Draw With MeKait Amaranth Draxis

Prologue

Sometimes when you least expect your life to be turned upside down, it flips. Suddenly you're carried in Time's hands, awaiting the few moments each day that will make you feel alive, very much alive. And it's only upon your discovery of these precious moments that you find, perhaps, that it had been upside down to begin with.

Sometimes when you least expect it, life hands you a gift. That winter night my life was first carried perilously out of my own hands, like an ill-fated hourglass being righted, I had walked down a road as silent as Death's embrace. It was upon a sole flash of movement, a glimpse of colour, that in the midst of a blizzard I felt warm. There was a comforting pressure in my chest, an ache yet not an ache. My footsteps fell as noiselessly as snowdrops as I ran towards the lone break in the monochrome.

This was the night that I discovered the truest, most perpetual strife of our world- that which we desire more than anything is always out of reach of our desperately grasping fingers. To hold her in my arms, that which I desired above all else, was something that would never come to pass.

The evening I found my heart to be on the other side of a wall, snow fell around me, carried on the wind like a lonesome, whispered secret.

Part I

Walking home, I couldn't help the drag in my step. Aside from the fact that it was well below freezing, I felt defeated, desolate, maybe even lonely. Despite the thick covering of snow, which piled up to my knees and stung the exposed skin, only the mildest wind blew, something I'd normally appreciate the peace of.

Normally. I tried not to sigh; what would I call normal, when at this point I was more often reluctant to go home than not?

I had, earlier that day, faced yet another quarrel with my father. And while this I supposed was unimportant -certainly not unusual- it still left a foul taste in my mouth. Faced with another two miles to walk, I relived the raised voices, the slamming doors, the vice-like grip on my shoulder. The anger.

Normal, I thought bitterly. The sleeve of my shirt fell just over the bruises on my arm, already turning a frigid, violent shade of .

Snow falling around me in a thick white mist, I found it difficult to see. I relied on memory alone to keep myself from straying off the route- I wouldn't make it home, at this rate, for most of an hour.

What had I done to make him so angry?

I hadn't bothered to grab a jacket or my keys when I'd stormed out from the family shop (a somewhat broken down bookstore that rarely had any business these days.) This meant that, other than having to endure the numbing winter, I wouldn't be able to slip in quietly as I usually did. Russet tail dragging in the snow, frost biting at my arms and legs, I hardly even minded the cold. I tried not to dread returning home, to what I knew I would find- my mother passed out on the couch, and my father too preoccupied to much notice either of us. I tried not to dwell on my regret. I tried to forget as I fell into a steady pace, focusing on nothing more than placing one foot in front of the other.

Suddenly, a flash of colour caught my eye-just as quickly it was gone, yet there remained a strange glimmer in the distance.

I tried to peer through the dense storm, positive that I had seen something. Upon stepping further in its direction, I more clearly saw the flash of sure violet, and broke into a full run towards its source.

There stood a girl. With eyes the silvery gray of fogged windows. And ginger ears that her hair cascaded around. A half-smile as if she had a secret. Just... Standing there.

Seeing me, she stepped closer herself. She wore only a simple heather-colored dress, and I wondered if she was cold.

She tried to speak, or spoke, but so sound came, for between us was an endless, high wall whose sheer glass I must have glimpsed from the road.

I tried to gesture to the girl that I couldn't hear her, and I thought she understood. He cupped both hands around her mouth, shouting, yet the night remained as silent as it had been before.

Her rather lovely face fell as I shook my head, disappointed.

I wanted to contact her, though I knew not why. Wouldn't I have passed her on the streets without a second glance, if I had seen her there? And yet...

An idea occurring, I fumbled in my pocket until I found two markers among the wrappers and change. Something lit up in the girls eyes as I pulled my hand behind and over my head and, with all the strength my numb arm could muster, hurled it to the clouded sky.

I was no great athlete, but it made its way over easily enough. The marker landing at her feet, she watched as I uncapped my own.

All thoughts of returning home had left my mind, and briefly I wondered where she came from, who she had to go home to herself.

'Can you write?' I scribbled, but crossed it out and rewrote it, backwards so that she could see properly.

Kneeling down, the girl plucked her own marker from where it lay in the snow. I felt a wave of strange joy when she responded.

'Of course, duh.' The expression on her face was quite indignant, as if I had insulted her. Wanting to laugh, I quickly scribbled down another question.

'How about drawing? :3"

The girl smiled. I felt another jolt as she began to draw, and started, feeling my face prickle with heat, when she finished. Sharing her own ears and tail, the figure was bent half over, generous curves barely concealed by its clothing.

'Yup!'

Huh! Well, someone was full of delusions... Or was she teasing me? Nevertheless, I would have to put her straight.

'You don't even look like that (Flatà).'

I had the pleasure of seeing her blush deeply and crossly. Smiling as her hand moved again across the frigid panes, I followed her lead as she sat where only a fine dusting of snow blanketed the ground sheltered by the wall.

I couldn't have told you how long we sat there together- I couldn't notice that the sky darkened slowly, that the snow fell heavier still, that my hand grew tired after the first half hour. The wall that divided us was soon covered in drawings from the time we'd spent, as if a bridge across the sheer barrier that acted as both a window and a lock.

Eventually, I did have to go home; although I wouldn't be sorely missed, delaying my return any further would be asking for trouble. Besides, the girl on the other side of the wall probably had a home to return to herself, and I hoped it was a good one.

Trying to take in her features- so odd, how this girl I had never before seen struck in me such a startling happiness- I got up from my seat on the ground, my knees cracking rather painfully. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her hair speckled with glittering snowflakes.

She once more lifted her marker.

'I'll see you tomorrow. :3'

I didn't bother to control the responsive grin that came so naturally, for a second forgetting the glass in between us.

Locating the road again, I started home without any of the dread I had

previously felt. I no more dwelled on my problems than I had thought of the rest of the world as we drew. Yet I did think of her- if she had gotten somewhere warm, when I would see her next, if whoever she went home to saw her smile in the same way.

Even now, if you asked me if I could have flown then, I would answer yes. The smile remained on my face- for I knew her not, I didn't even know her name. But to me, this seemed a very good start.

Part II

The most meaningful things in life are unexpected; and truly, you never know what might mean the world to you.

He was my North, my South, my East, and my West. He was my sun. He was my moon, my everything. I thought, as I hurried along the path to the wall, that I might even love him.

We drew in the clear, glowing light the snow provided, like heavenly lanterns descending from the sky by the thousands. We drew from dusk to the deep hours of the night, until we were frozen and shivering- and yet I felt no cold.

However strong my feelings were, I never dreamed of telling him. They were far too good a thing to endanger, those hours we spent together. I learned about his life- his home, his family, his pain- and in turn shared. Rarely writing out a word, we spoke through art, and learned how much you could say without speaking. So it was that I still didn't know his name.

It didn't matter to me. As night fell dark around us like a blanket or a cloak, I felt in my chest something so strong that it must have been pain, something achingly, longingly pleasant and reluctantly sweet. Warmth spread throughout me as a current, those nights. I was made of air, and slow, burning fire.

One such night, we sat scrawling out the lives of our art. Snow had been falling for days without rest, but it was so still and quiet that we may have been the only two creatures on Earth.

I was never happier than when I was with him, even with the blasted wall, that hellish barrier, between our hearts.

He halted, suddenly, in the midst of a sketch.

Why did he look so... I couldn't place the look on his face. I couldn't name it. But it was sad, I felt, and my heart cried out to him with such an unusual yearning, the pull of a tide towards him.

He wrote out a line, then.

'It feels cold.'

And he flushed, eyes lowered to the icy floor. I couldn't breathe.

'I want to be with you.'

His hand rested against the glass of the wall, and I pressed my own against it. Though like ice to touch, I could feel the warmth of his palm through it. I smiled, because he felt the same. I smiled, because I was with him. But why did I feel such wretched, crippling sorrow beneath the bliss?

'You are with me' I wrote, wanting to comfort the boy whom I was sure, at that moment, I loved. 'Just there's a wall between us'.

Why did I feel empty?

Something snapped in him, then. Standing quickly and with great resolve, with a raise of his hand he punched the wall as hard as he could.

I sprang up, horrified, and forgetting that he couldn't hear me I yelled for him to stop.

Again and again the hail of blows fell.

He would surely be hurt.

There was no way.

A hairline fracture appeared where my hands were pushed desperately to the glass. He motioned for me to get out of the way, and with a swell of hope, I did.

Fear, hope, maddening want leapt in my chest as he braced himself and punched the wall once more, so that it shattered in a hole around his arm- his arm, on my side- and I felt exhilarated for the second it lasted- until with a terrifying jolt in my racing heart it closed once more around his wrist.

Part III

I was torn into pieces.

I was hopeless, I was shattered, I was miserable, I was hollow. I was broken...

Only sitting upon the ground, I did not bother to pick up my marker. The concern on her part was so clear, and I knew she must have been as disappointed as I was.

'Are you okay?'

I had known she would ask, and nodded.

All I could see was her face as the glass closed like an embrace around my arm, severing the limb at the wrist. Her face as scarlet-stained glass fell to the ground and the wall healed itself like some parasite living off my blood, a splatter of red where I had attempted to break through to her. Her face, overwhelmed with sadness.

My fault.

'Wanna draw? :3' she wrote; trying to cheer me up, because she was like that... My fault.

I would have grabbed her in my arms, help onto her and never let go...

'I can't anymore.' was all I could manage, the script shaky and nearly illegible.

It could never happen.

I wanted to scream my distress, my torture, but seemed to have been robbed of the ability to do anything.

I tried to focus only on her gray eyes.

Traversing the road to meet as I usually did, I met her the next day. Yet for the first time, I did not hurry. It was all I could do to drag myself over, one foot in front of the other, painstakingly.

Soon, I would be with her. And everything would be alright... Wouldn't it?

She sat there already, bundled in a gingham cloak. My heart fluttered like a dove in my chest. I sat.

On the ground before me lay a parcel. Opening it, my hand trembled slightly, although I couldn't say why.

An arm... An arm.

I gazed up at her beautiful, smiling face as she carefully lifted her remaining hand and wrote, in perfect cursive.

'Draw with me.'