When Diana wakes for the day the first thing she feels is the ache of her body as she tosses and turns in bed. Even after sleeping she was still exhausted though it seemed impossible to fall back into the abyss. Despite barely having slept her eyes throbbed in her head as if she had slept for hours. Laying splayed out in bed Diana gazed at the fading stars from the skylight of her room. She had never known the stars could shine so brightly or how many there actually were until she had come to Obsidian. Space and the galaxies had excited her as a child but now every night she hoped it would be her last. The purple and pink chasing away the blue in the sky was calming to witness though she was not looking forward to what it would intel when the darkness fades.
Diana had been training with her older half sister, Visenya, for five long torturous weeks. The entire time she didn't feel as if she was learning anything rather she only felt like her sister's punching bag. Visenya wouldn't take it too far, after the incident from their first spar the Keeper had spoken to her. Apparently while Diana had slept he had come into her room and healed her properly, not the half-assed job Visenya did. They had been sparing throughout the entirety of Obsidian so Diana could supposedly become accustomed to as many terrains as possible. Visenya would make her walk alone to whichever locations she picked while she would apporate there. Diana suspected it was her way of punishing her. Depending on the location she'd either be up and walking there in the darkness to get there on time or she'd just make her way down to Meadows Courtyard that was at the bottom of the cliff from Ciel Quarters. That was her favorite place for training as the soft grass would soften her falls. Today, much to the thanks of her sore body, would be her only weekly break. Though she didn't have much of anything to do and she wanted nothing more than to stay in bed Diana knew she couldn't let her day go to waste.
With her resolvement and much force, Diana used all her might to sit up in bed. She sighed, slumping her shoulders after a blissful stretch and looked around her room. This small tower had been her room for more than a year yet she'd always wake thinking she was elsewhere. Not the ranch where she had grown up with her dad or the complex where she had lived three years with her aunt. She doesn't know where she expects to wake but everytime she does Diana gets a sense of displacement. Even now she feels it as she looks around her little tower atop Ciel Quarters. The circular shape of her room, the white silk and chiffon sky blue drapes that surrounded her room to give her privacy from the lack of walls. They had taken the open room concept a little too far with white marble pillars warped in gold vines and a small ledge that reached her butt being the only actual wall constructed in the room. The entire ceiling was a glass dome held in place by a circular marble slab attached to the pillars. The room was beautiful, the most luxurious room she never expected she'd have but the sensation remained.
Diana did the only thing she could and pushed the sensation away. She went about her morning routine on autopilot. Each movement done so often and without thought that by the time she felt back in her body she was already sitting at her desk, dressed in a light cotton dress, primed and proper as her mother would expect of her. She sat there for a moment wondering what she should do with her day. She could aways go bother Leo or maybe take a jab at bothering Visneya but she didn't feel like talking to anyone today so to the Library of Alexandria it was. Getting up from the chair Diana failed to notice the book her hand accidentally knocked off. What she did hear all too clearly and too closely was the noise made. The boom echoing in the room resonated her head into something she had prayed to never hear again. To some it sounded like fireworks, to others a car backfiring but Diana always knew the difference as a kid. Yet when the mind is stressed, irrationality hits an all time high and we become blind to reality, reacting to the illusion in our heads. So when the book hit the floor it was not what Diana heard. It was the loud bang of a legally loaded gun that had rung through the halls.
Instantly she was down, huddled beside her desk, hands covering her ears as if that would stop the gunshots and the screams. She could hear them so clearly and feel the shaking of the floor as her classmates ran. Diana was frozen to her spot, shaking as tears freely flowed from her face as the blood flowed from their wounds. She would have stayed there had she not heard the shots moving farther away and with that knowledge she wished they'd be closer to her if it meant they were away from Sara. Her, darling Sara. Her body instantly moved before she could think. She had to find Sara so she left the abandoned classroom despite the urging of her classmates to stay. She ran, past the remaining fleeing students, past the dropped backpacks, past the slumped bodies of the kids she barely knew, and past the bleeding girl begging for help. None of it mattered to Diana because none of them were Sara.
Sara.
Sara.
Please be okay.
Sara, please be okay.
Sara.
The closer she got to Sara's classroom the louder the noise was but once she got there it was the silence that scared her. Running past all the locked classrooms Diana could not breathe when she saw the open door.
Don't go in there.
She walked slowly towards the door not caring she was out in the open.
Please, stop.
The closer she got the more she was able to make out through the ajar door the bright red liquid spreading on the floor.
Don't go in there. Im begging you. Stay out!
Walking through the door the sight of their atrocities shook her.
Turn around. Wake up. It's not real. This already happened.
Diana searched the classroom, uncaring of the blood staining her.
You're not there anymore.
Finally behind a desk she spotted the creamy thigh with the familiar beauty mark that was shaped like a heart.
Wake up! Diana you have to snap out of it! WAKE UP!
Her eyes were closed but she was breathing. She was covered in blood from her hip down but she was breathing and that's all that mattered. Diana knelt down beside.
Please, I'm begging you. Come back to me. Little one.
Diana breathes. It feels as if she has never tasted air before in her life, it was fresh and clean with such an intoxicating effect her mind went blank. When she came to, she was still on the floor but not the floor of the school. She's back in her room leaning against the warm chest of who could only be Leo. Leo who held her through her night terrors when she first came to Obsidian. Leo who had always made sure she ate, bathed, and slept when she couldn't even take care of herself. Leo who always seemed to know whenever she was breaking and was always there to pick up the pieces. It was Leo that was now holding her, his strong arms wrapped around her shaking body. It was Leo that was whispering reassurances in her ear. Diana moved deeper against his body till she was draped on him, sitting on his lap while wrapping her own arms around him. She held him tight, gripping him with so much force; so scared she'd fade away. He squeezed back, "You're okay. I'm with you now. It's me, Leo. Come on, say it with me 'I'm in Obsidian and I am safe.'" His voice was so close it made her eardrums vibrate. "Come on, say it."
With her face pressed to his neck she spoke through her shaky breath,"I'm - I'm in Obsidian . . . and I am safe."
"Good girl." His low husky whisper thrummed through his chest before speaking again. "Now say it again."
"I'm in Ob-obsidian and I am safe."
"Describe to me anything in front of you right now, Diana." Leo asked while stroking her hair with one hand the other still holding her to his body.
Diana lifted her head from his shoulder as he looked down at her. "I smell vanilla, citrus, and frankincense. I feel your warm body. Your arm on my arm and hand on my ribs. Your breath on my face. I see your gray eyes that are so bright they look silver. Your black hair that hasn't been brushed yet. Your lips are so pink I'd believe you if you told me you tint them. Your lips that you chewed on. You do that when scared. Why are you scared, love?" Diana questioned him, her cold hand rising to cup his cheek.
He rested his face against her palm with closed eyes. He spoke in that voice. That voice that Diana could never place. "I'm scared that one day I won't be able to wake you up."
"But you have. So many times." She reassured him, taking her hand away to hold his soft one.
"But not like this." He looked into her eyes before dropping his head down to rest atop her head. He spoke in a tense voice "Diana I almost lost you. I had to use Omma's grace to bring you back. The only time I had to do that was the night you first came." So it was bad. How can she expect to leave Obsidian when the drop of a book almost broke her? What would she do without him?
"Did you see it." It wasn't a question, she knew he had.
He placed a kiss atop her head, whispering against her, "No one should have suffered through that."
"They're monsters."
He was silent at her words, almost pondering them before questioning her, "Do their weapons frighten you?"
"No. . ." Diana easily admitted. She wasn't scared of an object. She was scared of the people wielding them. "Their cruelty does."
"Do you think that's why their God has abandoned them?" Leo further inquired
"No. I think their God is just as cruel." They were supposedly made in his image. He had been the father and he had failed. It was as simple as that. He must have been a narcissistic father Diana concludes.
"Are we monsters?" The man holding her whispered so low Diana could barely make out his words.
"We're no better than them. We're cruel but not monsters, at least not yet." But even monsters are capable of good. At her words Leo pulled away looking in her eyes with a soft frown.
"Do you see so little hope?" She couldn't tell if he was disgusted or upset. Sometimes she hated that she could barely read his faces when choose to conceal his emotions.
Even still she would not lie to him, "I stopped hoping a long time ago."
He hummed in contemplation that she was able to feel it in his chest. "Maybe that is why we will become monsters. To lose hope you lose faith. To lose faith you lose peace. To lose peace you lose salvation. All that's left is hate."
"And love." Diana added on.
With a tilted head he questioned, "Why love?"
"Because one can not exist without the other. So long as we love we will hate. We fight for that which we love but war breeds hate." It was simple. Some things in life would always remain connected and equal. It was the way of existence. There must remain balance for it all to be.
Yet he did not get that as it became clear to her when he asked her, "Do you hate war so much."
"How can I hate a concept? No, what I hate is man." He looked shocked at her response. Diana knew she shouldn't fan the flames as her standing in the creed depended on him but she knew . . . "God made a mistake creating humans."
She thought that would be the end of his questions knowing he had built an image of her in his head that he would not want to tarnish yet he spoke once more. "What if God was lonely?"
She looked into his silver eyes that gazed back as if this question meant everything to him. Why? "That's why we domesticated wolves." She knew her answer was not what he expected when he frowned his eyebrows in confusion so she clarified. "God should have gotten a dog."
At her response he seemed to change before her, showing more emotions than she thought him capable of. At first by the twitch of his lip she had seen humor but it had quickly shifted with the deepening of his frown into reflection. It was the small rise of his nose and lip that told her he was not only angry but repulsed. Though most of all she saw sadness in his low eyelids and betrayal in his glowing eyes. It didn't take a genius to know their beautiful Keeper was upset with her.
Diana added once again, a more serious response though her last one was just as genuine so was this one, "He was just selfish that is all."
His features melted over at her words. It was then that Diana realized what he had done. Her tears had long since disappeared and her cheeks had dried; her mind far away from the past and focused solely on the man before her.
"Thank you. For everything, Leo."
"Anything for you, little one."
At that, Diana rose from his lap, reaching a hand out for him to grab as he stood up as well. They stood in a comfortable silence enjoying the presence of the other. Leo showed her his content smile before reaching out to squeeze her shoulder, without words said he left her room. Diana had expected an interigation, proceeded with a lecture so she was pleasantly surprised to see that he was giving her space. She knew it would come sooner than later but just having it postponed was enough.
In truth it had been Diana's fault. She had neglected her meditations and her mindscape since her training with Visenya began. She had just been so exhausted she'd always end up falling asleep, that is if she even remembered to do them. She was sure Leo was smart enough to piece it together.
Though she wanted solitude Diana did not want to be left with her thoughts. Even still her body made its way back to her bed. It had been a year since the incident and the first months had been painful and almost impossible to live through. So with Leo's help in the mind arts she was able to push the memories away into a dark box shrouded in fog deep in her mind where only he knew how to find. Yet it had to be maintained if not the fog would lift and the box would become vulnerable. She knew this is what had occurred. It had been months since she had remembered that day in such detail. Months of healing felt to drain away as Diana laid in bed.
The meditations would detach her emotions from her memories but now she could feel her hard work fading. All Diana could do was drown in her thoughts. The thoughts of her.
She says "my name is Sara." It doesn't take much more than that to start a friendship. Her darling, Sara. Was shy of 15 when Diana herself was barely 14 but even then the allure of her being was irresistible. They were both a moth to a flame. Her laugh was intoxicating, smile mischievous and eyes of Whiskey. Their meeting was of pure coincidence yet it bloomed and flourished with each shy smile, soft laugh, and dazed glance.
Sara had a difficult life with little kindness and even less love. She grew up in the system yet understood more than most that family must be of what you put forward first, you must weather the worst together. But having never met her family she placed love above all else. She would fall in love easily with every man and woman that promised her sweet nothings and made her feel a love she'd never received. She never knew that the harsh touches, forceful kisses, downward gazes were not love.
So Diana had made it her mission to show Sara what real love was. But for Diana who had an absent mother and an emotionally distant father this too was hard for her. So the two girls that were strangers to love became familiar with its warmth in the arms of each other.
It was perfect.
That was until her mother had visited Diana in Fornia finding both girls together. Diana didn't know how her mother could have known but she had. From the moment she set eyes on Sara her mother had known. Diana had taken every chance to grow closer to Sara that when her mother had told her they were twin flames she had rejoiced ignorant to what it would mean. When her mother had told her she had protested. She should have kept her away from Sara but it was her mistake believing her mother would respect her wishes.
The Kaisen had offered Sara money in exchange for her cooperation. Sara had been determined to get out of her circumstances and so even as a girl she held down a full time job while also continuing her schooling. And so of course Sara took the money despite the bitter taste it left in her mouth for allowing the woman to assume Diana's worth to her. Diana had begged her to reject her mother, even offering to give her twice the amount despite it being everything she had. That had only angered Sara. Sara who told her she would have done it regardless had Diana not tried taking her choice away from her.
Diana could recall the fear in Sara's eyes as she took part in the ritual. The first new moon she had been shaking at the unknown magic before her. Sara was a mundane and so had Diana at the time so to see her darling Sara willingly giving her blood every new moon was something she forced herself to forget. They were times she begged her to say no and everytime Sara said yes. Allowing herself to be drained of her bright wild flame to keep Diana's diminishing flickering one from burning out. It wasn't enough to cure her but just enough to not have to wonder if this month will be her last. Diana hated the idea of it. Hated that she was allowing the girl she loved to risk her life for a lost cause. Diana had accepted death even before she even knew the concept of it. Yet Sara said she didn't mind so long as she gave her a little sweat, "you've been surviving my love now it's time you live."
And so they lived, every second of every day for three years, they remained at each other's side venturing life with different eyes. Eyes that saw the promise of a future. A future that was taken away by a hateful boy whose legal gun was loaded.
My darling, Sara. I was holding your hand when you died. And even though the failing use of my magic prevented me from feeling you leave. . . I tried.