I didn't want to sleep because it would ruin everything. But I was too tired to deny the darkness forever.

As I drifted away, my dreams began light in mood and remained grounded within the bounds of my current reality—fishing boats, lobster traps, and familiar co-workers. But as I fell deeper, I was whisked back to the place I won't ever be able to escape . . . Pyxis . . . Aerial Palace . . . my hell. . .

In a drafty, never-ending corridor, there was a yank against my shackles. I stumbled to keep up with my fleet of winged guards, but my feet were bound together. My restricted steps would never be fast enough. Not for them.

The giant fairy next to me squeezed the back of my neck with his spiked gauntlet whenever I fell behind. For some reason, though, I still felt inclined to speak. "How's she doing?"

He grunted a non-answer, a mere noise to remind me of my insignificance. Soon, though, with each step closer to my intended destination, her screams began piercing through me, first like pinpricks and then like chunks of jagged glass. Her pain was my pain. She would see to that by any means necessary.

I didn't want to get any closer or go inside the room at the end of that dark hall. But if she requested me to be there, to witness it, then that's where they'd take me. I didn't have the luxury to follow orders like there was some alternative.

Her room was full of servants in white uniforms. Many of them had blood on their hands, their aprons, or on the towels they carried.

"Get it out," Andromeda screeched as she writhed through her soiled sheets. "The deviant beast is tearing me to shreds!"

"You must keep pushing, Your Majesty, or it'll kill you."

She shot up to a sitting position and directed her crazed black stare at me. "You. You did this!" As she snarled at me with a show of sharp teeth, the black scars on her face crawled across her skin like spiders. It was hard to believe I once considered her beautiful.

Then she threw her head back, let out a banshee wail, and bore down. Finally, a head was crowning, but not one that would ever wear a crown.

The pushing went on forever. I almost thought my child would take her life as if somehow aware his or her survival depended upon it. Eventually, though, above the screaming and chaos, the jumble of staff, doctors, nurses, and then the cry of a newborn baby, I distinctly heard, "It's a boy."

"And?" Andromeda roared.

There was a long pause, grim and heavy with certainty. "I'm sorry, My Lady. There are no wing buds and the child has his father's mark."

The room fell silent with disappointment. If the boy showed a sign that he might develop wings, there would be a chance he'd be treated like a Sauvageau. A child born in my likeness, though plump, pink, and healthy, would be denied the privilege to endure. So you could imagine my shock when Andromeda said, "Let them be with their kind."

The swaddled baby was placed in my arms and the next thing I knew, I was carrying him through the Boreal Forest in Nord-du-Quebec. It was autumn, it seemed, judging by the brown decay and lack of snow. And though the wind was a creeping presence over my diamond mark, we were otherwise alone.

We were free of the caves, free of confinement, free of her. The forest was harmless in comparison and held promise. Perhaps our fairy gods granted us the gift of Eden as a reward for our suffering. Looking down at my son, it had to be true. He was too handsome to look away. And even though he was probably hungry for a mother's milk, warmth, and love, he was staring at me like I was all that he needed. And with soft blond hair and eyes the color of the North Atlantic, he looked just like me. He didn't resemble a Sauvageau, he would never be a Sauvageau, and that was fine by me.

"I'm sorry you'll never know your mother," I said after I kissed his forehead. "Trust me when I say it's for the best. We'll do better on our own. And we'll always have each other. . . ." 

Before long, I could hear the sound of the ocean. That meant we were almost home. But when I arrived at the cliffs, I couldn't find the entrance to Polaris.

I kept looking. Day turned into a starry night. Night changed into a red, foreboding dawn. And then I saw the fire and knew. I knew even before Andromeda's soldiers had me surrounded. "Let them be with their kind," meant only one thing.

As the first of the many hands reached for my son, I curled to the ground and clutched him to my chest with all my strength. "No!" I cried, "You can't take him!"

But they could. And they did.

They carried my baby to the cliffside and dragged me there too, by my hair and my hopelessly weak limbs. Then they dangled me over the edge, so I could see everything far below—waves crashing with power and white froth, and the mangled bodies of my kin strewn across the rocky coast.

After lifting my perfect, innocent son high over the precipice for all to see, the winged beast holding him let go. I couldn't bear to watch, but for some reason, I had no choice. As red burst before my wide eyes, debilitating me, blinding me, I couldn't tell that I was awake. . . .

~~~

Blue Oyster Cult. (Don't Fear) The Reaper (1976).

https://youtu.be/Dy4HA3vUv2c