Tattoo #1: Tattoo

by Barnes, Jennifer Lynn

Onbekend

To the ladies of the Naked Left Pinkie Toe--

you know who you are

"Passion Purple, Fruity Fuchsia, Playful Pink" Delia Cameron smiled as she came to the rose-col- ored nail polish. According to Delia, pink was the new pink. She'd tried to explain it to me once in terms of the color orange, but fashion wasn't really my forte, and I was pretty sure I had completely missed the point. At the age of fifteen, I more or less had to face the fact that, unlike my best friend --Delia Cameron, fashion goddess--there was a distinct chance that I didn't actually have a forte. "Divine Yellow," Delia continued, picking up the next nail polish container on the shelf and exam- ining it like a detective looking for clues in a case of paramount importance. Beside me, Annabelle grinned wryly, and the half smile softened her typically solemn features. To the outside world, Annabelle Porter was an almost alien creature: quiet and shy, too serious for her own good, and too smart for anyone else's. Once upon a time (in the seventh grade), she'd seemed that way to me, too, but now--three years, two hundred and six sleepovers, thirteen embarrassing karaoke nights I'm sure we'd all rather forget, and an unofficial initiation into our tight little group later, I knew Annabelle well enough to know that the crooked half smile was some kind of com- mentary on Delia's nail polish manifesto. I grinned at Annabelle, and she bit back a bigger smile. We'd both been in this exact position many, many times before. Blissfully unaware (or maybe deliberately ignoring) the silent exchange between the two of us, Delia picked up another bottle of polish and became instantly and absolutely entranced by it. "Man- go Mermaid," she breathed in the reverent tone most people reserved for the birth of their first child. "Mango Mermaid?" the fourth member of our group asked, her voice low, dry, and incredulous. She looked at me. "Mango Mermaid," she repeated flatly, shooting me a tortured look. I patted her consolingly on the shoulder. Poor Zo. Shopping with Delia took a certain kind of en- durance, and Zo Porter, Annabelle's cousin and more or less my other half for practically as long as either of us could remember, didn't have it. "Yes," Delia replied, rolling her eyes at Zo. "Mango Mermaid. Just look at the shimmer and compo- sition. It's perfect" "We've found the perfect nail polish," Zo said, her voice still completely flat. "Hurrah" With a tiny, almost pixie-like build, blond hair, and baby blue eyes, Zo didn't exactly look like your typical tomboy, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was anti-girly and had been even before the day her mother had dropped five-year-old Zo off at my house for playgroup, left the state, and never looked back. Delia, the Mango Mermaid polish held safely in her left hand, tucked a strand of chestnut brown hair behind her ear with her right. In typical Delia fashion, she was completely unaffected by Zo's scorn for all things feminine. "Says the girl wearing her brother's sweatshirt," Delia said, eyeing Zo's gray sweats disapprovingly. "I don't have a brother," Zo said immediately. Delia arched one eyebrow. "Oh," she said with a look of faux surprise. "My mistake" Annabelle watched the repartee between her cousin and Delia and then tilted her head to the side. "Did you hear that?" she asked me. "What?" I asked. I saw the twinkle in her eye a moment too late. "That," she said, her voice as soft and serious as always, "was the sound of civility flying out the window" Zo, Delia, and I had been best friends for as long as any of us could remember. The two of them liked to pretend that they just tolerated each other for my sake, but in reality, arguing was practical- ly an Olympic sport with those two, and there was no one Delia would rather argue with than Zo. I, for one, wasn't fooled by their little act, and civility comments aside, neither was Annabelle. "Food court?" I suggested out loud, knowing that there were exactly two reasons Zo put up with our Friday afternoon mall trips. The first was because the rest of us liked the mall, and tough-girl act aside, there wasn't anything short of breast implants that Zo wouldn't have done for the rest of us. The second, more compelling reason Zo tolerated our weekly mall trips was the triple chili-cheese dog, bacon cheeseburger, and chocolate milkshake she ate every time we went to the food court. "It's about time," Zo said, making a big show of grumbling. Still, she picked up a second Mango Mermaid polish and tossed it underhand to Delia. "I'm starving," she said by way of explanation, "and these are buy-one-get-one-free" Wisely, Annabelle, Delia, and I said nothing about the fact that Zo had eaten right before we left. Her endless appetite and teeny tiny body size were almost as much of a mystery to me as Delia's in- nate understanding of all things fashion and the fact that Annabelle could say more with a single look than I could with an entire sentence. With a toss of her hair, Delia flounced off to buy the Mango Mermaid polish, and five minutes later, the four of us stepped out of the store and into the the open expanse of the mall. "You know what I love about the mall?" Delia asked, her voice bright. "The sales?" I asked. "Your father's credit card?" Annabelle asked with another Annabelle half grin. "The torture?" Zo hadn't quite given up playing the shopping martyr. "No, no, and don't kid yourself," Delia said, responding to us in order. "The smell" I sniffed the air cautiously while Zo and Annabelle, for once in their lives on the same page, shared a look of confusion. "I don't smell anything," I said. I paused for a moment, wondering if I should even go there. "What does it smell like?" I swiftly maneuvered around a cart selling neon cell-phone accessories as I spoke. Unfortunately, I was maneuvering a little too swiftly and ended up running face-first into the next cart. For a split second, I fought to keep my balance. I lost, and crashed to the floor with the grace of an overweight elephant. "Now that ain't pretty," Zo said before dispensing what passed in her mind as helpful advice. "Lift foot, then shift weight, Bay" "I didn't trip," I replied, narrowing my eyes at her. "I ran into--" "Possibilities," Delia interjected happily. "Huh?" She'd lost me with that comment. "I smell possibilities," Delia said, stepping over me to get to the booth. "The mall is filled with pos- sibilities. Take these earrings, for example" Zo groaned loudly. "Hungry," she reminded us. Delia waved the complaint aside with a delicate flick of her right hand. Not wanting to get caught in the middle of their weekly mall showdown, I started to stand up, and as I did, I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me to my feet. "Thanks," I said, dusting myself off and turning around. "I " As soon as I saw his eyes, my mouth stopped functioning, which was a good thing, because my brain had clicked off a microsecond before. Kane Lawson, eye candy. King of eye candy. God of eye candy. "Thanks," I said, forcing myself to form a decipherable word while my mind froze from cuteness overload. Emergency, emergency, I thought. Must form coherent sentence. "What are you boys doing here?" Delia asked, never at a loss for words, especially around members of the opposite sex. Boys as in plural? I wondered at her words and looked past Kane to see two of his friends. It was like eye candy, supersized. "Just hanging out," Kane said, his hand still on mine. "You okay?" No, I wanted to reply. Put me in ICU, fatal embarrassment ward. "I'm " I searched for the right word, my brain being difficult. "Fine?" Zo prodded. "That," I said weakly. For good measure, I nodded vigorously, as if that was somehow going to make me appear like less of a total and complete idiot. Unlike Delia, who had a new crush every week, I'd had exactly two in my entire lifetime. The first had been a deep and undying love for the boy with curly brown hair in my kindergarten class. The second was Kane. "You're Hayley, right?" Kane asked me, filling the silence. "I think you're in my geometry class" "Bailey," I corrected him, my name getting caught in my throat. "And it's world history" He nodded and smiled. Oh, the smile. Delia began chatting up the guy on the left while the guy to Kane's right raked his eyes up and down, first over Annabelle's body and then over Zo's. Apparently, even in her sweats, she was more appealing than I was. Story of my life. "Hey, buddy," Zo said, her voice casual yet deadly. "Eyes on face" Annabelle stifled a laugh, and I groaned inwardly. Zo had no tact and even less impulse control, and despite the fact that she wasn't an inch over five feet tall, the look she was giving the guy to my right had me convinced that if he didn't manage to drag his eyes away from the perfect figure hid- den under her sweat suit, he'd find himself in a world of pain within the next thirty seconds. "Bailey," Kane said again, repeating my name and drawing my attention away from Zo. I looked over at him, and for a moment, we just stared at each other. Finally, he nodded at me and smiled. "See you around" I nodded dumbly, a smile plastered on my face. Kane Lawson would see me around. The guys took off, and the moment they were out of earshot, Delia squealed. "What did he say?" she asked. "See you around," I said. He'd now officially said over a hundred words to me. It had taken five years to get there, but I was finally in the triple digits. Delia pondered my words. "Was it `I'll see you around' or `see you around' or `see ya around'?" she asked seriously. "That matters?" I asked. Delia nodded. "When it comes to guys," she said, "everything matters" "Everything matters," a musical voice repeated. I turned and found myself staring into eyes so blue it almost hurt to look at them. "Can I help you girls with anything?" the woman asked, gesturing to- ward the booth. Zo glanced at Delia and then back at the saleswoman. "Don't encourage her," she said flatly. I looked at the woman, unable to turn my gaze from her eyes, all thoughts of Kane exiting my mind as I stared into them. "I need something cutting-edge that will flatter a retrochic red-carpet look," Delia said. Zo fought a smile and shrugged at the saleswoman. "I told you not to encourage her" The woman clicked her tongue and murmured quietly as she pulled open a drawer on top of the booth. "Try this," she suggested, handing Delia a black metal choker with a small white bow in the middle. "It's retro and cutting" She turned her attention to Zo. "And for you," she said. Zo held up one hand in protest. "Oh no," she said. "I'm not interested. I don't do accessories" The woman ignored her and held out a small, deep purple crystal on an almost invisible gold chain. It swung back and forth in front of Zo's face, and despite herself, Zo was captivated. Watching the crystal, I felt my mind drifting off, and I could practically hear the woman going all "you're getting sleepy, verrrrryyyy sleepy" on me. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "And for you," the saleswoman continued, turning to Annabelle as she placed the crystal firmly in Zo's cal-lused hand. "You're not going to argue with me like this one?" she asked, nodding her head toward Zo. "Zo and I are very different," Annabelle, queen of the understatement, said evenly. Zo snorted under her breath. She was the only person who could actually get a rise out of A-belle. Since they were first cousins and only children, I'd always thought it was a sibling rivalry kind of thing. "For you, something classic," the woman said to Annabelle. "Understated" "Practical," Annabelle put in, and Zo snorted again. Annabelle was one of those rare people who was born practical. Of course, the fact that she'd grown up all over the world with a linguist mother and an anthropologist father surrounded only by adults might have had something to do with it, too. The woman measured Annabelle's request. "Sometimes," she murmured. "Sometimes practical. Ob- servant certainly, and true" Why did I feel as if I'd called one of those psychic hotlines? 1-800-CREEPYSALESLADY. The woman's blue eyes flittered over to me as she ran her fingers along the edges of several silver barrettes. I looked at her face, and my teeth ached with the sheer blueness of those eyes. "This," the woman said, closing her hands over a circular dark silver barrette and turning back to Annabelle. "This is for you" I looked at my friend. In true Annabelle style, she didn't say anything. Instead, she flipped the bar- rette over in her hand to look at the price, and after a moment, she nodded. "Okay," she said simply. Her mouth curved into a slow grin. "I like it" I bit my bottom lip and waited. The woman said nothing. "What about Bailey?" Delia asked, still admiring her necklace. "She could benefit from a little ac- cessorizing. Trust me" Delia didn't mean anything by it, and since she'd been saying pretty much the exact same thing since we were four years old, I didn't take offense. In the world of Delia Cameron, shopping goddess, everyone needed fashion advice, except, of course, for Delia. "For you," the woman said. For a second, I heard nothing but that melodic voice. The rest of the sounds of the mall faded away, and the colors in front of my eyes swirled and blended together in the background until all I could see was the woman. "It is not I who can choose for you" Her words echoed in my head. "You must choose for yourself" There was no way to argue with the command. When I thought about it, it was kind of pathetic that I couldn't even argue with the kiosk lady. Chalk another one up for Bailey Morgan, high school doormat. With great effort, I pulled my attention away from the woman's eyes and my own thoughts and turned to look at the booth. Jewelry of all kinds hung on dainty displays. Cautiously, I let my finger trail over a watch with a face like the view of a river from a plane, carved into wood. The woman watched me carefully, but I shook my head. As I pulled my hand back from the watch, my shirt caught on a small drawer and pulled it open. Startled, I backed up, unaware that my sleeve had attached itself to the drawer. Its contents poured out onto the floor, clattering loudly enough that everyone within a fifty-foot radius turned to look at me in one coordinated motion. Maybe being a klutz was my forte. "I am so sorry," I said. Even to my ears, my voice sounded high-pitched. I just don't deal well with pressure. I bent down to pick up the rings and stones that had fallen out of the drawer, and something caught my eye. A piece of paper? Somehow, it didn't quite fit with the rest of the jewelry. I picked it up and discovered that it was covered in protective plastic. I turned it over, and as I did, words flashed in front of my eyes, filling the top of the page. " `Temporary tattoos,' " I read out loud. "Oh, coolies," Delia said. "You should totally go for it, Bay" I brought my finger to touch the plastic over the tattoos. There were four of them, all a deep blue- green.
S�dhe blue. Blood green. The words echoed in my head as I traced my fingers along the lines of one of the tattoos. They didn't form any recognizable shape that I could see, twisting and turning and melting into one an- other in odd forms that burned themselves into my mind. "I'd rather have the real thing," Zo said. She'd been talking about getting a tattoo since she was nine. "Really, Zo?" Annabelle asked in one of those two-word sentences that actually conveyed a five- minute speech about how much Zo's dad would freak out. Zo shrugged. "It might be worth it," she said, casting an impish grin in my direction. "Or," I said, eyeing the tattoos, "it might not" "Well, are you getting them or aren't you?" Delia asked impatiently. "Thoughtful shopping is a plus, but indecisive shopping? Major weakness, Bailey" I nodded, trying to digest the fact that Delia had just accused me of being a weak shopper. "Okay," I said. "I'll take them" The saleswoman's blue eyes stared through me and into me at the same time, sharp and searching. "Are you sure?" Delia took the tattoos from me and placed them on the counter in front of the cash register. "She's sure," she said, making the decision for me. One by one, we paid for our purchases, and by the time we were done, Delia was practically danc- ing with shopping-fueled euphoria. "How lucky was that? I mean, accessories can make or break an outfit, and to find so many " She trailed off. "And you'll share the tattoos, yes, Bailey?" she asked, half command, half question. I looked down at the plain silver bag in which I carried my sole purchase for the day. "Yeah," I said. "Of course" "So hot," Delia said. "This is going to be so hot. Dibs on the swirly one" "They're Bailey's," Zo said immediately. She'd been watching out for me for so long that by now, it was more or less automatic. "Shouldn't she get dibs?" Zo put air quotes around the word "dibs" Clearly, it wasn't a normal part of her vocabulary. Delia narrowed her eyes at Zo, and I could sense another softly sarcastic comment coming from An- na-belle's general direction, but a second later, Delia shrugged. "Sureness," she said, slinging an arm around my shoulder. "Whatever you want, Bay" I glanced at Zo and bit back a smile. "Food," I said, speaking for both of us. "I want food" And with that, we headed for the food court as Delia began an extensive discourse on our outfit op- tions for the upcoming dance. Zo walked on my other side, hands in her pockets, and Annabelle fol- lowed a step behind us. Just another Friday afternoon at the mall. We totally should have known better. Onbekend "Yes, yes, no, and what were you thinking?" Delia passed judgment on our outfits one by one as we came out of our dressing rooms to stand in front of the three-way mirror. She and I had gotten yeses, and Annabelle had been the no. Zo looked down at the sport pants and T-shirt she'd found in the faux-exercise section of Escape, Delia's favorite store and our current location. "What's wrong with this?" Zo asked defensively. Annabelle looked down at her own floor-length skirt with a frown. "We're talking about a dance here, Zo, not dance class" As if Zo had ever in her life stepped inside a ballet studio. With a thoughtful expression on her face, Delia stalked away and came back a few minutes later with a tiny black dress. She held it out to Zo and pointed firmly to the dressing room. Zo snorted. "Queenie, you gotta be out of your mind" From Zo, "Queenie" was a term of endear- ment. Sort of. Delia just kept pointing. Beside me, Annabelle was trying very hard not to smile. The rest of the week, no one told Zo Porter what to do, but the mall was Delia's turf, not Zo's, and with a glower that was more for show than anything else, Zo disappeared back into the dressing room. Annabelle waited patiently, preparing herself for Hurricane Delia, the fashion tornado. "You need to show a little more skin," Delia said. She looked the outfit up and down. "The colors aren't bad, and it fits well, but" "No" Annabelle just shook her head. "I like it" "Oh" Delia paused. Zo she could argue with, but on the rare occasions that Annabelle actually ver- bally expressed an opinion, nothing and no one could change her mind. "You did say it was a good color and fit well," I told Delia consolingly. Then I turned to Annabelle. "And don't feel bad that your outfit didn't make the Delia cut," I told her. "The only reason mine did is because Delia picked it out to begin with" "There is that," Delia admitted with a good-natured smile, bouncing back from the minor fashion defeat. "Zo, what's taking so long?" "Do you know how many straps this thing has?" Zo sounded so incredulous and puzzled that as her voice floated over the dressing room door, I giggled. "While we're waiting." Delia popped into my open dressing room and back out a moment later with a giant smile on her face. "Tattoos!" She wiggled the sheet at us, her eyes lighting up with the motion. "I thought you wanted to save those for the dance," I said. Delia scanned the back of the package. "No instructions," she said. "It just says three days" She paused for a moment. "Friday to Saturday, Saturday to Sunday, Sunday to Monday. Perfect" Her words echoed in my head. Three days. Perfect. "Though the fact that our school is having the biggest dance of the year on a Monday night," she continued, "is just plain wrong. Evil, really" "You wanna see evil?" Zo asked from inside the dressing room, where I could only assume she was still recovering from waging a losing battle with the straps. "Look in the mirror" "You have the dress on, don't you?" Delia asked with a huge smile. Silence. "I think she dooooeeees," I said, dragging out the word. "Come on, Zo," Annabelle prodded, picking up my teasing tone and making it her own. "Let us see" She paused and winked at me. "I bet it looks pretty" Annabelle knew exactly how to press Zo's buttons. "Shut it, A-belle," Zo growled. Annabelle shrugged and shut her mouth, an evil, almost little-sister-like grin on her face. "While we're waiting," Delia said, emphasizing the word "waiting," "you want to do the honors, Bay?" She held the package of tattoos out to me. For a moment, I stared at them through some kind of haze, feeling my blood pump through my veins and listening to the rush of it in my ears. "Bailey?" Annabelle asked, gently touching my shoulder. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine" I forced myself to focus and took the tattoos from Delia's outstretched hands to "do the honors" and open them. The moment my hand touched the package, a chill ran from the base of my neck down my spine. I stared at the four tattoos and ran my finger over the top of the package. Gin- gerly, I tugged at the plastic cover, but it didn't move. I tightened my grip and tried again. The sec- ond I felt the packaging give under the pressure, I closed my eyes. To fight, to live We two of three bestow this gift... "Bailey? Earth to Bailey, do you read us?" "Now that," I said under my breath, "was freaky" "What?" all three of my friends asked at once, Zo's voice muffled from behind the dressing room door. "Voices," I replied. "In my head. They were saying something about gift bestowing. " About that time, I realized that I sounded completely insane, and I decided that it wasn't the world's best idea for me to go around talking about the voices in my head, especially in public places. "Just kidding," I amended. "What are you guys, the gullibility triplets?" Annabelle looked at me, her face carefully blank and her eyes measuring. After a long pause, she reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of scissors. When the Boy Scouts said "be prepared," they'd never met Annabelle. She brought new definition to the word. Delia daintily plucked the tattoos out of my hand and took the scissors from A-belle. With one clean snip, she had a tattoo in her hand. "It kind of looks like a butterfly ...or half of a butterfly," Delia said. "Except for this line here" She ran her finger down the center of the symbol. Annabelle took the tattoos and touched the edge of one of them. Where Delia's had been two gently intersecting circles divided by a single curving line, the tattoo Annabelle was pointing to was thin- ner and longer, like two crescent moons crossing paths. Or, I realized, like two freakishly shaped eyeballs staring at me. "Take it," I said, answering the question in her eyes with a shudder. "It's yours" Annabelle took the scissors from Delia and made quick work of cutting out the tattoo. With mock solemnity, she handed the rest of the sheet to me. I looked down at the two remaining tattoos. One was perfectly circular, with alternating zigzagged and sloping lines bursting out from the center, like a sun drawn by a "creative" four-year-old child. The other was almost indescribable, a mixture of lines, dots, and overlapping triangles. I felt dizzy just looking at it. "You got a preference, Bay?" Zo asked, finally coming out of the dressing room to get in on the tat- too action. My mouth dropped open. The little black dress was amazing, and the way it clung to her athletic frame looked almost sultry, in a little-bitty-blonde kind of way. "Shut mouth," Zo told me with a half grin. If I'd been anyone else, she would have glared the flab- bergasted look right off my face, but instead, she just nudged me. If Zo had one soft spot, it was me. "Pick a tattoo, Bay" I tried not to look back at the two remaining tattoos, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the sunburst. "I," Delia said, giving Zo's dress a once-over, "am a genius" "You like the sun one" Zo interpreted my shrug and ignored Delia completely. "Do you mind if I take it?" I asked. "Mind?" she repeated. "Of course not. Do I look like a sunshine girl to you?" With the contrast between the black dress and her mop of bright hair, Zo did look sunny. In fact, ex- cept for the wry expression on her face, she looked like Sunny McSunshine, but I wasn't about to tell her that. "No," I said as I cut the last two tattoos apart. "You're not sunny" "Amen to that," Delia added. "Now let's put these babies on. I'm putting mine on my stomach. With a little midriff showing, it'll be totally hot. Just a taste of the forbidden" She looked in the three-way mirror, admiring the belly-showing top she'd selected for her own dance attire. "No way mine's going on my stomach," Zo said. Annabelle wrapped her arms protectively around her waist, and Delia sighed, every inch the fashion martyr. "I think I'll put mine on the nape of my neck," Annabelle said, sweeping her light brown hair over her shoulder. "That way, I'll know it's there, but no one else has to" "What about you guys? Bay? Zo?" Delia looked from Zo back to me. Zo looked almost comically horrified at the girlyness of the whole situation, and I just stared back at Delia, completely at a loss. I didn't have a clue where to put my tattoo or, for that matter, how to get a guy (or The Guy) to go with me to the dance on Monday. Why was it that being a girl came so naturally to some people (cough, Delia, cough cough), and yet I didn't know the first thing about it? "Your lower back," Delia told me after a long moment, like an artist finally touched by her muse. "With that two-piece outfit, which, I must add, was yet another stroke of genius on my part, it'll be divine. Not quite as obvious as the stomach, but still sexy. Mysterious, even" "That's our Bailey," Zo said. "One giant mystery" I smacked her in the stomach. "Nice dress," I told her. "Very sunny" She barely even noticed. "So where are you sticking yours?" I asked, folding my arms over my chest. Zo didn't falter for a second, and even though I knew her well enough to know that she hadn't decid- ed until the minute I asked, she replied with all the certainty in the world: "I'm putting mine on my foot" "Your foot," Delia repeated dully. Zo nodded. "Your foot?" Annabelle asked, a smile tugging on the edge of her lips. Zo nodded again. "Yup," she said. "The top of my foot" Delia spent about two seconds rolling her eyes and then turned her attention to her own midriff in the three-way mirror. "What do the instructions say about applying?" she asked, holding the tattoo near her belly button. "I think these things usually need water or something" As the words left her mouth, Delia's hand pressed quickly to her stomach, and the tattoo, as if being sucked inward by a vacuum cleaner, moved swiftly toward her navel. Delia looked down with a shrug. "I guess I figured out how to work it," she said. I didn't respond. Instead I stared at Delia's stomach, at the green almost half-butterfly. For a split second, the lines moved and swirled on their own, the blue-green color deepening until it was almost black. Blood of the S�dhe. The words echoed in my head. In the next instant, they were gone, and Delia was peeling her hand back from her stomach to reveal a glittering, nearly black tattoo. "Perfect," Delia said, satisfied. Then she saw me staring at her. "Something wrong, Bay?" As I stared at her stomach, I saw the black color of her tattoo flash in a burst of light, and in the next instant, the color morphed back to the blue-green it had been in the package. The light faded, and I heard Delia calling my name. I tore my eyes away from her tattoo and glanced at Annabelle and Zo. Neither of them had seen a thing. "Your turn, Bailey," Delia pronounced. "You wanted it on your back, right?" I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came out, and as I stood there, trying to remember what the whispering voice in my head had said, Delia took my silence as permission to pluck the tattoo from my hands, lift up the shirt she'd selected for me, and carefully arrange the sunburst on my back. The moment it touched my skin, the room exploded into color. Blue, green, black, fuchsia, and the brightest yellow I'd ever seen. The colors swirled and throbbed, and I felt an ice cube run down my spine, followed by an incredible burst of heat from my lower back. Voices flooded the air, and the world around me fell into slow motion, a blur of colors that I couldn't quite make shapes out of. To fight, to live... The words repeated themselves over and over again in my head, spoken by two voices at once. The first was deep, and my body ached with the sound of it. The second, softer and feminine, soothed the ache but sent the world around me spinning as the voices melted into some kind of chant. I heard it behind me and around me. Inside of me. Cool and soothing, deep and dark, the voices pressed against my mind. To fight, to live We two of three bestow this gift To see, to feel To stand upon the ancient Seal To know, to feed To change, l'S�dhe From earth she comes From air she breathes From water, her prison beneath the seas Fire burn Desire bleed As we will, so mote it be. The colors around me bled into one another, and with a burst of light, they and the voices were gone. The silence was heavy in the air, and with no warning, the entire world