my stomach to maddening nausea...and I can no longer see V....the white is even brighter, glowing in the moonlight, seeping under the glass doors to taint the colour of the room with a paintbrush of watercolours…dims the vibrancy, creeps over my skin to wash out porcelain to near transparency, the scent of apples spins my head, growing stronger as the invisible eraser sweeps through the room...life is being painted over...I am...no, wait, we are...pinned, breathless...disappearing*

{Mother...fucker...it's like an entire Panzer division just rolled up on my sternum...limbs pinned, straining against the Scribe Virgin's invisible shackles, heartbeat drumming pneumatic inside my skull, rib-cage battling to draw air, but none will come…take her away...fuck the Scribe Virgin's threat whips panic through my veins...Tory!! fuck...it feels like my heart is being wrenched from my chest cavity....I won't fucking lose Tory...but the sinister curl of the Scribe Virgin's fist tells me it's already too fucking late...}

*My heart is refusing to beat right, an iron fist wrapping spiked fingers around the organ and threatening to tear not only flesh, but my soul from my body....I can feel V...on the end of a frayed connection, something sawing through the lines as I frantically battle under the weight of nothing, eyes wide with panic flared around the room to find only dim hazy figures of my mahmen still reading to twin young who've lost the vibrancy of colour, like black and white drawings on unlined paper...and I am not even that...my soul screams terror from transparent lips...I am a glass piece trembling on uncertainty, battling to intertwine my spirit's fingers with V's as the world fades to dull, drawings in a sketchbook, the lines of life slowly being erased by an omnipotent hand*

{NO!!! I can feel my eyes bugging out, my throat working reflexively against the lack of air...I am pinned but I am floating…the snowy world, the Scribe Virgin's features swimming in and out of focus...I can recognise the symptoms of oxygen starvation, my body can't live without air, can't fucking live without Tory, can't fight the stuttering deceleration of my heart, the impending cardiac arrest that will.....will what?...my thoughts are disconnected, fading....cast into the bright light that envelopes me in a world of whiteness........}

*Everything is slipping away, my heartbeat, I can barely hear even though it drums in my head, my breath, wheezing out more exhales than inhales, my oxygen is not in the air, it is in the presence of a male I cannot live without...without V I may as well be nothing, floating on clouds, insubstantial in weight as the pressure bears down, leaking my life into the vast white that slowly closes down my systems...flailing drains the strength that is soon torn from me, my soul huddles around the last embers of V's, attempting to reattach the threads that have been severed...one remains...just one...and my heart, my life, my soul strokes the last connection with tender incorporeal fingers...before the glow of light encompasses my everything in a world of nothing...a world of white*