Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 19:32:43 -0000 From: StormBorn Subject: Ice (01/01) To: FKFIC-L@lists.psu.edu Standard disclaimers apply; permission to archive to www.fkfanfic.com; comments to stormborn@prodigy.net. We praise those who have no emotional barriers when perhaps we should pity them instead. A savage heart dwells always in joy and terror; this story was born of such a heart. Ice (01/01) By Molly Schneider Copyright 1999 A casual-chic little place in Manhattan; the kind of place people go after work to meet and make plans for the evening. She had no one to meet here, and no plans. She had left Toronto because she had to, because she no longer knew who she was and she could not find the answer in Nicolas' eyes nor LaCroix's. LaCroix had let her go. She tipped blood from a silver flask into her glass of red wine and stared at it before taking a quick drink. Did he even know how much it stung, she wondered. No, probably not, he thought she was too strong to feel hurt by it. Strength. Wasn't that what had attracted him to her, what he always praised in her? What he perhaps loved--a sharp exhalation of breath from flared nostrils, too delicate to be called a snort. Yes, she'd been strong. Proud, too; too proud then or now to lean on anyone else . . . But it was he who had turned her heart to ice. Over and over again she'd met with frost when she needed warmth. She'd turned to Nicolas, only to be scalded by that one's fire, and when she'd sought LaCroix's comfort, what had she gotten? Lectures. Philosophy. Careless kindnesses that were blind to her and hurt far more than the rage he turned on Nicolas would have. Fighting the urge to flee she glared at the crowd around her. All that strained laughter, those yearning looks. Go ahead and care, she addressed them silently; it will get you nothing in the end. Nothing, but the hopeless shame of knowing you care far more than they ever will. Draining her glass, she refilled it, mixing the contents of the bottle on the table with the flask in her purse. She wanted to run. She had nowhere to go. She stared into the red heat in her glass. He would never have let Nicolas go. Molly/StormBorn UF/FKPagan/Cousin/Inn-mate/NA/Ravenette/Seducer/Dark Trinity stormborn@prodigy.net http://members.tripod.com/~StormBorn/index.htm "Nature is visible spirit; spirit is invisible nature."--some German Romantic