Secrets & Treasons

Eight pure Souls

***

Everything was dark and black. A black so perfect, so devoid of any nuance, that you could almost believe your eyelids were closed. Half Moon blinked as hard as she could, just to be sure. Apparently, her eyes were open. Apparently only because nothing could, at that moment, formally prove it to her. She turned around, confusedly looking for a light source, and her movement, slow and slimy, sent a chill down her spine. She moved an arm, then a leg, and a similar sensation struck her mind. She felt as if she were suspended in some kind of black, gelatinous liquid, both soft and extremely unpleasant. And cold too. No, not cold, icy cold. This time she swore not to panic. Surely there was a logical explanation for all this. First, she had to learn where she was.

She tried again to look in all four directions to get her bearings. Then she looked in the other directions - up, down, diagonally - but she couldn't find any landmarks. There was only nothingness, stubbornly. Then there was a change. More subtle than the softest breeze, like the faint flutter of a butterfly's wing in the air. All her senses on the alert, she tracked down the sign that would make sense. But there was nothing other than nothingness, obstinately. Then it happened. When she didn't believe in anything anymore; everything or rather nothing, still existed. That nothing meant everything. It smashed against each inch of her skin with the increased intensity of molten matter. The pain was boundless, at the extreme edge of reality. So vivid and yet so fleeting... And the truth revealed itself, dazzling.

***

Hawkeye always had his ears hanging out everywhere, and the rumor of Half Moon's return had not taken long to meet them at the corner of an alley. It was with joy in his heart that he entered the dark house of the young half elf.

***

She was pulled into the void, the infinite black. She was not falling, well, she was not intimately persuaded of it, having difficulty evaluating where the "bottom" could have gone in the horrible confusion that had fallen on his innate sense of direction. However, she desperately clung to the statement that she was not falling: the panic would not take her back. The pain, however, was real. At least there was one area she could hold for certain. It was sort of reassuring. Her brain, in ebullition, seemed to be on the point of imploding. She would have given anything to regain the little bit of freshness that had now deserted her. And... Was it not a light that trembled in the distance? This thought, as if by miracle, cut short the suffering. Suddenly she was surrounded by lights and the nothingness had been filled with radiant colors with vivid gradations of purple, red, blue, yellow, with lights by the thousands, forming complex dotted patterns and flashing lights, like saving beacons in the dark nights of storms...

***

Instantly he saw her, noting with relief that all was well. Her breathing was gentle, her face bright. It was HIS Half Moon sleeping there.

***

And she was in the middle of the ever-changing fireworks. Stars. A splendor to cry, to curse the poverty of words. She didn't know how long she admired the spectacle, suspended in the heart of all this magic. It didn't matter. Time had no meaning. Only her presence, in this place, this piece of the universe had meaning. A piece of harmony. In the deafening silence, however, he seemed to hear a cry - or was it a song? It came from somewhere not far behind her. She turned around. Wanting to avoid them. Hopelessly.

***

She was so beautiful, dormant, somewhat fragile, as he had never seen her. He allowed himself a barely sketched dream, never really allowed. He approached surreptitiously, almost against his own will. It was so unreal in fact. How could it be otherwise? He moved his arm forward, his hand about to graze her face, just a little.