Private Tales Somewhere Only We Know

[Vazia Ferreira]

The sunrise was soft and slow as Vazia awoke. She could not recall dreaming, and she thought it might have been the first time she had slept without nightmares interrupting her slumber. She also thought she knew why.

She had never been as warm as she was now. Villam's arms were a solid, safe weight around her, and she never wanted to leave them. She was slow to open her eyes, and she did her best not to shift, so as not to wake Villam. Her head was tucked into his shoulder, her arm draped across his chest, their legs tangled beneath the blankets of Villam's bed.

Every time she blinked she saw and felt Villam again- his lips and hands on her skin, the warmth of his gaze. The intensity and heat had cooled but Vazia could still feel the fire burning between them, and like a fool she hoped it never went out.

What were all these things running through her mind, through her heart? She was stunned that she was still able to feel anything but she did. Her stone was a distant hum, easily pushed aside. What would she have to give up for this? She knew nothing good in life came for free. She had already lost so much, she had thought she didn't have anything more to lose. But now, she had something to lose. Someone to lose.

She was afraid, especially now, but evidently she was not afraid enough to do what was perhaps the smart thing and leave. She was a fool, so she did not pull away from him. His words from the night before ran through her mind, as if they were reason enough to stay.

I don't care what's hiding behind the void... I'll fight it with you,

Was it enough?

Villam Regis

 

[Villam Regis]

For the first time in as long as Villam could remember, he did not awake to the hollow feeling of isolation that had plagued his every day. The barren halls, and the empty rooms of this estate did not immediately taunt him with the echoes of his own breath, and the chill of the sheets underneath him did not urge him to leave and flee this last remnant of his family's normalcy to submerge himself in his duties, as he had since becoming Guardian.

He was certain these nagging terrors were still present, ready to gnaw at his sanity the moment he allowed himself reprieve. Today though, they were warded off; they could not reach him through the woman sleeping in his arms.

For all that Villam had derided the Valenn Festival in years past, he could not deny what it had brought him. Vazia Ferreira, the Guardian of Void, and now so much more. In this room where he'd felt so cut off from the world, so alone... she'd made him feel complete.

Villam had awoken some time ago, but did not open his eyes. To do so would break this spell, would end this moment that he wished would go on forever. He reveled in her weight against his body, the swells and curves of her figure as it melted so effortlessly against his own, every inch of her engraved into his mind, explored by hand, eye, and lips. Her heartbeat seemed to match his, the rise and fall of her breath a monotone he could have slept to for hours more.

Alas, even he couldn't stall forever. His eyes cracked open to look down at his fellow Guardian, his friend, and now his lover. The first words that came to his lips were not the ones he intended; they were what he'd wished to speak the night prior, what he'd been unable to once the heat of the moment had taken them, once the need had preoccupied their lips with other matters.

"I love you."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

After a few moments of silence, Vazia noticed the rise and fall of Villam's breath had changed, and she realized he was awake. She shifted her head to look up at him just as he looked down at her. She knew the words on his lips before she heard them and a fear unlike anything she'd ever known entered her. Without realizing it, she tightened her grip on him. Her body tensed and her mind raced.

She had to tell him.

She knew she would have to eventually, and she should've told him, before she'd danced with him, before she'd kissed him, before she'd slept with him.

Before she'd begun to love him.

It would have been easier to tell him then, when she had less to lose. When she wouldn't be as afraid that when he truly knew what had happened and what she had done he would leave; no matter what he said.

She pushed herself up off him onto her elbow, but did not separate herself from him entirely.

"Villam," she started, but she couldn't seem to finish the sentence. She was making a habit of saying his name with such raw emotion that she hadn't known in years.

How did one go about telling such a thing? No living person save for her knew what had happened and what hid behind her blank exterior. Only Villam had begun prodding at it, had peeled back her outer layers. And she found she wanted only Villam to know.

Villam Regis

 

[Villam Regis]

He hadn't expected her to repeat the words, nor did he wish for her to feel as though she must. The confession that Villam had made was the latest in selfish choices he'd made over the last day, something done far more for himself than for her.

To hear his own voice say the truth aloud was a confrontation of his humanity, undeniable proof that he hadn't become the unfeeling machine he sometimes felt himself to be.

Vazia propped herself up, looking down at him from the side as his name again left her lips. Regis wasn't oblivious; he understood that there was something dark within Vazia, something she was burying deep inside of herself, and using the Void that her stone bequeathed her to shield it.

There was fear in her eyes, even behind the affection and surprise that attempted to hide it.

But he'd steeled himself. What he'd experienced with Vazia in the last twenty-four hours was something he was not willing to let go of. Whatever horror awaited him beneath those blue eyes, whatever secrets had been left unsaid, Villam had already resolved to plant his feet and hold firm.

The Guardian of Passion had found a new wellspring of his namesake.

"You once asked me what I find Passion in, why I remain and fight when I could simply leave." Villam muttered up to her. "Should you allow me, I'd desire you to be my reason."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Vazia's heart twisted in a way it hadn't in ten years.

She did not move as she looked down at him. "Villam, there are things you ought to know about me, if.. if we are going to do this," she said after a moment, her voice soft. He was offering her so much, and she had nothing to give him. Nothing but a tragic story.

She had sent several things into the void, mostly her memories, but had yet to retrieve any of them. Her stone kept them locked up, but without her stone, it was easier to take them out, even if she didn't want to. But now, she knew it was inevitable.

She had never attempted it before but she had heard of previous Void guardians performing a sort of memory retrieval and projection, and it was what she was planning to do now. Take Villam through her memories, one in particular.

"Can I show you?"

Villam Regis

 

[Villam Regis]

It wasn't in Villam's nature to cower now. He'd made promises to Vazia over the course of the last night that he intended to keep. What he felt for the woman laying beside him wasn't something he was willing to give up for fear of the unknown.

He knew in his heart, that Vazia was far more fearful of what was about to happen than he. This was her darkness that they faced, not his. Whatever had plagued her had gnawed at her mind until she'd used her stone to suppress it. That was a dread that Regis could not fathom.

Villam's hand moved from the bed to rest carefully against her cheek; his fingers grazed across her pale flesh affectionately, almost adoringly as he brushed aside some of the silvery hair that fell wild and untamed through the night. "Vazia..." Her name held the same tone as it had since they'd entered this home; heavy, and full of emotion he couldn't express with any other word. "I made you a promise. Do you recall?"

The Passion Guardian rose slightly from the bed, leaning forward to gently press his lips to hers. It was a far cry from the heat they'd reached before, but it was reminiscent of the first kiss under the pavilion, that initial crossing of the line between them.

"Nothing will make me turn my back now."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

As Villam leaned forward to kiss her, she both hated and was glad for how brief it was. When he pulled back she kept her eyes shut for a moment, working up the courage to do what she had to do.

After a couple moments, she opened her eyes, and reached out a slow, shaky hand, placing her hand on Villam's temple, her fingers sliding through his hair. She leaned forward and rested her forehead on his; and something like an apology escaped her lips before her memory came rushing forth.

(TW)

They were in a small cottage, standing apart from the people inside of it, though its inhabitants didn’t seem to notice them. It seemed to be a large family. A girl of about 16 that looked to be a younger version of Vazia was holding a baby, talking excitedly to an older man Vazia knew was her father as he set down a travel bag. Her hair was no longer white, rather a pale blonde, and her pale skin was flushed with joy. Her three younger sisters and mother could be seen in the kitchen, setting the table for dinner. The scene was quite familiar.

The younger Vazia disappeared into a side room and reappeared, her arms free of the baby. She sat down at the table beside one of her sisters, who called her Aislynn. Dinner was a joyous affair. The family was in mid-conversation about her father’s travels when suddenly the window shutters were flung open and a cloaked figure leapt into their home. He stabbed her father from behind before anyone could do anything. A smile was still frozen on her father’s face when he died.

The younger Vazia- Aislynn, her name had been- and her sisters and mother screamed and leapt up, trying to escape. Their mother did not get far, as the figure grabbed her from behind. Aislynn was sobbing and scrambling towards her sisters, weak with fear.

Suddenly, the man was upon them. He snatched Cleo, who was six, up by the arm, and gutted her like a fish, spraying red. Aislynn had a sudden surge of adrenaline and she tackled the man from behind. He slipped on Cleo’s blood and hit his head on the door frame into the living room as he fell. He threw her off him and grabbed her nine-year old sister Mara, smashing her head into the wall without even getting up.

He turned back around and grabbed Aislynn, pinning her to the floor beneath him. Cleo’s and Mara’s blood seeped through her shirt, warming her back. He made swipes at her with his knife, but she caught his wrists, trying in vain to keep his knife away from her body. He cut her arm in the struggle but didn’t seem as bent on killing her as the others.

Then her baby cried and both Aislynn and the man froze, looking up and towards the side room she had walked into earlier. He was off her quickly, disappearing into the baby’s room. Aislynn moaned a sob in fear, struggling to get to her feet to follow him. She got there just in time to see him slice open her son from navel to chin. Aislynn screamed and leaped forward, tackling the man to the ground. She pummeled him incessantly, his hood falling from his face to reveal his identity. It was Fredrik. The father of her child. The boy she had thought she loved.

Aislynn choked on her sobs and stilled. It was Fredrik. Fredrik had killed her parents, her sisters, and their son. He took advantage of her frozen shock and shoved her off of him. He turned to grab his dagger from where it had fallen on the floor, but it wasn’t there anymore. He turned his head as Aislynn’s last and oldest sister, Sage, plunged his own dagger into his shoulder. He bellowed in pain and ripped it out, swinging his arm wide to cut open Sage’s throat. Her blood sprayed over him and dripped down his face as he looked at Aislynn on the ground in front of him. He had a calm, cool expression on his face but when he looked at Aislynn, something flickered in his gaze. She took advantage of his pause and lunged forward, wrapping her hands around his throat and squeezing with all of her pain and grief.

She held firm, even as he began to jerk underneath her. His face went purple, then gray. She was crying and as he drew nearer to death something like the love she had once known returned to his gaze. When he died, she wrapped him in his cloak so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

She crawled over to the remains of her baby, his small face still screwed up in a cry. She unleashed a scream that could've peeled the paint off walls, curdled milk, and made even the bravest man afraid. It sounded as if she were being tortured to death by the most horrid of means. And, looking at the bloody husk of her son, surrounded and covered in the blood of those she loved, she was.

She wrapped Owyn in a blanket, covering his sweet face that she couldn’t bear to look at. She laid down next to him on the blood-slicked floor for most of the night, crying and passing in and out of consciousness.

She burned her family’s bodies in their house that night, including Fredrik’s body.

It was here that the memory faded back to the early morning light of Villam’s bedroom.

She had collapsed on top of him, her hands weak on his temples, her face wet with tears, and her entire body shaking from holding back the sobs.

Villam Regis