Black Crescent Bay

barren heart

"Why would I? We're not together. I don't want to know anything from him."

She nodded and gestured to the armchair again, "Please sit, Esmarie. We have to talk. As women."

"As long as it's not about boys." I huffed and dropped down into the chair, not even caring that the hem moved from my upper thigh to the edge of my panties. "I don't care to talk about 'him' right now or ever."

"Fair enough." She took another sip and placed my empty cup on my coffee table. She didn't even grab a coaster as a common courtesy. I knew there was a reason I hated her.

She leant back and sat there, silently, just staring at me all creepily for a long while. I tapped my feet to an impatient beat. I knew Waverly would be there any second to pick me up and we were expecting to party all night, her and Heath dancing, me getting drunk beyond comprehension.

"Is there something you wanted? I have plans that eagerly await me."

She nodded, "Actually, yes. Féilim told me that you know about me. But... I'm surprised to find that you know nothing about us, our people. You don't even know how I got in here?"

"You stalked me?" I guessed. It was a pretty good answer, I thought. How else would she have known?

"Well, no? I just had to lure administration into giving me your address. But I mean you don't know how I got in here just now. You don't know anything about dissolving into nothing more than water particles and traveling, invisibly, through the air?"

I stared at her with a bored expression, "Why would I know that? And, more importantly, why would I care?"

She didn't answer.

"Féilim told me you two were mates. Don't you want to know--"

"Not at all. I hate him. I hope I never see him again."

She tilted her head sideways at me, as if she couldn't understand a single thing about me, about why I was the way I was, about why I felt the way I felt. How could she? Féilim invited her out of a class, meanwhile, he tried to kill me. Twice. Of course, she wouldn't understand why I felt the way I felt. And I wasn't really in the mood to be lectured by someone who didn't know what they were talking about.

"You know, I came here because I wanted to make sure you weren't going to say anything about me. I know it all makes sense now though, my body changing so much and the costumes having to be adjusted every single day, me always being late because it's raining or some idiot sprayed me with their water hose because they wanted to see my white shirt stick to my skin underneath." She shook her head as if it all meant nothing actually, like it was something she was pushing to the back of her mind.

"I always loved theater. The human art. Our ancestors came here, not to Hollowfaye, but to your world in general, and gave it to you. And you've all made it into something else. Invented different diminutives of it. It's interesting to see. You know, I went to my first opera a few weeks ago. That's more like the art back home. And then some human in our class invited me to a drive-in. They were playing some musical that was all singing... That's exactly what it's like back home. Exactly."

She shook her head with a smile. I didn't know what the point was. I didn't know why she felt the need to share any of this.

She sat forward and interlocked her fingers, "My mate was human. I met her back in Iyael, of course, but she was originally from here. From your world. And when she died in the war, a mishap that she shouldn't have been involved in, I knew I wanted to see where she came from. I had to see just what beautiful place made the most loving, most brilliant person I've ever met..."

"And my soul called me here. I see her everywhere I go. I see the places I know she must've loved. I sit down in seats at restaurants I know she must've sat at, I eat the foods I know she must've enjoyed. I think about how she would've explained them in detail to me, and would've overanalyzed the entire flavor profile instead of actually enjoying it."

She wiped a tear from her cheeks. Her eyes were distant, cold and yearning for the past. But within seconds she was back. The past was too painful. She was trying to survive the future now.

"I'm trying to find things that make me happy. I haven't felt any emotion since she left. My heart's been cold and barren and empty." She shifted her body closer to me, "And I know Féilim didn't explain that either. What it's like to lose the people who our lives were meant to be shared with forever."

She shook her head, "You don't feel the pain yet. You're human. You don't know the legend of Ayaelithe. The Siren Goddess of Love. Not that you care and not that you asked," She huffs but continues on anyways, "The story goes that Sirens were cold and barren and empty in the beginning. We lived for the survival of the species only. And then she changed us. Gave us hearts bigger than anyone else in Iyael or the North Sea. We love, deeply, Esmarie. And when we hurt, a piece of us dies away. And when we lose our soulmate, we might as well be dead. There's nothing left for us."

She stared at me for a moment. I could tell she wanted me to feel guilty, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. Not after how BRILLIANTLY my relationship or lack thereof with Féilim had gone so far.

"You don't feel the pain yet. But you will. And your heart will beg for the pain to go away. You'll kick yourself for saying everything you've said. For not being forgiving or understanding." I went to object, but she shook her head, "He will too. You'll both wish that you'd done anything differently that would've made the other stay. And it will either be too late, or you'll be too far away from each other for it to make a difference. And you'll find each other again. When you're old and withered, and it'll make all the pain go away. But you won't stop wishing that you could go back and have truly forever together."

"Look." I licked my quickly drying lips, "I won't tell anyone your secret. But don't try to scare me about losing people I've loved. I've already felt it. I don't even know Féilim. I'm not going to be with someone who hates me just because the stars tell me to."

"He doesn't hate you." She didn't get to elaborate because there was a knocking on the door. I jumped up.

"You have to be gone. She can't see you like that." Waverly and Heath both sang some songs from the other side of the door. Showtunes, probably, to make up for all the time they couldn't sing them at the party.

I stumbled to the door and straightened up my dress. When I looked back to stress the situation to Shelly, she was gone. Even my coffee cup had disappeared. The wretched beast had stolen it.

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A/N:

what yall tinkin huh? yall tinkin yall a bee? you really tink you're a bee?

xoxo,

handmaidenofvenus

venus_in_fleurs