Welcome to Gaia! ::

The waters crashed along the shores, washing over the cold, pale body of the grown Shattered. The fall had left Lillian to the mercy of the waves, and their frigid hands had delivered her lifelessly upon the Gaian shores.

Where once two heartbeats had pulsed within her chest, there was silence. Where two lives had lived in harmony, there was nothingness.

"Half of a soul cannot survive," Halexei had said, "You have to accept who you are, who you must become. To become whole, Lillian, you have to accept that some things cannot be changed. You will be whole.. and then you will die."

Fate was a cruel master, and cruelly the Harbinger had set her path towards darkness.

“Oh God, is she okay?”

Distantly, it could hear the voice. That fragmented soul. That shattered piece which neither Heaven nor Hell would allow passing. Trapped on earth, fated to damnation.

“She’s not breathing..”

And who was he? Who was he to damn her to such a fate?

“Find some help, I’ll stay here with her.”

There was a flicker in the darkness… a soul. Not her own. Never her own. But bright, whole, complete. There was anger, hatred.. who was this stranger to have what she could not. Who was she to be complete when Lillian had done everything right? She had done what had been asked of her. She had struggled to be good. To do as Halexei desired. Yet he had damned her still. If she should suffer, why not they?

She reached, and like a blanket she wrapped herself around that light….

As though electrocuted, Lillian’s body jolted upright. Cold soaked her through and through, and it was with a calm, stoic face that she pushed away the body of her would-be rescuer, the woman whose soul now fueled her own life.

Lillian rose, ignorant of the cold, of the numbness of her limbs. She rose, but did not breathe. She could feel, but her heart did not beat. And in the distance she saw not mountains, but the small, flickering lights of a thousand souls. A thousand souls for the taking.



“You will be given half of your payment now, the other when the shards are delivered.”

In the back of the dimly lit bar, the female voice was obscured by the sounds of raucous laughter and clinking beer mugs. Her features as shadowed as her words, hidden beneath the darkness cast by the cowl of her cloak. Nevertheless, the man seated across from her cast a sideways glance and allowed a small nod.

“Delivered where?” he inquired in a voice that chimed sweetly, soft as wind.

Rictus would have seemed out of place in any other world, with pale blue skin and shock white hair bound tightly at the nape of his neck. The man was a realm-walker, an ethereal being capable of traversing the boundaries between heaven and earth, hell, and nothingness. He was an assassin of morals, a killer of universal law, for sale to the highest bidder. Yet in Gaia, even the solid black eyes which rolled in the woman’s directions went largely without suspect. In Gaia, freakish was normal, and normal was boring.

He lit a cigarette, lifted it to his dark blue lips and took one long drag.

“This house,” the woman slipped a small piece of paper across the table, “It must look like an accident. The shards must not be suspect.”

“And you don’t think a Harbinger will notice my presence?”

Rictus shifted. What the broad was talking about was something akin to murder in the angelic hierarchy; the theft of an item directly linked to a human soul. Toying with such fabrications would get him banished if caught, and he’d be damned if he was going to take the fall if such an event occurred. Still, even the half salary he’d already been paid was well worth the risk.

“Cause you know if that old b*****d turns his eyes my way, I’ll spill my guts faster than a whore in confession. I’m not taking the abyss for you, darlin’.”

“You needn’t worry,” she murmured, and the sharp edge to her voice softened slightly, “He has something.. very precious.. to keep his attention from you.”

Rictus simply shrugged, pushing himself away from the table, “Consider it done.” He snatched his coat from the corner of his chair and swung it over one shoulder.

“Wait.”

“What?” Rictus said impatiently, glancing back.

“They say the angelic cannot feel pain. That they cannot feel sadness, anguish.. loneliness. Is this true?” The woman asked, and as she lifted her head Rictus was able to catch just the faintest flash of bright green eyes.

“Aye, darlin’. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” She lied. She waved a hand in dismissal, and watched Rictus phase into nothingness.

In the back of her mind, the voices of those who had been left behind chanted. The screams of those souls still trapped in their forsaken homeland. From the hollow, cold void where her heart should have been, their voices poured forth.

Rip him, rend him, kill him, end him.

Lillian’s dark lips curved into a wicked grin.

I’m coming for you, Harbinger. I will show you pain.

It was with no hesitation that Rictus shifted into Halexei’s domain. There were no defenses to worry about, no traps or tricks awaiting him. The best thing about his species was that, by a technical fault on the behalf of the Creators, they technically did not exist. At least not where the spiritual world was concerned. They were no more detectable by spiritual defenses than a shadow was in pitch blackness.

The clouds were questionable décor, but it was something which Rictus had come to expect. It was a cliché setup, created only to fill the voids. If you took away the clouds, the colors, everything fabricated, you would be left only with the gaping void of pre-creation. It was an idea which even the angelics could not face.

In the distance, Rictus could hear a soft voice. Male, clearly, but hauntingly beautiful as it issued forth a gentle lullaby. The pauses were filled by the soft sounds of laughter, a child whose voice held the ethereal quality which nearly all extra-planar beings possessed. If he focused, he could even catch sight of them.

However, they were not his quarry. He could feel the pulse of the shards before he saw them, the hum of life waiting to happen. They floated in the middle of nothingness, suspended to reflect only the white canvas of the domain itself. It was with great caution that Rictus phased into invisibility and snatched them from their resting places, carefully securing them as to avoid any accidents.

He knew what such talismans could do, and had no desire to see them in action.

With a silent smile, he glanced back. The Harbinger had not so much as looked up, but simply rocked the baby in his eyes. A little girl, it seemed, with hair as pink as cotton candy and eyes of emerald green.

Eyes he had seen before.

Rictus frowned, as things suddenly became quite clear. In the back of his mind arose the nagging voice that was his conscience, telling him that whoever his employer was, there must have been a reason for this. That what he was doing could possibly break the lives of everyone attached to this Harbinger.

Ignoring it was easy enough; the gold waiting for him spoke much louder.

(( Posting is now open to all Shattered guardians, as well as anyone else who wants to RP in the Metaplot! You do not have to be a guardian to participate in this, part one of the MP, since it's an open celebration and anyone can come into the Center at any time. More info will be posted as time progresses!))

Shauna peeked out her bedroom door, looking up the hall then down the hall. "Coast is clear here..." She murmured to herself, slipping through the open door and quietly closing it behind her. The girl was very thankful for her footpaws right now because they allowed her to sneak through the house more silently than the other children who always tried to sneak through the house. The one thing she didn't really like was the faint taps of the tips of the claws of her footpaws, but she was slowly learning to get used to them. Once she reached the stairs she looked over the balcony to see if anyone was around still. Dang, mom was on the couch watching a movie with some of the other children.

Oh wait! They were a fine enough distraction! Eight wouldn't hear her over the chatty kids and the movie! With a silent snicker the fox climbed onto the top of the stair's railing and getting herself ready to slide down the banister. Just keep watching the movie, mom. She prayed in her head, looking down the banister and letting go of the top to slide down...like she wasn't supposed to be doing! Stop breaking the rules, Shauna! She did make it to the bottom for once without getting caught. At least she didn't think she'd been caught.

"Moooom!" Shauna skipped over to stand behind where her mother was sitting. Eight blinked and tilted her head back to look up at Shauna. "I'm going out to see Asra, okay? It's been forever since I saw him and he's having a party at the Center and everyone's going to be there! So I'll see you later...tonight, probably." Shauna was already beginning to walk away when Eight's voice stopped her. Her earrings jingled a tad bit when her ears twitched.

"If you promise not to slide down the banister anymore like I've told you a million times not to." Eight said as she pointed to a glass door on the entertainment system. Shauna pouted. Damnit! She forgot all about the reflection in that thing! With a sigh the fox nodded and gave her mother a goodbye kiss on the forehead, hurrying out the house to get to the Center as quickly as possible. Even if she was walking distance she still didn't want to be late!

It thankfully didn't take her long since Shauna liked to try shortcuts when she went out on walks, so she knew Gambino really well at this point. The fox paused at the end of the walkway in front of the center to ruffle her hair a bit and give it more life and wildness like it was always supposed to have; stupid cold was stopping it from drying after her shower! After she felt it had enough character she skipped up the walkway to the Center right as her cousin was walking in. "Stala!" She squealed, throwing herself at the girl while she was talking to Asra. Shauna hugged Stala tightly, whether it was standing or on the ground all depended on how well Stala's balance held out after being tackled from behind by a very excited fox.

...Stala'd probably be crushed under Shauna's newly added weight. Not that she was fat, just older now! And she clearly was more topheavy than Stala was now. HA!

"Hi Asra!" The fox squealed again, letting go of Stala to throw her arms around Asra in a just as exuberant hug. It was so much easier to hug him now at this height!

A noisy stomp stomp stomp followed Calumet throughout the house as he dashed for the front door, pausing only when he poked into Inle's room long enough to wave good-bye and receive a "don't get arrested" in return and overshadowed completely as he slammed the front door shut.

It was nice to be outside--he spent so much time indoors that he often forgot there was an outside, beyond what he saw of it on television. It was maybe a little colder now than the TV implied, and darker, but he could at least fix that. He was, after all, his very own nite-lite.

Cal's tattoos glowed cheerily as he walked towards the Benedict Center, smiling and nodding to people he passed and not noticing as they gave him funny looks and wide berths. He wound his way through town, getting lost only twice before finally reaching the Center, slamming his way loudly into there as well. Cal had learned early that when you have no voice to say "hello" with, you had to find different ways to announce your presence to the world. He paused in the doorway, smiling exuberantly at the small group within.

The souls did not glimmer here. They were dull, hopeless, hollow shells of the lives they once had lived. These were the ones Halexei had left behind, the ones unreflected by the shards which, by this point, Rictus should have stolen. They floated meaninglessly, without point or purpose. They could pass to neither heaven nor hell, and in the decades since the Breaking, they had become little more than complacent fragments.

Aliith was broken now; the home world of the Shattered lay in ruin and decay. Above her, the sky churned upwards into darkness; the void caused by the breaking of the looking glass was slowly consuming what little remained of Aliith. The once great city was a blur of grey and ash. Buildings had fallen to rubble which floated upwards towards consumption and nothingness. Even the bodies of the world’s inhabitants had long since faded to dust and bone. There was no order here, no life. Only the broken remnants of a world fated to destruction.

Her heels were silent upon the thick carpet of ash, her skin numb to the frigid air.

“Washed away by the darkest water
The world is peaceful and still..”

The song floated through the dead streets, the words which had once helped Asrafel sleep now a final lullaby to the dead. Her lids shut over dead, dark irises, and Lillian stretched out her broken soul.

One by one, she extinguished those dull flames.



((These posts will be random throughout the plot. =P It's just so you guys understand what is going on behind the scenes for later!))

The next arrival at this party, ironically enough, actually had no idea that a party was going on. It was just a person who, after recovering from a small nervous breakdown that had ensued after realizing that fate had ultimately forced him to be a father, suddenly remembered that he had somewhere very important to be. Said somewhere wasn't a place he would feel comfortable having this weird child (he refused to wear shoes, on top of so many other things!) wandering around. He needed a daycare center. Now. He might be old enough to take care of himself... but... the man just can't work up the nerve to let the boy be at home all alone. It would mean coming home to a mess!

"Ohgodohgodohgod... please move, traffic..." the unwitting new father grimaced from behind the wheel of his car, looking about ready to burst into tears. He absolutely could NOT afford to be late; the symphony wouldn't conduct itself! The entire performance would be ruined if his arrival were delayed. In the back seat, a darker-skinned boy in a mask (why does he never take that thing off?!) and bowler hat had his hands pressed up against the window, looking intently outside to see if his guardian's begging would work.

~ ~ ~

"Okay, uh... M-miro, I'll... I'll be back l-ll-luh-later... goodbye, then..." he said awkwardly to his charge, only staying long enough to make sure that the boy goes inside before leaping back into his car and zooming off.

Limply holding up a hand from behind the door, Mirorim softly uttered "Goodbye...", waving slowly until the car vanished from sight. He then turned around to face the interior of the Benedict Center with the hopes that his strawberry gaze would land upon something else that can occupy his attention. And he had hit the jackpot-- there were so many people in here, alive and moving and talking... it made the boy smile like a kid in a candy store, and the tiny glass beads strung about his form seemed to catch the light with more enthusiasm than they did back at home.

Who to approach first...? That guy with the pink hair and the ribbons seemed nice; he was talking to everyone else already!