Ashes to Ashes Pt. 03

"I can get him back," I say. I mean every single word.

"No, you can't. He's already killed Ike's father. I've lost Gawain. I've lost Ike. I'm losing Fingertree."

I say nothing but the chill laughs at the compassion. She is weak. She is cracking. She is failing and I am here to pilfer through the ashes. Such rich ashes, too. Rock and cloth and wood for me and me alone. I take a deep breath through my nose. I still smell the bitter desert ash clinging to the air. It is everywhere. It is everything.

"Why were you sleeping with me?" I ask.

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I heard you breathing and I thought you could help but you can't. It was stupid."

I smooth the sharp bit that says to rip and tear and it is quiet. I wanted this. Or it did not. It is in my mind making me think things that are not there. It is making me think of acts and positions and terror made in palm.

"I'm a monster."

She nods and I feel nothing as she keeps looking at the table. There is still strength in there, still something noble and proud and feral. But it has been through a lot. Too much. Not enough. But it is off and it is resting. That is fine. We all deserve the rest of weary eyes and deep sorrow. A memory and a name pass but I do not let it settle. It will settle later, once I am alone and cold. Not now. I am warm and with another. The chill laughs and it is right.

"Then what is Bryce?"

"A monster. He should have taken you too. I thought it would make it better. He would have left us alone."

"He's not. You've thrown him a bone and now he knows you have meat. So, he's going to come back, full but hungry for more."

"I knew that. I knew that and I still did it."

There are no tears anymore. She is too tired for that. She slowly sinks down and my stomach rumbles. Her hands push the bow of nourishing mush towards me with no intent in the world. That same part of my mind says to go for it and snatch and take and steal. I do not and the chill laughs. A pack, I am forming a pack. It understands now. It is not the time to take and snatch and steal. Kindness, there needs to be kindness.

I reach forward to her and let the chill spike through my palm. It is gentle as it can be this time. But it is still sharp. It still cuts and bleeds as I touch the back of her hand.

All that sorrow evaporates with small snap of the arc. She bolts upright and looks down at me in primal fury. I do not blame her. She finally looks threatening, what Ike can be with a little more experience, a little more practice. There is not a knife at her hip this time, but she doesn't need it. She has the rage that would see her through everything the world can throw against her.

"What did you just do?" she growls.

"Did you feel that?" I ask. Her hands were rough and calloused.

"You just did that thing. What was that?"

"Give me your hand."

Her other hand is still where the knife would be. Habit, carved into every inch of her body. There is a knife on the counter behind her, but I do not know if she knows it's there. It is. She has to know. The eyes and the mind work together to piece every single detail together. There is a knife behind her on the counter and I can be used to end me all over again. I will die on one of the attempts. I have to.

But she does give me her hand, the off one. Rough callouses and ruin baked leather, dark as the night sky. The burn scars crawl down her arm and I let the charge take the vein. It pools in my palm and decides to be gentle with her. The hairs on the back of her arm stand up again as the light jumps from one star to another, before fading around her elbow.

"Do you feel it?" I whisper.

She grunts and tries to pull her hand away. The current will not allow it. She belongs to it now and she will stay within reach at all times.

"You might not," I say, "But this is what I can do. I make lightning from nothing. I bring down wrath and vengeance on the smallest whim. I'm a monster. I'm a demon. I'm a disaster, Nia."

She doesn't say anything and I let the light fade back into me. But there is the pulse behind her mind of fake things beyond reality. It is there and the rage falls away and the wonder seeps back in, sorrow and melancholy and naked awe of a world so much vaster than her hole in a cave. It is vaster than I. It is so much more than all of us.

"What are you, really," she whispers. She knows what I will say. I know what I will say. The question still needs to be asked. The question hangs between us, known and unknown and all the things in between.

"Not a clue."

Her hands find mine again and they get another snap and bite. She doesn't pull away.

"Can you really do it?" she whispers. I smile. After that, she still has to ask. She still has to know that the world is much more than her will and mine. There is something inside me that is vicious and righteous and terrible and I hold it back with promises of euphoric pleasure.

"That's not the right question. You really need to ask yourself, how bad do you want it to be?"

And that draws a sad smile from her and it hurts. The chill enters her with raging intent and she does not her hand pull away. She leans into the power that boils her blood and shakes the bones. Nia does not pull away.

The rest of the body moves around the table as the power hits every single nerve and every single joint. And to my surprise, she comes to my lap and settles into the gap. The spine curves to my chest and the arc and the energy traces the path up into her skull. Slowly, the vertebrae align with the will like a magnet and she is only moving when I want her to move.

"You're incredible," she hums.

"If you say so," I whisper, "I'm not quite so sure, really. The chill, though, that's something."

"It was kind of like this with Ike. He had, I don't know, weight. Granted, it never did this to me."

"Weights a good word for it. I like chill too. What do you think?"

"There has to be something better than that. It's like a knife scraping through my veins. In a good way. Like it is getting rid of all the dirt and clay in me. It's scouring me raw and soft. It hurts, Jill. Don't stop."

"I don't think it will let me. I have less control than you think with that. But the name, what do you think of the name?"

"Oh, the chill works. But, the needle, the saw, the knife. The sharp. I like the sharp."

"I called it the spike for a while, but then I thought it was too cold for that. So, it became the chill, but a name change sounds good right about now."

The sharp meanders with the new name for a bit, sparking between hairs and fingers and joints. Nia doesn't mind. She just lets the sharp cut and carve. It takes away all the bad things collected at the edges, that sorrow, that worry, that anxious bounce in the legs. It gives her the endless horizon of barren ashy snow. There is nothing that but the cold bite of the blade.

It's behaving now. It was angry and hostile, but now docile and calm. The new body is like the old one it liked, and the old one wasn't something to carve and bleed. The sharp doesn't have the weight to play with in this one. But it does have the suggestion of it.

I'm not sure how it works, how we are made. I assume it's the same process as everything else, but something clicks and slides along way. The space behind thought becomes a bit too involved somehow and the world reality shatters to accommodate the extra space. Nia is lost in that extra space in me. The sharp has cut a hole just for her to squeeze through. It acts through me not of me and I do not mind. Both my will and something alien, two halves not slotting together, but rolling along.

"It does feel very nice," Nia sighs, "The way it tingles my head. Are you doing that on purpose?"

"No. It does what it wants. And it likes to mess with heads and thoughts and all the soft malleable things."

She sighs and moves her hips into me. It might be her idea. It might not. I do not know. I do not know what is hers or mine or the sharp's. It is. It simply is. She is still moving her hips in some soft dance, griding into me. There is more on her than Ike. There is more muscle and skin, more meals and strength. Time, there is more time to her. The world has taken Nia and molded her as she molded it. And it gave her cords and ropes on her body. They are tied in knots, never to be unraveled. They can be loosened and slack, but not untied. Mangled up, tangled up cords of sinew and bone. She still holds my hand with iron clasp and I do not think the sharp is making her do anything anymore.

The cords of the body allow her to move. She turns to face me, kicking a leg over my head. The cods also have some level of flex to them. More so than the marble and clay carved onto me. The sharp likes that. I like that. I also like the fact that she has decided to lay her head into my shoulder and embrace the arc between us.

"It is getting cold," she whispers. There are lips to my ear and I shiver.

"It's hot enough outside. I think it's time for something different," I say. I pull my head away and look into the soft red eyes. They are not quite as sharp as Ike's. The edges have been worn down and chipped away. But there is still the rock strength leading down to soul. I shift a bit, moving into her, and I let my lips get close. Cold or sharp or electricity, it all just as it arcs. She doesn't move away. It likes that she doesn't move. It likes that she moves close until they touch.

The weight, there is some weight to her in the space that lies in reality. There is no space behind thoughts with her. There is just the rock and the stone and cords draping over my shoulders. Her lips are smooth and soft. Mine still have the cracks and chap from the sand and the wind. She doesn't mind. Or the sharp keeps her there and overrides the unpleasantness of my state. My hands go to her hips and I feel the muscles spasm and shift as the arc comes to them.

I have to temper it, though. There simply isn't enough space in the actual reality to house it all with her. The sharp understands. It understands well. It cannot bring the full amount to this toy. It does not want to break and splinter and shatter right now. It wants to lead and fondle as the wastes stretch and bend.

One of her hands fights the current that we share to move down my side, against the simple cotton on my skin. The hand doesn't not want it there, so it goes under and up. The electricity hums with the new pathway to explore. She reaches my chest and I break from her lips to go to her collar. Dark skin of night sky star showers fill my mind and I let the hands play with me. I am the world to be shaped, the current to draw aimless doodling lines in the sand. There is no grander picture. There is no masterpiece. The wind would snatch it all away as soon as the attention falters. So, the aimless lines, the circles and the shapes, melding into one another as the wind whips away the forgotten lines.

She pinches and it gets a snap in responses. A playful nip, not too hard. She yelps a bit, still surprised that I can be something other than docile. It's so easy to lose track of what I am in the moment. I am a body with a tingling suffused skin. I am a vessel for the end of the world. I am a woman with large breasts that likes to bite back a bit when a pinch and a twist get applied. I am disaster and ruin and chaos incarnate.

My hands go up her shirt as well. Silk, or something close to it, now that I can get a good feel. Maybe something local. Cactus or shrub or some wool spun gossamer thin. The sharp doesn't like it. Too tight for the fingers to play in. I trace the shape of her scars, the nodes of singed flesh. She shivers with each and every one.

"What are they for?" I ask, "The scars."

"Deeds. Years. Histories," she sighs, "The same thing all scars tell."

I circle one underneath her breast before moving up. Her own touch stops and stalls as I apply my own. I must admit, my technique is lacking in the actual skill of the act. But the thrum and the touch more than make up for it. A bludgeoning mallet to iron out the mistakes and the wrinkles, wielded by deft hands that touch and hold and pinch. She likes being pinched it sees. From the way she jumps.

I finally pull a moan from the scars and the night laced skin. Deep and sonorous, a plea through clear cloudless skies. And she melts into it all, the current, the wave, the gap behind thoughts that takes out reason and soothes it over. There is no reason to think, no reason at all. We all just are. The sharp still pools in my side from the knife wound, in the base of my neck with the rock and the gale. I am still strong enough to stand with her lifted, snaking and climbing around my body. She sighs a little and finds my lips once more.

The sharp keeps pulling the wayward strands of its vessel together as I carry her back to the bed. She still tastes soft and writhing, darting and pushing her tongue into me. I feel the sharp arc to its return. Such a rapturous thing scouring us all clean. I am light. She is light. There is only the energy between us and the touch of and to skin and lip to lip. My hair drapes over her shoulders. She doesn't have any to do the same, other than a soft stubble slowly pushing up to the blistering sun. We both hit the bed and feel the rock and wood creak under the weight. It will hold. It does not mind.

The silk gossamer of desert foliage is off and I finally get a good look at the all of her. Dark, still dark, still scarred, still lean and sharp and thin. There are the hard lines of work on her stomach, her chest her arms, but there is age there, time and scars and histories bleeding down her frame. As the fingers intertwine with mine there is still the strength. The same strength that has dragged down the edges just an inch, holds me close and digs into the skin. The time has made her carved and sculpted and stone, just the same as the canyon and the cave.

I try to pull away and find that I can't. The hands keep me in the same space. The hands keep me to her. And even more, they try to push me down to the chest, the stomach, the legs. And I have a dilemma on my hands. I want to go there, eventually, but I wish to do so under my own power, my own will. And the questions of obedience toss back and forth in my head. My own will to power would be subservient to another as worth it to further my end goals, but the resistance will assert my dominance at the express detriment to any and all parties. The debate rages and the sharp rages with it.

None of it matters, because if find myself at her thighs and that's alright. All the thoughts shrug and slink back to the place of the mind where they don't have to think anymore.

I arc comes from my tongue to her lips again and her legs are around me. I can't fight them. I can't fight the corded muscles massaging my back. I can't fight the way they plead and beg for me and my current. I don't want to fight right now. There is just the act and the dance and the simmering moans I draw from her body, backed up the sharp crack and snap of electric arcs. I look up and I see the sparks dance from her lips as her circuit joins with mine fully. She doesn't think and neither do I. There is just the body and the sensations of it.

The cords and ropes lining my back and keep pulling me in as I lick and stroke and bite. It throbs and twitches. She throbs and twitches. Each motion I bring arcs and plays with her. A lick here brings a sigh and a scratch. A kiss there is a squeeze and a moan. There is a pattern to play with her. A bite, a kiss, a lick, a tickle, each has their own sound and motion attached. The patterns play within her. I start combining them. A kiss and a lick is not the same as a lick and a kiss. It all combines and mixes and stews into some grand chaotic tapestry. I take the pattern and make it chaos. There is no prediction of the next move. There just is this action then the next. The corded legs never leave me form. They are always there, always pressing into me in some futile gesture to get me to both stop and go on. She wants it. She does not' want it. The agony overrides the ecstasy. The ecstasy overrides the agony. There is just raw sensation pouring through me and she cannot handle it.

Nia goes silent, so silent I hear it ringing in my eardrums like someone just shot a gun. So quiet it hurts. The cord tightens and cinches around my back, holding me close until the current refuses to distinguish between the two of us. For the briefest moment, I think I've killed her. And then she starts shaking and singing the moan of the end of the world.

I pull away as she rides it all out. Her release hits my chest, my chin, her stomach. Her hands are in my hair, pulling and pushing. There is some desire to get me to keep going, but I refuse. I have relented once and that certainly was welcome, but now is the time for rebellion, no matter how sweetly the song would sound. Rebellion from rebellion's sake, no matter the pain, no matter the strife. Heaven's tumbling down and I could prop it back up, but I choose to let us all fall down.

The bell ring echoes out from the cave walls. Bouncing and wavering, but clear, so clear in its source and its tone. Fractured crystal glass and open blue cloudless skies, she makes the noise of her muscles continued to tighten and break and snap and choke. My hands slide underneath her back, finding more and more of the scarred nodes to prop and trace. More shapes, more muscles spasming and dancing in the arc and current and all the things terribly beautiful. With someone of a shock, I realize she is moaning my name. The sharp rewards her with another race down her spine, pooling in her pelvis and arcing back to me. Her back is bent so far, I almost think it will break from the stress.

The sharp decides to let her down gently. It jumps and snaps between us as the cords slowly untangle and unknot. They relax. All of her relaxes and softens and simply lets go. Even then, the ropes are strong. The ropes are hard and tense. They interlock and stiffen, limbs splayed and slack. Nia's chest rises and falls and all she can think of is the sharp still playing in her mind.

I pull myself away and the sharp finally lets me. The muscles let me and the limbs thank me for all the wonderful things that I let happen. I stretch and my own frame sighs with the tense and release. Something deep in my side gives and the wound is gone from the steel. A hand goes to my neck and the bone still feels tender. It's getting there, but it would take a bit more time swimming in the sharp to let everything slot back into place.

Nia looks up to me, mouth a hard line again, although her eyes have softened and lightened. Still angry, still raging at the world, but a different type of rage now. Directed, focused. Almost entirely at me, although I have been nothing but kind to her. Why, just a few moments ago, I gave her the best orgasm she's probably ever had. After she had stabbed me, tied me up and tried to pawn her own to a make-believe king.

"On the bed," she says. More weight to the words than I care to admit. My legs almost start moving to do as the words mean.

"What if I don't want to get on the bed?" I say, taking my hands to my hips, "What happens then?"

"You want to get on the bed." There is more and more menace creeping into the syllables and the sounds from her thin lips. I don't think I do, mostly for the principle of the whole interaction more than anything else.

"No, I really don't. How about you get off the bed?"

She does not. I almost forgot how fast she can move. And I thought that the glow would make her a little more sluggish. It didn't. The world is wrong once again. Someone should really start looking into making me be right more often. My ideas for reality aren't all that bad. People should generally keep walking. Activity makes people a bit more sluggish. There should be more water, as well. All sensible things.