Chapter One - In Which I Am
“Wake up.”
A single stroke past four in the morning, the witching hour had ended and the veil between the here and the there had thickened to a viscous barrier betwixt realms once more. Slumber was a perilous event on the best of nights. This was not one of those and as the voice tickled the edge of her consciousness, the tangle of sheets about her legs was a warden’s chain tethering her to the fitful land of dreams. She kicked and tossed, smothering a plush pillow over the nest of her hair and insulating her ears against the intrusion threatening to pull her from the depths of sleep, intermittent as it was. But the Emissary’s silken tones slithered through the silk and down of her pillow to caress the shell of her ear with its sibilant hiss.
“Wake up, Persephone.”
“I’m not your fucking Persephone.” She growled, muffled by pillow and grogginess alike. But she felt something within her stir, drawn by his call. It was a piece given away, left like a gaping wound in her psyche, vulnerable to exploit. And like an infection, another presence had settled in comfortably to share what bits and pieces it could rattle free of its host. What a lovely host it was too, young and supple, in the prime of her lives, multiplicitous as they were. She was a pretty vessel, prettier than the paragon within her had thought possible to obtain for their use. It supposed the trade off was the surly stubbornness that cropped up from time to time like this and the mouth that had the tendency to get her in trouble and her less than discerning choice of company more often than not.
But at least she had a pretty face. Suitable for now.
“Just the same, wake up, child. I come with news.” The perpetually annoyed Emissary loomed over the smaller woman’s prone form. As if standing in the dark at a young woman’s bedside was perfectly normal at four in the morning. Lucky for him, the hotel room was empty save for her, void of bed company or other clingers on. He had always found it peculiar how she swung so violently between self imposed isolation and needing to be continuously surrounded by the inanity of mortal life. The chitter, the chatter, the queer activities that wasted time and brain cells alike.
“And it couldn’t wait until the sun was up?” She grumbled from beneath the pillow. Still he could sense the rising consciousness, inches and ounces at a time like a basin filled by a dripping tap. Try as she might, he knew she couldn’t resist.
“Nae. Would it sweeten the pot if I provided the Rhybux that you seem to enjoy so much?” He offered. It was a toss up between caffeine and alcohol for which was the dominant intoxicant in the girl’s blood so it was at least a fifty-fifty shot. Better if he factored in the time of day. A zombie-esque groan issued from under the pillow before with a sudden burst of motion, it went flying at the Emissary. He caught it with a chuckle and when he set it down, he was looking down at the surly scowl and amber eyes that caught even the slightest sliver of light to refract it back like a prism.
“I need coffee and coffee cake or I’m going back to bed.” She said, negotiating her demands. They both knew that she was in no position to ask for anything but he was indulgent to a fault and she could be difficult when she didn’t get her way. Indulgence was a mutually beneficial course.
“Does this place have this…. coffee cake?” He asked, tipping his head to one side. Half of his face was covered in red porcelain, a physical incarnation of his paragon’s mark, a mark she too bore and could call upon. Why she didn’t like the mask, he didn’t know. Maybe it was because she couldn’t read his expression nearly as well as he could hers.
“Wait,” she peered up at him in the dark. “Have you never had coffee cake?”
“...Is this one of those things where you will taunt and torment me if I say no?” He countered. She smirked, a wry twist of pretty lips that had a habit of drawing the eyes.
“Usually, yes. In this case, no. But you will be trying some.” She said, getting to her feet to shuffle to the closet to pull free something resembling normal street wear. Considering the oddities of this land, he didn’t understand her insistence upon wearing trendy denim and cotton-polyester blend, but she made it look good so it wasn’t a total loss for him.
Form hugging jeans, a shirt that had a habit of slipping off her shoulder, a leather jacket patched in the arm with a red rose, black and gold sneakers. It was simple but comfortable and for Karma, that was enough. As she tied her hair up into a messy nest atop her head, she went for the front door of the luxe hotel suite only for her companion to clear his throat and gesture to a coalescing miasma if black and purple forming a portal behind him.
“Or we could walk.” She swept a hand to the door and opened it.
“But-”
“It’s a wonder you’re as thin as you are considering you never walk anywhere, Emissary.” She cut him off with a broad, crooked grin that set her eyes aglow with mirth. “Walk with me. Pretty please?”
How could he say no?
He sighed and followed after her only for her to stop at the door to turn and face him. Her hands came up, startling him and prompting him to grab for her wrists, curling fingers tipped in metal claws around the narrow bone structure. The slightest motion and he could have ensured she would never use her hands again. Undaunted, she rolled her eyes.
“Trust me, I’m not going to hurt you.” She said softly. Up close, she smelled like sweet bourbon and a touch of something floral, a heady scent that made his nostrils flare as he eased his grip. He was rewarded with a closed smile and slowly her hands moved up to the starched peak of his cowl to ease it back. It sank in a slouch of silk at the back of his neck, leaving him feeling vulnerable and exposed even with his mask on. Her hands lingered near the edge of the red porcelain but upon reading his pained expression, she relented and smoothed his pale blonde hair with a gentle pass of her hand. “Look at you, you’re a regular Rhydinian now.”
“Do not wish such things upon me.” He wrinkled his nose behind his mask, making it bob with the motion. Karma let out a laugh and turned back for the door.
“Fine, fine. But at least now they won’t all stare.” She tugged the door open and led him into the dim hallway. Ten minutes (and only a few odd looks) later, they were nearing the jingling front door of New Haven’s Rhybux, a trendy but heavily franchised coffeehouse. “You know, being a native isn’t so bad. I’m a Rhydinian myself. Made and raised here.”
“Well, we can’t all be perfect.” He deadpanned, prompting a sidelong look and a twitch of a smile from his much shorter companion. In turn, he echoed it with a ghost of his own and opened the door for her. The sleepy barista behind the counter didn’t even balk at the odd pair before her and only minutes later, they were stepping back out into the muggy morning air each armed with a drink in one hand and a paper wrapped package of warmed coffee cake. They found an out of the way bench several blocks off the main thoroughfare beneath a gas street lamp half obscured by the canopy of broad branched trees overhead.
“So what’s the haps, Eli-belly?” She asked between bites and sips. It was a wonder what a macchiato could do for her mood. A modern marvel if ever there was one, even if the Emissary didn’t much favor the nickname she had given him.
“We vote upon the next sunset. Your presence is required. Or more succinctly, her presence.” He said. His own drink was straight black coffee touched with only the faintest dilution of cream. Karma considered his words for a few moments.
“Can I just do it?” She asked, her gaze not on him but rather upon the coffee cake in her lap. Fingers crumbled at the topping, spreading cinnamon sugar between her thumb and forefinger.
“No… we must demonstrate that this experiment has not been for nothing. She must speak accordingly.” He could feel her hesitation so he shifted in his seat toward her, a hand coming to curl beneath her chin, his clawed gauntlets removed if only for now. “You are strong. Possibly the strongest vessel we’ve utilized since the first sundering. Can you be strong for just a little while longer?”
“I…” She nipped her lower lip and brought her gaze up. Behind his mask she couldn’t make out his eyes, a fact that had always bothered her. “I feel like I’m losing myself.”
“You won’t.” He said firmly.
“I know, but I feel it, everything slipping through my fingers. I don’t recognize myself anymore and I don’t like it.” She whispered.
“If we’re successful, you will be responsible for our salvation as a people. You will be revered as a hero, a savior, Karma. And we don’t let our heroes lose themselves.” His thumb brushed her jawline, rough against smooth, old against new. She was young, but he hadn’t lied when he told her she was strong too. But she was also so unsure of herself.
“I… fine… I’ll do it. But I’m gonna bitch about it the entire time.” She said after a few long moments of staring into the shadows of his mask. He gave her a smile in return.
“I expected nothing less from you.” He said, his hand falling away from her cheek. She moved next, picking up a chunk of coffee cake to hold it out to him.
“Yeah, well, now you have to try this. As my handler, you have to keep me happy so that I’m cooperative and this would make me happy.” She said through a pout. He looked down at the offered piece. She wasn’t wrong, half of his effort spent in this forsaken realm had been solely to keep her occupied and happy. Without so much as a sigh, he opened his mouth for her to hand it over. She looked at him as he chewed. “Well?”
“...That’s… surprisingly good.” He said eventually. This seemed to please the young woman. She popped to her feet, grabbing his hand along the way.
“Told you. That’s what happens when you trust in me, you get good things.” She mused.
“Trust in Karma… that sounds… ominous.” He countered.
“That’s the point. Let’s get out of here before the sun comes up. There’s a vote to be had.”
A moment later they did just that, leaving the New Haven side street quiet once more.
In Which I Become
Moderators: Raspberry, Strawberry, Beau Austin, Caleb Feren
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Strawberry
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Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
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- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
In Which We Were
Chapter Two - In Which We Were
This was a place of dreams, a utopia tweaked to such arcane perfection that it was a marvel in and of itself. Or at least, it was once. This was a civilization on the brink and the calling of calamity on the horizon made for an air of tension so palpable that cliches like cutting it with a knife were all too apt. A hooded pair arrived before the towering doors of the Convocation. Both in white, one more ornate than the other, it was a signal of their station, a separation of the greater whole. They had been tasked with the salvation of the people. The taller, more decorated of the two turned toward his much shorter counterpart and lifted his hands to cup their face. For afar it would have been a tender gesture if not for the words exchanged between them.
“We need Her now.” He said softly, looking down into the molten scarlet staring back at him.
“I don’t want to go…” She answered in a whisper, her bottom lip quivering for the echo of a heartbeat in the wake of her words.
“I know… I know. But Nemesis, my dear Watcher, we need You. Rouse yourself.” He beckoned, gold locked on red, unwavering as he sought to draw out what he needed. The girl before him withered, fighting against the growing presence within her, and she looked up at him as if he had betrayed her. It was then that he knew she had lost the battle.
This time at least.
The red of her gaze dulled, paling to an echo of what was before filling like pools of liquid gold. The tendrils of pink-blue hair twined around his fingers faded too, draining of its color until stark white replaced it from root to tip. His thumb grazed the crest of her cheekbone, recognizing in her a woman that he had once wondered if she had been lost to the lifestream forever.
“Hello Watcher…” He said.
“Emissary.” Her voice was the same but the way with which she enunciated the single word was enough for him to know it was really her. “Such a fight for control in this one. I’m pleased as always.”
“I thought you may be… but we haven’t the time for small talk this time. Come, the Convocation waits.”
It wasn’t a productive vote, to say the least. The Convocation of Fourteen had put forth a rousing discussion, argument, counter-argument, and ultimately the vote itself but in the end they found themselves stalemated once more.
All because of her.
Toward the end, amidst complaints of intentionally stifling progress, the fiery woman had stormed out of the Convocation, leaving the thirteen others awkwardly fumbling for how to proceed. In the end, it came down to two. The Emissary and the Angel of Truth.
“I’ll go after her.” The Emissary sighed as he got to his feet, but Truth was already there, waving him off.
“Don’t trouble yourself. I will handle it.” He was already on his way to the still open door.
“But…”
“I said I will handle it.” Truth stopped, daring the Emissary to question him. Instead the latter caved, inclining his head to the man.
“As you wish, Your Eminence.”
His was an unhurried pace, certain he knew just where to find her. This moment existed in an imprint of a memory, a selfish bid to try and change the course of the future and undo the sins of the past. A bit of a butterfly effect, if you will, they came back to this spot again and again and again, all to try and change some small detail to alter the ultimate outcome. As their ranks had been sundered bit by bit, it was all they could do to fill empty vessels with what fragments they could in a concerted effort to bring back the fallen before history was rewritten entirely.
It wasn’t her first vessel, this one. The Watcher had been a finicky fragment if ever there was one, and as one of the last of the Unsundered, the Emissary had been picky in choosing a suitable catalyst for her return. Truth on the other hand, thought he was too discerning. Hardly had they the time to pick and choose, not with the looming threat hanging over their heads like a Damoclean doom.
Truth found her as he always did, sitting upon a stone ledge beneath the broad canopy of a vibrant tree. This one was much smaller than the others but she didn’t shrink away from any of them in the Convocation. He watched her for a few minutes before approaching. The young woman didn’t cower or slouch but rather she sat tall, her back straight and her chin held high, gaze cast toward the heaven reaching spires of a city spread beneath a red sky.
Without a word, he came to sit beside her, his hands folded in his lap. She didn’t look his way and for a brief eternity neither one spoke. Their impasse was broken only when her hand slid into his, a balled fist tucked into the curl of his palm. He stretched his fingers around her delicate bone structure, safe guarding her anger and her pain from any who might seek to exploit or inflame it.
“Why won’t you listen?” She finally asked, her voice a whisper so low not even the wind would overhear them.
“You think I listen not, but disagreement does not equate to a lack of understanding. I heard you… the Convocation heard you. In fact, my love, I’m certain half of the city heard you.” He squeezed her hand gently, rousing a brief, rasp of a chuckle from her.
“I didn’t mean to yell… it just… got away from me.” With her free hand she gestured to herself, or more specifically to the imperfect, mostly mortal vessel in which she inhabited. It was one the Watcher had such trouble finding a foothold in. The woman was strong, both mentally and physically, and it was against that which Nemesis pushed against every day, trying to establish herself as the predominant consciousness. It seemed only when Karma was caught off guard or pushed to the point of exhaustion that the Watcher could ease away control. Otherwise she had to wait for the rare occasions like this when her host willingly handed over the reins.
“In time. Control will come in time. Our alteration has been made for this thread… the vote has been cast… we will see what the outcome is in due time.” His voice was a soothing balm, easing tension from her jaw in bits and by degrees.
“And when it is still not the right outcome?” She asked. He released her hand to slip an arm around her petite shoulders. In another day, another age, the Watcher had been his only equal. To see her a shade of herself, reduced to the occupation of a temporary vessel until the Rejoining, it broke his heart.
“Then we will try again.” He said, looking down at her. Her chin lifted to meet it, a lock of gold on gold, a rejoining of its own private sort. He touched her chin with his other hand, cresting the smooth skin of her jaw to cup it as he leaned in, their lips brushing then melding like the inevitable crash of a wave upon a shore.
Inside, Karma was screaming.
When she awoke hours later, tucked snugly into her bed, it seemed but a distant dream. A nightmare perhaps. Had any of it been real?
This was a place of dreams, a utopia tweaked to such arcane perfection that it was a marvel in and of itself. Or at least, it was once. This was a civilization on the brink and the calling of calamity on the horizon made for an air of tension so palpable that cliches like cutting it with a knife were all too apt. A hooded pair arrived before the towering doors of the Convocation. Both in white, one more ornate than the other, it was a signal of their station, a separation of the greater whole. They had been tasked with the salvation of the people. The taller, more decorated of the two turned toward his much shorter counterpart and lifted his hands to cup their face. For afar it would have been a tender gesture if not for the words exchanged between them.
“We need Her now.” He said softly, looking down into the molten scarlet staring back at him.
“I don’t want to go…” She answered in a whisper, her bottom lip quivering for the echo of a heartbeat in the wake of her words.
“I know… I know. But Nemesis, my dear Watcher, we need You. Rouse yourself.” He beckoned, gold locked on red, unwavering as he sought to draw out what he needed. The girl before him withered, fighting against the growing presence within her, and she looked up at him as if he had betrayed her. It was then that he knew she had lost the battle.
This time at least.
The red of her gaze dulled, paling to an echo of what was before filling like pools of liquid gold. The tendrils of pink-blue hair twined around his fingers faded too, draining of its color until stark white replaced it from root to tip. His thumb grazed the crest of her cheekbone, recognizing in her a woman that he had once wondered if she had been lost to the lifestream forever.
“Hello Watcher…” He said.
“Emissary.” Her voice was the same but the way with which she enunciated the single word was enough for him to know it was really her. “Such a fight for control in this one. I’m pleased as always.”
“I thought you may be… but we haven’t the time for small talk this time. Come, the Convocation waits.”
It wasn’t a productive vote, to say the least. The Convocation of Fourteen had put forth a rousing discussion, argument, counter-argument, and ultimately the vote itself but in the end they found themselves stalemated once more.
All because of her.
Toward the end, amidst complaints of intentionally stifling progress, the fiery woman had stormed out of the Convocation, leaving the thirteen others awkwardly fumbling for how to proceed. In the end, it came down to two. The Emissary and the Angel of Truth.
“I’ll go after her.” The Emissary sighed as he got to his feet, but Truth was already there, waving him off.
“Don’t trouble yourself. I will handle it.” He was already on his way to the still open door.
“But…”
“I said I will handle it.” Truth stopped, daring the Emissary to question him. Instead the latter caved, inclining his head to the man.
“As you wish, Your Eminence.”
His was an unhurried pace, certain he knew just where to find her. This moment existed in an imprint of a memory, a selfish bid to try and change the course of the future and undo the sins of the past. A bit of a butterfly effect, if you will, they came back to this spot again and again and again, all to try and change some small detail to alter the ultimate outcome. As their ranks had been sundered bit by bit, it was all they could do to fill empty vessels with what fragments they could in a concerted effort to bring back the fallen before history was rewritten entirely.
It wasn’t her first vessel, this one. The Watcher had been a finicky fragment if ever there was one, and as one of the last of the Unsundered, the Emissary had been picky in choosing a suitable catalyst for her return. Truth on the other hand, thought he was too discerning. Hardly had they the time to pick and choose, not with the looming threat hanging over their heads like a Damoclean doom.
Truth found her as he always did, sitting upon a stone ledge beneath the broad canopy of a vibrant tree. This one was much smaller than the others but she didn’t shrink away from any of them in the Convocation. He watched her for a few minutes before approaching. The young woman didn’t cower or slouch but rather she sat tall, her back straight and her chin held high, gaze cast toward the heaven reaching spires of a city spread beneath a red sky.
Without a word, he came to sit beside her, his hands folded in his lap. She didn’t look his way and for a brief eternity neither one spoke. Their impasse was broken only when her hand slid into his, a balled fist tucked into the curl of his palm. He stretched his fingers around her delicate bone structure, safe guarding her anger and her pain from any who might seek to exploit or inflame it.
“Why won’t you listen?” She finally asked, her voice a whisper so low not even the wind would overhear them.
“You think I listen not, but disagreement does not equate to a lack of understanding. I heard you… the Convocation heard you. In fact, my love, I’m certain half of the city heard you.” He squeezed her hand gently, rousing a brief, rasp of a chuckle from her.
“I didn’t mean to yell… it just… got away from me.” With her free hand she gestured to herself, or more specifically to the imperfect, mostly mortal vessel in which she inhabited. It was one the Watcher had such trouble finding a foothold in. The woman was strong, both mentally and physically, and it was against that which Nemesis pushed against every day, trying to establish herself as the predominant consciousness. It seemed only when Karma was caught off guard or pushed to the point of exhaustion that the Watcher could ease away control. Otherwise she had to wait for the rare occasions like this when her host willingly handed over the reins.
“In time. Control will come in time. Our alteration has been made for this thread… the vote has been cast… we will see what the outcome is in due time.” His voice was a soothing balm, easing tension from her jaw in bits and by degrees.
“And when it is still not the right outcome?” She asked. He released her hand to slip an arm around her petite shoulders. In another day, another age, the Watcher had been his only equal. To see her a shade of herself, reduced to the occupation of a temporary vessel until the Rejoining, it broke his heart.
“Then we will try again.” He said, looking down at her. Her chin lifted to meet it, a lock of gold on gold, a rejoining of its own private sort. He touched her chin with his other hand, cresting the smooth skin of her jaw to cup it as he leaned in, their lips brushing then melding like the inevitable crash of a wave upon a shore.
Inside, Karma was screaming.
When she awoke hours later, tucked snugly into her bed, it seemed but a distant dream. A nightmare perhaps. Had any of it been real?
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Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
- Queen of Air & Darkness
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
In Which I Will Be
Chapter Three - In Which I Will Be
At some point in the middle of the afternoon, she returned to her suite after a night of drugs and liquor and pleasant, pleasant pain. It wasn’t quite the presidential or even a full penthouse, but a junior had always sufficed, offering her solace when she needed to retreat from the world. It was in a haze that she unlocked and pushed through the door, a sedate smile lingering on her face. Her senses were dulled, still foggy after the previous night’s recreational activities. Dress a disheveled mess cutting dancing flickers of sparkle along the walls and ceiling as errant sunbeams caught the fabric. Shoes twined between her fingertips were dropped at the door in a pile of haphazardly strewn heels and boots.
It was no wonder she didn’t feel him sitting there before she saw him. As the door closed behind her, she latched it with a swipe of her hand and turned back with a start, finding the Emissary sitting, one legged crossed over the other, in the plush armchair she so often napped in while reading. Though he had taken a more casual stance with her as of late, foregoing formal robes of his station and those ever present clawed gloves, today he had returned to that precipice of formality, peering out at her from beneath the shadow of his cowl.
“I am ridiculously hungover and have been mostly awake for the past thirty-six hours. I really can’t deal with this right now, Ely.” She stifled a yawn and shuffled past him in a bid for the bathroom. Halfway past, a metal clad hand snapped for her wrist, encircling it in a tight grip that pulled her back from her course.
“We need to have a talk, Karma.” He said with all of the stern inflection of a disappointed parent. She pulled against his hold but found it steadfast.
“It can wait.” She tugged harder. Right as she reached the apex of momentum, he let go, leaving her off kilter and stumbling. Her hip caught the edge of a side table and sent her teetering to a spot upon the plush carpeted flooring. “Ow. You dick. Get out. I don’t want to deal with you right now.”
“No. The Convocation is concerned.” He said, looking down at her in an unceremonious heap on the floor. Not the most flattering of poses to say the least.
“When aren’t they?” She grumbled, massaging the heel of her hand into her temple.
“They’re worried you’re becoming a liability instead of an asset.” He continued without answering her question. The draw of his mouth was a hard line beneath the crimson porcelain of his half mask, drawing her eye to it and upward, searching his golden gaze beneath for more information.
“What do you mean?” She asked, shifting to sit on her knees and smoothing her rumpled dress.
“They think our investment in you isn’t going to pan out. They have called a vote for the termination of our agreement.” He told her, his tone softening only toward the end. There was a pain in the tension of his shoulders but it was nothing compared to the internal bolt that felt as if it shot through her entire psyche, the fractional soul within her protesting in a scream only she could hear. It would likely mean the girl’s death and the fragment within would have to start all over again. Karma winced, bowing her head into her hands as if it might silence it. The Emissary’s mask shifted as he arched a brow. “What is it?”
“Show her.” A voice not her own came from her lips. A plea from one of the Emissary’s oldest friends. “Show her what happens if we fail. And if we succeed.”
Karma shook it as quickly as it came, still holding her head in her hands. The room was spinning and she felt like she might throw up. A moment later, white robes appeared within the narrow view she had as the Emissary joined her on the floor, kneeling in front of her. He eased her hands away from her head and gently guided her chin up so she could meet his gaze.
“She’s scared…” Karma whispered, wide eyed. For all of the residual feelings she could glean off of the thing within her, this was unusual. Normally it was anger or frustration or annoyance. Seldom fear. When was the last time Karma had been afraid, even by proxy? She couldn’t remember.
“And you should be too.” He said, his hands moving to her temples. He brought his forehead to his, his eyes an endless abyss that locked upon hers, forcing his will upon her to not look away. “Now watch…”
What came next was… a bit like the seemingly endless amount of knowledge her mother had crammed into her head as a child. What she saw was the dawn of an entire civilization. This was a familiar beginning of a story she had been told a thousand times by now. But as the scene playing out in her mind’s eye increased in speed until it was an endless blur of imagery, she couldn’t help the overwhelming welling of dread in her gut.
For so long during her arrangement, they had talked constantly about calamity, the end of existence as they knew it. And how they needed her to help keep it from happening. The Emissary showed her just what would happen if she failed. If they failed. Not just the fall of the city but of their entire world. A sundering, a shattering into over a dozen shards, each a broken fractional portion of the source.
One was a wash of unremitting shadow. Another its opposite, drenched in pure light. Both were devastating. Others were more balanced but one thing was true for every one of them; they all meant the deaths of hundreds of millions or more. Not just the paragons, either, but rather the normal, mortal humans that came after them.
Sometimes it was easy for her to get pessimistic, to say that she had no obligation to this ancient race and their problems, no matter the power they offered her. But the others… the others were innocent. Could she bear the weight of their loss if she didn’t take action?
Maybe. Maybe with copious amounts of alcohol and illicit substances. Maybe.
A long shot though.
A bit like the paragons’ conundrum.
She felt the world go sideways. Thankfully the Emissary was there to break her fall. She slumped into him, her head pounding with sharp stabbing pains. He held her upright, enclosed in the loop of his arms until her heart rate calmed and her breathing slowed. Nausea still threatened her fragile composure and she wished that she was still high so she didn’t have to bear this.
“Please…” She pleaded. “No more.”
“This is what becomes if we treat this as a dalliance. You were chosen for your strength and your determination and that mustn’t flounder. We are so close to fixing this… but your focus must be laser sighted as it was at the beginning. Because you know what comes from success?” He said softly, his voice a basso rumble beside her ear. Karma shook her head. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see it either. But he refused to relent. He straightened her up, brought her eyes to his once more and reforged their mental bond.
A world saved, a people allowed to flourish. Already an advanced civilization, their furtherment resulted in a prosperous empire in perfect balance. He showed her more than that, faces she knew from the Convocation and from around the Paragon capital. The Majestic, the Transcendent, the Knight-Star, the Martyr, the Emissary and the Angel of Truth. A woman sat between the last two, beautifully poised and seemingly an equal to them both. White haired, golden eyed, her mask was white rather than red and set upon the top of her head but it was one Karma recognized well, for its symbols came to her every time she tapped the powers of the Paragons. Her official title was the Watcher and she was the fragment within Karma. Her hand was in Truth’s, clasped in a loose lacing to align their forearms as they sat side by side. He leaned over to whisper something in her ear and she issued a coy laugh. On her other side, the Emissary’s jaw tensed. He didn’t look as thrilled as the rest, but he seemed… content.
The price of victory.
The scene faded, leaving her staring into the Emissary’s eyes. Her head hurt terribly and she might very well toss her cookies at any moment but he kept her from giving in.
“What does that all mean for me?” She murmured when she at last found her tongue.
“Power. Untold power.” He said, brushing a sweat matted strand of hair from her forehead. But Karma hadn’t been there in the final glimpse, so if she was simply used to save their people and bring back the lost, what would happen to her when it was all done? The Emissary seemed to sense some of her hesitation.
“Promise me. Promise me that you won’t let them just… let me go when this is all said and done.” She whispered, looking up at him. He sighed, brushing his lips to her forehead before cupping her chin to draw her mouth to his.
“Call this a promise.” He said just before he kissed her. The connection imbued a jolt of power through her, a surge of untold potential welling in the center of her being. The sensual building of fire in her veins filled her with the highest of highs and gave her the tiniest glimpse into just what he could give her if she was successful. When their connection broke, she swayed there on her knees, positively buzzing with energy.
And that was just a glimpse.
“Now think of what you can do with the rest.” He said, letting her go. She gave him an unsteady little nod and swallowed back the taste of acrid bile in her throat.
“Oh gods…” She groaned, feeling it rise once more just before she lost her fight against the tide and promptly threw up all over his crisp white robes.
“...”
“I’m so sorry…”
“...Why is it neon blue?”
“...You don’t want to know.”
At some point in the middle of the afternoon, she returned to her suite after a night of drugs and liquor and pleasant, pleasant pain. It wasn’t quite the presidential or even a full penthouse, but a junior had always sufficed, offering her solace when she needed to retreat from the world. It was in a haze that she unlocked and pushed through the door, a sedate smile lingering on her face. Her senses were dulled, still foggy after the previous night’s recreational activities. Dress a disheveled mess cutting dancing flickers of sparkle along the walls and ceiling as errant sunbeams caught the fabric. Shoes twined between her fingertips were dropped at the door in a pile of haphazardly strewn heels and boots.
It was no wonder she didn’t feel him sitting there before she saw him. As the door closed behind her, she latched it with a swipe of her hand and turned back with a start, finding the Emissary sitting, one legged crossed over the other, in the plush armchair she so often napped in while reading. Though he had taken a more casual stance with her as of late, foregoing formal robes of his station and those ever present clawed gloves, today he had returned to that precipice of formality, peering out at her from beneath the shadow of his cowl.
“I am ridiculously hungover and have been mostly awake for the past thirty-six hours. I really can’t deal with this right now, Ely.” She stifled a yawn and shuffled past him in a bid for the bathroom. Halfway past, a metal clad hand snapped for her wrist, encircling it in a tight grip that pulled her back from her course.
“We need to have a talk, Karma.” He said with all of the stern inflection of a disappointed parent. She pulled against his hold but found it steadfast.
“It can wait.” She tugged harder. Right as she reached the apex of momentum, he let go, leaving her off kilter and stumbling. Her hip caught the edge of a side table and sent her teetering to a spot upon the plush carpeted flooring. “Ow. You dick. Get out. I don’t want to deal with you right now.”
“No. The Convocation is concerned.” He said, looking down at her in an unceremonious heap on the floor. Not the most flattering of poses to say the least.
“When aren’t they?” She grumbled, massaging the heel of her hand into her temple.
“They’re worried you’re becoming a liability instead of an asset.” He continued without answering her question. The draw of his mouth was a hard line beneath the crimson porcelain of his half mask, drawing her eye to it and upward, searching his golden gaze beneath for more information.
“What do you mean?” She asked, shifting to sit on her knees and smoothing her rumpled dress.
“They think our investment in you isn’t going to pan out. They have called a vote for the termination of our agreement.” He told her, his tone softening only toward the end. There was a pain in the tension of his shoulders but it was nothing compared to the internal bolt that felt as if it shot through her entire psyche, the fractional soul within her protesting in a scream only she could hear. It would likely mean the girl’s death and the fragment within would have to start all over again. Karma winced, bowing her head into her hands as if it might silence it. The Emissary’s mask shifted as he arched a brow. “What is it?”
“Show her.” A voice not her own came from her lips. A plea from one of the Emissary’s oldest friends. “Show her what happens if we fail. And if we succeed.”
Karma shook it as quickly as it came, still holding her head in her hands. The room was spinning and she felt like she might throw up. A moment later, white robes appeared within the narrow view she had as the Emissary joined her on the floor, kneeling in front of her. He eased her hands away from her head and gently guided her chin up so she could meet his gaze.
“She’s scared…” Karma whispered, wide eyed. For all of the residual feelings she could glean off of the thing within her, this was unusual. Normally it was anger or frustration or annoyance. Seldom fear. When was the last time Karma had been afraid, even by proxy? She couldn’t remember.
“And you should be too.” He said, his hands moving to her temples. He brought his forehead to his, his eyes an endless abyss that locked upon hers, forcing his will upon her to not look away. “Now watch…”
What came next was… a bit like the seemingly endless amount of knowledge her mother had crammed into her head as a child. What she saw was the dawn of an entire civilization. This was a familiar beginning of a story she had been told a thousand times by now. But as the scene playing out in her mind’s eye increased in speed until it was an endless blur of imagery, she couldn’t help the overwhelming welling of dread in her gut.
For so long during her arrangement, they had talked constantly about calamity, the end of existence as they knew it. And how they needed her to help keep it from happening. The Emissary showed her just what would happen if she failed. If they failed. Not just the fall of the city but of their entire world. A sundering, a shattering into over a dozen shards, each a broken fractional portion of the source.
One was a wash of unremitting shadow. Another its opposite, drenched in pure light. Both were devastating. Others were more balanced but one thing was true for every one of them; they all meant the deaths of hundreds of millions or more. Not just the paragons, either, but rather the normal, mortal humans that came after them.
Sometimes it was easy for her to get pessimistic, to say that she had no obligation to this ancient race and their problems, no matter the power they offered her. But the others… the others were innocent. Could she bear the weight of their loss if she didn’t take action?
Maybe. Maybe with copious amounts of alcohol and illicit substances. Maybe.
A long shot though.
A bit like the paragons’ conundrum.
She felt the world go sideways. Thankfully the Emissary was there to break her fall. She slumped into him, her head pounding with sharp stabbing pains. He held her upright, enclosed in the loop of his arms until her heart rate calmed and her breathing slowed. Nausea still threatened her fragile composure and she wished that she was still high so she didn’t have to bear this.
“Please…” She pleaded. “No more.”
“This is what becomes if we treat this as a dalliance. You were chosen for your strength and your determination and that mustn’t flounder. We are so close to fixing this… but your focus must be laser sighted as it was at the beginning. Because you know what comes from success?” He said softly, his voice a basso rumble beside her ear. Karma shook her head. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see it either. But he refused to relent. He straightened her up, brought her eyes to his once more and reforged their mental bond.
A world saved, a people allowed to flourish. Already an advanced civilization, their furtherment resulted in a prosperous empire in perfect balance. He showed her more than that, faces she knew from the Convocation and from around the Paragon capital. The Majestic, the Transcendent, the Knight-Star, the Martyr, the Emissary and the Angel of Truth. A woman sat between the last two, beautifully poised and seemingly an equal to them both. White haired, golden eyed, her mask was white rather than red and set upon the top of her head but it was one Karma recognized well, for its symbols came to her every time she tapped the powers of the Paragons. Her official title was the Watcher and she was the fragment within Karma. Her hand was in Truth’s, clasped in a loose lacing to align their forearms as they sat side by side. He leaned over to whisper something in her ear and she issued a coy laugh. On her other side, the Emissary’s jaw tensed. He didn’t look as thrilled as the rest, but he seemed… content.
The price of victory.
The scene faded, leaving her staring into the Emissary’s eyes. Her head hurt terribly and she might very well toss her cookies at any moment but he kept her from giving in.
“What does that all mean for me?” She murmured when she at last found her tongue.
“Power. Untold power.” He said, brushing a sweat matted strand of hair from her forehead. But Karma hadn’t been there in the final glimpse, so if she was simply used to save their people and bring back the lost, what would happen to her when it was all done? The Emissary seemed to sense some of her hesitation.
“Promise me. Promise me that you won’t let them just… let me go when this is all said and done.” She whispered, looking up at him. He sighed, brushing his lips to her forehead before cupping her chin to draw her mouth to his.
“Call this a promise.” He said just before he kissed her. The connection imbued a jolt of power through her, a surge of untold potential welling in the center of her being. The sensual building of fire in her veins filled her with the highest of highs and gave her the tiniest glimpse into just what he could give her if she was successful. When their connection broke, she swayed there on her knees, positively buzzing with energy.
And that was just a glimpse.
“Now think of what you can do with the rest.” He said, letting her go. She gave him an unsteady little nod and swallowed back the taste of acrid bile in her throat.
“Oh gods…” She groaned, feeling it rise once more just before she lost her fight against the tide and promptly threw up all over his crisp white robes.
“...”
“I’m so sorry…”
“...Why is it neon blue?”
“...You don’t want to know.”
-
Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
- Queen of Air & Darkness
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
Re: In Which I Become
Chapter Four - In Which I Come Undone
How many days had it been? Four, five, six…
What day was it? Thursday… Friday…
So it had been over a week. She awoke in a bed not her own, but judging by its size, she hadn’t shared it with anyone either. That was a relief. A minor relief, but a relief just the same. It took a moment to orient and untangle her legs from a knot of blankets and sheets; lush, luxe fabrics sporting remarkably high thread count judging by how silky soft they were. Her head rattled with a vicious throbbing as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet touching down against cold, cold marble. It was a much needed shock to her system, jolting her with the frigid chill and forcing her eyes to focus. The room she occupied was opulent, doubly so than her suite in New Haven. It carried certain touches reminiscent of Terran 1920’s Art Deco in both styling and architecture, drawing Karma’s gaze along pointed arches and across windows filled with smaller complimentary linework.
“Hello?” She called, her voice rough like it had been used heavily recently. Her voice echoed back at her unanswered. A blind reach managed to hit the switch on a bedside lamp on the second try, illuminating the well appointed room with a dim glow of soft white light. Stark shades of black and white were broken only by a blue glow coming from the trio of windows along one wall, staining shades of grey in between the extremes. The bed, a mess as it was, was a wash of white sheets and bedding against a plush cushioned headboard in pure porcelain white. Mirrored bedside tables flanked the bed, black angles dotted with a lamp here, a knick-knack there, a silver ring, an ornate bobby pin. On the other side of the room, an overstuffed white armchair sat not far from the bed, draped with a black blanket like a funeral veil.
Karma turned away, padding a slow circle around the room on her way to the windows. Near the middle window, a black vanity was accompanied by a white cushioned bench. Like everything else, it was subtly elegant, understated and mature. Brushed metal pots of varying sizes on the vanity seemed to be filled with balms and pigments, interrupted by recently cleaned makeup brushes left in an artful scatter upon the tabletop. She leaned down to peer into the oval mirror and cringed at her reflection. Her hair was stark white, tinted the faintest shade of blue by the window’s light, making her skin look even more fair. The circles beneath her eyes spoke of a lack of rest despite the overly comfortable accommodations. Tawny eyes not her own looked back at her, blinking owlishly as she peeled away from the mirror, ruffling her fingers through her already mussed hair.
Thoughts of her own appearance soon fell away in favor of silent awe at the view from the window. It was the city of the Paragons that surrounded her, with their twisted, curling spires and window laden buildings at every turn. But while Karma had been to this place many a time and at many points in its story, never had she been to this point. It was as if someone had taken the capital of Paragon civilization and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean like a macabre Atlantis. The streets were empty save for shadows, shades of the towering, robed beings that had filled once upon a time. Not so much as a bird’s chirp broke the silence. The pounding of her heart in her temples was especially loud then.
The skyreaching spires instead disappeared into dark water that seemed to be held off just barely by some sort of ward or spell-work that shimmered with a faint sheen of azure that reflected throughout the city and was the source of the light catching the windows of this very room. The city was a dead thing, or if it wasn’t dead, it was on life support just barely. The soul hint of life was a flicker of flame in a window far below. Karma pressed her forehead to the window to get a better look, her soft sigh frosting the glass with an opaque cloud. As she pulled away, the drag of her index finger left an X in the fading fog, a smear left even as it dissipated fully. In the face of the blue glow, she turned her back on the window, once more taking in the softly illuminated room before her. None of her possessions or clothes were here, at a glance, but a closet door to her right might have proven fruitful. It was but four steps away but those four steps led only to disappointment and a wardrobe of ornate black and gold robes made for a figure taller than she would ever be.
“Fuck.” She muttered, rubbing the chill from her upper arms and resigning herself to her clothing selection. Never more had she missed her endless closet back home. From a hanger she pulled free one of the sets of robes and tugged it over her head, adding a secondary layer to the short, silken pajamas she had woken up to. The bottom of the closet had a row of identical pairs of shoes, also too big for her feet, so she left those behind and accepted the cold beneath her feet as a necessary evil for the time being. On her way to the door, she swiped the silver ring from the bedside table and slipped it on to her right hand and made her way out.
The hallway was a seemingly endless thing, flanked on either side by innumerable doors. She could have spent eternity there exploring them all, but she pressed on, the whisper of her robes muting her swift steps that eventually took her to a vestibule appointed with high, arched windows on either side of a single elevator door. Above the door, an illuminated 14 indicated the current floor while an old fashioned dial pointed to a dim 1 on the left-hand side of the half moon listing. There was but one floor above this and mild curiosity nearly had her pressing the up button instead but at the last moment, her hovering finger instead bumped the down arrow.
The elevator whirled to life and the dialed wobbled at the 1 before swinging quickly to the 2, 3, 4, and up, up, up, until it slowed to a stop at the lit up 14. A ding announced the opening of the doors and an empty elevator car beyond. The far wall was pure glass, offering a birds eye view of the city at large as she stepped inside and the doors closed behind her. Already the 1 was selected within, prompting a pause and a squinted look around her.
“Cheeky.” She grumbled as the elevator coasted to a stop at the first floor and reopened to a cavernous lobby of similar styling to the upper floors. A tall counter sat empty and unmanned but Karma couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched as she padded to the open double doors and out into the streets. It was a feeling that subsequently clung to her all the way to her destination; the Convocation. When the doors there opened for her arrival, her frown deepened and turned over a shoulder to look behind her. It was here that she had spotted the sole light in the window from her room above and it was here that she hoped she might find answers to just what had happened to bring her to the here and now.
“Ah, my love, you’re back.” A masculine voice called as she crossed the threshold. Karma stopped there, nose wrinkled and mouth twisted into a look of distaste. The source of the voice was a familiar faced man standing to her right, shoulder propping him against an open doorway. He read the look on her face, his brows lifting as his smile turned into something more… conflicted.
“Why are we here?” She asked him, staying where she was. “Why just you and I?”
“Because it’s always been you and I.” He said without a blink.
“We failed again… didn’t we?” She asked with a sigh, her gaze ticking toward the domed ceiling.
“Mm… not in so many words. Did she not tell you?” He asked in trade, realizing that this vessel had once more reclaimed control of herself. What a stubborn thing she was. Karma shook her head.
“She doesn’t tell me anything.” At least not anything more than the Emissary would tell her. The elusive presence in her head typically only told her enough to make her compliant or to annoy and torment her when she wasn’t. Karma brought her gaze down to meet him. Though they claimed him an Angel of Truth, there was nothing angelic about him. He was taller than she by at least a foot or more. Regal of posture and patrician in bone structure, his eyes were the same yellow-gold that she saw so often in the mirror when the line between her and the Paragons had thinned. There was a cruelty in the line of his mouth and draw of his brows. He was a hard man who carried much upon his shoulders. But his smile was a soft thing, relaxed for once.
“In another life you left me… long, long ago. Struck out on your own in a bid to learn from the world in hopes of bringing that knowledge back to us to save our people. My queen you may have been, but your one love was the people. But they changed you, they changed us… and what you brought back was our downfall. We lost it all… everyone. Sundered. In the end, this was all that was left. You. I. This place. This time.” He gestured with a wide turn of his hands, palms up but empty. “Our place. Our time.”
“How long have we been here?” She asked. He let out a laugh that echoed around them, as if she had just said something hilarious.
“This time? By your mortal standards, ten days.” There was more to the answer than that but she didn’t press so he quieted, his smile patient.
“Is there anyone else here?” Answer for question, question for answer, she gave him one more.
“Mm, no. It’s our place after all.” He responded. She wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t a look he was accustomed to but it was endearing on her expression. “It is a snapshot, what was left at the end when everything fractured and the essence of our very being was scattered to the shards. Time does not move here, it has been both a blink and an aeon in one.”
“I’d like to go home.” She said quietly. There was something unholy about this place, something that made even her uncomfortable. An impressive feat to say the least. “Please.”
“Ah, manners. I never thought I would see the day!” He laughed and then sighed as his laughter faded away. “You do not wish to stay?”
Karma looked away from him. The regret in his tone made her uncomfortable. Her hands slipped further into the long sleeves of the robe as she looked back. A shake of her head answered his question but just to make it crystal clear, she added, “No, I’m sorry. I really need to get back. No idea how much I’ve missed… and if I’m going to continue to be of help to you lot, I need to make sure I maintain balance.”
He seemed to ponder that longer than she expected. But whatever decision he came to, came with a flicker-flash of miasmatic energy that bled into a tear in space and time. One hand gestured to it, his smile more muted than it had been before. “Then go. Tend to your needs. But our hour will come and when it does, I need your full focus.”
It was her turn to nod, solemn. “I swear it.”
“I know. Go on.”
Time broke around her as she stepped through the gate, the energy swallowing her whole and leaving Truth behind in the empty Convocation with only his thoughts to keep him company. Karma, on the other hand, emerged on a dark, sleepy street in New Haven not far from home. Thankfully few people were around to give her suspicious looks for her ensemble and soon enough, she was welcomed into the ambient glow of the hotel lobby, the night front desk attendant, and a bellhop that was always far too keen to hop to her beck and call. She waved him off though, showing nothing in her hands to take back to her suite.
“Miss Armstrong, you’ve got mail!” The desk attendant called out to her as the elevator opened to admit her.
“I’ll grab it tomorrow.” She called back just before the doors closed behind her. For now, she needed to figure out just how much damage her little co-pilot had done over the past week and a half.
How many days had it been? Four, five, six…
What day was it? Thursday… Friday…
So it had been over a week. She awoke in a bed not her own, but judging by its size, she hadn’t shared it with anyone either. That was a relief. A minor relief, but a relief just the same. It took a moment to orient and untangle her legs from a knot of blankets and sheets; lush, luxe fabrics sporting remarkably high thread count judging by how silky soft they were. Her head rattled with a vicious throbbing as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet touching down against cold, cold marble. It was a much needed shock to her system, jolting her with the frigid chill and forcing her eyes to focus. The room she occupied was opulent, doubly so than her suite in New Haven. It carried certain touches reminiscent of Terran 1920’s Art Deco in both styling and architecture, drawing Karma’s gaze along pointed arches and across windows filled with smaller complimentary linework.
“Hello?” She called, her voice rough like it had been used heavily recently. Her voice echoed back at her unanswered. A blind reach managed to hit the switch on a bedside lamp on the second try, illuminating the well appointed room with a dim glow of soft white light. Stark shades of black and white were broken only by a blue glow coming from the trio of windows along one wall, staining shades of grey in between the extremes. The bed, a mess as it was, was a wash of white sheets and bedding against a plush cushioned headboard in pure porcelain white. Mirrored bedside tables flanked the bed, black angles dotted with a lamp here, a knick-knack there, a silver ring, an ornate bobby pin. On the other side of the room, an overstuffed white armchair sat not far from the bed, draped with a black blanket like a funeral veil.
Karma turned away, padding a slow circle around the room on her way to the windows. Near the middle window, a black vanity was accompanied by a white cushioned bench. Like everything else, it was subtly elegant, understated and mature. Brushed metal pots of varying sizes on the vanity seemed to be filled with balms and pigments, interrupted by recently cleaned makeup brushes left in an artful scatter upon the tabletop. She leaned down to peer into the oval mirror and cringed at her reflection. Her hair was stark white, tinted the faintest shade of blue by the window’s light, making her skin look even more fair. The circles beneath her eyes spoke of a lack of rest despite the overly comfortable accommodations. Tawny eyes not her own looked back at her, blinking owlishly as she peeled away from the mirror, ruffling her fingers through her already mussed hair.
Thoughts of her own appearance soon fell away in favor of silent awe at the view from the window. It was the city of the Paragons that surrounded her, with their twisted, curling spires and window laden buildings at every turn. But while Karma had been to this place many a time and at many points in its story, never had she been to this point. It was as if someone had taken the capital of Paragon civilization and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean like a macabre Atlantis. The streets were empty save for shadows, shades of the towering, robed beings that had filled once upon a time. Not so much as a bird’s chirp broke the silence. The pounding of her heart in her temples was especially loud then.
The skyreaching spires instead disappeared into dark water that seemed to be held off just barely by some sort of ward or spell-work that shimmered with a faint sheen of azure that reflected throughout the city and was the source of the light catching the windows of this very room. The city was a dead thing, or if it wasn’t dead, it was on life support just barely. The soul hint of life was a flicker of flame in a window far below. Karma pressed her forehead to the window to get a better look, her soft sigh frosting the glass with an opaque cloud. As she pulled away, the drag of her index finger left an X in the fading fog, a smear left even as it dissipated fully. In the face of the blue glow, she turned her back on the window, once more taking in the softly illuminated room before her. None of her possessions or clothes were here, at a glance, but a closet door to her right might have proven fruitful. It was but four steps away but those four steps led only to disappointment and a wardrobe of ornate black and gold robes made for a figure taller than she would ever be.
“Fuck.” She muttered, rubbing the chill from her upper arms and resigning herself to her clothing selection. Never more had she missed her endless closet back home. From a hanger she pulled free one of the sets of robes and tugged it over her head, adding a secondary layer to the short, silken pajamas she had woken up to. The bottom of the closet had a row of identical pairs of shoes, also too big for her feet, so she left those behind and accepted the cold beneath her feet as a necessary evil for the time being. On her way to the door, she swiped the silver ring from the bedside table and slipped it on to her right hand and made her way out.
The hallway was a seemingly endless thing, flanked on either side by innumerable doors. She could have spent eternity there exploring them all, but she pressed on, the whisper of her robes muting her swift steps that eventually took her to a vestibule appointed with high, arched windows on either side of a single elevator door. Above the door, an illuminated 14 indicated the current floor while an old fashioned dial pointed to a dim 1 on the left-hand side of the half moon listing. There was but one floor above this and mild curiosity nearly had her pressing the up button instead but at the last moment, her hovering finger instead bumped the down arrow.
The elevator whirled to life and the dialed wobbled at the 1 before swinging quickly to the 2, 3, 4, and up, up, up, until it slowed to a stop at the lit up 14. A ding announced the opening of the doors and an empty elevator car beyond. The far wall was pure glass, offering a birds eye view of the city at large as she stepped inside and the doors closed behind her. Already the 1 was selected within, prompting a pause and a squinted look around her.
“Cheeky.” She grumbled as the elevator coasted to a stop at the first floor and reopened to a cavernous lobby of similar styling to the upper floors. A tall counter sat empty and unmanned but Karma couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched as she padded to the open double doors and out into the streets. It was a feeling that subsequently clung to her all the way to her destination; the Convocation. When the doors there opened for her arrival, her frown deepened and turned over a shoulder to look behind her. It was here that she had spotted the sole light in the window from her room above and it was here that she hoped she might find answers to just what had happened to bring her to the here and now.
“Ah, my love, you’re back.” A masculine voice called as she crossed the threshold. Karma stopped there, nose wrinkled and mouth twisted into a look of distaste. The source of the voice was a familiar faced man standing to her right, shoulder propping him against an open doorway. He read the look on her face, his brows lifting as his smile turned into something more… conflicted.
“Why are we here?” She asked him, staying where she was. “Why just you and I?”
“Because it’s always been you and I.” He said without a blink.
“We failed again… didn’t we?” She asked with a sigh, her gaze ticking toward the domed ceiling.
“Mm… not in so many words. Did she not tell you?” He asked in trade, realizing that this vessel had once more reclaimed control of herself. What a stubborn thing she was. Karma shook her head.
“She doesn’t tell me anything.” At least not anything more than the Emissary would tell her. The elusive presence in her head typically only told her enough to make her compliant or to annoy and torment her when she wasn’t. Karma brought her gaze down to meet him. Though they claimed him an Angel of Truth, there was nothing angelic about him. He was taller than she by at least a foot or more. Regal of posture and patrician in bone structure, his eyes were the same yellow-gold that she saw so often in the mirror when the line between her and the Paragons had thinned. There was a cruelty in the line of his mouth and draw of his brows. He was a hard man who carried much upon his shoulders. But his smile was a soft thing, relaxed for once.
“In another life you left me… long, long ago. Struck out on your own in a bid to learn from the world in hopes of bringing that knowledge back to us to save our people. My queen you may have been, but your one love was the people. But they changed you, they changed us… and what you brought back was our downfall. We lost it all… everyone. Sundered. In the end, this was all that was left. You. I. This place. This time.” He gestured with a wide turn of his hands, palms up but empty. “Our place. Our time.”
“How long have we been here?” She asked. He let out a laugh that echoed around them, as if she had just said something hilarious.
“This time? By your mortal standards, ten days.” There was more to the answer than that but she didn’t press so he quieted, his smile patient.
“Is there anyone else here?” Answer for question, question for answer, she gave him one more.
“Mm, no. It’s our place after all.” He responded. She wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t a look he was accustomed to but it was endearing on her expression. “It is a snapshot, what was left at the end when everything fractured and the essence of our very being was scattered to the shards. Time does not move here, it has been both a blink and an aeon in one.”
“I’d like to go home.” She said quietly. There was something unholy about this place, something that made even her uncomfortable. An impressive feat to say the least. “Please.”
“Ah, manners. I never thought I would see the day!” He laughed and then sighed as his laughter faded away. “You do not wish to stay?”
Karma looked away from him. The regret in his tone made her uncomfortable. Her hands slipped further into the long sleeves of the robe as she looked back. A shake of her head answered his question but just to make it crystal clear, she added, “No, I’m sorry. I really need to get back. No idea how much I’ve missed… and if I’m going to continue to be of help to you lot, I need to make sure I maintain balance.”
He seemed to ponder that longer than she expected. But whatever decision he came to, came with a flicker-flash of miasmatic energy that bled into a tear in space and time. One hand gestured to it, his smile more muted than it had been before. “Then go. Tend to your needs. But our hour will come and when it does, I need your full focus.”
It was her turn to nod, solemn. “I swear it.”
“I know. Go on.”
Time broke around her as she stepped through the gate, the energy swallowing her whole and leaving Truth behind in the empty Convocation with only his thoughts to keep him company. Karma, on the other hand, emerged on a dark, sleepy street in New Haven not far from home. Thankfully few people were around to give her suspicious looks for her ensemble and soon enough, she was welcomed into the ambient glow of the hotel lobby, the night front desk attendant, and a bellhop that was always far too keen to hop to her beck and call. She waved him off though, showing nothing in her hands to take back to her suite.
“Miss Armstrong, you’ve got mail!” The desk attendant called out to her as the elevator opened to admit her.
“I’ll grab it tomorrow.” She called back just before the doors closed behind her. For now, she needed to figure out just how much damage her little co-pilot had done over the past week and a half.
-
Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
- Queen of Air & Darkness
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
Re: In Which I Become
Chapter Five - In Which I Fall
But our hour will come and when it does, I need your full focus.
Full focus they had not received and when time was of the essence, impatience turns to desperation and as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Nem did not want to imprison her vessel’s consciousness within her own head but the girl was so bloody uncooperative and they were running out of time. It was a slow going process, the infiltration of her defenses, coming with a steady unraveling of her tether to her soul. Or whatever resembled such a thing. Really it was more of a sliver, a shard of something that Nem didn’t quite have a name for. Thankfully she had caught the younger woman unaware and when at last she dug her claws into the vessel’s helm, she did so with definitive finality.
The begging had needled her for hours afterwards.
Be nice to Bandit please. He’s a good boy.
Nem?
Nem?!
No. No, no, no.
Please… let me out.
Nemesis, this isn’t funny.
Please.
Nem, don’t do this.
“I just did.”
In no short order, Nem set about securing her place as warden with a series of etched gaol runes marked right into Karma’s flesh. Her back, her arms, her legs, the backs of her hands and the tops of her feet, each one turning skin and bone into a prison to contain one of the most stubbornly willful vessels that the Paragons had ever utilized. If she survived it, she would likely do so with minor scarring, but otherwise the marks were more magical than physical.
A big ‘if’ though.
Karma was not the first vessel they had utilized. As the number of Paragons had dwindled, the more their reliance on proxies increased. Few lived to tell the tale, most were destroyed in the process of assimilating them to the needs of the Convocation, others were left in near vegetative states due to the toll it had taken on them mentally. This one was different, stronger. Hopefully Nem didn’t have to break her in the process.
In the two years that they had been connected, they had failed two dozen times in restoring the Paragons to their former state. One attempt had resulted in complete cataclysm for an unrelated land. Another had turned into an ugly hellscape that would die ere before long. Most of the rest, however, simply failed. No change in the trajectory of the timeline, every result ending in the same dire finality; the end of the Paragons.
In Karma they had found a piece of the puzzle that had eluded them though and it was at last time to fit the piece into the grand picture.
The ranch was left behind, the little raccoon left to his own devices.
Two days later she saw the assassin, he knew instantly that something wasn’t right. But obligations were obligations and under the pretense of normalcy, she followed through with Karma’s inane, pointless sport fighting tournament.
What a waste of time.
But upon the end of Caleb’s last fight, she knew it to be in her best interests to leave immediately. He followed, as she thought he would, but she vacated the realm no sooner than leaving the stairwell of the Arena.
The next evening found her standing before Truth and the rest of the Convocation to report that they were at last ready to proceed. Half of the faces were unfamiliar ones, proxies just the same as her own. The others were the only family she had left in this entire universe.
“At the apex, we will quench the unending light and once more restore balance. We will not be denied this time. Diversions from the thirteenth are already in progress and upon the culmination, the rejoining will be complete.” She spoke to them, looking to each of the thirteen other faces at the table, each masked in red. Mouths twisted with curiosity, consternation, skepticism, boredom… they ran the gamut. It seemed the only true attention she had was from the head of the table and righthand of the head. It was to them she looked, a lingering, weighty thing before she spoke again.
“I know that it is hard to believe that after all this time we have at last found a way to remedy the plague that sickens our history. But I would not stand before you as I am today if I did not have utmost confidence in this.” She said, doing her best not to let her voice waver.
All was silent.
They had been here before.
“As is custom within the Convocation, we must vote. A simple majority will serve as approval to move forward.” Spoke the Angel of Truth sitting at the head of the table. He stood, gesturing for Nem to sit. She sank into a chair much too big for her vessel’s petite frame and threaded her fingers into a steeple, her elbows upon the table. “Those in favor, say aye.”
A murmuring of affirmations rippled down the table, hands slowly rising, her own included. Nem scanned the numbers.
One…
Two…
Three…
Four…
Five…
Six…
Seven…
Seven. The Emissary, Truth, and Nem made three. They were joined by the Transcendent and the Chastiser, whose free hands were interlaced together beneath the table as if the entire Convocation did not know of their partnership. The Benevolent and the Holy Queen both had their hands raised too.
That left seven with their hands down. The Knight-Star, the Martyr, the High Seraph, the Majestic, the Protector, the Arbiter, and the Abyssal Celebrant all sat stoic, hands unmoving.
At the head of the table, their leader frowned.
“Seven and seven. In the event of a tie, the breaking of the tie will be done by the most senior member of the Convocation.” He said after a moment. It was a matter of formality, for record keeping’s sake thanks to the young woman that Nem’s own vessel called sister. Nem’s head was pounding, almost as though someone within her head was taking a hammer to the interior of her skull.
For all intents and purposes that was just the case.
“Emissary, your vote please.” Truth turned to the man at his right, sweeping a hand in a bid for the man to rise. He did just that, smoothing his hands over the white of his robes. For a moment he was quiet but at last he cleared his throat and turned to address the remainder of the table.
“We have come too far to turn back now. I vote aye, we proceed.” He said, his head held high. In spite of the mask he wore, Nem could feel the weight of his gaze upon her. Before she could offer him her thanks, a voice at the opposite end of the table spoke up.
“I raise an objection. The Emissary’s personal involvement with the experiment renders his judgement tainted.” The High Seraph seldom spoke at events such as these. He too existed by proxy, each breath and word from his mouth thanks to a vessel much the same as Nem’s. The Emissary looked poised to speak when Truth raised his hand instead.
“Overruled.” A single word, definitive.
“You too are biased in your judgement, Your Eminence. You are too close to the Source.” Bold words delivered without so much as a moment’s hesitation. The others shifted awkwardly in their seats. A slow, cruel smile curled the corners of Truth’s mouth as he leaned, setting both hands to the table. Though he had no shadow--none of them did, actually--he still managed to loom over them all.
Presence and Power, both had that effect.
“Biased, am I?” He seemed to grow taller. “I am biased for putting my faith in our sole hope for salvation? Your Emissary is biased for cultivating a fruitful vessel for one of our most innovative members? Are we biased or are we simply smarter than you, ‘Tima? Do enlighten me, since you believe yourself to have all of the answers. Go on.”
The High Seraph quieted but did not wither. Those sitting to either side of him sank into slouches in their seats, unwilling to put themselves within their leader’s sights.
“Well? What is it, dear brother. What is your grand solution if not to manifest the Watcher’s vision?” He looked at the man expectantly. Still no answer came. With a huff of a humorless laugh, Truth straightened and opened his arms wide. “Then it is settled. Objection overruled, the Emissary’s vote stands. We proceed as stated.”
A low murmur broke out across the table as the meeting adjourned, chairs squeaking against ancient marble, paperwork shuffled and handed off to a lanky redhead who fast made herself scarce soon after. A hand to Nem’s lower back guided her into the wings of the Convocation’s hall. When they stopped, she found herself looking up into the amber-gold eyes of Truth himself. His mouth was a grim line but his eyes were soft and his voice low.
“You are sure about this?” He whispered.
“With every ounce of my being.” She replied, the words but an exhale. He too let out a soft breath, nodding.
“Very well. I will support you to the ends of time and space and even in the end of days will I find you. When we succeed… when we regain all we have lost… never again will I say goodbye to you.” He curled his hand around hers, a desperate and tight grasp that tangled their fingers and bled them of their color.
“But for now we must.” She said softly, the breaking of her heart a mere echo of all the times it had broken before.
“For now we must. But your matter has always been my matter and there isn’t a force in the universe that will prevent you from returning to me.” His voice was tight, his breathing shallow. She could only nod.
“I know it. I know it, my love. But through sacrifice we rise, right? And after all this time? The sacrifice must needs be great… it must be to restore what has been lost. Never have I willingly offered myself to the Sundering of His Will, but He Wills it so and I must answer. For the people, our people. For all they have given, for all they have yet to give this universe. If it takes my final breath, my final ounce of quintessence, then I give it willingly.” She said ever so quietly. The pain on his face was plain writ and immeasurable. She squeezed his hands, pulling the knot of digits to her mouth for a chaste kiss. “But my matter is your matter. I will always return to you.”
The pair shared a sliver of peace, fleeting and ephemeral as it was. The Convocation hall had emptied, or so it seemed, leaving no witnesses to the press of his lips to her forehead before he released her.
“Go. May your steps be swift and your blades strike true. Know that you go with my heart and the hopes of our people.”
The Convocation hall was a ghost town but a moment later.
Save for the sole void-touched mortal hidden in the shadow of a pillar.
But our hour will come and when it does, I need your full focus.
Full focus they had not received and when time was of the essence, impatience turns to desperation and as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Nem did not want to imprison her vessel’s consciousness within her own head but the girl was so bloody uncooperative and they were running out of time. It was a slow going process, the infiltration of her defenses, coming with a steady unraveling of her tether to her soul. Or whatever resembled such a thing. Really it was more of a sliver, a shard of something that Nem didn’t quite have a name for. Thankfully she had caught the younger woman unaware and when at last she dug her claws into the vessel’s helm, she did so with definitive finality.
The begging had needled her for hours afterwards.
Be nice to Bandit please. He’s a good boy.
Nem?
Nem?!
No. No, no, no.
Please… let me out.
Nemesis, this isn’t funny.
Please.
Nem, don’t do this.
“I just did.”
In no short order, Nem set about securing her place as warden with a series of etched gaol runes marked right into Karma’s flesh. Her back, her arms, her legs, the backs of her hands and the tops of her feet, each one turning skin and bone into a prison to contain one of the most stubbornly willful vessels that the Paragons had ever utilized. If she survived it, she would likely do so with minor scarring, but otherwise the marks were more magical than physical.
A big ‘if’ though.
Karma was not the first vessel they had utilized. As the number of Paragons had dwindled, the more their reliance on proxies increased. Few lived to tell the tale, most were destroyed in the process of assimilating them to the needs of the Convocation, others were left in near vegetative states due to the toll it had taken on them mentally. This one was different, stronger. Hopefully Nem didn’t have to break her in the process.
In the two years that they had been connected, they had failed two dozen times in restoring the Paragons to their former state. One attempt had resulted in complete cataclysm for an unrelated land. Another had turned into an ugly hellscape that would die ere before long. Most of the rest, however, simply failed. No change in the trajectory of the timeline, every result ending in the same dire finality; the end of the Paragons.
In Karma they had found a piece of the puzzle that had eluded them though and it was at last time to fit the piece into the grand picture.
The ranch was left behind, the little raccoon left to his own devices.
Two days later she saw the assassin, he knew instantly that something wasn’t right. But obligations were obligations and under the pretense of normalcy, she followed through with Karma’s inane, pointless sport fighting tournament.
What a waste of time.
But upon the end of Caleb’s last fight, she knew it to be in her best interests to leave immediately. He followed, as she thought he would, but she vacated the realm no sooner than leaving the stairwell of the Arena.
The next evening found her standing before Truth and the rest of the Convocation to report that they were at last ready to proceed. Half of the faces were unfamiliar ones, proxies just the same as her own. The others were the only family she had left in this entire universe.
“At the apex, we will quench the unending light and once more restore balance. We will not be denied this time. Diversions from the thirteenth are already in progress and upon the culmination, the rejoining will be complete.” She spoke to them, looking to each of the thirteen other faces at the table, each masked in red. Mouths twisted with curiosity, consternation, skepticism, boredom… they ran the gamut. It seemed the only true attention she had was from the head of the table and righthand of the head. It was to them she looked, a lingering, weighty thing before she spoke again.
“I know that it is hard to believe that after all this time we have at last found a way to remedy the plague that sickens our history. But I would not stand before you as I am today if I did not have utmost confidence in this.” She said, doing her best not to let her voice waver.
All was silent.
They had been here before.
“As is custom within the Convocation, we must vote. A simple majority will serve as approval to move forward.” Spoke the Angel of Truth sitting at the head of the table. He stood, gesturing for Nem to sit. She sank into a chair much too big for her vessel’s petite frame and threaded her fingers into a steeple, her elbows upon the table. “Those in favor, say aye.”
A murmuring of affirmations rippled down the table, hands slowly rising, her own included. Nem scanned the numbers.
One…
Two…
Three…
Four…
Five…
Six…
Seven…
Seven. The Emissary, Truth, and Nem made three. They were joined by the Transcendent and the Chastiser, whose free hands were interlaced together beneath the table as if the entire Convocation did not know of their partnership. The Benevolent and the Holy Queen both had their hands raised too.
That left seven with their hands down. The Knight-Star, the Martyr, the High Seraph, the Majestic, the Protector, the Arbiter, and the Abyssal Celebrant all sat stoic, hands unmoving.
At the head of the table, their leader frowned.
“Seven and seven. In the event of a tie, the breaking of the tie will be done by the most senior member of the Convocation.” He said after a moment. It was a matter of formality, for record keeping’s sake thanks to the young woman that Nem’s own vessel called sister. Nem’s head was pounding, almost as though someone within her head was taking a hammer to the interior of her skull.
For all intents and purposes that was just the case.
“Emissary, your vote please.” Truth turned to the man at his right, sweeping a hand in a bid for the man to rise. He did just that, smoothing his hands over the white of his robes. For a moment he was quiet but at last he cleared his throat and turned to address the remainder of the table.
“We have come too far to turn back now. I vote aye, we proceed.” He said, his head held high. In spite of the mask he wore, Nem could feel the weight of his gaze upon her. Before she could offer him her thanks, a voice at the opposite end of the table spoke up.
“I raise an objection. The Emissary’s personal involvement with the experiment renders his judgement tainted.” The High Seraph seldom spoke at events such as these. He too existed by proxy, each breath and word from his mouth thanks to a vessel much the same as Nem’s. The Emissary looked poised to speak when Truth raised his hand instead.
“Overruled.” A single word, definitive.
“You too are biased in your judgement, Your Eminence. You are too close to the Source.” Bold words delivered without so much as a moment’s hesitation. The others shifted awkwardly in their seats. A slow, cruel smile curled the corners of Truth’s mouth as he leaned, setting both hands to the table. Though he had no shadow--none of them did, actually--he still managed to loom over them all.
Presence and Power, both had that effect.
“Biased, am I?” He seemed to grow taller. “I am biased for putting my faith in our sole hope for salvation? Your Emissary is biased for cultivating a fruitful vessel for one of our most innovative members? Are we biased or are we simply smarter than you, ‘Tima? Do enlighten me, since you believe yourself to have all of the answers. Go on.”
The High Seraph quieted but did not wither. Those sitting to either side of him sank into slouches in their seats, unwilling to put themselves within their leader’s sights.
“Well? What is it, dear brother. What is your grand solution if not to manifest the Watcher’s vision?” He looked at the man expectantly. Still no answer came. With a huff of a humorless laugh, Truth straightened and opened his arms wide. “Then it is settled. Objection overruled, the Emissary’s vote stands. We proceed as stated.”
A low murmur broke out across the table as the meeting adjourned, chairs squeaking against ancient marble, paperwork shuffled and handed off to a lanky redhead who fast made herself scarce soon after. A hand to Nem’s lower back guided her into the wings of the Convocation’s hall. When they stopped, she found herself looking up into the amber-gold eyes of Truth himself. His mouth was a grim line but his eyes were soft and his voice low.
“You are sure about this?” He whispered.
“With every ounce of my being.” She replied, the words but an exhale. He too let out a soft breath, nodding.
“Very well. I will support you to the ends of time and space and even in the end of days will I find you. When we succeed… when we regain all we have lost… never again will I say goodbye to you.” He curled his hand around hers, a desperate and tight grasp that tangled their fingers and bled them of their color.
“But for now we must.” She said softly, the breaking of her heart a mere echo of all the times it had broken before.
“For now we must. But your matter has always been my matter and there isn’t a force in the universe that will prevent you from returning to me.” His voice was tight, his breathing shallow. She could only nod.
“I know it. I know it, my love. But through sacrifice we rise, right? And after all this time? The sacrifice must needs be great… it must be to restore what has been lost. Never have I willingly offered myself to the Sundering of His Will, but He Wills it so and I must answer. For the people, our people. For all they have given, for all they have yet to give this universe. If it takes my final breath, my final ounce of quintessence, then I give it willingly.” She said ever so quietly. The pain on his face was plain writ and immeasurable. She squeezed his hands, pulling the knot of digits to her mouth for a chaste kiss. “But my matter is your matter. I will always return to you.”
The pair shared a sliver of peace, fleeting and ephemeral as it was. The Convocation hall had emptied, or so it seemed, leaving no witnesses to the press of his lips to her forehead before he released her.
“Go. May your steps be swift and your blades strike true. Know that you go with my heart and the hopes of our people.”
The Convocation hall was a ghost town but a moment later.
Save for the sole void-touched mortal hidden in the shadow of a pillar.
-
Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
- Queen of Air & Darkness
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
Re: In Which I Become
Chapter Six - In Which I Fly
"But if there must be an end, let it be loud. Let it be bloody. Better to burn than to wither away in the dark."
--Mike Mignola
The darkness wasn’t so bad.
It was a bit like blackout curtains at all hours of the day… but inside your head. Here and there Karma got tiny glimpses of the outside world through Nem’s eyes. Well, they were Karma’s eyes but with Nem at the helm, the golden pools that took in the world may as well have been Nem’s.
It was only temporary right?
It didn’t feel temporary.
She didn’t remember slapping the challenge notice up on the Outback’s corkboard but she did feel the subtle tension that seemed to build within her from that point forward.
She didn’t remember the fight itself but she did recall treading the narrow rows of a consignment store in… Old Temple perhaps.
A citrine bracelet with a pineapple gem.
Perfect for Eden.
Karma could recall closing her hand around the bracelet and looking into the eyes of the female faun behind the counter as she explained the calming properties of citrine and how she had amplified them with a simple charm.
Soothing. A sweet gift.
“I’ll take it.” The words sounded far away, like she was sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool as someone spoke to her from above.
It went dark after that, Nem’s control tightened once more.
When Karma met Eden that night to decide the fate of FireStar, Karma herself remembered very little of the challenge itself.
“We have for us a potential of three amazing matches should things get interesting over the fate of Firestar. Karma, our challenger will be facing off against Eden! Karma, as challenger, do you wish to proceed with your challenge?”
“I do.”
Darkness.
A trade of blows, enough to rattle her teeth and her concentration.
The burn of one of the gaol runes on her back as it fought back against Karma’s presence.
An over-and-under haymaker that sent Eden crashing to the mat.
Stop it, don’t hurt her.
"Sorry."
An answer for them both.
Darkness once more.
A flicker, a flash.
"I don't know that I've been to a challenge where people are cheering for both people. You must both be reasonably well liked."
"You who? You mean us?"
A falter in the darkness, a clarity that Karma hadn’t before. She could see Eden bouncing before her and could feel a brief echo of panic radiating from Nem’s control. In the corner of her periphery, she could see the barest hint of Caleb, inching closer and closer.
Caleb.
Just before they traded blows, it went dark again.
“It isn't... cut shut out… blow for blow… final... fate… comes out ahead… to win it!”
Dark.
She felt the impact even if she couldn’t see it. A familiar touch, rough on her hand. He had always been so gentle with her. His touch called to her, drawing her to just below the surface of her consciousness. And then…
A gaol rune on the back of her hand flared red and whatever flesh he touched burned beneath his grasp.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
All that was left was bits and pieces.
A sickening snap, a twisting of the narrative. A lighting of pain receptors that sank her further into the abyss.
“...that’s not our Karma.”
Help me…
FireStar was gone. So too was Karma.
She couldn’t even pick up the vitriol Nem spewed Caleb’s way just before shredding the reality around her to disappear in a burst of displaced energy.
It was like sinking into the sea on a new moon night, stars above winking their mournful goodbyes as she fell further and further, a hand grasping for their last twinkles before the cold dark closed around her.
A mind left untethered can wander aimlessly. And when it bores of that, it is left only to the past in a bid to ward off the dread of the future. As around her the Paragons made their preparations for the Rejoining, Karma could walk only the path before her.
“You need to watch your sister better, Angela.”
“I… I was!”
“Mom, I don’t need a babysitter, I’m six.”
Her mother and her sister’s faces were cloudy, like a haze hung over the memory of Twilight Isle after the kraken in the lagoon had scooped her out and set her atop one of the balconies of the Tower of Water. Angela had been watching her… but what do you do when your sister is picked up by a whole entire kraken?
The pain was insurmountable, drawing aether from her body for hours at a time to prepare their conduit for the final attempt at restoring the Paragons to their glory. It stole from her the darkness but only enough to make her suffer long enough that she passed out. Then and only then did sweet darkness reclaim her.
“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Karma, Happy Birthday to you.” A cacophony of out of tune voices, all gathered around a distressed wood dining room table in a comfortable house in the middle of the woods of the Isle. From a bakery in the market, her family had bought a cake, a lovely thing made of red velvet with buttercream frosting in a pale shade of blue. Scrawled atop it in darker blue frosting were the words Happy 12th Birthday Karma!. Twelve candles twinkled with different colored flames. As she looked around at the smiling faces surrounding the table, she took a deep breath and blew out the candles in one shot. That year she wished to be happy.
The simplicity of youth, you know?
“Once more… we have to get this right.” Why did it sound like the grown ups from the Peanuts? Why did her head hurt so bad? The trickle of warmth from both nostrils and the similar feeling in her ears made her loath to open her eyes.
She didn’t have to. Probably couldn’t have even if she wanted to. The radiance of a thousand suns overtook her, it felt as though her blood was boiling within her veins. The pathways in her brain couldn’t keep up, the misfires producing unpredictable twitching in her limbs and even worse images in her mind.
“Careful… careful now. Too much more and you’ll fry her brain.”
Emi...ssary...
Eli…
“I hate her… I hate her… why doesn’t she love me…”
“Because sometimes you can do everything right… you can love someone with everything you have… and it still won’t be enough. I’m not going to give you empty platitudes about her not deserving you and how it’ll get better. We both know it’s true, even if it might not feel like that right now. But it sucks right now and that’s what matters… it sucks and it’s gonna suck, but it won’t always. So feel your feelings, don’t drown them out, and when you’ve felt all you can, do what you can to bear the weight until you’re strong enough to bear it without caving.”
“But Mama… she just… threw me away…”
“No, kitten, she saved you.”
Save me…
I’ve never been a damsel in distress, but please… help me.
In that moment, she saw God. Or at least that’s what it felt like, like opening your eyes into the deepest abyss to find it looking right back at you. There was simply so… much… pain, that all she could do was beg for the end to come.
“An unconventional choice…” Smoke over honey, overwhelming presence, endless dark. He was the Darkest of Lords, the antithesis of Light itself. This was a test, a tempering of gold in white hot flame as He took her into his arms, enveloping her in an embrace that sank wicked claws into her body and mind. She felt herself shattering, splintering like someone had taken an ice pick to her soul and tapped at just the right weak spot.
“And you will be the Light.”
”C’mon, Raz, it’ll be fun! I promise.”
“You know we aren’t supposed to fuck with time like this…”
“We aren’t the first, we won’t be the last. The others already went through and were too dumb to close it behind them. So it’s not like we’ll get in trouble for opening it anyways.”
“I… I don’t know…”
“What do you think, Beau? Should we?”
“Eh. Fuck it, why not?”
“See, two votes for, one vote on the fence. Sounds like we have a consensus. Think we have enough cash?”
“I’m sure we can get more if we need it.”
“Fine… we’ll go. But only for a little while. No messing with anything, no getting involved with people, no telling them who we are. And if we get in trouble, you two are taking the blame. I’m tired of getting grounded for your crackpot schemes.”
Laughter. Gods how she missed their laughter.
“That should do the trick… I think… I think she’s ready.”
Karma didn’t feel ready for much of anything. Couldn’t she sleep for five minutes more?
“You are… positively brilliant, my love.”
“I couldn’t do this without you.”
It started with a rather conservative suit. A light off white color, in the spirit of the season, with a pale shade of pink for a tie. To compliment, Karma wore a smartly tailored day dress in jewel tone shade of navy blue belted around the midsection in white. Though she had wound her hair into a partial updo, the pièce de résistance came in the form of an ornate blue fascinator worn at an angle atop her head. Because if you're doing tea with Lilibet herself, you do as the Romans do. Err... as the British do. And you wear a ridiculous hat. A pair of white peep toe pumps rounded out the look and thus, after much gushing to her siblings, she was off once more.
The opening of a door, a garden party in New Palace Yard under a rare sunny sky in England. Through an announcement line, down a promenade to their final destination; an impeccably dressed Queen Elizabeth II.
"I was just wondering if you felt like a couple of fish in a tank with a bunch of sharks. You would be a beautiful fish, while I, a more utilitarian one. You look amazing, by the way. But, back to my main point... these are all Gods and Goddesses. Except that guy... he's a tentacle monster in human form.”
"You, uh, do remember that I'm pretty much a native Rhydinian right? That feeling gets shocked out of us at a young age."
Tea with the Queen of England. A most memorable birthday.
“They’re saying they have crossed the Broken Void. I imagine the Black Worm will take care of them.”
“And if it doesn’t? They made quick work of the Shepherd. What will I tell his wife and children?”
“Hardly the least of our worries right now. If we must then we will hold them off and complete the transference at the earliest moment we can.”
"You were brilliant in there."
"Contract said nothing about winning."
"Well." She considered for a few moments before offering out. "I'd still probably love you regardless."
Without looking, she knew he was standing behind her gaping as she hightailed it for the Arena’s bar. She had a fresh drink in hand when he finally caught up, setting a hand to her shoulder as if asking her to face him.
How could she face him after that?
They had never put a label on their relationship though she had stopped seeing anyone but him. She was bad at this, all of it, but of one thing she was certain; that she had to tell him how she felt. He had to know. Just in case.
"Hi. Yes. Hi." She said abruptly as she turned around to face him. Her cheeks were rosy, not from the drink. In a bid to head it off at the pass, she tried to beat him to the punch. "You don't have to say anything about it. I just needed you to know."
He leaned in and set his forehead to hers, his eyes holding hers. "Love you too."
"Oh." She said, like, duh. Of course. "I, ah.... er.... well... that's immensely less mortifying then."
He actually grinned. Not that half-assed one either. "That's reassuring."
"I just... yeah... I..." She huffed a bit at her failure to string words together and tipped her scotch back for a mouthful. "I'm not usually the sort to... say that..." Especially not first. "So... yeah... hopefully that's a bit more reassuring."
“Kill him.”
Anything but that.
Please...
((Snippets of past scenes pulled from live play with minor adjustments to account for how they are in her memory, including the recent FireStar Challenge versus Eden, early life scenes with her siblings and parents, Birthday Tea with the Queen thanks to Dillon Jones, and of course the infamous 'I love you' bomb in the Arena with Caleb. Thanks to those involved for some wonderful memories!))
"But if there must be an end, let it be loud. Let it be bloody. Better to burn than to wither away in the dark."
--Mike Mignola
The darkness wasn’t so bad.
It was a bit like blackout curtains at all hours of the day… but inside your head. Here and there Karma got tiny glimpses of the outside world through Nem’s eyes. Well, they were Karma’s eyes but with Nem at the helm, the golden pools that took in the world may as well have been Nem’s.
It was only temporary right?
It didn’t feel temporary.
She didn’t remember slapping the challenge notice up on the Outback’s corkboard but she did feel the subtle tension that seemed to build within her from that point forward.
She didn’t remember the fight itself but she did recall treading the narrow rows of a consignment store in… Old Temple perhaps.
A citrine bracelet with a pineapple gem.
Perfect for Eden.
Karma could recall closing her hand around the bracelet and looking into the eyes of the female faun behind the counter as she explained the calming properties of citrine and how she had amplified them with a simple charm.
Soothing. A sweet gift.
“I’ll take it.” The words sounded far away, like she was sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool as someone spoke to her from above.
It went dark after that, Nem’s control tightened once more.
When Karma met Eden that night to decide the fate of FireStar, Karma herself remembered very little of the challenge itself.
“We have for us a potential of three amazing matches should things get interesting over the fate of Firestar. Karma, our challenger will be facing off against Eden! Karma, as challenger, do you wish to proceed with your challenge?”
“I do.”
Darkness.
A trade of blows, enough to rattle her teeth and her concentration.
The burn of one of the gaol runes on her back as it fought back against Karma’s presence.
An over-and-under haymaker that sent Eden crashing to the mat.
Stop it, don’t hurt her.
"Sorry."
An answer for them both.
Darkness once more.
A flicker, a flash.
"I don't know that I've been to a challenge where people are cheering for both people. You must both be reasonably well liked."
"You who? You mean us?"
A falter in the darkness, a clarity that Karma hadn’t before. She could see Eden bouncing before her and could feel a brief echo of panic radiating from Nem’s control. In the corner of her periphery, she could see the barest hint of Caleb, inching closer and closer.
Caleb.
Just before they traded blows, it went dark again.
“It isn't... cut shut out… blow for blow… final... fate… comes out ahead… to win it!”
Dark.
She felt the impact even if she couldn’t see it. A familiar touch, rough on her hand. He had always been so gentle with her. His touch called to her, drawing her to just below the surface of her consciousness. And then…
A gaol rune on the back of her hand flared red and whatever flesh he touched burned beneath his grasp.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
All that was left was bits and pieces.
A sickening snap, a twisting of the narrative. A lighting of pain receptors that sank her further into the abyss.
“...that’s not our Karma.”
Help me…
FireStar was gone. So too was Karma.
She couldn’t even pick up the vitriol Nem spewed Caleb’s way just before shredding the reality around her to disappear in a burst of displaced energy.
It was like sinking into the sea on a new moon night, stars above winking their mournful goodbyes as she fell further and further, a hand grasping for their last twinkles before the cold dark closed around her.
A mind left untethered can wander aimlessly. And when it bores of that, it is left only to the past in a bid to ward off the dread of the future. As around her the Paragons made their preparations for the Rejoining, Karma could walk only the path before her.
“You need to watch your sister better, Angela.”
“I… I was!”
“Mom, I don’t need a babysitter, I’m six.”
Her mother and her sister’s faces were cloudy, like a haze hung over the memory of Twilight Isle after the kraken in the lagoon had scooped her out and set her atop one of the balconies of the Tower of Water. Angela had been watching her… but what do you do when your sister is picked up by a whole entire kraken?
The pain was insurmountable, drawing aether from her body for hours at a time to prepare their conduit for the final attempt at restoring the Paragons to their glory. It stole from her the darkness but only enough to make her suffer long enough that she passed out. Then and only then did sweet darkness reclaim her.
“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Karma, Happy Birthday to you.” A cacophony of out of tune voices, all gathered around a distressed wood dining room table in a comfortable house in the middle of the woods of the Isle. From a bakery in the market, her family had bought a cake, a lovely thing made of red velvet with buttercream frosting in a pale shade of blue. Scrawled atop it in darker blue frosting were the words Happy 12th Birthday Karma!. Twelve candles twinkled with different colored flames. As she looked around at the smiling faces surrounding the table, she took a deep breath and blew out the candles in one shot. That year she wished to be happy.
The simplicity of youth, you know?
“Once more… we have to get this right.” Why did it sound like the grown ups from the Peanuts? Why did her head hurt so bad? The trickle of warmth from both nostrils and the similar feeling in her ears made her loath to open her eyes.
She didn’t have to. Probably couldn’t have even if she wanted to. The radiance of a thousand suns overtook her, it felt as though her blood was boiling within her veins. The pathways in her brain couldn’t keep up, the misfires producing unpredictable twitching in her limbs and even worse images in her mind.
“Careful… careful now. Too much more and you’ll fry her brain.”
Emi...ssary...
Eli…
“I hate her… I hate her… why doesn’t she love me…”
“Because sometimes you can do everything right… you can love someone with everything you have… and it still won’t be enough. I’m not going to give you empty platitudes about her not deserving you and how it’ll get better. We both know it’s true, even if it might not feel like that right now. But it sucks right now and that’s what matters… it sucks and it’s gonna suck, but it won’t always. So feel your feelings, don’t drown them out, and when you’ve felt all you can, do what you can to bear the weight until you’re strong enough to bear it without caving.”
“But Mama… she just… threw me away…”
“No, kitten, she saved you.”
Save me…
I’ve never been a damsel in distress, but please… help me.
In that moment, she saw God. Or at least that’s what it felt like, like opening your eyes into the deepest abyss to find it looking right back at you. There was simply so… much… pain, that all she could do was beg for the end to come.
“An unconventional choice…” Smoke over honey, overwhelming presence, endless dark. He was the Darkest of Lords, the antithesis of Light itself. This was a test, a tempering of gold in white hot flame as He took her into his arms, enveloping her in an embrace that sank wicked claws into her body and mind. She felt herself shattering, splintering like someone had taken an ice pick to her soul and tapped at just the right weak spot.
“And you will be the Light.”
”C’mon, Raz, it’ll be fun! I promise.”
“You know we aren’t supposed to fuck with time like this…”
“We aren’t the first, we won’t be the last. The others already went through and were too dumb to close it behind them. So it’s not like we’ll get in trouble for opening it anyways.”
“I… I don’t know…”
“What do you think, Beau? Should we?”
“Eh. Fuck it, why not?”
“See, two votes for, one vote on the fence. Sounds like we have a consensus. Think we have enough cash?”
“I’m sure we can get more if we need it.”
“Fine… we’ll go. But only for a little while. No messing with anything, no getting involved with people, no telling them who we are. And if we get in trouble, you two are taking the blame. I’m tired of getting grounded for your crackpot schemes.”
Laughter. Gods how she missed their laughter.
“That should do the trick… I think… I think she’s ready.”
Karma didn’t feel ready for much of anything. Couldn’t she sleep for five minutes more?
“You are… positively brilliant, my love.”
“I couldn’t do this without you.”
It started with a rather conservative suit. A light off white color, in the spirit of the season, with a pale shade of pink for a tie. To compliment, Karma wore a smartly tailored day dress in jewel tone shade of navy blue belted around the midsection in white. Though she had wound her hair into a partial updo, the pièce de résistance came in the form of an ornate blue fascinator worn at an angle atop her head. Because if you're doing tea with Lilibet herself, you do as the Romans do. Err... as the British do. And you wear a ridiculous hat. A pair of white peep toe pumps rounded out the look and thus, after much gushing to her siblings, she was off once more.
The opening of a door, a garden party in New Palace Yard under a rare sunny sky in England. Through an announcement line, down a promenade to their final destination; an impeccably dressed Queen Elizabeth II.
"I was just wondering if you felt like a couple of fish in a tank with a bunch of sharks. You would be a beautiful fish, while I, a more utilitarian one. You look amazing, by the way. But, back to my main point... these are all Gods and Goddesses. Except that guy... he's a tentacle monster in human form.”
"You, uh, do remember that I'm pretty much a native Rhydinian right? That feeling gets shocked out of us at a young age."
Tea with the Queen of England. A most memorable birthday.
“They’re saying they have crossed the Broken Void. I imagine the Black Worm will take care of them.”
“And if it doesn’t? They made quick work of the Shepherd. What will I tell his wife and children?”
“Hardly the least of our worries right now. If we must then we will hold them off and complete the transference at the earliest moment we can.”
"You were brilliant in there."
"Contract said nothing about winning."
"Well." She considered for a few moments before offering out. "I'd still probably love you regardless."
Without looking, she knew he was standing behind her gaping as she hightailed it for the Arena’s bar. She had a fresh drink in hand when he finally caught up, setting a hand to her shoulder as if asking her to face him.
How could she face him after that?
They had never put a label on their relationship though she had stopped seeing anyone but him. She was bad at this, all of it, but of one thing she was certain; that she had to tell him how she felt. He had to know. Just in case.
"Hi. Yes. Hi." She said abruptly as she turned around to face him. Her cheeks were rosy, not from the drink. In a bid to head it off at the pass, she tried to beat him to the punch. "You don't have to say anything about it. I just needed you to know."
He leaned in and set his forehead to hers, his eyes holding hers. "Love you too."
"Oh." She said, like, duh. Of course. "I, ah.... er.... well... that's immensely less mortifying then."
He actually grinned. Not that half-assed one either. "That's reassuring."
"I just... yeah... I..." She huffed a bit at her failure to string words together and tipped her scotch back for a mouthful. "I'm not usually the sort to... say that..." Especially not first. "So... yeah... hopefully that's a bit more reassuring."
“Kill him.”
Anything but that.
Please...
((Snippets of past scenes pulled from live play with minor adjustments to account for how they are in her memory, including the recent FireStar Challenge versus Eden, early life scenes with her siblings and parents, Birthday Tea with the Queen thanks to Dillon Jones, and of course the infamous 'I love you' bomb in the Arena with Caleb. Thanks to those involved for some wonderful memories!))
-
Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
- Queen of Air & Darkness
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
Re: In Which I Become
Chapter Seven - In Which I Become
Part One
A month removed from her liberation, Karma felt… okay. Not quite normal, no, that would take more time supposedly. But okay. Caleb’s birthday celebration, Beltane, Karma’s birthday, all had passed with plenty of mundane fanfare. Her free time had been split between home and the venues and the forge, working out her nervous energy in a semi-productive manner. Caleb, to his credit, had been the picture of patient understanding, though she couldn’t help but worry he was still on high alert, like he was afraid it wasn’t over.
Maybe because it wasn’t.
Not entirely at least.
It was part of what brought her to a table on the patio of a distant cafe on a sweltering street, far, far from Rhy’Din City. The year was 2039. Where she was meant to be had she not stepped through a rift in the temporal lining almost four years prior. The cafe was located upon one of the higher terraces of the sole mountain on a desolate island. The lower terraces were wider and more populated and below those, barren slopes were dotted with shoddily constructed structures that served as housing for those that stayed there, however temporarily. It was an odd sort of contrast to the quaint cafe, set upon a neatly tiled thoroughfare that saw only foot traffic. There were no vehicles on the island, not even horses or other beasts of burden.
The back veranda’s patio hung over a ledge and offered panoramic vistas of black water and a sky that seemed to transition from a pallid yellow-grey at the horizon to crystal blue high above the mountain’s peak. The impatient tap-tap-tap of her heel against the marble tile worked out only a fraction of the nervous energy that seemed to radiate from her in waves. She could only distract herself by watching the lower terraces and the lapping of black water against a wickedly rocky shore.
“What’ll it be, sinner?” A voice snapped her from her anxious reverie, jerking her upright as she swiveled a look to a server standing over her, looking at her expectantly. He was classically beautiful, carved of the finest marble by the most accomplished of sculptors. She could have cut diamonds on his jawline. Karma offered him a polite smile.
“Nothing for me, just yet. My… companion should be here soon.” She told him with a firm nod and glanced down at the table. Normally she could check her phone to see how long it would take or what time it was currently, but her phone was sitting firmly in 2021 upon a side table in her office at the ranch.
Paradiso Ranch.
She could only smile to herself at the thought when the server excused himself to retreat into the shade of the cafe proper. Of the half dozen tables on the terrace, only one other was occupied by a pair of young lovers that looked as though they were yearning to touch each other but couldn’t. Karma watched them for a few moments, their fingers coming so, so close to touching before they withdrew a hair’s breadth before contact was made.
“The true purgatory, to have that which you seek right in front of you only to never be able to touch it.” A feminine voice limned with a chuckle drew Karma’s attention back to her own table. Where there had been an empty seat, there was now a veritable paragon of power and poise. Karma hadn’t even heard her arrive, surprising considering the stiletto (literal blade) heels worn upon her unguligrade, goat like feet. All eyes in the immediate vicinity, including the young lovers, were upon the woman who sat higher in her seat than Karma by several inches. She was statuesque, wickedly beautiful, and emanated an air of unadulterated Power. Capital P. An Archdaemon Prince on a rare outing from the circle over which she lorded, she gave Karma a toothy smile of perfectly white, razor sharp teeth.
Just the same as Karma remembered her, yet so terribly different from the one she had left behind in the space almost two decades prior in which she had claimed a place for herself.
“Mother.” Karma greeted the woman with a stiff nod of her head and tried to ignore the way everyone was watching them.
“Kitten.” Her mother said affectionately and lounged back in her seat. “I trust the Way was not too terrible?”
“It never is.” Karma confirmed. The time jump had been more jarring than the trip through the under realms and Purgatory itself had been. At the very least, she hadn’t been forced to meet her mother in the labyrinthine circles of Hell itself.
“Good, good. Isn’t this place darling?” She gestured with a hand to the veranda upon which they sat and the quaint cafe overlooking it all. In the shade of an awning over the cafe’s back door, the handsome server hesitated as if he was afraid to approach their table now. Her mother raised a hand, curling a single finger to beckon him over. Like someone had wrapped a leash around his throat, he was drawn to her call, his feet dragging but unable to stop the pull. “Hello, pet. I do believe drinks are in order. Would you like your usual, Kit?”
“S-sure.” Karma nodded, unable to look up at the man who was now looking between her and her mother like he was suddenly realizing just why Karma looked familiar.
“Give me your freshest Nebbiolo and she’ll take the bottomless kulle-aid.” Not to be mistaken with the flavored sugar-water of the upper realms, this was simply… honey, hibiscus tea, lime juice, and club soda. It had been a childhood favorite of Karma’s. Granted, at twenty-one, she had grown out of it, but who was she to take that from her mother? The server skittered off to fulfill the command (different from an order, mind you) and disappeared inside soon after, leaving them to the distant lapping of black sea on rocky shore and quiet whispers from the lone other occupied table on the opposite side of the patio. Her mother looked back to her, her smile serene. “You look… pallid. Are you well?”
“Well enough.” Karma answered, her hands folded in her lap. It had been some time since she had been in the presence of this version of her mother. She hadn’t realized just how jarring it would be. “I died again.”
“Hm. Annoying.” Her mother made a face and looked her over once more. “How bad?”
“Not terribly, but it was enough. I, um… I wanted to ask you about it though. Because it was different this time.” She said softly, choosing her words carefully and quieting when the server returned with their drinks. Hers was a bright red-pink drink with a pretty little straw and a paper umbrella. Special ordered in, it wasn’t like they just had a ready stock of paper umbrellas in Purgatory. Only once their server had departed once more did she speak again. “I was called back before the Abyss took me.”
“How…” Her mother’s molten eyes narrowed. She understood the implications even if Karma didn’t fully.
“Your music box. The one Cimaron made for you.” Karma offered only enough information to answer the question. If she went into the whole diatribe about the Paragons and Nemesis and all that her friends had done to save her, well, it would have been bad news. For everyone. Across the table, her mother took up her wine glass, swirling it around the bowl before drawing it to her lips for a drink.
“Part of our agreement for you staying in that timeline was that you would stay out of trouble. Where was your sister? Why wasn’t she watching you?” She asked after she swallowed.
Karma sighed.
“Angela was there and did what she could to help. It was my fault. But it’s fixed and now here I am. But all of that aside, I… I feel strange and I’m… well, I have some questions about my debt.” Karma said quietly.
“Go on.” She prompted.
“Well… my debt was bought out. But the beings that purchased my debt are… no longer. They have been destroyed and Angela is seeing to it that they cannot return. So… I guess… I… Mom, never in my life have I not had to worry about who had staked their claim upon my eternal being and now I’m… I guess I’m spiraling a little.” Karma admitted with a soft sigh and a weak shrug.
Her mother quieted, wine glass in one hand, the other hand set to the table top. Her nails were devilish things, curled like razor sharp talons and painted a shade of dark red like dried blood and the wine in her glass. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled and Karma got a vague feeling like the Archdaemoness was smelling her.
“You’re unbalanced.” She declared finally, frowning.
“Was I ever balanced before?” Karma countered with a near mirror image frown. While it was undeniable that the younger woman was a work of aesthetic art, she paled in comparison to her mother. Even this version, terrifying as she was with her claws and her teeth and her overwhelming stature.
“You were. When you were young. But then you grew up and decided that you knew better than I… that you would like to step out of neutrality and enter the fray as if you had any business being there. I told you… so, so many times that if you did, they would use you to fulfill their directives, to achieve their goals, and they would do it with no regard for what was left of you after. But nobody listens to their mother.” Her mother sniffed haughtily and drank once more, leaving Karma to frown across the table from her.
“You expected me to live in a bubble until the end of eternity. And you expected me to do it while you were all the while wheeling and dealing with my soul. Hypocrisy is not a flattering look on you, Mother.” Karma said, her shaking voice a rare show of standing up for herself against a maelstrom of personality that had constantly overshadowed her since childhood.
And as she always did, her mother did exactly that. Power rolled off of her in waves as she sat upright in her seat, seeming to grow in size until she more closely resembled the older Evils of the underrealms, her beautiful features twisting into a cruel nightmare.
“You would do well to mind your tongue, Kitten. I have only ever done what I had to do to protect you. To give you the very best in a life that was never meant to be. I did the best with what I had and you dare sit there and squander this falsa vita on foolish endeavors and ill placed loyalties. No. No more, I am done. You are done.” She seemed to deflate as she sat back in her seat, smoothing her hands over her hair as if to tame it.
“Done?” Karma arched a brow, her question two-fold. Done with her fit, on one hand. But done with what on the other?
“Done.” A two-fold answer.
Karma waited for elaboration, stone faced, the set of her jaw barely concealing the subtle wobble of her bottom lip. While she could handle the worst that life threw at her, there was something about the authority her mother wielded that could reduce her to tears at a pin drop’s notice. She swallowed back her defense mechanism and simply waited.
“You will return by year’s end. No more child’s play, no more games. I have arranged a match for you that will prove most advantageous and then you won’t have to worry about petty things like soul-debts. Never again will you fret about the Fates snipping your string and what comes next. And after that? Never again will you have to deal with my interference.”
The more she spoke, the larger the pit in Karma’s stomach grew.
“M-match? Who?” A breath of a whisper, almost lost to the distant crash of black water on grey stone.
“Tillianius uth Oray.” Her mother’s smile returned once more.
“Cimaron’s son?!” There was no way Karma could contain her disbelief. Cimaron uth Oray had pined for her mother for a century and a half to no avail. Couldn’t compete with some good ol’ fashioned Rhydin flavored human after all. And now she wanted to match her daughter up with his son. “That’s just… that’s cruel.”
“He is a good man who would protect you. An honorable match, if such a thing can be believed. You wouldn’t have a worry in the universe.” Her mother seemed pleased with herself. “It would be a smart alliance too.”
Karma was anything but pleased. She pushed her chair back from the table and got to her feet.
“I am disappointed in you, Your Eminence. I am not your chattel to be traded for political advantage and I will not entertain this any further.” She had nothing to gather, nothing to dramatically storm away with. Instead, she could only give the visage of her mother a sad shake of her head.
“You have no say in the matter.” Her mother countered.
“On the contrary, I am still a mortal and therefore, I still have free will. Which I will now use to leave once more. I will not be back.” She stepped away from the table and turned toward the veranda’s mouth, pausing only to look back briefly. “I thought you of all people would understand.”
For once, her mother was silent.
“Silly me.” Karma sighed the words and set her feet into motion. The subtle ministrations of her fingertips and lips swallowed her whole with the displacement magic before she even reached the end of the patio.
(To Be Continued)
Part One
A month removed from her liberation, Karma felt… okay. Not quite normal, no, that would take more time supposedly. But okay. Caleb’s birthday celebration, Beltane, Karma’s birthday, all had passed with plenty of mundane fanfare. Her free time had been split between home and the venues and the forge, working out her nervous energy in a semi-productive manner. Caleb, to his credit, had been the picture of patient understanding, though she couldn’t help but worry he was still on high alert, like he was afraid it wasn’t over.
Maybe because it wasn’t.
Not entirely at least.
It was part of what brought her to a table on the patio of a distant cafe on a sweltering street, far, far from Rhy’Din City. The year was 2039. Where she was meant to be had she not stepped through a rift in the temporal lining almost four years prior. The cafe was located upon one of the higher terraces of the sole mountain on a desolate island. The lower terraces were wider and more populated and below those, barren slopes were dotted with shoddily constructed structures that served as housing for those that stayed there, however temporarily. It was an odd sort of contrast to the quaint cafe, set upon a neatly tiled thoroughfare that saw only foot traffic. There were no vehicles on the island, not even horses or other beasts of burden.
The back veranda’s patio hung over a ledge and offered panoramic vistas of black water and a sky that seemed to transition from a pallid yellow-grey at the horizon to crystal blue high above the mountain’s peak. The impatient tap-tap-tap of her heel against the marble tile worked out only a fraction of the nervous energy that seemed to radiate from her in waves. She could only distract herself by watching the lower terraces and the lapping of black water against a wickedly rocky shore.
“What’ll it be, sinner?” A voice snapped her from her anxious reverie, jerking her upright as she swiveled a look to a server standing over her, looking at her expectantly. He was classically beautiful, carved of the finest marble by the most accomplished of sculptors. She could have cut diamonds on his jawline. Karma offered him a polite smile.
“Nothing for me, just yet. My… companion should be here soon.” She told him with a firm nod and glanced down at the table. Normally she could check her phone to see how long it would take or what time it was currently, but her phone was sitting firmly in 2021 upon a side table in her office at the ranch.
Paradiso Ranch.
She could only smile to herself at the thought when the server excused himself to retreat into the shade of the cafe proper. Of the half dozen tables on the terrace, only one other was occupied by a pair of young lovers that looked as though they were yearning to touch each other but couldn’t. Karma watched them for a few moments, their fingers coming so, so close to touching before they withdrew a hair’s breadth before contact was made.
“The true purgatory, to have that which you seek right in front of you only to never be able to touch it.” A feminine voice limned with a chuckle drew Karma’s attention back to her own table. Where there had been an empty seat, there was now a veritable paragon of power and poise. Karma hadn’t even heard her arrive, surprising considering the stiletto (literal blade) heels worn upon her unguligrade, goat like feet. All eyes in the immediate vicinity, including the young lovers, were upon the woman who sat higher in her seat than Karma by several inches. She was statuesque, wickedly beautiful, and emanated an air of unadulterated Power. Capital P. An Archdaemon Prince on a rare outing from the circle over which she lorded, she gave Karma a toothy smile of perfectly white, razor sharp teeth.
Just the same as Karma remembered her, yet so terribly different from the one she had left behind in the space almost two decades prior in which she had claimed a place for herself.
“Mother.” Karma greeted the woman with a stiff nod of her head and tried to ignore the way everyone was watching them.
“Kitten.” Her mother said affectionately and lounged back in her seat. “I trust the Way was not too terrible?”
“It never is.” Karma confirmed. The time jump had been more jarring than the trip through the under realms and Purgatory itself had been. At the very least, she hadn’t been forced to meet her mother in the labyrinthine circles of Hell itself.
“Good, good. Isn’t this place darling?” She gestured with a hand to the veranda upon which they sat and the quaint cafe overlooking it all. In the shade of an awning over the cafe’s back door, the handsome server hesitated as if he was afraid to approach their table now. Her mother raised a hand, curling a single finger to beckon him over. Like someone had wrapped a leash around his throat, he was drawn to her call, his feet dragging but unable to stop the pull. “Hello, pet. I do believe drinks are in order. Would you like your usual, Kit?”
“S-sure.” Karma nodded, unable to look up at the man who was now looking between her and her mother like he was suddenly realizing just why Karma looked familiar.
“Give me your freshest Nebbiolo and she’ll take the bottomless kulle-aid.” Not to be mistaken with the flavored sugar-water of the upper realms, this was simply… honey, hibiscus tea, lime juice, and club soda. It had been a childhood favorite of Karma’s. Granted, at twenty-one, she had grown out of it, but who was she to take that from her mother? The server skittered off to fulfill the command (different from an order, mind you) and disappeared inside soon after, leaving them to the distant lapping of black sea on rocky shore and quiet whispers from the lone other occupied table on the opposite side of the patio. Her mother looked back to her, her smile serene. “You look… pallid. Are you well?”
“Well enough.” Karma answered, her hands folded in her lap. It had been some time since she had been in the presence of this version of her mother. She hadn’t realized just how jarring it would be. “I died again.”
“Hm. Annoying.” Her mother made a face and looked her over once more. “How bad?”
“Not terribly, but it was enough. I, um… I wanted to ask you about it though. Because it was different this time.” She said softly, choosing her words carefully and quieting when the server returned with their drinks. Hers was a bright red-pink drink with a pretty little straw and a paper umbrella. Special ordered in, it wasn’t like they just had a ready stock of paper umbrellas in Purgatory. Only once their server had departed once more did she speak again. “I was called back before the Abyss took me.”
“How…” Her mother’s molten eyes narrowed. She understood the implications even if Karma didn’t fully.
“Your music box. The one Cimaron made for you.” Karma offered only enough information to answer the question. If she went into the whole diatribe about the Paragons and Nemesis and all that her friends had done to save her, well, it would have been bad news. For everyone. Across the table, her mother took up her wine glass, swirling it around the bowl before drawing it to her lips for a drink.
“Part of our agreement for you staying in that timeline was that you would stay out of trouble. Where was your sister? Why wasn’t she watching you?” She asked after she swallowed.
Karma sighed.
“Angela was there and did what she could to help. It was my fault. But it’s fixed and now here I am. But all of that aside, I… I feel strange and I’m… well, I have some questions about my debt.” Karma said quietly.
“Go on.” She prompted.
“Well… my debt was bought out. But the beings that purchased my debt are… no longer. They have been destroyed and Angela is seeing to it that they cannot return. So… I guess… I… Mom, never in my life have I not had to worry about who had staked their claim upon my eternal being and now I’m… I guess I’m spiraling a little.” Karma admitted with a soft sigh and a weak shrug.
Her mother quieted, wine glass in one hand, the other hand set to the table top. Her nails were devilish things, curled like razor sharp talons and painted a shade of dark red like dried blood and the wine in her glass. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled and Karma got a vague feeling like the Archdaemoness was smelling her.
“You’re unbalanced.” She declared finally, frowning.
“Was I ever balanced before?” Karma countered with a near mirror image frown. While it was undeniable that the younger woman was a work of aesthetic art, she paled in comparison to her mother. Even this version, terrifying as she was with her claws and her teeth and her overwhelming stature.
“You were. When you were young. But then you grew up and decided that you knew better than I… that you would like to step out of neutrality and enter the fray as if you had any business being there. I told you… so, so many times that if you did, they would use you to fulfill their directives, to achieve their goals, and they would do it with no regard for what was left of you after. But nobody listens to their mother.” Her mother sniffed haughtily and drank once more, leaving Karma to frown across the table from her.
“You expected me to live in a bubble until the end of eternity. And you expected me to do it while you were all the while wheeling and dealing with my soul. Hypocrisy is not a flattering look on you, Mother.” Karma said, her shaking voice a rare show of standing up for herself against a maelstrom of personality that had constantly overshadowed her since childhood.
And as she always did, her mother did exactly that. Power rolled off of her in waves as she sat upright in her seat, seeming to grow in size until she more closely resembled the older Evils of the underrealms, her beautiful features twisting into a cruel nightmare.
“You would do well to mind your tongue, Kitten. I have only ever done what I had to do to protect you. To give you the very best in a life that was never meant to be. I did the best with what I had and you dare sit there and squander this falsa vita on foolish endeavors and ill placed loyalties. No. No more, I am done. You are done.” She seemed to deflate as she sat back in her seat, smoothing her hands over her hair as if to tame it.
“Done?” Karma arched a brow, her question two-fold. Done with her fit, on one hand. But done with what on the other?
“Done.” A two-fold answer.
Karma waited for elaboration, stone faced, the set of her jaw barely concealing the subtle wobble of her bottom lip. While she could handle the worst that life threw at her, there was something about the authority her mother wielded that could reduce her to tears at a pin drop’s notice. She swallowed back her defense mechanism and simply waited.
“You will return by year’s end. No more child’s play, no more games. I have arranged a match for you that will prove most advantageous and then you won’t have to worry about petty things like soul-debts. Never again will you fret about the Fates snipping your string and what comes next. And after that? Never again will you have to deal with my interference.”
The more she spoke, the larger the pit in Karma’s stomach grew.
“M-match? Who?” A breath of a whisper, almost lost to the distant crash of black water on grey stone.
“Tillianius uth Oray.” Her mother’s smile returned once more.
“Cimaron’s son?!” There was no way Karma could contain her disbelief. Cimaron uth Oray had pined for her mother for a century and a half to no avail. Couldn’t compete with some good ol’ fashioned Rhydin flavored human after all. And now she wanted to match her daughter up with his son. “That’s just… that’s cruel.”
“He is a good man who would protect you. An honorable match, if such a thing can be believed. You wouldn’t have a worry in the universe.” Her mother seemed pleased with herself. “It would be a smart alliance too.”
Karma was anything but pleased. She pushed her chair back from the table and got to her feet.
“I am disappointed in you, Your Eminence. I am not your chattel to be traded for political advantage and I will not entertain this any further.” She had nothing to gather, nothing to dramatically storm away with. Instead, she could only give the visage of her mother a sad shake of her head.
“You have no say in the matter.” Her mother countered.
“On the contrary, I am still a mortal and therefore, I still have free will. Which I will now use to leave once more. I will not be back.” She stepped away from the table and turned toward the veranda’s mouth, pausing only to look back briefly. “I thought you of all people would understand.”
For once, her mother was silent.
“Silly me.” Karma sighed the words and set her feet into motion. The subtle ministrations of her fingertips and lips swallowed her whole with the displacement magic before she even reached the end of the patio.
(To Be Continued)
-
Strawberry
- Expert Adventurer
- Queen of Air & Darkness
- Posts: 823
- Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:09 pm
- Location: This Rhydin (as opposed to *that* Rhydin)
Re: In Which I Become
Part Two
Another day, another wait for a being much bigger than she. This time around though, Karma hadn’t needed to go any further than a tidy office in the newer part of the marketplace. The exterior was a deceiving thing, simple brick and glass, fairly modern for the area but nothing overly flashy. The waiting room was much the same; small, casual, clean. White seating, white table, white carpet. A pretty blonde behind a glass desk, smartly dressed and attentive.
Karma was the only one there.
Always waiting.
Power evidently didn’t equate to punctuality.
She could only fidget away the second hand ticking on the clock. Heel tap, heel tap, weaving her fingers together to tangle them up, only to bump against the new weight of metal and diamond and fire opal settled upon her left ring finger. With her right hand, she twisted it around her finger, as if the weight might ground her.
A promise.
I will never lay claim to you, for you are your own. But I will also never not be at your side.
Words worth their weight in gold. If only she could have articulated such to him. There was so much she still needed to tell him but… couldn’t.
Not yet, at least.
But soon.
"In your line of work you simply name your terms and people accept them. How do you get to that point where people just... agree instead of it being some back and forth negotiation?"
"Reputation."
"Did that take a long time?"
"Looking to join the business?"
"No... I hear there's pretty stiff competition already. Mostly just... figuring out what it takes to... I don't know, be the sort that can just name my conditions and people accept because it's better than me saying no."
"Who you having to say no to?"
“Miss Armstrong? Please follow me.” Another blonde, pretty and otherworldly, stood in the doorway to the sole hallway leading from the waiting room.
Karma got to her feet and smoothed her hands over the skirt of an expertly tailored skirt in a muted shade of cream that went well with the navy blue of her blouse and shoes, a new pair picked up that morning considering her last pair of blue heels had been abandoned atop a high reaching mountain spire on the isle, near a white phone booth and purple elf trees and clouds that seemed to light up like fire. She smiled in spite of herself and followed the woman down a sterile white hallway flanked on either side by seven doors each. The last on the right was their final destination and it was there that she was led. The pretty blonde held the door open for her to guide her inside. More white, a pristine office that almost reminded her of Palazzo del Piacere in New Haven. There was even an old looking marble statue in one corner. It was to the statue she went to examine it while she waited, standing before it with her arms folded across her chest, head tilted to one side.
“It is an original, please do not touch it.” A beautiful voice met her ears but she didn’t turn immediately to meet it.
“The original is in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. Or at least it should be.” She countered, glancing over her shoulder. He was tall, exceptionally so, and even more beautiful than he was tall. He very well could have been carved from the same marble, if marble could have given him golden eyes and wheat blonde curls reminiscent of fields of grain.
“Should is different from is.” He said with a smile that could have killed a lesser woman.
“Do you make it a habit of collecting priceless works while replicas sit in their place?” Was she being intentionally antagonistic? Call it nerves. He humored her with the selfsame smile he had before but gestured to an open seat across a white stone and wood desk from a large, comfortable executive styled office chair. After a moment, she peeled away from the statue and rounded the table to take a seat. Not in the executive chair, of course, she wasn’t that bold.
“What brings you by, Miss Armstrong?” He took a seat soon after she did, attentive but relaxed in posture.
“Just Karma please.” She had told him this before. He never listened. “I’ve come seeking… mmm… information.”
“We are nothing if not an abundance of information.” He mused but prompted for her to elaborate with a roll of his wrist.
"Reputation does take time. You have to follow through with what you promise to do. There can be no compromise. With time, those who seek you out will understand what you are and what you do, and they seek you out for a reason. Reputation cuts both ways. People expect what they pay for, so you have to give them what they expect. And if they do not pay, it is better to let others know what happens when they do not so that it does not become a habit."
"Do you think that applies in cases where, say, it's not about money? I suppose it would... it's still trades of sorts, right?"
"Reputation isn't about money, unless your business relies on your reputation."
"I am... likely the least consistent person to walk this realm. So this may be... more difficult than I thought."
“I’ll be there with you.”
Caleb’s words echoed with her and in spite of herself, she found herself twisting the ring on her finger again, spinning the weight of the fire opal round and round. He may not have been there physically, but she carried him with her constantly.
“You have been interested in me since my powers first manifested… I tried my very best to stay a neutral party in all of it, none of this is my fight after all… but… I’m ready to take a side. I’d like to know more.” She did her best to keep her tone steady. The man across from her studied her for a moment, his mouth curling with what looked like amusement.
“You’ll have to forgive me, but is this a ploy?” He asked. Karma blinked a few times.
“Excuse me?”
“If it is, it isn’t a very good one.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you check, you’ll find my past debts were fulfilled in their entirety.” She said, her voice wavering.
“That I did hear about. But I do believe you are leaving something out, no?” He tilted his head at her. The way he studied her told her that he knew far more than she realized. She swallowed and sat up a bit straighter in her seat.
Reputation does take time.
His gaze fell to where her fingers fidgeted in her lap, twisting and turning the diamond lined ring around her finger. It was to it that he nodded.
“Your betrothed. One, Tillianius uth Oray, Duke of the First of the Nine Hells. Were you just going to leave that out?”
Karma looked taken aback, blinking rapidly before looking down at her hand and back up at the man sitting across from her. She held her shaking hand up, fingers curled, hand turned so that he could better see the fire opal.
“This? No. This is from my… the one I wish to be with. Here. I’ve met the Duke just once and on that alone I have no intention to marry him.” She said quietly. He reached out a hand, gesturing for hers. With a minor beat of hesitation, she extended it halfway across the table. His hand was pleasantly warm, his fingers and palm callused. He took her hand and curled her fingers to look at the ring up close.
“Exquisite. No ordinary stone, it’s almost as if you would expect flame to emanate from the gem itself. Hmm.” He gently released her hand so that she could sit back in her seat at much the same time he did. “Alas, I could not in good conscience request your assistance.”
“But… but… why… Michael, you’ve… your people… they’ve wanted me since I was a child…” To him she was still a child. Barely twenty-one springs old, practically still a fetus to such a being. This had been her trump card though, how she was going to ensure that her mother did not get her way. She pressed her lips into a fine line and took a deep breath to steady herself.
“We did. I’m sure some still do. But most reach a point of choosing much earlier than this… and by now… regretfully, you’ve intertwined yourself too extensively with our enemies. Not to mention your connections to the mortal realm. I couldn’t accept your help as it would require not just the severance of your ties to the mortals but a rather extensive penitence for your deeds on behalf of the Circles.” He said. To his credit, he looked remorseful, as if telling her such a thing was a true regret instead of a formality.
Karma’s shoulders sank, her gaze falling into her lap.
“I just… thought… what is all that shit they preach about forgiveness… that you need only ask for it and you will be saved.” She said without looking at him. In truth, her reason for coming here was less about salvation and more about protection from something she wasn’t sure she could stop.
“Applies to mortals… those in between, less so.” He said, the frown evident even in his words.
“The rest of us can just get fucked, eh?” The words were bitter on her tongue, petulant perhaps but not undeservedly so.
“Unfortunately you belong neither to the heavens nor the hells. Fortunately, that means you have all the self determination in the universe to choose your path.” He was trying to be gentle but still she looked up at him, gaze blazing with the fires of the very hells of which he spoke.
“I am of a higher order than even you, Michael. Unadulterated celestial influence is a rarity, you know this. And the potential in that blood is endless and unrestricted. I come here offering that to you. And I will do so one more time before I go on my way.” She said. Her voice was still quiet but her tone was perfectly steady, dangerously so. “Will you accept me?”
They held eye contact for what seemed like an eternity. It may very well have been.
“I cannot. I’m sorry.” He said, never withering beneath her ire.
Immortals, the audacity of them.
“Then it seems our conversation has concluded.” She said evenly, rising to her feet in the same heartbeat. Without waiting, she turned for the door and opened it.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. Truly. You would have been an immaculate addition.” He said, as if she were a thing to be collected like his precious art. She sucked at her teeth, a smile forming that he couldn’t see with her back turned to him.
“Flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo, Michael. Acheronta movebo.” She told him and stepped out. As she closed the door behind her, the priceless marble statue in the corner exploded, shattering and dusting the once pristine office and its sole occupant with pulverized dust.
She continued on her way, down the sterile hallway, through the reception area, and out onto the warm New Market street. By then her rage had turned to tears, leaving her to quickly wipe them as she turned to head down the road, her strides eating up pavement as fast as she could. So caught up in her escape she was that she tripped right over the half extended leg of a man sitting on the pavement.
“Fuck!” She stumbled, barely catching herself before she fell.
“Ah, terribly sorry, Miss.” A gravelly voice found her ears as she turned back. Elderly, at least seventy by her estimate (but who knew in Rhydin), his clothes were ragged, dirty, and torn. In a land of Haves and Have Nots, he was most certainly the latter. A cardboard sign in front of him declared: Homeless. Anything helps.
“No… I’m sorry, I should have been watching where I was walking. Are you okay?” She asked, deflating little by little. Why hadn’t she brought sunglasses?
“Oh, yes… yes, I’m okay. Are you?” He squinted up at her with clouded eyes, looking her way but not at her exactly.
“Y-yeah… um… what’s your name?” She asked, tilting her head. The old man smiled a little. For his age, he still had most of his teeth.
“Simon.”
“Nice to meet you, Simon. I’m Karma. Are you, uh, are you doing okay out here?” The city had numerous resources for those with little to their name but people still seemed to fall through the very wide cracks.
“As well as the Lord allows.” His smile was wan. She squatted beside him, as best as she could in the fitted skirt and reached for his hand carefully. Within her grasp, a roll of bills. He felt the touch and didn’t flinch away, instead opening his hand and curling it around the offering with a soft smile.
“Of course. Say, let me properly apologize for tripping over you there. Can I buy you a meal? There’s a lovely little cafe around the corner where you can hear the birds singing on the fountain in the square.” She offered, rising upright.
“That… that sounds lovely. I would like that.”
Karma helped him to his feet and offered him an arm to show him the way. Just as she promised, Cafe-on-the-Square made for a quaint setting for a hearty meal and a long conversation in which Simon told her about how he came to end up in Rhydin, how he fought in wars that weren’t his to fight, and at last how he had ended up on the street, one of the city’s lost. When they parted ways, Simon had at least enough money for food and shelter for at least a week. She also gave him a card and directions for where he could go for more long term assistance. They parted with a hug.
It made for a pensive walk home.
Perspective.
"Reputation isn't about money, unless your business relies on your reputation."
(To be continued...)
Another day, another wait for a being much bigger than she. This time around though, Karma hadn’t needed to go any further than a tidy office in the newer part of the marketplace. The exterior was a deceiving thing, simple brick and glass, fairly modern for the area but nothing overly flashy. The waiting room was much the same; small, casual, clean. White seating, white table, white carpet. A pretty blonde behind a glass desk, smartly dressed and attentive.
Karma was the only one there.
Always waiting.
Power evidently didn’t equate to punctuality.
She could only fidget away the second hand ticking on the clock. Heel tap, heel tap, weaving her fingers together to tangle them up, only to bump against the new weight of metal and diamond and fire opal settled upon her left ring finger. With her right hand, she twisted it around her finger, as if the weight might ground her.
A promise.
I will never lay claim to you, for you are your own. But I will also never not be at your side.
Words worth their weight in gold. If only she could have articulated such to him. There was so much she still needed to tell him but… couldn’t.
Not yet, at least.
But soon.
"In your line of work you simply name your terms and people accept them. How do you get to that point where people just... agree instead of it being some back and forth negotiation?"
"Reputation."
"Did that take a long time?"
"Looking to join the business?"
"No... I hear there's pretty stiff competition already. Mostly just... figuring out what it takes to... I don't know, be the sort that can just name my conditions and people accept because it's better than me saying no."
"Who you having to say no to?"
“Miss Armstrong? Please follow me.” Another blonde, pretty and otherworldly, stood in the doorway to the sole hallway leading from the waiting room.
Karma got to her feet and smoothed her hands over the skirt of an expertly tailored skirt in a muted shade of cream that went well with the navy blue of her blouse and shoes, a new pair picked up that morning considering her last pair of blue heels had been abandoned atop a high reaching mountain spire on the isle, near a white phone booth and purple elf trees and clouds that seemed to light up like fire. She smiled in spite of herself and followed the woman down a sterile white hallway flanked on either side by seven doors each. The last on the right was their final destination and it was there that she was led. The pretty blonde held the door open for her to guide her inside. More white, a pristine office that almost reminded her of Palazzo del Piacere in New Haven. There was even an old looking marble statue in one corner. It was to the statue she went to examine it while she waited, standing before it with her arms folded across her chest, head tilted to one side.
“It is an original, please do not touch it.” A beautiful voice met her ears but she didn’t turn immediately to meet it.
“The original is in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. Or at least it should be.” She countered, glancing over her shoulder. He was tall, exceptionally so, and even more beautiful than he was tall. He very well could have been carved from the same marble, if marble could have given him golden eyes and wheat blonde curls reminiscent of fields of grain.
“Should is different from is.” He said with a smile that could have killed a lesser woman.
“Do you make it a habit of collecting priceless works while replicas sit in their place?” Was she being intentionally antagonistic? Call it nerves. He humored her with the selfsame smile he had before but gestured to an open seat across a white stone and wood desk from a large, comfortable executive styled office chair. After a moment, she peeled away from the statue and rounded the table to take a seat. Not in the executive chair, of course, she wasn’t that bold.
“What brings you by, Miss Armstrong?” He took a seat soon after she did, attentive but relaxed in posture.
“Just Karma please.” She had told him this before. He never listened. “I’ve come seeking… mmm… information.”
“We are nothing if not an abundance of information.” He mused but prompted for her to elaborate with a roll of his wrist.
"Reputation does take time. You have to follow through with what you promise to do. There can be no compromise. With time, those who seek you out will understand what you are and what you do, and they seek you out for a reason. Reputation cuts both ways. People expect what they pay for, so you have to give them what they expect. And if they do not pay, it is better to let others know what happens when they do not so that it does not become a habit."
"Do you think that applies in cases where, say, it's not about money? I suppose it would... it's still trades of sorts, right?"
"Reputation isn't about money, unless your business relies on your reputation."
"I am... likely the least consistent person to walk this realm. So this may be... more difficult than I thought."
“I’ll be there with you.”
Caleb’s words echoed with her and in spite of herself, she found herself twisting the ring on her finger again, spinning the weight of the fire opal round and round. He may not have been there physically, but she carried him with her constantly.
“You have been interested in me since my powers first manifested… I tried my very best to stay a neutral party in all of it, none of this is my fight after all… but… I’m ready to take a side. I’d like to know more.” She did her best to keep her tone steady. The man across from her studied her for a moment, his mouth curling with what looked like amusement.
“You’ll have to forgive me, but is this a ploy?” He asked. Karma blinked a few times.
“Excuse me?”
“If it is, it isn’t a very good one.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you check, you’ll find my past debts were fulfilled in their entirety.” She said, her voice wavering.
“That I did hear about. But I do believe you are leaving something out, no?” He tilted his head at her. The way he studied her told her that he knew far more than she realized. She swallowed and sat up a bit straighter in her seat.
Reputation does take time.
His gaze fell to where her fingers fidgeted in her lap, twisting and turning the diamond lined ring around her finger. It was to it that he nodded.
“Your betrothed. One, Tillianius uth Oray, Duke of the First of the Nine Hells. Were you just going to leave that out?”
Karma looked taken aback, blinking rapidly before looking down at her hand and back up at the man sitting across from her. She held her shaking hand up, fingers curled, hand turned so that he could better see the fire opal.
“This? No. This is from my… the one I wish to be with. Here. I’ve met the Duke just once and on that alone I have no intention to marry him.” She said quietly. He reached out a hand, gesturing for hers. With a minor beat of hesitation, she extended it halfway across the table. His hand was pleasantly warm, his fingers and palm callused. He took her hand and curled her fingers to look at the ring up close.
“Exquisite. No ordinary stone, it’s almost as if you would expect flame to emanate from the gem itself. Hmm.” He gently released her hand so that she could sit back in her seat at much the same time he did. “Alas, I could not in good conscience request your assistance.”
“But… but… why… Michael, you’ve… your people… they’ve wanted me since I was a child…” To him she was still a child. Barely twenty-one springs old, practically still a fetus to such a being. This had been her trump card though, how she was going to ensure that her mother did not get her way. She pressed her lips into a fine line and took a deep breath to steady herself.
“We did. I’m sure some still do. But most reach a point of choosing much earlier than this… and by now… regretfully, you’ve intertwined yourself too extensively with our enemies. Not to mention your connections to the mortal realm. I couldn’t accept your help as it would require not just the severance of your ties to the mortals but a rather extensive penitence for your deeds on behalf of the Circles.” He said. To his credit, he looked remorseful, as if telling her such a thing was a true regret instead of a formality.
Karma’s shoulders sank, her gaze falling into her lap.
“I just… thought… what is all that shit they preach about forgiveness… that you need only ask for it and you will be saved.” She said without looking at him. In truth, her reason for coming here was less about salvation and more about protection from something she wasn’t sure she could stop.
“Applies to mortals… those in between, less so.” He said, the frown evident even in his words.
“The rest of us can just get fucked, eh?” The words were bitter on her tongue, petulant perhaps but not undeservedly so.
“Unfortunately you belong neither to the heavens nor the hells. Fortunately, that means you have all the self determination in the universe to choose your path.” He was trying to be gentle but still she looked up at him, gaze blazing with the fires of the very hells of which he spoke.
“I am of a higher order than even you, Michael. Unadulterated celestial influence is a rarity, you know this. And the potential in that blood is endless and unrestricted. I come here offering that to you. And I will do so one more time before I go on my way.” She said. Her voice was still quiet but her tone was perfectly steady, dangerously so. “Will you accept me?”
They held eye contact for what seemed like an eternity. It may very well have been.
“I cannot. I’m sorry.” He said, never withering beneath her ire.
Immortals, the audacity of them.
“Then it seems our conversation has concluded.” She said evenly, rising to her feet in the same heartbeat. Without waiting, she turned for the door and opened it.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. Truly. You would have been an immaculate addition.” He said, as if she were a thing to be collected like his precious art. She sucked at her teeth, a smile forming that he couldn’t see with her back turned to him.
“Flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo, Michael. Acheronta movebo.” She told him and stepped out. As she closed the door behind her, the priceless marble statue in the corner exploded, shattering and dusting the once pristine office and its sole occupant with pulverized dust.
She continued on her way, down the sterile hallway, through the reception area, and out onto the warm New Market street. By then her rage had turned to tears, leaving her to quickly wipe them as she turned to head down the road, her strides eating up pavement as fast as she could. So caught up in her escape she was that she tripped right over the half extended leg of a man sitting on the pavement.
“Fuck!” She stumbled, barely catching herself before she fell.
“Ah, terribly sorry, Miss.” A gravelly voice found her ears as she turned back. Elderly, at least seventy by her estimate (but who knew in Rhydin), his clothes were ragged, dirty, and torn. In a land of Haves and Have Nots, he was most certainly the latter. A cardboard sign in front of him declared: Homeless. Anything helps.
“No… I’m sorry, I should have been watching where I was walking. Are you okay?” She asked, deflating little by little. Why hadn’t she brought sunglasses?
“Oh, yes… yes, I’m okay. Are you?” He squinted up at her with clouded eyes, looking her way but not at her exactly.
“Y-yeah… um… what’s your name?” She asked, tilting her head. The old man smiled a little. For his age, he still had most of his teeth.
“Simon.”
“Nice to meet you, Simon. I’m Karma. Are you, uh, are you doing okay out here?” The city had numerous resources for those with little to their name but people still seemed to fall through the very wide cracks.
“As well as the Lord allows.” His smile was wan. She squatted beside him, as best as she could in the fitted skirt and reached for his hand carefully. Within her grasp, a roll of bills. He felt the touch and didn’t flinch away, instead opening his hand and curling it around the offering with a soft smile.
“Of course. Say, let me properly apologize for tripping over you there. Can I buy you a meal? There’s a lovely little cafe around the corner where you can hear the birds singing on the fountain in the square.” She offered, rising upright.
“That… that sounds lovely. I would like that.”
Karma helped him to his feet and offered him an arm to show him the way. Just as she promised, Cafe-on-the-Square made for a quaint setting for a hearty meal and a long conversation in which Simon told her about how he came to end up in Rhydin, how he fought in wars that weren’t his to fight, and at last how he had ended up on the street, one of the city’s lost. When they parted ways, Simon had at least enough money for food and shelter for at least a week. She also gave him a card and directions for where he could go for more long term assistance. They parted with a hug.
It made for a pensive walk home.
Perspective.
"Reputation isn't about money, unless your business relies on your reputation."
(To be continued...)
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