Kieran and Jurian,
Please take care of Ann. Seeing the danger she has been in the past few days and the viciousness still within me, I'm more and more sure I am not right for her. However much she could have been right for me. Seeing how modern gargoyles live makes me only more certain.
I leave her my ring so she will have a piece of me protecting her. It is all I have. I am going back to sleep, where I belong.
I wonder more than if I can protect Ann adequately. I question if the gargoyle in me would be good for her once unleashed. There is an evil inside me that is not still living in the gargoyles of your kind. She would be better off with some of those.
I am convinced she is a stone heart. Please keep her safe until she finds what she needs. This is painful for me, but I feel it is the right thing. If I were to mate Ann, the collar would come off, and who knows what is truly lurking beneath? It has been a thousand years since I have seen it. I am unwilling to risk her safety to find out.
I never knew I had a heart inside all of this stone, but now I do, because it is breaking. Tell Ann I will be thinking of her until the end, and when I sleep, I will dream of her.
Sincerely,
Nyrelric Caspianos IV
Elric
Elric couldn't believe it was less than a day since he left Ann. It felt like a million years. When they made love, it had the opposite effect of what she intended. Instead of making him realize everything could work out, it made him understand she was far too precious to ever risk spending her life with him.
As he approached the beautiful castle where the Oracle lived, he realized it no longer held the comfort he once thought. Perhaps it was the long flight he took using the magic money card she had given him for a ticket back. All he knew was inside there were lush, opulent rooms, yet he dreaded seeing them because it meant he was no longer on the mainland with Ann.
He walked reluctantly up the stairs to the main doors, where he acted as bodyguard for the Oracle for some months before being sent out into the world. For the last time, he fingered the collar at his throat. It would never come off now; he assured that. Perhaps the Oracle had always seen this coming. Perhaps she always knew he would never have it off, that his beast was never meant to find a place in this world. The world had moved past him. He only wished he had never fallen in love with a human before he figured that out.
At least he told her, and left her the only gift he could.
He swung open the door and was greeted by a short, angry woman with voluptuous curves and purple hair --she changed it often with magic-- waving a white electronic device at him.
"What is the meaning of this journal entry?" she asked.
He kept his face impassive, leaning against a marble column and cocking his head as if he were bored, "Just a regular entry."
She put on her reading glasses and cleared her throat, "Ahem. Dear Diary, Humans suck. I want to burn them all alive. I should be put back to sleep. I am the worst. Sincerely, Elric."
He bit his lip. Perhaps he should have said something a little more convincing.
"I don't get it," she said, striding up to him and poking him in the chest. She was so small compare to him, yet with her power, she could ruin him. "I thought you found a human who could be your mate. You seemed to be making progress. What on earth happened?"
He looked away, "I would rather not talk about it. You saw what I wrote. I am ready to go to bed."
"I thought a lot of things about you, Nyrelric, but I never thought you were a quitter," she glared at him with misty gray eyes as she removed her reading glasses and let them hang on a chain around her neck.
He shrugged, "I know when to quit."
"You don't honestly think I'm going to just listen to you, do you?" she asked shaking her head as she turned to walk to her office, crooking a finger for him to follow.
"I think you should," he said. "I came back early. I was unable to bond with humans. It is time to take off the collar."
She eyed it, then ran her eyes over him with a stern glare, "I decide that. Since when have you ever been the one in charge here?"
He gaped then shut his mouth stubbornly. That was true. He reluctantly followed her into the office, dragging his feet, which felt like they were filled with lead. She sat behind her ornate wooden desk, from which she had counseled so many shifters, and stared at him. "You're different."
"I am beaten down."
"By how much you hate humans?" she asked sarcastically.
"Perhaps," he said. By how much he loved Ann.
"Tell me what happened with your mate, and I'll make my decision."
"She is not my mate. Not anymore."
"But what caused your sudden change of heart?"
Seeing the Oracle was clearly not going to fall for the simple lie he told, he decided it couldn't hurt to give her a little more information. "I met modern gargoyles. At first, I thought their whole setup was stupid, but now I think they are tailored to what the world has become."
"And you aren't?"
"I saw inside myself during a fight yesterday," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I saw violence, bloodlust. I took down ten men, and I would have had pleasure in burning them to dust."
She stared at him thoughtfully, "Go on."
He might as well get it all out before he went down for the count. "I knew Ann deserved better. If I mated her, and my collar came off, who knows what kind of danger she would be in. Even if she was safe, if I somehow was not dangerous, I would never be able to protect her the way the other gargoyles do. I cannot even give her a celestial power."
She looked at his hand, "Where is your ring?"
"I lost it," he lied.
"That's bullshit," she snapped. "No gargoyle would lose their family ring. You left it with her, for protection, didn't you?"
He slowly nodded. How had he thought he could lie to the Oracle? Still, he hadn't mated Ann. He hadn't completed his part of the deal. She had no choice but to put him back to sleep.
The Oracle tapped her hands on the desk, "I don't know what to do with you."
"I know," he said. "I do not know what to do with me either. Other than put me back to sleep."
She raised an eyebrow, "It'd be a sad waste of your powers."
He shrugged, "What is the point of powers if they come in a cruel package?"
"For goodness sake, Nyrelric, I didn't lock up your personality; just your wings and stone. You really don't think you've changed? You don't think I picked you because, of all the gargoyles in cryo, I thought you had the best possibility of being good one day?"
He shrugged again, "Bad bet."
"Bullshit," she said. "Even now, you put a human before yourself, yet you insist you aren't safe to be with her."
He had never thought of it like that. Nervousness waved through him as he caught her train of thought. "No," he said, sitting back as she leaned forward, reaching for his collar.
"I told you I'd release you if you could prove you'd be on the side of the humans," she said. "In loving Rhiannon more than yourself, in protecting her even if it means oblivion for you, you have earned your freedom."
He jerked back. "I do not want it removed. I do not want to know what is inside me. I am used to being human. I just want to go to sleep like this," he protested, alarmed.
She held out a hand and twisted it, pinning him in an invisible vise with her incredible power. Struggling meant nothing. He sat there, frozen as she walked around the side of the desk. She caressed the side of his head, a strangely maternal gesture.
"I release you, Nyrelric Caspianos," she said touching the collar and letting it fall into her hand with a click.
Elric roared as power surged through him, overwhelming his every cell. He fell forward out of the chair and onto the ground, holding onto his head as he tried to keep it together. No matter what happened, he couldn't lose who he was. He couldn't lose what he meant to Ann. He held her in his mind as he felt wings sprouting from his back.
Human. Human. I want to stay in my human form right now. But the beast who had been pent up so long was dying to burst forth.
He bolted from the room and ran toward the front steps, trying to hold everything inside him as the Oracle cackled behind him. He ran blindly down the front steps and onto the grass, sinking to his knees. The wind whipped around him and he stared up at the sky as he felt wings erupt out of him. His body grew and changed, rising into the air as he heard flapping around him. His eyes felt hot, burning, and the cool air around him did nothing to cool the fire within him. He saw the Oracle walking out to meet him and she looked up in amusement as he twisted in the air.
What did you do to me? He wanted to ask, but he couldn't speak. Memories of the past flooded him. His other life as a gargoyle. Everything he had done. With relief, he realized he had never been too bad. Apathetic, selfish, lazy, but not vicious like some of the other gargoyles had been.
Yet with the power coursing through him, he wasn't sure how he hadn't been a complete despot. It would be so easy. His body was giant, strong, invincible. He almost couldn't remember how to reach his other form. His small, fragile human one. Well, fragile in comparison. He grinned down at the Oracle as he slowly floated down to the ground.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" she asked. "Listen, Nyrelric, I know all about your life as a gargoyle before you went to sleep. I know what I was getting, but I know you could be even better than that. I needed you to see that, too."
He nodded as his talons touched the lawn. Slowly, with deep breaths, he came back to his human form, feeling stretched and exhausted. Luckily, gargoyles kept their clothes between shifting. The only shifters that did, due to the magic inherent in their transformations. She walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry I scared you," she said. "I know this is all foreign. I know you don't think this world is meant for you, but I can assure you there will be a time you are needed. And you will be glad you are here."
He nodded.
"Now, what are you going to do about Ann?"
Fear flooded him at the thought of being around her, hurting her. He allowed the beast to share his head space and thought of her. He would never hurt her.
"I am unsure," he said. "She will be pissed I left, will she not?"
The Oracel grinned, "Unbelievably pissed. Abandonment is one of the worst things you can do to a woman."
He gritted his teeth, "I never meant it like that. I was trying to protect her."
"And now you see that you don't need to. At least not by sacrificing yourself." She laughed, a musical sound, like the tinkling of bells, "Stupid gargoyle."
"Hey…"
"Well, come in for dinner, and we'll talk about it," she said. "You'll need to gather your strength for the flight back, won't you?"
He nodded, "I had to use a plane to get here using that small card you gave me."
"A gargoyle on a plane. How droll," she waved for him to follow her back into the castle. Elric felt his joints aching as he walked. It was good to know who he was under all that restraint. Good to know he was safe for Ann. Now, though, he had a new fear -- how to get her to forgive him and take him back. Would she give him another chance?
"Humans are forgiving," the Oracle said, looking over her shoulder. "I think we should be able to work this one out."
Elric certainly hoped so.