Poison

Gray skies poured down rain, slashing across the green forest. Towering trees spiraled towards those weeping clouds. Lightning flashed, a showy temper that made little animals scurry for their homes. Plants burst from the ground, joyfully green and radiate from the slashing rain that brought them life. The tree seemed to weave, as if they, at any moment, would lift their roots from the ground and climb up and down hills, searching for something they’d never find. A red eared fox darted across the ground, and a narrow path presented itself in the chaos of the forest. She stumbled through it, her hair drenched and plastered to her face. Her fingers reached out as she collapsed against a tree trunk. Her fingertips rubbed roughly against that aging bark, her green eyes slashing through the rain.

She moved on, leaving a smudged footprint in the ground. The lightning flashed again, and her eyes widened in automatic response to the thunder that roared in her ears. The trees gave her ample shade from the elements, but even those aging monsters of height couldn’t protect her completely. Ferns parted as she trudged through the storm and forest. She followed the barely visible trail, avoiding the thorns of beast-like bushes that crowded beside the beaten path. Grass grew stubbornly where she walked, trampled and beaten, but still green and prospering. A couple birds screamed and darted through the slicing rain.

The path seemed as if it would continue on forever, until the forest finally parted. It revealed a little town, one dreary in the rain. Clouds rumbled overhead as the woman moved through the trees and into the open. She didn’t bother to try and deflect the rain that had already soaked through her clothes and plastered them to her. She kept moving until she was on the clean brick lanes of the beautiful town. Melancholy feelings hung in the air, latching onto her heart and dragging it down. However, it was a sweet sadness. Of something she once knew, of a happiness she once treasured.

She stopped just after entering the town, turning to stare up at an old, aging house. Its paint was chipping, the once white fence that held in dead, rotted plants was yellow with age. Tucking a strand behind her ear, she moved on, but let her eyes linger on the broken windows and rotted shudders. She turned her head away, the feeling of melancholy returning. She dismissed the rest of the houses, until she’d pass through most of the town. At the end of one of the bricked streets, the sky led her to a little shack. A shack with homey flowers blooming in wonderful shades of blue and orange by a little porch. A fire glowed in a lamp beside the door, protected by the ran by a shaky looking overhang.

She moved as if she’d aged a hundred years, up the steps. She lifted her hand and turned the knob, letting the door open. Inside, there was nothing but a stand in the center of the room. Moving forward, something pricked her memory as she moved across a dirt floor. Stopping before the pedestal, she blinked at the colors that flashed at her. They flashed blue and gray in the orb, and her fingers touched the surface. She remembered it being red and orange, not this color. However, the Gem of Hearts responded to her touch with a faint spark of green.

“This is your duty, Guardian.”

Sol swirled, staring at the woman that now stood in the door. “Who are you?"

The woman smiled mischievously. “Well, well, I can’t tell you…yet.” Her dark brown hair fell in long curls towards her hips. Her eyes were a strange swirl of the orb. “However, you play a very important role in this world, my dear girl.”

“What do you mean?” Sol asked, placing herself protectively in front of the Gem. “My role?”

“A Protector, but you’re even further gone than that. He knows, that man that you once loved. He knows who you are, what you are. Maybe you should be asking him, not me.” She laughed, a little trifling laugh that rolled across Sol in a kind wave. “Do not fear me.”

Sol placed her hand upon the Gem, as if to comfort herself with its presence. “You appear out of no where, and you tell me not to fear you. Perhaps I don’t fear you, but I fear the information that you hold back from me.”

“Your destiny will be revealed soon enough.” The woman grinned widely, and her eyes shifted colors, growing a pale green. Sol felt the Gem shift in her hand. Its color was the exact shade of her eyes. Or, her eyes were the exact same shade of the Gem. “There is no need to rush. You’ve faced a great many tragedies, and those tragedies bind you close to the man who protects you. He will need you, as you will need him. There is no winning apart.”

“What are you talking about?” Sol demanded, watching the woman carefully as she stepped inside of the little shack. “What am I to win?”

“Well, the war, of course.”

“The war? The war between the rebels and the Protectors? Why would I fight in this war?”

“Because if you don’t, they’ll win.”

Sol shook her head, trying to clear it. “Who will win? Which side?”
“Whichever side you choose will win only if you fight.” The woman came closer until she stood before Sol. She reached out, and touched Sol’s cheek gently. Sol flinched but didn’t move away. “Whichever side will prolong the hope in this world. You are the determining piece, my dear child.”

Sol’s eyes were wide, and her memory triggered in her. “Who are you?”

The woman smiled again, a kind smile as she brushed Sol’s hair back from her cheek. “I’m you.”


Sol bolted awake, her eyes wide as she breathed heavily. No one else shifted in the room that they shared, the attic. The cold of the night settled on her like a fog as the blanket she had previously been coiled beneath fell to her waist, leaving her shoulders exposed in the tank top she wore. She shoved back her hair from her face, remembering the soft, heart-shaped face of the woman in her dream. The woman who said those two eerie words: I’m you.

Annoyed, Sol rolled out of the bag she’d slept in for what looked like only a couple hours. From the window, she could see that sunrise wasn’t too far off, the beginning pink of the day burning beneath the edge of the horizon. Stepping around Jazz, whose hand was stretched out, curled around Raven’s cheek, she stretched, muffling the little squeal that came along with the much desired stretch. Her body resembling that of a cat, she dodged Kida next, slipping down the steps as soundlessly as she possibly could be. Even when one of the steps groaned from her stepping upon it, they didn’t seemed disturbed. Relieved, she bounced the rest of the way down, still trying to keep light but not worried about disturbing the three of them.

Three of them…where the hell was Fraser?

A sinking feeling in her gut, she made her way to the one bedroom in the whole house—excluding the little attic. She shoved open the door, unconcerned with the fact that Fraser might be sleeping or changing or cleaning his gun or…

The bed laid empty, rumpled a bit, but otherwise completely void of any human. Sol tucked a piece of hair behind her ear out of reflex, her stomach hardening up into a tight ball in her gut. He was gone. Left without her. Again. Nearly as fast as the disbelief and grief came, they fled, chased away by the blurring red rage. Out of all of the most conceited, self-righteous decisions, he thought he could just stroll away from her again and again and expect her to hang her head, go home and give up? She didn’t think so. While in her rage, she didn’t hear the door open behind her, or hear it shut.

However, she did hear:

“You’re up early.”

She whirled, her hand on her heart as she stared wide-eyed at Fraser. His hair was combed back with his fingertips, in a style distinctly lazy. His hair was getting too long, the fringe sitting on his neck like a wool blanket of heat. His eyes were dark, as usual, but even more so with the dark crescent moons hanging underneath those black orbs of his.

“Where the hell were you?” Sol demanded immediately, scowling as she eyed him suspiciously.

He scowled at her, Jakob's last words still ringing in his ears. “Retract the claws, sweetheart. I won’t be leaving without you again.”

Annoyed by his scowl, she crossed her arms over her chest. "I have a hard time believing you on that aspect. Why should I?”

“Believe me? Because I would be long gone by now if I was leaving you behind again.”

“Maybe you just forgot your…gun, or something.” It sounded lame even to her ears. “Well, whatever,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she stomped away from him. She was acting like a dismissed five-year-old, but she didn’t care. A five-year-old didn’t have the vulgar vocabulary she did. “If you want to play little games with my head, you can go fuck yourself.”

Fraser narrowed his eyes on her as she stormed away, and he couldn’t help but be annoyed with her offhand pissy attitude. After his confrontation with Jakob, he really didn’t want to deal with her giving him hell. She was pissy because she’d assumed and therefore made an ass out of herself. Now, he was paying the price of her prissy attitude, getting her embarrassment and discontent smeared on him like flaming shit on a porch.

“Sol,” he said, and then again when she didn’t stop walking away from him, “Sol.”

Annoyed with him for bothering her, and annoyed with herself for her lack of balance, she said, “What?”

“Come here.”

She spun around on the heel of her foot, sneering at him. “Oh, yeah, call me like a little puppy dog, see if I come?”

“Come. Here.”

She lifted her chin, and his face darkened considerably. Holding her tongue, she restrained herself from calling him a slur of degrading names. She wouldn’t fall back into that childish habit. She cocked her head to the side, daring him with squinted eyes to make her.

Pissed off with her and with Jakob and with the memories that forced him to stay awake throughout the night, he came towards her with hell in his eyes. Sol had to restrain herself from taking a step back when he leaned over her and snarled:

“I don’t need this from you. I’ve got a war to fight and I’ve got the Gem to find. Either you can help me with that, or you can go back from the little hole you crawled from in the first place.”

Gem of Hearts. War.

Her retort froze on her lips as she remembered the dream, vividly: the forest, the stormy clouds, the town, and the shack. What did it mean? It wasn’t on Zaire that was for sure. She recognized the place, knew it from somewhere.

Fraser didn’t think it was possible, but his words stopped her spitting fury. Her slitted eyes slathered in anger calmed the fury and became cloudy from contemplation. Her eyes flickered to the side, as if she tried to remember something far in the reached of her mind. He wondered what cause this sudden change, and as her eyes dropped to the floor he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.

“I know where the Heart Gem is,” she whispered.