IP: 68.210.187.108
Posted on July 7, 2010 at 10:17:40 AM by joel
For one who crafts days and years, time was measured differently to Joel. It was not in sunsets and seconds and scribbles on a calendar. It was in dreams and memories and everything else in between was a whitish haze of filling. At least it was now. There had been a period of blissful sunrises, of days he now kept careful track of with wistful determination, fearing to let them slip too far from his meticulous record. Then there had been no time, only emotion and the number of sly smiles she could pass his way before the night fell. There had only been the number of curls on her shoulders, the breakfasts he had made his laughing son in the warmth of a golden lit kitchen. There had been the piles of junk Elle had brought home proudly and the thousands of dapples of light that cut through the jungle's canopy to dance in the middle of the room the amazon queen lounged in. But that period had passed, just another victim to time's merciless consumption. Now there were just dreams and memories and the whitish haze. If he had the power to fast-forward sleep, he would have. He yearned for it like a nutrient, desperately needing those few hours of time that even he could not create. She came to him in dreams and if he was lucky, the fantasies would cross the boundary into memory and mate into a brief happiness that was only a sad shadow of something long gone, he knew, but one he would take with gratitude anyway. Tonight's was exceptionally good, despite it's patchy, incomplete feel. Like watching a reflection pieced together in mismatched shards of mirror, he remembered only the fall of dark hair, pungent with her own unique smell of cinnamon and sandalwood and a musk he couldn't name. It fell like black water over his arm as he lowered her to the ground, her nails already embedded in the sunbaked skin of his back in anticipation. He tensed, only for a moment, unable to recall another time when she squirmed and clawed at him in such a way - almost as if trying to escape from the hot press of his body. The white haze took another swatch from the foggy dream, skipping ahead and soothing his unease by surrounded his senses solely with the exquisite and familiar feel of her, her moans of ecstasy so strong they sounded pained to his ears. He was lost in her, needing this to last beyond his comprehension of time, needing this to last beyond sleep - to be more then a dream and memory. He needed more of the burn of her nails, the bruises she was leaving in her passionate punches against his chest. He needed more of the gasps and whimpers he was wringing from her lips. He needed to push her so far over the edge she would never get up to leave him again. He needed. He needed. "Wake," she told him in a hoarse, raw voice at the end of it all, her limp, surprisingly cold hand on his shoulder blade. He shook his head into the crook of her neck, his stubbled chin rubbing a red spot on her breast. He tried to force her husky words from bouncing around in his head, the foggy haze lowering quickly to take over and obey her order. "Wake up, Joel." He needed to do anything but that. He clutched her tighter against his body, pressing her down till her tender flesh gave against him and she groaned softly. The white haze was slipping in faster, like the tide rushing in to fill a hole freshly dug in the sand. "I don't want to. Don't make me go." But she said nothing, all of a sudden becoming malleable and jellied in his hands, cocoa skin draining to the transparent shade of the haze. He tried to tighten his grip, to keep her from slipping, but she continued to liquify and stream through his fingers with deafening silence. He tried to scream his frustration, only to have his breath curl from his lips like smoke and mingle with what was left of her body, fast turning to no more then a puddle of rain he couldn't catch. She slipped from him with a sigh, a resounding "wake up" echoing with the last of the dampness and sounding strangely like Elle. "Wake up, Joel. Wake up." “Wake up, Joel. Please.” He pawed blindly, trying to claw the mist away from where she once lay. The reminants of unconsciousness were being forced away by the Newfoundland's familiar tones, Elle voice like the annoyingly bright banners of red and pink that wave away the night from an exhausted man. He moaned, clutching his head. “Shup, dog,”he managed to growl at her, rolling over to escape the icy twinge of pain nudging at his ribs which he deemed a consequence of falling asleep on the hard stone floor of some room in the castle. Elle obeyed and said no more, something that tickled a shadow of suspecion in the back of his mind. She never normally listened to his commands, especially on the first time. He felt her eyes on his prostrate form, but refused to give her the satisfaction of fully waking, instead tried to force back the dream state he had previously been submerged in. Tucking his hands under his cheek with a grunt, he settled back, only to stiffen. The back of his hand was wet. In fact, now that he took note of it, he seemed to have placed his head into an enormous puddle that clung to his skin like glue. He scrunched up his face in disgust and shook out his hand, hearing the sticky liquid fling and land some distance with a gelatinous plop. “Oh goddamnit, Elle,”he huffed. “It's bad enough when you wake me too early, but can't you for once keep your drool to yourself?” When the bear dog failed to reply a second time, he opened his eyes to glare at her. She a few feet from his side, a stoic black sentinel, guarding her fairy with whom she stared back at with haunted eyes. Joel's blood immediately froze, tapping into her mind and being brought up short with the overwhelming heartache he caught from her. It was then he noticed that the drool he was laying in was not drool at all. It was blood. Like melted gold, it glittered in innocent splashes all around them, matting a good portion of her inky fur and staining his clothes, which he also noticed were slashed and torn in various places. “Elle?”he breathed in panic, scanning her furry form for some sign of a wound that could have caused the bloodshed. The handful of scrapes and cuts (the largest on her paw already being tended to with her washcloth tongue) could not have been responsible for the amount of gold currently surrounding them. “It's not all mine,”she told him slowly, her voice quiet and loaded with untold information. “Who did this?”he asked, gingerly touching the splotches on his chest, fresh blood gushing from a long narrow cut above his knee as he moved into a sitting position. “We did.” He looked up at her, confusion and fear etching hard lines into his dark face. She knew something and his lungs constricted with the knowledge that Elle never hid anything from him. She had never purposely been vague and dodging when he pressed her for information. Something was drastically wrong. And he had no idea what. “Are you ok?”he asked in an equally quiet voice, scared of the answer but making no show of it in his body language. He exhaled his relief though when the big dog nodded tightly, the motion somehow disturbing sad. “Is Ewan alright? Is Nimueh?” Another two nods made him breath easier still. But the Newfoundland still stared at him with an expression of pitying worry, caution, and if he didn't know better, fear. “Elle. Am I ok?” Elle broke, the sob in his head coming out as a strangled woof. She shook her head, fat tears blurring the brown of her eyes. He felt his heart stop, but could only continue to stare at her. He was hurt, but definitely not dying. Elle wasn't talking and the room was painted gold with dog and fairy blood. Something terrible had happened here. Something he had done. “Tell me what happened. Who did I kill?” He remembered no fight, no unstoppable blood rage that could have let to such an event. He waited, body as still as stone for the answer, teeth clenched so tightly, he was sure they might splinter. The dog only shook her head again, too upset to do anything but let him know there had been no murder. “She's not dead. But I can't let you go back there. I almost couldn't pull you away the first time,” the Newf said hysterically, gamely pushing herself up on unsteady front feet, obviously made lame by something she was still hesitant to admit. Her body language made it clear she would still fight to keep Joel from leaving the room - he noticed now the blood trail led all the way out the door and down the corridor. “She??” He had a paralyzing flash of black water hair, of female finger nails ripping gold lines in his back, of cocoa skin sliding provacatively against his own tanned skin. All remaining blood slid from his face at the same time his stomach dropped out. “She's here? Elle, is she here?!” His tone was quickly becoming as frantic as the Newfoundland's and he scrambled to his feet, his dog mirroring the act and stepping back slowly to block the doorframe. “For Mallos sake, MOVE!” he bellowed at her (he couldn't help but notice her uncharacteristic flinch - it pained him in a way he couldn't describe). “I need to see her, Elle. If she's hurt, I have to help her,”he rushed, already straining to glance down the narrow corridor to where the blood trail curved around the corner. The Newfoundland continued to back out into the hallway, doing her very best to let her bulk fill it wall to wall so there was no chance he might spring past her. “I don't want to fight you again, Joel, but I will. I can't let you near her again. You still might not be yourself,”the dog explained, her voice rising with each step backward, her eyes overflowing with pain. Her words cut through to him and he froze. Elle froze as well, waiting for a sign of a reaction so she would know how to act next. “It wasn't a dream,”he whispered, blank eyes not seeing the dog before him. “It was a memory.” Elle's silence confirmed his fears. He cleared her in one bound, ignoring her surprised, aggressive growl and shot down the corridor at a speed that would have suggested he was not badly wounded from the fight with the dog close at his heels. He rounded the corner, anxiously scanning the open room for a sign of his quarry. He was not even aware of the tremors that swept through his body when he found her. “Sweet Aura, no.” It wasn't what he thought. It was much worse. He reached her side in a manner of strides, Elle's whimpers ringing like screams in his ears. With shaking hands, he knelt to the floor, gold blood coloring the scene like a guilty plea. As gently as he could, he worked his arms under Rhosalyn's limp, disheveled form and lifted her from the frigid floor. He took one look at her shredded clothing, the bruises darkening her arms and face and started yelling at the top of his lungs for a healer. Search for the answers I knew all along; I lost myself, we all fall down. |
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