This is the second chapter of my new project Solarwinds. I love any critiques that you guys can give me or just a nod to say if you liked it or not. I apoligize if its not up to spelling and gramatical par I just wrote it and haven't read through all of it a second time yet. enjoy. CL
“And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”
- Erica Jong
Red Snow in April
Mars in spring is not as beautiful as the holographic postcards said, but as April blossomed into life I was beginning to like it more and more, the planet over the days grew on me. I sat in my grandmother’s house near the spaceport watching the red illuminated world around me. Many figures trekked back and forth across the red sands looking for something special but never really finding it.
“Cuppa darling?” My grandmother’s cultured voice soothed its way past my agitated mind, making a brief heaven out of hell.
“Yes. Please.” I had been taught that in no uncertain terms that to loose one’s manners even in a crisis was a bad reflection of character.
The smell of fresh herbs and spices greeted my nostrils and at the thought of such things had me salivating. I hadn’t tasted fresh food since Darlee imparted with her last home baked cranberry-orange muffin. Right under my nose appeared my grandmother’s wrinkled hand and a cup of tea.
“How?” I questioned knowing she would understand what I meant.
There was a slight twinkle in her blue eyes, “I was saving it for something special.”
Well if she considered this special…
“Do you know how long you will stay?”
She comes to sit beside me, her white wrinkled hands in her lap, long white hair pulled back from her pale face. She wears white today, all white – white tunic; white trousers. It seems in the wrong light – this horrible red light that she is a ghost.
I cautiously take a sip of tea not wanting to at the present answer her question, which cuts deep at the heart of the problem I am currently facing. The myriad of taste buds on my tongue come alive and alight like a fire in some dark corner of universe. I savor the warm, sugary ambrosia a minute before swallowing and setting the cup down.
I turn away from the cup, the table, my grandmother and take another glance outside. In the spaceport a ship is coming in: a large transport vessel, my insides twinge at the thought. I have to answer.
“I don’t know, Ma.”
Turning back to my grandmother, who now places a warm hand over mine looks into my eyes, the sadness dwelling in those deep beryl pools overwhelms me. A silent tear, sharply stinging, slides down my cheek and splatters in my tea. As the ripples spirit across the fawn tinted surface, I crook a smile at the irony and watch as the ripple affect runs its course.
Everything is slow here, in this small corner of the galaxy, far far away from the Treatises main hub. I dislike that. It slows me down, lets me think of things I’d rather forget. It makes me wonder, and guess at the decisions I made. Makes me make to rip out last remaining hair on my head and not just for the pain, but for the inability I have now. And to know that I am still alive, because at that instant when the anguish hits my body I know that because I feel, I am alive.
The days fade slowly passed, my grandmother tries to help but has other things to commit her time to and I told her from the beginning that I didn’t want any help, any pity either. But everyday I see that glint in her eyes, that emotion flash that makes me want to curse the world. I know she thinks it every minute, probably almost as much as I do: when am I to die?
I don’t remember much from the Battleship Pegasus, except that I was a Chief Mechanic and that I was good at my job. Repairing Spacers was one thing I knew I did well. But anything else is a foggy and hazy; nothing apparent comes to the surface. It’s like my mind was tampered with on purpose – I suppose it was. I do remember my last day though, in the cantina. I had just stopped in and sat down for lunch when a stranger approached the table, willing me to look. He was tall, taller than most the men aboard, he had a gracefully physique although he wasn’t starling to look at. Decked in fighter green, with cargo pants, a sleeveless top and combat boots he bored into my eyes, deep within my heart. There was something about him that drew me, grasped me for all that I was worth and wouldn’t let me look away. It was the ginger streaked auburn hair, the blue eyes splashed with hint of violet, the way the rosy lips formed a lopsided, easy smile or the laugh lines in the fine face. It was something all together too deep for me to even attempt to understand.
I remember the following conversation as if it was yesterday.
“Do you like your men with wings?” The question seemed so effortless of tongue, the voice a heady mixture of mirth and wisdom.
“I do know, never knew one who did.”
The smile turned slightly into a frown but the eyes remained cheerful, “But I have wings, can’t you see?”
“No.” I answered.
The eyes drilled right through me, all the way to my heart. A full fledged frown emerged on the lips, “You have no imagination.”
I don’t really. I don’t have much of an imagination, didn’t have any before that day.
After the figure walked away, and I shook my head to get rid of the intense feeling I’d been hit by something, I was called away. They need me down on the lower deck. A spacer had come in and clipped the right wing while landing. Forgetting all about the mysterious occurrence with the stranger I ambled on.
I’ll never forget the intense heat or the intense pain that comes with the presence of a Lightbearer. All I can see is blinding violent sun blasted. All I can feel is the white heat coursing through my veins and the grasping hold of energy much more powerful than I extracting my life away. Gripping my throat strangling me of all my air and ability to move, to fight. At that moment I know I am going to die. The knowledge is crisp, clear, crystalline. Fear escapes my brain and feeds into my heart giving it its last fluttering moments. Something within the brilliant white surrounding me touches my hand softly; the voice from the cantina calls me.
Delphine all will be well just hold on. Don’t forget I have wings.
Before I can hear anymore the world suddenly flashed into oblivion.
For amount I thought the darkness was death. But I was sorely mistaken. Where I was, if I was anywhere was in oblivion, in the void, amid all the nothingness of the cosmos.
But then there was a soft, cool cloth on my forehead willing me to open my eyes. To see what had transpired.
The cold impact of metal against my feverish skin made me tingle. One of the other shipmates must have found me and pulled me into an alcove. It was a young girl, younger than I certainly. She looked very worried. Her bottom lip was sandwiched between her teeth and she grinded it back and forth. When I blinked her whole body visibly sighed. After the initial knowledge that I was alive, a new dawning came upon us both. Somehow I felt more real that I ever had in my whole lifetime, everything seemed more vivid, knowledge that wasn’t there before surfaced easily in my mind, and in a corner forbidden in earlier renovations of my psyche imagination sparked.
“You…you,” the girl dropped the cloth and scooted franticly away, “that can’t be possible.”
I raised my hand to pinch my cheek, to know I was there and alive. It hurt and my whole body flinched. I smooth my palm over my face.
“I..uh,” I did not know what to say to calm the awe the girl now had.
“You…a Lightbearer…impossible, they…” it was almost as if she said it, the whole thing especially me would be jinxed.
I finished the thought for her, “don’t leave anyone alive.”
The rest is just a huge blur slowly receding to the back of my mind. They had to get rid of me; no one wants that kind of bad luck on their ship no matter the climate. I was a risk. A Lightbearer had touched me; come to take me away and I had survived. There must be something wrong with me, was the talk, I must have demon’s blood in me. Though that was a blatant falsehood as demons, in physical form didn’t exist at all. I had no idea what was wrong with me, or if something was indeed wrong – point in that I had never been Chosen before. It scared me, shook me to my bones. And all I could focus on was the stranger and his voice. Did I truly hear his voice or had that been just a fanciful mirage?
So I was sent back to Mars, to be with my grandmother, until as the Council of One said the Lightbearers came to take me again. Death was the only inevitability.
So I am here, on Mars waiting. Waiting for something to break the monotone, I even would readily awaken the Lightbearers to free me from this prison. But no such luck. And everyone around me treats me like I’m made of spun glass, afraid to face what I have already come to terms with – my death.
The red mist in the twilight shimmers and little red beads fall from the sky. After a few moments I realized with utter wonderment that what I am seeing is red snow. Red snow in April; which albeit confusing makes me smile just a little at the illogicality of it all: red snow in April.
. It was easier to understand what's going on than the first chapter, but kept the same beautiful language as before 
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