DANCING WITH THE STARS ... in AVALON!

DANCING WITH THE STARS … in Avalon!

Hush! Can you hear it? The iron tongue of midnight is tolling in the darkness.

It is Friday … time for another glimpse of my heroes dancing with death …

{from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON where Fallen, the Last Fae, and Blake, son of Adam, have interrupted the Sidhe Ball of Boshet.}



The silence in the great ballroom before us was even more a physical force than the earlier darkness. And the stares we were getting should have thrust out of our backs a foot.

Remembering the words of the Cradle of Tears, I said so loud it was almost a shout,

“I know we’re early. But we didn’t want to be late for the Ball of Boshet.”

It was as if I had uttered a spell that had frozen them to the spot. It gave me time to take in the enormous ballroom which seemed to go on and on forever before us.

It was a chamber of twilight with long three-sided stained glass windows hanging impossibly in mid-air as they slowly turned to reveal all three sides.

They depicted scenes from Fallen’s past. Some I recognized from my mind-link with her. Others I didn’t. Those made me blush.

I saw Fallen go pale. I reached out with my will, focusing images of our shared time together onto them.

Her head in my lap as she was bathed in moonlight. Her standing over me on the frozen slab in the river Sambatyon, daring to fight The Wild Hunt alone to defend me.

Fallen crying over the dead body of Dinselle of the Golden Skin. Her astride a racing Epona, Queen of Unicorns, charging in with both guns blazing, a wild look of a lioness protecting her mate hot in her fae eyes, her wheat-gold hair a flying mane.

Her hugging an embarrassed Epona, the tears filling her green fae eyes. Fallen, her head flung back in impish laughter at one of Deirdre’s tall tales.

And my favorite memory of all :

Fallen sitting side-saddle astride Epona and singing the long lost lullaby of her forgotten youth as gossamer wings of faerie dust glowed from her back.

With a sigh of relief, I saw those images take the place of the other lewd ones on the stained glass windows nearest me. I heard a hush of disbelief ripple through the assembled Sidhe.

Fallen squeezed my hand. “When all else fades from my mind, this will I remember : how you defended me in the midst of enemies.”

Angry, outraged muttering began to buzz through the milling Sidhe. I shivered. Not at them but at the chamber itself.

It was eerie. The air of the place was black fire, and electric white mists slowly rose from the intricate black and scarlet tiled floor. And the partiers seemed to float upon the surface of the mists. They were so elegant, so beautiful, --- so deadly.

They were tall, all dressed in elaborate, colorfully designed costumes. All the colors known to man, and many I had never seen before, blazed from their courtly attire.

Long gowns of richest silk flowed from the bodies of the nightfall creatures with ethereal bodies and predator eyes. They had been dancing some complex interweaving pattern when we had barged in. And from the looks in their arrogant eyes, I would say we were as welcome as a muscle cramp.

Fallen’s green, slanted eyes began to sparkle again. A smile slowly spread across her lips.

“What need have we of parents, Blake? Orphans both are we. We need but each other.”

Her eyes grew larger as she stared at me until they seemed to swallow my world. “Beyond life. Beyond death. Beyond oblivion. We are one -- together and always.”

And then, she started to sing her long lost lullaby. This time it started with such sadness it near tore my heart in two. But it didn’t stay that way long. She flowed up to me, and together, we swept across the dance floor, moving graceful as one.

The long days of practicing with Kirika aboard The Bladeless Samurai paid off. Fallen and I danced smooth and certain across the mists, sending trails of it flaying out around our ankles. We didn’t take our eyes from the face of the other.

Her song rose in waves of love triumphant, in lilts of souls intertwined beyond death throughout eternity, connected though severed by death and darkness. Her voice trembled with so much beauty it snatched me up in such rapture nothing existed but the emerald depths of her eyes, the soft feel of her arms around me.

And as we wheeled and spun through the silent Sidhe, the gossamer wings, sparkling with stardust, made of the energy of sheer love, shimmered and grew from her back. They were beautiful, in radiant colors that took my breath away.

“No!,” sobbed Ogygia, Fallen’s once scornful mother. “She is redeemed. Redeemed! Damn DayStar! He knew. He knew! And I am bound to my accursed pact by my unbreakable word.”

Fallen and I stopped dancing to turn to her as Ogygia balled her fists and hunched over in agony. As if released by a steel spring, her head snapped back, and she screamed.

“DayStar!”

A voice out of my nightmares spoke to my right. “He is delayed, but he sent us to prepare his little rasha.”

I turned.

Nyx. Tall, regal, in a black, skin-tight, breast-revealing leather gown.

And next to her, short, elegant, Maija, looking every inch the Dragon Lady she was.

I forced my throat to work. “W-Well, there goes the neighborhood.”

***

***

A MOMENT OF LOVE ... and DEATH

I am a romantic.

Not just on Fridays. Just because I am taken with this brief glimpse into the mythical, lyrical love of Blake, son of Man, and Fallen, last of the faes,

I share it with all of you, my friends :

{Blake and Fallen have just arrived in the lethal beauty of Avalon. Fallen is spent from her earlier ordeals. The two seek a place where they might rest with the shelter of a lush green slope behind them. Fallen lays slumbering as Blake sits protectively beside her.}

(When they speak in thee's and thou's, they are speaking in the tongue of Faerie - Blake was given the gift of Tongues in LOVE LIKE DEATH.)

The moon had risen just enough to send a shaft of its light through the umbrella of oak branches above us. A diffused glow of icy white lanced down to caress Fallen's face in a shimmering halo. And suddenly, she looked as angelic and pure as an angel. My heart seemed to grow and burn within me. I loved her so. Her eyelids flickered apart slightly, and she smiled dreamily up at me.

"Who needs a campfire," she murmured, "when thy love burns so bright beside me?"

Reaching out with her right hand, she softly touched mine, never taking her gleaming, mysterious eyes off me. “To find something, one must picture it first in one’s mind. No wonder I could never find love, for I had yet to see thee.”

I forced my lips to whisper, “I am an orphan, Fallen. A pauper. I have nothing worthy of thee to give.”

“Just love me, Blake. Simply love me, and I wilt be the richest Sidhe in all Avalon.”

“That’s a given, Fallen.”

She wrinkled her nose like a rabbit. “Oh, I knew that.”

Then, she laughed in her sleepy, impish way and shifted just enough to nestle her head in my lap. And just like that, she was asleep again. And I felt the richest orphan in all the world.

I don’t know how long I sat there with her head resting in my lap. I could have sat there for eternity and never regretted a second of it. After a time, I gingerly reached out and stroked her soft, velvet hair, careful not to mess up its intricate knots and weaves. Instead of waking up, Fallen just wiggled and started purring like a lost kitten having found home.

I stiffened just a bit. Home. I smiled. I had found home again. And it wasn’t Avalon. It was Fallen. I was home. And it felt wonderful.

I just sat there as the minutes flowed into hours and soaked up the peace and contentment I had thought would never be mine again.

As I sat there, trying to burn this scene, this moment, this feeling so deep into my heart and mind that I would never forget it, something white in the corner of my eye moved slightly. I went stiff, fear shooting across my chest. I turned my head slowly so as to not draw attention to the fact that I had spotted what was approaching. And then, I saw her.

The White Lady of Montaigu.

The slayer of all lovers who crossed her path.
***
And now to share with you the music of Josh Groban that I was hearing in my heart and mind as I wrote (the love theme to ROMEO & JULIET) :

***

WHERE IN MYTH ARE WE? _ FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_plus I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!_Tessa's I HATE YOU blogfest entry

The night tolls with midnight's ghost-bell chimes.

It is Friday once again.

Time to meet Francine's and Denise's ROMANTIC CHALLENGE. This week : CONFUSED

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

{My Tessa's I HATE YOU blogfest entry follows this}

My 386 word entry is from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON to blend in with yesterday's post. Blake Adamson traveled to the fabled brothel, THE PRINCESS ALICE

(a "gentleman's club" for the Marquis de Sade at heart),

in Victorian London to whisk Fallen, the Last Fae, away from the sadistic demigod, Abbadon Sennacherib.

Frantic to find some haven safe from Sennacherib, Blake uses an ancient enchanted dagger as a rudder to sail the seas of time and space. But to where?
Trusting an enchanted blade to save the girl I loved from the most evil being I had ever met seemed the right thing to do just a moment ago.

But now I was having doubts. Big ones. “Too Late” ones.

Our table sat in a small glade bordered by towering, ancient trees.

I tried to swallow and couldn't. Bending time and space had never gone so smooth for me before. And instead of feeling good about it, I started to get paranoid. Had Sennacherib helped me? Had he wanted me herded here? I remembered the rage in his voice and shelved that idea. From across the table, Fallen looked slowly about. She whispered in a dead calm way as if quoting from some scroll she had read long ago.

"Each blade of grass stirs with magic. Each branch sways to the breath of eternity. And each path leads to dream citadels whose misty towers murmur echoes of ancient glories never to be reclaimed, yet never to be forgotten."

I forced my throat to work, "What you said."

I sat back in my chair, tilted at an angle on the uneven grass. So this was Avalon? I could believe it. Webster had mocked me as a little poet, but even I was at a loss to describe what I was seeing.

The very air seemed to shimmer with tiny flecks of stardust as arrows of sunlight shot through the dark, hollow cathedrals of centuries old oaks. The thick branches swayed to a breeze I couldn't feel, as if the trembling trees were alive and startled at our sudden appearance. The low splashing of bubbling water came from the shattered remains of a black stone fountain. One lone, haunted-eyed marble nymph stared at me as if in silent warning. I could almost hear the echoes of Pan's pipes lamenting the intrusion of a mere mortal into this realm of faerie.

Fallen husked a whisper, "You really have taken us to Avalon. I - I have never been here ... at least not in what memories are left me."

"L-Left to you? What are you talking about?"

She smiled bitterly. "We of the Tuatha de Danann also know how to bend time and space."

Her eyes grew haunted. "But unlike you, we are left with minds wiped clean afterwards."
***
I HATE YOU blogfest entry : I HATE YOU AS ONLY THE UNDEAD CAN HATE!

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/

[From the soon-to-be published, THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH :

Victor Standish and his Victorian ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth, have survived more horrors than a Stephen King movie. Almost. It seems Victor has died saving his hero, Sam McCord.

The angel of Death has come for him. Alice insists on coming along, as do Father Renfield and the mysterious Sister Magda. They are standing at the head of the stairs leading down to the haunted jazz club, Meilori's] :


Everybody and their cousin could read my mind it seemed. Now, it was time to use it for me instead of it being used against me. I focused all the will I had and thought at Father Renfeild :

‘Now, Padre, now! Hold Alice. Hold her tight!’

“Ow, lad,” he snapped. “You didn’t have to shout.”

Alice frowned, “I heard noth ….”

She yelped as Renfield grabbed her from behind. Magda added her arms around Alice, too. I smiled bitterly. My girl sure struggled just the same. Then, she stabbed me with her words as I raced down the stairs.

“I hate you for this, Victor. I HATE YOU!”

She screamed, "I trusted you! Trusted! Do you know how hard that was for me after all these years?"

My steps slowed. "Yes, now you realize what you have done. I hate you, Victor. I hate you as only the undead can hate. I hate you so that there is no pity, no compassion, no ghost of the love you have killed by doing this! My hate will burn long, LONG after you die. I HATE YOU, VICTOR STANDISH!"

I stopped halfway down the steps and slowly turned to Alice, her neon blue eyes flaring and said, “D-Don’t let those be the last words I hear you say, Alice. P-Please.”

Black tears streamed from her strange eyes as she stiffened as if I had stabbed her as she mewed, “Dolt, imbecile, moron, dunce! Of course, I love you.”

I smiled despite my heart breaking. “I like it when you talk dirty to me, Alice.”

She whimpered, then managed to squeak out the words, “You are Victor Standish, and you will find a way back to me.”
***

BLACK ROSES IN AVALON!

The LOVE LIKE DEATH trilogy concludes :

Not even the eclipse of myth is forever. But eclipses return. And currents exist that are eternal. One such current is Love.

It binds the universe together.

Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear him?

Blake, son of Man, is calling out across the night skies. What is he saying?

Remember.

Remember the strangled dreams, the shattered illusions that dropped from your bruised fingers long ago as a child. Still Time can be transcended. If you but remember ...

that love is forever,

that love cannot be taken from you,

that wounded hearts and minds but cast it from them in despair.

Listen.

Listen as Blake tells of haunted Avalon, broken by bloody Civil War. Of his love for the moon and the sun : the Last Fae and the alien drinker of souls.

Listen to his memories of BLACK ROSES IN AVALON :

The orphan, Blake Adamson, has been running for his life … or has he been running from it? One part of his mind says he is delirious, dying in the burnt ruins of his orphanage. Most of his mind insists what he is seeing and enduring is all too real.

His heart wants to believe the world he sees is real. A heart that is torn between an alien drinker of souls and the Last Fae. Loving both the sun and the moon may be his death. But Blake Adamson cannot help himself.

In an attempt to escape the enraged demigod, Abaddon Sennacherib, Blake and Fallen, the Last Fae, have left Victorian London by bending time and space,

using an ancient enchanted blade as a rudder. The two fugitive lovers find themselves far in the past … to Avalon.

Avalon, where life is illusory and deceptive, as are its inhabitants. In Faerie, nothing is as it seems, and even the simple act of uttering a name can be fraught with danger and death.

Blake and Fallen have appeared close to the Crystal Castle at the bottom of Lake Sayrade. The Dancers of the Myst float on their icy blue crafts upon that lake. And their Queen is Danis Nokkes, punisher of all false lovers.

Blake insists he is not false … just over-committed.

The distinction is lost to the sadistic Queen. To the Sidhe, mortals are but toys and pawns in their power games. They love to make the epitaph small and the death large.

In escaping the sadistic Queen, Blake and Fallen clash with the feral Wyldaelfen. And blood and destiny ensues.

In the midst of enemies in Broceliande Forest, they fail to skirt the Shadows of the Erinnyes and their dark queen Dinselle of the Golden Skin.

Atop the King and Queen of Avalon’s unicorns, Blake and Fallen evade the Wild Hunt as they race across the flying boulders of the fabled River Sambayton high in the skies of Avalon.

Until in the crystal and gold palace of Caer Wydr, Blake and Fallen endure the dark ritual, Diathke, ending the Avalon Civil War by paying the fearsome cost for love eternal.
***
http://www.amazon.com/BLACK-ROSES-IN-AVALON-ebook/dp/B005GQN03C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1313029711&sr=1-1
***