Torn Fragility

Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty mercy have on me
But if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee
~ Emily Dickinson



He woke, slowly, languidly. Summer whispered to him through the warm wind weaving through the grass, through the sunlight filtering down from above, through the heady smell of freshly cut grass and a hazy warmth that hung over everything.

For the first time in years he could enjoy this simple language, not burdened down by depression, by hopelessness that waited for him like a hungry beast whenever Talia spoke to him, told him how she would use him, break him and destroy him.

Max looked down at his pale hands, hands he had always seen through two pairs of eyes. He searched his mind, called out, and waited. But there was no answering howl of pain or shock. He had been healed. They both had been healed…Max looked down at the sleeping girl beside him. They had both been knitted together through her hands, through her love and strength. He felt a pang of shame. She had seen his other half in its full horrific state of pathetic pain and anguish, yet…she had done what he had been too frightened to do.

He bent down, and brushed his lips against her warm cheek but she didn’t respond even when he whispered her name in her ear. The languid smile melted from his features when she did not even respond to being rolled onto her back.

“Rose?”

Had she become lost somewhere on the other side, in their fey land of shadows and light tricks?

Had Talia…No! He couldn’t think of it. The mere thought of that…creature furthering her own selfish means through this innocent girl, of Talia looking at him through those wonderfully warm eyes of Rose. But what could he do? He could only wait; wait as she fought and either stumbled her way back or…

He laid down facing her and drew closer until their breath intermingled. His hand hesitantly crept towards her eyes and gently wiped away her tears. Why was she crying? He had been the one crying back in that locked dark place. He shifted even closer and rested his forehead against hers before closing his eyes and willing her to hear him, to follow his voice back, to come back to him before Talia awakened in her place.



I was sure I was back in my own mind yet how had Talia found me here? Had she followed me from the barely there gateway that had been present in Max’s mind before I had closed it? It seemed we had been staring at each other for years; time passed so strangely here.

“You think you’ve crushed my plans don’t you?” Talia finally spoke, twisting my voice until it was unrecognisable. We were standing, or not, in a dark area of nothing. Images flashed past, my own thoughts, but I was too deep in for their cheerful flickering to reach me.

I tasted something salty but dismissed it; I had more pressing matters at hand. Such as having my own life on the line.

“I’ve only crushed your plans for him,” I whispered. Even though it was my own mind, my own playground, my words barely escaped my lips. I felt frail. Why? I looked at Talia, the only substantial presence here.

“So you’ve noticed." Talia smirked while looking around. “I’ve got some serious refurbishing on my hands after this.” Her eyes met mine, after their cocky wandering. “You’re pathetic. It took you this long to even realise what he needed to be saved from…himself.”

I thought of glaring at her, but I felt too tired to even attempt it. “You didn’t exactly help by dragging me blindfolded through all of this.”

Talia shrugged. “I allowed you the occasional peek. But that was then and this is now. And now it’s time we ended this; we’re both longing to get what we want and I think it’s clear who’s going to win.” Talia came closer and shoved her hand through my chest. Her hand went through like I was no longer flesh or even solid thought, but merely a misty apparition. Talia giggled humourlessly. “Look at that. Proof of my words.”

She took her hand out of my chest. The hole she had created sluggishly filled in.

“I can see you’re confused. Before I take over your life I’ll explain.” Talia leaned in closer and smiled gleefully. “Max was the trap. While you saved him, your defences were down and I leisurely strolled in while your mind was elsewhere, literally, and planted an ambush.”

“But…What did you do?” I looked up as a few thoughts flew past. They weren’t mine. “Why don’t…I have control anymore?” My words were a slight breath now that barely stirred the atmosphere around me.

Talia snapped her fingers. “Keep up, stay with me girl, stay with me.” She giggled, seeming to find this funny. I finally noticed that her dress was made from the same stuff we stood in, or floated in but just more…there. It was actually quite pretty. Talia snapped her fingers again, this time before my eyes and I struggled to focus my attention on her.

Talia pouted. “Hmm…We don’t have much time. Anything you want to say before you just become a mere memory?”

“Rose?” The voice came from seemingly nowhere, encompassing all sound and being. My eyes fluttered upwards.

“Max?”

But then Talia was screaming. Obviously she was hearing something I could not as she slammed her hands over her ears and screwed up her eyes.
“Shut up! Shuttup!”

Then I also began to hear it as well. Steady breathing and someone saying over and over again, “Come. Here I am. Find me.”

And in front of me Talia changed. Changed into her true, terrifying form as she unconsciously discarded mine in her haste to block his words. I tasted tears and I began to run, run towards the sound, shouting Max’s name.

“You can’t escape!” her voice echoed inside of me. I began to mentally picture running through a maze, hoping she wouldn’t find me. And when I lifted my head, my feet were no longer hovering over darkness but running through soft green grass that tickled my ankles. Walls of greenery had sprung up around me creating what I had wished for. I ran faster even though his voice had become softer as if from a distance.

I came gasping and weeping into a clearing. Beautiful people with hard cold faces stopped what they had been doing, stopped dancing, stopped eating, stopped playing, and merely looked. They looked like Talia, but unlike her they hid their emotions, if they had any. They did not even show surprise when she burst out from the maze behind me screeching.

Her eyes went wide, seeing the fey people at their party. She grabbed me and brought me up to her level, her eyes no longer a kaleidoscope of colours as I had once glimpsed them but a dull red. “Where have you brought me you stupid human!?” she hissed looking around her wildly as if she was a caged animal.

I hadn’t brought her here purposefully but did not say so. “You know where this is perfectly well,” I told her, my voice deathly calm. I smiled coldly. “Get a grip, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Unconsciously I compared her with them and found that maybe, once upon a time; she had looked like they did but now her face was a distortion of fury and bloodlust and her skin was faded. She looked human.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of the people move towards us. Talia paled and dropped me before screaming at the advancing people, “Stay back! I am under the protection of the Queen herself!”

I slowly stood up from where she had dropped me but no one paid me any heed.

A voice, as clear as cut glass, said from behind us, “Only while you were still fey did you have my protection.” Talia whipped around and I slowly began to edge away, seeing no one had their eye on me.

“Stay where you are Rose,” the voice demanded.

I froze on the spot and bit my lip, faintly hearing Max’s voice in my head, calling for me. “He’s been waiting for years; he can wait just a while longer”, she said. I did not know how I knew but somehow I knew that she was their Queen. She did not seem that much different from her cold court except for a small delicately woven silver crown perched upon her golden hair. I nodded and the Queen looked away from me to stare Talia down.

“Your games have twisted you sister,” she said calmly as if this happened every day.

“You have no right!” Talia spat, looking like a wildcat amongst the lions. “You had no right to inter−,” her head snapped to the side, a red mark on her cheek. The Queen lowered her raised hand and put her glove back on. It had happened so quickly I, and clearly Talia as well, was in shock.

“I did NOT interfere. A human did and since you had broken the ties between us I did not feel the need to step in and save you from what you have solely brought upon yourself.”

“Save me? From what?!” Talia’s anger had dimmed but her bewilderment was evident.

“Stepping…no, trying to become a part of their world is strictly prohibited, for obvious reasons. Mortality does not agree with you sister.”

We all looked, even Talia herself did, down at her imperfect human hands and feet. Her eyes had faded to a dull grey and her hair had become a dirty blonde.

“What…What have you done to me?”

The Queen gave a chilling smile. “Merely changed you into what you so hoped to be: a human. Why? Do you not like it?”

Talia pointed one shaking finger at me and her voice wobbled when she spoke. “But I wanted her! She has talent! Who is to say I will have talent if I myself am changed?”

The Queen’s face hardened. “Talent is denied us, you know that. Besides, she is not wholly human either and despite all your efforts you would have eventually been driven out by her.” The Queen gave me a calculating stare. “Rose is free to come and go as she pleases as part fey thus you were not allowed to deny her access in and out.” She turned back to Talia. “We will see how long you will last in the cruel human world where you will be virtually powerless and talentless.”

“Go Rose,” the Queen told me over her shoulder. “You have seen a blight upon our land that I had not wanted to be seen. As punishment, this world’s gates are forever to bar you from entry.”

I smiled a real smile. “The Queen is both beautiful and kind. I will go with all haste.”

I heard Talia scream in fury as I turned my back on all of them and followed the all too faint voice of Max. I ran, I ran faster than I had ever run before, until my feet could no longer feel grass beneath them only, until I was running on the air. Globules of my tears swam past me and my hair drifted around me as if I was underwater. I started to swim through the darkness and cried out, “I’m here! Here I am!”

And then I was gasping for air, spluttering as if I had been stuck under water for too long. Hands touched me, hesitantly like tiny wings and when I opened my eyes I looked right into sky night ones that widened in surprise. And then I was laughing as I flung my arms about his pale neck and sighed deeply into his nape, relishing his warmth after the cold of my near death experience. He returned the embrace, his tears soaking into my hair, his breath warm on my skin.

“You made it,” he said thickly as we untangled ourselves from one another.

“Talia won’t ever bother us again,” I said taking in huge gulps of fresh night air and closing my eyes blissfully. “Our nightmares are over.”

“I hope so. You have no idea how I was struggling before you came along. Some mornings I saw no purpose in waking up. I shut myself in and cut myself off from the world and lost years of my life as a process. That…monster you saw inside of me was all my guilt and shame that Talia had given form to.”
“Max,” I smiled softly at him. “You don’t have to explain…”

Max shook his head, his curls bouncing slightly. “No, no I do. You deserve that at least for everything I put you through. I’m not sure if you remember but that time you saw me, when I first met Hannah?” I nodded, knowing he had glimpsed me when I had somehow landed up in that time.

“Well,” Max went on “That was a few weeks before my father planned to take my mother and me overseas for a family holiday. I...loved my mother but I couldn’t stand my father. Both were never at home and I grew into a selfish little brat who only cared about himself. I refused to go with them, I begged them not to go either; I even went as far as drinking a handful of my mother’s sleeping pills to get out of it. I don’t know why but I had a bad feeling about it. My parents thought I was being my usual self and boarded the flight anyways. They died when that plane crashed in the middle of nowhere. I blamed myself for not having tried hard enough to make them stay. I…Attempted numerous suicides but Hannah somehow saved me every time.” Max cleared his throat and I leaned against him, showing him I was here.

“And that was when Talia appeared, first as a dream and then later in reality. She gave form to my pain and guilt and I feared it and hated it especially when she made it look as I’ve always wanted to look, and could’ve. On her own Talia is actually weak but when she plays her mind games even you would think you’re your own worst enemy. But, I knew she would use it to harm me, to find a way into our world. About a month before you came I tried jumping from my balcony, hoping I could take the monster that had been inside of me with me to death and with it all Talia’s plans. Then you came and I hated you for being able to laugh so freely, for being untainted.”

Max angrily wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “I’m so pathetic. I’m useless, always crying.”

I put my arms around him, digging my face into his shirt front. “You’re not. You’re beautiful and strong and most importantly free now.”

“You’re beautiful,” Max breathed giving me a lopsided grin when I brought my head back up. I blushed but there was a peaceful silence as I rested my head upon his shoulder. I lifted my head as Max slowly climbed to his feet . “I guess it’s time I went back home and face things.” My hand snatched up his and he looked down at it, surprised.

“I love your voice,” I told him blushing deeply. I stood up, still clutching his hand as if he might vanish into the night at any given chance. “I don’t want to miss a second of it.”

Max laughed and even though it was nearly dark I saw him blush and turn away. Was he going to leave me again? Disappointment coursed through me but before I could voice my wishes Max had grabbed up my face between his two hands and I was sure he could feel the blood rush to my cheeks. We looked at his each other for a few quiet moments while it sounded as if my heart wanted to break free from its confinements, so loudly was it beating.

Then his eyes slowly roved downwards, towards my lips and he closed the gap between us within a heartbeat.

And sitting at home, drinking tea, Hannah put her cup down and gave a weary sigh. "Finally."