Chapter 1.1

The introduction to Chapter One. The Bonding/Claiming.

My assignment had come in. After nearly a thousand years of paperwork and debriefings it was my turn. And it seemed like a good host, too. According to the report, she was a little older than I would have liked perhaps, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Or so I thought then. At that time I was naïve, eager to serve without knowing what I was really doing. The rest of the report was basic background information; name, parents, sibling, native country, major events that had happened to the child in her life until the choice had been made. It was nothing unusual, and except for her age, she was the same as every other host I’d heard of.

I knew that depending on how willful the host was, the First Binding could be very painful; for the both of us. However, I was fearless, excited.  I couldn’t wait to get into the human world, to spread my wings. I convinced the General to let me try and bind with the child earlier than planned. She was almost too old to take the bonds. I didn’t want to fail on my first try.

I’d heard of the bonding from others, and even though it was different for everyone, I thought I was ready. But it was honestly the most horrifying, nonsensical feeling I have ever experienced. At first it was just a bunch of sounds. Meaningless words that were growing louder and louder in my ears.

“Vivve! Vivve, what’s wrong?”

There was an odd sensation of being touched, but it was if I was being touched through ice cold water. An odd balance of a grip on my arm but nothing actually touching my skin. And then a smell. It was overpowering and terrible, but somewhat familiar. It both repulsed me and reminded me of home.

“..arah…Ok, it’s Kassarah. Vivve?”

It wouldn’t stop. I tried to reach up, to cover my ears, but I had no control of my limbs, my hands that were scratching at a fire burning on my back. First cold and then scorching, back and forth, but the sensation of flames never left.  And the smell kept getting stronger, flooding my nose and choking my breath away.

“...told you. I will. Get up and stop pretend…”

The flames getting bigger, my muscles still unresponsive. Nothing was helping. And then nothing hurt. It felt natural again for a split second, before the flames returned.  Strange words still rushing past my ears, softer this time though like they were muffled.

“…Vivve won’t get up…”

Then again, normality. It lasted longer this time, maybe three, maybe four, full seconds. The smell retreated this time too. Blissfully sweet air filled my lungs and was then forced out as something slammed into my stomach. After that, it went immediately back to the odd combination of a grip without contact. The pain in my back was worse this time, and I realized it was because my wings were being forced down, like someone was trying to rip them off of me. I tried to scream out but I only managed a groaning sound before I noticed her presence.

She was curled up in the space in front of me. She wasn’t on the ground, and I only remember not knowing if there was ground here. And I also didn’t know what color this not-ground was. I think that most people describe places like these as black, but it definitely was not black, it just wasn’t any other color, really, maybe blue, sometimes flashing red. But not exactly not black. And no smells, thankfully.

I reached toward her, and she flinched, before lifting her face towards me. It was odd looking, smaller and dirtier, but the face of the child from the report. She seemed to know what was going on better than I did, and she seemed to blame me for it. The eyes that looked out at me had flames almost identical to those I could still feel burning through the skin on my back.

She tied to push herself up, failed, and tried again. This time she got herself into a sitting position, before her strength failed her. I just watched her as she struggled. Observing her small frame fighting to right itself fascinated me; I couldn’t look away.  She opened her mouth, and closed it again, the puzzlement on her face obvious. I bent down to get a closer look at this odd creature, but her face snapped back to mine, the flames fiercer, a warning not to get too close.

But, again, nothing. I was suddenly alone again. And the pain was gone. My limbs were beginning to respond to my wishes. But that face! It blocked my vision, I couldn’t see past the full grown warriors face, a mask on the child. I was vaguely aware that someone was carrying me, but at the moment I didn’t care where, or why. I was mesmerized by my memory of that small creature.

My visions were shattered by the person who’d been carrying me, suddenly dropping me into cold, wet mud. I began to stand up, but the pain in my back suddenly flared up twenty times worse than ever before. I was mentally shoved back as the small creature presence forced its way up into my consciousness. All of a sudden, I could only see what she looked at. Only notice what she did, which wasn’t much I knew it could understand the sounds coming from above my head, but it didn’t respond. It just stared forward, at an old man, drenched through with rain. I could feel the anger rolling off of her. It wasn’t aimed at anything in particular; there was no name or picture accompanying the force, just a wall of pure black hatred, flowing out at everyone and everything.

The old man she’d been staring at began to walk away. A small portion of the hatred faltered, and she shivered. We stood there for a while longer, before she quietly said one word and drifted off into the back of the darkness she had forced her way out of.  I repeated that word to myself, over and over again. I made a rhythmic little song out of it as I walked after the old man. He seemed to be going to a specific place, and I had no idea where I was or what I was doing; why not follow?

At some point he’d stopped and said something to me. I still couldn’t make sense of the sounds, so I repeated the word the girl had said. It had apparently satisfied the old man, because he turned around and started walking away again.

I followed, and said it again, for emphasis, “Kassarah.”