I stood waiting just inside the gates to the Pit. At the sound of boot heels on stone, I turned to see Blue at the open doorway. “We need to talk, Blue,” I said, stepping closer to her and unfolding my arms from across my chest. Blue had been to the Library. Tried to stab Grr, then to drown him. There were none of the usual familiar smiles between us.
“Perhaps,” Blue said evenly. She fingered the hilt of her dagger drawing it out, looking at me with something akin to sadness.
My eyes never leaving the dagger, I began to frown. “Blue…is it true that you tried to use that on Grr? In the Library?”
“It’s not like I can feel bad about it, Joah. I got no guilt. It’s nothing personal,” Blue shrugged.
“What do you mean nothing personal?” I frowned. “When you draw a weapon on my loved ones, it becomes personal, Blue.” I looked from the blade to Blue’s face. What I felt was a mixture of anger at what she had done, and worry and concern for her.
Blue tossed the blade into the air and caught it. “It will become personal, Joah…for the whole group. Every Omegan.” As she stepped closer to me, I could feel the fire rising within me, flames licking in eyes.
“What do you mean, Blue?” I asked quietly.
“It’s just family business,” she said off handedly. “You always knew it would come to this at some point.”
I stood my ground, wary and alert. “Speak plainly, Blue. I know you.
What you are. What you were. And the girl…is not gone…no matter how hard you try to kill her off.”
Blue gave a disconcerting grin. “Family comes first. I do as I have to. Joah, I got no conscience. I can’t feel bad or guilt over anything...Legion ate that part of my soul before I turned.”
“That's not true, Blue,” I replied, shaking my head. “I saw you as a feline. I saw your spirit.” The loneliness, the sense of grief, had overwhelmed her in neko form. A kindness and consideration few have ever seen had welled up within her.
“Sadness and loss are not the same as guilt,” Blue frowned, tilting the blade and moving forward. “You can ask Legion yourself because I asked her to eat the part I did not want.” A look of indefinable sadness clouded Blue’s face. “I got rid of it because of what I had done,” she barely whispered.
She’d just been a girl, living on the edge of demon territory with her parents and her brother, when a demon had come knocking on their door. Her father had been the first to die, his head torn off like a paper doll’s. Her mother was next, dying in a spray of blood as Blue and her brother ran. She lost her brother by the tooth and fang of a lycan.
Or so she had thought.
I stepped closer to Blue, full of uncertainty. I dared not push into her mind, her spirit. To do so would have ended with a knife in my chest or across my throat. But I had to try. As I moved forward, I began to pulse prana, a violet flame shimmering around me.
A look of uncertainty crossed Blue’s face. She gripped the hilt of her dagger, looking as though she was losing some internal argument with herself. “Joah….” she said evenly.
My heart was pounding in my chest. I sucked in a quick breath and pulled deeply from within me, sending a rush of warmth over Blue. Not in her, not pushing into her, but attempting to surround her with flame, transforming my fear into courage, my anxiety into peace and her inner, hidden, self-hatred into love.
“Blue,” I spoke quietly. “You are my friend. This is not business. I know you. What you are. What you were. Perhaps what you may one day become.”
Blue’s eyes met mine. “I'm quite capable of hurting friends, Joah. Just ask Pix and Delrith. Don't start predicting the future…I get enough of that from Rayden.”
I took another breath and reached for the dagger. As I did, tongues of violet fire licked up Blue's arm. I opened my being, flooding her with warmth. An enticing scent began to surround us, as something between us connected. The scent of the things that Blue, the girl, had loved best, reminders of love and longing for home.
“You are more than friend, Blue,” I murmured. “I don't understand why. Or how. You are family.”
Blue gripped her dagger tighter, her blue eyes flashing with inner light, as she hissed, “You’re not a Shadow…you can't be family.” She shook a little as the flames pulsed and undulated around me and toward Blue in endless shades of violet and purple and pink.
I moved closer. “Not Shadow family, Blue. Not Omegan family. You and I alone. Family.” My body was beginning to look almost transparent as the flames curled up from beneath my feet, passing through and around me and over my head.
Blueray bit on her lips hard enough to make the blood well up. “What...?”
“We are, Blue,” I whispered. “Bonded to each other.”
Blueray shook her head as if trying to awaken, raising the dagger in one hand. “Joah for once don't talk in riddles.”
I breathed deeply, walking toward the dagger and laying one hand on Blue’s cheek, stroking it. “Haven't you ever wondered, Blue, why we are friends? Why we watch each other's backs, even though we are light and dark? Why we dream the same dreams?”
“I don't know, Joah. I hardly know anything,” she sighed.
I reached up to brush Blue's hair back from her eyes. A radiant spiral swirled up from me, descending over Blue, and blazing through her, dark and purple. “We are, Blue.”
Blue shook her head slightly. “I only have my twin brother, and he is lost to me right now.”
“We are, Blue,” I continued. “Family.” I continued to pulse prana, washing it over Blue, not taking, but giving and opening myself to her.
“Picket isn't going to be happy...” Blue seemed to finally relax, the blade lowering. “Drinking buddies is how we started, dear.”
I smiled wistfully at Blue, watching her sheath her dagger after relenting, and in the end, not injuring me. Her tail flicked behind her. I took my hand from her cheek and lowered it to hold hers. As I began to breathe more evenly, the flames began to draw back into me. Like gently lapping waves, they cascaded from Blue, over her arms, drifting back to the center of my being.
“Perhaps I'd better head back to the Library,” I said quietly. Blue tilted her head, watching me closely. She shivered as if she could feel her spikes and wings wanting to come out through her skin. I kissed her lightly on the lips.
As Blue returned my kiss, she whispered, “I still don't know what you are….”
I smiled enigmatically at Blue. “You will.”
“One day?” she asked ruefully.
Nodding my assent, I wrapped my arms around her and held her for a moment before heading down the stone steps.
I could feel her watching me as I went.
Read Blue's perspective.
Showing posts with label Legion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Legion. Show all posts
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
A more equal exchange
I sat staring out the window from my chair, looking quietly at the rain when I heard GrrBrool’s padding steps. I glanced up at the banister, where he stood giving me a canine smile.
“Hello there, Spirit Gal…quiet night?”
“Quiet?” I replied. “No...not exactly. Abi's still missing.”
Grr nodded thoughtfully. “Locked in a punishment realm…some dream realm…or both.”
“What makes you say a punishment realm?” I asked.
“Cages, chains, no eyeballs…sounds pretty punishmenty ta me,” Grr sighed, walking down the stairs to the drawing room. “That and apparently she said it was punishment.”
My eyes widened with surprise. “You've…talked with her?”
Grr shook his head. “No. Blue of all people. Came in and wanted ta help. How’s that fer screwy?”
I couldn’t help smiling, thinking of Blue and our improbable friendship, formed over a shared bottle of vodka. She’d broken more bones and tortured more people than I cared to count…and her blood had poisoned Grr…yet some indefinable bond drew us together. Grr’s eyes sought mine.
“You like her, dontcha?” Grr smiled.
“I do,” I nodded. Thinking again of Abi, I focused my attention on the lycan. “Grr, Severus is going to take us to Abi. He won't take a price,” I murmured. “Lar would give it freely, but he won't take it. He chooses punishment instead. He won't…let us stand with him in that, either. But he will take us.”
Grr wheeled about at my words. “Really? Fuck.” He began scowling. “Fuck. I should just yank her myself…Fuck tha risk.”
“I'm not sure that you can, Grr,” I sighed. “There is…a Magician…” I looked up from my cushion to see Omega suddenly still before the hearth. Her red hair gleamed in the firelight. She stood regally in blood red corset dress, the bodice overlayed with beadwork, and ribbons cinching up her waist.
“Yer Ladyship.” Grr gave a slight bow. I nodded a greeting, relief washing over me at Omega’s arrival. Grr turned back, speaking to me. “I'd not count on that, Spirit Gal.” Grr walks to the Other place, between the planes and among them. I had no doubt he could go after Abi. Whether he would return whole was another matter.
“Grr,” I explained, “The deal with the Lightbringer has been made. The die cast. Severus will be punished whether he goes or not.”
“Well,” sighed Grr, “I guess it’s too late then.”
Omega looked at both of us, smiling evenly. “Hello GrrBrool, Joah…are we still speaking of Severus?”
“Well, tha Little One, actually,” Grr frowned.
Omega turned to face the fire. “One who won't feed, and one who won't stop….”
Grr nodded. “We should mate ‘em.”
“I am not sure who that would be more cruel to, Grrbrool,” Omega replied.
I looked at Omega. “Nor I. Rago would be heartsick. As would Abi. And when she returns…what then? This feeding…I suspect it’s been going on all along. I need to speak with her Father. He warned her of this. Repeatedly.”
Omega frowned. “And what do you think Lorne can do, now?”
“He can explain to me more of her nature, Lady. Perhaps help me to help her…find a more equal exchange for her magicks.”
“I dunno.” Grr padded over and placed one paw on my shoulder. “Can we trust…Lorne?”
Omega nodded her head. “Perhaps in matters of Abi's welfare. Perhaps. Then again, feeding Nareth to the Shadows was hardly in Abi's best interests, was it?”
I looked at the floor. “I…trust him,” I said quietly.
“Well, Joah,” Omega replied, “Lorne has always been completely trustworthy...to act in his own interest.”
Grr smiled grimly. “That we can trust.”
“But Legion…” I trailed of.
“It is another matter entirely,” Grr growled. “I don’t trust It. And I don’t understand it.”
I said nothing for a moment and continued to stare at the floor. “She helped me…with Nareth’s blade, Grr. And She helped me…leave the fear behind.” I sighed. “I don't understand Her either, Grr. But….” I was lost for words.
“Joah,” Omega began, “Legion gave me the Eden Soil. It enabled me to save Nareth, to make her my Childe. Without it, Nareth would have died…but like all of Legion's gifts...it has come at a price. Legion does not give from kindness. And all her gifts have a price.”
“I didn’t say It wasn't powerful, Spirit Gal,” Grr said gently.
“But if She…or Lorne…are able to help, Abi….” I stammered.
Grr sighed and pinched his muzzle. “Why can’t we ever have nice things?”
His comment confused me. “Nice…things?” I asked.
“Errr, old sayin, Spirit Gal,” Grr replied. “We should do this on our own.”
“Hello there, Spirit Gal…quiet night?”
“Quiet?” I replied. “No...not exactly. Abi's still missing.”
Grr nodded thoughtfully. “Locked in a punishment realm…some dream realm…or both.”
“What makes you say a punishment realm?” I asked.
“Cages, chains, no eyeballs…sounds pretty punishmenty ta me,” Grr sighed, walking down the stairs to the drawing room. “That and apparently she said it was punishment.”
My eyes widened with surprise. “You've…talked with her?”
Grr shook his head. “No. Blue of all people. Came in and wanted ta help. How’s that fer screwy?”
I couldn’t help smiling, thinking of Blue and our improbable friendship, formed over a shared bottle of vodka. She’d broken more bones and tortured more people than I cared to count…and her blood had poisoned Grr…yet some indefinable bond drew us together. Grr’s eyes sought mine.
“You like her, dontcha?” Grr smiled.
“I do,” I nodded. Thinking again of Abi, I focused my attention on the lycan. “Grr, Severus is going to take us to Abi. He won't take a price,” I murmured. “Lar would give it freely, but he won't take it. He chooses punishment instead. He won't…let us stand with him in that, either. But he will take us.”
Grr wheeled about at my words. “Really? Fuck.” He began scowling. “Fuck. I should just yank her myself…Fuck tha risk.”
“I'm not sure that you can, Grr,” I sighed. “There is…a Magician…” I looked up from my cushion to see Omega suddenly still before the hearth. Her red hair gleamed in the firelight. She stood regally in blood red corset dress, the bodice overlayed with beadwork, and ribbons cinching up her waist.
“Yer Ladyship.” Grr gave a slight bow. I nodded a greeting, relief washing over me at Omega’s arrival. Grr turned back, speaking to me. “I'd not count on that, Spirit Gal.” Grr walks to the Other place, between the planes and among them. I had no doubt he could go after Abi. Whether he would return whole was another matter.
“Grr,” I explained, “The deal with the Lightbringer has been made. The die cast. Severus will be punished whether he goes or not.”
“Well,” sighed Grr, “I guess it’s too late then.”
Omega looked at both of us, smiling evenly. “Hello GrrBrool, Joah…are we still speaking of Severus?”
“Well, tha Little One, actually,” Grr frowned.
Omega turned to face the fire. “One who won't feed, and one who won't stop….”
Grr nodded. “We should mate ‘em.”
“I am not sure who that would be more cruel to, Grrbrool,” Omega replied.
I looked at Omega. “Nor I. Rago would be heartsick. As would Abi. And when she returns…what then? This feeding…I suspect it’s been going on all along. I need to speak with her Father. He warned her of this. Repeatedly.”
Omega frowned. “And what do you think Lorne can do, now?”
“He can explain to me more of her nature, Lady. Perhaps help me to help her…find a more equal exchange for her magicks.”
“I dunno.” Grr padded over and placed one paw on my shoulder. “Can we trust…Lorne?”
Omega nodded her head. “Perhaps in matters of Abi's welfare. Perhaps. Then again, feeding Nareth to the Shadows was hardly in Abi's best interests, was it?”
I looked at the floor. “I…trust him,” I said quietly.
“Well, Joah,” Omega replied, “Lorne has always been completely trustworthy...to act in his own interest.”
Grr smiled grimly. “That we can trust.”
“But Legion…” I trailed of.
“It is another matter entirely,” Grr growled. “I don’t trust It. And I don’t understand it.”
I said nothing for a moment and continued to stare at the floor. “She helped me…with Nareth’s blade, Grr. And She helped me…leave the fear behind.” I sighed. “I don't understand Her either, Grr. But….” I was lost for words.
“Joah,” Omega began, “Legion gave me the Eden Soil. It enabled me to save Nareth, to make her my Childe. Without it, Nareth would have died…but like all of Legion's gifts...it has come at a price. Legion does not give from kindness. And all her gifts have a price.”
“I didn’t say It wasn't powerful, Spirit Gal,” Grr said gently.
“But if She…or Lorne…are able to help, Abi….” I stammered.
Grr sighed and pinched his muzzle. “Why can’t we ever have nice things?”
His comment confused me. “Nice…things?” I asked.
“Errr, old sayin, Spirit Gal,” Grr replied. “We should do this on our own.”
Sunday, August 31, 2008
The end of the little death
The girl stands on the corner, beneath the dim glow of the streetlamp, studying the Pit in silence. Legion’s words whisper to her on the breeze, a dry rustle of many voices, drawing her up the stairs of the darkened fortress, each footstep cautious, hesitating. Across the grate, fires burning below, the girl sees the pale figure of a woman holding the hand of a feline: the woman regal and erect, with endless deep eyevoids, standing in a swirl of blue light; the feline, sinuous and amused. Legion smiles to the girl, raising Her hand to beckon her closer.
Biting her lip, the girl glides forward as Legion steps around the altar, allowing the feline’s hand to slip through Her fingers, and holding Her hands out as She approaches the girl. Wrapping Her arms round the girl, She pulls her head to Her shoulder. The girl shivers, and then rests, asking quietly, “Why did you call me?”
In wordless response, Legion rubs the girl’s back, drawing Her hand down to her wrist. There is a metallic clap as the first cuff is fastened. The girl’s mouth opens in surprise; she tries to pull her hand away. She looks pleadingly to the feline who merely turns and walks away.
Legion leans back enough to see the girl’s face, sliding Her hands down the girl’s arms, allowing her to draw away until Her hands get to the her wrists. Another metallic clap as the second cuff closes. There is a glint distant in Legion’s left eye void, as a vaguely matriarchal smile of pride adorns Her unmoving lips, whispers crawling round the girl’s shoulder.
"How many times have you all but died?"
The girl frowns in confusion.
“I...when I came here...I...was almost...the rats in the street...then Lestat...and something before...I don't know....” she trails off.
Legion tilts Her head slightly to one side, looking questioningly at the girl, “What was it Lestat did?"
“He...I tried to stop him,” the girl stammers, “from forcing me...into his mind...he...impaled me...twice. I...I'm not recovering quickly any more.” The girl unbuttons her jacket and lifts her corset up slightly revealing two pink scars.
Legion reaches forward slowly, touching each mark with soft-gloved fingertips. Her expression remains rather the same as She appraises the scars. Looking again into the girl’s eyes, Legion reaches both Her hands apparently up to the girl’s cheeks, then jerks them down roughly, hooking in the her bust line, and tearing her blouse open.
The girl gasps and stands stock-still.
Legion looks down the girl’s body to her middle, reaching a hand out, index finger extended, drawing it's tip across her collar bone as She begins walking round her, drawing the fingertip across her shoulder, and the top of her shoulder blade. Looking up to the back of the girl’s head, She draws the fingertip down the center of the girl’s back, pulling remaining clothing off her back and arms. Her hands again move suddenly swift, tearing away the skirt from behind, and the panties, drawing Her hands, palms against the girl, up her back, while Her whispers crawl upward. "You are bound. You are a prisoner, fearing to lose your shackles....” Looking down the girl’s body, Legion lowers, drawing Her fingertips down from the girl’s shoulder blades until they reach her ankles. There are two more metallic claps.
A surge of panic wells up like a fist in the girl’s chest, pressing into her, preventing her from breathing. "Why are you doing this, Legion?" she whispers, her throat aching. She struggles against the cuffs, her fear rising.
Legion rises back up behind the girl, laying Her hands upon her shoulders, leaning forward, breathing a plume of cold fog over her right shoulder, and trailing whispers within. "Your free dominates you. You lay yourself open to manipulation by most unworthy individuals...those that know how to hurt you physically…."
She begins pushing the girl forward towards the altar, and bending her over it, Legion bending over her, unmoving lips just behind the girl’s ear, many ragged breaths rolling around them, cut by cold hisses of words. "You are bound by your flesssh..." Pivoting on Her cheek, Legion looks down the girl’s back, drawing Her hand along her spine. "You are bound by pain." Looking up again quickly, She continues, "We can't have this."
A small puff of air escapes the girl’s lips as the edge of the alter comes in contact with her stomach. The pink scars are tender against its surface. “He...I...did...not...lay myself open. He overpowered me, " she stammers at a loss for words. The girl knows the pulse of her prana is strong, made stronger by Legion and yet she failed. Had Nicholette not grabbed her, ordered her to focus on love, she would have died. "I despise being weak. I...will...not...be...weak. "
As Legion's hand reaches the small of the girl’s back there is a sound like metal sliding against metal. Legion pushes Herself slowly further up her back, and slightly to her side, cheek upon the altar to see the girl’s face. Whatever the metallic noise portends, a cold hard point of sharp touches in between two vertebrae top most of the girl's tail bone. Something like sympathy crosses Legion’s features as the sharpness drifts back and forth between not quite enough pressure to pierce skin, and a light brushing. To accompany Her expression, a wash of whispers, and murmurs splashes into the girl’s senses, Legion's eyevoids widening beside her face. "But you are weak...aren't you, Joah? Hate and love are not mutually exclusive; you can feel both. Tell Usss: Do you love being weak...as well as hate?"
The girl winces at the pricking and brushing at the small of her back. The cold, the suddenness of it, worry of pain with icy stroke. "I do not want to be weak," she whispers, barely above a breath. "I do not... want...to love. It clouds the judgment. I should have overpowered him. I should have crushed him." The girl continues speaking in a very uncharacteristic way. "Weak is for fools…others hurt you when you're weak.” The girl shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. “No, I don't love it Legion. I don't want it at all." She finishes trying to sound hard, tough of heart.
Legion inclines Her head slightly in the girl’s periphery, the glint reaching both eyevoids, and growing deep red. The whispers dip abruptly lower in pitch, and resound gravelly, lower than natural human range, very much many growls of words. "Then tell Us...if you fear paralysis below the waist." The cold point pricks a sharp stab of pain as it penetrates the skin, stopping a small ways within...then proceeding slowly further in, slicing steadily between particular vertebrae.
The girl’s eyes well up in tears of pain and fear. Her sureness about her body's ability to heal itself has long sense evaporated. All she can think of is being paralyzed, face down…unable to move, as she was when she awoke in the City.
"Please....please don't,” the girl chokes out, nausea roiling over her. "I have to be able to move…I have to be able to run…please...." The girl’s breath comes in small ragged gasps, the fear leaving a sour taste in her mouth. Her eyes plead, searching Legion's eyevoids, finding nothing there in the deep red.
Legion leaves the cold sharp something slightly penetrating the girl’s vertebral synovial tissue. Her expression is, for a moment blank, until a sound the same character as the previous growl of words rises angry in the girl’s senses, something somehow more violent and angry in the burning red. Before growl becomes words, Legion has wrapped Her fingers around the girl’s neck in front, revealing the cold sharp as one of the black glossy claws now curling from the tips of Her fingers. Barely penetrating the girl’s flesh at the sides of her neck, Legion lifts her up, and sets her roughly on the altar. Swiftly Legion moves from then, pulling chains to each cuff, securing the girl in place as the words, and angry voices crash roughly along her edges. "Don't!? Please!? Spare me!? I may do anything to you that I wish! What are you to do!?"
Without warning, the girl lashes into Legion, washing a wave a pure blackness over her, her hatred rising. A flicker of flame licks the pupils of girl’s eyes as she spits at Legion and pulls against her shackles. "Let...me...go," she hisses. "Let...me...go!"
Legion does not flinch as the spittle spatters across Her face, and neck. Her expression remains blank. Slowly, the corners of Her lips curl wry, and She raises a hand to the top edge of the girl’s nearest pelvic ridge, the points of the claws not penetrating, but leaving an uncomfortable sensation of cold points within the concave of her waist. Watching the girl’s face, the words continue: "Demand? Defiance? Are you trying to order Us to let you free? Or are you trying to entice Us to make you hurt more?”
The claw extending from Legion’s index finger penetrates the girl’s skin near the center of the concave it rested in. “Are you not trapped?” The claw curls past epidermis, dermis, pricking, then penetrating synovum, and the joint of the girl’s leg ball joint, pressing into the bone. "By what authority do you demand anything?"
The girl bites down hard enough on her lip to draw blood, the pain coursing through her side as claw tears through hitting bone. Her face remains defiant although tears spill down her cheeks. A flash of faces flickers through her mind at the words, "By what authority...." Harsh voices, cruel words, over and separate from Legion's guttural whisperings.
“You promised,” she gasps, “Creation's flower...you said." The girl stammers in stunned disbelief, not comprehending the thing Legion has become. Always was. Always was, her mind taunts.
Legion lowers Her face closer to the girl's, drawing the claw only very slightly in one direction or another, scraping but small distances, deep against the bone. She raises Her other hand to grasp the girl’s head by the jaw, tilting it to look into her face.
“You think We do not keep Our promise? You think We break it? We can not!" She slaps Joah hard across the side of her face, grasping her by the jaw again, squeezing at her jowls steadily harder, such to open her mouth, as the lower hand draws the claw out from her, bring it to her lower lip, watching her face with an expression touched subtly with something...not angry, dragging Joah's blood across the unwounded inner edge of her lip. The whispers hiss off the backs of unseen throats. "You are better than your fear. You shall not righteously be kept beneath it's thumb...You shall be PURGED!" Legion clenches Her teeth, squeezing the girl’s jaw harder, and drawing the claws around her neck, to a vertebra near the base of the neck, watching her eyes.
“You need be able to move?...To run?”
The girl’s mind races wildly, the taste of her own blood on her lip, the sensation of Legion's claw causing her to gag. She would vomit if she could, but she can't. Comprehension dawns on her slowly...her poisoned blood has no affect on Legion...her push has no affect. If the claw goes in...she won't just be able to not run...she knows she won't be able to breath. Voices whir in her head, Legion's mixed with something else, someone else, she cannot think. She takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“Do it, then.
“I can't stop you.
“You won't stop.
“Just do it and be done with it.”
Legion nods to the girl, pressing Her claw in through the skin, beyond, and in past the spinal connective tissue. The entire time, Legion lowers lower and lower, eyevoids fixed upon the girl’s eyes, and growing wider and wider in her field of vision. Legion's hand reaches to the top of her head, and points her eyes to down the front of her body as the spinal cord is severed.
The girl feels a stabbing ragged pain, then...nothing. She knows her head is being lifted, she can see the rise of her breasts, the skin of her belly, but she cannot say or do anything. She lies completely helpless at the end of herself. The sound of a pitcher cracking and water pouring out fills her ears, water cascading over her eyes. Her eyes widen and no longer blink. Though unseeing, she is not unaware. She hears the rustle of Legion's skirt, billowing in her mind as she rises and falls with the swish of the fabric and the swirl of the water pour, cascading over her eyes.
The billowing spreads out around the girl’s mind, black, and all encompassing. A growing sense of detachment and solitude floods over the girl as the darkness settles. Then a sense of scintillation¬–glinting in the black, giving off reflection where there is no light. The glints grow, each a shard–each a face–each watching the girl, and waiting. She stares blankly back, eyes glazed and unfocused, unmoving. No breath escapes her body, no sense of breathing, only ...floating.
The black and cold rolls around the girl, rolls in, rolls through–faces indistinct, and blurry watching her as they slide past her perception, floating. The multitude is expansive. So expansive, each and every face looking back at the girl, not Legion's face, but Lorne's...Sariel's, smiling back at her perception, conscious despite death.
A strange peace spills over Joah as Lorne's face smiles at her, Sariel's face . . . something in her consciousness knows the name though her mind no longer thinks. The sensation of floating lingers...her vacant eyes, unseeing, yet each face looking at her, thousands of face...each speaking to her. There is not one face silent, each speaking in unison¬ with the other¬–somehow the girl might simply know, if she were to wonder. The multitudinous unison adds up to a tone much more serene, and caring despite repeating the same words: "By what authority? What shall you do? What do you fear?"
As the girl floats the voice of a small child seems to drift from her. She hears singing, feels the desert sun beating down on her face, watches her own small brown hands playing in the dirt, mixing water and dirt and clay…the child's voice lilts…I am clay.... The child's voice blends into the voice of a young woman's yelling above a crowd, fighting . . . screaming in anger . . . in fear . . . and tearing . . . tearing . . . the young woman's voice is serene…I fear…being torn....
“You will be torn,” every voice intones. “What shall you do?”
The girl holds up dead arms, palms open toward heaven in supplication though her flesh does not move. She lifts her face upward, open and vulnerable as a small child expecting to be lifted up in her father's arms. Wordless trust, waiting….
Sariel's face shakes its head in every mirror, fading, no light shining down from on high–no saving grace, or godly hand uplifting. "You will save yourself...or you will not be saved. You must not wait, you must do...what will you do, Joah?" The glinting fades into cold black, and silence.
The girls hands drop to her side, her head lowers as a look of quiet anguish and indecision crosses her face. Then a subtle change, a seed of…determination. “I will stand," the girl’s voice drifts toward Sariel. A germ of sureness begins to grow. “I will stand.” Certainty, calmness, focus.... "Stand," she whispers.
Legion does not respond or lift a finger to assist. She watches, and hopes as a ripple, shimmering cascades over the girl. The girl seems to step outside herself, leaving behind a vaporous remnant of her former being. As she steps away, a glow begins to emanate from her body...as though her truer deeper self lies just under the illusion of her skin. She steps toward the faces, eyes roving from one glinting mirror to the next, studying, appraising. She takes another step, unaware that her flesh does not move.
Every face follows her movement, smiling as if simply unable not to. Every eyevoid follows her progress, nodding here, and there encouragingly. They seem to nod more and more in unison as she progresses.
The girl walks slowly, taking one tentative step after another, until her steps are quiet and sure. With each step, the vaporous doppelganger begins to fade…fear visibly dropping way from her as the form turns from Joah, to a wavering image, to a mist and then gone.
Legion draws the backs of Her fingers across one cheek, then the other, smiling affectionately down upon the girl’s body, watching, certain. The girl feels no sensation on her cheek and yet she feels Legion, sees Legion smiling with affection, her face brightening as if seeing for the first time after having been at the bottom of a well.
Legion lowers a little once more towards the girl’s ear, cupping a cheek, and breathing a whisper so nearly spoken as if from a final breath. "Stand up. Be free."
The feeling of rushing into something, rushing into herself, the girl stands on the alter and looks down at Legion not quite comprehending what was happened. A sense of peace and strength and freedom remain. The girl realizes the fear that was her companion is…no longer there…she feels an absence of what was, but does not yearn. She stays present in what is.
“Legion?” The girl gazes down at herself with wonder.
Legion smiles up at her, reaching for her hand, holding it with both of Her own. "Joah."
The girl allows her hand to be held, relishing the touch, feelings of thankfulness overwhelming her, full of words she cannot quite express.
“May I . . . may I get down?”
Legion cranes Her neck to see the girl’s back, and the top of her spine, then looking up to her face, nodding, and leading her by her hand to the ground. Reaching down to the stone pavement, Legion grasps one piece of clothing, then another, handing each to Joah fully intact.
The girl’s fingers trace the concave of her pelvis; though her skin feels smooth to the touch, the sense of a scar remains. Her hand drifts up to the back of her neck, and the sensation is the same: smooth skin, yet the feeling of a scar. Reminders, she thinks. She begins to smile as Legion hands her her clothing, piece by whole piece. She slips on her undergarments, her skirt and her jacket, and then stands facing Legion.
“Thank you,” she smiles with real, free warmth.
Legion nods to the girl, beaming, a sensation of pride thick in the light of Her expression. She steps forward, and throws Her arms about the girl, a whisper, sounding singular, sounding as though coming from Her own throat, "Free..."
Joah nods and whispers, "Free," her hand drifting up to touch Legion's cheek in wonder.
Biting her lip, the girl glides forward as Legion steps around the altar, allowing the feline’s hand to slip through Her fingers, and holding Her hands out as She approaches the girl. Wrapping Her arms round the girl, She pulls her head to Her shoulder. The girl shivers, and then rests, asking quietly, “Why did you call me?”
In wordless response, Legion rubs the girl’s back, drawing Her hand down to her wrist. There is a metallic clap as the first cuff is fastened. The girl’s mouth opens in surprise; she tries to pull her hand away. She looks pleadingly to the feline who merely turns and walks away.
Legion leans back enough to see the girl’s face, sliding Her hands down the girl’s arms, allowing her to draw away until Her hands get to the her wrists. Another metallic clap as the second cuff closes. There is a glint distant in Legion’s left eye void, as a vaguely matriarchal smile of pride adorns Her unmoving lips, whispers crawling round the girl’s shoulder.
"How many times have you all but died?"
The girl frowns in confusion.
“I...when I came here...I...was almost...the rats in the street...then Lestat...and something before...I don't know....” she trails off.
Legion tilts Her head slightly to one side, looking questioningly at the girl, “What was it Lestat did?"
“He...I tried to stop him,” the girl stammers, “from forcing me...into his mind...he...impaled me...twice. I...I'm not recovering quickly any more.” The girl unbuttons her jacket and lifts her corset up slightly revealing two pink scars.
Legion reaches forward slowly, touching each mark with soft-gloved fingertips. Her expression remains rather the same as She appraises the scars. Looking again into the girl’s eyes, Legion reaches both Her hands apparently up to the girl’s cheeks, then jerks them down roughly, hooking in the her bust line, and tearing her blouse open.
The girl gasps and stands stock-still.
Legion looks down the girl’s body to her middle, reaching a hand out, index finger extended, drawing it's tip across her collar bone as She begins walking round her, drawing the fingertip across her shoulder, and the top of her shoulder blade. Looking up to the back of the girl’s head, She draws the fingertip down the center of the girl’s back, pulling remaining clothing off her back and arms. Her hands again move suddenly swift, tearing away the skirt from behind, and the panties, drawing Her hands, palms against the girl, up her back, while Her whispers crawl upward. "You are bound. You are a prisoner, fearing to lose your shackles....” Looking down the girl’s body, Legion lowers, drawing Her fingertips down from the girl’s shoulder blades until they reach her ankles. There are two more metallic claps.
A surge of panic wells up like a fist in the girl’s chest, pressing into her, preventing her from breathing. "Why are you doing this, Legion?" she whispers, her throat aching. She struggles against the cuffs, her fear rising.
Legion rises back up behind the girl, laying Her hands upon her shoulders, leaning forward, breathing a plume of cold fog over her right shoulder, and trailing whispers within. "Your free dominates you. You lay yourself open to manipulation by most unworthy individuals...those that know how to hurt you physically…."
She begins pushing the girl forward towards the altar, and bending her over it, Legion bending over her, unmoving lips just behind the girl’s ear, many ragged breaths rolling around them, cut by cold hisses of words. "You are bound by your flesssh..." Pivoting on Her cheek, Legion looks down the girl’s back, drawing Her hand along her spine. "You are bound by pain." Looking up again quickly, She continues, "We can't have this."
A small puff of air escapes the girl’s lips as the edge of the alter comes in contact with her stomach. The pink scars are tender against its surface. “He...I...did...not...lay myself open. He overpowered me, " she stammers at a loss for words. The girl knows the pulse of her prana is strong, made stronger by Legion and yet she failed. Had Nicholette not grabbed her, ordered her to focus on love, she would have died. "I despise being weak. I...will...not...be...weak. "
As Legion's hand reaches the small of the girl’s back there is a sound like metal sliding against metal. Legion pushes Herself slowly further up her back, and slightly to her side, cheek upon the altar to see the girl’s face. Whatever the metallic noise portends, a cold hard point of sharp touches in between two vertebrae top most of the girl's tail bone. Something like sympathy crosses Legion’s features as the sharpness drifts back and forth between not quite enough pressure to pierce skin, and a light brushing. To accompany Her expression, a wash of whispers, and murmurs splashes into the girl’s senses, Legion's eyevoids widening beside her face. "But you are weak...aren't you, Joah? Hate and love are not mutually exclusive; you can feel both. Tell Usss: Do you love being weak...as well as hate?"
The girl winces at the pricking and brushing at the small of her back. The cold, the suddenness of it, worry of pain with icy stroke. "I do not want to be weak," she whispers, barely above a breath. "I do not... want...to love. It clouds the judgment. I should have overpowered him. I should have crushed him." The girl continues speaking in a very uncharacteristic way. "Weak is for fools…others hurt you when you're weak.” The girl shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. “No, I don't love it Legion. I don't want it at all." She finishes trying to sound hard, tough of heart.
Legion inclines Her head slightly in the girl’s periphery, the glint reaching both eyevoids, and growing deep red. The whispers dip abruptly lower in pitch, and resound gravelly, lower than natural human range, very much many growls of words. "Then tell Us...if you fear paralysis below the waist." The cold point pricks a sharp stab of pain as it penetrates the skin, stopping a small ways within...then proceeding slowly further in, slicing steadily between particular vertebrae.
The girl’s eyes well up in tears of pain and fear. Her sureness about her body's ability to heal itself has long sense evaporated. All she can think of is being paralyzed, face down…unable to move, as she was when she awoke in the City.
"Please....please don't,” the girl chokes out, nausea roiling over her. "I have to be able to move…I have to be able to run…please...." The girl’s breath comes in small ragged gasps, the fear leaving a sour taste in her mouth. Her eyes plead, searching Legion's eyevoids, finding nothing there in the deep red.
Legion leaves the cold sharp something slightly penetrating the girl’s vertebral synovial tissue. Her expression is, for a moment blank, until a sound the same character as the previous growl of words rises angry in the girl’s senses, something somehow more violent and angry in the burning red. Before growl becomes words, Legion has wrapped Her fingers around the girl’s neck in front, revealing the cold sharp as one of the black glossy claws now curling from the tips of Her fingers. Barely penetrating the girl’s flesh at the sides of her neck, Legion lifts her up, and sets her roughly on the altar. Swiftly Legion moves from then, pulling chains to each cuff, securing the girl in place as the words, and angry voices crash roughly along her edges. "Don't!? Please!? Spare me!? I may do anything to you that I wish! What are you to do!?"
Without warning, the girl lashes into Legion, washing a wave a pure blackness over her, her hatred rising. A flicker of flame licks the pupils of girl’s eyes as she spits at Legion and pulls against her shackles. "Let...me...go," she hisses. "Let...me...go!"
Legion does not flinch as the spittle spatters across Her face, and neck. Her expression remains blank. Slowly, the corners of Her lips curl wry, and She raises a hand to the top edge of the girl’s nearest pelvic ridge, the points of the claws not penetrating, but leaving an uncomfortable sensation of cold points within the concave of her waist. Watching the girl’s face, the words continue: "Demand? Defiance? Are you trying to order Us to let you free? Or are you trying to entice Us to make you hurt more?”
The claw extending from Legion’s index finger penetrates the girl’s skin near the center of the concave it rested in. “Are you not trapped?” The claw curls past epidermis, dermis, pricking, then penetrating synovum, and the joint of the girl’s leg ball joint, pressing into the bone. "By what authority do you demand anything?"
The girl bites down hard enough on her lip to draw blood, the pain coursing through her side as claw tears through hitting bone. Her face remains defiant although tears spill down her cheeks. A flash of faces flickers through her mind at the words, "By what authority...." Harsh voices, cruel words, over and separate from Legion's guttural whisperings.
“You promised,” she gasps, “Creation's flower...you said." The girl stammers in stunned disbelief, not comprehending the thing Legion has become. Always was. Always was, her mind taunts.
Legion lowers Her face closer to the girl's, drawing the claw only very slightly in one direction or another, scraping but small distances, deep against the bone. She raises Her other hand to grasp the girl’s head by the jaw, tilting it to look into her face.
“You think We do not keep Our promise? You think We break it? We can not!" She slaps Joah hard across the side of her face, grasping her by the jaw again, squeezing at her jowls steadily harder, such to open her mouth, as the lower hand draws the claw out from her, bring it to her lower lip, watching her face with an expression touched subtly with something...not angry, dragging Joah's blood across the unwounded inner edge of her lip. The whispers hiss off the backs of unseen throats. "You are better than your fear. You shall not righteously be kept beneath it's thumb...You shall be PURGED!" Legion clenches Her teeth, squeezing the girl’s jaw harder, and drawing the claws around her neck, to a vertebra near the base of the neck, watching her eyes.
“You need be able to move?...To run?”
The girl’s mind races wildly, the taste of her own blood on her lip, the sensation of Legion's claw causing her to gag. She would vomit if she could, but she can't. Comprehension dawns on her slowly...her poisoned blood has no affect on Legion...her push has no affect. If the claw goes in...she won't just be able to not run...she knows she won't be able to breath. Voices whir in her head, Legion's mixed with something else, someone else, she cannot think. She takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“Do it, then.
“I can't stop you.
“You won't stop.
“Just do it and be done with it.”
Legion nods to the girl, pressing Her claw in through the skin, beyond, and in past the spinal connective tissue. The entire time, Legion lowers lower and lower, eyevoids fixed upon the girl’s eyes, and growing wider and wider in her field of vision. Legion's hand reaches to the top of her head, and points her eyes to down the front of her body as the spinal cord is severed.
The girl feels a stabbing ragged pain, then...nothing. She knows her head is being lifted, she can see the rise of her breasts, the skin of her belly, but she cannot say or do anything. She lies completely helpless at the end of herself. The sound of a pitcher cracking and water pouring out fills her ears, water cascading over her eyes. Her eyes widen and no longer blink. Though unseeing, she is not unaware. She hears the rustle of Legion's skirt, billowing in her mind as she rises and falls with the swish of the fabric and the swirl of the water pour, cascading over her eyes.
The billowing spreads out around the girl’s mind, black, and all encompassing. A growing sense of detachment and solitude floods over the girl as the darkness settles. Then a sense of scintillation¬–glinting in the black, giving off reflection where there is no light. The glints grow, each a shard–each a face–each watching the girl, and waiting. She stares blankly back, eyes glazed and unfocused, unmoving. No breath escapes her body, no sense of breathing, only ...floating.
The black and cold rolls around the girl, rolls in, rolls through–faces indistinct, and blurry watching her as they slide past her perception, floating. The multitude is expansive. So expansive, each and every face looking back at the girl, not Legion's face, but Lorne's...Sariel's, smiling back at her perception, conscious despite death.
A strange peace spills over Joah as Lorne's face smiles at her, Sariel's face . . . something in her consciousness knows the name though her mind no longer thinks. The sensation of floating lingers...her vacant eyes, unseeing, yet each face looking at her, thousands of face...each speaking to her. There is not one face silent, each speaking in unison¬ with the other¬–somehow the girl might simply know, if she were to wonder. The multitudinous unison adds up to a tone much more serene, and caring despite repeating the same words: "By what authority? What shall you do? What do you fear?"
As the girl floats the voice of a small child seems to drift from her. She hears singing, feels the desert sun beating down on her face, watches her own small brown hands playing in the dirt, mixing water and dirt and clay…the child's voice lilts…I am clay.... The child's voice blends into the voice of a young woman's yelling above a crowd, fighting . . . screaming in anger . . . in fear . . . and tearing . . . tearing . . . the young woman's voice is serene…I fear…being torn....
“You will be torn,” every voice intones. “What shall you do?”
The girl holds up dead arms, palms open toward heaven in supplication though her flesh does not move. She lifts her face upward, open and vulnerable as a small child expecting to be lifted up in her father's arms. Wordless trust, waiting….
Sariel's face shakes its head in every mirror, fading, no light shining down from on high–no saving grace, or godly hand uplifting. "You will save yourself...or you will not be saved. You must not wait, you must do...what will you do, Joah?" The glinting fades into cold black, and silence.
The girls hands drop to her side, her head lowers as a look of quiet anguish and indecision crosses her face. Then a subtle change, a seed of…determination. “I will stand," the girl’s voice drifts toward Sariel. A germ of sureness begins to grow. “I will stand.” Certainty, calmness, focus.... "Stand," she whispers.
Legion does not respond or lift a finger to assist. She watches, and hopes as a ripple, shimmering cascades over the girl. The girl seems to step outside herself, leaving behind a vaporous remnant of her former being. As she steps away, a glow begins to emanate from her body...as though her truer deeper self lies just under the illusion of her skin. She steps toward the faces, eyes roving from one glinting mirror to the next, studying, appraising. She takes another step, unaware that her flesh does not move.
Every face follows her movement, smiling as if simply unable not to. Every eyevoid follows her progress, nodding here, and there encouragingly. They seem to nod more and more in unison as she progresses.
The girl walks slowly, taking one tentative step after another, until her steps are quiet and sure. With each step, the vaporous doppelganger begins to fade…fear visibly dropping way from her as the form turns from Joah, to a wavering image, to a mist and then gone.
Legion draws the backs of Her fingers across one cheek, then the other, smiling affectionately down upon the girl’s body, watching, certain. The girl feels no sensation on her cheek and yet she feels Legion, sees Legion smiling with affection, her face brightening as if seeing for the first time after having been at the bottom of a well.
Legion lowers a little once more towards the girl’s ear, cupping a cheek, and breathing a whisper so nearly spoken as if from a final breath. "Stand up. Be free."
The feeling of rushing into something, rushing into herself, the girl stands on the alter and looks down at Legion not quite comprehending what was happened. A sense of peace and strength and freedom remain. The girl realizes the fear that was her companion is…no longer there…she feels an absence of what was, but does not yearn. She stays present in what is.
“Legion?” The girl gazes down at herself with wonder.
Legion smiles up at her, reaching for her hand, holding it with both of Her own. "Joah."
The girl allows her hand to be held, relishing the touch, feelings of thankfulness overwhelming her, full of words she cannot quite express.
“May I . . . may I get down?”
Legion cranes Her neck to see the girl’s back, and the top of her spine, then looking up to her face, nodding, and leading her by her hand to the ground. Reaching down to the stone pavement, Legion grasps one piece of clothing, then another, handing each to Joah fully intact.
The girl’s fingers trace the concave of her pelvis; though her skin feels smooth to the touch, the sense of a scar remains. Her hand drifts up to the back of her neck, and the sensation is the same: smooth skin, yet the feeling of a scar. Reminders, she thinks. She begins to smile as Legion hands her her clothing, piece by whole piece. She slips on her undergarments, her skirt and her jacket, and then stands facing Legion.
“Thank you,” she smiles with real, free warmth.
Legion nods to the girl, beaming, a sensation of pride thick in the light of Her expression. She steps forward, and throws Her arms about the girl, a whisper, sounding singular, sounding as though coming from Her own throat, "Free..."
Joah nods and whispers, "Free," her hand drifting up to touch Legion's cheek in wonder.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Iron from the rock
The cliffs leading up to the seawall loom cold and dark above the Toxian Sea. Joah stands considering the rock face, her boots sinking into the wet sand. Extending one hand, she traces the stone with her fingertips before laying a palm on the rock, probing. A fiery light begins to spread from her hand causing the surface to glow, a white-hot ember. Legion’s words echo in her mind, “The song of creation, when sung in its complete harmony….” She begins singing softly as she works, a canticle high and sweet and other.
She steps away from the rock, lifting her hand slightly, but keeping her palm facing the cliff. A spongy mass of dark metal begins to bloom from the cliff’s surface as liquid slag drips down its face pooling in the sand. Joah watches the bloom grow, checking the formed mass against the design in her mind, the diagrams over which she had labored in the Library. As the impurities drip to the ground, the bloom swells: malleable and pure, but strong.
Joah extends both arms as if in prayer, glowing palms open under the bloom. Legion’s many voices whisper over the wind and the bloom bubbles out slightly. A portion separates, flattens and smooths. Joah spreads her fingers, tilting and turning her wrists, and flipping the floating slab over in the air. Etch marks appear at its edges as it curves and begins to take shape. A perfectly formed thigh-shaped plate falls to the ground and settles softly in the sand.
The process is repeated until the bloom is gone: a calf, a foot, the top of a hand, fingers, a jaw…over and over until the sand is littered with plates, pieces of an apparent marionette awaiting assembly. Joah’s hands drift to her side. She feels a stirring in the breeze and turns toward the gate in the seawall, Pontifex’s dark figure approaching silently. Meeting his eyes she says simply, “It is done.” He nods and bends low to lift one plate from the sand, then another. “To the Library,” he directs and Joah kneels to assist him.
She steps away from the rock, lifting her hand slightly, but keeping her palm facing the cliff. A spongy mass of dark metal begins to bloom from the cliff’s surface as liquid slag drips down its face pooling in the sand. Joah watches the bloom grow, checking the formed mass against the design in her mind, the diagrams over which she had labored in the Library. As the impurities drip to the ground, the bloom swells: malleable and pure, but strong.
Joah extends both arms as if in prayer, glowing palms open under the bloom. Legion’s many voices whisper over the wind and the bloom bubbles out slightly. A portion separates, flattens and smooths. Joah spreads her fingers, tilting and turning her wrists, and flipping the floating slab over in the air. Etch marks appear at its edges as it curves and begins to take shape. A perfectly formed thigh-shaped plate falls to the ground and settles softly in the sand.
The process is repeated until the bloom is gone: a calf, a foot, the top of a hand, fingers, a jaw…over and over until the sand is littered with plates, pieces of an apparent marionette awaiting assembly. Joah’s hands drift to her side. She feels a stirring in the breeze and turns toward the gate in the seawall, Pontifex’s dark figure approaching silently. Meeting his eyes she says simply, “It is done.” He nods and bends low to lift one plate from the sand, then another. “To the Library,” he directs and Joah kneels to assist him.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Legion and the sea
The small pale girl with blood on her hands darted into the shadows, watching and wary. She’d tried to cut out Denenthorn’s eyes. He’d been foolish to unbind her in the first place, but he’d allowed Pontifex to bait him into it. She knew Denenthorn’s wrath was legendary so she crouched, waiting and listening for the rustle of wings, Nareth’s blade dancing in her hand.
A shimmering in the air alerted the girl that someone was coming. She quickly padded into the alleyway, staring into the darkness as Legion appeared, first as an impression of a transparent outline, then drifting slowly into opacity. Legion gazed gently at the girl, Her eyes wandering from the girl’s face to the blade at her neck. A whisper of many voices echoed on the air as She stepped forward to place a hand upon the girl’s shoulder, "We are here to take you with Us."
A shiver swept through the girl at Legion's touch. "They're trying to find me,” she whispered. “I don't want to be bound again." Her voice pleads. The blade at the girl’s neck is hungry, and she wants to feed it, but she also doesn't want to be found. "It's hungry." She taps the blade’s edge urgently with her fingertip.
Without a word, Legion leads the girl by the shoulder through the dim streets, out towards the shoreline, to the edge of the floating platform overlooking the sea. The girl can feel the boards bobbing lightly under her feet to the lapping of the tide. Legion trades the hand on the girl’s shoulder with Her other hand, facing the girl out to sea. The girl looks out silently over the water.
Placing Her freed hand between the girl’s shoulder blades, palm adhering with something rather like a static pop, a feeling like the attraction of many begins to conduct through that touch, and plumes out into the girl’s chest. Legion’s whispers come affectionately from inside the girl. "Look out to sea, Our jewel."
The girl blinks, and then eyes adjusting to the twilight, she takes in the hazy sky, the stars. Though it is a night with no moon she sees clearly over the water.
Legion draws nearer to press Her front into the side of the girl’s back, and Her chin over her shoulder. She draws Her palm down the bare portions of the girl’s back, dragging the feel of static with it. The voices slide around inside the girl, branching out and in and around like endorphins. "The sea is the world remembered,” Legion begins, “The world as it is...and the world yet to be...all in song...all in never ceasing rise and fall." Her hand drifts idly down further, finally resting on the curve of the girl’s hips.
The girl listens to the lapping water, smells the sickly sweet salt marsh mingled with toxic fumes. Finally she relaxes against Legion's arm, whispering, "Her heart is out there. I can feel it beating."
Legion maneuvers the girl into the cradle of Her looped arm, encouraging her back into Her strong embrace, and rocking her gently to the sounds of the sea. "Her heart means nothing,” She says. “Her heart is a grain of sand upon the ocean floor. We are here as on the event horizon of all time, the rise and fall of civilizations, the birth and death of billions, all have their place in the song..."
Legion coaxes the girl to give her weight to Her, and hang weightless in Her arms, floating free above the advancing water. The girl takes a deep shuddering breath, then leans, trusting, into Legion's arms. She drifts, weightlessly, eyes gazing out to sea, mesmerized by Legion's words. She can see civilizations birthed and dying as she floats; she can hear the song.
Legion's cheek presses into the girl’s, Her jaw sliding over her shoulder soft as clouds, till the corner of Her mouth is against the girl’s cheek. The words continue in a quilt of rhythms, rolling towards the girl’s consciousness, mesmerizing, like the surface rolling across girl’s sight, and running under the edge of her field of view, every wave surely lapping into her. "The song is in you, Our Jewel...the song of creation, when sung in its complete harmony, can raise the light from out of void, and make creation out of nothing it all." Legion's hand is upon the girl’s lower stomach, laying Her palm and fingers sprawled upon it's skin "We have put a piece of it inside you...inside your womb...and you will be it's flower bloomed..."
The girl’s eyes half close as her fingers trace the tops of Legion's hands. She feels wrapped in warmth, peace. She sees the void washing over her, then a little point of light like a star, growing, sparkles radiating outward, filling the nothingness.
But the blade does not sleep.
A shimmering in the air alerted the girl that someone was coming. She quickly padded into the alleyway, staring into the darkness as Legion appeared, first as an impression of a transparent outline, then drifting slowly into opacity. Legion gazed gently at the girl, Her eyes wandering from the girl’s face to the blade at her neck. A whisper of many voices echoed on the air as She stepped forward to place a hand upon the girl’s shoulder, "We are here to take you with Us."
A shiver swept through the girl at Legion's touch. "They're trying to find me,” she whispered. “I don't want to be bound again." Her voice pleads. The blade at the girl’s neck is hungry, and she wants to feed it, but she also doesn't want to be found. "It's hungry." She taps the blade’s edge urgently with her fingertip.
Without a word, Legion leads the girl by the shoulder through the dim streets, out towards the shoreline, to the edge of the floating platform overlooking the sea. The girl can feel the boards bobbing lightly under her feet to the lapping of the tide. Legion trades the hand on the girl’s shoulder with Her other hand, facing the girl out to sea. The girl looks out silently over the water.
Placing Her freed hand between the girl’s shoulder blades, palm adhering with something rather like a static pop, a feeling like the attraction of many begins to conduct through that touch, and plumes out into the girl’s chest. Legion’s whispers come affectionately from inside the girl. "Look out to sea, Our jewel."
The girl blinks, and then eyes adjusting to the twilight, she takes in the hazy sky, the stars. Though it is a night with no moon she sees clearly over the water.
Legion draws nearer to press Her front into the side of the girl’s back, and Her chin over her shoulder. She draws Her palm down the bare portions of the girl’s back, dragging the feel of static with it. The voices slide around inside the girl, branching out and in and around like endorphins. "The sea is the world remembered,” Legion begins, “The world as it is...and the world yet to be...all in song...all in never ceasing rise and fall." Her hand drifts idly down further, finally resting on the curve of the girl’s hips.
The girl listens to the lapping water, smells the sickly sweet salt marsh mingled with toxic fumes. Finally she relaxes against Legion's arm, whispering, "Her heart is out there. I can feel it beating."
Legion maneuvers the girl into the cradle of Her looped arm, encouraging her back into Her strong embrace, and rocking her gently to the sounds of the sea. "Her heart means nothing,” She says. “Her heart is a grain of sand upon the ocean floor. We are here as on the event horizon of all time, the rise and fall of civilizations, the birth and death of billions, all have their place in the song..."
Legion coaxes the girl to give her weight to Her, and hang weightless in Her arms, floating free above the advancing water. The girl takes a deep shuddering breath, then leans, trusting, into Legion's arms. She drifts, weightlessly, eyes gazing out to sea, mesmerized by Legion's words. She can see civilizations birthed and dying as she floats; she can hear the song.
Legion's cheek presses into the girl’s, Her jaw sliding over her shoulder soft as clouds, till the corner of Her mouth is against the girl’s cheek. The words continue in a quilt of rhythms, rolling towards the girl’s consciousness, mesmerizing, like the surface rolling across girl’s sight, and running under the edge of her field of view, every wave surely lapping into her. "The song is in you, Our Jewel...the song of creation, when sung in its complete harmony, can raise the light from out of void, and make creation out of nothing it all." Legion's hand is upon the girl’s lower stomach, laying Her palm and fingers sprawled upon it's skin "We have put a piece of it inside you...inside your womb...and you will be it's flower bloomed..."
The girl’s eyes half close as her fingers trace the tops of Legion's hands. She feels wrapped in warmth, peace. She sees the void washing over her, then a little point of light like a star, growing, sparkles radiating outward, filling the nothingness.
But the blade does not sleep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)