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Lady Sombra
The insolence! To stand before her in this way as if all were well, to provoke her to anger and even dare her to strike him...... And that damnable silence – as if whatever cryptic lunacy passes for thought within him is a thing transparent to all. Strike him? Perhaps she shall.
The Other resists. The Other. Surely he has come to destroy her on behalf of the that One who is helpless to save herself “I have as much right to this life as her! I may be but a shadow to you but I will not die easily.”
“Were you but a shadow to me I would have already slain you and those blasphemies that form your pack. You are no mere shadow.”
“Lies! You have taken her part in all of this and you have come to mock me.” Her eyes flash. “I am no fool! I am no child to be trifled with! And I will stand in her shadow no longer!” Once more even as her own form begins to lose substance her anger finds the Other. And what she finds she seizes. The blue light around her deepens in color and dances like fire and a tear, a real tear glides down a cheek now tangible enough to feel it. “You sent your daughter to her. Always it is her. Me? You provoke me, dare me to strike you, drive away my pack.” The blue flames around her hands burn with a blinding intensity. “Her life is mine to take and take it I shall. Leave me! There is nothing for you here.” Giddy with the sudden rush of life and power that flows into her, her hostility takes on a mocking note of its own.
“Perhaps I shall return the favor and one day soon pay a visit to your child.”
And from the silence a storm emerges. The grace that she remembered is no longer present in his movements. But there is speed, much more speed than she remembers, direct and forceful and brutally efficient. Even her eyes have difficulty following the movement and by the time her mind recognizes its meaning the blade of an axe has bitten her. She falls clutching her throat as the weapon that cut her returns in silence to the hand that threw it.
“Thank whatever outsider god still listens to the groanings of your heart that you have a form still so insubstantial that you might not completely lose the power to speak and to draw breath.”
His whisper cuts as readily as the axe. This is not the voice of the man she believed she knew. That voice while having its harshness had a ready gentleness about it whenever it had turned to her. There is nothing of the kind here.
“Hear my words, woman. And mark them well. Wage your struggle against your sister. Triumph even, should you be able. Survive, should such a thing be possible for either of you. There will be time enough then for the resolving of whatever hatred might obtain between us.”
The air around her is still and neither cold nor biting. The words that follow, however, have a chill within them greater than any she has ever felt in the bitter air of winter, and in the chill a promise that has no room for either compassion or for compromise.
“Involve my daughter in this and I shall destroy you both.”
By the time she recovers her strength he is gone. The chill of his words, that remains, and, although the air is warm, she is cold. So very cold. She takes what comfort she can in the heat of her hatred and the sounds of the return of her pack.
[ 06-08-2006, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Cyril Darkcloud ]
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