writing_shadows

Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives. For a moment, just a moment, when the Hisil team - all duly sworn as special constables - walked in, I thought that this was one of those days.

I don't know when it started. When dad died and I tried to drown another kid in a pond? When I attacked a Chief Inspector with a coffee cup? When Rusty tried to eat my car? All of these, perhaps, but honestly I think it really began when I stepped into the Hisil. That was when the dreams began. I think I've been fighting it since then; for me, for her... Until it all became too much.

It's funny how things work out; how they come together.

It had to be Hayden. I have other friends among the Uratha, but he was - aside from Isabelle - the closest. He was my friend and my teacher; of all of them, the one who never made me feel small, or weak, or useless. I don't think that it could have been at any other time; it had to be under the full moon and it had to be when Isabelle was far away. I don't even think that it would have been enough just to learn that Hayden had died.

But to hear it from his own mouth... To hear that he was dead; that he had somehow been given a few hours' grace to say farewell, but that after that he would be gone was too much to bear. To see others draw weapons on him was the final straw.

I tried to fight it, as I had done before; as I did in the Hisil. This time, I failed; this time, the fury boiled out of me and then... And then there was blood in my mouth and a Worthy sitting on my chest and all my clothes were gone.

Verity took me away and I tried to call Isabelle; made a complete hash of that. There was a lot from the Uratha about my great gift from Luna and all I could think was that I had lost Isabelle; that the woman I love, the best thing in my life was now forbidden to me on pain of apocalypse.

Verity talked about things and I struggled to listen while the scent of Eliza drove me halfway up the wall and the shame of that gnawed at my guts.

Time ticks by. I hope I have a chance to say goodbye to Hayden after this.