Me Me Monday: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Me Me Monday! A day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

The memory Leiwell tastes, however, is hardly celebratory. Picking up in mid thought where Protecting the Lights left off for #Rainbow Snippets…

 

“Duessa, you were the one who’d shaped our realm, created the gardens where boys could grow up gentle. The only males allowed would be those innocent of the violence taught in the world of men. They’d be cut down in the full of their bloom and beauty before any trace of a beard could mar their cheeks. This was your plan, your vision.

Why did you betray it? Why would you allow one of our most promising feasts to grow up? To become one of these monsters?”

I shuddered, wiping my hand against my tunic.

“She must have felt the same way.” Dyvian smiled, the shadows deepening under his eyes. “Desperate to get rid of that thought.”

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#RainbowSnippets: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction is posted and shared on the blogs of those who participate.

These six can be from their own work. They can be from someone else’s. They just need to be LGBTQIA+.

To read a wide variety of samples of LGBTQIA+ stories, go here…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

 

Mine picks up where it left off on Me Me Monday in Leiwell’s story, which I’ve written for this Cauldron, Protecting the Lights…it’s a little longer than six sentences, but clipping it any shorter didn’t quite feel right…

 

“Lost memories gather here, abandoned by those whom no longer have any use for them.” Dyvian released my hand. “Can you taste them?”

I dropped to my knees, dipping my hand into the running, multicolored water, very like the flaming liquid the twins had emerged from.

I lifted my wet fingers to my lips, tasting anger, a possessive fury which invaded my mind, screaming her rage.

“Damian should have mine. My little bridegroom, my perfect marriage feast. My Lady Duessa, you ordered us to sacrifice our sons, our brothers to their brides. Why did you let your own nephew go?”

Me Me Monday: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Me Me Monday! A day to promote, strut, and celebrate your me-ness!

Leiwell isn’t exactly celebrating, but he’s come to a decision, a resolution, as he picks up right where he left off on #RainbowSnippets…

 

Perhaps this was why I didn’t resist my master when I dreamed of him again.

Once more, I descended the stairs into a chamber filled with tapestries. I wandered among the sad tapestries of faded events, shivering whenever a ghost of a memory reached out with misty fingers to touch my shoulder.

I allowed them to draw into a cloth landscape of forest, rivers, and the tower looming over everything.

I found myself in the darkness beyond the Door, hungry, fastening its legion of cold mouths to my warmth.

“This one belongs to me.” Dyvian wrapped my hand in his own warmth, stepping out of the shadows. Solid. Seemingly real. “Open up for us. Show us what’s possible.”

He led me by the hand toward a shining crack in the darkness. We’d walk toward it, lifting our hands to shield ourselves from the reality creeping toward us…

…only to find ourselves on a street lined with shrines, gleaming towers sparkling above us. Rainbow water fell from the towers in a cascading waterfall to land in the stream.

#RainbowSnippets: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating share six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction on their blogs. It can be their own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be LGBTQIA+.

To read a wide variety of LGBTQIA+ fiction, go here…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

For mine, Leiwell will pick up where he left off on Monday in Protecting the Lights, torn between his devotion to his master and his tenderness to the siblings he was given (or perhaps was given to?)…

 

I opened my eyes, stared up at the cottage ceiling, which separated me from the siblings I’d stolen from the shadows.

Danyel and Tayel lay in their bed, dreaming in all innocence of my temptation, my master’s allure. Here in this cottage, in our garden they could grow up, free of all expectations any mysterious master or shadowy presence might inflict upon them. No society could trap them into self designated roles.

I’d protect them from all of those things. I’d keep both worlds, the savage society of reality and the dangerous realm of shades far away from them.

To do that, I needed power, enough to create a barrier around our home that keep anything which might threaten the twins out.

Me Me Monday: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Me Me Monday! A day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

Only Dyvian has some very sinister notions of how to go about that in the next part of Protecting the Lights. Picking up where he left off during Rainbow Snippets on Saturday…

 

“We’re all like that rose.” Soft, insistent, his voice pursued my fleeing footsteps. “Every boy with magic in his soul is a rosebud waiting to bloom. If I don’t force my dream upon you, you’ll never blossom. I hope you understand that.”

No. I ran faster, willing my motion to cause my sleeping limbs to move, to wake me from the dream. Not in the garden. Not where my little brothers walked, innocent and open any influence which left his imprint on the petals.

Rainbow Snippets: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQ+ fiction on their blogs. It can be their own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be LGBTQ+.

To read a wide variety of samples from LGBTQ+ fiction, go here…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

For mine, Leiwell picks up where he left off on Me Me Monday in Protecting the Lights…

 

I was never alone when I slept. Not after that. Every time I closed my eyes, I found my master waiting for me.

The first time Dyvian strode through the garden, laying a hand on one of the roses blooming there.

It withered, petals turning black once he stroked it with his fingers.

I backed away, my chest throbbing with memories of an anger which once pulsed in my head and heart.

To be continued on Monday…

Me Me Monday: Protecting the Lights

It’s Me Me Monday, a day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

Leiwell is certainly doing that today as he strolls between worlds at his master’s side in the next part of Protecting the Lights, picking up right where he left off on Saturday for #RainbowSnippets…

 

This time, I grasped his cool fingers, skin tight against the bones. I stroked each digit, allowing my own yearning to seep through my flesh into his.

“My precious Leiwell.” He allowed his voice to thicken with possessive joy and unshed tears before drawing me through one of the tapestries on the wall.

We moved through the darkness, shifting through dreams and lost memories, until we found a Door, moving toward us with gleaming pillars and a hint of the world which lay beyond it.

The two of us found ourselves on the street of a town, with a clock tower at the center and various shops. People in strange dress hurried by. Not all of them were human, just wearing regular eyes, muted irises, and ruddy flesh like a mask.

One glanced at me in silent, secret fear from time to time, only to relax once she looked at my face and my master.

We wandered about, glancing at the various loaves, beads, oils, and a thousand others wares offered in a marketplace where many gathered.

My master found a green scarf, which he tied around my neck. I shivered, heard Map calling from me from a long distance away.
I opened my eyes, found myself lying on the grass, looking up at the hill. Perhaps it had been a dream.

I touched my neck to feel the silken softness of a scarf I hadn’t been wearing before I’d dozed off.

#RainbowSnippets: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQ+ fiction on their blogs. It might be their own. It might be someone else’s. It just needs to be LGBTQ+.

To check out this wide variety of LGBTQ+ samples, to go…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

For mine, Leiwell picks up where he left off on Me Me Monday, dreaming of his master in Protecting the Lights…this is slightly longer than six sentences, since I wanted to end at a good stopping point.

 

I’d be wandering the garden, surrounded by a rising mist, exploring the tangled rosebushes I’d allowed to grow wild, blocking any potential Doors Danyel and Tayel might find.

None of these obstacles could stop my master. He strode through them in his dark green robes, careless of the thorns.

I turned and ran before he could speak to me, my labored breath waking me to the wood of the kitchen table under my cheek.

Once I found myself inside the tower walls, descending a staircase to basement, hung with tapestries. People stared at me from the weave with familar eyes, tugging at memories which might not be mine.

My master stepped out of the cloth, separating himself from an image of a king sitting on a throne of bones and dead vines, all hardened into stone, leaving it empty.

“Take my hand, my darling.” He stretched out his hand, making his gesture half offer, half command.

 

#Me Me Monday: Protecting the Lights

Welcome to Me Me Monday! A day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

Leiwell might well feel like strutting, since he’s taller in the next part of Protecting the Lights, picking up right where he left off on Saturday for #RainbowSnippets…

 

I grew a little taller, looming over my younger brothers and Map, although I remained short than Dyvian.

Dyvian. How he haunted my thoughts. I kept imagining his face, acquiring new lines under his eyes, shadowed with sorrow.

This was when the tower on the hill grew more watchful.

The old ruin had always been on the hill, overlooking the garden and our cottage. Broken, missing its crown, it fired my childish imagination. How easy it was to see those mossy walls as once being the gleaming black and white stone depicted within the pages of Beyond the Door.

I used to take my favorite book down from our single shelf of pride in the cottage, comparing the ruin on the hill with the illustrations of a complete stone spire, stretching up to heaven with its white and golden tips.

Once upon a time, it had looked down upon a complete village, not a single cottage. Empty fields had contained other dwellings filled with people, but they hadn’t impressed me all that much. It was the tower which always drew my childish gaze. Its stone sparkled in the sight, gleaming with etherial lights, making the stars seem to dance around it at night. Those gleaming balls of color beckoned me, singing to me with sweet voices.

I no longer heard them. I had my little brothers’s voices, urgent and demanding, noticing a hundred little things to distract me from imaginary musings about the tower.

Perhaps this was why I didn’t notice the disappearance of Beyond the Door from our self.

“I got rid of it,” Map growled when I mentioned it. “I don’t want you reading it around the twins. We don’t need anything around the cottage, reminding us of that cursed wreck on the hill.” She glared up in the direction of said wreck, a challenge and a warning glittering in her black eyes. “It’s bad enough to have it squatting there, haunting us with its presence. No need to feed it any additional attention!”

How odd. I almost got the impression my mother was threatening the tower as much as warning me. I don’t think she discouraged it. If anything, the ‘wreck’ got even more alert and watchful after her little speech.

Not long afterwards, I started dreaming of my master.