(no subject)
This Time Imperfect, Chapter 2
AN: Well, Kya evidently liked the first chapter, so here's more. Again, dedicated to her. And the nameless character...if found, please forward him to me. :)
Mar decided that, first and foremost, she was tired. Besides a long day of work and a compelled sprint into the forest, she had been forced to deal with that lunatic who was still inside her home, doing whatever unspeakable things she wanted to Mar’s friends, possessions, and home. Besides worries over what she had left behind, she couldn’t help but feel terrified that something could be lurking in the darkness…as well as the biting cold of late winter.
She had tried to reenter the city, only to find that she was unable to set foot inside it. Somehow, she found it reasonable that the stranger in her house was behind this, too. Finally exhaustion overtook worry, and she threw her cruelly heavy pack to the ground and rummaged through it. Some part of the weight was finally explained-she pulled out an entire bedroll (comfortably packed inside a bag that was smaller than the roll itself) several fluffy pillows, and a canteen of what seemed to be warm milk. Too tired to question it further, she quaffed the liquid and flopped into the bedroll, hoping that everything would be normal again in the morning.
Unfortunately Mar had already started a trend of unreasonable hopes.
She was jerked awake just as the sky was beginning to fade to a lighter hue. She blinked at the strange shape that loomed in front of her. A moment’s focus made her scream out and push violently at what was revealed to be a man whose face hovered just inches above hers.
"Get away!" she shrieked, and a flood of blinding light issued from her fingertips. The man sprang back, shielding his eyes from the sudden illumination.
"Technicolor eyes and lightbending, huh?" he grimaced. "So you’re a Sue. But are you an author?" He bent down, gripping both of her shoulders in his hands.
"What?"
"Are you, or are you affiliated with an author?" he repeated darkly.
"I don’t…I don’t know!" she cried out. "Please don’t hurt me!" He shot her a scrutinizing gaze.
"You should be afraid. Freddy Krueger is waiting just behind those trees for my signal."
"Who?" A grim smile touched his face, and he released her.
"So you really aren’t an author," he said, and he flashed her another look. "Just a victim."
"Do you know what’s going on?" Mar asked, aware that he had some idea. "Some strange girl broke into my house. She…she just gave me a sword and this bag-" she pointed at the pack that lay like a leaden weight on the ground. "-and made me go out here. Do you know who that was?" He was already nodding sagely.
"That," he said, not bothering to hide his disgust, "Was your author."
"My…what?"
"Your author. The being that has absolute authority over your existence. They can make you do whatever they want, and there’s no way to stop it. Granted, there are some really amazing ones out there. Absolute artists. But those are a minority. From those drip down the middle class-those authors who just need practice or fresh ideas or motivation. Some decent criticism is all that they need, and enough encouragement to keep going. But on the opposite end of the spectrum are those really lousy, pathetic ones. Not without potential, most of the time, but they lack motivation to do more than inflict their favorite fantasies and daydreams on the truly helpless…such as yourself."
"Please," Mar said quickly, trying to look past his pitying gaze. "There must be something I can do. Some way to make her stop this."
The man helped her to her feet, now studying her with interest.
"Don’t you see any potential in this situation?" he asked.
"Like what?"
"Limitless power," he offered.
"So I can put my eye out? No thanks."
"Unparalelled beauty," he suggested, though his tone said that he had heard the phrase used before. Often.
"Beauty? I look like a freak. I want to be the way I used to be, with my old hair and my old eyes and without these stupid powers so I won’t scorch off my eyebrows or something."
"So you don’t want to be a Sue."
"Of course not!"
An odd, half smile formed on his face. "There might be hope for you yet."
"Really?" she clutched his arm. "What is it? Please, tell me."
"First, you’ll need an objective," he said slowly, unlatching her from his arm.
"What kind of objective?" she asked, sounding almost like an eager student.
"It can’t be revenge and it can’t be love. Those two will only get you into trouble. But what do you want to accomplish?"
"I already told you," Mar said carefully. "I want to be normal again."
"To escape the control of your author," he said. "There’s two ways you can do that. You can either try to avoid her and hope that she forgets about you, or else you can try to convince her to leave you alone. Do either of those sound appealing?" She didn’t look sure.
"Well…yes. I’d like her to forget me. But how would I do that?"
"You’d have to go into hiding for a while," he said, putting a hand on his shoulder and hoisting her pack over his back. ("Argh…this thing weighs a ton…") "And you’d have to avoid doing anything incredibly exciting until she loses interest. Do you understand?"
"It sounds easy enough," Mar said softly.
"Well, it isn’t. She’ll get bored, and when she does, she’ll get nasty. I’m talking about gushy love scenes, abuse, an extensively angsty past, near death experiences: a whole lot of cruel, cruel stuff. But you can’t give up once you’ve started, do you understand?"
Mar nodded. He took her by the hand and began to lead her away from the town.
"Thanks," she said after a few steps. "And…I’m afraid I don’t know your name…"
"Pronouns will be fine," he said brusquely.
"Is…something wrong?" Now she was worried. He glanced back, rolled his eyes, and stopped.
"You really want to know?" he asked. She nodded, and he shrugged. "Might as well," he muttered, "But you’ve got to swear never to speak it. Do you understand?" Another nod. Grimacing, he bent forward and whispered it into her ear.
"Thank you," she said when he was finished, bobbing her head in gratitude. "But…what’s wrong with your name?"
He looked uncomfortable. "It’s not the name…" he was almost fidgeting now. "I just don’t want…her…to find out where I am…"
"Who?" He jerked.
"Not so loud!" And again he leaned forward, his voice low. "Moonshade. She’s an absolute terror."
"Is she…" Mar lowered her own voice, sensing the urgency. "Is she your author?" she asked.
"No," he said. "Thank heaven, no. But she’s…rather obsessive. And she has this horrible habit of basing her characters off myself. Not nearly as bad as some authors can be, but still…irritating."
"Has she…done this often?" He grimaced.
"There was Akere (formerly Sehor)-"
"’Say Whore?’"
"Please don’t do that again. And yes, that should give you a good idea of why she irks me. And then there was Pset, then Arich, then Chaos, then Luke, then Tarsus…and then Tsune. She tried to make me into a girl. And that’s only the half that she carried into larger projects." He shuddered. "She won’t leave me alone…"
"So…what exactly does that mean?" Mar asked. "Basing a character off you?"
"Basically, she made a doppleganger of myself," he explained. "Someone who looks and acts the way I do, with the same ability that I have. And everywhere I go, people think that I’m one of them. It’s annoying."
"What’s your…ability? If it’s okay to ask?" The anxiety broke from his face, and he smiled down at her. For the first time, she really examined his features: he was tall, with ashen skin, dark hair and brown eyes. His appearance was somewhere between harsh and moderately handsome, even when he was smiling, and she realized exactly how ridiculous his face had looked when it was wrought with worry (as guilty as she felt for thinking it.)
"I’m a shapeshifter," he said. "An entity of Chaos, you see, and few things can be chaotic if they have to stay the in the same form all the time."
"That’s amazing," she breathed.
"You get used to it," he shrugged. "Anyway, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover if we want your author to lose our scent." And he grabbed her hand and ran.