Liz Cartwright

I could barely glance away from her face, the allure of her pristine features almost too much to overcome even though she was fidgeting like a nervous child. It was fascinating, to say the least. A creature, who looked like divinity incarnate, who had faced gods and monsters, who had been able to call me back form the brink with a touch and a few words, was hardly able to meet our eyes, an uncomfortable tension palpable in her every movement while she absentmindedly played with one of her silvery tails and her huge ears twitched cutely. The more often I saw her, the less she seemed like the force of nature I had met during my darkest hour. No, deep down she was as insecure as us. Maybe even worse, considering she had somehow decided to shoulder the responsibility to keep us safe, from our enemies and apparently from ourselves as well. Hesitantly I extended my hand and touched her shoulder, ready to pull back at any moment but she didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, she even granted me a fleeting, melancholic smile, that, despite my best efforts to suppress it, made my heart flutter. By all the gods, I’d really have to control that particular impulse more thoroughly. Nothing good would come of it.

“You don’t have to feel bad for being honest,” I finally said when it seemed like Cassandra might just crack under the pressure of the lingering silence her words had evoked. “And don’t think you said anything we haven’t told ourselves before. Still… would you like to hear my story? It’s not that special and can maybe help you understand where we’re coming from.” Her eyes filled with a strange light, I might have called it pity, if I had had the time to study her expression, but it vanished again much too quickly to be certain. Did she know anything about my past I didn’t? Possibly, but asking wouldn’t help. She’d either tell me on her own or not at all. As little as I knew about her, that much I was certain of.

“Sure, but you don’t have to turn your life into an example for my sake,” she mumbled and pulled her slender legs to her chest. “And I can’t really see how it’s going to change my perspective either.”

“Maybe it won’t. I’m not even sure you’re wrong. But it might… you said you’re old and have worn different faces before. Have you also lived in different places?” She nodded.

“Worlds even, but there’s only one other place I’d call home. Why do you ask?”

“Are they any different from ours?” She sighed and her melancholic smile returned.

“Superficially yes. When it comes down to the nitty gritty, not so much. Humans, beast kin, non carbon based life forms,” my expression must have revealed my confusion as she quickly added: “aliens, peoples from other worlds if you so will… as soon as creatures with the capacity for individual thought live together the dynamics are surprisingly similar, hive like life forms excluded. And they don’t change. A society, a people, they might evolve technically in one way or the other, but when it comes down to it… they… we, we just don’t learn. So… no, I don’t think there’s much of a difference, especially when it comes to abstract concepts like morals or values.” I had to take a moment to decipher her words, the faint anger I heard in her voice a clear sign of how utterly frustrated she was.

“I can’t pretend like I’ve understood everything you’ve said but I still think I’m on the right track. Right and wrong… you just said it doesn’t vary much, but I don’t think you’re right. There are always two sides to every story and if you were to know mine you might come to understand why… look, I don’t think anyone of us disagrees with you, not really. Except… we’re alive. We’re not a… a thing that’s black or white or blue, a machine that functions or doesn’t. One of my first memories… do you know what hunger feels like? Real hunger? Ravenous enough to drown out everything else?” She shook her magnificent head and replied in a whisper:

“No. But I do know what that kind of pain feels like.”

“Then you know enough. Something like that… you can’t escape it, you can’t forget it. It… reduces you to nothing but a single, stubborn wish. Make it stop. Whatever it takes. There’s no room for anything else. In the beginning you might yet cling to a few other thoughts but after a while even they become muted, eroded. Living through something like that changes you, scars you. You become afraid, you dread the possibility to somehow end up in the same situation and then you do everything you can to prevent that from happening. For me, it’s hunger and sickness, for you it’s pain,” I pointed at Amanda, a tall, angelic looking blonde, “for her it’s loneliness. I could go on but in the end, we all have a demon, lurking somewhere in our past. To run from it, we pay every price. There’s nothing… right or wrong, shame- or graceful about it, because things like that don’t matter anymore when you’re scared. Fear… in a way it turns us into animals, doesn’t it?” Her expression hardened and the soft, silvery glow in her eyes turned into icy steel.

“And facing our fears whenever we have to is what makes us human… maybe humane.”

“No, it’s what turns you into a hero… maybe an angel.” Her smile, which had crept across her face like a beast, was as cold as the light in her eyes and just a sharp.

“Self pity isn’t an excuse, it’s an addiction. You’re not born strong. You decide to become strong the moment you find the courage to actually confront your demons. Literally or figuratively,” she added under her breath, almost as if she had just realised something important.

“Easy to say for someone like you,” a quiet voice interrupted her. Lily, the youngest, had spoken up. “It’s only courage when you know you have a chance to win. Otherwise it’s plain stupid.” A low, dangerous hum suddenly filled the air and Cassandra closed her eyes, struggling to reel in her wings, which had started to slither like agitated snakes. A heartbeat later the sound vanished but her expression became even icier. I shared a worried glance with Amanda and felt the nervous tension building behind me but before we could do more than stare, the kitsune replied:

“Child,” even her voice had changed, as if the underlying melody had suddenly become something much… older, “I’ve walked that path and I’ve chosen death…”

“Then you’re a bloody queen,” the petite girl suddenly erupted. The rest of us were stunned into silence, since we wouldn’t even have managed to muster the strength to meet Cassandra’s gaze. “But you can’t expect everyone to act like royalty. That’s why some are born to lead and others are born to serve. I’m… content. And if that’s enough for me, shouldn’t it be enough for you?” Tears were shimmering in Lily’s eyes, as if she was desperately trying to justify her actions in front of a being who could actually grant her absolution. But that was simply how Cassandra made us feel. Tiny… yet protected. Like a child.

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We held our breath, waiting for an outburst but it never came. Instead the angel’s cold expression thawed immediately. “I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry. Please, forgive me, it’s not my place to judge. But… what you’ve said,” she inclined her head in my direction just as I was starting to breathe more freely, “the both of you, hit a little close to home.” She deflated, her wings vanished and even the glow in her eyes faded away until they merely flickered with a hint of suppressed power.

Timidly she tried to meet our eyes one by one before she explained: “one of my… demons is a conflict with my race. The one I owe my wings to. In a way my… kin chose to surrender to their fears and that’s why… it doesn’t matter but my anger isn’t directed at you. But I finally understand why Greta wanted me to have this conversation. I truly am sorry. I made it all sound much more… absolute than I have any right to or actually want to. It’s your life, in the end, and my reservations are my problem. I do wonder, though, to me it still sounds like you do what you do for a lack of alternatives. In case I haven’t spooked you too much right now… my offer is valid. Would you like a chance to do something else for a living?” I felt my mouth open on its own accord and my expression must have been mirrored by the girls behind me since a sly smirked slowly spread across Cassandra’s face. “I’m a little impulsive or rather fickle from time to time.” Not to mention intimidating or rather downright scary.

I was still struggling with my thoughts, trying to decide if I wouldn’t be better off far away from angels and demons when Lily spoke up again. The girl had more of a spine than I had given her credit for. “Just like that? You don’t even know us, not really.”

“Don’t I? Let’s see… Liz has mentioned her past a few times before. She hasn’t told me a thing but maybe I can still narrate her story on my own.” Her flickering gaze scrutinised me with a newfound intensity until I could barely sit still anymore. In a way it felt like… being stared at by the sun. Everything you are makes you want to stare right back but you already know that it can only darken your world, should you be stupid enough to give in.

“You were alone,” she finally began. “Tossed aside and forgotten, worthless in the eyes of those who wallowed in their own despair. Another nameless sack of flesh on the side of the road. One of your earliest memories is crying yourself to sleep, hiding wherever you could find a shred of comfort, be it an old, discarded blanket or an overturned cart that provided a bit of protection from the chill of the night. You tried, time and again, for someone to extend a hand, to even look at you properly and see more than the disgusting rags you called your own. But they never did and soon, it didn’t even matter. Hunger… you suffered, alone in the dark until the most unlikely saviour extended a hand. An old hag, barely alive herself, took you in when you were already waiting for it all to end, for death to finally come. She didn’t lo… she didn’t treat you like she loved you but for the first time you experienced some decency… you felt like a human and less like a thing. The memory, the pain, the fear stayed with you, though. On one hand it gave you the strength to thrive where others would have faltered, to shrug off humiliations that would have broken most women, most people, on the other it makes you dread everything good that might happen to you because it can all be taken away again in the blink of an eye and you’d be back to where you started, except this time it would be so much worse. You have an unyielding core, unbreakable, even, but every trial you faced buried it deeper underneath a web of scars that shackled you to your past and you began to fear your future. And then… your world ended. You experienced fear like you never had since you were a little child and underneath the bleeding lattice of forgotten wounds a shimmer of something beautiful appeared. When Free Land burned you found yourself again, the miasma of your nightmares burned away in the flames of war.” She raised her eyes and her gaze flickered from one to the next before she added: “it’s the same for most of you, isn’t it? You’ve truly faced death, you’ve heard its voice, you’ve felt its breath and now you can’t… you don’t want to go back. Now, tell me, where am I wrong?” Silence was her only reply until Amanda whispered:

“I don’t think I fear the future, but I had given up on it. Until that… beast showed me how fragile our existence actually is. It might end tomorrow and there’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t want… I want to make the most of the time I have left and pleasuring drunken idiots… it’s nothing I want to tell my children, should I ever be lucky enough to have them.”

“There you have it,” the angel breathed. “I…,” her smirk returned, as if she was telling a private joke, when she added: “I can only show you the door. That’s what I’m doing. But you have to step through all by yourself.”

“Will it hurt,” Lily asked, her voice heavy with fear and just a hint of hope.

“Of course. Everything worthwhile does. You’ll fail, you’ll make mistakes that will have you wishing for an easier life, but… that’s the choice, isn’t it. You can either be… the hero of your own story, or…” her words trailed off and she closed her eyes again. With a tired sigh she leaned back against the trunk. “One last thing. Should you decide to stay with the Madame, which I don’t begrudge in anyway, despite what I’ve said, I… we will still try our best to make your life… better. You just won’t be along for the ride.” With a jerk she sat upright and scrambled to her feet. “Think it over. I still have a few people to talk to. I’ll find you before I leave. Give me your answer then.” She whirled around and walked away, her silhouette obscured by a living waterfall of flowing silver. For me, it wasn’t much of a question. I had made my decision… to be fair, it had been made for me, long before today, but I was still curious what my friends were going to say.

“If I didn’t know she was engaged, I’d call her a damned virgin. And a princess to boot,” Amanda huffed. It took a moment for her words to sink in but when they did I chuckled softly before I began to laugh freely and openly. Soon the others joined in.

“She might be,” Grace, another one of the girls, managed to press out between fits of mirth. “Royals do have some strange customs and I’ve heard she’s only seven. In this body, I should probably add after everything she’s told us.”

“Trust me, she’s not,” I mumbled quietly. “I have seen her with the other kitsune. The way they touch each other… you know what I mean. Also… didn’t you listen? How old do you think she really is? I bet she’s got more experience than the lot of us combined.”

“It does make you wonder how it’d feel, doesn’t it,” Amanda mused wistfully. “Her looks, her magic and that amount of experience…”

“Don’t,” I immediately cut her off. “Don’t follow that line of thought. It’s only going to hurt, trust me.”

“Did you…”

“Unfortunately. To be fair, you haven’t seen her when she’s… not veiling herself. If you had…” A warm hand gently landed on my shoulder.

“Is it that bad?”

“You have no idea. Sometimes I think the few moments may have spoiled… it doesn’t matter.” With a grateful smile I shrugged off Amanda’s hand and continued: “ladies, we can gossip all we want later but now you have a decision to make. You knew this would be coming. What are you going to do?”

“Have you already made up your mind?”

“On the first day I met her, but I also didn’t have much of a choice, did I? You have that choice, don’t squander it.”

“So you don’t think we should take her up on her offer,” Lily asked hesitantly.

“I didn’t say that. But I do think you shouldn’t accept it blindly. I’m sure she meant what she said. It’s going to hurt. Aside from a few hiccups your lives are actually pretty comfortable. That’s nothing to scoff at and I’m pretty convinced comfort isn’t what she has in mind.”

“Can’t be worse than serving an unwashed sailor who’s burning through his pay in a single night,” Grace harrumphed.

“I wouldn’t bet on it. Less degrading, for sure, but a day and a bath later the one becomes nothing but a memory, the other... I’m not so sure that’s what you’re going to sign up for. What I’ve signed up for.” The noise of the celebration grew louder around us as they began to think.