This Isn't Control (Tag: Eleonora and Sorrow)

The plump body of Lady Moon swayed gently over the waters of the black lake, light reaching heavily inside the deep. Perhaps somewhere beneath the silver surface she reached so far down that she illuminated the stone statues raised by merfolk; perhaps she even made the green hair shine and brightened the grey skin of these strange aquatic beings. And as she found merpeople, surely she saw others who so often hid from daylight, but sometimes dared visit hers.

Playing with the ripples that carried in the biting winter breeze, she moved her body across the sky with certain charm and reached farther across the snow-covered grounds. The Lady Moon delighted in the white that topped the trees; and though clouds shifted closer, with her light she kept their grey forms at bay.

Sorrow’s eyes stayed clear as they worked their way across the painting; carefully, as if examining each stroke of the brush. It was right there before him and so dangerously enchanting, for the soft lines blurred in the sharp light. The air that filled his lungs was cold and foreboding. On his tongue he could taste something bitter and ominous. Lady Moon stared back at him and laughed or wept, or did nothing at all. He could not say, try as he might.

And to try was perhaps of no use, for Sorrow could understand the moon no more than he could understand the earth, or snow, or rain. They were a touch, a pressure against his skin, and shapes before his eyes, and melodies inside his mind; but he made no sense of them. Not truly. His body was a shadow and his mind a sorrow. Those things he knew and loved and hated and was. He shifted, poked, pushed against them, himself. The shadow welcomed him in its embrace as he slipped into it, weightless, there and not, Sorrow and not.

The shadow whispered to him of the things it had heard or seen. Faraway Sorrow searched for thought or image of Misery. Then others, then; nothing. Soon it spun tales and weaved a tapestry of those Sorrow did not know. His chest filled with souls other than his own and felt so heavy that he stopped, brought his mind back from the flow, and detached his body so it stood solid inside the stone chamber. At the open window, the painting stood still, just as it was before he stopped looking. Sorrow searched for stars, but they must have hidden for he found none.

It can’t have been late, but nights came early and lasted long. Such was winter, Sorrow’s freedom. Things died beneath the thick layer of snow, yet winter gifted him and those who were like him; it gave energy and peace and all the night to last them through the long years. But Misery was far away and Sorrow wished she was not. They belonged to the cold in which they were born, and winter was theirs; and before this year, they had only spent it apart once.

Lady Moon laughed, or wept; her smile beautiful and cruel, her tears kind as she watched over the creatures she cursed. There was a cry that lingered with him even as Sorrow had left the flow of whispers. So faint that he barely heard it, and one easily overlooked had it not addressed him personally.

"Sorrow-! Sorrow I need you! I can't-"

The moment he reached out to listen again it pounded violently inside his mind; Sorrow searched deeper, and after too long a time he found Gail at the end of the line. But as he attempted to respond, he found she was only an echo of a message lost in shadow. How long had it been since she called out to him? There was no time to ponder the danger of it, rather, Sorrow let himself fall inside the shadow again; this time to follow the echo, before it should be forever lost in the silence.

Crossing the shadow to the destination that had formed in his mind's eye, Sorrow stepped solid beneath the street lights of Hogsmeade. Shadows lingered on his skin as he drew further into the darkness to follow the lines of message he had received. Further ahead would be the alley in which he had first met Gail, but he did not expect to find her there now. From there she had spoken to reach him, however, and she would have left a trail that Sorrow could recognize. As he moved nearer, the shadow showed him the echo. As he tasted the air, it offered the familiar scents.

Gail’s was never completely human but different, like his was different, of species that stood separate from the world known to those who walked in its day’s light. But as she was able to walk in both, her scent filled his nostrils with mixed aromas, of tea and of rain-blessed earth. It was a scent of human lingering in lines of something far more dangerous, led only by the most raw, animalistic senses. Sorrow stood by it a moment, tracing the way Gail should have gone, even as the wind teased and mocked, scattering her away from the narrow alley.

Soon the path was clear before him; and the grey of Sorrow’s eyes shone in storm as he moved through the village, picking apart the same ground Gail must have walked earlier. He moved off the High Street of shops and pubs and snuck past the wizarding homes. With the speed his blood offered he flitted into a wilder scenery, past the blurred trees, and to the black lake. He stopped there; across the water and to the right stood the stone walls of Hogwarts castle; to the left there was the Forest. Lady Moon cast her light over both, gliding her fingers over sheltering shadows and pushing inside the bordering cracks. There would be no rest for the tortured creatures so long as she ruled the sky.

Terrible noise moved him, a howl and a shriek. Again he was flitting, racing against time to the forest, past the front line of trees, inside its growling belly. Perhaps tonight it hungered for blood, and Moon had given it tools to deliver.

He could hear the desperate echoes of the battle raging as if he were there; and yet he could not reach the area of its happening in time. Despite the ability to move faster than any human being, his body would not allow enough speed, and before he caught sight of the creatures laced in combat, he tasted their blood in the marble breath of a cruel night. Before the scarlet scent had invaded his nose, he had not known who or what it was that Gail stood against. Now as he drew nearer, he recognized the feathery aura that belonged to one of the hippogriffs; Polaris or Vega, he was not yet certain.

Finally the forms showed through the trees. The Gail he once spoke to in that narrow alley was not there; in her place stood the creature that he had recognized within her, but had not until now seen with his own eyes. She was wild under the moon; her animal anger had already eaten her human heart. On the ground beside her lay the hippogriff, no more breathing life. Sorrow could not keep enough focus on the creature to determine which of the two it was. He looked to Gail, once more seeing the werewolf where he expected to find her. Was it too much to hope she had found one brother separate from the other?

“Stand back,” he spoke loud enough so Eleonora would hear him past her shock. He kept his eyes on the werewolf, but was painfully aware of the woman positioned some distance away from him. Her presence at this time was a thousand times worse than just that of a mournful (and possibly vengeful) brother would have been. Again Sorrow spoke, “Both of you. There is nothing you can do for him now.”

The smell of blood was thick in the air; it burned at the back of his throat, teasing and daring him to join in the tragedy. The eyes of death were pleading, asking him to try and take the memories of that pitiful creature before it was too late. Sorrow entertained no thought of it, uncertain whether he could even if he tried. Vega, he had grown aware, for it was Polaris who stood with Eleonora, could perhaps have kept thoughts in form of images; but fading quickly. By the time Sorrow saw to Gail’s peace or Eleonora’s safety, the memories would have disappeared completely.

Now he stepped towards the werewolf, rising up his arms as if to capture the air before her. He showed no expression to the changed creature, for even if Gail could see him, her mind at this moment would not be able to understand it. Just as he could not see her, she would not see him. The moment he brought her attention to him, he would be announcing himself as a threat, an enemy. However difficult it was to act as such and painful to resume in the action, alas Sorrow feared, it had to be so.

“Gail,” he called out to her softly at first, and then tried again in a fiercer tone. “Look at me, Gail. I have come to you.”

Clearly his presence unnerved the wolf; though she fell in silence a moment, her body language suggested uncertainty. Were he human, she might have jumped him with not a moment of hesitation. This appearance gave her pause, but the moment she had his scent her anger would only grow. Sorrow hoped he stood ready for it. He couldn’t claim much past experience apart from Ylva, and Ylva and Gail were so very different. However one particular lesson remained of the time when Sorrow spent fullmoons with Ylva; by drawing blood they could very well poison each other. Though he had no intention of harming Gail in any way, he wondered how long he could distract her without at least defending himself. He would have to be very careful, least he end up dooming them both.

So when Gail did come at him, claws reaching for his life and all, Sorrow waited until the last possible moment to gracefully move out of the way. As far as he was concerned, they could play tag until the sun’s first light broke through the trees. He’d poke at her and provoke her, but only to have her chase after him. He’d lead her away, deeper inside the forest; and bring her out once she was let go of her torment. It may have worked, too, for so long the werewolf was entertained she would not go seeking out others that she might harm. Perhaps it was naïve to think that the other party would not interfere at just his word; perhaps it was grief that drove Eleonora to spell casting, in any case, it complicated things.

“Leave, Eleonora! Do not provoke her,” even if the spell bounced right off Gail, it was likely that it drew attention that Sorrow had been trying to keep on himself. He made a mistake of looking towards Eleonora; because though he cast his eyes towards the wolf again, he feared he was too slow in doing so.

Claws tore against the surface of his skin as he was thrown back; and quite far by the mere force of the hit. His back broke through branches and then collided with the hard ground, a startled gasp flowing past his lips. He had anticipated the hit; foreseen his own inability to dodge it in time, and yet still it took breath out of his lungs. A moment later he was lifting himself up with far less grace than that he was usually able to maintain, somewhat aware of the hurt in his shoulder which brought more annoyance than pain. Before he could rush back to the werewolf, however, he was momentarily frozen in position by the heart-wrenching cry that pierced through the noise in his ears.

Sorrow was blind to his racing towards Eleonora; nearly unaware of the intensity with which he threw himself at the wolf, locking his arms around her and into as binding a trap as he could possibly manage. His strength could have possibly matched a fully transformed werewolf, but his determination did not until he truly became aware of the danger Eleonora was in. Perhaps he should have expected that she would be too stubborn to retreat. Silently thanking Polaris for stepping in before the werewolf could further harm her, Sorrow gripped tighter at the furry form and lifted the creature up and away from the other two. He did not throw her as hard as to have her fly a larger distance, but still she landed so that again he stood as a barrier between her anger and his fear.

Sorrow’s eyes followed the wolf as it rolled over like a ragged puppet, not entirely controlling of her own actions. He hadn’t thought; well, he hadn’t meant to throw her that hard. The crack that sounded in his ears was sickening, and he feared he had only caused more damage, instead of coming as he should have, to help. In any case, though Gail rose, she seemed robbed of the last of her strength. The ground beneath them was caked red with blood; the white of snow only yet visible here and there. The scent of it caught in his nose, preventing him from taking proper breaths.

At last she fell, her whimper but making Sorrow rush forward in alarm. Her body seemed so fragile now, so small under the vicious cuts she had earned earlier. The tattered clothes hung over the pale skin smeared with red. The cuts were too deep for him to treat on his own, so carefully as he could he lifted Gail into his arms and then made way towards Eleonora. With all the scarlet scent blurring his vision, Sorrow could not tell which of the two was worse.

He cast a mindful eye towards Polaris, but approached Eleonora all the same. Crouching down beside her, Sorrow shifted Gail to his right arm and moved over Eleonora, somehow wrapping his left around her unconscious form. Abandoning all thought of their current presence, he formed a new destination in his mind and released the three forms into the shadow. He could feel his own energy waning as he cast his shadow over the two; and as it embraced them completely, Sorrow followed the flow far up and inside the castle’s walls, silently transferring them into the warmth.