Hallelujah

It was funny, he used to like mornings.

He used to go out at sunrise and sit, somewhere far up in a tree, scruffy and with holes in the knees of his pants, finding places where no one would find him. Being alone then had been a thing of beauty, a silence where there were no angry voices and holy men preaching, calling him 'monster', 'devil child'… Those names had been part of his life before he'd even really deserved them. Did he deserve them now…? He couldn't say.

Now Leonder's pace was sluggish, his eyes dull as he pushed back the sheets and sat up. The floorboards creaked when his feet touched them, and he held that position, motionless, lifeless.

He didn't remember really how he had ended up as her servant. He didn't remember when things had changed, when the ice queen started to smile, or when those smiles could stop him short with awe. She had always been beautiful; she'd been beautiful the day she waded into the chaos that was his life, clapped her hands and said in that voice for everything to stop and calm down right now, for the preachers and the rioters to unhand him, and the madness that he had known as long as he had lived shuffled off like a scolded dog.

He remembered seeing her, framed by a black satin parasol the way the saints in church paintings had halos. She was beautiful, had always been beautiful, but when he had first saw her, she'd been terrifying, an angel of ice to freeze anything that tried to hold her. And he had ended up in a carriage with her, working for her, knowing her, loving her, even. She was like a swan in how she lived, everything was so effortless. Everything that happened, it was right according to schedule, all fitting in nicely with her perfect little world.

He'd hated her at first for that, hated the idea that anybody could live that way when he had lived the way he had, the way he was back to living now.

But Gods, if those little smiles of hers didn't completely floor him. Even after he realized that the assassins weren't coming after him, realized why her smiles were so rare, she entranced him. And that was the happiest part of his life, stumbling along after her effortless walk, happy with just being there.

It had been so perfect then, the sort of strange and twisted perfect that people find when they fall in love.

Leonder had never gone to Church. But even so, he'd had some belief in there being God, or at least somebody like that out there, somewhere. Not now, not anymore. How could there be any such thing as God, when something so perfect could fall apart so absolutely, leaving pieces like shattered glass that still hurt inside to remember?

He found his way into the bathroom, a narrow, grayish room with a half-dead light bulb in the fixture overhead. His reflection stared back at him, messy hair and lifeless eyes. He scowled, but there was no real energy in it. His fangs greeted him in the mirror, the same way they did every day. They didn't feel strange in his mouth any more, not like something alien had grown in there; like it or not, they had wormed their way into being part of him.

He wondered if Renata ever woke up in the morning like this. Did she ever close her eyes and remember him, wonder what he was doing? He could almost hear what she would say; "Why Leonder, you're looking well. Pray tell, how is life treating you these days?"

Maybe she didn't, maybe she had someone else in her life that she gave those little smiles as she watched him struggling along after that effortless swan's dance.

He brushed his hair, shrugged into his jacket, mechanical motions that meant nothing in his mind. The motel room was already clean, his suitcase packed and waiting.

With heavy tread he headed for the door.

Another day.

He wondered if she liked mornings. He'd never asked.