The TwiceBorn

No One's Fallen Angel

"If a thing loves, it is infinite."--Blake

Her mouth tasted of salt and ashes.

Alora stood by the feasting table and raised a goblet of shadowjack to her lips.  She’d already downed two and would probably have another after she finished the one she held but nothing would take the taste out of her mouth.

If she could step away from being inside her own skin, she would.  She wanted to run away from herself.  To be that person once again who rode by on her black horse and saw what others had done to some woman or child and still be able to give a nonchalant shrug and go on about her day.  She wanted to be able to stand outside of herself, look, and say, “If it had been me…it wouldn’t have happened.”

All of her pithy comments and arrogant observations had all come home to roost. She raised the goblet and took a long pull.

“Take instruction from this, Alora.”  He said jovially as he pushed her away then laughed when she abruptly vomited onto the dirt.

Take instruction indeed.  And what had she learned?

Alora drained the goblet and promptly poured herself more to drink. 

What had she learned? 

She’d learned that her gods and Islinn’s were quite similar and that all of them together were nothing but a mass of screams.  Voices calling out, “Worship me.” Overwhelmed with blind power and attempts to dominate what they could not understand because they simply feared those who defied their darkness.

What had she learned? 

She had learned that Abigor loved her.  And that love had teeth that could bite and wound.  And shame.  Was it in the same way she loved Islinn?  Maybe.  That terrible brilliance within the girl had called to her, called her name and called her close and she feared it and desired it one and the same.

And, like Abigor, she had wanted to take what could not be given.  She was no different.  But she had always been the taker.  The only thing ever taken from her had been her mother who had once told her something she thought had made no sense whatsoever.

“Sometimes you’ll be afraid, Alora.  Everyone is.  But you can’t show it.”

And maybe she had appeared afraid and paid the price and maybe she’d learned far more then she ever wanted to know but the only thing she was truly aware of was the taste of him in her mouth.  Love?  If that word was even partially defined by pain settling deep around her heart and burrowing into her bones then yes.  It had been love.

“Alora?”

She heard her name from far away and for just a hair of a second she thought it was Abigor.  She took another drink of shadowjack and was blearily surprised to find her goblet empty.

Hadn’t she just poured this?   

No matter.  There was a lot more still left to pour.

“Alora?”

She looked around and didn’t see anyone yet she could swear she’d heard a voice calling her name.  The shadows of all the naked hags as they danced and copulated and the red cast of the fire swam and intermingled in her eyes.  Red and black.  Moving lazily in her vision.  The colors of his eyes at times.

“Alora!”

She jumped and almost fell as a sharp pain lanced across her ankle.  Looking down, she saw Blixen glaring up at her with his hands on his hips.