Moths
By Vasiliki, March 2nd and June 29th, 2001.
Beta reader: Cassiopeia.
Dedicated to Stephen to whom I owe the inspiration. I can't forget.
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Bullets were whistling inches from her face, loud boots sounding rapidly on the corridors of the base towards her. Her ammunition was running low. She turned a corner and they lost her, but it wouldn't be for long. The guards outside the chamber where the hostages were kept were sufficiently dealt with: a smoke-producing bomb and tear-gas. She moved swiftly and invisible to the door and placed the small plastic device in the keyhole, wishing that no hostage was near it on the other side. A small explosion and the door was blown open, taking care of the guard behind it as well. She removed her gas mask and she appeared at the entrance of the room, casting her long shadow on the frightened humans inside.
That was how Catherine saw her for the first time. Impeccable. She saw a tall woman blocking the doorway, dressed in the Preventers' jacket and crossed at the chest with heavy ammunition belts, a throw back to her days with the resistance, smoke drifting into the room from around her frame and explosions still going off behind her, her hair two golden-brown plates crowning a clear, strong yet soft face and sharp eyes that shone like gray diamonds. When she spoke, her voice was decisive and as authoritative as her proud stature.
"I work with the Preventers," she said, "and I'm getting you out."
Sally was unprepared to the reaction from one of the hostages. The sight of the pretty redheaded woman grabbing the knife of the dead soldier and throwing it at her caught her off guard. She would never be able to avoid it in time. A glimpse of light shone on the metal blade, as it passed next to her dilated pupils and scrapped her cheek, before it was stopped by flesh with a solid 'thud'. She turned her head and looked at the guard behind her, sliding on the floor, the short hilt of a knife extruding from the middle of his wide brow.
The next shock she felt, cool fingers bathing in the blood from the thin slice on her cheek, wasn't truly as big.
"I'm sorry for wounding you," a clear voice said. "It seems that I can never avoid it", she tried to hide an old sadness, but it was present.
The Preventer woman covered with her palm the slender yet strong hand that lingered on her skin, intending to gently remove it.
'Hands rough like mine' she thought and as she looked at the worried amaryllis eyes, a honest smile painted her lips.
"I would carry a bigger wound right now, had his weapon struck before yours. Thank you for saving my life", she cordially replied.
"You were my savior first", the girl brightly laughed and her eyes shone.
After a moment, the fighter found with a hint of surprise that their hands still touched and her palm was now cupping the long fingers.
***
Inside the circus tent, the multi-colored lights and jolly sounds, the sweet smell of butter on warm popcorn and children's laughter, all combined to give Sally a light head. She hadn't felt so relaxed in a long time, without any of the usual responsibilities of the Preventers occupying her thoughts.
Outside, frayed cottony threads were left behind by the passing of shuttles that knifed the blue sky. The sun drowning in its warm blood. A clear evening, months since their first meeting; time that passed lazily enough to bring intimacy to their secret thoughts of each other, yet swiftly enough to prevent the first impressions be substituted with the mundane reality of their fallible persons. They had met a couple of times in open places, always a part of a company, never alone.
"The show is about to begin" said WuFei, as the lights went off.
Sally concentrated on the sandy arena, waiting for the single white beam of spotlight that would soon bathe the announcer.
Nothing happened.
"They surely take their time", she commented listening to the murmurs of the people around them.
"Hn."
Something in the air changed then. People went quiet.
A limb, illuminated by a pale, whispering light in the dark vault overhead. A star-shaped earring reflecting a blinding ray. A violet gaze piercing the dark distance between them. Sally wondered if she could really look at her through the darkness, find her among this crowd, notice the Chinese ex-pilot sitting next to her.
And then the show began and her thoughts were thrown in limbo.
The circus maiden was slicing the ether of the universe, she did. That body was sharp wind and gentle stroke, the laughing mouth a rainbow, those shining eyes the manna falling from heaven to give Sally life. Her honey-haired head was swimming with pictures of light and movement, flashes of gold and red painting the darkness of her existence. The acrobat was like a butterfly, rose and violet, soft and ephemeral. Damned, like a falling angel opposing the Creator. Scorning all the laws of earth, a being of another place and time. Magick incarnate.
Sally was watching the show through her heart. 'Why am I feeling so?'
The warmth, exhilaration and sweet pain that were filling her was something she had rarely lived before. And they were nothing to the sudden burst of joy that flooded her veins and leaked from her skin.
'Why am I looking at her differently, tonight?'
The show ended in enthusiastic claps, whistling sounds and cheers. WuFei was clapping and smiling as well, Sally noticed absent-mindedly. The announcer had appeared next to the pretty acrobat, pointing at her slender frame with his big arm, his dense black eyebrows moving in accordance with his voice. The star waved and bowed, and when she straightened her head, she looked at a single point in the tier of seats and Sally could swear that she was reading her open.
After the show, the Chinese youth left. She watched him go with a strange mix of sadness and freedom. The sun had set since. She had to ask around, in order to knock at the correct door. No signs of surprise appeared on the smiling face of the woman welcoming her in.
The trailer was tidy and neat. The steamy soup tasty. It warmed her soul and brought kindness in her eyes. They didn't make polite talk, it was needless. Sometime, somehow, the subject of discussion was brought to the company of men and they both laughed with understanding. Their eyes met and the air shifted with tension. Sally was light-headed again. She knew what was coming and felt strange, happy and sad at the same time. That amaryllis gaze was burning her.
"The loneliness is unbearable at times", she listened at her confession.
"You have Trowa", she blurred out.
"He can't cover all my needs. He's more a brother to me than anyone ever was, and he's irreplaceable... but you, you're someone I can fall in love with."
She jumped at the words and the other's voice became desperate, as if trying to transmit the truth of existence in the penury of human language.
"What are we, you and I? All human race? Moths in a black pit, balancing on the blade of a sharp sword. We see the light above and we take flight, without knowing whether it's the light of a fire, our burning death. Yet, if we stay in the pit, we'll die. This is humanity, going forward - ahead us lies the gap and behind us the wild torrent, we're balancing just above the blade of the sword, and we pray to nothing."
She took Sally's face in her lily-white hands. Those pained shining eyes gazed at ciel soft ones.
"In you I see hope, I see my immortality and my salvation", she said and closing her eyes, she kissed her.
The need, the fire, the misery... everything was there, transmitted to Sally through malleable tongue and oval fingertips on her skin that burned. Her eyelids drifted shut and her arms entwined behind a tiny waist. There was power in that body, as she had witnessed earlier, the acrobat flying through the air without wings, though Sally had glimpsed them. This act was holy, an eternal mystery taking flesh, their breaths creating a bridge of life traversing their souls.
"You're making me happy," the daughter of the circus whispered. "I want to worship you all night."
And she leaned on the hollow among neck and shoulder, and pushing aside the felt vest and the white shirt, allowed her lips to touch a blue pulsing vein. Sally's arms tightened around the athletic back and, turning her head, she buried her nose in the perfumed red curls.
"I can't be what you want me to be."
Her muffled voice made the muscles of the body in her arms tighten. A small silence.
"I understand. Doesn't matter," the other lied. "Just for the pleasure then, just for tonight."
"Catherine... I..." Sally struggled.
"Don't!" a long finger was brought on her lips and the light of the lamp reflected on the glistening polish of the nail.
She was surprised for a moment, but then her face relaxed and a smile warmed her features.
"Fine", she nodded her agreement and kissed Catherine softly.
***
They spent a night of mutual passion, though the joy for the Preventer woman lay more in the happiness she was able to offer than to her own pleasure. Afterwards, laying side by side, she didn't notice violet eyes, suddenly dull, staring at the ceiling, and when she touched wet cheeks and, disturbed, asked what was wrong, she received the reply:
"Nothing, they are tears of happiness."
The light of the round moon coming in from the open window painted their faces in shades of silver and marble, stricken with the particular blue glow the white stone takes under moondust.
"Catherine..." murmured a half-asleep Sally.
"Shhh... go to sleep, my savior", winked to her the slender woman.
"You're my savior, too", she smiled at the memory.
It seemed that she wanted to say something else, but she was spent.
"You know, you remind me... of your 'brother'..." she managed to utter, before her eyes closed.
'In the body?' the knife-thrower reflected. 'Or have the hollow spaces in my soul begun to fill with the apathy of Trowa's?'
She held Sally through the rest of the night, both wrapped in the thin cotton sheet. She was looking at things, but not seeing them, trying to listen to the nocturnal sounds of nature outside the trailer and ignore the sound of her heartbeat, deafening in the silence of her soul.