The Snakesong

"Your thoughtless words are breaking
my heart..."
- "Foolish Games" , Jewel-

My sister is dead. I killed her.

I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to do it... but it was my fault. Shalom is dead and I killed her! If only I had listened to her, if only the snakes had not called me, if only mom and dad had been alive... but the hunters came looking for us.

For the witches.

I can still hear her, I can still see her with her arms stretched out towards me.

Father would have known what to do, he would have been able to save her had he still been with us. But I didn't know what to do, and neither did the hunters in the end. The just stared at Shalom and back up at me, and I knew that they didn't know what to do.

"So...their blood is red after all...."

That was all they said, or at least, it is all I remember.

Father never believed those tales, not even when he realised that part of them was true. He loved mother with all his heart, even though the townspeople accused her of being a witch, of having green blood and of talking to the snakes. But he wanted her, she had fascinated him from the beginning and he pressed on until he managed to see inside of her. Mother was not a witch, she was only a skilled herbologist; she did not have green blood, nor did we, her daughters; but she could indeed talk to snakes, as I could, contrary to Shalom who never inherited a fraction of mother's power.

"It isn't in all of us, Ilana," Shalom told me once. "Mother was the only one in her family to have the power." Shalom didn't even know what kind of power this was, she only had mother's vague references to it. "She never told me because - since I didn't have it- the knowledge was useless." I was a lot more like our mother than Shalom would ever be, and she too, my sister told me, used to spend all her time climbing up trees and digging up roots when she found them. She too, was beautiful... like me.

Mother died at childbirth, my childbirth. I never met her, thought Shalom used to talk to me about her all the time, and about our father.

"He left after mother died, I think he couldn't bear loosing her." My sister never spoke ill of him, even though he had abandoned us while I was no more than a new-born. I could not understand how she justified his actions, but she did, and she kept me from saying anything against him. But I could not help hating him secretly, knowing somehow that he had left us because I had looked too much like mother for his comfort. I was too much like her.

Too beautiful.

The rest of our time she would spend trying to teach me how to mix herbs and make healing salves and healthy shampoo, I found it hard to believe anyone could have accused our mother of witchcraft for doing this.

"But mother had her other abilities," Shalom whispered lowly. "She could speak to the snakes."

I lifted my head and stared at her fearfully. I had been three years old back then, but I had never told Shalom about the voices in the earth. Those sibilant seductive voices that hummed the secrets of the herbs and the rocks, who sang of the green-leafed trees and the ever-changing taste in the wind. I knew she couldn't hear them, I hadn't known till then that mother had been able to do it like me.

"That's how she knew so much about herbs and minerals, and what plants to mix with what fruits... father used to say the snakes guided her. I don't know if it's true... father believed it though."

Shalom didn't know I could hear them too, but the townspeople never forgot whose children we were, they never let go of their grudges. They had believed too, but they had not found such power harmless at all. When a small plague hit them they blamed us, those-who-talked-with-snakes. And the sent the hunters after us.

After she died the hunters didn't know what to make of me. They prodded and pulled, and asked me questions in their rough voices. I answered back numbly, feeling cold and distant as they touched my cheeks and my legs, torn between a dark desire born out of fear and a fear born from a terrible lust.

"What's your name?"

"Ilana..."

"How old are you?"

"Six...."

One of them tipped my chin up and looked deep into my eyes, cursing as I did not focus on him. "She looks just like her mother... God, she is beautiful!"

Beautiful?

No... no, I wasn't. But through the haze I could hear Shalom's voice, my dear Shalom who lay dead behind me, as if she were still alive and smiling.

I curled up, pulling my face out of the hunter's grasp.

"A feisty one too..." the hunter muttered, taking out a handkerchief to wipe Shalom's blood off his fingers, leaving what he had smeared on my face intact.

"...like her mother." I closed my eyes and curled up, willing their voices away. Wishing against all sanity that they would simply turn around and leave...just leave.....

"So beautiful...."

A hand grabbed me by my hair roughly and pulled me to my feet, squeezing my cheeks as two dark and muddy eyes studied mine carefully. I glared back, unwilling to let him know how scared and disgusted I felt, even though I could not stop my knees from trembling.

"And dangerous, this one has the look of a killer..." he tipped my face to one side and then upwards, feeling for a pulse in my neck. "But she's just as scared as she's defiant." He smiled then, a wide toothy smile that made him look feral and untamed.

"Let her go, you're going to bruise her," another voice spoke up.

The one who held me looked beyond me at Shalom's corpse and then back down. "Who cares? It's not as if we're keeping her."

"We could still sell her for a good prize, I heard there's good use for pretty girls her age in the big cities...." I shivered at his words and the man who held me raised a brow at the proposition.

"She's way to beautiful to kill, that's for sure," he murmured, using his other hand to finger my hair and touch my legs thoughtfully. "Makes you wonder what she'll be like in a few years."

I closed my eyes and willed their words away, trying to ignore the probing hands that searched all over me for any wound or imperfection. "Well, she's perfectly healthy as far as I can see. I still feel rather reluctant to give her away..."

"Ah...just like her mother, to beautiful to be human. No wonder that Jewish idiot she married didn't live long." Laughter rose from around them. I opened my eyes to stare at them in angry silence. "What... you didn't know.. Ilana? He killed himself after he left you."

I shook my head, trying to get out of their grasp. "No..."

"Oh stop torturing the poor thing! We ought to worry about how we'll hide that body." He jerked his head in the direction of my sister and I saw them all nod quietly. "And then, once we're done, we'll see what to do with this one." They tied me up and left me leaning against a tree. Above me I could hear the voice of the snakes, hissing in confusion as the strange men dug a relatively deep hole and pushed my sister into it, covering it with the removed soil when that was done. One of them walked back up to me then, covered in blood and dirt, looking for all the world like he was sorry.

"I just can't believe she is dangerous...."

"Nothing that lovely can be safe," another answered and spat on the floor. "We should get rid of her before she puts a curse on us, which I'm sure she will."

"Oh for God's sake, she's only a child... look at her!" the first one cried, and I stared up at him, feeling too cold and terrified to speak up.

"I am looking at her... and all I see is her mother."

The journey they took upon themselves to perform was both strange and painful to me; they stopped by our little cottage - which was all we had left from mother - and set it on fire to make sure no other witches came back, or so they said. After that they wrapped me up in a long cloak and tied me down to one of their horses as the rest unloaded their rifles and put them away in their satchels. It was dark by the time they set out again, carrying me like an unwanted bundle as they made their way down the green hills and into the cobblestone road that led to the village.

"Here we separate," the one with dark eyes spoke up. "You three will come with me to the city to find a place to leave her, the rest will go back to the village now and tell the elders that the job is done."

There was an uncomfortable shuffling. "We were supposed to kill both of them..."

No one answered, but I could feel all eyes on me. "You tell them are dead."

As soon as the other group was out of reach they broke into a gallop, I bit my lip to keep myself from complaining as the rough rhythm made the mount and the cords that bound me bruise my skin through the cloak they had laid on me. At some point, I must have fallen asleep.

I woke up to a place I had never seen, with tall ugly buildings and fewer trees than I thought possible, the grass was sparse and the streets were not the homely cobblestones I expected but a smooth grey hardness that had to be cement. There were no snakes here, the air was devoid of their song. I closed my eyes again and pretended to sleep, feeling a tightness in my chest as the memory of Shalom's bloody face flashed before my eyes unbidden. No one paid attention to us, and the hunters rode on until the streets grew narrower and there was more dust and rubbish on the pavement, the horse's hooves clicking eerily as they plodded on.

I was jolted when they finally came to a stop, hard hands untied me and pulled me to my feet. I felt dizzy and weak, too weak to hold back my tears or to go on refusing whatever they wanted. I wanted Shalom to hug me and tell me it was going to be alright.

"I heard you are looking for kids with strange abilities here?" the dark eyed hunter grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. I looked up, too drained and confused to care, into a pair of deep brown eyes framed by unruly black hair. The man had elfin features but his narrow eyes gave the impression of something all together different from what his feline beauty implied, more than a cat he was like an eel.

"We are looking for boys," he replied, and he had a strange accent to his speech. "However..."

He stared at me coldly, sizing me up carefully as the hunter held me up, and his hand on my arm was all that kept me from collapsing.

"I like her Shura, it's been a while since we find one with such potential," a sweet feminine voice came from behind the man... Shura?

"She looks pretty wasted and broken down if you ask me," Shura replied speculatively, giving the hunter who held me an unfriendly look. "What did you do to her, and what makes you think we will pay for such a devastated little thing." The woman inside laughed out loud, but said nothing more.

"That she's beautiful." The hunter lifted me up and tipped my face up for the other to see, I just glared back listlessly.

"Beauty is not an ability, and it will be of little use to her from now on if we take her." He replied coldly, reaching out to touch my muddy cheeks thoughtfully. "She is quite remarkable though."

"Do you want her or not?" the hunter demanded angrily, dropping me back onto the floor. Shura walked back into the house and came back with a small bag that sounded like it had money in it.

"There, now leave."

The hunter did not need to be told twice, before I knew it was being dragged into the house to stand in front of a tall woman who sat in a chair. Or at least I thought she was a woman. There was a strange shiny mask covering her face.

"I thought we were here looking for boys," Shura's voice rose behind me, I stood frozen where I was.

"Any will do, boys are easier to come by though. Now stop fidgeting about or I'll never take you on a choosing trip again," the woman snapped back irritably, by the sound of her voice I could tell she wasn't half as young as he shapely body and featureless expression made her seem. "What's your name girl?"

"... Ilana." I murmured, trying to quell the urge to run.

"Tree?" the woman huffed. "Why do mother's always insist on naming their kids after objects... it's beyond me."

I stared at her darkly, trying to make sense of her words. Tree? I knew that was what my name meant in my father's language, why did this woman insult mother? "My father gave me that name," I cut back, digging my nails into my palms to calm myself. Shura laughed behind me and muttered something in a language I didn't really understand, the woman leaned forward in her chair until her mask was only inches away from my face.

"Then blame your father for it... Ilana."

"Do you really think she has potential?" Shura asked suddenly, and I realised he was standing behind me, staring down at the pathetic picture I made. The woman sat back and laughed lowly.

"Oh yes, quite a catch, this one... we should have paid more for her." She turned her face towards him. "But you made sure she was cheap as any stray dog can be."

"I wasn't aware of the fact we paid money for the defenders of our goddess," he stated quietly and the woman laughed even more.

"You're just jealous because no one gave a dime for you!" the steely face turned to me once again. "Do you know who we are Ilana?"

I shook my head, unafraid of these two for the time being. Shura shrugged as if it were obvious but the woman cocked her head to one side and I could have sworn she must have been smiling.

"We're the reason you will never have a normal life," she whispered to me.

"I've never had a normal life," I replied, staring straight into where her eyes should be. "Nor do I want one."

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, my sister's voice seemed to murmur something to me, but I pushed it back down; I didn't want to cry in front of these people. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I wanted revenge.

Less than a week later, after days and days of long explanations and a crash course on Greek, we were approaching what Shura and the woman - Briseis - referred to as "Sanctuary". I had listened to their tales of Gods and Goddesses, of cloths and wars, but nothing they had said could have prepared me for the sight the tall marble constructions presented. I thought briefly of Shalom, and pushed the thought away again... I didn't want to think about her, I didn't want to cry. I was tired of the endless moving along and of being watched by all the men around me, I was tired of hearing mutter how beautiful I was and how small I looked. I didn't really know why I was following Shura and Briseis, though I was pretty certain that if I tried to run away the would capture me again. Perhaps they were the only people who had some idea of what I could do.

When we got there I was thrown into a small room with a few other girls who glared at me sullenly, none of them had masks either. Briseis had explained to me about those, and why we would wear them. The idea struck me as wonderful, for no one would be able to see my face anymore, not even me when I looked in the water, so I would not be compared to mother, or called beautiful, or be touched and smiled at. I wasn't beautiful, not inside my heart. Shalom would have hated what I was becoming, and how cold and distant I felt. And that thought I pushed into the back of my mind, as I did with all memory of my sister or the past.

We were given our masks so that we could choose a pattern to put in them, a sort of mark of individuality. I chose a stained pattern along the eyes, like the pattern on a certain type of snake I remembered, and ugly enough to be repelling. Briseis nodded absently at me and smiled.

"Not a very beautiful choice, Tree." She commented, and I hated her all the more for the double insult. I raised my eyes to look at her calmly. I would not allow anyone to get the best of me, not again.

I closed my eyes tightly and willed that memory away, clutching the mask between my fingers like a lifeline. Shalom was dead, I had killed her, and nothing I said or did would bring her back. Nothing I said or did would bring mother or father back to me either. I wasn't beautiful, I was a terrible ugly creature that killed the ones she loved, that scared people away. I wasn't the little girl my sister loved, I was going to be a monster, an even greater monster than the ones that surrounded me, touching me and whispering to me how lovely I was. I would be the snake to bite them in the dark.

"As you all know, this mask symbolises the end of your femininity, and your past lives," Briseis spoke up to us, all girls of varying ages, all of us holding a mask in our hands. "It is tradition for you to change your name and take up a new identity, think on it."

I glared down at the mask in my hands, feeling cold and determined. I placed it upon my face, feeling how it fastened itself there, trying to grow accustomed to the feeling of something cold and dense against it, yet it did not hinder my sight or breathing. I touched my now metallic cheeks and shivered. No, not beautiful at all. This was more like it, something cold and slippery like a snake....I glanced up at Briseis, seeing that she had moved out of the room and two more girl had come in. Both wore masks, but one had a shocking cloud of red hair, while the other had long black braids the fell behind her back. I moved into the shadows and observed them both. The red hared one spoke up.

"For all of you who just arrived, my name is Marin, and like you, I am also a trainee. However, I am your superior and in charge of your early training; as is my companion over here," she pointed at the black hared girl. "You'll be divided in two groups, one will go with me, and the other with go with her..." I realised that there was some sort of unspoken tension between them. I gave the one called Marin a careful look before turning to the other one. She was gone.

"Quite analytic, aren't you?" a voice came from behind me. I whirled around, finding myself face to face with the girl that had come in with Marin. "What's your name?"
"What's yours?" I countered, realising that it wouldn't do to hand over any advantage in this place.

"I asked first girl, answer to your superior," she demanded, slapping me hard. It hurt even with the mask covering my face. I bit my lip and took in a deep breath, it wouldn't do to be on the wrong side of those above me either...

"Ilana."

"Is that your given name, or your chosen name?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Given."

"And your chosen name?" She cocked her head to one side expectantly.

"Your turn to tell me yours," I cut back. She straightened herself a bit and nodded.

"Very well, I am Geist." I frowned and gave her a strange look, aware that none of these expressions could be seen by her. Briseis' comment came to mind.

"Why did your parents call you that?" I could not keep the surprise out of my voice, what an odd name to give a child. Geist, however, let out an annoyed little sound.

"It's my chosen name, I'm pretty sure no one would call her child Geist," she uncrossed her arms and placed them on her moderately developed hips. "Now, what's your chosen name? I can't just go around calling you "hey"...can I?"

I looked down and sighed. A name...? "How did you choose yours?"

Geist shifted uncomfortably before replying. "It suited me," and at my expectant silence she continued. "It reminds me of things that I am, and things that I'm not. Your chosen name is supposed to mean something to you, at least that's how it's traditionally chosen."

Something that I was... and was not? "....Shaina then."

"Beautiful?" Geist whispered curiously. I glanced up at her.

"You know Hebrew?" she shrugged derisively.

"Are you Jewish...Shaina?" There was an odd tone in her voice. I shook my head gently.

"My father was Jewish...my sister told me she and I aren't Jewish cause our mother wasn't...are you Jewish Geist?" She recoiled, like a hurt animal before a rifle. I knew all too well how that felt.

"Over here it doesn't matter who your parents were or what they believed in... you'll find out soon enough." There was a slicing quality to her voice which unnerved me. "You'll be in my group... unless you'd like to mingle with the teacher's pet's..." she said this loud enough for all to hear and I saw Marin stiffen and look away angrily.

"I'll go with you... if you tell me your name." At her coldness I went on. "I told you both of mine."
"That was your mistake Shaina, and it has nothing to do with me. Are you coming or not?" I knew I had lost terrain with that last denial, and I wondered if perhaps I should not go with the one called Marin... but Geist had come up to me in the first place, and there was something about her that I found oddly attractive, even compelling. Perhaps it was the way she moved, or how she acted. She reminded me of the ghosts in Shalom's stories, and yet she was also like me... like a snake.

Later that night I got up from the hard little bed I was given and walked outside, trying to understand how I had come to end up here, like this. I shivered as the cold night air touched my cool skin everywhere but my face. The mask felt oddly warm against my cheeks... what would Shalom think if she saw me now?

I trembled and hugged myself, trying to make the voices go away, to push away the hands and looks of the hunters as they stared down at me as if I had been some circus creature into the very back of my mind. They had let me live simply because I was beautiful... well I wasn't. Not anymore. No one knew what hid beneath his mask now, not even me.

"...are you sure you can cope with her...?" I started as I heard Marin's voice in the distance.

"Why, you want to train her yourself?" Geist's voice, mocking and cold.

"No...I just... there's something odd about her, something savage and powerful..." Marin sounded slightly afraid. "She's the strongest one we've been handed so far... maybe she needs a stable and experienced teacher from the start, not us."

"I can take care of her just fine, stay out of my business! Just because you got a high position easily doesn't mean the rest of us didn't work - and earn- our place." Geist sounded almost hurt, betrayed.

"Oh...Tirzah....." Marin murmured. I drew closer stealthily to hear the rest of what they were saying.

"Don't you dare call me that, not here!" Geist snapped back, "I don't need your pity."

"Don't do this, you know it doesn't have to be this way." Marin was almost pleading.

"That's where you're wrong: this is the only way."

"Tir-..Geist..."

"Go to sleep Marin, we both have a lot of work for tomorrow."

I hid in the shadows until both had left. I still wasn't surprised when a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed me roughly.

"I should have known better than to trust you to stay put." Geist dropped me back onto the floor. "You heard it all?" I nodded defensively and waited for punishment.

Nothing came.

"Aren't you upset?"

Geist looked up at the sky, then back down at me. "That name you heard...."

"Tirzah?"

"Yes, that one. Never - hear me well- never say out loud, not as long as you want to live." I nodded numbly and saw her slump down against a nearby rock. "...damn her...."

Time flew by after that. Many of the girls that arrived with me died in the first few months, many others ran away - or so Geist told us, even though I was pretty sure they too had died trying to escape. I had long since learned that there was no way out of Sanctuary unless you were a full saint, and even more, there was no way out of the female training grounds unless you had express permission from the Kyoko himself. I didn't really mind about the restrictions, I simply concentrated on learning what Geist taught me, until there was nothing much she could teach me anyway. I was eight by then, and a few good inches taller than the rest of the surviving girls. Geist laughed as I kicked my opponent and sent her sprawling.

"You're getting better and better Shaina, we may need to get you a new teacher soon," I swivelled to look at her, feeling suddenly afraid.

"New teacher? What about you Geist?" I demanded quietly. Geist shook her head decidedly.

"I'm just the starting point here... most female saints don't have teachers, like me. Next year I'll probably win my cloth and then I might consider getting a pupil." She extended a hand to me. "Come."

"What am I then, charity work?" I growled, pulling away from her proffered hand. In the two years she had watched over me and my group we had grown to be rather close, I suspected that my finding out her real name had something to do with that, but I never asked. She was nothing like Shalom, but I had come to see her an older sister of sorts just the same, I had never even considered that she might not be there with me all along, despite the fact she had said so when we met.

"Goddess, where did you learn that word?" she chuckled lowly. "No Shaina, you're not charity. But I'm not fit for teaching seriously anyway, and you're at the right age to begin learning the techniques that you will use in the future..."
"I don't want another teacher Geist." I pressed sullenly.

"I said I can't do it!" and there was a dark finality in her voice as she said this. I realised that there was something she wasn't telling me. I frowned and cocked my head to one side.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not fit for your development." She intoned lifelessly.

"That doesn't sound like something you would say," I gritted out. What was going on?

"Look, Shaina, irrespected of what you do or don't want I'm not going to train you forever, and you need to find a better teacher."

"I'd much rather train myself then!" I shouted back, fists tight at my sides.

Geist didn't even flinch. "You can do that too, if it pleases you."

"But... why?" I whispered. "The real reason, Geist....not what you were told to say."

She jerked and slapped me. "How dare you! I wasn't told to say anything, I'm merely stating what will be best for you. Do as you please if you won't take good advice."

And she left.

I began to work on my training alone after that. I would watch Geist when she thought no one saw her, and then I would try and imitate her moves. It wasn't so hard after a while, almost like learning how to make salves with Shalom. I found that Geist's power was hard to contain, but easy to learn, and I enjoyed the savage style it had. My advances did not go unnoticed, however.

"I'm serious Geist, someone saw her training and she fights just like you..."
"That's impossible, I'm not training her!"

Marin and Geist, fighting as usual. I had come to learn that if I was very quiet I could almost always hear them fighting. I also learned that Marin was not as bad as Geist made her seem... or was she?

"Don't you dare lie to me Geist! Briseis made it very clear to both of us, the ones that have true potential will be trained by an experienced teacher, not us!" Marin's voice held a strange tone in it.

"I told you I'm not training her! Besides, she doesn't want a teacher, she's training herself!" why did Geist sound so desperate?

"I'll only remind you once; your technique might ruin her potential. If you continue teaching it to her, it's your own damn problem."

"Marin!?" Geist whispered urgently. "I'm not training her!"

"I wish I could believe you, but...."

I did not sleep that nigh, or the next. Try though I did I wasn't able to find out what they had meant. I stopped watching Geist and began to elaborate on my own. She stopped talking to me altogether, and I could sense a deep anger in her, towards me. I didn't know what I had done wrong, but I wanted to take it back. Nothing I did seemed to help though, and in the end I realised that she was pushing me away for good.

After Geist left me alone I realised there was nothing and no one really important, I was alone. Geist had been the only person to be remotely kind to me, and now....

I missed Shalom.

Training alone became harder than I expected, and there was no one to back me up or tell me I was wrong if it so was the case. I tried to talk to Geist several times, but she avoided me constantly. I tried showing her how strong I had become, but it was to no avail.

Geist won her cloth a year later, and was banished no more than a few days after that. I never found out why, at least not the real reason. But I had the feeling that it has something to do with me... and Marin. The new Aquila saint had stood on the pier as Geist's boat departed looking both arrogant and powerful, there was something in her stance that told me that she knew this would happen. When I asked her about it she shook me off.

"She brought it upon herself, you deserved a better teacher."

"I wanted her," I whispered, and saw her loosen up slightly.

"Geist's technique is a powerful one, and it suits you well... however, there were greater plans for you. Plans that will be impossible beers your power has already sealed itself in one direction. Geist has done us all a big disfavour." There was a disapproving edge to her voice.

"It was you... wasn't it? You're the one who saw me training..." Marin did not reply. "Why did you do it!?"

"You deserved better Shaina," she murmured, trying to be friendly. I pulled back and glared at her defiantly.

"No, you have no idea of what I deserved or didn't deserve!"

It had been for me... Geist had been banished because of me! I turned around and ran back to my little quarters which I shared with a few other girls.

Geist!

I never saw her again.

Training became my only worry after that, I soon replaced Geist in her position and was handed a group of incompetent girls to settle into the mood of Sanctuary. Beating them up was easy, as was making them cry or regret coming here. I never killed any of them, but I taught them how nothing would ever be simple or joyful again. I grew to be feared and hated among my own, and respected outside of the female training grounds. At eleven, I was only a few months away from trying out for my cloth. I didn't know what it would be, but had long since heard it calling to me at nights... very much like the snakes had called me one night and told me to climb up that tree and....

Shalom...

My memories of the past seemed to fade, and the very concept of having someone care for me had become a mere fantasy, a dream. It had never happened. I beat up the girls assigned to me and trained to gain my cloth so I could leave Sanctuary and take revenge.

Tough even revenge seemed empty by then. Were those hunters even alive? Did they even remember the little girl they sold after killing her big sister?

I let go of all my tensions in my fights, until very few agreed to fight me anymore. I was known throughout Sanctuary because of my vicious nature, and I didn't mind. Kindness didn't exist.
It didn't.

At all.

Until...

Until that one day in which I made the mistake of taking off my mask to coax a rabbit into letting me pet it, and that childish voice rose behind me.

"I thought all you female saints were supposed to look horrible, at least now I know you're human." I shivered from head to toes and turned around violently.

It was a boy, a small boy. Younger than me, and with such brilliant eyes... when was the last time I had seen someone's unmasked face? I felt panic grip me as I tried to get him to leave. I honestly don't know what came over me, or how I ended up like that. But before I knew what I was doing he was bandaging a wound on my arm and telling me how sweet I was.

I wanted to cry.

I also wanted to kill him. I wanted to hold him and have him hug just to know that I wasn't the monster I was becoming, that a part of me was still like mother, still like Shalom! He smiled at me, as if I were not the terrible thing I was, as if I were more than the disgusting creature I had become. I stared up at him numbly, unable to even call him back when he got up and left, before anyone else saw him. I gripped my bandaged wrist and trembled.

Was I that hopeless?

Years and years of striving to become something, and it all crumbled down in one second just because someone told me I wasn't bad? Damn that child! Damn him!

Damn him for staying in my mind for years, for showing up in the most unexpected places, making me hide out of fear that he would recognise me. Damn him for forgetting me, as I noticed at last that he had, for he didn't even blink when I passed by him once. Damn him for being nice to me, for making me crave for that warmth that I had though I would never need again.

Kill him or marry him? The very idea was hilarious, he was nothing more than a boy...just that. Or so I wanted to believe. I couldn't kill him, could I?

Winning my cloth didn't even taste of victory. All I could think of was that little boy, and how I wanted to see him again, and again, despite the fact that he didn't give a damn about me. I would hide in the strangest places just to see him.

I almost wrung Marin's neck when I found out he was her pupil.

"Indeed he is, so stay off him."

How I hated Marin then, for everything she had and hadn't done. I hated her even more when I realised that the little boy - Seiya was his name- was hopelessly devoted to her. I decided to take a pupil myself, just to prove that I wasn't in anyway going to let her get the best of me, a pupil who could beat up Seiya just to show Marin that she wasn't good for him.

Cassios turned out to be a lot more than that... just like Seiya was devoted to Marin, he was devoted to me. He was older then me, but much weaker, to the point no one thought he'd become a saint. I decided to use him to proove to the world how good I was, and how monstrous, that I could make him into a killer with such technique that no one would doubt that I was best. Looking back, I realise that all I wanted was to have Seiya look at me again as he had in the past... but he didn't. He didn't know I was that girl from before, and my training Cassios had made him hate me with a passion.

And I hated myself for this more than he'd ever know, but I grew to realise that I didn't mind if he loved me or hated me as long as he was there.

Right...there.

As expected, Cassios lost to him pathetically, and that was it. I couldn't bring myself to reprimand him, he had put all his effort into it, and to some extent I had grown to care for him.

Charity case indeed.

Marin stood, proud and aware of her triumph as Seiya was handed the Pegasus cloth. I hated them both right then, because he would leave...

Leave!

Truthfully, I don't know why I did things the way I did. I don't know why I gathered up a group of beat up guards eager to please me so we could stop Seiya, I guess deep down I was afraid I would never see him again, like Geist and Shalom had been pushed out of my life. I was terrified that this little light of humanity would be extinguished, and I would become exactly what I had come to hate... nothing but a hunter. So I chased him down the hill and did everything -absolutely everything! - in power to stop him, save for one last little thing... tell him why I wanted him to stay.

Oh, he was magnificent. Those poor guards never stood a chance against him, and I....I was defeated by his determination. Before I understood what had hit me my mask had been sliced in half and it slid off my face. I stared ahead in shock, hearing his voice in the distance.

"Wow Shaina... I thought you would be ugly as an ogre.. .but you're quite beautiful!" he cried, smiling oddly. "Beautiful indeed!"

Through my desperation I felt tears sting my eyes, as I realised that even now, seeing my face again, he did not know who I was. And to hear, from his sweet lips, that I was in fact.... beautiful.

Like those hunters had said, years ago... like Shalom had said, before she died.

Beautiful.

After all these years, all this pain and degradation, after making myself into a monster, he looked up at me and called me beautiful! I was a monster! Didn't he see inside of me!? My mask was down and he called me lovely!?

I let him go, I let Marin help him out as I warned him that he had not seen the last of me. As I gripped my oath as a female saint to my heart and swore to follow him wherever he went and kill him. As I hated him, hated him, hated him! And then I cried, when no one could see me and no one could know. I cried because I was a fool, because I was lost, but most of all, because I felt like a monster and I wanted to be beautiful again. I wanted to... and I didn't know how.

And Seiya's voice haunted me day and night....

Beautiful...

Only on the outside.

I don't understand why things happened the way they did, or why I fell in love with that ridiculous child. I tried looking back, to find where I had gone wrong, but it all seemed so diffused by the passage of time. I had forced myself to forget it all, and now it was gone, every dream I had, every smile Shalom gave me.

Every murder I committed that led me here.

Back then my life was so much simpler, and all I had to worry about was the call of the snakes and the taunts of the village children. I never realised there was pain the world, I never thought death might come so fast and so easily, I never imagined love could hurt this much, and feel like it was killing me slowly. I was glad Shalom couldn't see me now, couldn't see what I had become. I was glad that she had died, so she didn't have to know it was my fault that it happened.

As if was my fault that Seiya hated me, that I made him hate me because I was afraid of finding out he'd never love me...

The worst part was that I wanted him to say that to me again.... like Shalom used to say it, like she said it to me the night before she died, as she kissed me goodnight and told me she loved me.

I know I should have stayed in, but the snakes... they were singing so loud and beautiful! All I had wanted was to share that song with them. Seiya was gone, and the song had been silent for years now, I was lost. I was Shaina... Ilana had died.

But perhaps, somewhere in the back of my mind, where I had hidden everything else, Ilana still lived. Perhaps back inside there Shalom still lived, still sang bedtime songs to her little sister while Ilana still believed in dreams, still believed life was beautiful and that snakes were good creatures. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, there was a little girl that Seiya might have loved. And somewhere up there I was still climbing that tree to sing the snakesong. I was still that little child that lived in dreams while her sister called her desperately, arms outstretched towards the treetop while she climbed higher and higher. Somewhere, somehow, Shalom was still down there, begging for me to come down... as the first bullet hits her head.

The End

Toffziesonline: With all my love to Mammalisa, who actually convinced me that Seiya and Shaina make a good couple (I still think Shaina got the loosing side of the deal though) and who is such a wonderful, funny and loveable person so... she deserved a fic! (more accurately, she deserved my finishing it once and for all! ^___^;) With all my toffee-luv to you, Lisa, I hope you like it!