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Leadem, Christopher

"The Mantooth"

Because Sylviana would not let him near her,
and heeded none of his warnings.
So he worked, and waited, and prayed to the wind which knew could not
hear. While the woman-child, oblivious, pursued the treacherous shadow
of revenge.
It should be said in her defense that Sylviana had not stopped loving
him. Hers, rather, was a classic case of one who has struggled with the
help of another to achieve some desperate goal, but whom, upon attaining
it, felt that he or she no longer needed the life partner who had been a
pillar of love and support throughout: that she was now free to choose a
more appropriate mate for her elevated status, and leave the other to
get on as they would. As if that made it any better. Lastly, that if
she had been herself she would have wished him no harm, whatever he had
done to hurt her.
But her emotions, too (or so she told herself), were in a violent state
of flux. She felt as if she had been the one struck across the face,
betrayed and unjustly punished for simply following the inevitable
course of events. She had never been an evil person, and was not now.
But a sin of omission can be every bit as deadly, and the venomous
spider does not stop to ask the nature of its victim before it bites, a
soft sting that is hardly felt, until the poison starts to work.


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