Aranaya sat on the bed. Her tears had long since dried up - she could cry no more. She cradled Arron against her ample breast. He had shown no signs of awakening, no signs of stirring aside from strange and foreign words which occasionally flowed from his mouth. She pressed a cold compress against the swelling on his head. It was useless. It was all useless. They were nothing but pawns in a game that none could win.
Her misery was interrupted by a quiet rapping on the door.
"Yes?" She snapped, aware of how feeble and broken her voice appeared.
The door opened a fraction. "Do you need anything?" Kataryna's tentative voice queried.
"I need him to wake up," she replied.
"Can I come in?"
"If you like." She replied dismissively. She cared little anymore. If the saviour they were apparently "working" for could not see fit to save him, then why should she cooperate? He was apparently of some import, after all.
Kataryna eased open the door, moving in her narrow frame and those ridiculous bird wings. She had changed into a simple satin robe, the back slashed open for her wings. The Aye-aye had to confess, Kataryna was rather pretty, silver fur, rainbow eyes and all. She could understand Arron's intrigue in her. At the moment, however, she cared little. If Arron were to awaken and chose Kataryna over herself, well, she would understand entirely and forgive him anything (although she wasn't sure she could forgive Kataryna). If only he would awaken...
"Do you need anything?" Kataryna asked, concern evident in her voice. "A warm drink perhaps."
Aranaya simply shook her head. There was nothing she wanted that the Lemur could provide - nothing but the impossible. "I just want him to wake up," she said.
The angel-Lemur nodded, understandingly. "I have spoken with Titus," she said, her voice calm and steady. "He has named you as the Creator - the one who gives life. If anyone can help him, you can. But there is something I can do." She paused, and Aranaya saw expectation and worry fleet across her features. "Did you... did you perhaps collect a part of Dario when he attacked you? A hair or anything?"
Outrage flooded the Aye-aye. How dare she ask such a thing? Here Arron lay, probably dying, and she wanted a piece of hair from the man that had put him in such a state. She had to admit, however, that Kataryna was unlikely to do anything without good reason. "What do you want to do, voodoo?" She could not hide the edge of sarcasm.
"I want to track him down," she said, "the Nocturne will be gathering soon, and if we can find him in the mirror - we can find the other ones."
"The mirror?" Aranaya was puzzled.
"It shows ... things," Kataryna responded, "but we need a sample of DNA to find a furson. With it we can find Dario's current location - and also see a version of his future." Her thin shoulders shuddered for a moment and Aranaya wondered what had overcome her. "That is why I came to visit Arron earlier tonight - to warn him. The mirror had shown his death. My interference did not aid him, however, it only set the chain of events onto another path."
A furrow creased Aranaya's brow. "That was why you came to him? Not because..." Her words failed her.
Kataryna appeared not to need the words to be uttered, however, she seemed intrinsically to know what Aranaya could not say. She placed one dark hand upon Aranaya's, which still quivered against Arron's pale body. "What there is between Arron and you is for the two of you to discover, and I shall certainly not interfere. The one I love - the only one I shall ever love, I am dead to. I accept that, there can be no turning back." She did not elaborate, and Aranaya dared not elaborate, but in their contact, she had caught a glimpse of Kataryna's forearm, and the long silver cross of scar tissue that adorned in her wrist. There were many, many words left unsaid - many stories left untold. Secrets. That was very well, and she was grateful for what the Lemur lass had said - but she was still not convinced. Kataryna may declare she had no interest in the albino Ringtail Lemur - but that made little difference if Arron had developed emotion attachment for her. It was all too complicated and Aranaya did not want to think about it right now - all she wanted was for Arron to awake. Anything else she would settle as it happened.
And then there was the problem of Dario.
"I do not have a hair," she said, "but when he... attacked me, I managed to claw him." She shuddered as the memories rushed back. But if she had to think about it, to relive that horrible moment, in order to stop him, then she would. "There may be some .... skin tissue ... under my nails. Would that work?"
Kataryna nodded, and slid open a drawer. A moment later she proffered Aranaya a sheet of paper and some nail scissors. "I hope this works," she said, "we need to stop the bastard before it's too late."
To that, Aranaya had to agree, but she would not leave Arron's side - not for one moment. She sat beside him, cradling his head in her lap and gazed at the mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed from too many tears and too much grief. It was the memories that scalded the most - the memories and the fact that Arron was lost to her.
Beside the mirror, Kataryna diligently pressed the skin flakes into the palm of the wooden hand. Barely a word had been exchanged between the two of them. Aranaya was not one for idle conversation and she was still not sure she trusted the slender Ringtail Lemur.
"There." Kataryna stood back, "I think that's the present." Aranaya had been keeping her eyes averted from the screen - Kat was navigating on Dario's past using the attck as her reference point. She had no desire to relieve the experience and seeing herself so vulnerable and weak had sent nausea flooding through her. She would have thrown up - but then she would have had to move Arron's head. He may be lost to her in spirit, but she cherished the close contact she had desired so long.
If only he were conscious to feel it too.
She forced herself to stare at the screen. Dario returned to his campsite and gathered together his belongings. He quirked his head, as though hearing someone, and looked off-screen with an expression of recognition combined with awe and a touch of fear.
I tried. He mouthed the words, for of course the magic mirror had no sound. His next sentence was too involved for Aranaya to lip-read, but she felt she knew what he was talking about.
He had failed to kill her, 'twas true, but he had taken out someone of substantial importance. He was proud of that action, but also frightened. His invisible contact was not likely to be accepting of any sign of failure.
Aranaya's stomach heaved once more. She had loved this man once - had lain with him on many an occasion, had known his body as intimately as one can know another. She had borne him a son and believed that everything was right with the world.
And then her life had been disembowled from under her.
Now she could not gaze at that face - the face she had once caressed and kissed and whispered sweet nothings into the ears of, without feeling the revulsion seething within her.
Dario removed his shirt and flung it to the ground. Fury raged in his eyes as he knelt down, fingers grasping at the threadbare blanket. Something came crashing down against his back - a strip of leather ridged with metal points. As it struck home, a shudder spasmed through his body aand his fingers tangled and clawed at the sheets. Never once did the fury and rage leave his eyes, never once was it replaced with fear or pain.
And then the whip fell back, and he rested back on his haunches and turned his gaze towards the mirror.
There was no way he could have sensed them watching, no way that he could see them.
But for a moment his red eyes burning, he seemed to stare directly and accusingly at Aranaya and his lips formed the words:
You made me this way.
The tears flooded to her eyes and she could do little to hold them back. He had awoken the guilt in her, the believe that her only child, her precious Raoul, had died because of her neglect - because she refused to believe her beloved husband was capable of such a dire deed.
"Make it stop," she begged, but saw then that Kataryna was paying her little heed.
Someone else had stepped into view, her back was to the watching Lemurs. She was a sleek creature, lithe and lean with honey-coloured fur. Her long hair was braided back in coils about her shoulders. And in one hand she held the whip.
Kataryna started, "it's her," she whispered. "How is she a part of it?"
And at that moment the creature turned and Aranaya startled at the ancestral memory. A Fossa. Before the Great White, fossa had liked nothing more then a tasty lemur snack and even after the Change, there was animosity between the two Kin. Civil War had been waged on the Eastern Isles, where the two Furrae lived together in disharmony. To see here, a Lemur and a Fossa together, was a disturbing sight.
And then Aranaya realised Kataryna had recognised the Fossa. "Who is she?"
"She calls herself Tawny," Kataryna explained, "or at least that was the name she gave me, ten years ago. I met her at Tirra-Inle. I cannot say our meeting was a pleasant one. There is something sly about her, a cruel and extremely dishonest streak."
"Do you think she has joined the Nocturne?"
"It would not surprise me one smidgeon," Kataryna replied, a hint of malice creeping into her tone. "It is the sort of thing that would amuse her."
The expression on her face was enough to stop Aranaya from prying further. Kataryna's past was her own business - just as Aranaya's was her's. They all had their ghosts - their skeletons in the closet*
"So what do we do now?"
"We stop them," the voice was little more then a husky whisper.
"Arron?" Aranaya's body shook - a combination of relief and nervousness. Her attention had been too riveted by Kataryna and the mirror to notice the albino Lemur had opened his eyes. Emotions and desires warred in her - she wanted to both embrace him and draw away from him, fearful of the contact between them.
"Please," he whispered, "water. My head ... killing me..."
Kataryna was out the door before he had even finished his sentence. Images still flickered on the mirror, but luckily for Aranaya, she had other distractions now. Giving in to her concern and the more empathic side of her nature, she attempted to help him into a sitting position, braced against the pillows.
"No," he insisted, head still rested in her lap.
"I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"
"No," he shook his head and winched. "It's just ... view better ... here.".