Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine. Except Anita. She's all MINE! I own her! I made her! She is my brainchild!
4—Skulduggery
This was the one that Anita remembered the most.
They had met in late July of 2010. Anita had read the second book, and started to promptly have daydreams about him. A tall, thin, witty skeleton wearing dark suits, and she had dreams of him cornering her, grabbing her—gently, of course—and kissing her. But she knew it wouldn't happen. He was over four hundred, and she was only twelve.
"Two thousand in his world, though you mightn't look any different," some part of her mind whispered to her. "But who's to say that you didn't force it? Who knows? Maybe you forced all three of the others to love you. It's too late to fix that, you know. But you can at least keep it from happening again…"
And Anita—secretly—agreed. She wanted him to love her, or even care for her, but she wouldn't accept it because she knew it would be forced, somehow, by her magic in that world.
It was when he showed up to talk to her that Anita knew it was too late. So she didn't spend any time arguing with him—she merely got on her bike and rode away as quickly as she could. DungeonMaster, Alfred, and Alphonse were soon following. At the beginning, Skulduggery had run, but somehow Anita knew, even then, that he would eventually be able to fly, and then he flew alongside the bike.
Despite the tears, Anita ignored him. It created a chasm in her chest, and she tried to get away from his voice. She couldn't hear it, not really, for he was only an image she imagined seeing—though he was alive and real in the world that she accessed—but she knew exactly what it would sound like, and that was enough to make her heart accelerate without the bike.
"Anita, please!" he called. "Please don't do this to me!"
"I have to! Don't you see? I've forced this on you! It's not your choice! I made it happen—I can't live with that!" Anit cried back. Her voice was choked with the wind and her breathlessness and tears, but iy was quiet either way to keep from scaring the pedestrians and other bikers on the trail.
"Then, Anita, let us do a test!" Alphonse cried.
Shocked at the idea, Anita skidded to a stop. "What?"
"A test. If your magic—which I can tell you think it is—is forcing Skulduggery to love you, or even care for you, I'll disconnect it. If he still cares for you then…" Alphonse stated. He was still in his armor, bless the man, and so not winded at all.
The other three quickly caught up with them.
"Please, Anita," Skulduggery pleaded. "Please."
Anita dragged her bike onto the grass and looked around for pedestrians. The trail was empty. With a curt nod, she told Alphonse, "Do it."
She gasped, staggering back, as a feeling like ice went through her chest. Her magic was gone. She stared at Skulduggery with cold eyes, broken inside, knowing that now he would hate her, now came the tirade…
She gasped at the first touch. A hand on her back. Was he remembering? Another hand, on her face. It was all she could do not to flinch. And then, he was kissing her. It was gentle, and sweet, and Anita suddenly became shorter of breath than she had been before. And everything happened within milliseconds of each other.
Her eyes closed, and one hand went up to his shoulder. Then it was over; Skulduggery pulled her in, her head against his chest, her ear over where his heart would have been.
"Do you believe it now?" he asked gently.
"Yes, I do. Alphonse, give me my magic back, please," Anita commanded.
A feeling of warmth had already existed (created simply from her joy), but a new heat rushed in, and Anita lost the hollow feeling of non-magic.
They spent the next four weeks together. They hugged, yes, and kissed, but mostly they just talked. Anita loved his voice. They found that they had quite similar senses of humour…if Skulduggery's were, indeed, a bit more honed. But he could always make her laugh, and was polite enough to at least chuckle at most of her jokes—though she was sure he didn't find most of her jokes even remotely funny.
And he was there when her mother died. He held her back, though she fought. She didn't scream though, no, because then she would have been killed, too.
It was a dark night, and they had been walking and laughing, and then Anita felt it. A tug. And she was suddenly standing in a stone chamber.
Her mother was in front of her. Chained to a stone wall. Her hair was matted with blood, and her eyes had deep, dark shadows.
Anita went to dart out, but her mother shook her head slightly as a man came out. Skulduggery held her back as she struggled silently. And then it started. The man—his name was Il'Guin—bent forward with a sneer and ripped at the chained woman's chest. His hand came away, holding a blue stone that glowed in the night. It was ovular, slightly flattened, and inside it seemed to be ice, swirling around. Everything about it hinted at frost.
And then the man's hand tightened around the stone and it cracked like ice. The moment the first crack showed, Anita's mother started to scream…and scream…and then the stone disintegrated, and the scream stopped.
Her eyes were hollow, Anita saw. Empty. They seemed almost lifeless. No soul was left behind them. And both whimpered as Il'Guin shot a fine mist of frost out of his hand. It floated down, beautiful, and spread over Anita's mother, encasing her in a fine frost. Il'Guin turned, left, and Anita felt the arms holding her back release her.
She was instantly at her mother's side, looking into the cold eyes, as the frost thickened to ice and then, a bubble around the woman's torso and mouth, stabbed inward. Blood pooled, collecting in the bubbles, and the woman's hand found Anita's tear-streaked face.
"Mom…" Anita cried.
The woman, Anita's mother, smiled a bit, and her hand fell, further emptiness clouding the blue eyes that had once held so much light…
Skulduggery had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming, and haul her bodily away. Somehow they moved through the wall, Anita screaming and kicking, wishing for revenge and they broke out of the daze.
With a sob, Anita wrapped herself around Skulduggery's torso.
It was August 16th, 2010. Anita woke in Skulduggery's arms—he had kept her company, reflecting back her body heat, for weeks now.
It was a smile, before she heard the cold, metallic-sounding voice in her head.
She looked around, seeing a note on the pillow next to her. Turning so her back would face the wall, and sitting up, Anita opened the letter. Skulduggery looked up at her as her face turned white, ashen.
"They're gone…Skulduggery…all of them…" Anita could barely get the words out in her shock dropping the note and not noticing.
Pulling out of the warmth as Anita covered her face in her hands, Skulduggery picked up the fallen note. On it was one sentence.
"We are sorry to inform you, but your race, the Nafar, have become extinct."
That was it. Skulduggery could tell that there were hundreds of these little notes, the race name typed in when needed.
"Oh, dear," he said softly. Anita began to sob—quietly, so that no one would hear—as he pulled her into a tight embrace.
"It's…my fault…I was…their queen…I was meant to…to…protect them…I've failed, Skulduggery!" Anita gasped out between sobs.
"No, my love. No…no, it's fine. I'm sure there's some other way. You've failed no one—how could you have done anything. The Hunters did, yes? That's who killed them. Not you. Never you," Skulduggery reassured her. Still, she sobbed into his suit, crumpled from a night's sleep, as he rubbed circles into her back.
Once she had stopped crying, she smiled weakly, saying, "Well…it'll sound a little insincere now, but I had planned to anyway, and there's no use putting it off…will you marry me, Skulduggery?"
He was taken aback. "So quickly…are you sure about this, Anita? Even after—"
"Of course I'm sure, Skulduggery, or I wouldn't have asked! I know it's fast, but I love you," Anita told him.
"Then," Skulduggery told her as they both lay down gently, sliding into the warmth of the sheets, "I would be delighted to marry you."
"I don't have a ring yet, but—" Anita started to explain.
"That's fine, we can go looking," Skulduggery assured her.
"I was going to say, but I was planning on making one. I'm getting rather good at Earth," Anita finished. "But we can go looking and see if there's a design you like…"
"That sound wonderful," Skulduggery said. There was a smile in his voice.
Anita had told the only other friend in her world, the one without magic or adventure or danger of the sort she faced in the world with magic, to come on August twenty-first, at ten-thirty.
She forgot, but Skulduggery didn't mind. Anita and her friend, Nevena (meaning 'marigold' in South Slavic) were almost as close as Valkyrie and Tanith were.
Anita didn't know, though, that Skulduggery was…who—no, what—he was. But for now, Skulduggery left their peace go on. After all, the precepts of her world meant that he could not tell her anything she didn't already know. At least, nothing in his own storyline. So he couldn't tell her. That pained him, but she would find out one day…
And god, she was beautiful. Her dress wasn't white, but gold, fading to green as it fell to the ground. Her smile was radiant, and her hair was fire, glowing as it fell, framing her face perfectly.
"God, he's wonderful," Anita thought. "Strong. And tall…and he's always there for me…"
Joy danced in both of their hearts. The skies were grey, but Skulduggery knew that Anita loved grey skies and rain, so he didn't mind. After all, he was used to them. Emerald green hills swept away into the dark sea, in the distance. Anita wore no veil—she didn't like the connotations behind it. And that was fine. Once he had learnt the story behind it, Skulduggery didn't like it either.
Lilies, he noticed. And white roses. A beautiful bouquet for a beautiful woman. Ghastly was best man, as were DungeonMaster, and Al, and Alphonse. Valkyrie and Tanith were bridesmaids…Nevena would have been, too, but since she had forgotten…
Soon they were exchanging vows. They were pure, and chaste, and simple.
"Skulduggery. You asked me, once, who could love a skeleton. I knew you were joking, but I knew the answer, then and there. I do. You are witty, and funny," Anita said. She was starting to get choked up, the dear… "And I know that you will always be by my side. Your being there is my comfort. Three days out of four, I miss you. The way you can always comfort me, and bring back some joy to my life. I love you. I love everything about you. And that, among changing seasons and roaring tides, will be one stable thing in my life."
If it was possible, Skulduggery's grin would have widened.
"Anita Heathers. I didn't love you right off. But I remember being close, the first day when I had to chase after you. You thought you forced it, once. I'm glad that's over, because it wasn't long before I did love you. I will always be here for you, because your smile is the brightest thing in my life. Even though I may be slightly insane," Skulduggery told her, Antia chuckling at the joke, "I will be as stable for you as you need me to be."
And then the rings. The rings were brought up by a stranger hired for the ceremony, and Skulduggery looked questioningly at the one ring before picking it up with his cue, and speaking words he wouldn't really remember clearly as he placed it on Anita's finger.
Anita opened her right hand, her left thumb rubbing the ring placed on that hand, and light and liquid silver floated up from her hand, forming a ring, silver. Two bits of silver, looking almost like wide, long leaves, came from opposite sides to encircle three pits, where gems should have been. Skulduggery gazed in amazement at the beauty of what he saw. The light gathered on her face as she spoke, the same words that Skulduggery had spoken moments before. With a slight pulse of her hand, the unused, still-floating silver turned clear, slightly lowering the amount of material. The clear, liquid crystal shot down to the ring, forming three equal-sized stones, the rest absorbing back into her flesh.
Skulduggery felt a thrill of pleasure as she took his hand and slipped the ring on over his glove. A few more words that they both missed, staring into each other's faces. The light still seemed to light Anita's face. And then the kiss. Skulduggery wished he had lips for her, but she didn't care.
The reception was the first time Anita had seen Skulduggery dance. Usually, she hated it—and now that she saw him dance, she thought that may have been the main reason that they didn't. His feet moved quickly, surely, and his hand was solid in hers. It was one of the more common times that she didn't simply project onto reality what she saw, so she felt the sheets of her bed as she lay, eyes closed, but even more than anything else, she felt the joy as she and Skulduggery danced together, swirling through the crowd. It may have been dramatic, a maybe seemed too flashy to others, but Anita Heathers didn't mind, for once, who was watching.
The last song of the night, she remembered—mostly because it had played a day after, with the title and band name, quite plain to see. It was "Your Guardian Angel" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Anita loved the beginning, but didn't like the ending as much.
Still, it captured the situation well, and for a soundtrack she hadn't designed—Skulduggery had asked that he do that, at least—it suited her tastes extremely well.
A/N: So I had to stop here due to the lack of milestones of more people, and I decided to fully detail the wedding. Don't expect this for all of the others. But soon there'll be chapters other than just 'this-is-how-they-met-and-then-there's-marriage-and-here's-a-memory-or-two' because that gets TIRING. But four chapters in one day...I think this is a record.
Review, lovelies!