Jerolyn Rayne, A New Start

[inuyashwannab]

Pray you now, forget and forgive.
   
    William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "King Lear"

A Better Place

  She awoke near the mist, only a few days ago.  Confused and tired, she stumbled into the Vistani camp, greeted by the sound of drums and the less then curious gazes of the gypsies.  Her head was throbbing, filled with visions of a dark wood, mist gathering at her feet, the sound of her heart beating in her chest, and the dark cloaked figure reaching out to her.  She could not remember why she was there...or where there was.  She tried to remember something...anything from before the mist, only to feel the increasing throbbing sensation as she did.
  She told the gypsy woman her name was Jerolyn...it was the only thing in her mind that was clear, the only thing she could decipher from the painful visions and glimpses.  The woman told her to go to Vallaki, a place where should could find answers. 
  Though her mind was close to giving into the unconsciousness of sleep her body craved, she stumbled on in the direction she was pointed.  Her clothes were torn and dirty, she had no possessions with her and she soon found herself alone once again. 
  Collapsing into the soft grass was a relief to her tired legs, but her stomach ached for food.  She fought back the pain of hunger, closing her eyes tightly, not caring where she had fallen, for her vision had already become the blur.  It wasn't long before she could feel nothing, and she drifted off to sleep.

  She awoke to the sound of a door opening, and a light beside her.  She sat up, wincing as her sore body objected, ignoring her growling stomach.  She was in a small room, with wooden floors and simple cream colored walls.  She sat up in her bed, a single pillow behind her, her legs covered by a heavy blanket.  A woman was standing in the door way with auburn hair and a dark colored skirt.  As she closed the door she stepped over to Jerolyn, wary but with obvious relief in her eyes. 

  "You're awake, how are you feeling?"

  "Where am I..? Who are you?"

  The woman's name was Jaslene, she had found her near the old church, and brought her into the inn.  The woman gave Jerolyn food so her strength would return, and listened to her story of the mist and the gypsies, and how she couldn't remember anything before it.  The woman also had been 'misted' and sympathized with Jerolyn over her memories and, after a few long moments of talking, she left her to rest.



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  Jaslene had been a good friend to Jerolyn in the past few days, so she remained near her.  Unless she had gone off to be with her finance, then she remained at the inn speaking to barely no one.  After a couple of days, Jaslene took Jerolyn out to become acquainted with the land.  Despite its obvious beauty, Jerolyn found it to be a cruel and harsh place, but not entirely devoid of kindness.  She received work from a woman much like herself and soon was firmly on her feet here in this strange new place.
  Though her memories never became much clearer, she found that the more she talked to people the more words and phrases she recognized.  She guessed that her home was a place called 'Fearun', for that name was the most familiar, but none of the cities' names she heard sounded as familiar and no one seemed too entirely sure why her memory had been lost.
  Though uncertain of her former life, she quickly realized her characteristics and ways she reacted to certain people and situations.  She found she was quite stubborn, and very adamant.   She didn't care much for dresses, for she preferred to move freely, or fancy jewelry.  Nor did she seek out fang in adventuring or hunting, as most of the locals did.  She had a bit of a temper, but it took some prodding to get her angry.  She often put the needs of others before herself, even those she did not know, even her own safety, which irritated the people she'd grown close to. 
  Though she preferred now to take care of herself she was loath to be alone and felt great discomfort when surrounded by people she didn't know.  Shy, and a bit detached, Jerolyn found it hard to trust people and become closer to them, so she made a point to try to avoid them.
  She was determined to find a way to restore her memories...and if possible to return to the place she once came from...a task that had seemingly become impossible very, very quickly....

     

[inuyashwannab]

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
    Saint Jerome (374 AD - 419 AD)



Nightmares

  The room is dark, filled with mist. Jerolyn squints her sore eyes to see into the darkness but she can't make anything out...
The room is also cold, and damp and she can hear water dripping in the corner, but cannot see the source.  It smells like the slums, in addition to the rusty salty smell she can't seem to place, and several other bitter smells that sting her nostrils and eyes.

  A figure steps from the shadows...

  He is tall and lean, at first appearing to be a shadow himself.  He reaches out a hand, beckoning Jerolyn to come to him, though she obviously has no intention to.
  Upon stepping closer, she can make out his features....
  He's an older man, with chalky skin and dark hair like the night.  His features are handsome, with firmly placed cheekbones and a squared chin.  But his eyes are crimson, and as he smiles two pearly white fangs are visible.

  He beckons her again, whispering her name, and this time she approaches.  He places a cold hand on her bare back, and whispers something in her ear,  placing a silver handled dagger into her hand.  She steps into the mists, leaving him in the darkness, knowing what she must do.
  Soon she approaches a stone table.  A women lies on the table gagged, her hands and legs tied down...bloodied and bruised her features are nearly impossible to make out, but Jerolyn knows who she is...
  The woman is thin from lack of nourishment, whimpering but unable to squirm or cry out, she barely holds onto life.  The silver dagger glistens in the darkness and a smile curls around the lips of it's bearer.

  "Good morning Joslyn," she purrs, then lifts the dagger running her fingers along the blade, her eyes filled with wicked excitement "How shall we start today..?" 
  She doesn't wait for the girl to answer, though it is clear from her condition she wouldn't have been unable to.  She plunges the blade into her thigh, in one spot where there were no wounds.  Despite the gag, a high pitched squeal emits from her throat, followed by a sinister chuckle coming from the mists.

  Jerolyn pulls back the dagger, able to control her actions for the first time in this sick charade.  Two iron arms find their way around Jerolyn's small waist as the man rests his chin against her shoulder, pressing his lips to her jaw line and whispering in her ear...

  "Welcome home..."


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  Jerolyn woke up, gasping for breath but not screaming like the night before...when it was her on the stone table...
Her body was covered and sweat and she threw off the heavy covers, grabbing her aching head, trying to shake off the dream.

  It's been nearly two weeks since Jerolyn arrived in Barovia, and so much has changed for her since then.  Nightmares continue to plague her unconscious, and haunt her in her wake...nightmares of her past apparently, the past that she can't even force her self to remember.
  This, however, was the first night Joslyn was in her dreams.  She'd met the woman three days ago when she started harassing Jerolyn at the Lady's Rest, claiming she knew her and that her attack was justified.
  Perhaps she hadn't been lying...

  No! Jerolyn couldn't allow her mind to go down this path...It would kill her if the nightmares didn't.
  As she removed her thin night clothes, pulling on her dark leather pants, the branded K on her side caught her eyes in the mirror, as it usually did.  It was obviously old, and healed as well as it ever would be...a dark red mark on her tanned skin, right below her lower back, just above her pants.
  She was a good person, no matter what dreams or random crazy homicidal women said otherwise...there was no conflict, no doubt in her mind, that she was perfectly incapable of hurting anyone.  Life was sacred, and there was never any excuse to take the life of an innocent...but still...

 

[inuyashwannab]

The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.
    Isabelle Eberhardt



A Shadow

   Jerolyn kept to the shadows as she crept through the wilderness deftly.  She could hear the sounds of mink, and other forests creature’s, paws patting against the ground as she moved.  She was very quick and precise, not a step out of place.  It was almost unconsciously done…like a stored part of her inside her mind, a reflex or an involuntary action, like blinking.  Like breathing.  She didn’t even have to pause once to think about what she was doing.  It was like her foot was already on the ground before she even consciously decided to move forward.
It was cold…but she didn’t mind.  The icy wind cleared her head and made it easier to ignore the fact that she hadn’t sleep in days.  She was hungry though, and her through and lips were dry.  It was easy to be sidetracked from important things –like eating and sleeping- in this place.  Of course she still could not remember a home to compare it to…but she was still fascinated by the rolling hills and endless mountain rages just outside of Vallaki. 
   
   She didn’t like sleeping outside.  It was hard to concentrate on sleep with the chirping of crickets and other noisy wildlife, let alone the fact that the place was crawling with were creatures… but she found being around the locals and others more discomforting.  She hadn’t seen Joslyn for weeks and she knew she was in for a good chewing out when she returned.  Jerolyn needed some time alone…to think, to –try- and remember.
   Nothing came…but the nightmares were slowly going away.  In there place were cryptic visions of places and faces…names and words she could recognize.  But nothing she could make out.  She reacted differently to each one in her dreams, like the dark haired man with the ivory complexion who had starred in her nightmares only weeks before.  She no longer feared him in her dreams, his eyes were still a burning fire of crimson…but his smile was gentle and his expression was pained.  She felt sorry for this man…and was saddened when his face disappeared from her dreams…
   
   She was afraid of a new man in her dreams though…he had dark unkept hair down to his shoulders.  The same eyes and complexion as that of the other man, the one she used to fear.  His eyes were cold, but in her dreams he was always smiling, the same milky white smirk every night.  It wasn’t a happy smile.
She saw Joslyn in her dreams sometimes…but they were never good images.
   
   Jerolyn was sure Joslyn meant what she said…about forgiving her just as she had the moment she stepped in and protected her from…

   She sighed in the darkness, pausing for the first time behind a thick ancient tree.  Joslyn had thoughy she was a monster, something that needed to be destroyed…erased from the world.  Whether it was vengeance or a need to protect someone she loved it didn’t matter…Jerolyn proved her wrong. 
 
  There was no doubt in her mind now, as the dreams and feeling intensified inside of her, that Joslyn was telling the truth.  She didn’t want to believe…but it was senseless to fight it or she would never get past it.  And once she did, the nightmares went away.
She did worry about Joslyn, she seemed to have a knack for getting into trouble, and Jaslene, who had had not heard from since the wedding was postponed.  It was hard not knowing, but being around either of them might bring the nightmares and terrible feelings back, and she didn’t want to go down that road.  Not now when she was heading down the path of clarity.
   
   Though, she didn’t know how long she could keep living in this Solitude…perhaps it would be best to return.  She melted in with the shadows of the trees, without a second thought, and stepped like a ghost out of the forest.  Back towards Vallaki.

[inuyashwannab]

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC)



Passing

   It had only been hours since she heard the news…Joslyn’s death.  The one person who really knew her…gone.
   Of course Joslyn didn’t have the finest memories of Jerolyn, and she’d constantly wish that those memories would disappear.  But not like this, never like this.  This was too much to take in.
   She never even had a chance…never even had the right time or opportunity to make it up to her…to try and heal the wounds that the daggers and pokers plunged into her skin had left.
   And now she never would.

   It was pouring rain…close to sunset, but she wouldn’t go back to the Lady’s Rest.  Too many people would ask what was wrong.  Everything was wrong, the whole word had been turned upside down and lefts hanging by a thin thread.  Joslyn suffered all those years, through all that pain…only to die here.  In the place she called her salvation.  Guess it didn’t seem like that anymore without Lucian…but somehow Jerolyn always though Joslyn was indestructible, always viewed her as such.  But she’d been wrong many times before, and now she was gone.
   She couldn’t convince herself that it wasn’t just one of those incredibly vivid dreams…ones she was never able to wake up from and that left her with the insane head splitting ache in the morning…the ones she just had to endure.  And then she would be awake, and everything would be over, the day would go on.
But it wasn’t.  No amount of magic or prayers was going to change that, or bring her back.  All that was left were the ashes, her sword, and her shield, all three of which Jerolyn now had in her possession, but with no idea of what to do with them.
   She was soaking now, the thin green of her blouse and the wet lock of her hair clinging to her bronze skin.  She ran to the only place she could think of, the only place that offered shelter with solitude now that was in reasonable walking distance…
She slunk her way, through the shadows, through the slums to the abandoned house she’d been in only once before.  Shutting the door fast behind her, she made her way to check down below in the basement…just to make sure.
   He wasn’t there.  She knew he wouldn’t be.  He wouldn’t be too much help right now at this time of night anyway…she’d still hoped though.  She wanted to be alone…but to be alone with someone else would have been nice…she had enough time alone in the mountains.
She still hadn’t been able to acquire what he needed, but him running around at night wasn’t exactly helping the situation and she wondered if he was even alive at all…
   He couldn’t die, not before she got him what he needed.  Then again…people’s lives didn’t seem to want to coincide with what Jerolyn wanted.  First she lost her own life and now the person who’s life meant the most to her was gone, maybe even another life she could have saved –or made more bearable- was gone, and all that was left was the run down house she’d been to what seemed like an eternity ago…
She pulled her knees against her self, placing Joslyn’s sword and shield beside her, and wrapped her arms around them, letting the mourning take over every muscle in her body and turn into uncontrollable sobbing.
   It felt like she had cried for the first time.

[inuyashwannab]

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)



Dead In My Own Mind

  The room was dark, like it usually was.  But this time it was lit by three candles in the stone alter.  Water darkened the floors of the room and Jerolyn stood on the only raised platform, along with a dark haired and dark armored man.
He spoke calmly to her.

   “Jerolyn, be a dear and go apologize to Blair, hm?” The man suggested, his expression composed, and slightly amused and the pouty defiant expression on her face and her clenched fists.

   “No.” She muttered, glaring down at the blood on her fist.  The witch had it coming.  He simply sighed, leaning against the alter, and gazing at her.  She kept her own gaze low.

   “How are we supposed to make her feel welcome if you keep bloodying her up?” he asked with a chuckle.  She wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Blair.

   “She was being disrespectful! She had no right to talk to Laurent that way…” she muttered, lowering her eyes and her voice again when the one time she looked up and was glaring.

   “I’ve heard you say a few choice words to Laurent yourself Jerolyn.  He will be the one to deal with her insolence, not –you-.”

   “He didn’t seem to mind…” she mumbled again, remembered the same humor in his eyes.

   The man sighed “None the less, you should apologize, Laurent would agree.” He added, trying to sway her.

   She sighed as well, knowing it was pointless to argue with him.  He always won her over, one way or the other.  And in the –very- rare event he couldn’t, Laurent surely would.  She was literally helpless when it came to refusing Laurent.

   “Fine…I’ll apologize to the little witch.  But I won’t mean it.”

   “She’ll be satisfied.”

   “I know.” She grumbled, crossing her arms as her last defiant gesture, her fists still clenched.

   The man walked over to her slowly, placing his cool hands on her bare shoulders, and smiling at her warmly, with a dark edge to his eyes.  “Good girl.  And at least try not to hit her this time.”

   She sighed and nodded once, hoping she had enough self control.  “Yes Damien…”



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   The dreams were becoming more vivid…more real.  They were happening all the time now, just random scenes and random tidbits that made little or no sense…
   They were happening when she was awake.

   She’d never heard the name Blair before, nor could she match a face to the name, even though it sounded extremely familiar and left a sour taste in her mouth when she said it out loud.
  It started after Joslyn died, never before were they this real, or this persistent.
   Jerolyn felt her sanity unravel with each moment the vision crept into her skull, and the headaches wouldn’t stop.
   She wasn’t sure if during these visions she was speaking out loud to herself or not, whether these were really memories or if she really was loosing her mind.
She knew who Damian was, he was her mentor her idol.  The one she obeyed.  Blair was new and unfamiliar…but still unpleasant.  Laurent was strange…he was the ivory skinned monster in her dreams…but he left a strange sense of peace in her, a feeling of safety in her solitude, and wanting.
   Visions with him were never followed by headaches.
   Maybe this was a part of herself she would want to remember…but no one existed now to tell her why.  She yearned for company…any company.  Maybe then the visions would stop…maybe if she went back to Vallaki, Joslyn would still be alive, and this would all be over. 
   It would all be alright…maybe Sol and Envy were wrong.  The fact she still had Joslyn’s things didn’t mean anything! Weirder things have happened.  Maybe…maybe they found a way to bring her back.
   Things would go back to the way they were…things would be okay and she’d no longer have to suffer through the memories or dreams of a life she wanted nothing to do with…A life that was lost in the mists.
   Joslyn once said the mists saved her, why couldn’t they save Jerolyn too?

[inuyashwannab]

Close Ties

Jerolyn hadn’t slept for days…and it was already showing.  Her skin was shallow and her eyes were dark.  She spent most of her time with Maegan’s baby, Xander, while she worked.  He was always happy to see her, and all too eager for her absolute attention, which was a huge relief to her screaming headaches…but not much for anything else, and when it was time to give him back to his mother, her thoughts were free to roam other, more painful, avenues.  So she found a lot of time to think…and a lot of things to think about.

It was dark outside in the early hours of the morning.  She wore a thick cloak and her hood as she moved through the shadows towards the woods…unsure of how she would continue.
It was a bit out of character for Jero, or at least what she considered her character, to leave without saying goodbye…but then again there were few people there she knew that she’d bother to, except for two people.  One of which was now dead.
Aceline, Mae’s friend, would help her with the baby…though she had one coming herself.  Jerolyn just didn’t see the point to exist in this place with so much pain…but she wasn’t going to take the easy way out.  Like Joslyn did.

She didn’t exactly –know- the way to the village…but she was intent on getting there.  Joslyn had roughly told her where it was when the two were planning on going together –along with some friends- themselves. 
That’s where she’d start, maybe there was some kind of life to be made there…or at least what might seem like one.  Mist crept through the trees…seeming to follow her as she moved, creating an eerie cloud around her and making it more difficult to see.
She wished the mists had never taken her…never brought her to this place of pain.  She wished that she could remember the world she’d left behind; it had to be better than this.  Anything was better than this…even a world where she and Joslyn were enemies.  At least she was alive.
She paused, pulling down her hood and turning towards the fog, agitated and clenching her fists.
Why couldn’t they take her back?  Take her back to that life?  The life where she was actually her –real- self, the monster who wouldn’t even feel the pain of loosing someone she had tortured for years.  What a relief it would be to be that again…whatever it was it was better than the strain on her heart and mind…trying to remember and trying to forget all at the same time…

The mist swirled around her legs…and suddenly she felt dizzy… stumbling backwards away from the fog…but it was everywhere now.  It shrouded the entire woods…and all she could see was white and all she could feel was the damp earth as she feel onto her back…and then there was nothing.