The Theory and Beauty of Forget Me Nots

Forget me Nots. That was what she learned they were called as she stared down at the flowers in her hand. The sweet smell was a gentle intoxication for the teleporter. Periwinkle blooms crushed in her palm and left to the wind. She was a Drifter. An outcast. Nothing ever would be the same.

"She is a demon. Be rid of the child. She is not like us. I do not care what they say... she is spawn. There is no way she could be human. Superior."

A scoff, a sneer down as the woman spat on the exposed face of the child. Lilac skinned and strangely marked. The woman pushed the swaddled infant into her husband's hands and stormed off.

He shuddered and set her in the basket. Murmuring a prayer and making the warding symbol. Surely this child could not be born of his wife's womb.

Opaque eyes stared up to the ceiling and the child wailed.

The first meeting of a child to her parents...


On rooftops, drenched in the summer rain, the outcast huddled in her cloak, hood kept low over features. Rain splattered her hands and her fingers clenched around the broken shards of javelin she carried. Death grip.

Opaque depths widened, a grit of jaw. Holding a snarl of pain between clenched teeth. Murderous rage slivered a blade through her passive thoughts as the whip lashed again at her back. "I didn't mean to."

A quiet defense her retort. Her eyes fell to her blood covered hands, flicked to the torn remains of the guard across from her. The gaping wound in his chest that had found its home far outside of the 'sanctuary' she was restrained in. Dor had vowed that she would not use her gift again. A touch had displaced the guard. Torn his heart from his chest and thrown it to the wall and out to the grounds of the sanctuary when a roaming nature of hands became the final thread for Dor's calm.


Perch upon railing, hands curling to wood. Perfect the balance. The nimble born grace of an acrobat. Her hood had fallen from the elf nature of her features. Born of humans or so believed, called the Superior of the race but even humanity in the nature of Dor was questionable. She did not belong.

Strangely marked, lilac skinned and jewel maned Dor found an odd moment in Rhy'din. Grinning at the wolven one with a head tilt and thoughtful look. Perhaps not an outcast any longer.

Tight ropes and Magic. Nimble and Fluid Motion. Strategy and Beauty. Side show. Freak show. The circus felt like home. A carnival claimed possession.

The hushed whispers fell around her. Points and gestures. No horror or shock as they would stare at the other carnival claimed. Dor found eyes watching her, inspecting her, staring at her. "Beautiful... but strange..." Eventually she stopped listening. Found herself staring vacant eyed at the ceiling as her fingers curled to the ropes at each side of her... and without a care in the world.. that swing would move. Back and forth sway.

There were moments she daydreamed of flying. Moments she dreamed of disappearing...

And that...

Was just...

What she did.


New faces. New places. Not quite home but perhaps a place to belong. The hood drawn over features.

She found her thoughts drifting over a memory. A notion.

The theory of the strange beauty of forget me nots.

A perch on railing. A resting place to call home. Time shifted. Spiraled and swept her up. Where would it lead the Drifter?

Fast paced. A moment alone. Stranger in a Strange world. Fingers scrubbed at her features. Memory ridden.

There were tears in her eyes. Sobbing as she ran after the man in the rain.

"No. You cannot mean that!"
"I'm sorry, Dor."
"But... we're the same."
"Not anymore..."

Affection was a fool's remorse given the longevity of time. The rain dripped cold lines. Dor slicked a hand through her hair as she watched the one she trusted and had cared for walk away.

Opaque depths frosted over. Hard moonstone. Never again she swore.

Summer burn. Morning sun. A sigh. In those quiet hours she did not feel condemned, burdened by what she was.

Tentative fingers peeled away the cloak, let it drop to the railing. Leaving lilac flesh exposed. Hand rubbed a shoulder.

Uncomfortable she would bask in sunlight. Morning Glory revelations. Forget me nots uncertainty.

The woman could only risk so much.

Time.

She did not trust it.

She was running, the broken shard of javelin palmed from the quiver as her pace increased. Like a deer hunted she was graceful and swift. A glance behind before pace sped up.

This was what it was to be hunted. Opaque depths took on the moonstone hardness, narrowing.

Was it not just yesterday he had left her in the rain? So different now. He hunted her.

A realization that hardened her heart, placed a wild knot in her spirit.

Untamed.

She was dangerous in the savage garden. An abomination he had called her.

Dor turned to face him. Waited for the right moment.

"Dor. Just give in. It will be easier this way."
"Nothing is ever easy."
"I can take the pain from you."
"You cannot take away what you have brought to me."
"I was once like you. Freed now, do you even understand the bliss of it?"
"You're nothing like me."
"That is how it is to be then?"
"Yes."
"So be it."

She knew the cry of alarms as he pressed the button as his wrist. He would not longer be so generous in his hunt. Dor was meant for the project.

They took her down but not without her bringing down one of their own. The javelin shard found its way through his ribs. Pierced vulnerable muscle.

A heart could be so strong and yet so weak. The shard gleamed amethyst before Dor was blinded. Blood soaked her features, plastered her hair as his heart was displaced, rendered from his body by the nature of her 'gift'. Enforced by the javelin shard.

There was darkness then as they took her down. No remorse.

Viktor would not hurt her again. They were never the same...

Sunrise. She watched it with a partial indifference. Turned her eyes away. Her life was hardly a portrait of innocence and joy. Opaque pair watched the gold thread of light through summer leaves.

A lick of lips, lapped away the tea before draining the mug. Dor recalled discussion of other portraits. Living portraits.

Knew those that she crossed paths with now wore their own hidden scars. Some not so hidden.

These things, she did not forget. Forget them she would not.

She was laying out in summer grass, fingers extended to caress a bloom of wild flowers gathered. There was something in the cross of her mind. A crux of shadows and sunlight. Recollection for a woman destined for a lifestyle of forget me nots.

At her wrist was a cord of black, dangling from it a javelin shard, glowing bit of amethyst in color.

Her eyes closed, she heard the whispering. Ignored them as ever.

"Hush. Please be quiet."

A pleading.

It began when she was eleven. Moments in parks, in forests, in glens and the whispers would begin. Alluring and drawing. Sometimes it seemed as madness.

The moments the whispers came her memories faded. The moments would be brushed away like cobwebs cleared from her mind. All she knew then was her senses. Feeling.

Heard the birds, the trees, the wind whispering through branches. Did the flowers speak?

A pounding headache. Nature was not always so kind.

Eleven.

Without a memory of how she got there in the forest. Or why she bled like a druid's sacrifice to a goddess. Or why her blood spilled down flesh of lilac in the shade of spring grass.

Forget me not.

Do not forget.

She could not remember...


"Forget me not."

Whisper a plead as she struggled to remember. A move to sit up to find she could not.

Vines ensnared her. Cutting deep into flesh.

A scream and she struggled, the vines cut in deep and she screamed out again.

The whispers increased tenfold.

"Stop. Stop. STOP!!!"

The vines fell helpless as the woman disappeared, tumbled into an off kilter place.

If only to escape.

She knew what she was or more so what she was becoming. It had caused a rift. Well she knew this. It was not the first time.

Rifts. The Drifter knew them well. Perched on a rooftop as a lilac skinned gargoyle. Wishing for rain.

But it was far too still to fly kites.

What sweetens you...

Mongrel. Wolf's Bane. Mutt." It were the least violent and cruel of the names she had been called.

The Drifter struggled against the shackles, knowing well that crisp copper scent in the air was her blood. Painted lilac flesh a darker shade.

The color of bruises and broken dreams.

"Take care of her. She will be in the ring tonight."
"And her adversary."
"Send in Vihiar."

There was a corruptive dispute, a dark blade of fury and panic that crept through the Drifter's spirit.

Vihiar.

The man was a beast.

Chin lifted. Gripping sharp line.

"Do you fear, Vihiar?"
"There is no reason to fear wolves"
"And why not, Drifter?"
"They bleed the same as us all."

Teeh bared in a smile. A feral sharp thing, opaque depths the cold severity of moonstone.

"So you will face him then?"
"I will be the death of him."



Wolf's Bane.

Another name worn. Her fingers gripped into the roof before she was lunging off of it. Near in soaring flight. A twisting turn in the air even as two of the javelin shards were drawn from the quiver.

Arms thrown out, Legs pulled towards her chest as she called out a sharp and solitaire word. The portal opened before her and she was devoured by it.

A willing sacrifice.

Rain and Kites. Misguidance and the feeling of not being strong enough.

There never was enough time to confess to Lucky that along that broken passage, she had lost all that could sweeten the spirit.

Everything was cold and bitter now, burning and brittle.

Her road was broken and that passage to hope was barricaded and filled with sharp blades and barbwire.

Wolfs Bane. Forget me Not. Where is your Sweetness now?
Gone...I have chased it away. Like a kite in a hurricane, the rain keeps pouring down.

I am drowning...

The broken shards of javelin were held to either side of her. That killing dance. Violent and bloody. It had left its mark. Then again she had left her own marks on the oen that she fought.

"Wolf's Bane. Are you planning on living up to your name?"
"If it comes to that."

That soft edged voice was dull and flat. Focused and no longer so gentle. Determined and raw. Survival. She knew it well.

A hiss of pain as the knives slid deep into her skin, cutting open lilac skin and leaving it well known that she would bleed red as rubies in the night.

Hands gripped on to those javelin shards. A glisten of energy poured into the shards leaving them as shining blades of amethyst. Her eyes reflected that same glow.

"Forgive me."

A whisper. Those words seemed to awaken something. Stirred within her. The acrobat's grace and skill was there. Leaping into the air, a twist of spine and limbs as that shard arched above her. Finding it's home in the center of Vihiar's spine.

A twist and a gasp of brutal glee and horror escaped the crowd of spectators that watched on as the wolf's body split apart. Seeming to crack open before exploding and coating Dor with everything visceral and wet.

The shards were dropped amongst the mess. Gaze dead and void of emotion.

"I am the Wolf's Bane. Heed my words for they are truth."


Fingers pressed to her temples as the memory faded. Forget me Not. Was that what she had always wished and yearned for?

"I am the Wolf's Bane. Heed my words for they are truth."

Where once the words had been spoken without emotion, these were whispered and wrought with torment.

She did what had to be done. No matter the price. No matter the cost.

Wolf's Bane. The name would claim my life, trials of dark upon my spirit as tattoos on flesh. I had watched the wolves for as long as I could remember, dreamed of them as a child when I was the outcast. I learned then that some men would be wolves or would wish to be so when the reality was that pups could not be wolves, and men could not run with the pack as they wished.

The facade remained. Words were nothing more then spoken illusions, a shattered mirage. The broken passage to the heart.

Dor was high above them all in the new and yet familiar territory of the carnival. The Shelter's carnival had been a thriving success and the allure of what once had been drew the teleporter like nothing else before. No longer did she feel so much the outcast or the freak. She no longer hid herself no matter how vulnerable and exposed it would make both her spirit and heart to leave herself raw and open for the ruin.

Opaque eyes closed as her head lifted toward the sky and a private smile touched her lips to reach in offering out to the stars. Dor knew of the expectation of those below her, the waiting crowd holding their breath as they expected her to take the leap.

A free fall.

To just give in and let go.

She didn't have to worry about a net or someone to catch her when she would fall. Dor had come to understand that you couldn't rely on others to save you or break your fall, only one could save themselves in order to land on their feet each and every time.

Everyone below was waiting.

Her arms stretched above her head and closed eyes revealed the memories of the faces of those endeared to her. The faces of those she loved that had left her on her own to learn and understand.

There was no one but herself.

Understanding gave her the trust and will to take the leap and that was exactly what she did. Without a net and without anyone to catch her admist the surprised gasps of the gathered below... Dor took the leap of faith... and jumped.

It becomes difficult to realize that in order for one to love you that one has to love themselves. The idea of loving someone means to let them go has crossed my thoughts time and time again. I have let them all go and perhaps now I just wait. These seconds, these minutes, these hours, months and years are mine to learn from. I no longer will wait but instead carry on. Perhaps if meant this broken passage of the heart will find a path to healing once more. Wolf's Bane. I understand the name so well now.