At last, this chapter wasbeta-ed!
As always, I grant thanx for all those who reviewed me, may you all live happily ever after and review my fics regulary. for Ligia Elena- thank you for taking the time to review each and every chapter, I really do feel honored.
For Tigerdrake- unfortunately, even after he will find out that he's not in hisplane, the world won't be happy and peachy for him. In fact, I can almost assure you that it won't. But it may even happen. I don't know. Stragest things have happened.
Nemesis' Arrow- Woo! You really think that I write well? I'm blushing now. Do stop the praising... ok, you can continue now.. ;). I tried finalizing a plot for my story but I don't even delude myself that I'll stick to it... still, general plots are good even if one's not using them, right?
denna5- The BEST angst writer? Now that's a compliment! Gotta say that I was afraid that I overreacted with the letter, but I'm glad that you liked it. And here- more angst!
Chapter 6
You are stretched over a large couch with a warm fire dancing behind you and the howling of the wind becomes almost quiet, untraceable by your ears. This is ironic that here, in the underworld, you have found home. Even though you ruled both the upper and under worlds in your time, you have never fitted. You have never belonged.
You sink in further into the softness of the couch while hearsay thoughts are attacking saying that maybe this is what it's all about.
Maybe you aren't meant to rule everything because only heartache and loneliness comes from it. Can it be that uniting the people is the answer to the emptiness of your heart?
"You look content." Kyla's voice is floating in the air, mingling with the sound of the raindrops outside. Her voice is too far away and thus cannot harm you. Your mind is also telling you that there is no need to hide here. And you now that your mind's voice is telling the truth, she wouldn't hurt you. She wouldn't even cross you or stab you in the back like so many others had. She's safe. But it is only because she needs you and she knows you need her just the same. You're equal, you and her. But it's ok because now you don't have to make the hard choice all by yourself while pretending they are small and easily made. You don't have to be strong and call for obedience all the time. It's okay to exchange ideas. It's okay not to know everything, not to be God.
For the first time in what seems to be forever nothing matters but to let go.
"Yes," you admit sleepily, refusing to let the walls close around you again. Not yet. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Your mission hasn't been accomplished yet. I thought you'd be irritated that it needs to be postponed because of the damn weather."
You surprise yourself with saying, "I thought so too." But from a reason you cannot pronounce, or even to allow feeling, it doesn't seem too crucial anymore. You can wait another day, even another 2 or 3 weeks.
You can wait forever. What's the rush?
"You're not getting cold feet on me, are you?" She comes closer and despite her light teasing tone, you can hear that she's serious. And you know she's right, you've worked far too hard on this to throw it away because of an ephemeral sentiment. No, you clear your head decisively. At the first sign that the storm is calming down you'll do it. This is what you've wanted right from the beginning. This is what has to be done.
So why all of a sudden is there a load of bricks sinking in your stomach when you think of going out to the cold and to the family that loved you but pushed you away? The family that rejected you, questioned you, never accepted you as you were, and who compared you and found you lesser. The same family that you loved, rejected, and killed cold heartily without even iota of compassion toward them.
Now for the sake of past times, good times and better times you summon the same strength that allowed you to do what you had to back then- the one that gave you the power to be strong. But now you need it to hide your Super Ego the one that knows that it's hard to leave not because of the warmth and not because of what awaits you outside but what will come after that. When you will return to the place you once called home, your home, and your kingdom. But now you don't know how you could have been so arrogant to consider both as yours.
"I'm up to it. Really." You plead to her with your eyes to leave you alone, to understand, and believe you. You want her to leave, right here, right now. You want her to leave you alone. You need her to run away from here. From you. Because you are surprised to discover that, you don't want her to get hurt. Even though she's replaceable- just one demon among many and you don't care about her- you want her to live. Not for herself but for you because if she lives, maybe you will have a chance as well.
Maybe there is a trace of your inner struggle for she comes and sits beside you. She's not going away or running away to escape from you. Her fate is sealed.
She has chosen Death.
"Are you ok?" she asks you. You're glad that she didn't use your name, your title. You don't want the notion of what you have to lose to be clear just yet. You want to forget, only for a while. Only until you are forced to remember that you were once a Lord, a ruler, and that this is who and what you are. But just for now, it's ok to forget.
You smile warmly. She didn't have to care. "Yeah, I'm fine."
You study her figure, drinking in her dimples and the gleaming eyes, making her beauty a part of you. A thought strikes you: you can love her. It will not be hard not a bit. You can be happy, truly happy. The loneliness- she can break it!
Then she turns her head and the moment is gone. The color of her eyes aren't right, they don't have the stars that Bianca's had. The hair is wrong. The mouth, even that soft mouth, isn't in the right shape. It's too big, too pressed, and her teeth too sharp. Nothing will suffice in your search for perfection.
"Why are you doing this, Kyla? Why are you helping me?" You ask her this because you are genuinely curious of her motives. But it's also a slight manipulation to take your mind off the trail it is heading towards.
"Why?" She lets out a short, ugly sneer that you guess is suppose to be a laugh. "I sometimes forget that you're not from around here, that you don't know."
"Tell me anyway. I won't judge you, I promise." You take her hand and cover it with yours, your palm tingling with anticipation.
"Judge me? As if you have the right!"
"I'm sorry," You lower your head humbly. "I didn't mean it to sound that way."
There is understanding in her eyes. "I know, I guess I'm just so used to being criticized. I'm not an upper demon, you know so my opinion is never important." Then her voice drops with defeat. "You probably have no idea what I'm talking about."
"No, I don't your right. I only had a brother who was the Twice Blessed that everyone bowed down to!"
"I wasn't fair. I guess I find it hard to believe that we could have something in common. I've always seen you more on the side of good and always fighting me. It's . . . weird to see you here. Like this."
"I guess but I'm not the me you knew anymore. In fact, I guess the me you knew was probably more like Wyatt and his self- righteousness."
"You loved him." She observes, not being fooled by the mocking tone you took when you spoke of him. You don't think she's right. You killed him, after all.
But it wasn't because you didn't love him but because he became a traitor. He turned to the side of good and he had to be punished.
"Tell me about him." She leans on you, her head resting on your shoulder. You hold onto the image of intimacy and open your heart.
"Wyatt, he… tried to make things better. He even tried founding schools and free meals for the lower demons. He believed it would end the rivalry. But... we're demons, right? We're not like that."
"I don't understand. What he was trying to gain?" Her face twisted in the same confusion yours did when he had presented his ideas to you. You do not know why you are surprised that she reacted the same way you did. After all, you both are demons who believe in ulterior motives and sneaky ways.
"Neither could I, in the beginning." You find it easy to confess knowing that she will not hold your ignorance against you. She was weird like that, a demon with a purpose. Mother must be rolling in her grave.
Or maybe you weren't even thinking instead letting the words come out without restraint. He was your brother and even if he was weird at times, always standing out with his ideas and mild curiosity, he deserves to be talked about. He deserves to matter.
Catching her questioning glare, you continue, "But he was weird like that. Didn't believe in the Greater Evil and all those things we all fight for. He wanted to make our lives better. I guess that in his own way he was trying to make his life better as well."
"Come on he was the twice blessed child! What didn't he have in life that he wanted to make better?"
"Family I think." You let only a minor pang of guilt be evident on your face. Carefulness never harmed anyone. Yet, talking about your descend brother like this, remembering him, it lights something in your heart that you thought was long forgotten. So you let all the mushiness wash over you. You are entitled to have one moment of weakens on one stormy day, aren't you?
"He never really fitted in. Or maybe he really didn't try hard enough. You know what it is like when you always have an innocent to find, witches to fight and the whole living in the Upper World… we cared about each other but… it's harder."
"I know what you mean." She submerged further into the couch, letting it engulf her entirely. "When my brother was alive we used to go places: meet other demons; try to think of better ways, new ways, to furnish our lair; new schemes to dominate the world; releasing the source. We always did those things together.
Those were good days."
"What happened?"
"Like you said- we're demons. We're not huggy-feely kind of creatures. We don't like consistency. We need change. We need power.
So my brother wanted to make a name for himself. You know what it's like. The fool," hiding her hands in the shadow of her lowered head she chuckles nervously, "he went to the Charmed Ones and feigned friendship with one of them. Jeremy, he called himself."
"I remember him. Mom froze him." You smile at the memory of those rare Saturday nights when you all sat around a full table and simply talked. Mom mentioned Jeremy once she said she was sorry that demons nowadays weren't as easily killed.
But you will most certainly keep that fact to yourself.
You know deep down that you should be angry but her brother paid with his life for going after your family. Besides, it is not your family she is talking about. Yours was different, less naïve. Mom was onto him in 2 days. And you can kinda understand his motives. A powerful name is a valuable thing in the Upper World. How else did the Charmed Ones become so infamous?
How else did you?
"I'm sorry," you say while putting your hand on her shoulders knowing first hand the pain of losing a loved one.
"That's ok," she pretends bravery. "I'm over it already. It's just like you said, I didn't give him many chances to be a good brother to me. Not that he tried too hard. Still maybe it would have changed things."
"It wouldn't have." You try to console her yet your hand leaves her shoulder. You wouldn't want her to get the wrong idea, after all. "Wyatt tried that. He played the peacemaker for a whole month before he broke down. Demons still died no matter how many forgave each other. So, he found himself a new project and founded the inter-dimensional library. Of course, this was predictably a failure."
"The what?"
"Inter-dimensional library. You don't have one here? Weird. It's a sort of place where both sides come to borrow magic books and talk with each other. Killing's not allowed. But since when can demons and witches be in the same room together?"
You never believe that it would work, not even for a second. And then you met Bianca...
"They ended up blaming each other for a book theft and raided the magic books in less than a week."
You know there's a sickly, glowing smile glued to your lips but you cannot help it. The whole family thought it was hilarious.
Of course, they were less than amused when they found out the source of all those books, but that's another story altogether.
Personally, you always thought that Wyatt was happy to give up the library. That way he could help individuals and not baby-sitting fire starters at every corner.
Only, helping wasn't something real, something that would actually matter. We're demons. We need to fight among ourselves and ignore rules. But Wyatt, he never lived in the real world. He created Utopia in his mind and put the world in the same frame. Never caring or considering that it didn't fit, that the world wasn't a nice place. That demons don't help demons. Because everyone have their own interests, their own fate.
Just the way it should be.
As if reading your mind, she says hesitantly, "He sounds like an interesting person."
Which is, of course, another way of saying that he was insane and his ideas were scandalous. You told him that yourself once when you still believed in talking. Hell, even Adam tried to talk him out of it. Still to hear someone who didn't know him, who didn't deserve knowing him talk of him that way lights protectiveness inside you that you didn't even know existed.
You turn your head against hers not meeting her eyes afraid that she will find the lie in them. Only, maybe this is not a lie after all. "Yeah, he was. I think he took that trait from Adam. They were very special people. After all, evidence does claim that Adam came back to save me."
An amused grin is crossing over her beautiful exterior. "Here you came back to save Wyatt."
"I did?" You glower in surprise wishing you could meet yourself, give some tips and slap your face really really hard.
"Yeah, you said he was turned as a child and that you needed to save him."
"Did I?" Oh, the layers of irony…. "Is that why you trust my family here to help?"
"Busted. After all, you died on them. They probably feel really guilty. It's a guarantee they'll welcome you with open arms." She smirks slightly but her words are turning into a mumble in your ear. Oh, god the letter!
Mom wrote it. She really misses you here.
You avert your eyes not willing to meet Kyla's just yet, processing the astonishing news.
She loved you in this dimension. She missed you.
Does that mean that YOUR mom loved you, too?