Anna folded her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes as she watched Mary running around with a boy her age. They laughed and giggled as they followed the river in their race with one another. She kept pace with them, invisible in the foliage with John on her shoulder, and continued her appraisal with a frown.
A claw dug through the material of her dress and into her shoulder, forcing Anna to turn her face to John. He squawked and Anna flicked her fingers in his direction. He jumped from her shoulder to land on his two human feet next to her, dusting himself for a moment, and Anna sighed at him.
"What?"
"You dug your talon into my shoulder," Anna wagged her finger at him, peeking over his shoulder and adjusting her course to keep Mary and the boy in her line of sight. "I assumed you had something you didn't want to me to attempt to translate from whatever dialect you speak through your beak."
"I'm curious why you're watching them."
Anna raised her eyebrows and gave a shrug, "Is there a question implied in that statement?"
John sighed, as if trying to chide her for willfully refusing to understand him. "Why are you watching her so closely?"
"You're the one who wanted me to take an interest in her life." Anna shrugged and leaned against a tree, squinting at the sun that dappled through the branches as if attempting to blind her. "I happen to find the presence of a man a bit… disturbing."
"He's no more than ten. They're children and it's harmless."
"I thought my friendship with a boy was harmless."
John almost groaned. "Is your worry that she'll find someone to love and your curse'll be broken?"
Anna shook her head, "I don't want her heart to get broken. My curse is no never mind at this point."
"It's impacted her life."
"It's nothing."
"She lives here, with three fairies who are… negligent without intent, it's true, but they're kind enough to her to help her forget that she's not got a mother and no father in sight."
"He's in sight." Anna pointed through the trees to the distant castle, just barely visible from its prominent position on the large hill. "She can see him every day if she wishes to."
"You know what I mean and stop pretending you don't."
Anna shook her head, waving him off. "She's living a good enough life. There are those who care for her, she's met her mother, and her father won't be the poor influence we both know he'd be on her life."
"We don't know he'd be that." John made a motion and Anna started walking away from him to continue shadowing the progress of Mary and the boy. "He might've locked her in a tower and allowed her to waste away. Or he could've treated her poorly in memory of me. Or-"
"Or any number of things you don't have the right to predict for her." John wagged his finger at her, "You can't pretend you cast that curse for her good."
"No." Anna admitted, picking up the edge of her skirt to step over a jumble of roots. "I admit I did what I did to ruin her father and I hope it worked."
"Even if she's the collateral damage?"
"We're all collateral damage to someone for something."
"It's…" John huffed a grunt of frustration. "You're intentionally trying to dodge the issue staring us in the face."
"Which is?"
"You're afraid that boy could one day represent true love's kiss."
Anna stopped, turning on her heel to face John. "As you said, they're ten. It's nothing for them to be together and it's no threat to my curse."
"You wouldn't grip your staff so tightly if you thought otherwise."
Anna noted her white knuckles and immediately released her strangling grip on her staff. "I do… worry, about her."
"Because you care."
"Because, when I was her age, I was taken in and I wouldn't want that to happen to her." Anna swallowed and continued tracking the children. "Like I said, I don't want her heart broken."
"That's part of life."
"Says the man who spends half his time as a bird." Anna snorted, "Tell me what you could possibly have learned about love when you grew to maturity in a body with wings and no concept of what love is?"
"I think you're discounting the last ten years I've spent in your service." John gave a little scoff of his own, "Eleven, almost."
"You have been a considerable asset."
"Asset?" John managed to jump ahead of her, blocking Anna's forward motion. "Is that all I am? An asset?"
Anna held his gaze, her hand coming up to his face to stroke her fingers gently there. "No. You're far more than that to me."
"But you can't admit it?"
"I…" Anna took a deep breath. "I want to. I want to say the words that you deserve to hear but I can't. I can't say them and not taste a bitterness in my mouth. I can't say them and not wonder, even if there is the tiniest part of myself that lives in that darkness, if perhaps you'll betray me like he did."
She took his hands, resting her staff to the side. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm broken and that I can't love you the way you deserve."
John kissed her fingers, running his thumbs over them. "There is no 'deserve', remember? There's only life and if this is what you can give me then I'll be happy with it for as long as you decide. I'll demand nothing but what you want to give me."
"Then I want…" Anna swallowed, "I want you. I want to be with you and I want whatever we could find together. I want to grow better with you."
John slipped his hands from hers and carefully cupped her face so he could lean forward and place his lips gently on hers. Anna closed her eyes and sank into the feeling of having him close to her again. A shift or two later and her back gently thumped against the tree trunk.
His body held her there, thoroughly distracting her from her earlier determination to keep an eye on Mary. Her fingers clawed slowly up his silky shirt to hold herself closer to him and John stepped into her so their hips collided. All sound merged to one gentle buzz in her ears as she lost herself in the sensation of his lips on hers.
A shriek brought Anna out of her moment and she flattened her hands on John's chest to stop him. His harsh breathing pelted her ears but Anna ducked under his arms and pushed to the very edge of the trees to see Mary jumping into the river. The boy already swam with her but Mary's arms batted at the water, an edge of terror on her face, and Anna sprinted to the edge of the river to dive in.
The pull of the water, the layers of current tugging and ripping at her, but Anna surged to break for air. She kicked hard in the water toward Mary's flailing arms and ignored the terrified cries of the boy. He paddled his way to the bank, sobbing and crying out as Mary's hands flailed under the current and swept downstream.
Anna focused herself and closed her eyes before sinking under the water herself. It rushed her between rocks, scraping over her skin and gashing her deeply but she ignored it. Instead she opened her eyes to follow Mary's progress and held her hands tight to her sides as her lungs burned in her torpedo toward the girl's position.
Even from the shrinking distance, Anna could see Mary's form weakening. Her pulls to try and save herself feel short, the length of her arms no longer at their reach, and Anna maneuvered through the water to reach out an arm toward the sinking girl. The bite of deoxygenation in her blood blackened the edges of Anna's vision but with a fierce kick she latched onto Mary's dress and brought their bodies together. Holding her close, Anna closed her eyes and wrapped her body around the small girl as they went over the edge of the waterfall.
The fall, despite the crash of the water, rang silent in Anna's ears. Her hand over Mary's heart detected the barest hint of a beat and in the few moments they had in the freefall, they both managed to haul in a gasping breath. They hit the water at the bottom of the falls, Mary still clutched close to Anna's chest, and speared into the turbulent water at speed.
Despite the speed, Anna's legs did not break but bent to catch them on the silt-filled, rocky bottom of the falls to push them upward. Their heads broke the surface and Anna struggled to blink away the dancing red and black colors from her eyes to kick them to the alcove behind the falls. Mary clung to her, the weight and alarm in her movements almost threatening Anna's own safety, and only let go when Anna dragged her tiny body onto the rocky shore.
They rested there, Mary's body shaking from the shock, the fear, and her lack of air, and Anna watched her carefully. The girl's eyes hazed and blinked as her chest rose and fell in smaller and smaller motions before finally stilling. Anna froze, waiting, praying to whatever gods remained in the world, that her chest would move again. But it stilled.
She rubbed her hands together furiously, the sparks of gold shining there not quite enough. Her fingers shook and trembled with cold and her own lack of energy but Anna tried anyway. Tried to bring her magic to the fore but fear or exhaustion or whatever else kept it blocked. Not even the green tendrils of her twisted magic could find tehri way through to help her. All she knew abandoned her in a moment as Mary lay still before her.
A sound from the cave mouth alerted her and John's form swam to the bank. He only spared Anna a glance before kneeling next to Mary's body. Anna could not even speak to explain, sobs and gasps that rasped against her raw throat left her silent in the face of the nearness of Death. But John put a hand on her shoulder and spoke softly.
"It'll be alright."
Anna could not even summon the energy to argue as Mary's life drained away from her like the water leaking off her drenched body. John titled Mary's head slightly so it bent back on her neck. His fingers, ever so delicate, opened Mary's mouth and he put his mouth over hers. Anna frowned and tried to say something but John's hold on Mary's face and the forced breaths he injected into Mary's mouth stopped him.
She watched, in horrified fascination, as John's fingers interlaced and he set his palms on Mary's chest. His arms remained straight and he pushed down while counting under his breath. Each pump of his arms moved Mary's tiny body until he stopped, returning to the breathing, and repeated the process. Every moment he tried gave Anna a brief moment of hope before Mary's failure to respond dragged her back to the edge of despair.
In a moment, as his body sagged, Anna pushed forward and put her hands on Mary's chest as she tried to mimic John's motions. Each pump of her arms brought a trickle of golden light dancing over Mary's chest and when Anna put her mouth over Mary's to breathe into her lungs, Mary's body moved. Anna cried out in surprise as Mary's chest rose and fell on her own. Her small fingers held at her damp dress and looked between Anna and John.
No one spoke before Anna pulled Mary's into her grip. She clutched the girl to her, embracing her until Mary's hands pushed at her. Anna held Mary's face, her fingers stroking through the damp tresses before separating herself from her.
Anna swallowed and stood, as if to walk away from Mary. But Mary's small hand grasped at Anna's and pulled her back down. Her small form crawled into Anna's lap and held herself close to the woman's chest as they breathed in unison. Eventually breathing until Mary's heavy breaths sent her to sleep.
John's hand landed on Anna's shoulder and helped her stand as she continued trying to hold Mary. He carefully took Mary into his arms and nodded toward the entrance. "You lead the way. We'll take her back to the other fairies."
Anna nodded and led them back toward the falls. They skirted the rocky edge of the pool where the falls drained and began the difficult climb up the hill back to the river. When they reached the top they paused, each taking deep breaths to try and find the energy to move again, before working their way back through the woods toward Mary's home.
They waited at the edge of the clearing before sneaking toward the house and finally through the door. The emptiness inside, the bare necessities as the only decorations of the wooden building, struck at Anna before she focused on leading the way up the stairs to Mary's room. There they laid her gently on the bed.
"What do we do now?" John whispered at Anna as she perched on the edge of Mary's bed, running her fingers through the girl's hair. "We can't have her telling they about you or anything else that happened."
"We'll have to find the boy." Anna turned to John. "Find him so I can alter his memories. We need to make sure he doesn't tell anyone about me either."
John nodded and with a flick of Anna's hand she changed him back to a bird. He flew through the open window and Anna focused on Mary again. One last stroke of her fingers through the girl's hair and a small curl of golden light bled into the girl's skin. Her face relaxed and her breathing deepened.
Anna stood and descended the stairs of the house. She took one last look around the bare interior before pushing out the door. The sensation of the house left her just as bare and she could hardly summon the energy to hurry at the sound of the fairies returning. Their voices light, carefree, and completely oblivious to the girl asleep after her brush with death in their house. Their charge… forgotten and neglected as if she mattered no more than the decorations they failed to add to their house.
Her hands closed back around her staff, fallen to the ground near the tree where she dropped it, and Anna crouched on the ground to run her hand over it. The wood glowed golden a moment before settling and she stood, her hand on the tree to help with the motion. A flick of memory, to the moment she shared with John there, had Anna taking a deep breath to force herself to focus as John's aw reached her ears. One spin of her hand formed the black tunnel to connect her between the two places and she faced the sobbing boy.
Tears streaked his cheeks, his clothes damp in patches where they stuck to his still-wet body, and the back of one hand bore the signs of the multiple brushes against the underside of his weeping nose. Anna flicked her eyes to John, perched in the tree above her and he croaked once before Anna crouched before the boy. He cried out at the sight of Anna but her hand held the side of his face and she pressed her thumb into the center of his forehead.
"You never saw me. You left your house today, escaping whatever chores you had, and went for a swim in the river. You enjoyed yourself but tripped on the way home. You thought you hurt yourself rather badly and cried a bit but you're alright." Anna paused, licking over her lips before swallowing. "You wanted to invite the neighbor girl, the one with dark hair, but she doesn't know how to swim and so she didn't want to come. You don't think you'll invite her to join you again."
She released his head and the boy swayed a moment before blinking at Anna. His eyes unfocused and his face scrunched as she stood. Taking a breath, she moved back into the trees and waited for John to land on her shoulder before watching the boy. His hands smoothed along the rock where he sat before standing. The wobble to his step only worried Anna a moment before he took to the path, whistling an off-key tune as he vanished into the trees.
John landed beside her and Anna helped him return to human form. "You didn't have to force him away from Mary like that."
"He almost got her killed." Anna shook her head. "It's for the best."
"She was fine."
"She was…" Anna stopped herself, knuckles white on her staff. "She wasn't."
"She's sleeping peacefully in her bed at this very moment."
"Because you put here there." Anna dropped onto a log, her staff clattering against it to fall with a softened thump onto the ground. "I couldn't save her. I watched her breathing weakly, breathing her last, and my magic refused to come. I couldn't… I couldn't save her and I had to watch her die."
"Anna," John knelt before her, taking her hands with his. "She's alright. She's alright because you saved her. I wasn't bringing her back and I was too tired to continue. You're the one who saved her at the end. You're the one she clung to."
"This isn't about jealousy, John." Anna shook her head, blinking at the tears that finally ran freely down her cheeks. "This is about losing her."
Her hands shook in his grip. "I can't bear the thought of losing her."
John said nothing, though his mouth opened as if to speak for a moment. He merely held Anna's hands as she cried. Cried until she finally blinked away her tears to see John before her. See the man kneeling in the dirt as a comfort to her.
No natural force could have stopped her as she pulled him to her and brought their lips together. His reaction took a moment of comprehension before he surged forward toward her without another thought. They were nothing but two beings seeking a confirmation of life in a moment of terrible fear. A brush with Death that reminded them of the life before them.
His arms wrapped around her and Anna pressed herself into him, as if they could share the same skin. Their position shifted and she stood on her tiptoes to still reaching the wonderful depths of his mouth while his hands smoothed and caught in the still-damp fabric of her dress. None of it stopped the roving nature of his touches until Anna was sure the heat of her body would dry the dress in no time. Dry it and still leave her heated and wanting him.
A thump of her back against a tree had the stubs of her wingbones brushing against the moss on the tree, driving indentations into the bark through the cover as John echoed his earlier motions. Their bodies collided together, impacts muffled in skin and softness but jarring when bone struck bone in the attempt. Neither of them cared enough to do more than urge the other forward with gasps and moans when a hesitation suggested worry or concern.
Each touch had Anna vibrating and trembling. Part of her still twitched with the fear and worry and exhaustion of their adventure. Another part of her wanted to reaffirm that they drove Death back. That John drove Death back.
That John gave her the strength to drive Death back.
Anna pulled her lips from him, staring into John's eyes as the harshness of his breathing mimicked hers. They gazed at one another while her fingers caressed the lines of his face. His edges and planes more familiar to her now, perhaps more obvious to her now as they gave her comfort. Small twitches to their lips allowed them to smile before meeting again.
This time they were slower, more measured, and more than a fierce clash of teeth and breath. His fingers still explored her, as if it was the first time, and her hands roamed what parts of him she could reach. But even in the heightened state of awareness, Anna barely comprehended when he left them both naked. Left them both exposed to the world and one another. Exposed to nature and the forces that ebbed and flowed around them.
Their lips continued to meet, broken now by the groans and growls as they used tighter grips and fiercer holds on one another. But each movement stayed slow, concise, and deliberate. Every stroke of John's fingers against her, of her hand squeezing him, and finally of their joining walked the line of animalistic and restrained. To their climaxes they held to one another as if the earth would part beneath their feet but refused to heed the possibility of bruises and scratches they inevitably left on one another's skin.
Anna finally comprehended their breathing as her bare feet touched the ground again. Her senses dulled for a moment, lost in the aftermath of their shared ecstasy, but slowly returned with startling clarity. Each nerve on her body quivered and waited to feel the world more precisely around her until everything stabilized and she rediscovered her equilibrium in the world.
John offered her the staff and gathered their clothes. "It's best we not linger much longer here. Who knows if the boy will come back."
"Yes." Anna stopped John replacing his clothes. "Trust me."
He frowned but Anna formed the black tunnel to guide them through to her cliff in the Moors. She took her dress from him, hanging it from the tree to dry before helping him do the same with his clothing. The occasional flinches and jerks of his body had her smiling as she sat on the edge of the cliff and watched the sunset.
"You spent most of your life as a bird, devoid of all covers, and now you're nervous?"
"I had feathers then." John sat next to her, pulling his legs up as if they might protect his naked body from unseen attackers. "I feel exposed like this."
"It is… different." Anna spread her fingers in the grass, stroking through it to disturb the blades. "But it feels more free. More like how we all used to be before the world taught us shame."
"Are you shamed?"
Anna shrugged, "I look back at my life and I wish I lived it differently. Wish I'd been a different person because who I was, who I am… they're not the person my parents had in mind for me when I was young."
"We're never the people we're supposed to be." John's fingers brushed over one another, as he kept his arms latched around his drawn-up knees. "We're always short of the kind of life we should've lived and the people we should've been."
"But you knew it, then." Anna did not look at him, preferring the idea that she could burn herself blind in the sun to avoid facing him. "When I first cursed Mary, you knew I'd made a mistake and I was too blind and arrogant and angry to notice. To accept the truth I knew but refused to acknowledge."
"We've all done things we regret in anger."
"Have you?" Anna turned to him, blinking the burn in her eyes away. "Have you done anything you regret?"
"I regret that I haven't been the kind of love you needed." John finally let his hands fall away, taking one to stroke over the skin of her cheek. "I've made a mess of our romance."
"I wouldn't say that."
"Sporadic kisses and touches over eleven years is… It's not what you needed, I don't think."
Anna sighed, a small shake to her head. "I don't know if I know what I need."
"You wanted to learn everything I'd learned from watching men at their mating habits once." John risked a smile and Anna laughed a bit. "But I don't think that's what you really mean."
"No, I don't think so either." Anna caught his hand, pushing his fingers to splay so she could trace each until they twitched at the tickle. "But we did have a time of trying to find pleasure in the flesh we share."
"Is it not more than that?" John twisted his hand in her grip to interlace their fingers and bring her eyes to his. "Are we not more than an exchange of bodily feeling and shared sensations?"
"I want to be." Anna breathed, edging toward him as their bodies worked closer to each other. "I want to be more with you. You make me more."
John bent his head to place his lips on hers again. His free hand, the one not keeping a tight grip between them, pressed on her shoulder to lay her back on the bed of soft grass that welcomed her as it did the first time they shared it. Her legs separated for John to slot his body between them but he did not join them. He took the space offered but did not press any advantage but his adoration of her mouth.
Anna writhed against him, holding herself closer as her unoccupied arm wrapped around his shoulders. Their tongues batted and tangled together while John stretched their joined hands above Anna's head to lengthen her body so his could cover hers. His weight pressed into her but she relished the sensation of their hearts beating against one another in a rhythm that only sped up with each moment they prolonged their kiss.
His fingers unlatched from hers, leaving her grasping at air, and John disengaged from the kiss. She tried to stop him, to use her hand at the back of his neck to bring his lips back to hers, but John only hurried a line of nips to her jaw and neck. The destination of his adoration brought Anna's hand to the back of his head where her nails dug into the skin of his scalp at the brush of his tongue over her nipple. And when he sucked it into his mouth while his hand kneaded her other breast, Anna arched her back to offer more of herself to his attentions.
They slid and shuffled through the grass, their sounds so different from the mating of animals and yet just as indicative of their actions and attentions. Each and every motion they made brought pleasure or sought it until Anna could no more comprehend the earth from the sky. She tightened her hold to John and almost whined when he released her breasts.
Kisses dotted her abdomen and ran down the curve of her hips to press just above the nerves he helped her discover. The illusion of his fingers and hands sculpting and smoothing over her legs was lost in the quiver of sensations brought on by John's persistently light kisses at her clit. Anna's hand attempted to guide him closer, deeper, to force him to accept the lift of her hips but he remained dogged in his taunting of her release.
Each stroke of his tongue brought her closer to the edge that all at once seemed so close and yet far away. Anna's body brought her hips up, twisted them around his hold and toward his tongue, as if that might bring her to the edge. But no amount of motion could rush John's work. Work that left her heaving for breath and huffing from simultaneous pleasure and frustration.
It was not like their tryst at the tree. There was no affirmation of life while staring Death in the face. There was no need to bury emotions or seek release from the weight of truth. This was simply for the pleasure of knowing another person more intimately than they knew anyone before. And John determined that with each exploratory lap of his tongue through, over, around, and along her folds until Anna's body rolled with a gentle climax.
There were no dots of color on the edges of her vision and no explosion of emotion, just the sated expression of a body released. But it left her unprepared for John's renewed assault. Left her unprepared for the determined crook and stroke of his fingers at her center and again, when they entered her, the motions that found those places where her body shivered and shuddered in his grip. His tongue never ceased, the sounds of him working over her almost as obscenely pleasurable as the actions themselves. And, finally, her body-rocking orgasm when he sucked hard and determinedly at her nerves.
Anna had barely a moment to comprehend it when John entered her. Their bodies, as close as two people could be without sharing the same skin, sank into one another. John's hands at her thigh and ass manipulated her leg higher so he could strike her deeper. Her lift and twist of her body, so ineffective before, proved enough to force John to strike and rub and grind against those places that sent Anna higher and higher into the sky. If, she decided, she could never fly again then this was as close to that ecstasy as she would ever be.
And she had no problems with the clarity that realization brought her.
John's kisses returned to her breasts and her lips, bringing her back to the moment. She succumbed to them, holding him close with her hand pressing at the small of his back and clinging to his side. Her legs tightened and her ankles crossed behind his ass to bring him deeper and steady them both. And she brought out the most gloriously strangled sound from the back of his throat when her hand slipped from his back to his ass.
One of his hands snaked between them, teasing her swollen and overly-loved nub of nerves until Anna writhed and quivered in his hold. They rocked and shunted together to seek the high that Anna found first. Her cry and released triggered John's and he stuttered and pumped into her a few final times before collapsing atop her.
A shuffle and shimmy landed them on their sides, still intertwined. Their fingers slid and smoothed over one another as their bodies calmed and Anna watched John succumb to the enticing pull of sleep. The relaxation on his face, the negligence of his earlier desire for cover as he slept completely exposed to the world, gave Anna a little smile. Her fingers played a moment in his hair before she pushed herself to stand.
She placed a kiss on his forehead, a fluttering wisp of golden magic bleeding into his skin to deepen his breathing, and retrieved her dress. It fit her oddly, still runched and damp in places, but Anna smoothed it as much as she could before retrieving her staff. With a frim grip on it, she stepped into the black tunnel to put herself in Mary's room.
Darkness held in the corners, the blue-purple of night eased about them as Mary slept peacefully in her bed. Anna watched her a moment, thinking back to the moment she thought she would never see her chest rise again, and swallowed a sob. A few tears trickled their way down her cheeks, escaping the brush of the back of her hand before she could stop them. They dotted her still-wet dress but Anna ignored them and stepped to the side of Mary's bed.
Her spread her arms, staff clutched tightly in her right hand, and whispered to the night. "I revoke the curse. I take it back and into myself."
Golden light seeped from her hands but could not reach Mary. Anna frowned and swallowed, shaking her head as if to clear the confusion through mechanical motion. "I revoke the curse I laid on this child. I take it into myself. I satisfy its demands myself."
Again the golden light from her body could not reach Mary. This time Anna noted an almost imperceptible shield of green that wafted and flowed around Mary. She reached a finger forward to prick at the green fog but it allowed her finger through. When she tried to do the same with her finger glowing ever so slightly gold, the green shield seized and snapped at her finger.
Anna stepped back, breathing a bit harder at the sight before stiffening her shoulders and setting her posture. This time the butt of her staff hit the ground and she spoke without hesitation and with all the authority she had. "I command the curse to release its prisoner. I revoke it and take it into myself. I satisfy its demands. I revoke the curse on this child. I release it and take it to myself. I revoke my curse."
The louder her voice got the more the gold fought the green. It was almost like watching two serpents battle for territory as the lights bit and snapped at one another, hissing and spitting in the growing disturbance of temporal forces until they collapsed. Anna barely held her position, both hands gripping tightly to her staff to keep her balance, and watched the colors dissipate.
As she gathered her breath she could hear, almost as if a voice whispered it from the shadows, "This curse will last until the end of time and no power on earth can change it."
She collapsed to the floor and wept.