(no subject)
Chelsea woke with a start; the afternoon sunlight poured around the heavy damask drapes in one of the Waydown guest rooms, across the velvety carpet and over the antique four poster bed where Nico still slept on beside her, grumbling softly as she pulled away from his embrace and sat up. Something she'd been dreaming still moved behind her closed eyes, in a rush of inky wings and snowy whisper soft feathers and the thundering movement of air, the beating of wings. She opened her eyes, hands crushing the sheets, wondering briefly how cotton could feel so much like satin.
I need a summer
The sunlight was warm, but the breeze from the ceiling fan was cool. The bare leg thrown over hers under the cool sheets was warm and kind of furry and very familiar. The feeling she had here, of being home, as Ava put on whatever passed for socialness amongst avatars and nestled into the familiarity of souls equally lost as she, was comforting. There was a sense of urgency, but she was unsure as to what. She had a busy week ahead- the Euthanatos would be coming, Nico wanted to call them together, and she had to talk to Blackbird and Connie and the Hollow- but right now was just right now, and she was here in the lap of Neville's luxury, comfortable and as safe as one could get before the ultimate safety of death. She was home. Everything was fine. Wasn't it? Why this sense of urgency?
But the summer's come and gone
Last night was still running through her veins. She'd slept for hours but she didn't feel rested. She had spent too much effort reigning Ava in to keep the Helekar alive, so they could be convicted, to keep her own rage at Jean-Claude from giving her avatar a foothold to claw her way into consciousness with. Not that a true conviction had come; it had been even worse than the kangaroo court she'd been expecting. Idiot Traditionalists, always wanting to be superheros in capes and never pay for the priviledge. She had half a mind to invite more than Nico's Euthanatos over, maybe some of this makeshift cabal that seemed to be forming of its regard around them. Henry had betrayed her, once again. He reminded her of Xid0r, when her last cabal had folded, too Traditionalist to think for himself, to understand what it meant to be allies, friends, lovers, to have any connection.
I need a summer
Wings. Flight. Black against white against black. Ravens....and swans. It clicked in her mind, then. Avalina, the miscreant child with the unfortunate name whose existance was fully against the Wheel, whose understanding of her place in things was beyond saving, whose hubris and arrogance reminded her so of Natasha, yet who walked for the sake of her mother; that wretched sword that should be waiting for her across the piano bench when she got home. And the lack of ravens and swans standing at her side when she had broken the weave of the correspondence gate beginning to form in the trial chamber, failing to stop the Helekar bitch from retrieving her sword right from Chelsea's own waist.
But it's winter in my heart
Repetitive history; she recalled the nights in the Connie's house in St. Louis, waiting for Eliot and Spike and Lucky to get there while the Henry's obsessive love and profound lack of understanding rallied the Order to the foot of her wards, when Nico had promised to be there and chased his Tradition instead and she'd been left to rely as always on those with no Tradition; she thought of him sitting on her bedside, wrapping gauze around the torn remains of her ritual scars, mind fuzzy from pain and magic while he asked for another chance to be there, while simultaneously making her feel like it was her fault somehow; and here again, wanting a Chela rather than an archmage to watch after his ass and those other Traditionalist fools just because the Chela happened to be Euthanatoi and she was.....just her.
Black wings and white wings, flights of ravens and swans, the beat of wings against steamy Louisiana summer night. His words were always only words, he hadn't the focus to make more of them.
It's all the same
Fucked up game
You play with me
Chelsea was out of the bed before she realized it, pulling the black silk robe from the crystal knob on the back of the door and slipping it on over her nightgown. It billowed from her narrow shoulders, from where it was tied around a narrow waist and flared around the gentle curve of her hips. She went into the hall towards to music room and the Steinway grand that resided there, with its perfect black lacquer and it's real ivory keys.
Did I need to sell my soul
for pleasure like this?
Did I have to lose control
to treasure your kiss?
Before the Aghori, before the Hollow, before Nicodemus, there had been music, and music always kept its promises because it didn't make any. Somewhere between the young woman who crossed the threshold of the room at nearly a run and the professionally perfect posture of the musician on the bench, a more practical magic occurred. Bach, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, without sheet music or thought; she let it pour from her soul, whatever was left of it after two decades and five months of Ava, through her hands and into the air.
Did I need to place my heart
in the palm of your hand
before I could even start
to understand?
Death wasn't always literal; certainly Nicodemus had come out of Castle Helekar alive, however barely, but at what cost? He was the head of the Tradition now. They followed him like ducklings, and he was strong and charismatic and easy to follow. She had taught him his rudimentary knowledge of the art of political war, as surely as she had taught him how to hold a blade without cutting himself, and when he wanted to be, he was an excellent student. When he wanted to be; the Lhakmist freedom in him, so like her own Aghori freedom, that lack of fear of living life, of doing what was right, of paying the cost gladly because of faith that there will be more when it's needed, that childlike, wonderful sense of humor in him that never quite allowed her to leave him behind often blended with his stubborn pride to keep him from being anything more than he decided he wanted to. The things he had rejected openly had come home to roost in him subconsiously instead, and fate had gotten her way after all.
She had known that would happen, really, hadn't she? Hadn't Jason warned her?
I need to hold you
But you're never coming back
Chelsea thought of the light in Jean-Claude's eyes, as it waned and dimmed. Forgiveness? He was a pawn of the gods, just like anyone else, but like Nicodemus was at times, he was weak. Perhaps it was poor breeding, she thought snidely. After all, she had been bred to it, like some kind of inbred pedigreed show dog. There was no sense in thinking in terms of how much better things might have been had Jean-Claude killed her grandmother before the family fled Ireland, and it had only served to make her stronger, hadn't it? Even his failure served the family's ultimate goals, in roundabout ways. And there was no way for it to affect her now; the healing that Jean-Claude had begged her to allow him to seek out was impossible. She was chosen of Shiva, the daughter of Kali, and the blood of the Morrigan beat through her heart; how could she change? Who she was had been decided without her input before she'd ever been born. Still, the man had wronged the Conrad line, and she couldn't allow him within reach of Ava and expect him not to die. Provoking the beast within her was not something she considered smart.
I can't get
Any lower
I can't find
All the pieces of my broken life
Ravens, swans; the time of the music and the beating of wings. She thought of David, the swan, of Clarence the raven, of the grace and cold togetherness of Anderson and the deep, broken pain of Peter Damien, of the Helekar pledged to service of the Euthanatoi in the extermination of Storm Riders. Of Avalina and her great potential and the utter atrocity her continued existance was against the Wheel. Like Natasha, she was too dangerous to keep alive and too wild to be brought up right; Chelsea was not convinced that it wasn't too late to put her at the feet of a Guru or a Dakini and hope for the best. All of these, rallying to her husband's call for one reason or another. And her, little more than an adored and pampered trophy wife from the point of view of her husband's...flock...caught at the center of the storm with no real interest in the matter and no way to excuse herself.
But I still try
Applause; she looked up and Nico was standing in the doorway, all gentle smile and cold pale eyes. That small voice in the back of her mind where the music came from reminding her that he couldn't help it if he didn't see as far or as well or as truly as she could.
I still try