"Boyfriend" Stealer

I feel incredibly guilty. I keep telling myself that I am not at fault; I didn't do anything wrong. But I think I did. I should have known better. But I was a selfish, self-centered bitch, and I did it any way.

I tell myself that the other girl, my niece, had no claim, that he was open and offering. But, damn. I hurt her and she did have a claim, if not a good one. One of friendship. I should have respected that claim and kept away. (Way to step all over the laws of Girl World, SD.)

But I'm justified in my actions! (I think.) He never wanted her; he wanted me. It would never have worked out between them. Besides that, he never asked her out! And he liked ME. It was me, not her, that he chased down in a mall food court and called sexy, me that he drew close and protected.

I'm such a bitch. The girl's my niece, and so fragile. What this must be doing to her self-esteem, to lose the guy she likes to me! And I don't think I would be justified in begging forgiveness. If our places were reversed I wouldn't grant it, either.

Damn it, what have I done?

Intervention Draft Five

She regarded the prostrate man before her with carefully constructed aplomb. Despite having held the throne for a little over five years, she had yet to grow used to adults, powerful and peasant alike, throwing themselves upon her mercy. After all, she was only fourteen.

"Rise," she commanded. The voice that emanated from her painted lips was high and cold, contrasting with her warm nature, if not her regal bearing.

The man pushed himself off the flagstone floor, pale and trembling, sweat gracing his balding head like a crystal crown. He made to wipe it away with the sleeve of his polyester blend shirt, but thought better of it, his hand settling like a bird on his belt.

"Please...." His tongue darted out of his mouth to moisten his chapped lips, reminding the teenager on the throne of a serpent scenting the air for danger. "Queen Darsellradibi-"

She cut him off with a sharp glint of fury in her flat blue eyes.

"I don't remember giving you permission to be so familiar with me, Donahue!" She spat his name. "If you will learn decorum, I am to be addressed as Ra Majesty."

He nodded hastily, his eyes polished to a quartz-white.

"Yes, yes! I- I mean no disrespect, Queen Dar - Ra Majesty, ma'am!"

Darsellradibi stayed deathly still in her seat for a largo beat, her normally animated features impersonating a statue's.

"Home-Worlder," she finally sneered, the expression sitting askew on her fair visage. "You know nothing of our culture, yet alone our laws, and still think you are justified in whatever you do."

She rose abruptly from the high-backed chair, her dress falling into place around her slender frame in a cloud of red and black velvet. The material was much too warm for the chamber and the colors too harsh for her skin tone. Darsellradibi hated the 'august' garb.

"This dimension," she continued on, glaring glacial thumbtacks upon the convict's upraised face, "is not your America. Nor your Angland, Frence, Spend, Cainda, Morko... What-have-you. No. We are ONORE."

There was no mistaking the matriarchal pride that possessed her in the name. It pulled her already vertical spine straighter and brought the sparkle back into her sapphire eyes, her chin lifted high. But just as quickly, it was gone, replaced once more by the martinet's stern bearing.

"You have, in a matter of days upon our soil, managed to desecrate a major temple, trespass onto cloistered ground, offend not one, not two, not three, but six high-ranking government officials, and nearly incite a riot in the Plaza," she ticked off his offenses on delicate fingers, recently hennaed in a bout of ennui.

He swallowed loudly, the gulp resounding in the commodious chamber and setting his Adam's apple bobbing.

"That, Donahue, is a ridiculous number of cultural faux pas. My High Priestess is demanding your gruesome death for that statue you destroyed in the sanctuary. The Orphanage Matron is demanding the entirety of your bank account in compensation for your mistaking her business for a brothel. Two of my Colony Heads want your skin for a pelerine for your disparaging remarks. The other four only ask your head. And the general public...." Darsellradibi shook her head, her chestnut mane momentarily concealing her face. "Well, they just want you dead."

At this, Donahue, already on edge, began to weep softly, pleading with the young monarch for mercy.

"Puh-please! No.... Didn't... Kn-know..."

She caught some words, but the garbled English was difficult for her to comprehend, and she was forced to dismiss the rest as gibberish.

"I have no choice," her voice cut through his histrionics like a diamond through chalk. "Robert David Donahue, on the charges of Willful Public Enragement, Willful Public Desecration, and Prostitution Seeking, you are henceforth sentenced to-"

"Dibi!"

The Ra of Onore found herself cut off in turn as a tall woman with leathery bat wings ran through the hall and immediately enfolded her in an all encompassing bear hug.

"Gach!" The fourteen year old choked out.

"It's so good to see you!" The woman burbled out, oblivious to Darsellradibi's inability to breathe in her embrace and the stare of the man on his knees. She was, as said, tall, barely dressed in cut-off denim shorts and cropped cotton top that left all but her breasts and an inch of her back bare, allowing her twelve-foot wingspan freedom. The paleness of her skin contrasted dramatically with her midnight stained wings and long auburn hair, caught up in a ponytail at the crest of her scalp.

"I've just been sooo busy!" she continued. "You've simply nooo idea! Setting up the university, convincing Vorndain that being vampiric isn't the same thing as being demonic, keeping Soronto and James from killing each other... Ugh!" She sighed, exceptionally animated for one supposedly so slammed. "God is still insisting that the highest rank I can hold in Home World is 'death angel', putting me at HIS beck and call, practically doubling my responsibilities. It's simply ridiculous! I'm a full-fledged Goddess for an entire DIMENSION. I don't have time for HIS grunt jobs! And, you know, that's not even counting all the other stuff I have to do, like come visit my favorite cousins!"

"Agch!" Darsellradibi protested, her face slowly brushing into a lovely shade of plum. "Darch! Ahghch!"

"Oh!" With a blush of chagrin, the woman released the teenager and waited with concern as she coughed and sputtered. "Are you alright, Dibi?"

"Fine," she panted, blood slowly beginning to circulate normally. "Just... fine."

"Sorry," the newcomer grimaced, a light pink color staining her ashen cheeks. "I'm just so happy to see you again after so long! You are my favorite cousin."

The teen's brows arched incredulously.

"Darcellbi, I saw you a fortnight ago."

Darcellbi spun around, her wings lifting her a few inches off the ground.

"Was it?" she asked, emerald eyes glinting in the torchlight. "It just seemed like sooo much longer." She shrugged, the picture of bubbling nonchalance. "I guess I'm just a little too busy to keep track of the time."

The younger girl suppressed a sigh. She loved her older cousin, but Dar was a creature of extremes; warm and bubbly one minute, grey and sobbing another, hot and searingly furious after that. And she had a habit of bringing those mood swings into Onore and interfering with the federal workings accordingly.

"Dar, I'm slightly in the middle of something," she hedged, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Why don't you go up to your suite and I'll be there in a few minutes."

It was not a request.

But then the winged woman noticed the man on the floor, and her green eyes shifted to a concerned hazel-brown.

"What's on, man?" she inquired of him, kneeling, her black-painted nails resting lightly on his shoulder. "Why are you so upset?"

The balding man beheld her in bewilderment. She was an angel, he decided, a messenger from God in this heathen place. Her association with the cruel Queen made no sense, but what did he know of God's ways? Surely she was a miracle.

"Thank you, angel!" he cried, pulling upright and seizing her elegant hands in his pudgy ones. "Save me from these pagan devil-worshippers!"

"Whaa...?" Darcellbi looked to her younger cousin for elucidation.

Darsellradibi merely rolled her eyes and hoped that her cousin's interference would be minimal. There was no avoiding it now.

"He touched your statue in the Temple and knocked it over, shattering it. Then, he went to the Orphanage and asked for a prostitute. After which, he went to the Place and completely disrespected Anella, Arama, Cinnai, Dratelle, Dannun, and Hesserenne, implying that they were common entertainment, Home World style. They were all with a large group of their respective Colonies. They nearly lynched him."

Darsellradibi sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"They want his blood, Darcellbi."

The Ra's older cousin knelt for a long moment, ignoring both Donahue's pleading whimper's and Dibi's expectant silence. The man was obviously just a tourist, someone who'd thought a quick jaunt to a neighboring dimension would make a solid vacation. It was not his fault that Onore was so different from Home World. How could he have known that her statue was so fragile? How could he be aware that prostitution was a capital offense? And considering the way the Colony Heads tended to dress.... He was ignorant, certainly, idiotic, definitely, but did he deserve to die for it?

She made her decision.

"Go home," she told him, flapping her wings once to pull the both of them to their feet. "Don't ever go traveling inter-dimensionally again. Learn to respect women." Her gaze swept over him with something like disgust. "Cut out the junk food, start working out, lose the polyester, and get a girlfriend." She clucked her tongue. "Prostitution solves nothing and a girlfriend is cheaper."

The man stumbled out a confused thanks and was escorted from the room by a pair of guards. He believed he'd just been insulted by the miracle, but he was alive. It was enough.

Darsellradibi rounded on her cousin.

"What was that?! They'll want his head! There'll be further riots when I can't provide it!" Her voice broke as she yelled, frustration, panic, and admiration mixing freely.

Darcellbi merely shrugged, a smile playing at the edges of her lips.

"Just tell them that I dealt with him," she said reasonably. "They'll presume that I visited some horrible torment upon him and consider it justice. No one will bother you for evidence. They'll just think that there's not enough left of him to examine with a microscope." She shrugged again, content with her solution. "You'll be fine."

The monarch of the dimension Onore deflated, settling slowly back on to her throne with all the angsty posture of an ordinary teenager. For long moments, she slumped there, resigned.

"How is it," she began, eyes slowly rising to meet the other woman's gaze, "that I rule the dimension, but you have more influence over it?"

The woman laughed, tugging her scrunchie from her hair, sending auburn waves cascading down her back.

"Easy, honey." The goddess grinned. "I created it."

A frown stole across her features.

"I might want to think about creating a guide book, too...."

The Wall

I have said it before, sang it out in slow lyrics and shouted it in angry prose, and so shall I say it again. Romance is a wall on which one can sit or from which one can fall. I have never said more than that, never contemplated how two people could possibly build a structure steady, yet tall. But now is the time, I believe, to regard that creation.

I have found the answer, I think, or more accurately, NOT found it. The only way to build that wall is to lay it brick by brick, the tempo set only as fast as those two people can haul. For only two can build it. Otherwise, the wall will not hold, and they will fall, two eggs against the dirt, and neither of them shall ever be whole again.

I seem so sure of myself, do I not? But I say I have not found the answer, so let me explain. I'd started my brick laying long ago, setting one stone upon another, lovingly and liberally applying to them a mortar of my own design. Sometimes I walked away, let the weather have at what I'd done, but always I returned, drawn by something I still cannot name. And this time, he started helping me, starting at the other end.

We were well on our way to a proper altar of romance. Sure, the going was slow, a largo beat a minute, but all good things take time. But someone saw our endeavors and thought to help, to speed up our rhythm of labor.

A ton of bricks, that person layed, all at once, on our little wall. The mortar had no time to set and the stones beneath no time to adjust to the additional weight. And now I fear all our work, all our careful hefting and measuring and waiting, was for nothing, our wall broken beneath the pressure of that third person's good intentions.

Well... Isn't it?

On the Potential of Godhood

We are in charge of our destiny. Not what it is, but how and if we reach it. And I believe that destiny to be godhood. That's right - godhood. We all have the potential to create universes and populate them. Each and every one of us has the possibility of supreme creation within us.

But how to access it? Or, more poignantly, is it wise or even ethical to do so? Do we, lowly things that we are, deserve to have such power at our command? I should say so! Because only with utter benevolence and exaltion will such power come. Yes, we deserve our godhood, to be the best we can be.

Methodology is shaky, however. It is all much easier said and ruminated on than actualized. But I doubt it is impossible. It shall just take a bit of work. And I believe that work to include stepping into one's self completely. Or perhaps that is the work itself.

Athama

Her name is Athama. She tells the truth in sweeping strokes, painting the tapestry of reality. There is no one - only many.

Her grey-black eyes regard the world in a cold haze of heat. She used to be the victim and she remembers every injustice that wracked her slender frame. But now... But now she knows that there is no such thing as fate, that destiny is malleable, and she holds the hammer. She smiles and the world freezes.

She's sharp, with her long blue-black mane, a study of blades in gray scale. Her entire existence is stark and she cuts away all the threads that might tie her to color. After all, she got tired of whisking the cobwebs off of things and emotion bites like a spider.

That poor Athama - she tells the truth, makes reality. But she never learned that logic cannot rule. If we all are our God, then living without emotion deprives us of our worship.

Teaser

Hi, my name is SD. You may call me 'sexy'. With a toss of my hair and a twitch of my hips, I'll have you entranced. Keep your eyes on mine, lest you get lost.

I wink and smile, trace my tongue slowly across the sharps of my teeth. Yes, that is an invitation. Come talk to me, exchange your light with my glowing, radiant darkness. (Yes, taste the sour-sweet burn of blatant desire!)

Haven't you wanted this since you first scented my perfume, your back to the door? Didn't you sense the raw sensual power as I brushed down the staircase into your life? Don't lie. I know you did. I saw it in your eyes as you beheld me.

Enough of this talk. I pull you to me with a small sound, your lips to mine. Never mind taking anything slowly- this was meant to be.

Teeth in neck, fists in hair, tongues in dark, secret places. Then I push you away, still smiling in my confidence. I find my feet and sway towards the door, sultry over my shoulder.

Make no mistake- I want more. But the tease forces the torture sweeter. (And there is nothing wrong with sweeter.)

Flat Stomach

The resentment strikes me like a fist to my newly flattened stomach. I knew they'd be like this, but I rather hoped that they'd find the strength in their soul to be happy for me. I guess no one is that resilient.

Though, mark my words in this notebook in permanent ink, I shall be.