~Dessa~

In the black, she was without form, yet it wasn't the same as the last time. Instead of assurances, death silently told her that the black wasn't meant for her. It offered no beautiful lies, only the hard, unyielding truth. She would not die. She wasn't welcome, and the merciful arms of death would not receive her. She drifted aimlessly, knowing that the peace that she found in the black was all-too-temporary.

When she was cast out, back into the blinding light, she was met with a searing pain unlike any that she had ever felt. It was such a cruel reminder that she was still alive. She wailed, her body seizing, her skin prickling like she was being stabbed by thousands of needles as every one of her nerve endings fired up at once, sparked back to life by the return of the oxygen in her bloodstream. It felt like someone was holding a hot coal against the inside of her left forearm, trying to burn her all the way to the bone. She was only vaguely aware that she was being carried, but before she could even form the thought - the one that would insist that she should see who was taking her away - darkness feathered around the edges of her periphery, and she lost her grasp on her consciousness once again.

.   .   .

Warm. She felt so warm. She sighed softly. She had lied to Koi that the dress she had gifted her had kept her warm. It had been so dreadfully cold in that stone cell, even with the clothing. She didn't realize how much she had always loved being warm. When she was little, she carried a fuzzy blanket with her everywhere she went, even in the summer. She kept it close until the fabric frayed so much that it fell apart in the wash, and she had cried over it for days. Was her fractured mind finally playing nice with her? After being so cold, she was now surrounded by such lovely warmth. Did she deserve this?

She felt something soft caressing her skin, bringing more warmth with it wherever it touched. She smiled as it passed over her face, her arms, her legs. More warmth poured over her head, drizzling through her hair. This was no nightmare, but a magical dream. One that she never wanted to wake up from. Was it a sweet apology for all she had been through? There was no more pain, and she felt so full  inside, like she was made whole somehow. Like she had been reborn, and every inch of her felt new, as if she had never once been harmed. Had death lied to her again? Was this the afterlife? No, she thought. She had form, she could feel the shape of her being. She was alive, possibly more alive than she had ever been.

She heard a soft trickling, like water dripping from a faucet, and the sound lulled her to sleep, before she had even thought about opening her eyes.

.   .   .

When Dessa roused from a deep sleep, the first thing that she became aware of was that she was not laying on a stone floor in chains. She was laying on what felt like a cloud. As her eyes fluttered open, she gasped. She wasn't wearing her blindfold! Where was it? She sat up quickly, but before she went to shield her eyes, she noticed that they weren't burning or filled with a pressure that threatened to make them explode. She blinked a few times until she could trust that the sensation really wasn't coming. Then, she noticed that she wasn't in a prison anymore - she was laying in a massive bed, and she was covered by a plush, dark-blue blanket. Where was she? Was she back in the city? But if she was, wouldn't she be in the hospital? Or her own bed?

As she pulled back the blanket, she noticed more strange things. She was wearing an over-sized shirt that looked like it belonged to a man. Did someone put this on her? Her memory was muddled and fuzzy, the last thing that she could remember was tightening the chains around her neck until everything went black. She moved toward the side of the bed, examining the room that she had woken up in. It was definitely no prison cell, but it was certainly not her  bedroom either. The room looked like it had been carved out from the hollow of an impossible large tree. There were organic ridges, grooves, and knots in the walls, and the wood appeared to be stained inconsistently with rosy pinks all the way to deep reds, like someone had bathed the walls in swatches of different wines, over several years. It created the look of some sort of beautiful art piece, rather than the walls of someone's home. There was a nightstand beside the bed that was covered in half-melted candles, the hardened wax pooled over the wooden surface, blending all the different colors like an unintentional mosaic. Only one candle was currently lit, a tall lemon-yellow one. 

There were long, dark-blue drapes over one window that looked like they were made of velvet, and golden tassels dangled from them. She approached it tentatively, and pulled the drapes back to look out the window. Oh, no!  The darkness outside swirled with those colors that didn't exist in reality, and she quickly shut the drapes again and stepped back. She was still in the land of Faerie. She turned her back to it, willing herself to calm down. At least you're not in chains. This is still better than prison, Dessa. Look at this place! It's lovely.

Her eyes landed on a huge fold-out partition at the foot of the bed, and warm light bled through the cracks. The vintage partition had a beautiful Japanese landscape painted on it that had chipped away, but the cherry blossom tree was unmistakable. Dessa could smell wood burning, and heard the crackle and pop of a fire, and she hoped that there was a fireplace on the other side, instead of the possibility that there was actually a budding house fire that was about to engulf this room.

https://youtu.be/xsrKY4OXARA

 She climbed onto the bed to try and see over the partition, but it was too tall. She could  see what looked like the top of a mantle and a stone column that would surely house a chimney, so it probably was  a fireplace. She slipped down from the bed once more, and when her bare feet touched the polished, hardwood floor again, she realized that her legs were smooth, without a single mark on them, even though she was sure that they had been torn to shreds and covered in dried blood and dirt, from being dragged through the woods. Did any of that really happen to her? She reached up to feel her head - where her forehead had been split open - and there was nothing there to feel. She ran her fingers through her hair, and there were no sticky clumps of dried blood. There wasn't even one tangle - and it felt clean, like it had been freshly washed. She held a lock of it under her nose, and it smelled like flower extracts. 

All of it seemed too pleasant to fit into her fucked up dreamworld, until she started to let her hand fall and she suddenly discovered a tattoo  on her skin! What the hell?  Her eyes went wide as she stared at the strange symbol on the inside of her forearm. It didn't look like a design that she would ever come up with. It resembled a complex archaic letter - or maybe a simplistic hieroglyph - that she hadn't seen anywhere before. Dessa had never  considered getting a tattoo, she was far too squeamish to do something like that. She licked her fingers and rubbed at it, but it wouldn't come off. At the same time, she heard a quiet growl from the other side of the partition and froze like a deer in the headlights.

It sounded like a goddamn grizzly bear! Was she Goldilocks now, trying out a bear's bed in this dream?! Feeling like those idiots in the horror movies who creep toward  the scary sound, she tiptoed up to the partition and peeked through one of the cracks. A fireplace was, in fact, on the other side, but instead of a big bear warming itself by the fire, there was a Fae man  lounging in a large wingback chair. And he had turned in his chair to look right at her, with two different colored eyes.

Dessa gasped and stumbled backward until the back of her legs smacked into the bed frame with an audible thump. It felt like a lifetime ago when she had that nightmare, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was the Fae who had kissed her! She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, but in her mind, she could still see his piercing, unnatural gaze. One void-black eye, and one glowing white. Her heart started pounding so hard that it almost hurt.

"You're awake," His deep voice rumbled from the other side of the room, causing goosebumps to pebble her skin, and shivers to run up and down her spine.

Am I?!  Dessa wanted to scream, because there was no way that she wasn't still  stuck inside of an endless dream, trapped in the world of Faerie. 

"Come here," The Fae commanded, and in spite of herself, she felt compelled to do as he said.

As she walked around the partition, she had to wonder if she was under some sort of magic spell. Why would she go to him, when every logical part of her told her that he could kill her and eat her? She came to stand in front of him anyway, and the wonderful warmth of the fire did nothing to quell her nerves as she trembled like a leaf in a chilly autumn breeze. 

He was a terrifyingly beautiful creature. His hands were lethal weapons with long, sharp claws that looked like they had been dipped in ink, his mismatched eyes were as eerie as they were entrancing, and his muscular body should have been too cumbersome to move with such inhuman grace and poise, as he tossed a leather-bound book to the side, and stood. Instead of strange, smoky tendrils swirling on his skin, like she remembered him having in her previous nightmare, there were ethereal, translucent wings that appeared to be made of living shadows, which stretched out behind him - giving him the appearance of a fallen angel.

Dessa had the overwhelming urge to fall to her knees and worship him, because of the sheer force of raw power that emanated from his godlike form. It buzzed in the air around him like electricity, oozing from him with an undeniable essence that screamed that he could destroy an entire city in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, she remembered what Koi had told her, before she had sent her away. The reason that she had tried to kill herself - one of the most powerful Dark Fae was coming for her, because he thought that she was his mate. This must be that Fae, the one that the others were afraid of.  

When the Fae man gazed down at her with his two different colored eyes, a lock of his thick, blue-black hair falling across his face, Dessa whimpered fearfully,

"A-are you Pathos?"