He reminded himself everyone thought they heard something in the dead of night, when the mind wandered and the body was too tired to rein it in. He assured himself that what sounded like whispers, like soft coos in his ear, was nothing more than the white noise of the world around him and his imagination trying to form a message from sound and fury.
He told himself that because he preferred it to thinking that someone might actually be whispering in his ear...
Because they had before.
Beloved, return her to me...
Taiyang reached for his pillow and wrapped it over his ears. She wasn't there. It was just a memory.
He wished he'd thought it was an illusion; a tired mind playing tricks on him.
Unfortunately, he knew better.
Tai tried to reach her after he saw the bandage wrapped around Yang's arm. Every once in a while he'd pull out her old Scroll contact, still bearing an image of Raven in her fourth year -only 20, barely older than Yang was now- and try to reach her, but never managed to finish dialing.
This time he called, wondering if there'd be any reply... if Raven even still had her Scroll or had discarded the reminder of her time in that weak, illogical world to be free of the chain of man's own making.
This time he listened to a ring and dared to hope.
A click. No sound of her voice, but perhaps... perhaps a way to leave a message?
"Hey," Tai just barely managed to squeak out. "I... I know you don't want to hear from me right now... or ever, really, but I wanted you to know -if you don't already, anyway..."
A long pause. "Yang's hurt. She lost... she's suffering right now, and... I know you've been keeping tabs on her and thought... maybe..."
He was foolish to hope. He knew it. It was getting harder and harder to believe she'd answer him, even for Yang's sake.
"Just call me back if you get this, Raven. Please."
He ended the call and looked down at his Scroll, and the image from so long ago.
He remembered it like it was yesterday.
She was beautiful. Everyone knew it. Worse- she knew it.
Tai thought he was very lucky to be her teammate and even luckier to be her partner. He'd keep her close by, and even if he never had her, he'd be better perceived just by being in her presence. He'd know what caught her eye, and who she let into her life.
She hated him at first, but fighting side by side, she learned to trust him just a little more each day, and eventually found herself confiding in him, thinking of him as an important piece of her life. He tried to be grateful for that.
But seeing her eyes, her untamed hair, the patch of her thigh revealed when her skirt rode up, and Tai cared less and less about the day to day... and more about the night... only one.
Only a few fleeting moments... he'd trade all that he'd so arduously gained just for a single night.
So he did.
And he got what he was promised.
He staggered out of bed, wandering down the stairs. It was dark outside, but he longed to listen to the wind more than the whispers at his bedside.
Tai glanced down at Yang lying on the couch: not asleep, just... staring off into space. He understood what it was to feel the torpor of such deep depression; he'd once been in her place.
His second chance, his light, his redemption, his love... when it left him he gave little thought to what had been left behind. All his thoughts were for what he'd lost.
It left him vulnerable. It left him weak.
Alone with his ghost.
Beloved...
Tai turned his head from Yang and went out to the garden. She wasn't yet ready to talk, and until she did the voice of his memory would only seem louder.
One night. One night with her.
Beloved...
What do you need?
What you will carve and etch. What you will sire.
Anything.
You will swear to grant me what I wish. And you will have it.
I swear it.
What issues from your lust... shall be mine.
Tai had what he wanted. What had he to think of consequences?
What young man does when a beautiful woman pierces his soul with the red of her eyes?
She was his friend.
Then she felt used.
Her only revenge was saddling him with what he made.
The world condemned her because she gave up something she never wanted.
He condemned her for shirking responsibilities just as he meant to.
Raven lost all her friends and her own child.
But then, Yang wasn't her child either...
Yang watched her father step outside. He wanted to garden in the middle of the night?
At least he was leaving her alone... not forcing her to try and interact, to present his usual optimism at a time Yang wasn't willing to hear it.
At least she was alone with her thoughts...
Alone to... remember, to hear the whispers...
I'm sorry...
To remember the pain in her missing arm, to remember squeezing the fingers in her left hand, only to feel them slip away...
I'm sorry...
She upped the volume on the television, trying to drown her mind of memory, to hear only sound and fury, to see the present and not be drawn back to the past...
But she couldn't hear it. She couldn't see it. She was lost in memory now. Hearing the same voice apologize over and over again, gnashing her teeth and squeezing her midsection with her remaining arm and pleading with...
Beloved...
Listening to...
Beloved...
A voice she didn't know, but the soft coo of a mother.
A mother she had too long gone without.
Yang reached her hand to the formless dark, searching for fingers that slipped away. Something took her hand.
Beloved...
Something she didn't know, but that wished to hold her.
She didn't yet know how long it had waited to do so.