A/N: Think of this as an interlude; a transition to ease the violence of change. I'm taking massive liberties here, but whatever. This is AU and it's fanfiction. Even a lorenut such as I needs to know when to draw the line. Artistic license exists for a reason.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
- "Mad Girl's Love Song," Sylvia Plath
She is dead. She notes this blandly, aware that the thought should induce more of a reaction. Nothing occurs; she does not feel terror or panic, or any potent emotion concerning her new situation. A little surprise, yes. Some mild annoyance. A moment of pity for Sparks, but that one feels odd, like rust on the tongue or an itch under a bandage. Her body - or at least, whatever it is that makes her up now, because she isn't sure she has a body any longer - rejects the feeling, purging it from herself. She cannot remember pity any longer.
The thought should disturb her; she wonders if fear had been purged in the interim between death and now. She finds that she does not care.
"Hi!"
She must have ears, she thinks, and she must have eyes. A child manifests where there had been only Nothingness, clear as day despite the lack of light. Her form is vague and gauzy, like someone from a dream. The components that make up her appearance are less seen than simply known. Golden hair, tan skin, white dress, blue-green eyes. She cannot make out the qualities so much as she is simply certain they are there. Imagining the child as anything else seems... wrong. She would compare it to the wrongness of pity, but she has forgotten what pity feels like.
(rust on the tongue, an itch under a bandage)
The girl smiles up at her, bright and cheerful. "Whatcha doin'?" she asks, voice singsong. Wide eyes peer up into what must be her own face, innocent and unassuming. She tries to answer, tries to open a mouth she thinks she has and move muscles and organs she might not possess, but nothing happens. She has forgotten how to speak.
The girl does not seem bothered. She hums a happy little tune and turns on her heel, skipping away. Something that feels like panic overtakes her; she has seen light, and she does not want to be left alone to the shadows again. But then the girl is gone and so is the Light and she must have a mouth because she tries to scream.
("New recruits?"
"Perhaps. The big one looks promising. The others I am less certain about."
"As long as they awaken loyal."
"Of course.")
She is no longer in darkness. Soft grass tickles her ankles and bare feet, and beautiful wildflowers greet her eyes. The glade is completely silent; not even her breathing breaks the quiet.
And she still does not know how to speak.
The girl is not there and then there, clear as day and real as life. She can now make out details about the child, ones she is certain were not there before. Thin scratches crisscross up her tan legs; the flounce of her dress has a small hole and a fraying thread, and her hair has a few tangles, as though she has been running. But her smile is just as bright as before, and her eyes are just as happy. The changes do not concern her.
Does she remember concern?
"Come on!" the girl giggles, coming up to her. She's five years old, maximum, yet she pulls her along easily, managing to manipulate them until she is sitting and is finally able to see the girl eye-to-eye. The sea eyes laugh and smile and sing, and it's such a - such a - a nice feeling? What is nice?
(rust on the tongue, or an itch under a bandage)
It doesn't matter. It is not a bad feeling, and she likes looking into the girl's eyes. The girl dances around her, or with her, because she never loses sight of the girl as she spins and spins and spins, laughing and giggling and smiling and this is happiness, she remembers happiness.
And she remembers cold, because that's the word that comes to mind when something shivers against her, fleeting and perfunctory before going elsewhere. She doesn't care; the girl is smiling and happy, and it's bright and beautiful in their glade of wildflowers. She couldn't want anything more.
(Stars shine up ahead, and she wants to point to the Bear and say it's chased by a wolf and a hunter, but she cannot speak.)
She remembers cold again, because the grass freezes and feels like glass under her, and her feet must be bleeding, but she can't see her feet and it feels like her back is splitting open in agony.
The girl stops dancing, stops smiling and giggling and laughing, and she's walking away, towards the trees the cold hasn't touched yet and she leaves her alone again. She tries to call to her (she has forgotten how to speak), to follow after her, but the grass is glass and she cannot walk for the pain in her back and her feet and her legs, and it is so cold and so dark
(She remembers fear.)
And then she hears the Voice for the first time.
"Her name is what?"
She hates the Voice, hates it so very much. It is cold and dark, dripping through her ears like old oil, sliding down her spine to infiltrate the tear in her back and spread through her veins like a frozen poison. It comes and the girl leaves, and she wants to scream (she has forgotten how to speak), to claw and tear and rip and destroy because damn it, she wants the girl back!
"How very unexpected..."
"Shall we dispose of it, milord?"
Can one hate a sound as much as she does? Except it's more than a sound, isn't it? It's frozen poison, a scratch against the inside of her skull, a thief of little girls. She hates the Voice; she remembers hate, at least, even if she has forgotten so much else.
"Not yet. It may yet prove useful. At the very least, it should provide some entertainment."
And then it is gone, and she cannot remember the Voice, either.
(rust on the tongue, an itch under a bandage)
When the girl comes again, she is so relieved she doesn't notice anything at first. She embraces her and almost remembers how to cry (rust on the tongue, an itch under a bandage), wanting to speak a welcome to her returned friend (she has forgotten how to speak). She does not notice the stillness of the girl, the silence that greets her. It is only when she pulls back and looks into her eyes that she sees the changes.
Her dress is threadbare and ragged, washed down to an ugly grey color. Long, bleeding cuts cover her legs, as though she had just raced through a thick briar patch. Her skin is wan and clammy; she has lost weight, her limbs thin and her face hollow. Her hair hangs lank and limp, dull as an old coin.
All of this she could tolerate, if not for the eyes. The girl's eyes are tired and pained, molten with betrayal and unshed tears. She does not think of the sea when she sees them any longer, but of a stagnant pond choked by algae left to suffer alone for far too long. They cannot be the same eyes as before. She refuses to believe these eyes ever laughed or sang or sparkled.
"Sorry," the girl sniffs, burying her face in her neck. "Promise I tried. But he's so scary."
She wants to ask who is so scary (does she still remember fear?) and where they are. She remembers rage, and she remembers anger, and she thinks she is learning about something new, because she cannot remember ever being so angry and wrathful as she is now, and she thinks she could kill. (She will kill.) She is sick of the cold, and the dark, and the loneliness. All she wishes for is the girl, herself, and a glade of soft grass with the Bear and the Hunter and the Wolf glittering above.
She says nothing (she has forgotten how to speak), merely holds the girl and tries to remember eyes like the sea.
When the shadows and the cold come, she fights. She holds the girl to her chest and pivots on her heel, trying to flee through Nothingness. The girl cries in her arms, and she remembers something from long ago that she must have read, about a father and a spirit and a son, and she panics and flees faster, because if she is the father and the cold and darkness is the spirit, then the little girl is the son and she remembers what happened to the son at the end. So she runs, and runs, and maybe if she runs fast enough, runs far enough, they can escape. They have to escape, because she can remember now, and she knows where they are and what will happen if she doesn't escape. She has to run. She has to escape.
She trips.
Brambles that weren't there before snag at her feet, tangling her up. She pitches forward and lets go of the girl, who screams as she falls into the briar patch, thrashing in pain and terror. She tries to stand up, to get to her and help, but the briars curl around her wrists and her ankles, binding her tightly as one branch twines 'round her throat. Blood is everywhere; on the briars, on the girl, on her, on the Nothingness. The Nothingness starts to become blackness, and her terror and fear reach a height as she tries to remember the girl, remember a white dress and tan skin and golden hair and sea eyes. She can taste blood in her mouth and some brambles scratch lightly, teasingly, and all she's left with are eyes like the sea -
Blue-green eyes, green eyes, her eyes -
When she wakes up, her eyes are blue.
Darkness greets her in the form of black armor styled with skulls and spikes. She stares ahead blankly for a moment, adjusting to the sudden shift of... of something to a new something. She can't remember; there's blood at the back of her mouth, and her back itches terribly underneath the bandages that cover it.
The black armor moves. She tilts her head up, hears the pop of her neck as blue eyes meet blue eyes set under a helm crafted with a wicked set of spikes, like twisted brambles reaching for the stars. Her hand twitches, and she looks down to see a gray limb brush against motionless black fur. She wonders what it would be like to see it move.
She is contemplating this when she hears It. The Voice. Inside and outside her head.
"Speak, girl."
She moves her jaws, swallows away the taste of blood. Leaning back, she feels something scratch against her back, and the itch is gone. Her tongue raises; lips part, muscles contract and relax. She remembers how to speak.
(There is no Hunter or Wolf in the sky. The glade is bare and dead.)
"My Lord?" Her voice is hollow, carrying with it an echo that sends a shiver down her spine. It is like the Voice, but weaker and smaller. Lesser.
She thinks he smiles. Fingers card through her hair.
(A little girl screams.)
"Hello, daughter."
She loves the Voice.
A/N: The father, spirit, and son comment is a reference to the deliciously horrific poem Der Erlkönig by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Look it up; you'll have nightmares for days.