20 Years old
Mai

I felt disgusted. I could barely face myself in the mirror, the sight of me made my stomach churn. The bile burned a path up my throat, tongue swallowing back down that sour acid. I wouldn't be sick but the sight of me was not appealing. I was revolting.

How had I done this to myself, become this woman. It's like Manal's warning had become a self fulfilling prophecy, by hearing it I had been condemned to follow down that path. That path where dark brown and black cloaked my wings, dimming the colour into nothing but shrivelled apparitions of their former glory.

I was no Butterfly.

No free flying Butterfly because even in my choices, even in those moments where I decided my future, I could never be happy with the outcome. How could I when I wasn't this female. This female who used her body to make up for the dark pit of emotional emptiness that she had become.

When did I become a female who gave her body knowing that her heart did not follow, was I so ruined by love that this was who I would be. This female with red rimmed eyes and swollen lips from kisses of a male she could barely remember. Dark hair, dark eyes, everything was just dark. Like the moonless sky that casted no opulent light into my wide windows.

There was no light for me because my dark wings wrapped around me like a cloak, shrouding all slithers of light until my body became a shrivelled piece of cinder, floating so lost in the harsh wind.

Food was a thing of the past. I could not eat because I could not keep it down and so food became my enemy just like the sight of me.

I could not keep down the repulsion I felt at the sight of me, at my actions. How had I let a fickle man tear me down? Maybe his feelings had been fleeting but mine had not, they had been real and true, as if the gods had given me a bond in which I could only feel him. He had replaced the hold that old desecrated bond had over me. He had become it all, replacing all thoughts of a life without him, before him.. After him.

He was gone now, had been gone for quite sometime and in his absence I had left the vicinity. Wondering aimlessly trying to assuage my soul with the fruits of this temporal life. Would I ever return? I wasn't sure, it was becoming easier to just dwell in this place. To just breathe and hate. To let my bitterness turn me into a sour woman.

Was that me now? A sour, bitter woman who swore off of love. A woman who let her body pretend it felt the sweet sway of loves dance when really the heart only beat bitterness. Soul destructing bitterness. I was so angry, so mad and defeated.

I was defeated.

Why couldn't I just have love, was it too much to ask for? Was I not deserving enough? Maybe I loved too freely but that couldn't be it because when I turned my heart to stone against the opposite sex I still felt empty. Even when I was unbearably full I was still empty because I did not feel it. I felt nothing but disgust for myself.

Staring into the mirror, I couldn't see me I could only see shadows. Dark wispy shadows, apparitions of what I would become. Apparitions and my vengeful friend.

Her fingers waggled at me before they turned into thick black chains. Chains that wrapped around my neck and pulled me down until water gushed over my head and I couldn't breathe. Cold metal in my hand she whispered, come, come. Coommeee.

Forked silver tongue licking at my tears as she gripped my wrist, pink pointed flesh slashing and then red drip dropped all around me.

Tiny ruby roses blooming in my bath water, dancing and twisting until they died an untimely death. She gripped my hand tighter, chain twisting around my neck as she breathed in the scent. Dooo itttt... The water forced my eyes closed, I couldn't bear to hear the command in her heavy words.

The metal glistened in my hands shimmering like the moon, promising to take me beyond the tides. To take me up, up. High. Home. I wanted to be free. To fly with wings that weren't weighed down with thick globs of mortar.

I wanted to soar, to not feel the crushing despair of breathing another day and knowing I was stuck in this box. This box that love had built me.

I didn't want this pain. I tried, the gods knew I tried but I couldn't take it anymore. I tried to put a smile on my face and move forwards. I kept moving when Carson hurt me and I would do the same when this male left, I had been adamant, but I couldn't because my heart had been hit too many times. It was weak, I was weak from loves heavy hand.

I had been dealt too many bad cards, when would I receive my joker?

Never. The answer was never because the gods did not love me like I loved them. The gods mocked me, they told me I would become something great and then mid transformation  snickered in my ear and forced me into becoming a night dweller. No one wanted to be a night dweller, they wanted to feel the kiss of the sun on their skin. I should have known my future at the age of 15, the sun was not for me.

The metal bit into my fingers, showing short sharp reflections of me. The weeping willow.

I felt fingers in my hair, soft fingers massaging my scalp as they soothed my mind. Fffeeeel itttt. My wet fingers glided along my milky skin, purple veins pulsing with deep black red as I felt it.

No more promises of fake love, just oblivion, sweet, sweet, silky oblivion. Ribbons wrapped around my wrist, beautiful red ribbons that swayed in the bath water, twisting and turning. Creating the most beautiful shapes my eyes had ever seen.

Finishhhh ittttt. I looked down at my wrist, the silver blade glimmering in my hand, no apparitions now. If I did this, it would not be my black cloaked friend and her silver forked tongue. It would be me, me and my bitterness, my despair. The blade cut deep and then it floated in the bath water, a red cloud rising around it.

My head leaned back along the bath edge as I felt the ebbing and flow. It was so peaceful. Cowardddd, she gurgled, blood dripping from her obsidian teeth and staining by bath water a dirty brown. Her skin bubbled, deep black eyes sinking into her skull as her body decayed within my waters. Bitter brackish and saline stench burning my nose as the water became unbearably hot. Sickly grey skin melting away until nothing but her silky black cloak was left to float in the large tub.

I cupped water in my hands and washed my face, the cloak twirling down the drain as I stood to my feet. Grabbing my towel, I wiped my body down paying extra attention to the short bleeding wound on my thigh from where the blade had stabbed me. Where sanity had almost deserted me.

Wrapping myself in a fluffy dressing gown, I made my way to my bed, throwing on some clothes before sitting at my vanity. Just staring. I was stagnant, at a bitter standstill in my life where moving forwards was the only option but I had already been tied down by the murky cloud of my own misery.

The heavy thud of the door jarred me out of my listless staring at the ghost of me. I put my dressing gown back on and yanked open the door, not bothering to look at who it was before inviting them inside.

"Vanya" my head whipped up at the sound of that deep earthy voice.

"Khan?" I was shocked to see him at my door so late at night. He looked restless though and I knew that whatever he came to say had been plaguing his mind for quite some time, I had caught the looks he had been giving me over his shoulder. He had come to unload and my fists clenched at my side in preparation for what could only be another blow. I was only ever being struck these days.

"I know it is late but I couldn't sleep, this has been playing on my mind for a few weeks now and I couldn't hold it back any longer."

I hummed my reply as I took a seat in one of the chairs in the far corner of my room. The chairs were small little cubbies and the sight of Khan struggling to sit in one made me internally laugh. His legs were so long his knees nearly touched his chin as he sat in my short slouchy chairs.

"I spoke to Veris." My eyes fell closed at his name, air leaving my lungs as memories of his touch ghosted over my skin like the winds caress.

"When?" I croaked, eyes staring into space as I saw his earthy green eyes smiling back at me.

"Before he left, I spoke to him. I told him that he could not further his career if he remained with you but if you were no longer together... I would recommend him to a compound near by."

My heart snapped in two and I felt the urge, the desperate need to punch Khan in his face. My fury was unbridled, uncontrollable and I wanted to strike him. My head tilted up to face him and my anger melted away into nothingness, the look of disappointment was easy to see along his face.

"It was not my place to interfere but I thought that I was helping you. If your mate had found out about another male, it would have been an ugly sight." My heart splattered to the floor, red rising along the fringes of my sight as I drowned in my own blood. Loves blood.

"I wanted to spare you from that but I see now that I was wrong for that because-" he stopped abruptly, eyes squeezing shut as his jaw clenched in anger. My head tilted as I took in the bizarre sigh of him, he was having some sort of internal battle.

"I know about Carson" he spat and my lips formed a small round O, eyes bulging at his words. Never did I think this day would come, the day where Khan finally knew of his brother's dirty deeds.

"It wasn't your place to interfere on behalf of my errant mate but I understand why you did" my words were so formal and functionary.

I understood his reasons but I still felt hurt and betrayed by him, him and his coddling. That brotherly protection that he tried to give me made me warm and sad because it had ruined something so good. Though I couldn't really blame Khan, could I?

"I know you feel guilty but..." Biting my lips I stopped to think if I really wanted to speak these words because the moment I did, that would mean that I truly believed them and then I would have to move on. I couldn't dwell on the past or what could have been if I acknowledged the truth that I had known from the moment Veris had shown me his back.

"He was never going to stay."

My head shook lightly as I breathed deep through my nose, "Ultimatum or not, the cracks were beginning to show and instead of fighting for the life we could have had he fought for a future that was handed to him."

"It was his choice to make, you just gave him the options" I whispered as my heart beat its last weak pulse for the male who hadn't fought hard enough for my love.

"I wish I hadn't" grunted Khan, resentment coating his words.

"I'm thankful you did"

His brows raised to his hair line as he stared at me quizzically, disbelief distorting his face.

"I am. Had you not given him that choice I would have spent my days trying to justify my words and my past to him, trying to pacify his insecurities all the while mine grew louder and angrier."

There would always be that niggle of hope that things could have been different but that was an infinite, cosmic possibility because although I had felt for Veris so strongly he had been the wind. You couldn't catch the wind, it was fleeting. Strong on some days and barely existent on others. The wind was arbitrary and not stable... The wind was not me.

I was the earth and I stood still as the wind churned around me and tore apart nature in its fierce tornado...

What more could be said. Veris was not meant for me and though he had felt right, so right in my arms it clearly wasn't meant to be. We would have never been right but I would have continued to fight for him because that was the type of female I was. I would have bled myself dry to try and make love work and when it failed, I would slink away with all my bandages. Barely alive and still dreaming of those days when love had kissed my lips so beautifully.

I would be haunted by that succinct, spasmodic touch with love. That beautiful pain that I had felt for the pithiest parts of my life and when my wounds had healed, pale white scars blending into my skin so seamlessly, I would go back out to the battlefield armed with the same weapon.

My love for love would only ever hurt me, I was a fool for love. Anything for love, I had cut myself too many times for the oblivion of love, not caring the tiniest bit about the little girl who would rub my hair while I clutched at my scars late at night. Alone with nothing but my battle wounds. When would I learn?

"It wouldn't have worked and so I thank you because now I may actually have a chance at being the woman I was always meant to be."

"Our butterfly" he murmured his rough thumb stroking along my cheek before he pulled me into a tight hug.

I felt like a little child in his arms, a child that had so much hope for the future.

It seemed that now was as good a time as any to spread my wings and just fly. To fly not because everyone told me that that was what butterflies, and inadvertently what I should do, but because the feeling of leaving earth would be my sweetest moment of victory.

A victory that was by me, for me and felt only by me. A victory that would define me, carve my future in light.

In flights of splendour, beating under the suns light with the moons love.