I don't own the rights to any of the following characters
Tamsin had been in the cave for almost a month. At first, it was just her and her memories of Cara. It felt good to remember her. It felt good to dream.
With the bare minimum available, she had stepped back to a simpler time. She loved the focus it took to hunt. Living off of the land was in itself a cleansing experience. She had felt like she once did. She had felt whole.
At first, she had reveled in the silence. It allowed her to hear the voice she had not realized she had missed. It allowed her to be free.
The darkness slowly crept in.
When she was awake, she walked with the shadows of a past life, conflicted with the building feeling of guilt whenever she thought of her present. More specifically, whenever she thought of Bo. In Tamsin's subconscious, she knew why she was so conflicted. However, admitting it would force her to face the memories that she had been fighting so hard to suppress. She would have to let go of one to fully embrace the other...
As the days had drawn on, she sought refuge from the shadows. She had slept more. She felt safer in her sleep. At first, the demons of the past couldn't touch her there. She was strong enough to keep them away. Her memories of Cara would come to life in her dreams.
She slept to be closer to the memory where she would feel the embraces. The heat of her warm touch, the smell of her skin mingled with oil of jasmine and leather. She would hear her voice, the sound of her laughter, to see her face. It was ages ago that she was near, and yet, with the way that the memories return, it felt so fresh, like it was yesterday that they stood in that very cave. These memories were pure and comforting. They reminded her of who she once was. Cara was everything good in her.
When Tamsin met Cara, she was a far different person from who she had become. She had been in many battles, but had always fought with the most honorable and the noblest. She made her place among her kind through the strength of her will and the depth of her determination. She had not yet stepped over into the darkness that had consumed her for so long. Tamsin had been filled with bravery, pride, confidence, nobility, and honor. She was even altruistic and strangely enough, kind.
But that was before her world changed. Before she became a coward.
She was nothing like she is now.
At first, in the silence it was only her voice she heard when she needed an answer. She couldn't hide the truth when the truth was already inside her. The truth was that she wasn't who she used to be. She wasn't the woman who loved freely and honestly. She wasn't the woman who helped mend the broken girl in the woman she loved. No, the truth of what she was finding was weakness, fear, insecurity, regret, dread, and guilt. No wonder she has always been seen as a bitch. How else would a person hide so many flaws than to build up a wall of indifference.
Keep everyone away, so no one would see what she really was.
But it was the silence that was beginning to get to her now. The demons of the past now spoke to her in the silence. It had changed from a thing of comfort to a prison.
She had sought this journey. To come and find herself and find herself she did. The problem was that she didn't like what she found.
She had no idea how deep the darkness ran. She had no idea that it would find her, no matter how hard she tried to keep it away.
The more she pushed down the one thing about Cara she didn't want to remember, the harder the darkness within pushed to get out. It triggered memories of things she didn't want to remember. Faces in agony. Fear unbridled.
She sometimes ran through the woods being chased by demons of the past, hungry to devour her.
When the demons of the past would hunt her, she sought a means to stay her sanity. She had remembered how Cara would grip her Agiel, the pain was a comfort to her. She had taken to wearing Cara's belt throughout the day, the Agiel in the holster. Whenever she felt them creeping up on her, she would grip it tightly, embracing the pain, pushing them away. It became like a drug.
Now, even that was not strong enough to keep them away. The dread seeping through every fiber of her being, she wasn't sure she could face what was lurking below. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know more, if she wanted to know what changed, how she had first let the darkness in.
It was trying to get out.
She was afraid she was going to go mad.
And then the truth.
Her biggest fear.
Loss.
She was afraid if she admitted how she felt about Bo and it wasn't returned, the darkness would again overtake her, consume her, and she wouldn't be able to find her way back.
Finally, one thought saved her from her fear. Cara had loved her against everything she had been taught. There had to be good in her still.
One word, called her home, Bo's voice saying "fight."
She didn't want to hurt anymore. She wanted to go home.
She would spend one last night alone safe in her dreams, with Cara. And tomorrow she would go home.
This was a seriously hard chapter to write. It's supposed to be a glimpse into her struggle between past and present. It's supposed to be a little confusing. Let me know if it was too much so.