Hello again. Still no new reviews. Ah, well. I guess I'll keep writing for any of you still enjoying this story of mine. This time, I'm trying something new; please let me know if you like it. If, you know, anyone reviews. Hint, hint, wink, wink.
Don't own 'The Willow Maid' by Erutan or 'You Are My Sunshine' by Elizabeth Mitchell.
Shade POV (Third person):
She was standing in her old home. It was exactly as she remembered, pristine white floors glinting in the moonlight, the quite murmur of running water from the bathroom as her mother washed her hair, the perfectly manicured plants swaying lightly in the slight breeze coming out of the AC vent.
"Shade, honey, bring me a towel please," A sickly sweet voice floated out from the bathroom.
"Yes ma'am." A tired, timid sound was swallowed in the vastness of the room. A tiny Shade scampered across the floor and passed right through the real her as if she wasn't really there.
'Well, I guess that should have been a given.' Shade thought, snarky even to herself. 'This is only a memory, after all.' She followed the Minnie-Her into the next room.
Minnie-Shade was handing her mother a towel as the taller woman stepped out of the ridiculously tall shower.
Shade's mother truly was beautiful, with sleek, silky black hair that cascaded gracefully down her back, her eyes like pools of liquid amethyst, unlike her daughters completely black ones (Cursed eyes). Her skin was pale, not sickly, porcelain white, unlike her offspring's tan (Devil's skin).
"Oh, my sweet, sweet, child! Sing for your mother!" She cried in her lovely voice.
Minnie-Shade nodded numbly.
'A young man walked through the forest, with his quiver and hunting bow. He heard a young girl singing and followed the sound below. There he found the Maiden, who lives in the Willow. He called to her as he listened, from a ring of toadstools red. 'Come with me, my maiden. Come from thy Willow bed.' She looked at him serenely, and only shook her head.
'See me now, a ray of light in the Moon Dance, see me now, I cannot leave this place. Hear me now, a strain of song in the forest. Don't ask me to follow where you lead.'
A young man walked through the forest, with an axe sharp as a knife. "I'll take the green-eyed fairy, and she shall be my wife. With her I'll raise my children, with her I'll live my life." The Maiden wept when she heard him, when he said her set her free.
He took his axe and used it to bring down her ancient tree. "Now your Willows fallen, now you belong to me."
'See me now, a ray of light in the Moon Dance, see me now, I cannot leave this place. Hear me now, a strain of song in the forest. Don't ask me to follow where you lead.'
She followed him out the forest and collapsed upon the earth. Her feet had walked but a distant from the green land of her birth. She faded into a flower that would bloom for one bright eve. He could not take from the forest, what was never meant to leave…'
Her mother had tears falling down her cheeks, a smile still set on her face. "Oh, it was beautiful my darling! Absolutely beautiful!" She wept.
The praise did not fill Shade up with joy as it had back then.
Now she could see the broken glass in her mothers gaze, now she could see the emptiness in the smile she wore. Now she could see why she was left in the first place.
Her mother had never been the same after her father left. She had gone somewhere Shade simply could not follow. Everyday Shade had to endure the teasing from classmates and the glares of neighbors and teachers. Everyday she came home to the hollow shell of her mother, to the vast coldness of her large home.
The days had fallen into a tired, boring cycle, and it was almost a relief when her ears and tails appeared. It gave her something new and exiting in her life. It was great, well; it was until her mother kicked her out.
Her mother simply couldn't take it anymore. Her mind completely snapped, she shoved Shade out the door, yelling hurtful things after her, and she didn't give her anytime to pack.
A couple weeks later, Shade heard that her mother had killed herself.
The next couple of months had been hard and grueling, but against all odds, she had come out on top. Vector, 1 year her senior, had found her and taken her to headquarters, where she had met Hunter, Adian, and Sky. Things had been looking up.
Then James had fallen in like a little ball of condensed energy and annoyance, sucker punched her with reality, and then eel-slapped her with life. Yea, not good.
Now she was stuck on a death-quest to stop Ibles, keep from getting killed by Fireclan, and, of cores, she had fallen under the spell of the Ball-Jointed Dolls.
The memories faded, and she was left in vast blackness. She reached out with her mind and found a string of white light. She grabbed it and was pulled into a vortex of memories.
Screams, pain, begging, 'Stop, stop!', cold, guilt, lonely, so very lonely, hurt, pain, pain, pain, drunken slurs, glass breaking, blood, so much blood, STOP!
Shade was left gasping as the whirlpool spit her out.
"What… was that?" She rasped out. She didn't have anytime to compensate it, because soon she was pulled into the light.
She came to on the ground, the sounds of fighting all around her. She opened her eyes to the canopy of the forest and Hunter's worried face hovering over her.
Shade screamed and punched her in the nose. Hunter fell back groaning. "Yep, we're all good over here!" She shouted. There was a sound of answer from her right.
Shade sat up and look around. She was flanked by two people she didn't know. They had had identical heads of blond hair, with wires wrapped around them glowing bright. They were pushing fast on remotes in their hands. A group of dolls seemed to be following the order of which the buttons were pressed. Shade decided not to dwell on it too much.
"Oh, god, Shade! You are alive, right?" Hunter said worriedly, scrambling over to her side once again. Shade nodded and pressed a hand to her head.
"I'm fine. How about you?" Hunter gave a smile that made Shade really regret asking.
"Oh, I've never been better!" She cried, clapping her hand like she did when she got exited. "I've been out here, killing dolls and pounding faces!" Shadows cast across her face made Hunter look a bit scarier than she really had the right to look.
She jumped to her feet and hauled Shade up as well. "I'm guessing you want revenge for being used, so have at 'em~" Hunter snickered.
Shade smirked. "You know me so well." She and Hunter slapped hands and took off into the fray.
# # #
The middle of the battle found Shade kneeling in front of Doll-Vector, with James on her left, Hunter flanked to the right, and Adian and Sky standing behind them, guarding from attacks.
James placed his hands on Vector's cool forehead and shut his eyes tightly. A faint green glow shone from underneath the clasped hands. Slowly, color started to return to Vector's face and the ball joints were replaced with regular human ones. Tear tracks started to show on his face and took a shuddering gasp before his eyes snapped open. The normally bright green orbs were dulled and glittering with unshed tears. A sob tore from his throat that broke Shade's heart, and before she could stop herself, she had wrapped him in a hug, tears of her own leaked down, wetting a spot on Vector's dirt stained shirt.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don't take my sunshine away.
The song her mother had sung to her back before she had gone insane randomly started playing in her head, and she blushed, nestling her red face deeper into Vector's shoulder.
He patted her back, gasping out, "Good to see you, too, Shade. But I can't…. breath!" The patting turned into thumps as he ran out of breath. She hurriedly let go and sat back on her knees. Hunter and James snickered in the background and Shade turned even redder, if possible.
"Eh, what're you doing?!" Aruna shouted from over yonder.
"We are kind've in the middle of a battle, you guys!" Gadget giggled, happily decapitating a doll. He waded through a couple more, only to stop suddenly with a strangled scream.
Everyone whipped around and Aruna charged over to her little brother. Hunter and James blanched as they looked over. Gone was the smile that always adorned Gadget's face, replaced by something akin to heartache and pain.
He was facing a boy Ball Jointed Doll with unruly black hair and dulled golden eyes. The boy had on a ragged purple shirt with a black jacket draped over, tattered jeans hanging off his skinny frame. Instead of the normal pale white color of most of the dolls, this boy had skin one shade darker than olive.
Gadget gasped out one word. "S-Sammy…"
Then Aruna was there. She brought her hand down on Sammy's neck, only for him to move with amazing agility, spinning away to face her. She charged him again, and he brought his hands up in a defensive stance. Aruna spun and brought her foot crashing down on his raised arms. She let out a hiss of pain and jumped back. This time, Sammy took the first move and in the blink of an eye, had sent Aruna flying back into a tree. She stumbled to her feet, disoriented and blinking tears out of her eyes. In the time it took for her to clear out her eyes, Sammy had moved on to her brother, who was still in shock. She let out a terrible cry and shot forward, faster than Sammy had moved. The boy didn't have a chance and soon he was lying on the forest floor, unmoving.
"You didn't kill him, right?" Hunter whispered. She had seen many Dolls die today, and while she didn't feel that strongly about it, even enjoyed it, she felt an unfamiliar tug on her heartstrings when she looked at the collapsed figure of Sammy and Gadget kneeling beside him.
While she may not have known the kid for long, she still respected and even-dare she say it- cared for him. Gadget may have had his own weird quirks, but that was what made him cool. He was a refreshingly new and exiting, and for some reason, she had grown attached, treating him like her own kin, with almost as much love she shared for her real little brother.
Hunter glanced over at Adian, and saw the same look of concern on his face. Besides as few cuts, he looked pretty good for someone who had just come back from the dead, in a sense.
"Oh, gods, no." A snort form Aruna jerked her back to the present. "Sammy has only been a Ball-Jointed Doll for about three months. There's still a chance we can bring him back to the light." A light dimmed in her eyes. "The same can't be said for Allen though. She's long gone."
"Actually, she's right here~"
A sudden gasp of pain left Aruna's lips and she spat up blood. She looked down at the metal point of a sword peeking through her chest. It was removed with a wet shink and Aruna stumbled forward a few steps before collapsing, blood pooling around her lifeless body.
Gadget screamed.
Shade could do nothing but watch as Aruna's murderer advanced on Gadget. However, James had been moving and during the time that Aruna knocked out Sammy to the time she was killed, he had made his way over to Sammy and pored all his strength into reviving him. Sammy's eyes flew open, no longer dulled and shining like two bright pieces of gold, and his paled skin returned to its darker-than-olive coloring. He had jumped up and into action as soon as the girl with hair as white as moonlight raised her sword above Gadget's head.
Sammy shot forwards and scooped up Gadget in his arms, bridle-style and dodged the sharp point of bloodied metal as gravity pulled it down.
"You will not touch him, Allen." Sammy spat. Gadget looked up in wonder at his savior, smiled, and went limp. This spurred Hunter, Shade, Vector, Sky, and Adian into action, and while Shade, Sky, and Vector went to take on Allen, Hunter and Adian ran over to James and propped him against a tree, where he lay, panting for breath after exerting so much energy into bringing Sammy back.
"Adian, stay here and look after him," Hunter said to her brother, who, with a protest on his lips, agreed after seeing the raw desperation in her silver eyes. "Right. Right, you can count on me, sister," He placed a hand on Hunter's shoulder. "Go and avenge your friend."
Hunter smirked. "Time to test out the new toys she had given me." She whispered, and with the next gust of the wind, was gone.
Shade had attacked Allen, and sparks flew as kantana and long sword clashed. Vector kept Allen off balance by sending Blizzard into the battle and ordering her to scratch at Allen's face, arms, whatever she could. However, Vector was tiring fast and wouldn't be able to keep up the pace for long. Sky had started a wind storm and was flying high above the battle, pushing Shade up when she fell and shoving the winds against Allen to slow her down, but soon she fell out of the sky and into Adian's arms. He sat her next to James and continued to fight off Ball-Jointed Dolls.
Hunter had climbed up into a tree, tails waving behind her, and her hand guns had transformed into a rifle, a trick Aruna had shown her, and she shot from a safe distance away until she could get into the battle. (She looked at Aruna's fallen body and rage fueled her ammo, until her bullets would shoot with such a force they would leave a crater where ever they hit, demolishing ten Dolls in one shot, but it seemed that with every ten destroyed, twenty took their place.)
Sammy had placed Gadget high in the boughs of the trees and rejoined the fight. Gadget, Gadget, Gadget repeated in his head like a mantra, and he would fight for him, he would fight for his fallen sister, he would fight, fight, fight, and he wouldn't stop, and he couldn't stop, pain and resentment and loneliness all merged in his gut, like giant fire waiting to be released, and by God, he would release it, he wouldn't leave a single despicable Doll left alive, he would kill them. They took all he had away for him, so he would return the favor.
Shade was tiring fast. She knew in the back of her mind she would fall soon. Shade was running out options and she would have to draw her Black Kantana if she wanted to win this fight. But, did she really want to win? Didn't she really just want to stop, to lay down, to let death take her in its dark, welcoming, twisted embrace? Isn't that what she really wanted? The memories from her time as a Ball-Jointed Doll replayed over and over, and they wouldn't leave her alone, and it wasn't just her memories, it was the new ones, the ones that whispered of a life that was lost to darkness too soon, of a flame that was snuffed out, of a broken, twisted, warped mind, of the blood and pain and tears that were given to make that person who they were, to form a new mold, and of loss and misery. They weighed down on her and every clash, every strike, every mad laugh that left her opponent's mouth; they all hit her hard and hurt more than a cut of that long sword.
But no. She did want to win, she did want to save her friends, for if they died and she lived, was Shade's miserable existence even worth living? Her friends faces flashed in her minds eye, Hunter, Adian, Vector, Sky, James, even Gadget, Sammy, and Aruna-poor, poor Aruna- they all were there, they were all shouting their encouragement, they all believed in her, and she'd be damned if she let them down.
She drew her cured blade.
Ooo, cliffy!
Hope you enjoyed the new take of this chapter. I got kinda tired of writing in first person, so I decided to give this style a go. I think it turned out pretty well, but please tell me what you think in the comments below!
In other news, sorry about of the angsty chapter! I was in the mood for some good pain, though, and I rather like how it turned out~ Anyway, yes, there will be some BL in this story, and if you have a problem with it, go away. I WILL NOT change it, so any and all complaints will fall on deaf ears.
As always, praise is loved, constructive criticism is enjoyed, and flams will be ignored!