Disclaimer: "If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended,
That you did but slumber'd here while these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme is no more yielding then a dream."
-Midsummer's Night Dream
Fairytale
By: Lady Erised
Prologue: Reset
Shallow.
Breaths.
Escaped.
One after another.
Shallow.
Breaths.
Escaped.
Like, the ticking of a clock.
Captain Vidal would have shut his eyes to block out the pain if he could, but he was trapped in inaction and staring straight out at the retreating footsteps of his murderers. His son was crying. He was aware of that and compelled by the strong desire to comfort him. He could have. If there had been any strength left in his body; Vidal would have pushed himself up and reached out, grabbing for his son.
His son…
The boy would never know his father.
Like he always wished he hadn't.
His brain was rejecting his body. Vidal had a vague understanding of this, but it really didn't occur to him that he was dying. Perhaps if he gave his mind room to think of that: then he would have felt afraid. Then he would have panicked. Cried, if his brain would have allowed him to. Felt pain. Misery. Despair.
But something was wrong. Right behind his eyes, something cracked and popped like the grubs trapped inside burning wood. His father use to point out the sound to him when he was a boy. The sizzle, and bang as the damned little insects met their fate beneath the fire.
His father.
Who died a hero.
When he was only a monster.
Vidal was aware his breath was slowing.
Like a clock slowly winding down.
He was dying.
He would have panicked too, if his brain continued to speak to his body but it didn't. And Vidal was aware, painfully, that the ticking in his skull was his heart, and lungs scrambling to catch up to a failing body. Short. Shallow. Breaths. They didn't really help, and Vidal knew he wasn't really breathing. He was reacting. Following motions. Mimicking the actions of the living.
Like the shadow creatures he use to believe in as a child.
Fairytales.
Drifting into his consciousness as he lay dying.
The bitch's doing, no doubt.
Still, she had been a child…
He wasn't sorry.
Just shocked by his actions.
He knew he was a monster. He made no excuses for it, sought no absolution. She had displeased him, rebelled against him and he had acted with her as he did with any of his inferiors. The fact she was a child (his child…) made little difference. He had been willing to love her, keep her, and protect her.
But she hadn't obeyed.
She had known, perhaps. That he was one of those shadows…
His mother use to call him a Changeling: a fairy left in the place of the real child, dark and cold. Did she hate him? He doubted it. She rarely did anything. Hate would have been too trying on her mind. All she did was sleep, drink, and sometimes, please his father.
His son had stopped crying. His breaths were slowed now. And all around him he felt warmth. The shadows moved, and whispered in his ears. Leaves flickered and shielded his eyes that stared out unseeing. Then he heard it.
It was the pounding of tires from moving cars fighting the uneven terrain. Reinforcements? No. None had been near enough to come. Besides, the cadence was off. It wasn't steady. It reminded him of a horse's gait, even and powerful. Timed. Perfect. But this creature was much larger then a horse.
The hooves were even spaced too. Like a man walking.
No…
Vidal smelled earth, and wind. He felt the warmth of the night on his neck, breathing like a horse. He moved towards it or thought he did. His eyesight grayed and blackened, and a warm sticky heaviness crept upwards from his feet, to his knees and belly. His mind forgot about the beating of his head, and the ticking heart. What it was aware of was the warmth of the animal's breath on his neck and cheek. The nose was cold and wet on Vidal's ear. It tickled.
Carrion creatures, Vidal thought grimly, come to eat their fill of fresh meat.
He wondered idly if wolves were scavengers.
There was a low rumble underneath him, like an earthquake or laughter and then a voice; commanding and smooth. "What a dreadful sight in which we catch the Midnight Consort," there was a soft chuckle, as if Vidal had come into a home with muddied shoes after school. But there was something dark and familiar in the voice. He heard it before. Years ago… "Her ladyship will not be pleased, no not at all. But still," At this Vidal became aware tree branches brushing his face, scratching his face. He blinked the dirt out his face.
Blinked. His body had obeyed an action.
"Ah yes." The old voice continued. "There he is. Life enough in that callow frame, her Ladyship can work with a flicker and make it a blaze soon enough. It will take time." There was another disapproving clicking of the tongue. Ticking. "It is good we have found you, Lordship. There are rumors in the Four Houses of Moanna's return, oh you can imagine the fury that put her Ladyship into." Vidal felt the robbery of earth from beneath his body. He was being lifted, and pulled to a chest, closely like infant preparing to suckle. He felt the rough warmth of wood and soft leather covering his face. He could no longer see, and could only follow the voice's words if he concentrated which was painful. He felt like he was falling in and out of understanding.
There was a long pause, in which he probably had fainted. When he awoke again, he was of a soft dripping and a deep, chill that wrapped around him like a snake. On instinct, he curled closer to whatever carried him. There was a thoughtful sigh.
"They've done such things to you, haven't they?" The voice asked, sadly. "But do not worry yourself, Master. Her Ladyship shall tend to you. It will take time, but she can wait. Not patiently but she can wait…and with your return…all shall be avenged. Do you hear that Lord Master? You'll have your revenge…"
Vidal felt a sudden surge of energy at those words, followed close in suit but a sharp rebuke from some part of himself he hadn't been aware before. It was asking for his children. Ofelia and his son…could the creature fetch them…
Vidal closed his eyes and slept.
Drifting out, and resting.
Like a clock, being reset.
Back to the beginning.