"Escape From the Ringer"

SpellSong…..and so many others

She watched the sleepy town silently out the mirrored soft and yet deep smokey blue's others often called her eyes. It was still early for the town, it's inhabitance mostly all still asleep aside from those who were shuffling and opening business in preparation or the occasional early riser here and there across all the miles; most still tired from last night. It had been a grand bash, rip-roaring, bright and beautiful, filled with spicy food, lights and dancing. It had gone on for hours and they'd stayed the whole time. It had been terrific; all too wonderful.

It had been her last.

Casse let her hair blow around her in the light breeze, draping it's self like a dark curtain around her naked body; where naught of her could be seen but the faint light blue glow, till you reached the low curve of her bottom and her thighs. It was a grand contrast again to see the deep raven color near pale and blue and added to the soft shimmer that surrounded, giving glow, to the tattoo on her upper thigh of her right leg of a Japanese A & K, which would translate to the American C and M for meaning though. Her fingers barely touched the rail, not letting go, but not holding on, and not pulling away just yet either.

She wished she had the heart to stay, but it was taking all her heart to leave - and it wouldn't even be coming with her.

A soft mummer met her ears, no louder than the sound of a breath, and she turned looking back a second at the man who lay in the bed in peaceful slumber. Her lover, her light, the man who set her free. There would be no good-byes this time. No letting his eyes, or his voice, his warmth or -her- heart stop her this time.

As the air around Casse began to shimmer colorlessly a few seconds and then added to a stronger blue glow as the matrix reacted, she drew on it and clothing form fitting her body appeared silently on her. A pair of tight leather black pants, and a same colored tight wrap shirt which cut down in a v-neck almost an inch past the center of her chest with a narrow and revealing cut.

Watching him silently she began to pull up her long hair with a black lacquer pin that just appeared between her fingers. She thought about it again. His touch against her skin, simply his fingers even in just holding her for a bare second before she looked away towards the window almost mournfully in silence working on finishing her hair.

Two weeks ago she'd tried this two weeks ago, and then a an arm had circled her wrist and a hand her other hand, his lips so close to her ear; but making her feel regretful and thrilled all at once. He'd told her to stay, that they'd get through this all together, that he wasn't worried and he could take care of himself. After all look where he'd come from.

But it wasn't about that, Casse whispered solemnly to the air soundlessly, it was about……

As she wound her hair all up, and braided a few strands added to the exotic effect of her hair style, she walked silently, her bare feet padding softer than Clairsentience -or hyper/super sense- could even pick up; thinking that this time she had to. She couldn't let it all go on. Not at this cost, no matter how much it felt like a dagger was starting to rip her heart.

Casse knelt by the side of the bed looking at his face quietly, watching him sleep, and wondered for a second if he was dreaming of her or even what he might be dreaming of. It hurt. A lot. She reached out a second, but stopped herself before her finger tips alone would have caressed his cheek.

She wouldn't cry, wouldn't let herself. He was just a guy. Just like the rest of them, she told herself even as she knew she was lying straight to herself. He mumbled something and shifted. She sat there a second and then reached out and brushed the soft long bangs of his hair from his face and lay a gently kiss against his cheek, softer than the caress of the wind or the touch of a rose petal.

She stood and turned silently walking to the desk, concentrating on breathing, letting the rest work itself as her string thin anklets started shifting and moving, growing into completely perfect fitting boots from the tips of her toes to an inch or so below the middle of her calf. She picked up the piece of paper and looked at it silently a few seconds, reading over the words, her lips moving ever so slightly.

((I have left thee with a kiss,

All I ask you do not miss.

I have left with thee a gift in time,

I couldn't take it, It's no longer mine.

I've left it with you, for it is yours,

Golden gleam from glazed & darkened door.

Empty now; the window calls,

No second thoughts to silent scuff falls))

A wave of regret and sadness filled her as she blew at the edge of the paper and manipulated the air it fell on floating it to the pillow next to him, where it lay folded with a letter on one side.

{{The silent moon's mirror is breaking, Cassandre…*}}

SpellSong was out the window and across the top of the house which mirrored that of the one she and he had shared before Patric's voice had filled her head inside the torrent of emotions which scalded her heart in burn pain and sear freeze. She swallowed concentrating on not letting it happen while the area in front of her eyes blurred with the hot tears she said she wouldn't let come. His voice and the name…..that game from so long ago…..crept a bittersweet and very cracked smile to her lips as she kept skipping from house to house top, faster and faster away from the place she left her everything in.

She kept going till she stopped at the solitary roof, her eyes having already glanced down to accept what her sense already knew. He was there. He was standing there in the middle where her car should have been, a Limo waiting behind him by 5 or ten feet, starring up at her, as if he'd been expecting her.

And he had, he was the only 1st of the two people who could know her that well.

Casse made her way down quietly to the front of him, just starring at him the whole way. He -her brother- was standing there, still 2 or 3 inches taller than her, with those blue green eyes with both a look of disappointment and of concern, for as much as she could tell with the blurring vision she had, going more on her senses than them right now. He started walking to her and she to him, meeting in the middle.

"Tsuki…" his voice called softly in Japanese, it was nice, she hadn't heard it in so many years, no with her ears atleast. Rich and soft as she looked at him still coming closer as he spoke varied language as he went.

"…you shouldn't have. You could always go back, Little Luna."

While the voice soothed her it still couldn't sooth the ache inside her chest that was one hurt The Perfecting could not heal. It couldn't heal her heart.

"Patty-Patch, shut up!" she said, but all that it came out was as a broken and bare whisper of words as her face fell lightly against the fabric, he wasn't doing anything but letting her cry as the tears exploded with an almost sudden flurry like a damn had opened inside her, inside his arms.

"Fuck it! Damn you, Jen-ari! Damn you! You got it off better than us! Why didn't you take us with you????? Why???"

Casse didn't mean any of it, and he knew she didn't, but the name alone said invoked a calmed presence around them that both felt; they *always* felt her. Even when no one believed them, they knew she'd always be apart of them. Partially he was glad to see his sister, it's been 6 years sine he'd seen her face as she left them all, and for her it'd been 12 years since she'd laid eyes on the last link to her sanity at points, and yet she looked only perhaps a year older than when she'd started out.

Funny how time went the though sparkled her thoughts as her tears soaked his grey lapel and he took her to the Limo slowly. He didn't care about much at the second as the valet nodded to him and opened the door, he picked her up lightly holding her close a second before setting her down and looking into her eyes.

SpellSong looked oddly pale, and to say that you had to have understood she always looked pale as fresh snow with a blue tint naturally; but now she looked positively palid. She looked like someone had stolen the flame that lit her life and her eyes, as if perhaps someone had stolen across her grave. Her eyes had become such a light blue color, and so openly clear and unclouded it looked like she might not even have anything but a dot pupil. She didn't move except where he moved her, as she seemed to have almost completely stopped as the tears dried up with a sudden halt, as did any sound she had been making.

She emptily held on to him, something she had let go of and yet never let go of, and was letting go of something she couldn't help but be torn in two to let go; but she couldn't help it. So she did, what she had in the past, she pushed it away, locked it up.

Damn the, loveable, adorable, beautiful X-men she'd left…...damn all the X-men……..they were always the ones to break her heart, the forming walls around her heart whispered in "perfected" silence.