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 Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:44 pm
The moon had grown closer, and it was to the shrine for Sarviur.
For why not? His lovely blue Goddess needed him far more than the ruins, and there were flocks of people enough there.
And here? Here it was empty of shadows; Sarviur walked, a horned man, through the shrine, hoofsteps echoing as he did. There were the pillars, and there were the pedestals, and there were the goddesses three - no, two. There were only two goddesses, and the goddess of ruin had fallen off her pedestal. The Goddess, wrought with Paranoia, created ====, her last and final project before ====. It was then that she discovered how to replicate ====., it read, as if in farewell.
"Or so it goes."
But no, she had not fallen. There she was, beautiful and golden. She was not his goddess but she had given him blessings beyond measure, and so he beamed to see her. She was hard at work. Well, weren't they all? Only, the goddesses had a higher purpose...
A bag was thrust into his hands, key dangling, and Sarviur nudged it open almost without her prompting. Empty.
He cocked his head at her, and she frowned, one of her (mighty, beautiful, golden) hands clenching and unclenching at her side. "Oh. A small error..."
She needed his help? Sarviur accepted the pair of scissors wordlessly. The heart? Yes, the heart. Of course. They hadn't made it. Of course. Sarviur did not know who had not made it, but he thought that the task was simple enough. All he had to do...was complete it.
Yes.
She smiled, and it was as warm as anything - sun that parted the fog, he remembered - and he smiled back. "I won't disappoint," he promised. "Never." She did not stop smiling, and he continued backing himself into the opening, meeting her warmth with his acceptance. It was a tiny opening, and its lips closed around him. It was so dark...and there was that thunking.
She'd gone back to work, he thought, and then he saw the doors. Three, looming - he did not stop to consider. For the yellow goddess had sent him, and the tree-door with its little yellow spark-heart was the door he should enter. Simplicity, an unnerving spiral...Sarviur did not notice them. He welcomed the terror and malice that gripped his core, now strangely flashing between blue and yellow. What a strange little tree-sigil, he thought, and he placed his hand on the door. He had to cut...someone's heart, right?
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:02 pm
The thuds again. The goddess must have been working hard, if Sarviur could hear it from within this door. He crept forward, strangely calmed by the silence and its embrace. And the door shut. Sarviur could not see, not even by the light of his faintly pumping core. She had said it would be...easy.
Just a heart.
Someone whispered a strange, familiar word that Sarviur did not know, and it provided him small comfort. Words, words...he liked words. They surrounded him. He was happy. The thump continued, and he paid it no mind. All he needed was the words, guiding him - well, he was stumbling now, but all he had to do was follow his ears...
Varrus...Varrus...
The thumping grew louder, too, and something knocked against his knees. He crouched and reached his hand out to swat it away - only to hit solid wood. No, he had to move past this for the Goddess...to the left? Only more wood, the crate stretching out seemingly forever. And to the right, a wall. Yet the word was here; he could not turn back. Varrus... What a strange word! He wondered that he did not know it, but perhaps it was simply something he needed to learn. Here, above...Sarviur stood again, hands reaching over as he did, and - thud. thud. Var - thud. -rus...thud. Nothing. No, not nothing, he admitted, bent over as he was - there was something soft, rather pliant, beneath his fingers.
He leaned over it, head inching closer - perhaps if his heart was close enough and his eyes adjusted, he could see...
Instead, he heard something even more familiar. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It began, at first, hidden by the thuds, but they faded away as he groped the soft thing beneath him, and left only that familiar, familiar...what was it? A heartbeat. Yes, a heartbeat...a sound that a heart would make, one like the Goddess had asked him to fetch. Here were his scissors. There was the thing, the - the body of something without a core, something not grey. Something not welcome. He lifted it up, and thrust his scissors into where he thought his own core might have been, looking into -
- pink eyes.
They were entirely pink, and the man was double horned, with a spiked tail that lashed every which way as he moved. "Varrus!" His name! The man strode quickly, and Varrus lolled his head back in awe. Did he know this entity? The little boil scrambled to his feet, and gave a sharp, smart salute. He was at attention! He was doing something right!
The man chuckled, and Varrus knew him for a stranger, but his mother brayed beside him. "Mr. di Laurentius! You made time, after all."
"Yes," said the man simply. "Yes, of course; your family has always been of interest to us."
"Mother?" Varrus asked, about to clutch at her knee, and the man beckoned, hair black on white on black - like his sister's piano!
Mr. di Laurentius was a demon, and he pulled Varrus close. "I am Leander, Varrus," he said. "And I will teach you what will know, and where you will go." His mother watched them with serious eyes, and Mr. di Laurentius patted him on the head - just behind the ears, where he liked it most. "He reads, I take it?"
"Yes," his mother began, and instantly -
the chest parted ways with the Heart, Sarviur's breathing heavy. It hadn't been his Goddess. Or the Goddess that had sent him here. And none of those people - not even himself, tiny as he was in the vision - had cores; it was wrong and if he disliked anything, he disliked that. His scissors sang, and he busied himself with the heart again - there, that thing - it was a vein. Yes, there it was. He cut it, and the heart grew a little freer...and there, the next one, each snip removing a bit of that black, black nest...
He lifted the Heart higher and higher, and it was pulled free from the chest cavity with a sloppy wet sound. It wasn't thumping anymore.
Sarviur dropped it into the bag, cold.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:31 pm
He stepped over the crate, scissors in one hand, bag in the other.
The floor squelched beneath him, and before him - a wall.
Oh. A dead end. But the Goddess wanted him to come back, so there had to be another way. He waved his arms about in front of him again, and behind him someone walked, disturbing water as they did. What a loud sound, that. Perhaps it was another spirit, helping the goddess. He knew even as he turned, though, that it was not, for no core glowed behind him, and turning to face the sound meant he met - nothing? Yes, nothing, not even a shadow of a person to hide a core. Perhaps he'd heard something from another doorway. That made sense, he thought, although he'd heard nothing of the sort before.
He returned to feeling for a new way out only to realize that the dead end was no longer there. It had been a door, perhaps. Goddesses saw all, after all. Perhaps she'd realized he was done, and merely opened the door ahead of him. Silently, he thanked her, hands crossing swiftly over his heart in a mimicry of...of what?
Well, onwards it was.
There was water here, he realized. The fur on his feet was wet, and clung heavily to his hooves. And the level was rising: perhaps there was a reason for whatever door that was, after all. First ankles, then calves. Knees. No one spoke, not even the person who'd been repeating that strange, strange name.
Another sloshing noise. No new cores. "Please give it back," someone told him, insistent. Sarviur turned, peered back. Perhaps there had been inhabitants of this new room that he had not seen.
No one.
Onwards.
The water rose. Thighs. a**. Waist, and it hurt to move, because his body was heavy with water and he had to keep the bag and the scissors dry. They were for the Goddess' work, and she deserved nothing but the best. The water crept up as he thought, past his chest, swallowing the little black tag that had manifested itself around his neck as he'd collected little blessing-orbs. He held the bag and the scissors aloft. Something sloshed behind him, and he paid it no mind, knowing the first two somethings had just been...sounds, carried by the wind. Water, welcome water...probably black, like the pool in his Goddess' domain.
Shoulders now. It was coming on fast, the water. Cold against his skin, lapping gently at him. Sweet. Teasing him. Up. It almost hid the tag's little black necklace now, wrapped around the base of his neck. Higher still. The water fit itself snug around his neck, like a little collar - the collar of his Goddess, representing his service, he thought deliriously.
He could not go further. He'd have to turn - hands!
Hands. Not the Goddess'; grimy and old and aged. "Please give me back my - "
Blank eyes. They were supposed to be pink, and the man behind them was not supposed to plead.
Leander commanded.
He was a demon, and it was his right, Varrus learned, awed, from the safety of his mother's study.
(His father was gone, held under the spell of some human virgin ghoul. His mother had spat the words out like tar when she'd told him, and he'd shivered, and vowed not to let a virgin tear him away from his own family.)
"The red book," he'd say, and Varrus scrambled to comply. "Now, you're a creature of Halloween..."
He blinked and the eyes were white again, and not that bright, painful pink. And his head was beneath the water - no, not his head - just his mouth. And his nose. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't resist...
"Give me back my heart," said the blank-eyed body, firm, and Sarviur smiled and gargled. There it was; there was the demon he remembered...
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 11:03 pm
The heart was the goddess', not the body's.
And it was only a body, anyway, and it belonged to someone - someone without a core, someone whose very existence screamed wrong. Where was this Leander's dedication? Why didn't he cut out his own heart?
Varrus - no - Sarviur snarled at him, and water rushed into his lungs; he coughed, and strange bubbles formed in the black, black water. The body held firm. But it was no one, and anyway, if the Goddesses wanted him, they could have him. They had the power. They made everything safe and good and Sarviur loved them. They'd blessed him. He thought of all those little orbs he'd absorbed into his core, and how graceful, how beautiful it was. This man could have had all of that. But he'd forgone it. He'd been selfish. Sarviur clutched the bag tighter, and flailed the scissors wildly.
Leander's grip was steady.
He'd been - he'd been a teacher for someone very nearly of Sarviur's shape. But not his color, or size, or of his dedication. Sarviur didn't owe anything to this Varrus fellow. He kicked; the water dragged. The body gripped Sarviur's arm, and he gargled more glorious, Goddess-brought water, even as he breathed less and less and less. Sarviur didn't need a teacher! He could find his own path. Sarviur could listen to anyone he wanted to, and he wanted to listen to his little blue Goddess of longing. Not this man, whoever he was. Whoever he'd been.
Leander's grip was steady -
- like his voice. The man set Varrus down.
"Thank you, sir," Varrus whispered, meek. He ducked his head, careful not to swat at his dear mentor's knee (or tail) with his tall, black horn.
"I will see you in two days," dictated Leander di Laurentius, steady, steady, steady -
- and the hold on his bag shoulder seemed to tighten, and Varrus closed his eyes. No, he could not let this man get ahold of the Goddess' heart! He remembered the scissors, held aloft in his other hand. The body was gripping the elbow of that hand, and forcing him down. He kicked wildly upward, breathed air and spilled water from his mouth and nose, trying desperately to just wave his arm.
Leander's grip was steady.
But Varrus - Sarviur, yes, had breathed, and he felt strong with his Goddess' blessing. This was right, he thought; it was what she wanted him to do. Deliver the heart. (No, it was the yellow Goddess, wasn't it...) And to do that, he had to wrench the arm holding the scissors free, he and the body bobbing in the water. Had he known how to swim? No, he had not; they were participating in a simultaneous handsfree doggy paddle of sorts and Leander's grip on his shoulder grew tighter and tighter -
Only Leander's grip now was unsteady.
He'd sacrificed the strength in the arm gripping the scissors to help hold the bag hand steady, and that was his mistake. For Sarviur was no protege of any man, or shadow, or harpy. He owed allegiance and admiration only to his blue, beautiful Goddess, and not to any men with radiation-pink eyes and a constant, confident voice like so much honey. All he had to do was get rid of the obstacle in his way. And he wrenched his scissors arm free, and waved it wildly about before plunging it, steady, steady, steady, into the suddenly gaping mouth of the body of one Leander di Laurentius, demon. Well.
Former demon.
Former body?
Sarviur stared as the body vanished, as the water vanished, and the last of it pulled itself out of his nose, and he let go in a last, ragged gasp. Oh, oh, oh, there was the door, bathed in lovely light, and now Sarviur would run for it.
He hardly saw the body holding the scissors as he glanced behind him, clutching the bag and its Heart to his wildly pulsing core.
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 1:27 am
Sarviur had seen this form of the Goddess before, which didn't prevent him from being surprised when he saw her in the shrine rather than the familiar statue. It was always a shock to see a Goddess, and it was admittedly strange to see this Goddess when she wasn't on the battlefield, and to hear her voice doing something other than egging him on. "You cannot escape forever." Ominous. Not nearly as warm or loving as the yellow or blue Goddesses. Sarviur shuddered.
She smiled almost fondly at her scythe. "You must face your fears..." Sarviur listened, a shiver running down his spine. There was a jeweled dagger - he took it, and it trembled in his hands. Her words sent rust running down its blade, and he clutched it tighter in the hopes that it did not fall apart before he needed to use it.
"Thank you," he murmured. He could prove himself to her.
He followed the progress of her scythe with wide eyes. Was he ready? Could he go? He glanced back at her and met red, bright eyes, and stumbled to obey.
He supposed he would find out soon enough.
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:15 am
He was on a table, and it was cold. Not like the wind, but a clinical cool: something that wrapped around him and would not let go. It was so clean, and so bright. He slid up, and was pleased to find the dagger still in his grasp. There was a humming: bees hummed. No, it was the lights, which would not leave him.
He was not sure if the room was empty or if it was filled with objects just as white as its stark walls - little neon patterns danced behind his eyes, and he groped for a wall, and then traced it slowly as he made his way around the r - oh. A door. He tested it: perhaps outside there would be less monotony. Unlocked. He turned the handle, wondering how this was supposed to make him face his fears. The room was painful, but he was certain his eyes would adjust. It was not unfriendly.
Yet, he reminded himself. Everything looked friendly at first glance. The door opened inward, and he stepped back with it, and then outside, where there was simply more of the same. All right. One hoof in front of the other. The walls hummed in tandem with the lights. Something slammed: he turned, and the door he walked through was still open. But everything was white...perhaps it had been a white shadow. "Hello," he called. No answer, and the word echoed gently.
Onwards, then. It would be a long walk, and Sarviur jogged to shorten it. He didn't see any other doors. Perhaps further ahead...
Thud.
What a strangely familiar sound. Sarviur turned, and, as he'd thought, saw nothing.
Thud.
He whipped around quickly this time, as though he could catch whatever it was in the act of...thudding. But it was not there. "I'm waiting," he told it, although it was likely not sentient. Nothing happened, and his voice echoed less, this time: he was farther from that end of the hallway.
Thud.
He did not turn, although perhaps he should have. Loud footfalls behind him alerted him to the need, and he saw: a ghost (she should be giggling, he thought distantly) with braided pigtails and a too-wide smile, gentle eyes, a frilly skirt. The sight of her caused his heart to skip beats: she was frightfully thin and absurdly pretty, in full technicolor like she'd never been and rouge on her lips. He noticed too late that there was a wall she'd turned around: he should have checked the hallways with his hands as well as the walls of that room. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
"You're so sweet," she sing-songed, and he felt himself speeding up. He knew her he knew her he knew her, but he knew not from where...
The exit. Passcode required.
Oh, no. What was the password? He had to get away.
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thyPOPE rolled 1 4-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:16 am
All right. So it had to be numbers. That...narrowed it down?
Not really.
He panicked, glancing around for any hint of a clue. White, white...over his back was the ghost girl again...white...a red-stained paper, there, to the left. A C E G.
A C E G? Perhaps that was it - or it was an anagram. C A G E? He turned to the pad, about to key the word in, and realized after searching for the C that there were only numbers. Right. He'd already established that! He pushed his head against the door and thought of the long, sharp scissors in her hands.
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thyPOPE rolled 1 4-sided dice:
1
Total: 1 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:19 am
A C E G, A C E G...
Sarviur looked around the hallway, his hair hitting his face rather harshly as he did. There were no clues anywhere, and the knife was so rusty now it'd probably break against something as hard as metal - the door was metal. His head ached. There had to be an answer...
"Aren't you coming to the high school?" she asked, her head tilted adorably to the side (she was so, so pretty). She was two years old but she'd told him she was fifteen when she died: she was pretty sure, anyway, the number was carved onto her stomach like a reminder that she'd never forget. Privately he thought it signified something else, but thinking she was fifteen was probably easier than thinking she was the fifteenth in a line of people to die, or something.
"No," he answered, because he knew his Mother (and Leander) would not want him going. He didn't want to go, either: sleep had never been particularly interesting to him.
"Oh, come on!" she giggled. "It'll be fun! I bet I'll get to do all the things I never got to do when I was alive." She had such a sweet, lovely voice. Like bells, really.
"I'm moving to my tutor's place for an apprenticeship," he said. It sounded like he'd already found a profession, but really it wasn't that: his mother was coming, too. It was just the excuse they'd rehearsed; they needed to get away. And he supposed he could learn more there.
"Well, you should still come! You can spare a couple days of the week, right?" She smiled: her teeth were blindingly white...
So white they gleamed. Like the walls. Sarviur shook himself out again, and ran his hand over the dagger's hilt. At least it was a weapon he was familiar with, this time...
From behind, his apparition called, and Sarviur remembered that he was supposed to be doing something.
40 feet remain.
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thyPOPE rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:29 am
Yet...
His fingers stumbled over the number pad, trembling. Not the corredt passcode. Well, of course: he'd been silly to think it was like a telephone's number pad. Three of them would have been the same, anyway.
A garbled phrase sounded behind him, and Sarviur shuddered. He didn't want to think about that memory, about being in that colorful world...
He banged on the doors desperately. Of course, they did not budge.
35 feet remain.
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thyPOPE rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:32 am
ACEG...it was already in alphabetical order. Were they tied to numbers? Sarviur could not think how. Perhaps they were a red herring...
He pushed against the door again in frustration, and his (darling, frightening) apparition came ever closer.
30 feet remain.
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thyPOPE rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:33 am
He was certain that he was overcomplicating things. Oh, not the banging part: that was just frustration. But the letters...he worked over them and rearranged them in his head. ("Yeah - you didn't really peg me as a books kinda guy!" she giggled, her hand in his.)
On a whim he looked back at the left, back at the paper. A C G E, A C G E...There had to be a...
Oh. There!
By his hooves, also to the left, he spotted a little clean piece of paper. A = 0, B = 1, C = 2...Clearly it was an answer! But what were G and E? Think, Sarviur, think...they were letters of the alphabet.
All right, yes, that much was obvious. The numbers were in ascending order, too: noted. Were the letters - yes, of course, alphabetical. Honestly he wasn't sure what took him so long: it was simple enough, really. (She'd always made his head spin.) Okay, so G would be...A was 0, B was 1, C, 2, D, 3, E, 4, F, 5, G, 6...
He stood back up and scrabbled to press the keys, which was probably why he pressed a five instead of a six - his finger had slipped. But the door didn't care, or it had been expecting that, or whoever had transcribed the clue had been wrong...either way, he was fortunate.
And here was freedom.
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:41 am
He dashed away, glad for the sight of trees upon trees. This time it was a monotony he was comfortable with: fog surrounding silvered branches, colors he knew and liked and could not be surprised by. And glorious shadows, too.
He ducked behind one, although for some reason he was certain that the little apparition would find him anyway. And he ran, tangling in and out of the trees, and between his footfalls he heard an ominous snipping noise. The fog would hide him, Sarviur thought wildly, and the trees. His grey was just the same as theirs, and he saw the ghost behind him in bright browns and reds and blues. He knew just where to hide so that she couldn't possibly see him, although he didn't know where he was headed: World's Edge, he hoped, because he knew the place best. But he'd never seen trees like this there, only lovely tall cliffs and huts filled with bird totems and strange runes.
"Give back my heart," she called, and Sarviur had no idea what she meant. "Or I'll take yours in trade..."
He ran faster.
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thyPOPE rolled 1 4-sided dice:
1
Total: 1 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 2:42 am
There was a bridge ahead. Sarviur rushed for it, though it was long, and looked rickety. It was not so high, though, he thought, and then he was on it, and he looked down: he could not see where he'd be dropped if he fell. Just fog, fog, fog...
Wind slammed into him from the right, and he and the bridge were blown to the left. ********, it was cold. Like ice: Sarviur already knew that he did not like the wind. And the bridge did not look safe: it croaked as it swung, and he felt as though it were about to tip him out. And behind him, a steady thump-thump-thump: the ghost, too, had run past the trees, and dead leaves no longer crackled beneath her feet. "I'm coming for you, darling," she whispered. Sarviur glanced down again: could he jump? He broke into an even faster gallop, but the thumps were growing louder and louder, and their combined speed only helped the wind swing the bridge along. There was not much farther, he thought, and he glanced over his shoulder only to see -
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Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:02 pm
She was right there, within arm's reach. Still beautiful, although he could see now that she was up close that the ends of her hair were dipped in a limp black, and her fingernails were not polished black but twisted beyond recognition. She smiled, wide, and a strange rhythmic pounding inside of him sounded louder and louder. Those blackened fingers held his head, stroked his cheek ever so gently.
She pushed him down (it wasn't right), shoving his hair out of his face with the heel of her palm. "I've got ya, sweetie," she told him. He froze, gazing into empty blue eyes. She'd always been lovely. "Don't worry - it only hurts once. I would know!" She lowered her hand; it supported his back now.
A snipping sound. Sarviur waited - he would have waited forever, he thought. "You won't hate me, will you?" she asked, patient and lovely. "I really need this." Pain. He couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to. Another snipping sound, and another. His chest ached briefly, and then...that, too, faded away. His heart was beating as she lifted it out: blue, blue, blue.
Sarviur lay limply on the ground. Was this what the Goddess had asked for?
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Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 10:41 pm
She was so, so lovely.
Perhaps he should have expected this, of course: the red moon shone, and when it did he'd slipped into the shrine, pious. And first it had been the Goddess of Paranoia, who just wanted a favor, really, and then the Ruin Goddess, who reminded him why he needed them, and now...of course it was her. The best Goddess for last, dressed in blue hearts from head to toe. And she was so happy to see him, and Sarviur was just as happy to see her. Who wouldn't be? "Oh! Um, hello," she began, and he smiled, and knelt before her as she talked, her voice soft and sweet and strangely nervous in his ear. "Cookie?"
He stood to take one, remembering the others talking about cookies on that very first, fateful day in the pool. It was buttery, rich, and flavorful, with blue thumbprints in the center - her thumbprints. He wasn't sure what they tasted like, other than sweet and lovely. "Of course I love you," he told her, quiet. As if he could help it. She was so kind.
What love felt like? Wasn't - wasn't what Sarviur felt for the Goddess love? But if she thought he could do with new experiences...well, he wouldn't mind. Not with her. And a tea party sounded peaceful, and cozy, and safe...
Round grey hedge shapes peeled themselves open behind his Goddess, and Sarviur walked forward with unease prickling through him - and then a force of unhesitating calm. She did not want to hurt him. She only wanted to see...to see how beautiful he could be.
Sarviur stepped forward, eyeing the table.
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