la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

34

The days wouldn't be so hard to get through if the nights weren't so god awful. Minerva had very little to look forward to, each day a copy and paste from the last. The nights offered only the most minor deviations.

Exhaustion got the better of her around 3am each night. It wasn't that she didn't want to sleep, she was dog tired. The sleep was always brief, waking around 6 or 7 feeling like she hadn't slept at all. It wasn't blink sleep where you feel like you've just closed your eyes before you open them again. She felt like she spent days on end in her subconscious before awaking in a cold sweat, more tired than when she'd laid down in the first place.

Until her body was practically trembling with exhaustion, she did anything she could to keep herself occupied. The house was clean, her books were read, the crops were looked after. Drawing and writing were quickly dismissed outlets, even after Carlisle's encouragement to get back into the latter. All her art came out dreary, snapshots of things she'd seen in her dreams or places she could never return to. She'd put her foot through more than a couple canvases. The writing always stopped as quickly as it started, poetry was bleak and depressing. Any narrative she attempted to outline always hit a swift road block that resulted in tapping out.

Luckily, living as long as she had, Minerva had honed other skills. She'd taught herself to play the trombone and the banjo in her sleepless nights. It was a good pass time, to pick a song and then learn the arrangement of it on every instrument it contained, especially if she didn't know how to play it already. When that grew boring, she'd write the most convoluted musical piece she could conceive of and decide on how she'd arrange it, what the timing would be. In her head, she could hear how it all sounded together. Even if she was just abysmally playing the same four chords on the piano for twenty minutes, it was adding to the score in her head.

Tonight, nothing was flowing. She'd tried everything. Sitting down at her keyboard, Minerva played half a dull tune before she shut it off. Drawing left an ink blot on the middle of her page and writing yielded the same. Giving up meant she slid a DVD of the twilight zone into the TV and settled in to rot on the couch. It didn't take long, once she was stationary and her mind unemployed, for her to doze off. Still dressed, without a pillow or blanket at that.

The dreams always seemed to start in the middle, like a movie she'd sat down for half way through. Minerva knew a battle field when she saw one. The ground beneath her feet was uneven with wear and a blanket of corpses. The sickly copper scent had tainted the wind, invading her senses. She turned a few times, taking in the sights; In every direction, as far as she could see there were bodies. Whatever the fight was about, it was over.

The destroyed armour adorning a body nearest to her told her this had to be an old fight, Greek or Roman though her instincts were safe with the former. Lightning cracked through the murky sky, illuminating a single standing figure. Minerva was better than average at recognizing that she was dreaming but it gave her no control over them, just powerless lucidity. She stepped through the carnage, walking the distance to approach the survivor. The temperature dropped with every step closer.

The hair on the back of her neck began to stand as she got within range, a palpable evil thick in the air. Even still, she moved closer. Lately, she played little role in her dreams. When she did it was like a script that her dream self knew to follow though she was aware of the fabrication. She'd grown accustomed to being the observer. A pit slammed into her stomach when the individual looked at her. Not through her, not around her, not behind her. They stared directly into her, only made worse by the fact there were no eyes at all. The pallid, wrinkled face creased into a smile, crows feet crinkling around empty eye sockets.

"Minerva," it drawled out, savouring every syllable it crossed, "Champion of Hecate." Her throat grew tight, "Your flesh is strong but your will is weak." It moved, not walking but gliding over the bodies surrounding them, feet passing through them like they weren't there at all, "A tragedy to ignore the call of fate, to accept death with open arms." It was like the oxygen in the air had been sucked away, retreating with a gust of wind into the long black cloak that swirled around this stranger. There was no hope of a breath in, a pathetic sputter caught in her throat as she began to panic. Even with the wind settled, the cloak still writhed around him as if even it were trying to escape this creature. "Champion is such a generous term for the likes of you." Her icy hands clasped at her throat, eyes burning with tears as she wobbled on unsteady legs. "Your bastard god has let you succumb to the theatrics of the mortal coil. For that, you will both die." Her knees buckled underneath her as she coughed for breath, hands shooting out to break her fall.

Hands and knees colliding with the earth didn't find it as solid as it should be. Instead, they sunk right through as if she were stumbling off a cliff. She couldn't even scream for the lack of air, free falling into darkness.

Minerva jolted awake with a sharp intake of breath, shivering with a cold sweat as she came to terms with the startling realization that it was a dream. It felt as real as the couch beneath her, her lungs were still burning. The sun streamed in through the open curtains causing her to squint as she swivelled her head around to look at the clock.

10:30am. Little Leaf was supposed to open a half hour ago and there was a pick up scheduled for the exact minute she watched the clock tick to. "Fucccck." She exclaimed, jumping off the couch to run to the bathroom. All she could manage was a quick brush of her hair and teeth before she flew out the door like a bat out of hell.