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 Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:52 pm
The clinging, awful cold feeling of those skeletal hands on her ankles still hadn't left Freya, even though she'd been home for hours. She'd laid there on the ground for a long, long time, trying to get her breathing under control, and she was glad that the Squire had taken the poor civilian she'd been harassing with him when he left. At least it meant that she was alone, while she worked herself down from the panic his magic had caused. sure, it was a failure, she'd lsot the starseed and there was no way she was going back out again to find another tonight, but she'd just do extra work tomorrow to make up her quota and call it even.
She wasn't sure how long it tok for her to feel like she could stand, and even so, she'd still been shivering the whole time, and it took her even longer to turn her back and start for home. The entire walk back, she'd been looking over her shoulder constantly, afraid that damn Knight would be coming back, and even though he hadn't, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was somewhere, watching, waiting for her to screw up so he could pounce again and drag her right back into the awful illusion his magic created. She hated every second of it--hated the fear and the panic, hated that she was being such an idiot about this, hated that she was making a fool of herself--but it was just...awful. A nightmare that she didn't expect to wake up from, because the magic had been cast on her while she was fully, horribly conscious.
She'd tried to be her normal self, but she was pretty sure Caer and Salem could tell something was wrong--especially when she said that she wasn't feeling well and wanted to sleep alone on the couch, just in case she woke up a bunch during the night. Caer had protested, insisting they'd be fine getting up to help her, but Freya refused to relent. Eventually, Caer conceded, but he still left her a mug of hot chocolate and a gentle kiss on the cheek before taking Salem to bed. Freya appreciated it; she didn't want to fight more about it, especially not when she actually sort of did want to be in bed, snuggled betwene them, but she also didn't want to tell them what had happened. Caer would lose his mind with worry, and she wasn't sure he'd let her patrol alone again. He'd already been making grumbly noises over her little accidental rivalry with Monoceros; she didn't want to give him another reason to be concerned about her. Salem...Salem would be furious. He wuld probably want to hunt the Knight down himself for hurting her, and as satisfying as that sounded, Freyalise wasn't sure if that was what she wanted. Sure, unleashing Salem on him sounded delightful, and they were much more evenly matched, but she also didn't want Salem to have to deal with that awful, terrible nightmare magic that the strange Knight seemed to possess. It wasn't fair, to ask someone else to deal with that ngihtmare stuff.
So, the real reason she argued with them, of course, was that she was terrified. She was huddled up on the couch, under a blanket, scared out of her mind, and trying not to think about the awful, nightmare magic that strange Squire had used on her. There was nothing like it that she had ever seen before, and she wasn't eager to see its like again. Not that she had much experience with magic, really--she'd been a useless failure of a Page, except when she'd been working with Themiscyra, and then she'd cut herself off from everyone, quit powering up, and retreated into her normal life--or at least, that was what she was pretty sure she'd done, since there were huge gaps in what memory she had left. She knew for sure, however, that nowhere in her patchy framework of memories as Eleusis, or in her new life as Marialite, had she ever encountered something like what that Squire could do.
It stuck with her. That she hadn't just seen that she was laying in a pile of corpses--she'd felt it, cold bodies under her back and all around her. She'd smelled the reek of decay, and she'd sworn, as the magic clung to her, that death was coming for her, too. It was a nightmare--it was a hundred kinds of nightmare, and Freyalise never wanted to experience it again. If she could, she would undo having experienced it once, and who wouldn't? The feeling of being dumped in a pile of bodies....it made her as sick as it made her scared, and that was another reason Freya didn't want to be in bed with her boys. They might worry if she got up in the middle of the night to throw up, and they didn't need that, and also they would probably push for an explanation she absolutely did not want to give. Telling them would mean relating the whole stupid, sordid story of her failure, anyway, and that was the last thing Freya wanted to do. As much as they'd be angry, there was also the risk that they'd be upset with her for taking such a risky fight at all, and in a way, they'd be right to be. It had been stupid to tangle with someone a level above her, and she'd paid the price for her foolishness. The price, it seemed, was nightmares.
As much as the fear clung to her, though, there was anger too--anger and humiliation, tangled up together in a nasty mix that made her want to fight that stupid Squire all over again, and this time, she'd show him--she'd grab his starseed, and kill him, and then who was the dead one? Then who was worthy of pity? Because that was the worst part about her direct interactions with him, putting the magic aside, wasn't it? That he pitied her, like she was some stupid child that had made a mistake stumbling into the Negaverse. Like she didn't know who she was and what she was doing. Like she wasn't a perfectly competent soldier, lack of weapons aside. She could fight--her little tangles with Monoceros proved that. And she had been fully cognizant of her decision when she'd asked to be corrupted. So why did he think he knew better than her? Why did he think that he had a right to wiffle about how sorry he was that they hadn't met before and that he hadn't saved her form this terrible life of sin and crime and vice? She didn't need to be saved! Caer and Salem and the Negaverse had saved her, and that was all there was to it. That was all there needed to be to it.
She wasn't an idiot. and she certainly didn't need some stranger acting like he knew her life better than her. He didn't know her at all, hadn't even asked or her name. He'd jsut attacked, and left her chilled and terrified, and he didn't care at all what he'd done, and Freyalise was pretty sure it wouldn't bother him a bit if she told him that she didn't sleep after dealing with his attack. He was, as far as Freya was concerned, a smug p***k who thought that just because the Negaverse was bad for him, it couldn't be good for her, so really, what did he even know? Obviously, he hadn't had a Caer or a Salem in his life, someone to make sure that he was happy and comfortable here, someone he could trust to have his back and make sure that no matter what happened, he was never alone. Freya couldn't imagine going back to what she'd had before; her fragmented memories had bright spots in them, sure, but there were so many gaps, and what was left towards the end...it was all so utterly overshadowed by loneliness and sadness. That wasn't a life she wanted. Not anymore. No, now she could have something much better. She was happy, and she had people who loved her, and that wasn't going to change just because of one stupid traitor knight.
Even if his magic did still sort of feel like it came straight out of her nightmares. How was it supposed to do anything else, though? He'd even said that it terrified people--which, she was pretty sure, made him a jackass for using it, no matter what she'd done. So what that she'd left some civilian without his starseed. He wouldn't even have known what happened. He didn't suffer any pain. He was just dead. Sure, maybe he had a family, but who cared? Marialite didn't know them, and they'd get by fine, she was sure. It wasn't like the awful, creeping fear that had infected Marialite's night ever since the stupid Knight let her go. She wished that it had been anything else, but nightmares of dying...it was a special, awful kind of Hell. And Marialite was just going to have to live with that for the rest of forever, and the stupid Squire didn't even seem to care.
He knew! He knew exactly what his stupid magic did, he'd made that more than clear with his patronizing little yammer about not wanting her to have more nightmares, as if his magic could possibly do anything else. He knew what he was doing, and he knew that he was scarring people for life, and he didn't care, he slung that magic around anyway. She wondered if there were other Knights like him, with awful nightmare magic that they just...used, willy-nilly, without a care for what they left behind in their wake. There probably were; Knight magic came from their planet, which meant that whatever planet he was from, all their Knights were probably nightmare-makers too.
That wasn't exactly a comforting thought. Freya hated the idea that they were just...out there, wandering around, throwing that kind of magic around and hurting other officers the way she'd been hurt. How many of them were there? Was it even possible to stop them? Certainly Freya, even as Marialite, couldn't do it on her own, and she hadn't gotten a good enough look at him--or, rather, the specific memories were all muddled in the fear and the nightmare and the soulless dead corpse eyes staring her in the face--so she wasn't sure she'd be able to identify another Knight of his planet.
But she would remember him. And next time, she'd get closer, and she'd get some answers.
Freya was working herself up into something like a fury, which, in her opinion, was way better than the cowering fear she'd felt before. She no longer wanted to run and hide; instead, she felt like she could actually find him and fight him. Maybe not yet, though--she was still just a Lieutenant, without a real weapon. Her precious prism couldn't do anything, and Freya didn't want to test herself against him again. Not until they were on more equal footing.
But she was still going to remember him. She'd find him again, someday. And she'd make him pay for what he'd put her through.
That, Freya thought to herself, was a promise.
She didn't sleep at all that night, and honestly, that wasn't exactly a surprise. Any time she closed her eyes, there they were again--the reaching, grasping, monstrous hands, grasping and clinging to her, and Freya had to struggle desperately to keep herself from screaming aloud. Finally, sometime after dawn, with light filtering in through the window, she drifted off out of pure exhaustion--and that was the closest she got to sleep.
[WC: 2,004 words]
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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:02 am
It was almost fun, Marialite supposed, to have whatever little rivalry she had going on with Monoceros. They'd run into each other thrice now, and if she was honest, she couldn't say which of them was stronger. He'd beat her the first time, recovering that girl's starseed; she'd decisively won the second with a firm kick to somewhere he did not need to be kicked; and the third could be best described as an awkward, uncomfortable tie. She still sort of wished that Captain Amazonite hadn't intervened; Marialite was pretty sure that she would have won eventually, even if Monoceros had knocked her down, because he was good, and soft, and nice, and even if she'd been afraid in the moment, she didn't think he had it in him to hurt a downed adversary. He was just too much of a good person for that, and Marialite was thankful for it, if she was totally honest. She wanted to come home at the end of the night, and snuggle with her boyfriends, and be safe and happy, not get her a** kicked by an angry, violent Senshi who just wanted to see her hurt because she had chosen the Negaverse.
The good news was, Monoceros wasn't like that, and Marialite was glad for it.
After Amazonite made sure she was okay and sent her on her way, she continued her work--there was always more energy to collect, after all, and plenty of people to collect it from, and it gave her time and space to muse. Which, there was quite a bit to muse upon, if she was honest. She had this....fated enemy, it felt like; someone who constantly showed up to challenge her, whenever she tried to do dastardly deeds, and if she was honest, she found it invigorating. Things had gotten too easy, she thought; she'd gone too long without running into anyone from the other side, and it had made her go soft. Now, though, she knew she'd be looking over her shoulder, because who even knew when Monoceros might show up again? With three fights under their collective belt, it wasn't hard for her to expect that there would be more to come.
The first one...she'd been stupid, targeting that girl at random. But the pretty little redhead had been right in front of her, easy prey--and Marialite had bit, hook, line, and sinker/. It wasn't as if she thought it was some kind of trap, Monoceros didn't seem like the type and he hadn't acted like he knew the girl, but it certainly was an example of her being too dumb for her own good. She'd stolen a starseed, attracted attention, and lost it, and even if it could be made up, it was extra work that she really hadn't needed to do. So, there she was, with no starseed and a recovered person who would remember what Marialite had done.
She grimaced, unhappily. She really hoped the girl wasn't magical--Marialite would hate to have made two enemies in one fell swoop. But even if she had, she was pretty sure she could deal with it, and anyway, she never had to face anyone totally alone. She could always call for backup, and Cale or Gala would come running to help her. That, she knew, was a benefit to being in the Negaverse; she had people who cared about her, would look out for her, made her feel safe and looked after. She never, ever had to feel lost and alone again.
Their second encounter, though...Marialite smiled at the memory. Yes, that time she had more than won, and with equal stakes. She'd made up for the starseed she'd lost and delivered what she expected was a fairly humiliating, not to mention extremely painful, defeat that Monoceros wasn't likely to forget. Sure, it had probably only fueled the flames of his anger at her and at the Negaverse, but hey, that wasn't her problem--well, maybe it was a little bit her problem, at least, the part where he hated her personally. Him hating the Negaverse....he was Order, most of them were supposed to hate the Negaverse. Not the ones like her, of course, who had seen the light and learned to make better choices, but most of them certainly disliked Chaos. So it wasn't like she'd done anything that wasn't likely to come to pass anyway. Monoceros was brave and noble and self-righteous; he'd have hated them either way.
And, if she was honest, it was a little comforting to know that the solid kick to his nethers that she'd dealt him would undoubtedly sting for a good, long time.
And then there was their third fight. By far the strangest, and the one that Marialite was least interested in lingering on. For one, he hadn't attacked her on sight, which was weir.d And she knew, sure, that she'd probably looked strange, with her feet propped up on a drained civilian and a cup of cider in her hand, but he should have gone at her with everything he had, right? He'd caught her draining, and moreso, he'd caught her humiliating the person she drained, and surely that had to violate some sense of morals or ethics. But instead of jumping straight into a fight, they'd talked. Parleyed, lightly. He'd agreed with her that a p***k who menaced girls in parks deserved to have a bad time, which was the most surprising part of all of this. But of course, ti hadn't lasted, because they were enemies and enemies fought--and so they'd done their dance, and then Amazonite had intervened, and Marialite still wasn't sure how exactly she felt about that. Amazonite hadn't saved her life, not bty Marialite's reckoning; Monoceros was too soft to kill her. But maybe Marialite had saved his--she wasn't sure what kind of Captain Amazonite was, and what kind of secrets she might hide under her surface.
All in all, it was better things had gone the way they had. They'd split off from each other, everyone was happy, and Marialite got to go home. Which...she needed to do.
With a sigh, she stepped away form the tree she'd been leaning against. She'd done enough draining and thinking for tonight. It was time to go back to her boys.
[WC: 1,063 words]
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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:33 am
Marialite felt powerful.
When she left Cristobalite behind after the absolute massacre in that abandoned building, she felt better than she had in weeks. There was a sense of confidence in her, of power, and of surety, and she could never imagine letting it go. She had in her hands the power to choose life or death; to kill someone or save them; truly, the Negaverse had given her far more than she could have ever imagined. All of it came with a blood price, of course--but the blood was not her own. She and Cristobalite had cleared out that disgusting squatter's den, and left a pile of corpses that would be someone else's job to clean up, and all Marialite could think about was how good it felt. How good it felt to know that she could do that and no one could stop her. There was no scary bow-wielding squire or squishy Senshi around to try and interfere. Even if there had been, she'd bet that with help, she and Cris could have taken them out, and thn they sould have come out of it with a Senshi or Knight starseed, and not just a bunch of civilian ones.
Marialite laughed, spinning around on the rooftop where she stood, having tucked the starseeds she'd collected into her subspace pocket now that she had a quiet moment. Yes, this was it. This was what she had sought since she was Eleusis, weak and lost and scared. She hadn't known, in the beginning, of course, because she'd thought she was going to be a beautiful, shining hero, that day on Scholomance's shop when she'd found her precious prism. But she'd been wrong, then, just like Eleusis had been wrong about so many things. It wasn't her fault, though, and she didn't blame herself for not realizing sooner. She couldn't have known; she didn't want to know, not when knowing might mean challenging what she believed herself to be.
Eleusis had nearly watched Scholomance, her precious mentor, get stolen away from her by the Negaverse. Eleusis had been mocked, then, and cast aside as useless-an unworthy trade for someone with far more experience than her. Scholomance, at least according to Schorl, was a worthy recruit, and Eleusis was not. It had been strangely devastating at the time, to be slapped in the face with the knowledge that she was somehow unworthy, not even worth kidnapping to corrupt. That there was something in her that was judged not fit. Maybe it had simply been her weakness in comparison to Scholomance, but it still felt like a judgement on her, personally; an insistence that she could not even be considered worth making an attempt with.
But Caledonite hadn't agreed. Galaxite hadn't. Hessonite hadn't, and even if at the time she had been relieved to escape the Negaverse's grasp and relieved that Scholomance was okay, now she knew that it had only delayed the inevitable.
It was better, though, the way it had turned out, wasn't it? Marialite had come to the Negaverse by her own choice, after realizing for herself how useless and pathetic she was. How weak, how unwanted, how disposable.
That wasn't true anymore. She wasn't some helpless, lost Page, ready to be tossed aside. No, she was a Lieutenant of the Negaverse, and unlike poor, useless, frightened waste of space Eleusis, Marialite could kill. And she could do wit with a breath. With a thought. Eleusis had thrown her shoes at monsters; Marialite stepped up and killed humans simply by reaching in and plucking the life from their chests. That, Marialite knew, was real power. And it was what she had been lacking as a pathetic, miserable little Page. No one on the other side could even begin to imagine it, she was sure--how could you imagine what it felt like to hold someone's life in your hands, and know that you and you alone had the power to save or end it in that moment?
She let out a whoop, an eager cry that declared to the whole city--or at least anyone who heard--how much stronger she knew she was now.
This was what she was destined to be. It was all she ever wanted. She was strong. she was powerful. And best of all, she was free.
Sure, some might disagree with that last assertion--they wouyld claim that she was terribly enslaved, bent pathetically to Metallia's will. But she wasn't. She wasn't at all. Sure, she reporte to her higher ups, but they didn't breathe down her neck. They hardly cared what she did or didn't do, as long as she fulfilled her mission. There was no looming feeling of a thousand years of history bearing down on her, of the possibility that she was simply unworthy of the title she had been given. No one decided if she was worthy, as Marialite, but herself. She was good enough, and strong enough, and she would always be so. There was no other option.
Soon, she hoped, Hessonite would recognize that too. She was, after all, the General-Queen who had brought Marialite in. And maybe a report on this particular victory might convince her that Marialite was ready for more--for Captaincy, and maybe something beyond. That, she thought, sounded wonderfully exciting.
There was so much for Marialite to do. She couldn't linger celebrating, but she couldn't help but take her moment of triumph. After all, she had, in so many ways, become everything she wanted to be when she asked Galaxite and Caledonite to help her corrupt. She wasn't lost anymore. She wasn't sad, or lonely, or miserable. She wasn't longing for something that didn't exist anymore, or for someone that she had chosen to leave behind like a miserable little fool. No, she wasn't feeling any of those things anymore, and especially not tonight.
She was a Lieutenant of the Negaverse, and because of that, she was found.
[WC: 1,012 words]
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Posted: Sat May 22, 2021 12:26 pm
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