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 Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:57 pm
For a minute there was only the sound of his own heartbeat drumming boldly in his ears and then very slowly, Kamboja became aware of an obnoxious flutter of blue and red behind his eyelids. The more he tried to make it stop, the brighter it became, until the world snapped back into place too abruptly for a drunken fool. A long, irritated groan tumbled out of his lips and both eyelids opened slowly to a squint, though he remained hunched and staring at the ground.
Just leave me alone.
“Kam, come on.”
The voice was male but he didn’t recognize it. Instead of giving any kind of answer, he tilted his head back very slowly and nested it against - what was this? He frowned and rolled the back of his head slightly against whatever was supporting the trunk of his chest, trying to decide what kind of structure was beneath the layer of dreads. A tree? No. A rock? Out of the corner of his eyes he saw that the flashing belonged to a cop car parked on the curb, and near an intersection no less. That seemed pretty reckless. As a car zipped by in the far lane, it occurred to him that he was actually very near the road himself. On second thought, the slight curve in the wall behind his back told him it was probably no wall at all - it was much more likely that it was a light pole he’d leaned into for support.
Step one - figure out where I am.
Check.
“I’m serious this time, alright? Look at me!”
Another groan passed his lips as his kneejerk reaction was to look abruptly at the person looming above him, yelling down at his face, ensuring that he looked directly into the bright light being focused on his eyes. He raised a hand to shield it angrily, scowling at whatever p***k thought a flashlight in the eyes was an okay thing to do. In his hand, however, he felt a stiff piece of half-crumpled paper and paused his motion mid-air. The clumsy fingers came together until he could smooth the crinkled ball back to recognition - immediately wishing that he hadn’t the second that his eyes fell upon it.
It was a crude drawing of something one would only recognize if they knew it. And he knew it. There was no denying the costumed figure that stared back out at him from the page, the flowered Senshi with a long braid, draped in purple and white. Kamboja had never hated a piece of artwork more in his entire life.
His attention was ripped away from the flier as an arm hooked beneath his own suddenly and, despite the dead weight he must have been, someone else managed to pull him partially off the ground. Chalk it up to surprise or maybe just how s**t-faced he was, but Kam planted his feet beneath him with no resistance and helped the mysterious stranger pull him up to stand. The world around him reeled and he clamped a fist around the missing poster he had ripped off of the pole as his body tensed in an effort to maintain balance. Whoever had managed to haul him up kept him still in some small blessing and let him stand there dumbly until his eyes opened and refocused upon the smaller, sturdy figure next to him.
“Oh, hey Charles,” he said with a scratchy, surprised laugh in his tone. The effort made the pressure in his skull increase and he clenched his teeth around an urge to vomit, regretting opening his mouth at all.
“No, Kam. No ’Oh, hey Charles’ this time.” There was a serious narrowing of his eyes as he tried to scold the teetering fool next to him but Kam only smiled in that same pained way that he had the last time he’d met Charles in the middle of the night. It was hard to keep his authority figure composure when he knew every reason the man had for his behavior. An irritated sigh escaped the pale figure swathed in the dark blue of his police uniform and Kam fought the overwhelming urge to reach up and take the pristine hat off of his head. He hadn’t been fond of that last time he’d tried it, he remembered.
“Right, okay, let’s get you in the car. Come on.” Charles broke the silence that stretched after his previous words by relenting. Kam didn't want to talk, he could tell, so all he needed to do was convince him to get in the backseat. Instead of complying, however, Kam’s whole body tensed and Charles seemed to immediately realize his error.
“I’m not taking you to jail, okay kiddo?” The term was personal, almost affectionate, and despite the sadness in the inflection it still made Kam relax.
He let the older man steer him toward the car and its flashing lights, sloppily managing to stuff the poster into a trash bin as they passed it on the way. He was pleased to crawl into the backseat and lay his forehead against the cool leather of the air conditioned interior, forgetting everything that was going on in that one moment of pure relief. He was aware of the sound of Charles’ door opening and then the car shifted beneath his weight just-so. As the door closed and the engine roared to life, Kam let his mind drift back to the first time he had seen Charles. He had been younger then - they both had. Charles was fresh faced and new on the squad, Kam was..
Kam was beginning a nightmare he still hadn’t woken up from.
With a groan not entirely chalked up to the motion of the car, he rolled onto his back and draped his arm across his eyes, blocking out the flickering of street lamps as they rolled beneath them. When had he started driving?
“Okay, Kam. I can’t support this behavior anymore.”
Kam grimaced as he imagined the disappointment the man must have felt, how his face probably pulled into a frown as he struggled with words. He would have been disappointed in him too. Charles eased to a stop and there was an awkward drum of his hands against the steering wheel as he fidgeted, waiting at a red light.
“Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand why this is happening, after.. after everything. But kiddo, it’s been ten years. At some point you have to start trying again.”
The dark man’s teeth clenched again now, for an entirely different reason. Desperately, he fought the lump forming in his throat, unsure what to say - or if he could even bring himself to speak at all. His mouth opened and then closed again as Charles made a turn, making Kam’s world reel at the shifting gravity. The free hand clasped the edge of the seat to hold himself in place where he had sprawled across the length, knees slightly bent up. He was too tall to fit comfortably, really.
The silence stretched on until at last, the car rolled to an easy stop and Kam let his arm drop from where he had been using it as a shield. Through the windows, Kam recognized the roof of his condo and pushed himself up slowly to a sitting position. In moments, Charles had his door open and was leaning down to meet his eyes seriously. Kam was more aware of himself, if by a small margin, and as his eyes connected with the officer’s he saw that same look of sympathy he had seen a dozen times before. The graying man was about to say something he didn't really want to hear, there was no way around it.
He wished he had a reason to make Charles smile, to make it so he had one good memory with him. Kam knew that Charles would only ever look at him and feel deeply rooted regret and guilt. That's why he always made that same face every time he had to be the reasoning adult in the dreadhead's life.
“Look, this has to be the last time I find you passed out on the street, Kamboja. The next time I have to take you in - I can’t keep risking my job if you’re going to become a menace. Do you understand?” The tone in his voice was no-nonsense, no matter what the look on his face said. Ashamed of himself, Kam’s eyes dropped to stare at the floor mat below his feet. At twenty-seven years old, Charles shouldn't have been dropping him off on his front doorstep anymore. He couldn't even argue this time.
“Yes, sir.”
There was some shuffling as Kam slid out of the car and rose to his full height, with Charles stepping aside to let him out. As he reached into his pocket to fish out his keys, the older man put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m really sorry we never found him, Kam.”
His fingers clenched around the keys as he found them shoved awkwardly into his back pocket and his face fought to maintain its composure. Maybe they had never found him - but someone had. The reminder wasn’t welcomed but Kam did his best to smile weakly at the man who, after all this time, still looked out for him. He didn’t deserve such concern and Charles certainly didn’t deserve his anger. It wasn’t his fault, after all, civilians could have no idea what happened behind closed doors in this city.
“Me too, Charles.”
As he fumbled with the lock and key of his front door, he heard Charles get back in his squad car and pull away. When he finally heard his lock turn, he turned the handle and stepped inside - he had never been more relieved to shut his door on the world.
[Part One Complete - 1641 words]
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Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 5:29 pm
It was hours later and his buzz was nearly gone. Part of him wanted to sleep, but couldn’t, and the other part of him wanted to stay awake and try to avoid a headache. There was a dull, thick feeling settling in the back of his head that suggested he might not even be able to avoid it this time no matter what old wive’s tale he tried.
With a small sigh, he reached for his phone and punched in the pin code. As the screen flared to life in his dimly lit room, he frowned into the glare. Four missed calls from Sana and what he assumed were probably a few really angry text messages trying to hide how concerned she really was. The last time he had seen her, she was in the arms of someone else, laughing at the center of the dance floor in a way he hadn’t seen her laugh with him in a very long time. It had hurt more than he expected, to know it was better for her if he wasn’t around, but he couldn’t blame that on her.
[To Sana: I just need some me time, Zharkov. It’s okay.]
The phone was dropped and forgotten among the mattress topping, swallowed within several bunched comforters and blankets that he kept atop his bed.
It felt like he was on his way to burning every bridge he had managed to build back up for himself in the last few years but as he was right then, he didn’t ever want to be around people. At least, not the people that really expected things from him. There was so much he’d forsaken in his blind, selfish search for ghosts and even though he didn’t want to risk losing everyone in a moment of weakness - what if this never got better? What if it wasn’t just a moment of weakness? What if he just wasn’t strong enough to be Gehenna?
What if this consumed him?
He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring up at the popcorn ceiling overhead silently. His dark eyes drifted, picking out lazy patterns in the spatters as the off-white, blue lighting from his tv flashed across it. There was nothing on the channels interesting enough to hold his attention and eventually, his mind kept drifting back to the one topic he wanted to avoid:
What the hell was he supposed to do?
In times of trouble he really had no one to turn to - his parents had been gone, as Charles had kindly pointed out, nearly ten years. Khetal had been gone off and on for nearly as long. Even when he’d found him, briefly, there had been no way to repair what the damage of his own mistakes had cost him. His brother didn’t want to be found and many, many people didn’t want Kam to find him. How could he even begin to explain this to someone that didn’t know what the Negaverse was? Even those that did know about the perils of the dark kingdom wouldn’t help him now, he was sure of it, not after the things he’d done. The look in Hver’s eyes when she realized why Ida had really sent her to find him haunted him even now, weeks later. Those that could have helped him best, he had already betrayed.
“Some Knight of Mars,” he mumbled into his empty room. The Universe must have thought it a great joke.
Realizing there was no solace to be had in the drone of his television, the bare-chested man pushed himself up slowly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The sudden shift of position made his head swim - there was still more alcohol in his system than he’d realized when he was sprawled out across his mattress. For a moment he had to shut his eyes as the world tilted, but at last the beating in his temples waned and he was able to stand on steady feet. The only light in his condo was the shifting glow of the television behind him, but the dreadhead managed to find his way through the apartment without much trouble. His fingers trailed along the wall as he went, feeling for the ledges and gaps he knew were there until both of them cleared the hallway onto his living room. From there it was simply picking out shapes, stepping around corners, and finally he was at the door to his fridge.
Bright light gave a ghostly wash to his dark skin as the seal parted and the door swung free on its hinge. Kamboja’s dark eyes squinted, especially as the illumination seared through to the dull, thick throbbing in the back of his skull.
“Uuhhgghh.” It was a dramatic sound, meant for no one but his empty apartment to hear.
One hand reached out to grab a water bottle, tucked it into the crook of his elbow, while the second grabbed two beers by the neck. He popped the top off of one on the edge of the counter (he was sure there were a dozen grooves in that spot by now) and took a great chug. Drinking more was probably the last thing he needed, but he wanted to stave off that headache more than he wanted to be sober. Nothing would happen to him in the safety of his home anyway. At least nothing worse than an angry Russian woman with a mean right hook.
The door was kicked shut with one ankle, cutting off the only light source and abruptly leaving him in a blacker darkness than he’d been in before. While he stood still for a few moments waiting on his eyes to adjust as much as they would, he finished off the first beer and set it on the counter - recycling was tomorrow, right? Or was it Friday..? Wait, was today Friday? In the end he only shrugged it off and unscrewed the top of the water bottle still tucked in the crook of his elbow. It was there, standing just inside the open archway of his kitchen, that he heard the key in the lock. He paused mid chug and dropped the bottle from his lips, setting it and his spare beer on the counter as he tried to guess who might be on the other side of that door.
There were two good options - Ariel or..
“Kamboja,” the emphasis on the tail of his name made him wince.
Sana.
The door swung open and illuminated the inside of his apartment with the dull hall lighting, casting everything in oranges and haloing the golden hair atop her head. Even with her face set in contrast, he could see the scowl on her pouty lips and the way her eyes said he was staring at his own death. ********, but he hated when she was mad. There was no way he was going to joke himself out of this fight, not if the set of her shoulders was any indication. He had to fight the instinct to put something between them - a chair, a table, or maybe an actual shield might suffice. In the end he only stepped forward into the living room so she could see him, lest she begin trashing his apartment out of impatience.
“I know Nick Jonas is really convincing, but some people do actually want space, Zharkov.”
The sound that escaped her was half laughter and half growl as she stepped over the threshold and flipped on the lights with a long, manicured nail. Everything came to life in startling detail for him and he winced, bringing a hand up to shield his face and squinting eyes. One of the woman’s hands reached down to grab the heel of her shoe, pulling it free of her foot as she teetered carefully on the other. With her other hand braced against the open doorway, she tossed it into his living room carelessly, where it tumbled to a stop against the side of his couch. She dropped four inches in height as she shifted weight and removed the other, disposing of it just as thoughtlessly. Even through his temporary blindness, Kam could tell she was just as smashed as she’d been when he left.
That meant she was devoting some serious willpower to this.
“Don’t you ever,” a hand raised and pointed an accusing finger at him as she stepped forward, “ever,” she kicked the door shut with her foot for added emphasis, “leave me on my own like that again.” She was already crossing the space between them, rounding the livingroom furniture with a stalk in her step that made him uneasy.
The darker man could only grimace at the implication that he had abandoned her. Half of him recoiled out of guilt while another, drunker part of him rose in anger against the accusation. If Sana Zharkov was anything, it was an independent woman and not a sniveling, clingy damsel in distress. This couldn’t have just been about the party. She might’ve decided to use the incident to her advantage because she was ultimately a very smart girl, but she was no more in danger without him than a wildcat left alone. Yet as he opened his mouth to speak, he found her opening her own to stop him, tilting her head back only a fraction as she came face to face with him and stared angrily at him out of those hazy, honeyed eyes.
“Friends don’t do that to each other,” she said mockingly, planting both hands firmly on her hips, “we don’t do that s**t to each other.”
“Okay, I’m sorry I left you at the party,” he countered, letting his words roll nonchalantly from his lips. It wasn’t a truly heartfelt apology but neither was she truly upset about what he was apologizing for - a guess she proved true with her next words.
“This isn’t about the ******** party!” One of her hands rose from the super-hero pose and slapped him hard across the chest. There enough pressure behind it that he winced against the sting of flesh on flesh but he didn’t back away, or try to stop her - which seemed to only aggravate her more. Both hands raised with annoyed groan, then pushed at his chest instead, making his shoulders rock until he finally had to catch her with both large hands, clamping them around her wrists. She shook and tugged at the hold but he kept her still firmly, letting her stare daggers at him without a flinch. “This is what I mean, Kam! Look at you, you’re a zombie. You don’t want to hang out with me, you don’t want to party, you won’t even get worked up at me when I’m trying to piss you off.”
The Russian heir ripped her wrists free with an annoyed sigh and turned away from him, taking a few steps to the side and starting to head toward his room. He didn’t want her to make herself comfortable and fall asleep because honestly, he didn’t want her to be in his space at all. The fact that he’d told her so not once now, but twice, made his lips pull into a tight line.
“Because I’m not in the ******** mood for this right now.”
In seconds he had rounded in front of her and blocked her path down the hallway, then stepped forward a few paces so that she had to step back to keep him from physically forcing her backward. The look on her face was one of pure venom but even Sana could see the lack of response in Kam - he had that dull, brooding set to his lips that told her he was going to be purposefully difficult and stubborn. She hated when he acted like such a stubborn mule because it made her anger fade. What was the point of trying to work him up if it was impossible.
“You don’t want anyone’s help, okay, whatever, I -”
“Are you serious right now, Sana?” The blonde’s eyes widened just a fraction at the sternness to his tone as he cut her off and she found herself taking an uncertain step backward, away from him, as he took one forward. There was a rigidness to his body that seemed foreboding - that was what he looked like right before he got into a bar fight. In her own sloppy drunkenness, she hadn’t bothered to read him. He was drunk even if he wasn’t as smashed as she felt, she could see it now, in the way he squinted against the light but managed to look threatening none-the-less. “Help? What have you been doing to ******** help?”
Both of the man’s hands fell to his side and curled into fists, nearly against his own will. His eyes looked at the door behind her, staring past her face as if she didn’t exist - or at least, as if he didn’t want her to. The look hurt more than the words and she drew herself up even as she saw his lips part again.
“You should just go, before I get mad and say some s**t I can’t take back.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere!” She planted her foot in a stomp that was much less intimidating without the snap of her heel on wood to accentuate it. To give the motion that last bit of oomph, she raised both arms and crossed them defiantly over her chest with a huff. “You can’t make me. I’m not going to just let you shut me out so you can pout here by yourself.”
“You really think I can’t make you leave?” There was a cold, frustrated laugh on his lips, one that lacked the charming rumble of his deep voice. His dark eyes refocused on hers for a moment, and then he raised a hand to his temple - that headache really was getting worse. “Last chance. Walk out of the door by yourself.”
Pouting and stubbornness wasn’t going to work today. Both of Sana’s arms dropped at the realization and she took a few hesitant steps forward instead, switching the expression on her face from annoyed to concerned. There was a dip in her brows, a frown at the corners of her lips - it almost seemed genuine, mostly because she was too drunk to seem threatening. As she neared him again, she reached out, pressing the flat of her warm palm against his chest. He didn’t pull away, but the frown on his face became more apparent and his eyes raised to hers. For a moment she thought he would give in and she used it, pulling closer, pressing her fingers gently into the skin of his chest as she tried to close the space between them.
“Kam, I just -”
“No.” He cut her off again and dropped his hand from his temple, letting it grasp hers instead. The grip was light, but enough to pull her fingers free of his chest even as she dug them in and attempted to hold on. “You just nothing. You’re leaving. I told you.”
There was no time to even protest before he dipped and caught her around the middle. In a motion that suggested he’d done it a dozen times before, he hauled her up and settled her abdomen across one broad shoulder, though it was with considerable more effort than he remembered. Maybe it was his own wasted strength or the fact that he was buzzed, but for a moment he almost dropped her - though her incessant squirming and wiggling didn’t help her stability.
“No, put me down!” The shriek of words was nearly unintelligible from Sana’s lips, angry and slurred. Both of her palms beat against his back before she raised her head, curling both hands into fists and raining another series of blows along his shoulder blades. She even had the lack of thought to try twisting in his hold, to break it so he’d release her. The dark-skinned man had no idea where the hell she thought she would end up if she succeeded. He assumed she wasn’t thinking that far ahead either.
“Stop struggling, you’re going to hurt yourself.” His arms tightened their grip, unrelenting, as he spoke his only words of warning with a stern tone. It took little time to cross the living room, not when he channeled his anger into his stride. The hand not death gripped around her middle reached out to swing the door open and in seconds, he had deposited her none-too-gently on her rump, right on his front porch.
“You aren’t seriously going to just leave me here, I can’t drive home!” Her hands slapped against the cool pavement beneath them, accentuating her guilt trip with a sting. The dreadhead disappeared into the house and for a moment Sana thought he might be reconsidering, especially since he’d left the door open. She pushed herself up onto her knees, hardly believing she’d managed to sway him with such an easy remark, and was just about to start crawling forward when he returned with her shoes, depositing them in front of her as carelessly as she had removed them.
“I’ll call you a cab, but you’re not staying here.”
A huffy, short sigh of breath was directed at his words, blown up between her bangs so the hair rose on the current.
“At least give me my keys then, if you’re going to be a ******** a*****e.”
Name calling. At least that meant she was accepting his decision - it was what she always resorted to when she realized she wasn’t going to get her way. A part of him wanted to groan at how spoiled she was, but he couldn’t blame her for it, not really. The attitude she always sported like an accessory was what had drawn him to her, though the woman she was beneath it had been what kept them bound to one another so long. It was too bad that woman had given up on him - he didn’t want to be Party Sana’s Ken toy. Not with the s**t he was dealing with, the s**t he couldn’t even begin to explain.
“No. I think I’d like one less person intruding on my personal time, especially when I ******** tell them not to.” The hand on the doorknob tightened and he began to shut it, slowly. “And I’m not going to spend the rest of my night worried about you wrecking your car because you’re a damn idiot.”
Sana flinched at the words but the door was shutting - was there nothing to say to keep the wall from going up? He’d done this before, only once, but it had been weeks before he’d spoken to her again and a fear she hadn’t known existed suddenly flared within her soul. Her mouth opened and her hand reached as she started to crawl forward on her knees, but her words were too jumbled to flow past her lips and she heard the door click shut before she could stop him- then the deadbolt slid into place. She was left staring at Kam’s front door with no way to get in short of trying to crawl through a window.
She wasn’t drunk enough for that.
Instead she leaned her head into the door and sighed, even tested beating her fists against it angrily so he’d know she was still there, but in the end felt herself slump against the cool metal. He’d tossed her out on the street, even if he’d promised to call a cab. He would, she knew. He was angry and spiteful but still the man she’d always come home to, the sturdy foundation she had taken advantage of for so long.
When had he started to crumble and why had it taken her so long to notice?
A sigh escaped her and her eyes shut as she sat there, ignoring the cold, gritty concrete beneath her legs. She didn’t know how much time had passed before there was a flash of lights and the sound of tires crunching over gravel. The woman didn’t get up when the car rolled to a stop, nor did she even react to the man she heard speaking to her dimly through the haze of her drunken silence.
“Ma’am, is that your address, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you,” she answered, annoyed, before she reached up and used the doorknob to pull herself onto her feet. There was a quick check to make sure her shoulder bag was still slung across her torso and then she dipped to grab her shoes, hooking her fingers into the back of the pumps. Once she was sure she still had everything that Kam wasn’t holding hostage, she brought her eyes up to see the driver. He was a bit greasy, but the car was nice. She began to walk forward and he scrambled to open the door, letting her crawl in.
At least he could appreciate the beauty of a party girl as she crashed from the high. Kam had too, once. He’d called her a beautiful mess. She didn’t want to remember that right now, which meant she couldn’t be alone. As her head leaned back into the carseat, she waited for the driver to shut her door and get back in the driver’s seat.
“Take me here.” A hand reached into her bag and came free with a business card - one she had snagged from Marlo’s desk the last time he had been working late. There was some kind of agreement from the young man’s lips but she had already relaxed into the backseat with her eyes staring out at Kam’s front door.
In seconds the car was rolling forward, tossing the cab in shadow as it left the illuminated parking lot.
If he wanted space, he could damn well have it.
[Part Two Complete - 3643 words]
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 9:47 am
It was hours after Sana left that Kam found himself perched on the edge of his bed, staring down at a pint of whiskey in his hand. The amber liquid sloshed lazily up the side of the glass as he sat, trapped in thought, trying to decide how much of the nearly empty bottle had already been gone when he plucked it from his liquor cabinet. His mind was a cloud, hazy from the alcohol and general lack of sleep that followed long nights like this. He could see the first rays of light crawling through slits in his blinds and spattering the generic, beige carpet of his bedroom.
He didn’t want to be here.
The hand holding the bottle dropped lazily between his legs as he draped the strong forearm across his knee and bent forward. The other large palm ran up and across his face, rubbing his eyes and blurring his vision beyond the ability to recognize the shapes around him. It was better not to remember every memory of his room, the people he cared about that were fluttering fixtures of his life. Sana’s makeup still littered the top of his dresser and he remembered every time he had watched her with Ice, primping themselves in an odd juxtaposition of personalities. Everywhere he looked he saw Sana, but nothing of Ariel. There would be no little trinkets to remind him of her, such a whirlwind as she was in his life. Maybe that was for the best.
In a shift that felt as easy as breathing, Kamboja was replaced by Gehenna. He wasn’t sure when he’d decided that this was how the night was going to end, only that he had. It had seemed like the only answer when he didn’t want to be on the Earth anymore. The Squire of Mars pulled himself to his feet slowly and ran his thumb around the ring on his finger - always there, a subtle weight to remind him of who he was. It wasn’t the ring on his finger, however, that he looked down at as his palm spread below him - it was the gauntlet itself, forever strapped to his arm and more like an extension of who he was. Not just a reminder.
“I pledge my life and loyalty to Mars, and to Gehenna.” His glazed eyes roamed across the red-stained tips of his weapon, wondering silently as he spoke aloud just how many had died at his hands. How many had fed the beast contained within his magic? “I humbly request your aid, so that I may in return give you mine.”
It always felt like he was being ripped out of place, that was the only way he knew how to describe the feeling of Mars’ grip on him. There was a rush like falling, though he saw nothing, felt nothing. He was only aware of himself as he was deposited roughly onto the hard-packed red earth of Mars. The jolt made him stumble over his feet and he fell, slamming one knee into the ground as he tried to maintain his upright position with his free hand. It wasn’t just the fall that made his head swim but, too, the liquor thick in his veins making his senses muddy and disoriented. The dark eyes drifted from his fingers, splayed on the ground and already coated in a thin layer of red dust, to the opposite hand that still clutched his nearly-finished bottle of whiskey.
“What a joke,” he mumbled thickly to no one, slurring his words around a lazy tongue. With a great sigh of effort, he pushed himself back up onto his feet and rose to his full height, ignoring the dust coating his leggings in favor of staring out at the great lake of lava before him. A winding path led up to the bridge that stretched across to the charred island, but below it the lake bubbled, angry and hot as ever. A sheen of sweat had already begun across his forehead and he grimaced as he turned, putting his clumsy feet in motion on the path upward while he scrubbed at his skin with the scarf around his wrist.
The walk was not an easy one. It was long and left him feeling a bit winded, despite his added Squire stamina, and his mucked up sense of balance had him veering dangerously towards the crumbling edges of the pathway. Farther and farther below, the pit of lava boiled in slow motion, sending a haze of heat upwards that he felt as if he could never escape. There was some magic holding the deadliness of it at bay, he knew, though he wondered to himself if it had always been this hot or if the magic was starting to slip away.
Would it be impossible to visit soon?
Gehenna’s eyes passed over the edge of the bridge as he crossed until he came, at last, to the great courtyard of Gehenna. Columns circled him in various stages of decay, half crumbled and whole alike, while at the very center stood a chipped statue of a Princess he didn’t know by face - though he had always known, by heart, who she was. Mars. His patron. The woman he would never know but to whom Gehenna owed so much. What would she think now of her failed Knight?
A troubled frown pulled at the corner of his lips and he turned away from her, putting her behind his back and out of sight as he slipped instead to the edge of the cliff. The approach was slow and careful but, despite that, his feet cause the edge to crumble. Small pellets of rock tumbled down the cliff edge and he stepped back, watching with a wary eye as they thunked thickly against the burning pit and were swallowed into anonymity. Nothing survived the pit.
“Nothing survives.” There was a chuckle to the end of the word, an amused drunken thought. He tipped the whiskey bottle back and downed the last of it between already parched lips. There was true disappointment in his gaze as he drummed his fingers lightly against the upturned bottom and stared nearly cross eyed into the glass container. It was bone dry. Annoyed, he pulled back his arm and let the glass fly in a whistling arc through the air. End over end it tumbled, until it landed hard against the scalding muck and disappeared, like the rocks, with a bit of bubbling flair. The dreadhead stared long and hard at the spot where the bottle was swallowed into oblivion.
How long did it take to black out from that pain? Would it be done with quickly?
The wasted man stepped closer to the edge again and peered down, staring into the churning orange and reds of the molten rock so far below him. All it would take was a shift of his weight and gravity would take over - down he would go, swallowed and forgotten.
Gehenna.
The man whipped around so quickly then that he nearly did fall into the pit. There was a wild swing of his arms as he fought to maintain his balance but his eyes found the face that had spoken - found it and widened.
The woman was beautiful, what bit of her he could see steadily, anyway. As he finally regained his balance he stepped forward and away from the edge of the cliff, trying to get a better look at the face below a head of black curls. It was hard, though. The woman kept.. Shifting. At first he assumed he was completely imagining things and raised a hand to rub at his eyes. When it dropped, however, she remained - though even a bit more blurry from the motion.
“Um,” he began, speaking before he knew what words to say, knowing only that he felt compelled to answer the warrior goddess that had just appeared out of thin air, “yes? Can - Can I help you?”
Gehenna.
The voice spoke again but the woman’s lips didn’t move. Her face fluttered, as if he were watching a video in fast forward, but her eyes never dropped the stare that held his. Some part of him felt as if she weren’t truly seeing him, only staring through him, and he couldn’t shake the uneasiness that he felt beneath her gaze.
You should see something. Let me show you.
The words came jumbled upon each other, like they were pieced together from different sentences, and Gehenna struggled to tell if they were actually being spoken aloud. It was possible he was only hearing them in his head - or that all of this was in his head, truthfully. As his lips parted and his jaw slacked to let him speak, she turned without warning. Both of his eyes narrowed on her body as it flickered in and out of sight, making her walk toward the courthouse behind them disjointed and hard to follow with his eyes. Nevertheless, he trailed behind her, taking slow and deliberate steps so that he did not pass her - or get too close.
“Soo..”
His first attempt at small talk. With what, a ghost? The man almost laughed at that thought but withheld it. Was laughing inappropriate?
“Are you here alone?”
The flickering body ahead of him flashed, showing him images in quick succession of her both facing him and continuing to walk away. The sight of the back of her head alternating with an oddly amused face made him uneasy and he had to pause to slump in on himself, holding a sudden and unexpected wave of nausea at bay. A strong hand fisted against his chest as he watched her continue to dwindle away ahead of him, until she paused at an open stairwell.
We - are never truly alone.
Then she disappeared, simply ceased to be.
The thick brows suspended above his dark eyes furrowed and he rose to his full height again, hesitantly walking toward the dark staircase. There were no lights to guide him - only darkness and a winding stairwell that continued to the cells he knew lined the lower levels of the courthouse.
“Heeelllooo?”
The word echoed off the enclosed walls, bouncing and rebounding off of the stone down to the lower levels, but still she did not reappear. Suddenly left without her apparition, Gehenna felt somehow more alone and wondered, too, if he were just imagining things. It wasn’t that he had come to his wonder to seek out company (the opposite, really) but he had only ever seen his wonder rouse to his presence once before this. It had been a young girl with golden eyes that he’d seen then - a girl that looked nothing at all like the woman that had just dissipated into thin air. He almost did think he was crazy - but the blurry clothing the woman wore was nothing his unimaginative brain could have produced.
Both of his arms stretched out beside him to touch the walls of the stairwell once he began to descend. The steps weren’t steep, thankfully, but he was also five degrees past wasted. It was a long walk to the bottom, full of hesitant steps and clumsy footing - he’d even nearly fallen once. There was a definite sigh of relief as he found his feet firmly on the floor, but it hitched the moment his eyes connected with a startling pair of red ones. Every muscle in Gehenna’s body tensed, though he couldn’t say he was surprised to see her there. Afraid that if he moved she might leave, he remained frozen beneath her bright gaze. There was no shift of her form as she stood there watching him, only that strange flickering that reminded him of an old film. He began to sway as he watched her, until she finally turned and moved through an open archway to their left.
“O.. k…” The letters were spoken with pause, a mockery under his breath at his companion’s silent walk ahead of him and out of sight again.
Both dark hands went up in the air and dropped, a clear sign of frustration, but his feet fell to motion and he found himself following her anyway. The passageway was long and confusing, winding in ways that he didn’t understand and at times, he swore they were walking down an incline. Cells lined the walls off and on, grouped together in ways that did not make sense to the man who had spent precious little time exploring this wonder, but on the spectre continued. The farther she led him, the colder it seemed to grow. There was nothing but the uncomfortable silence between them to keep him company and soon, even his surroundings grew mundane and boring. They seemed to continue on like that forever, through a simply stone hallway, until he saw a large iron gate looming ahead of him.
Beyond it was a room, and it was here that she beckoned.
“This way.”
The expression on his face seemed almost annoyed, except for the odd way he turned his head to look at her. ********, but she was nauseating, no matter how pretty she looked - or, well, how pretty he thought she looked. The blurriness was too much.
He wasn’t turning back now, though.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he mumbled aloud, ambling forward and ducking just slightly to avoid the sharp pronged bottoms of the gate itself. When his eyes finally rose to look at the room she had brought him to..
There was nothing.
He furrowed his brows as dark eyes traced the curve of the wall, following it from his right side all the way to his left. A circular room. With nothing.
“Are you ******** serious right now?”
There was real anger in his tone as he whirled back to look at her, spurred both by the foolish journey away from his real goal and the alcohol churning in his veins. One hand curled into a fist at his side and when he spoke again, it was through a growl.
“I don’t have time for this s**t.”
And she laughed.
It was an eerie sound that made the hairs at the back of his neck stand up, as if she were not laughing once, but many times all layered over each other. It made the sneer in his face sag and fade to uneasiness as he watched her. She was regal and violent, somehow threatening even in her immaterial body. Those bright red eyes never left his except briefly, when she disappeared and reappeared in sight a few paces back.
He wasn’t sure what it was that alarmed him but he suddenly felt a dread so deep that he stepped forward, as if he meant to stop something he couldn’t touch or feel or even really predict. There wasn’t even a change in her expression when it happened - no final warning, no hint to save himself. Inside his swimming head he recognized the metallic grate of a gear shifting and his eyes rose, helplessly, as the weight released the door. Time felt slower as he began a sloppy run but he got no closer than a few steps before the gate collided with the floor in a quaking shudder. The jarring caused him to stumble over his feet, almost tumbling forward except for the hands that found the crosshatched bars. When she spoke to him, it was from the other side.
“You are right. There is not much time for you.”
“WHAT?”
The sound of his roar echoed down the hall past her, mocking him as even it escaped beyond his grap. None of this made any ******** sense and drunken Gehenna felt even angrier than he had before. The strong hands hauled him back upright until he could plant his feet beneath him again - secure, he used the leverage to shake the gate in violent frustration. It was impossibly sturdy for something left to ruin for hundreds of thousands of years and even that made him want to be even more violent, until he put his whole body into the assault and his dreads began whipping wildly. It was a short flare, as the churning made his head woozy and his stomach uneasy. Finally, he had to stop, dizzied and sick. He leaned his head forward against the cool metal and simply slumped against the gate.
“You can’t keep me here,” the were were a quiet and resigned mumble in the wake of his flaring anger. His dark eyes rose to look at her as he reclined, sliding down his side to crumple at last against the stone beneath him with the gate as his prop.
Could she?
A lump constricted his breathing, sinking like a heavy weight on his chest, as he watched her turn and flutter down the hallway out of sight.
She could.
[Part Three Complete - 2812 words]
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 5:48 pm
Time passed strangely in a cold, windowless cell. Gehenna would have wagered that was the entire point of this particular construction.
For the first few hours he remained hopeful despite the crazy figment of his imagination that had somehow grown strong enough to physically interfere with his life. Was this sort of thing just considered normal to other knights - had he missed some sort of orientation class? Whatever the reason, he had just enough energy and remaining buzz left to try his hand at any number of half-assed escape attempts. First he’d tried shaking the metal gate off of its hinges, putting in so much effort that his teeth had rattled until they jarred, leaving him with another layer to his returning headache. When physical force hadn’t helped him, he’d wandered the circumference of his room, looking for any sign of a crack or opening that could be exploited. There wasn’t. The design was flawless.
Who was a twenty seven year old Earth punk to a prison designed by a race that time had completely forgotten but not destroyed?
At last, Gehenna reclined into the wall and found himself staring up at the ceiling. There was a calmness in him, for someone that was probably going to starve to death somewhere that he’d never even be found. One more missing person on a Destiny City milk carton. Hell, he might not even make it that far. Who was left to report him missing?
The dark lips parted around a laugh as Gehenna slid slowly down the wall he had been using for support and came to rest against the stone floor with splayed legs. The sound rebounded and echoed back at him until the small hollow was alive with a ghostly rumble, making him feel more alone somehow. His smile faded before the sound of his own laughter and when silence found him again, it was with his body slumped forward and his hand pressed to his face.
This was hopeless - there was nothing to do but wait to die.
It was impossible to say exactly when he slipped from reality into the clutches of sleep. It could have been hours, a whole day, he had no way of knowing when the minutes and hours blurred together into one long, impossible moment. Sleep, when it finally claimed him, was both a blessing and a curse.
”What are you laughing at?”
The tone that reached him was stern, but that didn’t do anything to dampen his mirth.
“To be fair, I’m not actually laughing.” Yet he could feel the smile that pulled his lips tight, no matter how hard he struggled to hide it. As he looked up at the woman fighting to get out of her chair, he couldn’t help the show of humor that pulled his face, or the genuine love and pride that radiated from him in waves. He rose at last from behind the desk and strode toward her, holding out a hand as he neared her.
The woman brought her eyes up to meet his and Kam, within his dream, had a startling moment of clarity. The face that had locked him within his cell, a place that seemed lightyears away, was staring up at him from where she struggled to rise from a chair. That face was fuller, thicker from the weight she was carrying - both in her cheeks but, too, in her belly.
“I hope he inherits that smugness of yours, Rayyan, so you might know what it’s like to have it staring back at you.”
That did make him laugh, even more so as she defiantly ignored his hand and rose up to her feet at last. It was with great effort and she seemed winded for it, but her shoulders squared despite it and she brought her head up to meet his gaze without letting her exhaustion dampen her temper. As her hand fell and rested gently under the swell of her stomach, he reached out and pressed his own against the taut skin beneath the thin layer of her pooling dress. There was a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth as he leaned and pressed a gentle kiss against her lips.
“And I hope that he has your fire, my love.”
When Gehenna stirred, it took him a moment to come to terms with where he was. Not only was he not standing next to a nameless, pregnant lover but he was also not in the comfort of his own home - he was in the cell that he had forgotten until the moment his gaze fell back upon it. With a groan, he pushed one dark elbow into the floor and rose up slowly into a sitting position, peering through a room that had neither darkened or lightened to give any indication of what time it was. Every bone and muscle in his body protested with stiffness born of sleeping on a cold, stone floor.
One hand rose as his eyes shut, rubbing his temple gently in an attempt to stave off a headache that was roaring to life now that he had made the mistake of sitting upright. A frown pulled at his lips and his eyes opened to stare at his lap, tracing the gold plating that hung beneath his belt and balanced across his thigh. He remained that way, for some time, until he became aware of movement from his peripherals. When he glanced up, he was somehow unsurprised to see her there.
This time she was kneeling only feet from him, watching him blankly, as if she weren’t really seeing him - though her head moved as she finally earned his attention.
“Are you a ghost?”
It was hard to tell if she was smiling or frowning as she wavered before his eyes, making him squint through the dim lighting. If she had returned, maybe she would agree to let him out of the damned cage.
”No.” It was all she said at first. Then, without warning, her body flashed forward - still kneeling, she was now doing so inches from his face. ”I am not her, but you notice her. You always did.”
Gehenna frowned and leaned back, away from her, but could only go so far as his head touching the stone wall at his back. She, on the other hand, kept advancing on him until he was finally stuck between the rock and her flickering, nauseating face with nowhere left to go. It was unnerving the way she didn’t blink but fluttered like hummingbird wings before him, never in or out of focus entirely. It was that distraction that kept him from seeing the hand she raised toward him until it was too late, until it was hovering above his heart -
No.
Not his heart, but his starseed.
”This will hurt.”
The words were spoken with no empathy and proved, ultimately, to be the understatement of Gehenna’s short life. The first sensation was of something being ripped away from him - something that was not meant to part once it was his, a piece of his soul that she was prying from his starseed with force he didn’t understand. His hand rose and tried to grasp her wrist but found nothing but air between his fingers - when that failed he tried to kick himself away. His lips parted around a silent cry as horror spread across his features. The legs that pushed at the floor finally brought him up onto his feet, weakly, but she only rose with him effortlessly.
“Stop, please -”
It was a choke of words that were strangled by the fire blooming across his chest, a fire that shot pain like solar flares up his spine. The white, hot pain became blinding and his consciousness began to slip beneath the raw agony. As he slipped into darkness he was aware of two things - a helpless falling sensation and the woman’s parting words.
”This is the price that the foolish man pays.
When Gehenna was next aware of himself, he was stalking the length of a great, cobbled trail down to the docks where they met visitors from other planets. This ship he had been expecting - they had planned it months in advance and word had arrived from Tanais just yesterday to let him know that it had been spotted nearing the planet. He had set out at once, leaving everything behind, so that he could ride out to meet her - his Sylvi.
“Wave, say; Hai Fadr.”
He heard the words as he neared but the young girl, with her wild curls, only shied away and hid in the comfort of her mother’s embrace. It brought a smile to his lips. Of course she was shy on the unfamiliar planet, though her gentleness still surprised him. With a King for a mother and a Knight for a father, both born of blood and war and strength, he had to wonder what luck had earned his daughter such grace.
Gehenna let go of his power and stood before them as Rayyan, armorless and open. He was not a Knight of Gehenna, he was simply Rayyan Valkyrne - Earth brat, father. As Eir released the small girl, he drew her into his arms and pulled her close until, at last, he felt her relax and slip her little hands around his neck.
Her lips cracked in a smile and the man felt his world light up with the same pride he always had when he stared into her golden eyes - his mother’s eyes.
”Where is your father from, with that name?”
Rayyan’s brows knit at the interjection. Sylvi had frozen in his arms and Eir, too, at his side. The world wavered around him, shifting, growing darker and light again until he heard himself answer from nowhere.
“It’s not my father’s name, it’s my mother’s.”
The world around him dissolved with the admission until Rayyan found himself standing in an office he knew well - with a woman before him that looked remarkably like the toddler he had been holding so close to himself not moments before. He stared at her from where he leaned back on his desk, watching the fiery defiance that burned in her eyes. Was it Mjolnir or Tanais that had given her such a stubborn streak? Perhaps both of them, but it was Mjolnir that he wanted her to remember just now.
“She wanted you to have it, Sylvi.”
The golden eyes shifted from his dark gaze, down to the pendant he held suspended from his hand. Outside, there was the sound of an order being barked and feet marching through the hallway - Rayyan’s gaze drifted in that direction before he felt smaller, more fragile hands clasp his own.
“I won’t take it! Not if it means leaving you behind, you can’t -”
“Sylvi.”
The tone was more stern than he wanted to use now, in this last moment, but it brought her eyes back up to stare at his without argument. By all the gods in the universe, she was beautiful. Fiery and strong and so much like the people whose blood she carried in her veins.
“My little flower, your brother and sister need you. I know it’s not fair that I ask - but such are the vows we took when we pledged ourselves to Mars. Tanais and I always knew this day might come, we have never lied to you about it.” The golden eyes were brimming with tears as he pushed himself up to his full height and towered above her. His large hand curled around hers, closing her fingers around the necklace Eir had left for her so many years ago. “You are the legacy of two great bloodlines. You and Ajay are the last hope of an entire people.”
Her mouth worked as she tried to find the words to deny him, to speak a greater truth than he was laying upon her ears in that moment. In the end her chin only trembled and the tears began to fall despite how hard she had set her jaw, that telltale sign she had retained since she was a child. She was always too proud to let others see her weak moments and he had always wanted to protect her from that pain. He raised his free hand to stroke his thumb along her cheek, wiping away the trail of a tear and ending the motion by tucking her wild hair behind her ear one last time.
In a moment, he felt her arms close around his chest and he let his chin raise as he embraced her in turn, staring across the room as every part of him struggled not to break down for the young woman burying her heartache into his chest. Dying for his vow was not the hard part - it was letting his children go before he did.
“Go to Earth, my flower, they will keep you all safe.”
Gehenna’s eyes snapped open onto the same empty cell, though now it felt more suffocating than chilled. His skin was peppered with sweat beneath the layers of armor and he reached up with a single, trembling hand to tug at the high collar around his neck. It did little but shift it around and only made him aware, suddenly, of how thirsty he was.
How long had he been out that time?
His lips felt dry and cracked. As he tried to push himself up, his entire body protested, and a wave of nausea and dizziness hit him so suddenly that he had no choice but to lay back against the stone beneath him. There was a pleasantness in the cool slab that he hadn’t noticed before and his eyes drifted partially closed, until he was sure he was wavering in and out of consciousness. He was too weak to remain awake but too unnerved to let sleep take him again.
The memories were hazy at best, tumbling through his thoughts like bricks in a dryer. They were too much all together, blurring at their starts and finishes, downloaded but not quite installed. Rayyan was beating a place for himself inside of Gehenna, inside of Kam.
The third time that the woman made herself known, he was not surprised, nor did he try to escape. He was too weak and she - she looked unphased. She wasn’t a ghost but she certainly was not alive, either.
Fevered eyes stared up at her impassive expression, looking into the eyes for any real sign of sentience.
“Did I die?”
For a brief moment, she seemed puzzled - but it was gone in a blink.
”You all died. That is the nature of life.”
It was Gehenna’s turn to look puzzled, then. It hadn’t been the answer that he’d wanted. Had he ever seen the girl again? Had she made it to Earth? His head rocked back upon the dreads that gave him a natural cushion against the slab, but his eyes could not leave those of the mirage. Her hand rose above him again, hovering over his starseed, and a flash of panic shot through him - a panic he was too weak to act upon.
”The question you should be asking is if you lived.”
The words were spoken with that same jumbled context, as if she were not truly forming new sentences but instead piecing together bits and parts of words already spoken. What did she mean by any of this?
There was no time to question it as her hand rose again and he felt the familiar white, blinding pain blossom from his chest and crawls along his limbs, a pain that sent him spiraling into a sweeter darkness.
“Are you ready?”
It was the woman’s voice again. The words beckoned him and Gehenna looked up from where he was strapping his bracer onto his forearm just in time to see her walking in through the open door of the armory. Judging by the purpose in her step, it was with reason, and as she came to a stop before him he wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see her form shift. She was not his lover now, but his sister-in-arms, and her name rose unbidden in his thoughts - Tanais.
Somewhere beneath the memory, Gehenna stirred. Not the man in the memory but Gehenna, Kamboja, felt his mind turning with knowledge he couldn’t quite grasp hold of in his suspended state. There was something about her he knew, something that was important. In the end, it was his past life that answered, uninhibited by the spectator trapped within his flesh.
“I am ready if you are, my lioness.”
His arm dropped from his inspection so that he could catch her in his arms, so that she could press a lingering, hungry kiss on his lips. They both knew it was the last moment they had to share - one or both of them could lose their life on the battlefield and that knowledge was written in the way their lips bruised with passion. Neither of them were going to back down from the battle, even if it cost them everything, because they were warriors before they were anything else. Yet he found himself speaking the words first when she broke their lock:
“I expect another when this is over.”
The last look in her eyes was affection, tinged with humor, before her face summoned her courage and her warrior’s mask slid into place. Gehenna had watched armies shatter beneath her strength and the Knight felt himself drawn to it again, following her without protest as she turned from the room and lead him through the halls toward the battle that waited for them. He was her shadow, in life and in war, and as they walked into the daylight at the head of an army stretching out in every direction around them, he knew that he would trust her power before his own.
He woke again, this time panting, with his dreads stuck to the slick sheen of sweat along his forehead and neck. The image of Tanais, whose name he now knew, wavered near to him, kneeled at his side. Both of her fluttering hands rose in a beckoning motion as she stood, trying to urge him up from where he lay sprawled across the stone.
At first he only gave her a shake of the head, but her lips pursed at his flat refusal in a way that made him reconsider, until he had at last struggled at least into a sitting position.
His eyes dropped from her to the black leggings that stretched across his feet, to the red bands of his belted shoes -
Wait.
“What did you do?”
The tone was meant to be accusing, but came out weak and raspy. His voice was broken and dry from a lack of water he had only just noticed, again. He swallowed around a grimace and brought his eyes back up to the woman looming above him but she only stared back. There was no mistaking the seriousness in her expression, written into the severe lines of her face.
”The question is what did YOU do?”
His lips pursed and his eyes dropped, again.
”This is a gift that you do not yet understand. But there are conditions.”
With his head lowered and his eyes locked, defeated, upon the hands he had curled in his lap, he never saw the hand she raised. It didn’t reach for his starseed but, instead, hovered just above his head and the tussled dreads.
Three faces flashed inside his skull, as bright and painful as the tug on his starseed had been, though this time he knew he had been given something instead of forfeiting it. The faces burned brighter than any memory, all faces that he had already known, though now they carried more significance. Her order was intertwined with the images in a way that could not be undone - he could not remember them without the threat she had given him.
”Come back with them - or do not come back at all.”
It was her final warning before, at last, he felt himself propelled through the fabric of time and space once more.
[Part Four Complete - 3367 words]
[Total: 11463 words]
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