Kaine decided that this wasn’t going so well. It was only twenty minutes into the fight and Crystal was showing some signs of serious wear and tear. She was gasping for breath, limping from a slashed thigh, smarting from dozens of energy-inflicted burns, and embarrassed from a bruised backside and many tears in her dress. Her attacks showed little if no effect on the projection. Most of her energy was either absorbed or cast aside, and Crystal was getting angrier and less focused at each insult to her injuries.
Kaine wanted nothing more than to jump into the fray and help Crystal, but he could not. Already he had done too much for her and it was about time for her to wake up and realize that she’d have to stop pretending. Kaine had already decided that from this battle only two things could come: Crystal’s death or getting her god damned act together. Right now, it was looking pretty grim, either way. She was a child in a half-grown woman’s body with a whole other identity to account for; what did he expect?
Kaine maintained a silent, emotionless posture, but inside, his heart was tearing. I promised you we would defeat him…I promised…
Kaine turned his eyes away from the battle, to the dark, calm sky. It had been centuries since Kaine had allowed himself even threatening tingle in his eye. Not even when Crystal’s mother had died had he shed a single tear. He had lived too long, seen too much. No emotion was unknown to him. The delight of victory and bitterness of defeat had been with Kaine longer than any lover had ever shared his bed.
Kaine stared at the moon as it pierced the dark clouds that had gathered over the roof of the building. Dimly, he was aware that the clouds were not natural; they had been attracted to this area by Kaine’s will for privacy. But now, so close to the end of the battle, Kaine was eager to look at anything other than the defeat of his last hope. He stared carefully at the many craters, looking for the face that many claimed to see on the moon, but he could no more see a man on the moon than the soul of The Eternal Princess in Crystal’s short, stocky body.
Kaine heard Crystal scream and slowly brought his vision back down to where the combatants had drawn to an interminable pause. It looked as if the battle was over…And it was not in Crystal’s favor.
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Crystal had never felt such agony. Every little inch of her body burned and twisted under the sheer pain that she felt now. She was miserable and there was precious little she could do about it. She had fallen in an awkward position on her left hip, with her leg trapped beneath her. Her upper body collapsed and she could swear she heard something snap.
She fell on her back, staring up at the night sky with a huge full moon looming overhead as if it felt the need to watch Crystal’s humiliation. Defeat burned like sour bile in the back of her throat. She wished she could spit or vomit away this burning acid, but she found she hadn’t the strength. She couldn’t beat this monster. Not like this, not here and certainly not now. She tried to lift her body up, but not a bone in her responded to her command. She squeezed her eyes shut against the hot tears that came.
Great, I lost and now I’m going to cry about it. I really hate this…
She opened her eyes again and saw the projection of Lord Robert of Exendor standing over her, smiling. Crystal didn’t even have the strength to flick him off. He was blurrier than before, but Crystal realized that it was her own tears that made him seem blurry.
I don’t want to die…I don’t want to die…
But she had lost, and this was the price she paid. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the final blow, if there would be one. Or maybe he would just watch her bleed out. What a crappy way to die.
A strange thing happened then.
Crystal felt completely calm and was relieved of pain. She opened her eyes to find that she had none. She was floating in a half-life, between death and her broken body below. She was drifting a little above the projection of Lord Robert, still focusing his attention on her body, a sickly wracked thing of pain. She could see everything at once and she knew nothing could see her. She had died, or was as close as she had ever been to doing so.
A voice within her seemed to say, don’t waste this… And using her unworldly sight, Crystal saw Kaine, standing in the shadows, his face a mask of acceptance. But Crystal could see beyond that, deep inside the immortal. She saw pain there, pain of grief and failure…and loneliness. Below, in the courtyard, she could see Amanda fight a demon. Well, not fight, but mercilessly trounce, rather. But moreover, she could see the severely pissed entity clawing just behind Amanda’s eyes, slowly eating the girl’s soul.
Crystal had no way of knowing in her waking life, but she was watching someone other than Amanda becoming Amanda, and it wasn’t very pretty.
This sucked! Death really sucked! Crystal now had all of this knowledge that she would never be able to use. She knew that all of the boys in the courtyard had had sexual fantasies about her. She knew Daniel had been planning to marry her if he couldn’t find anyone else before her turned thirty-five. And she knew Austin’s hair color wasn’t one hundred percent natural; the boy had been going gray at age five! She wanted to go back right now and tell Amanda not to give into the soul that haunted her, to runaway before it was too late. She wanted to tell all of the guys to get their minds out of the gutter! She wanted to tall Kaine to leave they boys alone, they had no business fighting these fights or knowing what they already knew.
She looked back at Kaine. She wanted to apologize to Kaine. His failure was her fault; she knew that now. Her denial, her logic, or lack thereof had brought all of his hard work to this. Denial made all of her actions seem unreal, like this was all some dream that she would eventually wake up from. And she had just gone on with it, never stopping to think about the consequences, not for her but for Kaine, for everyone she had dragged into this. It was simply unbelievable that things like this existed. Sure, she saw it on television, but that wasn’t real.
But now it was real. Her death was real. And whether or not she cared about being a reincarnated princess, she was still dead. And any one of her friends could be next.
Now she did care. She cared a lot. She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t afford to die. There was no way that she could let that son of a bitch win this fight, because it meant that other people would die too. And they hadn’t gotten Kaine’s training or even the option of denying it.
She looked at her own corpse with a sense of contempt and bitter self-loathing. She looked like a whale in that dress. A beaten whale. She couldn’t let herself be beaten by this guy. Her mother wouldn’t have.
Her mother didn’t. From somewhere far away an image came rushing back; the image of a woman holding a shining staff high above her head. She swept the staff down with enough force to crack bone, but all she managed to strike was the flesh of Lord Robert as the coward fell back from the mighty queen. After he had shoved the blade deep into her chest. She had died as an army ploughed into her home and broken her kingdom. And her daughter was nowhere to be found.
Jesus…where was I during all of this? Crystal wondered. And then, she answered herself in a voice she never used; you were dallying in the Temple with Kaine, stealing caresses and kisses while your mother was murdered. Don’t you remember?
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She didn’t remember, not really. She didn’t know what kind of acts she had committed in a past life, but she did know one thing now: no matter how you sliced it, death sucked. It sucked big hairy dick and Crystal was willing to avoid it, if only for a while longer. She was willing to give up all that she had just learned, all that she could see from within the shroud of death if it meant she could make the ones who did this pay. She still had one chance….
Crystal came back into awareness of herself with renewed pain and sense of duty. She turned her eyes to the moon once more. Vaguely, she remembered the dream she had had so long ago in which she had shattered her mother’s staff with the effort of her power. I can do that too…just like that dream I had in Geometry…
Crystal opened her eyes and stared at the moon, shinning brilliantly through the clouds. Almost as brilliant as the light in her mother’s staff had been in that distant dream.
Form a picture…
Okay, Crystal thought to herself. I want something I can hit this thing with…something pretty, something hard, something blunt, and something…princess-like.
Crystal’s eyes snapped open. In one swift movement, she came to her feet and raised her hand to the moon. If she said anything, she couldn’t remember it. If she thought or heard anything, that was a greater mystery. All she knew was that in less than a second, something solid and heavy was in her hand and she was beating the false Lord Robert over the head with it. She smashed and struck, again and again, feeling the image of Lord Robert shrink and fade under her attack. She continued to strike until, finally, the image disappeared.
Crystal fell to her knees and looked at the black, glossy rod clutched in her hand. It glowed with a contained power and at the tip; there was a perfectly shaped symbol carved from a translucent stone that was shaped like the symbol on Kaine’s forehead. The same one that was one the disc that fit in the music box. The symbol of the Royal family… At first if felt like cool onyx in her hands, but now it fairly radiated warmth that spread into Crystal’s arm and through her body, embedding itself in her very soul. It was like she was being introduced to a part of her that had been inside of her all along, lying dormant.
See, now I feel like a princess. I bloody, I’m beat up…but I’m a princess, Damn it, Crystal thought, nodding her head to affirm it.
But even with her new part of self, it didn’t change that fact that herself was a self that had just gotten it’s ass kicked, and badly. She fell headfirst into the ground, feeling the pavement scrape her forehead. But that was a hazy concept at best. She had just won a fight. She had just accomplished something much larger and more significant than even she could comprehend.
She had just bled all over her mother’s borrowed $300 dress.
Now she really felt like dying, if only to get it over with now rather than try and explain to her mother--the one waiting for her at home-- about the dress…. She was about to pass out in a minute as it was, and thank God. She didn’t even want to know what she looked like now….
But such a bitching scepter… Only Crystal wished that she’d had more time to picture it. It was kind of plain, after all…
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Kaine couldn’t believe his eyes. He could’ve sworn Crystal was dead. He could’ve sworn it was all over. But...A dead person can’t kick ass the way Crystal just did. She nailed Lord Robert, even if it was only an image. Now if she could just learn to use the damn scepter as a conduit for her power instead of a club…Oh hell, it worked either way.
Kaine jogged over to help Crystal.
She was incredibly beaten and broken but it was nothing that Kaine couldn’t fix; he had developed a nice touch for healing. Kaine shifted her body so that she was lying on her back and let her limbs relax. He healed the most threatening injuries first then repaired what he could of the bloodstains. Then, with a little conjured thread and needle and some skill that he had picked up in Paris in the late 1920’s he repaired Crystal’s mangled dress and retrieved her shoes. But…blood was the hardest stain to remove from white…It would take time.
Kaine glanced over one shoulder, then over the other. When he was satisfied that no one was watching, and that Crystal would remain unconscious throughout the process, her closed his eyes and pictured a different dress on her. Like changing the boys’ tuxes, he folded molecules in the air, altered their shape, changing them to tangible fabric, bending them to fit the contours of Crystal’s body. A little more tampering and he gave the dress a color that would flatter her skin, and cover the darkened patches of flesh, where his healing effects would take more time to complete their task.
Kaine held Crystal shoes, and again, checked around self-consciously. God forbid he was accused of having a shoe fetish. Running his fingers over the surface of the patent leather, he was able to alter their color, too. When Kaine was satisfied that she would live, look gorgeous, and not trip over the new outfit, he revived her.
She was groggy and entirely miserable. Healing the body didn’t take away the deeper effects of what having your ass kicked can do to a person. She blinked up at him, sleepily. Her first words were barely a whisper, “Kaine….”
“Yes,” Kaine said, his heavy emotion hidden behind his ageless voice.
“Where the fuck were you,” she whispered, angrily.
He didn’t answer; he could only smile.
“Kaine,” Crystal rasped.
“Yes?”
“I want to go home,” she said, plaintively. She seemed slightly disoriented, but Kaine knew that would wear off in a while. She closed her eyes, tears leaking out from beneath her lids. She curled into his embrace like a child he could rock to sleep.
“I know,” Kaine whispered as though he was talking to the Crystal that he remembered from that time and that place that seemed so far away from here. He cradled her head and shoulders close to his face, feeling the warmth of her body return now that she was healed. He held her until he thought time itself would melt away.
Amanda stood on the balcony, surveying the fountain in the courtyard below. Quite brilliant, whatever Kaine had done. Everyone was dancing and happy and had no clue what had gone on. Not that Amanda did either, but hey, at least she was alive.
But Amanda was still soaking wet and cold and it was very difficult to pretend to be normal in a room full of debutantes and school administrative staff in a dripping wet gown and pumps distinctly scuffed and bloodied. Amanda was an actress and all, but not even she could come up with an excuse for that one.
The cool night air wafted by as though mocking Amanda’s choice of dress. She stood on the balcony not only to avoid questioning stares but also because she was still sour that Sam hadn’t asked her to dance one all night. She was cold from the chill night air, though. She debated going inside when something heavy and wet landed on her bare shoulders, drenching her drying skin all over again. Amanda whirled around and found Sam standing behind her, an odd, abashed expression on his face.
“Sorry,” he muttered, “You looked cold.”
Amanda opened her mouth to tell the idiot that now she would be really cold from the extra water in his tuxedo jacket, but she caught herself and instead forced between her chattering teeth, “It’s okay.”
Then she lunged at him and caught him in a tight hug, sloshing water on him too.
“Now we’re even,” Amanda said, happily.
“Mm,” was Sam’s reply.
Amanda debated pulling back, because maybe Sam was uncomfortable. But then he ever so gently rested his cheek against the top of her head, and Amanda wanted to keep him there, forever. It was a tender gesture, though the height difference made it awkward. Amanda felt herself smiling and she grew a little giddy. This had been in her daydreams for quite some time now and it was an extra thrill to actually have it happen. But not even she was expecting Sam to pull back and, very quickly give her a shy kiss on the lips. It wasn’t like the ones in her daydreams but Lord help her; it was good enough.
Amanda felt like one of the old cartoon characters that develop swollen, heart-shaped eyes and begin floating away. Never was she one to give into stereotypes, especially ones concerning teenage girls, but she was willing to make an exception for this brief, intense bliss. But the best feeling was looking at Sam and knowing that he felt the exact same way.
I don’t even care, Sam thought. He didn’t care about what was going on inside; he didn’t care if Troy and the other guys were watching; he didn’t care about what would happen tomorrow or the day after that. It only mattered right now that he was standing so close to the only thing that he cared about in the world at that moment.
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A night for small victories, Kaine thought, raising his glass in silent salute to the two embracing figures on the balcony. Finally, things were going his way. Crystal was set to inherit the grave responsibilities ahead, and her crack head friends were getting the hang of the job as well. And if Astrea or any kind of her offspring came looking for the precious sword contained in the depths of Amanda’s power, they’d have a hell of a time getting it.
Kaine knew better than to fully relax just yet. But at least for this night, he could allow his mind to stray away from the usual things that had plagued it for more than a billion lifetimes, among them, guilt, fear, and aching loneliness. Yes, that was the worst.
But it didn’t mean he didn’t possess any skill with ladies…“Would you care for a dance?”
“Yes, Kaine,” Crystal said, “But mind you don’t step on my feet; I’ve had enough trouble with my outfit tonight.”