Caffeine and Magix

witterprompts:

“My body’s just decided I can no longer worry about things.”

They’re sitting in the strange, curling trees, looking at the purple sky, the yellow stars and the darkness that lays over it all. Lula speaks into the silence, words crystallizing the air until it sparkles around them. Normally they’d be concerned about what the sparkling air might attract, what might see, but it’s early yet.

“And,” Lula continues, “it’s decided to no longer feel things either.”

Paula’s heart jumps into her throat and she finds that she can’t turn her head to look at Lula, can’t bear to see the emptiness in her voice reflected in her eyes (or worse). 

“That’s how it starts,” Paula says, picking dust off her jeans. Her nails are longer today and tinted an ethereal blue, almost black. She hasn’t painted them. “So I guess this is it then. Goodbye.”

A cold hand settles on her shoulder, fingers thin and long. “No, Paula,” Lula says in her empty voice. “My body may not feel things anymore, but I do. It’s not the end.”

“Why not?” Paula asks and drops off the tree branch, out from underneath her cold hand. It’s a long drop to the spiraling vines that litter the ground, but she needs the pain. Her body hasn’t given up, for all that it’s changed. She’s not the one who’s different. “Might as well call it now.”

Lula lands gently beside her, legs stretching to accommodate the distance before inching back, resizing. Paula used to be taller than her girlfriend, but that was the first change to take Lula. Now, Lula can’t seem to remember her true height at all, limbs lengthening when she’s not paying attention until her head is above the tree tops.

(They don’t call her what she is, not here. Here names bring reality and that’s all the power they need.)

“I don’t want to break up,” Lula says. “I love you.”

The words bring a rush of tears to Paula’s eyes and, when she goes to wipe them away, she finds that they’re as blue as her new nails. “I love you too, but…Lula, they don’t love. Or they can’t. I don’t want to–to see that. When you forget us and become them.”

“You’re becoming them too,” Lula points out. “Are you saying you won’t love me?”

That makes Paula turn, makes her forget her earlier fear to stare up at Lula. “No, I’ll love you, I’m fighting it. I don’t want to lose you.”

Lula is only a foot taller than her now, face a blank mask. Her eyes are set farther back than Paula remembers and dark shadows keep her from seeing anything but a flick of pupil as Lula scans her face. “I’m fighting too. Are you going to make me lose you? Are you going to leave?”

No, Paula thinks immediately, but manages to clamp her lips in front of the word before it hits the air. Promises here leave you anchored in ways you can’t afford (and take more than you can lose).

“We’ve been looking for a way out for so long,” Paula says instead. She grabs the flighty conviction with everything she has; she can’t afford to forget when Lula already has. “I want us to find a way out.”

One of Lula’s long hands comes to rest in Paula’s hair. The strands are thicker now and the brown has been melting into black for weeks. She runs her fingers through Paula’s hair, soothing, as her face stays immobile. “We’re together here.” We should stay.

And for a terrible, horrible moment, Paula wants. She wants to be with Lula forever (plans for a wedding) and every moment they’ve been here has been a fight. A fight to leave, a fight not to change, a fight to stay together.

She’s so tired.

“We can’t,” Paula chokes out, eyes fluttering shut. Her eyelashes are heavy curtains against her cheeks (so much has changed). She leans into her girlfriend’s touch and reaches out to catch her other hand in one of hers. “Lula, we have to go.”

“Stay,” Lula says. She holds Paula’s hand back, other hand still carding through Paula’s hair. “The change is natural. I’m still me. We can still be us. It’s not like we thought, lovely. You could see.”

A ripple seems to go through Paula; her nails sharpen and she feels something change in her face. Her cheeks pull in, maybe, or perhaps her eyes get bigger. She sobs. “Lula.”

Lula pulls her into her arms, against her chest, and shrinks just enough so she can rest her chin on top of Paula’s head. “Sh, sh, sh, lovely. You’re okay, you’ll see. Let go of the past, darling, let go. We have a future.”

Something wide and empty is opening in Paula’s mind. Her eyes are closed but she can see Lula like an afterimage on the back of her eyelids. She can see Lula’s bright smile (the one she’ll never see again), the shine of her brown eyes (the ones that glint now, never shine), and the love, the endless love they share. Lula is so far from her now, distant, even though Paula can feel her strong arms all around her.

Paula wants to be next to Lula, hand intertwined with hers, but–

There are so many things that Paula is in jeopardy of losing. Easy evening on the couch, TV on, the feeling of warmth against her palm, Lula tucked up against her side like she was made to be there. She can already feel the edges of who she is slipping away with every moment that she leans against the cold, thin being her girlfriend has become.

Overwhelmed with loss and grief and fear, Paula whimpers. “Lula, please.”

In her desperation Paula forgets, just as she feared she would.

Lula’s satisfaction is sharp against Paula’s new mind. “Darling, of course.” Her arms tighten around Paula and the world drops away.

Paula wraps her arms around Lula’s neck, buries her face in the smooth skin there. Her tears are cooling rapidly in the wind and she can tell that they’re moving quickly, very quickly somewhere high up. Lula’s arms around her still, so much larger before, and they’re nearly cradling her.

“Change,” Lula says. “For me.”

And Paula does.

Her hair grows long, darkening and darkening until it’s an endless black. She feels her heart stutter and stop in her chest, something new and wise and endless taking it’s place. Her nails prick Lula’s skin, the feeling foreign, so foreign.

Behind her eyes, Paula watches them as they were, bright lights and alive. She watches their sweaty palms stick together, watches nervous kisses in dark movie theaters, watches breath intermingling. She feels Lula’s excitement on their first date, watches Lula grow into a confident, beautiful woman and aches as she watches herself do the same.

Endless moments pass for her in a different world as her body finally changes. The last of Paula and Lula, the them as they were, falls away.

Paula opens her mouth and wails for the people they used to be. The sound shatters the sky around them, ringing and breaking until it’s the only thing in the world. Far, far away a bell tolls, over and over and over again.

Lula strokes her hair with one finger (all she needs). It’s okay, lovely, it’s okay.

The sound tapers off, her requiem ends, and Paula feels a deep stillness settle inside of her. She blinks her eyes open, unaware that she has not once opened them since they left the ground and stops. “Oh.”

Because she can see Lula. Fiery and orange and beautiful underneath her pale, unmoving face. The ice is still there, but there’s soul here and Paula knows it intimately.

Lula doesn’t say anything–her form doesn’t allow it anymore– but Paula can hear her.

See? We’re okay.

Paula doesn’t agree. She doesn’t think Lula understand what they’ve lost, the little soft bits and pieces that made them who they were. She doesn’t think Lula can taste the grief on her tongue like Paula can, but they’re together. They’re together and that’s enough.

(Distantly, Paula thinks that sometimes ‘enough’ isn’t enough at all, but that’s her ghost speaking. Paula loves Lula, loves her with every new fiber of her being, and here it is enough.)

Lula shrinks down ages later, when the sky has gone from purple to a deep, midnight blue. She sets Paula gently on her feet, careful of her new sheet of swinging, black hair, and takes her hand. Paula curls her fingers around Lula’s and lets her lead her forward, into a dark and twisting woods.

There are mushrooms on the ground, glowing an ethereal blue. Lula takes them along this path, careful to not outpace Paula, until they come to a clearing. There are torches lining the perimeter, lit with green fire, and long, wooden tables take up the free space. 

Around these tables are them (us). Swirling colors masking long teeth, beetle eyes and flashing nails. They’re dancing, music swelling above their laughter, and the air is so full of life that Paula barely spares a glance at the harsh cage of thorns in the center of it all or the alive occupants.

Together, Paula and Lula step into the ring.

The music stops, the silence harsh against Paula’s ears. She flinches back, but Lula leads her patiently forward, seeming to know what to do despite her equal unfamiliarity.

Behind the cage of thorns is a throne. On the throne, bracketed on either side by wicked knights, is the Queen.

She’s beautiful, but no beauty is created in a vacuum. The grey skin of her cheek is gnarled with scar tissue and her forehead is twisted painfully up into a crown of black thorns. She stands shorter than Paula even, but when she rises from her throne, she fills the clearing until they (call them what they are, call them what they are) fall to their knees.

(The fae fall to their knees.)

Her smile, when it comes, is slow and thoughtful, filled with more warmth than Paula could hope for from the Unseelie Queen.

Welcome, sisters, the Queen says. We’ve been waiting for you.