A/N: Just something that came to me after listening to this song (and watching Sin City and then Bitten for the millionth time). The song is "What if the Storm Ends?" by Snow Patrol. Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs.
She knew what they were.
Like something from another world, another terrifying and beautiful place beyond mortal imagining. Every move was like a dance, a graceful violent waltz of fury that stole the breath and quickened the pulse. Horrific in the death dealt from snap of jaw and grasp of hand, and lovely in the symmetry between wolf and man.
Bloody.
Unforgivable.
Harmonious.
What if the storm ends and I don't see you
As you are now ever again?
The perfect halo of gold hair and lightning
Sets you off against the planet's last dance
Just for a minute the silver-forked sky
Lifts you up like a star that I will follow
But now it's found us like I have a found you
I don't wanna run, just overwhelm me
She should have looked away, hidden herself in the thunder, sheltered her screams in the flashes of lightning. Rain drenched her clothing, her body, tamping down her scent and rendering her all but invisible as the fight raged. Encasing the salt of her tears in fresh, clean water, bathing her face in innocence. And still she lingered there, pressed against the leg of a crumbling concrete trellis on that rooftop. Watching the blur of wolf attacking wolf, of man commanding wolf and wolf commanding man. Two opposing teams made of the same type of players.
Both of wolf.
Both of man.
All intent on shedding blood beneath the crying sky.
What if the storm ends? At least that's nothing
Except the memory, a distant echo I won't pin down
I've walked unsettled rattle cage after cage
Until my blood boils
I wanna see you as you are now
Every single day that I am living
Painted in flames, a peeling thunder
Be the lightning in me that strikes relentless
Mercy in the hand of the leader, and vengeance in the maw of his wolf-companion. The blond woman like a valkyrie at his side, hair leeched of its sunshine color in the lightning strikes, until it was the white of death. Her cries like a banshee beckoning the unfaithful to their deserved fates. Wolf and man, all enemies, fell to the strikes of her fists, the fury of the banshee's kicks, and somehow, hidden there by shadow and stone, she knew the banshee's tears were as her own. Filled with horror at what was happening. Determined not to turn away from it, to face it until whatever waited on this path of destruction was revealed.
Others fought, a large black wolf side by side with the tawny companion of the leader. Another man with the banshee, with eyes the color of the sky at twilight. Hair like night and skin blessed pale by the moon. He fought the waves of wolves from the other side, following the leader's directions. Accompanied by a wolf he simply called 'dad.'
Father.
Family.
It was the key to their beauty, the answer to their grace. The reason all wept as she wept, cloaked in the rain. Until the leader was victorious. Until the enemies ran or died, the dead-wolves melting away to reveal the man-skin beneath. And leader fell to his knees right in front of her, clutching the wound at his side. Startled eyes, like lamps of noon-day sky, found the summer green of hers. In the lightning strike, she knew.
Knew that Death had not yet supped his fill upon that rooftop.
What if the storm ends and I don't see you
As you are now ever again?
The perfect halo of gold hair and lightning
Sets you off against the planet's last dance
Just for a minute the silver-forked sky
Lifts you up like a star that I will follow
But now it's found us like I have a found you
I don't wanna run, just overwhelm me
He was still beautiful to her, even as his hand reached out, imploring her. Summoning. Wounded and bleeding, without the strength to stand on his own, he called without words. She came. Crawling on hand and knee, knowing that these would be her last moments, a lifetime of memories indelibly scorched into the fabric of time, etched onto this rooftop by pen of lightning and ink of thunder.
His fingertips brushed her cheek in silent apology, hand of steel sliding into her cascade of midnight hair. He pulled and she relented, the world tipping over onto its side until her back hit stone and he was her sky. Tribute paid in flesh, in the gentle sweep of her fingers through the auburn of his hair, brushing the unruly strands from his eyes. Tribute paid once more, baptism of rain as his fingers closed her eyes, her lips kissing his palm when it passed down her face.
Strong fingers, thundering heart, closing over her throat.
She no longer felt the pain in her leg.
What if the storm ends and I don't see you—
She forgot the fear of fangs on her ankle before the fight even began, the first drops of scarlet rain to water that rooftop. Her screams had been the first peals of thunder before the sky erupted in all its fury. The wrong place. The wrong time. Innocent life stolen in a fairytale gone wrong. Where the Big Bad Wolf ate the red riding hood, rending her soul asunder with a poison without cure. All that remained was the pressure of his fingers, the incredible silence that followed, as life lit up inside her like lightning. Breathtaking lightning, as horrible and lovely as the dance of violence.
What if the storm ends and I don't—
Beautiful, her lips whispered. Voice lost to the silence, to the wonderful pressure of his fingers and the lightness overflowing her form. He was beautiful. Like the rain, the cool, distant rain against the burning of her skin.
What if the storm ends—
It was almost over now. The storm had nearly past, taking away with it the ravages of the soundless otherworldly battle. Taking her away on a burst of wind—
"No," he whispered abruptly.
Her eyes flew open, her soul congealing and dropping back into the weight of her body with a thundering crash of its own. And that hand, the one that had dealt mercy and destruction, the one that had summoned Death to the rain, closed gently over her ankle. Over the bite that had brought the storm inside, that had cast them all in halos of unimaginable unreality. Transforming him into the huntsman, salvaging what he could from the wolf's bite.
What if the storm ends and I don't see you
As you are now ever again—
"Yes," she whispered back, reaching for him. Through him. To the storm beyond, and the swirling chaos within.
What if the storm ends and I don't see you
As you are now ever again?
The perfect halo of gold hair and lightning—
The world spun and tilted, until once more the pressure was all around her. Safer. Stronger. Arms of steel and lightning pulling her in tightly against lightning made tangible. And the girl that was, the human that had died, floated upon that rooftop, a tribute paid to Death in exchange for new life. The storm within stretched its paws and twitched its nose, reborn as it tasted the air and explored its new casement of flesh.
A new crack of thunder, of bone shifting. And she surrendered to the beauty inside the pain.
The final, graceful, silent waltz that would bring her home.
What if the storm ends and I don't see you
As you are now ever again?
The perfect halo of gold hair and lightning
Sets you off against the planet's last dance…