Aria's Story [ An Ending and A Beginning ]
Time
What use had she of time in this place with no moon, no sky, no air, no light. The guards came with meals regularly and it was all she could do to feign interest in the provisions. What need had she of food? Not that she particularly cared to die, but was this truly living? She was waiting. What for, she didn’t know - for the Sage to change his mind (not likely), for Morgan to free her (even less likely), maybe even for the end to all things. Because this was neither an end or a beginning or even a continuing; it was as if the great pen which wrote her life had paused above the parchment and now hovered.
Waiting.
She did not speak with the guards, not even when they borrowed her body for their pleasures. It was an act performed in near perfect silence save for their grunts, the slap of meeting skin, and her own breathless purrs for they were only ever gentle. She did not doubt that they would use force if ever she refused them but she could see no reason to. The sex itself wasn’t bad but it meant nothing outside a departure from the endless monotony of waiting, a carnal flush of emotion and release tethering her securely to the moment rather than the free floating limbo she had been immersed in. She did not cherish being used so, but she could at least appreciate the encounters for what they were; reminders of what it was to be alive.
There were days when she sang, others when she spoke to the earth she was sure lay just beyond the stone walls of her cell though she neither expected nor ever received a response, not even the belly deep thrum of life she had known since birth. There were still many many more where she lay in silence on the cold floor of her cell listening to the silence; to the slow breaths of her guards, the gentle creaking of their armor as they shifted in their stances. It is in this manner that weeks became years and years became decades. Her body atrophied from lack of use, her prisoner’s garb slipping from her willow wisp form like water when she did not take care to gather the fabric closer.
Most of the time, she found she could not find the energy to care.
Her hair was long enough now to provide all the cover and warmth she could need, a deep clay brown against her now dull bronze skin and softer than any of the rough homespun tunics given her. She was singing when unfamiliar footsteps reached her over the sound of her own voice and sent an electric tingle the length of her spine. Apprehension, anxiety, and excitement all bubbled to life in the pit of her stomach and she stuttered into startled silence at the unexpected rise of emotions - emotions she had gone so long without feeling she had almost forgotten she had them at all. It was not time for her meal, nor did she ever receive visitors, but those thoughts are buried beneath the weight of the first; this was change.
The long pause was finally over.
She sat up slowly, trembling in the euphoria of the realization as she turned to the latticed gate which served as a door to her cell - and felt her heart rend itself in two as her hopes (for that was what it had been, that unnamed swell that had lifted her) turned to the final despair. She gave a soft, whimper of a laugh as she lay herself back down, nails digging into the stone floor at the burning in her chest. She was finally broken; that is all it had been. After all these years, her mind had finally given in.
But of all the fantasies to have indulged in, to imagine both Morgan and Cressida come to see her?
Perhaps she had been lost long before this.
“Is this how you greet all your visitors?” Cressida’s mocking voice rumbled out in what she was certain had been a whisper but he was too much pride and too much shadow to do anything but fill every corner and she flinched.
“Cressida, for once, stay your tongue.” Morgan’s voice snapped back even as slim, cool, and deceptively strong arms slipped easily beneath the women’s prone form and lifted her as if she were no more than a sack of down before passing her into Cressida’s awaiting grip.
She trembled at the uncommonly long arms which cradled her so easily; at the golden eyes that peered down at her, the smile that lit the shadow king’s dark face bright and feral and gentle all at once. Trembled at the truth she didn’t dare speak as Morgan draped her body in red and tied her hair carefully into a knot to fold over her narrow shoulders.
“You are quite sane Aria. Your sentence is over. You will see sky again, and remember what it is to live.”
She wanted to cry, but couldn’t remember how, fingers working their way into the crevasses of Cressida’s armor to anchor herself to as the creature known as demon slayer carried her with careless ease up and out. The higher they climbed, the more her heart struggled, racing against her ribs as magic stirred beneath her skin for the first time in almost 30 years. And then there was a doorway and Aria tasted life. Morgan looked up, startled at the hand which suddenly gripped his shoulder, Cressida nonplussed as he followed the line of her trembling fingers to the nearest open window.
“I believe she wants to feel the sun.” Cressida rumbled, his voice like shifting earth against her side and she shuddered, swallowing hard as Morgan only shrugged.
The demon moved then to the nearest window, Aria placing her hands on the sandstone sill and thrusting her face out and into the light, uncaring that the cloth Morgan had place over her fell away as she did, baring her naked torso to the sky. The sunlight was blinding as it scorched across her face and scalded her chest in its eagerness to take her in, sinking into her skin like daggers down to her bones as it welcomed her back. She drew in great gasping breaths of the summer sweet air as if it were a drug, her giddy laughter replaced quickly by song. It was wordless, ageless magic, the kind that makes the air all the sweeter and the sunlight fall like true gold across all it touches, the kind that coats every available surface with glittering energy. The world stills to listen to her and she pours herself out into the air until she is utterly empty, collapsing breathless and dizzied against Cressida’s chest.
The last thing she remembers as her eyes close is the answering warble of nearly a dozen songbirds, smile wide even as she falls, sobbing, back into darkness.
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"She sang me a memory I could have done without recalling."
Morgan does not look up from his book, not even as Cressida's shadows lap at his boot tips like so many curios fingers seeking to map the shape and weight of that which fell in their domain. They are easy with one another these years, for neither mark their time together on the surface in days and Morgan was not soon to forget his comfort on earth had very much to do with Cressida's acceptance of him here in his castle, between the ancient stones he and his followers had raised to keep them safe from the eyes of both above and below. He and his harbingers were free radicals in this never ending war and Benedict would have been lying had he said the shadow king's abdication of his hollow halls had been anything but a relief for all that they both shared a bond of brotherhood that even Morgan could not fathom.
They lived in strange times now, thanks to Cressida.
"What will you do with her?"
Morgan looks up now, sharply, only to find Cressida at the window, golden eyes turned outwards and one hand resting lightly on the head of a kneeling harbinger, fingers carding lightly through the black hair to curl jealously around a set of slim and knobby horns, their curves a perfect crescent that stretched the length of the shadow king's forearm. That was an injustice that would forever lay heavy between the crypt king and his former general, whether Cressida spoke of it or not.
"Nothing. She is not my slave, she may go where and when she decides she is ready."
"You must know the ties that bind her are not so simple."
Morgan bristles at that, book snapping shut and he is instantly on his feet. The shadow at Cressida's feet rises just as quickly and turns colorless eyes his way before a careless wave of the golden eyed demon's hand sends it melting back into the darkness of his own shadow. The moment was enough for Morgan to reign in his anger - and to remember his place, teeth gritting as he opts for bald truths rather than simpering platitudes. Oddly enough, the Cressida has always responded better them.
"Yes, I have known for quite some time and I could bed her, but then what? It would not change the fact that my heart cannot yearn for her as she would like it to. That I would not wish it to even if it could and she....she knows this. And yet still loves. Given what she has endured in my name, I am in no position to ask of her anything."
Cressida doesn't answer, but instead motions Morgan to join him at the window, the elder general moving easily into the space provided. His skin does not burn so hotly these days and is a surprisingly comfortable heat to find oneself subject to. There is a silver maple just outside the window, and if not for the unnatural but still graceful bends of a few of the upper branches, he would not have noticed the foot dangling earth brown amid the foliage. Morgan cannot feel pride without guilt when he thinks of how naturally she has taken up the power that had all but lain itself at her feet; had she not been so starved for so simple a sensation as air through her hair she may never have done so.
"I have never seen her like. She does not even come inside to sleep most nights, or so I've been told, but the earth guards her more dearly than stone ever could. Was she always so?" Cressida inquires, as if hearing his thoughts.
Morgan would not put it past him to snoop where he was not welcomed.
"She had the aptitude, but not the drive. Up until now, she has only wanted what I wanted."
"What is it like, to have something so single minded in their devotion?"
"I don't see why you care." Morgan finally snapped, tired of the shadow king's prying.
"You never have." Cressida says with some of his old hauteur and he finally turns to smile at the demon beside him, eyes honey gold and shockingly gentle. "The forest needs a new guardian - someone to keep it wild."
Morgan could only stare, befuddled. It is not a gesture he had expected. Corielle was old for a dryad, but she had kept the woods sheltering Cressida's home unassailable for longer than either of them had been alive and showed no signs of weakening. But by interning Aria, the women was provided with home, protection, and companionship of her choosing for as long as she remained in the woods.
And she would never be far from Morgan's reach.
"Would the forest have her?"
That earns him a withering stare, Cressida glossing over the unnecessary question without any further response.
"Corielle says to bring her to the river when she is ready."
"Why not now?" Morgan shrugs, pressing the slimmer man aside to lean out the window. "Aria, a moment please?"
The foot disappears as the tree branches shake, and then there is a face peeking out through the leaves only feet from them, framed by a few copper brown tendrils of hair, dark eyes attentive though she says nothing.
"Corielle wishes for you to see her by the river. Will you go?"
There are a myriad of emotions which flow across her face as Morgan speaks and Cressida is reminded of a kaleidoscope for he feels those minute nuances against the backs of his eyes even as they settle upon one emotion.
"Will you come with me?"
Morgan does not flinch to hear the empty hope of her voice. She knows he will say no, knows every reason why the request is one beyond granting, but finds the thought of being without him so hard to bare she must ask it anyway, heart already broken.
It has been a long time since Cressida's stomach had been quite so suddenly full.
"No, I will not." the general answers softly because he must; because she needed to hear it. "I will walk you to the gates but no further."
She seems to consider this and only sighs again, shifting further out on her branch, the limb beginning to dip dangerously earthward.
"May I touch your face?"
It is an odd request but Morgan leans obediently forward until his dark cheek is pressed to the pads of the dryad's reaching fingers, looking for all the world like a princess leaning in to the touch of her daring prince, come to woo her by night.
"You can return whenever you like."
"You know I wont. Call me when you decided I aught remember what it is to live beneath a roof and between walls. You know I will never say no to you."
"One day, you will." Morgan answers almost sadly as Aria strokes the line of his jaw before pulling away.
And then the tree itself is bending, lowering its precious cargo with all the care of a doting parent to the grass and suddenly Morgan is tearing at the leather and stitching across his chest, Cressida nonplussed as the elder demon leans out the window once more and drops something silver and glittering down after her.
Benedict's crest - the emblem he had borne over his heart with pride for well over two thousand years. Cressida quirks an eyebrow as he watches Aria clutch it to her face in smiling wonder before disappearing from sight into the underbrush. He says nothing of it, only giving Morgan a slow and significant once over before laying his hand flat on the general's chest.
It is a moment of almost unendurable pain as Cressida burns a new crest into his sternum, marking both skin and the bone beneath with the curling snake of his own personal brand....and the sword and sun of Benedict's shot through the eye. Crimson eyes flash up to catch gold and Cressida leans down to kiss him, sealing the pact.
"Run back to Benedict and tell him what his shadow king has been up to. I will keep her safe from his ire."
Cressida speaks the command softly against Morgan's mouth even as shadows rise to swallow the general whole. It is only the space of a breath before Morgan finds himself in the crypt king's silent halls, brimstone on his tongue and uncertainty in his heart.
Strange times indeed.
What use had she of time in this place with no moon, no sky, no air, no light. The guards came with meals regularly and it was all she could do to feign interest in the provisions. What need had she of food? Not that she particularly cared to die, but was this truly living? She was waiting. What for, she didn’t know - for the Sage to change his mind (not likely), for Morgan to free her (even less likely), maybe even for the end to all things. Because this was neither an end or a beginning or even a continuing; it was as if the great pen which wrote her life had paused above the parchment and now hovered.
Waiting.
She did not speak with the guards, not even when they borrowed her body for their pleasures. It was an act performed in near perfect silence save for their grunts, the slap of meeting skin, and her own breathless purrs for they were only ever gentle. She did not doubt that they would use force if ever she refused them but she could see no reason to. The sex itself wasn’t bad but it meant nothing outside a departure from the endless monotony of waiting, a carnal flush of emotion and release tethering her securely to the moment rather than the free floating limbo she had been immersed in. She did not cherish being used so, but she could at least appreciate the encounters for what they were; reminders of what it was to be alive.
There were days when she sang, others when she spoke to the earth she was sure lay just beyond the stone walls of her cell though she neither expected nor ever received a response, not even the belly deep thrum of life she had known since birth. There were still many many more where she lay in silence on the cold floor of her cell listening to the silence; to the slow breaths of her guards, the gentle creaking of their armor as they shifted in their stances. It is in this manner that weeks became years and years became decades. Her body atrophied from lack of use, her prisoner’s garb slipping from her willow wisp form like water when she did not take care to gather the fabric closer.
Most of the time, she found she could not find the energy to care.
Her hair was long enough now to provide all the cover and warmth she could need, a deep clay brown against her now dull bronze skin and softer than any of the rough homespun tunics given her. She was singing when unfamiliar footsteps reached her over the sound of her own voice and sent an electric tingle the length of her spine. Apprehension, anxiety, and excitement all bubbled to life in the pit of her stomach and she stuttered into startled silence at the unexpected rise of emotions - emotions she had gone so long without feeling she had almost forgotten she had them at all. It was not time for her meal, nor did she ever receive visitors, but those thoughts are buried beneath the weight of the first; this was change.
The long pause was finally over.
She sat up slowly, trembling in the euphoria of the realization as she turned to the latticed gate which served as a door to her cell - and felt her heart rend itself in two as her hopes (for that was what it had been, that unnamed swell that had lifted her) turned to the final despair. She gave a soft, whimper of a laugh as she lay herself back down, nails digging into the stone floor at the burning in her chest. She was finally broken; that is all it had been. After all these years, her mind had finally given in.
But of all the fantasies to have indulged in, to imagine both Morgan and Cressida come to see her?
Perhaps she had been lost long before this.
“Is this how you greet all your visitors?” Cressida’s mocking voice rumbled out in what she was certain had been a whisper but he was too much pride and too much shadow to do anything but fill every corner and she flinched.
“Cressida, for once, stay your tongue.” Morgan’s voice snapped back even as slim, cool, and deceptively strong arms slipped easily beneath the women’s prone form and lifted her as if she were no more than a sack of down before passing her into Cressida’s awaiting grip.
She trembled at the uncommonly long arms which cradled her so easily; at the golden eyes that peered down at her, the smile that lit the shadow king’s dark face bright and feral and gentle all at once. Trembled at the truth she didn’t dare speak as Morgan draped her body in red and tied her hair carefully into a knot to fold over her narrow shoulders.
“You are quite sane Aria. Your sentence is over. You will see sky again, and remember what it is to live.”
She wanted to cry, but couldn’t remember how, fingers working their way into the crevasses of Cressida’s armor to anchor herself to as the creature known as demon slayer carried her with careless ease up and out. The higher they climbed, the more her heart struggled, racing against her ribs as magic stirred beneath her skin for the first time in almost 30 years. And then there was a doorway and Aria tasted life. Morgan looked up, startled at the hand which suddenly gripped his shoulder, Cressida nonplussed as he followed the line of her trembling fingers to the nearest open window.
“I believe she wants to feel the sun.” Cressida rumbled, his voice like shifting earth against her side and she shuddered, swallowing hard as Morgan only shrugged.
The demon moved then to the nearest window, Aria placing her hands on the sandstone sill and thrusting her face out and into the light, uncaring that the cloth Morgan had place over her fell away as she did, baring her naked torso to the sky. The sunlight was blinding as it scorched across her face and scalded her chest in its eagerness to take her in, sinking into her skin like daggers down to her bones as it welcomed her back. She drew in great gasping breaths of the summer sweet air as if it were a drug, her giddy laughter replaced quickly by song. It was wordless, ageless magic, the kind that makes the air all the sweeter and the sunlight fall like true gold across all it touches, the kind that coats every available surface with glittering energy. The world stills to listen to her and she pours herself out into the air until she is utterly empty, collapsing breathless and dizzied against Cressida’s chest.
The last thing she remembers as her eyes close is the answering warble of nearly a dozen songbirds, smile wide even as she falls, sobbing, back into darkness.
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"She sang me a memory I could have done without recalling."
Morgan does not look up from his book, not even as Cressida's shadows lap at his boot tips like so many curios fingers seeking to map the shape and weight of that which fell in their domain. They are easy with one another these years, for neither mark their time together on the surface in days and Morgan was not soon to forget his comfort on earth had very much to do with Cressida's acceptance of him here in his castle, between the ancient stones he and his followers had raised to keep them safe from the eyes of both above and below. He and his harbingers were free radicals in this never ending war and Benedict would have been lying had he said the shadow king's abdication of his hollow halls had been anything but a relief for all that they both shared a bond of brotherhood that even Morgan could not fathom.
They lived in strange times now, thanks to Cressida.
"What will you do with her?"
Morgan looks up now, sharply, only to find Cressida at the window, golden eyes turned outwards and one hand resting lightly on the head of a kneeling harbinger, fingers carding lightly through the black hair to curl jealously around a set of slim and knobby horns, their curves a perfect crescent that stretched the length of the shadow king's forearm. That was an injustice that would forever lay heavy between the crypt king and his former general, whether Cressida spoke of it or not.
"Nothing. She is not my slave, she may go where and when she decides she is ready."
"You must know the ties that bind her are not so simple."
Morgan bristles at that, book snapping shut and he is instantly on his feet. The shadow at Cressida's feet rises just as quickly and turns colorless eyes his way before a careless wave of the golden eyed demon's hand sends it melting back into the darkness of his own shadow. The moment was enough for Morgan to reign in his anger - and to remember his place, teeth gritting as he opts for bald truths rather than simpering platitudes. Oddly enough, the Cressida has always responded better them.
"Yes, I have known for quite some time and I could bed her, but then what? It would not change the fact that my heart cannot yearn for her as she would like it to. That I would not wish it to even if it could and she....she knows this. And yet still loves. Given what she has endured in my name, I am in no position to ask of her anything."
Cressida doesn't answer, but instead motions Morgan to join him at the window, the elder general moving easily into the space provided. His skin does not burn so hotly these days and is a surprisingly comfortable heat to find oneself subject to. There is a silver maple just outside the window, and if not for the unnatural but still graceful bends of a few of the upper branches, he would not have noticed the foot dangling earth brown amid the foliage. Morgan cannot feel pride without guilt when he thinks of how naturally she has taken up the power that had all but lain itself at her feet; had she not been so starved for so simple a sensation as air through her hair she may never have done so.
"I have never seen her like. She does not even come inside to sleep most nights, or so I've been told, but the earth guards her more dearly than stone ever could. Was she always so?" Cressida inquires, as if hearing his thoughts.
Morgan would not put it past him to snoop where he was not welcomed.
"She had the aptitude, but not the drive. Up until now, she has only wanted what I wanted."
"What is it like, to have something so single minded in their devotion?"
"I don't see why you care." Morgan finally snapped, tired of the shadow king's prying.
"You never have." Cressida says with some of his old hauteur and he finally turns to smile at the demon beside him, eyes honey gold and shockingly gentle. "The forest needs a new guardian - someone to keep it wild."
Morgan could only stare, befuddled. It is not a gesture he had expected. Corielle was old for a dryad, but she had kept the woods sheltering Cressida's home unassailable for longer than either of them had been alive and showed no signs of weakening. But by interning Aria, the women was provided with home, protection, and companionship of her choosing for as long as she remained in the woods.
And she would never be far from Morgan's reach.
"Would the forest have her?"
That earns him a withering stare, Cressida glossing over the unnecessary question without any further response.
"Corielle says to bring her to the river when she is ready."
"Why not now?" Morgan shrugs, pressing the slimmer man aside to lean out the window. "Aria, a moment please?"
The foot disappears as the tree branches shake, and then there is a face peeking out through the leaves only feet from them, framed by a few copper brown tendrils of hair, dark eyes attentive though she says nothing.
"Corielle wishes for you to see her by the river. Will you go?"
There are a myriad of emotions which flow across her face as Morgan speaks and Cressida is reminded of a kaleidoscope for he feels those minute nuances against the backs of his eyes even as they settle upon one emotion.
"Will you come with me?"
Morgan does not flinch to hear the empty hope of her voice. She knows he will say no, knows every reason why the request is one beyond granting, but finds the thought of being without him so hard to bare she must ask it anyway, heart already broken.
It has been a long time since Cressida's stomach had been quite so suddenly full.
"No, I will not." the general answers softly because he must; because she needed to hear it. "I will walk you to the gates but no further."
She seems to consider this and only sighs again, shifting further out on her branch, the limb beginning to dip dangerously earthward.
"May I touch your face?"
It is an odd request but Morgan leans obediently forward until his dark cheek is pressed to the pads of the dryad's reaching fingers, looking for all the world like a princess leaning in to the touch of her daring prince, come to woo her by night.
"You can return whenever you like."
"You know I wont. Call me when you decided I aught remember what it is to live beneath a roof and between walls. You know I will never say no to you."
"One day, you will." Morgan answers almost sadly as Aria strokes the line of his jaw before pulling away.
And then the tree itself is bending, lowering its precious cargo with all the care of a doting parent to the grass and suddenly Morgan is tearing at the leather and stitching across his chest, Cressida nonplussed as the elder demon leans out the window once more and drops something silver and glittering down after her.
Benedict's crest - the emblem he had borne over his heart with pride for well over two thousand years. Cressida quirks an eyebrow as he watches Aria clutch it to her face in smiling wonder before disappearing from sight into the underbrush. He says nothing of it, only giving Morgan a slow and significant once over before laying his hand flat on the general's chest.
It is a moment of almost unendurable pain as Cressida burns a new crest into his sternum, marking both skin and the bone beneath with the curling snake of his own personal brand....and the sword and sun of Benedict's shot through the eye. Crimson eyes flash up to catch gold and Cressida leans down to kiss him, sealing the pact.
"Run back to Benedict and tell him what his shadow king has been up to. I will keep her safe from his ire."
Cressida speaks the command softly against Morgan's mouth even as shadows rise to swallow the general whole. It is only the space of a breath before Morgan finds himself in the crypt king's silent halls, brimstone on his tongue and uncertainty in his heart.
Strange times indeed.