In his peripheral vision he noted briefly that Owen had buried himself in the dirt of his pot again. Frowning at the dry looking state of said dirt he resolved to water his child after he finished eating. He doubted anything bad would happen to the life bearing leaf in the next twenty minutes or so. Besides it wasn’t like he had anything else to do to distract him from the task.
Oracle looked down into her pool. She had been slowly wasting away hidden in her garden. The crystal eyed goddess watched as a new Guardian's image appeared in the water. Her emotions had been returning as she died so by now she was rather bored. But today was a depressed day and she felt sorry for this stranger so she only tugged lightly on his reality, giving him a simple death. It would hopefully not be too drawn out. That'd take a lot of her lifeforce to do.
Pash leaned against the marble counter top and took a bite of his sandwich. From the moment the food entered his mouth he knew he had a problem. The itching from earlier wasn’t onion it was a warning, a warning of a food allergy. He knew humans had them and could die from them. Until now however he’d had no clue angels were susceptible as well.
As the hot sweet mustard was tasted his mouth burned and the lining of his throat began to swell. Sea green eyes went wide and he stumbled towards the phone. It was too late his vision was becoming a cloudy grey, he’d never make it to help in time. Heart pounding a mile a minute and thudding so loud he thought his ears drums would burst Pash was at a loss.
Why was this happening why did his bosses not save him. More importantly he thought as he slid to the floor unable to stand who would care for Owen. Darkness claimed the angel and with one last feeble yet frantic beat his life of his heart Pash's life was over
): Oracle was really really losing her touch. Usually they felt nothing at all and it was in one instant. But oh well. Not that it mattered. He'd be back soon enough.
Pash was now laying upon a road. A highway to be exact. He lay upon the yellow divider lines that separated the lanes. A voice spoke from somewhere around his feet, soft and emotionless but still audible over the moving cars and trucks. "Come sit down." were the words. When he sat up he'd be able to see her, cherry red hair and mullethawk being the only part of her head visible over the magazine she was reading. She sat at a coffee table on a cushion and there was a cushion near to Pash that was empty. There was also a plate of what looked like chocolate mini muffins on that table and a cup of something that
Pash just stared at his surroundings confused, he was positive he was dead but this was not where he was supposed to be. He was an angel damnit. should they die they had a special peice of heaven just for themselves He should be seeing relatives long past not automobiles and strange woman. " Where am I?" He inquired.
You're not dead, angel, don't worry." she said calmly. There was a slight tone this time which was good. Oracle was losing her power over Kendra as well. "You're in a realm belonging to a foreign deity. I'm supposed to explain something to you. Have a bite to eat. The quicker we get this done the quicker you can get back home to Owen."
"I am decidedly not hungry" Pash said with a smile, good he was still alive and Owen was not abandoned. He had no clue why anyone from another realm wanted his attention but the least he could do was listen. " Please say what you need to." While he waited his fingered his olive coloured hair out of nervous habit.
"It's not a matter of hunger. You have to eat that food to be able to return to the other realm. Some sort of strange rule the one in charge of this setup has. You only have to take a crumb of it." the woman explained, placing down her magazine to look at him.
She had a thin lovely face, a long nose, and large blue eyes. The woman would have probably been rather pretty in her youth, and without the strange hairstyle.
"Well you see the deity who summoned you here is the last good deity from a universe called Tison. There were once many deities in this world who kept it peaceful and while they were in power it thrived. However one of them became a bit too power hungry and tainted. He discovered a way to kill the others and did so, thereby taking over. The only reason he didn't kill Oracle as well is because she went into seclusion in a secret place 2000 years before he was born."
"Ever since then he's been controling Tison. He started enforcing rules their that aren't doing the people much good. It isn't horrible yet but things are getting worse. Oracle predicted that if it kept going on he'd destroy Tison were he not stopped."
Pash listened having picked up a muffin about halfway through. He was nibbling on it while taking this all in. The pretty red head before him had an interesting story to tell. " This diety wants what of me then, to fight, i have the experience but my power is greatly less than it once was."
"No. The fighting will be left up to others." she said, with a smile. He was definately nicer then some of the others she'd had to deal with. "What Oracle predicted needed to be done was that the previous deities that had been murdered had to be reborn and raised somewhere safely so they could return and save their world."
"To do that they need to be cared for by guardians. Different people on gaia were deemed to be the perfect choices to guard the reborn deities. The evil deity cannot get to gaia and has no power there so the children would be safe being cared for there. So Oracle has been watching her pool and when the guardian's and spirits were both physically aligned correctly she used some of her lifeforce to pull on the reality of the guardian and kill them so that they could touch the realm of the spirit and they could bring the deity's soul out with them. You are a guardian. More precisely you were chosen to be the guardian of the deity of Light and Time."
Pash shook his head, this was bad this was really really bad. he'd failed his last attempt at being a guardian. he'd ruined a young woman’s life in the process of copying over a few files. how could anyone think intrusting diety into his care was a good idea?
"I'm not sure your oracle has chosen to right person" he said looking down. Oh to be sure he'd care for Owen and raise him the best he could but that was different. Owen wasn't destined to anything great and he'd seen that the leaf children could be rehomed, if he failed Owen would not suffer.
"Oracle didn't choose. She has a magic pool and tree system thing that I don't quite understand that chooses. For some reason it thinks you're the right person for the job. You will have help though dont worry. When you wake up from this you will be on a ship that is nearing to gaia and your home. The crew of that ship-especially the captain-shall see to it that you have help in this matter."
Blowing at his bangs Pash nodded " I'll do everything I can to raise to child right then." he wondered what a child of light and time would be like.
"She will be a doll. I met her in her past life." the woman said with a smile. "You may wake up now." And with a wave of her hand a wind blew him and he awoke in a bed on the Samadueanna. Kendra liked him-for he was nice-too much to have a truck crash into him. She'd be nice this time.
Standing at the foot of his bed with a friendly smile on her face was a young woman. One who looked quite a lot like a younger version of Kendra. She had short blonde hair in a pageboy bob cut. And she had the same large blue eyes and that facial shape. But instead she had a button nose and bright rosey cheeks. "Glad to see you awake." she said cheerfully. "Welcome to the Samadueanna."
: Pash shook his head again, things kept getting wierder and weirder at least he'd expected this. " I'm not sure if I'm happy to be here or not , how far are we from gaia?" How far away was he from Owen a defenseless little leaf left unattended. Stretching in the bed he slowly too in this new woman " Are you one of the ones supposed to help me then?"
"Not too far. We're getting used to people appearing here and needing to go to Gaia so we started a course for your home as soon as your records appeared on our computers. And yes I am. I am Rouge Remika, captain of this ship."
" A pleasure Rouge, as you probably already know I'm Pash." feeling more friendly by the minute he extended his hand.
"Yes I have heard." she said kindly and shook his hand. "I trust by your mood that the spirit who informs people that they will be guarding the Tison deities when they're reborn didn't give you much trouble. Others have come through here in a slightly irked mood and blamed it on her though I'm not sure if it was completely her fault." The young woman seemed to have the same quality as the redhead of explaining things but sometimes going off into stories in the middle. She was a bit spacey it seemed. Which was good for a space pirate.
In the process of his stretching Pash looked down and noted that there was a necklace on him. He did not where necklaces and even if he did they certianly wouldn't have empty hourglasses on them. He supposed that this was another child fated to appear from an object. at least she wouldn’t try to jump into his spaghetti sauce.
Fingering the object he replied " Mm yes she was nice enough though she was red haired and they do say red heads have bad tempers."
"Red haired? Well that's odd. I don't know of any redhaired spirits that work for Oracle. What'd she look like?" the woman asked. She was good with identifying spirits and who they worked for. Maybe his description would clue her in. It was worth a shot. No one else had told her about what the spirit looked like at all except that it was a she. It made her more curious about the woman.
He looked up , it was rude not to speak directly to someone, as he tried to think of a way to describe the spirit he noticed a few things " Like you a bit, but with red hair in an odd style. your eyes are the same hue exactly and your faces are similar though hers is wheatherd and older looking."
Rouge's eyes shot open. She knew exactly who he was talking about the moment he mentioned her eyes. "You saw..........my mother........" she said softly, backing to the other end of the room and sitting down. Putting her head in her hands the woman tried to compose herself. That explained why Shira had stopped talking when it came to the spirit. Kendra had probably asked the girl not to tell Rouge who it was, knowing how she'd react. The blonde looked back up at Pash, blinking away tears. "Thank you for telling me."
Instantly the angel was on his feet and across the room. He had not intended his informationto cuase such a reaction. It hadn't crossed his mind that the two were related, genetics were so different for his kind. He laid a hand on her shoulder " I'm sorry to have upset you, do you.. were you worrying about her?"
"No. It's all right. I just haven't heard of her in so long. My mother...she died when I was a small child. She was the only family I had as my father had vanished before I was born. I figured she'd be long since resting in peace but apperently she's not." the woman wiped her eyes and tried to smile. "I realize why she probably upset some of the others though.
My mother did not like being confined and a job like that would be torture for her." she laughed a little at that. She had fond memories of her mother, though they were few.
Pash nodded feeling sympathetic for the woman. " Well at least she enjoys tormenting some of the guardians. I'm sure her job pleases her in some way or another.
A noise went over a slight speaker system overhead. "Destination arrived." it said.
"Oh! We're here. Come with me I'll show you to the transporter room. You can go right back home and take care of Owen." she said with a smile and lead the way to the room, beaming him back down to the leaf child.
And with that yet another relic had been given to its guardian.
