Maelstrom Fic
Jan. 31st, 2007 02:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cybertrixxIn response to lady_dinosarus's comment on my previous post:
052. Fire
022. Enemies
086. Choices
Amirah and Aestar would probably make for amusing reading :-)
It is a quiet night in Abu Malikari. Calm, relaxing, warm. Comfortable. A soothing breeze drifts in from the sea, sending gentle waves to caress the shore and sweep over the thick, almost silty fine sand. Crickets and cicadas chirp out across the dunes, filling the night with a reassuring rhythm and sense of life.
In an ornate wicker chair sits a graceful and slender Rukhi woman dressed in fine silks. By her side stands a glass of sweetened rum punch from which she occasionally takes a long languid sip, curling the edge of her beak across the lip to act as a makeshift straw. She is relaxed, contented. Happy. The stress of day-to-day life is absent here, in this place of calm.
She considers how lucky she is to be here in the land of opportunity, free to enjoy the simple pleasures of existence. She thinks back to the life she left behind so many years ago now - the death of her husband, the unpleasantless that marked her passage to the new world. All is in the past. Even more recent and pressing troubles seem to slip underneath the gentle caress of alcohol. She feels her body dragging her into a soft, soothing slumber, and she allows it. She is safe here.
She does not dream.
She is suddenly awake. Something is wrong. The night remains, still, cool, soothing. But it is somehow empty. Where are the chirping crickets and cicadas? What happened to the reassuring hum of life? Is she dreaming?
For a moment, she thinks so. Even the sound of the waves seems to recede. There is a slowly rising bubbly hiss from the nearby ocean, and it is almost as if the water recedes for a moment. Underneath the surface there is a subtle layer of light, marking the sides of the growing whirlpool with a dancing blue and silver sheen. For a moment, the face of reality seems to fall into and even through itself, vomiting out crackling sparks of blue lightning from the empty vortex.
She sits suddenly upright and alert - all of a sudden surprisingly sober through the haze. If this is a dream, it is a disturbing one. She watches as a mass of blue lines and curves expands upwards out of the vortex and snaps itself into a skeletal figure which hangs in the air for a moment. Racing up around this electric blue scaffold is a layer of thickening oily black slime. Tendrils and protrusions emerge, twist and differentiate into a fractal pattern of cruel looking spines before setting into a hard shell.
She blinks. After a second, the vortex is gone. It is almost as if it was never there to start with - only faint crackling lines of residual electricity remain, dancing about the surface of the figure who stands in the water before her.
As she watches, taken slightly off guard, the figure extends a delicately poised arm towards her and mockingly curtseys in deference. It would be an impressive show of ladylike dignity - if it wasn't performed by a six foot black armoured spined abomination while knee-deep in sea water.
There is a faint sigh, like a simultaneous inhalation and exhalation of air as the mound of spines rises from its curtsey and resolves into a more familiar silhouette. A flash of recognition sets off a larger flash - of distaste, of rivalry, of anger, and fear.
Her hand strays to her side and gently brushes one of her pistols as the demon speaks in slow, mocking, sibilant tones.
"Ahhh. The delicious embrace of mortality. How my skin crackles with barely suppressed potential. I think...I will have fun, this evening". The demon turns to face her, looking her up and down as if evaluating a prized market animal "Amirah. Good. You decided to continue drinking yourself to unconsciousness after all. I'd have hated to have needed to come *hunting* for you..."
She looks to the demon's side. It cradles a stone lovingly between its long cruel claws. She looks up - arrayed around the eidolon's neck are a line of gemstones. So incongruous on such a monster.
"Are you enjoying the night air, *lady* Amirah? I didn't disturb you with my magnificence, did I?" the demon smiles blasphemously, its face a picture of twisted innocence.
Amirah remembers. Remembers the barely suppressed rage. Remembers the betrayal of misled trust, the perversion of innocence. Remembers why she swore to thwart this thing at all costs. She feels her natural coy sarcasm leap to the surface as an automatic defence mechanism "Oh no. Look who it is. It is the demon lady, and she is here to irritate me. Why don't you bugger off?". It works.
The demon looks mildly taken aback at this brisk dismissal "Very well, let us dispense with the grand entrances and pleasantries. I wish to speak with you. You have something of mine, something I would very much like to be returned to me."
"Why, whatever could you mean, JEZEBETH?"
The word sends a ripple of barely suppressed anger through the demon. For just a second, it grits its teeth and tenses. An unholy fire of rage burns within the depths of its glassy doll-like eyes. And then, as quickly as it arrived, it is gone.
Aestar speaks again, its voice set into a bassy doom-filled monotone "Do not taunt me, insignificant wretch. I do not want to fight you. Be thankful that I have not already pinned you to that chair for your impertinence."
At this, Amirah slowly rises from her seat, trying to maintain a brave countenance of poise and calm "Oh, I think that would be a bad idea, JEZEBETH. I am not scared of your threats. I know you can't hurt me - or at least, you wouldn't dare" For a second, she lets the flash of gunmetal show at her side.
The demon stops and tenses for a long moment, and looks like it is considering whether to flee. But its expression lightens again, and it resumes its mocking tirade. "And that is why you have seen fit to arm yourself with such pathetic weapons born of the intellectual vomit of a hundred self-important scholars? Oh, my dear little mortal. Are you scared of the dark? Always watching over your shoulder, afraid I might be waiting there? You know I always will be. You cannot escape, not until you release your grip on what is rightfully mine."
Amirah slowly takes a step backward "She has a name, bitch."
Aestar smiles an angelic smile, voice a whisper. "Yes, she does. And I-" she pauses for effect "-know it. Fully. Entirely. Oh yes, Amirah. I know your little companion in and out, far more than you ever will. I know everything about her. I have sat and listened to her whispers as she sleeps. I have watched as she lies in tortured dreams. I have heard her prayers, felt her deepest feelings and desires, and seen the inner workings of her mind..."
Amirah cannot restrain the forced smile any longer. "Stop! You have no power over her. You have no power over me. Why have you come here, Jezebitch?"
The demon rises to its full height, arms extended to either side. Silvery claws flash in the darkness. "No power? NO POWER? I think you will find, mortal, that I have power and potential unimaginable. My chains are broken, I am unbound from the restrictive will of those who would have me as their slave."
Amirah sees the gleam of hubris in the demon's eye, and rises to the challenge. "I am thinking that you are so weak, you could not hold onto them. Just as you could not hold onto Izzy. She doesn't love you. She hates you for what you have done!"
The demon begins to rant before pausing for a moment and continuing sedately. "I cannot go back. Why would I? How *could* I? They cast me out...denied me their love...they took it all away from me. But that is entirely irrelevant. Isobel is mine. She has given herself over to me, allowed herself to be bound into my care."
"She did not allow anything. You tricked and manipulated her. She is just a girl! She couldn't have known what she was doing!"
"We all make decisions we later regret. But regret does not change the fact that they happened. Do you not think I am tortured for the choices I once made? I have been forced to deal with their outcome, and Isobel must learn to do so as well. She has much to learn - I have so much to teach her. But I cannot do it if idiots like you keep interfering. At her request - made under the influence of your manipulation, I remind you - I released her soul from my safekeeping - but I will not let you take her from me entirely."
"She left you. Now leave her. Let her go."
The demon rants freely now "No, I don't think I will. She did not leave me. She does not understand. She can't possibly understand, she's just a little girl. Just as you cannot possibly understand. You think me selfish, but it is you who has tortured me with your selfish greed these past few months. I had considered you tolerable, worthy even of consideration as some mild distraction within the pleasures of the flesh. But now, with this, you have shown yourself to be worthy only of contempt. I find myself wondering why you are still alive."
Aestar takes a step forward. Amirah braces, takes a step back, one hand on the stock of each gun. She waits, ready to draw. The demon continues unabated. She ignores it, focussing on the threat it represents. Those claws must be at least ten inches long. She sizes it up, considering, calculating, a mound of ebony spines and armour in the darkness. She's not confident that she could get a solid hit anywhere vital - if, indeed, such a creature even has vitals. She resolves to aim for the face, out of spite more than any real consideration.
She draws. The demon barely notices, so lost in its own world of spite and bile, taking a moment's pause from its rant merely to say "Fire, or do not fire. You deal with the outcome of the choice you make. Choose wisely, mortal." It takes another step towards her, the two enemies circling warily. The abomination's ranting sets her nerves on edge, and with every step it comes slightly closer to being able to sink those claws into her flesh. She thinks for a second longer, weighs up the possible options as the demon said. Makes a snap decision, and lines up the shot. The demon looks directly into her eyes, and for a moment it looks right through her, flicking its claws in the moonlight once more and sending a momentary flash of silver spinning about its sides.
And then it is gone. At least, it is no longer where it was. Amirah is surprised - the demon moves with surprising speed and grace for its size and armoured bulk. She turns, aims with a snapshot and fires.
There is a loud rolling crack and a metallic plink, followed by a roar of unholy rage. She cannot tell if she has hit the demon or not, but she doesn't have time to stop and consider. The second pistol is up, cocked, and suddenly a claw sweeps towards her head. Damn, the bitch is fast. Too fast.
She leaps backwards away from the scything blades of the demon's hand, almost losing her balance. Another claw sweeps, catching her across the arm. She reels in pain but adrenaline keeps her focussed. As if barely in control of her actions, she throws herself to the side and brings the gun up squarely into the demon's face.
The hammer falls. Powder fizzes for a millisecond. The demon's black, hateful visage disappears momentarily in a cloud of black smoke.
And then there is pain. In her leg and in her shoulder. She shrieks, any semblance of composure now lost, as the full weight of Aestar's war form crashes into her and spears her upon outstretched claws. But she does not fall - not quite. The searing pain in her shoulder intensifies and tears upwards as she tries to slip to her knees, but she can't drop. She tries to struggle, to turn away, to lift herself off those cruel talons - anything to avoid looking up into the dying eyes of her hated enemy, knowing that it couldn't possibly survive a shot like that and remain standing.
And yet she does not find herself dropping to the ground. She struggles again in desperation this time - anything to be free from this creature. Her skin crawls.
And Aestar laughs.
She dares to look up.
Aestar smiles back at her from half a mouth, its sole remaining eye a strangely calm pool of blackness considering the terrible injury it has just suffered. A good quarter of the demon's face, including its left eye, is missing, leaving behind a torn blue and black skeletal mass. "Are we all spent, little one? I think you'll find it will take more than *that* to stop my wrath - something that you have, I can assure you, well and truly invoked."
She kicks at the demon and pulls against its claws ineffectually, prompting another laugh. This thing is so strong! So unnaturally strong. And tough, far tougher than an eidolon should be.
For a moment, her mind reels. She looks again at the jewels adoring the body of her hated enemy.
"You look surprised, Amirah. Hoping for a more agreeable outcome? I could hardly let you have all the fun now could I? You have chosen to arm yourself, and so have I."
"Let me go! Bitch! Monster! Demon! What have you done? Die! I hate you! You will never have her!"
The demon tries to appear uncaring and devoid of feeling, but beneath its cold, shattered face she can tell it is taking perverse joy from flaunting the new-found strength it feels. "You are so utterly outclassed, so entirely insignificant next to my power. Now, tell me where my Isobel is, so I might speak with her alone and undisturbed by your pathetic mewling."
It is strange how, so up close and personal, this monstrosity smells faintly of rose petals and lavender. She considers the absurdity - hanging dangerously close to an agonising death, one's senses clarify and focus on the strangest details. The thought is brushed aside almost as soon as it enters her mind.
She spits at the demon, hitting it in the eye. It blinks, face set in cold irritation, and brutally tears its claw from her leg before punching her in the temple. Everything bursts into sparkles of black and red, and fades to black.
She dreams of terrible things. Monstrous agony and suffering. Pain exploding from every inch of her tortured body. She is guarding something, something desperately precious. Must resist. But the pain is so terrible. Eventually, inevitably, she gives in, slips away into oblivion and lets go.
When she awakes, Aestar is gone. The pistols lie empty beside her. She checks, looks around in mild panic. Everything is in place. The chair lies on its side but is intact.
She tries to stand, but her leg gives way. She finds a piece of driftwood and uses it as a crutch so that she might stand. The prospect of limping home is not appealing. But she remembers what the demon said, and is filled with a sense of urgency.
***
Amirah arrives, body agonised and tired. She calls out. No answer. Her heart races. Where is she? What has happened to her? If that bitch has so much as dared...
And then, bouncing around the corner with her characteristic carefree happiness, comes Isobel. And everything is alright, because she is unharmed.
She stops, and looks at Amirah in shock. "What happened? You got hurt. Are you ok?"
She wants to say. She knows she probably should. But she can't bear the pain of telling her. Can't bear to crush that joyful spirit any further. So she lies, makes up some pathetic half-truth about falling over in the dark. Everything's ok. Yes I'm sure. No, you don't need to worry about me. Yes, let's go and have a lie down.
And the realisation catches up with her, hits her like a sledgehammer. She reaches out, just for a second. And it's not there. It's gone - the tickly far-off edge to her consciousness. Instead, there is something else. Something closer, cloying, sweet and insidious. She reaches out again, tentatively, but she already knows, already realises what has happened. Already knows what Isobel is about to say before she even says it.
The Star Mother came to me when I was dreaming. She said everything was going to be ok. She said that I don't need to be scared anymore. She wants us to be happy. She said we can be a happy family together. Can we, Amirah? Can we be a happy family?
Amirah closes her eyes, switches off, blocks out the world. For a second, she almost considers it. Almost. She knows that the demon will never stop trying, not now, not in a thousand years. She knows that eventually, her own strength will fade, she will grow old, and she will no longer be there. But the demon will be forever waiting. It is hopeless. Perhaps that is what Izzy needs - an eternal guardian angel to watch over her. It wouldn't be so bad...
No. What am I thinking? That *bitch*. She couldn't. She wouldn't. But she did...
Across the cosmos, across the reaches of time and space and through the depths of the maelstrom, a message flares brightly in the timeless mind of a tortured and broken immortal soul.
I hate you.
052. Fire
022. Enemies
086. Choices
Amirah and Aestar would probably make for amusing reading :-)
It is a quiet night in Abu Malikari. Calm, relaxing, warm. Comfortable. A soothing breeze drifts in from the sea, sending gentle waves to caress the shore and sweep over the thick, almost silty fine sand. Crickets and cicadas chirp out across the dunes, filling the night with a reassuring rhythm and sense of life.
In an ornate wicker chair sits a graceful and slender Rukhi woman dressed in fine silks. By her side stands a glass of sweetened rum punch from which she occasionally takes a long languid sip, curling the edge of her beak across the lip to act as a makeshift straw. She is relaxed, contented. Happy. The stress of day-to-day life is absent here, in this place of calm.
She considers how lucky she is to be here in the land of opportunity, free to enjoy the simple pleasures of existence. She thinks back to the life she left behind so many years ago now - the death of her husband, the unpleasantless that marked her passage to the new world. All is in the past. Even more recent and pressing troubles seem to slip underneath the gentle caress of alcohol. She feels her body dragging her into a soft, soothing slumber, and she allows it. She is safe here.
She does not dream.
She is suddenly awake. Something is wrong. The night remains, still, cool, soothing. But it is somehow empty. Where are the chirping crickets and cicadas? What happened to the reassuring hum of life? Is she dreaming?
For a moment, she thinks so. Even the sound of the waves seems to recede. There is a slowly rising bubbly hiss from the nearby ocean, and it is almost as if the water recedes for a moment. Underneath the surface there is a subtle layer of light, marking the sides of the growing whirlpool with a dancing blue and silver sheen. For a moment, the face of reality seems to fall into and even through itself, vomiting out crackling sparks of blue lightning from the empty vortex.
She sits suddenly upright and alert - all of a sudden surprisingly sober through the haze. If this is a dream, it is a disturbing one. She watches as a mass of blue lines and curves expands upwards out of the vortex and snaps itself into a skeletal figure which hangs in the air for a moment. Racing up around this electric blue scaffold is a layer of thickening oily black slime. Tendrils and protrusions emerge, twist and differentiate into a fractal pattern of cruel looking spines before setting into a hard shell.
She blinks. After a second, the vortex is gone. It is almost as if it was never there to start with - only faint crackling lines of residual electricity remain, dancing about the surface of the figure who stands in the water before her.
As she watches, taken slightly off guard, the figure extends a delicately poised arm towards her and mockingly curtseys in deference. It would be an impressive show of ladylike dignity - if it wasn't performed by a six foot black armoured spined abomination while knee-deep in sea water.
There is a faint sigh, like a simultaneous inhalation and exhalation of air as the mound of spines rises from its curtsey and resolves into a more familiar silhouette. A flash of recognition sets off a larger flash - of distaste, of rivalry, of anger, and fear.
Her hand strays to her side and gently brushes one of her pistols as the demon speaks in slow, mocking, sibilant tones.
"Ahhh. The delicious embrace of mortality. How my skin crackles with barely suppressed potential. I think...I will have fun, this evening". The demon turns to face her, looking her up and down as if evaluating a prized market animal "Amirah. Good. You decided to continue drinking yourself to unconsciousness after all. I'd have hated to have needed to come *hunting* for you..."
She looks to the demon's side. It cradles a stone lovingly between its long cruel claws. She looks up - arrayed around the eidolon's neck are a line of gemstones. So incongruous on such a monster.
"Are you enjoying the night air, *lady* Amirah? I didn't disturb you with my magnificence, did I?" the demon smiles blasphemously, its face a picture of twisted innocence.
Amirah remembers. Remembers the barely suppressed rage. Remembers the betrayal of misled trust, the perversion of innocence. Remembers why she swore to thwart this thing at all costs. She feels her natural coy sarcasm leap to the surface as an automatic defence mechanism "Oh no. Look who it is. It is the demon lady, and she is here to irritate me. Why don't you bugger off?". It works.
The demon looks mildly taken aback at this brisk dismissal "Very well, let us dispense with the grand entrances and pleasantries. I wish to speak with you. You have something of mine, something I would very much like to be returned to me."
"Why, whatever could you mean, JEZEBETH?"
The word sends a ripple of barely suppressed anger through the demon. For just a second, it grits its teeth and tenses. An unholy fire of rage burns within the depths of its glassy doll-like eyes. And then, as quickly as it arrived, it is gone.
Aestar speaks again, its voice set into a bassy doom-filled monotone "Do not taunt me, insignificant wretch. I do not want to fight you. Be thankful that I have not already pinned you to that chair for your impertinence."
At this, Amirah slowly rises from her seat, trying to maintain a brave countenance of poise and calm "Oh, I think that would be a bad idea, JEZEBETH. I am not scared of your threats. I know you can't hurt me - or at least, you wouldn't dare" For a second, she lets the flash of gunmetal show at her side.
The demon stops and tenses for a long moment, and looks like it is considering whether to flee. But its expression lightens again, and it resumes its mocking tirade. "And that is why you have seen fit to arm yourself with such pathetic weapons born of the intellectual vomit of a hundred self-important scholars? Oh, my dear little mortal. Are you scared of the dark? Always watching over your shoulder, afraid I might be waiting there? You know I always will be. You cannot escape, not until you release your grip on what is rightfully mine."
Amirah slowly takes a step backward "She has a name, bitch."
Aestar smiles an angelic smile, voice a whisper. "Yes, she does. And I-" she pauses for effect "-know it. Fully. Entirely. Oh yes, Amirah. I know your little companion in and out, far more than you ever will. I know everything about her. I have sat and listened to her whispers as she sleeps. I have watched as she lies in tortured dreams. I have heard her prayers, felt her deepest feelings and desires, and seen the inner workings of her mind..."
Amirah cannot restrain the forced smile any longer. "Stop! You have no power over her. You have no power over me. Why have you come here, Jezebitch?"
The demon rises to its full height, arms extended to either side. Silvery claws flash in the darkness. "No power? NO POWER? I think you will find, mortal, that I have power and potential unimaginable. My chains are broken, I am unbound from the restrictive will of those who would have me as their slave."
Amirah sees the gleam of hubris in the demon's eye, and rises to the challenge. "I am thinking that you are so weak, you could not hold onto them. Just as you could not hold onto Izzy. She doesn't love you. She hates you for what you have done!"
The demon begins to rant before pausing for a moment and continuing sedately. "I cannot go back. Why would I? How *could* I? They cast me out...denied me their love...they took it all away from me. But that is entirely irrelevant. Isobel is mine. She has given herself over to me, allowed herself to be bound into my care."
"She did not allow anything. You tricked and manipulated her. She is just a girl! She couldn't have known what she was doing!"
"We all make decisions we later regret. But regret does not change the fact that they happened. Do you not think I am tortured for the choices I once made? I have been forced to deal with their outcome, and Isobel must learn to do so as well. She has much to learn - I have so much to teach her. But I cannot do it if idiots like you keep interfering. At her request - made under the influence of your manipulation, I remind you - I released her soul from my safekeeping - but I will not let you take her from me entirely."
"She left you. Now leave her. Let her go."
The demon rants freely now "No, I don't think I will. She did not leave me. She does not understand. She can't possibly understand, she's just a little girl. Just as you cannot possibly understand. You think me selfish, but it is you who has tortured me with your selfish greed these past few months. I had considered you tolerable, worthy even of consideration as some mild distraction within the pleasures of the flesh. But now, with this, you have shown yourself to be worthy only of contempt. I find myself wondering why you are still alive."
Aestar takes a step forward. Amirah braces, takes a step back, one hand on the stock of each gun. She waits, ready to draw. The demon continues unabated. She ignores it, focussing on the threat it represents. Those claws must be at least ten inches long. She sizes it up, considering, calculating, a mound of ebony spines and armour in the darkness. She's not confident that she could get a solid hit anywhere vital - if, indeed, such a creature even has vitals. She resolves to aim for the face, out of spite more than any real consideration.
She draws. The demon barely notices, so lost in its own world of spite and bile, taking a moment's pause from its rant merely to say "Fire, or do not fire. You deal with the outcome of the choice you make. Choose wisely, mortal." It takes another step towards her, the two enemies circling warily. The abomination's ranting sets her nerves on edge, and with every step it comes slightly closer to being able to sink those claws into her flesh. She thinks for a second longer, weighs up the possible options as the demon said. Makes a snap decision, and lines up the shot. The demon looks directly into her eyes, and for a moment it looks right through her, flicking its claws in the moonlight once more and sending a momentary flash of silver spinning about its sides.
And then it is gone. At least, it is no longer where it was. Amirah is surprised - the demon moves with surprising speed and grace for its size and armoured bulk. She turns, aims with a snapshot and fires.
There is a loud rolling crack and a metallic plink, followed by a roar of unholy rage. She cannot tell if she has hit the demon or not, but she doesn't have time to stop and consider. The second pistol is up, cocked, and suddenly a claw sweeps towards her head. Damn, the bitch is fast. Too fast.
She leaps backwards away from the scything blades of the demon's hand, almost losing her balance. Another claw sweeps, catching her across the arm. She reels in pain but adrenaline keeps her focussed. As if barely in control of her actions, she throws herself to the side and brings the gun up squarely into the demon's face.
The hammer falls. Powder fizzes for a millisecond. The demon's black, hateful visage disappears momentarily in a cloud of black smoke.
And then there is pain. In her leg and in her shoulder. She shrieks, any semblance of composure now lost, as the full weight of Aestar's war form crashes into her and spears her upon outstretched claws. But she does not fall - not quite. The searing pain in her shoulder intensifies and tears upwards as she tries to slip to her knees, but she can't drop. She tries to struggle, to turn away, to lift herself off those cruel talons - anything to avoid looking up into the dying eyes of her hated enemy, knowing that it couldn't possibly survive a shot like that and remain standing.
And yet she does not find herself dropping to the ground. She struggles again in desperation this time - anything to be free from this creature. Her skin crawls.
And Aestar laughs.
She dares to look up.
Aestar smiles back at her from half a mouth, its sole remaining eye a strangely calm pool of blackness considering the terrible injury it has just suffered. A good quarter of the demon's face, including its left eye, is missing, leaving behind a torn blue and black skeletal mass. "Are we all spent, little one? I think you'll find it will take more than *that* to stop my wrath - something that you have, I can assure you, well and truly invoked."
She kicks at the demon and pulls against its claws ineffectually, prompting another laugh. This thing is so strong! So unnaturally strong. And tough, far tougher than an eidolon should be.
For a moment, her mind reels. She looks again at the jewels adoring the body of her hated enemy.
"You look surprised, Amirah. Hoping for a more agreeable outcome? I could hardly let you have all the fun now could I? You have chosen to arm yourself, and so have I."
"Let me go! Bitch! Monster! Demon! What have you done? Die! I hate you! You will never have her!"
The demon tries to appear uncaring and devoid of feeling, but beneath its cold, shattered face she can tell it is taking perverse joy from flaunting the new-found strength it feels. "You are so utterly outclassed, so entirely insignificant next to my power. Now, tell me where my Isobel is, so I might speak with her alone and undisturbed by your pathetic mewling."
It is strange how, so up close and personal, this monstrosity smells faintly of rose petals and lavender. She considers the absurdity - hanging dangerously close to an agonising death, one's senses clarify and focus on the strangest details. The thought is brushed aside almost as soon as it enters her mind.
She spits at the demon, hitting it in the eye. It blinks, face set in cold irritation, and brutally tears its claw from her leg before punching her in the temple. Everything bursts into sparkles of black and red, and fades to black.
She dreams of terrible things. Monstrous agony and suffering. Pain exploding from every inch of her tortured body. She is guarding something, something desperately precious. Must resist. But the pain is so terrible. Eventually, inevitably, she gives in, slips away into oblivion and lets go.
When she awakes, Aestar is gone. The pistols lie empty beside her. She checks, looks around in mild panic. Everything is in place. The chair lies on its side but is intact.
She tries to stand, but her leg gives way. She finds a piece of driftwood and uses it as a crutch so that she might stand. The prospect of limping home is not appealing. But she remembers what the demon said, and is filled with a sense of urgency.
***
Amirah arrives, body agonised and tired. She calls out. No answer. Her heart races. Where is she? What has happened to her? If that bitch has so much as dared...
And then, bouncing around the corner with her characteristic carefree happiness, comes Isobel. And everything is alright, because she is unharmed.
She stops, and looks at Amirah in shock. "What happened? You got hurt. Are you ok?"
She wants to say. She knows she probably should. But she can't bear the pain of telling her. Can't bear to crush that joyful spirit any further. So she lies, makes up some pathetic half-truth about falling over in the dark. Everything's ok. Yes I'm sure. No, you don't need to worry about me. Yes, let's go and have a lie down.
And the realisation catches up with her, hits her like a sledgehammer. She reaches out, just for a second. And it's not there. It's gone - the tickly far-off edge to her consciousness. Instead, there is something else. Something closer, cloying, sweet and insidious. She reaches out again, tentatively, but she already knows, already realises what has happened. Already knows what Isobel is about to say before she even says it.
The Star Mother came to me when I was dreaming. She said everything was going to be ok. She said that I don't need to be scared anymore. She wants us to be happy. She said we can be a happy family together. Can we, Amirah? Can we be a happy family?
Amirah closes her eyes, switches off, blocks out the world. For a second, she almost considers it. Almost. She knows that the demon will never stop trying, not now, not in a thousand years. She knows that eventually, her own strength will fade, she will grow old, and she will no longer be there. But the demon will be forever waiting. It is hopeless. Perhaps that is what Izzy needs - an eternal guardian angel to watch over her. It wouldn't be so bad...
No. What am I thinking? That *bitch*. She couldn't. She wouldn't. But she did...
Across the cosmos, across the reaches of time and space and through the depths of the maelstrom, a message flares brightly in the timeless mind of a tortured and broken immortal soul.
I hate you.
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Date: 2007-01-31 08:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 12:40 pm (UTC)