((Some posts contain mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.))

Do you remember the day we first met"

Well of course you remember...

But do you remember it like I do"

I can still recall the odd taste of glitter as it flew into my mouth when I started to apologize.

I think I've turned the day into something bigger than it was.

Romanticized it in memory.

It was easy back then. Now, not so much.

The man that stared after his long lost sister....I thought he was sweet, unable to approach.

Then I learned he was actually a boy betrayer.

Forget all of that, though. Ancient missions aside, that was our day. It was all door destroying, armchairs, phone calls and whiskey.

Always with the whiskey.

I didn't mean to be like this when I came here at first. I was fifteen, and it felt like I was the most foreign of them all. No English sat on my tongue. I was human, hopelessly so. Useless without a bow. I hadn't intended on staying. Going back to Japan wasn't much of an option, since the closest things I had to a home were crooked tree branches I could sleep in. Still, I hadn't intended on staying. It was a strange land of adults, all drunk and powerful.

Now I'm one of them. Maybe I'm not such a powerful woman, at least compared to everyone else.

But drunk"

Oh, I've got that one down.

I know you're going through something right now.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I can't fix it.

I always try to fix things, don't I"

You hate that about me, I think.

Not everything's fixable.

I apologize too much.

I was a bad girlfriend and a bad fianc".

I don't know what made me think that I'd be a good wife.

But there's still that day, sticking in the back of my mind.

I took the stairs instead of jumping out the window.

Flustered by something so silly...

What was it"

"Spooning." Not even the act itself, just the word.

I can remember the moment I realized that your eyes were blue.

Dark in a twilight sort of way, but still blue.

I'd like to say that I saw stars in them, but I didn't.

All I saw was the same abyss that had sucked me in before.

I keep having this dream where we're in the middle of it.

The positioning isn't always the same.

Sometimes I'm in your lap.

Sometimes you're on top of me, eclipsing my body from the rest of the world.

Sometimes you're holding me up, leaving my feet dangling and my arms wrapped around you so tightly.

But you're always in control.

That doesn't change.

There are never any shackles, any hints of metal.

We're always in your world of wood.

Your head lowers as you push into me.

I suck in needy, gasping breaths.

It's the same song and dance that everyone has hummed and swayed to before.

But it feels like something different when it's us.

From the inside, looking out.

All I can see are stars carved carefully into the ceiling, reflecting off the window pane, shimmering from the sweat dotting your forehead.

It overwhelms.

I want to tell you the sweetest things.

The words bubble on my tongue, babblings that have been a long time coming.

But with a simple scrape of your teeth against my collarbone they all fade away.

I go back to screeching your name and whining like you're cutting me open from the inside.

And, in a way, you are.

You've always been a weapon disguised as a man and nothing less.

I can tell that you're close now.

You're holding me so tightly that it hurts.

In a usual move of mine, I bow my head and sink my unextraordinary teeth into your shoulder.

You begin your typical ritual of groaning four letter words into my skin.

I cry, count the Fs...

And then you bite down.

You did this once before, but it was back when magic had cut you down to a mere human.

Magic.

Does that word even mean anything?

The sensation of blood cascading down my bare breast is something new.

Magic.

The gentle movements of your hips have ceased, and the pain inflicted by your jaw finally sets in.

It's not sharp like I expect it to be.

Each and every one of your teeth is pointed and razor like, but the pain is unexplainably dull.

It's the closest thing to pleasant that pain can be.

I coo your name and feel the fog of anemia flood into my mind as all the blood rushes out of me.

You should have patched me up by now, applied your immortal blood to the mess of puncture wounds that adorn my throat.

But you don't.

Suddenly I get the feeling that you won't.

The fear of death sets in then, closer and realer than it has been in years.

There's not enough energy left in me to fight you, though.

I'm still, nestled in your lap.

Lying beneath you.

Pinned against that wall.

And I die.

I wake up in bed soon enough.

Heavy lids rise.

A hand comes up to linger at the base of my neck.

There's no ache in my bones, no imagined soreness beneath my skin.

I feel fine.

Well rested, even.

I don't decide to stay awake and reflect on the most unusual of nightmares.

Instead I curl around your neighboring form and will myself to sleep.

It doesn't take long.

There are far worse ways to die, after all.

If only I could be so lucky.

On the first day the floor embraced me, panels whispering that this wasn't a proper place to lie.

Moving on while the beat of loss pounds isn't a simple thing.

It never has been.

But this time is different.

The whispers have never been so loud, reaching out to me during all times of the waking day.

As of the last few weeks they seem to stick with the same batch of undesirable words.

He stood in front of me.

He told me how I couldn't put my life on hold.

It hurt me, but it was the truth.

After all, with you gone there is no more promise of living longer than my mortality determined days.

So the words ring true.

How could they not when someone new was standing in front of me"

Replaceable.

You.

Are.

Replaceable.

I was too, I'm sure.

Girls always chased you.

Literally, chased you.

I suppose I just ran faster.

It's easy to win the race when the quickest girl falls.

If it had been me, nexus'd off to nowhere, you would have moved on.

I'm sure of it.

But how long is long enough"

There's no sort of guide written for the possible widow.

And even if there was, I couldn't read it.

You're supposed to be here.

Others would have pulled me away, apologized and left the theater, but you were stubborn enough to stay and read the subtitles.

I loved you for that.

I love you for that.

So I'll keep standing here, listening for the singing of the scythe.

Its silence is somehow louder than the whispers.

I wonder, will it sing if it cracks?

Who does he think he is"

I don't remember much of the battle; all I know is I got bitten. Poison. Everything went dark, but according to Phoenix, I took down the attacker.

If I had been armed, it probably wouldn't have happened.

That's what he's thinking" I didn't have to look into his eyes to know that.

He came to see me. Why' I wasn't healing, he could've slit my throat, smothered me with a pillow, nobody would've blamed him. Hell, I wouldn't have" So why didn't he" After everything I've done to him. I stole his life. Why in the world didn't he kill me when he had the chance"

Would it have made things right' Probably not.

Solaris planned to make me a monster from the day I was born"and he succeeded. I am a monster and that's all I'll ever be. Eight years" After all those years holding him, using him, being with him I should feel something. I don't, and that's exactly what my father wanted.

I might not be able to transform into one like Nero, but I'm also a weapon. I'm Solaris" weapon. Nero and I have that in common. Except' Nero was a human trapped in a weapon's form for so many years. Even now, even after everything I've done, even after losing his childhood and humanity for eight years" He's still a person. There's no humanity inside of me.

One day Solaris will call me back, one day the black blood will take me.

Minoko recognized the humanity in my axe; something I ignored" She saved him from me. There's nothing in me for her to see. I'm empty, and she can't save me from myself.

On that day, I'll kill her, and Emlen, too. I will stand at Solaris" side and kill all that he orders me to. I think that's why I'm still alive. He knows it. Maybe not, though. Maybe he doesn't think I'm worth the sweat. Either way' there's no hope for me.

I'd hoped Nero would stay away forever. I'd hoped he would hate me.

Then he came"and I won't lie, I wish he would've killed me.

I don't want to be a monster?

My hope is that when that day comes, there will be someone there to stop me. I've earned the trust of all the Slane siblings. They'll look into my eyes and I'll have them ripping each other apart. I need someone impervious to my eyes.

Cyprian.

I'm digging him up. I need Minoko; maybe without knowing it, she might just save me from myself after all.

You are salt and lime soaked into my fingertips. You are the pleasant aftertaste of a kiss that is flavored nothing like his lips. I let bees inside my body, and I'm always surprised when they sting. Even though that is their nature. Even though there is no reason for them not to. In the beginning it was just something to do. We found the perfect balance, my Shadow and I. But soon it became a way to get to sleep, to wake up without the tears and the dread and the fragments that were meant to stay buried. There was a medley of sounds, all so new back then. The clink of ice cubes. The thud against the bartop, publicly announcing our shortcuts. The shaker's song, all part of an eight hour long lullaby. Past a certain point it never feels like eight hours, though. The cloud overtakes me and blends my sense of time into a colorful, glorious blur. It turns my memories of an unremarkable night into little more than a collection of joyful static.

The only moments of bleak clarity involve meeting my daze in the mirror.

They pass quickly.

I beam at my reflection and carry on. I've never told this to anyone, but I think it makes me a better person.

Everyone is kind.

Everyone is funny.

Everyone loves me.

And I love them, unconditionally.

I am a better person for it.

I am the best me I can be.

And when I sober up it all creeps in, the ugliness and judgment and distrust.

I wish my eternity was a pitcher of hard lemonade and two cocktails and three shots of something I can't remember but it was a nice color and gleamed in the candlelight.

I'm sorry, Emlen.

I really am.

But this is bigger than Emlen, bigger than the combination of our selves. I used to think that conclusion was inevitable. If not this year, then the next. There are days where I wonder if I could even make that trade.

Could a pair of big, dark eyes demanding my constant attention, my undying affection be the first thing to make me really forget?

I don't know the answer to that question.

I'm not sure what would be fair.

As much as I've tried, I've never known how to make everyone happy.

I've only ever been able to keep myself content.

I don't know their answers, but I do know mine.

And it has, and likely always will be, at the bottom of a bottle.