Aspasia - The Island - 9/16/07
She clawed her arms open, created rivulets of blood down her face, dripping into her eyes and coloring her lips. A line, deep across the top of her left breast, came from a blade rather than her own hands.
Then, the woman rubbed dirt into the wounds, deliberately.
Naked under the crescent moon, she started to enter the water from the sandy shoreline. An involuntary gasp escaped from her lips when the salt mingled with open flesh and precious vitae from feet flayed open only a moment ago.
She willed the blood to pulse through her veins, as if one of the living. It was good perhaps that no other was within sight or scent on the island. They might try to stop. Or even worse, they might stay and watch.
This was a private pain. Private observation. Private loss.
Time played with Aspasia, just as Fate claimed Raven jealously.
She could not believe how swiftly the seasons had passed. The anniversary had crept upon her so quickly.
Are you still in mourning, as you mentioned before? I would honor it. The one who does not...
The man had asked this of her and she was pleased that her composure had held, even when the realization struck at her heart like an unerring stake. The time of mourning for *him* would be complete with the rising of the sun.
She had put up with the Harpy's game - 'find who is sending the Amazon flowers' - for the night because it was such a minor thing and having the ear of the gossips was always a thing to be desired. She had forgotten what the date was.
*How thoughtless and cruel.*
Another step and the water was at mid thigh. Aspasia was distracted from coherent thought to another level of pain as her body protested the abuse as the salt ate its way along the cuts made over her legs, also bearing the mark of her claws.
I ever tell you I'm afraid of open waters?
His voice is still something she can recall. The intonation, the pacing, the register. Gruff but honest.
Aspasia hisses as she sinks into the cold, bitter sea, now in just at hip height.
She scoops the water into her cupped hands and splashes her face.
The pain is all encompassing. A pulsation in her blood.
And it is nothing to what she imagines he was suffering.
Pain of the heart, instead of the body.
The Amazon looks up at the night sky, then closes her eyes.
His arms wrap around her. His chest pressed to her back. His breath against her neck and cheek.
"She wanes, as do I."
Aspasia feels his fingers in her hair. And she remembers his last words to her.
"Go to Raven. Love him, give him your heart, it was always his anyway. Tell him he was right and to keep his eyes open. Wolf always comes back."
And she sinks down, so her shoulders break the surface, and her skin all but boils over her heart with salt water caressing the torn flesh, the cut inches deep. As blood washes away, the gleam of bone is just visible in the moonlight, almost the same shade of white of Aspasia's body which has not been sun kissed in centuries.
Aspasia embraces the moment and the agony carried with it. Then she immerses herself fully into the embrace of the water.
Once done, she moves back, slowly towards the shore and a flat reed-woven rug laid out on the sand. Next to this there is a simple brazier, the coals already hot. A small pile of cypress twigs lay next to it, ready to be burned.
She kneels, dripping water and the last of blood from her body, oblivious to the chill of the night wine. Then, Aspasia tosses some moss and the sweet-smelling cypress into the fire container. With hands uplifted in the attitude of prayer, the woman speaks softly to the empty air.
"Woe is me, Karida; woe, indeed, that to share a common lot we were reborn, you in the house of Celestine, and I in Lemnos- ill-starred daughter of an ill-starred sire - would that she had never begotten me. You are now in the house of Hades under the secret places of the earth, and you leave me a sorrowing lover. The pack, of whom you and I are the unhappy parents, is disbanded, dying. Now that you are gone, Karida, you can do nothing for them nor they for you."
"Your brother has reconciled his heart to the pain we offered him, in being tools of the Moirae. Your sire strives to guide all the Ravenscarred back to the purposes for which he created them. Regina is accepted by many as Gangrel, but not all. Still she thrives.”
"I endure."
The woman bends her head down, taking a moment to compose her thoughts. And the sadness in her expression is almost palpable. "If Hades' queen is kind, then you have met Hisa. She died in short measure, little more than a full moon after you were gone. Her killer is ash now, by my hand and her katana."
"I gave him no coins for Charon. The piece of my soul should be payment enough to see him to Tartarus and his eternal torment."
The Amazon pauses. Adding additional kindling to the brazier, she chants softly in Greek. An invocation to Hades.
The ritual is completed in minutes, while the cuts covering her body from face down to foot dry, but do not heal.
Still as marble, she chooses to remain while smoke curls up and is wafted away. Staring out at the sea, and at times at the spot where her claws sent him to Asphodel, the Amazon remembers and regrets.
***
OOC - For Jim
Then, the woman rubbed dirt into the wounds, deliberately.
Naked under the crescent moon, she started to enter the water from the sandy shoreline. An involuntary gasp escaped from her lips when the salt mingled with open flesh and precious vitae from feet flayed open only a moment ago.
She willed the blood to pulse through her veins, as if one of the living. It was good perhaps that no other was within sight or scent on the island. They might try to stop. Or even worse, they might stay and watch.
This was a private pain. Private observation. Private loss.
Time played with Aspasia, just as Fate claimed Raven jealously.
She could not believe how swiftly the seasons had passed. The anniversary had crept upon her so quickly.
Are you still in mourning, as you mentioned before? I would honor it. The one who does not...
The man had asked this of her and she was pleased that her composure had held, even when the realization struck at her heart like an unerring stake. The time of mourning for *him* would be complete with the rising of the sun.
She had put up with the Harpy's game - 'find who is sending the Amazon flowers' - for the night because it was such a minor thing and having the ear of the gossips was always a thing to be desired. She had forgotten what the date was.
*How thoughtless and cruel.*
Another step and the water was at mid thigh. Aspasia was distracted from coherent thought to another level of pain as her body protested the abuse as the salt ate its way along the cuts made over her legs, also bearing the mark of her claws.
I ever tell you I'm afraid of open waters?
His voice is still something she can recall. The intonation, the pacing, the register. Gruff but honest.
Aspasia hisses as she sinks into the cold, bitter sea, now in just at hip height.
She scoops the water into her cupped hands and splashes her face.
The pain is all encompassing. A pulsation in her blood.
And it is nothing to what she imagines he was suffering.
Pain of the heart, instead of the body.
The Amazon looks up at the night sky, then closes her eyes.
His arms wrap around her. His chest pressed to her back. His breath against her neck and cheek.
"She wanes, as do I."
Aspasia feels his fingers in her hair. And she remembers his last words to her.
"Go to Raven. Love him, give him your heart, it was always his anyway. Tell him he was right and to keep his eyes open. Wolf always comes back."
And she sinks down, so her shoulders break the surface, and her skin all but boils over her heart with salt water caressing the torn flesh, the cut inches deep. As blood washes away, the gleam of bone is just visible in the moonlight, almost the same shade of white of Aspasia's body which has not been sun kissed in centuries.
Aspasia embraces the moment and the agony carried with it. Then she immerses herself fully into the embrace of the water.
Once done, she moves back, slowly towards the shore and a flat reed-woven rug laid out on the sand. Next to this there is a simple brazier, the coals already hot. A small pile of cypress twigs lay next to it, ready to be burned.
She kneels, dripping water and the last of blood from her body, oblivious to the chill of the night wine. Then, Aspasia tosses some moss and the sweet-smelling cypress into the fire container. With hands uplifted in the attitude of prayer, the woman speaks softly to the empty air.
"Woe is me, Karida; woe, indeed, that to share a common lot we were reborn, you in the house of Celestine, and I in Lemnos- ill-starred daughter of an ill-starred sire - would that she had never begotten me. You are now in the house of Hades under the secret places of the earth, and you leave me a sorrowing lover. The pack, of whom you and I are the unhappy parents, is disbanded, dying. Now that you are gone, Karida, you can do nothing for them nor they for you."
"Your brother has reconciled his heart to the pain we offered him, in being tools of the Moirae. Your sire strives to guide all the Ravenscarred back to the purposes for which he created them. Regina is accepted by many as Gangrel, but not all. Still she thrives.”
"I endure."
The woman bends her head down, taking a moment to compose her thoughts. And the sadness in her expression is almost palpable. "If Hades' queen is kind, then you have met Hisa. She died in short measure, little more than a full moon after you were gone. Her killer is ash now, by my hand and her katana."
"I gave him no coins for Charon. The piece of my soul should be payment enough to see him to Tartarus and his eternal torment."
The Amazon pauses. Adding additional kindling to the brazier, she chants softly in Greek. An invocation to Hades.
The ritual is completed in minutes, while the cuts covering her body from face down to foot dry, but do not heal.
Still as marble, she chooses to remain while smoke curls up and is wafted away. Staring out at the sea, and at times at the spot where her claws sent him to Asphodel, the Amazon remembers and regrets.
***
OOC - For Jim