Kaehlin watched the eyes of the wild cat, searching them for hints at its intended next move, his body-sized double axe at the ready in his hands. If he sidestepped to the right� it followed to the left. And when to the left, it would move to the right. Kaehlin let his eyes drift shut a moment, allowing himself to move only by the faint purring in the creature�s throat, and by the padding of its feet on dead leaves. But as the darkness heightened the tiefling�s senses; a cage. Clearly before him, wrought of wire, barbed, and shredded metal, a nightmarish confine to a captive. And the eyes� silken green eyes almost forged from sorrow, small silver tears slipping down a pale face, as white as the feathers on her winged back�

It's been long. Just a little more. Will this feeling reach you?

Kaehlin whirled around, his eyes slamming open and he fled the scene, his huge form carried on the wind as though it were light as a feather, his feet barely touching the ground. Cat�s eyes watched its intended foe�s abandon, but Kaehlin cared not for in his mind something had told him he needed to return. Now.

He tried desperately to call out to her, mother caught on his lips as though teasing him, tempting him, but all that he managed was a squeak, choked by the solution of saliva and blood pooled beneath his tongue. The dagger, finely crafted by his father�s hands of pure darang, impaled deep within his already paling skin, by the hands of the only one he loved, its very tip touching his heart now as she had all of his life. A strangled breath was taken; but the air did not soothe, instead falling back off his bloodied lips, the very oxygen like a liquid on his tongue. The bed sheets had been white once, fine linen bearing the color of snow, but now they lay a lurid crimson, every inch the pallet of his blood. His muscles made small, forced movements, more akin to squirming than to any effort of progress, the dagger hilt pinning him down to where moments ago his mother had laid, bare, beneath him. Even now, as Koell gave his dying whimpers, did he smell her scent, somewhere within the aroma of his blood and the sweat that had been drained in their passionate throes hours before. What had changed? How could his own mother do this to him?

I've been enduring it, like I can't lose only to myself�

He closed his eyes, for all their worth they did him no favor but to reveal to him the color of his insides. Where was she? The child, for that is all he was to her, brought to his chest a hand, shaking, trembling like the leaves that had fallen that season, and placed weak fingers around the hilt of the dagger in his chest. Without doubt it was hers. Why? The blade slid from his flesh as easily as it had entered, tearing with it more than a handful of his skin and more than a cupful of fluid. His heart gave a lurching throb and he tried to cry out his pain, but it was contained, trapped within his throat like a captive within a cage. The dagger met the bedroom floor; lay alongside the bed sheets that rested awkwardly down the mattress where Am�naelihn had fallen, tangled within their folds, after she had brought an inevitable conclusion to his being. Tremulous fingers began to glow as the child of tainted blood tried to heal the wound his parent had inflicted. He called to every God his wavering mind might recall; to no avail, for he was alone now, and too weak to heal the dagger-made gash. Seeing only darkness, Koell ceased his struggles, allowing the hand to rest beneath him, lost, useless, abandoned.

It seemed like it would freeze so I closed my eyes�

He had found her in the hallway that led from their sleeping chambers, her form curled into a ball on the carpet, unknown to her weeping, cries of tormented agony that he had heard from the moment he entered the double doors. Her robe had been caught around her legs, a candelabrum laid out prone beside her, its candles broken into pieces on the now wax-stained surface. His axe dropped and long forgotten on the stairway, he gathered her up into his arms, giving a faint growl of the anguish he felt flooding out of her. He held her form to his chest where she lay, shaking and shuddering for long over a minute, a wave of semi-consciousness heavy over her mind.

She saw the colors, oranges of the burning torches, whites of the rising feathers, reds of the spilling blood� the amber of eyes, wide and horrified, questioning in their last moments, desiring why, why did she do it? And the tears, silver, falling, smearing the blood, dried and flaking from her own face. No. A throbbing ran along her left arm, something she had hit as she fled, tried with more than desperation to get away, and caused bruises to rise up on pale, quaking skin. No.

Her arms flailed out at him and he growled, trying to restrain her, hold her still, on the most rare of occasions to heal her pain, to soothe what was troubling her panicked mind. And yet she struck him, along his chest and lower jaw, her fists clenched into balls she used as weapons. And then, with palms flat she forced herself backwards, out of his embrace; for she saw only his eyes, crimson and haunting, neither the emeralds of the child nor the ambers of the son. He was a cage, the cage, inflicting and restricted, ensnaring�

Am�naelihn struck the floor and lay there, not moving save for uncontrollable trembling, though she did not attempt to control it. She knew nothing and she wanted to know nothing. He knelt down beside her, knowing not to raise her again, and stroked a hand along her sweat-matted brow, removing a feather from her eyes and chancing a curious glance to the bedroom she had most certainly come from.

Near or far, I'll be by your side�

He was lost now, to hope, to himself, and to her. He had forfeited to the battle he could not win, forgotten chance that he might ever know why. She had answered him, silently, unknowing, as she had inserted the instrument of his end. �No.� He had vaguely seen her leave; a shadow passing him by, obscured from his sights by an entanglement of white. But his eyes now were closed, and he had breathed the last breath that his mother had bid him. Brought to execution, unexpectedly, by the only person ever to have loved him. Brought to death by the person who brought him to life. He saw her on his eyelids, the curved smile of her lips, the golden glimmer of her eyes, the snowy span of her feathered wings as they drew out from the back of her beautiful and flowing silver dress.

His father had been there to resent every new skill he had learnt. Had snorted at the first step he took, had mocked the first word he spoke. He remembered now, within the darkness and amidst the swirl of color. He saw the sneering face as he had wrote his first word, and the roll of the scarlet eyes as he slew his first tiger. �That�s only a small one,� the words came as an echo. �You can smile when you kill an adult.� The only time he had ever been proud was when his son killed the drider assassin that he himself had failed to see. He could see that smile now, fanged and so faint it might not have been there, but the sparkle in the depths of the abyssal eyes� there was no care in them. Sacrifice, gain, was all the tiefling cared of�

His mother. She had been there to hold him and tend his wounds when he had fallen following his first step. She had taught him his first word and hugged him when it got it right. The light that spun in the darkness reminded him now, memories that he had forgotten but never lost, showing him how his mother had smiled at his first drawing, hung it on display for all to see. She hadn�t pointed out to him that he spelt her name wrong when first he wrote it, instead telling him he�d got it just� right� as her touch felt to him now, when finally she melted in his hands, allowing her own creation to mould her, touch the emotions, draw them out of her as moans and gasps, shaking, trembling, moist� as he had felt in the bed sheets when she had stolen the life she granted, into the metal of the blade� he squirmed in the bed, fighting the mist, for he knew he was seeing his life flashing before his eyes and he mustn�t� unless his mother� told him� and Koell, first son of Am�naelihn and Kaehlin, lay still.

The season I've been eagerly awaiting goes by�

The temptation to leave her side had passed, for she needed him despite her not knowing or admitting to it, and without him by her side she might never find a way. He needed her too, though he would let her drain him of his blood before he would admit the words to her, though he had said similar to her many times before; told her he loved her, and she knew he meant the words, though like the blood of a rock they came. Almost by such thoughts alone did she open her eyes, stare at his, and find the warmth in their fiery depths. Only she would ever find that soft side, and to Am�naelihn it was a gift of her own. Still her robes were torn and clinging, like a dagger to flesh, to her skin, wet by a mixture of blood, sweat and the damp of passion. She felt his fingers on her face and she shivered, no fear, he would take her through if she asked. The cage door was never locked.

�Kaehlin��

The word came off her lips, forced but small, dried and wavering. She would have sworn on her deity�s name that he smiled, though with him one could never be sure, but he gave her a nod that acknowledged her voice, and she herself smiled; this she did know. But even as she smiled she felt it, the loss, the piercing of her heart, and she knew something was amiss; something was not right. No. There was still the loss, unattended, fading more and more with each passing second�

�I� I need some water�Kaehlin��

He left her now, at last, to do her bidding. This in itself was much to her surprise, yet she�d had a lingering feeling by the way he had knelt that she would not hear the usual �get it yourself� that would normally have been commonplace. He went down the spiralling staircase, apparently unaware that he could have fetched her request from the sink within the upstairs lavatory; yet for this she was grateful. The winged woman gave a small groan, still laid almost flat now on the carpet which her grazed elbow had smeared with her blood and the broken candles stained with wax.

The power I firmly believe in is here�

The darkness subsided faster that it had become, washed from the glossy eyes as blood on a beach. In the darkness he had seen the cage, perverted metal and barbed wire, and the feathers that defied all forces of nature, and the little girl that had waved his farewell, sad and pained though she was, yet he was confused for these were not memories of his own. The next thing that came to be were her fingers, and the next feeling he felt was their touch on the bridge of his nose; the fingers that opened his eyelids, giving him sight again, taking from him the clouds that blinded him. Something was wrong, he felt and knew that something was missing and only on reflection did he realize that the something was the searing agony that he missed from his muscled chest. No pain. He saw her eyes, golden and tearful, and she saw his, amber and scared� he wanted to speak, to test the voice that had failed him the last time he had tried to speak out for her. But the words fell on deaf ears, for she left him in her bedroom, her clothes still mere rags, broken and torn, and she left him to lay in a pool of his own blood, alive by only the clerical hand she possessed, given life for the second time by her will and hers alone. And through the grief, the fear, the torment that remained only in his mind, did he manage to curl his lips up.

If you're at peace then you should smile�