ok, photobucket's back now
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As they are now…
I am a mother of four, and a wife. No doubt I’m soon to be a grandmother, and still I haven’t aged a day. There have been many nights when I’ve contemplated the oddness of my existence. Truly, now, I walk in twilight, for I do not have to fear the same things my mother does, but I share her hungers. I do not have to be weary of sunlight as much as she does. It burns, but I can stand it. It does not tire me the way it does her. I sleep and I can eat human food. Truly, now, I walk in twilight, for I hunger for blood just as my mother does. For the longest, we hunted together as Morgana slept, taking the time to bond with each other in this new life, getting used to the idea of living forever as the world dies around us.
When Morgana graduated from high school, I was there, and when she went off to college, I was there. I bridged the gap between her and our mother, transporting what little light my existence would allow me to carry from one world to the other. Every day, my mother apologized. Every day, she told me she was sorry for trapping me in this world. Every day. Every chance she could get.
All she really wanted was for me to be happy, for me to live life to its fullest. I promised her I would. So I went to a small community college. That’s where I met him. He had a thirst for knowledge, a hunger very different, though no less powerful than my own. He was kind, and he was handsome. He caused me to do what my mother had made me promise to never do: fall in love with a mortal.
Though she may have been young in her eternal years, my mother had spent time thinking out the fate of our existence. She had closed off her heart, having loved and been loved once already. She had lived, had born children, had been able to watch those children grow up, and I wanted no less for myself. She begged me, warned me, that only pain could come of this union, but I begged, too. I begged her to understand that, even though my union with this man may end in pain, all unions, too, end in pain. Even if I weren’t immortal, even if I couldn’t live a hundred thousand years into the future, I would still die, and he would still die, and I would still feel the pain of loss. If he were to die before me, I would feel the pain at loosing him. If I were to die first, I’d feel the pain at leaving him behind. She was reluctant, but she let me go. She let me live, and she let me love. And I k now it was hard for her.
My courtship with this man, Aiden, didn’t last too long; his passion for me was as strong as his passion for learning, and we were engaged, and we were married. To him, I meant more than a wife, more than the love of his life. To him I was all that he could ever dream of having, and his thirst expanded. I could give him more than any woman ever could. I could give him knowledge of things many people could only dream about. I could see more and hear more and understand more and feel more and think more. He knew my nature, and I knew his. And so, he became a scientist. I would say that he’d become the greatest scientist of his age, and I was right at his side, helping him, doing for him what he could not do himself. With me at his side, he was not afraid to take on challenges that would normally kill a human.
Bartholomew is our oldest, looking every bit like his father, and having every bit of his father’s insatiable hunger for knowledge. Public schools could not sate him, private schools could not sate him. Schools for the gifted barely filled him with interest. He went on to university knowing that he would have to find the knowledge for himself, knowing that only he would be able to find and end to his hunger, much as his father had done.
Morigan, Asilda, Mira, all beautiful girls, my triplets, gave me such a start. Their thirst for knowledge might not be as great as their father’s or their brother’s, but they were always curious, always together, always watching over everyone. Asilda, born first, has always been creative. She is quiet, but in that silence, there is strength and daring. Her eyes have always burned with a passion, and Aiden and I struggled to help her find the perfect outlet for it. She paints now, something she picked up on her own. Her paintings are so realistic, so life like. She manages to capture in oils and pastels and watercolors, what has been created in life. Asilda begged to do a portrait of me, and I relented, after holding out for years. Now, I regret holding out, when I look back on her older paintings. The progress is undeniable, her pictures more haunting with each passing year. Whenever I gaze upon the portrait of me, I feel as if I stare into a mirror. I see my reflection so perfectly. It is impossible for me to look at that picture, and not recall the day she painted it; it is impossible for me to not recall that day in clear, perfect detail, as if I were standing there, an outsider, looking in.
Asilda painted things as they naturally were. She did not pose items or people. She caught them in their everyday routine, taking advantage of those moments we have to reflect on the day’s events, or moments past, yet fond to us. I was in no mood for jovial thinking, faced yet again, with my mortality. Over the years, I watched my husband’s hair turn grey, noticed the fine wrinkles around his eyes. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that this love between us would last forever, that we’d continue on, just as we’d always done. Seeing these signs of aging woke me up from my dream, and I was confronted with the facts. I was the only one who would continue on as if nothing changed. I might still stay in this tiny house, forever, waiting for my wits to leave me. Asilda captured me in this state: feeling pity for the woman I was, the woman I would always be, regardless of the changing of time. I’d closed my eyes briefly, basking in the present, trying to rid my mind of all thoughts of the future, and when I opened them, she was there, her easel and canvas set up, her pencil poised delicately above the surface. I was in awe of this creature. This being which came from my body carried my blood in her veins. She was the day, just as her aunt, just as here sisters and her brothers and her father. And still, I was the twilight, left somewhere to linger in the spaces that divided the day from the night. I could walk in both. I could exist in both. Yet I was still divided, and could never fully live in one or the other.
So she painted me and captured perfectly the gentle amusement in my eyes. She knew I watched her, knew I listened to the careful scraping of pencil against canvas. She knew I waited patiently, still and unmoving. I was her doll and she had me positioned to her liking. I knew that a sly smile was on my face. I knew that I, just as that picture would endure, and I waited. I don’t know how long it took her to finish, but I waited as the world moved on around us. Mira and Morigan came and went, Bartholomew came home to visit. Aiden fixed dinner. Mother and Morgana came over. They laughed, and joked and ate, yet still Asilda and I sat transfixed in what was going on between us. This strange bonding…
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Cliffhanger, yes I know. More later:clap:
