A Piece of History: Timely Intervention
It was all so swift, there was hardly time to think. The mage certainly felt later that he’d had no control over himself, and as for her, well…Diamanta Rothwell was not one to confide in others. No, when the nightmare was wrenched away, and the awful sound of snapping carapace and tearing muscle subsided, there was only the mage and the fae, facing each other over the slowly dissolving wreck that had been her assailant. Crystalline eyes met the dark gaze of the death mage, and for a single, timeless moment, the world fell away.
{She was weightless in his arms, a feather borne aloft on the air of his laughter. Every twist of her lithe body as they circled upon the warm grass communicated itself to him, felt through his arms about her waist. Her laughter sang in his ears, and when the silken feathers brushed across his face, Jonas Foster felt utterly at peace…}
~His strength was for her to lean upon, and when his hands firmly encircled her body and held her still, gave her time to breathe, to laugh, to recover from her own exuberance, she knew nothing but joy. His dark eyes made her tremble with every look, and the sound of his voice would call her across any distance. It was warmth, safety, passion in his arms and nowhere else…~
"What the hell was that thing?" His voice was harsh as Jonas broke the gaze, glaring down at the mess of stinking green. He didn’t dare look at her again, not even as he curtly reached down and caught her bruised wrist thoughtlessly in his hand, yanking her easily to her feet. The mage heard her gasp when their skin touched, but he pointedly ignored the tingle of her thoughts in his mind. "It wasn’t real."
"Yes, it was," she whispered. Her voice was a drop of crystal water in the murkiness his mind had fallen into, bringing him soundly to himself, even as her eyes befuddled his mind again and made him wish desperately to be elsewhere…to be only here…
"Real things don’t look like that," Jonas snapped, glaring at her, forcing his self-directed anger outward at her. She didn’t recoil at the snarl in his voice, nor did her gaze drop from his dark eyes. Jonas shook some of the thing’s ichor off of his hands, frowning at his reddening skin. "Damn stuff burns like acid," he grunted, wiping his palms on his jeans.
Cool, almost cold, milk-white fingers clasped his wrists, the bruises from the attack standing out lividly on her fair skin. The fae held him still as she leaned down, her silken, silvery-white hair stroking his forearms as she breathed across his palms, once, twice. A warmth, unnaturally pleasant, stole along his nerves, calming him even as it made the pain of the thing’s fluids fade away. Her soft palms stroked over his hands several times, and then she stumbled back a couple of steps, reaching out to the grimy brick to hold herself upright. Jonas looked from his unblemished palms to her, and then grunted.
"You need to get home," the mage growled, pointedly turning away. He couldn’t bear that look, the expression in her eyes of mingled pain and pity. It was an odd feeling Jonas had, one that he couldn’t quite name, but perhaps the closest he could come to pinning it was to say that her pity was repugnant to him. Especially if directed at him.
"Are you all right?" Her voice was soft, softer than the hair which brushed his arm as she reached out to him. "You’re not burnt or cut?"
"I’m fine," he snapped, turning to glare at her. The fire in his dark eyes died when he saw her, that lovely face so well known by now…he’d seen it relaxed in sleep, wrinkled in pain, smiling, frowning, crying, laughing…never furrowed with anger. Never twisted by bitterness. Never mocking, or cruel…it twisted something in his heart, the way she looked at him, and made him pull back another step. "I’m fine," Jonas said again, more gently, and looked her over carefully. She was scraped, bruised, bloody and trembling, and yet her chin was held high, and she met his eyes evenly. Something in him twisted once more, almost painfully, and with his innate understanding of death, the mage knew…some part of him had just passed on into the cycle, and some new, struggling thing was born in his mind.
"…I can’t go back now," he whispered, his dark eyes never once leaving her. Dia peered at him with sudden anxiety, her long, pale fingers reaching out to him.
"Are you all right?" It was as if that one question, no matter how often he’d answer in the affirmative, would dominate her perception of him, alter the interaction between them, and Jonas had a sudden sense that he would hear that question very, very often.
"…I’m fine," he said for the third time, (as everything happens in threes in fairy tales, as we all know.) The frown he could not keep from his face darkened, and he hastily put an arm around her. (…oh so fragile, gentle gentle now…too easy to break, so delicate…) His hands lessened their grip, and when he spoke, his voice was gentler than he had ever known it
could be. "Come on…I think I need to get you home."
The Gift of the Dreaming looked at the ichor and blood-smeared hands gripping her, and then up at the dark eyes staring down at hers…and smiled. It was a smile of ages, one that could very well have launched that legendary fleet, or perhaps brought the stars to heel, eager to twinkle in her hands. It was a smile burned into the death mage’s mind, and as he carefully lead her to the street, Jonas Foster knew instinctively that Fate had him firmly in its’ grip…the hands pale, long-fingered and delicate.