Cupidity - chapter twenty four
Dec. 6th, 2007 05:15 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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Previous chapters here.
There was a dead fox at Angel's toes. He stood close to Robin, in the circle of short grass that marked Robin's father's grave. Ruby drops clung to the grass, pooling in small sticky well. The flowers were crushed. There was blood on the headstone. Next to him, Robin shivered and Angel didn't miss the way he leaned closer to Angel's side, as if for comfort.
"Did she do this?" Angel said.
"I don't know," Robin said. "But I'm feeling more and more that I owe her a taste of mortality."
Somewhere in the distance, something shrieked. Outside the circle, the grass was dying, Angel noticed. There were brown patches where before it had been bright unreal emerald. Shattered branches lay on the ground where they'd dropped from the trees. The sky was dark and heavy with grey clouds. Fear crept through Angel's stomach, small and cold and spiky.
"I don't like this," Robin said.
"Yeah. That's what I keep telling you," muttered Angel. "She's gonna be mad, huh? I mean about the bow. And, you know, the whole thing of not bringing her any new toyboys."
"I—I suppose she is. But at least I left her a replacement weapon."
"With which to hunt and kill people." Angel thought of the small silver gun on Eos's hand and shuddered. "More efficiently. You know that was such a not-cool thing to do."
"It's only fair. Otherwise it's, well, it's stealing."
"You've got a fucking freaky idea of what's fair."
"Do I? I expect so. It can't be helped."
Angel met his gaze. Robin's eyes were red-rimmed and his nose was pink and splotchy and Angel wanted to know who or what the tears had been for. Maybe they were for everything. He noticed that Robin's hands were tight around the bow and that he looked scared. Bare branches rattled up above their heads as if they were angry. Angel shut his mouth.
"It'd be nice not to have to come back, after this," Robin said, looking round. "For a while."
Angel touched his arm. "Yeah. Whatever you like. We could go somewhere with a beach. Again. And no witches."
"Maybe the mountains. Somewhere quiet. With no trees."
"Sounds good."
The forest trembled around them. Angel clutched the plastic loops of the shopping bag until his nails dug into his palm.
"Do you see that?" Robin said.
Angel looked. There was a glow in the distance, wavering like fire between the trees. The shadows looked deeper there as well.
"I guess that's where we're going?"
"I think so."
The closer they got, the darker the woods became. The wind picked up and whipped rotting leaves at them and flung dead vines across their path. The wind grew colder until it stung Angel's cheeks. Flecks of ice spat at them.
"This isn't good," Robin said under his breath. "Not at all."
Someone ahead of them let out a shriek that was followed by a bolt of lightning that split the sky right down to the ground. Both of them shivered.
They cleared the last of the trees and stepped into a vast, open meadow. Clouds roiled above them, dark blue on black and laced with fretwork lightning that now and then shot down to touch the trees around the meadow and set them alight.
"It's not the bow," Robin whispered. "I've never seen her like this."
A fire burned in the middle of the dying grass. The flames were white, like the lightning. Shadows ringed it, standing, crouching, or draped on the ground. Some looked more human, some less. Their eyes turned to face Robin and Angel as they left the shelter of the trees.
Eos stood in front of the fire, outlined and limned in red. She held Rose against her bosom. She stroked Rose's hair, pulling hair from her scalp with every stroke. There was blood on her fingers and at the corner of her mouth.
There was blood on Rose's hands as well. Her shirt was soaked in it, and so were the ends of her hair. Her smile stretched across her face like it had been carved there.
"She knows about Alberich," Robin said.
Eos looked up at them slowly. Her eyes were entirely black. She dropped Rose and stalked toward them. Robin pushed Angel behind him.
"Mother."
"Do you know what she's done?" Eos said.
Her voice sounded like wind or lashing rain more than human speech. The sibilants drew out and hissed and whistled around them like bird cries. Angel shuddered. Some of the shadow that swarmed the air took on the shape of wings.
"Yes, Mother."
"She's killed him. She's killed him, and I cannot find his body. It's not in my realm." She reached out and wrapped her hand around Robin's throat. "If you had anything to do with this, my darling, I will pull the flesh from your bones."
Robin bent his head and kissed her wrist. "There's nothing I could have done to him, Mother. You know that. But I can bring you his body."
She blinked, and her eyes cleared a little. "Yes. You must."
"What are you doing to Rose, Mother?"
"She is not properly repentant. But she will be. If it takes centuries, she will be." She stroked Robin's throat slowly, lingering over his pulse. "He loved me, you know."
"You don't even know what that means."
"No. But it meant something. Bring him back to me, little bird. We shall wait."
She turned away and strode back to Rose. The point of her nail hovered over Rose's eye, and even if Angel was pretty close to wanting Rose dead now, he didn't think he could stand to see her tortured.
"Eos!" He hadn't meant to say anything, or to step forward, but there he was with his mouth open. Standing in front of Robin. In full view of Eos and her…people. She looked back at him at the same time as Robin pressed the bow into his hand. He saw her black gaze fix on it for a moment.
"Can't you—" His throat felt tight and dry. He swallowed. "Can't you let her go? She's crazy. She didn't mean to. I'm sure she didn't. Or. Or you could fix the curse? You could, couldn't you? If you wanted to. You can do anything here, right?"
"Why would I want to do such a thing?"
The look Eos gave him wasn't angry or scornful. She didn't laugh. It was worse than that. It was pretty obvious she just plain had no fucking idea why he was asking. He wished right then that he'd never come here, never met Robin, gone to his crappy job that day just like he should've done, carried on with his fucking useless pointless existence. It looked like a great life from his current terrified and shaking perspective.
"Wishes have power," Eos said, and she did smile then. "I can make them true."
Robin was watching them, and he looked so worried.
"Do it because she's hurting," Angel said, without much hope. Rose was shaking now, just as badly as Angel's fingers where they were clutched around Jenny's bag. He hated her. This was all wrong.
"Not enough," Eos said.
"But it's not fair. Any of it!"
"Angel," Robin said. He sounded urgent.
"I can't shoot."
But Robin pressed the arrow into his hand, and it felt—right. He lifted the bow and notched the arrow onto the string in one movement. It felt like he'd done it a thousand times. Blood pounded in his temples and he could taste her on his tongue, her blood as sweet as honey. On the ground at Rose's feet he saw the gun. Rose had a red round hole in one foot and another near her knee.
Eos smiled. "You think you can kill me with my own bow, little boy?"
"I don't want to kill anyone." He aimed for the heart, like Jenny had said, and let the arrow fly.
He saw the flash of understanding in Eos's eyes when she realized he wasn't aiming for her, but he never saw her move. She was too fast, there in a flash, literally. Lightning sizzled to earth, burning the grass in front of Rose, and she was there. The arrow pierced her heart, and Eos fell.
"Oh, shit," Angel whispered. At his feet, where he'd dropped it, the bag exploded.
Everything went dark. There was no more lightning, no starlight, no fire. Nothing but black. Angel staggered and dropped the bow.
"Will you lead us?" a voice said out of the darkness, only it was many voices. It was the rattle of bare branches and the rustle of leaves. Shapes resolved themselves around him. The shadows ringed him, their faces indistinct and wavering.
"Robin," he said. "Robin, where are you?" he said, and the shadows wavered again.
"He can't hear you," they said. "Nothing can exist without her."
"Robin!" When he tried to move they held him back, some with hands and some with things that were only a little like hands, but as damp and as cold as tree roots.
"Will you lead us?" they said, in questioning tones.
"Lead you? I—I can't."
"You've got her blood in you. You can," one of them said, the tallest and most human. It had a voice that sounded like the squelch of feet on wet ground. "We want you."
It offered him the bow with outstretched arms. "But. How can I? I'm not her. I'm not—I don't have any power."
"You do," one of the shadows said. Its words hissed like rain. "Enough to feed us, at least."
"Who are you?" Angel whispered.
"We're the dirt and the trees and stones," the thing said.
"I don't want it."
"You want our land to die, for all of us to die with it?"
"Wouldn't that be better?" Angel said. "I mean, it would, right?"
"Would it?" the thing said, wondering. "Who are you to judge?"
"But you-- I mean, you hurt people. Eos hurts people."
"Yes, but who are you to say we should die?" Its voice changed, becoming sly. "Your lover will die too, you should know. It's your choice."
Angel could feel the pull of the darkness now. He closed his eyes. He could say yes, it's what he wanted, and he could walk away and leave all this. Robin had asked for everything, right at the start. He closed his eyes and saw himself in fifty years. Maybe he'd even have kids, his own family all grown up and this'd be a fairy tale he'd tell. He might not even remember Robin properly then. He'd just be someone long dead and gone, a dusty memory.
Angel reached out. He took the bow and slung it over his shoulder. "I'll do it," he said.
He thought there might be a fanfare or something. Fireworks. Some magical thing. But there was only Robin, kneeling next to his mother in the dark woods. Everything looked sharper and brighter. The wind spoke to him, telling him it loved him. The trees whispered and so did the ground under his feet.
Eos lay sprawled on the wet leaves, one arm outstretched. The fingers of one hand were curling into the palm. Robin clutched the other one to his chest. The tears on his face gleamed like silver as he jerked his head up. Angel stepped closer, feeling power surging through him, from his toes to the earth and back again. He was strong, he thought, with distant amusement.
Robin gasped as Angel came nearer. "No," he moaned, staring. He let Eos's hand slip from his and it fell onto her chest. "What have you done?"
Angel reached out and touched Robin's cheek. Like this it was easy to feel the faint pulse of his power, nothing like as strong as Angel's. Angel looked about. Around him, just out of sight, the blackness waited. Rose was watching him. She stood barefoot in her own blood, wearing the remains of her white shirt. Her hair hung in ropes, like snakes.
"There's a place for me here," Angel said.
"Angel," Robin said, and he started to rise, hanging on to his hand. "Please. Don't. Please listen to me."
"Be quiet," Angel said, and shook him off.
Rose waited, gaze flitting from Angel to Robin and back again. She wobbled and stepped backwards, just once.
"You're being stupid, child," she said. Her voice was rough and it cracked halfway through the words. "You'll never survive. You'll be burnt up."
"I know," Angel said. He looked up. The sky was golden. The trees were lush and full. Birds sang and the grass sprang green under his toes. He could make his home here and keep Robin by his side, always. He contemplated the possibilities and it made him smile. The shadows moaned faintly at the corners of his vision.
"It'll eat you up, human child." Rose said. "Perhaps that's what you want, though?"
"Angel," Robin said. "Angel, please don't. This isn't you."
Angel looked around. Under the grass, he saw red rock pushing up under the grass. The sky was getting brighter and it was getting hotter, wide and blue like the sky at home. He stared up, feeling an invisible sun begin to burn him. His skin stung already. He took the bow from his back and watched her eyes widen. He smiled. He took the quiver too, and slung it at her feet.
"Take it," he said, nodding to the bow. "It's yours."
The hole in Rose's foot was still seeping, and dark blood lay sticky on her neck and shoulders. She stared at the bow, then knelt and took it, holding it in her arms. With her knees sunk into the mud and her face tipped up, she looked wild. She frowned at them, as if she didn't know who they were anymore. She put the bow on her back and reached for the gun. It fit in her hand too easily.
"Why?" she said.
"It's yours more than mine," Angel said, and staggered. The red rocks around him began to fade and the sky darkened. Everything hurt and he was back to being scared out of his mind.
"Yes, take it," said a soft voice at Angel's shoulder. "Sweet flower, you should have this chance to rule as you would like, for as long as you can bear it. Perhaps it's a better torture than anything I could have done to you."
Eos was smiling. Her face was flushed. She was clasping hands tight with Robin, tugging him forward. He came with her as if helpless to stop himself.
"Yes," said Rose. "For as long as I can bear it," she said, her voice dull. She frowned, her face lined with confusion.
"Mother, we should leave. It's not good for you here, now," Robin said. His voice was calm, even if it shook. Angel tried to imagine Eos anywhere but here. Walking the streets of New York, for example. It made his mind hurt just to think of it.
"Leave? No, I won't," Eos said. She looked smaller now, somehow, and frailer. She smiled. "I want to stay here, to look after poor Rose."
They should've been comforting words. Somehow, the way she said them made them not comforting at all.
"But, Mother," Robin began. She turned away and walked to Rose.
"Come back with Alberich," Eos said, over her shoulder. She laid a hand on Rose's hair and stroked it once more.
Robin took Angel's hand, holding on more tightly than he needed to. He looked over at Angel. "We should go," Robin said, and Angel nodded.
A tug of his hand and a misstep. A rush of sound and smells. They knelt in the lemon groves next to the abandoned towel. Jenny had left a note on it telling them to call her and to try not to do anything even more stupid before then.
Angel knelt, shaking, and felt Robin's arm come round his shoulders. He was too numb to even speak.
"It's all right," Robin said.
"Is it, really?" Angel said, catching wildly at his hand. It was warm and real.
Robin didn't answer, instead he shuffled closer and let Angel crush his hand.
"I have to take Alberich to her," Robin said, after a long while. "Will you be all right waiting here for me?"
Angel stared up at him. "You're not going back there on your own," he growled.
"But—"
"No."
Robin pulled him to his feet. Angel's knees shook and he felt blasted inside. Robin wrapped him in the towel, so carefully that Angel's heart wanted to break. He led Angel to the car and put him in the front passenger seat, before he went round and got in himself. The drove away in silence.
There was a dead fox at Angel's toes. He stood close to Robin, in the circle of short grass that marked Robin's father's grave. Ruby drops clung to the grass, pooling in small sticky well. The flowers were crushed. There was blood on the headstone. Next to him, Robin shivered and Angel didn't miss the way he leaned closer to Angel's side, as if for comfort.
"Did she do this?" Angel said.
"I don't know," Robin said. "But I'm feeling more and more that I owe her a taste of mortality."
Somewhere in the distance, something shrieked. Outside the circle, the grass was dying, Angel noticed. There were brown patches where before it had been bright unreal emerald. Shattered branches lay on the ground where they'd dropped from the trees. The sky was dark and heavy with grey clouds. Fear crept through Angel's stomach, small and cold and spiky.
"I don't like this," Robin said.
"Yeah. That's what I keep telling you," muttered Angel. "She's gonna be mad, huh? I mean about the bow. And, you know, the whole thing of not bringing her any new toyboys."
"I—I suppose she is. But at least I left her a replacement weapon."
"With which to hunt and kill people." Angel thought of the small silver gun on Eos's hand and shuddered. "More efficiently. You know that was such a not-cool thing to do."
"It's only fair. Otherwise it's, well, it's stealing."
"You've got a fucking freaky idea of what's fair."
"Do I? I expect so. It can't be helped."
Angel met his gaze. Robin's eyes were red-rimmed and his nose was pink and splotchy and Angel wanted to know who or what the tears had been for. Maybe they were for everything. He noticed that Robin's hands were tight around the bow and that he looked scared. Bare branches rattled up above their heads as if they were angry. Angel shut his mouth.
"It'd be nice not to have to come back, after this," Robin said, looking round. "For a while."
Angel touched his arm. "Yeah. Whatever you like. We could go somewhere with a beach. Again. And no witches."
"Maybe the mountains. Somewhere quiet. With no trees."
"Sounds good."
The forest trembled around them. Angel clutched the plastic loops of the shopping bag until his nails dug into his palm.
"Do you see that?" Robin said.
Angel looked. There was a glow in the distance, wavering like fire between the trees. The shadows looked deeper there as well.
"I guess that's where we're going?"
"I think so."
The closer they got, the darker the woods became. The wind picked up and whipped rotting leaves at them and flung dead vines across their path. The wind grew colder until it stung Angel's cheeks. Flecks of ice spat at them.
"This isn't good," Robin said under his breath. "Not at all."
Someone ahead of them let out a shriek that was followed by a bolt of lightning that split the sky right down to the ground. Both of them shivered.
They cleared the last of the trees and stepped into a vast, open meadow. Clouds roiled above them, dark blue on black and laced with fretwork lightning that now and then shot down to touch the trees around the meadow and set them alight.
"It's not the bow," Robin whispered. "I've never seen her like this."
A fire burned in the middle of the dying grass. The flames were white, like the lightning. Shadows ringed it, standing, crouching, or draped on the ground. Some looked more human, some less. Their eyes turned to face Robin and Angel as they left the shelter of the trees.
Eos stood in front of the fire, outlined and limned in red. She held Rose against her bosom. She stroked Rose's hair, pulling hair from her scalp with every stroke. There was blood on her fingers and at the corner of her mouth.
There was blood on Rose's hands as well. Her shirt was soaked in it, and so were the ends of her hair. Her smile stretched across her face like it had been carved there.
"She knows about Alberich," Robin said.
Eos looked up at them slowly. Her eyes were entirely black. She dropped Rose and stalked toward them. Robin pushed Angel behind him.
"Mother."
"Do you know what she's done?" Eos said.
Her voice sounded like wind or lashing rain more than human speech. The sibilants drew out and hissed and whistled around them like bird cries. Angel shuddered. Some of the shadow that swarmed the air took on the shape of wings.
"Yes, Mother."
"She's killed him. She's killed him, and I cannot find his body. It's not in my realm." She reached out and wrapped her hand around Robin's throat. "If you had anything to do with this, my darling, I will pull the flesh from your bones."
Robin bent his head and kissed her wrist. "There's nothing I could have done to him, Mother. You know that. But I can bring you his body."
She blinked, and her eyes cleared a little. "Yes. You must."
"What are you doing to Rose, Mother?"
"She is not properly repentant. But she will be. If it takes centuries, she will be." She stroked Robin's throat slowly, lingering over his pulse. "He loved me, you know."
"You don't even know what that means."
"No. But it meant something. Bring him back to me, little bird. We shall wait."
She turned away and strode back to Rose. The point of her nail hovered over Rose's eye, and even if Angel was pretty close to wanting Rose dead now, he didn't think he could stand to see her tortured.
"Eos!" He hadn't meant to say anything, or to step forward, but there he was with his mouth open. Standing in front of Robin. In full view of Eos and her…people. She looked back at him at the same time as Robin pressed the bow into his hand. He saw her black gaze fix on it for a moment.
"Can't you—" His throat felt tight and dry. He swallowed. "Can't you let her go? She's crazy. She didn't mean to. I'm sure she didn't. Or. Or you could fix the curse? You could, couldn't you? If you wanted to. You can do anything here, right?"
"Why would I want to do such a thing?"
The look Eos gave him wasn't angry or scornful. She didn't laugh. It was worse than that. It was pretty obvious she just plain had no fucking idea why he was asking. He wished right then that he'd never come here, never met Robin, gone to his crappy job that day just like he should've done, carried on with his fucking useless pointless existence. It looked like a great life from his current terrified and shaking perspective.
"Wishes have power," Eos said, and she did smile then. "I can make them true."
Robin was watching them, and he looked so worried.
"Do it because she's hurting," Angel said, without much hope. Rose was shaking now, just as badly as Angel's fingers where they were clutched around Jenny's bag. He hated her. This was all wrong.
"Not enough," Eos said.
"But it's not fair. Any of it!"
"Angel," Robin said. He sounded urgent.
"I can't shoot."
But Robin pressed the arrow into his hand, and it felt—right. He lifted the bow and notched the arrow onto the string in one movement. It felt like he'd done it a thousand times. Blood pounded in his temples and he could taste her on his tongue, her blood as sweet as honey. On the ground at Rose's feet he saw the gun. Rose had a red round hole in one foot and another near her knee.
Eos smiled. "You think you can kill me with my own bow, little boy?"
"I don't want to kill anyone." He aimed for the heart, like Jenny had said, and let the arrow fly.
He saw the flash of understanding in Eos's eyes when she realized he wasn't aiming for her, but he never saw her move. She was too fast, there in a flash, literally. Lightning sizzled to earth, burning the grass in front of Rose, and she was there. The arrow pierced her heart, and Eos fell.
"Oh, shit," Angel whispered. At his feet, where he'd dropped it, the bag exploded.
Everything went dark. There was no more lightning, no starlight, no fire. Nothing but black. Angel staggered and dropped the bow.
"Will you lead us?" a voice said out of the darkness, only it was many voices. It was the rattle of bare branches and the rustle of leaves. Shapes resolved themselves around him. The shadows ringed him, their faces indistinct and wavering.
"Robin," he said. "Robin, where are you?" he said, and the shadows wavered again.
"He can't hear you," they said. "Nothing can exist without her."
"Robin!" When he tried to move they held him back, some with hands and some with things that were only a little like hands, but as damp and as cold as tree roots.
"Will you lead us?" they said, in questioning tones.
"Lead you? I—I can't."
"You've got her blood in you. You can," one of them said, the tallest and most human. It had a voice that sounded like the squelch of feet on wet ground. "We want you."
It offered him the bow with outstretched arms. "But. How can I? I'm not her. I'm not—I don't have any power."
"You do," one of the shadows said. Its words hissed like rain. "Enough to feed us, at least."
"Who are you?" Angel whispered.
"We're the dirt and the trees and stones," the thing said.
"I don't want it."
"You want our land to die, for all of us to die with it?"
"Wouldn't that be better?" Angel said. "I mean, it would, right?"
"Would it?" the thing said, wondering. "Who are you to judge?"
"But you-- I mean, you hurt people. Eos hurts people."
"Yes, but who are you to say we should die?" Its voice changed, becoming sly. "Your lover will die too, you should know. It's your choice."
Angel could feel the pull of the darkness now. He closed his eyes. He could say yes, it's what he wanted, and he could walk away and leave all this. Robin had asked for everything, right at the start. He closed his eyes and saw himself in fifty years. Maybe he'd even have kids, his own family all grown up and this'd be a fairy tale he'd tell. He might not even remember Robin properly then. He'd just be someone long dead and gone, a dusty memory.
Angel reached out. He took the bow and slung it over his shoulder. "I'll do it," he said.
He thought there might be a fanfare or something. Fireworks. Some magical thing. But there was only Robin, kneeling next to his mother in the dark woods. Everything looked sharper and brighter. The wind spoke to him, telling him it loved him. The trees whispered and so did the ground under his feet.
Eos lay sprawled on the wet leaves, one arm outstretched. The fingers of one hand were curling into the palm. Robin clutched the other one to his chest. The tears on his face gleamed like silver as he jerked his head up. Angel stepped closer, feeling power surging through him, from his toes to the earth and back again. He was strong, he thought, with distant amusement.
Robin gasped as Angel came nearer. "No," he moaned, staring. He let Eos's hand slip from his and it fell onto her chest. "What have you done?"
Angel reached out and touched Robin's cheek. Like this it was easy to feel the faint pulse of his power, nothing like as strong as Angel's. Angel looked about. Around him, just out of sight, the blackness waited. Rose was watching him. She stood barefoot in her own blood, wearing the remains of her white shirt. Her hair hung in ropes, like snakes.
"There's a place for me here," Angel said.
"Angel," Robin said, and he started to rise, hanging on to his hand. "Please. Don't. Please listen to me."
"Be quiet," Angel said, and shook him off.
Rose waited, gaze flitting from Angel to Robin and back again. She wobbled and stepped backwards, just once.
"You're being stupid, child," she said. Her voice was rough and it cracked halfway through the words. "You'll never survive. You'll be burnt up."
"I know," Angel said. He looked up. The sky was golden. The trees were lush and full. Birds sang and the grass sprang green under his toes. He could make his home here and keep Robin by his side, always. He contemplated the possibilities and it made him smile. The shadows moaned faintly at the corners of his vision.
"It'll eat you up, human child." Rose said. "Perhaps that's what you want, though?"
"Angel," Robin said. "Angel, please don't. This isn't you."
Angel looked around. Under the grass, he saw red rock pushing up under the grass. The sky was getting brighter and it was getting hotter, wide and blue like the sky at home. He stared up, feeling an invisible sun begin to burn him. His skin stung already. He took the bow from his back and watched her eyes widen. He smiled. He took the quiver too, and slung it at her feet.
"Take it," he said, nodding to the bow. "It's yours."
The hole in Rose's foot was still seeping, and dark blood lay sticky on her neck and shoulders. She stared at the bow, then knelt and took it, holding it in her arms. With her knees sunk into the mud and her face tipped up, she looked wild. She frowned at them, as if she didn't know who they were anymore. She put the bow on her back and reached for the gun. It fit in her hand too easily.
"Why?" she said.
"It's yours more than mine," Angel said, and staggered. The red rocks around him began to fade and the sky darkened. Everything hurt and he was back to being scared out of his mind.
"Yes, take it," said a soft voice at Angel's shoulder. "Sweet flower, you should have this chance to rule as you would like, for as long as you can bear it. Perhaps it's a better torture than anything I could have done to you."
Eos was smiling. Her face was flushed. She was clasping hands tight with Robin, tugging him forward. He came with her as if helpless to stop himself.
"Yes," said Rose. "For as long as I can bear it," she said, her voice dull. She frowned, her face lined with confusion.
"Mother, we should leave. It's not good for you here, now," Robin said. His voice was calm, even if it shook. Angel tried to imagine Eos anywhere but here. Walking the streets of New York, for example. It made his mind hurt just to think of it.
"Leave? No, I won't," Eos said. She looked smaller now, somehow, and frailer. She smiled. "I want to stay here, to look after poor Rose."
They should've been comforting words. Somehow, the way she said them made them not comforting at all.
"But, Mother," Robin began. She turned away and walked to Rose.
"Come back with Alberich," Eos said, over her shoulder. She laid a hand on Rose's hair and stroked it once more.
Robin took Angel's hand, holding on more tightly than he needed to. He looked over at Angel. "We should go," Robin said, and Angel nodded.
A tug of his hand and a misstep. A rush of sound and smells. They knelt in the lemon groves next to the abandoned towel. Jenny had left a note on it telling them to call her and to try not to do anything even more stupid before then.
Angel knelt, shaking, and felt Robin's arm come round his shoulders. He was too numb to even speak.
"It's all right," Robin said.
"Is it, really?" Angel said, catching wildly at his hand. It was warm and real.
Robin didn't answer, instead he shuffled closer and let Angel crush his hand.
"I have to take Alberich to her," Robin said, after a long while. "Will you be all right waiting here for me?"
Angel stared up at him. "You're not going back there on your own," he growled.
"But—"
"No."
Robin pulled him to his feet. Angel's knees shook and he felt blasted inside. Robin wrapped him in the towel, so carefully that Angel's heart wanted to break. He led Angel to the car and put him in the front passenger seat, before he went round and got in himself. The drove away in silence.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 10:53 pm (UTC)Not many things make me shout at the monitor. *Glares*
no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 11:48 pm (UTC)"He loved me, you know."
"You don't even know what that means."
"No. But it meant something."
Eos does love Alberich, does she not? At least some really strong feelings to make her do this. I wonder whether Robin was wrong about her when he said in the previous chapter that Eos hunts, but not without warning and meant Alberich as prey to be killed. I cannot imagine Eos ever want to kill Alberich.
I think the same 3 lines can be used in Angel's context. I can feel from these few chapters that Angel has very strong feelings towards Robin. His heart was hurting when he hear Robin sob, all these things happening to his heart. But it seem that Angel is still in a bit of denial. He thinking about he grow old and forget robin. And it's 'the heart' that hurts but seldom referred as 'he' himself.
He only admits when we go into his subconscious. He accepted because he don't want Robin to die. After that he seemed a bit absorbed and all he thought was living with Robin.
I wonder what has Angel gotten himself into. =x
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 11:53 pm (UTC)Ohhhh ... now that was all completely unexpected. Who was/is Eos, then, if Robin thinks she can leave? And did Eos actually die - and use Angel's strength to come back?
To say that this is enthralling is to understate the situation seriously ... .
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:34 am (UTC)I thought it was nice (and interesting) that the world Angel made was his home in Utah, since he claimed to hate it and to prefer the city.
And I love sweetly vindictive and theoretically diminished Eos, waiting and watching Rose be tormented by her new powers and responsibilities as fairy queen.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:39 am (UTC)"It's only fair. Otherwise it's, well, it's stealing."
"You've got a fucking freaky idea of what's fair."
"Do I? I expect so. It can't be helped."
And yay for Angel continuing to say what he thinks instead of being passive aggressive.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 01:13 am (UTC)Excerpts from "The Temple" - Bai Ju Yi, tr by Ching Ti
Date: 2007-12-07 02:31 am (UTC)I turned away, and saw the Temple Gate --
Scarlet eaves flanked by steeps of green;
'Twas as though a hand had ripped the mountain-side
and filled the cleft with a temple's walls and towers.
Within the gate, no level ground;
Little ground, but much empty sky.
...
....
I turned back to the Shrine of Fairies' Tryst;
Thick creepers covered its old walls.
Here it was that a mortal long ago
On new-grown wings flew to the dark sky.
Westward a garden of agaric and rue
Faces the terrace where his magic herbs were dried.
And sometimes still on clear moonlight nights
In the sky is heard a yellow crane's voice.
- Bai Ju Yi (772 - 846)
*love* to the both of you -
RIP Alberich
...
"Again and again, a thousand, a million times.
His body perished, but his mouth still spoke,
The tongue resembling a red lotus-flower." - Also from 'The Temple'
Re: Excerpts from "The Temple" - Bai Ju Yi, tr by Ching Ti
Date: 2007-12-08 08:34 am (UTC)It follows this one very nicely, and you don't know how happy you made me about Alberich being *not dead* completely.
I put this here as well as I posted the above quote about him coming back. ^___^ . Yes happy is what I am. ^__^
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 04:08 am (UTC)wanting the end, and yet, not wanting it.
the sheer perversity of it...
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 08:39 am (UTC)^^
<33333333
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-09 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-29 03:48 am (UTC)Totally unexpected, and amazingly fitting. You did it *again*.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 04:06 pm (UTC)