Chapter 42:
"This can't be it for her. I mean I knew it wouldn't be a happy ending... But this?" A strange voice filled the room around Oliver as she lay still and tired. Fighting hadn't helped and she began to wonder if she would be stuck here in the unknown forever. "We can't just hand her over to Mab. You know what she would do."
The voices were only whispers. But the silence around Oliver made it sound like screaming; twisted and distorted. This wasn't the fey she knew and once lived in. This felt like an inescapable dream. A nightmare.
"Oberon will get what he wants. We just have to decide whose side we are on. There is no reason we need to continue to be on the outside anymore. I am so tired of being looked over."
"Please!" Oliver cried out loudly, piercing the silence between the two voices. "Please! Just tell me what is happening."
A flicker of light; almost like a match being struck, shone in the darkness. She blinked rapidly, tears falling down her cheek and onto the cold hard floor. At least she was sure there was a floor. But she couldn't be sure. Darkness like this was confusing. Everything around her was black except the flickering that moved towards her restrained body.
"She cries." The moving shadow spoke. A distorted blackness moving around the light just in front of Oliver. It was almost like some kind of specter. A shape that couldn't decide what it was; always moving.
"Let her." It twitched to the side slightly before evening out once again. "She cannot get free."
"Please. I'm pregnant." It was all she could think of. "I cannot stay here. I just want to go home." Back to Sookie and Eric. Somewhere she could feel safe again.
"Of that we are certain." It seethed, "Two offerings."
"They are but babies Eli. We must send her home before this goes to far."
"I've heard enough!" It screeched, twisting angrily above her, the light following it. "I won't live like this any longer Mira. I wish a body once again. I wish to drink from the great pond and dance beneath the light fruit trees." An odd whining followed, as if it cried itself and made all around it feel sadness as it did. "I just want to be myself again."
"We had our time Eli." The female voice said softly in return. "Please. She is our daughter. Those children... They our your grand babies. We must send her home now. We can still do so."
"She is the reason we are here. If we hadn't sent her away we would still be home." Eli snapped. "Not only did we get punished but she gives herself to a vampire! She isn't our daughter. She has been since we sent her away."
"She is our daughter."
Eric's head was spinning. It wasn't something he felt to often. And even the days that felt helpless were livable. But a world in which Oliver lay still and breathing but not truly living was not a world he could live in. His heart ached every second he fought to keep his eyes open. It had now been three nights he sat with her. And until Sookie fought him to go to ground he would sit beside Olive.
"You're doing it again." The blonde said grumpily. "Honestly I can't keep shooing you away Eric. You need to go to ground. You need to shower." She scrunched her nose, the smell of copper in the air around him. Crusted old blood lay caked on his cheeks and down his neck from the bleeds. Three nights of it. "I'll watch her."
He sighed, climbing from the flowery chair nearby the bed. "I will return."
In a flash Eric was gone, the door to the basement slamming shut behind him. "What is it about that man?" She asked her sleeping friend as she fell into Eric's spot in the flowery chair. "Oliver?" She looked into the beautiful fae's face. "I need you to wake up."
There was a new sound now. Like lighting or electricity that snapped around the three. "She's here." The man's voice spoke.
"Eli please." Mira sobbed, "Oliver."
Her parents. The idea of it... It was hard to believe this was evening happening. And her father wanted her dead? wanted her children dead?
"Why have I been called here?" Mab's voice crawled towards them. The flicker grew brighter, showing the fey woman standing over the specter. A smile crept over her face as she realized who had called her. "Mira, Eli." She bowed her head slightly. "It has been so long since I have been here. Nothing has changed I see."
"So many days of darkness." Eli moaned.
"Yes well... Such is life. At least for you." She laughed quietly. "You broke the laws of your people. What did you expect?"
"We expected our daughter to be safe from you!" Mira cried out.
"Quiet woman!" Her husband snapped, holding her back from speaking. "Please... Mab. We brought her back to you."
"It is far to late for that Eli. She picked her side already. I cannot change the laws to suit you or me." Mab sighed. "Taking her now would be useless to me."
"You don't understand my queen." Her father moved towards her. "She gives you another chance at what you want." The light flickered above her now, her tears shining under it.
"This is not possible." Mab whispered, shifting away from the black specter and towards Oliver. She moved down, placing a hand over the girl's stomach. "How can this be?"
"Please. We brought her to you. Just let us free from this place." Eli pleaded. "We see that what we did was wrong."
"What we did was right!" Mira shot back.
Mab laughed loudly this time, her voice breaking through the darkness. The blackness turned to light, almost blindingly so.
"Just let us go."
"NO!" Mira yelled loudly, the black specter spun round. The voices were both coming from the black smokey mass... But as it spun it began to split in two, pulling away from it's other half. "Oberon will not have her! He won't hurt my grandchildren!" It finally split in two, one whirling far from the other. "I won't have it!" The right one said, moving quickly towards the Queen.
"MIRA!" Eli screamed, "You must not!"
"Fight it! You must fight this place Oliver!" She cried out as she surrounded the queen's now fighting body.
"How?" Oliver yelled back, fear taking over. Small shakes racked her body.
"Wake up!" Her mother called out. "Just open your eyes."
The bed began to shift, lifting slightly from the floor. Sookie's eyes opened quickly as she shot to Oliver's side. "Oliver! Oliver what is it?" She asked, knowing that she would not answer.
She was especially sure of it as the bed stopped moving and her friends body stiffened. "Olive?"
Oliver's eyes shot open, light pouring from them like beacons. Her hands gripped the bed beneath her body tightly.
"ERIC!" Sookie yelled, "ERIC!"