184Ch 19
Hearts without Chains
"Have you lost the same things I have lost?
Do you know that panic I know?
Would I see the terror in your face?
Do you know that fever I know?"
-Ellie Goulding
A static in the air made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, and next to me Bip's small hand found my sleeve.
"Odd weather." He said in a tone that sounded altogether worried. It was odd though, one minuet blue skies and now…now it was so dark gray that it looked more dusk than the noon I knew it to be.
"We should go inside, it'll pour soon." I said standing and grabbing my herb basket. Bip jumped up and ran ahead of me opening the door, watching the sky apprehensively. Inside, the small fire he'd started cracked and spit as the first bit of rain fell down my chimney.
"Just in time." I said as upbeat as I could manage, which sounded more false than anything else. I needed to try, I knew, for Bip. I didn't want to think about what state I would be in if he wasn't with me. I'd probably be curled up in bed, letting time pass by.
"Yeah." He said closing the door and latching it. He pushed a stool towards the window next to the door and watched as the rain began to really come down. I sat my basket next to the sink and looked over at him.
"Bip, its just rain. Don't look so worried." I said taking some sage out of the basket. He looked over at me with his cheeks puffed out in annoyance.
"It's just…I have a feelin!" He said frowning at me. We settled into silence then, while Bip watched the rain and I separated the herbs to be tied and hung up to dry. I'm not sure how much time had passed, the sky had gotten darker, when Bip jumped from the stool with a clutter.
"Bip!" I shouted in surprise.
"Someone's coming!" He said moving to open the door. I looked to the window over the sink, but the rain sliding over the pane of glass blurred anything I could have seen.
"I don't see…" But then I saw something, or someone moving closer to the gate of my garden. Bip opened the door a crack and peered out. I moved to stand before the door next to him.
"Well?" I asked moving to open the door, but Bip stopped me and leaned against the door staring at the floor. He looked serious, his frown deepening as he seemed to be thinking hard.
"Who was it?" I asked as he slowly looked up to me, and suddenly he looked conflicted.
"Stay here." He said, but it sounded more like he was begging. I nodded, unsure why he looked so panicked, but let him slip out of the door into the rain that had turned into more of a mist. I looked out the window as his easily distinguishable form made its way to the larger one. I could see that whoever had come was on a horse, and someone was leading it for the rider. I saw Bip stop to talk to them. His form began to glow then, a tale tell sign of his anger, and I found that my feet moved without permission right out the door.
I had intended to run to Bip, to help in any way I could have, but the feet that had motivated me now felt like they were stuck in a bog. Panic set in first, I nervous tingling took over my whole body like I'd been shocked. My heart thundered in my chest, and my mind went blank. On the horse was Diaval, a cloak keeping the wet at bay, and leading his horse was the queen, in her own cloak. Bip looked at me, his face contorted in anger, before he looked back to the two. Something was off, he hadn't opened his eye once; Diaval. Aurora moved to the horse's side and helped him dismount the horse. He leaned heavily on her, as if…as if he needed her help. Bip bounced on his heels wildly motioning in what I could only guess was anger. I was hard to pay attention to Bip though. My hands were shaking, why was he here? I had barely survived this once. I couldn't do it again, and yet my body couldn't move; it wouldn't flee like I wanted. The queen said something to Bip and he immediately deflated, then she was leading Diaval towards me.
"Stop." I managed to mutter, my feet finally gaining their motor functions again, backing away into the wooden door I had closed.
"Wait, please! He's here for you please just listen to him!" Aurora stopped a few feet away from me. Watching me as if I were a frightened doe.
"Please, go away." I tried to say it with conviction, but the voice that came out was sad and small.
"Diaval, she's not three feet in front of you." She said still holding his arm in guidance. What had that meant? Why'd she tell him…Diaval opened his eyes, and I flinched away from his sight as if it would physically hurt me. I heard his feet squelch in the mud closer and closer, with each step my eyes shut tighter, I couldn't see that face that he'd made again. It wouldn't break my heart, it would destroy it.
A cold wet hand clumsily caught my shoulder, and then fumbled to my neck. I snapped my eyes opened then, and looked straight at him. His eyes were clouded over, and as he looked just over my right shoulder and over his hand to my face and over my cheek the realization struck me in my stomach like a kick that he couldn't see me. Not just me, he couldn't see anything. I could only stare at him, confusion and a suffocating sadness making my eyes tear up.
"You're blind." I came out muddled and thick, and even now it sounded like the worst thing I could have said. But he didn't mind, he smiled a wide grin, as his other hand found the other side of my face.
"So it would seem." He made it sound as if that didn't matter.
"Why are you blind?" I asked some sense coming back to me, well as much sense as I could muster. His grin melted more into a warm smile.
"Only a man can break your curse, so I changed into a human." I could feel a sob bubbling up from my lungs. He pulled my face closer to his and pressed his lips to my forehead, my hands flew up to his wrists in shock.
"Only a blind man could ever look at you and not flee, so I had my eyes taken from me." His lips moved to my cheek and he kissed it. Any other girl would have been moved by such a gesture, but I only felt so sorry and sad for him that I could only let myself cry. He'd given his sight up, he'd changed who and what he was…all for me, and it made me feel awful.
"You shouldn't have done this…I'm not worth it." I said gripping his arms tighter. Diaval nodded and hugged me to him pressing my face into his shoulder.
"Yes, I should have, Viveka I love you, and I'll do anything for you." He said with such a heavy conviction that I really did let that sob out. Before I knew it I was wailing like a baby, gripping him to me like he'd disappear. Thunder rolled in a vicious staccato then, like the sky had become irreversibly angry.
"What did you call me?" I asked then, a feeling of something awakening within my gut. Like something that had been sleeping suddenly had woken up, where my scar was, was burning.
"Viveka." He said the name with such a warm voice and smile that I wanted to be so very jealous of the girl that the name belonged to. Before I could ask him where he'd learned that name, thunder struck again, and Diaval was violently pulled away from me. He landed in a heap with a groan not ten feet from me. I moved to go to him, but a sudden strike of lightning mear inches from me threw me back to the ground.
"That is quite enough." A deep voice boomed. The familiarity of the voice made dread seep into me like the water I sat in. As if he'd materialized from nothing, a large forbidding looking older man stood glaring down at me.
"You've no idea what you've done." He said looking to Diaval and the queen who had run to his side. Bip was next to me in a second. The man in front of me was tall, much taller than Diaval, and as broad as a bear. He was dressed simply in dark breeches, and a dark green linen shirt. Although he was older, I could see that he was still handsome with dark shark features and eyes so blue they seemed to glow.
Diaval was up, with the assistance of Aurora looking rather venerable next to this man. He looked down at me again in utter disdain.
"All you've done is undone the barrier I put up to keep that harpy away from you, and now no doubt she'll be after you. Sure as the dawn." He said leaning down and pulling me up by my elbow.
"What are you talking about?" I asked weakly, my knees feeling like jelly. He looked from me to Diaval and the queen.
"I'm your father, I did this to you to protect you. Now this boy has ruined it all." He sad stirring me towards the house.
"Now wait a minute! Calista is at the castle, she won't be coming for anyone!" Aurora said moving towards my…father, and myself. He looked at he like she was an insect.
"Where's your fairy little queen? When Calista gets here, and she will, she'll take what Viveka has and then she'll run rampant through this little kingdom of yours." He said as the burning on my cheek slowly began to diminish. Aurora looked from him to me.
"Your scar." She said wide eyed. My father looked at me again and cursed under his breath.
"The curse has run its course then." I lifted a hand to my face and felt for the familiar puckering of skin but felt nothing but smooth skin.
"I knew she would come for her, Maleficent has gone to get Cereus, and I have a plan." Diaval said blindly coming our way, while Aurora took his arm to help him. Bip was pulling on my dress skirt.
Suddenly, all the dread, all the fear, all the sadness made way for such righteous anger that I nearly gasped as it bubbled its way to the surface. I snatched my arm from my father's grasp with a strength I didn't know I had.
"That is it! Enough! You! Don't man handle me like you own me!" I pointed an accusing finger at him, my father if you could call him that. Then I rounded on the queen and Diaval.
"Don't plan! Don't assume that I want you to do anything for me! I'm sick and tired of you people treating me like I'm stupid! You!" I pointed to Diaval though I knew he couldn't see me.
"Do you really think it makes me happy that you would give your sight up for me? No! I doesn't! Do you know what I felt like when I realized that you were Dee?" Of course he didn't, somewhere in the rational part of my mind I knew that but this anger felt inescapable. I had to get it out.
"I don't need any of you going behind my back to help me! EVERYONE STOP TREATING ME LIKE A CHILD!" I looked to small unassuming Bip and frowned at him.
"You knew the whole time who Dee was." It was a simple sentence but the accusation brought tears to his eyes and he looked away from me.
"Viveka, you need to calm down your power-" My father moved a step closer to me, hand up in front of him.
"Don't call me that!" I shouted and he flew back with a force that knocked him into the garden fence post and knocked it down. I heard the queen gasp, and I looked down at the hand that I had flung in his direction. Around my hand a green light was fading.
"Well, well…much more like me than I would have thought." I stared in shock at my hand as my father stood up with a shake of his head. What had I done? It had been me right? As I stared at him in apology he looked past me, towards the woods with hate in his blue eyes.
"Calista." He said moving to stand next to me, without sparing me a glance. What had I been thinking? Why had I gotten so mad? Why did I feel so out of control? I turned to see who had showed up now, the woman was beautiful, and in the way winter is. Coldly.
"Who…What's…" what was going on?!
Okay this is an unedited chapter, Im at school and don't have the time but I wanted to get it posted so you lot could read it. Let me know what you guys think!