The Birthday Present

I’m sure you’ve heard of alventogs, Elf Trains, even if you’ve never seen one. You already know they emerge from the tunnels between worlds looking like they appear from nowhere. You know they run without tracks, gliding along a few centimeters off the ground. You know they look a lot like steam locomotives and that their wheels spin but don’t actually have anything to do with the train itself moving. You know that sometimes beings other than elves ride in on them, but humans can only board if they have papers proving them to be part of an elven household.

I stand next to my daughter, paused on our walk into town while watching one glide past. It’s going slower than they usually do, and continues to slow as we observe it. That’s unusual. Most of the trains go straight through our little berg without even seeming to notice it.

I turn toward the train, looking up at its windows and trying to see inside. Although bright lights shine in every car, I see nothing. I most certainly do not see the elf I’m terrified of seeing. Or maybe I’m hoping to see him… It’s a little complicated.

“Come on, Mom,” Nora says in a whining sort of voice. She takes my hand and pulls me in the direction of town. “We don’t want Massil to run out of cake!”

I smile, trying to put thoughts of her father out of my head even though I think of him every time I see an alventog. Any other night, I’d make an excuse to go home and open a bottle of wine to drown in. But how could I possibly do that to my baby girl on her birthday? “They aren’t going to eat your cake without you, precious.”

“But, Mom…. What if a dozen other people with birthdays show up before we do? Or two dozen? Or a hundred?”

I laugh. “A hundred people wouldn’t even fit in The Flocked Goose.”

“Exactly!” she proclaims. “We wouldn’t even get in!” She gives my arm a few extra tugs, trying to get me to walk faster. “There could be two hundred starving elves on that train, all wanting birthday cake!”

Chuckling, I let her urge me into a trot. Our feet smack against the wet pavement, sending up drops of water that glisten under the street lights. Moments like this make everything worth it. So what if my parents refused to talk to me after I got pregnant without being married? So what if I found myself moving to entirely different province to make a new start? So what if I’ve had to work two jobs for years trying to provide Nora with everything a child needs? I wouldn’t trade a second of being her mother for all the riches in both my and her father’s worlds.

We jog into town after the train. It stops before us, gliding to a halt in the town square, and I do my best not to pay any attention to the elves who step off of it. They’re far enough ahead of us that even if Rhisman was one of them, I wouldn't be able to recognize him. He’d just be a dark outline against the night, a silhouette without substance. He was never much more than that anyway for all that I briefly thought he was.

The pub my friend Massil works in is on the nearside of the square, so don’t make it all the way to the alventog before darting off the sidewalk. Massil looks up at us from behind the counter and meets my eyes for a second. Unlike most of the town, who think I moved here as a widow, Massil knows the truth about Nora’s father, that he was an elven lord who turned his back on us, and I can see the question in her gaze. I smile as bravely as I can and jerk my head toward my daughter.

Immediately, a grin splits Massil’s face. “It’s the birthday girl!” she calls. The other patrons, who take about about half the tables, applaud and Nora beams at them and gives the room a curtsey followed by a twirl. She ends with her arms outstretched to her adoring public.

“Nora!” calls her friend Tad. “I brought you a present!” He rushes over to thrust a basket at her as she yanks her raincoat off and leaves it in a pool on the floor. Normally I’d chastise her for that, but it’s her birthday.

Certain I’ll be shown what was in the basket later, I grab the coat and then walk to Massil as I remove my own rain gear. Without me even having to ask, she’s poured me a shot of whiskey. I drape my and Nora’s coats over a pair of empty chairs and smile thanks before picking up the shot glass, making a toasting motion toward my friend, and downing the liquor in one go. It’s tempting to ask for more, but it’s too early in the evening to get sloshed, so I hand the empty glass back. Massil trades with me for a pint of my favorite low-alcohol ale and I try to look relaxed as I take it. “Thanks. You know you’re my favorite adult, right?”

Massil chuckles. “Yeah. I bet you say that to all the bartenders.” She reaches under the bar and pulls out a velvet bag. “This is for the sprog. Think she’ll want root beer or ginger ale today? Or should I make her an elaborate virgin cocktail?”

I glance over to where my daughter is hosting a court of fellow six-year-olds. “Definitely the cocktail.

“Coming up!” Massil gets started on it. “So, an alventog rolls into town and stops in the square on my god-daughter’s birthday. Should we be alarmed?”

“I don’t see why,” I say, even though I’ve been wondering the same thing. “I’m sure it’s a coincidence. Rhisman doesn’t even know she exists, let alone where she lives.”

“Good.” Massil’s eyes go to the door. “Then we don’t have to worry about the blonde elf who just walked in and is staring at Nora being her father. Because he’s a completely different blonde elf.”

My body chills and gooseflesh pops up across my skin. My shoulders tense so much my spine starts to hurt as I take a drink before forcing my head to move enough to let me see the newcomer.

He wasn’t dressed for rain, and it looks like the soft rain turned itself up a notch in the few minutes I’ve been inside because his long hair is plastered down his back and his shirt clings to his chest. He pulls out a keychain, touches on of the fobs, and is dry an instant later. His clothes go from nearly obscense to merely form fitting in a well-cut way that proves he had them tailormade. He always did know how to dress. I guess that goes with being raised a noble.

Rhisman stares at Nora, who hasn’t noticed his arrival in the slightest. If I act quickly, maybe I can get him to go away before she even knows he’s here.

The instant I move, Rhisman’s eyes jump to me. His lips part but he says nothing as he begins to walk toward me. I can’t let myself drown in his azure eyes though. I leap to my feet and rush to him. My hand goes up in front of me. “Stop!” I whisper. I wave him around the corner and into the hall the bathrooms are on, both relieved and frightened when he follows me.

His eyes locked onto mine again as soon as I turn back to face him. “I think we need to talk,” he says in a soft voice.

“Why? So you can tell me again how you don’t want anything to do with me or my bastard half-breed?”

He jerks back like I slapped him. “What…” His gaze moves around my face as I glare at him, shaking with nearly seven years of anger.

“That’s what you said when I told you I was having your child,” I remind him. “I can see how you might have forgotten. You break so many human hearts, why would mine stand out?”

“Stella…” His head shakes from side to side and his lip trembles. “I… That’s not what happened.”

“Oh?” My eyebrows go up in challenge. “So, what, I imagined the entire conversation? Hallucinated you turning your back and getting on one of those damned alventogs to go back home without the burden of a human lover?”

His mouth closes and tears spring up in his eyes. “I can see you believe what you’re saying,” he whispers, leaning in close. “But that is not what happened.”

I take a step back, my hand going to my hip. “Then tell me what did happen.”

He draws a breath. “I asked you to marry me. You said yes.”

“Right.” I nod. “So you went off to the elven realm to get the paperwork started. But then three days later, you waltzed in saying you’d changed your mind. So I told you I was pregnant and you turned downright nasty.”

“No.” Using quick and furious movements, he shakes his head vehemently enough to move his hair and reveal the delicate tips of his ears. “I didn’t. Stella, I never, never would have done that. I would have been thrilled to know we were having a child. When you said you’d marry me and move to the elven realm, it was the happiest moment in my life.” His gaze bores into me, his expression demonstrating the truth in his words. “I went back to my country. I filled all the paperwork for bring a human into our realm. And then I came back to get you. Only to find out that you’d skipped town without leaving any forwarding information or so much as a note. No one would even tell me why. I had no idea there was a child.”

Could any of this possibly be true? I bite my lip as I stare into his eyes and try to find a hint of deceit. I don’t see any. As I watch, he reaches up and wipes tears from his cheek. It’s heartbreaking. And yet… “I was there, Rhisman. That conversation was as real as this one.”

With a sniff, he shakes his head in denial. “Three days? I was only gone three days?”

I nod.

“My crossing took longer than that,” he says in a level tone. “I was gone a full month. Like I told you I probably would be.”

He had said that… I’d been surprised when he came back so soon. “You never went to the elven realm. You said you got to the portal and then turned around to tell me we were breaking up.”

He lets out a soft breath. “Stella… My Star… Why would I do that? Why not simply not come back?”

The tears I’ve been holding back leak out. “I don’t know. I assumed you wanted a solid end.”

Slow enough I could move if I wanted, he reaches out and takes my hands into his. My skin responds to this coolness of his with a pleasant thrum of rightness. “I don’t know who said those things to you, my heart, but it wasn’t me.” His hands clasp tight. “I loved you. I….” He draws a breath before finishing, “I still love you. And I just now lay eyes on her, but I love our daughter.”

I blink through my tears, trying to determine if I can let myself believe him or not. He sounds so sincere… His eyes seem so honest… The man is crying… And, yet, I know it was him back then. Wasn’t it? An elf with skills in illusion could have made themselves look like him. And one with skills in thought manipulation could have planted a false memory. But why would anyone have done that?

Rhisman leans forward, resting his forehead against mine. His breath is warm against my face and smells of the chocolate mint candies he’s always been addicted to. “My cousin could make you think you’d seen and heard things you had not.” He sounds sick to his stomach, but that gets buried under anger for the next line. “I told him where I was going.”

“But why?” I whisper, starting to believe. “Why would he do that?”

“He’s my heir,” Rhisman responds tightly. “If I don’t have children, then they don’t come between him and the earldom. I thought he cared enough about me for that not to be important, but it seems perhaps I was wrong.”

The feelings inside me defy description. Part of me is ashamed I may have fallen prey to an enchantment. Part of me worries I’m falling for an enchantment now. And part of me is so blissfully happy to be near Rhiseman again that it doesn’t care about either what happened before or whether he’s lying to me now.

“How can I prove myself?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I whisper back through my emotions. I think about it and my mind catches on one thing bothering me. “Why are you here? If you thought I vanished and didn’t know about Nora, then why come here?”

“I spent a year trying to find you,” he says. “Then I spent five years trying to forget you, something I failed at most spectacularly. And then I started looking for you again. Only this time I had the sense to hire a professional to help me.”

I pull back. “And then you coincidentally showed up on our daughter’s birthday?”

He winces. “I can tell you don’t believe that. But, yes. I can’t control how long a crossing takes. I left the elven realm two weeks ago, but just appeared in your world now.”

Swallowing, I try to judge the answer. It’s true that crossings take however long they take and no one can time them. And he seems to have just gotten off an alvantog, implying he did just arrive in this world. The trains come into our realm, go to one place, then go back home. They don’t chug along a series of stops, so he couldn’t have gotten on at an earlier station in the human world.

He looks me straight in the eye as he says, “This is the nearest business that was open, so I came here thinking I’d ask if anyone knows you. I didn’t expect you to be here. And I certainly didn’t expect it to be our daughter’s birthday because the investigator never told me when that was, just that he’d found you and you had a half-elf daughter just the right age to be mine. He said that much and I left for the portal to the human world. He had to send a messenger after me to tell me what town you were in.”

Matching smiles form as we look at each other and I realize I believe him. Maybe it’s only because I want to, because for the first time in nearly seven years, I feel complete, and I don’t want anything to shatter that.

He speaks, his voice heavy with a variety of emotions. “I’m so sorry I left you alone for so long.”

“I’m sorry I was so hard to find,” I tell him. “And I’m sorry I didn’t have more faith in you. That I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have said those things.”

His eyes sparkle. We’re both crying, but our tears are gentle ones of relief. “Just never leave my sight again. Not without telling me where you’re going.”

“Deal.”

We draw together into a kiss. It’s like coming into your house after a long day at work and finding everything exactly as it should be. It’s like looking at a textbook for a class you don’t understand and realizing it suddenly makes perfect sense. It’s like waking up in the morning after the best sleep of your life and knowing that you have a perfect day ahead. It’s familiar and new and calming and thrilling and completely amazing.

“Mom!” a horrified voice calls from behind me. “What are you doing? Who is that?”

I turn with a smile, my hand clutched in Rhiseman’s like neither of us is ever going to let go again, and tell my daughter, “I have a birthday present for you.”

The above image is Night Train by Erinn Komschlies. You can find her work for sale at https://www.etsy.com/shop/artworkbyerinn.

The image was offered as a prompt on my writing prompt project Wording Wednesday, more information about which may be found at https://wordingwednesday.blogspot.com/

In Sunlight or In Dark

Content warning for references to rape… And for references to people killing rapists. References are not graphic, but could still disturb some readers.

Sometimes when I pass by my sister’s room, I can still see Samaytha sitting by the window at her little table, a cup of half-drank tea and some untouched breakfast foods laid out. She’s angled toward the sea as the sun rises above it, but her eyes are lidded as though what she’s looking at isn’t what’s actually there. That was how she spent every morning or her last week of life.

I know now what she was doing, but I didn’t those last few days of her life. In retrospect it was obvious why she stopped eating, why she grew increasingly pale, and why she sat in the morning light but stopped leaving the house during the day. And I should have known, although it was already too late to change anything, so what’s the point in beating myself up for not catching on to the obvious signs?

Even if I had known and followed the dots back to the Lystenian household, I would have pegged the tall, muscular yet graceful, and witty-to-a-fault Lamar as the one to turn her to the dark, then been jealous that he chose her instead of me. Because while I obviously wouldn’t agree to wed a vampire, being asked by one as attractive as Lamar would have been nice. Of course, I would have been wrong about him targeting my sister. Or her targeting him. No, it was the beautiful, intelligent, and poetic Estra who won Samaytha’s devotion. Which just goes to show that there was more than one thing about my sister that I should have realized but didn’t. The two most eligible women on our island marrying each other rather than “suitable” husbands would amuse me in any context that didn’t involve vampirism.

For centuries, my family has slain vampires. To marry one is, quite simply, not something one of us should ever have considered. And converting to become a vampire oneself? It’s unthinkable. My parents won’t even say Samaytha’s name any more.

But I can’t pretend I never knew my sister. I know her too well to believe her evil, or to think that she could possibly love someone who is anything other than good. And the Lystenian’s have been nothing but kind and gracious to me. Their servants have nothing worse to say than that sometimes they throw big gatherings without hiring enough extra help. And the new wing of Smitton Hospital is being financed almost entirely by the wealthy siblings. So I stand in the doorway to the what is now a guest room studying the ghost of my only sister and wonder if perhaps it’s my family that’s evil.

“Rhetta!” Mother yells from downstairs, startling me from my thoughts. Yartha told me when she delivered my breakfast that my parents wanted to see me, so I shouldn’t be surprised that my mother was listening for my footsteps.

Wistful, I run a hand down the side of the door frame to my sister’s room, a room she’ll never be in again, and walk down to find my parents in the planning room.

“About time,” Father says. “We have to get going soon.”

“Going where?” I ask.

“The Lystenian House,” Mother answers. “They’ve been turning people and now one of their fledglings have killed a man.”

The news hits me like a sheet of sleet. “Who?”

“Bartle Karthy,” my father answers, either misunderstanding my question or honestly thinking I was wanting to know who the victim was. Although as the dead man is Bartle Karthy, I question who the victim was.

The word “Good” tumbles from my mouth before I can stop it.

Both of my elders stare at me. My father’s voice is frozen as he asks, “How, exactly, is the death of one of the most respectable men in town good?”

He knows. I know he knows, because I told him. But he either didn’t believe me or thought Bartle’s money made up for the fact that he tried to force himself on me. And for the fact that every girl in town knows to avoid being alone with him because most girls don’t have my skill set. I hate myself more than a little bit for the fact that I merely broke his arm rather than killing him myself. What he did to Layla Otheridge feels partially my fault because it happened after I spared his life. And when Layla told the police, they informed her she’d slept with far too many men for them to believe anyone would have to rape her, so he’s going to do it again. Or he would have if my sister, the vampire, hadn’t punished him. I wonder if he grabbed her in an alleyway before she killed him in self-defense, or if she hunted him down and attacked first.

My mother decides to intervene. “I know you had a misunderstanding with him, Rhetta. But he didn’t deserve to be treated like food.”

I don’t see why not. He clearly believed that women don’t deserve to be treated like people, so why shouldn’t I return the favor?

There’s no point in arguing this again though. We went through all of this six months ago, so many times I can recite every argument my parents will make about how I misinterpreted the situation. As if it’s possible to misinterpret someone ripping off your clothing while holding a knife to your throat. I should have killed him. Looks like my big sister did it for me. As far as I’m concerned, the town should throw her a parade. But that’s not how things work. They’ve issued a Writ of Slaying instead, a legal document blessing my parents to murder their eldest offspring as an abomination to God and a threat to civil society.

“I need to change,” I say. WIthout further comment, I rush up to my room to remove my skirts and replace them with the leather tights and fitted tunic that serve as my slaying uniform.

I don’t go back to my parents though. Rather, I check that no one is in the garden, then leap from my window and drop to the ground two stories down. I glance over my shoulder at the window I landed in front of. As it should be this time of day, the dining room is empty, so no one has seen me. It’s possible someone will see me sprint across the expanse, but I’m not too worried about it. My parents are probably either still in the planning room, which is on the front side of the building, or in the armory in the basement. And if they haven’t told the servants to watch for me, it’s unlikely anyone will report my dash to them. And even if someone does tell, I still have a head start.

Fast as I can, I run across the back green, jump the hedge, and run down to cross the stream at the back of our property. A few moments later, I’m in a neighbor’s pasture borrowing a horse to ride bareback to the Lystenian’s place.

I arrive quickly, thank the horse before sending it meandering back toward its home, and rush up to the front door. “Carlsben!” I yell, naming their butler. I know him from the ball I attended here when the Lystenian’s were new and we hadn’t yet realized they were undead. He caught me hiding in a closet and took me to the kitchen for snacks like I was a little kid. Everyone there was so nice, even overworked as they were that night. And not a one of them seemed mezmorized, either then or on my later calls. If we hadn’t gotten word from the city the Lystenians had left about their nature, it might have been a long time before we realized what they were even though they somehow never made it outdoors on sunny days and only invite people over in the evenings.

After several seconds of banging, a serving girl I don’t know opens the door. She runs wide eyes over me. “Are you the new mistress’s sister?”

I nod. “She’s in danger.”

A laugh comes from a doorway, through which strolls none other than Lamar Lystenian, tall, dark skinned, and oozing appeal. My heart does a stupid little flip, but I seriously don’t have the time to analyze my ongoing, perhaps even increasing, crush on the guy. Who is now my sister’s brother-in-law, anyway, and thus family even if he wasn’t a vampire. And one doesn’t have fantasies about family, even more so than one doesn’t have them about vampires.

“Close the door, please, Elise,” he says. The servant does this, removing the natural light from the room and leaving me staring at Lamar by torchlight. Damned if fire doesn’t make him look even better. He pins me in place with an intense gaze that absolutely does not make my body scream for physical attention from him. Because this is so not the time for my body to be doing that, a fact which I’m certain it knows well. “Samaytha hoped you’d come without them,” Lamar says. “She hopes you won’t take up arms against her.”

“For killing a serial rapist?”

Lamar nods slowly. “She said you would see it that way. And that your parents would not.”

“They don’t.” I take a step closer to him. His breath seems to catch and I wonder if it’s because he thinks I’m going to produce a weapon to stab him with or if he feels the same attraction I do. “They’re coming. I don’t know when. They’re probably on their way already. If not, they will be the second they realize I’m gone.”

“Well, they won’t find Samaytha,” he says with annoying calm. “She left hours before I dumped that scum’s body somewhere people would find it.”

My eyes widen. “You dumped the body where people would find it? Why? And did you kill him?”

He studies me for a moment, his deep brown eyes unreadable. “He tried to hurt someone I care about.”

“Estra?”

His head moves ever so slightly from side to side. “No. Someone who broke his arm but should have done more. And could have. Because potenitally lethal is actually a quality I look for in a woman.”

All of the breath rushes from my lungs. “Me? Did Samyatha tell you that?”

Against, his movement is tiny, but this one is definitely a nod. His eyes haven’t budged from mine. “I don’t know the woman in question nearly as well as I want to, but there’s a decent chance I’m on the cusp of falling in love with her.”

“You’re my brother,” I whisper.

“Not really.” His lips tick up. “And is that really your objection to me laying my heart at your feet? That our sisters love one another?”

“Well…” We move closer to one another, although I’m not certain which one of us took a step. Maybe we both did. “There is a question of the heart not beating.”

His eyebrows quirk before he slowly reaches out to grab my hand. He guides it to his chest, where he presses my palm against muscles I have a deep desire to touch. A thump moves against my skin and my eyes leap down to stare at the connection. Another thump. And then a third… His heart is beating. If it weren’t for the fact that my slayer’s blood come with a resistance to mesmerization, I’d assume he was controlling my mind. But he can’t be, so this has to be real.

His voice is soft and quiet as he tells me, “There are many things you do not know about us.”

I want to look at his face, but terror keeps my eyes on my fingers and the warm silk beneath them. “I want to learn.”

His chest moves with an exhale that sounds relieved. “Good,” he says, amusing playing on the word. “First lesson… Our hearts stop when we turn, yes. But they start up again. Within a few years, they beat as regularly as anyone’s.”

“Wow.”

“Sir?” Calrsban’s interruption reminds me all of a sudden that we aren’t alone. That we haven’t been alone this entire time. I feel my cheeks heat up and hope the lighting is dim enough no one notices the redness I’m sure is coating my face. “They’re approaching the house.”

Lamar lets a breath puff out his nose. “And I can’t kill them. That would be a really terrible terrible courting gift for their daughter here.”

He moves toward the door, grabbing my hand to guide me along with him. I look down to our entwined fingers. In better lighting, his skin is an earthy brown, but in the current conditions, it’s dark as coal. My paleness contrasts in a way that somehow seems perfectly balanced.

“What are we doing?” I ask quietly.

“Lying our asses off and insisting my sister and I are not vampires,” he whispers back. “So, the first thing you learned today is that vampires have heartbeats. The next thing you’re going to learn is that unless we turned in the last five years or so, we’re perfectly able to walk in the sun.”

I stare up at him. “Seriously? We’ve been hunting your kind for centuries. We’d know if you were lying about that.”

The corners of his mouth slide up. “Would you?”

“Um… Yes?” Suddenly, I’m not so certain. We were wrong about their hearts not beating.

“We don’t like sunlight,” Lamar says. “It’s very uncomfortable and when I come back inside, I’m going to want to bathe in oatmeal and apply a lot of lotion. But when you see me this evening, you’ll realize I did in fact survive the brightness of the day star.”

The wording startles a chuckle out of me. “You’ll survive the day star, huh? Well, let’s see about that.”

He smiles down at me. “Let’s.”

His hand goes to the door, but then he pauses. “Unless you’d like to be kissed first?”

As his head turns so that he can look at me for my response, I summon a boldness I’ve never possessed before. Going to my tiptoes, I wrap a hand around his neck and bring our lips together. And, oh my God, if that’s how vampires kiss, I can’t blame my sister for running away with one at all.

Lamar pulls back with visible reluctance. One hand still clutches mine while the other is on the doorknob. “More of that later?”

“Much more.”

He smiles again, then opens the door. I go first, drawing him out after me into a shaft of sunlight. My chest relaxes when he fails to fall to the ground in agony and we walk out into the front garden, me leading him in the light. And later, I am honestly beginning to believe, he will be my guide in the dark.

Image is "Sunny Breakfast" by Vladimir Volegov. It and other works by the artist may be found at  https://www.volegov.com.

It was offered as a prompt on my writing prompt project Wording Wednesday, more information about which may be found at https://wordingwednesday.blogspot.com/

My Love Returned

I was amongst the first to see the ship sail over the horizon. Atop the hill behind town, I put down my pen and stared, not quite daring to believe my hopes. From the sail, there was no mistaking that the ship was one of ours, but just because one of the queen’s vessels was approaching didn’t mean my beloved was. A more excitable man would have leapt up and ran to the pier to demand of the lookout whether this was The Golden Voyager, but I was always cautious and also well aware of how long it would take for men from the ship to reach shore. They had to sail into the harbor, which would involve waiting for the chains to lower. Then they would have to wait their turn to board one of the barges, because the ship was too large to dock at the pier itself. My beloved was not of high enough rank to get an early boat, so there were hours yet before he could possibly make it to me. Whether it was his ship or not wouldn’t matter until near dark.

There was no finishing my poem. The elk I was trying to capture with words didn’t care about the ship, but I was too distracted to work. I flipped the page of my notebook and scrawled something new.

Anticipation:

Part hope, part fear.

My longing is physical,

As is my uncertainty.

He’s been gone so long.

Is he still him?

Am I still me?

Is there still an us together?

The words weren’t particularly good, an incredibly rough draft indeed, but they were accurate. “Yishharu,” I breathed, making a prayer of my beloved’s name. I begged the Fates to let this ship be his if he still wanted me, but not his if he did not. For if he’d decided our relationship was a fleeting relic of childhood, that it was time for him to find a woman and father children, then I didn’t want to know yet. Better to continue to live with the fantasy of his love for me than to face a cold reception and lack of desire.

And thus did I sit for hours, watching the approach. Was that Yishharu I saw on deck, rushing from place to place? Or could that be him standing by the helmsman? Or maybe it was he in the crowsnest, looking at the shore and wondering if the figure on the hill was his darling Kikeru?

The tide rolled in, bringing the ship closer. She made anchor as the first of the barges headed out to meet her. The pier grew crowded with lovers, with parents, with children, all waiting for their sailors. The ship had to be The Golden Voyager. So many wouldn’t be waiting if it were a different ship. Yet I held back, too timid to join them rather than holding back, embracing only my nausea. I told myself there was no point in rushing anyway, that Yishharu was so junior he would be one of the last off, if he was even allowed to leave at all. For all I knew, he had drawn the watch for that night and wouldn’t be ashore until at least the next afternoon. And thus did I try to deny the obvious truth that I didn’t rush forward because I was too frightened.

Hope is a strange thing though. Strong as fear is, hope can be stronger. Fear comes into the fighting ring with more power, but most of its intimidation lays in pure bluster. Hope burns slower, seems meeker. But hope has a stamina fear lacks and is left standing when fear faints from fatigue.

Fear fought to keep me on the hill, but hope took me gently by the hand and led me down to the water.

I found Yishharu quickly, drawn to him as though I were a fish he had hooked. He met my eyes across the fading crowd and my heart raced as I tried to decipher what I saw in his gaze. Not breaking his focus from me, he said something to the sailor he’d been talking to. That man smiled at me, then smiled even wider at the woman clinging to his arm. I knew her; she worked at the bakery and spoke often of her husband. She’d found out she was pregnant with their first child just after the ship left and had feared she would give birth before he returned. He’d made it just in time.

My body trembled as I kept moving forward. Worrying about other people’s lives could only distract me so far. Yishharu moved too, advancing no faster than I was.

We stopped several feet apart.

“Kikeru,” he said softly, his voice catching partway through. “I didn’t think you were coming. I… I thought maybe you’d…”

In a heartbeat, I flew forward, letting my lips against his stop the words. “I’m sorry,” I whispered between kisses. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to come.”

He pressed against me, his body hardened from months at sea but still fitting against mine perfectly. Somewhere someone muttered about the appropriateness of our display of affection, but I felt no embarrassment or concern. My Yishharu was back, and he was still mine. Miracle of miracles, he was still mine! And I was still his.

My beloved pulled back, taking my face in his hands and staring into my soul with the piercing blue eyes I had missed so much. “I will never stop wanting you.”

Heart dissolving into happiness, I smiled for him. “And I will never stop wanting you.”



Yishharu sailed with The Golden Voyager several more times, until we had saved enough money to buy some land and a few goats. We live in the hills now, with a large window overlooking the bay. Sometimes as we sit hand-in-hand at our window and watch a ship come in, I think about his first homecoming, about how strong my fear was. It seems like a ludicrous worry now, when after decades he still looks at me as though I hung the sun. He is my heart, and I am his. I should have known it would take more than mere absence to come between us.

Above image is taken from a fresco on a wall in the ruins of Akrotiri on the island of Thera (aka Santorini).

It was provided as a prompt on my Wording Wednesday group on MeWe.

This tale of a sailor's homecoming hit me a little close to home. I dedicate it to everyone who has ever waited for their beloved to return from sea.

Leisle

Leisle and I were Chosen for the Assembly in the same season, the winter we turned a dozen years, and were from the same rural mountain range. I was a Mage of some talent, but she was my Tender, the one who fed me power from flames and allowed me to cast magics I could never achieve alone. I knew from the beginning that I was lucky to have her, for only one in twenty Mages are allowed to bond with a Tender. But it was not long before I realized how blessed I was to have this Tender in particular, how favored by fate I was to know her at all.

I can still see her the day of our first casting. Eyes closed and hair blowing from the magic she pulled off the candle in her hand, she looked like an angel to me. The slight smile she wore only when Tending haunts me to this day, filling me with a bittersweet longing for a girl who was never truly mine.

Leisle cared for me. Tenders usually do care for their Mage, and she cared maybe a little more than is the norm. More than once, she called me sister. It cut me to the core every single time, knowing that she loved me but not in the way I loved her. That she saved for a boy named Addeus.

Addeus was pretty and clever, his words were like music, and his soul was filled with dreams. His empathy and his kindness were of the rare variety more likely found in a children’s tale than in real life. If Leisle were determined to be with a man and not with me, then I would wish for her a man like Addeus. But his parents… They did not agree.

Addeus was of a class where money and standing are more important than things like beauty and affability and closeness to the virtues of Goddess. It didn’t matter to his family that Leisle was gorgeous, graceful, and filled with love both for their son and for humanity. And rather than valuing her rare talent, they saw it as a flaw, for it meant a life spent working in public service, something they considered beneath them. How someone as wonderful as Addeus was born into such a family I could never fathom.

It was decreed by Addeus’s parents than he would marry the daughter of a family friend. The woman in question was attractive enough in body. She paled compared to Leisle, yes, but so did every other woman I’ve ever met. It was her spirit that was ugly, though. She was petty, vain, and easily affronted by the slightest of things. She cared for no one, not even the lapdogs she surrounded herself with, as evidenced by the fact that she once had one killed for barking when she had a headache.

Addeus defied his parents and married Leisle at a public justice the very day after his engagement to the horrible woman was announced. His family promptly disowned him, which he had expected. Between Leisle's income as a Tender and the job he had been offered at a tavern we frequented, the pair would be fine without family money.

I wish the next line was that they lived happily ever after, raising a small family that included a daughter with tending talent who they named after me and a son who went on to become one of the greatest songwriters in our nation’s history. They didn’t though.

The slighted bride’s family took great offence. Disowning Addeus wasn’t sufficient, they held. They wanted him to truly pay, to truly regret the harm they imagined he’d done to their daughter. So they took from him the thing he valued most, the thing that happened to be what I valued most as well. They took our Leisle.

Her body was found in a park partway between the Assembly building where we spent her days with me and and the small apartment where she spent her nights with Addeus. She died quickly, the police said, brought down by a swift poison injected through a tiny dart. It didn’t hurt, they said. So we had that to comfort us as we tried to recover from our world ending.

Killing a Tender is considered treason, a crime even the wealthiest of families can’t get away with. And they didn’t. The jilted bride survived, but her father was put to the ax and his wealth confiscated by the crown. I don’t know what happened to her. On charitable days, I hope she learned the error of her attitude toward life and found happiness as a priestess or somesuch. Most days, I just hope she suffered.

Addeus never remarried, nor made up with his father. When the old man died, the older brother who inherited everything reached out to Addeus and welcomed him back into the family. With the portion of his father’s wealth his brother shared, Addeus founded a shelter for children orphaned by the Annexation Wars. He painted a picture of Leisle on the wall and tells the orphans she’s a saint of kindness who watches over them from heaven. On my weekly visits, I never tell them otherwise.

I was lucky enough to be matched with a second Tender after a magical plague ravished the ranks of Mages. Her name is Vella and we’re as close as sisters. I also have a wife, a woman so wonderful she lights candles for Leisle on the Night of the Dead without any hint of jealousy for my first love. I like to think I’ve lived a life that would make Leisle proud and I can only hope that there is a life after this one so that we shall meet again.

Image is Candle by Felysia Chew (aka Miyuki) who posts to DeviantArt as Ufo-galz. It was posted as a prompt on my Wording Wednesday group on MeWe.

The Light

The first thing I think of when I see the bright light is the song “Mr. Spaceman” by the Byrds. “Hey, Mr. Spaceman, won’t you please take me along? I won’t do anything wrong. Please, Mr. Spaceman, won’t you please take me along for a ride?”

The second thing I think is, “Run!”

These thoughts hit each other head on to cause me to stand staring at the approaching luminescence.

Approaching luminescence… Whatever it is is getting closer, coming toward me through the dark forest. It shouldn’t be able to make a straight line, not with all the trees in the way. I dart to the side, but the light turns to stay directly in front of me. That’s probably not good.

“Don’t run,” says a voice that sounds like it’s being projected from a million surround-sound speakers. “Stay. Please.”

The voice is both terrifying and serenely comforting.

I force myself to speak. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I love you,” the voice replies. For some reason, the answer doesn’t frighten me.

“Who are you?” I ask again. The light has continued to grow closer and is now filling the entire clearing with blinding radiance.

“I am Iyrin, a watcher.”

A watcher? A watcher who glows with the force of a star. “An angel?”

“Some call me that.”

“Can I see you?”

The light dims until all I see is darkness. As my eyes adjust to this, a shape begins to form before me. It’s tall and human-shaped, save for the wings. I can’t tell what gender the being is, but it is the most breathtakingly beautiful individual I have ever beheld.

The being - the angel - draws near. Near enough that despite the dark, I can suddenly see his- her?- eyes. They’re a pale yellow, like buttercups, and are filled with adoration.

She - he? - reaches out and embraces me. And the world becomes nothing but light.

Warding My Heart

My ward remains firm, but my resolve flags the longer she stays at the portal. Her hands press against her side, trying to break through even though it’s obvious she’s locked out.

I’m not even really sure what the fight was about anymore. I can’t remember what started it, although I do remember how it ended. That was with her storming up to the portal, dialing up her favorite bar, and transporting out without any form of goodbye.

Now she wants to come home. But does she want to return to apologize or to yell at me some more? Probably the former, based on past experience. So maybe I should let her in...

We’ve been through this more times than I can count. She snaps, calls me names, and breaks something. Then she goes drinking. By the time she’s a few shots in, she starts feeling sentimental, and stumbles back with words of adoration. I’ve always just let her do it. This is the first time it occurred to me to lock her out.

After what seems like eternity, her hands fall away, and she pushes her face close to the surface of the portal. “Please?” she mouths. “I’m sorry.”

I move close to my side, making sure she can see my lips as I say, “Me, too.”

“I love you,” she says.

Tears sting my eyes as I respond. “I love you, too.”

And I pull the curtain over the portal.

***

Photo prompt provided by Bliss Morgan as part of her Nightmare Fuel Project. 

She says, "I do not have creator info for this image; if you know, please let me know so I can credit properly. I found it on this site: http://learn.corel.com/blog/fun-spooky-halloween-photography-ideas/ "

Woven Together

"I fear I have lost myself again," my true love said. Her body drooped and she waved her front two arms in the air, a humanesque gesture that betrayed she wasn't as far gone as she claimed.

"Not yet," she said, reading my mind. "But soon. I'm sorry. I love you."

"I love you too, silly girl." I wrapped my arms around her petite frame and held her tight against my breasts. Once upon a time, she'd had breasts too. I missed them, but as long as I had the parts of her that counted, I'd be fine.

She buried her head against me, saving me from having to look at the worry haunting them all. They were the same deep brown as ever, there were just more of them than there used to be. Likewise, her hair was the same black with shoots of early grey, but instead of hanging down her back it clung close to her skin.

We came to the land of the Fae searching for acceptance. We'd found that, even if we got more servitude and disregard than we'd expected. Yes, we were slaves. But we were also together. Which is worth more: one's freedom or one's wife? I don't know, but I never regretted choosing the latter.

Though we lived in a world of illusion and constant change, there were three things I knew were permanently True. 1.) Justina and I belonged together, no matter what my horrified family and their horrible minister had insisted. 2.) The Great Weaver knew this and wouldn't let us be pulled apart. But also 3.) If I wanted Tina to stay Tina and not lose herself in her new form, then I had to get her out of Fairy.

If the faieries caught us trying to escape, there would be consequences. But the contact that got us here was explicit: no matter what, we will not be separated. A foolish bargain maybe. The fairy who entered the agreement had undoubtedly assumed we'd hate each other within a year and the togetherness would be a punishment. Stupid fairy.

I ran my hand down my love's legs, one by one, all eight of them. Whatever her form, she was mine and I was hers. But without her mind, she might as well be dead and there was nothing I wouldn't do to keep that from happening.

Locked in our embrace, we leaned back into our web, Tina to sleep and me to plot our departure from the only home we knew.