Soliloquy

For a moment, it was as if time had stopped. My eyes went from Alphonse's - who was blinking up at me, gaping silently - to Charles, who was standing there, the smoking pistol still in his hand. His hand trembled and the pistol shook. His eyes were wide with shock, the whites of his pupils red in the moon. The screaming was fainter and fainter until finally I realize it had stopped all together. The moon went from Blood Red to pure white. The moor was quiet and cold. Lily's breath was shallow and she had closed her eyes. She was on the very edge of death and I could feel it as if I'd plunged myself into the coldest of ice water. What had happened? I closed my eyes and felt as if I were suspended in midair. I savored this feeling and opened my eyes once more.

Alphonse had wrenched himself out of Lily, who somehow I now was holding in my arms. I was about to try and say something to her when I noticed that Alphonse had launched himself onto Charles. Alphonse's strong and quite large hands were at the throat of his father and he had a wild look about him. His hair was messy and tangled and I finally realized he was wearing nothing more than a white shirt and breeches. Some of Lily's blood had leaked onto his white shirt.

I wasn't sure what to do. Should I go and help Alphonse kill his father, for all that he had done? Something told me we were wasting time, he was wasting time. However, it was not me that stopped Alphonse. It was Prince Morgenstern. I hadn't even noticed the Morgensterns, but they were coming quickly now, Prince first. He was hauling a screaming Alphonse off his father. "Stop! Stop! STOP!" he shouted as he pulled Alphonse off. "In the time it takes you to kill your father, your mother will have already slipped too far into Niflheim!"

"But he-" Alphonse screamed, struggling away from Prince, who was holding him close and dragging him towards us "-shot my mother! He killed my mother! He, oh god, oh god, he was going to kill Faerie and put her mother's soul inside her body!" It was as if he was the only one who knew this information. I heard it, I knew, but something still hadn't registered in my mind yet. All I wanted was for us to be safe. I didn't care about what Charles meant to do to me. All I knew was that he hadn't done it. "Don't let him get away, godammit, don't let him get away!"

It was no use. Charles had remembered himself and had turned away with the agility of a man half his age. He barreled through the other Morgensterns, who tried to keep him, but he had a strange strength I had no idea he possessed. And then he was gone. I turned to the woman who lay in my arms and a terrible thought came over me. This is your second mother to die in less than six months, Faerie. She was not my mother, and yet...

Prince had dragged the kicking Alphonse over to us. I grabbed his hand instinctivley, which seemed to calm him down. "I'm safe, Alphonse, I'm all right," I murmured.

"Father - Charles...he's gone now," Alphonse breathed. I nodded. "But you're alive...I'm alive..." he looked down at his mother and his face turned to horror. All of a sudden it seemed to dawn on him. He could have killed his father or he could have saved his mother. He could have killed a man who wanted him dead, or he could have saved a woman who wanted him alive. He chose life. "What can I do?" he asked Prince quickly. "I am the Philosopher's Stone, am I not?" he questioned.

The tiniest of smiles came over Prince's lips and a strange emotion passed through his eyes. My stomach turned. Prince fancied Alphonse. It made me uncomfortable and a string of jealousy tugged on me somewhere, even though I knew it was ridiculous to be jealous, especially at this moment. "Roll up your sleeve," he commanded, his face turning rigid once again. Alphonse obeyed. "Ennis."

Ennis came forward to Prince and handed him a small bag. Prince, concentration set on his face, opened the bag and quickly took out one long needle with a syringe attached to it. Then Prince extracted two long, weathered brown belts from the case. Taking one of the belt, he leaned over to Alphonse, put the belt around his arm, put it through the buckle and pulled very hard. Alphonse took in a breath, and I knew it must not be very comfortable. "The pain," Prince said, "I doubt is nothing compared to what you have been feeling over the past week or so and what you just felt at midnight."

"I confess, that is true," Alphonse answered. "Why was in pain this week?"

Prince swallowed and began tying the other belt around his own arm. "Your blood, well, the blood of the Philosopher's Stone, it doesn't mature until midnight on the Stone's birthday. The week leading up to that day, however, is quite painful because of the chemical reaction happening inside of you - and finally when it matured, it was going out from your heart into the rest of your body. Now that the pain has faded away, I'm sure you are all right."

Wren knelt down to Prince then. She swallowed and I had never seen her looking so scared, lost and alone. The glimpses of her vulnerability, the ones I'd seen at various balls when she was left standing partnerless, it was nothing compared to this. Her hand clutched at her brother's shoulder. "Please," she whispered. "Do not do this. It is just one woman, she does not even matter-" Alphonse glared at her. She smiled sheepishly. "I am sorry, Alphonse, but to me she is hardly anyone, but my brother, he is not quite as replacable."

"Your own mother, then," said Alphonse indignantly, "she was replacable?" he asked. Wren was quiet. Prince looked at Alphonse and smiled. I lowered my head and saw that Lily's blood was leaking onto my arms.

"Hurry," I said sharply. "We haven't got much time left. I can feel her dying." The Morgensterns, all except Wren, looked surprised. I realized, then, what I had said. I can feel her dying. I could feel death the way that I wasn't sure any normal person could. Was this because of my unconventional birth? Was it because my own mother had been something not quite human?

My comment seemed to fade away fairly quickly, however. Prince took a deep breath. "Do not worry so much, Wren. Lily has not gone too far into Niflheim. She will be very close to the border. I will be gone for a few moments and be back and everyone will be safe." He leaned over and kissed his sister on the cheek, an action that seemed to surprise even Wren. "I must do this," he then said gravely and looked at Alphonse first, then me. "...For Faerie." Alphonse jerked a little then, it was obvious he did not appreciate Prince's comment. Only I read between the lines. He was not doing this for me. He was doing this for Alphonse. I felt myself shudder.

It was time, then. Prince went to Alphonse then and yanked his arm out, pulling Alphonse roughly forward. Prince weilded the needle over his arm and looked carefully. Then, he plunged the needle deep into Alphonse's upper arm. A small cry came from Alphonse's lips and something gripped my hand. It took me a moment to realize it was Alphonse's hand. Prince started extracting something from his veins then and it took me a moment to realize it could only be blood. It was darker than dark red...it was black. I pulled away in disgust and turned my head. Prince took the syringe from Alphonse's arm, who did not continue to bleed and who took off the belt quickly. "Do you need me for anything else?" he asked quickly.

Prince looked dark for a moment, then shook his head no. "Go," he said softly, "find him."

With a nod, Alphonse was up and our hands broke away. A strange feeling went through me. I dropped Lily with a thud and rose on shaky legs to follow Alphonse quite blindly. In the moonlight I saw that he was already running, running towards the house. I turned to group surrounding Lily. Prince looked as if he were about to put the needle of Alphonse's blood into his own arm. He looked at me for a second. "It is all right. We will be fine. Say your goodbyes."

That was all it took to get me to start sprinting after Alphonse. Goodbyes? No, surely he could not be leaving...no, he couldn't leave me now, now that we knew he would not die, now that we knew we could finally fly away from here, together. I ran and watched as Alphonse dissappeared around the corner of the house. I followed him to the stables and the carriage house. When I got there, I saw that Alphonse was standing in the doorway. "He took one of the carriages. He has gone, now."

I swallowed and gathered up all the courage I could find. "Then you must go...after him," I said, although I was sure my tone betrayed my words. Alphonse turned to me, his face red. I saw that it was quite wet, as well. He came to me and embraced me close, kissed me hard and soft and buried his face in my hair. I listened to him as he breathed. We stood together, even though I knew we were wasting time. Finally, Alphonse pulled away.

"I know that I told you...that we could escape, but now I know that I cannot. I will never be able to escape this unless I do something," he told me.

Lowering my head, I felt myself whisper, "you mean kill him." Alphonse said nothing. I knew I was right. I looked to him. "The moment you have caught him, the moment you have done...whatever it is that you wish to do with him, you will return to me." There was a moment of silence. "Make no mistake," I heard myself say quite curtly and looked into his eyes, "you will return to me. This is no request. It is an order." A small, beligerent smile came over Alphonse's weary features. He looked too old for a boy who had just turned eighteen.

"I shall," he said and paused, "you know, since you aren't of age yet and Charles is still considered to be your guardian, I must find him anyway, to get his permission for your hand in marriage." Then he cracked a smile. "You see, I am not so full of vengence that I forget a simple thing like that." Cocking his head, he leaned down and kissed me again. "I will come back to you."

We stared at each other for a few more moments in the doorway of the carriage houses. Then Alphonse turned away and met with a young man who was tending to the other carriage. I listened to them speak - Charles had left under the pretense of business in London and Alphonse said that he must go after him, quickly. I watched as they hitched two horses onto the other carriage, watched as a footman was called from the house and watched as Alphonse took off quickly after Charles. Into the cold night he went and all I could do was watch after him. Watch him dissappear. Around my ankles, I felt a chill and looked down. Fog was rolling at my feet and there was a smell in the air distinctive of death.

Suddenly I was moving once again, quickly now, back to the group. The stars were out now and I realized that the men in the carriage house hadn't said a word about the Blood Moon. Had they somehow not heard it? Had it not reached them? I was not sure...then again, I was not sure of much anything right now. Alphonse was gone and I had no idea when he'd return to me. Forcing the tears back from my eyes, I saw the dark outlines of people against the inky sky. Picking up my pace, I went to join them.

First I noticed Lily, who was leaning against Ennis, eyes open, breathing, looking dazed. She looked to me and smiled feebily. I tried to smile, but Ennis caught my eyes and looked down. I finally realized what everyone had been looking at. In Lily's arms lay Prince, who was not moving. I stopped quite suddenly, my breath catching in my throat. "N-no-" My voice was shaky, quivering. Wren looked up at me and in the moonlight, I saw that there was a terrible fury in her eyes.

"He went to fetch Lily, all right. He got her just fine. But now, now he is trapped!" she screamed at me in a whisper. Prince opened his eyes and took a gasping breath before shuddering back to stillness. "His soul is trapped right on the edge of life and death. He is trying to reach back into life, but he cannot do it without the help of the Stone." She lowered her head over her brother. "And he has gone after his bastard of a father!"

I leaned down and put my hand at Prince's throat. One moment his pulse would be pounding furiously and the next it would be completley still...it was so eerie, I took my hand off of him quickly. "There is...nothing we can do?" I questioned.

"Nothing!" Wren spat. "It is all your fault! He did this for you, that was his only reason!" With one last look at Prince, I felt a hardness in my throat expand. No, I thought, he did not do this for me. He did this for Alphonse. I said nothing, though, and only watched as Ennis and Sloane helped Lily back up. She was whimpering in pain but they were talking to her in hushed sounds. For a moment I felt wonder - so they could honestly bring people back to life. It all seemed extraordinary. I watched as they took her away, back to Deathcreeke, back to help mend her back up, clean her, whatever. Then Glenn, Greer and Lucy helped Wren lift Prince. "We will take him back to Criewulf. There is nothing we can do without the Philosopher's Stone. We need Alphonse to revive him."

"Alphonse will not rest until his father is dead," I said quietly.

I heard Wren suck in a deep breath. "Then let us hope that the guilt of what you have done lays over your shoulders until then." Then there were footsteps. I stood alone, in the blue moonlight and the fog. With a shuddering breath, I felt myself sink down to my knees.

"IT IS NOT MY FAULT!" I suddenly screamed and lowered myself over my legs. "It is not my fault..." My throat hurt, my body ached, my head was spinning. I finally realized that I was not wearing shoes and that my feet were in acute pain. They must be bleeding fairly profusely by now. Oh, what did it matter? There were much bigger pains now. Pains of the lies I had been told, pains of the stories I'd forced myself to believe, pains of the people I loved, pains of the people I'd lost. It all descended upon me now and my shoulders felt as if they carried the weight of the world. What did it matter? My mother, my faerie mother, my mother who had a child with that...that monster, was dead. My father, the chauvanistic and proud man who succeeded only in dying with the guilt that he had been the cause of my mother's dead, was gone.

I had been foolish enough to believe that Charles could have been something like a second father. He was a insane killer, a power-hungry wolf in sheeps clothing. Finally, the gravity of what he had said hit me full on. He meant to kill me, in order to put my mother's, my dead mother, soul within my body. He had wanted me as a doll with the personality and spirit of my own mother. I wrapped my arms around my head and felt the tears come out in a torrent. It would have even been better if he'd actually loved me and not some mad notion of what - who I was. And now I knew what Charles was, and now I was left here, all alone, while Alphonse was out, trying to catch him, trying to get revenge.

A new wave of nausea and heartache swept over me. Alphonse was gone. Into the night, and I might not even ever see him again. He said he'd come back, but what did that matter? For days, weeks, months, years...for the rest of my life I'd constantly be looking out windows, wondering where he was, even if he never came back.

And Prince. My only true friend. The one who'd intrusted to me his darkest secret...I'd failed him. He'd told me to go, he told me I was needed no longer, but I should have forced Alphonse to stay, to wait and see whether Prince would come back. He had seemed so sure, he had looked as if it was positively the right thing to do, he had never had a doubt. He'd wanted to make sure Alphonse was happy and I'd let him down. What if he never experienced love like I told him to? What if this was my fault?

This entire terrible night...I knew I would never forget it. This entire terrible time here, I would never forget that. I had learned so much...about friendship, lies, betrayal, secrets and love. But I still had so many questions. Questions that I knew must go unanswered for now.

I straightened my self up but did not get up from my knees. I looked to the sky and saw no stars. There must be clouds. I took in a deep sigh, or at least, I tried to. And suddenly a great wave of loneliness rushed over me and through me. I looked up to the sky, closed my eyes and let out a scream, very much like the White Woman's. Now I understood. Whoever she was, she screamed for loss. She screamed for loneliness. She screamed for pain so deep, it could not be healed by medicine. The sound that came from me was all of my sorrow, all of my tears, all of my sadness. I was truly alone.

I felt something wet on my face then. I opened my eyes and felt more drops. It had begun to rain.