Wolfsbane: Troyler AU

The Primus and the Queen (mini-chapter)

A/N: Just a little extra treat before part 4 of 4, which I will be posting within the next 24-36 hours!! I also sneakily tell you a little bit more about what Tyler's role is (a v v v little bit lol). Um... dat's it. *climbs back into writing hole to finish Tyler's chapter which will NOT end on a cliffhanger...hopefully :-).* 

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Primus POV

Though she stood over my supine form, stood over me quietly like a specter at her own grave, confused and seeking understanding, I chose not to acknowledge her presence.

I hovered in a space between unconsciousness and alertness, in the hazy sliver of a moment between the blackness of the unknown and the brilliance of awareness. I was in a life, in the colored space that shows vitality. A life not my own, perhaps, but still living nonetheless… living in a particular moment with the wolf and the wolfsbane.

I was still watching the reel unspool, watching as Tyler, the wolfsbane with hair like banked lightening, attempted to stop the wolf from murdering his kin. My eyes twitched beneath my closed eyelids, and the wolfsbane touched the young wolf, and an unsettling, fleeting flush of anger moved through me as he set flame to the wolf, to the young untried, ignorant creature, to my wolf, set him aflame to burn him from the inside out.

I knew what the wolfsbane was trying to do. Fire purifies even the most persevering evil.

I watched the wolf look at the wolfsbane, pain and questions flaring in his eyes, and then his head snapped backwards, his spine stiffening, lengthening, and his mouth fell open. He screamed. I did not hear the cry, as the space in between life and death does not have sound, but I saw the cracking in the black pools of his eyes, the broken awareness of the heated weapon pummeling against his skin, the way the corners of his eyes whitened, and the slanting gape of his mouth as spittle trembled on his pale lips. I saw the way his neck throbbed, the vocal cords expanding and contracting beneath his smooth flesh, and I knew a roar was exploding from his mouth. 

Then, like a pup shaking off his coat after being caught in a light mist, the wolf shuddered, his dark eyes rolling into his skull, and he burned no more. I smiled, and as this was a rarity for me, I could feel the sharp sting of my lips splitting, and as my tongue soothed the pain away, I tasted the coppery blood. The young wolf was strong to throw off such power, and the wolfsbane had much to learn if he-

My body moved. Being alone and watching the world did not require any but the art of patience and observation, but when the woman whose eyes I felt upon me, the confused specter of a human, tried to reach out to touch me, my body reminded me what it meant, in part, to be primus. I felt the air move, a pushing of foreign flesh through space, and my skin tingled in anticipation of a fight, tingled with the warmth of blood waiting to be spilt by my hand, and yet, I knew this was not what was to be. And so my body moved, slipped off the cooling earth and through the candle lit space like water through the sea, invisible, undetected, without flaw. When I was behind her, I opened my eyes, stared at her back, and spoke.

"It is never my wish that you touch me, Jacqueline."

The blonde woman gasped and turned sharply towards me, her face slack with surprise. 

"H-how… how the hell did you move that fast, Sophia? I was just… just looking at you, asleep! I was about to wake you-"

"I am swift," I said.

"Well, damn right you are. Jesus, Sophia, if you had told me-"

"I am also not this Sophia. I am Primus." Jacqueline stepped toward me, her hand extended, but then rocked back on her heels as she saw my eyes narrow to slits. She sighed deeply, as if I wearied her greatly, as if I was the one intruding on her sacred space. I felt my eyes narrow further. She muttered something, there was a thickness like honey in the air, and a chair materialized. She sat.

"I need your help, Prima."

"Primus, Jacqueline. And how did you find me? You are not of my own." She signed, folded her hands in her lap, and shook her head slightly, tossing her short blond hair off of her face. 

"You need a name," Jacqueline lifted her shoulders delicately, "I figured Sophia or Prima was as good as any since you won't tell me or anyone what it really is. And Annabelle told-"

"Your mother's lips have loosened greatly in our seventy year acquaintance," I interrupted. Walking over to stand before her, my bared feet pressing into the dampened earth, I said slyly, "You prevented me from seeing a wolf kill a witch. I suppose I must satisfy this interrupted ending by finishing it myself."

As I've known it to be for centuries, as was shamefully typical of this power-laden family, Jacqueline was unafraid. She stood from her chair, standing tall before me, before falling to one knee, her head bowed.

What a smart one she is. I cocked my head to the side, observing her submissive stance. 

"If you let your wolf kill my son, I will end you." She did not look up at me, and though her chin was tucked close to her smallish frame, her voice was not muffled, but rang clear as crystalline bells. I smiled for the second time then, licked my lips to forestall the drips of blood from lacing my chin.

"It is not my place to interfere with the wolf and the wolfsbane, Jacqueline. Your son must save himself. And he must also save the wolf." She looked at me then, her eyes focused intently on my placid face, and frowned. I frowned at her, mimicking her expression. Slowly, I lifted my hand and pointed it at the chair she had brought to her. "Sit." 

Curiously, I watched her as she climbed from her kneeling stance, and folded herself into the wooden chair. She kept her back stiff as she sat, her neck still, and her head tilted regally. 

"I told Tyler that Troye was his soul mate," she said softly, looking toward the spot where I had lain.

"I know," I said, watching her as she spoke. 

"I didn't know what else to tell him, you know? I never met my wolf. I don't know what he's supposed to do!"

A small smile bloomed hesitantly on her lips. "It seemed all so exciting when he told me over the phone, and I think I forgot, for a split second- for a second that turned into a long moment- that this was not a fairytale. I forgot the danger." She breathed in deeply, held the wind inside her, then released it, carefully. She fixed her gaze to me, and I noted a shimmering glaze over her orbs. She was no longer smiling. "Will my son die, Primus?"

I was silent. She stared at me, and I drifted away briefly into another, more familiar life reel, thought back to my spirit-warrior, my wolfsbane, my dead heart, dust within the earth, several lifetimes and miles away. I thought of the blood-rage that had overtaken me as his spirit left his body, a phantom on the wind, the decades after that spent fighting and killing and breaking apart. I thought of the blackness when my own soul shattered finally, and the emptiness, and the need to break everyone else around me, the need to fill up my void with their pain, to paint my darkened world with their red blood. I had become a monster. I am still a monster, but I am learning to remember who I used to be, who I was supposed to be. 

I marveled at the wet trails on Jacqueline's face, wondered what it felt like to feel fear and heartache enough that your body bleeds its essence for it.  

"I hope he does not, Jacqueline."  

She cried softly then, gentle, fragmented pants escaping her, and I stood apart from her and watched as her body shed its pain in the only way it knew how.