15. Blood magick {RO&EN}

When caught in a whirlwind,

Surrender

& let the vortex spit you out.

N.

The memories of Alessandro washed over me like the May storm that day we met. A torrent of stories waiting at the border of my consciousness, to burst in like guests I haven't seen in a while, bringing both gifts and grief.

I was splayed onto my mat, curled under the memories that came rushing, too fast, too soon, too intense.

I wiped my nose and tears. I'm bleeding. Have I been in this trance too long? Was it hours? Days?

My knees felt bruised, muscles tensed, head heavy. I took a conscious inhale, one hand on the heart, the other on the womb. I couldn't stand up.

Even now, hundreds of years away from that day we first met, Ales had the same effect on me as if he was living, breathing besides me. My vulva throbbed with nostalgia, lust dripped on my thighs, drops of desire no memory could quench.

Delaying is not helpful when your business is with your own soul. When you have to organize memories, thoughts, emotions, when you have to sweep clean your soul and find appropriate graves for all the stories that ended.

Until you bring peace and lay beautifully at rest what you lived one piece of you is always a little lost. The contour of your soul is rugged and blurry in places, your mind scattered and no matter how hard you try, you're never fully here.

When you wander through disheveled memories everything is vivid and overwhelming, when you lose yourself in moments long passed you have to go back and pick yourself up, gather yourself and let memories become stories.

Is it still you?

Nu.

You cannot be

the same one

to live something as

the same who remembers what was lived...

Only when we're back to wholeness

we shall again be equal to our memories...

until then we are pieces

and we match other fragments

we unite

we break

we get lost

until another half finds us

and so on, and on.

Until you bravely face all the pieces

all the wounds

see all the traces

relive all pains

and say

It is I. And I'm ready to meet You.

Beyond all my memories I was surprised to find fragments of his, to see me through his eyes, to taste the thoughts and emotions he lived with me. How can this be, Nora? Are we hallucinating? How?

These thoughts triggered me for days and nights. I was obsessed to find an answer and every time I read again the memories that didn't belong to me, by the end I was facing a wall. My mind was suddenly out of ideas, there was no way of piecing a memory to anything else.

I avoided retrieval trances because I was overwhelmed with frustration. I was frustrated by my inability to focus on the breathing sequence. I was frustrated that when I got the sequence right, my mind was gravitating towards the question: „How is it possible, Nora, to remember something you haven't yourself lived?"

I was frustrated by the fact his memory blocked this process I finally found courage to delve into....that it was finally time to make sense and bring ordered to everything I lived with and without him...yet here I am with a suitcase of things that don't belong to me....where do I store these??

I was restlessly, aimlessly wandering the starship when a flicker caught my attention and I turned towards the central porthole.

I snuggled into the curved siting area marked by the round edge of the circular window, decided to take a break and stare into the vast darkness outside.

No flicker, no star nearby, I could barely see some wandering lights in the distance, like crumbs on the bottom of a basket.

A tension morphing into pain was creeping behind my ears and I realized my hair was up in a ponytail for days. I furiously stuck my hand into it to let it loose, cutting myself into the edge of the hairpin.

Bloody finger to my lips. Then it hit me.

Out of nowhere, the key to my recent brooding. The memory of the day I almost left Beyond, when I lay broken, both wings and ribs, on cold, wet earth. When I thought my story ends then and there, almost at peace with the idea I only had that short to live. When right before closing my eyes I saw love and despair etched into his, along with the unusula gesture he made:

He cut up his palm with my dagger, I saw his blood gushing out and like mine, it was blue...He kept that secret so damn well...He sliced my palm as well, joining our hands, caressed my faced and covered me in blood, I felt that salty taste of it on my lips and in the darkness beyond my eyelids I heard him whisper: „Stay with me, Nora, live, I can't lose you....not like this, not now..."

I have no idea for how long my body was unconscious, I felt discontinued, a little here, a little beyond, flashing memories zapped through my mind, the same ones I finally found the courage to untangle now....I felt myself hovering over my body, one of many collapsed to the ground, stained with blue-blood that was seeping slowly into the earth that made us....

I was lost in a sea of ice-cold corpses, shattered dreams and every now and then my conscious would plunge back into my body, as one dips a foot in an arctic ocean...overwhelmingly painful, showing you in seconds that it's not welcoming you....yet you insist, dip fingers and toes again and again, pain like a drug you won't abandon....in that ocean of blue blood drops fall echoeing his voice "Stay with me, Nora...." and in my palm a faint, warm light, a beacon to remember I exist....

So I stayed here.

I don't know if it was love that brought me back, if it was an inkling of magick of the world that dies under my eyes or simply our own story that demanded another end...

Years after we met in the same forests, years away from that unforgettable night in the Ascondo, years away from the heart that shattered in my chest days lates, years away since my people chose war and we got carried away on a tide of hate towards nothing else but destruction....here it was, love stretching out another hand ...against everything I thought true, Alessandro saved my life...he showed me our hand still carry magic and it will not disappear with the world we believed full of charm...that this ancient magic runs through our veins and fills our souls with Light and Peace and right at the edge of death I knew all was not lost...that it's not him alone that begs for me to stay, that my own light asks as well, throwing a little hope on that fire of existence.

***

I massaged my face and scalp, freeing my hair completely. This memory passed easier through me, not as intense as the retrieval trance ones.

I was toying a strand of it between my fingers as I looked out the porthole, gazing at the darkness between the stars. It must be two or three years since we left Elyria behind, now nothing but stardust scattered through the galaxy.

My hair was silver white with a few violet strands that still recall my youth. Sometimes I feel that Nora who fell in love with Ales died a long time ago, other times I feel her run through my thoughts, lost amongst memories.

I realized then it's her the reason I have to go on. That it's worth it, after so many years, to seek freedom, and set myself free as well. To hold her hand through our memories and everything she got to live until she stares back from the mirror.

Maybe I should've listened to my mother's advice, do not allow too many feelings stack inside me and process them at once. What kid does as his mama says? Not one. I've let thousands of days and hundreds of stories gather within me, now life brought me to face them. Nowhere to run now, Nora. Nor do I want to. I don't want to run, I don't want to fight, I don't want to hide.

Inside me, young Nora curled up in my arms and asked to continue the story. To tell her how it feels to fall in love, in despair, how pain, passion, grief, loneliness and love feel like. Truth and lies. Restlessness and stubbornness. To tell her of Ales.

Truth is, my recent frustration turned into enthusiasm. To say I am used to Alessandro's surprises would be a lie. I thought this whole process of downloading my memories into the Library couldn't surprise me with anything new, since I carried them all for years in a stuffed suitcase.

Maybe at times I should't ponder as much on reasons why thinks happen and simply let myself flow into what I have to do. Blood magic? Off-world technology? Quantum entanglement? Astral connection? All that matters, Nora, is the truth. Now tell your story.

***

The truth is I sank my teeth in his bottom lip and bit hard. Like everything was surreal and I had to check somehow I wasn’t imagining it.

It hit me then, the urgency to relieve myself, the cold water from the stream reminding my body that it’s simply human and from time to time you gotta take a piss. I held everything in for so long that day. I couldn’t take it anymore. My waters burst through the dam and my pussy was twitching with excitement, my tissues engorged with desire. This cannot be, Nora. Your essence cannot mix with his, it is known, it is known...Some human seeds combined cannot bare fruits. Do play, but stay away....

I turned my back to him avoiding his look, heedlessly gathered my clothes and ran away. To distance myself from my thoughts and feelings, to ignore the inner compass of my body’s desires that would only point north. To Ales.

He was right, the cold shower was pleasant, but it was his flesh that warmed my spirits, his hands that would keep me from falling completely into this new feeling.

I ran away, ashamed of my feelings for once. I ran away, unsure of my choices. I ran to be left alone, secretly wanting to be held more.

The night veiled me and glued her cold breeze to my skin, sending shivers all the way to the tip of my tail. I put on his jacket on my bare skin, my hard nipples brushing against the lining. I pulled up my pants and laced them with trembling hands, unsure I was shivering because of the cold or because I was falling in love.

I sat a few minutes hunched forward on a pointy rock, head in my palms, hair loose and all over myself, falling back into my senses. I cried my eyes out for whatever reason. It felt so good to let the tears go. I felt the warm salty trails they left on my face, I tasted a few, biting my own lip this time, holding it down with my teeth so it wouldn’t quiver as much.

I rubbed my eyes and I combed back my hair with my fingertips. He was kneeling next to me, silent, reaching out with his hands to grab one of mine. Why is his touch so warm? How?

He kissed my hand and whispered.

-I’m sorry. I never meant to bring tears to your eyes, Nora. Did I do something to hurt you?

I let my hand rest between his warm palms. He held it in the most gentle way, with no trace of the earlier passionate tension. A prince at heart. My dark, wicked prince. I cupped his face with my palm, slowly grazing over the stubble on his jawline, advancing my fingertips into the dark forest of his curls. He leaned into my touch, bending his neck, resting his head in my palm with a candid smile.

-You didn’t hurt me. But I’m afraid you will, in more ways than one.

-Does getting hurt ever stop you before? If I knew how to avoid it, I would. But I’m simply human, and we’re hurt all the time. I’d lie if I said I’d never hurt you.

-I know. 

-Is there something more?

-Don’t you know already? Have you not looked at me enough to realize we cannot be...you know...entwined?

-They say many things, many truths and so many lies. Look at me now, covered in darkness, with all my colors put to shade. Here, feel my flesh, touch me, smell me....kiss me....how does it feel?

-Like I could get to know you as well as myself.

-Is that a promise?

-You want it to be?

He took his time to respond. He reached with his gaze all the way to the stars, searching for something. He clenched his jaw and shivered away a thought. He grabbed at his necklace, fidgeting a small amulet between his fingers. He sighed.

-I want nothing more than to get to know you. All of you. His voice was lit with desire.

-All of me for all of you, nothing less.

-Maybe this time we make a promise how I was taught.

-How’s that exactly?

-More boyish I guess. Follow my lead. He then spit on his palm and winked at me to high five him. It was so stupid and silly, I laughed with all my heart and followed through. Que raggazzo.

He lifted me by the hand and grabbed my waist with the clean hand, caressing my back upwards.

-You can keep it. The jacket...it fits you well. Here is your dress, you left it behind. He grabbed the fabric that was resting heavy on his shoulder, curiously kneading it between his fingers.

- It’s a fine knit andromedan metallic silk. I’m not bartering it, but you may satisfy your curiosity with it for a little while.

-Can you do the water stuff again?

-What, draining the fiber you mean? Why?

-Well I thought since we didn’t take any water container with us, this might do the trick.

-Fuck, you’re right Ales, it totally slipped my mind. A water errand with no water back, how stupid.

-I took the liberty to fill up your dress under the stream, I hope you don’t mind.

-How witty of you to understand how it works.

-I don’t...entirely. But I have a sweet spot for alien technology. I suspected as much about the fabric....but andromedan...damn. You must have some connections....

-Diplomatic of course. My mother sees to that. I said rather harshly.

-And you...disapprove?

-We get nothing out of it but fancy stuff. New clothes, new toys, new tech. Nothing real to matter for our souls. Only unrest, compromise, bitterness. Only material gains.

-Diplomacy keeps war away.

-You truly think that, Alessandro? He swallowed his words, so I continued. War finds us all eventually, on one side or the other of the blade. It ebbs and flows around the galaxy, pulling us in on a high tide, while we’re high and drunk with diplomatic delights. War sprouts its tail in the darkness, gathers strength in the undergrounds, only to burst our worlds open and write our stories anew, encompassing the whole world overnight, like the way spring blooms.

-Isn’t falling in love an endeavor of the same kind? Brooding in our own darkness until it covers our souls in enchantment overnight?