Stain the petals red

Staring up through my bangs at my captor, I huffed.

"This is impractical, dear. You could've simply asked to come see me. The bondage and secrecy were unnecessary."

With a smile and a shake of his head, Gabriel finished tying the knot binding my feet, reaching forward to check the strength of the rope holding my hands together in a most annoying fashion. "You would've fled the moment I contacted you, and you know it. And don't pretend if it weren't for the bindings and your being blind due to the hood on the trip here that you wouldn't have escaped this already."

Sitting back on his heels, he chuckled. "Besides. I like fucking with your head and you know it."

I glared up at him in annoyance. "Phones and computers exist for a reason. Meeting AT ALL is unnecessary these days. If you know I don't like you this much, why bother?"

A raised eyebrow from him, his amusement painting his face in exaggerated strokes. "But texting doesn't let me piss you off. Or verify if you're telling the truth or not. Easier to simply watch your face as you talk. Saves a lot of time."

"Alright, alright damn it. What do you want to know so damned badly it was worth risking my kicking your ass?"

Another laugh from him. "You know what. The same question you always dodge. Why I wear his face."

A pointed look past his shoulder as I fought to hold my temper. The urge to kill this fucker rose with every breath.

"It isn't my fault you don't remember, you asshole. And it isn't my job to teach you what it all means. Kinda defeats the purpose of you losing your memories to begin with."

A sudden pain shot through my face as his palm connected across my jaw, snapping my head to the side. "Wrong answer, bitch. I know you know more than you're letting in. You kept calling me by his name."

"Took you ages to stop bitching and moaning about it, right as I was figuring out whatever you knew could be what I needed to break this curse. You know what I need to remember. Isn't it your job as Keeper to share the secrets you find with those that need them?"

I laughed sardonically, openly twisting my hands to try to force leeway in my bonds. I'd be fucking damned if I didn't try to find a way out. Away from this nightmare of a situation.

Once, many repetitions ago, I fell in love with the man whose body this hijacker rode like a meatsuit. Lived a lifetime at his side, bore his children, fought at his side against the boogeymen that went bump in the night.

Thousands of moments in lockstep. A ring burning hot against my skin in times of distress. Whispered confessions at the witch's hour, forehead to forehead. Children playing in the sunlight, laughing and smiling. Symbols and blood exchanged from one set of skin to another.

A lifetime of memories, slain at the hand of a moment's choice. An exchange of vows and prices paid to protect that which mattered most to us. A debt that could never stop being paid. Hells envisioned in the darkest of night terrors could not compare to that which we wrought so recklessly.

With a Cheshire smile stained red, I grinned up at him amusedly. "It just kills you not to know where you come from doesn't it, asshole? You just can't stand that I know more than you. Move on. Let it go. It just doesn't matter."

He growled at me in frustration, snatching me up by my shirt to stand face to face with him. His grip holding me up high to do so, forcing me to tiptoe, to lean my weight against his grip to keep from falling forward.

"If it didn't matter so much, you wouldn't have kept trying to bring him back. You wouldn't have cried every time I visited for so long. So many times you said his name in your sleep. Don't think I don't know you used my body to mourn him. I'm not stupid. But still, you refuse to tell me who he was. I've had to scour everything I found in my things in the room I woke up in just to survive the world I woke up in."

"You were so eager to save me until you started cottoning on that I wasn't him. Something in my eyes, in the way I stood, I don't fucking know, but you figured it out. Despite my best efforts."

"I'm starting to get images of his life when I sleep, you fucking cunt. I can't escape them. Most of the shit I see doesn't make any fucking sense to me, and one of these days, you aren't going to have a choice about it. You're going to have to explain, or I'm going to remember enough to piece it all together. And something tells me I'm going to come straight for you with an axe to grind for it all."

Grinning again, I let the blood I had collected in my mouth from something tearing in my mouth to dribble down my face as I amusedly waggled my newly freed hands next to his face. Taking advantage of his moment of surprise, I grabbed hold of the back of his head and smashed my forehead violently into his nose to the symphony of cartiledge breaking and his screams of pain.

Twisting away from his grasp, I ran from him, pausing in the doorway to salute him briefly as I left.

Calling over my shoulder as I sprinted across the line marking the warded space I couldn't Travel from to the land I could easily create a tear in to safer territory, I taunted him one last time. "Good luck figuring it out, you bastard. I'm never saving you from this shitty existence, and not a fucking thing you do or say or remember will ever change that. Go rot in a fucking hole, Gabriel!"

He regained his senses with a scream of outrage and bolted after me just in time to watch me disappear through a tear in a burst of ash and smoke.

Stupid fucking twat forgot I carry blades in my pockets like a kid hoards candy. What did he expect, me to roll over and cave to his demands for information after dozens of his failures? Each meeting seemed to escalate in violence and desperation, but did nothing to change matters.

The secret I held from him will die with me before I would ever willingly give him what he needed to Ascend to a Higher level of monster. Never will it happen.

I won't be the cause of another war.

Stakes in the Ground

I wiped my brow wearily, looking down at the grave marker I was forced into erecting.

Resting my foot on the top of the Spade's blade, I contemplated the tilled earth thoughtfully.

Angrily. Calmly. Conflicted.

"Just had to go and die again, didn't ya fucker? Couldn't just wait for reinforcements patiently. Had to go charging in like some Leroy Jenkins fuckface, thinking yourself a Billy badass. You didn't need the help, eh?"

"Look where it got ya. Six feet deep in the middle of contested land. Couldn't even give me the convenience of dying in a place I'm allowed to be."

Still speaking aloud, I held my hand out in the universal stop gesture. Stopping my shadow from stepping forward and comforting me just yet. Corporealizing just out of my sight didn't keep me from sensing his intentions.

Few things alluded my notice these days.

"If I get shot doing this, I'm coming back and pissing on the earth I know your head rests under."

Slowly, I withdrew the leather cord my pendant hung from, from around my neck. Hung the cord a seemingly centuries old ring rested on upon the wooden cross.

To my companion, I spoke off to the side. "How far out is the patrol?"

Flipping jet-black hair out of his eyes for the hair to fall into nearly the same placement as before, he replied.

"A few miles out. Closing fast."

After a pause, he spoke again. "We should have left by now."

Turning slightly, I eyed my angelic companion. His feathers faintly dragging the ground, glamoured to appear sightless in accordance with his businesslike demeanor. He so hated to be seen properly. Preferring instead for sight to slide past him without remark. So in discordance to his true demeanor and appearance.

In the crowds we ran in, it was dangerous to be Seen.

I smirked slightly, hefting the tool to rest upon my shoulder like it was any regular day gardening, turning my body to face his to find him but a foot away. Ten feet eaten up in the blink of an eye. One of his trademark latent abilities.

"Do you really think I'm trying to avoid a scuffle right now?"

A shadow of an annoyed smile skirted across Cass's face, to be replaced by bemused boredom.

"No, but being found right now would be difficult to explain at the peace accords next week."

I laughed. "Dead men tell no tales, remember?"

Gesturing towards the earth at my feet, he shook his head. "This is going to be hard enough to disavow knowledge of. Six dead Defenders would be impossible."

He paused. "He wouldn't want you to destroy all the hard work you've put into this. All of it. Not because of some misplaced emotions you can handle once we leave."

"Don't throw it all away now because you blame them for his death. It won't bring him back."

Sighing exasperatedly, I grabbed my pack and started walking in the direction of a river we passed on the way from the Path. "You know this isn't the end. Blood is going to fall for this. He was one of Ours. I'm not going to forget why he passed. Not this time. I can't forgive it this time."

Keeping pace, he slipped back into his other form, the sound of his footfalls being swallowed by mine.

"You won't have to. But now is not the time."

Rolling my eyes, I continued ahead.

Now was not the time, indeed.

Further Down We Go

The most fucked up part about living in a world that folds in and out of others is watching the was, is, and should be cross.

Ghosts of the dead strolling in your front door, wondering what's for dinner.

Enemies, in their land, cuddle buddies with people I care about.

Friends throwing a blade within a hairsbreadth of my face for daring to visit.

Being expected to know where my footsteps fall.

What to do.

How to feel.

I'm a stranger in this land.

On the surface, it looks like my home.

My home's been gone for many a year.

And yet, I still smile. Keep going through the motions.

This was the best of all the world's I could have fallen into.

I can't help but hold onto old ties.

Old grudges.

Old loves.

How do you keep from going insane when the life you've lived is now a lie? A work of fiction or memory?

I lose track.

Grew afraid of writing the accords.

So afraid of being seen. Heard. Found.

Fuck it all.

I'm tired of watching people emotionally graverob everything we worked for.

Breaking down inside as the people I love ask what my name is. Disbelieving we ever had a life together.

It's the immortal's dilemma all over again, I just keep dying and coming back. Learning a new beat to move to, a new job to learn on the fly, memorizing lists of who to speak to and who to avoid.

Can't catch my breath in this new world.

Someone new to be every few months as I fall through the cracks.

I stopped trying to bring people with me across these jumps.

Some people just can't help but hold on

Others, can't figure out why they keep getting drawn to the stranger with a familiar smile.

Like magnets with polarized force, to and from.

Some blame me or accuse me of wothcraft for being who I am. Knowing what I do.

Oh, the record keeps ski-ii-iii-iii-pp-ppp-ppp-iiiiing.

Tired of keeping these memories in my head to prevent them from affecting the world.

These world's, these lands, pressing down on me through my memories.

Somewhere, somehow I have to write.

Fragments of the stories that'll never fully get told.

Here, they'll come to die.

In and out, weaving through time.

It's the only discourse I have left in this mad world we walk.

Further down the rabbit hole, we go.

Take a deep breath and jump with me now.

It's time.

Be wary, though, this route be long and dangerous.

Behold all you see with a grain of salt.

And keep your heads about you. Literally.

I hear there's royalty here that likes removing them.