Shade Realm of Entropy: Part 2, Backdated January 29, 2005
From New Orleans to the desert of the southwestern US, gate to gate, and finally through a door long shut into the heart of Entropy herself.
On to- how she had known!- a battlefield. Split earth like they desert tack they had left behind, split realm like a migraine headache made visible, sky like spilt blood. But a battlefield was a battlefield and all wars were essentially the same; Nicodemus standing beside her in awe caught her attention much more easily.
"Then it is true....." Whispered words she could barely make out, even standing close to him. The realm of his heritage enveloped him for a moment, and the dark raven wings bloomed in his wake as he took his first few steps across the barren Cerberus. They swung lazily, once, like a butterfly at rest, and for a moment she was truly proud to be his. He faced the castle in the horizon and the wind carried his words to her specifically it seemed; "The place is not here, Paramaguru, and the time is not yet. Allow the pawns their chance. Kali's will be done!"
Oh, her beautiful pawn......
Carve your name into my arm
Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed
And so the trek to where Mina was being held began. Through the graveyard, the dead rose from what had once been carefully honored crypts, and they were unimpressive. She had time enough as she cut her path through it to stand at the end and watch Nico, noting form and style and occasional mistakes. He hadn't the Conrad talents for war in his blood, but he was coming along nicely enough with a blade. And to think a hand so skilled with a scalpel had barely been able to swing Jason's bastard sword when they'd met, let alone do so with any clarity or accuracy. He'd probably never carry so large a weapon- it didn't suit him, and she'd not argue that- but he'd caught on from what she'd shown him. Maybe it hadn't been the world's most perfect love match, but she was starting to see where there was yet a good marriage in it.
For a moment she tasted blood on her lips, cooling meat on her tongue, and heard Jason prophesy of her marriage to the man whose life would someday buy the fulfillment her destiny. It was not that she didn't believe Nicodemus to be that man, but more that she hadn't expected him to be so....lovable.
And along the twisted path the journey went, through acid rain, poisoned wine, stone monsters and difficult choices. Two of their number were lost in the skirmishes, and once she and Claire stood amongst the desert land- the badlands- and sang, Claire's high clear soprano with her own dusky contralto, and the Tellurian itself moved in time, absorbing the bodies of the dead into the broken patterns of the living; perhaps a sort of physically magical cannabilism, and the ethics seemed to grate some more than others. This amused her, just as it annoyed Nicodemus, whose sense of humor was perhaps as short as her temper.
The road was long, but a challenge- a true challenge- and there was joy in it, in being what she was in a place that called to such, not for the Nephandic taint that ran ramshackle through the Realm itself, but for the way Zero's dagger sang in her hand and the way it felt to cast death- and rebirth with it- through each movement. The dance of the beach in the morning was the dance of the battle that same afternoon- was it still afternoon?- and her heart sung and her soul knew every step.
And there was something undeniably right that she could look at the man who would lead them and know that she belonged to him. For all the times his weaknesses, his lack of true education, his brashness frustrated her, there was indeed a diamond forming in that particular coal mine. Shiva had chosen well for her indeed.
When they came to the Labrynth house, there were mirrors along the foyer. Innocuous enough, but then the images warped and twisted and reflected the sins of those before them, those real and those imagined. She watched in the glass; a rape and the abortion that followed, the destruction of a loved one turned leech, responsibility for a child grown into the death of the world, her own husband taking the sword Judgement and longing for the sheer power it might bestow; abuse at the hands of an inhuman father; the usual suspects.
And herself, wrapped in a black silk sheet, hands entangled in Cass's snow white hair, eyes closed against the furiou ecstacy of orgasm, then coming to rest in his arms, his warmth, knowing every pattern of every scar and inked design upon his body, every line and curve and hardness and softness, every shining beautiful shape of his soul, his giving and accepting nature. And then; the same her- could she really be that same now?- on her wedding day, golden hair woven into a complicated maze of Celtic braids around the silver and hematite tiara of her station, fine Irish lace dyed ebony black skirling down from her waist, putting an envelope of photographs into her Juniper's dresser drawer. She wouldn't take them to her husband's home; Shiva had called her, and called upon her, and she put away the memories to take her place at the side of the man whose soul would prove the coin of her destiny. He would be given for her, and he had asked her hand in return, and Khabal had seen fit to give it. She would give it well, and wholly, and not dishonor her Lord by allowing her faith to be shaken.
Duty for the sake of honor; but love for love's own sake had died for her with Cassius Vintain's last breath. Marriage had not changed this.
'Cause there’s nothing else to do,
Every me and every you
The glass fell away, the entrance revealed. And when her husband, silent as a grave and pale as one of her father's horses, did not hesitate to enter, and she did not hesitate to remain at his heels. She touched his mind, as she'd touch his face if he'd've had it and the others had not been there, and came upon a startling realization.
Sucker love, a box I choose
No other box I choose to use
The mirror had not told him anything he didn't know.
Another love I would abuse
No circumstances could excuse
Though he wouldn't look at her, his hand found hers as they entered the maze. And in the echoes and the darkness the only thing that ever actually wanted you, child, the only thing your existance won't sap dry and the traps and the fires, it was lost again.
And she was alone, in the dark, the rough hewn stone walls suffocatingly close, like a coffin, and it was cold, so cold.......and as consciousness drifted to sleep, she prayed to them all, the Lord Shiva who claimed her, Kali who was her namesake, the Morrigan who blessed her blood.
And, knowing there was no need, she did not pray for herself.