At the End of the Rainbow, 1&2/30
Title: At the End of the Rainbow
Rating: R for arsekicking and smoochies
Characters & Parings: OC, Cain/Glitch, Jeb's in there, mention of just about everyone.
Summary: When the story keeps going, heroes fall.
Okay, new fic... I had to. It's been banging around in my hollow head since
prongs_padfoot posted the 'Sweethearts' challenge table ages ago. I've still got the last chapter of Binary on the back burner, I've been working on it slowly but surely (I've started an internship and I'm in the middle of planning my own wedding so all hells broken loose over the last few months. Woo!) and hope to get everyone behaving soon. This story has been kind of a break for me.
So I'm posting the first two bits here as a teaser and I hope to have another little chapter up every Friday or Saturday until I hit the end of the prompt table, and the freakin' drabbles will be done by the end of the month, so help me Toto. (remind me to never do those again *fails*)
LOST
My mother was a storyteller.
It was her magic.
The way she used to weave words and phrases in the tall alabaster towers of the Silver Islands. I remember running through the halls, my orange silks flying behind me and my sisters in front of me. We looked like butterflies. I remember my bare feet patterned with flowers and twining vines. I remember the way the golden bracelets that my aunts wore glinted in the the sun and the noise they made as they taught us to dance.
I remember gathering together in the harem, with my sisters and my aunts and my only baby brother. I remember colored smoke rising as the lithe form of my mother stepped out of dust and silks and stories.
I remember her words about witches and princesses from the Other Side. The tales about scarecrows and men made of metal. She told us about the mystical land above us where there was a city of green. She told us about a Queen with lavender eyes and her lover that flew around in a big balloon. There was a man shaped like a beast, and another that could turn into a dog. She told us these stories and when they were all over, my sisters would go to bed and there I would be. Begging for more. Trying to get my mother to tell me what happened after or later.
Finally my mother said to me,
“Once upon a time there was a wicked witch who took over the land and threatened its people. She would have conquered the land and thrown it into darkness. But heroes stood before her, a princess, a scarecrow, a tin man, and a beast. Together they defeated the witch and freed the O.Z. Peace swept across the land and for a time it was happily ever after.
But all stories end with 'happily ever after' if you stop them in the right place.
It is when you keep going, that the heroes fall.”
Sometimes in the dark, when I'm hiding, I remember my mothers words.
The girl was running again. Always running. For the last three years it never seemed to stop. Day after day, she had to keep moving. Keep moving or die. Keep moving or join the grey faced residents of what was left of the O.Z.
There was a hood over her black hair, hiding her caramel skin and golden eyes, and she wore layers and layers of tattered clothing so dirty it was all the same color now. She'd gone too far south and run right into the patrols. Right into the middle of that terrifying noise of metal on metal marching forever. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she slid down a crumbled wall and prayed to any God from here or the other side that they didn't find her. Blank faces, metal that mocked human features, the tiktok men, servants of the Dark Queen.
As the noise died away she chanced a glimpse over the wall before she crept through the mangled buildings back towards the road. She'd gotten lost, taken a wrong turn as she made her way out of the land that used to belong to men. She was far from the center now. Every time she thought she might be close something would happen and she'd be forced to fly in the safest direction.
This was the farthest south she'd ever been though.
It was the coldest and the bleakest.
It was the land that the Dark Queen had risen from and it bore her mark like any fine piece of craftsmanship.
She sighed and forced herself to keep walking, to keep an eye out for guards and another for anything that might be food. Maybe she could sleep in the mines tonight. Maybe she'd find a barn or another abandoned house. Maybe...
She stopped when her foot sank just a little as she stepped. Froze like a deer and blinked. She was in the middle of some ruins that may have been a town and her boot was slowly sinking into the ground.
A gasp was the only sound that escaped her as she tried to throw herself back but heard a sickening 'crack' and found that the ground was gone back there too.
UNDERGROUND
It was dark but strangely warmer than it had been outside.
The girl blinked and coughed. Her face hurt and she sat up slowly touching fingertips to a tender nose and a split lip. She looked up and frowned. It had been quiet a fall but she could only find bruises and cuts, though she swayed a bit when she finally stood.
She hummed as she crossed her arms around her chest and waited for her eyes to adjust. It had been dark outside and it was even darker down here. Wait. No. That wasn't right. Over there to the left, there was a sliver of something shimmering...
She followed it, coming out into corridors with no windows and the barest glow of yellow emergency lights.
She bit her lip as she turned a corner and realized that she had fallen into a prison. Some of the cells were open, metal creaking as she walked by. Some of the cells were still locked, and the faintest remains of what may have been men strewn on the floor. A dirty smear, a pile of cloth and... She turned away. No longer peering into darkened cells that should have given up their imprisoned long ago.
There was bright green light spilling from one of the corridors and that was where she was heading. It was the brightest and she thought she heard a noise...
The half closed metal door was shouldered open and her eyes widened.
It was a man.
A long tube of liquid rose from the floor into the ceiling and glowed with a sickly light. There in the center, suspended like a fly in amber was a pale man with dark hair that fell around his shoulders in twisting curls.
Bubbles and tubes floated around him and the noise she heard was the soft whirring of machinery still working. She took a few hesitant steps forward and reached out to touch the glass. It was warm and as her eyes roved over wires and flickering lights then stopped at a metal plaque set on what looked to be an important console. It was plainly embossed with one word, and the girl let her fingertips trace over the raised metal as she looked at the man floating peacefully as if he only were sleeping.
“Glitch.”