Thank you so much for giving this a chance, you all!
Juno: happy to hear from you. I kinda had you in mind when posting this. :)
Jade: that is too funny! So it was just meant to happen. Hopefully, you'll like this. It may not quite be what you had in mind, but at least we do have the "enemies" storyline, and we have Enzo on a horse. I don't know about you, but I certainly felt like he'd look really good on a horse. :) (And yeeees. I was completely unprepared for those sensitivities. My bad.)
kpmindc: thanks for being awesomely encouraging.
jannay: thanks! I hope the story will develop alright.
I'm trying to keep the chapters a little shorter this time. (For those of you brave enough to have read RAGNARÖK, those chapters sure were a bit long...)
On we go!
...
When he saw them approach, out of a foggy haze that he wasn't sure was even there or just conjured up by his fuzzy brain and tired eyes, he thought for a moment they weren't real. That he was dead already.
He grinned incredulously, still baffled at what was going on in his head, and he was certain the cold had frozen his mind, had made him go crazy.
None of this could be happening.
No.
"Lorenzo St. John, the Golden Army takes you prisoner," one of the figures was exclaiming when they had gotten so close that he had no doubt anymore that they were indeed real, and he scoffed. Of course they knew who he was.
There was no hiding that… He looked down at his weapon's arm, gleaming in the snowy white of the winter day, and sighed. He had better prepare himself for yet more pain.
They'd make him take the weapon off, or, more likely, they'd tear it off of him, and he knew the pain too well that would wash over him once it was not connected to him anymore. He doubted they'd allow him to use the bandage. They'd surely confiscate it along with the weapon, trying to get behind the secret of the Eternals.
And what would they do with him?
Experiments. Torture.
He clenched his jaw. He knew the rules. Weapon bearers were far and few. No one was to ever capture them alive. He knew what he had to do.
He had to kill himself. He couldn't allow the enemy to get him alive.
Farewell then, strange girl that had invaded his brain. It didn't matter anymore whether she was real or not, she'd soon be gone. Or rather, he would…
He dragged his heavy left arm up, ready to strike against anyone who got to him, then pulled a small dagger out of his pocket with his free hand. He took a deep breath of the icy cold air, felt it burn in his lungs, then brought his right arm up to his chest swiftly, starting to plunge the dagger into his heart.
He felt a shooting pain as the blade bit into him, when suddenly, a white hot pain shot through his head once more. A feeling of alien panic and revulsion coursed through him, incapacitating in their intensity, and before he could tighten his grip on the dagger once more and try to finish his gruesome duty, a strong hand had already grabbed his arms, stopping his movements, flinging both weapons away from him.
As the pain in his left arm exploded, even more severe than the one in his head, he fell to his knees, unaware he was yelling, before finally, unconsciousness darkened the too bright world around him, and everything just stopped.
…
…
It was a few days later that they finally tracked Bonnie's partner down. They'd had enough clues to go on.
Prisoner of war. Even a name. It hadn't been difficult at all.
What had been difficult for Bonnie, however, was coming to terms with the fact that somehow, the impossible had happened.
She had linked herself to an enemy soldier.
Preparation had been very clear there. Only the Golden were able to establish mind links.
The Golden and the Silveren had long changed into two quite separate types of mankind. When the Old World had collapsed after the Last War, when the land had been devastated, old technologies vanished, the old hierarchies broken and gone, the remaining people had fled into different parts of the world and had stayed there for a long time.
Contact hadn't really happened. It was a vast continent, the old infrastructure destroyed, resources hard to come by. Traveling had meant horses once more, or walking. The people had been tired and sick, injured. Many had suffered from radiation sickness.
Wherever people had ended up after time had stood still, it was also where they had remained.
Very slowly, two separate factions had formed that way, one in the west, one in the east. Canada and the USA had been no more, just old names of an old time, a divide that made no sense anymore. South America had become an island. Nobody even knew what had happened to Europe, or Asia. Anything that was divided by the ocean might as well have been dead, sunken into the sea. There was no way, no desire to find out. Disaster had struck too severely for anyone on the American continent to care about anything other than their own immediate needs.
Years had passed. Decades. A new generation had risen, replacing the one that had still seen the War. And when even they had died, yet another generation had followed. Then another.
Almost three centuries had passed, and in that long - yet evolutionary short - period, something strange had happened. It was unsure, still, whether maybe the radiation from the Big Ones had been responsible, or whether it could have been a natural mutation. But among a Western tribe that had come to be known as The Golden, a new ability had been detected: some of them, just a small number, had developed the ability to link themselves to partners on a telepathic level - like Bonnie, or Damon.
Their immediate neighbors, known then as The Silveren had never succeeded to do the same, and they had begun to feel threatened, inferior.
In order to not remain as such, they had come up with other means of enhancing themselves, and they had created a weapon of defense out of some metal only to be found near places where the Big Ones had detonated, and those weapons had ever since then been known as Eternal, for wounds inflicted by them never healed, just like the ones on the arms of their bearers.
A pretty horrible concept, Bonnie had found upon learning more about it. Some Silveren, only the strongest and smartest, had been chosen to have a procedure done where the lower half of one of their arms was melded to a sword-like weapon which could only be taken off under excruciating pain to its bearer. As if a limb was being severed and the pain never dulled, it had been described to Bonnie and her fellow students, and she had felt her stomach turn at the mere thought. Why would anyone go to such lengths only to have an advantage in battle?
The Silveren were a barbaric folk.
And now Bonnie was linked to one of them. Not just anyone, either: the bearer of an Eternal Weapon.
The thought made her physically ill. She'd probably thrown up at least once every day since her bond had been established.
She had spent the last few days oscillating between despair and relief. Despair because she felt like her whole life as she knew it was now truly over. In ways she hadn't ever imagined, not in her wildest nightmares. The military suddenly had an increased interest in her. They were scrutinizing her entire lineage, making sure there was no trace of Silveren blood in her.
But there wasn't. She was as "pure" as it could get, not that that helped matters much. At least she wasn't considered an enemy spawn. Though she could see the looks people gave her behind her back - those few that were in the know, anyways. Her case had been deemed one of national security, her access to the public had been so drastically limited that she wasn't even allowed to talk to anyone outside of the military. She hadn't been allowed to go home, she hadn't been allowed to contact any friends, or even her one remaining family member, her Grams.
She felt like a prisoner.
Her only relief in all of that had been that it had become quite apparent that her bond was widely different than anything ever before encountered. There were what she could only describe as barriers around her mind as well as his that not only helped her keep her thoughts private, but also kept the pain at bay that was emanating over from him. They had taken his weapon away after all. She knew that meant agony for him. But on her side, the pain was rather dull and bearable, sometimes almost nonexistent.
She also rarely heard him or felt his thoughts. He remained a complete stranger to her, and she was acutely aware of the fact that she could guard her own thoughts just as well. As if her mind knew that there was a small common place, a shared place she inhabited with her partner, where they could waltz together as if on a dance floor, or fight as if on an open battlefield. But a bigger, wider space was still just reserved for her, where she could retreat once their dance was done.
Privacy, then, was still possible.
And she could breathe.
According to Damon and Elena, the only two she could really rely on for information, this was the opposite of how it was for them.
Most everything was a shared mindspace for them. There was just the smallest place that each of them had to themselves.
"Without it, I'd go crazy," Elena had whispered to her once, chuckling. But Bonnie had had a hard time even understanding how that would work.
"So, if you know you're thinking something Damon wouldn't approve of - or whatever, then you can just retreat to that space?"
Elena had laughed, "Not really, no. It's almost as if the thoughts themselves know where they belong," she'd replied, leaving Bonnie even more bewildered. She'd given up asking for details. She wouldn't have understood it anyways.
But now… now she was beginning to see.
…
…
They'd treated him surprisingly well so far, all things considered. He was beginning to wonder why. Could it have to do with that voice in his head? Could she be what kept them from acting out their tormentor tendencies? Because he could sense it in them. Barely hidden behind their hatred was the urge to poke and stab, to dissect him and find out the secret he carried.
But they weren't allowed to. He'd heard their commanding officer clearly. "The POW is not to be touched under any circumstances."
The POW… He snorted to himself, then sighed. The pain was getting to him, there was no denying that. His captors definitely knew that even despite their orders to leave him alone, he was already in enough of a bad state that his "stay" here was like torture.
He tried getting as comfortable as possible on the hard bedstead they'd given him, using his right arm to keep his left close to his body.
At least he was a little warmer again, so there was that.
The sergeant that had brought him food in the morning had told him he was going to meet her. He was pretty sure the man hadn't technically been supposed or allowed to tell him that, but he'd apparently thought it was another good way to taunt the prisoner.
"They'll bring your mind-piece over, freak," he'd spat, and Enzo had been rather bewildered for a moment before he'd made the connection. "She'll get everything we need to know out of you. She'll dig in there," he'd poked Enzo's temple hard, clearly disregarding his orders, "And she'll take you apart till your fucking brain is nothing but mush. Fucking Silverscum!
Enzo had brightly looked at him, allowing a small smirk to appear on his face as he had gotten as close to the other man as his shackles would allow. "Pretty sure you just disobeyed at least one major order you've been given. Would you like to inform your superior yourself, or shall I? You know, it'd be my pleasure…"
The man had glared at him, then left without another word, working hard to keep his cool and not lash out, as Enzo had started chuckling behind him.
But once he'd been gone, Enzo had been alone with his thoughts again, with his pain, and he'd started to think about her.
What would she be like? What would she look like? And most importantly, what damage could she really do to him?
He was curious. He was intrigued. And secretly, he was worried. He'd never heard of any Silveren mind-melding, least of all with a Golden. She was a freak, and therefore, so was he.
There was still a way out… He'd have to try and do it before she could pierce his brain and get information out of him that no Golden was allowed to ever see.
But first, he needed to see the face to that disembodied voice.
…
…
When an officer of the army had shown up to pick Bonnie up at the cabin, taking her on a long ride so that she could finally meet her partner, she'd almost balked. She didn't want to meet him. She didn't want to be associated with an enemy. She wanted to ignore it all, and thank you very much, please.
But now it was too late for that. Of course she hadn't balked. Of course she had come. She had gone on the trying daylong ride, leaving the rain behind only to encounter frost and snow, and she had hated her life even more as she'd sat perched on the too big horse, shivering under a heavy blanket and huddled in her only coat.
At least Damon had been appointed her bond-guide and was therefore with her through all of it. He'd teach her how to work with the link, he'd be there when she'd have to face him.
"Bon," he was saying just then, after they'd finally reached their destination. "Relax. They're not gonna leave you alone with him, okay? It'll work itself out somehow. I know it will." She gave him a doubtful look.
"Do you actually believe that?" She challenged. "Because I sure as hell don't."
"Whoa whoa. What happened to the ever positive Bonnie Bennett I know? The one that always sees good in everything, and everyone? Come on, you even gave me a chance!" He grinned a winning grin at her, pulling her against his side as they were walking down a long bare aisle in some nondescript army building.
She rolled her eyes up at him, but he did get a small smile out of her. He wasn't wrong after all.
To Damon, this was all an exciting adventure, she could tell it from the way he looked at her, and his confident gait. Nothing out of the ordinary in his world as they were following a fellow soldier down a too long, icy hallway.
But for her, everything had changed. Little Bonnie Bennett of the Golden was suddenly bonded to a soldier of the enemy army. Nothing was safe, or certain anymore.
She was jolted back out of her thoughts as Damon was offhandedly remarking, "Might as well make the best of it. Who knows, you might get some military secrets out of this guy."
The officer who was accompanying them had stopped in front of a door, waiting for them to catch up. "I'm sorry, Major Salvatore. But I have strict orders to only let Ms. Bennett in there."
She could feel Damon's annoyance. His urge to protect her had always been strong. But she placed a reassuring hand on his arm and worked hard to get a decent smile on her face. "I'll be fine," she let him know, trying to convince him as much as herself.
"If he tries anything - anything at all…"
"I'll holler." She gave him an appreciative pat on the arm, acutely aware of her desire to kiss him, to hide in his arms, and she bit the inside of her lip to keep herself in check. Stupid feelings.
The officer gave her a sign. "I'll be in the corner right over there, so you won't be completely alone anyways." He nodded curtly, then added, "He tries anything, he's toast."
Bonnie didn't know what to say, so she merely nodded in return. For some reason, the man's words had sounded like a threat, not just to the Silveren soldier, but also to herself.
She took a deep breath as if she was going underwater rather than just into another room.
When she emerged, she saw the man sitting almost in the middle of the room, cuffed hands resting on his lap, his bare feet chained to the ground beneath him.
His head was hanging down, as if his neck had refused to carry it, but other than that, he sat pretty upright.
She shivered. It was ice cold in the room, and she remembered yet another tidbit from Preparation: how the Silveren didn't do so well with the cold weather, which was why it was always quieter during the winter months, and why California, Arizona, and Nevada had been the first territories lost to them, ages ago. They'd fought fiercely over those places, but the Silveren had gone into every fight with such reckless abandon that, in the end, the Golden hadn't stood a chance.
But that was all in the past. What Bonnie was facing now was going to be the start (or end) of her future.
"Hello," she made herself say, anxiously waiting for a reaction. She cocked her head a little, trying to get a glimpse of his face, but to no avail. She felt a tingly sense of anticipation creep up her spine, a feeling somewhere between being too hot and way too cold. She felt goosebumps prickle up on her thighs and calves.
The enemy soldier - her link partner - still didn't show a reaction. Helplessly, she looked over to the officer and shrugged, which the man seemed to take as a request, because suddenly, she saw him walk over and slap the side of the chained man's head, hard. She gasped, shocked, as her hand flew to her mouth. She looked over her shoulder for Damon, but of course there was a door between them.
She was in this alone...
She watched as the force of the slap made the man's whole body jerk before he finally looked up.
His unkempt hair, almost black, it was so dark, hung into his eyes as he raised his head abruptly, and his dark eyes fell on her.
They were strangely gleaming. Deep, and shuttered.
She swallowed, taking an involuntary step back, unsure of what to do or say. They had briefed her, of course, but she didn't seem to be able to recall any of the advice she had gotten. Engage. Or was it, don't engage? Make contact. Right…
"I'm Bonnie. Bennett, " she introduced herself, as if this was just a friendly meeting. Internally, she cringed at her too chipper tone, but it happened of its own accord. She was just so nervous and couldn't help it. "I'm your… link-partner. I know this must come as a shock to you, it definitely was a shock for me-"
She was mortified to find herself unable to quite suppress an embarrassed giggle. She rolled her eyes, then bit her lip to stop herself. She needed to pull herself together.
"They told me your name is Lorenzo?" She asked and exhaled very slowly in an attempt to keep herself from blurting out the next string of words.
"My friends call me Enzo," the stranger suddenly allowed, his eyes trained on her, staring at her unwaveringly. She wasn't quite sure what to make of his words. Surely he didn't intend her to call him Enzo… or did he?
Did she see a flicker of mirth in his face?
…
...
The woman was gorgeous. Enzo almost didn't believe his eyes. Her green eyes, the warm tone of her dark skin, so different from any woman he had ever been close with.
But then, he'd never been very close to any woman to begin with. Maggie… that was both a long and too short of a time ago. It still felt like a gaping wound that any of his flings hadn't even begun to heal. He sighed.
"So you are the woman that mind-raped me?" he said drily, but had to smirk at her appalled expression. "Don't like my choice of words, love, do you?" he noticed, and forced himself to harden his features. He couldn't allow anyone to see inside of him. Granted, it would be hard to keep that up now that this Golden was constantly in his head.
"I…" her voice wavered. Suddenly she looked so vulnerable that he felt a strange protectiveness toward her. He bit down hard, clenching his teeth until the muscles in his jaw began to hurt. There was no reason and no use for that protectiveness. That girl was the enemy.
And he was their prisoner.
"Maybe the two of us can work together so that one day we won't have to be enemies anymore." The quiet suggestion moved him. As if she'd known that deep down, he hated the war. It was not his. It never had been.
Yet he still had to fight in it as one of their armies' greatest "weapons."
Subconsciously he touched his bare left arm. Without the weapon and without the special bandage keeping the pain in check, the sensation was slowly wearing him down. Nothing he could do about it now.
The whole thing still sounded like a horror story to him, or a creepy fairytale type myth, but when that girl had penetrated his mind and part of her had somehow… stayed, he'd known his life was about to take a turn.
In fact, her attack on him had startled him so much, had taken up all his concentration that it had been easy for the Golden soldiers to capture him.
The Golden troops had been after him for a while by then, as was always a risk when you were a Weapon's Bearer. All the enemy's rage and anger and focus fell on them. Always.
Because they stuck out with their gleaming weapons and gleaming arms. And because they brought on the most and deadliest damage.
Now they had finally caught one. Enzo was willing to bet that they had patted themselves on their shoulders and congratulated each other. They had probably already scheduled his execution then, only to learn about that freak connection one of their own had established with him and that had surely made their superiors tell them to hold off on killing him.
"I guess execution is off the table," he'd chuckled at the officer that was usually guarding him, and the man had shot him a hateful glare.
"You'll wish we'd executed you."
Enzo had rolled his eyes. He knew all about threats like that. He knew the consequences too. So far, his will to live had always, always succeeded.
But here she was, the woman in his head, the one he had fought every second of every minute of every hour of every friggin' day ever since she had entered where no one before her had been.
His mind, if nothing else, had always been his, and his alone. And then she'd come along. While he kept on fighting to keep her out of his head, he could feel her more and more. Could feel her voice. A strangely soothing, reverberating voice. A beautiful voice, he had to give her that.
Now that he saw her in front of him he thought that it fit quite well with the rest of her. At least the one enemy to bring him down was a gorgeous woman. He wouldn't want to have it any other way.
Well, he would have preferred to not have gotten caught in the first place, but hey.
"I'm talking to you!" The sudden exclamation jolted him back out of his thoughts and into his current situation. She looked angry. He smirked.
"Sorry, love. Did you say something?"
She huffed, looking to the officer as if for help.
"Oh, him?" He gave a shake of his head toward the man in the corner. "He won't help you. Not much use that guy, if you ask me."
She glared. "Neither are you."
"Touché."
He expected her to say something else, to repeat what she had said to him. But she remained awfully quiet, staring at him with an unreadable expression. He was starting to feel uncomfortable. He wasn't used to being looked at so directly, so intensely, so … incessantly.
Well, nice chat," he broke the silence, hoping for the awkward feeling to go away. "Now, please vacate my mind again…"
She gave him an unreadable look, and he felt that feeling deepen.
