Breathe You In

[Amaltheia Monarch]

As Amaltheia had come to understand it, humans were creatures of vast routine. Every morning she watched the wake up to the sounds of horribly annoying timepieces, jump in cold showers and drink hot liquids, then hustle off to a place called work and sit at a desk doing things they didn't like with a desktop screensaver of a vacation destination they'd never take. Then they'd go home and they'd eat a cold dinner and climb into bed, sometimes alone or with a mate who was equally miserable, and sleep a whopping 6 hours before doing it again.

And she'd turned into one of them. Or, she had until a few days ago, when she'd gotten sick of her job and quit. She'd saved up enough money that she would be okay for a few months, but she'd have to start looking again soon enough. She sat down on a bench with the paper in her hand, eyes scanning the classified ads.

She hated her life.

[Nicolette O'Dell]

Amaltheia was right, but she was also wrong. Humans weren't the only beings whose routine was established, it was really mortals in general. Or that's how it seemed to Emily. Her routine was just slightly different from everyone else's, true, and a bit simpler, but it was still very firmly there.

Get up, eat what she could (more then once she'd taken to living like a hawk for a little while and survived off rodents, but it wasn't often that she could force herself to do that - she was human, she had to remember that she was human...). Then she would clean up as best she could and preen and preen her feathers; it wasn't vanity, dirty feathers didn't fly well. And Emily loved to fly, she flew as often as she could, the sky was the one escape that she had left.... Even if she was crazy, that much was true. Even if she wasn't actually flying, even if it was only in her mind, she still loved to fly. And afterwards she would go back to running, back to wandering - there had to be a corner of the world that Hell couldn't follow her.

Or was it not the world, was it only her mind?

Did it matter?

What is wrong with me??

But there was no denying that when the vampire had bitten her it had felt good, so good, and she could still remember the sensations with terrible, fierce, aching clarity.

Was she truly mad, then? Did anything really matter if she was? She might as well resign herself, enjoy those occasions when the visions were pleasant. Had she just been making things difficult for herself all these years? And was her family still alive? A pain shot to her heart as she considered that - think of what she must have put them through. Her parents were good and kind, they didn't deserve a daughter who thought she was a hawk....

Emily suddenly shook her head, hard. When had she decided she was crazy? She wasn't, thinking like that would destroy her! She pressed herself back against the wall of the building she had been standing next to - that was real, that was solid, that meant she couldn't be insane - and then pinched her arm with her nails, hard enough that she drew blood. It made her gasp in pain and her eyes water - there, that was real, and if she was crazy enough that she was having these kind of hallucinations they surely would have her locked up safely somewhere that she wouldn't be able to hurt herself....

Emily shook her head - half in denial, half in an attempt to clear it - and then closed her eyes and rested it gingerly against the wall behind her. It was still rather sore; she'd hit it more then once, hard, the night that she'd been bitten. She folded her arms across her stomach and tried to imagine them tied there by a straitjacket and then set to work piecing together her padded cell. And she could see it, see it all... and then she opened her eyes and it was gone. And she could move her arms, nothing was holding them back.

She wished she could grow her wings and just fly, because that was one of the few things left that felt real. Surely she couldn't have imagined all that. Everything else she could have imagined, but she couldn't have imagined the way that the warm air rushing up over your feathers felt, or the sheer rush of dropping from hundreds of feet up - just dropping like a stone, and knowing in a mad rush that if you opened your wings wrong they could break, or if you opened them too slowly you could become nothing but a crushed bundle of feathers somewhere. She couldn't have imagined that.

But she couldn't. People where here - all the busy businessmen and woman hurrying on with their important little lives, teenagers driving and walking by with cellphones pulled out and backpacks slung over shoulders, small sticky-handed children trotting next to their mothers and fathers....

Every face made her happy; every face made her sad. She wanted to be alone, she loved being in this rush.

The world was a dizzy, confusing, conflicting place, and the only thing that there seemed to be left to do was to sit down and watch and wait and hope something would happen that would explain some of it. And so she did.

There was another woman on the nearest bench but she wasn't taking up all of it or anything, so Emily sat down and ignored her for a little while - the stranger was reading a newspaper anyway. She thought of flying instead. It was stupid to think she could have imagined that.

And all this was another part of her strange routine - run and run and run and question her own sanity but never let herself doubt for too long.

She was breaking it, now. But considering the fact that she might indeed be insane seemed to make everything around her much easier to accept. Perhaps not so bad, then?

And suddenly she snapped out of whatever she was in - trance or dream. She shook her head again, violently.

There was too much that she would not, could not, have imagined. And it was doing more of a disservice to herself and her family by forgetting that then anything that she might gain....

Like the bite, for instance. Her thoughts went back to that again, again, for the millionth time again. She couldn't have imagined that. No, no, she couldn't have....

She wanted Hell to bite her again.

No!

But she did, and was that not just another form of madness...?

Emily shook her head again then turned to the woman next to her.

"Tell me, what do you think flying would be like?" she asked, and her voice was soft but there was in it a note of pleading desperation. Because she had to know because that could prove that she wasn't crazy because... because....

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia glanced absently to the girl who had sat down, and something suddenly struck her about her mannerisms, her appearance, even her.. her very presence. She remembered it, somewhere, but she'd been trying so hard to just shut all that out...

One blue eye and one hazel eye closed tightly as she forced the images back down, and that was when she heard the voice, as soft as a feather, speaking just so none could hear.

The words brought an amazing amount of sadness and pain, so much that the once-falcon almost felt her mortal-immortal heart stop beating. That familiar sensation of tightening in her chest began, and the lump that she'd banished from her throat slowly crept back.

She wanted - no, she had to - answer the question. She summoned her memories from shm'Ahnmik, and opened her eyes, looking at the girl as she spoke. Her voice was low and clear, and full of a twisted bitterness that seemed to dampen her aura, making her presence almost unbearable for anyone who was sensitive to such things.

"It's freedom, absolute and complete. A man could torch the lands and boil the seas, but he could never take the blue skies away, not even if he tried. Soaring, dancing, laughing, complete serenity and joy..."

Oh, what I wouldn't give, for just one more moment...

Her tenses were wrong. Her phrasing, all of it. The memories of Aeson and Alia came rushing back like a stampede, and Amaltheia stood suddenly, unsure of what was happening. This duality she could not escape, powerless, trapped inside this body.

She sat back down with a thud, the paper forgotten and sliding to the ground.

[Nicolette O'Dell]

The question seemed to do strange things to the other, who was suddenly acting as confused as Emily felt, who suddenly felt... well, wrong. Emily wasn't particularly sensitive to auras, but even normal people could feel something as dramatic as that, if not very well. It just felt uncomfortable, that was all, and Emily thought she recognized something in the other's face.

Possibly. Did she? She wasn't sure.

"It's freedom, absolute and complete. A man could torch the lands and boil the seas, but he could never take the blue skies away, not even if he tried. Soaring, dancing, laughing, complete serenity and joy..."

And there was an expression of such joyful, haunted, broken pain on her face....

Emily looked away, and she heard the other moved, heard the paper slip to the ground and crumple slightly. The other sat again, and Emily forced herself to look back.

"But what if they poison the skies, what if the burning of the land and the boiling of the seas turns them black and cold and dark and full of choking ash?"

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"But what if they poison the skies, what if the burning of the land and the boiling of the seas turns them black and cold and dark and full of choking ash?"

Theia stared at her, blank eyes for a moment. If a man looked closely enough, he'd see that they were all but empty, for the magic had left a long time ago, leaving a hard, mortal shell around an immortal soul. The hazel eye was all human, so human, but the blue one was stained indigo, remnants of what Amaltheia used to be.

"Fly higher," she said firmly, fixing on Emily. She didn't know what she was, but centuries ago Amaltheia would have pegged her as an Avian. Her colouring was just right for a Hawk. Now, in this mortal world, the bet that she was just a very strung-out homeless girl was all the same.

[Nicolette O'Dell]

"Fly higher."

The answer was so simple, but Emily wasn't sure what it meant anymore. Because for her, somehow, this conversation had morphed from a simple question about flying to something else entirely, a matter of what she should do now, if everything was real or not.

Or had it always been that?

"Fly higher," she echoed softly and then wondered what it meant. And then she wondered what she was even doing - here she was, using an innocent question about flying as a metaphor for life, trying to determine the world with two words this intense woman she was speaking to had said. Emily laughed at herself; a soft, sad sort of sound. Maybe I really am nuts. Maybe even if she wasn't she should let herself be, or pretend to be, or even pretend to let herself. Would it hurt that much? Would it help?

She wanted to curl up and hide, and for that reason she didn't let herself. That didn't make sense, really, but there it was.

She sighed.

"I'm not sure if I can do that," she whispered, and she wasn't even sure who she was talking to anymore. The pale woman or herself or Hell or her family.... She wasn't even entirely sure what she was talking about. Everything seemed so much more complicated then it needed to be. Didn't it? Or....

Focus, Emily. Live.

She shook her head a little to clear it, then sighed. "Sorry," she apologized to the woman. "Sorry. It's just - I don't know." She sighed again, rather gustily, and looked down. I don't know....

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia suddenly grabbed Emily, her eyes burning with a fierce sort of static, and yet somehow giving no reflection outward as she shook Emily harshly. She looked around and then back to her, focusing her eyes, still wide with fear.

"Fly, little bird. Fly before they rip your wings off and ground you," she whispered urgently, as though she were pulling Emily out of a warzone and to safety. "Fly as far away as your golden wings can carry you, before it's too late. When they come, they'll rip them off of you, just like they did to me."

She held her tightly, so tightly she may have hurt her, and then released her suddenly and stood again. Not now. Not now, she couldn't be flooded with all of these memories now. Amaltheia put her hands to her head and sat down on the ground, shielding her face with her hair as she struggled to put her universe back into balance.

[Nicolette O'Dell]

So there they were, having a perfectly normal somewhat crazy conversation (wait, she had not just thought that) when this woman she had been talking to had swung around and grabbed her so hard that it hurt.

"Fly, little bird. Fly before they rip your wings off and ground you," she whispered intensely, quickly; as though if she spoke too loudly she would be overheard and taken away before she could finish this warning. "Fly as far away as your golden wings can carry you, before it's too late. When they come, they'll rip them off of you, just like they did to me."

"Wha- what?" Emily stammered, shrinking backwards as this woman stared at her, hardly noticing the odd colors of her eyes because of the expression she was wearing. "What?" The other didn't even seem to notice, and she simply let go, almost as though she had lost interest.

Right, well, crazy lady at one o'clock....

Wait a sec, what right had she to call anyone crazy?

Emily slid off the bench so that she was sitting next to the stranger, and then looked over at her. "What do you mean?" she asked, voice gentle.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Emily really seemed to draw out the crazy in Theia, that was certain. She looked over at her, recomposed and neutral in a dangerously silent sort of calm-before-the-storm kind of way - a way only a Falcon could glass over so precisely and with seemingly little effort.

"It doesn't matter what I mean. I mean what I said. They'll come for you and they'll rip off your wings, so if you know? You should never tell."

She stared back at her, expression all serious and whatnot. Her head tilted to the side quickly and back, as though she was analyzing the Golden Hawk, but Theia couldn't, not in ways like she could before. She had no powers left, just residue.

[Nicolette O'Dell]

"It doesn't matter what I mean. I mean what I said. They'll come for you and they'll rip off your wings, so if you know? You should never tell."

Strangely, the very first thing that popped into Emily's head when this other stranger with the strange colored eyes began talking was Horton the Elephant. "I meant what I said and I said what a meant; an Elephant's faithful, one hundred percent." What a funny thing to think. She still didn't really get all of it, however.

"What do you mean? They can't take my wings, they're mine." The horror of even the thought of them being ripped off... it was too much. Too much to be born. She shook her head. "You... you can't."

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia's expression turned dark and wicked, hollow and cruel. "Oh, yes they can, little princess. Yes, they surely can."

She turned, lowering her shoulder and pulling her jacket down to reveal the camisole she wore more fully - to be precise, the pearlescent, faint scars on her back that Emily would recognize, as any Avian would. When she was satisfied that she'd made the girl nauseous, she shrugged her jacket back on and leveled her gaze.

"I meant what I said," she hissed.

[Nicolette O'Dell]

Emily was confused... until she saw the scars, and recognized where they were, and what they looked like - what they were. Then she was suddenly very busy trying simply to keep from throwing up.

Horton the Elephant, Emily thought again giddily when the stranger with the scarred back spoke again - and it was the craziest thing to think, but maybe she was trying to protect herself that way. She felt giddy, dizzy, like not being able to breathe - or maybe it was not being able to think, so she was trying to think of something else to save herself. Wasn't working, not really. What if that ever happened to her?

"What... what happened to you?"

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"Betrayal on the deepest of levels," she said. She tilted her head at the girl, wondering whether or not she could tell her any of this. She wrote Emily off as insane, as insane as she was, and indulged only more of the madness for but a brief interlude.

"My own family - my mother, my brother, betrayed, taken before my most beautiful, merciful Empress..." she trailed off. Had Emily known she was a Falcon? Most Avians who knew the lore could pick her out on sight, even without her magic - the way that she moved, spoke, carried herself, everything seemed so wrong, so out of place, so utterly vain and cruel.

"Do you know how merciful the Empress can be? Oh, but she is most wise, most high, exacting only the most precise and severe of decisions."

[Nicolette O'Dell]

Emily rolled her shoulders unconsciously and tried not to gag. "It... I..." she stammered, trying to think of something else.

The hawk didn't know what this other was talking about, to be perfectly honest. She didn't know that much shifter lore, including about falcons, but even if she had she probably wouldn't have recognized Amaltheia as one. Falcons were legendary, almost - there were so few ever seen that most people who knew about them thought them a fairytale - nothing but a story for children. The existence of the very species had faded from knowledge to dream, and from fact to myth. No, Emily didn't and would not recognize this stranger for a falcon, just for another bird who had been stripped of her wings. A product of her imagination? Her mind and dreams taking her fears, even if they weren't real, and creating a physical manifestation? Or not-so-physical, but what did it matter to her? If everything was dream and mist, why couldn't everything be as real as every other thing? It didn't make sense not to have it so.

"I... there isn't an Empress."

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia looked downright shocked when Emily said that there wasn't an Empress - so shocked, in fact, that she jerked backwards and nearly stumbled down ontop of herself. "What?" she choked in disbelief. She narrowed her eyes, and then shook her head a little. Of course not. This girl had never been to the White City, never seen the beauty. She wouldn't know, would she?

"Nevermind," she said, like it was nothing at all.

To an onlooker, the two women and their flighty, birdlike movements must've been something amusing to watch, although the interaction clearly was one that lacked rational thought.