 |
Her Weakness
Her Weaknesswww.roleplayer.me/TheBlackFairy
It went against every rule she'd ever given herself.
She knew this, and yet she was too weak to resist. It was the same over and over again. The desperate need to see him. The promise of 'just once more'. The acknowledgement that she was just lying to herself, that she was making her own life more difficult as each night passed.
Time moved differently for them both. Each hour that he lived in the Enchanted Forest was a whole year for her. Decades would pass for her between each visit. Perhaps that was another reason that she couldn't resist the overbearing need within her to lay eyes on him once more.
She knew that Aleksander wasn't thrilled, but he let her go without complaint. After 40,000 years, he was used to his wife's quirks. It was just something she did every decade or so, disappearing from their realm with whispered promises to stay out of sight, to remain unwitnessed. He didn't understand it, nor did she expect him to.
Her tiny wings carried her miniature form to the same familiar window, and she perched lightly upon the frame. It was open tonight, that wasn't a surprise. Summer was coming, the nights had been getting warmer and the little cottage had always been stuffy when the days grew longer and warmer. Her dark eyes gazed through the clear spot on the streaky window that she had made on a previous visit, trying to get a view of the occupants within.
Inside its walls, the cottage was dark, lit only by a few candles dotted in strategic places. She remembered finding those places herself, working out the best way to light the cottage with the minimum amount of candles. Malcolm, it seemed, had changed very little about their home after she had gone.
Movement across the room drew her attention, and she watched as Malcolm rose from his seat at the small table where they used to share a meal, a bottle in hand. He stumbled across the room, towards the window she stood behind, eyes cast towards the bed beneath it, and the small being who lay within it. He muttered something to himself that she couldn't quite make out, before turning towards the door and heading out into the night.
The rage that filled her felt so raw as she slipped in through the open window, her wings fluttering as she flew over her son. She had watched Malcolm over the years become less and less the man he had once been. Gone was the kind, attentive man who seized the day and loved Fiona and his unborn child more than words could express, and slowly became a drunk, uncaring shadow of his former self who grew bitter and cold. She had seen the disdain in his eyes when he looked upon their child, a look she had never seen on his face before, a look she despised. She couldn't understand how he could look at the child she loved with every cell of her body in this way. And now, he had enraged her more than ever before, leaving their young son alone in the dark.
She had returned to her full size before she landed, and knelt beside the bed, letting out a soft sigh. This was the closest she had been to him since the day she had been banished from his life, she had never dared to allow herself to be this close to him, knowing she wouldn't want to leave him, fearing it would pain her too much when the Dark Realm dragged her back into its clutches. She dreamed about taking him with her, but the Dark Realm was no place for a child to grow up, not while it was still just a prison.
Instead, she had lingered by his bedroom window each night since the Darkling had taught her how to leave her realm, and though the realm only allowed her short bursts of time outside it, it didn't stop her from spending what time she had watching her son sleep, wishing she could take him with her.
His tiny chest rose and fell in a smooth movement as he slept, and Fiona couldn't help reaching out a hand to brush the hair off his forehead. The sensation of his skin and hair beneath her touch was almost too much to bear as sorrow and pain overwhelmed her. Her love for him burned through her very soul, tore her apart. She wanted to be here with him. Always.
How she wished things had been different, that she'd gotten to raise him, to name him. It occurred to her, then, that she didn't even know the name Malcolm had given their son. Four and a half years of Enchanted Forest time she had been watching them, and never had he spoken their son's name aloud. It was almost as though it shamed him to do so.
Fiona's fingers moved from her son's hair to his cheek, gently stroking the soft, pale skin with her thumb as her eyes became so filled with tears from the emotions overpowering her that she could barely see him through them. She already knew that leaving was going to hurt more than it ever had before, and while she loved her life with Aleksander in the Dark Realm, she knew a part of her would forever be longing for the day when she was able to be close to her son once more.
Hours passed quickly as the fairy remained, lovingly gazing at her child, stroking his mousey curls as he slept on, unaware of her presence. As the sun began to stir, she felt that familiar tug at her core, the call of the Dark Realm giving her a warning. It would pull her back soon, drag her from the Enchanted Forest in a manner most painful if she did not return of her own accord. The sky grew lighter as the sun rose, and the sound of clattering outside the cottage told her that Malcolm was finally stumbling back home.
"I love you.." the fairy whispered softly against her son's ear, "your mother loves you.."
Fiona planted a soft kiss on his cheek, taking a brief second to commit everything about him to memory, locking it away to keep her going for the next decade of her existence.
The door to the cottage creaked as it opened, but by the time Malcolm managed to stumble through it, the Fairy was gone.
|