Blue Lotus

Okay, this was a random one-shot
that I wrote for no real reason. It\'s
super short and has no actual plot…it\'s also completely (and I do mean
completely) different from what I usually write.

I own nothing except my trusty
laptop.

A note about the title: the blue
lotus symbolizes birth, death, and resurrection in Egyptian iconography.

--Aimes

It exists within me, struggling
for release. Once, when I was a foolish
child, I\'d loosed it. I thought it an
imaginary friend, wanting to play. So I
let it out in the woods behind our summer home to take shape for me.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> It would do anything for me.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'>

But not for free.

Nothing is ever free.

It claimed its reward.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> No more chirping birds or chirruping
squirrels. I screamed whenever my
parents tried to go back to that place, though I knew it couldn\'t hurt me.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> It needed me; we are not separate.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I destroyed that forest and loved it.

Now I sit in the office of a
doddering old fool and listen to him ramble.

"They call your kind class=SpellE>Deathmaidens," he reveals kindly, twinkling.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> My gaze is placid.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I know what they call my kind.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> They are wrong.

I am no servant of death.

I am Death itself.

I must wonder what he truly
wants, because everyone wants something.
I am tempted to bargain with him, to become his Angel of Death.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I have done it for others; it would not be
the first time for me. Before I knew
better, I let the foolish Muggles use my \'talents\'
for the \'safety of the people.\' But
perhaps I\'ve always known better.
Perhaps I simply did not care.

I sense death in all its forms
and I do not judge. Violent
death, quiet death, the thousand deaths of a broken heart.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I crave it all.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I am an addict and this is my substance to
abuse. I am capable of feeling each
individual cell die and it intoxicates me.
Better than drugs, better than sex, better than life.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'>

Does it make me a monster?style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'>

I operate within the confines of
society. I do not kill, though I have
helped death along. When my mother was
dying of cancer, she wanted release so badly.
I could barely control my need.
She felt no pain; I eased her passing.

I should be an executioner.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> The death I deal is easy, enjoyable
even. Better than drugs, better than
sex, better than life. Who could resist?

My attention is drawn to the
other man. Tall, dark, brooding.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I am know him; my counterpart.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> We are diametrically opposed.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> Matter and antimatter.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> Would we annihilate each other?style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> Or would one of us remain?style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> A question men have
pondered for centuries.

He is the reason for my summons.

My angelic looks disguise a
demon. What does his demonic appearance
hide?

"They call your kind class=SpellE>Saela. Life," I
say, interrupting the old man.

"I know what they call my
kind."

"It calls to me.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I\'ve felt it since I entered this place.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I have restrained myself for seven
years."

"We have both shown
restraint," he counters, and I know it to be true.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> The force within him calls him to imbue me with
the life he so easily generates even as my spirit cries out to destroy
him.

"If we were to proceed, I
might kill you," I warn.

"And vice
versa. What is Life to a class=SpellE>Deathmaiden?"

The old man senses the coming
storm and leaves us. Perhaps not the
fool I thought him to be.

This angel of light comes to me
and caresses my face. I feel his energy
building and my own energy responds with vigor.
We anticipate the challenge.

Antithetical elements: he is the
darkness, the perpetrator of evil deeds; lonely, hard, lethal.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> His darkest corners would make even the
strongest man cringe.

I am light, sweetness, the giver
of kindness and knowledge. My idealism
melts the coldness of reality.

But I am Death and he is
Life. Matter and antimatter, but which
am I?

I rise to face him, Death seeping
from my pores. It burns him and
invigorates him. I feel his Life
stroking me and slicing me.

It surrounds us: an infinite
feedback loop.

I kill him and he resurrects me
so I can kill him again.

We stand there for an eternity
before breaking, calling it back into ourselves.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I am sated, gorged on the Death.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> The pleasure was almost unbearable and I am
shaking in his arms in the aftermath. Or
is he shaking in my arms? We tremble
together and I sense the constant craving within me relent and fade.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'>

I cannot remember a time when I
did not crave Death.

He lifts me in his arms and
carries me from the tallest tower to the darkest dungeon.style=\'mso-spacerun:yes\'> I do not protest as he sets me on his bed and
wraps me in his arms.

"You are mine for the rest
of eternity," he rumbles.

"I am yours until you cannot
sustain me," I counter.

He does not reply, nor does he
state its corollary: He is mine till I
no longer sustain him.

In our perverse universe, we
sleep peacefully.