The moon light slid into the cave silently, the same way it did the last time I was here. So why was I here again? Guilt? Never. Sorrow? Perhaps. Once upon a time I had been her life and she had been my soul. But of course that was once upon at time. This is now.
A small sound behind caused me to turn. The first thing my mind registered was a flash of light blue. What was left of my heart stopped as I thought, 'Impossible.'
Impossible indeed.
It wasn't her. No true surprise. It was an imposter. Although in all respects this girl was indeed the true Blue Medallion holder. I suppose you could say I'd never accept it. Any of them. Not even the Silver Medallion holder. To me they were all imposters. Actors. Bad actors. Though mind you, I was the reason most of them had a job.
I looked at the girl closer. A mortal. Well, that was admittedly new. On first glance, she was nothing to remember. Hair, eyes and skin that was so obviously brown even in the paling moon light. An average stereotype in her world.
She was speaking furiously in pixie. I doubt she was even aware of it. It took a while before you could tell when the medallion was interfering with your speech. You noticed it - your words came out with an accent or your letters came out a little slurred - you just couldn't tell. You would perhaps think you were messing up your words because you were tired or something.
The pixie she was speaking with was speaking much too fast - even for pixie standards. No wonder the poor mortal looked ready to rip her hair out.
'What?' she asked.
'He's here!' He exclaimed.
'Who?' she asked frustrated.
'Him!' He exclaimed like it was the most obvious statement in the world.
'Who's him?' she half shouted.
'The one who killed you!' Completely expected from a pixie. The entire species has horribly short attention spans. To them if you weren't a pixie then you looked the same as everybody else. They saw no need to try to differentiate people unless there was a strong need or want to. Other than that, the entire world was just one person. The most they do, if they think you're important, they'll notice one thing about you that they're positive no one they'll ever meet will have. And you didn't exactly run across those medallions anywhere.
'What?!' She asked again. 'I'm perfectly alive.'
'Not you! The old you!' Apparently this one had a slightly larger attention span to be able to differentiate. It was still a load of nonsense. Or at least it should've been.
'The old me...?' She repeated her hand curling around the medallion as she narrowed her eyes. Suddenly her eyes snapped open.
'Run.' she whispered. And like that the pixie was gone. Any debt he had felt he had owed the 'Old Blue Medallion Holder' that was most likely the reason he was warning this one had been fulfilled in his mind. What happened, happened. Wasn't his problem. The whole conversation would be forgotten by tomorrow.
She stood a little straighter. I watched as she battled with herself before taking a deep breath. Then she turned and looked straight at me. Like she had known I was there the whole time.
I didn't give her time to react. I moved quickly. In an instant her back was against the cave wall, my hand pinning both of her hands above her head while the other held an athame at her stomach.
'Déjà vu.' she whispered.
I looked down.
She looked up.
Déjà vu indeed.
At second glance she was a dreamer. An artist of some sort, even. She had an odd kind of critical creativeness in her eyes. Her right middle finger rubbed the outside of my hand. There was a callus there - most likely from holding her pencils and pens to hard. Definitely an artist then. Perhaps writer too. Any sense of Déjà vu doubled.
There was confused recognition in her eyes. Apparently she knew me. She just didn't know how. Neither did I for that matter.
The Déjà vu eased in the silence. Neither of us spoke a word. We left the other to sort through our own thoughts. Memories.
I watched as the brown hair and eyes turned black and he skin turned painfully pale. I gripped the handle of the athame tighter. Okay then. Sorrow was the reason I was here. She was dead. Because of me... Perhaps guilt had managed to wiggle its way in as well.
My hallucination looked up at me. Not with eyes filled with hate or disgust but with eyes filled with unsure curiosity. Just like when we first met. I pushed the athame till it broke skin. Nothing life-threatening. Just a scratch. Perhaps a tiny scar later. My hallucination broke when the voice that gasped didn't match hers at all. Suddenly I was just staring at a rather brown mortal. One who seemed to have figured out where she had seen me before.
The thought made her grimace.
I think I should feel insulted.
And suddenly her expression changed in an instant. She looked at me and my name fell from her lips almost the same way it had from her predecessor.
"Darron."
But of course she couldn't get it perfect. She was an imposter, after all.
At third glance, she was a fighter. She knew me. What I was and what I was capable of. And she was scared. But she looked like she was ready to claw, kick and bite if it came down to it. Not so she could live. But simply because I was who I was.
She began to squirm and twist and turn in my grip. For the Blue Medallion holder she should be stronger than this. But then again she was new. She hadn't learned how to control the powers that came with the medallion yet. On top of that she was mortal of all things. I tightened my grip and heard her wrist crack. She didn't scream. Didn't show any indication that I had just broken both her wrist. She started to kick, though. I pushed the athame in deeper. That got a wince. Her wound was no longer a scratch. It would definitely scar now. Still not life-threatening. Got her to stop moving, though.
And then she did the stupidest thing in the world.
She looked me in the eye.
It would truly be so easy to kill her now. To activate my power and shove the knife in. To watch her crumple to the floor and bleed to death. Déjà vu at its best. But I had no qualms with her. I wasn't a complete monster.
Not yet.
I pulled my athame out. Let her go and faded out as she fell. I didn't go far. I actually just went deeper into the cave and watched her from the shadows. She pushed herself up on her elbows. She scanned the shadows once before shutting her eyes tight. Then she started whispering to herself. I couldn't hear her but it looked like she was whispering, "Common. Transport! Common!" I nearly laughed.
When her medallion finally started to glow white and spread over her body, she looked down at it before smiling slightly. She looked through the shadows again. She found me just as the white glow covered her face.
"Darron." she whispered one last time and disappeared. I just stared at the general area where everything had just taken place. Where I had confronted the Blue Medallion holder yet again.
And I couldn't help but wish that I had let end this way the first time.
