| Author: Jess L Email: ssjb@tpg.com.au Summary: Nicholas, Isabel/Vilandra, memory alternate-pastfic Rating: (Australian Standard) PG - Low Level Coarse Language (only one word ) Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell, other people who are not me do. electricity : memory : crave -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The air around her fizzles and pops as I watch her from the door. She crackles with energy. Yet. She isn't the girl she used to be. Perhaps a little less beautiful by my standards (missing the aura of legend and soft blue light), molded into the picture of earth perfect. But her presence, it's raw energy untapped and how it grates against me. She is Vilandra. Even if the body that wears her soul doesn't know it yet. She looks at me, liquid brown eyes. Slightly sad and compassionate towards a dead enemy's brother. She isn't the girl she used to be. Vilandra's eyes were never sad like that, flat and devoid of vigor. In the end only one thing should matter to her. Getting what's rightfully hers - the throne. When her brother inherited it instead of her. She wanted it more. When her betrothed (the dumb fuck he was and still is) would only fight for it, not to fight to have it. She shifted sides. When K'var betrayed her she made sure that her soul would ascend to more, to try once more for what she deserved. But right now. She's not the girl she used to be. Isabel doesn't remember. She follows me and doesn't know why. She looks at me like she doesn't think she could betray or be betrayed. She looks at me and doesn't remember what we had. (She looks at me and can't see past my skin, even though I know she knows that everyone is more than what they appear to be.) But I remember. I remember the first time I noticed her. It was at her brothers coronation. I was sent there as an emissionary for K'var and oh-so-angry at being sent to watch something that, at the time, had no bearing on anything that mattered. Instead I watched her. Gorgeous face changing from impassive into a look of disgust as we all heard her brothers plans for the first time. I remember meeting her sometime later. Just after her engagement was announced and before war was declared. I pulled her aside and on and impulse told her that we would help her get anything she wanted. That she would inspire such an offer from a foreign general didn't phase her. Coolly she thanked me then retreated down the hallway the picture of the perfect princess. I knew it then that she would not waste my offer on peace. The next time we met, she had changed. The war had set her wildness free. Vilandra did not flinch as I drew my blade across her betrothed's throat she welcomed it. As I drew level with her, unsure of which side she had decided to be on she called on my promise. She wanted power, admiration, everything and was willing to do anything to get it. Even me. I remember her shoving me to the wall. All hungry kisses, clawing nails and intoxicating whispers of betrayal. She knew what she was doing; she played the game so well. Easily pulling me into her abyss. And I gladly let her use me as a step in the ladder, followed her with eyes wide open, ready for the death that would surely come at my questionable loyalty. I remember the last time I saw her. Bathed in the muted light of the great hall she fought with K'var. Eyes flashing when she realised that he had lied to her. Breaking their partnership intending to take the throne for himself. I saw her defeated as she knew that she had chosen too well, that K'var would take her brothers tarnished throne. Like she never existed, like the doors she had opened didn't matter. I mourned for her in death, as her true aura faded and the new one began. Aided by the well-practiced lies that still fall easily from my lips. Isabel is told that K'var was the reason she risked it all for the same reason she couldn't have the throne. Because she belongs there. She isn't the girl she used to be. She is the innocent she was before her brother was king, when she still thought she had a place in the system. She knocks me over. Assaulting me with a twisted piece of metal. Disbelieving, frantic and unaware. In Isabel I crave Vilandra again. The memories make me forget why I am here. Making me want things I haven't wanted in more than fifty years. I want to taste the air around her, ingest her energy again. Get close enough to feel the static through this human shaped casing. It is only a matter of time before I pull the appropriate strings, move the right pieces, say the right phrases. Until she remembers what she wanted and begins to want it again. I will show her who she is supposed to be and where she is rightfully belongs. Until she shakes off this amnesia. Isabel will shatter like glass and Vilandra will emerge. She'll become the woman I remember. Even if it means death. End. |