June 2006, LA Institute
Aline found her girlfriend asleep curled up on the couch in the morning, a long pale blue t-shirt falling just before the hemline of her sleep shorts, pale blonde hair tumbling gently in light curls around a smooth face. Helen's cupids bow lip was soft as it was pronounced, tinted a natural pink and slightly parted in breath. Aline, wiping her bleary eyes, thought privately that Helen is breathtakingly beautiful in both sleep and in consciousness. The Blackthorn girl looks quite innocent and carefree in slumber, an ethereal beauty from another world. She wonders how Helen manages to hold such heavy burdens on such slight shoulders, how there is so much sorrow and depth behind such bright eyes. She wonders how it must be for Helen, to care for all her younger siblings, to get up and walk past the sneers and whispers and scorn that must come her way. And as Helen shifts, exhaling slightly through those gorgeous lips, Aline wonders how it is possible for her to get tangled so hopelessly in the web of love.
And she wonders, too, how something as wonderful as that could be so hated by the world.
Some things are just not to dwell upon.
Noon light spills onto the wooden floor tranquilly, bathing the room in a warm glow. Aline feels the heat of the summer sun cover her face pleasantly, making her smile. The curtains flicker gently with the shadows of palm tree leaves and the morning sun, letting in the golden light shine through the glass windows and into the room. The floor is cool under Aline's bare feet, the summer air snaking between the strands of her hair and giving her a tingly feeling. Aline flicks her eyes up to the window, and sees her reflection. A pretty girl with striking Asian eyes and slender features looks contently back at her, dark hair silkily showering to her shoulder. She shakes some loose strands out of her face, still smiling, and edges closer to where Helen dozes on the setee.
Just as she was about to pounce on a sleeping Helen and wrap her in kisses, someone beat her to it
Well, not the kissing part, but certainly the jumping. In a flurry of pounding bare feet and a rush of air, something, or someone came hurtling past Aline and onto the couch. It took Aline a moment to even register the movement as Julian, Helen's mischievous younger brother. Jules, in all the glory a twelve year old boy can muster, came bursting into the room and leapt onto his older sister, making the blonde shriek in shock as she wakes up to her little brother.
Aline blinks.
Was Julian hugging her awake?
It was shocking ,certainly, and he hadn't been the most subtle, but Helen still shrieked and writhed under the embrace of her cackling brother. Aline rubbed her eyes in growing confusion, and then, with laughter bubbling against her will, she sees that Julian was coated- as in, completely- in a very wet layer of mud.
Disgusting, thick, slimy mud.
On a very fancy, very expensive leather couch.
And, not to mention, a fuming older sister.
"JULIAN!" Helen yelled, sounding strangled. "Get off!" She twisted out from under him and flipped him onto his back with surprising ease, earning a yelp from him as he wiggled out from under her withering glare. Aline took back what she said about bright hapless eyes, even if she was still in love with them. They were bright, yes- but not with rapture. Something a little-or alot actually- less... survivable.
"H-h-Helen!" he choked with laughter as she shoved him unceronmoniously towards the door. "You h-have a little something right there-".
Helen made an unattractive sound that resembled "tchaa!" and kicked at him so that he dove out of her way. "Don't worry!" Squeaked Julian as Helen batted at him. "It's just mud-Aline will take care of you!" Helen made the same sound as before, and he scampered off and out of the room. Aline couldn't help but giggle, making her way over to her girlfriend who turned to face her. Helen blew a muddy curl out of her face, eyes softening on Aline, though still annoyed. "Are you laughing at me, Aline?" Her voice was amused.
"No," Aline protested, between laughs even as she said it. She tucked her own silky strands of hair out of her face. "I just...you're cute. And...muddy." Helen raised and eyebrow, sashaying towards Aline. "Mmm?" A faint blush pulsed on her ivory skin as she said it, and Helen took a breath in. Aline felt the blood rush to her own cheeks, shyness returning. "Mhmm." Aline returned, fitting her mouth closer to the othe girl's. She tasted something sweet- like oranges an honeysuckle- like she always did when she closed the distance between herself and Helen. "Don't worry, though. You're stil as pretty as ever, little faerie girl." She felt abashed by her own bold choice of words, but moved in anyway for the kiss.
Even as Helen laughed and Aline smiled against her lips- (albeit not that muddy) she thought about what Jules had said. It was stupid of her- he was just a kid and probably didn't mean anything by it- but she still heard it in her mind.
Don't worry! He had said. Its just mud-Aline will take care of you!
Aline closed her eyes, feeling warm but still hearing it ring in her head.
Aline will take care of you!
January 2008, Idris: Post events of the Dark War
Aline clenched her hand against the tightness in her chest, hurt and anger coiling up in something that felt very much like the threat of tears ready to flow. The moon was high in the night, light seemingly unreachable in the darkness. The cold wind seemed to seep into her limbs through the layers of cloth that feebly armed them against the frost. She felt goosebumps ripple unpleasantly down her neck as she hurried her pace, shoulders bent inward in a defeated sort of way. She felt icy- not cold from the biting winter, not chilled from the weather- but icy, inside of her chest. Like her insides had curled in and given up and just froze against the relentless wind. Figurative wind: it was figurative ice.
She moved further up the cobblestone road to where the Penhallow residence was, watching the sillohuetes of her girlfriend move through the third floor window. She saw Helen's slender form move around from the dresser to the bed- she must be packing her things. Aline felt the tears surge up again, but pushed them down. Helen needed her. The Blackthorn children needed her. They had been through so much, and she needed to stand strong for them.
And still, she couldn't handle Helen's eyes when she thought no one was looking. The defeated, guilty looks and the hands over those blue green eyes and the mutterings and broken whispers of "I should have been there." and Angel, those tears. This Helen was not the Helen Aline knew. This Helen made Aline's heart break for her instead of making it beat.
Even the children. Ty, the small boy with the black hair, and his twin sister Livvy, who comforted him as he woke screaming from nightmares or cried himself into submission. Little eight year old Dru and her sniffles and defeated scuffling and big sad eyes. Tavvy, the baby, wailing for his parents when he couldn't understand they were gone, and weren't coming back. Emma Carstairs, Julian's best friend, fingering her fathers shortsword and gritting her teeth like that would hold back the tide of grief.
And Julian. Oh god, Julian. Sweet, devilish Julian with his pranks and jokes and laughter. Aline could only see the ghost of that boy in his drawn and haunted face, gaunt with guilt and shoulders bent. She could see only ghosts of smiles in the fake grins of reassurance he gave his little siblings, eyes like cracked glass. He had to take care of them now, he knew he had to. But Aline knew he too woke up with tears in his eyes and cries of "Dad!" in his throat. She had heard him when he thought no one knew.
The door opened soundlessly against her touch, and she stepped lightly into the empty foyer. Her parents were out for Clave business, and she figured by this time at night the Blackthorn children were asleep. Her father still resented Helen's relationship with Aline, selfishly hoping that Aline would find a nice man and settle down, but had allowed the Blackthorns to stay after what they had endured. Aline started upstairs towards Helen's room, but stopped, deciding Helen needed more time before talking about her banishment.
Banished. The Clave exiled her. Helen. Aline felt the anger rising up again. They banished her because of her faerie blood, because of something that she couldn't fix, away from five siblings who needed her because they had just lost their father and their eldest brother was missing. They had lost their mother years before and Helen was the closest thing they had. And now, they had no one but an uncle who was foreign to them.
Aline changed direction and went for the library, hoping to dispel her emotions in the grand windows and the steady silence. Her footsteps were padded and nearly silent as she made her way down the hall quietly, sliding her fingers down the curve of her ear to draw back the strands of hair escaping from their ponytail. She frowned slightly when she saw shards of light in the room, and entered cautiously, in case it was little Ty and she startled him. But as she neared the edge of the doorway, she saw it was Julian, forehead resting on his hand and broken eyes staring at a piece of parchment.
"Julian?" Aline tiptoed towards the boy, who was bent over in the chair near the vast wooden table, shirt too loose and wrists too thin. She briefly thought her voice was loud in the stale silence of the room. She swallowed, trying to speak past the lump in her throat. "What...what are you doing?" Jules didn't look up from the piece of paper, barely acknowledging her, breath slightly ragged between his parted lips. He didn't look like he was a twelve year old boy. He didn't look like a boy. He just looked broken.
She went to put a hand to his shoulder and he flinched, throwing out a hand and grabbing her wrist, twisting his face away from her and drawing into himself. Aline couldn't help but gasp, stepping back in surprise. After a moment he blinked, and immediately let her go, whirling around to face her, frowning. "A-Aline." She fathomed for a moment how alike to Helen's his eyes looked, neon blue green in the dimness of the light. "Sorry- I didn't mean- I was just startled..." He broke off, face red.
"It's fine," Aline found herself saying, calmly. She found it easy to be calm for others even when she wasn't . On the exterior she felt steady enough to reassure him. "I just wanted to make sure you were...okay."
Julian started to make a noise in his throat, and then stopped. "Yeah," He said, and it was devoid of malice. "I'm okay." He gave a half smile, unusually bitter. Aline couldn't tell if he was being ironic or not. He delivered the line with an empty sort of flatness. She flicked her eyes up to meet his and he turned away again. "Sorry." His voice was a whisper. "I'm sorry."
"I..." Aline didn't know what to say. That she was sorry, too, that he was forced to see and do things no kid should ever have to? That she was sorry, that the Clave, her mother, were forbidding him to ever see his sister again? That they had given up hope of ever finding Mark? She bit her lip, sighing gently. "It's not fair," she agreed quietly. "What-what they're doing to Helen. And Mark. To Mark, too."
"What are we supposed to do without Helen?" He whispered, almost like he was talking to himself. "My uncle, he can't take care of us. Especially Ty. Especially him." His voice broke a little bit, and he wiped his face with a dirty sleeve. "And neither can I."
Aline thought about Tiberius. She thought about how Helen patted his black curls and shushed him softly, kissing his forehead and sending him off to bed after squeezing Livvy's shoulders. Aline and Helen had heard about what happened when the Endarkened had attacked the children from Livvy, who had delivered the story with eerie calm. They had heard about how Jules had cried out as their father had reached out to Ty. How he had stepped in between and thrown the knife to save his little brother. And how Ty had screamed.
"Ty trusts you, Julian. Helen trusts you to take care of family trusts you."
"Do they?" Said Jules wretchedly, and Aline took another step back, because he was never like this, never. "Do they trust me, really, after they watched me kill my own father?" He choked, making ragged noises, trying desperately not to cry. Aline could tell he was like her, that he refused to cry in front of other people, but he couldn't help it now. He wiped at his eyes, and his fingernails were bloodied, chewed to the naillines. "It was a hard choice, Julian, but you had to. Everyone knows that.'
"I didn't even hesitate." His voice was raw and sounded as if it was scraped out of his throat. "I didn't even hesitate, I didn't even say anything to him, I just threw the knife and-"
"Shh," Aline stepped back towards him. "You saved Ty. You're father was already gone, Jules. You did the right thing."
"I know." He sat back down in the chair, staring at the paper. "I know. I would do it again." Julian wiped furiously at the tears. "To save Ty, I would do it again. Isn't that awful? And they want me to take care of my family."
Moments passed, and she stared as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "Ty will never forgive me." He said eventually. Aline bit her lip.
"Don't look at it like that. He just...he just doesn't...understand. What you did for him. And he's going through all this too, with Helen and all-"
"You're going to take care of her." Jules said, and his voice had changed, and it was not a question, and all mentions of Ty and Mark and his father were forgotten. He sat up straighter. "Helen, I mean. You're going to keep her safe, aren't you, because you're going with her." He looked at her and his eyes had cleared. "Right?" He looked desperate, desperate to know that at least one of his siblings was going to be taken care of. "Please, Aline. Please, take care of her. She needs you."
"I know." Aline said, and this time her throat was not stuck and she was not unsure. "I'm going to take care of her, Julian, don't worry." She smiled a little bit. She thought about Helen and her eyes, Helen blowing kisses to her, Helen and those curls of pale blonde hair, Helen and that scent of orange and honeysuckle, just Helen. Aline reached a hand out to him, and put hers over his own, squeezing his fingers slightly. "I'll take care of Helen." She took a breath, enveloping herself for just a moment in the smooth metal of the Blackthorn ring upon her finger.
"Promise." Julian said, and she had never seen him fierce, but he was now. "For what its worth, I just want to know... promise me. Swear, Aline, swear you will!" In his face she could see a brother, a brother who just wanted to know his sister was going to be okay. Aline closed her eyes for a moment, curtaining the sights of dancing shadows and cool nighttime air. Aline will take care of you! She felt her breath catch.
"I swear, I'm going to take care of Helen. I promise, Jules, just like you said. Okay? Just like you said."
When he smiled, it seemed real. "Thank you."
Aline laughed. "It's not just for you. Its for me, too. Because I love Helen, too."
And she hoped that one day, Jules would find someone that he loved like that. She hoped it with everything she had. The shadows in the room seemed to soften. She glanced at the letter and saw words with Mark's name on it. "Take care of yourself, too, okay, Julian? Do that, at least, for Helen."
"Okay." He exhaled, brown hair falling in front of his eyes. "I'll be okay. I have Emma."
Aline smiled. "I think she's sleeping. You should go to bed, too. It's late." She crossed to the lantern that she had and turned it off, leaving the shadows dancing around in the room. Julian swept forward and took the piece of parchment from the table, footsteps quiet.
She turned with him and went back up the stairs.
To Helen.