Rhea An - A Vision of the Past, a Vision of the Future

[Ravenette]

They say the road to Hel is paved with the best of intentions.

   It was a dream that had haunted her for almost two decades.  The deathly still form of her sister and the tribe doctor who could do nothing as her life had bled away.  She could remember the face of the girl as blue eyes just like her own had glazed over as strength had left Shaia's body.

   She'd been two years her junior, but more sickly in health.  The unfortunate circumstances of interbreeding within her Tribe had left both of them with their own genetic quirks.  Shaia had been a sickly kitten since her birth, strong enough to live- not strong enough to survive.

   It had broken her heart.  The crying little babe that was her nephew- and now her son- was coddled into a blanket and she'd fled south out of the mountain range surrounding Osrona's northern border, into the wilds where they'd spent the first sixteen years of Axel's life.

   And then, in the dream, she had stared into those lifeless eyes as the husk of her beloved sister, whom she had coddled and protected so fervently- but not fervently enough it seemed- had begun to pull itself from the bed with a soft husk.

   What have you become, Raha?  Contorted, drooling lips used the name of her birth- the name she had abandoned there that same day, taking one closer to her sister's name in order to pretend at least that there was something to be salvaged from it beyond Axel.  No matter how she could remember the terror of the night coming now and again, she flinched away as clawed fingers sank into the flesh of her cheeks and pressed in tenderly against her fangs beneath.  Is this the creature who wears my face, now?

   The accusation stung her like a knife.  A roiling pit forming in her stomach in the dream while the geist's face stopped resembling her beloved young teen sister's and became an affectation of a mirror.

   No matter how she'd hoped to awaken from the dream, it had proven itself to be all too real.  Her own clawed hands, studying her once beautiful features and finding the horrifying morass of her teeth and the eyes that no longer held the luster of life or the survival instincts that had preserved her through hard years without anyone to rely on save herself.

  Only an unabating desire to see the world pay for taking that which she'd loved from her.

   What monster wears your face now, Raha?  The voice of her sister haunted her as she awoke to an empty bed, desperately gulping down breaths like she had been thrust up from a river known as her mind.  The dreams had gotten worse since she'd started dabbling in Chronomancy.  At first, she had delved into the research of the metaphysical in order to further her dream, to make her job as a Vintner more easy- but instead she'd developed an unhealthy ability to find herself seeing things she had no desire to see.  Most of the time, it affected her naught, but it intensified the dream-

  -No, the terror.  No one in their right mind could call such a recurring figment a mere dream.  It was like a ghost that could only personally haunt her.  As she bathed and dressed for the day, she tried to push the phantom out of her head.  Breakfast was made for herself and her son- Shaia's son- and she forewent her fine ladies' clothes or her Magi's attire for the clothes she held for work in the fields of the vineyard.

  Sleep became rarer and rarer a comfort to Rhea An- Formerly Raha, the more it seemed like things were going well, the more she felt as if she could not ever deserve it.  As if she'd stolen every ounce of happiness from someone else more deserving of it.

As morning turned into noon, and noon into evening, she worked until the soft steps announced the arrival of the only one who brought her true peace, and the Felinae looked up from her fields with lips painted in rouge red.

It is upon the altar which beautiful Cassandra falls asleep, that the serpents come to her and whisper of futures yet to be.  Their forked tongues tickling her ears, and promising that no one will believe.