ࡱ;   !"#$%&'()Root Entry Fu[CompObjbWordDocument#GObjectPoolvt[vt[  FMicrosoft Word 6.0 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.6;  Oh+'0 D h   @d C:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE\NORMAL.DOT-From: Sarah Welsh  ASU West ASU ܥe= e@5#G@2DlDllDlDlDlDlDDDDDDD D(DNF1DDDDDDDDDDDDEE0FFTFPNFlDDDDDDNFDlDlDDDDDDDlDDlDDDDDlDlDlDlDDDD*DFrom: Sarah Welsh Subject: SONG: Eclipse The following is my entry for the song-lyric challenge. I don't have the lyrics for the song printed so I just had to listen to it several times over. There are a few words I wasn't sure of so I just took an educated guess. Thanks to my trusty editor Jen Lackey, who is more constant than the faithless moon. I'm not sure if this is quite what Susan had in mind with her challenge, but I think this story is good enough, it's smart enough, and doggone it, people will like it! ;) If you agree or disagree, please let me know at welshkin@dfw.net. I thrive on comments! She lit the last of the thick, creamy candles in the heavy silver candlestand in the corner and stepped back, shaking the flame from the long-stemmed match with a sharp snap of her wrist. She had lighters, of course, quite elegant ones, but the quick rasp of the flint didn't have the same feel as the slow sputter into flame, the thin, grayish smoke, the barely-perceptible scent of burnt wood that lingered in the room when the match had gone out. It didn't provide the same ambiance. And tonight everything, every single detail, had to be perfect. She surveyed the room with critical eyes and then turned down the bedclothes invitingly, smoothing an infinitesimal wrinkle with a hand that she knew was as soft and as smooth as the satin sheets. But it didn't matter, any of it. He wouldn't be here. The pounding bass from the club below was nothing more than a low drone in the floorboards. She had spared no expense when she had moved in to insure that her own living quarters were well-insulated. She wouldn't be aware of the sound at all if the silence didn't lie so thickly in the empty room. She should go back downstairs; it was where she belonged during business hours, in the throb and hum of the Raven. But she had established her club perhaps too well; she knew that it ran just as smoothly without her presence. And being there among the crowd would not drive away the loneliness. There were times when it even made her feel more alone. She could fill her bed with her pick of the vampires who frequented her club, she knew, perhaps even treat herself with a pretty mortal boy, but that would only sate her for the moment. Her bond with Nicolas hung over her as surely as the shadow of night. When the glow faded, she knew from experience, the aching emptiness would still remain. She sat down at her vanity and scrutinized her reflection in the antique mirror. Her dark hair was piled in luxurious amounts on the top of her head, held in place with tortoiseshell combs. She had taken a half an hour earlier fixing the combs exactly as she liked them -- or rather, exactly as Nicolas liked them. She could still feel his strong hands, when she closed her eyes, buried in her curls, blindly searching out the combs, fumbling them out of place and letting them slip through his fingers to the floor as the heavy masses of her soft hair tumbled slowly down over her shoulders. More often than not, she smiled to herself, he then managed to tread on the fragile combs on their way to the bed. She had lost more combs that way. None recently, though. Her face tightened as she pushed herself violently away from the vanity and paced out into the room. It had been so long. Always before she had told herself that Nicolas would get tired of his silly quest to become mortal, as he had tired of so many of his fanciful whims, that he would come back to her and they would be together again as they had been before. But more and more, as the years gnawed by, she had to ignore a small voice inside her that questioned whether he would ever be hers again. Could it really be true that she had lost him, that all the best centuries of their love were in the past? With a sigh, she turned back to her vanity to repair the damage she had done to her perfect room. The stool had been left at an awkward angle, and her sudden jostle had knocked over a few delicate trinkets and vials of eau de cologne. She replaced the seat where it belonged and leaned over to straighten the glass and crystal, but her fingers fumbled on the forgotten facets of the tiny jars and bottles as her attention was caught by the sight of her own face in the mirror. Was she any less beautiful? But she knew it was impossible by the very nature of what she was, even if her own vision had not told her so. Her porcelain skin was as smooth and flawless as ever, her hair and brows as glistening, her lips as red and full. And her eyes were as full and luminous as the moon. It was his eyes that had first attracted her attention. She had never seen them in the sunlight, of course, to know their full, startling blue, but they seemed to carry that brightness with them even into the sordid, raucous taverns he visited at night. It was the innocence and boyishness that intrigued her in those crusader's eyes which had seen so much violence and decadence and war. They brought light into even her dark existence, a light that she had not known for countless years. She had had to have it, to keep it with her always. And she *had* kept it for centuries. Certainly, there had been arguments, misunderstandings, some stretching into years, but they had always come back to each other, always. The first time they were back in each other's arms after a separation, they seemed to be setting something right which should never have gone wrong. She remembered one particular night, the drowsy warmth of southern Italy.... What century had it been? Nicolas had been away from them for months; when he finally returned, there had been weeks at a time that not even the pleasure of the hunt could drag them from their chamber in LaCroix' villa. Despite the season, the bed was piled high with blankets and wraps, and their warm weight on her bare body was pleasant as they lay basking in their sensations. Nicolas had thrown the covers back to his waist, exposing his strong chest, and a single well-muscled arm stretched over the bedclothes to where her slender, white body barely made a ripple under the blankets. His eyes were closed, but his lips still wore a lazy smile. She lay for a moment, enjoying the sight of him, until her sated senses noticed something dissonant outside the walls of the villa. There was too much hubbub from the mortals for this time of night and something odd about the tint of the light that crept in beneath the hem of the heavy curtains at the window. A frown crossed her face, and a sudden chill passed through her for no discernable reason. She slipped quietly from the bed, pulling a blanket from the top of the pile and wrapping it around herself, less for warmth or cover than as a shield from whatever it was that was making her uneasy, something to hold onto and place between her and the unknown. She gripped the the thick velvet of the drapery in her white hand and hesitated a second before resolutely throwing open the curtains. She stifled a gasp and took a stumbling step backward, almost tripping over the train of the blanket that drug the floor behind her. The night was wrong, its light, its shading, its color. The shadows and contrasts that should have been crisp black and white were muted and pallid. The stir she had detected came from the murmurings and whimperings of the peasants clustered at the windows and doorways of their rough hovels, pointing to the sky in fear and fascination. Where a full moon should have hung was nothing but a ring of waxy light, the color of a corpse. She heard her own frightened voice before she even realized she had spoken. "Nicolas!" He was at her side in half an instant. "What is it?" She could not answer. Instead, with a shaking finger, she pointed at the sky. He blinked up at where the moon should have been. "An eclipse," he murmured. "LaCroix mentioned it last week, but I...." He smiled teasingly and nipped at her throat with his fangs. "I had forgotten," he purred. She pushed his face away with the palm of her hand and spoke sharply. "Nicolas, stop it." He sobered and pulled his fangs back in. "You're really frightened," he said softly as he traced a fingertip gently down her cheek. "Not frightened," she shrugged. "I just do not like it. The moon is supposed to be there, and she is gone." She shivered. "The light is gone." He wrapped his arms around her and laid a kiss on her bare shoulder. "It will be back. And I'm here and far more constant than the faithless moon," he whispered. She stood very still and asked in a little-girl voice, "Nicolas, never leave me again." He swept her into his arms, blanket and all, and carried her back to the bed, letting her rest against his chest. "Never," he promised. "We will be in each other's arms forever. And forever begins tonight." And when she looked into those blue eyes, she believed him. Janette was drawn back into the present by the guttering of a candle in the corner. Never, he had said. And now, even on those occasions when they were together, they were apart. She knew that all her feelings for him were written in her eyes when she saw him and on her lips when she kissed him, yet he didn't see and he didn't feel. Sometimes she dreamed of him, of running away with him far from Toronto, and woke herself with calling his name, holding her arms out to the emptiness. And sometimes, like tonight, she made her room and her body ready to welcome him, as if he were about to come striding in as he had for so many centuries. But he never did. Sometimes, when he dropped by to ask a favor, never the right one, when he dropped that tantalizing kiss so casually onto her lips before he walked out into the dark, she wanted to call his name, to make him turn around and look at her with those bright eyes, to bring his light back into her life, to stay with her. But she never did; something always stopped her. Perhaps she was afraid that he wouldn't stay even if she asked. If she had truly lost him, perhaps she was afraid to know. The pulsating throb of the crowd from below caught her attention once again. Nicolas was not there, but someone would be, some body to fill his place in her bed. Today, at least, she would not sleep alone. Her fingers lingered on the tops of her perfume bottles, and then with a savage swipe she sent them tumbling against each other. One rolled over the edge of the vanity and shattered on the floor, as the oversweet scent of rosewater permeated the room. Next she seized the sheets on the bed and rumpled them in her arms. Crossing to the candlestand in the corner, she raised her white hand and deliberately pinched out each flame, gasping with the pain as her delicate fingertips were burned. The marks would have healed themselves, she knew, by the time she descended the stairs to the Raven. As the last candle was extinguished, the room fell into darkness. Lyrics to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes (Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then I fall apart (Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then I fall apart (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit restless and I dream of something wild (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit angry and I know I've got to get out and cry (Turn around) Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes (Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then I fall apart (Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then I fall apart And I need you now tonight and I need you more than ever and if you only hold me tight we'll be holding on forever and we'll only be making it right cause we'll never be wrong Together we can take it to the end of the light your love is like a shadow on me all of the time I don't know what to do I'm always in the dark I'm living in a powder keg and giving off sparks I really need you tonight forever's gonna start tonight forever's gonna start tonight Once upon a time I was falling in love now I'm only falling apart there's nothing I can do: a total eclipse of the heart Once upon a time there was light in my life now there's only love in the dark nothing I can say: a total eclipse of the heart a total eclipse of the heart Turn around, bright eyes turn around, bright eyes turn around THE END ࡱ; SummaryInformation(West@S[@@S[@Microsoft Word 6.01@5-IJ%nI\5xKC  ` 6 | S / v - L"kdAN&oJb?X)r-[0xHab;[5{  U i !!Q!R!!!!!("r"z"{""-"""#[#\####:$$$$$$$7%%%%%F&&&'g'''B((()`)))>****+[+++3,{,,-,-W-----'.(.6.c....../I/W/////0"000_0}000001C1Q1111112U2222-3--3\33333 4%4\444445)5556575?5@5K@Normala c"A@"Default Paragraph Font@2 @2@5 ",-3@5 !*ASU WestC:\DOCUMENT\JILL\WAR\SONG4.TXT@HP LaserJet IIPLPT1:HPPCLHP LaserJet IIP  DLg_,,g ;Wd}w;W}dqg2HP LaserJet IIP  DLg_,,g ;Wd}w;W}dqg2?2?2?2?21Times New Roman Symbol &Arial"h\P,From: Sarah Welsh ASU WestASU Westࡱ;