Re-Origination

 Fallen Sunset Part Fourteen

 

            Four years ago…

 

A young woman slinks across the floor, crouching behind a sofa with unnatural grace. She must remain silent. She must be stealthy. Everyone is depending on her.

            She reaches the end of the sofa, creeps across the room to the door, precious item in hand, prepared to risk everything to get it out of here. Reaching for the door handle, grasping in the darkness, she fumbles with the latch.

            A moment of frustration. She’s right handed, and the stupid bolt demands just a fraction more dexterity than her free left hand can seem to manage. Carefully shifting the package to her left hand, she adjusts herself to try again…

            Clink.

            The six bottles in the brown paper bag rattle ever-so-slightly, and for a moment her heart races. Did anyone hear? It seems not. She smirks and unlatches the front door, ready to escape. Pulling it open slowly, she looks over her shoulder at the dark room behind her, relaxing as she steps into the open air, free-

            -and bumps into a wall of firm human, a shadow silhouetted against gleaming orange night-flowers.

            “Going somewhere?”

            She gasps, nearly dropping the bag, backing into the closed door with a thud. “Darion!”

            “Darion indeed. What’s doing?”

            “Just meeting some friends. Listen, I managed to nick a sixer, I’ll buy you quiet. I just need a night out.”

            A heavy sigh from her adopted brother. Like most boys her age, he’s a bit shorter than she is, but by simple virtue of being a so-called ‘man’ he feels the need to shepherd her as though she was a baby. “You know the house rules, Dierdre. And you know the sort comes out at night. I suspect that’s why you’re sneaking out in the first place.”

            He switches on the porch light, blinking at the sudden glare, but keeps his gaze on his adopted sister. Fifteen and far too gorgeous for her own good, Dierdre wears a head of lush, dark brown curls, and bears a set of curves more fit for a woman of thirty. All set around a pout, typical for a girl who’d rather be acting a fool around fools.

            “The house rules are stupid. John never lets us out after dark.”

            “These people are godless.”

            “So am I!” she proclaims, trying to weave around him, but her brother blocks her with a thick arm. She thumps him on the bicep, frustrated. “I keep telling you people, I don’t believe in your crazy religion!”

            “Be that as it may, while we live here we’ll live by John’s guidelines. And he doesn’t think young people ought to consort with the very un-Christian masses at night.”

            Dierdre sneers at her brother, storm-green eyes full of fire. “Well then I suppose you’d be best served to stop consorting with me, out here. ‘Tis night, after all.”

            Darion’s eyes fall to the bag, still clutched in her white-knuckled hand. “Where did you get that?”

            “None of your business. I offered you one, now I’m taking it back. Let me by. I don’t care who you tell, I’m spending some time with my friends!” She feints left, spins around him to the right, and dances away from his grasp. “Leave me be!”

            Darion’s eyes narrow, the barest hint of a golden light flickering in them for an instant. “You know if I wanted to catch you, I could.”

            “You’d never.”

            “I’d never raise a hand against you, Dierdre. I love you. But you need to learn some sense. You’re too young to be looking like you do. And much too young to be emptying bottles with strange people. Smarten up.”

            “Darion…”

            He turns towards the door, away from her. His voice is weary. “Be home before breakfast or I won’t be able to cover for you.” And he vanishes into the dark house.

 

* * *

 

            Dierdre emerges from the woods path into a wide clearing, grinning broadly. Bonfires, scattered throughout the grassy area, throw the shadows of dozens of young revelers across the softly luminous woods, brightening the already-orange foliage and casting a wild light over the partiers themselves.

            Pteros music thumps and twangs from hidden amplifiers, echoing in Dierdre’s chest as she makes her way to a certain fire pit. Several people wave to her. Everyone smiles. Everyone feels good, here.

            Why doesn’t John understand? Or even Darion, or any of her other adopted siblings at the New Armagh’s New People’s Home? Just because somebody doesn’t believe in their specific god, doesn’t immediately make them a bad person. These dancing youths, in many respects, are much wiser and kinder than any of the pious people at the home.

            And finally, she reaches the fire at the edge of the clearing and spots him, and her heart flutters. Denryu Mirac. The most beautiful young man in the world. An angel.

            A Seraph, to be precise. A perfect one. Seventeen, taller than Dierdre, which is wonderful, with a slim, muscluar build and a face like a supermodel. And gorgeous, fluffy wings draped across his shoulders, hanging limp like a cloak, although she’s seen him flex those same wings and fly like an eagle in the sun.

            “Hi, Denryu,” she says, waving sheepishly at him, surprised as always when his inverted eyes, ink-black with golden irises, widen with pleasure at the sight of her.

            “Dierdre! You made it out!” He excuses himself from the people he’s standing with and swiftly moves around the fire to sweep her up in a bear hug. She squeals, blushing frantically, and won’t quite meet his eyes when he puts her down again. “You got the preacher to give you a pass?”

            “Not quite,” she giggles. “Snuck out. With… this!” She holds up the clinking bag and watches several pairs of eyebrows rise.

            Denryu grins. “You’re a regular little criminal, you are. Give us one, then, and let’s drink to freedom, be it won or stolen.”

            Dierdre looks up at him as he snaps open one of the softly glowing bottles and takes a swig, smiling at the crisp taste. She loves watching him smile. He’s so dreamy. Hopefully at some point he’ll realize how she looks at him… hopefully. But it’s nice enough to sit with good friends and watch him be happy.

 

* * *

 

“I,” Denryu announces in a ringing preacher’s voice, “need to visit the woods briefly. I will be ba… back. Merciless gods, I am soused. I will be back.”

            Dierdre watches, dizzy, as he rises and stumbles away into the forest. Snagging a limp wing on a low-hanging branch, giggling, he vanishes. She sighs around the mouth of a bottle, her second of the night.

            Fallen’s intoxicants are quite a lot more potent than Earth’s, incidentally, and rather than inhibiting brain function to produce a buzz, they instead inundate the mind of the subject with a deluge of emotional energy. As anyone’s who’s ever been madly in love can attest, a rush of pleasure can be just as debilitating as any amount of liquor. Brewed from the various parts of the Mayaka plant, which absorbs positive emotions from those who grow it, (not fully understood), Fallen’s best wine coolers will put an unsuspecting human on their back faster than the most potent Tequila, without the horrendous flavor of alcohol.

            Needless to say, a fifteen-year-old girl, who’s never had a drop before, might be prepared to make some hasty decisions after nineteen ounces of such a beverage.

            Making just such a choice, Dierdre shakily stands, a grin on her face, almost dropping her bottle. “G…guys? Did, did you… hey… I’m gonna go find… Den… ryu. Hey. Hey. I’ll… I’m… okay bye.”

            Several faces watch her, bemused. “You gonna make it, Dee?”

            “Yeahp. Yeah. Gonna find Denryu. Roo. Okay?” The fire seems to slant, this way, then that way. Motes of flame blend hypnotically with the orange spots glowing on the leaves. “Okay.”

            She totters away, hopefully in the right direction. The ground seems to rise up to meet her feet, and she finds herself more or less stomping with each step, swinging her legs out to catch herself as she repeatedly almost tips over.

            Her arms feel much heavier than usual, and her heart flutters distractingly beneath her sweater. It’s a conscious effort to keep holding the partly-full bottle.

            She leans on a tree, feeling flushed. “Hot.”  Struggling, she manages to pull her sweater off, leaving a sheer camisole that’s probably transparent with sweat, and ties it painstakingly around her waist. “Much… more better.”

            A rustling ahead alerts her to a presence, and she squints through the haze to spot her beloved, Denryu, standing with legs slightly apart facing a tree. His wings hang slackly from his back, brushing the forest floor.

            Dierdre giggles into a hand. All alone. What better time to show him how much she likes him? Loves him? Maybe? With the Mayaka effect, it’s hard to decide. Everything just seems so… good.

            Including Denryu himself. His feathers are so fluffy… she wonders what it will feel like to run her fingers through them. If he wants her to, of course. But he will. She knows Seraph men like that sort of thing, when they’re with a girl…

            Who is this?

            Dierdre crouches lower, behind a glittering bush, as a second boy glides into the clearing, making absolutely no noise as he approaches Denryu from behind. Another person from the party who’s had too much to drink? Probably.

            His clothes are somewhat tattered, and his jet-black hair is an absolute mess. She doesn’t see his face, but he has the chiseled jawline of a Pteros, and very pronounced cheekbones, like he’s starving.

            She’s just about to emerge and announce herself when the other boy reaches up and takes hold of Denryu’s shoulder, turning him around. Denryu yelps with surprise, peering at the intruder’s face, then suddenly his features go slack. More slack than they were already, anyway.

            The boy with the wild hair draws Denryu’s face close to his own, with both hands, and for an insane moment Dierdre think’s they’re going to kiss. Is Denryu like that? How could she have no idea?

            SNAP.

            The intruder wrenches Denryu’s head around, brutally, yanking it back and forth with savage anger even after the body’s gone limp. One leg twitches a couple of times.

            Dierdre’s feeling of happiness and relaxation vanishes in an instant, and she claps her hands over her mouth to hold back a scream. What just happened? Why? Why would anyone do that, for no reason at all, what did Denryu ever do to anyone?

            The black-haired boy drops Denryu’s head, which lolls off his shoulders at a hideous angle, and kicks at the body a couple of times, snarling, muttering under his breath. “Whitewing f**k, stupid, see what you get? Never even saw me coming. All the same… hello?”

            Dierdre’s heart stops when the boy looks up from the body and stares directly at her, scanning the foliage. His eyes are Seraph eyes, black as ink with silver, metallic irises, peering around frantically. But he’s not a Seraph. What is he?

            I need to get out of here, she realizes. This person is dangerous.

            The strange boy creeps closer to her stand of trees, silent now. Eerily so. She watches his foot snap a dry branch, which ought to crack loudly, but it apparently chooses not to make a sound this time, falling in half without so much as a peep.

            She holds her breath as he stands over her, looking over her, a scowl on his face. “Paranoid. Nobody saw. Time to go,” he hisses, turning towards the body on the ground.

            Dierdre’s body relaxes, a knot unraveling in her back as the threat prepares to leave, and her quivering hands lower the tiniest fraction of an inch. The almost-empty bottle, still clutched in her right hand, clinks against a stone, a sound as clear as a bell in the impossibly silent clearing.

            The boy wheels back around, baring sharp teeth, and flings his pale, long-fingered hands in her direction, irises vanishing behind a veil of whispering, whipping shadows-

            -and a half-dozen long, deep gashes seem to rip themselves into her abdomen. She almost screams, but can’t make herself inhale to do so. White-hot agony explodes from her stomach, ripping up into her chest, her neck, her soul…

            …and the last thing Dierdre ever sees is the look of horror on the pale boy’s face, as he watches a human girl crumple to the ground, trying desperately to hold herself together. Not a Seraph. It seems to matter, to him.

            He leaps towards her, eyes flashing black, running his cold hands over her, ripping her shirt away, and as she feels the terrible wounds begin to close, he stares directly into her dimming eyes.

            “This didn’t happen, this didn’t happen, I didn’t do this, listen, I thought you were a Seraph, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

            The darkness in his gaze seems to burn into her, falling into her confused mind, cutting and slicing and writing their own story in a panic.

            “You need to forget!”

            She does.

 

***

 

 Dierdre. Human girl. Fifteen. From Earth?

            That memory is already gone, the shadows seem to realize. Got to come up with something. She’s a local, then. From the beach? She’s hardly wearing anything.  Wait, where’s her name?

            Already erased it. Damn. Needs a name, then.

            Can’t leave her here. Where is that place, the Grove, that mother always talked about, where she met Father? Take her there. Say she had an accident. Wait… oh, great, her hair. It’s gone completely white. Need a story.

            Confusing, twisting ideas rip through her memories, pruning, trimming, ripping…

 

***

 

She wakes up three weeks later, Aelia.

Reviews

[UponATyme]

I didn't realize Aelia had such a backstory. While the incident itself wasn't overly gruesome or dramatic, you described enough of her relationship to the people around her to make it really hit home. I wasn't sad over her injuries, I felt the loss of her memories, her entire past. And that's what makes it even more heartbreaking. The reader knows, and she doesn't. Well done.

[Ness]

I loved this chapter! It was very compelling and I just wanted to keep reading. I love a good character background story, makes me sympathize with Aelia more because of what she went through. Also I love the more conversational chapters. Good job :)