A Time of Bonding

[saerwen]

The sunset was blazing through the sky like a shooting star. The colors blended together as though they were all one color, with many different shades. Pinks blurred into orange, blues blurred into purple. Birds went soaring through the air, waiting for the night to come so that they could fly away home and rest from their long days work. The clouds looked like plumes of smoke, rising from the ground, but really, it depended on the angle that you saw it from.
In the woods, down in the deeper part, high in a tree, about half way up, Jaedon sat on a large limb, watch the sunset. She loved to watch that flaming ball go down into slumber. It was rather masochistic, but she always liked how it seemed like it was dying in its own flame. A rather glorious way to die every night, because it would come alive again with flames reborn anew every morning. She was enjoying the peace and quiet, and she leaned her head against the trunk of the tree, becoming fully relaxed. However, when a butterfly came flying by, Jaedon had the strong desire to play with it. She started to put her hand in front of its path of flight, and then she started trying to catch it, but the little creature was far too nimble. It flew off into the distance, but a squirrel took its place. But this little sprite was determined to annoy Jaedon. She was happily ignoring its presence when it started throwing nuts at her. She tried to scare it off by throwing a pine cone at it, and it seemed to work for a little while, but thenit came back. Jaedon eventually rose from where she was and went after the little thing. While she was crawling up through the limbs after the little squirt she slipped, and fell down a few branches. She didn't hit anything on the way down, and actually landed on her feet, but the limb she landed on shook so much that the rest of the tree was disturbed. However, this had put her in the prime position to catch the little, bushy-tailed rat. And so, she stayed on that limb, holding the squirrel, very tempted to just squeeze the life out of the little imp.

[Neron]

A beautiful day ending with a splendid sunset, everything seemed perfect. The trees were beautiful, the air was splendid and the wind brilliant. But all the beauty was lost on a dark soul that wandered the depths of the forest. Hair like a starless night covered his head with thick, coarse hair, hanging into his eyes hiding the green depths from view. He seemed like a living shadow wandering among the trees, calling out the darkness that was growing about him from the setting sun. Scratches covered his arms, a long cut flamed across his face, but none of these matched the scar on his shoulder, it was a gnarled scar, a jagged line across his pale skin. He was a depressed soul and a lost one.

Suddenly with no reason his form came form the sluggish walk that it had been going into a full out sprint. His form flew through the woods, dodging around trees, leaping over roots, not caring if the branches smacked him in the face or tore at his arms. His heart felt like it was about to burst from his chest, his legs felt wobble and uncoordinated, and his throat burned from the exertion. It was now that the wind pushed his hair from his face and revealed red rimmed, blood shot eyes, pale face and firm mouth. But even though his body wanted him to stop, he pressed onward, not caring if he stumbled or tripped his way across. Perhaps if he ran himself to exhaustion he would die and everything would be over. Leaping into the air he flung himself at a tree, his hands sprouting razor sharp claws in the place of fingernails. With a grunt of anger he slashed deep into the tree. The dull sound of wood being cut rang through the forest. But the slash was enough and Neron collapsed on the ground, holding his head with his hands. What had he done last night.. why was he this way? He hadn't been able to sleep, he hadn't been able to do anything without the realization of what he had done facing him. How could he almost kill one of his closest friends. “You are a beast.. a monster.. a demon.” He muttered to himself. “You are everything that you wish you weren't, you have become your worst nightmare and there is nothing you can do about it. You are bound to this side with chains unbreakable. You would be better off dead. Then no one could be bothered with you, then no one would ever be hurt by you. Plus who would miss you, you are a worthless carcass. ” His whole dialogue had been muttered under his breath. He paused for a moment before continuing, “Perhaps.. it would be.” He looked at his claws, it was be so easy this form was so weak. Then he would no longer have to be restrained he could finally be free. The claws rested against his throat, but they never made a single mark on himself. He sat there, ready, but he couldn't bring himself to it. His arm flopped by his side, he couldn't, he was scared. Scared of death and what it would bring, scared of what Miriel would do. “You are a coward...” A hoarse chuckle came from him, “Though that's no new information.” IT was now that a tree nearby suddenly shook with the force of some big animal falling in it. “What the.” He leaped up and looked up into the tree. There seemed to be a big black animal, but the tree's foliage was to dense to see to clearly who it was, or what it was.

[saerwen]

Jaedon was still holding the squirrel firmly in place. It was trying to bite her hand, and it was skwaking something terrible. She was about to throttle the little thing when it stopped sudden and sniffed the air. Something had scared it, something other than herself. She looked up into the sky, and then she looked back to the squirrel which was shaking. She inhaled the air with her nose, trying to locate what it was that had scared the little thing. She then looked down to the ground. Through the branches of the tree, she saw someone on the ground a little ways away. He was looking up at her, but it was obvious that he was having trouble figuring out who, or what she was. She looked at the squirrel with apathy.
“Take a chill pill you little imp. You need to be more scared of me than of him. She looked back to the guy that was slumped on the ground, she concentrated, and then, she recognized him. It was Neron, and he looked bloody aweful. It was obvious that he had recently been in a fight. She sighed, looked at the squirrel and with a pouting face said, “You got lucky today...” with that she opened her deadlock on the little creature, and he jumped off, scurrying away as fast as possible. “There goes dinner...” she muttered under her breath, but it was still audible.
She then nimbly started to come down from the tree, swinging on branches, jumping from here to there. It felt like she was on a play ground or something. It was fun to climb trees, and she was good at it. Trees were also good places to hide. She grabbed onto a branch that was about 7 feet off the ground, swung down and then landed with a slight thud. Brushing her hands off, she then looked at Neron.
“Fancy meeting you here.” She was obviously being sarcastic.

[Neron]

Neron actually wasn't the bit surprised when the big animal leaped from the tree and ended up to be a human, more specifically, Jaedon. “Figures.” He muttered. “Every time I try and be alone you show up some how.” His blood shot eyes searched over her for a moment. “What are you doing here anyways, spying on me or something?” He turned from her, “Aish.. why can't I ever just be alone.”

His green gaze tilted upward toward the blood red sky. “A blood red sky.. how lovely.[/b]” He snarled slightly before whirling around at Jaedon. “Are you just going to stand there? Or are you going to keep me waiting all day?”

[saerwen]

Jaedon sighed. “Ha, funny how the feeling is mutual.” she was right, and he was right. They both had a really nasty habit of showing up just when the other wanted to be alone. So much for luck. “I don't think my occupation is the 24 hour observation of Neron. I was watching the sun set, and setting my sights on happier things.” She put a hand on her stomach. She looked at him and could tell that he was distressed about something...oh what could be on his mind...
“Well, I can tell that someone is a little on the unhappy side of life. What would you have me do? Start dancing a jig? What is wrong with you today. You look like you haven't slept in days, your in a foul mood, and you seem rather...umm, miserable?” she looked at him with curious eyes. What was going on with him?

[Neron]

Neron didn't share the laughter, instead he just stared at her with bored stoic eyes. “What's wrong with me is what is always wrong with me.” He turned toward the tree that had a huge slash mark branding its trunk. “Why does the blasted sky have to be red.” A stream of curses flowed from his mouth as he sunk his claws deep into the tree. This seemed to have taken some of the anger out of him. A sigh passed his lips as he drew his claws out and let both his hands hang limply by his side. “I'm sure you would be miserable if you had almost killed one of your closest and dearest friends over some stupid argument.”

His eyes focused on the tree in front of him. They drifted over every bump and crevice of the bark, into the slash marks he had put on it. But his eyes suddenly grew distant as a haunted look came into them. His hand reached forward and rested on the tree's new cuts. “If Damion hadn't come along I probably would have let her fall and drown.”

[saerwen]

She sighed after she heard his response. Neron, Neron, Neron...When was he ever going to figure it out. There was no way that he could fix his past, and when he realized that and came to grips with that reality, then his anger problems wouldn't be such a bloody mess. She raised an eyebrow at his last statement. “Say what?”
She looked to the tree, and the deep gashes that he had obviously torn into it. He was angry, but Jaedon knew that he was not angry with her, or anyone else, not yet at least. Neron was angry with himself. He had probably gotten angry with someone and then they got in a fight, and his darker half took over. When he mentioned Damion, Jaedon grew suspicious. His haunted face betrayed that it was a very close friend. The only close friend that Jaedon knew about that was here at the academy, within Damion's “patrol grounds” was Miriel. “Let me guess. You and Miriel were arguing, you got mad, she got mad, and the two of you started fighting and let it go way too far...” she eyed him closely. “Am I close?”

[Neron]

“No not close, dead on.” He didn't face her. Instead his hands raised up and covered his whole face. A muffled sound came from his mouth. Between his hair and his hands Jaedon couldn't see his face even if he had been facing the right way. “You should have seen her. The blood, the pale features. She couldn't even heal herself. I almost killed her...I almost killed her.” Before his eyes the whole scene replayed. The fight escalating the shifting forms, the fighting. His blow to her, her falling. Everything it was crystal clear in his mind.

His eyes showed in between his fingers, and they were slitted, he was going through a memory and voices were playing in his head. Egging him on, beating him down, making him feel guilty. “I think I'm going insane..” He held his head in between his hands, wanting to crush the voices out of his head. HE was being sucked into his memories but he was fighting against them once more. But this time it wasn't trying to make him shift forms or cause a fight, but rather make him guilty. “You're not needed... You're a monster....” It shouted at him. IF Jaedon asked anything he would answer straightly, he was to sick of everything to care about secrets.

[saerwen]

“Sounds like you screwed up pretty sorely.” she knew that there was nothing to say. Neron was really upset, and she knew it. It was strange to watch him like this. It was like Jaedon wanted to help him, but she knew that she of all people was the last person in the world to tell him how to fix anger problems. When he said that he thought that he was going insane, she cocked her head. She smirked and then sat down on the cold ground. “Neron, if you are going insane, then I am already there.” she was not speaking out loud, but rather in the back of his head. She was not prying, she was not there to invade, simply to have a silent conversation. “What is going on? Why are you so out of sorts? Is it simply because you are guilty for hurting Miriel? If that is true then you can stop the party right there. You can't begin to talk about hurting special people, the only ones that you have ever killed are the people that you don't treasure. Have you noticed that every time you come close to killing someone that is very special and close to you, you never quite get there. FYI, Neron... from the way that you are talking, and knowing Damion... Miriel isn't dead.”

[Neron]

Neron didn't reply at first before his legs gave way and he collapsed on his knees. “But she almost was.. I have never met anyone like Miriel before, she's special to me, very special. Lots of times she was the only one that could calm my nerves and save me, she saved me many times, not just from the wounds of that one fight. But many times, yet even though I got hurt time and time again she willingly took the pain and sacrificed herself for me. ” He turned toward Jaedon. “What type of person does that?” Then his face turned toward the sky. The fading sunlight caused him to look even more like pure darkness than ever before. “Why would someone like her hang around someone like me. It doesn't make any sense. I almost extinguished it Jaedon, I almost extinguished her flame. If everything had gone as planned I would have forced her into the water in her Phoenix form. You know what type of death that would bring to her.” . ----- “Secondly I didn't come here to just be alone..” He couldn't face Jaedon, “ I came here to finally put an end to me fighting with memories, no longer would they torture me.” His eyes drifted at his hand, the claws were still razore sharp. “But I'm to much of a coward to end them.” His hand dropped to his side. “ Sometimes I feel like a shadow Jaedon, fading away and distant every day of my life. It's like something is eating me inside out, getting rid of everything. ” He frowned deeply. “Forgive me Jaedon, none of this should be told to you, you shouldn't have to bear my memories and your own. Though you are right, I have no excuse to be acting like this. But I'm to much of a weakling to know how to act otherwise. I have so much to learn...” This time he turned and looked at Jaedon straight on, “HOw does Damion do it? Even when he learned that Miriel was his worst enemy, a species he hated with every fiber of his being, he still pushes it aside and helps her?

[saerwen]

Jaedon sighed. “Don't ask me how they do it Neron. I have watched Miriel since I was 15 years old. I have seen everything that she does, and how she acts. I have watched Damion since I was 14, and I have seen what he does and how he acts. The reason that I can't tell you is because I have never known what they know. It is a kind of love for life that I can't really find an explanation for. Damion, for example, is no fool. Granted, he is a little too slow sometimes, but he is not a fool. He would rather play the fool and cause his friends great joy than be known as cool, and quick. He sacrifices his image so that he can see his friends smile, because that provides so much more pleasure for him. “Miriel, she loves to heal. She would be so unhappy if she couldn't heal her friends because she knows that healing people is one way that she shows kindness to them. She lives to be kind simply because she can. She likes to take other's pain upon herself so that she can end theirs. Her life serves a purpose, it is more than you or I could ever live for, because we don't have the kind of mentality that strives to love, and to live life to the fullest, seeing it for what it really is. “Neron,” she sighed. Her eyes became glazed over with a look that said she was remembering something very painful. “that is not how you should measure courage. That is not what courage is. Courage is being able to face what you fear the most, what you struggle with the most, and to be able to conquer it, and say that you have it under control. Courage is trying hard to bring everything in you that might be chaos, and learn to control it. You are not a coward, Neron, you are alive. You are breathing, you can move, you can see, you can hear, you can smell, you can taste, and Neron, you can feel. This is what you can do. You can keep getting up every day, knowing what you have done, and pushing on, trying to get better. Or, you can also give up, and end everything, making the true horror of the punishment you deserve null, and make everything that people who cared for you did completely void. You can be self-centered, or not. You can make progress, or you can stop it before it even begins.” She sighed again. “I know better than most that killing those you love will haunt you for the rest of your life. Nameless strangers are one thing, but people that you know, that were kind to you, that gave you something that they called their own, those are the dead visages that remain with you always. I killed every person that was ever kind to me, other than Miriel and Damion, because until I met them, I didn't know that there was anything else. If you think that you have a reason to remember and be guilty, then just ask me how many I have killed that called me 'friend', and maybe then you will know of what I speak.”

[Neron]

Neron smiled faintly at her description of Miriel, it was perfect and captured Miriel's soul beautifully. “No I guess we strive to hate life, live the worst way possible, and see it for what we think it really is. I envy them.” His head bowed slightly as he straightened up into a standing position. What Jaedon had said made sense, and it seemed to lift his spirit a bit, but it wasn't long before the voices inside of him tried pulling him back down. “Yes, I can get up every day and see what I have done, nothing. I have done nothing to better life, only to hinder it. I so badly wanted to be loved by someone, but every time I tried to join a family I was turned out into the dirt. So then I killed everyone, the men, the women, the children, even the babies.. None survived. I can still hear their voices, and their screams in the night.” He was silent for a bit about what she was ended with. – His hands changed back to normal as he reached out for the bark. With a sharp movement he broke off a large chunk of bark. IT was soon torn to pieces in his hands. But his head was bowed, in deep thought. IT was strange this forest, it was so dark yet so light in so many ways. Thoughts were easy to start here and brooding was almost impossible to avoid. A minute passed before he continued. “Yes, I could see...I am glad that I know Miriel she gives me hope. After all she still considers you her best friend after what you did to her. It's amazing.”

[saerwen]

“Well Neron, you can't look at how you've been living your life and expect to see anything good when you aren't working to make yourself better. If you can say in truth, that you are trying to better yourself, then that is all that matters. This is one time when I think that it really is the thought and the trying that counts rather than the overall reaction.” She looked at his, her green eyes surveying his face carefully, as though she were trying to remember who he was. Her curling hair started to fall in front of her face. She looked up a little annoyed and blew up away. It worked, for the moment. “I can remember the faces of families who sat terrified as I took the life of their husband, and father, or their wife and mother. Sons, daughters, people who loved each other with a love that I have never known. I envied them, I wanted what they had and because I didn't have it I took it from them without any regret. I still envy them, but now, I also pity them because they know the most painful loss in the world.” she looked down to the ground. She studied some of the leaves that had fallen from the trees, but then she heard Nerons last comment. “What do you mean what I did to Miriel. The closest I got to actually harming her seriously was trapping her in her mind for a while, and I didn't even mean to do that, and I still have no idea how that one happened.” Jaedon was speaking as though she was serious, and she did have bewildered tone when she talked about the 'trapping her in her mind' part. She really didn't know what had happened.

[Neron]

Neron shook his head this was starting to sound to him like a motivational Dvd, one of those You can do it and You're great types that he had heard about. But deep inside he knew that what Jaedon was saying was true. HE did have to start looking on the brighter side of life. “Jolly good..” He muttered more like a curse under his breath. “I guess I should start wearing bright pink and white to cheer myself up and dye my hair bleach blonde.” He smirked, “What do you think? Maybe it would change my outlook on life.” Then his voice lowerd, “Or cause me to kill myself.” He listened to her talking about killing others before the eyes of their family members. He could see her doing that, she was supposed to be an assassin, but even more he could see himself doing that. After all seeing neighbors being eaten by an angry dragon isn't a pretty sight. He wasn't ready for the surprise of what Jaedon had said. “What do you mean? You don't know? She didn't tell you?” He looked down and ran his fingers through his hair, “Aish....So Damion got more of Miriel's history than the both of us. Seems that I wasn't the only one excluded...” His mind whirled, should he tell her, or should he change the subject. The latter, yes most definitely the latter. But then his mind came across the thought, Jaedon needed to know. “Remember the Phoenix lord a couple of years back..That was her father.”

[saerwen]

She knew that there was eventually going to be a sarcastic remark that was going to come and bite her. She was not expecting one that she could laugh at though. The second that he mentioned wearing bright pink and dying his hair bleach blonde she started convulsing. It wasn't audible at first, more like a quiet and short lived giggle, but then, as the image continued to be developed she started to laugh so hard that it made her stomach ache. “Ooph, that would be more than slightly scary. I really would take you to the men in white coats if you did that.” she was still smiling, though her laughing had ceased. She was still having trouble getting that picture out of her mind. “Don't know what? Excluded from what?” She was completely clueless and her smile faded into a rather confuzzled visage that was staring intently at Neron, wondering what darkness she was about to have unfolded in front of her. The second that Neron mentioned the phoenix lord, Jaedon's entire face darkened. She was not sad that she had killed him he had been just another foolish victim, that is, until she heard the rest of Neron's explanation. At first she thought that she had misheard him, and she just sat there, stunned and speechless. She replayed exactly what he had said over and over again. How had she never realized this before?! Jaedon could say nothing, do nothing, think of nothing other than when she had been given the order to kill him and when she had finally succeeded in doing the deed. The murder replayed itself over and over in her mind. She had never done the deed out of hate, and she had done it because of Miriel because she had not yet known Miriel. It had just been a job. But how it hurt now. Jaedon bent her head, her black hair covering her face. She knew that Neron would probably be able to see her eventually, but she didn't care. She was crying. She didn't know what else to do... She had never been upset about anything that she had done in that job, it was just a job, and somebody had to do it... but now, all of the memories, all of the people, they all had had families, and one of them had been close to her best friend in the whole world. The tears fell without anything to stop them. She made no sound, she just sat there.