Summer Garden

Summer

Summer strained, her face covered in sweat, her wings drooping and without colour. Her feet were planted, but her knees were shaking. She couldn't keep this up much longer. She could feel the essence of magic burning her, burning out each nerve ending in her body, leaving her numb, but coughing and dying. She was dying. Nothing she knew of could sustain this physical form much longer. She'd reinforced each of the cells, carved conduits made of materials she had invented on the fly into her. Her brain was half-crystal now, as the neurons failed she'd replaced them slowly, one by one. She couldn't sustain this forever.

Parts of her would die, and she wouldn't be able to replace them all, not in time. In time, everything fails.

"Except love, don't you think?"

Summer swallowed, turning her gaze with weary exhaustion to the calm and happy being who had materialised beside her. Whilst Summer was choking on the magic, the one next to her seemed to snuggle into it, like a warm blanket on a winter's eve. The Fate smiled at her, "Oh. Do stop, Summer. I'd rather you didn't die, not just yet."

The Fae managed to bear her fangs, but no more. Her vocals chords were gone, dissolved.

The Fate waved a hand tiredly, and Summer gasped as she felt the magic ripped from her grasp. Yio yawned, "I didn't come to watch you die, stubborn idiot. I've come, very much against my will, because it is not your destiny to die here. My sisters have decreed it."

Summer fell forwards onto her hands, coughing blood into the empty void. There was no floor as such, no true physicality. She raised her head tiredly, glaring. She'd never got along with the Fates, but Yio least of all. The creature was far older than she was, but also a cruel and immature child.

Yio brushed her dress and sat down slowly on a chair that materialised for her, "I spoke to Trei. I was required to tell him this situation was my fault, and as such I must have no further contact with him ever again. A half-truth, wouldn't you say?"

Summer dropped onto her back, glaring up at the endless void.

The Fate continued quietly, "This was not my fault, Summer. It was yours. My fate is bound to you, you senseless little creature. All the Fates are bound to you. Your death would mean ours, and most of reality along with it. Your world would have been permanently lost to the void. Those three would be all that is. You would condemn them to that fate?"

She didn't answer. She wasn't required to answer to the Fates. Never had been. She saw no reason to create a new set of vocal chords just to deal with her.

Yio hissed angrily, "We gave him an eternal body, Summer. He will be eternal. He will outlive you."

Vindictive, and cruel. Summer smiled to herself, and woefully ignorant of just what kind of creature Trei was.

The Fate stood over her, glaring down, "I was naked when I saw him. Does that create any angst in you? He's had more of me than you ever will, if you die here."

Summer rolled her eyes. Then she traced a finger through the magic, barely touching it as it filled her for a moment, and Yio gurgled as she was hoisted into the air, clutching at a nothingness around her throat. Summer stood up slowly, glaring at the creature as it flailed in her trap. She fractured the air in front of her so it reverberated, "To claim that which is mine, is not possible little Fate. Struggle and cry, and you will die. You have attempted to pervert that which is mine. No choice of your kind may interfere with my path. Do you not remember the terms? You have breached our treaty. Shall I execute you here? I would be within my rights."

Yio stared at her, terrified, her eyes beginning to water as the physical form she inhabited began to feel the effects. Summer dropped her to the ground releasing the woman. She placed a foot on her shoulder and kicked her onto her back. Yio looked up at the Fae leaning over her, at the small smile on her face, and began to shake in fear.