The Mirrored Souls

21.

Fitting into a time period where a mirrored soul once lived is harder than being in a realm that you're so familiar with. So while Leon and I try to locate a house to squat in for the time being while I recharge energy wise to jump to another place, we get some food from a local market and get directions to a farm that's been vacant for awhile to get some rest. On foot my feet start to hurt and since I used a great amount of energy, my nose starts to bleed and I become lightheaded. Leon makes me get on his back while handing me a woven cloth to plug my nose as he walks us up the trail to the abandoned farm.

Getting to these old rickety barn doors, he places me down gently, then checks out the place before I go in.

"We should be safe here until you recover," Leon says going off and grabbing an old tarp to place on the loft floor of the barn.

I climb up the ladder then lay on the tarp swatting the dust that comes up as I do while laughing as Leon does the same gesture.

Lowering himself next to me, our arms touched, our heads turned to look at one another and he reached out to hold my hand. As we laid there like that my hand started to tingle with small pinches of pain. His touch was poison to my skin but I refused to let go wanting to be comforted. Turning my head so he wouldn't see the tears form from the pain he's causing me, he moves my chin to look at him and his eyes show worry. "What's wrong?" Letting go of his hand and actually touching his face, I leaned in and kissed him. Memories...emotions plagued my mind, one showed a girl and Charles, the other showed the way he felt and looked at me. I moved back slowly and asked, "Why'd you do it?" Propping myself up with my elbows I wait for his response and he catches on to what I'm asking. "I thought it was right without even questioning the reasoning for it, truly." I ping ponged the idea of telling him about the fact that his touches actually leave traces of him there.

"Leon, I need to tell you something..." I hear my heart beating out of my chest, my palms start to itch with nervousness until I finally say it, "When we touch–" I try to finish until his lips are back on mine and we're leaning back on the tarp as he starts towering over me and says, "I won't hurt you Oriana," touching my face an imaginary line is left behind that only I can feel. I let a small smile form and nod not really sure how I was to respond when he's already hurting me.

Before the effects of his touch shows, I turned and buried my face in the tarp trying to get some sleep.

****

Neriah has been smashing, cursing and raging out all his pent up emotions that included Odette, the past, everything that he disregarded just because Darce was his older brother for about thirty minutes. Marv sat back letting the two handle their brotherly fight while making himself a Bloody Mary, licking his fangs as real blood is used for the cocktail. "I CAN'T BELIEVE I TRUSTED EVERYTHING YOU TOLD ME WHEN IT CAME TO ODETTE!" Neriah yells out with the tiny vein popping from his forehead. Darce face palms already in a shitty position and sighs looking at Neriah, "Look," Darce tries to explain but Neriah just throws a bottle near his head making him dodge it out of reflex. "Riah CALM THE HELL down!" Darce's eyes twitch from changing mid sentence, rage blinds him from what he was about to do, Marv prevents him from doing it though having him take a breather upstairs.

"Captain save an ass," Neriah grumbles while sitting in the broken chair he bent.

Marv hands Neriah a drink before saying, "You both are different in many ways," sitting next to Neriah he also says, "But you both have to accept the fact that not everything will be fixed by almost killing each other every time you both try to talk." Neriah shrugs, "I'm tired of this cycle of always trying to fix everything no matter the situation," drinking excessively Marv tilts his head running an idea through his head already feeding off the negativity and says, "Go and take a break then Neriah...I mean Oriana has Leon and Darce needs time to cool off right? So...why not take time for you for a while?" Smiling at Neriah seeing something stir in his eyes, Neriah nods drunkenly, getting up wiping the alcohol from his lips tossing the bottle without a care.

Crossing his legs, Marv taps the table, leaning back he imagines running Moribund himself and using the two Baird brothers to his advantage as both have something he feels he needs more than them...Oriana.

****

Leon watches as Oriana is asleep then notices the mark poisoning her face as it formed into a black vein. Going to touch it, Charles shows up with Vega as they seemed more transparent than normal. "Can you stop playing damsel and knight for a second and ask her how to help us?" Vega whispers. "Yeah, we're fading slowly Leon..." Charles says low while showing his hands as half of his fingers are completely invisible. Leon gets up taking their conversation outside of the barn and near the doors, "She saw a memory about you too and recognized Charles." Vega smiles cheerfully and with hope so does Charles.

"Then when she wakes we'll actually get a chance right?" Vega asks.

Leon nods, "Yes...yes I'll talk to her."

Both Vega and Charles hugged each other then vanished as the barn doors opened and Oriana stood there with blood seeping out her nose, ears and mouth.

"He's using a spell..."

A huge lightning bolt hits near the barn, having it catch on fire and something takes Oriana, dragging her backwards by her feet.