The Return of Maeve 12
Absolution and Understanding
Part 2
Maeve felt her heart jolt at the sound of his voice.
It sent tendrils of love so passionate and fiery deep within her heart and soul; it also caused terrible tremors to erupt all along her body as she struggled to contain the rage she felt towards him and the horrifying memories she could not stop.
She wanted to hold him; she wanted to fry him.
She wanted to kiss him and never let go; she wanted to see him burned in hell and then drowned in acid.
She was so full of conflicting emotions she barely heard deep within her mind, Don't let the rage consume you daughter, listen to the words of your family…listen to your true hearts desires….
"Lies, all he speaks of are lies…just remember all those kisses…' whispered a loud voice full of evil and spite.
As she raised her head, she felt more tears well up in her burgundy tinted eyes. He was so handsome; dressed in clothes she had seen him in hundreds of time before.
There he was and yet she couldn't bring herself to go to him. She couldn't bare to have him touch her like they had once embraced just a year ago.
He looked nothing like the Sinbad of the past year. In fact, he looked a hundred times better now than he had in the past year. He was her Sinbad once more, yet she knew he wasn't hers at all.
Not now; perhaps he never truly was either?
She bit her lip as her rage grew and her powers leaped inside her to do her bidding.
How DARE he treat her so insignificantly?
How DARE he become her friend, treat her like a lady, a confident, and then a lover!
How DARE he make her fall in love with him, against her own mind's objections, and then turn around and dismiss her as if she was last week's old, moldy break rations when she was kidnapped!
He had no RIGHT to treat her as such and she wouldn't let him!
"Sinbad…." She growled angrily as her voice trembled in suppressed wrath.
Her eyes began to flash a terrifying golden hue, her hands began to claw, and tiny sprouts of lighting bolts began to grow like tiny flowers on her finger tips.
Deep within the chambers where she had been flung into against her will, Rumina sat down as gracefully as a cat and grinned smugly as Maeve's magic began to arch off her body and inch ever closer to Sinbad.
With every memory that flowed like an endless river inside her head, the daughter of Turok ensured her victory, once and for all, against the peasant witch and Sinbad.
"Soon, I'll have my revenge dearest…."she whispered in an almost mocking, loving, tone as she gently lapped her finger tips through the water that showed Sinbad's shocked and scared face in their depths.
Sinbad couldn't believe his eyes.
There she was.
To him, she had never looked as beautiful as she did just then. Her heart was shining magnificently through her eyes and her voice sent waves of warmth through his body.
There she was, in all her splendor. The sunlight glinting off her fiery hair and reflecting off her golden tanned skin making her look like she was softly aglow. She was as tall as he remembered and he fondly remembered their one kiss in which her inner fire filled his own body with its' magic. Her eyes were alive and filled with such love and fondness, he felt like weeping.
She had forgiven him.
She didn't blame him for his actions this past year.
As he took a step closer, the ground beneath his feet crumbled like parchment under one of Firouz's exploding bombs.
"What…?" he muttered to himself as he immediately stopped and raised his head and asked hesitantly, "Maeve…what's going on?"
His Maeve, his lovely Maeve's form shimmered and then reformed…only this time it was different.
Her hair, while still the very shade of red he loved, looked darker and dead. Her eyes were aglow with rage and anger. Her face was flushed angrily and sparking bolts of lighting at him. Her arms were crossed defensively and her lips were pursed so tightly together he couldn't see where they ended and her skin began.
Maeve snorted and yelled snarkly at him with a voice oozing fake cheer, "As if you don't know!"
Sinbad's eyebrows rose in confusion, for he had never seen her this angry at anyone, least of all him, and asked again, "Maeve, I wouldn't be asking if I did know, what's happening? Are you all right?"
He took a step forward and froze as her voice all but gutted him with its hollowness, "You are the one who did this to me, Sinbad, with every kiss and tease, and look you tore my heart and soul apart…welcome to my personal hell."
Sinbad's tentative steps were frozen by her pungent and bitter words. His heart seized up in his chest and his lungs refused to work as he stumbled to a stop.
He gasped and grasped his heart in pain as the agony he had pushed deep within him rose to the surface and seized control of him in ways he had feared since the beginning.
From the corner of his eyes, he could see his predators, turned prey, once again change their fortune and claw at him as his darkness swelled in glorified victory.
He collapsed to his knees and stared up at her with unseeing eyes as he too began to see all those he had kissed.
DimDim, from his own cage, which wasn't a cage so much as a very large space that hovered parallel to the world the other's inhabited and let him watch but not interact with his family, could only watch with heart breaking sorrow as the two he saw as a son and a daughter meet each other again for the first time in over a year.
He knew this would be hard on them both, for not only were both terribly stubborn, both had pains of the heart that would not let them forgive easily….
DimDim whispered into his seeing pool, "To young to experience so much pain, to old to receive such atonement…listen to your hearts, listen to your loves, listen to your souls and most importantly, listen to each other…."
Maeve, under Rumina's spell, simply stood there, arms crossed, and magic curving up from her body to his, and yet she did not make a move to harm him physically or magically.
Rumina's smug face frowned.
She's fighting me….
Maeve, from her cage inside her own mind, was raging angrily against the bars that held her captive.
Each time she tried to touch those magically restraining bars, they sent appalling jolts of blackness through her body; slowly forcing her goodness deeper and deeper within her heart and soul, yet, simultaneously, it tore deep within her soul and wrenched out all the darkness she had harbored there.
She feared what her mannequin self would do to Sinbad.
It was filled with every dark emotion she had ever felt, and she feared the devil it was turning into.
She knew her own self.
She wasn't as good as she tried to portray herself. She had to struggle daily with her anger. A skill she had yet to fully master, and even today she had problems with her emotional rages that grew from perceived slights against her or the real ones.
Sinbad had hurt her; hurt her a lot.
She feared the creature that stood before her friend even as she struggled to gain control of it and force it back into the cage.
A cage she was in.
She sighed.
She couldn't escape from this prison made in her mind.
It held her more tightly than magical cuffs do to a bound sorceress. It made her skin crawl and her power to fluctuate as it tried multiple times to release her from Rumina's hypnotic power.
And yes, she knew it was Rumina. Just as she knew it was her there raging at Sinbad….it was her and it wasn't her too.
She felt all her body felt and whilst those emotions were honest ones, they were the emotions she had felt as she watched Sinbad do those things before. She didn't necessarily feel them now; at least not to the same extent.
She was hurt that he did those things, yes, but he wasn't her lover. He wasn't even a friend with benefits kind of man. They were simply friends, very close friends, but friends nonetheless.
She tried to recall her aunts' words of wisdom as they talked about their feelings for their lovers and their 'toppings' whilst away from them.
First they told her of the pain. Yes, the pain was the most hurtful. It tore at their hearts ands souls and made them cry into their pillows each night.
Second, they told her of the realization. That was their turning point. The realization that the men made no serious promises to them, nor did they make them to the men. It wasn't fair to expect a man to hold true to a promise-unsaid-when they themselves didn't make a promise either.
Third, they told her how they resolved their pain with their hope of the future. They had said it wasn't easy, but once they forgave the men for 'topping' others, they felt a freeing sensation deep within their souls. It sent them soaring high into the metaphorical sky and filled them with such an intense light they felt invincible.
She sighed.
Could she forgive him for what he did?
Could she let go of the hatred and the pain?
She truly wanted too, but she was afraid of how she would react to the missing pieces of her soul. The rage had claimed a large part of her, and she didn't know if she had enough goodness left inside her to be his friend after all this…
She wasn't sure she could or would trust him with her heart again, but she didn't want him to die…
She wanted to talk to him, perhaps become his friend again; if she could let him get that close to her again…
Then, for the first time since this started, she could hear her master's voice, "To young to experience so much pain, to old to receive such atonement…listen to your hearts, listen to your loves, listen to your souls and most importantly, listen to each other…."
"DimDim…"she whispered to herself and felt a swell of love and adoration for her old mentor surface to the top of her emotions and knew then and there that she wasn't truly dark…just lost in the sea of pain.
Caipra, who was now drenched in sweat, gasped in pain. The terrible weight of unbalance hit her like a canon to the gut.
Her eyes widened and her body arched off the tiny couch she was laying on and cried out, "Maeve….Sinbad….don't give up…"
"Maeve….Sinbad….don't give up…"
She began to smile and as she body began to softly shimmer a soft golden hue, she said to herself in a committed promise, "I won't let her kill you Sinbad…I won't let you go…I forgive you."
As her glowing body grew even more powerful and more intense, she shouted out as loudly as she could, "I FORGIVE YOU, YOU IDIOTIC SEA-SLUG!"
As she said this, her body exploded with yellowish-blue light that filled her with a passionately, strong, extremely comforting warmth.
The bars melted.
She was free!
Sinbad, as Gianna, Empress Hitria, Dara, Taryn, Denna and Bryn flashed through his mind, sank to his knees and cried. He remembered each kiss as they expressed something so different about each one of them that was so basically human about them all.
He cried because he knew he had hurt himself.
He cried because he knew he had led them on and perhaps hurt them too.
He cried because he knew, ultimately, he had hurt Maeve, and that was something he truly despised.
If he could, he'd turn back time and make sure he never did those things…ever. It just wasn't worth it to go through this much pain for so little reward.
Gianna's was of a hidden strength that he knew she would need as the Guardian of the Book of Before. It set his body aflame, but held it back as if she had something to prove to the world…the world of men; him included.
He gasped in pain as a cut, the size of a dirk's width with the depth of an arrowhead, to his arm appeared. He watched with dazed eyes as the blood welled to the surface of his skin and fell in tiny droplets to the cracked, dry, slowly desolate world he was in.
He watched as the skies turned a violent gray-black. The clouds churned and rolled making even his experienced eyes and brain dizzy with the strength in its wispy coils.
The mountains seemed to shudder and rumble deep within like they had a terrible fate to send him to as well for his infidelity.
The emerald trees and grass dried out and disintegrated under the gentlest of touches. It made him feel like crumbling to ashes himself.
The waterfalls, so beautiful, so powerful, slowed to a trickle. He heard the rocks as they tumbled down the steep cliffs and began to melt into one another as the water steamed and fizzled out as fires grew along the edges of the river beds the waterfalls fell from.
He was almost too scared to see Maeve now.
Almost.
Maeve's appearance suddenly changed in his eyes. Her lovely read hair turned pitch black and her eyes began to glow an eerie red.
Empress Hitria's kiss showed just how rotten, spoilt, and commanding she really was; he didn't enjoy it much at all. She had taken his power of choice and he had rebelled mightily against that even if it wasn't readily shown. He felt neither attraction nor flames with her kiss
Another cut, smaller in size but deeper in depth than the one before, appeared on his right leg. The shocking pain of it caused him to grab his thigh in pain and stare unseeingly at it, for it wasn't it he was seeing.
Then Maeve's face turned bitter and a scowl grew on her red lips turning them a pale pink that seemed to suck the life out of her.
Dara's kiss had held thankfulness and a hint of sadness in it, for she had been in the process of mourning the loss of her friend, the prince. But there was a strange flame inside him all the same. As if there was a piece of him wanting to claim something for the, in the end, good deed he had done for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.
Oh sure, he had done those type of things before, but this one felt more…more…as it directly affected the life and livelihood of both Dara and the kingdom she served.
Another cut appeared on his opposite leg. This one just as big and deep as the other, but strangely, he felt no pain. It was like his soul was punishing him for his faithlessness, but at the same time rewarding him for the goodness of the actions that led to the kiss.
Maeve's face grew ugly and wrinkles began to form along her eyes and mouth; as if she had aged two decades in as many seconds right before his eyes.
His heart lurched at the sight.
Not only for the fear and pain of seeing her…seeing her dying right before his eyes, but because she looked so defeated so non-angelic that he almost wished for the past kisses to return to him just so he could see what she looked like before this one.
His kisses and fickle emotions had done this to her. How could he fix her? How could he fix himself?
He gasped as her face turned towards him and her voice said in a hollow tone, "Why, why have you betrayed me Sinbad? You promised to find me, yet you travelled port to port and made no effort to find me. Instead you sat there and dallied with the local wenches!"
"No! I tried, really I did!" he protested but it was of little use.
His beautiful Maeve, his lover and soul, was turning against him and he couldn't blame her.
Slowly, his predators began to claw at his clothes and run their sharp fingers through his hair….
He shivered as his darkness grew….
Taryn's kiss was probably the only kiss that which meant nothing to him. It was simply a kiss of lust and nothing more, but still his flesh was carved and as he fell from the pain of his other arm he watched Maeve's fingernails grow into spotted acid green each one dripping with poison ready to slash at him at a moments notice.
Denna.
She was a woman he had loved once, a long time ago. She had been a lover after Lea and before Talya. He had felt deeply for her and was deeply hurt by the fact that he had left her with no notice in Basra years ago.
Her kiss was heartbreaking and yet loving all at the same time.
He cried out as a wound, a slash to his chest, appeared under his clothes. It bled the hardest and deepest.
He had felt great passion in that kiss, and if not of his souls' deepest devotion to Maeve, he could possibly see a future with Denna.
Horrified by the truth of his thoughts, he glance up at Maeve; deeply afraid of what she now looked like. Her toned skin, normally warm under the sun, was chalk white and leathery. Slowly along her limbs a greenish tint formed from her torso to her hands and feet.
"Maeve…" he whispered in excruciating pain.
He had done this to her….
Bryn's kiss, well, it held passion, but it lacked the personal experiences of her life. Not that she was a bad kisser, no, but it did lack a certain accent that one can only gain through life experiences…like a person's attitude, a person's walk, a person's mindset, and a person's vocal accent.
Rumina giggled in fierce glee as her waved her hand over the pool and manipulated her voice to sound like Maeve's as she whispered in pain, "Sinbad….how could you?"
"Sinbad, how could you?"
Then the tears began to fall even more heavily than before as Shirez found her way into his memory like a snake slithering its way into a bed. He remembered that night with such clarity that he blinked at it in confusion.
Maeve's visage, his lovely sorceress, paled and grew. Her face grew elongated and fangs grew out of her top lip. Her skin took on an even deeper acid, greenish hue and wing sprang out of her back in a terrible spray of blood and flesh that seared his eyes and burned his face.
His fears were true…his actions against her had turned her into a devil…..into one of Scratch's evil Harpies.
His attention waivered from her, he couldn't stand to see her like this, a devil of his own making….
The images of him and Shirez lying in his cabin, tumbling through the sheets, loud moans hit his ears as loudly now as they did then, hit him hard and fast and with amazing clarity and sharpness.
Never had he remembered anything with such lucidity before!
It caused him to marvel at the vivid colors and the stark differences of her skin to the dark colors of his bed sheets.
His brows furrowed.
Something wasn't right.
Caipra sighed as the weight lifted off her just a bit and said to herself, "That's it…just keep holding on…"
Sinbad, as the memory flew through his memory, stared at it curiously. He had never remembered things so clearly like this before.
Sure, he could recall adventures with amazing detail, those were engraved in his spirit and soul for those were when he felt really alive, but this experience with Shirez wasn't what he'd call a memorable experience.
She was a lovely bed partner, to be sure, but his heart and soul simply wasn't in it for the memories. His flesh desired hers' and claimed her; but his heart and soul revolted. He shouldn't be able to remember this so well…
Then he heard DimDim's voice, "To young to experience so much pain, to old to receive such atonement…listen to your hearts, listen to your loves, listen to your souls and most importantly, listen to each other…."
His brows furrowed, now he knew something was off. DimDim wasn't in this memory at all, and yet his mind was hearing his old mentor's voice with amazing sharpness.
He glanced around him nervously; the shadows, his predators were swarming around him whispering in his ear with dark intent, "Let go of her, let her go…she doesn't deserve your love for the sins against her are many…she deserves a man who loves her with a fierce loyalty and you've shown none…let her go….let her be happy…."
The faith and hope he had felt with each previously healed scar was fading and the waves of warmth and love he had felt upon seeing Maeve was churning ugly inside his stomach.
They were right.
He didn't deserve her love.
He wasn't the man she had thought him to be. If he had been truly the man she thought he was, he wouldn't have given up hope and fallen for the temptations of the willing females and their supple flesh.
He should let her go; let her go to find and love a man who would truly love her as she deserved to be. To find a man who could love her with his whole being; a man who wasn't scarred or marked by sin.
As he took a step back, to return through the golden portal that was still open behind him, a rainbow light shined brilliantly from his bracelet causing him to stumble in surprise.
Then he heard Caipra's voice.
Her voice rolled over his aching soul; a balm he desperately needed, "Maeve….Sinbad….don't give up…"
He suddenly remembered where he was and what he was meant to do.
He was here to help save Maeve.
He was here to save her from the terrible fate Turok's spell had dumped her into.
He couldn't let his uncertainties cause him to fail!
If he failed, Maeve died!
He couldn't, no he WOULDN'T let her down!
Then Caipra's voice was heard again deep within him, giving him even more hope, even more strength, "That's it…just keep holding on…"
With a slow, deliberately, deep breath, he took a step closer to the harpy-Maeve, wincing at the sight for it recalled the memory of Scratch's attempt to claim his soul when he used Maeve's image to drag him into yet another devilish trap, and glanced down at his bracelet.
The rainbow bracelet's glow was slowly growing more and more powerful. The light grew so prevailingly bright. It began to shine on him like an extra wall of light to protect him from the shadows all around him.
His demons shrieked in pain and retreated back into the shadows. His gaze turned to Maeve's demon face, and he faltered just a bit. Those eyes, those terrible red eyes seared him with a darkness and blood-thirsty glaze. He shuddered, but took another step closer.
The dry caked earth crumbled beneath his booted feet and he closed his eyes in fear of falling to his death in this place, but his desire to reach Maeve's unmovable, statuesque figure kept him going.
A bit of hope began to grow in his heart at that.
She was obviously angry as all hell at him, but she must have some goodness still within to not kill him on sight.
Those arching lightning bolts caused him to pause, just for an instant, but it was enough for his wall of rainbow light to flare in its attempt to keep those powerful magics away from him.
Finally, he reached her.
Only a step, a simple foot of space, was between them.
She hadn't made a move to hurt him nor stop him.
He eyed her closely in confusion.
Why wasn't she doing anything?
Then his bracelet flared again; he saw what he hadn't seen before.
She was covered in bloody red dust.
Her eyes were glazed over; not in memory but like she was under a spell.
His eyes widened.
He finally understood!
She was being controlled!
He looked at his bracelet again. Its' light shined and seemed to him like it was agreeing with his analysis of his beloved sorceress, and grew even brighter.
Then he heard the most marvelous, the most wonderful, the most loving words he had ever heard, "I FORGIVE YOU, YOU IDIOTIC SEA-SLUG!"
Maeve's body was enveloped in a beautiful, warming, golden glow that burned the ugly red powder off her body in an instant.
His demons roared in agony it the golden light and his own bracelet's glow exploded all around them and burned them to metaphysical ashes.
The hellish world they were in was healed and turned into luscious, greenery once again.
He watched as the sky calmed and the mountains silenced themselves. He glanced up at the sky and sighed relief as he gorged on the cool, misty breezes and the cool, damp air that ran their fingers through his golden brown hair.
He breathed in deeply; relishing the effect that the magically enhanced atmosphere had on his tense and fearful body and world-weary soul.
The sky was blue with puffs of white clouds floating serenely across the blue hues. Some of the lower clouds where darker grey; hinting to possible rain later on. Those types of clouds he lived for.
Where they stood, he could see the forests of Maeve's homeland; the evergreens: the Honey Yew and the Ivy trees where just as beautiful as she had told him. They were so beautiful; it made him want to travel to Albion just to see their marvelous green shades.
There, from his peripheral vision, were the mountains; they loomed high above them in the distance. Their white peaks disappeared into the clouds' bellies.
Looking down into the ravine, he smiled the pinkish-white marble of the building down below was glittering lively in the lovely sunlight.
He tensed as Maeve walked up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and said, "I forgive you."
He spun around and met her soft brown orbs with his own sea blue ones.
He bit his lip, raised his hand and tentatively raised it to her face. When she made no move to stop him, but instead took a small step closer, he smiled at her and lovingly ran his knuckles down her cheek.
His heartbeat began to grow erratic as she sighed and leaned into his touch and raised her own hand to cover his own.
Then their eyes met and as if drawn together by something more powerful than either black, neutral, or white magic could conjure, their arms wrapped around one another and their lips met in a kiss even more powerful than the one before.
Maeve, who was staring at her captain and friend with more warmth in her heart than she had ever expected to feel, watched as he smiled happily up and around at her mental world.
She was happy, no ecstatic, to see that her pathway down into the ravine, down into the Temple of Avalon, was returned to its rightful place and took a step closer to it and Sinbad.
As she reached the edge of the ravine, she placed her hand on his shoulder and watched sympathetically as his body tensed under her familiar touch.
She wanted to be angry, not for what he had done, but because the anger had been such a large part of her life it felt strange to be without the red hot flames in the deepest, darkest part of her soul.
Now all she felt was the warmth of the flames like the warmth, the life given by a tenderly nurtured campfire.
As he turned to her, she said lovingly, "I forgive you."
His hand slowly rose to her cheek.
She wanted to take a step back, but her heart froze her brain's orders. Her heart wanted his touch and would no longer listen to her brain's words on this topic: Sinbad and his touch.
She took a step closer instead.
They had been separated for far too long.
She breathed in deeply as his knuckles gently caressed her cheek and her hand, on its own violation, rose and trapped it in place there.
His eyes, so blue and loving, so blue and remorseful, met her own and then the pull to kiss him was too much.
As their lips touched, the world around them blurred together in a wash of colors that neither paid attention too.
Unseen by them, their bodies were surrounded by a beautiful golden light that encompassed the entire room they were in and in a flash they were gone.
Rumina, screamed in impotent anger as the golden light, burned her eyes and flesh with its warmth and love.
She cried out in pain as her flesh began to burn and bubble at its intensity.
As the kiss grew, so did the light, and with a flash, they were gone from her sight and she felt her body being lifted up, involuntarily on her part, and flung head first into the stone walls around her.
The last thing she saw was the entire room being flooded by the golden light and destroying all the seeing pools and manipulating powders.
Turok and Scratch watched helplessly as the two kissed and the last remnants of the sorcerer's plans burned up in the golden light of the pair's love.
Scratch smirked despite himself, and said snarkly to his newest minion, "Looks like your plan failed, Turok."
Turok spun around and snarled at him, "Don't you think I don't know that!"
The devil laughed and said, "And now, we can't even use their darkness against them! You have given them the means to heal and grow even closer together!"
Turok roared and sent his clawed hand out towards the devil. The black lightning slammed into the devil, but just like before nothing happened to him.
Scratch yawned and ordered, "I'll call you when I have need of you Turok, don't go anywhere…I'll find you, minion."
Turok growled as the demon vanished in a ball of fire.
He spun back to the seeing pool, sagged in exhaustion, and glowered darkly at the pair of unsuspecting lovers.
"I WILL have my revenge, Sinbad, I WILL!" vowed the dark sorcerer.
As he made to move away from the seeing pool, the golden light burst out of the pool and slammed into him. He cried out as the powerful light surged through his body like an ocean's typhoon surged across the seas and collapsed in agony.
Tremors rolled through his body and caused his body to arch off the ground in terrible pain.
As the warmth reached his blackened heart, the pain grew to unimaginable torture. He could feel his very flesh burning from the inside out. He screamed as the light burst out of him through his eyes and mouth like sunbeams.
He knew no more.
DimDim, from his cage, smiled as his children succeeded and said softly, "You did well, children, you did well…"
Caipra, from her place on the bed, sighed and felt her body release all the tension it had accumulated though this harrowing time.
Doubar, who was by her side, looked down at her anxiously as she said soothingly, "They did it, they succeeded."
With wide smiles, the crew spun to the circle Sinbad was resting in, and watched as the white candles began to burn even brighter and grow from an inch of flames to six feet tall.
Surprised, they stumbled back.
Instinctively, they all reached for their swords.
All but Bryn.
Instead, she ordered, "Lower your swords, it's Sinbad and Maeve, they are being transported here."
Doubar demanded as the flames, now six feet tall and widening to two feet long, made a complete circle of fire, "What are you talking about?"
Rongar and Firouz eyed the circle warily as Caipra, tiredly rose to a seated position, and explained for Bryn's eyes were unfocused but focused on the power being used, "The magic that sent you all to your tests, is happily, transporting Sinbad and Maeve here."
Doubar smiled and lowered his sword, "So they are coming here?"
Before Caipra could answer, Bryn said with clearing eyes, "They are here."
The circle of white candles, gave off a final flare of extremely potent power, and then vanished with out a trace of there ever being any candles there; leaving behind two people locked in a passionate embrace.
Doubar cried out happily, "Sinbad, Maeve!"
Soon to come, The Epilogue