Title: Shiver
Author: Juanita Dark
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Charmed S4,
post-We're Off To See The Wizard.
Summary: Darkside, dark memory,
drabble.
Disclaimer: Erm, not mine.
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Shiver
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take away your secrets and never leave a mark
i feel an itching between my horns
i feel a scratching in my heart
three can keep a secret (if two are dead) ~ snowpony
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Like a great many discouraging facts, the book remained. It felt heavy to hold, cold to touch. The portent of her and it's opposing histories brought gravity to the contact and finally warmth. A conviction was inside her screaming for air or silence. And she made her choice.
* * *
The coronation was a solemn affair; she went with her love the forerunning point of their triangle - a new power thrice times: mother, father, child - queen, king, heir. Shadow enveloped the crowds as surely as their robes, faces - obscured - grew ghastly in torchlight, and spilled blood darkened - wet over black stone. Voices echoed, ribald and sinister in the caverns' accoustics - the site shaped like a bell. A dozen pronouncements made, sounding like recrimination in her ears; she held Cole's hand tight until the chills that felt like spiders became familiar, gossamer warmth.
She felt it. The coronation consolidating, closing a mantle of power about him that only death could remove. Being close to that power made her giddy, rising thoughts like alcohol, and just as hard to breathe. She swallowed, breathed and, as told, placed a hand over his on the book.
It passed for comfort and the tide of screams in her memory at last receded.
The Seer hovered now and then, strangely maternal - not questioning, not counselling - perhaps sensing a conflict of conscience falter, soften and still. Phoebe sensed herself soothed on all sides. Father, mother and son (inside, safe).
* * *
They came and went in flame.