Midnite Tempest

"I think this one will always be my favorite."

Raene lifted her face to the familiar voice, the seductive Italian accent effecting a soft, captivated smile even before her dark eyes found its source.

"It is everything that new love can be - the joy in a new discovery with every moment, the beauty of the soul reflected in the world around it. It is a banquet laid out before the heart that has hungered for far too long." Rheinallt turned to look at her and smiled as though everything he'd just described was sitting before him.

"You asked me if I really wanted the night to end, and I said I wanted to know what it was like to sleep in your arms," she reminisced with a nod, though she never looked toward the painting he'd indicated. She knew which piece he'd been standing before.

He looked around the circle of paintings she'd reverently erected around herself after carefully unpacking each crate. The lamps she'd set up before them were meant to illuminate each one in a kind of outward facing halo, leaving her mediation space in shadow. "To see them like this..."

"I wanted you to speak to me." Her voice was hushed, almost afraid, as she followed his gaze to a painting of a darkened sky filled with clouds that seemed laced with cold demonic eyes.

"Ask me, mio amore infinito."

"He said you did it. You pushed me from the car. My abilities..."

"What did you think of this when you saw it?" He indicated the darker painting that had drawn his attention.

"I...it felt familiar, but I know I never saw it before," she answered uncertainly, wondering why he'd told her to ask her question if he was only going to ignore it. "It feels like despair."

Rheinallt nodded, the expression on his face darkening as his eyes became distant. "I was utterly alone and convinced that I always would be. The darkness churned inside of me in the most relentless way, and I knew that it was destruction and death." He turned back toward the raven-haired woman kneeling inside the circle. "And then, I met someone who could turn night into day with little more than the way she smiled when she looked at me."

Warmth filled Raene's cheeks, and she marvelled at the fact that he could still make her blush as though she was seventeen all over again. She rose to her feet in a smooth motion, and he met her approach with open arms that pulled her into a passionate kiss.

"I'm dreaming," she whispered in the hot breath that washed over his lips as the kiss ended.

"Yes and no, Amore, yes and no." He led her to another set of paintings, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, keeping his lips at her temple as she looked around curiously. They were no longer in her apartment in Croatoa, but in a dark landscape or a vast room lit only by the paintings stretching out around them.

When he halted their progress, they were standing amidst another circle of paintings, each lit in the same way those in her meditation space had been. One after another, however, incited further confusion as she looked at them. They were portraits of people in her life - Liam, John, Sabrina, Dierdre, Derek, and on and on - yet they weren't quite accurate portrayals. John, for instance, had the most intense dark eyes that burned like... She looked up at Rheinallt.

"Who painted these?"

"You did."

She shook her head, looking back to the painting of Derek, who's face was too dark, too chiselled, to be right. "I don't paint."

"Your heart does, though. It always has."

"These are wrong." She stepped forward to touch a canvas. "Sabrina's hair is purple, not black. And Dierdre's eyes are like mine. Dark brown, not blue."

"What do you find the most comforting about Dierdre? What traits do you admire and love in her?"

"She loves a person for exactly what they are without placing restrictions or conditions on them. She reminds me so much of my--" She stopped herself and looked back at Rheinallt in realization. "My mother's eyes were blue."

He smiled warmly at her, touching her cheek. "And the rest?"

Feeling as though she had a key to unlock a hidden mystery, Raene turned back to the circle of paintings, studying each one. "Master Ano reminded me of my father when he spoke, so he has Father's lips. Sabrina is so happy, but the way she understands me reminds me of the way you understood me."

She stopped as she reached four paintings of recent events in her life. "I...don't--"

"Yes, you do, though the differences are much more subtle with some." His voice was reassuring, yet it carried a bit of an edge to it - not a warning so much as an understanding that this must be done.

It wasn't just John's eyes, but it was his expression. It was one of deep concentration, and he was surrounded by the same eye-filled clouds as Rheinallt's painting from before. Her voice became hushed, pained. "You. More than a few of his mannerisms reminded me of you. I never even realized."

"And the next?"

"Derek...when I was with him, I felt like I could embrace life like you and I did." She moved on to the next, knowing what to look for now, and her voice remained quiet as each explanation was more of a revelation to her. "Alex was sexy and confident, and his hands were just like yours. Strong, but gentle. I was so drawn to Grant - like a moth to a flame. I identified with the pain inside him. Did I really know the pain you carried?"

He was standing behind her now, and she leaned back against him, pulling his arms around her for comfort, half afraid he'd disintegrate into thin air and the trance would be over.

Her eyes flickered over the next painting, and she stood stock still, unsure what to make of it. The canvas was so white, it illuminated her face. She knew who it should be, but there was no image here, and her lower lip trembled.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "You weren't there."

The paintings faded from view around them, and Rheinallt's arms closed tighter around Raene in the darkness, turning to steel bands from which pain and a dark self-loathing pulsed, surrounding her.

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Darkness.

Pain.

Fear.

She realized it hadn't been Rheinallt at all. This prison of darkness was of her own making. It was her guilt and her pain and her grief wrapped about her in a dark shroud.

And there was no one to call out to. No one could save her from herself this time.