Solo


[4 of 5] And it’s black as coal in this heart of mud.
Word Count: 2849

"I will explain soon," he said to the air. "How soon, Gehenna. How soon until you decide to pull your head out of your a** and stop endangering the lives of others." The piece of receipt paper, burn scarred with the emblazoned logo of Mars, was discarded like trash. He didn't care to watch it flutter to the ground.

"She just destroys everything." With a sigh, he collapsed back against the pillows. "Yes, I'm certain. Because she was the one to put a hole through her own stomach, right Kam?" Half-lidded eyes met the unchanging shadows spanning the ceiling. The desk lamp threw light at an early hour, sending its sprawling searches to every last reachable corner of furniture. It left his fingers and body looking far more gaunt with the cast shadows. One hip bone looked a mountain by comparison. "But you've already proven that you like to withhold the facts. I've found a better font of wisdom for 'why she is'. Amphitrite gave her name. That's more than I could say for you, old friend."

Felyn
Gehenna,

Nearly a week has passed and I have not heard word from you on an explanation for this creature. I learned only a margin more of her by questioning a girl with holes in her forehead and heart. She looked like an echo of the blonde.

She volunteered that the blonde's name was Alkaid, and that her rank was Ascendant General. Does this sound familiar to you? I assume it does, if her presence angers you enough to punch holes through her stomach. If you're feeling particularly chatty about this topic, I suggest you send me a letter. Regrettably, I will not be doing house calls for some time.

This covers evening escapades as well - I regret to inform you that i cannot attend until further notice.

Sincerely,
Scholomance


Isaiah used the dropper of iodine left by Lorne to administer liquid to his ring, and thereby stamp the sigil of Scholomance across the top. The letter disappeared thusly; he knew not how it traveled or even where it went, but Gehenna would receive it in time. And yet, even with the words said and writing finished, he felt no vindication for Gehenna's withholdings. He spared a bleary glance to the clock and confirmed that little time had passed; the blue digital readout suggested 3:04AM, a time belonging to sleep for those who still had regular obligations. He, however, did not.

For several minutes after, he debated sending another letter. he considered recipients, topics, needs, situations. He considered the street light that stood sentinel outside his window. He mulled over each thought as he watched the echoing shadows mimic their perpetually shackled counterpart. Sometimes he wondered whether youma or agent lurked in their midst - or if, somewhere, one knew precisely what happened to him.

His instincts rankled at sending the next letter. All parts of his mind called for alternative action, as any activity far outweighed the potential consequences of his next move. He knew how to play precarious political tactics, but to reach beyond that and into the realm of the magical demanded so much more experience than he already had. To do so required the combined knowledge of Hvergelmir and Babylon to know what, precisely, may come of his deeds. And, perhaps, even they didn't know. Imagining neither of them knowing felt entirely impossible, but he forced the reminder that it was possible - and that, despite this, he avoided the worst of it. He avoided thinking that yes, Hvergelmir or Babylon might know, and that they would discourage it immediately.

And he thought, momentarily, that perhaps they should know.

Shazari
Hvergelmir,

I hope this letter finds you well. I enjoyed the chat we had and learned much from it. I was planning on using the information you gave me to further explore my wonder and learn what I could of its origins and intents. I did manage to visit it once more since our speaking, though I am dismayed to say that I could not embark on much physical exploration. Present injury prevented me from it.

I will say that Blaine remembered considerably more in our most recent chat. He explained to me that Scholomance held a purpose that was tweaked by each knight through the ages, and that it's supposed to serve me as much as I serve it (which I find to be laughably false - this wonder has repaid me with nothing but grief for my troubles). With some prying, he admitted that it's some kind of a weaponized magic research program. He did not know why it was needed. He made note that Scholomance reached dire straits at some time during his tenure, but when I asked him what came of that, he only answered with 'I gather that I died'. If he has more information on that, he isn't sharing it. Blaine also knew nothing of the Code piece (ha).

Normally I would continue trying to reach the bottom of the mystery, but my luck turned dire of late. Shortly before I left for Scholomance, I was attacked by a General Labyrinthite. He did not give reason for doing so - he only cited that I must die (in a decidedly ostentatious way). And he could have killed me - would have, I suspect, but something stopped him. It wasn't anyone that I could see or feel, and it certainly wasn't me. But he let go of my starseed, backed away, and warned me that next we meet, I would either corrupt or die.

It's becoming a common trend, I think. General Cinnabar tried it before too. And General Xenotime tried it on Mont Blonc. I am starting to wonder if Metallia issued decree that they needed to pursue recruitment and annihilation. I don't think the incidences between Labyrinthite and Xenotime were related beyond that - Xenotime tried to corrupt Mont Blonc for Ploutonion, he said, and Labyrinthite seemed altogether disinterested in persuading me to their side. I expect that an order from on high may be the only reason - and I consider it a new occurrence because I have not heard from anyone else of these sudden motivations. What do you think?

Lastly I must inform you that I will not be powering up for some time. There are twenty-three staples in my hip and another seventeen staples in my thigh. I cannot walk without assistance. But, at least, it affords me ample time to reflect on what I want from my knighthood.

And please, send me letters at any time. I enjoy hearing your opinions.

Yours,
Scholomance


This time, the letter demanded a full twenty minutes of carefully penning out every letter. He found it easy enough with the myrtlewood pen in hand, and the letters came out crisp and deliberate. He enjoyed the look of it even without the latticed gates to add a level of flair to the piece. This one he folded as well, and though he had no envelopes in which to stash it, he stamped his iodine-laced ring to the back for transit. It, too, disappeared as immediately as the first. Now the flashing display read 3:26AM, and the outside world looked thoroughly submerged in night. He wondered how long it was before the sun emerged from the depths, and if he would still be awake then, patiently and meticulously writing letters.

It may be so, he thought, for the next letter he intended to write. Deftly he spun the myrtlewood pen about in his hand. Soon afterward he retired it to the nightstand and spread his hand wide, stretching the muscles that threatened to cramp for how furiously he gripped the pen. Some of the road rash still ached from the encounter but it faded mostly to an inconvenient reminder.

I can play this game, he reminded himself, as I have before.

Nuxaz
Labyrinthite,

I wish I could imagine the look of surprise on your face when this letter reaches you. Have you received a knight's letter before? I doubt it sincerely. I doubt anyone writes to their would-be murderer.

Except me, of course.

You must be wondering why I chose to write you at all. You had, as you should remember, warned me that the next time we met entailed death or salvation. Is that how you put it? Yes - murder or deliverance from sin. Eloquent choices. To be frank, you don't get to know my reasons.

But I did not start this letter to write potshots at you from a safe distance. You can imagine that I am recuperating from your injuries now (forty staples in total - do you congratulate yourself?), so I have quite a lot of time to devote to correspondence. Picture this if you can, General Labyrinthite - on the night that you found me, I had stopped on that rooftop to reflect on my choices. I told you my reasons for being present in the war, and you scoffed (as is, perhaps, unsurprising). However, my reason for being out that particular night differed greatly.

Would you imagine that I was out to visit one of your own, a Captain by the name of Ashanite? He agreed to meet me at a disclosed location at midnight. Could you further imagine that I was inquiring after corruption? A shame you didn't stop to ask.

There is a part of me that wonders about you, Labyrinthite. It wonders why, of all the commendable actions that a general can execute, you decided to murder me after I issued my name. Your expression suggested abstract insanity, but I suspect it was deliberate choice. Did you know the name of Scholomance, then? Was it the Saturn symbols adorning my uniform? Were you incensed solely by my alignment as a knight? But these questions only amount to a short reflection on our exciting and enlightening experience together.

I've known about starseed ripping since I was a recent page. I was aware that Negaverse officers could reach into the starseed cavity and wrench my soul from my chest if they so chose, but I had never experienced it. Not as a page, not as a squire, and not when I faced a general previously. Isn't that bizarre? What I am getting at is, you are the first to violate that so-sacred area of my body, and you alone possessed the faculties to rip my soul out and sell it back to Metallia if that so suited you, but you chose against it. For some reason, you let go and you retreated. You backed away, shed your warnings, and left.

I wonder about that. I wonder if what you felt in my chest scared you, but I doubt that sincerely. You would've pulled your hand free long before you did. I also wondered if, perhaps, someone ventured near that scared you, but I heard and felt no one. It's possible my condition prevented me from being terribly perceptive, as we are both intimately aware of my dire circumstances (did you think I died?), but I imagine they would've strayed closer to check on me or finish me off. I doubt my words had any impact. So what was it, General Labyrinthite, that finally drove you from me? Did you find your own actions mortifying and appalling? What pulled you from my murder so intensely? Why?

It is this simple question that I could ask of all your actions: why?

Do you ever stop to ask it of yourself?

- Scholomance


He paused, smiled during his message in a bittersweet way, and continued with steady, slanted handwriting. When he concluded the message, it filled one entire page and started into the second, so he folded the pair together and administered his ring mark. They, too, vanished as the rest. He was glad to see them go, for he feared that if he waited a moment longer, they would find the garbage rather than their intended recipient.

In an afterthought, he wrote another smaller letter off a post-it note left at his bedside.

Felyn
Ascendant General Alkaid,

Are you still alive? Super Sailor Amphitrite gave me nothing of you, but her line of questioning suggested that she knows you.

I know you cannot answer me, but you have made an impression.

- Scholomance


Another stamp and the letter vanished. This time, Isaiah sat in silence again until long after 3Am gave into 4AM, and 4AM threatened to roll into 5AM. At this time, the streets outside of Lorne's apartment slowly gathered traffic - headlights loomed into the bedroom more often than once every ten, fifteen minutes. They lurked and watched and checked on him much like Lorne did, as if waiting for him to make a mistake or betray his motives to the outside world. As far as he knew, no one thought to peer through the curtained windows and spy on the insomniac within. He doubted anyone found it interesting enough.

Another handful of ibuprofen was taken then, which he knew by the timer set on his cell phone. It helped only to dull his pain from far beyond tolerable to just beyond tolerable - and in this situation, as he often discovered, he lacked the patience to wait out the days of recovery. He could not say with certainty that, if Lorne owned a handgun and stored it in the nightstand, he would not have used it on himself. Perhaps, then, it was providence that Lorne allowed him to stay.

And for that very same reason, he considered with heavy conscience his next letter. He wondered, of Lorne and Nadia and Auguste and Colin and Aleksy, who of which was the best recipient. He supposed that, ultimately, each of them would find out by nature of being related to the next. If he sent it to Lorne, he imagined the note would reach Nadia's ears first, then Auguste's, then Colin's. If he chose Colin, Lorne would hear it next by virtue of Isaiah's location. Auguste and Nadia may hear of it simultaneously. Auguste, he suspected, was most likely to keep the note to himself and diffuse the situation individually. Nadia may simply drop by to slap him.

He would've enjoyed that slap for far different reasons.

With reluctance, as exhaustion began its slow, weighty growth on his eyelids, Isaiah embarked on the last letter of the night. Experimentally, he started the note with the names of each of those involved. This way, he needn't plan around someone else's actions.

Frayedflower
Aegir,
Methone,
Mont Blonc,
Thrymr,

I am writing to all of you because I have faced a very difficult decision in the past few days. This same decision has come up twice now, and I am starting to realize that I have erred in my past choices.

I do not want you to think that I disliked your company. On the contrary, I've quite enjoyed meeting each of you and learning about your interconnected lives. I write this now, even, from Lorne's bedroom. And it may be true that I have taken your hospitality for granted - I do not doubt this possibility. I have, in the past, taken advantage of people consciously and willingly. I have not deliberately chosen to do so by that extent in some time, now, and it does pain me to think that I might have done the same to you.

Each of you knows from your own experiences that there comes a time when you have to make a decision for yourself, and not for others. I am realizing that I have reached that point.

It may be unforgivable of me to refrain from listing my reasoning here. I think that, as friends, you deserve that much. But more than that, I doubt that my justifications for this change in decision will impact how you feel about it or react to it. Ultimately, I think, I will be detested for it.

Henceforth I will reverse my decision. I want to corrupt.

NEver yours,
Scholomance


He hesitated for some time on sending the last letter. He considered rewriting it entirely, throwing it into the trash, keeping the thoughts to himself, or avoiding thinking on it altogether. Perhaps it was childish of him to drag others into this decision, but... It was only with them that he thought he had a chance of salvaging his own life. NA had taught him two years ago now that joie de vivre came of entrusting oneself to others, and that privatizing these burning issues only further destroyed his life. He knew that if he chose to continue with his silence, then corruption became the only option by virtue of abandoning a capsized ship.

So he started again, and left the bombastic diction aside.

Syrie
Aegir,
Methone,
Mont Blonc,
Thrymr,

I need your help, for I want to corrupt.

- S.


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