~I remember tears streaming down your face when I said I’d never let you go…

When all those shadows almost killed your light…~

The house was so quiet now…Even more quiet than it had been the past few years.  She supposed it was because there was no one left here anymore…Still, the echo of her footsteps in the empty hall unnerved her more than a little.  It had never been quite this quiet.  She walked slowly down the halls, looking around at the doors to rooms that had once been comforting and familiar.  For the past few years though, she hadn’t gone near them.  She doubted any of these rooms had been touched since the last time they were used.  She came up to one particular room that hadn’t been touched in almost fifteen years…and for some reason, she found herself opening the door…

“Hello, Persephone.” The kind woman said from the rocking chair by the window, moving her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she looked up at the door. She was in a simple white nightgown and holding a small bundle of blankets in her arms.  “It’s all right, you can come in.”

“Hi, Momma…” The six-year-old girl peeked around the door a little more when her name was said, emerald eyes curious.  “Governess Elaine said my little sister had been born…”

“And she was right…Do you want to see her?”

“Will I wake her up?” the little girl asked softly, carefully making her way around the door, as if any little sound would wake the sleeping baby.

Her mother chuckled.  “Your baby sister has just had a very long day introducing herself to the world.  I doubt she’ll wake up until SHE wants to…”she gestured for her daughter to come and stand by her.

At the invitation and assurance, little Persephone picked up the skirts of her dress and ran over, her blonde pigtails bouncing.  She skidded to a stop next to her mother’s rocking chair and peeked over the side, hanging onto the arm. “I can’t see her!”

The woman chuckled again and moved the bundle so that a little face could be seen.

Persephone gasped in delight, smiling at her new sister.  “She’s so cute!”

“Yes she is.  Would you like to hold her?”

Persephone looked up hopefully at her mother.  “Can I? Can I?” she asked excitedly.

“Of course.” Her mother showed her how to hold out her arms so the baby wouldn’t fall and then placed the bundle in her daughter’s arms, positioning the little girl’s arms to hold her sister securely.

Persephone gently rocked back and forth.  “What’s her name?” she asked after a moment. 

Her mother smiled.  “Her name is Diana.”

“Di-an-a.” The little girl repeated, wanting to learn the name as soon as possible.  She leaned down and kissed the baby’s head.  “My baby sister.”

~I remember you said ‘Don’t leave me here alone’. 

But all that’s dead and gone and passed tonight…~

Seph looked at the now empty rocking chair in the nursery and winced at the sad state it was now in.  It looked like it could fall apart and the loud creak it made as she moved it made her cringe. She and her mom had taken meticulous care of that chair, even after Diana had moved out of the nursery.  Seph had spent more time here than anywhere else, while her sister had been growing up.  She only stopped when Diana had been old enough to not need a crib anymore and had been moved out of the nursery and into a room she then shared with Seph.  As she walked further down the hall and up the large staircase, footsteps still echoing eerily on the antique tile, she came to the door of that very room.  A cheery plaque painted by her mother, now caked with dust, read ‘Persephone and Diana’ and was flanked by irises and lilies; the girls’ favourite flowers respectively. 

Hesitating a moment, she gently pushed open the door, looking at the room she hadn’t set foot in for years, despite it being hers.  She walked around, looking at the slightly messy room she and her sister had shared.  Toys still laid on the floor where they’d been left since the last time they’d been played with.  She bent down and picked up a ragdoll, shaking the dust off of it.  It was Diana’s.  She recognized it as the one her sister had called Luna.  Diana had owned many such toys.  Seph had as well.  Their mom would make them each a new one for every birthday.  Luna had been for Diana’s seventh, the last one she’d gotten.  She set the doll on the bed dressed in blue sheets embroidered with lilies and a matching duvet blanket; Diana’s bed.  She looked at her own bed, dressed in violet sheets with an iris design and the shelf next to it.  It was no ordinary shelf.  Her father had attached it to hide the door that was there.  It led to another room, one Seph had used almost non-stop when she was younger. She walked over and found the book hiding the knob, turning it…

“Sephie!”

The nine-year-old girl jumped, quickly covering up the project she was working on at her desk.  “Di!  I told you to always knock before you come in here!” Despite the angry words, she was smiling as she turned around in her chair to see her three-year-old sister running over from the hidden door in their room.  She could see the small step ladder they used to get things off of the high shelves in their room sitting outside the door.  Diana had obviously used it to reach the knob hidden behind the book on the third shelf, as she always did.  She never knocked.  Persephone didn’t mind it as much as she said, as long as she hadn’t been working with something sharp or something that required a delicate touch.

Little Diana ran right into her sister’s legs, hugging them (seeing as she couldn’t reach anything else).  “Wachoo workin’ on, Sephie?” she asked curiously, looking up at her with wide green eyes.

Persephone smiled.  “Now, Di…You know I never say anything until my projects are finished.” She chided lightly as she pulled her little sister onto her lap.  “I especially can’t say anything about this one, since it’s for you…Oh!” she mock gasped and covered her mouth, still smiling.  “I said too much.”

Diana’s face broke into a huge smile and she giggled in delight, bouncing on her sister’s lap.  “Fo MEEE?!”

“Yes, for you.” The older girl replied, taking her work goggles off of her head and putting them on Diana’s.  “But I can’t tell you anything because it’s a surprise, okay?”

The little girl pouted, pushing the goggles up as they fell over her eyes.  “When wiwl I be abuh to know?”

“Soon.”

“Pwomise?”

Seph kissed her head.  “Promise.”

~Just close your eyes

The sun is going down.

You’ll be all right,

No one can hurt you now.

Come morning light,

You and I’ll be safe and sound.~

Seph picked up her dusty work goggles from where they had been sitting on her work bench.  They were pretty much falling apart, like the nursery rocker, but this time, it was because of how much she’d used them.  They had been one of the only gifts from her father, after he had converted the small secret room in her and Diana’s bedroom into a workshop of sorts.  She’d discovered a love for tinkering and inventing at quite an early age and she had quite a talent for it if she said so herself.  She had made many little things.  Some of the projects still sat on various shelves, forever unfinished after she ran into a puzzling problem or had discovered there wasn’t really a use for them. 

She frowned as she noticed a book sitting on the desk in the corner.  She knew this book.  All too well.  She opened it to find the notes and research she had done all those years ago to make the wings her father’s experiments had mutilated functional again.  She had long since memorized them, having had to repair them several times in the early stages.  There were many crossed out designs and scribbled out notes, things that hadn’t worked and were useless.  She ran her fingers over the drawings, feeling like it was only yesterday that she’d been working on them…

“Sephie?”

Diana’s fourteen-year-old sister looked up from the journal she’d been writing in.  “Di.  I told you not to come here.” She said seriously, closing it and setting it aside on her bed.

Eight-year-old Diana didn’t listen to her and walked into the stark and unfriendly recovery room.  “I wasn’t going to leave you in here alone.” She replied, climbing onto the bed, a fresh, somewhat smushed iris in her hand.

“I don’t want you to see me like this, Di!” Persephone argued, trying to pull in her disfigured and torn wings, only to hiss in pain.

“It’s okay!” the younger girl insisted, reaching up to stop her.  “I just…I can’t believe that Papa did this…I thought the doctor I talked to was lying.”

“Papa’s not Papa anymore.” Her sister replied.  “You have to remember this, Di…I didn’t want to shock you like this, but I should have known you’d find out somehow…And I thought I told you not to talk to those people!”

“What was I supposed to do when Papa called you one day and I didn’t see you again til now?!” Diana asked, looking like she might cry.  “I wanted to see you again and they were the only ones who would have known what happened to you!”

“Okay, okay…” Persephone cut in, hating seeing her sister so upset.  “It’s fine, I guess…I’m glad you’re here.” She managed a smile, albeit pained, for the younger girl.

Diana’s lower lip trembled and she suddenly burst into tears and hugged her sister tightly, dropping the flower on the bed.

“Hey, hey!” the older girl said, trying not to cry in pain as what was left of her wings got crunched between her and the wall behind her. She sat herself upright again, still letting Diana hug her.  “What’s this now?”

“I was so scared you had left like Momma did!  I’m so sorry, Sephie!”

“Hey.” Persephone pushed her sister back so she could look in her eyes.  “Listen to me.  Momma did NOT leave us.  She had to go to a better place, but she’s still watching over us.” She wiped the younger girl’s tears away.  “And I will NEVER leave you, Di.  You know I won’t. Even if we’re separated, you’ll still have me, remember?” she pointed to the music box locket she had made for her sister’s fourth birthday that Diana always wore and took out the one she had made for herself.  “All you have to do is play our lullaby before you go to sleep, and I’ll be right there with you.” she held the other girl’s shoulders firmly.  “And I DON’T want to hear you apologize.  This is NOT your fault, do you understand?”

The little girl sniffled.  “B-But you were hurt all this time-”

“Diana Marie, this is NOT your fault.” She pulled her sister back into a hug.  “And I won’t leave you alone forever, okay?” she stroked Diana’s long blonde hair.  “I’m working on a way to fix this.  And I can fix anything, remember? I’ll be out of here soon and we can play together again.”

“Promise?”

Persephone kissed her head, holding her tightly.  “I promise.”

~Don’t you dare look out your window, darling everything’s on fire.

The war outside our door keeps raging on…~

Seph closed the leather bound journal and set it back on the desk.  She’d made clear copies of the notes and designs to keep with her if anything were to go wrong with her wing mechanics.  She didn’t need the originals anymore. They just held memories she’d rather forget.  She walked out of the workshop and the bedroom, closing the door behind her.  After a moment, she went back in and picked up Luna from Diana’s bed.  Whenever she found her sister again, this would be a good thing for her to have.

She glanced at the toys on the floor, noting all the rag dolls that had been hers, before gently placing Luna in her bag and leaving the bedroom again.  She knew one was missing, her favourite, she had let Diana borrow it to sleep with whenever Seph couldn’t be there.  She hadn’t been able to find it since her sister had gone missing all those years ago, so she could only hope that Diana had taken it with her.  She continued down the hall toward the only open door left in the house.  Her father’s study…

“Di?  Diana?  Where are you?” Sixteen-year-old Persephone called as she walked down the hall by their room.  Her sister hadn’t been in her bed that morning, nor in the workshop, so she had guessed the ten-year-old had started an early game of hide and seek. But she had heard no giggling at all and she’d searched through the whole house (Diana wasn’t very good at hide and seek, she always giggled when her sister got close to a hiding spot).  “Diaaaaaaaanaaaa!”

“Diana’s not here, Persephone.”

The teenaged girl looked over to see her a man in a white coat coming out of his study. “Father.” She said flatly.  She had not been on speaking terms with her father since he had turned his crazed experiments on Diana a year ago, leaving her sister unable to use her right arm.  He wasn’t too happy with her either, she guessed, seeing as she’d flown into a rage and destroyed most of his lab facility when she’d found out what he’d done.  But he still feigned fatherly affection, which pissed her off to no end.  “Where is Diana?”

“I told you.  She’s not here.”

“Yes, thank you for clearing that up.  Where. Is. She?”

“I’m not happy with the way you acted, Persephone.” Professor Riverfall said, crossing his arms. 

Here we go again, another talk about how she needed to behave herself and fix what she’d broken.  When hell freezes over. At least he wasn’t able to continue his stupid experiments. She glared at him.

“And as much as it pained me to do so, I had to punish you.”

Punish her? She scoffed.  He hadn’t done anything. All the scientists had wanted her put down, calling her unstable, but her ‘loving’ father had refused to allow such a thing.  She was FAR too precious an experiment to let go.  After all, she had fixed her own flaws.  Her half mechanical wings were folded against her back.  They got cumbersome when they kept hitting doorways and such, so she had made sure to make them able to fold in when she had designed the mechanics to replace the bones and muscles that had been lost in the attempted melding to her skin and nerves.

“You left me no choice, Persephone.  And there was nothing else that would have gotten through to you.”

Suddenly, it all clicked.  What her father was talking about…Why Diana wasn’t there…She opened her wings and flew at the professor, catching him and slamming him against the wall.  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH DIANA?!”

“Calm down, Persephone.” he said calmly. As usual, her antics didn’t threaten him at all.  “She’s not in this house anymore. But she’s perfectly fine and I promise she will stay that way if you behave.”

Persephone was positively shaking in anger. He was using Diana to blackmail her into helping him with those bloody experiments!  “Where. Is. She?!”

“I’m not going to tell you, Persephone.  That is your punishment.  Until you learn to behave and repair the damage you have done, you are not allowed to see your sister again.”

Persephone wanted to kill him.  Right then and there. But she couldn’t.  Because he was the ONLY person who knew where Diana was. From that moment, she would NEVER think of him as her father again.  Just the monster who had taken her baby sister away. She threw him to the side and flew down the hall, calling her sister’s name frantically, tears streaming down her face. 

“DIANA!”

~Hold on to this lullaby.

Even when the music’s gone…~

Seph clenched her fists as she stood in the doorway of her father’s study, looking at the body still lying there. It was Professor Riverfall. It really had almost been only yesterday that she had seen her father killed, shot by an assassin…One she unfortunately had known.  Astor Hargreaves.  Now that cat-eared prick was the only one who knew where her sister was.  He had in his possession her father’s research journal.  The only journal he owned that had a lock on it that only he could open, supposedly.  Seph had discovered over the years that he put every last note, every last discovery, every last plan in that book.  She had never seen the inside of it, except for brief glances before her father had quickly closed the journal, which automatically locked when it was closed.  She was almost certain that there was something in that journal that would lead her to Diana and also help heal her once Seph did find her. 

She stared down at her father’s prone body, wanting so badly to be angry at him for all he’d done.  All he had taken from her.  But, frustratingly, all she could think about was the day he had praised her for the first machine she built as a child and marvelled at the mechanics, the day he had surprised her with the workshop, the day he had helped her with a problem on one of her projects…and that last day, a few days ago, when the last thing he had said was ‘Persephone.’ when he saw her in the doorway, right before Astor shot him.  The love in her father’s eyes had been unmistakable and impossible to be anything but real.  It had stunned her, unnerved her, to see such a look from him after almost eight years of him only seeing her as an experiment, a perfect machine.  And it was most likely that look that had her thinking about all of the good times when she had adored her father instead of the many MANY times she had wanted to kill him.

She shook her head.  Happy memories or not, he was dead.  And there was nothing she could do now to bring him back.  Her current feelings made her feel like she should at least bury him, next to her mother, but deep down, she couldn’t bring herself to.  It was only now, staring at her father’s finally peaceful face, that she understood what had happened to him.  What had made him do all those terrible things.  He’d been trapped. Trapped by the madness that had been brought on by grief of his wife’s death.  He had never been the same since the day her mother had died.  It was after that day that the crazy experiments started.  Thinking about this, she couldn’t bring herself to bury him in the ground and trap him again, despite all he had done. 

She looked around the room, at all the evidence of the twisted experiments that had gone on in that god forsaken lab…she looked back on the rooms she had gone into after all these years…how they only served to remind her of the happiness she could have had.  The happiness she had lost.  It was then that she made her decision.

~Just close your eyes…~

Seph lit a match from her father’s stash and watched the flame for a moment before tossing it on one of the piles of paper, watching it catch fire and burn.

~You’ll be all right…~

She made her way back through the house, tossing more lit matches as she went, not once looking back as everything started to burn behind her.

~Come morning light…~

By the time Seph had made it out of the house, everything was aflame and she only barely avoided singeing her clothes as she continued away from it.  When she was far enough away that the burning manor was just a small flicker to her, she allowed herself one last look back, promising herself that the tear sliding down her cheek would be the last she shed for what could have been.  She turned around again and made her new mission to find Diana and save what happiness she had left. That she could still have.  That she WOULD have.

~You and I’ll be safe and sound…~

***

Astor stared intensely at the newspaper he had just been handed.  The front page headline read.

RIVERFALL MANOR DEMOLISHED IN MYSTERY FIRE

Police still investigating Cause of the blaze.

Under the headline, there was a picture of what was left of the manor house he had been in only a few days ago.  There was NOTHING left.  The huge house had completely burned to the ground. Only a small bit at the bottom, wood blueprints of the ground floor, gave any indication that there had ever been a house there.  After reading the article that went with it, he discovered that only one body had been found, which they knew by the dental records to be Professor Riverfall, the brilliant scientist. Hmph.  Brilliant.  Right.  Guess that was what they called ‘mad and demented’ these days… 

But he found himself wondering what had happened to the smart mouthed Seph.  Had she been in there when the fire had started? Why hadn’t she stopped it?

“Poor Sephie…”

Astor jumped as he heard the familiar voice.  “Dammit, Leyandris!  Make some bloody noise once in a while!”

The faerie for once said nothing to his angry outburst, did nothing to antagonize him.  Why, his face was so solemn, Astor could swear Leyandris actually DID know what emotions were.  Then again, he wasn’t too surprised.  The faerie seemed to like Seph.  Maybe because she was more the damsel in distress that Leyandris had wanted when he’d answered Astor’s cries. Tch.  She was a damsel in distress about as much as he was (NOT AT ALL).  But, regardless of the reason, the mechanical winged smart mouth and the allergic to emotion faerie had formed a friendship fairly fast, which meant that, because Seph had taken to following them around, Astor now had tag team antagonizers.  Joy.  “Should we tell her?” Leyandris asked, face still sad and solemn.

Astor sighed and rolled up the newspaper, going back into the house he was staying in for the moment (having only gone out to get the paper).

Only to find the familiar blonde quite literally collapsed on the couch in the living room. She hadn’t even bothered to take her jacket off, which she usually did if nothing else before she slept. Judging from the fact that he hadn’t seen any sign of her when he had left last night, she had come in very late…or very early.  He then noticed that her clothes, hands and face were spotted with black soot and ash and all the pieces fell into place. 

“I think she already knows.”