Chapter Ten

He stares at her when he thinks she isn't looking.

She frequently feels his gaze on her person, but when she turns in his direction, his face is always averted. She still hasn't caught him in the act, and that's the reason why she hasn't said anything.

"Will we be going to the town today, Mistress?" He asks, pausing amidst picking wild flowers.

She is propped against the trunk of an ancient oak, eyes closed as she ponders over his strange behavior.

He also brings her flowers.

Cluster of colors clutched tightly in a fist that he keeps close and always bunched, rests his chin atop it when he falls asleep. She doesn't know much about him save for the fact that he is a runaway slave who had a very cruel master, that he was a pleasure boy if the way his eyes refused to look at whores was any indication and that his temperature runs hotter than the humans.

She took him to the whore house and he clung to her side like a babe, refusing to look anywhere beyond the ground near his feet. She knows about the pleasures of flesh, living as long as she has, but she has never had any desire to partake in it. It all seems very complex and ritualistic and she doesn't understand the moans and grunts, the curses that leave the speakers mouth in the heat of the moment.

Or maybe godhood has taken hold of her body as well as heart and she has graduated from having such desires. Well, truth to be told, she never had those desires to begin with.

"Mistress?" He prompts again and she sighs.

She isn't much for the spoken word whereas he, he wants to converse all the time now. She sometimes misses the timid early days when fear wouldn't let him open his mouth more than thrice in her company.

"I don't think we need to, Damon," She replies, staring at the cooing Partridge sitting atop a high branch above her head.

"But the proprietor of the Teahouse said he would put on a new play today," He almost whines and the desire to snap at him is so overwhelming that she counts to five before answering him.

"Is it pertinent that we visit this Teahouse today, Damon?" She doesn't want to move. The days have started to get longer and she finds herself napping beneath the shades of tall trees, the sunlight resplendent like stars, filtering through the lattice of leaves.

"Yes," He whispers and she pushes against the trunk with a heavy sigh to get up.

Some days she does wonder who the master is between them. She is spoiling him. But the thought is soon extinguished because she remembers how he was in the early days, silent and easily spooked, skin stretched over bones, and blue eyes forever despondent.

They walk companionably through the forest and at some point, he thrusts the flowers he has collected in her direction.

His ears are red.

She takes them and while they are walking, weaves each stem in her hair slowly so that the flowers rest on her forehead in semblance of a crown.

"May I ask something?" He is hesitant and she wants to laugh.

"If I deny your request, are you not going to ask your question, Damon?"

"You might get angry at me for asking it," He mumbles, eyes on ground as he jumps over a fallen branch, the sole of his leather shoes making no sound, she notes in pleasure.

"I promise not to freeze you if I don't like your question," She says as she bends to pick up a lush white bloom from near the roots of a Hickory tree.

"Why did you kill the Lycan king of East?"

Her fingers stop in between wrapping a ringlet of her hair around the lush green stem, but it's only for a moment.

"I didn't know the wolf had a name," She admits as she picks up the pace, not noticing the pinched look on his face. "I only knew that he was a wolf, and also a man. I needed his fur to warm up his victim."

"You could have hunted something else?" He says moodily and jumps over a fallen branch.

"The lycan has to die for the victim to live. Do you know of Elijah, Damon?" She asks as they walk on. He seems lost in his thoughts and she… finally wants to talk about the time when her punishment had been relatively new and she… a bit human.

"No."

"No one remembers Elijah save for me. He was God King Niklaus' brother; the contender for the sky throne and he would have sat on it had it not been for his likanen verta roots…"

"Likanen verta?" He asks curiously and a smile blooms on her lips.

"His father wasn't a God from our pantheon," She replies, choosing not to utter the derogatory word associated with mixed race children to explain Elijah's heritage that she herself shares.

"It was my first kill," She confesses softly. "I don't regret saving Elijah, but I do regret staining my hands with blood… "

They are near the border of the town and she has to turn around to make sure that Damon is following her. He has been too quiet.

"They say you skinned Lycan King's pelt and left his carcass for scavengers to feast on," He looks at her face when he whispers his accusation, contempt shining in his eyes. The desire to defend herself doesn't rise.

It happened so long ago that she has forgotten what Lycan King looked like in his human form.

"I was young then," She says simply. "A new God who hadn't even ventured outside the boundaries of my prison in fear of the retaliation Goddess might bring upon my head."

He doesn't say anything as he falls in step beside her.

"I suppose I should have given him a burial," She mutters absentmindedly, more to herself than to him.

"You wouldn't have lost your son had you not killed the Lycan king," He states and her feet come to a halt.

She looks at this boy, with his clear eyes holding her gaze as he talks casually of her son's demise. The desire to end him doesn't rise. All she feels is the weariness weighing down her bones, the shadow of spent grief a bad taste at the back of her tongue.

"Well, I can't change what has already come to pass now, can I? But had I not saved Elijah, I am certain i wouldn't have had my son… "

She starts walking ahead, lost in barely there memories of a man whose face she can't completely recall. He used to tell her stories about the place-

"Did you love him?" Damon pipes after some time.

"I don't remember," She replies as the sun shines overhead and the soft earth yields beneath her feet…

~TX~

The play doesn't interest her today. She is too lost in trying to recall Elijah.

Did she love him?

She loved Jeremy, of that she is sure, but did she love Elijah?

Damon's sudden intake of breath prompts her to turn to her right. He is too busy being amazed by the story being acted out in front of him.

He has long lashes that curve upwards at the tip and when he blinks, they brush against his pale cheek like butterfly wings.

He turns his head slightly in her direction, maybe sensing her stare, to hold her gaze and whispers softly, "Will you miss me when I am gone?"

Before she can answer, her eyes catch hold of the red robed figure standing at the entrance of the teahouse. Fear snakes along her spine and she's out of her chair in an instant. Damon stumbles while trying to see what has her spooked. She grabs his arm and pushes him behind her, trying to hide him from the view behind her body.

The Mad Goddess has come to see her at last…

~TX~

She wasn't supposed to care, Elena thinks bitterly as ice races to fashion her sword. The Goddess hasn't said a word. She is standing at the entrance and staring at Elena with sad eyes.

Has she come to slaughter Damon?

Damon's warmth against her back is somewhat reassuring. She knows it's impossible to win against the Goddess, but she is going to try.

She was too scared to do anything when Elijah was dragged out of her palace, she thinks in shame. She'd frozen at the sight of the Goddess and even his screams hadn't moved her feet.

"You can't have him," She says, voice thin and shaking, but hands firm on the hilt of the sword still pointing towards the ground.

Damon's hold on her arm tightens and she shifts to shield him completely.

"I came to save you, Elena," The Goddess whispers, raising her bow. In a blink of an eye, she has notched two arrows that are aimed at the side of Elena's head, a space from where Damon is peeking at the mad Goddess.

"I am done being scared," Elena says even as her voice quivers. "I am done being your prisoner."

She steps forward and the ice vines burst from the ground, weaving together to form a wall that separates Elena from Damon.

She raises her sword and brings it down in a sharp slash. The ground rumbles and fissures open beneath the Goddess' feet. In a blur of red, the Mad Goddess pivots and the sword in her hand changes into a staff that she thrusts into the dark gaping maw yawning beneath her feet. Saplings push against the slowly freezing earth and the smell of peaches permeates the air.

Elena gags, refusing to close her eyes. The smell of peaches has always been a harbinger of bad things in her life.

She takes a step back before the goddess can make peach blossom bloom on the newly created trees and reaches through the wall of ice vines for Damon.

His hand grabs her hand and she pulls him to her even as ice races to cage the Mad Goddess and peach bower momentarily to facilitate her escape.

She doesn't stop to see if her ice has managed to stall the Goddess.

She just runs, dragging Damon behind her with a strength that belies her slender form...

~UV~