For the one person who does read my story: Thank you so much for reading my insane drivel. I'm not content to live in this world. I hope I can make myself try hard enough to go to Heaven. I want to fly. Until then, I'll make up these stories and weave these tales until the day I die. Thank you for listening.

Chapter 7

A flash of blue and then the blackness again. A flash of coppery red somewhere lost in a battle she knew she was going to lose. "Hold on," said a deep voice. . .She fought the shadows, they wouldn't claim her if she tried, if the voice could help her. O Creator, she prayed, please help me try. The shadows danced and shifted around her, they whispered to her as they cut holes thru her to her soul. A blade stabbed thru her arm, an arrow thru her heart as she tried to fight. He answered, "I'm here." She wondered why it was so dark, why it was so hard to fight the shifting shapes of blackness. She wondered why, why anything. Why did she need the light? Why did she not want to slip deeper into the darkness, where all these shadows said she needed to be? More arrows and blades and pains and aches that she couldn't name. "FIGHT," said the Creator, and so she fought, fought the shadows, fought the dark. . . and the pain. The darkness shook all over, it shuddered to it's core. A shaft of light came thru, more flashes of colours that didn't belong to the dark. That's where she needed to be, but the darkness claimed the light again, and so she fought harder.

….

Her red eyes opened and closed, a shudder and a blink. She slept and moaned and dreamt. Where was she? Sybelle's eyes slid open. O thank you Great Creator, she thought as she looked around the room. The great gold and green coverlet was swept over her, warming her aching bones and tired body. It shone in the bright shafts of sunlight that came thru the high slitted windows. The chest where all of her best armor and weapons was by the bed. The everlasting flame shone in all it's glory on the alchemical station. Thanks be to the Creator, she thought, I'm home, and alive. She closed her eyes once again, relief and hope sweeping thru her. Worry suddenly creased her brow. How? She was almost too tired to think. Blue eyes, she remembered it now, blue eyes had helped her thru. A mans' voice, and blue eyes. Before the thought was completely registered she was already asleep.

…..

She hadn't slept long at all when she heard noises coming from the other side of the room. Footsteps, she recalled how to judge the stride and weight of footsteps. It was a man, heavy on the heels. He wasn't in a hurry, he strode along, sounding purposeful. She opened her eyes once again as she listened to him walk into the garden room. The man had his back to her, his long coppery red hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was studying a plant, and then, very tenderly, he reached out his smooth hand and picked one leaf from a lilac shoot. He turned around.

Shock flooded her mind. How could he have known? How could he have found her? His blue eyes crinkled as he smiled.

"You're awake are you?" He sounded pleased.

Her voice was shaky and rasped as she said, "Who," she coughed, "Who are you?" He smiled again and walked to the alchemical station. The question had brought on a bout of coughing that made her ribs feel cracked and pulled muscles that had been ripped apart by blades, by the end of it all she was exhausted. He laid the leaf down and came to the edge of the bed.

"I think you know of me," he said shortly. "Of course you would have to've considering you've been living in the house my uncle gave to me." She swallowed hard.

"So you've merely kept me alive in order to kill me," she whispered, her raspy voice barely coming from her lips. He smiled that warm smile again, he smiled a lot for a man.

"No, I think not m'lady," he answered. A look crossed his face, a contemplation, she thought. "When you, so haphazardly, may I add, came to the Spire all," he

stopped, " well, "cut up" as you were, I couldn't, in good conscious let you die." He sat on the edge of the bed. He looked down at the coverlet and then back to her eyes, a searching, piercing sort of stare.

"It's beyond protocol that I say this but you said a lot of things in your "sleep", " he said. Sybelle had to order her own mouth shut, she was still dazed and very tired. He was just trying to get her to talk. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of it, never!

"And, what, may I ask, did I say?" She carefully queried. He couldn't know everything, that just wasn't possible. A pained look crossed his face, she knew it, he didn't know anything! Then, he looked back up at her. A deep remorse filled his eyes. Desperation rode her brain, what could he know? She thought.

He took a deep breath. "Well," he started, "you should know that you were very fevered, so I don't know if it's all true." His blue eyes regarded her a moment. Then he started again. "You said that you had been killed by a member of the Black Hand," he looked away and then back to her red eyes again. "I don't rightly know what the "Black Hand" is so I don't know much. Then you said that they were still after you in the dark. That they shifted like demons in the night." He took a deep breath. "Then," he paused looking away again, "a few nights ago, you said that the Creator had helped you escape and that you loved me for helping you," he paused yet again. Sweat was starting to bead up on his brow and lip. His eyes flitted about the room, searching for a way to keep himself from telling her something. She kept her calm mask but inside she was flustered and drawn. She didn't remember telling him any of those things. She didn't even remember him! How could she have said that she loved a man she didn't even know! But that part of her that was in the darkness for so long had known him. If only as the voice of the Creator and as a pair of deep blue eyes.

"Tell me what else I said," her voice still raspy but more steady than before, "or I'll cut out your tongue so that the things you've already said will never be told to any other being." Her red eyes shone cold and deadly as she bored her stare into him. His blue eyes looked almost frantic, pleading with her almost. As cold as the ocean and just as fluid, STOPIT! She thought frantically, she couldn't keep her mind steady. He is not attractive! She told herself frantically.

He drew a deep breath, his eyes began to search the room again, "Well, if you put it that way," he bore his blue eyed stare into hers' likewise, "You kissed me."

Her mind exploded, there's no way, how could she have done something so foolish? What in the world had possessed her to do something so moronic? Her frantic mind put her fragile lungs into a tantric beat as she tried to reason within herself. Panic and chaos took over, she started to shake her head.

"No, nonononononononono, there's no way that that could have happened," she gasped out. He hurriedly got and moved to the head of the bed, he took both her arms and shook her.

"Listen!" His eyes drank in hers and she stopped breathing. "No, wait, just listen, you were in a coma for almost a month, I was glad you were talking at all." He stopped to draw in a breath and then forced her to listen as he explained further. His eyes never once leaving hers. "I don't think anything of it, you were fevered and I'm not a good hand at alchemy as it is. My potions have helped and have made a drastic improvement on your health. I don't expect you to even remember it." He stopped and the silence nearly drove her mad. He expected something, a questioning look came over his face. The kiss, O! She shook her head and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I didn't do anything or say anything else did I?" She asked him gently.

"No, you mumbled quite a bit and said something about a mare," Sybelle almost jumped out of the bed.

"Shadowmere!"

"Yes, that's it. .."

"No, Shadowmere, is she alright? Where is she? How long have I been like this? Why are you even here?" All of her questions came flooding out of her mouth, try as hard as she did to stop she couldn't. His eyes seemed to be drawing the questions from her. She couldn't stop. What in Oblivion was wrong with her! First thinking a man was attractive, kissing him without knowing, and now, not being able to control her own distress. She felt fuzzy, out of touch with herself somehow but it was all moving so fast and she hurt. . . .

He touched her arm gently again, a look of concern crossed his features, "It's alright, tyme enough for all that later. As for, Shadow Mare, she's fine. Penned up in the vault with my stallion as a matter of fact," he said as he looked rather pleased with himself. " If you don't mind me saying so, I think she's with colt, if you'll pardon my saying so," he laughed. His eyes took on the concerned look again and he said, "As for how long you've been like this," he looked away to the other side of the room, at the star and moon charts hanging there. He thought a moment, "You'd been in a coma for almost one entire pass of the moon. And fevered for almost two now," his eyes pitied her as she started to panic again and again he shook her gently. "Listen, at least you're alright," concern filled his features. She was speechless.

Utterly and hopelessly speechless. "I've made some breakfast, would you like some?" Defiance filled her.

"I don't care who you are or how long you've taken care of me, if you try to say that this is your home," a red hot fire swept thru her, "I will kill you." A hurt look made him jerk back his head. He considered her madness filled eyes and, to her surprise, he began to laugh.

"I'll go get us some breakfast then," he got up and teleported down to the main hall, leaving her, yet again, speechless.

AN: You likey? Me likey! I love how drafted all of this feels. It will get back to normal don't you worry! Can you tell my fave guild is The Dark Brotherhood?! R and R!