A F A T H E R ' S L O V E A gargoyles freewrite story by Dasha Ariel DeMeredith (Cadence@inQuo.net) Summary at end --- My thanks to Raptor Woman, who was inadvertently responsible for inspiring this. I would like to have delivered something much more action-packed for those who like that sort of thing, however sometimes the poet in each of us cannot be bound by any chains -- once she knows how to expresses herself. --- Quote: Habakkuk 2:3,9 "For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.", "...that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!" * * * My Children, if it were ever possible for a seven year old human boy to fall in love, I had. I was too young then to know what I was seeing was impossible. I only saw her, graceful, elegant as a dove, coming to perch on the edge of the cliff. An angel's silhouette against the night. The summer breezes were strong, and she longed to be wild and free. That was when we saw each other. Our eyes met, mine only seven, and her gargoyle eyes aged thirty years but only fifteen years old. She stared in wonder at each other. We both felt something inside our own souls -- but it was not our soul, but the others -- so sweet and tender a feeling that I felt my heart would burst. So engrossed were we, that she failed to notice the cliff top would not hold her weight, and it gave way. The crumbling red sandstone showered down on top of her young wings as she tried to slow her fall. She landed in the sand below with a grunt, in a shower of stone. Looking up, she saw the larger, enormous slab of the stone had not given way. Small particles rained down as it broke away hitting her, telling her she was immediately below it. The sun rose, and it was too late. My heart moved inside me. Why did she not move? I raced forward recklessly to save her. I did not even think that she had suddenly turned to stone, never realized it. With all the strength of a seven year old, I lifted her stone form, and moved her aside but a few feet before the rock thundered to the ground. The shaking of it knocked me off my feet, and I dropped the immensely heavy stone form into the sand, where she was not harmed. Unfortunately, this pack of sand was home to scorpions, although harmless to her, the small creatures found the one responsible with their venom, and I knew no more. Of course, that happened back in 1986. The indian parks and reservations are all gone now, monopolized by shopping malls and virtual reality plazas. The fire is hot my children, but seemingly not hot enough for all of you, for I must add my warmth as well. With the first lights before dawn, I expect that you and I shall eat together for the first time. However, the nights are long and the ghosting voices of who I once was, call me on the winds. Have I truly changed so greatly? It was what I always feared would happen. Now the year is 2006, twenty years after. I am sitting, writing these memories to help you, my children, understand who I was. I never meant you any harm. Please, let me tell you why you and your brothers and sisters are very different from the others of your kind. I recall words of incantation, strange lights, and her face. My angel's face hovered over me, anxiously. Her eyes betrayed the feeling that had passed between us when we first saw each other, as she perched atop the cliff. I awakened dizzily, helped up by powerful hands. I opened my eyes, and beheld her face again, close up. Her face was horned, but I did not see that. All I saw was her smile. Her aquamarine lips, green eyes, and blue hair. Her smile seemed to make the spell complete. "Do you understand my words?" she asked. I nodded. "Yes..." She looked up at another. I followed her gaze. The other was a large man like her, only his wings were deep ebony, with jet eyes, white hair, and a wise expression as he contemplated me. "Where am I?" I asked, my strength returning. My surroundings were unfamiliar. I was in a cave, lit by a small fire in the cave's center. There were twenty creatures like my angel, people with wings and oddly shaped hands and feet, with horns, and long sweeping tails. I was frightened for only a moment, and then became enchanted with wonder. "Who are you?" I continued to ask. "We are gargoyles, human." said one of the younger males. "You are not like I am." I observed. "No we are not, young one." Another of the older females confirmed. "I am Matthew!" I announced with boyish pride. I turned to the small angel girl. "What is your name? "Name?" she asked. Her voice was young and sweet. She turned to the older, darker male with an expression of puzzlement. "Gargoyle do not have names." he muttered in his low voice. The voice frightened me, it was so commanding and gentle. "We have brought back your life, which you lost saving my daughter." Her held the angel's shoulder. She was much smaller than he, but their faces were alike. He was her father. "Thank you." I said. "However, the powers used to bring you back must be repaid." the wise father told me. "We are renegades from our own kind, and you must not let anyone know our secret." "Renegades?" I was young yet, but I knew that word. "We do not follow the traditions that others of our kind follow. They do not have fathers and mothers, and hate all humans. That is why we live out here." the wise one explained. "We cannot let him leave here alive." one older male suggested. "It would be pointless to bring it to life at such magical cost to kill it again." another, younger male observed. "I do not wish to die." I added, afraid, backing against the wall. Surely, these creatures could kill me instantly! "Nor does it deserve to." A female observed. "It is young, an innocent. Other gargoyles may harm an innocent, but we should not. It is not right." "Perhaps it could stay?" the angel suggested. The others shook their heads. "The humans would search for him. He must return." they agreed. "Thank you." I said again. "He must not be allowed to remember." suggested another. "Steal away his memories of us." "Silence." said the wise one. "The magic demands that a reparation be made, or else the forces would be unequal. Magic demands it." The others nodded. "A sacrifice must be made." I was frightened again. "NO!" shouted the little girl, placing her large winged figure in front of me, her wings spread wide. I could feel their velvety surface against my arms. "I won't let you steal magic from him to pay the debt! Take me instead, if you must!" There was chaotic conversation and yelling. "We cannot harm her!" "Her magical growth would be stunted!" "She could never reach her full potential." My angel did not back down. The wise one spoke. "We must not harm the human. That is what our ancestors would do, and we must do only what is right." he sighed deeply. "If my daughter chooses to defend him, that is her choice." My angel took my in her arms, cradling me like her child. She was so much larger than I was! Yet the wise one, towering over us both, began to circle his arms before us in the air. He recited words of an incantation. "Water for earth, rain for sun, what had been taken, must not again be done! Two in mind, one in heart, remain you both eternally inseparable. One day made the same, that together you might be -- that all within you may be whole." he instructed. I remember looking up into the face of my angel one last time, and that was the last I remembered. The sky was fading with blues and lavenders over the Uintah mountains. The year was 1995, and I was now fifteen. The Indian reservation where I had forgotten those stunning revelations was a hundred miles to the south. Instead of desert sandstone hills, I now stood atop great stony snow-covered peaks. I had grown older. I did not know why my mind filled my dreams with images of creatures mixed with horror and stunning beauty. My face betrayed only concentration, as I tried to recall the images. The sun was setting, and I was watching the south. It was out there, I knew it. Something was coming. My horse shied once, and I decided that she sensed my anxiousness. I settled the poor lady, and put her to ease. I walked to the top of a ledge, looking out across the snowy valley spread below me. The sun had set, now was the time. Dark and ghostly, the apparition descended out of the sky, out of the night, out of the stars. She had double wings, a large wide pair of bright turquoise, and a smaller pair of odd shape below in deep turquoise. She fluttered to the ground like and angel, and suddenly I remembered her. "Do you know who I am?" she asked. I nodded. "I do, only just now. You are very much older than you were." I observed. Indeed she was much rounder, fuller... wow. Her legs were tight and long, with an energetic tail that hovered anxiously in the air with perfect control. Her wings folded about her, the small triple fingers at their apexes grasping in front of her to form a cape. Her face caught the moonlight like an artist's creation. She only nodded, as thought the idea were in distaste. "Please, don't make me do this." she asked of me. "Do what? I don't even know what this is about." I answered. "Almost a decade ago, you and I saved each other's lives, and now we are bound by a spell... to become mates." My eyes widened, and my jaw fell. I took a sweeping look at her again, this time in astonishment. "I... eh... well..." I stammered irrationally. "Please, I do not want to." she begged again. "I..." She struggled to allow herself to speak. "I love another." Being a rash young teenager, I would like to have thought my disappointment was little, but it was not so. "I... I understand." "He and I love each other." she said. "I have come to ask you to break off the mating." I looked off, to the east where a full moon was rising. I sighed, the sigh of a heavy heart. "I could never cause you grief, and so I can do no other than what you wish of me." I could not look into her eyes, which were full of pleasure and excitement. With eagerness, she leapt into the air beyond the cliff, and glided away. I did not know what sort of creature I had just seen, I had forgotten again who she was. But I waved a hand goodbye, which she did not see. I felt a tear roll down my cheek, as I left to untie my mount. The final night which changed the course of my life was the Summer's Full Moon, a night in the early part of May of 1996. The moonlight pouring into my window spoke to me like a call. I could not stay my answer. I felt my hands begin to shake, my skin begin to feel tight. My fingers conjoined, and I had only four, each sharp on one side like a large steel razor. My feet twisted, and grew longer. I felt my chest split inside me as a large bone grew down it, to which the muscles and tendons for my growing pairs of wings were attached. My face twisted growing horns, and the tail slithered out of my shorts. I carefully undid the screen over my window, and crept out of my house into the night. There, in a grove of trees beyond the field behind my house, she waited for me. Together, she taught me to glide off into the starry night. More and more nights this happened, closer and closer together. I would transform into a gargoyle at sundown, and meet my angel in the trees. We would sail together through the night winds above my city, or find a far away lake, and strip off all our clothes, and play in the water all night. Finally, on the day ten years from the first time I had met her, I left my home for good. My family had rejected me, for my metamorphosises, and I was alone in the world save for her. On that night in the trees, the final part of the spell was cast. We kissed, and in so doing became mates for all eternity. Now, my children, please understand. I meant your mother no harm. Even now she hunts for meat to feed you all once you break free of your shells, as I sit upon them, trying to warm and turn you. No, that is not your story. The story goes on. Although my writing becomes stale with age, it must be written in full. We called our names by the rivers where we were born. I called myself Jordan, and she Tigris. Together we flew south, toward the land where upon we first met. South, back to indian country around southern Utah and Arizona. I had never turned to stone, always becoming human once more at daybreak. I always waited for your mother to return to flesh and blood. It just so happened that one night we were sharing the same fruit of a hunt as I became used to a gargoyle's fresh meats. Dawn was approaching. We had found a cave, high on a cliffside above a lake which filled thousands of mazes of twisting canyons carved of red sandstone. However, with the dawn, you mother cried out in pain, holding her paws over her belly. He color lightened, her wings became smaller, her horns fading... You mother began to become a human by daylight. She saw the sun for the very first time. So, together we lived our lives. Dressed in resewn athletic wear designed to adjust to our changing forms, we had become shape- shifters. Furthermore, when your mother cried, I understood. Perhaps not why she cried, but how saddened she felt. When I was introspective, she could tell what I was feeling. We had developed a link between us, allowing us to feel each other's deepest sensations and emotions, loves, wants, joys, and pains. The humans came after us. They did not know we were humans in the day, but someone knew that by night we hid in the cliffside cave. When policemen came with guns to put down these monsters, we were chased out of our old cave. You mother was a mighty warrior, far better than I, but sustained an injury that left her unable to fight. The humans would have killed her, but I would not let them. I dived myself into the waiting human's grasp, and miraculously drove them away. I had to protect her, the woman I loved. My angel. Your mother laid her first clutch that autumn. It has been ten years, her small nest has grown in our newly found, hidden cave above the same Lake Powell. The sun is near to rising. Your mother will soon return with meat for your first day of life, but first I must tell you something. You are born the products of two different worlds. When you are older, you will choose which world you will be a part of. Choose wisely. We do not mean to condemn you all to a life of misery since you are the children of shape-shifters and monsters, but hope to give the option of two different lives to live in. I have always protected your mother, and she has protected me. He wise father saw long ago that this human child had a gargoyle's heart. Not many young boys with gargoyle hearts meet the real article. I did, and now we get to share our joy with you, our children. Please, I must not write further. Your mother has not quite yet returned, and already your first sister is starting to break through her shell. I must see to her, and to all of you now. Remember I love you, farewell. * * * Summary As an expectant father, Eagle of Arabia recounts how he first met Tigris the gargoyle, and how they both became human/gargoyle shape-shifters. He remembers his love for Tigris, and tries to explain his love to his children to be.