The Code had said that they needed to find their pieces of it and resonant with them to stabilize their magic. All well and good for most, but Tanais had never actually seen the one that resided in her wonder. She knew there was one, all wonders had one, but... there was something about the whole place that made her feel... uneasy lately. Not that there was anything wrong with the Wonder itself, other than it being dried up, crumbling ruins, but the longer she was a knight, the more she felt like there was something... lacking about herself, something the wonder could sense and judge her for. She hadn't really gone out of her way to visit it, and she hadn't put particular effort into fixing the place up the way she'd heard others had. Part of that was just... having so many other things to do. Another part was a feeling of... what was wrong with the place as it was? There was a dignity to a place that was slowly crumbling away, back into the earth it had been built from. Maybe the wonder didn't feel the same way though, and was waiting for her to get off her a** and take responsibility... and now she had to go talk to the thing that was supposed to be at the heart of it all.
Ugh.
All those thoughts ran through the Knight's head when she said good bye to the others and spoke her oath, letting herself be pulled across the void of space to that one place in all of it that was her and hers alone. Her boots crunched down into beige and ochre grit, the air thick with dust that tasted like metal and disuse. it took a moment to recognize the buildings around her through the haze, but they did eventually resolve themselves into the main square (the forum, her memories whispered), not far from the manor where she had lived. That massive pile to the left of her had been a fountain in the distant past, but there had been a statue there before now. It had crumbled and toppled, it seemed like, along with some of the walls of the surrounding buildings. Before her, her memories identified the basilica, her own manor to the side of it, but that was not what suddenly weighed heavy on Tanais. Somehow, deep inside, she suddenly knew where the code piece was, where it had to be. It was like the feel of eyes on her back. Slowly she turned to face the other end of the forum, eyes rising from the packed dirt to the soaring columns of an ancient temple. It stood tall and resolute before her, despite its many downed columns and crumbled walls, like some old and disapproving parent.
"Of course it has to be a place like that..." Tanais grumbled, shifting from foot to foot before finally forcing herself forward. This was stupid. She was a grown a** woman. A building couldn't be judgemental...
The shadow as she passed through the wide entrance was markedly cooler than the brassy sun outside... almost chill? Inside, the great open area was a mass of rubble and debris, like some great fist had come crashing down on the roof and collapsed it, leaving the temple open to the sky. Statues had toppled, mosaics crumbled, leaving it hard to tell what exactly this temple had been for. A sense teased at the back of her mind, but refused to come forward, so she shrugged it off and made her way deeper, passing over the rubble to the place where she was sure a statue to some god had stood. There was none, now, but there also wasn't much rubble here in the back... like someone had moved the statue, rather than toppled it. The mosaic on the back wall was clearer... A set of scales, balanced delicately in the hand of a woman with long, dark hair. Before her on the floor, behind what should have been the statue, was a hole in the floor... the crumbling opening revealing stairs descending downwards. Whatever had taken out the roof had probably opened the hole as well.
Deeper. She felt a tug inside her chest, the same tug she'd felt outside, and Tanais sighed, scrubbing the dust collecting on her face. Down into the darkness, huh? Just her luck... Not like she'd brought a flashlight.
A tingle spread around her biscep, a vibration, from the area with the paw-printed band... and then the area lit up as a creature of flame lept from her, landing on the top steps of the stairway. It turned, giving her a dour look from its hot, golden eyes, before it turned and padded down into the dark, taking it's light with it. "Don't give me that, you over grown house cat..." Tanais grumbled as she hurried after it, afraid to loose the light it shed and the obvious guidance it was offering. After all, what was more legend worthy than following some ethereal beast on a quest into the dark?
The silence below ground was almost deafening, and they further they went, the more the path angled downwards, bringing with it a sense of weight growing overhead. The walls were plain and unadorned, smooth cut stone as far as she could see by the light of her summons. Branching halls seemed to come at random, and they took them at what seemed like random too, with no sense of rhyme or reason that Tanais could make out, her lion's paws silent on the stone floor while her boots echoed strangely far. Was this... a giant maze? Was that how the code had been protected? It all gave Tanais the heeby jeebies, if she was honest... enclosed spaces had never bothered her before, but the endless hallway stretching into darkness before and after her really strained that confidence. On and one they walked. Hours, days, years... she had no idea for how long, or how far they had gone with how many turns they had taken. So long that Tanais was positive she'd never find her way out again, if her summons decided to desert her. Her nerves had stretched to nearly the breaking point when they suddenly turned a corner and a wide set of steps stretched out before them, rising upwards lined with fluted columns. Her lion paused there, finally, and turned back to look at her, a command in it's silent gaze.
Tanais gave it a frowning look before she finally sighed and shrugged, stepping around it and heading up the stairs. Another door way yawned at the top, and as the knight neared it, the light of the lion behind her cast her shadow long into the room... to where a little glowing ball of light hovered and flickered above a short pedestal surrounded by a circular bench.
That was it. That was her code piece, wasn't it? Hidden inside a maze below the temple at the center of her wonder... Almost felt cliche. Slowly, Tanais approached it, stepping through the openings of the bench and slowly lowering herself down onto it, red eyes on the hovering orb.
"So you're what I came to find, huh?" She said conversationally. The orb didn't answer, how it's light... wavered a bit, flickering like a guttering candle. Tanais shifted awkwardly. She was supposed to resonate with it, right? How did one do that? Meditation? She'd really never gone in for that kinda stuff... hardly even knew where to start.
"Looks like you've had a bit of a rough time of it lately, huh? Whatever it was the destabilized everything... I could feel it. It made my gauntlets brittle and it was hard to power up." Tanais flexed her arm for it, showing the weapon wrapped around her fists. "Nearly got my a** beat because of it, more than once... but not really your fault, huh? Just whatever it was that affected you so bad. And I'm supposed to fix you."
The knight pursed her lips as she watched the flickering. The longer she stared at it, the more she felt... sympathy for it, oddly enough. Poor little thing. Alone down here for centuries, suddenly bombarded by something awful. No one but her useless self to protect it... and she'd done damned little of that, really. Some of her nerves melted away, replaced with a seeping guilt. She was supposed to be the protector of this place. She'd wanted it, as she screamed at the lion behind her. And yet she'd done so little with it, despite spending so much of her free time patroling and beating up Negavers baddies. Sure, she was also supposed to protect Earth, but how much had she really done for this place, where all her power had come from?
The light that lit the room from the doorway shifted, and Tanais felt the heat of her summons behind it as it came closer, settling itself behind her.
What was she supposed to do...? Just sit here and close her eyes? Let her thoughts and worries drop away, or try to...
---
The rumble of a thousand voices sounded all around her as Tanais stood beside her chestnut warhorse, bright brass shield on one arm and a sword at her hip. The weight of the shield pulled at her, but she bore it easily, confidently, as one used to long hours of practice. A helm over her dark hair helped block out some of the punishing sunshine as the knight watched her men assemble, her thoughts on the horde that waited outside of her gates. Not long now... soon those gates would open and Tanais would take the fight to the invaders and their monsters, to defend the city and Wonder she had spent all of her life working to earn, and then to protect.
"Mama!" A small voice shrieked indignantly, followed by the patter of small feet. Tanais turned in time to bend to catch the flying body with her free arm, scooping the small, dark boy up into her embrace and settling him on her hip.
"Ajay. Where is Amilee..." She chided, unable to keep a bit of the edge from her voice as red eyes scanned for the young woman who was supposed to be her youngest son's nurse. She could see her now, hurrying towards her, struggling to squeeze her way between soldiers where a small child had fit with ease. Tanais sighed as she held her son, turning to study his round, soft cheeked face and eyes that matched her own. The nurse was breathless by the time she managed to make it across the forum to where Tanais waited, bending at the waist as she braced her hands on her ample hips.
"Your forgiveness, Lady... he begged so hard just to watch the soldiers from the porch that I just had to bring him for one last look, and then he broke away from me..." She gasped out, clearly terrified by her expression that she'd made some grave misstep. Behind her, Tanais's remaining two children followed at a more sedate pace. Hardly children any more, if she was truthful. Ambrosia... blonde haired and blue eyed, fierce as an Amazon goddess even at twelve years of age. Ripe to join the Knight academy, which was the destination of her and her siblings. Tall, raven haired Aster stood at her side, the oldest of the three at sixteen, and serious as any adult. His purple eyes met hers and she could see the worry in them, as well as the resignation. He'd already begun his training for knighthood years ago, and he was too sharp not to have gathered more than she would have liked about what was going on.
"I -told- him you were busy with the soldiers and shouldn't be bothered." Ambrosia said imperiously, striking a pose with fists self-importantly on her hips and sandaled feet spread. "I -said- you'd come to say good bye once they were all set up."
Aster said nothing, but Ajay glared at his older sister, a pout on his face and his fist wrapped tight in his mother's leather straps.
"He was just afraid we were going to leave without him." A deep voice said from behind her, the weight of her son leaving her with a childish shriek from the boy in question. Tanais turned to watch as Gehenna tossed his son into the air, catching him again as Ajay laughed. "Our fierce warrior wanted to join the fight."
"-I- want to fight!" Ambrosia protested, loosing her superior older sister authority as a small flash of anxiety moved across her face.
"As you shall, my cub." Gehenna said as he tucked his son under his arm like a sack of flour and reached to ruffle his adopted daughter's hair. "But not today. You and your brothers have an important trip to make. You have to go and get things ready for when your mother and I can join you."
Tanais flashed him a look, but he wasn't looking at her, beaming a grin of bright white teeth down at their children.
"We have to protect the city." Tanais said as she reached to take their son from her husband, passing the wriggling little boy to his nurse, who wrapped determined arms around him despite his protests. "Once its secure, we will come for you. But we won't be able to concentrate on doing our jobs unless all three of you are somewhere safe."
She reached to cup her daughter's face, pressing a kiss to her smooth forehead. Aster was next, stepping solemnly forward to accept the affection. Ajay, she had to corral to give his kiss and he only stilled afterwards, his red eyes big in his dark face.
"Go. The sooner you go, the sooner we can all be together again." Tanais side as she looked over each child's face, branding them into the walls of her heart. Gehenna stood at her shoulder like a huge shadow, steady and confident, the blacksmith's coals to her dancing flames. The view swept away suddenly, drawing up and up... the city spread like a toy map below. Outside the walls, on the banks of the river, rank upon rank of dark soldiers stood, spreading out to the shore and back to the horizon. A horde of man and monster, dwarfing the numbers mustered inside the city. Waiting to fall like a wave upon the city's walls, and tear it down to its foundations...
---
Tanais swam up out of the haze of memory with an effort, finding all of her body aching like she'd been hunched over for hours. Her eyes were dried out and sore from apparently staring at nothing.
She'd had children... the revelation stunned her. Three of them. Three perfect little beings. A family she had wanted to protect as fiercely as she had wanted to protect this wonder... and she had let them go to do so. An ache sat heavy in her chest, a longing she had never felt before that gnawed at her insides. She still felt that fierce protectiveness from her vision, the hopeless determination to fight until her last breath. She had known the odds she faced, and yet she had done it. Had made her peace with it and fought like a demon of the hells for it. This place, those people... they had been what she had fought for... what she was still fighting for.
Red eyes lifted to the small glowing ball, now throwing a clear steady light about the room that housed it. This was what had given the city it's power and prestige, had made it what it was. The heart of everything here, that had made all of it possible. Everything she had lost... her family, her home, her very memories... and it was still here, still hers. The seed of all of it, waiting for her to return to it. Tanais rose, scrubbing the wetness from her cheeks, and studied the light for a moment longer, the weight that had been pressing down on her lifting, her uncertainty fading.
Maybe she wasn't everything she had been, or everything she should be. But she was what this wonder, this city, had. She'd come through death and the cauldron to return here, it was hers. And she would protect it, as flawed and broken as she was. She was still strong enough for that. ******** anyone who thought she wasn't good enough, honestly.
Her lion regarded her with softer eyes when she moved to join it, some new sense of something between them.
"You need a name." She said conversationally, shrugging off the last bits of clinging destiny that she had found inside the chamber as she followed the lion back into the maze. "What about Alabaster?"
Her lion was silent on the matter, the warm glow of its flames lighting her way back to the surface.
