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“It’s not too late,” Chance said aloud, voice pitched over the shriek of the wind. “You can come back. Please, Alys. Don’t change, don’t make that Choice.”
The presence of the woman in all the memories of the humans made Alys real enough that I could almost touch her.
Walker approached me. The pouring rain flattened his clothing to his frame, a pleasant symmetry. It jogged memories of pleasure in the dark, of touches given and received. Taking on the form of flesh could be pleasant, as long as you weren’t bound to it and made weak. The sight of him woke so many emotions, many conflicting. It was an interesting sensation.
She-that-was had been so angry with him for concealing his true self. A memory of laughter brushed over me, and her self-confidence, her fear for these people. Fear for the child, as well, a consuming emotion.
Perhaps I should go to the city and call him to the sky as well, and these feelings wouldn’t trouble me again. They were uncomfortable. Strangely that thought made me even more uncomfortable and I abandoned it. Let him stay with the substitute parents for this little time, until he grew up, and he would change on his own.
The idea of not seeing the child until then hurt too. What did I need to do to make these thoughts not pain me? Converse with them until all was clear and clean again?
“You lied to her.” My voice held power, music, and a thousand layers of meaning he couldn’t hear. Lightning arced above me—I didn’t need eyes to see it. Remembered pleasure from the lightning’s touch tiptoed across my skin. I could call it down, and all this uncertainty would vanish in pure physical gratification. It would be easier to kill them all, why did I hesitate?
In fact, two here had hurt she-that-was. A flick of power bathed them in lightning, roasting them from the inside out. Since one had no mouth and the other was unconscious, there were no screams, which was pleasant.
A stray flicker of energy hit the one called Kara, who backed away and curled over her chest. Unfortunate.
“No. Walker is who I am; Rope is a mask I wear when I must.” Within him, there was a dark core of power, perhaps enough to transcend as I had.
Chance covered his eyes with a loud smack, radiating exasperation. “Not a time for restraint, idiot. She’s here by a thread, and only you or Dmitri could convince her to come back. Don’t waste your only chance by being understated.”
“Come back, Alys. Please.” The words tore out of Walker, his voice raw. “Alys, I love you. I know life is hard and painful, but there's also love. It’s something you can’t feel as an elf. Remember what you were, at'ééd. You are a woman rarer than jewels, one worth dying for. Remember Dmitri. Who’d play Sea with him and ruin all the cushions if you’re gone?"
The tug to him was strong. Like a cord between us, Walker’s dark eyes met mine, and I felt centuries of patience and waiting, a single task, unswerving devotion, and loss after loss buried behind. The Tree’s presence resided at the back of his mind. The oaths that he’d taken allowed it a presence wherever he was, within his mind. It shared his perceptions.
It peered at me. I regarded it with curiosity.
An entity deeply concerned with the concept of freedom but bound all around it in chains of duty. A paradox to examine; it too was alien and had hidden from our scrutiny.
Another paradox: the emotional ties that still bound him to me, though I had no such attachment to extend back to him. I stroked one, felt the vibration of emotions, like music. His face tightened.
A strong core to this one, a beauty of darkness. I held out my hands. “Dance with me, Walker.”
Chance winced. “You’d lose him, Alys. He’d die or become an elf, and either way, you couldn’t be near him anymore.”
Walker shook his head. “You look like the woman I want, but you’re not her.”
Why did he not see I was so much more now? A few pieces might be missing—lost with chemicals and interconnections needed to be flesh rather than pure power and energy, but they didn’t matter. It was simple to show him.
I touched his face as I stood eye-to-eye with him. The meat had been tiny, and I liked the perspective this shape gave me. Still the tugging, like phantom bands came, reminding me of something I wanted, that I did not have. The connection to the flesh I’d carried within me, fed with my body, the flowering of emotion that had no place in me now. Why did I want Dmitri so much? Or Walker?
The image of the woman in Walker’s mind enticed me, the seductive lure of his tangled emotions. Desire, pride, loss—so many, all twined in a single shining cord. I could call flesh again, if I wished, be encased in its limitations for a few moments. Then I could identify why this longing for the man and the boy then eradicate the emotion. Eternity spent yearning for something I could not understand held no appeal.
Exploring the unknown would dissipate the longing. Even the guttering hope behind Chance’s face spoke to me. While petty emotions were alien to me now, the edges of the hole where they used to be, where these men lived, gaped and itched.
Where my pity and affection for Kara lived.
At its center, Dmitri.
My old meat lay on the chair, strapped down, bloodied, burned, and somehow still breathing, though short and ragged, at the end of its usefulness. Blood leaked from stumps of fingers, and without a mind, it twitched ungracefully.
I drifted above, staring down at it as it spasmed. Was ephemeral emotion worth being encased in such a limited vessel, even for a moment? At the least, it required repair so it could function while I used it. I would copy the chemical connections and take the memories with me when I departed, use them to patch any holes within me.
Healing was simplicity itself to effect: wounds knitted together, tissue regrowing. I required two functional eyes, yes, and bone and flesh to recreate lost fingers and thumbs. I decided to only make one improvement, making the ears as long and pointed as mine, and improving the range the body could hear. Nothing further was needed, since I would not inhabit it for long. As an afterthought, I destroyed the annoying restraints still clamped to wrists and ankles, snuffing the magic woven through them.
I floated over the now repaired body and sank into it, willing the energy that was me to connect to the skin and nerves, wake it to the fact it was once again inhabited. It took quite a bit of effort; taking on the confines of flesh was hard once I’d had the freedom to expand to what I was meant to be.
Still, the memories of Dmitri and Walker prodded me to find that closure.
