The Amaranthine Masquerade

It has always been this way. Yet I have never done this before. My life was so normal before, then everything changed. The mask, the fork, they came to me in dreams. Followed by the yellow eyes in the darkness. Our timeless dance seems so familiar, I know all the steps, each graceful move. But I do not know how I came to know them. We are both hunter and prey. We expect so much of each other. I shall not let him down. We both know the shadowlands and how to travel them. This is how we always meet. And yet I've never met him.

We stalk each other though the shadowlands during the city nights. He will know me when we finally meet. Wearing black and hooded in black silk mask with white markings cutting above eyes, through them and down to my mouth. The five feet of black ironwood staff tipped with over a foot of double-bladed fork glints in the moonlight. Almost as if it is beckoning at each opportunity that light passes over it, never missing a chance to whisper its desire to be stained with the slick maroon hue of the silver wolf's blood. Or is it my desire? I can no longer separate the two.

At long last we meet. We each take a moment to savor the memories of the steps that lead us to this stage of our mutual pursuit. Vague recollections of meetings past fill me with a warm familiarity. I know I was not there for them, and yet somehow, I was. An overwhelming sensation of knowing that I am at the right place at the right time wells up from my feet, flowing throughout my body leaving my fingertips and scalp tingling. I know who I am. I know what I am.

He's strong, always stronger than I. But I'm faster, always faster. And in a flash I open his belly. I know I have won. There is nothing that can take away my victory. The wolf is vanquished. Again. But his last wish is granted by rage and strength. I have not yet completed the follow through of my stroke before I feel his teeth sink deep into my throat and release. We each stagger back to our respective places where our eyes first met, gazes locked still, waiting to fall. My fork clatters clatters to the ground and the battle continues. I am the first to my knees, but he is the first to make it fully to the ground. Our gazes never part. There is a peculiar warmth that fills his eyes and he slowly closes them. How could there be that much warmth left in him with so much of his blood at his feet? Before all goes dark my last thought, the last question to flutter through my mind before the last of me leaks onto the pavement... did he let me win this last battle mercifully or did he simply want a head start to the next...

It will always be this way. We will meet again. Soon. But I don't know how. Or where. Or why.



{in honor of Matt Wagner}