Finding You in My Field of Paper Flowers
Chapter 10: Of Rude Awakenings
Genre: Angst/Horror
Rating: PG 13 (this chapter)
Warnings: The fluff recedes in a relapse of gore.
Notes relevant to text: Still kinda short. Many apologies, I lost internet access for a couple of days. Stupid network… While I'm at it, go forth and read Silverlie's awesome fic, Dance Eternal. It has baby!Eclipse and violence and gore and angstiness and is shaping up to be fantastic.
Notes not as relevant but still important in my opinion: Nozomi – you'll soon discover that most of my plot bunnies have fangs. :) Kalli – thankyou! (blush) Er, can't do much about the length, will you settle for gore? (hugs for Silverlie) fireash – this may be more what you were looking for (in a twisted kinda way). cookiesmidnight – Yay! You're back! Is the fluffy bit more acceptable than picking on Raenef nonstop? Kou Kagerou – that's some pretty high praise. I'm glad you're enjoying it. No, 'onus' is a word, not a typo. ;-) (waves and thankyous for Jultina, Koaru Fan, nancy, Tenchibat, Chuen and Ashes16) Yami Seraphim – Yes. Yes I do. Well, I did, once. It's kind of crappy…--; Eeeve – hurrah for pissing people off! The garden's on it's way. You're getting stuck with more work? Ack. I'll keep my 10 hours a week, thanks very much. Here's a short chapter to cheer you up.
Dawn broke softly over the balconies, columns and night-gloomy passages of the Nameless Castle, whose name, retrospectively, was probably exactly that after all. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Eclipse shifted sleepily on top of his covers and turned his face unconsciously so that the warmth of the early light caressed the pale skin of his cheek.
Master Raenef's breakfast, his inner voice commanded, before adding helpfully and tantalisingly that he'd only have to cook for three instead of two – the knight was still off being drooled over and hopefully murdered… by Krayon.
Krayon. Raenef. "I've been wondering...you know all about me, but I know almost nothing about you…I just don't know any more…" A sick feeling clenched his gut before an image of Raenef, asleep, drooling and with a tiny smile on his face overrode the less pleasant memories. Eclipse was grateful that nobody was there to witness the look of relief that infused his face as he realised that it was all over. He then proceeded to a moment of blind panic as he remembered the nosy seer. Growling at nothing in particular, he pushed himself up on his elbows and made to start the day.
A few hours later when the sun had risen high and hot enough to make sleeping under heavy blankets profoundly uncomfortable, Raenef finally began to stir.
Strange, he thought to himself, I don't remember drawing the curtains around my bed. He blinked for a protracted moment in the dingy, humid air. It must have been Eclipse.
His mind flicked back to the dream Krayon had sent him, and stifled a giggle. He knew he shouldn't laugh at another's misfortune – Yes you should, Eclipse-voice advised – but the bookcase…
Something shifted in the shadows at the foot of his bed.
"Eh? Who's there?" He struggled out from beneath his covers and crawled forward for a better look. "Eclipse? Can I have breakfast in here? Yay!"
"I'm not the monster you call Eclipse," a voice hissed. Raenef pulled back in fright, and scrubbed at his eyes to make sure that he was, in fact, awake and living this. "Don't you remember me?"
The person perched on the end of the silken coverlet leaned forward, and although he'd never seen that face clearly, Raenef couldn't help but recognise it. As if to reinforce the fact, a dusty white feather fluttered to ground just beside his hand.
"Are you…?" he began warily.
"Yes," the other confirmed, "and I have come to ask you why you let me die."
The figure eased forward on its hands, and to Raenef it seemed as though a great feathery snake was bearing down on him until the light caught his visitor's face, and he drew in a sharp breath at the pale, sad beauty of it.
"I—I didn't," Raenef stammered. "I'd never hurt you! I wasn't alive then!"
The angel eased back onto her haunches, and the wan light illuminated the dark tears as they ran down her cheeks in a manner far too sluggish to be salt water.
"Poor child," she crooned, "your very existence is enough to convict me to death. You embraced a monster to your chest the day you accepted his offer, and killed me all over again. It is as much your fault as his."
Slowly, gingerly, she extended a sleeve-covered hand towards Raenef's face.
"Sweet child."
There was a heady scent in the air which Raenef couldn't immediately recognise as he sat frozen in fright – sweet and sickly and faintly metallic. He was leaning in something sticky. Sweat isn't sticky like this. He spared a quick glance at his fingers and gagged at the clotted blood still connected by cobwebbed tendrils to a puddle of glinting red collecting at his knees. Panicking, he switched his gaze desperately to the angel and silently willed her to make it go away. But the blood kept seeping thickly from the gaping wound in her chest, and the shattered bones of her wings creaked dryly as she shifted them for balance.
"Murderer."
The hand that brushed against his flushed cheek was skeletal, and the gaze that met his was utterly dead.
The terrified scream that echoed down the corridors to the kitchen froze Eclipse mid-pancake flip. As the half-cooked round stuck on the wall above the frypan and slid slowly down to the bench top, Eclipse's favourite apron settled on the floor without its wearer.
"Master Raenef!" the demon bellowed as he pulled back the curtains from the bed. Within, Raenef knelt, chalk-white and blank-faced, staring at a point in front of him as if it was an exploded tomato. Eclipse shook his shoulder lightly, and he blinked twice before launching himself at his tutor's chest in tearless horror.
"I'm scared," the boy mumbled into Eclipse's robe. "I'm so scared, and it's happening when it shouldn't and she said I killed her!"
Eclipse stroked the messy, pale hair and let his master convulse a while longer before he asked quietly, "Master Raenef? What is 'it'? Please tell me so that I may be of use."
"I can't," the boy replied immediately.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, Eclipse cursed Krayon and the fact the Lord of Egae continued to draw breath in the same world as he.
"Are you planning on waking up any time soon, love? The day is half-gone."
Krayon used the flowery end of a fresh-picked rose to tickle the end of Erutis's nose before laughing inwardly at the puerile rhyme the situation lent itself to.
"G' 'way, Chris. Three hun'ed swings, 'kay?" the knight grumbled.
"I'm certainly not that foolish little boy, Erutis. Wake up if you want me to be at all hospitable," he added with a touch less patience. Age may have granted him the ability to ramble, but serenity of nature was not a paid tithe.
"Eh?" Erutis cracked open one eye, yelped in fright and shot up in her bed. "What're you doing in here?!"
"It's my home," the demon quipped. "I've been up for hours and working industriously, while you've been snoring away. I don't think asking for a little company is beyond my claim."
Stretching like a cat, Erutis eyed Krayon from beneath her ruffled bangs. The sun was indeed high in the sky, and although she had no idea what constituted 'work' for the Lord of Egae in the daylight hours, she wasn't about to ask.
"Okay, okay, I'm up." She sniffed delicately, and noticed in a single glance the breakfast tray on the table by the fireplace and the retreating form of Eclipse-in-drag. "What d'you want me for, anyway?"
Krayon eased himself into one of the fireside chairs and steepled his fingers. "I believe I offered to show you the gardens when you invaded my chambers last night."
Erutis blushed at the memory, and blushed deeper at the thought of the way she'd found the door.
"Are you agreeable to that?" Krayon eyed her curiously. "You're most welcome to wander around the corridors all day if you so desire, but I'd rather not have to instruct the servants to clean you off the walls if you stumble across something you shouldn't see," he added cryptically.
Sniffing indignantly, Erutis informed Krayon that she was most capable of looking after herself through a mouthful of fresh-buttered toast and let her thoughts wander to Chris, Raenef and Eclipse. She was so engrossed in her breakfast – which, for once, was unlikely to be laced with something potentially fatal – that she didn't notice the dark scowl that momentarily clouded Krayon's elegant face.
Endnotes: I couldn't make that any longer without cutting off a big scene in a bad place. Bear with me?