For the Love of Mother-Not
(With apologies to Alan Dean Foster)by Maygra
An Interlude in the "False Comforts" AU. (continuation of events from False Comforts, Welcome to Memphis, Caution: Falling Rocks and Altars of Stone and Wind. You do not have to have read the other stories but this won't make any sense without them.
Ratings: Mature Adult
Pairing: Sam/Dean, OFSC (Original Semi-Female Creature)
Warnings: Sex, Blatant Abuse of Mythology.The following is a work of fiction. It is meant for mature adults and deals with mature and disturbing themes. Forced to a category, it would be dark fiction and containing both violence and sexual violence. It is a horror story. It's also a love story.
The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the WB. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings. Please do not archive this story without my permission.
Artist: Michael Wolfendale. Used without permission.
Mother
Tell your children not to walk my way
Tell your children not to hear my words
What they mean
What they say
MotherMother
Can you keep them in the dark for life
Can you hide them from the waiting world
Oh mother
Mother ~~ Danzig
For the Love of Mother-Not
by Maygra"Yeva, your children are crying."
"They were born to weep." She tried to ignore her mother but it was difficult when she was feeding Yeva from her own tit and Yeva was always so hungry.
"And you were born to die," her mother murmured and her milk turned bitter.
Yeva pulled her mouth from the full breast and stretched out across her mother's lap, along the pale skin, so bright against her own mottled flesh. Fingers stroked across her skull and across her belly. She looked up and found her mother's eyes upon her, blacker than any night. If Yeva stared long enough she could see all the stars of the heavens in her mother's eyes. She smiled up at her mother. "You first, mama," she said and laughed at the curving smile that met her teasing.
"You and your sisters…you have no sense of what is and what is not. I should kill one of you myself just so you will know."
Yeva regarded her solemnly and stretched out, exposing throat and belly. With a word alone her mother could end her existence. End the existence of any living thing. She had yet to whisper the ending words to any of her children, but she had given it to others.
"All of my life is yours, First of All Mothers," she said.
Her mother bent down and brushed her lips across Yeva's, then whispered in her ear, but the words did not kill. "Your children are crying. I weep only for my own."
And she cast Yeva out, into the darkness.
Yeva hated it when it happened. Mewling brats. She'd probably have to kill them herself just to shut them up.
Her wings spread, her body burned, and she plummeted from the void to the colder planes that offered only fleeting warmth.
She could hear them then: the gibberish chatter and wailing and hissing, fighting amongst themselves, scattered and anxious, angry and afraid. They'd brought it on themselves, the foolish creatures.
She hissed out a warning and they fell silent, cowering back from her presence.
Voices were missing.
She commanded them and they sang out in one voice.
They hunt us.They wailed and offered excuses and mewed their distress at being wronged.Why did you not kill them when you had the chance?
Her children were too human. Disgustingly so, and yet her children were warm in a place that had little and she gathered them up, soothing them, stroking their naked skulls, kissing their lipless mouths.
She fed them with her own blood and they gurgled and whimpered happily like puppies.
Now show me…Burning bright. Bright enough to force her to look through veiled eyes, to see beyond the shadows their brightness cast.Darkness too, and she licked her lips at the cracks and tears in the souls that let the darkness in. They practically bled light. No wonder her children had been so tempted.
But her children were easily burned. They shriveled like their own skins in the sunlight and they'd left traces of themselves in the cracks…
Yeva whispered her own words and her children fled from her into the darkness and she followed the light.
"Be careful, sister," Anoush murmured, riding her back like a harpy. "One knows the old ways. Not to kill but he fears us less than he fears the darkness."
Yeva pushed her off and Anoush squealed in laughter. "And who laid the words before her lover, that they could be passed on?"
Anoush shrugged and sailed beside her, her arms outstretched, as they swooped low and hovered. They settled, studying the pair.
The scent of dying jasmine colored the air when Anoush tossed her hair and let it brush across the younger one's skin. She smiled when he shuddered, her hunger and desire flushing her skin, ripening her smell to beeswax and musk.
Yeva wrapped her fingers in her sister's hair and pulled her back, ignoring her squeal of pain. "They have killed my children."
Anoush shrugged again. "Then kill your brats yourself and you won't have to worry about them killing any more. My children are not so foolish."
Yeva snorted. "Your children are like rotting fruit on the vine. Dead even before they are born." She moved closer, studying the eldest carefully, watching him as he watched over his brother.
She blew a breath, warm and sultry, across the younger one's face and smiled as the carefully protected cracks flared brightly, almost burning her skin.
Her children whimpered.
It was their crying that so distressed her mother and she hissed them silent.
She whispered again and smiled when he woke.
They watched the two tumble together like they could occupy each other's skin, shed sweat and semen and passion like stars shed light. Yeva and her sister tasted the air around them, licked their fingers, felt the warmth build as if the pair had kindled a fire to warm their guests.
Anoush leaned into her and kissed her shoulder, then sought her sister's mouth. "So it was with my lover. What would you deny your brother if he asked?" she murmured and Yeva stroked her and forgave her. Her mother had many children, and the first blood ran strong and sweet and hot. She did not really blame Anoush for being tempted by the taste of kin, not when Yeva hungered for it herself.
There was old blood here too, and she studied it, tried to, but could not place it. She would have to taste it for herself.
"Wait for me," she whispered in Anoush's ear and sank lower, masking herself in the colors of a world only her mother had ever walked fully formed.
Tightly guarded, woven together so completely it was no wonder her children had been tempted and failed. These two, so much like her own offspring.
She just barely touched the younger, licked along his flesh, tasted loss and grief and pain -- it was like setting raw meat before hungry dogs. But he was sharp and bright, a sword to cut through darkness, even as he drew it to him. He stirred and she hissed softly, soothed him back to his dreams with a murmur and a promise and bent her head to taste the other.
Not so aware but the cracks had been patched and boarded, shored up and guarded. The scars were tough and old, bitter under her tongue, but he had weaknesses. All mortal men did. She was not surprised he knew them as well as he knew his strengths. Shield and fortress, moveable destruction. She bit her lip. The younger would be easier to overwhelm, but harder to silence. Already too many were listening.
But the elder: shrewd and vicious and he had no fear of her or her kind. What they could take from him worth the attempt at all, he held tightly and closely. And to the one that succeeded…if any ever did…
Her mother's children would weep under his fury.
But he was still mortal.
And he was a lusty, healthy male, her favorite kind. Not so easy to separate one from the other, as tangled and close as they were.
Anoush whispered in her ear and settled with the younger across her lap, tempted, but doing no more than stilling his fears, gave him air to breathe that didn't smell of lust.
Yeva dipped her head and drank. Not mother's milk but close: as the taste of women was like wine, the taste of males was a little like dying.
She let it linger on her tongue, before dipping her head again to read the truth in his blood.
It was bitter enough to burn her tongue, hot and red, and it seared her skin even as she craved more of it. Here was warmth to keep her belly full, here was a hunger that nearly matched her own. She left her mark on him and nearly took him then, all of him, into herself.
Her mother's voice whispered against her flesh and she trembled and left him.
For now.
Despite the risk, she let a talon rake the other, just barely, along his arm where it would go unnoticed, and dared taste the smear.
Life and death, being and not-being, danced on her tongue.She caught her sister's hand and they fled.They tasted the same.
This was no love that could be betrayed. No promise that could be broken. There was no unfaithfulness that could be exploited. It would be far easier to slay her own to fulfill her mother's command. But she was intrigued and she had tasted and now she hungered.
Her children were silent, fearing her more than they feared their hunters. And well they should.
But she would be lonely without her babies.
Her children fled before her, hiding in the bright places she loathed to visit.
If they could not be brought to betrayal, perhaps they could be brought to bargain.
She melted into daylight to offer her invitation.
~end~
12/05/2005
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