Payment
Rating: PG-13, because some of the death scenes are a little graphic for the kiddies and because someone dies on screen! That, and the subject matter is possibly a little heavy...?
Genre: Drama/Angst/Tragedy/Supernatural/Romance
Type: Original Oneshot
Wordcount: 4,061
Disclaimer: All characters and ideas are mine, being original creations. So, copyright!
Summary: Everything has a price. And someone must pay it.
A gold eyebrow twitched, almost involuntarily. Its owner was, quite frankly, irritated. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he was simply affecting the emotion so that his follower wouldn't guess how much he really did value her company. After all, she was the only other person here that he really knew - much less wanted to know. No, he had that wrong - she really was the only other person here. No, no, he had it wrong again; there were other people, but they only ever talked to her and in hushed whispers for about ten seconds before ghosting away.
What was so important about her? Or so repulsive about him?
He sighed, and shook himself mentally. That particular thought wasn't productive in the least, not that productivity would have gotten him anywhere. He'd been in this...place for God knows how long now. He'd pretty much given up trying to get back home, because it never worked. Nothing worked. He sighed again, and golden eyes swung towards him, shining rather like a dog's would. Affection, loyalty, and...concern. But only friendly concern, more curious than anything else.
"What's wrong?" his companion asked, her golden eyes - so very close to the color of his hair, except her color was more beautiful, more alive - sparkling at him. "You keep sighing."
He started to sigh again - and caught himself. Rolling his eyes, he opened his mouth to say, "Nothing, I'm just bored," but the words died in a strangled noise as his companion's eyes widened to their very whites, her mouth sliding open the tiniest fraction as shock filled those wide, golden orbs. Her hands came fluttering up to rest beneath her breastbone, fingers touching the blade that had been pushed through her. Blood trickled down the blade, down her sides, staining her clothes red. The bright red liquid flowed over her hands, and a trickle seeped from the corner of her mouth. The golden orbs he'd been subconsciously admiring moments earlier were already glazed and hazy, the pupils spreading so that they were no longer bright and alive, but shadowed and dull.
He let out a strangled cry and reached for her with both hands, blinking because this just had to be a nightmare. She had to be important here, and they wouldn't let an important person just di -
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Wait, that...That was her voice! Filled with true concern now, and...those were her hands on his shoulders, one against his forehead, her golden eyes staring into his and flicking from his face to other parts of his body, a frown puckering the skin of her forehead as she tried to find what was worrying him. Those same golden eyes - the ones he'd just watch the life seep out of! - gleamed at him, concern turning them a light amber.
"Are you alright?" she repeated, softer this time, more intimate. He nodded jerkily, breaking away from her as he dragged a forearm across his forehead to wipe away the cold sweat that had broken out at her...death.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." No he wasn't - he'd just watched her die, for God's sake! Pierced through, and he'd never seen it coming! But it hadn't happened because she was standing right in front of him, not punctured, not bleeding; breathing, in one piece, fine. A tremor ran through his body, bringing him to the awareness that he'd been very lightly shaking since that blade had come out of her chest. He needed to get out of here. And fast. "Just...tired," he added lamely. Yeah, like he'd really tell her that he just saw her die? Um, I don't think so!
"Okay," she said slowly, nodding at an equal speed as her small hands slipped from his arms. "You just made this really weird noise and your eyes got all big and you had this expression like someone killed your best friend - or your wife or child."
Her statement was way too close to the truth for comfort, he thought absently. Way too close. He'd never done anything with or to her, and he never would, but she was the only female around. And...She was nice, dammit! Nice and sweet and funny. It was hard to think like that about someone who may or may not have kidnapped him and then completely destroyed his preconceptions about the world around him - and the jury was still out on whether or not that was a bad thing - but he thought it. It didn't hurt that she was attractive, either. Tall for a woman (but not as tall as he), with an innate dancer's grace when she moved. Yet there was innocence to it too, like watching a toddler child run from the lawn to its mother, some grubby, earthy prize clutched in its fist that it couldn't wait to share.
That part was odd - she looked like a fully grown woman (and again, an extremely attractive one), but when you looked into her eyes, you saw a child's uncomplicated thoughts and emotions, a child's bright soul. Even still, she spoke like a cultured, sophisticated young lady, but sometimes the things she talked about were so childish it was hard to hold in his laughter. He just didn't get her - and that intrigued him.
He pasted on a smile, hoping to distract her. "Yeah, I just...remembered something, is all."
"Really? It didn't sound very pleasant," she observed, pursing her lips as she drew her eyebrows together in thought. "It looked more like some kind of, well...daymare."
He couldn't help it - he laughed. But he brought himself back under control quickly. "'Daymare?" he queried, lips quirking at their edges. He didn't want to laugh at her. But he needn't have worried.
She nodded briskly. "Uh-huh, like a nightmare, only in a daydream." Her eyes were wide, as if by making them bigger she could get him to believe her. She was so childlike, with the way her golden eyes got huge, and the way her red slips smiled eagerly, the way her short-cropped hair had flared out when she nodded so enthusiastically. Small, fly-away locks were stuck over her lips and ears, but they only added to the image.
God, she was so gorgeous like that.
He watched as a hand reached out to smooth away those wayward locks, and experienced a quiet, internal jolt as he recognized the hand as his. But he didn't stop the movement. "A nightmare in a daydream, huh?" he said softly, letting his hand rest on the swell of her cheek. Then he broke away, dropped his hand, and the moment was gone. "Yeah, maybe it was something like that."
He'd laughed, but he could still feel the sight of her bloody death coating the back of his mind like some huge oil slick, and he was desperate for a distraction; but not desperate enough to wander into something that could potentially be even more dangerous. But there was little to do here unless she decided to show him something or take him somewhere.
"Come on!" she chirped suddenly, grabbing his hand and pulling him along behind her. He blinked, stumbled, then staggered after her for a moment or two until he got his feet under him and was able to keep pace on his own. "I want to show you something!"
"Oh? And where would that be?" he asked, grateful for the distraction. He was also grateful for - and uncomfortably aware of - the small, soft, warm hand in his. He had larger hands than most, and dwarfed her already small hands so that they looked like a doll's. He was also uneasily conscious of the fact that his hands were rough; he worked for his living, really worked, and since he was quite capable of comparing her skin to satin, silk, and velvet, he was afraid of what she might think about his roughened, calloused hands holding hers. But she didn't seem to mind, or even care, and so he relaxed and let the warmth of her skin seep into him.
She laughed, and then turned to look over her shoulder at him, eyes shining like two miniature suns; no, like two stars who had so loved her that they had begged God to let them be her eyes and light her way, so that she might always be near to the heavens.
...When had he become so poetic?
Then she tugged on his hand again, and he followed, a silly grin forming on his lips. He didn't think on the disturbing vision he'd just seen, didn't think of the fact that he had been snatched from his home, his very world, didn't think on the fact that the same woman holding his hands and tugging at his heart through them might very well have ordered his kidnapping. He just thought about soft, warm skin, a welcoming, open smile, a laugh like millions of tiny silver bells, and two golden orbs that shone like stars.
~~~
He leaned back against the hillside, alone and with nothing to do. It was a rare occurrence here, and he decided to savor it. He could certainly use it, after the rather trying time he'd had. He'd lost track of the days, but he figured it was about three weeks. Three weeks since that first vision. He shuddered at the thought of it, and shuddered again as he remembered what came after it. Three weeks.
Three weeks of bloody, macabre visions, all of which left him in a cold, terrified mess, a cold sweat covering him. And sitting there, the images flashed before him, though he tried his damnedest to block them.
...wide eyes, gently waving hair, a blue tint to everything...Eyes glazed over and mouth slightly open, a final, tiny stream of oxygen escaping her mouth as it rushed towards the surface, where the bubbles popped and vanished, leaving no trace of their existence...
...a froth on her lips, body convulsing, the froth turning pink as blood mixed in with it. Her body jerked, quivered, stretched...then became so taut, so tense, so still...and released like a marionette puppet with its strings cut, as if her bones had been melted away. Sightless golden eyes staring accusingly up at him...
...a scream, a guttural cry...the wet sound of muscle and skin tearing, the sharp, gun-like crack of bone snapping. The ground covered in blood, in skin, in bone fragments...little pieces left of her, scattered about like some child's discarded toys...
...the wet, smacking sound of a watermelon smashing open, except it was her skull, connecting with the ground after she'd plummeted from tree, one hand reaching out for him, golden stars begging him to save her, grab her hand, pull her back...
...talking, laughing, sitting together. His hand covered hers and she turned to look at him, a look in her eyes that he recognized on an instinctive level. He reached out with one hand, cupping her cheek, and gently pulled her toward him. His lips were just about to settle over hers when she gasped, then let out a wordless cry and lunged forward at him, shoving him out of the way...A sound he never thought he'd hear again, the rat-a-tat-tat of a semi-automatic handgun, the meaty thuds of metal slugs hitting home in a human body, tearing human flesh and muscle and bone. The jerking of her body atop his in a parody, and the growing warmth in several places. Blank, golden eyes, frozen just at the beginnings of pain...
He tasted blood, and his hands stung like fire - he'd bitten through his bottom lip, and had dug his fingers into his palms so hard that his nails had pierced the skin. Why? Why was he seeing these things? Yes, he knew...something existed in this particular place, something his Earth didn't have; and maybe never had. But it was here, and he knew it, and respected it. But he was from his Earth, where this wasn't, so why was he seeing these things?
Why!
A hand tapped him on the shoulder and he jerked, falling forward but throwing out a hand to catch himself. He saved himself from a face-first impact with the ground, whirling his head in shock to stare at the girl behind him.
She could be a dead ringer for his companion...Except that this one's eyes were cold and hard. No light, no warmth, no joy...no life. This wasn't a girl; this was some kind of creature. He opened his mouth to question what it thought it was doing, but the girl-creature cut him off almost ruthlessly.
"You may go."
He blinked. "What?" he asked incredulously, not quite believing what he had heard.
"You may go," it said again, hands folded behind its back. "You are able to leave. Your price has been paid." It rocked back on its heels, apparently waiting for him to say something.
"Wait, what? Able to...Leave? Go? Go where? Price paid? What price, what are you talking about?" He scrambled upright, an odd dread stealing through him. Something in him knew what the girl-creature was talking about, and it left that oil slick feeling in his soul instead of his mind. And apparently, whatever the look-alike had been waiting for, either he hadn't said it, or he had and that was its cue to go, because it turned around, hands still clasped behind its back, and set off at a brisk pace towards the house he had been quartered in and had shared with his companion. He darted after it, one hand reaching out to snag its sleeve.
"Wait just one damn minute!" He pulled on the arm, swinging it back around to face him. "What the hell d'you mean, my price has been paid and I can leave?" His blue eyes bored angrily into its dead golden ones, yet it appeared unaffected by his rather potent temper.
"Exactly what I said. The price has been paid. You may leave."
Something moved in the back of his mind, some voice crying out understanding of what the girl-creature was saying. "Explain," he growled, firmly shutting a door in the voice's face. The creature stared at him flatly for a moment, then sighed resignedly and shook his hold off with dismaying ease.
"The price for your ability to leave has been paid," it said with maddeningly evenness. He let out a loud, long, aggravated noise and just barely managed to keep from shaking the thing before him.
"But what does that mean?" he half shouted. "I've been trying to leave here almost since I got here - why can I go now?"
"The price has been paid."
He made some kind of animalistic noise and started toward it, hands outstretched and curved into claws. The thing sighed heavily, its eyelids slipping down over its golden eyes for a moment before snapping open once more.
"Everything in our lives has a price," it said. "And no matter what we try to do or say, we must pay it. Whatever we want, there is something we must pay for it, and it is always equal to what we desire." It snorted. "It is a fact of life that has always existed, and always will." At his blank look, it sighed once more. "You know this very well - indeed, look to your own history. Whenever someone decided they wanted something, be it woman, land, money, or power, there was a price to pay. Take war for an example; you suffer it often enough it ought to be a potent enough reminder. In war, it is not only the soldiers that must pay but their families and the ones they love. They all pay in blood, in tears, in love lost." There was a sharp edge to the thing's voice, and he imagined that if it were given tangibility it would be a knife, slicing tiny cuts all over him.
"Victory is paid for in blood and sorrow, the lives of men, women and children - and the price to keep that victory is only marginally less." Golden eyes bored in to him, holding him in place. "And those who lose must pay more than the blood and bodies of their people that fought. There is always a price," it hissed at him, suddenly so close he stumbled back. There was emotion on its face now, a combination of dark, roiling things; hate and anger and betrayal and pain and sorrow and pity and so many other things he couldn't name.
"You could not leave before now because what you were willing to pay was not equal to your wish." There was something biting in its voice, different from the dark emotions in its face, different from the earlier knife. It was...personal. But why? "You wished to 'be free'. But what you were willing to pay was equal only to mental and spiritual freedom, not the physical release you so desired." The thing walked toward him, one slow, measured step at a time, and for every step it took he stumbled back one, a dark fear growing in his soul like the shadow of the Earth over the sun as during an eclipse.
"And she granted your wish as she could. Tell me; tell me truly, could you say that anything in your life back on Earth would give you the expansions as you have received here? Could you have learned as much, felt as much, seen as much? Tell me truly!"
He recognized what was in its voice - pure, rolling fury, contempt, and derision. Mockery. It was mocking him, taunting him, and that ignited a slow-burning darkness in his own mind as he glared up at it. But it was right. And it knew it - the wide, mocking smile proved it.
"I thought as much. Well, go back to your life, and tell me if it as fulfilling as you remember it, if it is as good as you thought it to be!" The derision was stronger now, and its arms flung out from its body. "Your wishes have been indulged far more than they should have been, against our advice - and now all must live with the result." Something else crept into her voice; something not nearly as bitter as the mockery and contempt coming his way. "You wished for freedom, and your wish was heard and granted according to what you could pay. But what you received for your payment was not your desire." A fire kindled in those gleaming, metallic depths, and for a moment she truly did look like his companion.
"How the hell was I supposed to know that?" he flung at it accusatorily, glaring at it so hotly it was amazing the creature didn't burst into flames on the spot. "It's not like anyone gave me a manual when I showed up here! Hell, I never even wanted to come here!" As soon as he said it, he felt a flash of guilt and regret slice through him, sharper than the verbal knives of earlier. Because as soon as the words left his mouth, a look of such ravaged sorrow crossed the girl-creature's face that he felt his own soul wail in answer.
"Oh, but you did," it said, so softly that he really only got it off the shape of its lips as it spoke. "You wished very desperately to come, to find that one person."
"W-wha...What do you mean?" he asked, shaken. He so far out of his depth, so far beyond the limits of the souls' ability to properly process things...And those golden eyes, so sad, so angry, so empty, were like staring into the face of the cosmos and being found lacking. Like a small child.
"You wished. And you paid the price, and were glad of it. But then you were not, and you never knew that you rejoiced in what you had wished and paid for." Then the eyes turned hot again. "Her wish was so close to yours. You could have wished for the same thing. But she was willing to let her wish go, and then you came. And she was happy. But then you began to wish for more." The heat turned dark, angry. "And as your wish changed, so too did hers." His eyes widened, and he tried to speak, but the creature kept talking, steamrolling over his every attempt.
"Her wish changed, and her price changed as yours changed. Yet the wish of her heart was contradictory, and that was the price she paid." Golden daggers lanced into him, straight to his soul where his heart cried out, trying to deny what he knew was coming, what he was afraid of. So he reacted with anger.
"But what the hell does that have to do with watching her die a million different ways?" he shouted, and those empty, frozen stars softened but that only made him angrier, because they softened with sorrow.
"Your wish changed once more. You wished now not only to leave this place, but to bring her with you." It nodded at his dumbfounded expression. "Yes, you cannot deny it - your wish changed, and so, once more your price." Once more those golden daggers, twisting into him like screws. "And this time, you began to pay." His soul was laid open, bare. "You wished to take her from this world where you found her to the one where you were, and your mind played out all the possibilities for horrible things to happen to her. Because you knew she was too innocent, too pure, too good." The voice changed yet again - no longer hard, soft, angry, sad, it was familiar; it was his, speaking his fears.
"And you feared all the ways your world might harm her, might take her away from you. That was the price of that wish." There was silence a moment, and then the girl-creature drew breath. "At least you paid that small bit," it said bitterly. "So go. You are 'free'," it mocked harshly. "Your price has been paid." Then it turned away from him, as if unable to say anything more to him because its derision and hatred choked it so.
"Wait!" he called one more time, desperate. "At least let me say good bye," he begged, hoping against hope to deny what the depths of his soul murmured brokenly to him. "Please."
Cold, golden shards of ice turned on him, and the voice which issued from the creature's mouth was frozen like the deepest reaches of space. "You wished for freedom, and were unwilling to pay the price." He withered under that frozen stare, and something in him broke. "Not everyone can be free." It took its arm from his grasp so easily, but it didn't require any force as his fingers had numbed and loosened, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. "Someone must pay the price."
"No!" The sound was raw, broken, and it pulled a small flicker of response from the heartless creature in front of him. Its back was turned to him, so he could not see its eyes close so briefly in sympathetic, empathetic grief. Grief for this young man behind it who had unknowingly done something that broke him, and would forever haunt him.
"No! No, you're lying!" he cried, having fallen to his knees. His hands fisted in the dirt, uncaring that he was shoving the raw earth into his cuts. "No! No! No!" Then he broke into sobs, gasping, tearing noises as his heart crystallized and then shattered into a million unrepairable pieces.
"Go," the girl-creature whispered, this time kindly. "Go." Then it stayed there as the broken man behind it faded into the mist that signified his release.
He was fully gone before it moved again, stepping forward with leaden, heavy feet. It didn't stop until it reached a freshly turned pile of gently mounded earth, a few simple flowers gracing its otherwise stark nakedness. Golden eyes stared down; filled with so many emotions they were impossible to define.
"Everything has its price. Even freedom." Bitter words, uttered softly as the girl-creature turned away again, its borrowed form bowed from the invisible, intangible weight upon its shoulders. "And that is perhaps the heaviest price of all."
END
Comments? Criticisms?
Genre: Drama/Angst/Tragedy/Supernatural/Romance
Type: Original Oneshot
Wordcount: 4,061
Disclaimer: All characters and ideas are mine, being original creations. So, copyright!
Summary: Everything has a price. And someone must pay it.
A gold eyebrow twitched, almost involuntarily. Its owner was, quite frankly, irritated. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he was simply affecting the emotion so that his follower wouldn't guess how much he really did value her company. After all, she was the only other person here that he really knew - much less wanted to know. No, he had that wrong - she really was the only other person here. No, no, he had it wrong again; there were other people, but they only ever talked to her and in hushed whispers for about ten seconds before ghosting away.
What was so important about her? Or so repulsive about him?
He sighed, and shook himself mentally. That particular thought wasn't productive in the least, not that productivity would have gotten him anywhere. He'd been in this...place for God knows how long now. He'd pretty much given up trying to get back home, because it never worked. Nothing worked. He sighed again, and golden eyes swung towards him, shining rather like a dog's would. Affection, loyalty, and...concern. But only friendly concern, more curious than anything else.
"What's wrong?" his companion asked, her golden eyes - so very close to the color of his hair, except her color was more beautiful, more alive - sparkling at him. "You keep sighing."
He started to sigh again - and caught himself. Rolling his eyes, he opened his mouth to say, "Nothing, I'm just bored," but the words died in a strangled noise as his companion's eyes widened to their very whites, her mouth sliding open the tiniest fraction as shock filled those wide, golden orbs. Her hands came fluttering up to rest beneath her breastbone, fingers touching the blade that had been pushed through her. Blood trickled down the blade, down her sides, staining her clothes red. The bright red liquid flowed over her hands, and a trickle seeped from the corner of her mouth. The golden orbs he'd been subconsciously admiring moments earlier were already glazed and hazy, the pupils spreading so that they were no longer bright and alive, but shadowed and dull.
He let out a strangled cry and reached for her with both hands, blinking because this just had to be a nightmare. She had to be important here, and they wouldn't let an important person just di -
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Wait, that...That was her voice! Filled with true concern now, and...those were her hands on his shoulders, one against his forehead, her golden eyes staring into his and flicking from his face to other parts of his body, a frown puckering the skin of her forehead as she tried to find what was worrying him. Those same golden eyes - the ones he'd just watch the life seep out of! - gleamed at him, concern turning them a light amber.
"Are you alright?" she repeated, softer this time, more intimate. He nodded jerkily, breaking away from her as he dragged a forearm across his forehead to wipe away the cold sweat that had broken out at her...death.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." No he wasn't - he'd just watched her die, for God's sake! Pierced through, and he'd never seen it coming! But it hadn't happened because she was standing right in front of him, not punctured, not bleeding; breathing, in one piece, fine. A tremor ran through his body, bringing him to the awareness that he'd been very lightly shaking since that blade had come out of her chest. He needed to get out of here. And fast. "Just...tired," he added lamely. Yeah, like he'd really tell her that he just saw her die? Um, I don't think so!
"Okay," she said slowly, nodding at an equal speed as her small hands slipped from his arms. "You just made this really weird noise and your eyes got all big and you had this expression like someone killed your best friend - or your wife or child."
Her statement was way too close to the truth for comfort, he thought absently. Way too close. He'd never done anything with or to her, and he never would, but she was the only female around. And...She was nice, dammit! Nice and sweet and funny. It was hard to think like that about someone who may or may not have kidnapped him and then completely destroyed his preconceptions about the world around him - and the jury was still out on whether or not that was a bad thing - but he thought it. It didn't hurt that she was attractive, either. Tall for a woman (but not as tall as he), with an innate dancer's grace when she moved. Yet there was innocence to it too, like watching a toddler child run from the lawn to its mother, some grubby, earthy prize clutched in its fist that it couldn't wait to share.
That part was odd - she looked like a fully grown woman (and again, an extremely attractive one), but when you looked into her eyes, you saw a child's uncomplicated thoughts and emotions, a child's bright soul. Even still, she spoke like a cultured, sophisticated young lady, but sometimes the things she talked about were so childish it was hard to hold in his laughter. He just didn't get her - and that intrigued him.
He pasted on a smile, hoping to distract her. "Yeah, I just...remembered something, is all."
"Really? It didn't sound very pleasant," she observed, pursing her lips as she drew her eyebrows together in thought. "It looked more like some kind of, well...daymare."
He couldn't help it - he laughed. But he brought himself back under control quickly. "'Daymare?" he queried, lips quirking at their edges. He didn't want to laugh at her. But he needn't have worried.
She nodded briskly. "Uh-huh, like a nightmare, only in a daydream." Her eyes were wide, as if by making them bigger she could get him to believe her. She was so childlike, with the way her golden eyes got huge, and the way her red slips smiled eagerly, the way her short-cropped hair had flared out when she nodded so enthusiastically. Small, fly-away locks were stuck over her lips and ears, but they only added to the image.
God, she was so gorgeous like that.
He watched as a hand reached out to smooth away those wayward locks, and experienced a quiet, internal jolt as he recognized the hand as his. But he didn't stop the movement. "A nightmare in a daydream, huh?" he said softly, letting his hand rest on the swell of her cheek. Then he broke away, dropped his hand, and the moment was gone. "Yeah, maybe it was something like that."
He'd laughed, but he could still feel the sight of her bloody death coating the back of his mind like some huge oil slick, and he was desperate for a distraction; but not desperate enough to wander into something that could potentially be even more dangerous. But there was little to do here unless she decided to show him something or take him somewhere.
"Come on!" she chirped suddenly, grabbing his hand and pulling him along behind her. He blinked, stumbled, then staggered after her for a moment or two until he got his feet under him and was able to keep pace on his own. "I want to show you something!"
"Oh? And where would that be?" he asked, grateful for the distraction. He was also grateful for - and uncomfortably aware of - the small, soft, warm hand in his. He had larger hands than most, and dwarfed her already small hands so that they looked like a doll's. He was also uneasily conscious of the fact that his hands were rough; he worked for his living, really worked, and since he was quite capable of comparing her skin to satin, silk, and velvet, he was afraid of what she might think about his roughened, calloused hands holding hers. But she didn't seem to mind, or even care, and so he relaxed and let the warmth of her skin seep into him.
She laughed, and then turned to look over her shoulder at him, eyes shining like two miniature suns; no, like two stars who had so loved her that they had begged God to let them be her eyes and light her way, so that she might always be near to the heavens.
...When had he become so poetic?
Then she tugged on his hand again, and he followed, a silly grin forming on his lips. He didn't think on the disturbing vision he'd just seen, didn't think of the fact that he had been snatched from his home, his very world, didn't think on the fact that the same woman holding his hands and tugging at his heart through them might very well have ordered his kidnapping. He just thought about soft, warm skin, a welcoming, open smile, a laugh like millions of tiny silver bells, and two golden orbs that shone like stars.
~~~
He leaned back against the hillside, alone and with nothing to do. It was a rare occurrence here, and he decided to savor it. He could certainly use it, after the rather trying time he'd had. He'd lost track of the days, but he figured it was about three weeks. Three weeks since that first vision. He shuddered at the thought of it, and shuddered again as he remembered what came after it. Three weeks.
Three weeks of bloody, macabre visions, all of which left him in a cold, terrified mess, a cold sweat covering him. And sitting there, the images flashed before him, though he tried his damnedest to block them.
...wide eyes, gently waving hair, a blue tint to everything...Eyes glazed over and mouth slightly open, a final, tiny stream of oxygen escaping her mouth as it rushed towards the surface, where the bubbles popped and vanished, leaving no trace of their existence...
...a froth on her lips, body convulsing, the froth turning pink as blood mixed in with it. Her body jerked, quivered, stretched...then became so taut, so tense, so still...and released like a marionette puppet with its strings cut, as if her bones had been melted away. Sightless golden eyes staring accusingly up at him...
...a scream, a guttural cry...the wet sound of muscle and skin tearing, the sharp, gun-like crack of bone snapping. The ground covered in blood, in skin, in bone fragments...little pieces left of her, scattered about like some child's discarded toys...
...the wet, smacking sound of a watermelon smashing open, except it was her skull, connecting with the ground after she'd plummeted from tree, one hand reaching out for him, golden stars begging him to save her, grab her hand, pull her back...
...talking, laughing, sitting together. His hand covered hers and she turned to look at him, a look in her eyes that he recognized on an instinctive level. He reached out with one hand, cupping her cheek, and gently pulled her toward him. His lips were just about to settle over hers when she gasped, then let out a wordless cry and lunged forward at him, shoving him out of the way...A sound he never thought he'd hear again, the rat-a-tat-tat of a semi-automatic handgun, the meaty thuds of metal slugs hitting home in a human body, tearing human flesh and muscle and bone. The jerking of her body atop his in a parody, and the growing warmth in several places. Blank, golden eyes, frozen just at the beginnings of pain...
He tasted blood, and his hands stung like fire - he'd bitten through his bottom lip, and had dug his fingers into his palms so hard that his nails had pierced the skin. Why? Why was he seeing these things? Yes, he knew...something existed in this particular place, something his Earth didn't have; and maybe never had. But it was here, and he knew it, and respected it. But he was from his Earth, where this wasn't, so why was he seeing these things?
Why!
A hand tapped him on the shoulder and he jerked, falling forward but throwing out a hand to catch himself. He saved himself from a face-first impact with the ground, whirling his head in shock to stare at the girl behind him.
She could be a dead ringer for his companion...Except that this one's eyes were cold and hard. No light, no warmth, no joy...no life. This wasn't a girl; this was some kind of creature. He opened his mouth to question what it thought it was doing, but the girl-creature cut him off almost ruthlessly.
"You may go."
He blinked. "What?" he asked incredulously, not quite believing what he had heard.
"You may go," it said again, hands folded behind its back. "You are able to leave. Your price has been paid." It rocked back on its heels, apparently waiting for him to say something.
"Wait, what? Able to...Leave? Go? Go where? Price paid? What price, what are you talking about?" He scrambled upright, an odd dread stealing through him. Something in him knew what the girl-creature was talking about, and it left that oil slick feeling in his soul instead of his mind. And apparently, whatever the look-alike had been waiting for, either he hadn't said it, or he had and that was its cue to go, because it turned around, hands still clasped behind its back, and set off at a brisk pace towards the house he had been quartered in and had shared with his companion. He darted after it, one hand reaching out to snag its sleeve.
"Wait just one damn minute!" He pulled on the arm, swinging it back around to face him. "What the hell d'you mean, my price has been paid and I can leave?" His blue eyes bored angrily into its dead golden ones, yet it appeared unaffected by his rather potent temper.
"Exactly what I said. The price has been paid. You may leave."
Something moved in the back of his mind, some voice crying out understanding of what the girl-creature was saying. "Explain," he growled, firmly shutting a door in the voice's face. The creature stared at him flatly for a moment, then sighed resignedly and shook his hold off with dismaying ease.
"The price for your ability to leave has been paid," it said with maddeningly evenness. He let out a loud, long, aggravated noise and just barely managed to keep from shaking the thing before him.
"But what does that mean?" he half shouted. "I've been trying to leave here almost since I got here - why can I go now?"
"The price has been paid."
He made some kind of animalistic noise and started toward it, hands outstretched and curved into claws. The thing sighed heavily, its eyelids slipping down over its golden eyes for a moment before snapping open once more.
"Everything in our lives has a price," it said. "And no matter what we try to do or say, we must pay it. Whatever we want, there is something we must pay for it, and it is always equal to what we desire." It snorted. "It is a fact of life that has always existed, and always will." At his blank look, it sighed once more. "You know this very well - indeed, look to your own history. Whenever someone decided they wanted something, be it woman, land, money, or power, there was a price to pay. Take war for an example; you suffer it often enough it ought to be a potent enough reminder. In war, it is not only the soldiers that must pay but their families and the ones they love. They all pay in blood, in tears, in love lost." There was a sharp edge to the thing's voice, and he imagined that if it were given tangibility it would be a knife, slicing tiny cuts all over him.
"Victory is paid for in blood and sorrow, the lives of men, women and children - and the price to keep that victory is only marginally less." Golden eyes bored in to him, holding him in place. "And those who lose must pay more than the blood and bodies of their people that fought. There is always a price," it hissed at him, suddenly so close he stumbled back. There was emotion on its face now, a combination of dark, roiling things; hate and anger and betrayal and pain and sorrow and pity and so many other things he couldn't name.
"You could not leave before now because what you were willing to pay was not equal to your wish." There was something biting in its voice, different from the dark emotions in its face, different from the earlier knife. It was...personal. But why? "You wished to 'be free'. But what you were willing to pay was equal only to mental and spiritual freedom, not the physical release you so desired." The thing walked toward him, one slow, measured step at a time, and for every step it took he stumbled back one, a dark fear growing in his soul like the shadow of the Earth over the sun as during an eclipse.
"And she granted your wish as she could. Tell me; tell me truly, could you say that anything in your life back on Earth would give you the expansions as you have received here? Could you have learned as much, felt as much, seen as much? Tell me truly!"
He recognized what was in its voice - pure, rolling fury, contempt, and derision. Mockery. It was mocking him, taunting him, and that ignited a slow-burning darkness in his own mind as he glared up at it. But it was right. And it knew it - the wide, mocking smile proved it.
"I thought as much. Well, go back to your life, and tell me if it as fulfilling as you remember it, if it is as good as you thought it to be!" The derision was stronger now, and its arms flung out from its body. "Your wishes have been indulged far more than they should have been, against our advice - and now all must live with the result." Something else crept into her voice; something not nearly as bitter as the mockery and contempt coming his way. "You wished for freedom, and your wish was heard and granted according to what you could pay. But what you received for your payment was not your desire." A fire kindled in those gleaming, metallic depths, and for a moment she truly did look like his companion.
"How the hell was I supposed to know that?" he flung at it accusatorily, glaring at it so hotly it was amazing the creature didn't burst into flames on the spot. "It's not like anyone gave me a manual when I showed up here! Hell, I never even wanted to come here!" As soon as he said it, he felt a flash of guilt and regret slice through him, sharper than the verbal knives of earlier. Because as soon as the words left his mouth, a look of such ravaged sorrow crossed the girl-creature's face that he felt his own soul wail in answer.
"Oh, but you did," it said, so softly that he really only got it off the shape of its lips as it spoke. "You wished very desperately to come, to find that one person."
"W-wha...What do you mean?" he asked, shaken. He so far out of his depth, so far beyond the limits of the souls' ability to properly process things...And those golden eyes, so sad, so angry, so empty, were like staring into the face of the cosmos and being found lacking. Like a small child.
"You wished. And you paid the price, and were glad of it. But then you were not, and you never knew that you rejoiced in what you had wished and paid for." Then the eyes turned hot again. "Her wish was so close to yours. You could have wished for the same thing. But she was willing to let her wish go, and then you came. And she was happy. But then you began to wish for more." The heat turned dark, angry. "And as your wish changed, so too did hers." His eyes widened, and he tried to speak, but the creature kept talking, steamrolling over his every attempt.
"Her wish changed, and her price changed as yours changed. Yet the wish of her heart was contradictory, and that was the price she paid." Golden daggers lanced into him, straight to his soul where his heart cried out, trying to deny what he knew was coming, what he was afraid of. So he reacted with anger.
"But what the hell does that have to do with watching her die a million different ways?" he shouted, and those empty, frozen stars softened but that only made him angrier, because they softened with sorrow.
"Your wish changed once more. You wished now not only to leave this place, but to bring her with you." It nodded at his dumbfounded expression. "Yes, you cannot deny it - your wish changed, and so, once more your price." Once more those golden daggers, twisting into him like screws. "And this time, you began to pay." His soul was laid open, bare. "You wished to take her from this world where you found her to the one where you were, and your mind played out all the possibilities for horrible things to happen to her. Because you knew she was too innocent, too pure, too good." The voice changed yet again - no longer hard, soft, angry, sad, it was familiar; it was his, speaking his fears.
"And you feared all the ways your world might harm her, might take her away from you. That was the price of that wish." There was silence a moment, and then the girl-creature drew breath. "At least you paid that small bit," it said bitterly. "So go. You are 'free'," it mocked harshly. "Your price has been paid." Then it turned away from him, as if unable to say anything more to him because its derision and hatred choked it so.
"Wait!" he called one more time, desperate. "At least let me say good bye," he begged, hoping against hope to deny what the depths of his soul murmured brokenly to him. "Please."
Cold, golden shards of ice turned on him, and the voice which issued from the creature's mouth was frozen like the deepest reaches of space. "You wished for freedom, and were unwilling to pay the price." He withered under that frozen stare, and something in him broke. "Not everyone can be free." It took its arm from his grasp so easily, but it didn't require any force as his fingers had numbed and loosened, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. "Someone must pay the price."
"No!" The sound was raw, broken, and it pulled a small flicker of response from the heartless creature in front of him. Its back was turned to him, so he could not see its eyes close so briefly in sympathetic, empathetic grief. Grief for this young man behind it who had unknowingly done something that broke him, and would forever haunt him.
"No! No, you're lying!" he cried, having fallen to his knees. His hands fisted in the dirt, uncaring that he was shoving the raw earth into his cuts. "No! No! No!" Then he broke into sobs, gasping, tearing noises as his heart crystallized and then shattered into a million unrepairable pieces.
"Go," the girl-creature whispered, this time kindly. "Go." Then it stayed there as the broken man behind it faded into the mist that signified his release.
He was fully gone before it moved again, stepping forward with leaden, heavy feet. It didn't stop until it reached a freshly turned pile of gently mounded earth, a few simple flowers gracing its otherwise stark nakedness. Golden eyes stared down; filled with so many emotions they were impossible to define.
"Everything has its price. Even freedom." Bitter words, uttered softly as the girl-creature turned away again, its borrowed form bowed from the invisible, intangible weight upon its shoulders. "And that is perhaps the heaviest price of all."
END
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