Chapter Eleven:The Day It All Changed.

The charming tale of how Megan and Aura came to be, recounted by none other than Aurora Nightingale herself.

That night, I had a dream- which….is honestly, very odd for me. Sleep is as cold and still as death for me- I’ve just always supposed that was how it was meant to be, you know, being half undead and such. I imagine that is what death will be- nothing. Cold silence. Eternal sleep. A chilling non-existence. Picture it if you can. But….I dreamt. A phenomena all its own- because my mind isn’t one that would fantasize or paint lovely scenarios as it is free to wander- it quite simply thinks of nothing. I see only darkness when I close my eyes.

But….I did dream….and a faded memory….long passed….perhaps even cherished once- brought itself to the front of my dark and empty mind.

. . . . .

A scene slowly develops, blurry at first, emerging like some mythic beast from the deepest depths of the ocean. At first all I can see is a solid white, but I feel something touch my cheek. It is wet, cold.

Snow. I come to realize, it is snow. A fat snowflake has plopped against my cheek, and melted upon the contact. And I am reminded that perhaps I am not as cold as I sometimes feel, I am not as cold as the snow- for it still melts at my touch. My hand goes to touch my cheek, wiping away the splash of water and lingering there a bit longer than necessary. I thought one was not supposed to feel in dreams, at least, that was my understanding. I look down from the plump white flakes falling from a looming gray sky. A figure emerges into my view, rushing towards me as if I were a bird darting towards it, though I have not moved a single step. A cloaked figure lays in the snow, a small figure. A child, one that I immediately recognize. The child is me, with her awkwardly long legs and scrawny body, tightly clad in the black leather armor of a Slayer in training, I was seven years of age. I can tell from the amount of marks burned into the back of her hand, marks that have faded into nothingness after my graduation. We were “rewarded” for each of our kills with a mark upon our flesh, so that everyone would know our accomplishment. Young Aurora’s braid, woven so tightly my scalp once again aches at the simple thought of it,  trails out of the side of the hood of her cloak, laying in the snow like a dead black serpent. The braid was a sign of our inexperience, a symbol of how we needed to be tightly bound by rules and reason, by our masters. We would never remove that braid until the day of our graduating ceremony, when our masters would either cut us loose by literally slicing through the woven hair with a ceremonial knife, or carefully and intimately let our hair down for us.

She looks up at the sky not with alarm, but with a look of placated peace, as if she would be completely content, happy even, to lay in the snow that was accumulating, to be buried beneath it, to be dissolved forever. I can remember that feeling clearly- that terrible feeling of letting death into my heart. I don’t know why I was never afraid, why I didn’t cry like the other children, why I could so easily picture scenes of demise, why I could be completely content with the act of death. That feeling still lingers in my heart, that feeling of knowing I am different, that something inside of me is not quite right, that the heart beating in my chest does just that- it beats, and serves no other function. And some days, I feel as though I hate it. As though I want to be different in a way I never can be. Little me, and present day me? We aren’t so different. I have not changed inwardly with the years, we still know what our place is, we still know that the shadow nesting in our heart is not one that can be removed through exorcism nor by surgery. And yet still, as I look upon myself, my younger self, laying in that snow, fat flakes dusting her lashes before they melt into drops of cold rain, I feel almost….I can’t describe how I feel. It is almost like a hurt in my throat at being reminded of my life from a different perspective, from the outside looking in. Vietellam children would be playing, laughing, causing trouble for their parents at such a tender age- but then, I am not a Vietellam child. I never have been.

And then, little me starts to sing, softly, so softly I should not have been able to hear, nor anyone else- but it was eerie in the dreamscape, as though every voice, every sound, were magnified beyond reason.

“They fly away from me…..They never see….A world of pain, of dark, of sorrow….And I wake in the morning hoping to better tomorrow…..But I go to bed wasting another day…..I hear the birds, they seem to say…..Try again, Try harder!......But with each journey, each step seems so much farther….But still I wake, Still I dream…..Lest my head shall burst at the seam….On wings of song I shall drift away….Through way of word I will keep at bay…..The winds of darkness…..The pain of sadness….That is the way of the Nightingale…..Can you hear her sing…?” My head throbs painfully as I find myself mouthing the words with her voice, It is a song that emerges from some locked crevice of my mind at the most senseless of times, and yet- when I try to recall it at will, all that awaits me is a piercing pain and a feeling that tells me I am better off not delving into that part of me. I remember that day, laying in the snow, singing the song that seemed to form itself on my lips without intention, as though a woman from my past were whisper-singing it right into my ear. If I close my eyes and imagine, I can almost feel her breath against the cold wind of winter.

Little me sits up slowly, as though the cold has somehow leaked into her bones and made them stiff and pained, as if somehow, just by laying there, she has aged a hundred years and can no longer find a reason to be full of energy and life any more. Some days I still wake up with that feeling, but those days are fewer now. She sits there for a minute or two, just staring, staring into a blank white nothingness dotted with rugged trees cloaked in a blanket of white flurries. I couldn’t say what she was thinking, because, knowing myself better than anyone else could, I can tell you with fair certainty that she was likely thinking of nothing at all.

And then, she arrived. I use the term she loosely because at that moment in time, she could have been a frizzy headed troll caked in dirt and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Her bright red hair was a mess of tangles and frizz, and as little me looked over at her, she could even see a twig caught in the mesh of bright red- what was that hair made of anyway? Steel wire? What else could manage to stick together so coarsely?

Little me’s face furrowed up in confusion, this….thing, with its face caked in wet dirt and mud, and bright green eyes that looked through the sludge, was smiling right at her, or me. Some part of my mind vaguely recognized her, but at that moment- could not place a name with the face disguised with filth.

“Bat Eye!” The possible troll exclaims, it is a girlish voice, a voice that dispels the thought of her being a troll. And what she said, calling me Bat Eye, that dreadful nickname that had been thrust upon me like a weighted stone, further confirmed that indeed, this being was a human. It never took new pupils, as scarcely as we received them, very long to recognize me by sight and adopt the name others used to refer to me. I don’t even think five of them knew my real name. They didn’t want to know anyway, they didn’t care. Bat Eye was just easier to remember I guess, less effort to come up with a simple derogatory name than to learn somebody’s real one.

“Bat Eye!” Troll girl exclaims again, trudging towards me in the snow. Her own undergraduate armor is caked in a heavy layer of mud, something she would surely suffer a hefty consequence for. It seems that neither of the girls can see or detect me in any manner, but I have stopped trying to make sense of my dreamscape. “I thought there was nobody else out here! I got lost and you would not be-lieve the day I’ve had!” she complains, separating the word ‘believe’ into two syllables. As she approaches, I can see the mischievous glint in those green eyes. It is a look that Miss Kay had often warned me to stay away from, as people with eyes like those could only be capable of causing great trouble. Her broad grin didn’t really help her case either.

“Why are you talking to me?” Little Aurora looks around, as though maybe a person she hadn’t noticed would be standing in the immediate area, which I was, but they didn’t seem to realize that. Little Aurora wasn’t used to people talking to her, people usually just told her what to do (or what not to do) and left it at that.

“Well….you’re here. And you can talk back ya know.” She shakes her head, going to reach for young me, and young me scrambles back from the dirt, standing up on her own. She gave the mud-caked girl the strangest look.

“I...can. I guess. But that doesn’t explain why you would want to.”

“Because you have a cool eyepatch. I like cool things.” She shakes out her frizzy mess of hair, smattering mud on the white blanket of snow.

“You’re going to get in huge trouble for taking out your braid, and getting all dirty.” Young Aurora says with a matter-of-fact tone.

“Well, it got caught in a branch- and I fell in a mud pit near the obstacle course- will you help me clean up?” She looked at little me with almost pleading eyes.

“Why should I help you?” I didn’t say it to be mean, I said it because I honestly didn’t know why.

“Because, I’ll- I’ll be your best friend!” Frizzy-head promises in a high pitched tone.

“Best...friend?” Well, I had never had one of those before. I don’t even think I knew what one of those was. So I shrugged. I motioned for her to sit down in front of me. “Sit down. I’ll fix your hair first.”

She didn’t seem particularly ecstatic to sit down in the snow, but she obeyed my blatant command. As she went to sit down she slipped, and her muddy hand smacked against my face with a wet ‘plop!’. My expression was irritated, but I didn’t criticize her, surprisingly.

Little me, with her willowy nimble fingers, picked apart the knots and brambles in her hair. She unraveled the twig stuck in the coarse strands, and raked her fingers through the disaster area. She then did her best to braid the still very much frizzy mass into as tight a braid as she could, fastening the end with a leather cord. She then took up fistfuls of the snow and let them melt in her palms before washing down the frizzy headed girl’s face and hands. She then removed her very own cloak and gave it to the shivering girl.

“Put it on. It’ll hide your messy uniform until we get back.”

“B-But y-you’ll f-freeze-” the redhead chattered. Perhaps using snow to rinse her off wasn’t particularly comfortable, but if young Aurora had learned anything- it was that you made do with what you had. The mischievous glint in the girl’s eyes was gone, instead she was now just a shivering little girl with blue lips and bad hair, scared of getting in trouble with her master.

“You’re worse off than me. Besides, I’m tougher than I look.” She draped the cloak over the girl’s shoulders- possibly the first act of kindness she had ever given. And you know what? It might have actually felt good. The pale little girl’s face twisted up, contorting up in a way that was almost painful as her dark braid thudded against the small of her back. A smile. She was actually smiling. And young Aurora, well- she couldn’t ever really remember smiling before.

“Y-You’re actually n-not a-as sc-scary as p-people m-make you s-seem.” The redhead’s teeth chattered like clacking dice.

“I’ll sneak you back into the academy. Come on, we’ve got to hurry before they come looking for us.” Little me didn’t even say thank you for the compliment, she just gave the shivering girl an insistent nudge before taking her frizzy braid to guide her by, like a leash of sorts to lead her frozen footsteps. The other didn’t voice complaints- she seemed happy with whatever means were necessary to get back to the academy as quickly as possible. But of course- things didn’t go as planned.

“I can see the gate up ahead, through the trees-think you can hop it?” Young Aurora asked. Her shivering walking companion said nothing, just nodded, her jaw clenched tight in an attempt to muffle the chattering sounds of her teeth.

Little me was halfway over the locked gate, when the two figures approached. She recognized one of the voices well- a mellow female voice that carried with it the weight of vindication- the other she knew less well, but still recognized. It was the sharp and tempered voice of Madame Rouge.

“You two- over there! Stop! I command you!” The more heavy of the two voices called out.

‘Mistress Kay!’ Young Aurora thought, and in that moment deciding to do anything she could to avoid disappointing her master- including not get caught. Including abandon the other girl. So young Aurora vaulted the rest of the way over the fence, cringing at the sound of the impending footsteps.

“Wait! Wait for me! Please!” The other girl called after her, but young Aurora ignored her pleas, she took off like an arrow, hoping that if she ran fast enough, the two superiors would not catch her. That, if she could hide inside and hide any evidence of her excursion, Miss Kay would never know she had left the gates in the first place.

But she made the mistake of looking back. Madame Rouge had the girl by her sub-par braid, and her own master- Miss Kay, was seizing the girl’s arm forcefully. If she had wanted things to stay exactly the same as they were that day, exactly as they had ever been every day before, she would not have looked back. She would have kept running, and never looked back. She bit her lip and cursed herself at her stupid bravery, even as she trudged back up to the two superiors.

“Look at this filth! Look at this lack of respect and order! Look at this complete and utter neglect for rules! You will pay for this severely young lady! What have you to say for yourself!?” Madame Rouge shrieked. The girl’s lips just quivered, she was still trying to quell the sounds of her chattering teeth.

A sloppy wet snowball thwacked Madame Rouge right in the rear end, and the livid blonde woman snapped around like a cobra on a rat.

“I did it!” The young Aurora stated with false bravery, her hands still covered in a melting layer of snow.

“Aurora- you best be explaining what you are doing right now.” Miss Kay said with a threatening tone, Little me knew that tone very well. And she knew what was to come after it too.

“I did it. I snuck out to the obstacle course, and she followed me there. It made me so mad, because I was afraid she would tell on me. So I pushed her down in the mud and pulled her braid loose, and she slapped me in return- see?” she points at the muddy hand print on the side of her face. “But I did it. I messed up her hair and her armor, and I’m sorry. She was trying to do the right thing and I’ve already punished her- so you can go on and punish me now. “ At the mention of punishment, her voice wavered slightly.

“Oh, we will.” Madame Rouge hissed with glee, releasing her braid and seizing mine in a similar fashion to how I had led the girl forward earlier- except Madame Rouge’s hands were harsh and painful, yanking my braid so tightly that my head swam. I wanted to snatch the words I had said right out of the air, but I couldn’t. And Miss Kay- Miss Kay just looked at me with a terrible look of disappointment, the look I would have done anything not to see, a look that said ‘Clearly you are not what I thought you were.’. And the inaudible words hurt as much as a blade in my stomach. Miss Kay took my arm so forcefully I could feel her fingertips bruising my flesh through the leather. I watched the girl as they dragged me away, to the darkest depths of the underground chambers, to the ‘discipline rooms’.

“Why did you d-do that?! Don’t you know what they’ll d-do to y-you?!” She calls after me, her green eyes watering and leaving wet trails across her sparsely freckled cheeks.

“Of course I do.” Young Aurora replied with a small wry smile. “But that’s what best friends are for, isn’t it- Megan?” Her name echoes through the stone hallway. And the heavy metal door clangs shut behind me.

Reviews

[Catherine Frain]

So here is the in-depth review that you wanted me to do.

1. Young Aura is just as developed as current Aura. She has a strong voice and you can tell her attitude and determination even from a young age, or in this case the dream in which we see it through an outside perspective. She has a strong sense of mind, where she knows who she is (mostly) and where she belongs.

2. The feelings that Young Aura have match the one's that older Aura have. She doesn't understand what friendship is at a younger age, and now at this age- she doesn't understand a lot about relationships.

3. How you introduced Megan in the chapter:
-And then, she arrived. I use the term she loosely because at that moment in time, she could have been a frizzy headed troll caked in dirt and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Her bright red hair was a mess of tangles and frizz, and as little me looked over at her, she could even see a twig caught in the mesh of bright red- what was that hair made of anyway? Steel wire? What else could manage to stick together so coarsely?-
It's really neat and very descriptive. I loved how you introduced her.

4. It showed even more of how Slayer world even more.

5. I loved how Aura mentioned this:
I can remember that feeling clearly- that terrible feeling of letting death into my heart. I don’t know why I was never afraid, why I didn’t cry like the other children, why I could so easily picture scenes of demise, why I could be completely content with the act of death. That feeling still lingers in my heart, that feeling of knowing I am different, that something inside of me is not quite right, that the heart beating in my chest does just that- it beats, and serves no other function. And some days, I feel as though I hate it. As though I want to be different in a way I never can be. Little me, and present day me? We aren’t so different. I have not changed inwardly with the years, we still know what our place is, we still know that the shadow nesting in our heart is not one that can be removed through exorcism nor by surgery.

Overall, it is a good chapter, and it brings more into Aura's life which still remains mysterious to the reader. I loved the chapter, and the troll part made me smile. :)

[EmaleighLynn]

First thought: AWWWWWWW! Little Aura and Megan are so cute!!

This chapter is as funny as all the rest, and offers even more insight into the Slayer world. I love the details you put in - about what Aura's thinking, and how things feel.

Have I mentioned that I love this yet? I love it. :)

Keep writing, girl.