FicWad

All Alone Now

Lulu’s eyes, though they shone brightly, were thinly veiled by a sadness that burned like a slow candle. Every battle she fought, every scene she encountered, was tainted by the lingering memory of the love she had lost. Every breath she drew was a stab of guilt, a reminder that she had survived and Chappu had not. The cold, empty bed she lay in each night was the sentence she had set herself; learning not to betray her strict countenance with tears was her silent penance.

Her solitude was impenetrable and self-imposed. She had cast her heart away, forsaking the weakness of a resurrection. Each time she was tempted to rejoin the realm of the truly living, she tightened the chains that bound her emotions and braced herself for the pain.

But lately, it had grown harder and harder to twist the chains. Auron threatened to rescue her, to unwittingly pull her from the depths of the black pit over which she dangled. Her saviour was dangerously close. She had trained her mind to avoid thoughts of love or lust, but he was on the verge of breaking the barrier.

What keeps you up at night, Lulu?

Nothing.

Dreams?

Waking nightmares, she longed to correct. But she could barely admit to herself that the raindrops in her soul burned like acid; she could certainly not admit it him. Each time her thoughts drifted to his eyes, his hair, his lips, she chastised herself mercilessly. Lulu felt lost, adrift without hope. Perhaps it was Auron’s seeming ability to endure with no hope in sight that endeared him to her, but she was torn. She had grown so dependent on her pain to shape her character that misery had become her addiction, but when Auron was by her side, the withdrawal did not seem so harsh.

She had seen the sidelong glances that came her way when his guard was down. He felt some spark between them, that much was certain, but was it enough? Would he find her before she had fallen far beyond his reach, or would she sink?

The tension between them became tangible. She felt skeletal fingers stealing up her back, tracing the line of her collarbone before seizing her throat.

You’re always so restless when you guard at night.

Is that why you think I can’t sleep?

Even the slightest breath would have betrayed her. Guarding her emotions had ceased to become an automatic response for her; controlling herself took every ounce of concentration in her body. Lulu felt electricity crackling at her fingertips; the raw sensitivity of the atmosphere was 

beginning to lick at her burning skin. She was standing in the eye of a raging storm, a swirling torrent of waves building around her body, and she knew that the waves could break through her protective shell and engulf her in a second.

Sir Auron…

There is no need for fancy titles among fellows.

Auron.

The name felt like a foreign object caught beneath her tongue, bittersweet with the lingering taste of sugar-coated poison.

You were about to say something.

She was about to plunge into something deeper and darker than any fiend she had yet encountered.

I was about to say, Auron, that I’ve been alone for a long time. No one has ever noticed if I’m restless, so why do you care?

His characteristic silence was his only response. The pool of lightening in the palm of her hand flared, and then faded. Lulu’s gaze locked onto his glasses, and she smiled at her own reflection as Auron smiled back.

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"Every night
She writes a song for you
Every day she burns the page
Locks herself inside a cage
All alone now

She is waiting
Caught between the window and the door
Will you save her?
From her lonely bed on the factory floor

She took a bath in the limelight of the rain
Fell asleep on the factory floor
Did she have trouble washing out the stain?
Does she know how to breathe anymore?"