Fatale

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

December decided to greet Dublin with a fine frost and the promise of endless snow. The wind picked up speed and howled against windows, and along with the season, came the change of heart. With the gale and silent cold combined, it was now a mandatory decision to wear that big heavy jacket crumpled in the closet. Winter had settled in like a cat beside a fire, and resolutely, the people of Ireland wrapped themselves in whatever warmth they could find. The weather found Lesedi Wilde cold and happy, and besides the promise of a warm, air heated house to return to, she felt no need to associate with anyone other than Leon who still occasionally dropped by. She spent most of her time outdoors as usual, exploring and searching for mysteries to solve. The only one which she was carefully ignoring was the mystery of the stranger's house. She walked the moors often and never, since that day, had she found herself on the lush green lawns in the musk of the sea. Nor had she glimpsed the large English style manor with its seventeenth century towers and baroque windows. It was as if it had vanished… or as if it had never existed at all.

Of course, she and Leon didn't see so much of each other, something about that bothered Lesedi but she guessed it was because the man needed to work. Everyone needed to work at something after all. Even she'd been helping out her aunt with the kids. She'd been playing with some of the younger ones, the autistic children who wanted to be part of what was going on but didn't know how to be… Or at least that was what she understood from what her aunt had told her. She'd tell them stories sometimes, sometimes give them riddles. They were good at riddles, at solving logic puzzles like that she smiled to herself, thinking of their faces when they'd woken up and seen snow and not quite understood what it was because they were so young still.
"Lesedi!" A familiar, friendly voice spilled out from behind her and she grinned, turning from her stance, gazing out at the plains of white and silver and looking for the figure she knew which would cut a black line in the snow.
Leon's outline was alight from the abnormal brightness coming from outside. She sat up a bit, pushing away a strand of hair and blinking. Once she was more awake, she processed that Leon was in old trousers and a long shirt; striding down the hillside. A small smile worked its way onto his pensive face, before amusement settled in. She saw that the red head had a huge grin on his face.
"What? What is it..." she murmured, not particularly liking the idea of getting up and into the cold. Leon turned large grin becoming infectious, his hair fallen out from its tie, and gestured out into the snow.
"It’s snowing." He looked back. "It’s really nice."
Lesedi felt a sudden burst of affection for Leon, and even decided to get up and greet him as well. Her feet were cold on the ground, but she was comfortable as she stood beside the older man overlooking the snow. It had already covered a few trees in the fields below them, and had swept a perfect rug over the green grassy hillocks and heathers. A very thin frost gathered on puddles, and crawled around the thinner branches of the spindly trees. Though she could only just see it, tiny speckles dropped from the sky, and dotted the dark night with a bright white.
Leon smiled at her, content, and she raised an eyebrow. "I don’t suppose you're really a romantic, Leon, but don’t you think this is more than just nice? This is simply magnificent. It's…" Lesedi stuggled for words, her lexis not letting her fully express the emotions she was feeling.
Laughing softly, Leon stepped a little closer to her. "I like the snow." He said defensively, but with a grin.
Lesedi's face was lightened as she watched the snow fall, and Leon realized again in the purple-blue light how lovely Lesedi was. And he found himself smiling along with his companion less fully than before. Requiem would love to see this sight right now… But from what he had heard… he had scared the girl when she had come to try investigating his room. The girl would have to come into her inheritance to understand. But there was no knowing when that would happen. Leon was a draconian but his inheritance had been expected, he'd known about it from his birth, after all back in 1046AD they'd had a whole clan who'd grown up together.
"I heard you spoke to my friend."
Lesedi's smile faltered and she stiffened slightly, face closing up a little, "Yes I… I didn't mean to pry…"
"It's ok. He didn't mind. He was afraid that he'd scared you."
"He didn't scare me." That was a lie. But how could she explain how she'd felt in that room? That sudden urge to seize the bare shoulders and turn the unseen face towards her. She'd noticed the lack of reflection in the mirror. She'd heard the date of the house and… It freaked the hell out of her… She thought maybe the man was mad, "Does he have any… mental problems?"
Leon barked a laugh, "God, no! Though the question has been asked several times. He's quite sane."
The snow continued to fall.
"I guess you won't want to accompany me there again on my next visit?"

Lesedi hated to say no. She adored Leon and they had a great time both in and out of town. He was turning out to be a really good friend. But…
"I'd love to." She found herself saying, not knowing why, "When are you going?"
"Not until next week and I'll understand if you change your mind."
"It's not on Christmas day is it?"
"No. Wednesday."
"Ok…"
Lesedi grinned, "That'll be nice. Kayla seemed very sweet."
A soft smile graced her friend's features, "She is."
And they sank into a companionable quiet.
*

It was Monday night when Lesedi started to notice that things were wrong. The world, which had always been bright, was dramatically more clear… sounds seemed sharper… She could hear the drip of a tap in the bathroom down the hall and the soft snores of her uncle and the whistling wheezes of her exhausted aunt. She could hear scuffling in the rafters above her head and see the spindly arms of each snowflake fluttering past her window. She could feel the nuances of the air in her room as the cold fluttered in under her window then burst like blown spume into the warm body above her bed. She sat up, eyes flickering from detail to detail, she could see the burning gleam of lights as moisture glittered on the glass and could count the threads of material stitched into her duvet covers.

Sitting up in bed, she shifted out, moved to the window on bare feet and touched the glass. Its icy touch sprung like splinters up her arm, vivid and horrible all at once, bursting colours in her eyes as she realised she could feel the exact point where the heat of her fingers melded with the cold, shivering glass. Her eyes were glazed but aware and wandering over the room repeatedly. She wanted to be outside in the flurry of flakes as they flittered and frolicked with the wind. Her hands pushed at the glass and the blizzard flew in.

Outside the world was bleary eyes and weeping in the waves of winsome wintry air. Lesedi stepped back, feeling her feet squishing down on the plush, worn carpet… She stepped forwards leaning out. Something was singing, laughing and calling out. She felt absurd, her body shrunken inwards as if she was infinitely small compared to the wave upon wave of white sheeting down. She recoiled again from the window, feeling more safe, more secure inside but desperately wanting to hear what was being said, feeling a tug, some strange and sultry tune reaching out to her. She couldn't always be strong, she supposed but she wanted to hear it. She could hear something new and it drew her. Drawing her into the medley of murmuring melodies, it was as if the wind itself was singing. She felt thoughts tumbling in a complex muddle of stray ideas and interwoven understandings. What was this…? She was beginning to decipher the wimpling words as they tumbled and underlined some crumbling future that she didn't now and couldn’t quite fathom. They whispered… something about the world of shadows dying? Was there only been one ending? No… There were other alternatives coiling about the orb they sung of and the stars were soothing the supercilious sacrifices into single sounds that the wind seemed to carry. The breeze it spoke of the sun, the stars… She didn't know if she dared to believe all this was real.

It felt like a dream. But the cold was too real. A gust swirled in, Boreal and blowing her hair back from her face and she heard a voice demanding how a childe received such beautiful wings and why she neglected to use them. Lesedi wanted to call out and catch onto that concept that had drifted by her fingers before fleeing with a mocking laugh. She cried out, throwing herself forward in her haste to seize the next battering of white wind when she felt her feet melt, slip and she fell.

She opened her mouth to scream, finding herself tugged out of the window and she saw flashes of memories she didn't understand. She looked upwards to the sky before she began to drop downward. The future… It stung her. But the past flooded her senses. Whimpering she wondered: what about the static cloud? It was so bright that as she looked up to the great white-grey expanse she was blinded by spots of cerulean and violet across her eyes. She heard mimicked, the voices of men and women passed… Was all of this shaped… to one single fate? And if it was… then did everything they did go against what was natural, what was right? Was what they were doing wrong? She could see people she didn't know in the Eastern gale. It was becoming angry, fighting and twirling and swirling and biting at her.

That was when she realised… She hadn't reached the ground. She turned her head and saw the earth below her, covered in its pristine pale blanket. From her shoulder blades, spanning nearly double her height, were dark, indigo and azure wings. They were lizard like, huge and scaled and the tips were hooked. This time she screamed. And that was when she fell completely. Plummeting as the wings bent forwards around her, furling forwards in front of her.

Pain transformed her. Lying in the snow, nerves blazing and aching, she felt bones shifting in her back, along her spine. New bones seemed to be cracking into place, old bones breaking and healing as she twisted, writhing, half unconscious on the ground. Never had she felt agony… not physically like this. Her mouth was open in an o-gape of despair, eyes wild, roving and catching the rictus moon in her dilated eyes. Even her eyes were burning, searing in the cold and smarting. Tears caressing her cheeks in boiling torrents. She screamed but no sound was heard. Every gust was a howling cry, wild and dryadic and hysterical and mad. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she wake up? This nightmare… this nightmare…

The world span, darkening and darkening into nothing.

*

When Requiem had cried out in his sleep, shot awake and then dashed for the outside, both Kayla and Leon had feared the worst. Their master hadn't been drinking recently, too caught up in thoughts of his mates and of the tales of the wind and the mantra the sea pounded on to the shore line… They'd thought he was being taken over by his natural, undeniable bloodlust. They had been wrong.

"She's awoken! She's awoken!" Requiem was screaming, desperate and flailing in their arms. His legs pushed at the ground, trying to sprint, to run, to dart out into the land around them.

"What are you talking about?" Kayla demanded, her voice soft but full of imperatives which were hard to ignore in the context of their positions.

"Lesedi! Oh stars, my mate! My mate! My poor mate!"

It hadn't dawned on them immediately but the wraith that their lord had become during his Sleep continued to pull at their grip and that was when Leon realised.

"Lesedi… has come into her inheritance?"

Requiem was almost sobbing and Leon knew he was right, knew that the girl must have gone through the first part of the process on her own. If he undertook the next bit....

"Let me go to her! She needs me! She can't… She mustn't! She… she…" Requiem went lax, his body bent over, weak and pale from the lack of feeding he had done and Kayla looked at him with sad but knowing eyes.

"Go to her. Bring the girl here."

"What about her aunt and uncle?"

"I'll sort them out so they think she's visiting a friends and won’t try to find out about her for a while."

"You can do that?"

"I'm not sure if I can do it all at once but-" She paused and saw her husband's smile, "Just go get her Leon. I'll take care of our lord."

Leon left, striding out into the swirling eddies of the winter night and closed his eyes a second. Two wings, red scaled and black taloned, burst from his back with a splatter of blood but without any pain. Beating against the air he lifted himself upwards and away from the ground, launching into the maelstrom around him. He listened to some of the wind's tales as he flew with it, he muttered a few words of his own, knowing that other dragons like him would be curious to know about Lesedi had she truly come of age.

What puzzled him was why now? Why today? Why not before? It usually happened around a birthday or significant date in a family. But he knew of no significance for this day. What was the meaning of it…? December twenty-first. What was it? What hadn't Lesedi told him? He shook his head to himself, why was he even asking himself that question when he new the answer? After all… just because Lesedi had accepted him as a part of her life in the sense that they were on amicable terms, didn’t mean that the girl fully trusted him, nor that she would confide significant, personal moments with him.

He should have been watching for the signs more closely. That had been the reason Requiem had sent out again and again to see how she was. Because his master had so desperately wanted to know if… well… if the girl was any closer to coming into her draconian heritage. But he’d known her for such a short time and for such short exchanges it was nearly impossible to gage whether or not the signs had been displayed. They were the usual ones: agility, stamina, speed, immunity to cold, rarely ill, connection to the outdoors. But he hadn’t seen any sign of this. No sign of this at all…

*

Requiem had often been trapped in nightmares. But none like this one. It was 1798, mid war. In Austerlitz. People were dying. Men were falling down around him, before him… Pierre, Laurent, Joscha, Victor… The names went on, letters slurring into one another until it became a string of the nonsensical. Vaguely familiar screams made men lift their heads, looking around to see if they could help and then being speared themselves on the ends of bayonets. Some stare as if they can save the men that belong with the voice but... it is only one end that they see. It was the same for the immortal. He had died three times that day alone. Dirt stained, blood congealed over one eye and streaking a dusty cheek, dark hair matted the colour of mud, his side gaping but still moving with a speed which may not be natural but was all that was noticed amongst the helmeted. They saw the young or not much older dying and they saw him and the undead moving amongst them and though it was not possible to tell at first look, the living and the not, the enemy recognised that its enemies weren’t always dying.

Requiem was yelling, moving towards a youth whose face was gaunt and lined with hours of concentration and fear. It was a face that he was loathe to remember, the face of destiny’s decision for him, bent-double like an old beggar under a sack, trying to avoid the wailing French with their cries which were just as eloquently loquacious as the language of the parlements. He was wading through the dead, wading through the nightmare unaware of the men, those wretched men, as they were gutted, becoming rag-dolls, thrown up into the air with one mighty sigh from hell, their limbs twisting, necks snapping back and flesh melting in a burning breath. There were immortals on Napolean’s side too, you could feel it. The heat of the Parisian Marchosians blazed in the eyes of horses and men alike, bullets were molten from the guns of the legion belonging to Ronwe. But it was Lesedi’s presence that burned him. Those men around her… the memories of Austerlitz were always vivid. He had nightmares where those long dead were churned up again and again as if the ground was too full of death to take any more and they had to live on in his mind... Oh how he remembered them…

Lesedi blurred between herself and a young man, with eyes that had grown old. Blurring between a man hunched in the mud and a girl sitting in the shadow of a strange room, her eyes fogging over with the perpetual brown haze of war, flaring with the fear of a changling… it was if, in both situations a curtain had been pulled over them and he himself was no longer part of the dreamscape, the memory space… In this new place, where men flailed and wailed and shivered and died in their ghastly uniforms which were dirtied beyond recognition, he ran through them. He was there, in his memory but not trapped by the walls of his consciousness.

A different Lesedi with a soft soprano voice which rang out a call with no hesitancy, in the shade the last days of her youth... Then… she was in a wind… Lesedi’s lips slackened and her bright green eyes which stuck fixed in his sight, glazed over as she stared into a middle distance no one else could see or hear or feel... Requiem felt the chill of a winter breeze on his face, dead cold fingers tickling his legs. His mate stood at the edge of the world, looking out on the bitter end.

The world blurred. He tossed and turned, knowing he needed to wake up. Something was happening to his mate. But the visions weren’t over and they weren’t letting him go this time.

He was now sat, in the coffin they had once laid him in. How had he died that time? His whole body ached and his brains pulsated with livened blood; these moments of memory meshed into one long hour. He was encompassed by silence and surrounded by faces he recalled but all seem the same and none hers. The ghostly pallor and the smiles which muttered unspoken goodbyes… He searched frantic, the worlds were not halted anymore. But were ordered to march. And march they did. Legions. I am legion. They were legion. One mind in millions of those gone. None of them were Lesedi’s. He could here the name. Lesedi Lesedi. Some man was calling his mate. A demon?

He was back with the men at Austerlitz. They were not stooped yet, nor did they cough as old hags might, they stood tall and their legs did not quake, every bit a man as they exposed themselves to the enemy and the flurry of flying fire-brazed iron that spits from the mouths of the eternal Wilds and immortal minions on earth. The mud was sticking to his boots, they were being slowed by the rivers of sludge and churned up clay. The world was loathe to his cause, not wishing his subconscious progress. The gaping gates of some underworld then opened: flames bursting from below, men were tossed upwards as bundles of bones and others were drowned, pulled down and then flattened by the weigh of mud. The heavens cursed and the sky burned with fury against him, against all. The sun turned its single eye upon then blinkered out of view, done with loving man, as dust and dirt and grime and the brown haze swells.

“LESEDI!”

He rocked awake. Terrified again.

“Is she? Did-? Where-?”

“Shhh, my lord, she is here. She is well. She sleeps.”

“I need to…”

A cool hand laid itself upon his brow.

“Sleep my lord. I shall protect you from any more dreams.

*

When Lesedi woke it was in a large bed surrounded on three sides by thick navy drapes of velvet and satin held up by dark wooden pillar-styled beams. The fourth side was open, facing out into a room with wooden-panelling and a large winter woodland painting on what looked to be animal skin parchment. She frowned, wondering where she was and why hse wasn't at home. She knew she'd been dreaming but this didn't seem very dream like… She supposed it had to be just a continuation of her dream since she was fairly certain she hadn't sprouted wings and fallen from her bedroom window. She shifted then whimpered, a lancing pain twinging in her back, something sharp and uncomfortable was being pressed into her skin and it felt as if her left side was slowly turning numb.

"Wha-"

"God… you're awake." Leon?

She turned her eyes towards the voice and saw the dark eyes of her friend and she relaxed, "Where am I?"

"You're at my friend's house."

She frowned, "But… why?" Then she gasped, "You've kidnapped me Leon, that's not very clever!"

"I did not kidnap you. You fell from your window and I found you. Took you to the safest place I knew."

She didn't let the little shiver of fear deter her, "I really fell?"

"Yes you came into your inheritance last night and-"

"Inheritance?" Her voice was sharper than she had intended but the last time she'd heard that word she'd been told that her father had left her his family inheritance which would be transferred to her possession when she was eighteen.

"Your draconian inheritance."

"What?"

Leon looked at her, raking his eyes over her and she felt, for the first time, awkward in his presense… the fact that she was merely wearing her pajamas still didn't help. She tugged on the duvet, pulling it closer to her chin.

"You're a draconian, Lesedi."

"A what?"

"A draconian. An elemental immortal."

"What the hell are you talking about Leon?" She felt fear rushing through her, she wasn't sure of Leon any more. It was as if he'd stopped being sane, the look in his eyes feeling dangerous and fiery.

"Well you're… a dragon spirit." He said, voice strangely stiff, "Yesterday you gained your wings."

"Stop being ridiculous Leon!" She snarled, angry at everything.

"You need to-"

"NO!" The girl shook, sitting awkwardly upright, wincing and gasping at the prickling pain along her spine and shoulder blades. It was like a colony of molten maggots writhing under her skin. She ignored it, swinging himself out of the covers and placing his feet on the ground. Icy knives shot up through the naked skin and she bit back a yelp. Standing, wobbling, she kept her eyes on the darkening ones of Leon, "I'm not listening to this. I want to go home."

It was Leon's turn to flinch as his eyes completely returned to their normal colour and his face dropped into a look of awe and surprise, "Look in the mirror. Please…"

Lesedi frowned, it was that last word which made her think and reconsider what she was saying. She'd never felt so mistrustful of one person before. Not even the strange man whose house she now stood in once again. Lifting her hand to push back her hair from her eyes she focused on ignoring the agony that was spiralling through her lower leg as the cold floor apparently burned its way up through her blood. Leon was pointing at a large curtain, behind which she guessed there was a mirror. Forehead wrinkled in confusion, anger and fear, she found herself nodding. And Leon walked across to the curtain, drew them aside, revealed a mirror and… Lesedi screamed.

*

Requiem heard his mate scream and lurched upwards, face contorting into a feral snarl as he realised that he was tied to the bed with some sort of magic that he had no doubt was Kayla's. Biting on air, he yowled, hoping that the woman would come and release him, that he was constrained only because he'd been thrashing around in his nightmares. His mate was hurting.

"You know you can't go to her. She must come to you first now that she has reached her inheritance." Kayla spoke from no where, her soft alto ringing gently in the round room he slept in, "Calm my lord. She is in no danger."

"She screams."

"She is seeing herself for the first time."

"She screams."

"Leon has shown her the effects of the transformation, her wings."

"Screaming…"

"Master, she is not hurting but understanding."

"Scream…"

Then the noise stopped and though he shook and shuddered in his desperate desire to dash to his destined and destroy whatever had caused such a terrified outcry… his rationality returned, the Rage fading and his realisation that Kayla was telling the truth becoming transparent.

"There you go my lord, I'm sure things will become clear again soon.