I Won’t Do That.

I see her again, sitting in the garden she loves so much.

She is always more than I can ever remember.

My dreams pale by comparison.

She is wearing white. It fits her so well. It’s purity. She swims in it. I look down at the filthy and tattered rags I wear and feel as if I am committing blasphemy by even being this close to her. The ugliness that I hide behind this old hood I wear seems an affront to what is sitting not but a short distance in front of me.

Ororo

That was the name I had heard some call her.

I have fallen into bottomless dreams with that name sounding from my lips, even the guttural tone of my rough voice does nothing to take away from the splendor of it.

I crouch a bit lower in the brush this time, letting the night conceal me away to nothingness. The flames of the garden torches are burning bright, illuminating her brown skin in a way that is almost ethereal. I have sat here before for hours on end just watching her, even when she returns indoors to the large estate with the tall man that is her husband; I wait here in hopes of catching just one more glimpse of her through the windows.

I won’t approach her, though.

It would be dangerous. For her.

I have fought the urge to take her so many times.

A fight that has teetered far to close to the edge.

I know I could take her. I could make her like me, I could make her forget all of this and she would be mine in all ways.

If there was ever a sin more damnable than that, though, I cannot think of one.

Making someone like her into something like me, I would hate myself just a little more for that. I won’t do that.

Not even if I love her.

She is lying down now, and I can see the full expanse of her body in the moonlight. I swallow hard and wet my cracked lips and yellowed fangs. She does not even know she is so addicting. I move a bit closer, like a shadow passing in dusk I make no sound. I can see the side of her face now and I am lost again.

With all of the horror and blood that my eyes have seen, they burn with looking at her, even they know they don’t deserve to look again.

The blackened blood in my body thrums, and my withered heart beats in my ears like a thunderclap.

I just want to get a little closer.

*Snap*

She bolts upright and looks around nervously. “Who’s there?”

Damn it, I’m so enthralled, I do not pay attention to the twig underneath my feet.

I say nothing and lie still.

She gathers herself and stands tall, gazing out into the darkness of the forest. “Show yourself, or I will have the hounds set on you.”

I know I should just leave. I should just return to the crypt I call home and cleanse this place of my presence. That would mean leaving, though.

I tell myself to run.

But my body steps forward out of the brush and into the well-lit garden.

“Who are you?’ she asks cautiously.

I pull the rags of my cloak tighter around me so my body does not show. “Just a traveler, on my way home.”

I lie. I have definitely done worse things in this world, but doing such a thing to her feels like the worst.

“What is your name?’

My name? I have had a lot of those.

“Logan,” I answer, using the name I was once known by. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She smiles at me, and I feel as if I could die and burn in the fires of hell forever with a smile on my face. “It is fine, it’s just the woods make me nervous sometimes at night, there are many dark things in them.”

Thank whatever God there may be that she does not know that I am the darkest thing there. “Yes, there are.”

I go to turn and leave as fast as I can when I feel her hand on my shoulder. “You have no need to rush off, are you hungry? We have some leftover supper; my cook is a fine one.”

I bow my head low, keeping as much of the light away as I can. “No thank you, my lady, I won’t cause you any worry.”

She smiles again at me. This is my torture. This is the punishment for my crimes, but what bittersweet agony it is. “It would be no burden on any of us. My mother always taught me to be hospitable.”

I laugh a bit; the sound is like gravel wracking metal. “That is very kind of you, Lady, but I can’t stay.”

“Do you need a directions or a horse? My husband T’Challa would be more than welcome to see you one, no charge,” she tells me.

She is as kind as she is beautiful. I can feel the urgings in my mind again. The need to take her, the need to possess her. I bite down so hard on my cheek that I can taste the foul tang of blood on my tongue.

“No thank you, my lady, I know the way and I have no need of a horse, I don’t live far.” I pull away from the warm softness of her hand, and it feels as if I have lost the entire length of my arm.

She gives me a worried look. “Is something the matter, Logan?”

I shake my head no, and my hood shakes with it. “No, my lady, but I do need to go.”

“At least show me your face, so that I may speak with you again, should I see you.”

I freeze during that moment, knowing I should just run away as fast as I can, but instead I simply stand there with a familiar feeling welling up in me. It is something I have not felt in a very long time.

It is Fear.

“No, my lady, I do not think that would be wise.”

“Why would that be?”

“I am not fair to look upon in the least.”

She sighs. “I was never one to judge one for their appearance, good sir, and you should not judge yourself for it, either. They say the beauty of a person is truly within them.”

If she only knew that the darkness of my heart is what corrupts my flesh. “Please, Lady, don’t ask that of me.”

“Please, Logan” She looked at me with true yearning.

I had desired that look since the first night I saw her. My hands act all on their own as the gloves and shroud are removed from me.

She gasps when I am uncovered.

I bow my head low, not letting the dried blood color of my eyes meet the clear blue of hers.

Nothing is said for a long while. It is so silent that I am sure she has fled. I slowly raise my head to find her looking me over intently.

The scarred and mangled visage of my face, the swelling of the bones of my forehead, the clawed and gnarled fingers of my hands, the long and coarse hair that runs down my back like the quills of a beast, and then she meets the bloodlike color of my eyes.

“What…what are you?” she asks, but not in horror as I thought she would, but in honest curiosity.

“An abomination, Lady, something that should not be here.” I clutch the tatters of my shroud to me and start to walk away.

“Please wait,” she pleads.

The tone of her voice makes me stop in my steps. Her voice is enticing me. The Need is there again. I want to take her with me so badly. I have to get away.

“I did not mean for that to sound like it did, Logan, and I am sorry, it is just that I have never seen anyone like you before.”

I nod at her. “No one ever has, and if they are lucky, they never will.”

She steps around me and looks again at my face. I turn away my head, not wanting her to see, but then she touches me. She runs a hand down the side of my cheek, over the hard stubble and the deep lines of scars. I have not been touched in so long, and now this woman, this…goddess is placing her hands upon me.

I reach up and softly push her hand away.

“Don’t,” I tell her. “Don’t.”

She gives me a look that I am thankful is not pity. “Scars only run skin deep, Logan, as does deformity; the real measure is the heart.”

I look at her then and let her gaze deep into my eyes. “My scars run deep, my lady, deep enough to scar the cold thing that is my heart.”

She stares at me, and I can’t take it any longer, I want to leave NOW.

I prepare to go, but she wraps her arms around my neck and held me.

I had never known such a thing. My arms hung lifelessly at my side, and I was at a loss until I let one palm touch the small of her back and I returned the embrace.

Her neck is so close to me.

I can feel the hammer of her heart.

I can smell her all around me, the blood in her body, the berry juice in her hair, the air in her lungs. I can feel the burn of my eyes again as they glow with an unholy light, and I know my resolve is failing.

“I can sense something in you, Logan; there is evil in all of our hearts, but even the darkest night makes way for a single ray of dawn.”

My breathing becomes haggard, and I know that I want to take her now. I want it. I need it. I need her. It would take only a moment, and then I could have her for myself, for all time.

All I have to do is…

I tear myself away from her and run for all I am worth through the dark forest, even as she shouts for me to come back. I have to get away, far away and never come back, or I will not be able to stop myself.

I could have her, I know.

But I won’t do that.

Ororo stopped calling out a moment and gazed deep into the woods.

The poor man, she thought.

Her musings were interrupted by the call of her husband from the door at the garden’s head.

“Ororo, please come in, Love, you will get ill in the night air.”

“I am coming, darling” she answered. She gave the woods one last look and went to her husband.

They walked inside and closed the door behind them. She spoke nothing of Logan to T’Challa, not wanting her husband to worry, but silently she thought of the poor man that had visited her tonight.

“Something the matter?” he asked after a moment.

Ororo shook her head. “No, just lost in thought.”

He laughed. “That is what I have been now for hours; the class I have been teaching at the university has required a lot of attention. I have a real hard one tomorrow.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll show you,” he replied, leading her into the library section of their large home.

The walls were lined with books and tapestries of various date and origin. In the middle of the room stood T’Challa’s work desk made of fine polished oak, and on it sat various books all open to different pages

“Warlords of the past millennia,” he gestured, showing her some of the various books. “I tell you this, darling, I have had the unfortunate pleasure of reading the wrongdoings of these monsters, but this one I am doing tomorrow makes them all look tame.”

Ororo glanced down at the book her husband brought, bearing a picture of a man covered in onyx armor and wielding a large sword with the bodies of hundreds at his feet. “He was a warlord of the country of Salmashia almost seven hundred years ago; they say he hung the heads of his enemies’ children from his saddle as he rode to war.”

Ororo shook her head. “A monster.”

T’Challa nodded. “Believe me, it gets worse. He would have all of the prisoners impaled through the chest and hung upside down on pikes, and he would watch as the crows would feast on their still-living flesh”

Ororo was growing ill at the stories. “What happened to him?”

“No one really knows his fate. After his wife and child died, he was never seen again.”

Ororo raised an eyebrow in question.

T’Challa laughed. “Oh yes, he was married and had a child too; some records say, they perished in a fire that overtook his fortress the night he disappeared.”

He stood and walked over to a pair of covered tapestry. “But I did manage to get two of the authentic tapestries that survived the fire of the fortress from one of my colleagues.”

He uncovered it.

On it stood a warrior, garbed in black, except for his face.

Ororo froze as she saw it.

It couldn’t be.

“Also managed to procure one of his wife,” T’Challa informed her. “Even I have not seen this one yet.”

Before he could pull the covering free, Ororo dashed to the books on his desk and began turning the pages quickly.

“Ororo?’

She ignored him as she found the passage she was looking for.

The Bloodbringer of Salmashia was known by many names during his bloody campaign. The Ganrish called him Daegun, while the Terbith called him Mallach. But all records of his birth name were lost; all that remains is a small engraving on the head of the ruined gates of his destroyed fortress that read, “Abandon all hope ye who enter the domain of Logan ell Mortius, the Keeper of the Dead.”

Ororo felt sick. “I think I will lie down for a while husband, I do not feel well.”

She left without another word.

T’Challa was worried for his wife; she did not look well. He would see to her when he finished his work.

Pulling the cover of the tapestry away, he admired the work that went into it. He closely examined the woman who was reportedly the wife of the Bloodbringer. He could not help but laugh as he thought she looked an awful lot like Ororo.

Far away, in a crypt of unknown location:

I lay down on the hard stone of the ruined floor, with my twisted limbs wrapped around me

I came too close.

Gods damn me, I came too close.

I could still see her in my mind’s eye.

Ororo.

I won’t speak her name aloud again for fear that I may go back to her and take her with me.

I love you, Ororo.

But I won’t do that.





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