Martial Tourism Pt.14

She looked over at me briefly before collapsing back into a seated position. She took an extra second to kick Calum’s leg then sighed and rested her arm on her knee. I couldn’t help but notice her eyes and the lines etched into her face had stopped glowing, as if she had gone dormant.

~~Previously~~

I hadn’t moved; my arm still shaking as I held it up, pointed at where my target’s face had once been. My eyes shifted from my would-be partner to the man she had just knocked out. Or perhaps he was dead. I finally allowed my arm to drop with the release of a heavy breath, and I slumped back on my elbow, awkwardly lying on my side with my wounded leg splayed in front of me. My mind barely had time to drift toward curiosity before the shooting pain from my thigh reminded me of my own wounds. Still, I needed to help her. I needed her…

“Hey,” I turned my head towards my would-be-companion. What was her name? Had I gotten one?

My eyes flew to her bleeding arm, her wrist flopped onto the dirt and her hand splayed out. Blood trickled down from several deep gashes down her shoulder, bicep, and forearm, and a small pool of red was expanding beneath where her hand rested on the rough mountain soil.

Fuckin’ great. I gritted my teeth, twisting myself enough to be able to shimmy myself along the ground toward her. From the looks of it, she had already passed out from blood loss; hell, it was a wonder she had managed to stumble her way through the forest to get back to me while she was losing that much blood. I positioned myself next to her so that I could get a better look at her wounds.

No surprise; deep lacerations. Like massive claws. Wrap it. Pressure. My sleeves would do. Moving around the way I wanted with my leg lagging behind me was the problem. And I didn’t have my damned kit on me either!

Her bloody arm lay in my lap while I attempted my best at pulling the makeshift tourniquets as taut as I could.

“Hey!”

Nothing. Probably dead…or slowly dying. I took in a deep breath and sighed only to remind me of my own wound that needed treating. I turned my head down and tenderly reached for the knife lodged in my thigh. My entire leg screamed as soon as my fingers nudged it.

“Fuck!” I grumbled between clinched teeth, followed by a heavy sigh.

As if on cue, my would-be-companion opened her eyes, grumbling similarly. She lurched immediately, reasonably, but flinched as she tried to move her arm away from my grip.

I let her go, but she could barely move her arm. I frowned; I’d seen enough wounds like it, “we’ve a long way to go. That–“

She held up her unwounded arm, “yeah. I need stitches. There’s wire in my staff. Barrel end up, compartment on the left, a third of the way down.” She paused and sighed, “I’ll get it, though. Your leg’s fucked.

It’s not like I could do much to stop her; I could only watch her. She was moving fine, but her arm hung limp; at least it wasn’t dripping blood everywhere like before, but I could tell it pained her to even move it. She went to grab her staff and then further still to pick up the rest of what she had dropped before ascending the cliff-side, barely able to get it all back on with one functioning arm. As she came back, I looked up at her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be killing me?”

“Pfft,” she made her way back over and tucked her legs under my own wounded one. I groaned as it moved, “not until you stop being useful.” Even without her mask, it was hard to tell if she was joking. She managed some sort of vial from her pouches, “you’re gonna want this.”

I tilted my head, but took it. “Do I..drink it?”

“Oh, no. You’re gonna pour it on your leg in a bit.” She said casually as she eyeballed my wound. “Might as well and go ahead and pop that open.”

I started working the cork out, “fine, but what the hell are you–“

Unceremoniously, she grabbed and pulled the knife out of my thigh in one swift motion. The searing pain was enough for me to half-assed unconsciously pour whatever the voids was in the vial on the wound. There was a moment of agonizing pain before it soothed over, and I glared at her, “somebody needs to work on your bedside manner!”

“Yuuup.” She stated. Sometime when I was delirious from pain she had worked a needle and wire together and was now holding it in her teeth. She held the end of the wire out to me. “Gonna have to hold this. I’ll start. I know it’s a lot easier when you don’t have to do it yourself.”

I flinched inherently but took the end of the wire. It took three of our hands and her teeth to seal the wound. The muscle damage was just going to take time to get over. From there, we moved onto her arm, which she had an extra vial on her to pour over. The damage to her arm took a lot longer to stitch up, and I had to re-bandage it. By the time we were finished, it was nightfall. By my calculations, it was going to be morning by the time we got back.

She stood, taking her staff and handed it to me.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Martial Tourism Pt.13

I reached around to my back where my pistol was holstered only to swipe at air.

~~Previously~~

I turned my eyes on my assailant and then scoured the ground for my weapon. My pistol lie between us in the dirt, not but three meters and some from where the staff lie, but our struggles had put me in closer proximity to the staff.

I looked up again and we locked eyes. The cocksure grin on his face never changed as he shifted and lifted his bloodied hand. The wound had since stopped bleeding but now was slowly leaking an ichor which seemed to shimmer even in the waning light and reaching shadows of the emerging night.

“Go ahead,” he urged, motioning with his head toward the firearm but never tearing his stare away from me.

That brief lull drew my attention firmly to the pain shooting through my thigh and I flicked my eyes toward my blood-soaked leg and the blade that now rested at an even more awkward angle than before. Anything that I could think to do for the wound now would only make it worse. Wresting it free would only lead, almost assuredly, to me bleeding out. I made to shift my weight, to test the damage, and sure enough, a shooting pain reinforced what I was dreading.

Whether he had followed my gaze or was simply relishing in my anguish, Calum chuckled and stood up. “All tuckered out? Shame that. A bleedin’ shame,” to which I gritted my teeth as he continued while meandering toward the vacant firearm.

A rustling at the treeline and a prolonged sigh seized our attention.

“Calum!” her voice exploded forth through the trees, though the way she walked toward us didn’t match. She spoke with an extreme confidence that did not reflect the clear damage to her right arm which seemed to be hanging, was definitely clawed, and dripping blood. I could finally see her face clearly which was splattered with freckles and etched with intricate lines. Her eyes were a deep purple, and it seemed to bleed into the lines embedding her skin.

His head whipped in her direction, and I used that moment to scramble toward my gun. The moment distraction of him looking back my way was all it took for her to be on him – a flying knee to his chin sent his head reeling back, and he practically flipped over from the force. I’m almost sure I heard his neck snap. Or his skull crack? By the time I had my gun pointed and ready, she was standing over him.

She looked over at me briefly before collapsing back into a seated position. She took an extra second to kick Calum’s leg then sighed and rested her arm on her knee. I couldn’t help but notice her eyes and the lines etched into her face had stopped glowing, as if she had gone dormant.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Premonitions

Montarius, last of the first Pilgrims, sits immersed in a black and purple smoke, the world around him nothing but a meandering haze of shapes swirling and twisting around each other, some gravitating toward each other while some pushed aggressively away, all creating new patterns. He was perfectly still, his form shades of browns and crimson, even the swirling colours around him conformed to his perfect calm when they touched him until they broke away once more.

Across from him, a new concentration of colours began to waft together creating a tall flowing shape like a hanging sheet. The colours seemed to collect more intensely into two orbs near the height of the sheet creating two glowing reddish oranges.

The once perfectly still form began to twist until managing to etch out a vague impression of a face, its mouth downturned.

A voice flowed from the tall sheet, a deep, though clearly feminine, resonation that seemed to sigh with each word, “you must have known that I would come,” she spoke then paused, inviting response. Nothing. She sighed in earnest this time. “We could all feel it. Like we’d suddenly regained a distantly silenced part of ourselves.” Another pause before the tall sheet drifted slightly slower toward the sitting calm before her. “Any reason I’m getting the hate treatment?”

“I do not hate you,” his voice low and grounded as his form.

“Good to hear..,” the sheet tilted her head. “You could have easily disappeared again – popped in, got whatever it is you needed, and sulked off again.” Her orange orbs drifted, looking around, “You’ve been at it for quite some time,” and then her eyes back to him, “and your connection is…impressive. Is there some kind of threat?”

He finally sighed, his form wavering slightly, and two orbs formed on his face, their colour much more amber than the rest of him. “I do not know. The Sprites are being…confusing. Hope, desire, fear, uncertainty – all formed around a singular subject, but they cannot seem to agree as to what the subject even is. A someone, I believe.”

“Or something. We never did manage to find her. There’s no telling what she became.”

He shook his head, “no. They recognize her differently. She is no ‘someone’ to them. Nor a something. We know this.”

“You, know.” She started to shift around again, slowly looking here and there. “They always spoke differently to you. A shame, really. To imagine any ‘someone’ could hide from you.” As she went on, Montarius’s eyes followed her closely, almost glaring. She continued, “and now that you’re back…”

“I’ve told you that I am not helping you with that.”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to train them, but there have been more and more appearing all the time. They do need training, you can’t deny that; if it’s even remotely connected to this degree of concern you are showing it only makes sense for you to at least help track them down. You can think what you want about me, but there is a problem snowballing out of control. Is The Path really to watch everything crumble around it?”

Montarius grumbled. Sighed. Mused. And sighed again.

“I’ll take that as a yes?” Her orbs froze on him.

“Isullah. Why did you take your title?”

Her orbs tilted again, “you know why. That…place changed us. All of us. It’s not a title, it is my name now. There is no Isullah. I become more. We are Magnus Grey.”

A long pause was shared between them. The swirling and twisting shapes seemed to have vaguely collected around them. Montarius’s orbs disappeared, and his form began to become still once more.

“I suppose I’ll be needing a new name too, then.”

Against All

They eat eight of us every year- in their SLEEP! The carnage they would leave behind if they ever woke… Life wouldn’t be the same.

– r/WritingPrompts post by u/Wise_Mulberry3568

~~~~~

The words dripped with venom as they flew from her mouth. Cecivine, Archkeeper of the Arimolis Planar Trammel, glared down and across the main hall from her elevated seat backdropped by an intricate stained window. The rest of the Keepers, eight in total including myself, sat on either side of her at a marginally lower elevation forming a semicircle opening toward the rest of the sparsely decorated hall. Still lower and standing in the center of the hall was a well-traveled man who, even in that motionless and vapid temple interior, seemed like a reed in the wind. Even the chastising rebuke from the Archkeeper simply whisked over him.

“Precisely, life wouldn’t be the same; but carnage, madam?” He started his next sentence with a flippant wave of his hand, “they’d kill less than you lot condemn to death in ignorance.”

“You would stand there and declare her Excellency ignorant?” Keeper Joren challenged, sitting forward in his seat.

“Not her, but you for implicit compliance.”

Keeper Joren’s retort was drowned out by the Archkeeper’s elevated voice, “we did not grant you audience to entertain fallacy, Senier Mervic. What you suggest is a dangerous theory at best, and you would do well to curb your criticism; we do not gamble our responsibilities on heinous speculation. The sacrifices endured are a heavy weight we all shoulder for the sake of the Commonality and the world beyond its walls.” The Archkeeper paused, her silent gaze challenging opposition to which Mervic offered a silent sigh.

“What you call ignorance is our trust in her Excellency’s wisdom and power that has facilitated our survival. This gathering does not abide such contrary rhetoric and your proposition is hereby rejected. This hearing is concluded.”

The man’s eyes hovered over each of the Keepers, lingering individually, until his steely gaze met my own wandering contemplation. I narrowed my brow, suddenly feeling uneasy at the center of his silent scrutiny. A long moment passed before he broke away with a bow, slightly bending at the waist.

“How expected. Very well,” he offered in curt response before turning on his heel. His tattered long coat whipped dramatically following his movements and was the last of him to disappear through the grand doors of the main hall and down the adjoining temple corridor.

Varying degrees of disgruntled grumblings broke out between the Keepers, at which point I was happy to excuse myself to tend to the latest duty that had been passed onto me. Unfortunately, duty was in direct relation to the gathering’s point of subject and would not allow me to simply bury my head and busy myself to keep from lingering in futility.

My shallow footsteps meandered along with my thoughts, echoing gently down the pristine and delicately decorated temple corridor of infused metals and stone, the sound only sparingly interrupted by the heavy boots of diligent guards and the weary bustling of custodians. I passed through the hall until exiting through a set of thick doors leading out unto a lavish courtyard and I relished in the temporary abatement brought on by rustling leaves in the chilling breeze and the wistful goings-on of chittering and whistling fauna. I allowed myself a moment’s solace before pressing on fearing I would be later than I already was.

“Majestiar Pilphire!” A handful of voices greeted me as I crested the flight of wide stairs leading up to a circular landing. Beyond it’s edge, one could see the sleepy village of Arimolis peeking through the rolling fog of the valley below.

I greeted my students, remembering to smile, the boldest of the few joining in jest about my tardiness. They had gathered around in a circle waiting for me, the eight of them each with a meaningful item placed on the ground in front of them along with an inert rough stone, clear on its surface but filled with a milky fog, and a smattering of other Planar paraphernalia such as incense, candles, and small bowls.

Once everyone had settled down with me standing at the center of the circle, a match was passed around and everything lit. An odourless haze quickly enveloped the landing and formed a loose barrier as if bound in by uneven walls.

~~ToBeContinued~~

WoTD: sklent (01/18)

WoTDChallenge: futility (01/18)

The Thirteenth Month

At first, nobody was calling it The Thirteenth Month. Hell, no one knew what to call it. Sure, there were plenty of theories floating around when countless people started inexplicably falling dead in the streets, but none of it stuck. The Pandemic? There were no symptoms to study. Climate Change? Nothing else besides humans were affected. Cosmic Radiation? A Doomsday Device? The Purge? Before we had even a fraction of an answer, whatever it was disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared and left humanity with little more than shock, confusion, and dread. Humanity had been reduced to a remnant of its former self and all we were able to discern was that for a span of thirty days, directly following the final minutes of December according to the UTC, any human that did not remain partially inside a building of at least a square meter in size would quite simply fall dead from complete, and instantaneous, organ failure.

We lived out a year in fear all while attempting to rebuild while battling against social and economic collapse. Remote living became the standard and the World’s nations turned inward as extended travel of any kind was deemed suicidal. A full year with the world sitting on crossed fingers and praying to some unforeseen force that we would be spared a second cataclysm. The whole world waiting with bated breath and staring at the clock while one brave soul prepared to step outside at the turn of the year.

When he stepped out, and didn’t fall dead, we all rejoiced. Worldwide the broadcast went out stating that it was safe – that it was a single event and we need’nt worry.

Another voice followed. Not like a broadcast or something that you could block out…I guess it’d be better to say that we suddenly came to know. Each Nation knew it to be this:

You have wrestled your ways to interesting, at best. Now we shall see how you continue to impress. Choose wisely, we care not who, and label them however you please. Entertain we, in next cycle’s thirty, and we shall determine whether worthy.

They’d given us thirty days to impress them. Somehow.

That’s when we started calling it The Thirteenth Month. Broadcast season. And you’d better believe it turned into a sporting event. Which nation could prove best at appeasing our ethereal overlords enough to not simply pull the trigger? Gather around and cheer…we were an entertainment colony.

My chance to become the American Dream.

~~~~~

Reddit Prompt by u/Liv-Benett

Setting Facts Straight

A massive congregation spilled out around a cratered building where rubble had been sparsely cleared and shifted to create walkways and seating. At the forefront, a memorial stood against a disfigured wall of quasi-metallic concrete in front of which a large pyre had been built. Surrounding the pyre was an array of effigies and various nick-nacks laid out amongst burning candles. As the stream of people stepping up to the pyre and leaving their condolences lessened, a young woman, bare arms face and neck heavily marred by patterned scarification made her way to the head of the gathering and turned her back to the pyre, casting her gaze out at them. Her voice easily rang out over the masses, amplified without apparent aid.

“It’s been interesting, all of this. Watching all of you celebrate her like some altruistic savior of the world.” She scoffs through a wry smile. “Hero…if she could hear it, see all of this, she’d be laughing – void, she probably is, laughing at it all. Oh, she’d be basking in the attention, sure enough, smug grin plastered across her face, happy ta hear out any old story, if for nothin’ more than ta make sure the facts were exact. See, she’d clear up half this hero-washed rodomontade herself, interjectin’ in a heartbeat tellin’ whoever that if she’d saved their life it was only ’cause they were smart enough not ta be on the wrong end.” She paused to look over everyone, stares back at her a mixture of confusion, judgement, and skepticism.

“She’d want the facts set straight, so I ‘spose that falls on me as the only one left alive who knew her, who really met her, who got trampled over when she decided that her ambitions, as shallow as they were, were the only things important enough worth heedin’. Nah, she wasn’t a hero, far from it even. Maybe there was a time when she struggled with herself, ya know, tryin’a be a good person, but she threw that away in favor of the power and the recognition she craved – that she believed she deserved. Everything we have right now, our lives and freedom, the ground we stand on, everything we have to look forward to every day was handed to us by jealousy and hate and a selfish fucking drive to respected. The very same egocentric vanity that drove her to destroy the order that watched over her, to turn up her nose to a self proclaimed god…to kill our mentor and the only family we’ve ever had…she never let anything stop her, to slow her down, no matter what it cost. We were just lucky enough not to be in the way. That’s the legacy she left behind.”

“So, you can go on calling her a hero – she saved your lives and this world, that fact no matter how you view it – but know who you’re idolizing. Respect her how she wanted to be without caricaturizing her. I’m here too, just as saved and grateful…well, maybe a little less than most of you.” She pauses for a moment and runs her fingers across the heavy scarification along her neck. “I’ll never forget, so I just had to set the facts straight.”

~~~~~

Word of The Day: rodomontade

Pobble365: Up in the clouds

Reddit Prompt by u/scottbeckman

Emperor’s Eternals

Even in death it was my duty to serve.

In actuality, undeath was a far more applicable term for my current state of existence. Of course, when I stood and swore my unconditional service to The Eternal Emperor I had never imagined that my ‘undying loyalty’ would be literal; at least, not in a capacity that would allow me to retain my individuality. Every Imperial Warden stood ready to end their material existence and merge with the cosmic presence of The Commonalities’ supernal leader, and I was no different. Each of us wanted nothing more than to share in the eternal glory.

I distinctly recall the pride and elation that washed through me upon receiving direct summons from The Eternal herself. There was to be a new directive, a unique collective of imperial servants to act as stalwart arbiters of The Empire’s will. We few, the greatest and most devout of her volition, were to be given a chance like no other before: a chance to elevate ourselves beyond our mortal shells and taste transcendence. Soon to be deathless machines, ever-churning cogs in the agenda of the rightful world order, we stood breathless as The Eternal presented us hulking suits of runic metal – a taste of what we were to become. Our bodies would be scarred with identical markings, our minds shaped through study and alchemical liturgy, our emotions stripped through grueling torture.  When the day finally came following nearly a year’s tuition, I stared up at the face of my Emperor, her eyes reflecting the endless void, and let one last wave of pride surge its way through me.

To walk on another plane was a sensation indescribable. I felt not weight of flesh, no sound reached me through vibrations, no vision came to me through light or refraction; even still, I perceived all these things and more. Desires, like many yearning fingertips clawed at me. Emotion took shape were once there were creatures of flesh. Gentle whispers trickled toward me bridging from one place to another.

“I have failed you…” A reverb deep in my conscious.

The Eternal? A shape took form for me to see undulating and malleable though far in the distance of the void I found myself floating. I would turn all my focus to it, ignoring all other sensations pushing toward me. I swam vigorously through a rushing rapid of unfiltered ideas like the echoes of thousands of dreams. At times I could myself sinking, the wild thoughts attempting to consume me. I would not allow myself to be lost – my will was the Emperors and my goals mirrored hers.

I know not how long I traveled the current of dreams and emotion, but I do remember when I came to my destination. A singular figure. A solemn face. Blood and battle scars sullied their form. Their armor was that of the empire’s – a soldier part of the vanguard. Battle raged around them, superheated projectiles and slugs chipping away at rock surfaces. Their breath run shallow on my ethereal ears.

“This is not your time. It is not here that you will embrace your final rest.” I could see the faint whisper of her simalucra seeping from her body and I grabbed ahold of it, merging my own with hers.

“Believe in our Emperor, for her will runs through you.”

~~~~~

Pobble365 Prompt: The Invisible Man

The Planar Maw

We all used to talk about it: The Planar Maw. The place where our existence and the next folded in on each other and created a neoteric scape in which two mingled as one. We had all been warned about it. In history, it was the scar left behind by the event that had altered our world. To the world order, it was the festering wound that infected our very souls. To us, it called out and we dreamnt of it as one would reminisce of home. We all used to talk about it: the curiosity – the anxiety. There was power there, that we could agree, but whether or not to run from or embrace it was a topic unresolved.

Unresolved until the world order got its hands on us and forced an outcome.

We followed the pull of the Maw and it called out hearts to traverse distant lands, through swamplands and over snow kissed mountains, until we came to edge of land freshly walked by no man nor beast. We had long since broken the tree line where even grass ceased to creep. The soil was rent by aeolian scars, the air thin and frigid cutting toward a point in the distance. A miasma hung thick in the sky, a storm swirling within it, and light seemed to fade gradually until consumed by an inexplicable undulating dome of ebon and violet that masked the engulfed the horizon.

We were not sure what we had expected to find, our collective dreams were always hazy – no figures, no shapes, only voices and sensations as real as the moon under which we slept. The dread stretched before us brought with it renewed doubt – what ifs and maybe we should nots – but in the end we pledged forward driven by the assured fate we would otherwise leave our comrades to. Within the Maw lay the equalizer that would empower us against the twisted machines of metal and soul which stalked and collard us for the crime of being touched by its grace at birth.

The closer we drew, the more the air howled and racked at our skin. As the dome grew in size, we lost sight of all behind. Surely, we had walked for hours – a day? – but the sky had abandoned us, locked away behind a raging squall. When we came to face the shimmering dome we stood in awe, staring into a domain even more foreign then the one we trekked. Again, we wavered in the face of the unknown, even now we debated in the face of our benefactor. 

A single hand reached for to cross the threshold.

The sudden force of an insatiable vacuum yanked us forth. One instant, a flash – a multitude of hues; a cacophony of sounds. The next instant, nothing – no sensation; weightlessness; mind without an anchor. Then they slinked into existence: figures of melted flesh and fabric, ensuing carcasses moaning their last breaths.

“Your enemies…” the ether hissed.

More shapes emerged: a walled city, bright lights and powered vehicles, people meandering walking on silvered floor. Beneath it all crawled shackled figures, emaciated and glowing script etched into their flesh. Autonomous suits of metal dragged familiar faces. A clawed hand reached out from the center of the city and a throat crushing sensation throttled us.

“The fate of those who rebuff our summons. A world tainted seizing, abusing, claiming stake of what is ours. You of fragmented conscious, of one vessel housing many strings. You the first of many to rejoin the singular we.”

~~~~~

Word of The Day: aeolian

Reddit Prompt by u/PotentialSmell

Juxtaposed Liberties

The more they worked to ‘cure’ my condition, the more I felt as a cage animal – a right ornacious* pet: denied vagility and kept after only to give someone else’s life a meager speck of purpose; in this case, it was the all important pursuit to excogitate. I was to eat when expected, sleep when expected, and do as I was told, all within a limited space; other than that, I was at liberty to do as I pleased.

Given my confines, I often pleased to find outlets for my pent up energy. When they noticed this, they provided a facility for me – yet another way to keep their little pet under control. They gave me heavy bags and targets for my rage. They served to sate me for a time, but when I bored of those I sought dummies what could fight back.

In time, dogfights became monetized and a ring was formed. A few bumps and ruffles turned into a war of wards; of lightning reflex and impeccable wit. The lot of us were thrown into confinement and were to remain there until examined, treated, and questioned.

“I don’t understand why you…” Morenner, my guard, huffed and paced in front of the door. He was staring groundward and crushing a small ball in his hand. He stopped abruptly and turned his head to me, “you know what they’ll do if you keep on like this. Please -”

A chime echoed from the walls and a panel snapped open with a hiss revealing a doorway and a short women, her solemn face framed by a spunky bob. She and Morenner traded silent pleasantries and knowing glances as they passed one another; she entered and the guard left and the door promptly snapped shut behind him leaving me alone with my striking physician.

I could feel her disappointment, like pressure on my chest. She crossed the room toward me, her long sterile coat trailing behind her brisk pace. Wordlessely, she logged away information on her wrist-mounted data assistant then turned her greying gaze on me.

“You’re upset with me.” I declared, tilting my head away from her ire.

I could have sworn I saw her eye twinge.

“A cognitive response is a start.” She made her way over to me, produced her otoscope, and tilted my neck with bedside manner. The force of her fingers lingered on me.

“Interesting…” she whispered, ‘unknowingly’ abusing my neck and ear.

I whinced through the harassment and rolled my eyes, “what? You were expecting me to have suddenly acquired deafness?”

“No,” she abruptly released me, taking a step back. “I was expecting to see the remnants of whatever was going on in your big stupit head.”

Another few moments passed. We both sighed. She belabored over and took a seat at my side. My ego I curled up at her presence, feeling more like how I felt.

We practically raced each other to words. Mine carried through.

“You’re having me moved…” I turned my eyes on her, searching for answers.

Her brow wrinkled, “it’s a precaution.”

My clenched fists bent the ends of the examination table resembling my tortured heart. “You’re terrified of me… ”

“And you don’t know everything, okay; Phoebe!” She slammed down her examination equipment. She beamed at me and stood, defiantly.

Silence fell.

And as she prepared to open her mouth I interjected:

“We could escaped, you know,” I grabbed her arm and pulled her close, “we could manage, Ms. DeVrard. Escape. Elope…” My steel eyes affixed to her.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Daily Prompt: Juxtapose

Word of the Day: excogitate

*ornacious: a merging of the words ‘ornery’ and ‘tenacious’ e.i. persistently cranky

No End In Sight

Sometimes I think I have lived too long…

I used to teach: I would tell my pupils, “Life is long; however, there is never enough time. Tempus fugit – time flies; you must be wise and concise and let no opportunity pass you, lest it be lost to time.”

I used to motivate: I would teach them of passion and strength of will and of sacrificing oneself for the loves of ones life. I would speak to them of their adopted pedigree, of the Paladins that joined before them and the battles they fought.

I used to believe: There was a time in which I would have stood on the front lines, chanting and marching Revolution’s Charge, shielding common soldiers and hurling Alchemist’s Fire alongside the most steadfast of our Order. I would have died in ignorance, believing in a cause and happy to embrace it. My life should have ended there, with them, at it’s peak.

The war had ended with a bang.

But then a whisper…

“Wake…”

Engulfed in darkness – without feeling, unknowing of space or time – an ethereal flanging called to me through the void. It reached out to me and it pulled and demanded that I returned to my feet. I awoke to a ghastly place of wisps and convoluted space, a world familiar to the one I had known yet twisted and churned into something uncanny – almost familiar.

After what felt like weeks of wandering, I stumbled out onto solid ground, my body finally returning to me. Even so, I was clutch by death once more, stomach aching and muscle deteriorating, it was all I could do to pop the cork off an elixir and gulp down the entirety of the concoction. My once decaying body began the long process of rejuvenation, tendons mending and flesh melding. I had been granted second life..and yet, I saw no other of my pedigree rise from the devastation.

From whence I came, a great and ghastly crater roared with a crackling energy what blended and created a bridge linking The Parallel and our own. Two worlds had begun molting into one creating instability throughout. Creatures from the beyond bled into our realm in physical form, unfamiliar and unadjusted as to threaten our existence.

I used to preach about how all things deserved life and love and passion. Now I know that these are only the things that will lock your simalucra to the infinite. I gave my all to my ideals and since those ideals shackle me to this plane until my work is done.

~~~~~

Daily Prompt: Pedigree

Word of the Day: tempus fugit