Blood Family

“What is the point of this?” he asked, his voice low and even. “Why did you come here?”

She looked down, but did not answer, not yet.

In her arms was a small child, pale all over save for his eyes which were a crimson as dark as her freshly spilt blood. The child looked back up at his mother, quiet and assessing, recording her image into his mind as if he knew even at his young age that this would be last he’d ever see of her.

Finally, she spoke, her voice as soft as the wind on a clear night.

“I need a place, a place for my son, where he will be safe and can learn and grow.”

The man in front of her was silent as he thought over her words, understanding what she was asking.

She did not know his name, did not even know the name of the place they were in nor the name of her child. It was safer this way, safer for the child as well as the one she was leaving him with. Names were power in more ways than most humans were aware.

She would give anything, pay any price for the safety of her child and the man knew it. A part of her was worried, worried about what the man would ask for, but another part of her, a small part that had long since grown silent in her own home, knew that her son would be safe no matter what here.

The ritual she had performed to send her here for this short amount of time had made certain of it.

“Very well,” the man said, “I will take the boy and raise him as my own. I will never speak of you to him, never hint that he is anything but my own. You will not exist within his life if I am able to help it at all.”

She nodded to his terms. He understood and for that she would be forever grateful. Another of her family would be safe.

She hugged the child to her chest once more before handing him over to the man in front of her.

She disappeared without a trace, the blood that had been placed on the boy vanishing just as silently.

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Written for this week’s Weekly Prompt from suzie81speaks: http://suzie81speaks.com/2014/04/27/weekly-word-challenge-family/

 

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Safety in Death?

The ritual had worked, Comet was far from here and safe. Safe for the first time since long before the War had started. Their enemies would never find Star’s sister, not without Star or the Queen actively helping them and even then it was a long shot.

“Star, she is safe.”

Star nodded and bowed her head as her queen smiled tiredly at her before leaving the room.

She did not respond to anyone else as they spoke quietly both to her and around her before they, too, left for a well-deserved rest. The ritual they had used to both heal her sister and to send her away (because in order to heal her, they’d had to block her connections to those still here, and the only way to do that had been to send her away) had been a success.

Soon, Star was the only one left in the room. She didn’t bother looking around the room, just walked slowly towards the center where a cot had been placed. The cot was still warm from when her sister had been under the blankets and Star knelt by the cot and placed her hands in the blankets. She clutched them to her face and bowed her head. Silent tears began to soak into the fabric as her slender shoulders shook with the weight of her sobs.

She couldn’t feel her sister in her mind, in her very soul, anymore.

It was like she was dead in the worst possible way.

After all, even when their Queen had been dead, before she’d been brought back by the power of the Lunar Healing Crystal, they had still felt her presence within their hearts.

There wasn’t even that to indicate that Comet had ever existed. No torn threads, no aching apology for leaving them behind. Just…nothing…

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Written for this week’s Dungeon Prompt: http://theseekersdungeon.com/2014/02/20/dungeon-prompts-season-2-week-8-when-did-death-become-real-for-you/

Last Link

She looked down at the white envelope in her hands and turned it over once more. It was blank except for her sister’s name on the front an a simple line of words on the back.

Everything I could never tell you.

There was a letter inside, a letter that she had spent moments between preparing writing. This letter would likely be that last thing she could ever give her sister other than a chance for any kind of life. A letter that would be the last link between the two of them.

After today, Star would never see Comet again. She would never hear anything from her or about her. That was part of the price to pay.

“Are you ready?”

Star turned and met her Queen’s eyes and nodded with a solemn expression on her face. The letter was tendered over and the Queen took it without hesitation.

“Would you make sure that Comet…that she…” Star floundered with what to say.

She needn’t have worried. Her Queen already knew what lay within her heart in this matter.

“I will make certain of it. She shall receive this letter when she is able to read it and she will never lose it.”

“But her abilities will be sealed, how shall she keep it without fear of losing it?” Star asked even as she fell into step slightly behind her Queen.

There was a gentle smile, “Just because she cannot use them, not even subconsciously, does not mean that everything must be lost to her. She was born this way and nothing we can do will fully change that.”

They turned down a long hallway that ended in to a single audience chamber that held a few small circles of uniformed people. Men and women were in each circle, but the uniforms varied from the pant and shirt suit that Star herself wore to the skirt and shirt suit that some of the others wore. There was a lot of white in the coloring of those in skirts and a lot of black in those in pants.

In the middle of the circles was a young woman lying on the ground in hospital garb.

“It is time to begin.”

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Written for this week’s FreeWriteFriday.

http://kellieelmore.com/2013/12/13/fwf-free-write-friday-image-prompt-13/