Wednesday September 17th 2014

Cesare took stock of himself as he paused outside Miss Raven’s door. His once black sweat pants were a faded brown darkened with sweat. His long-sleeved shirt was off-white, the collar long since stained brown with use. Thin as hope, it molded to his maggot pale flesh, the hard ridges of his ribs standing out from the starved meat of his sunken chest. Chained to the body of a boy by years of riding starvation’s razor, his past had stolen any chance at looking like a man.

Normally, it didn’t bother him. He was what he was and there was nothing he could do about it. But this would be the first time Elizabeth had seen him for what he was. In the past, he had time for his clothes to dry. He’d still looked homeless and smelled like a day old gym, but you couldn’t see the ravages of the street. His hand ran across his ribs, hard bone standing high under his fingers. He hated his body. Hated that it was the prison of a child. No power. No strength. Just a child’s failure, worthless except as food for diseased need.

Opening the door, he met her eyes as they widened in surprise at seeing him. He stood there as her eyes traced over his body. He didn’t see disgust, no, only a neutrality that hurt so much more. She looked at him the way a woman looks at a dog. He wasn’t male in her eyes. How did you deal with that when you desperately wanted more?

Elizabeth was beautiful. She might never look at him as male, but he couldn’t help seeing her as a woman. Her face was a ghostly pale white, eyes enhanced with bruised looking purple eye shadow. Black hair fell carelessly down her back, contrasting with the pale blue veins along her shoulders. Even made up, he could see the woman that loved nothing more than drinking tea while playing chess.

“I need a place to work on special projects.” Her attention sharpened at the words. “Somewhere secluded and hidden. I was hoping I could use a space in your cottage.”

“You’re going to keep helping the akatharton?” Elizabeth’s words were more statement than question.

“She needs the help. I could leave her and she might win, but she might not. She's a friend, not a good one, but I won't see her die. It’ll also get me what I need to protect myself,” Cesare explained.

Elizabeth sighed. “My life would be so much easier if you weren’t chasing her.”

Cesare’s laugh startled the ravens. Cawing reprimands rained down on him as the black birds rustled their feathers in irritation. Miss Raven raised an eyebrow in question. “She says the same thing about you.”

Standing, Elizabeth made her way to the windows that overlooked the campus. “I guess her and I should be grateful that you’re as stubborn as you are. I can give you the space. We'll have to move things around, but we can do it. What else did you want to talk about?”

“I need your help in setting up a training area. I was thinking of something in the forest,” Cesare said.

“What did you have in mind?” Elizabeth asked.

Cesare took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I need a firing range with forty targets of varied distances, with a maximum range of about thirty yards. That should do to start but I’d like a large space I can grow into.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips as she watched students flee the school for the day. “I can do it, but you'll have to help me.”

“You mean spend time with a gorgeous woman? How can the world be so cruel?” Cesare shared a smile with Elizabeth. He had to be careful with comments like that. He didn’t want to come across as the needy kid he was, didn’t want her to see how desperate he was to have her in his life.

Elizabeth led the way out of school. She took the paths through the campus with the confidence of ownership. Every blade of grass, tree and flower was her's, its birth came from her hands and love. This land belonged to her, she'd sweated, bled and stained it with her tears. Leaving the carefully manicured campus behind, she walked into the forest with a smile. Branches bent out of her way, only to spring back into his path. The ground smoothed under her feet, offering firm footing no matter where her foot landed. This was her domain. This was where she was born to be, a beloved daughter under the eyes of her doting mother.

“It needs to be distant from the school,” Elizabeth said, looking back with a smile, steps light and sure on the forest floor. “You don't want to be overseen by anyone, but still close enough to be useful. Luckily, this part of the forest isn’t used by the Wild Kin.”

She stopped in the middle of the trail with a look of satisfaction. “This should do.” To Cesare it looked like any other piece of forest. Old growth trees towered above them, shading a ground thick with undergrowth. Only the game trail they'd walked was bare of roots dominion. “The power of the forest is that it can be anything: a sanctuary, a well spring of peace, a grave, or a life-giving cauldron.”

A vibrant green appeared around the edges of her pupil, growing until it had devoured the warm brown completely. Her hands slowly rose as weight fell along the soul, pressing down with etheric force. Fey energies rushed to her as reality warped to her will, insanities dreaming swirled into being, possibilities unraveling as the gates of madness swung wide for its child. A gravity well of power gathered, the world twisting and churning at the edge of sight as real became suggestion.

“Elder Ones of the Wood, heed my call and awaken.” The air recoiled from the raw power in her soft words. Trees groaned, cracking and shaking, swaying under the winds birthed in crazed dimensions of untamed hungers. Mounds of earth boiled, black roots bursting from the ground in twisting coils. Dozens of tentacles uprooted themselves, some as thick as a man and others slim as threads, a writhing mass of transformation. Scuttling across the ground, the tentacles probed the earth, grasping at the soil, wrapping around other trees to pull themselves along. A sense of purpose infected them. They knew where they wanted to be and were in a hurry to get there.

The Elder Ones left great holes in the ground, tracks of ripped and torn soil alongside mangled undergrowth. Retreating to the bounds of the new clearing, the tentacle roots burrowed into the ground like crazed badgers, dirt spraying into the air as they settled into their new homes. Branches wove around each other, intertwining into a wall against the world. Where they had no branches, new ones burst from tree trunks, growing to meet the trees next to them. It was only minutes until they shielded the clearing from sight, a fence of impenetrable woodland power. A feeling of contentment laid heavy over the clearing, as if this was where they’d wanted to be from the beginning.

“My little brothers and sisters, listen to your sister and move to my need.” Undulating ferns and brush uprooted, tearing free from the earth and flowing across the ground in a wave of green vegetation. The wave flowed up around the trees, some interweaving up into the branches while others made their homes in the shadow of their brothers.

Sweat running down her face, Elizabeth dropped her hands. “Been a while since I’ve had to split my attention that thin. Power I have, but the mind strains at dividing thoughts into singular purposes.” She sat down, uncaring of the dirt that would cake her dress. Satisfaction rolled off of her as she ran her fingers through the loose soil.

Her happiness contrasted sharply with the hard, neutral expression she wore when dealing with people. Here’s where she belonged. With her beloved plants, feeling the earth beneath her hands.

Unwilling to disturb her happiness, Cesare spoke quietly as he sat down. “Are all Chthonic as powerful?”

“Some. All of my people possess some affinity with an element.” She held her hand over the torn soil. A tendril of green sprouted from the earth, budding and blooming in seconds under her touch. “I’m the Imperatrix Terra, Empress of the Earth, the greatest wielder of Anima Terra. When I was young, I used to think they hated me because of my power. But our power is only part of why they fear us. My father says they hate us because they wish to be us. I fear they hate us because they know we’ll never be like them.”

“What do you mean?” Cesare asked.

Her fingers caressed the pink petals of the flower that had come to her call. “All the races go back to before angels poisoned the sky. But the Chthonic are a young race without the history of the others, we don’t have their alliances to draw on. We’re a free agent and they fear and hate us for it.”

She looked away from Cesare to the ripped and torn field. “What did you have in mind for the targets?”

“Man-sized and strong enough to stand up to some damage.”

Cesare offered her his hand as he got to his feet. She scrutinized him from the ground, both knowing this was more than it seemed. He was willing to pretend that he only wanted her as a friend, but that didn’t mean he couldn't push the boundaries of that friendship. Her hand was as soft as an angel’s blessing when it wrapped around his.

She fished in her pockets and came out with seeds. “Bamboo should do nicely. They grow like weeds and with the proper incentive can be incredibly resistant. I've known people to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire only to have them come back in a few days. Now, where do you want my bamboo friends?”

Taking his direction, she dropped several of the seeds onto the ground, the earth swallowing them with greedy mouths of dirt. Holding her hand over where the seed had been, green shoots jumped from the ground, splitting and growing with wanton growth. The green of the fresh shoots took on the smooth texture of skin. Interwoven strands blended into each other until the whole looked like one piece. Legs wove themselves into being, a torso growing quickly as the two shoots joined. Arms snaked out along tendrils of green, a head birthing itself from rigid shoulders.

Elizabeth’s attention never wavered as small beads of sweat rolled down her face. The bamboo man’s face formed under her power: cheeks, eyes, and lips. Leafy hair sprouted, leaves changing form to suit her whims. Through her will, it became a person.

Elizabeth stepped back with shy pride. “That should do it.”

Walking forward, his hand swept over its smooth shoulder. This wasn’t a crude target to hit and discard. It was a work of art. A man with short hair made of brown leaves, his pensive expression carved in lines of stress across his face. Overweight in the stomach, he was light in arms and shoulders. She’d formed joints in the shoulders and elbows, the arms moving and locking into place. When he pushed down on its shoulders, the knees flexed and the waist swiveled. It was more, much more, than he’d imagined could be done.

“It's not magic.” Her words were light with laughter as she watched him play with it. “Some fibers are rigid like bones, others are looser and act like muscles and tendons. Together, they form a composite joint similar to how your own body works.”

“This is ... if I was farther away, I’d think this was a real person. Where did you learn to do this?” His admiring eyes brought a flush to her cheeks.

“It's nothing, really. I like to shape wood and plants. It helps me to understand my element better.” What did it say that she was so uncomfortable with a compliment? Nothing good, that's for sure.

“Elizabeth, this is fantastic. It's almost a shame I'll be beating on him.” His words only deepened the blush.

“It’s nothing, just something I do in private but thank you.” The words were spoken to the air as her eyes avoided his.

“I’d love to see more of your work.” She looked at him for a timeless moment before stepping back.

“Maybe someday,” Miss Raven said.

She birthed each target as if it was a singular work of art. Cesare watched her face in the unguarded moments, a joy possessed her, something only ever seen when she was with her plants. Here and now, she looked alive and open, owning a raw happiness that set her eyes dancing in the bright sunlight.

Finishing the last one, she took a seat on the ground with the dummies standing around her in silent witness. “You’ll have to fill in the torn-up ground and holes,” Elizabeth said, looking around.

Cesare smirked. “I got permission to use her harem. I’ll give them shovels and let them go at it.” She grinned along with him at the thought of Anastasia's carefully groomed harem drenched in sweat and crusted in dirt.

“This could be a nice place. Some ivy along the trees, nothing invasive, just something to add color. Ferns would like it beneath their branches. There’re a few dead logs that would be perfect for mushrooms. Maybe some cherry trees to fill in the place, a few apple and pear trees to add their own life to the place.” There was a sadness to her voice that Cesare homed in on.

“You’re welcome to come here anytime you want,” Cesare offered.

Elizabeth kept her silence for a moment. “This will be a place where you bring a girl you like. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to come here with you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen between me and Anastasia. She’s been clear on that.” Cesare gestured toward his face, lumpy with swelling, black and blue with both old and new bruises. “But if you don't want to come here, then how about telling me what you’d do if it was your place?”

“That I’d be glad to do,” she said with a smile.

The clearing darkened around them as they talked, night stealing its way across the sky in velvet silence. By unspoken agreement they’d ignored the rising of the moon, neither of them wanting the night to end. Lying back on the ground, they watched the stars come out.

Lying there on the soft ground with the cool air caressing his body, his words were soft. “In the city, the stars are sickly things. Dimmed by lights, carved up by buildings. You can’t just stop and look at the sky in the city. Can’t get lost inside yourself like this, it’s not safe.” He stopped, unsure why he was talking, but not wanting to stop. “Here in the forest, surrounded by the woods, you can almost relax. Out here the stars seem close enough to touch. It makes you think that maybe, just maybe, dreams aren’t just for the rich. The wild is honest in a way the city can never be with its lying eyes and forked tongues.”

Quiet fell around them, a comforting blanket with only the branches moving in the wind and the shuffling of the ravens marking the time. Elizabeth was the one to break it this time. “She’s beautiful, the Great Mother. Kind in summer, giving her bounty to prey and predator alike, shelter and food for everything that crawls, slithers, or flies. Warmth, comfort, and plenty to be had for nothing. Oh, but when fall comes, it breaks your heart how beautiful she is, all reds and golds. The trees start the great migration from looking outward to looking in. But when Winter comes, she’s a great, ravening bitch robed in the bones of the dead, killing both the old and the young, cackling her mad laugh through the trees as they die, only to seduce you again when Spring comes skipping to your door, so young and fair. But you’re right, she never lies. She never pretends to be anything but what she is. She’s fickle and deadly, but she's always honest. How many things can you say that about?”

He knew she’d hurt him. But better the tears and pain than the cold deadness of spirit that whispers in the darkest nights.