I WANNA ENTER HEAVEN BLEEDING.
He sees it. Acton. The not-ghost. And Bexley can tell because the horror that shines in his gaze like a fire, like a burning story, is the same horror that has been eating her from the inside out for days upon days upon days. Now they can share it.
Bexley watches him as he watches Acton. She sees the way he trembles, like a little fawn - the way he cannot quite tear his eyes away, desperate to see his brother again as more than a mirage - it should hurt her, but it does not, not at all. It pleases her. And she cannot imagine that Acton would argue for her to feel anything otherwise. Raum stands but a breath from her, too-still, frozen with pain, still watching, still watching:
And it makes her smile. Is it a smile? Curling her lips like that feels foreign. It fits wrong. Oh, it is a smile, but only in the same way a crocodile smiles, reptilian and overly sharp, full of a fetish for blood; to anyone else it would look hysterical; to her, it feels like flying.
Her whole body roils with anger. Bexley feels like she might transcend a physical form, like the burn inside her is so hot she’ll turn totally to ash. It feels good. It feels like being alive. Now more than ever she understands how precious that feeling is, even when it gnaws on her bones, even when it hurts to feel it.
The moon screams its light from overhead. There is a brief respite between the last of Bexley’s words and the first of Raum’s reactions; in that tiny moment, there is nothing but them and their shared pain, and the way Bexley fights to breathe through her anger, the inhales rasping and grating; the deep, dark silence, breached only by the soft wind and the shifting of sand and the gnashing of Bexley’s teeth meeting each other over and over again.
Then his eyes turn black.
It is fascination that keeps her gaze trained on him, more than real fear. Her magic is illusory. Strong, terrifying, but illusory still: the glamour on her skin and the blaze of gold that accompanies it are nothing more than a trick of the light, and even her fireballs are a prism effect, nevermind how much they hurt. Raum is different. Raum is totally and utterly inhuman. Raum sheds his skin like a snake - sheds his whole body, as it’s nothing more than a vehicle to carry his monstrous soul.
The black deepens. She wonders if she has pushed her luck too far. She realizes she does not care.
It is with aching slowness and care that he meets her gaze. The void between them widens, deepens, cracks yet further. Around her throat, the gold chain starts to sizzle. Oh, years must pass between the last of her words and the final moment where Raum’s eyes lock with her eyes - time passes too slowly to become anything but eons.
Bexley knows he will kill her. She knows that he both has and is a weapon. She knows that she is nothing more than a faerie girl of gold, even in the kindest light.
She also knows that she has never been afraid of a fight.
Even as she sees his rage build and build and build, multiplying its own darkness exponentially, fear does not ensnare her. Even as she prepares for the end, she starts to collect her magic, a pool of energy, in her chest.
And when he reaches for her she is ready.
Even braced as she is, it startling to see him in action. Time seems to slow to a syrupy crawl: in the endless moments that pass, Bexley is unwilling awed by the fluid way his skin fades into dark, shining scales, how his black eyes turn so easily to burning red, his teeth shave themselves into carnivorous point. It is beautiful and horrifying. Now she sees that he is nothing at all but a vehicle for death, and it is something of a comfort.
The scream pierces her ears. His fangs glisten in the silver light. The distance between them closes. And everything that follows happens in a split second, in a parallel-seeming dimension, though it hurts like it’s more than real:
His lips wrap around her throat; the beginnings of bright pain spark up and down her neck and explode like fireworks against the back of her forehead; but there is no time to die, not here, not now, and before he can tear her apart, Bexley smashes a huge ball of screaming-hot white light into the sand between them. It burns a ring of soot the size of a tree trunk into the dunes and shatters into an explosion of glass-sharp shards that lovingly, reverently avoid her, aiming, instead, for Raum’s dark scales and bright eyes.
She laughs a laugh so hollow it turns into a snarl. So hollow it makes her cough. Sparks drip from the inside corners of her eyes, from the tiny spaces between her bared teeth: the whole world is gold now, the whole world is hers. The light from the still-spinning shards reflects across her coat like a glamour spell, so that it is impossible to tell where the desert ends and she begins.
It is only the slow pour of blood from just under her jaw, dutifully staining the sand, that provides any context as to the whereabouts of her body.
You fucking idiot. She knows he has damaged her when she hears her own voice: it breaks and grates and sounds utterly demonic - the gnash of his teeth has crushed her vocal cords, more than slightly, and she knows it is only a matter of time before they close up completely in their vainglorious attempt to heal.
So what needs to be said before the opportunity is gone?
Bexley levels her head with his. Light pours from her nostrils and her mouth. Her lips part.
I am telling you now, she croaks, blood and gold mingling to drip like tar from her teeth, I am never going to die.
