Like Lovers
One: fall/began
There is a dent in the wall, roughly the size and shape of Nicholas' fist, which is fitting in more ways than one as it is his fist that created it. He does not care nor notice, though, being more interested with his thoughts and the hurried, rhythmic sound of his pacing. Wearing a hole in the carpet, as his adopted mother would put it, yet he ignores that fleeting realization. His anger is not directed at Allegra and he is not fueled by some mysterious hatred for the wall, but is stemmed from within and aimed at himself. He feels awkward and more than a bit put-ou, generally at his own absurd hopefulness. Why had he expected her to react favorably after all he has done? He knows it is logical how she responded; nonetheless, he feels betrayed, hurt that she would treat his actions as she did. Nicholas supposes this is how she felt the day he did the unthinkable and hit her, changing their lives irreversibly.
Still, he thinks sulkily, she could have at least shown some sort of emotion about the room he had personally designed - not that he has taken the time to inform her of that. Her face, when he escorted her to the room, was absolutely controlled, emotionless, a mask of unmoving stone, and he carried enough emotion for them both. And so, now, he paces quickly in his large bedchambers, whirling about to repeat his steps in front of the wide window stretching from ceiling to floor. Stopping irritatedly, he steps up to it, staring, eyes narrowed, at the vast, swirling orange sands, broken only by outcroppings of stone, that compose Kek. The anger is fading away, replaced with an anxious feeling that knots itself around his stomach, squeezing and wrapping. He should have told her when he took her to the room, should have told her what he wants to do, but her silence put him off. So instead of mulling over what he needs to say, he envisions the room he designed, wishing she had said something, anything.
The curtains are a thick red, sewn from crushed velvet, and they hang from silver posts before the bright, wide windows, and it overlooks the glorious courtyard built one day long past, an intricate garden within the blood-colored stone walls he created some time ago during a fit of boredom and what was quickly becoming a case of severe depression. He likes to think she will, in the very least, find some pleasure in that spot of green amidst the insanely constant shades of red. The large bed, the carpets and dressers and drapings are all dark red, polished and cut and kept more or less simplistic as, no matter what else has changed, Allegra still has no fondness for overly lavish decorations. Of course, it was a great temptation to try to impress her with delicate trinkets, but a sense of something or other kept him from making that particular mistake.
Suddenly, Nicholas is struck with the horrible, unwanted idea of whether or not red is still her favorite color, and he rolls his eyes at his own pathetic idiocy to think a simple thing like the color scheme of a room could be responsible for her icy behavior. He sighs and, touching his temples with his thumbs, sweeps across the unforgiving hard floor to sit on the edge of his bed. Closing his eyes, he clears his mind and pushes all worries of Allegra from him, forming a peacefully empty slate in his head. Slowly reaching out, in a sense of the word, to grasp the edges of reality and shred them, he effortlessly molds it and shapes it as he desires, pushing and formulating strings of words until he is satisfied. As he opens his eyes, lips twitched up in a smile, he sends it to where he wishes it to be.
Feeling rather less upset than he had before, he stands and absently brushes nonexistent dust motes from his blue jacket, still smiling to himself in the great emptiness of his bedchambers. A brief flash of unease interrupts his welcome good mood as he worries that his gift will be received poorly, and far too quickly, his pleased feeling is replaced with one of discontent. His dark mood rapidly returning, Nicholas pinches the bridge of his nose in irritation, his mouth curving into a frown once more, as it has often done recently. Smoldering darkly, he bites his rounded lower lip, drawing a masochistic relief from the angry pain, and he decides a distraction is in order, such as, his stomach puts in hopefully, dinner.
Besides, Allegra must be hungry, he rationalizes and this brings an unusual smile to his face, unusual in that he rarely, if ever, smiles in such a way, free of ulterior motives or dark lights flickering in the back of his delicately flecked eyes. Leaning toward the vast window, the sheer glass quivering once before it is no more, he spreads his arms out, fixing his gaze on the burning sky above. In moments, the piercing light of the system's solitary sun is wiped away, destroyed by roiling, dark clouds that send a gentle, thumping rain to the desert lands unused to such weather. The breezes, cool and wafting, entering the prison in any place they can find, sweep past his face and fill his chambers with the dusky scent of rain and the foreign taste of violets. It is both soothing and exciting, and he stretches his arms, wincing just a bit when his shoulder blade cracks into place. He makes a face, feeling his shoulder with his fingers, and strolls across the thick carpeting dyed blue to the door, stepping through the silver frame and pausing to replace the window; no sense in letting his belongings be ruined by the building gale outside.
The hallway is, as it always has been, dimly lit, and the gothic windows lining its outer wall are streaked with soft, glinting rain, providing the only source of light along this length of the former prison's north side. He trails his fingers across the cooled glass, leaving paths of dryness in the mild condensation forming already inside, and he watches the storm as it gains strength, little by little. This, he thinks with a sudden brush of sadness pressing against his heart, is the kind of weather Euripides adored in his stoic way. Nicholas closes his eyes, resting his forehead against the slick pane and staring, blankly, at the beautiful, fiery rain pounding the dusty world like a thousand fairy fingers tapping a board marred with chalk dust. He sighs and the sky growls, a flickering tendril of lightning spearing from ebon cloud to soaked earth. How can her mere presence make him regret what is over with?
And even the air is heavier, pushing down on his shoulders with the triple fold anxiety of waiting and guilt and something else he is not yet sure of, but feels he is not ready for in any case, so he does not bother forcing it to become clear and tangible. He exhales again and wrinkles his nose at the billowing mist that spurts into being on the window, pulling his head back and absentmindedly wiping the flat cloud off the smooth surface with his sleeve, observing the cleared spot for a few empty seconds.
A sense of gradual awareness tickles along his spine, a creeping brush of familiarity and the supernatural that slips into his mind and, very gently, wins his attention in a matter of mildly unnerving seconds. But it doesn't startle him as it once did, and he smiles again, wearily, forcing the expression onto his lips as he turns and rests the heels of his palms on the jutting windowsill, crossing his legs at his shins and leaning back. "Hello, Mother," he says pleasantly to the flickering spectre strolling towards him. He deliberately keeps his voice void of anything accusatory, instead opting to use a slightly casual formality. He inclines his head respectfully and keeps his gaze steady until she stands before him. She, too, dips her head in acknowledgement and he feels a twinge of ancient mortification at the image of this delicate, regal woman showing him the respect he demands of other on her own volition. It makes him uncomfortable, so he squares his shoulders and tries his hardest to appear nonchalant.
"Hello, Nicholas," she says in return, her own smile teasing. The exotic markings on her face glitter at something and he grudgingly allows his smile to become genuine. Holding her hand out, blonde eyebrow arched tellingly, she waits for Nicholas to lend her his arm before they step down the hallway, long abandoned by servants and drones. The sounds of feet touching the floor are caught and bound by the thick, rich blue carpeting, muffled and obscured by the woven waves of the fabric sea. For some time, they are silent, meandering along the length of the storm-lit passage. Finally, in a thoughtful voice, tinged with wry humor, Riana comments, "I see you had an unfortunate accident." While Nicholas touches his lower lip with his free fingers, feeling the thin scab gingerly, she smiles just a fraction wider and continues surveying the end of the hall. He laughs a little, almost wonderingly, and she knows he laughs not for her or because of her words, but at the game of wits he and the Zane woman have been engaged in for the many years past. And even though, as a queen, she is saddened by his inner darkness, she is secretly glad as well; he is learning, always.
"I can't believe I was so worried," he grins sheepishly, eyes sparkling, still fingering the mending gash in his lip. "I mean, I really should've known she'd do something like that." He laughs again, shaking his head melodramatically, and the storm outside is less overwhelming and a bit more…romantic, Riana thinks to her self and she, too, laughs, as a mother is amused at her own youthful thoughts. "You're thinking it again, Mother," he says playfully, barely managing to keep his voice from breaking into a sing-song tone.
With a careful smile, she merely pats his arm with her loose hand, taking care to be both friendly and queenly in both actions. Her skirt whispers gently against the scrolling carpet stretching along the center of the shivering corridor, one of the few sounds other than timed steps and Nicholas' quiet, amused laugh. She closes her eyes briefly, swept with the changes this place stores systematically in its walls: what once was a prison is now a castle; what once was dark is now lit; what was broken is mended. Yet, she thinks with overwhelming sorrow, he is not, incarcerated in his own shadowed mind, the gears of his heart worn and thinning if not broken, and she is nearly crushed by the protective urges that tell her to protect him from change, from pain, from everything that attracted him to, and repelled him from, Allegra, the woman she wished she had known when she and the Stranger - oh, her beloved Stranger - had been tested so severely those many years ago. But then, she continues with a smile, eyes still closed to the wavering world, Nicholas would not know this independent, overly responsible heroine, would he? So the thought fades from her mind, having only existed for a moment, and her eyes flutter open as they approach a turn at the end of the hall, a new path streaking off at the corner. She releases her hold on his arm, merely grasping his wrist with a light touch of her fingers. She can sense he is contemplating, mulling over something that is somewhat upsetting to him.
She wonders briefly at his penchant for overreacting, a thing brought about by his impatience and wild imagination, and raises a slim eyebrow in question. Almost reluctantly, he asks, in a subdued voice, "Why didn't you tell us sooner?" A heartbeat later, he adds, "About Allegra being the one meant to free Galidor and not me." As she turns his words over in her mind, trying to formulate a suitable answer, Riana hears him mutter in a sulking tone, not meant to be heard, "It would've been helpful to know that ten years ago." She responds, surprising him, by slapping his shoulder in a chiding manner and he reels a little, eyes widening perplexedly and then guiltily glancing at, of course, his feet as he flushes.
"Really, Nicholas," she scolds not unkindly, "you're only around seventeen years too old for that sort of behavior." She smiles, though, and cradles his cheek in her pale blue hand, lit by the spectral glow that shields her essence, still finding an answer that may be both truthful yet appeasing to him. "Destiny is fickle," she speaks after a drawn out time, choosing to ignore his rolling eyes and bring her hand down to fold it in place with the other. "I had some inkling she would be responsible for the safety of Galidor, but, alas," she smiles, amused, "my own maternal pride refused to let me dwell on the idea that my darling son would not be the Outer Dimension's awaited savior and, instead, some Earth girl," here Nicholas frowns unconsciously at her negative wording, "would complete the quest." Her eyes soften and mist nearly imperceptibly, and she breathes out slowly. "I never dreamed you would replace Gorm…and now Galidor must fear its prince."
"I don't give a rip about Galidor," he says in annoyance, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering pointedly down the smooth length of his nose at the golden-haired queen. "I have the rest of the Outer Dimension to worry about, and Galidor can have its happy little nirvana all to itself, because I don't need the hassle of more people hating me or celebrating the 'coming of salvation.'" He is ranting now, having unfolded his arms and making curt gestures with them. "Allegra's got all the pieces except for the last, and I just want the key fragments to destroy them, so you can stop worrying about me sending the spawn of evil to destroy my own people!" He makes an upset face, radiating self-righteous resentment in glittering, unseen waves that tickle her sense with regret and the discomfort such hostile words will always bring to a mother. Had he treated his adoptive mother, the mother who raised him and loved him as a babe, a child, a young man, in such a temperamental way? She sighs and shakes her head slowly, a flash of lightning reflecting off a mirror on the wall behind Nicholas' shoulder, flashing across the silver scales curving along her left eye.
"Must you?" she questions sadly and then she is gone.
Clutching at the suddenly empty air, hands lit momentarily by a residual blue glow, he stares through the space left, into the swirling, snarling storm he began and now must wait for to pass, and he finds it harder to separate the individual storms that threaten to tear him apart from each other. "Mother?" he calls tentatively, his hands still hovering, fingers curled up, in place, his eyes still trying to find her ethereal form, but he is neither surprised nor, for the most part, disappointed. She comes and goes when the moment is right and he has, forever, the power to visit her in the stifling shadow realm she must dwell in. Slowly, he flexes his fingers and lets his arms fall to his sides, strands of chestnut hair scattering over his dark eyebrows. "Good-bye, then," he says, his voice swallowed up by the hissing thunder. "Maybe I should apologize to Allegra…?" He expects no answer and it is thusly pleasing when a soft breeze not of his making ruffles his hair gently, like slender fingers tousling it approvingly. Twisting on his heel, he walks, nearly running, about the corner, arms moving in careless rhythm with his legs, to the perfectly hewn steps dancing up to a new corridor tracing for a mere fifty feet: there are two doors alone. One, at the end of the shadowed corridor, opens to space, a portal to dangerous heights and a testament to a deeper interest in perfection the chamber obscured by the other door; this other door is a few feet from the crown of the stairs and it is at this one that he hesitates, cautiously leaning his palms on the carved door, fingertips trailing over the inlaid patterns he had copied from a memory of an Arabic woodcut. He glances above, at the glass window set in the ceiling, seeing the tiny, wispy puddles of rain spotting it, and he prays for guidance, for protection, for anything along the lines of positive reinforcement, or whatever would help this encounter. He raps his knuckles once against the wood and prepares to knock it again when it - the door, the barrier, the line he is beginning to cross - swings open sharply and an aromatic bouquet of thorns and petals is smashed into his face, scraping his cheeks and flooding his olfactory nerves with the distinctive scent of the crimson roses he had sent to her room.
"How dare you!" Allegra screams, her throat made husky by rage and angry tears. She repeats her cry, shoving him back as he holds the flowers in stunned silence and she makes a low, furious sound. "We aren't thirteen anymore, you pompous jerk!" The tears color her face a beautiful, aching silvery brown and she shoves him again, though with less fury and more hurt fueling her movements. "It isn't like passing notes to Amanda Laurence," her voice drips with sarcasm as she spits out the name, "instead of helping me in English. It was fine to pick a daisy and say, 'gee, I'm sorry, Allegra, won't you be my best friend again' when we were in the eighth grade, but we moved past that a long time ago!" She chokes on what may be a sob and looks at him, conveying a decade of shattered emotions through her dark, depressively sparkling eyes, and she, like an ebbing hurricane, bursts into one last round of power and slams her chamber's door shut, disappearing behind it.
Nicholas fingers the roses and mouths a phrase, lowering his face so that his short, thick hair hides his features. He tightens his grip on a single petal and rips it free, holding it between his fingers. "She loves me," he whispers, letting the petal fall and grasping another, pulling it off the prominent flower.
"She loves me not."
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there's a feeling we each will fall
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And in the moment following the flight of Allegra Zane from the horrific prison of Kek, in the minutes after Gorm's murder, though none of the Outer Dimension denizens would know of this for months in the chaos, there was a change like none Gorm had ever caused. Lands that were dry were flooded and mountains were demolished, moved, reshaped. What once was night became day and plagues never before seen destroyed cultures and people, devouring the life and soul of those caught in the path of the change. With the warping of nature, 'fixing' what Gorm had altered, things were set into motion that should not have been.
Those with power grew stronger and the weak grew weaker in the following. Some would admit later that, yes, his intentions had been good, but his motives never were. Power corrupts and he was born with it mingled in his blood, a power different than that of royalty as in his mother or prophecy as in his father, but pure, unadulterated power, manifested in the form of what was called 'glinch.'
No one should play God.
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in the fields where it all began
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//end chapter one//
||Many apologies for the long wait and this rather melodramatic chapter. Of course, I have to thank everyone who reviewed - I got five more than I expected! Keep 'em coming! - and, in particular, Lady Cassandra, who reviewed a second time to make sure I hadn't fallen off the face of the earth. Kudos to the reviewer who requested I describe Allegra's room; by the time I got around to reading reviews, I'd already written it, so that works out well for all, no? As for next chapter, tentatively scheduled to be posted Christmas Eve, expect a Flashback! That's right, no angst, no present tense, and no 'what the---?' For the most part, anyway. I'll try to tackle what Nick did that was so bad, what happened to Allegra, and so on. Don't expect me to cover years of stuff, though; a couple of months is all you can hope for…Questions! Due to my missing several episodes…What is the Stranger's name? Is Riana the queen's name? What is the name of Gorm's little illusion-y goat dude? And a question for my e-mailer, if you remember, what did I name the old man? 0o; I lost my transcript of the e-mail I sent back to you. I hope everyone enjoyed this as best they could, and please review! Leave chocolate, too, if you'd like…my birthday was in September, so it could be a late present! *winks* Just kidding, of course.||
Additional: Fixed incredibly stupid typos in the prologue and hit self over the head with a pen while doing so. This is why I shouldn't type things up late at night. I'll probably have to fix stuff in this chapter later, anyway.
One: fall/began
There is a dent in the wall, roughly the size and shape of Nicholas' fist, which is fitting in more ways than one as it is his fist that created it. He does not care nor notice, though, being more interested with his thoughts and the hurried, rhythmic sound of his pacing. Wearing a hole in the carpet, as his adopted mother would put it, yet he ignores that fleeting realization. His anger is not directed at Allegra and he is not fueled by some mysterious hatred for the wall, but is stemmed from within and aimed at himself. He feels awkward and more than a bit put-ou, generally at his own absurd hopefulness. Why had he expected her to react favorably after all he has done? He knows it is logical how she responded; nonetheless, he feels betrayed, hurt that she would treat his actions as she did. Nicholas supposes this is how she felt the day he did the unthinkable and hit her, changing their lives irreversibly.
Still, he thinks sulkily, she could have at least shown some sort of emotion about the room he had personally designed - not that he has taken the time to inform her of that. Her face, when he escorted her to the room, was absolutely controlled, emotionless, a mask of unmoving stone, and he carried enough emotion for them both. And so, now, he paces quickly in his large bedchambers, whirling about to repeat his steps in front of the wide window stretching from ceiling to floor. Stopping irritatedly, he steps up to it, staring, eyes narrowed, at the vast, swirling orange sands, broken only by outcroppings of stone, that compose Kek. The anger is fading away, replaced with an anxious feeling that knots itself around his stomach, squeezing and wrapping. He should have told her when he took her to the room, should have told her what he wants to do, but her silence put him off. So instead of mulling over what he needs to say, he envisions the room he designed, wishing she had said something, anything.
The curtains are a thick red, sewn from crushed velvet, and they hang from silver posts before the bright, wide windows, and it overlooks the glorious courtyard built one day long past, an intricate garden within the blood-colored stone walls he created some time ago during a fit of boredom and what was quickly becoming a case of severe depression. He likes to think she will, in the very least, find some pleasure in that spot of green amidst the insanely constant shades of red. The large bed, the carpets and dressers and drapings are all dark red, polished and cut and kept more or less simplistic as, no matter what else has changed, Allegra still has no fondness for overly lavish decorations. Of course, it was a great temptation to try to impress her with delicate trinkets, but a sense of something or other kept him from making that particular mistake.
Suddenly, Nicholas is struck with the horrible, unwanted idea of whether or not red is still her favorite color, and he rolls his eyes at his own pathetic idiocy to think a simple thing like the color scheme of a room could be responsible for her icy behavior. He sighs and, touching his temples with his thumbs, sweeps across the unforgiving hard floor to sit on the edge of his bed. Closing his eyes, he clears his mind and pushes all worries of Allegra from him, forming a peacefully empty slate in his head. Slowly reaching out, in a sense of the word, to grasp the edges of reality and shred them, he effortlessly molds it and shapes it as he desires, pushing and formulating strings of words until he is satisfied. As he opens his eyes, lips twitched up in a smile, he sends it to where he wishes it to be.
Feeling rather less upset than he had before, he stands and absently brushes nonexistent dust motes from his blue jacket, still smiling to himself in the great emptiness of his bedchambers. A brief flash of unease interrupts his welcome good mood as he worries that his gift will be received poorly, and far too quickly, his pleased feeling is replaced with one of discontent. His dark mood rapidly returning, Nicholas pinches the bridge of his nose in irritation, his mouth curving into a frown once more, as it has often done recently. Smoldering darkly, he bites his rounded lower lip, drawing a masochistic relief from the angry pain, and he decides a distraction is in order, such as, his stomach puts in hopefully, dinner.
Besides, Allegra must be hungry, he rationalizes and this brings an unusual smile to his face, unusual in that he rarely, if ever, smiles in such a way, free of ulterior motives or dark lights flickering in the back of his delicately flecked eyes. Leaning toward the vast window, the sheer glass quivering once before it is no more, he spreads his arms out, fixing his gaze on the burning sky above. In moments, the piercing light of the system's solitary sun is wiped away, destroyed by roiling, dark clouds that send a gentle, thumping rain to the desert lands unused to such weather. The breezes, cool and wafting, entering the prison in any place they can find, sweep past his face and fill his chambers with the dusky scent of rain and the foreign taste of violets. It is both soothing and exciting, and he stretches his arms, wincing just a bit when his shoulder blade cracks into place. He makes a face, feeling his shoulder with his fingers, and strolls across the thick carpeting dyed blue to the door, stepping through the silver frame and pausing to replace the window; no sense in letting his belongings be ruined by the building gale outside.
The hallway is, as it always has been, dimly lit, and the gothic windows lining its outer wall are streaked with soft, glinting rain, providing the only source of light along this length of the former prison's north side. He trails his fingers across the cooled glass, leaving paths of dryness in the mild condensation forming already inside, and he watches the storm as it gains strength, little by little. This, he thinks with a sudden brush of sadness pressing against his heart, is the kind of weather Euripides adored in his stoic way. Nicholas closes his eyes, resting his forehead against the slick pane and staring, blankly, at the beautiful, fiery rain pounding the dusty world like a thousand fairy fingers tapping a board marred with chalk dust. He sighs and the sky growls, a flickering tendril of lightning spearing from ebon cloud to soaked earth. How can her mere presence make him regret what is over with?
And even the air is heavier, pushing down on his shoulders with the triple fold anxiety of waiting and guilt and something else he is not yet sure of, but feels he is not ready for in any case, so he does not bother forcing it to become clear and tangible. He exhales again and wrinkles his nose at the billowing mist that spurts into being on the window, pulling his head back and absentmindedly wiping the flat cloud off the smooth surface with his sleeve, observing the cleared spot for a few empty seconds.
A sense of gradual awareness tickles along his spine, a creeping brush of familiarity and the supernatural that slips into his mind and, very gently, wins his attention in a matter of mildly unnerving seconds. But it doesn't startle him as it once did, and he smiles again, wearily, forcing the expression onto his lips as he turns and rests the heels of his palms on the jutting windowsill, crossing his legs at his shins and leaning back. "Hello, Mother," he says pleasantly to the flickering spectre strolling towards him. He deliberately keeps his voice void of anything accusatory, instead opting to use a slightly casual formality. He inclines his head respectfully and keeps his gaze steady until she stands before him. She, too, dips her head in acknowledgement and he feels a twinge of ancient mortification at the image of this delicate, regal woman showing him the respect he demands of other on her own volition. It makes him uncomfortable, so he squares his shoulders and tries his hardest to appear nonchalant.
"Hello, Nicholas," she says in return, her own smile teasing. The exotic markings on her face glitter at something and he grudgingly allows his smile to become genuine. Holding her hand out, blonde eyebrow arched tellingly, she waits for Nicholas to lend her his arm before they step down the hallway, long abandoned by servants and drones. The sounds of feet touching the floor are caught and bound by the thick, rich blue carpeting, muffled and obscured by the woven waves of the fabric sea. For some time, they are silent, meandering along the length of the storm-lit passage. Finally, in a thoughtful voice, tinged with wry humor, Riana comments, "I see you had an unfortunate accident." While Nicholas touches his lower lip with his free fingers, feeling the thin scab gingerly, she smiles just a fraction wider and continues surveying the end of the hall. He laughs a little, almost wonderingly, and she knows he laughs not for her or because of her words, but at the game of wits he and the Zane woman have been engaged in for the many years past. And even though, as a queen, she is saddened by his inner darkness, she is secretly glad as well; he is learning, always.
"I can't believe I was so worried," he grins sheepishly, eyes sparkling, still fingering the mending gash in his lip. "I mean, I really should've known she'd do something like that." He laughs again, shaking his head melodramatically, and the storm outside is less overwhelming and a bit more…romantic, Riana thinks to her self and she, too, laughs, as a mother is amused at her own youthful thoughts. "You're thinking it again, Mother," he says playfully, barely managing to keep his voice from breaking into a sing-song tone.
With a careful smile, she merely pats his arm with her loose hand, taking care to be both friendly and queenly in both actions. Her skirt whispers gently against the scrolling carpet stretching along the center of the shivering corridor, one of the few sounds other than timed steps and Nicholas' quiet, amused laugh. She closes her eyes briefly, swept with the changes this place stores systematically in its walls: what once was a prison is now a castle; what once was dark is now lit; what was broken is mended. Yet, she thinks with overwhelming sorrow, he is not, incarcerated in his own shadowed mind, the gears of his heart worn and thinning if not broken, and she is nearly crushed by the protective urges that tell her to protect him from change, from pain, from everything that attracted him to, and repelled him from, Allegra, the woman she wished she had known when she and the Stranger - oh, her beloved Stranger - had been tested so severely those many years ago. But then, she continues with a smile, eyes still closed to the wavering world, Nicholas would not know this independent, overly responsible heroine, would he? So the thought fades from her mind, having only existed for a moment, and her eyes flutter open as they approach a turn at the end of the hall, a new path streaking off at the corner. She releases her hold on his arm, merely grasping his wrist with a light touch of her fingers. She can sense he is contemplating, mulling over something that is somewhat upsetting to him.
She wonders briefly at his penchant for overreacting, a thing brought about by his impatience and wild imagination, and raises a slim eyebrow in question. Almost reluctantly, he asks, in a subdued voice, "Why didn't you tell us sooner?" A heartbeat later, he adds, "About Allegra being the one meant to free Galidor and not me." As she turns his words over in her mind, trying to formulate a suitable answer, Riana hears him mutter in a sulking tone, not meant to be heard, "It would've been helpful to know that ten years ago." She responds, surprising him, by slapping his shoulder in a chiding manner and he reels a little, eyes widening perplexedly and then guiltily glancing at, of course, his feet as he flushes.
"Really, Nicholas," she scolds not unkindly, "you're only around seventeen years too old for that sort of behavior." She smiles, though, and cradles his cheek in her pale blue hand, lit by the spectral glow that shields her essence, still finding an answer that may be both truthful yet appeasing to him. "Destiny is fickle," she speaks after a drawn out time, choosing to ignore his rolling eyes and bring her hand down to fold it in place with the other. "I had some inkling she would be responsible for the safety of Galidor, but, alas," she smiles, amused, "my own maternal pride refused to let me dwell on the idea that my darling son would not be the Outer Dimension's awaited savior and, instead, some Earth girl," here Nicholas frowns unconsciously at her negative wording, "would complete the quest." Her eyes soften and mist nearly imperceptibly, and she breathes out slowly. "I never dreamed you would replace Gorm…and now Galidor must fear its prince."
"I don't give a rip about Galidor," he says in annoyance, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering pointedly down the smooth length of his nose at the golden-haired queen. "I have the rest of the Outer Dimension to worry about, and Galidor can have its happy little nirvana all to itself, because I don't need the hassle of more people hating me or celebrating the 'coming of salvation.'" He is ranting now, having unfolded his arms and making curt gestures with them. "Allegra's got all the pieces except for the last, and I just want the key fragments to destroy them, so you can stop worrying about me sending the spawn of evil to destroy my own people!" He makes an upset face, radiating self-righteous resentment in glittering, unseen waves that tickle her sense with regret and the discomfort such hostile words will always bring to a mother. Had he treated his adoptive mother, the mother who raised him and loved him as a babe, a child, a young man, in such a temperamental way? She sighs and shakes her head slowly, a flash of lightning reflecting off a mirror on the wall behind Nicholas' shoulder, flashing across the silver scales curving along her left eye.
"Must you?" she questions sadly and then she is gone.
Clutching at the suddenly empty air, hands lit momentarily by a residual blue glow, he stares through the space left, into the swirling, snarling storm he began and now must wait for to pass, and he finds it harder to separate the individual storms that threaten to tear him apart from each other. "Mother?" he calls tentatively, his hands still hovering, fingers curled up, in place, his eyes still trying to find her ethereal form, but he is neither surprised nor, for the most part, disappointed. She comes and goes when the moment is right and he has, forever, the power to visit her in the stifling shadow realm she must dwell in. Slowly, he flexes his fingers and lets his arms fall to his sides, strands of chestnut hair scattering over his dark eyebrows. "Good-bye, then," he says, his voice swallowed up by the hissing thunder. "Maybe I should apologize to Allegra…?" He expects no answer and it is thusly pleasing when a soft breeze not of his making ruffles his hair gently, like slender fingers tousling it approvingly. Twisting on his heel, he walks, nearly running, about the corner, arms moving in careless rhythm with his legs, to the perfectly hewn steps dancing up to a new corridor tracing for a mere fifty feet: there are two doors alone. One, at the end of the shadowed corridor, opens to space, a portal to dangerous heights and a testament to a deeper interest in perfection the chamber obscured by the other door; this other door is a few feet from the crown of the stairs and it is at this one that he hesitates, cautiously leaning his palms on the carved door, fingertips trailing over the inlaid patterns he had copied from a memory of an Arabic woodcut. He glances above, at the glass window set in the ceiling, seeing the tiny, wispy puddles of rain spotting it, and he prays for guidance, for protection, for anything along the lines of positive reinforcement, or whatever would help this encounter. He raps his knuckles once against the wood and prepares to knock it again when it - the door, the barrier, the line he is beginning to cross - swings open sharply and an aromatic bouquet of thorns and petals is smashed into his face, scraping his cheeks and flooding his olfactory nerves with the distinctive scent of the crimson roses he had sent to her room.
"How dare you!" Allegra screams, her throat made husky by rage and angry tears. She repeats her cry, shoving him back as he holds the flowers in stunned silence and she makes a low, furious sound. "We aren't thirteen anymore, you pompous jerk!" The tears color her face a beautiful, aching silvery brown and she shoves him again, though with less fury and more hurt fueling her movements. "It isn't like passing notes to Amanda Laurence," her voice drips with sarcasm as she spits out the name, "instead of helping me in English. It was fine to pick a daisy and say, 'gee, I'm sorry, Allegra, won't you be my best friend again' when we were in the eighth grade, but we moved past that a long time ago!" She chokes on what may be a sob and looks at him, conveying a decade of shattered emotions through her dark, depressively sparkling eyes, and she, like an ebbing hurricane, bursts into one last round of power and slams her chamber's door shut, disappearing behind it.
Nicholas fingers the roses and mouths a phrase, lowering his face so that his short, thick hair hides his features. He tightens his grip on a single petal and rips it free, holding it between his fingers. "She loves me," he whispers, letting the petal fall and grasping another, pulling it off the prominent flower.
"She loves me not."
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there's a feeling we each will fall
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And in the moment following the flight of Allegra Zane from the horrific prison of Kek, in the minutes after Gorm's murder, though none of the Outer Dimension denizens would know of this for months in the chaos, there was a change like none Gorm had ever caused. Lands that were dry were flooded and mountains were demolished, moved, reshaped. What once was night became day and plagues never before seen destroyed cultures and people, devouring the life and soul of those caught in the path of the change. With the warping of nature, 'fixing' what Gorm had altered, things were set into motion that should not have been.
Those with power grew stronger and the weak grew weaker in the following. Some would admit later that, yes, his intentions had been good, but his motives never were. Power corrupts and he was born with it mingled in his blood, a power different than that of royalty as in his mother or prophecy as in his father, but pure, unadulterated power, manifested in the form of what was called 'glinch.'
No one should play God.
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in the fields where it all began
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//end chapter one//
||Many apologies for the long wait and this rather melodramatic chapter. Of course, I have to thank everyone who reviewed - I got five more than I expected! Keep 'em coming! - and, in particular, Lady Cassandra, who reviewed a second time to make sure I hadn't fallen off the face of the earth. Kudos to the reviewer who requested I describe Allegra's room; by the time I got around to reading reviews, I'd already written it, so that works out well for all, no? As for next chapter, tentatively scheduled to be posted Christmas Eve, expect a Flashback! That's right, no angst, no present tense, and no 'what the---?' For the most part, anyway. I'll try to tackle what Nick did that was so bad, what happened to Allegra, and so on. Don't expect me to cover years of stuff, though; a couple of months is all you can hope for…Questions! Due to my missing several episodes…What is the Stranger's name? Is Riana the queen's name? What is the name of Gorm's little illusion-y goat dude? And a question for my e-mailer, if you remember, what did I name the old man? 0o; I lost my transcript of the e-mail I sent back to you. I hope everyone enjoyed this as best they could, and please review! Leave chocolate, too, if you'd like…my birthday was in September, so it could be a late present! *winks* Just kidding, of course.||
Additional: Fixed incredibly stupid typos in the prologue and hit self over the head with a pen while doing so. This is why I shouldn't type things up late at night. I'll probably have to fix stuff in this chapter later, anyway.