|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:17 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:19 pm
Carden sat under the shade of a tree, sighing sadly. He'd been thinking far too hard about everything and how miserable he was. Then he made a descision. He stood up and bolted back to the herd. "Izanami!" he cried. "I summon you!"
Rock rolled his eyes. "Looks like Mr. Mum has gone nuts." He flew off, not wanting to get stuck in the middle of this.
There was a creak like a door opening and Izanami appeared, head first. "What right have you to summon me?"
"I have a request, Keeper. I want you to bring somone here."
"Bring who? And why?"
"Sanka. Because I need her."
"Where is your official permission?"
"Uh..." Carden would have coloured had he any blood. "I didn't..."
Izanami sighed. "Emir..."
A few minutes later, Emir strode into the clearing, causing Rock to fly off. "Keeper, how nice of you to summon me."
"Prince..." said Carden, bowing. "I need your permission to summon a being."
"Yes, sure, whatever," said Emir. "Was that all?"
"Yes."
"Fine." Emir trotted off.
Carden smiled. "Sanka then?"
"Embalmer," said Izanami. "Sanka is dead too long. She has no body. And there is no way I can reincarnate her."
"No..."
"But there is another way."
"I'll do anything!" cried Carden.
"Make her a body."
"How, Keeper?"
"Call upon the potions mistress."
"Belladonna?"
"Yes."
"But Emir wouldn't allow..."
"He's allowed you to summon one being- simply ask again him later when you have a corpse for Sanka." Izanami's eyes went black through and a door dropped from the ceiling. It opened and Belladonna stepped out.
"Pon Pon!" said Carden happily.
"... Don't call me that!" said Belladonna.
Izanami dissapeared again, leaving Carden to explain to Belladonna why she was in this realm once more.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 2:18 am
Belladonna shivered in her secluded clearing. It was chilly here. She didn't live with the others, and only Carden was her visitor. He hadn't come since last time when she had sent him off tersely for some ingediants. If he was alive, he would be still far away.
To prove the potion mistress wrong, Carden staggered into that clearing, laiden with ten bags of differing sizes. "Pon Pon," he gasped. "I have all of them except the rooster egg- I had to settle for a turkey egg. I also couldn't find the spit of a dodo bird but I think thse were red herrings." He dropped his bags before her. "How did I do? And can I sit down?"
"Yes," said Belladonna. She rifled through his bags. "I have almost everything I need."
Carden collapsed gratefully. "Almost? What do you mean almost? Ugh, you slave driver. What do you need? What else do you want from me?"
"You're the one driving this contraption, not I," said Belladonna bitterly. "There is one last thing. But I won't tell you. We don't need it yet. Where is the skin?"
Carden pelted Belladonna with a stray rock. It hit her full in teh face and she flinched with a gasp. "Whoops, sorry Pon Pon. I forgot..." He trailed off as a trickle of blood rose from Belladonna's forehead.
Belladonna blinked. "I don't know how you could forget, you useless oaf. You brought me back. WITHOUT my sense of sight!" She stood up and kicked him in the ribs. "See it doesn't work with you; you're not alive. I am, b*****d. Why?" She said quietly. She sat back down in her seat of fronds. "Why did you reanimate me? Vicious man..."
Carden hung his head. "Sorry... The skin is in the left bag... You know I... I didn't think about you. You weren't in the best place, Belladonna. You were in-"
"Torment?" ejaculated Belladonna. "Well I DON'T CARE! You stupid male, maybe I deserved to be there!"
"You didn't suicide, Belladonna," said Carden quietly. "You were... you were tricked-"
"I took my own life, it doesn't matter if I was trying to save it," snapped Belladonna. She glared and stared into her pool. "Go away. Foolish male."
Carden crept over to her like a beaten dog. She flinched away from him as he sat down and gently wiped the blood away from her face; it had trickled down her cheek. "I didn't mean to upset you... I know I haven't done it right, Belladonna. I'll make them right. After."
Belladonna groaned pitiably. "It sounds strange when you call me that, Carden. Makes me think I'm in trouble with the witch."
Carden chuckled. "Oh dear. So I must call you Pon Pon still?"
Belladonna groaned but hid a small smile. "I suppose if you can think of nothing else," she smiled bitterly. "Now get off me; I must start assembling this concoction."
Carden grinned. "Thanks Pon Pon," he said and he staggered out. "But Pon Pon," he said, turning to her. "You have had nice gifts, haven't you? I mean you can move... you sense things instead of see them now..." A look from her silenced him and he left her, shuffling through his bags.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 2:31 am
Belladonna was sitting at a simmering cauldron the next day, the eerie blue light echoing blankly in her silver eyes. She added a few assorted plants and herbs to it, exciting a poof from the cauldron. She wrinkled her nose. "Euch, such a bad smell..."
Carden crept up behind her. "It sounded like it farted," he said and laughed when Belladonna jumped in surprise, knowing she couldn't sense anything without a heartbeat.
"Stay civilised, please," sighed Belladonna after she had recovered. It didn't take long. "I'm nearly finished for today." It had been a few weeks since Cardenh had collected most of the ingredients. "Tonight it must simmer in the full moon."
Carden blinked. "It isn't a full moon tonight..."
Belladonna smirked. "I made an arrangement."
"HALLO!" cried the teen Amaterasu as she cantered around carden. "You're looking after me tonight Carden! Dai-nii is going to go party hard!"
"You..." said Carden weakly. "You made a deal with Daikin? To have the full moon... while we look after Amaterasu?"
"Not exactly," said Belladonna. She stood and crossed to Carden. "Not we, you. It's your problem. Isn't he, Suki, dear?"
"Yup yup, Donna," said Suki sweetly. "I'll go back to playing with your dressups, kay?" she said and skipped off.
"Dressups?" asked Carden weakly.
"I have some pretty clips," said Belladonna defensively. "She spends her time with Daikin, she has no feminine outlook. Right. Pick up the cauldron and take it to the highest bare hill. Leave it there but pick it up before dawn."
Carden nodded and picked up the cauldron. He hefted it and made sure nothing splished out. He looked back at Belladonna but she was already walking away, around to check on Amaterasu. He lowered his head, stirred his mane and walked away.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 5:18 am
Carden crept up behind Belladonna, making enough noise to let her know he was there and yet not know from where he was coming. He pulled up short when she turned her head and snapped her teeth at him.
"You stupid oaf; be careful. We've come to far in this atrocity for you to stuff it up now," Belladonna hissed. "Go and get the skin."
Carden scowled good naturedly. He couldn’t blame Belladonna. It was his own fault. He got the skin; it was a sack stitched with thick clumsy black yarn into the rough shape of a pony. The eyes were holes of blackness. He presented it to Belladonna.
Belladonna took the skin in her heeves and spread it out. "There's one last thing that we... that you have to do," she said gravely. "To be her body you need something of hers."
Carden hesitantly touched his bandages. "Of Sanka's?"
"No not those," said Belladonna. "You need to exhume her," she said in a gasp. "What's left of it. Take some hair. A bone. Anything." She pursed her lips. "You have to. Or..."
"Oh God I can't do that," breathed Carden. "It's her corpse... her bones her flesh... her dust," he choked. "Or what? Anything is better than that."
"Or you could see her where she is now and bring back her soul," Belladonna said. "The bit of her is to call her into this skin. You could bypass that by getting her here." She paused. "You... you did ask her. Before you decided that you'd reanimate her... didn't you Carden?" Before she finished asking she knew he hadn't. "You fool Carden!" she stood and glared at where she hoped he was- she was right on the mark. "This is for nothing if she doesn't want to come! Why didn't you talk to her? Why did you never talk to her?" She wasn't talking about now anymore. It was about before, when they had known each other. Carden had always wanted but never had he gone to see Sanka after she had died.
Carden sank to his brittle knees. "I'm sorry Pon... Pon..." he said softly. "But now that it's so close... I'm terrified. I don't think I could see her."
"There is no time for terror!" cried Belladonna. "All this work is for nothing! Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this what you always wanted?" She snapped, tears of despair and anger rising to her blank pale eyes.
Carden covered his eyes in his exquisite sadness. "No," he whimpered. "No it's not..."
Belladonna cocked her head and sidled over and hunkered down to him. "Carden... what is it that you want?"
Carden looked up and Belladonna and tentatively pulled her into his arms (pretending they're anthros right now). "I wanted to be held... like this."
Belladonna was startled and then relaxed and pulled Carden into a mutual embrace. She laid her head on his shoulder. "Carden... do you like me?" she asked. Then she felt like dashing her brains out. She'd always meant to ask... but it just sounded so juvenile how she had eventually come out and said it.
Carden snuggled against her. He couldn't actually feel her. He couldn't feel anything. But he saw her and he knew she was there and it was just as good. Well. It was better than anything else. "I... I like you more than anyone else. Because... you always liked me."
"Carden... do you really still love her?" Belladonna asked. He probably wasn't ever going to speak to her again; she might as well say what she wanted while she could.
Carden twitched. "I... I know that I loved her. I remember that I loved her. But I can live without her.... well living... relative term I never could before. I don't think I do. I don't think I love her," he said with conviction, as though he had always longed to say it and now found he could.
"Then why?" asked Belladonna. She raised her head. "Why want her back? Why force yourself to undergo gruelling tasks to make her a body? Why commit yourself to that?"
Carden hung his head. "Because when she was alive so was I..."
Belladonna compressed her lips. "That's..." she sighed and drew him in close her again. I love you.
Carden trembled and his shoulders shook. If he could have, he would have cried. With exhaustion. With relief. With guilt. He sat with Belladonna until he fell asleep and she spread him out near the fire and pondered what was to become of the skin, the potion and the Embalmer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 4:49 am
Belladonna brewed some tea on the ever-present fire. When the billy was steaming jauntily she turned to Carden. "Wake up, tea," she said invitingly. He was stubbornly asleep. Belladonna set her features. "Grr," she mumbled. She cracked him in the head with a log from the fire. "Wake UP!"
Carden yelped and woke. It didn't hurt but the vibrations shook him to his core and he nearly bit the tip off his tongue. "Wha-aa-did-yo-ou do that for?" he asked, the vibrations making it had to open and close his mouth under his own command. "Oh, tea," he said cheerily. "I'll have some of that..."
Belladonna shoved a tin mug of tea towards him. "There you go you ungrateful git," she spat, secretly sipping her own tea.
Carden nodded his thanks and drank deeply. The tea was steaming- incredibly hot and nearly at boiling point but he drank it all down like it was lukewarm. He couldn't taste it or smell it but he could faintly- ever so faintly like hearing somone call your name in a crouded shopping centre but you're not sure from where- feel a dull sense of warmth where the liquid went and he relished it. He held the mug down again and Belladonna refilled it. "You sure know how to make tea, Pon-Pon," he said cheerfully, steam rising from his mouth.
Belladonna snorted. "It's useless for you to drink anything; you don't need nourishment." She shook her head grimly and looped her hair back out of her way. "Do you know Eris? She's been a great help to me lately," she said, making small talk. It was up to Carden to breach the subject of the rotting sack of organs sprawled over a branch behind them.
"You... you mean Strife?" sked Carden. "Oh yeah... Pestilence also... and Judgement... I know her. Of her I suppose," he drank down another mug. "You-hmm. Okay fine. I don't know. Satisfied?"
Belladonna breathed out heavily. "I know. But you have to decide something. And soon. That kind of charm can be hijacked and easily. Make up your mind before a scavenger takes what we have worked hard for."
Carden put his mug near the fire. He didn't want Belladonna to touch it while he had had his lips on it. He didn't know what kind of germs he had- since he was dead. But considering he was embalmed with bleach, he could be fine. But since he was dead he could have rotted. In either case, she could be endangered by his touch. "You could counsel me, my friend," he said softly. "Like the old days. Remember that? When we used to talk? Usually it was about you... We... stopped after you-"
"I KNOW WHAT I DID SO STOP BRINGING IT UP!" screeched Belladonna, loud enough to make whatever carrion birds there were in Nightmare Valley scatter, cawing harshly. "This is your decision," she said quietly. "Not mine. But I shall give you my counsel; it is a decision you stole from someone and it is they who should decide. That's all I have to say."
"Stole?" asked Carden but Belladonna's lips would not part, her forhead frowned and her eyes closed. He glared but to no avail. "You mean... Sanka? She should decide wether or not to live... but I... I don't want to ask her," he said, his head bowing. "I don't want to see the look on her face when she knows that I was still there when she left me. I don't want to see the guilt on her face when she doesn't recognise me."
Belladonna swooped down and embraced him. "Yes, but you still stole her choice. You must not be cowardly in returning it. Mon cher."
"You return to your roots only to chastine me," said Carden bitterly. "You used to say that all the time. Why don't you say it anymore?"
"I shall tell you if you promise to make up your mind," said Belladonna stubbornly. She was glad at this time that Carden had no feeling; her heart was pounding like a drum. She couldn't hold it in! It would smash right out of her chest! Her blood must be pulsing at a million circuits a second.
Carden blinked. "Okay," he said. "Okay I'll ask her. I'll go right up to her and say; Sanka do you want to be alive?" He shook Belladonna off and stood up. "I better call Izanami."
"Now?" asked Belladonna. "There's no time like the present I suppose... but why now?"
"What's wrong with now?" asked Carden.
"Nothing!" snapped Balledonna. She huffed and stirred he cauldron. "Izanami," she called.
Izanami appeared, without her door this time. She looked slightly annoyed. "Well?" she asked impatiently.
Carden blinked. "Uh... I want to speak to Sanka."
"She can't meet you here," said Izanami. "You'll have to go there."
Belladonna looked at Carden sharply. "You don't... you don't intend to go there do you?" she asked, her voice squeaking.
Carden looked at her softly. "If it's the only way..." he said. "Okay, then, Izanami. Please transport me down underground."
"One hour," said Izanami. "My powers are not limitless."
"One hour?" akekd Carden. He nodded. "Okay. Thankyou Izanami."
Izanami snapped her heels and her door appeared and opened. Carden nodded and took one step inside. Belladonna raced up to him and whispered in his ear. Carden paused for a moment and then shook his head and went inside. Izanami looked at Belladonna pityingly. Then she snapped her hooves again and left, along with her door, leaving Belladonna alone again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:00 am
Carden looked around his old home. Still as dank as ever. The air was thick and clingy and it would have been hard to breathe if he had needed to. He looked over at Izanami. "What happens now?"
"Now you wait," she said and with that she slammed her door in his face after dissapearing through it.
Carden blinked. "Oh lovely," he said drily. He sat down in the shrapnel and shavings of obsidion and looked over the city and the citadel beyond it. The place was built like a fortress in case anyone was stupid enough to wage war on the main city of the underworld. The place had existed for a thousand years beyond memory of any conscious living creature. The place wasn't built in a day- it took over 600 years and it was still growing like an octous, stretching out feelers and filling them in. The citadel was even being built underground. The city sprawled with dwellings. Carden rested his head on his hoof, the elbow joint clicking gruesomely, and wondered where Sanka lived. Maybe she doesn't live here at all. Maybe she lives-
A droplet of water fell from the sky and interrupted his thoughts. This one was joined by another and another and then the air was thicker with droplets. They fell only in a certain circumference. It was like watching a tube fill with mist. Then the rain stopped and a pool of rain was left. The water didn't move. Didn't twich.
Carden blinked and looked over the rim of the puddle/pool. The water shimmered and saw ...something. Darkness blossomed down in the somehow insurmountable depths of the shallow pool. It stretched out like a drop of ink and mutated into different shades. A beautiful face and head and hair and neck appeared. Blue eyes, thick brown hair, glossy black and silver coat with crimseon swirls at the cheeks. Yes. This was Sanka. She looked as good as she did when he'd died and Carden felt a twinge in his chest where his heart had stopped beating and was held in a suspension of the enbalming fluids she had pumped him full of.
The head had been still untill it fully formed and then a ripple of light shone over the pool and Sanka blinked, smiled and her lips moved. Silence. The picture seemed to faze out and then in again and it was no longer a headshot of Sanka but a full picture of her and her surroundings. She had her head dipped and she was talking to... children.
Carden's face creased and his chest throbbed. These children were hers. He knew. Her beautiful hair was shown on the little boy who was gamboling around her feet and the little angelic girl was all blue with Sanka's eyes and swirls in brilliant green. She must have her fathers' colouring thought Carden. He closed his eyes as he imagined what their children might have looked like. But where- Carden gasped. Sanka was in the underworld. She must be... But she was so young! And her children! Where was the father? Wait... was that... on the little girl's leg...a burn? Carden tried to look away but he couldn't. Sanka was dead. That was fine. It would have been fine. But she was dead with her children. He couldn't take thier mother away from them. That oozing seeping wound on that little angel- it must have taken years to heal that well. Carden resolutely stomped the water away. The image vanished.
"Seen enough?" said Izanami.
"Yes," said Carden softly.
"Do you really want to take her from here then?"
"No..."
"Then we're done here." The door appeared behind her. "Step through."
Carden went through without a backwards look. He wasn't seen for three days.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:10 am
Belladonna summoned Izanami to her clearing a day or two later. "Where is Carden? I haven't seen him and last I knew he was with you."
Izanami looked condescendingly at Belladonna. "You wouldn't have been able to see him even if he were three metres hence."
Belladonna frowned. "You haven't seen him either."
"I should say not," said Izanami. "He surely does smell rank. Not a drop of blood to purify his veins."
"Don't speak that way about Carden!" said Belladonna, bristling.
"If you care so much about him then go find him," said Izanami. "He's probably just dug himself a grave." She rolled her eyes one last time and dissapeared through her portal.
Belladonna felt Izanami's departure and shook her hair. "Beastly woman." She twitched her nose and 'looked' back at her fire. She sadly heated up the billy can and stirred in some unhappy looking tea leaves.
"Can I intrude?"
Belladonna looked up- but of course couldn't see anything. "Carden. Where have you been?"
Carden sat next to Belladonna and held her hoof in both of his. "I had thinking to do."
"Wow I never thought I'd hear that," she giggled. Then she stopped when he did not laugh. "What?"
"I'm sorry."
"what?" Belladonna asked incredulously. "What for? Carden, if you weren't dead, I'd think you were sick! What is wrong with you? Tell me quickly or I'll start to worry."
"I'm sorry I wasted your effort," said Carden. "But I'm not summoning Sanka."
Belladonna blinked and the billy bubbled over. She poured it into two tin cups. Carden didn't drink his. "But you wanted to. You wanted to be with her."
Carden shook his head. "No. I wanted to be alive. I wanted to feel and breathe and taste. But she's dead and so my living is as death lives."
Belladonna's breath stuck in her throat. "But Carden... you could never be alive again... Oh Carden..." He dropped her head onto his shoulder. "You're so sad. How can you be so sad about something you can't change?"
"I don't know. That's what I was thinking about. I didn't know what I was going to do. But now I think I do. I know what I'm going to do for now," said Carden. "I'm going to make myself happy. Being with you."
Belladonna raised her head and Carden exclaimed- her horn had poked him in the face. "I'm sorry! But me- I'm dead. I'm staying dead. If I'm not here then I'm burning."
"I don't want you to feel that you have to go back there," said Carden, rubbing his face. "If you're with me and making me happy then you have a reason to be here."
"Why would I want to make you happy?" asked Belladonna selfishly.
"I'll make you want to make me happy," whispered Carden. "You'll want to stay. Because you will be miserable if you don't."
Belladonna closed her eyes and felt her heart race as her clotted blood thickened.
Carden lifted her chin. "Belle is beautiful," he said into her ear. "Be beautiful. Open your eyes."
"No..."
"Open your eyes for me."
Belladonna squeased the corners of her lids shut then opened her opalescent eyes. They leaked with tears.
"There's my beauty," said Carden. "You can be beautiful enough for us both."
Belladonna, searching timidly where before she had been forceful, felt Carden's form and eased her way into an embrace. She wept on his shoulder. She cried out all of the venom that had ruptured out of her love for him: her love first and formost- from there had been hatred that he could not show her affection- from there was sorrow- then fear for him when he was unhappy- to loneliness when he finally found something to make him happy.
"Why are you crying?" asked Carden after a while.
"I'm crying for us both."
Carden held her silently after that, feeling that every tear he saw touch his nerveless flesh was from his own heart and feeling his heart deflate. The pain inside was leaking. He grew worried then. What if when he was finished getting out the hate and the anger... what if he were hollow? What if it was like being nerveless inside too? He shuddered and stroked Belladonna's mane.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
