This is old. It's been lurking, unfinished, on my iPod for about two months. But now 'tis finally finished. Huzzah. I incorporated as couple of ideas which I had in the 5 Years Later topic when I was researching pregnancy problems to kill off Mia, and I came across the syndrome which I have imposed upon the twins here briefly. This isn't currently canon; where it becomes so is up to you Megan :P

Steve, Zeb, Adrion and Rorri (who is insinuated) are Megans, and I've taken liberties with Zeb and Steve, sorry! D:

Cat and Mia are mine :D

Oh, and in reply to 'AnExtremelyConfusedHumanBeing', thank you so much, I'm really glad you like the stories! :D It's all based on a completely OC Gone RP; we're right at the top of the Gone Forums, you can't miss us :) x

Catherine

Fighter

I had to fight before I was born.

My brother nearly killed me inside my mother; something to do with the placentas. He got the nutrients, I didn't. As a consequence, he was born a large, strong, healthy child, although to begin with he had very red skin from taking more than his fair share. I slumped into the world after him, a tiny white skinned baby, eyes and mouth closed with none of my brother's vigorous screams. My mother began to sob when she saw me, her hands pressed over my mouth, but my father lifted me up in his big strong hands and held me to his chest, and I began to stir very slightly, reassured by the sound of his heartbeat. He once told me that from the moment I opened my eyes he knew I'd be a fighter; tiny and frail as I was, he said there was something that burned inside my eyes, the same thing that burnt inside his; the desire to bend the world to our wills.

I was a small, physically weak child to begin with. My brother would always wait for me though, always let me have the last piece of cake, always give me whatever I wanted. Later on I wondered if this was because he remembered how he'd half killed me and was trying to make amends. I never asked him though; I didn't want to hurt him or make him feel guilty. It wasn't his fault. Maybe I'm being cynical. I probably am. Maybe he just did those things for me because he loved me. Don't get me wrong, I loved him too; I just didn't really know how to show it.

From the age of three I learnt to handle weaponry. As soon as I could walk I would follow my father into the training rooms and watch, wide eyed as he wielded swords, daggers, guns and spears with equal precision and skill. I longed to be able to do that, to slice the air apart in a deadly dance.

"Can I try?" I asked one day, watching as he ripped apart imaginary enemies with a sword. He tilted his head to the side, studying me.

"Here." He fetched me a small rapier from the wall. "See what you can do with that."

It was a match made in heaven. Pretty soon, I was slicing up my own imaginary foes, albeit, not as gracefully as he had; my limbs were still clumsy, my muscles were still weak. But they grew stronger the more I practised, and for my fourth birthday my father presented me with a tiny rapier designed especially for me. My mother gave my brother a box of coloured chalks and his own easel. From that moment it almost seems as though our futures were set.

More weaponry soon followed; by the age of five I could wield knives and a small bow and arrow. It was also the second time Father took me to meet our master. He'd taken me once when I was a baby, but I didn't remember it, although I still had vague dreams of whirling shadows and silken whispers. He led me down through the cells, into a dark corridor. I tried to not to be scared but I couldn't help gripping his hand a little more tightly, a shiver going through me. He paused, looking down at me.

"You're not frightened, are you?"

"Of course not!" I shook my head defiantly. "I'm not scared of the dark!"

He chuckled softly, beginning to walk again, leading me through the stone passage to an old wooden door with iron swirls marking it. Slowly the door crept open of its own accord. Father moved behind me, both hands on my shoulders. I hoped he couldn't feel me shaking.

"I've brought her to you, like you asked." his voice echoed around the rock walls.

And then I heard its voice for the first time in five years; truly its voice I mean, not the faint echoes of its words in my dreams.

Come here, child. Come to me.

My feet moved of my own accord. I was no longer afraid. Father squeezed my shoulders once and released me, allowing me to move forwards into the blackness of that room. I can't remember what happened after that; I think I might have screamed. I hope I didn't. I do remember waking up in my father's arms as he carried me back through the house, remember my mother shouting at him.

"What have you done to her? What have you done to her?"

I can remember the way she looked into my black eyes, her own green gaze full of terror.

Idiot.

I guess that's when she started to lose her strength. She kept nagging at my father all week; "She's too young!" "It could damage her!" "Do you want her to become like Cassandra? Do you?" I just wanted her to shut up, but I couldn't be bothered to say the words. I was in my own enchanted dream world of dark smoke and delicate tendrils which twisted in my hair, comforting me, holding me safely. If I listened I could hear it whispering, gently crooning the words of a half forgotten song in my ear like a lullaby…

Rest in me and I'll comfort you…
I have lived and I died for you…
Abide in me and I vow to you…
I will never forsake you…

It loved me. The thought filled me with wonder. It was the only constant, the only unfailing love. And I loved it in return. And as it was a part of my father and my brother, that meant I could love them too. My mother, however, was fading, growing weaker every day, slipping away from our lord. I could feel it and it could feel it. It loved her too, I realised, it was sad it was beginning to lose her; it was clinging to her more tightly, trying to save her. I didn't care about her, or at least I tried not to. Not after the day I saw her beg for mercy at my father feet as he kicked her repeatedly. It was from that moment that my mother began to disgust me, although I longed for her gentle hugs and caresses as much as I despised them. But why should I care when she was so weak? Father tried his best; he tried to make her see sense, to punish her when she was feeble, to help set her straight, but my mother stumbled again and again, and every day I felt more and more scorn for her, despite the constant wrenching sensation in my chest whenever I saw the cuts and bruises along her arms. And then she finally fell.

When I was ten, she left us completely, ripping our family apart and tearing my other half away from me. It was hard with him gone. I never cried. Never let myself sink that low. But it still hurt; an omnipresent ache, a missing heartbeat. That feeling when I'd automatically go to brush my mind against his to see what he was thinking and finding nothing but a void of silence. It was like the lurch when you missed a stair, a terrible empty lurch into nothingness. I wanted Fathers love more than anything; I needed it, craved it, had to know that I was still loved. He gave me nothing, not even scraps. He just sat there longing for that flame haired witch. And then Steve…my other half…he returned. Only to betray me and fully severe my heart. He tried to kill my father. All I had left. I couldn't let him. I stopped him and told him to never return, never to look me in the face again. It wasn't until after he left that I realised that I was killing myself slowly inside as surely as I was killing him. I ran to father for reassurance and once more received nothing but empty words and blank stares. Alone, I resigned myself to despair. Until him.

I hated him at first. I felt like he was a replacement trying to usurp the gap left in my life by my brother. I was torn between hatred and loneliness, a desperate longing for companionship. In the end I walked an unsteady tightrope between the two. I was as changeable as a whirlwind; sometimes we'd play together, train together, sometimes even fall asleep next to each other in the training room. Other times I'd torment him, mock him, torture him with my words until he responded in a fiery rage, our screaming matches filling the house. I didn't realise until it was too late what our turbulent relationship was developing into. I was naïve. I have to admit it. Hopelessly fucking naïve when I went to his room that night, when, curiously, I pressed my lips to his, just to see what it would feel like.

I didn't think it would feel like that.

Like a fire, like one of our arguments, all hate and blood and love wrapped into one, but this was physical, not verbal and I never wanted it to end.

He scorned me afterwards, when my teasing went too far, when I invited him to my room that night. God, at the time I wasn't even sure what I was doing. I wanted to prove to my father that I could be just as heartless as he wanted me to be, wanted to break Adrion and get rid of that knowing, arrogant twinkle in his eye, wanted to make him crawl at my feet and show me the veneration I deserved but which he'd never supplied, but also I wanted to capture that feeling again, that wild heady feeling where I felt like I was gripping a live wire.

Well, that blew up in my face.

Majorly.

He wouldn't do what I said. We argued over something stupid, like the door, and he refused to do what I wanted. Everybody does what I want! I yearned to slap the smug look off of his face, leave him broken and begging for mercy. I began to plot. But the first time we had sex, it was nothing contrived, nothing planned, nothing within my control.

Anger raging through my body, the thrum of my heart in my ears, the feel of his skin on mine and the taste of blood in my mouth…

We lay there afterwards in the centre of my destroyed bedroom, arms wrapped around each other, panting for breath, my hair in his mouth and stuck to his chest, his hands on my back, warm and solid and real. And for one blissful moment I was at peace. I felt calm, I felt safe, I felt like, for a moment, that someone…cared about me. Cared about as more than a pawn in a much larger game. A feeling I hadn't had since my brother left.

As soon as I'd felt it, it was gone, but a ghost of the feeling remained with me, no matter what insults we ended up screaming at each other, no matter how much my father disapproved, no matter how much I tried to fight it off. I was beginning to realise that there was something different about Adrion, something that was reeling me in like a fish on a line. Well I'll tell you now, this fish wasn't going to be pulled in that easily.

I've fought men with guns, women with swords, children with knives. I've fought girls who can control the earth, boys who can read minds, women who can conjure fire from their palms. But now I'm fighting a new enemy, one deep within myself which is trying to wrestle it's way to the surface.

Right now, my greatest enemy is love.

And like hell am I going to let it win.