Ruin Maketh Me

89 - Re-united again

A whirlwind of tumbling notes spiral through my heart and mind. This smell, the tone and tenor of his voice, everything is so familiar and so... nostalgic. How long have we been apart from each other for these things to tug the line of nostalgia through my heart? I didn't feel the impact before, when I was with Leonard and Eirwen, too many things weighed on my mind. But now, in his arms, the rush of time embraces me along with his chin, and everything has come to a stand still. He's changed. Faintly, almost imperceptibly, but he's changed. His arms have more strength, his hands more desperate, and yet, he's gotten thinner.
Maybe I've changed too.
"Get away from my dad!" Asier squirms between us, magic and hands clashing against Ralph's firm waist.
The warm grip loosens, but his hands linger on my shoulders, eyes wide, streaming between Asier, Eirwen and me, "Dad?" He says, voice hoarse.
"Yes, dad!" Asier clutches my hand protectively.
Ralph's arms drop limply to his sides.
My guts twist into a web, and I lean forwards, catching his wrist, "Wait, it's not what it seems, really, Ralph."
A thousand explanations and buts and becauses trip onto the root of my tongue, but none of them are correct in reality, and all of them are brutally futile.
Another cold hand encircles my shoulder, "Nice to meet you, I'm Eirwen Salaben, Cynder's lover."
An explanation screeches to a stop from my mouth, and I stare at Eirwen's coolly polite face. Why the fuck? My fingers clench into fists, and Ralph's violet eyes dull, searching my face for some sort of rejection, but I can't reject it! Eirwen is truly my goddamned lover too. And now, everything's going down the fucking drain.
The dark circles lining Ralph's eyes seem to blacken even further, and in the red illumination, every word and look passing from our mouths and eyes seem to twist in nature. And everything seems lined with knives and blood; everything's become cruel.
"Plleeeasssseeee," Hoplin drawls from behind me, "can we all go in first?"
"I have no interest in a lover's spat." Leonard adds, brushing past Ralph into the gloom of the house, eyes glinting incongruently.
Ralph's broad shoulders tense, but he only watches as they step in, one by one.
I look down at my feet and the path drenched in red. Wretched, my heart tears itself into conflicting shreds. Love and love, which one is truer? Which is more pure in substance, in nature? I can't tell! And neither of them I can reject or hide in my chest. I'm done running away! But never have I felt so wretched as now. Not when I've been made a sinner again, and by myself.
"No matter what," Ralph whispers, voice drifting haplessly into my ears, "I'm very, very glad to see you again, Cynder."
My eyes shift upwards, but he no longer looks at me but Eirwen, darkness smouldering like twin flames in his purple orbs.
"As for you... do come in."
"I graciously accept your invitation." Eirwen nods, and taking up my cold hand, leads me into the all-too-familiar entrance hall past Ralph.
A barrier passes over us in the same water-like manner, and the moment I step into the darkened cavity of the house, my mind clears with no reason. A cleanliness, a strange silent peace drifts through the empty halls of my mind. The static, it's gone, and now the Bond rises almost dramatically through the floor.
'Cynder!'
Happiness cracks through the forlorn dreariness taken ahold of my head, and I manage to muster some true but weary comfort.
'Sol, I'm back, but...'
He senses the tinge of wrongness inching its way over my mind like Jormungand over the world.
'Well, you'll se—
But before I finish my sentence, his silver-toned gentleness rings across the hall from the stairs, "Cynder!"
The double doors bang to a shut behind us, and we're enclosed within a crimson darkness. Sol descends from the stairs like a blood-drenched angel, each platinum strand of his hair dyed a crude scarlet.
Scarlet—                                   
"So that's your Beastian mate." Eirwen comments, words echoing all around the vast space.
Ugly shock, anger, disgust, crashes through the line, and Sol jolts to a halt on the last step. His eyes snap to Eirwen's calm countenance, and the downturn of his lips connect the clues he gleans from his sharp gaze shaking between Asier, Eirwen and me.
He tries hard to smooth the rising shadow buzzing through me, and a slow acceptance, a rough tranquility filled with hopelessness courses like the glassy surface of a lake over the hideous truths.
'The partner and son of your body?'
'Well put.' I stare at him, another wave of coldness assaulting my body.
'So they know the truth?'
'The truth,' I glance down at Asier's furry golden head, 'yeah, they know I'm an Otherworlder.'
Eirwen squeezes my hand, jerking my attention from the bloody angel standing before us in this place that looks like hell.
"I heard that the disturbance came from this mansion yesterday." He starts, eyes drawing a lazy line between Ralph and Sol, "Where's the young master Kade?"
"Yeah! What happened here?" Hoplin paces around the hall.
Ralph grinds his teeth together, and his signature furrow digs into the skin between his brows, but he makes no attempt whatsoever to answer.
"Sir Ralphus and Julius Kade got into a fight yesterday night." Sol steps down from the stairs, fixing his lukewarm eyes on Eirwen, "The young master Kade is resting at this moment, he's not in the mood to receive guests."
Eirwen's gaze does not leave Sol for a moment.
"But what about the Otherworlder?" Hoplin's voice rises to the tall ceiling, their usual mocking insincerity creeping back into their voice, "Surely, they must be here somewhere?"
"Otherworlder?" Sol smiles without any hesitation, distant yet piercing, "The magic warp didn't originate from yesterday's fight. No one perished."
"Ahhh." Hoplin sighs, swinging their head to the floor, "I really wanted to see them too."
The spotless smile remains on Sol's pale face, "You might still get to see them when the Order catches them." His golden eyes swing around the milling figures around us, "I'd be happy to extend my invitation to you all until the magic warp is solved. Though, Lily, you might want to return to your brother tomorrow."
The little girl shifts, wide eyes scratching at Ralph and back to Sol.
"Who are you?" Hoplin's footsteps clack to a stop.
Sol's smile fades, "These orbs will take you to your respective rooms, let's hope the magic warp ends quickly, hmm?" Ice fills his words so completely, I can't quite discern whether he's an angel or demon risen from Hell.
Silver balls of light drifts to each person and with little to no pause, whiz off into the depths of the house. Lily and Hoplin sprint after their guide shakily without casting another glance behind at any of us. Only Leonard continues standing where he is, off to the side, eyes still glinting with a broken amusement.
"You better run off now, slave trader, otherwise, you'll find yourself dead." Sol announces like an execution sentence, eyes curving into sickles.
In answer to his words, a menacing tension fizzes from Ralph. The hilt of Aureus glows eerily in the half-dark, and his agonising stare takes on the same darkened justice that distorted his eyes at Lutra's execution. Something almost in shade and in texture, like the Shadow's disturbed look. Almost, but not quite as hollow, not quite as helpless, not quite as desperate.
"I told you, Cynder." Leonard whispers, canines flashing in the shifting light like warning signs, then he raises his arms in surrender and melts into the darkness of the corridors.
Silence thickens over us without a cure.
I told you Cynder, I told you, told you... Is this all part of God's laid out path too? Towards death? Towards something BETTER? I don't know. I'm too lost. At least, this time I tried telling the truth.
"You're lying." Eirwen's voice breaks through the gloom.
A jolt courses through my arms, but he's not addressing me, his gaze still hasn't left Sol.
Sol's expression doesn't waver in the slightest, "We should have a talk."
He makes his way in the opposite direction of the others, leading us into a lifeless passage to the left, past empty portrait frames hanging on the walls and doors I've never seen open before.
He stops in front of a set of chestnut double doors which open before us into a sizable lounge.
"As for your son." Sol says without even casting a look at Asier, "He can follow the light to his room?"
A blinking silver light floats from Sol's apathetic finger to Asier's face. He glances back at me, sweet eyes serious beyond his years, I fire him a quick smile and pat him on the back.
"Go ahead."
Asier nods, hesitates a little and steps cautiously after the ball of magic.
Looking after him for a second more, I enter the lounge after Eirwen and settle into a sofa, the doors clicking to a shut behind Ralph.
Again, the already faint light existing within the room dims until nothing but a wash of burgundy illuminates the furniture into misshapen monstrosities hidden in shadow. Sol's fingers trail across the back of the sofa opposite us, and with a sharpened elegance I've only seen on the surface when he was in public, he sits, face a mask of tenebrosity and red.
Ralph lingers by my side for a heartbeat but draws away slowly with a sense of self-repression, sitting down lightly beside Sol, hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. And with the two, leaning against the sofa, long legs stretched out before them, painted completely, brilliantly red, it's like I've never left Earth. A flicker of alien foreignness clenches my heart sharply, and I can't quite seem to recognise the two in front of me. Who are they? Are they truly the ones I love and that love me?
Can you still recognise them, The Pit growls with an inhumane laugh, when they're covered in blood? When they don't seem to give a fuck for you? Or are you only scared?
No. My jaw tightens. I know exactly who they are.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Each knock of Sol's fingers beat along with my heart.
"First of all," Sol says sharply, "there's no need to concern yourself over the magic warp."
Eirwen gives an indifferent huff.
Ralph's eyes narrow displeasingly, but the tainted muddle rapidly fades as he turns his attention back to me, "What happened afterwards?"
Soothing care and anticipation flows strongly from Sol into the flattened space of my heart.
"Nothing much happened at all." I focus on the brightness in both of their expressions, "I just travelled along with Leonard and Hoplin to the border where we got sucked into the Elf's magic warp." I pause, "And I met Eirwen."
They tighten, jaws, shoulder, legs, fingers. Eyes. Ralph's, they speak of murder.
"I was taught that Elves don't establish another romance after the death of their partner." Ralph murmurs.
Eirwen strokes my fingers, "He is my partner."
Brows lowering even deeper, Ralph leans forward, eyes catching onto me, "I don't understand."
A sigh rings emptily from Sol into me, 'It'd be best to explain your identity to him sometime soon.'
My fingers spasm, and my jaws tighten. That...
"That's something you don't have to understand." Eirwen says softly, "Cynder, would it be ok if you step out for a moment?"
My forehead creases, and I brush my fingers through my hair, "And leave you three in the same room? I'm sure that there's nothing you can't say in front of me, especially if it concerns me."
"Please Cynder, it won't be long." Ralph says out of nowhere, honed features softening.
Sol gives me a discreet nod.
     'I'll fill you in through the Bond, there's no need to worry. I'll stop them from slaughtering each other.'
A small sigh blooms from my lips, "Fine, but if I hear anything I shouldn't, I'll come bursting in."
They all smile a little in strange unison, and my hand halts on the door, but everything, the unfading colour, the strained bodies, the distant repression stifles me.
I can't breathe.
And so the door clangs to a close behind me, shutting out the men in red.

-

AN: Ahhh, it's so hard to write all the bois together, can't leave anyone out, and now the dialogue sounds a bit patchy. Sighhhhh.