With Hands Like Drowning Swans

By ClubKid (yes, I changed my penname)

Chapter Notes: After a certain reviewer mentioned that the prologue could stand alone as a fic, I've decided that I rather like that idea. Therefore, each chapter will be a progression of the plot, all focusing toward the same point, but will be written so that they could stand as a single vignette. –grins-

Review Responses: Oogh, I've not done these in FOREVER…but here goes anyway.

One thing I'd like to say to all of the reviewers-if I EVER need an ego boost, I'm going to come straight to this page every time…

Dark Weezing- I'm blushing madly, as always. And yes, the phallic nature of the tulips was uberly fun to include. Ambiguity? Why, 'tis a given with me. I love being vague, it ties into my love for driving people nuts.

BlackShield- As always, your reviews serve to flatter and amuse, and I always look forward to them-almost as much as I look forward to speaking with you. And I found your rebellious analysis delightful, just…delightful, -laughs-.

Since You've Been Gone- Lovely penname, I must say (as I say it to many people, not my fault I'm fascinated by these tidbits of song and randomness). And I'm glad you found it frightening-it is always my mission to stir something within the reader, be it joy, nostalgia, fear, or disgust.

Witch01- I know of the mindmeld, since I was formerly a full R/R shipper. And I base the dreamlink upon that canon reference, I was simply unsure if others had done the same.

Shiroi-hana- another lovely name I recognize, good to see people haven't lost hope for me yet. As with DW, I'm embarrassed beyond words by all of this praise. However, I think I've finally written something worthy of it, and so my embarrassment is tempered with a touch of pride. Thank you so much for your lovely words.

Queen-Morganalefay- That's…a really good question. I'd like to say that they're having the same dream, simply from different points of view. Their dreams aren't linked so much as their minds are, and so their linked subconsciouses are bonding to create the same dreams. Hope that makes sense to anyone…-dies-

Randomness- thank you thank you THANK YOU for that review. Your comment has helped me figure out how I wish to structure this fic, and is partly responsible for this update…

Demonafrit- again, I have to blush. Truly, all of this praise is overwhelming, and I thank you all once more for your lovely reviews. And since this is all rather based upon a poem of mine…

Vinnie The Geek- I'm sorry about the italics thing, I just seem to find this odd need to set apart the Prologue. Don't worry though, the rest of the actual fic should pretty much remain normal.

Water81- You are most likely the first person to make that very bold and brave claim. I received this lovely toy on the day of my birth, and then promptly dropped it upon the ground at the age of one-yes everyone, I fell on my head when I was little, and I'm sure it explain a LOT…

ChocolateCurlz- yours is perhaps one of the longest, most flattering reviews I've ever received. In fact, it borders on frightening, in an obsessive, fanatic manner –laughs- Still, I'm just knocked flat by your proclaimed dedication to this story, and while you might envy my talent, I envy that seemingly fanatic quality of your review-oh, how quickly my stories would be finished if I were so devoted! And…the title is from a line in one of my poems, 'Beneath'. I shall add it at the end of this chapter for you, and hope it lives up to your expectations…

---

"And he decided that man had no flesh, had no muscle. They moved and smiled because God forever labored in a room full of canvases, painting the emotion upon their faces with quick, easy strokes. They bled only because God pricked a finger, and died only when He ran out of ideas."

"A self-portrait never turns out the way you want it to."

"All things have a value-you need only look at the shifting shades of grey."

---

Portraits

Raven supports her head with long, charred limbs, because she knows little else to do with them. And it only makes sense that her head need supporting, its weight reasonable to her-what with three beings calling the thing 'home'.

Fingers knot her dark, limp hair. Its greasy tendrils brush against her ashy flesh, and she shudders in disgust. She wants to stand up and walk over to the bathroom, can see the movement being executed perfectly in her mind, and yet her arms will not, can not let go of her head and her legs do not seem real enough for her to command.

For a moment, rage and hatred flare within her-hate, terrible, nauseating, burning hatred for the body that has fallen away from her control. It's too thin, too dirty, too frivolous.

She wills the rage back down, trying to focus it into power, into energy that will tilt her head up and her arms down to push her off…

Her arm stings, cries out in pain. Her hair twines about it like the greasy, resin coated roots of a tree, a bush, a flower…

She sobs, falls back into the bed, and sleeps.

---

He moves between the shadows; shifting, sliding along in a flow of simple flesh and garish color. The hall is empty save for the spots of darkness, and he sticks to them mostly out of habit, but partly out of loneliness.

Pausing by each door, he listens for muffled voices, for movement. For any sound besides the Tower's constant electric hum.

A sound to chase the cries from his mind, to fill the silence that echoed as she fell away from him once more. She's left him again, teetering on the brink, skating the thin line between worry and irritation.

At the end of the hall, he freezes once more; limbs stilling with a jolt, muscles contracting as his blood runs cold-like trails of ice coiling around his insides, shifting blue beneath his skin. Wings flap within his stomach, wet and dark and heavy with dread.

He knocks on the door slowly, softly. His knuckles strain against the flesh, as though the door is a magnet and his bones are paperclips, unwound, bent out of shape.

From inside there is a muffled, throaty sound, like a cough or grumble or hum, and suddenly his nerves erupt; skin crawling, blood freezing once again, words jumping about and shattering within his mind. He feels unbalanced, his lips bitten and his tongue dry and swollen.

He croaks out a name.

"Raven…"

---

Fireflies dance about her mind, winking chemically, the darkness ending their phosphorous existence until they are replaced and replaced and replaced…

Reflecting the deaths is a pool, black and blue and crystalline. A violet petal lands softly upon the surface, disturbing it slightly. The petal absorbs the water as though it were blood, slowly becoming a bright red leaf. The leaf grows, drowns, splits apart, and dies.

She holds the brittle brown flakes in her hand.

She lets them return to the pool to dance with the dying flames, and follows his voice back into the world.

The silver ripples of her footsteps freeze and sink.

---

He drags her out of the bed, the sparks and spikes of his emotions pricking her skin, forcing down the pain of her arm and the dirt of her hair. She crawls, barely covered and hardly awake, to the large, black door.

Her shoulder blade, its pale, flat plane rests against the cooler surface, soaking up the icy, jolting feeling.

She allows her heavy head to lean upon the door, and breathes his name slowly, without feeling. "Richard."

Simple, flat, sickly. If voices had colors, if they could be seen, hers would remain unnoticed in its yellow-grey.

"Go away," she murmurs in that old, mustard trail of words. The droplets, the tiny letters, rise and dance like the lights of her dream, dull and ugly. She shudders slightly, likening the sights to a drug-haze, something she learned of from…from…

Arrows. She thinks of arrows. Identify, her mind screeches, identify! But she cannot, she is failing, something within her needs to move and change and be free, and he is keeping her here.

"Go away."

"Go away."

She figures that if she just says it enough, she can convince both of them that it is what she wants. If she can hold onto that one phrase, perhaps the world will stop spinning. Raven just wants the world to be still for a moment, wants it to move in still-frame, wants her life to become a slideshow so that when it got to be too much she could just…stop. Turn off the ride mister. I'm scared. I want to get off.

Raven no longer thinks of Richard, because she does not have to. She thinks of herself-of anything, and he is there. He hears it all, knows it all, and can't stop a single bit of it. Falling apart, it's all falling apart and neither one of them can stop it, neither one of them can run from it, and neither one of them cares.

And so, when she tells him to leave, he does not leave, but does not come any closer. He quiets himself-his voice, his thoughts, and allows her time to pretend she's all alone in the little corners of her head. Nothing stops, nothing changes; it is not enough, will never be enough, but it is all she has.

She moves from the door, her limbs weak and aching-everything always aching, such a silly thing-her crawl is pathetic and disgusting and vulnerable, but there is no one to see, no one to give pity, no one to take advantage.

Singing, because there is little else to do with the air she breathes, she stands shakily, she stands as though she thinks she is underwater, with the irrational belief that, yes! The air will hold me up! I am weightless! I do not need this feeble old skeleton of mine…

But her head is so heavy…

Her hair is so lank…

She reaches for the scissors…

---

Her head is light!

Her thoughts are clear!

She is CLEAN! SO CLEAN!

Raven dances about the room, and Richard waits patiently, faintly in the hall. She has showered, dressed, and cut her damnable hair.

The skewered locks are harsh, lost, light. They curl from her scalp, freed from gravity, from weight. They are happy little shocks of darkness, delightful, soft and shiny little points rising from her cranium. She grins, and the mirror shatters.

No matter. This is normal.

From the ashes of her heavy, weary body has risen the new her! In the facets, the cracked surface of her mirror there smiles a bright, scrubbed face. Its muted cheeks are tinted with pink, its slightly pointed teeth are flashed at the world through the open-mouthed grin. The little creature is thin, exuberant, and adorable in its large clothing. She looks impish, elfin-a fey little being, so lucidly mischievous.

She throws open the door joyfully, and sweeps Richard into a sporadic embrace, her limbs tightening and loosening and sliding all over his confused little face.

In the shattered mirror, a thousand tiny snapshots wink and die. A paintbrush is dragged across the world, day folds into itself, and the whims of loons go unnoticed, while a pair of lovers feed them in the park.

---

"We paint ourselves a new face, every time we smile."

---

A/N: Don't worry, I don't get it either. A bit disappointed with this part. But, the view from insanity is a bit more manic than that of dreams, I suppose.

If I really had to explain this piece, I suppose it shows how, by changing how we look on the outside, we can sometimes change how we feel on the inside. And Portraits always flatter their models. That's how artists keep their jobs. As for Raven's sudden mood swing? I use the term 'view from insanity' for a reason…

And now, for the poem.

Beneath

blank stares mirror
the curling fingers
in your hair,
grasping-
gasping-
reaching for a
slender throat,
pulsing, trembling
with each breath-
hands rising up,
to trace shapes
-in the stars
-in the cracked ceiling,
fluttering and
pushing to the sky,
like the necks of
drowning swans,
recalling the joy
of flight.

M. Tatnall