Vance watched, himself one moment, feeling the emotions of something incomprehensible, expanding and otherworldly take over her body as he life slipped away and out of her and in the next, she opened her eyes.
His all seeing eyes, his clear vision, gazed into the eternal darkness and found the love and caress for the sun, for the light that reached out always, devouring the darkness and still unable to, fearful for one and thankful for the other. The beginning of their journey that he got a chance to start anew in this body. Loving and longing and one with himself. He felt himself through her and the her he knew a long time ago.
He also felt something hiding, a adoration he didn't understand, but had felt it in his contained human existence- from her- and felt the light seeping through the eternity that consumed everything, even light and feared that time when the inevitable would happen and the despair would follow before she too would combust to give rise to him again. A phoenix in love with the fire.
Vance smile and he felt that smile reflected back to him through Ash. Each of them understood the past and the present and wanted to keep themselves from seeing the future, to enjoy it despite all its troubles.
It was time. To come back and be who he was. The owner of her heart, the owner of the world she carried and walk in it together for only in their contained form could they ever be here, even for a short time. And to prolong that short time, they will have to work together, to close their vision into the future and be present. From here on now. They knew and they chose not to know. To live through it, all over again and for the first time.
Ash felt the overwhelming and overbearing presence of the goddess present in the room sear dark and hot through her body like the fires of hell suspended in the vacuum of space. It was light and it was dark, it was present and it was not. It was past and it was present. She was the ancestor and she was Ash. She was the goddess and she was a human. She nothing and she was everything.
Ash felt her bones melt and felt her own consciousness come alive with an entirety she had never felt before.
She was here and she was omnipresent.
She was in love and she was happy and she was alone and she was longing. She was aware of herself and she was aware of the goddess in her, around her, above her, and within her. The goddess was her and she was the goddess.
In a single transcending moment, Ash understood what was and what was to be, what had passed and what is to come. She was dead and she was alive.
The shell that she was was cracking open and a voice called out to her. "Princess. Come back. Ash."
The voice was quivering. longing cut through her body like a white hot iron touch straight from the god of light. It was love, a repose in human body, unattainable when she wasn't contained and attainable when she was. It was time for her to be in this world and cut down on its mayhem while savoring her chance to be with the one she loved.
What she knew as a goddess, she understood finally as human.
The incomprehensible became truth. Past, present and future became one. She knew all and yet she knew nothing.
"Ash. Wake up," she heard tears in his voice and she felt the pain expanding her chest. His pain and her own reflected into it, unable to bear the pain in his his. She forced her eyes. The goddess and herself, each their own and each as one forced her eyes to open and the eternal darkness met the eternal light in his eyes as the two of them clashed, mended, melted and became one in the twilight zone that was the human world.
In the blink of an eye eternities passed. The truth was revealed and taken away.
Ash blinked and she was herself again, looking into Vance eyes that reflected her own, so close to her face, wet and moist.
The darkness was going, the fairies were gone- or rather unconscious. She felt them, even through she couldn't see anything past Vance. She felt every single person in the entire building passed out and the night outside was a slight dusk. The right time for her to meet Vance.
"Don't ever do that again."
Ash perused her lips. She couldn't promise that. She was here to stop things like these.
"You don't walk into trap ever again." she countered instead. Her pressed his lips together, unable to promise it.
She knew it. Hah! Hypocrit. It made her smile and felt a small adoration rise into her chest. Though him she felt desire and longing, not as old as that bond between the gods but their own, small and within the bodily capacity.
"Stop thinking about it." he said and Ash felt them. His lips, like a ghost's brush past her own. Were they soft, chapped, warm or cold? She couldn't tell.
She felt annoyed and aroused and closed her eyes, moving closer. Whatever it maybe and whatever it was and whatever it was going to be. In this moment, in the darkness, she took it, a fleeting feeling she will have to get by when the darkness was gone.
And she stole it. A proper kiss. No. A better kiss.
Something deeper and older than her soul sighed. It a quick though. She pressed her lips once, firm and quick and leaned away. She felt grounded in her own body, her own person. The goddess who was her guardian, was herself, her past, present and future, left her body, her soul to be herself again. She was determined, rather than knowing that she was her own person too. Vance, through the dispersing haze looked at her wide eyed. Under her hand, something moved. Ash looked down at Vance's chest. His heart. Did it just beat?
When she looked back up, the look in his eyes, the pure worship and appreciation, staggered her. She felt it too but so what? She was still Ash, a moderator and he was still, Vance, a vampire knight.
Something moved, a twist of body in the far end of the room, rippled through the darkness. She felt it. Vance noticed her distraction. He looked about- for her.
"The fairies are waking up. We better round them up."
Ash nodded, unable to speak and moved away. The arms around her tightened. She couldn't look at him. She felt his reluctance and within it, she felt her own growing. Only, her reluctance was different than his.
And he knew it. "It will not be easy but it will happen. It is meant to happen. We are the end. I do not want us to meet in the end as strangers, but rather two people familiar with each other."
Ash had not thought that far. But the truth of his words settled on her reluctance heavily. It was one thing she hadn't considered. One thing, that made it hard for her resistance to grow anymore. And that is why, having a mate was both, scary and elevating, overwhelming and easy. He just knew what to say to stop her from pulling away.
But she liked the sound of that. The sound of meeting each other at the end as friends, or more than friends, instead of strangers. A smile spread on her face and vanished as quickly. A few other fairies were moving around them. Vance's eyes shifted away from her and came back. Neither of them moved.
"First, let's get this done with."
Ash moved back but Vance's fingers dug into her skin, pulled her away, besides himself. Her heart kicked around once. She didn't have time to glare when she saw what was behind her, what Vance was stopping her from.
The limp body was Akiye.
Ash went on her knees, a hand on Akiye's head and another running down her body to check for injuries. She was injured, a few ribs broken, no darkness in her mind but bruises on her skull. The fairies had battered her good when they couldn't hypnotize her anymore. All to bring her and Vance into the circle, to call down the goddess upon them.
It told her what she needed to know about Vance and Akiye's relationship but she said nothing. They might be mates and the feelings might be heavenly or humane but as she knew, it wasn't going to be easy. Light and dark, as lovers could only be star crossed. Vance must have loved Akiye ardently enough for the fairies to think of her as the perfect vessel for the dark goddess.
Something possessive in her reared its head, studying the softened features of Akiye as she lay sideways, studying the blood matted features. She was not beautiful but she was a good person. Ash swallowed. She couldn't compete with that.
She couldn't find it in herself to ask, nor could she push away the matter entirely.
Akiye needed attention. Ash closed her eyes and raked the darkness in the building, not as thick anymore. In it, everyone was elevated of their hypnosis, even the slight threads of untugable darkness was gone from many of their minds.
Not all though.
Ash looked back at Vance, collecting all the unconscious fairies into a bag, she didn't know where he got it from. A few lights in the room had flickered back on. Ash could see the size of the circle again, with wooden scepters turned into channels of magic for the fairies. Had the fairies managed to get powerful? Did they get what they aimed for.
The clarity with which she knew what the fairies intended, had to be knowledge passed down, even if she didn't know where it came from. The person in her arms stirred. Ash focused on Akiye.
"Can you hear me? How are you?"
"Broken but in control of my mind." Akiye whispered with a smile. Relief washed over Ash. She couldn't fathom the depth of fear and worries a person would have knowing she was hypnotized and used for a long time.
All her inhabitations fell away as she wrapped her arms around the woman gently and hugged her, careful not to aggravate her injuries.
She called, "we need a healer."
Vance was across from her arms going under Akiye, as he picked her up, slowly and gently. Ash curbed anything that started to show her unease. She said, "we need to check the fairies outside and see if they have suffered similarly. If I am not wrong, all of them should be passed out. We need to move fast. Take Akiye to the chancellor's mansion. The high priestess is there."
Vance's eyes roamed her face, sensing her unease. But she did not give him a chance to speak, a heaviness settled in her chest again, as she turned around and ran.
Vance was on her heal. "What is it?"
"I will ask anyone who sees a fairy to restrain them and cover their eyes but we won't be able to round up all of them before they come about. The fairies have planned this for a long time and will fight hard to maintain the freedom they have managed to gain."
Vance took her word for it. She felt his doubts, a yearning that suddenly overtaken by unease. He knew she was lying and could do nothing about it. Being mates, only made it harder.
Akiye groaned and she felt Vance filled with worry. One of those things made her run harder, she couldn't say which though.