Flashback The Ache Of It

[Millie]

Late, the Rearing Stallion, 5th Spring, 511 AV

He's gone. He left me, without a backward glance... Her hand reached for the handle of a mug of ale, and she raised it to her lips. I did everything I could for him... A few brief chimes later and the ale was drained, as she pushed the tankard back across the bar. The bartender filled it up silently as she pushed over a couple of mizas, more than enough really, but it would keep her mug filled until closing time. And it was already late, the inn was scattered barely with sad and happy drunks, quiet people musing, dark strangers brooding, but the majority of the pub was quiet.

Millie sat on a high chair, her feet tucked under the bar. She'd been here all night, drinking and drinking to try and forget about recent events, but it wasn't working. She was the type of person to get sad whilst drinking, and so she simply sat at the bar, staring at the whorls on the surface. Pain was all that crossed her mind as she sipped broodingly at her ale. It was bitter, lingering unpleasantly on her tongue, but she didn't give a shyke in Hai. She was seeking something... a way from the man who left her. The way the alcohol numbed her wasn't exactly pleasant, but... it did help.

So, she drank. The man opposite her looked on, disapproving. There was no doubt about it, she was a good customer. But she had been there every week, and the man seemed to be fed up of her moroseness. Millie didn't care. Love was lying shattered in her heart. The man she loved, the nuit who was every girl's dream, tall dark and handsome, had left her. She could only imagine reasons why.

[Millie]

It had only happened twenty-eight days ago, and each of those twenty-eight days had been a misery. She hadn't wanted to believe it, at first. For the first five days, she simply waited, visited all the spots they had visited together, hoping to see him. It even crossed her mind that maybe, just maybe he had to get a new body. In which case she wouldn't mind, but after ten days, she knew in her heart of hearts that he was gone, and gone for good.

The pain was unbearable. She had spilt her heart and soul to this man, and now he was gone...

The drink was looking ever more welcome, and she tipped another measure down her throat, before placing the tankard on the bar surface. She was already feeling numb, and she welcomed it. Her surroundings were blurry, and she wasn't sure if that was because of the alcohol, or if it was because of tears. If she was honest, she didn't care right now. All she wanted to do was escape.

She gazed down into the tankard, and watched in amazement at the minute bubbles that flickered across the surface of the drink. It's beautiful. Her thoughts careened from one place to the other, but always avoiding the one subject which she didn't want to think about. She was growing tired of it though... She was growing tired of avoiding it, and with a determined expression she brought the tankard down hard on the bar.

"Kevit'h... Why'de do it, huh? Tellmuh. Please." Her words were slurred, and she widened her eyes at this, having not realised just how drunk she was. Kevith merely got a rag and started wiping the surface, gently prying the now chipped tankard from her weak grasp. "I don't know what you mean girl, but I'll ask you to leave. It's closing up time." She blinked at him slowly, but didn't move.

It wasn't because she wanted to ignore him, it was simply because the words didn't register. In fact, it wasn't until the barmaid came and took her arm, and lead her outside that she realised what he meant. The cold air of early spring hit her like a sledgehammer, and she held her breath as a feeling of illness welled up inside her.

She stumbled slightly, and propped herself up on the wall, looking around for the barmaid, but she was nowhere to be seen. Her world span, and in that moment she fell, tumbling to the ground in despair and drunkenness and pain as the realisation of the betrayal sank in.

[Millie]

The next half-bell was a smudge of colour and bright lights and stabbing pains underneath her eyelids. By the time she reached home, all she could remember was the impression of an elbow, a bitter taste in her mouth and someone's handkerchief. The house was silent when she stepped through the door, the others presumably asleep, so she tried to make as little noise as possible. But, half-asleep and drunk to boot, the knocked over what seemed like an entire weapons cabinet and all the cutlery in Mizahar before she reached her cramped room.

She collapsed onto her bed. It had taken every ounce of her strength not to break down up until this point. But now it was settling down on her, weighing her down physically, mentally. It was like there was a storm in her head, with dark thoughts flying like arrows. Despair scudded like clouds, and she curled in around herself, doubled up and a silent ball of wracked sobbing. This is awful. Please please please please please come back to me Tam... I need you. I need you here, I need your voice and your smile. Please come back, and the woman cried like a baby.

She needed to find a way from it, she needed to. And it was with that thought that she fell asleep, her tears staining the pillows she lay on, her spine arched around and her body tired and heavy.

[Millie]

Sometime late at night, in a dream, Millie's parents house, Syliras.

It was dark, but the light of Syna soon pierced the gloom. The woman stood with bare feet on the pavement of a street in some city. In some way it was liberating, to stand thus barefoot. But with that liberation came a feeling of vulnerability. And the feeling of vulnerability was pervading. She was also cold, and a cool breeze conjured gooseflesh on her arms and legs.

The street surrounding her was tall and dark, the houses looming menacingly above her head. The street was silent too, and the woman shivered. It was utterly silent, not even the sound of the breeze whistling through the gaps between houses reached her ears. The woman took a step forward, her vision spinning as the streets blurred, but as soon as she stopped the world was standing stationary again.

Overhead and framing the narrow streets was the sky. In contrast to the stillness of her surroundings, the sky above was racing with clouds and it was ominously dark, only silhouetted by Leth's light, casting ghostly fingertips across the clouds and down onto the street. The woman looked around and in her dream-like state, it felt like she was underwater.

It was at that moment, as her head was turning, that a small flicker of movement tickled the corner of her eye. She snapped her head around to see what it was, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing there. With sluggish movements, she walked forwards and again the world span around her until she stopped, somewhat nearer to where the movement had come from.

There it was again. Behind her this time, dancing on the wall. And now, something moving on the floor. She turned and turned, following it, but the source of the movement never once revealed itslef, and each time she was too slow to catch it. An ever growing sense of claustrophobia and paranoia ached and itched at her scalp. The woman stopped moving, the rocking of the city stopped and as soon as she did...

There was a breath down her ear. Cold and rotting, and she turned around to find herself face to face with a corpse, its lips painted with a rouge and its hands blackened at the tips. The woman screamed, but nothing came out. Her breath came out like ash, physical and dark, and the scream coated the corpse's face, blackening it and making it smile hideously.

[Millie]

The nightmare spoke.

"Don't be afraid, dear Millie, dear girl. I am Tam. You needn't be afraid." But the woman, whose heart was racing, couldn't breathe. "All I want is to make you smile like I do, knowing that you will suffer whilst I will not." The corpse's voice was soft, and velvety, very much like Tam's voice. Her heart beat faster, and the voice continued.

"I just want to make you feel as I do, Millie dearest." The woman stood stock still in her dreamworld as the man of her dreams reached out and brushed her face with his cold, dead finger. She was left feeling like a slug had crawled down her cheek, and she couldn't move. His finger continued searching, and with her mouth open and slack, his finger brushed against her lip, cold, clammy, smelling of death and musk and horror.

"There's no need to be afraid. You won't ever see me again, but every night I promise I will visit you here, in your bed, whilst you sleep." As the woman listened, her heart grew cold and her stomach dropped, and she tried with all her might to brush him off and push him away, this horror of a person, this construction that wasn't and couldn't be her Tam, but it didn't work.

He stepped closer to her, reeking of cold and fear and sweat, or was that herself? The touch of his finger had never left her, it traced over her eyelids and over her chin, and she was powerless to stop it. The world that had been so still around her was now a silent whirlwind, and the streets were twisting and contorting around her nightmarishly, fluing up into the sky.

"Millie, dearest." He was now stood close to her ear, almost pressed against her, and she tried to shudder, but even this basic function was denied from her as he lifted her hair back from her face. "Oh, do let me have a kiss, to start this beautiful relationship." And the façade of the man leant in, his breath dark and ashen, and she tried to protest, her heart and body beating wildly, but she was trapped, and he leant in closer and closer and closer...

And she awoke.

The dream was vivid in her mind still, but the tears were dry on her cheeks, and the cold of the early morning was brushing against her back as she lay, spread-eagled and stiff on top of the covers.

She didn't really sleep after that, and merely tried not to think. It was early morning yet, but the onset of a vicious headache was approaching, so she simply let the waves of pain flood over her and didn't move, until her mother knocked on her door and the next day started, not afresh, but steeped in cold and fear and sadness.

[Plume]

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