A.N.:  Actually, this is a story I wrote years and years ago but only recently found again.  I cleaned it up a little and changed things around so I could make this SM based, but try to remember that I was pretty much just a kid when I wrote it.  It's confusing, at first, but I promise to clear things up eventually. 

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"Saviors"

PROLOGUE

Her eyes were filled with the fierce red of prematurely spilled blood, her ears blocked by screams so agonizingly shrill that she would have done almost anything not to hear. She could see nothing but death before her, around her, and even she knew her attempts to escape this were futile. She was trapped, a prisoner to her dreams and the misery they brought. She was plagued by her nightmares, caught in a succession of terrifying visions that would not end even when she opened her eyes. They continued to haunt her, to tear at her soul. She wondered, sometimes, if anything would be left of her by the time she finally found meaning in them.

Was she seeing the future? Such was the ability of her family, to see into the years not yet come, and these images were too dark, too harsh to hail only from her imagination. Besides, what else could they be, these possibilities that held her prisoner, night after night, that held her captive to events she could not afford to acknowledge? She sighed, wondering. Her mind was trying to tell her something, but her heart was unwilling to believe, and she could not grasp the truths hidden within the dreams she had never wanted. Not for the first time, she cursed those dreams, cursed the powerful heritage that had given them to her. Her ancestors, she knew, had been something less than human, and the fey blood in her veins was to blame for the suffering she endured each night. Had it not been for the shapeshifters and demons that had spawned her race, these dreams would never have come at all, and she might have had peace.

She closed her sapphire-colored eyes, leaning back in her chair as the weight of her knowledge continued to press on her mind. One hand drifted slowly to her swollen belly, held protectively over the child still sleeping peacefully in her womb. Would her babe, she wondered, share in this curse of their inhuman blood? Would the child, too, be subject to visions of futures he or she could not prevent? She shuddered, hating her abilities, wishing she could prevent the child from knowing as she did, wishing she could share these dreams with her much beloved and practical husband. She was tired of concealing so great a part of herself from those she loved most, and she was desperately in need of guidance.

A frown marred her perfect features, darkened her beautiful eyes. What were her dreams trying to tell her? She watched, night after night, as countless men met death on an unrecognizable battlefield, as nameless women cried for the husbands and fathers unknowingly rotting in some dark corner of earth. She watched, but she was unable to do anything more than allow her own tears to fall for these men, for these grieving women. Her dreams may have given her knowledge of things yet to come, but she was as helpless as they, and the faces in her mind meant little to her. What was the point, then, in going to her husband, in trying to prevent this? He could not stop these things from happening, not when she did not even know where or when this battle would occur.

She pressed her hand more firmly against her stomach, and her unhappiness only deepened with the prompt kick she felt in response. Please, she begged whatever was listening, be it god or shapeshifter or human, let my child not be affected by this future. Let us both live, unburdened by the knowledge we were never meant to have...

It was not to be. Even as the plea danced through her thoughts, the visions returned, stronger then ever, and she knew, at last, what her fate—and her child's fate—would be. She had always been so careful to avoid seeing her own future, to avoid seeing the futures of those she loved most, but her own gift had betrayed her, and she'd had little choice, this time. The knowing had come without her permission, beyond her control, and she could not bend it back to her will. The visions would emerge, whether she wished it or no. Her eyes became wide, unseeing, dulled by tears and by pain, but she no longer had the strength to push away the truth. Images sparked to life in her soul, and, for the last time, she allowed herself to weep for what had almost been.

The vision was relentless—cruel, even. Her child was before her, a babe no more than a few years old. He was a beautiful boy—a little too beautiful, maybe, as though that something in their heritage was stronger in him than his human blood. His face was perfectly formed, dark-skinned and strong-jawed, even at this tender age. His sandy hair, so like his father's, spilled into alert cerulean eyes, his mother's eyes, the mark of their race. Those eyes flashed with intelligence, with a light all their own, and the mother stifled a sob. My son, she thought, gasping with sudden terror and sudden awareness. The child I will never know…

She understood, then. The suspicion had always been there, in the back of her mind, and she could no longer repress the truth her gift had been trying to impart for so long. After all this time, after all this effort, she could not keep the knowledge from herself. Tears filled her eyes again, spilled down cheeks already streaked with moisture. How long, she wondered, have I known I would not survive this birth? How many times has my gift tried to tell me the truth?

She briefly closed her eyes, wishing she could force this truth from her soul but unable to doubt. Her gift had never yet been false, and she could not bring herself to question her visions now. Besides, she had seen too much of death to fear it, and she was more concerned for her husband than for herself. She knew how much he loved her, how much he depended on her, and she was afraid this truth would break him. She sighed, acceptance bringing a cold peace to her own heart even as dread for her husband filled her thoughts. Should she tell him? Even assuming she could convince him, she did not believe the knowing would make him any more prepared for her death. We've had so little time together, she thought sadly. Can anything truly prepare us for losing each other?

Her gift flared in her once more, forcing her to shove aside her own grief as the weight of her visions continued to assail her. She was on the battlefield yet again, a silent, unhappy observer in a dream-world she could not leave. The fight blazed all around her, men and beasts dying everywhere she looked. She turned her head from side to side, watching the horrors unfold around her with wide, emerald eyes. She knew she could not save these men unless she learned more, and she forced herself to begin searching for anything that might help her. Who were these warriors? She could see something terribly familiar in their faces, but she was unable to identify her husband's opponents. She listened to their words, listened to their screams, and their voices sounded strange to her, their accents oddly lilting and foreign. She continued to search, and the questions in her mind would not cease.

She heard it, then, heard the one voice that was almost more familiar to her than her own. Her blood froze in her veins, and she began running, searching for the owner with a desperation that had not come even when she had first learned of her own upcoming death. The owner of that voice was screaming in pain, and her tears continued to scald her cheeks as she flung herself in his direction. A cry of anguish was fighting at her own lips, a cry born of the icy certainty now in her mind.

Her husband was already dying by the time she found him. He lay sprawled on the ground, blue eyes wide and unseeing, and her heart shook with horror. She threw herself to the blood-soaked earth at his side, sobs still wracking her slender form as she attempted to press intangible hands to his wound. The effort was futile, of course; her hands slipped through his body, his life blood through her ghostly fingers. "Please!" she screamed to the gods she had never really believed in, unable to keep silent as she sensed his life force ebbing. "Not him! He doesn't deserve to die like this!"

Her cry went unnoticed by all but her husband. The battle continued to rage around them, but the dying man finally turned his glazed eyes to hers, seeming to recognize the young wife weeping over him. He stared up at her, not surprised by her presence, the apology he would never voice taking a little more of the life from his gaze. Sorrow filled his eyes, his body jerking slightly with pain. His lips moved, but her tears had blocked her vision and she was unable to understand what he was trying to tell her. She lifted one hand to her face, not noticing that her fingers remained free of his blood as she wiped the moisture away. Her eyes clear once more, she fought to hold the tears at bay long enough to understand her husband's last message to her.

She was almost too late; his lips had already stilled by the time she regained a little of her control, and he was too exhausted to repeat the words she had missed. Still, she suddenly knew what he had tried to tell her. "Please," she begged again, letting him see the love in her own face. "Don't leave me, not like this! I need to know that you'll be there for him, even if I cannot!" Her voice was shaking with emotion, but her husband only smiled weakly at her, once again mouthing the words he could not say. He stared up at her with so much love and regret in his filmy gaze that her heart broke again. Then, as his smile faded, the life left his eyes and his body stilled entirely. "No," she whispered almost inaudibly, sobs of denial forcing their way to her lips. "No! You can't die! I need you too much…" But he was already gone, and she did not need her gift to tell her that she could not bring him back. Her husband was dead, and she was alone…

The vision ended, and she found herself back in her own chambers, tense and pregnant body stiff from sitting for too long in one position. Her cheeks remained wet from the tears she had shed during her vision, but she found, suddenly, that she no longer had any desire to cry. Something in her soul had died in that last manifestation of her gift, and the ice in her heart left little room for tears. She understood everything, now, understood all that had been hidden, and she knew what the future would hold for her husband and for her son. Much as she wished to, she could not deny the message she had found in that last vision. She bit her lip, sharp teeth pressing deeply enough that she soon tasted blood. After all they had gone through, could it truly end like this? She could face her own death with relative calm, but must she sit passively by while her husband was slaughtered and her son orphaned? That battle, she knew, had not yet happened, and there might still be time to spare them.

She restlessly pushed herself to her feet, moving slowly towards the only window her chambers offered. The opening was really nothing more than a narrow slit in the wall, but the break in the stones was just wide enough for the setting sun to shine through, and she leaned against the frame, wrapping her arms around herself in a futile attempt to ease this chill that would not leave her. She could see the courtyard beneath her, could see her husband's soldiers as they practiced the skills that would ultimately fail them. She winced as she looked down on these men, counting the faces of those she knew would not survive. "They don't deserve this," she whispered, slender fingers clenching into bloodless fists. "They don't deserve to die." She closed her eyes again, realizing that she was only hurting herself more by watching them.

"You can't ask this of me," she said suddenly, using all the force of her heritage to direct her words to the ancestors demanding this of her. Were they listening? Could they hear the desperation in her voice? She was one of their own, and they could not fail to sense her pain no matter how great the distance, but would they reach out to her, offer the comfort she so desperately needed and knew she would probably never find? Her ancestors might have sired her race, but they had never been human, and they might not care enough for her human fears and human sufferings to help her. They would not risk the cause, not even for her, and she could not bring herself to rely on them. If there was any way to stop this, she would have to find it alone.

She did not often call upon her gift, but she did so now. To spare her unborn son and her beloved husband, she had little choice but to force the future upon herself. And so she summoned every last ounce of her strength, draining herself in an attempt to learn everything she could. Soon enough, her gift flared obediently to life, overwhelming her mind with images of the dark future that would inevitably destroy everything she had ever loved. She watched, mute with loss, as her husband prepared for a war he could never win, as her own body succumbed to the weakness that would kill her. She watched, and the ice around her heart thickened with the realization that she simply was not powerful enough to prevent what must be.

He came to her, then, appearing in the space between two of her heartbeats. She could immediately sense him, could immediately sense the power in him, yet she could not bring herself to open her eyes, at first. The silent promptings from within told her that her child was the key to preventing this future, told her that he alone would have the knowledge she needed, but she truly did not think she could survive the heartache of meeting with a son she would never live to raise. Still, she had never been able to deny that other part of herself, and she eventually allowed her eyes to drift open once more.

He was older this time, a man grown and already well past his prime. His sandy hair and beard were streaked with grey, his bronzed skin marred by age lines. He must, she thought, be at the end of his own life, though his body was still fairly robust, his eyes unclouded by the weight of his many years. A fierce, aching pride filled her heart as she continued to watch him, but her own eyes were tense and empty. My son, she thought again. How can I protect him from this? If I am not alive to train him, if his father is not alive to shield him from himself, the strength of his own gift will drive him mad. How can I stop this? She looked at him, her eyes darkening with a wistful sorrow that would remain with her for the rest of her short life. "I don't know what you are," she whispered softly, voice low and broken. "I don't know if you're a vision or a spirit or just my son, and I don't care. Nothing matters but saving them, saving you. Can you help me?"

Even before the words finished spilling from her lips, she knew what answer she would receive. His eyes were too still, too hesitant, and something inside her shattered in that instant before he shook his head. She could see the truth in his face, could see the terrible sorrow twisting his handsome, aging features, and she suddenly knew that he had not come to save his father or himself. He might have bridged the gap the years had left between them, might have used his gift to reach out to her as no one else ever could have, but he had not done so in order to spare his father's life.

He was staring at her in return, a painfully grave compassion shuttering his eyes as her face became grey with weariness. "You have to let him go, Mother," he told her, the suddenness of his voice startling her in spite of the gentle tone, in spite of the fact that she'd been expecting them. "This is his time, his destiny. If you warn him, if you keep him from fighting, we'll lose more than you can know." Frustration bent his sculpted lips, and he sighed. "I wish I had time to explain," he told her softly. "I wish I had time to make you see why this is so important, but you want more answers than I can give."

She shook her head, refusing to accept this blindly. "I don't understand," she said, already fighting the certainty of his words. His voice was so tired, so resigned, and she wondered what had happened in his life to make him this way. "How can so much depend on one man's death?" She bit her lip, perfect teeth cutting through the delicate skin as she stared into his face. "Please," she begged, memorizing the sound of the voice she would never hear in life. "I have to know. What can possibly be so important that I have to let him die like this?"

Her son sighed, the frown in his incredible eyes intensifying. He stepped forward, moving to stand beside her at the window, and she thought that he would have taken her hand, had he been able. "They're after you and I, Mother," he told her, and her eyes widened with alarm. "Our enemies have finally found us, and they don't intend to let us escape them again. That army was created for no other reason than to destroy our line, to prevent the changes our kind will bring. They're coming for us, and if they succeed in killing us, the future we were destined to create will also die." He shook his head, sorrow still glinting in his eyes. "This is so much bigger than you and I, Mother, and you have to understand that. Our line was created to unite this world, to bring peace to every race and every people, but our purpose will fail if Father doesn't distract them long enough for us to escape. His death will protect us."

She sighed, wishing she could believe there was still a chance for her to escape this, already knowing there was not. Her people had been hunted for as long as anyone could remember, but she'd thought she'd been safe, here. She'd thought the enemies of her parents and grandparents had forgotten her, but she also knew what would happen to her should she fall into their hands. She'd be tortured, killed. She'd be spat upon by those she now called friends, burned at the stake as a demon or a witch. Her death would be painful and prolonged, and her child would die with her. At least in that other future, the one she'd wanted so badly to prevent, her son might still live. She closed her eyes, frustration twisting her features even as her gift pressed down on her mind. "Is that my choice, then?" she asked tiredly. "Must I sacrifice my husband to save everyone else?" Tears leaked from beneath closed lids, spilled down cheeks whitened by pain.

His eyes were gentle, his smile sad. "We don't have a choice, Mother," he told her softly. "We never did. This path was prepared for us before we were born, and our losses have already been too great for us to turn back now. Our sacrifices can only make our children stronger, better prepare them for the power and responsibilities we have been given." He sighed. "We're not yet strong enough to fight our destiny," he told her, "but at least our deaths will mean something."

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The midwife was frowning, her confusion clear in her old eyes. She stared down at the young woman still huddled on the birthing mat, and her rheumy gaze held little emotion and less hope. This nameless young woman, whoever she was and wherever she had come from, would never survive the night. Experience told the midwife as much, and she found herself wondering what she was to do with the babe. This girl had refused even to give her own name, and the midwife could have no way of knowing if the child had any other surviving relatives. Not that it mattered if she did, the midwife suddenly decided. The girl's feet were bleeding, lacerated by what had obviously been a flight from her own home. The babe was probably illegitimate, and the girl had likely been turned out by her own family. This child, then, probably did not have any relatives willing to take it in. The midwife grimaced, having seen this sort of thing far too often to care now. What was she to do with the baby, assuming the child even survived the inevitable death of its mother?

She was too old for this.

The woman was panting now, already overtired by the exertion of the birthing. Her body had already been overworked by her journey, and she was not in any state to endure labor. The midwife eyed her charge with barely concealed contempt, and her old face hardened. Why, she wondered with disgust, had this woman ever become pregnant? She was pretty enough—beautiful, even, with those strange, almost unnaturally intense blue eyes and that thick mass of golden hair—but her body was not made for an easy labor, and anyone could see that she was not much more than a child herself. She was too young for this, too weak, and she should never have attempted to have a child at all. Such a waste, the old woman mused. This girl was not fit to be a mother.

The girl, meanwhile, remained unaware and unaffected by the midwife's clear disgust. She continued to writhe on her mat, sweat streaming down her face and her hands balled into tight, bloodless fists. She was curled in as much of a fetal position as her swollen stomach would allow, biting her lip against the scream of agony fighting against her hard-won control. She ignored the midwife's half-hearted attempts to aid her, having realized that her own life no longer mattered. The labor had barely even begun, but she could already feel her own strength waning, drained by the baby's struggle to be free of her body. The pain continued to grow, building upon itself with every passing moment, and the young mother wondered if she would be able to hold her child before she died. Was she to be denied even that? She already knew she would never be allowed to watch her son grow to manhood, would never be able to care for him or love him in this life. What would happen to him, once she was gone? Would he be cared for, protected? Would he ever know anything of the one who had died to give him life?

She would have sighed, had not her teeth been sunk so deeply into her lips to keep the screams inside. She could taste blood on her tongue, could feel the minor sting of her lacerated mouth. The labor pains were intense enough now that she could barely breathe, but she would not disgrace either herself or her unborn son by crying. She had not cried when she had fled her husband and her home to save this child from his enemies, and she had not cried when, only hours into her journey and before her husband even realized she was gone, she'd learned from a casual passerby that her beloved had departed for the battle that would kill him. She had not cried then, with her heart breaking and her world shattering down around her ears, and she would not cry now, in these precious, pain-filled moments before the birth of her only son. Death could not wring her tears from her, and she would soon be beyond pain.

The hurt wracked her again, and her slender form began shaking with the agony her son's birth brought. Her body was literally being torn from the inside out, and she knew that she had only moments to live. The midwife was crouched before her now, her age-cracked voice filled with the disgust she had not bothered to hide. "Push, girl!" the midwife snapped, withered hands reaching for the child who, had things turned out differently, would have ruled over her. "Push, or your child will die with you! Push, you damned fool!"

A bitter, cynical laugh bubbled to the young woman's lips, but she silenced this as ruthlessly as she had silenced her screams. Her husband may be dead, her kingdom lost, but she was still possessed a queen's strength, a woman's strength. She knew she would not survive, but she was stronger than this. She would not lose control, not before this hag of a woman. And so she pushed, forcing muscles already overworked by her flight to shove from her body this last link to her husband and her heritage. She could feel the baby's tiny form breaking from her, could feel the pain intensifying a thousand fold. The midwife's hands were busy, pulling her child from her and finishing her task. Within seconds—and all too soon—the pain of the birthing abruptly lessened, and her ears were filled with the bittersweet sound of her only child crying gustily.

The young, dying mother was too weak to protest as the midwife took her child away from her, but the old woman did nothing more than wipe the birthing fluids from the child's body and cover the girl's newborn son with a blanket. Then, frown having deepened immeasurably, the old midwife handed the now tightly wrapped babe back to its mother. "You have a son, girl," she said, and her voice was now carefully emotionless. "Will you name him, before you die?"

The mother winced at this cruelty, but she only nodded. "Gideon," she answered softly. "His name is Gideon." She smiled down at the baby, the midwife's malice now completely forgotten. "You will be your father's son," she murmured gently to the babe, ignoring her own weakness and the knowledge that she would have only these few moments with her child. "You will have his strength, his wisdom." She pressed her pallid, thin face to the baby's cheek, and his cries suddenly stopped entirely. He opened his eyes, gazing up at his mother with an expression that, had he not been too young for such a thing, might almost have been recognition.

The midwife, staring down at a scene that would have been heartbreaking for anyone else, merely frowned. This babe's gaze, she noted uneasily, was not the typical black, empty look of a newborn. Instead, his eyes were wide open and knowing, the color of a summer sky. No child, she thought, should have eyes that color, not so soon after birth. Unsettled, the midwife turned her ancient gaze back to the child's mother, once again noting the terrible sorrow in the girl's own sapphire eyes. The girl had, the midwife coolly realized, weakened even in these few seconds, her strength visibly waning. The young mother's skin was unhealthily pale, her eyes slightly glazed. Her expression was tight with the weariness from which she would never have time to recover.

The girl finally tore her eyes from her babe's sweet face, pausing just long enough to smile tiredly at her unwilling helper. "Thank you," she said. "You've saved my son's life." Her pain-dulled eyes were full of an emotion the old woman could not read, and the midwife shifted uneasily. "You have done more than you know," the dying girl whispered, a bittersweet expression overcoming her face as she repeated the words a vision had once spoken to her.

An unreasonable anger coursed through the old woman at this. This girl—and her babe—were unnatural, and the midwife did not enjoy feeling as though she were losing control, as though she were missing something vital to her own life. What was it about this woman that made her so uneasy? "What am I do to with the child?" she asked, anger making her already razor-sharp tongue into something lethal. "Will his father come for him?"

The young woman's smile never left her pale face, but what little light had been in her eyes now died. "The father is dead," she murmured in a pain-weakened voice. "This child has no one." She lifted her still glossy head, looking straight into the midwife's face with those uncanny eyes of hers. "What will happen to my son?" she asked, a note of desperation creeping into her tone. "He must be protected."

The midwife rolled her eyes. "Protected from what? Who would bother to hurt a peasant's child?" She sighed, finally dredging up some small measure of sympathy for this dying woman. "I've sent word to the priests," she said. "They will care for him, if no one else is willing. Your child will not starve, girl."

The young woman smiled again, though her eyes were already deadened. "Thank you," she murmured once more. She turned back to her babe, somehow keeping her expression free of the intense pain she was still experiencing. "Your path will be hard, my son," she whispered, and the midwife knew the girl was no longer aware of her presence, "but I have seen your future. Your sufferings will save them all. Remember that, when your pain comes close to breaking you. Remember that you are their savior." Her eyes closed. "Remember that I loved you."

The girl's final words were spoken in a breathless murmur, the knowledge of her own death clear on her features. She did not open her eyes again, but an unspoken signal was in her face, and the old woman stepped reluctantly forward to take the baby. Regret tightened the mother's fingers for only a moment, though she was too weak to hold her child any longer. She gave the babe to the old woman, a tired, wistful smile twisting her full lips. Then, as the babe began crying once more, his mother finally lost her own struggle for life. She was still smiling as she died.