More Dicey Histories - The Rise of the Tiger (Canon)
Three years... Dicey Morgan stood on a balcony, high above a metal city, bright lights fighting with the night, and the night was losing. Behind her, curtains billowed out through the open doorway. The wind whipped her long red hair around her face, and her blue grey eyes started at the sky without seeing it.
Instead, all she saw was the dream. It had awakened her again, sent her here to try to escape, and still, it was all she could think about.
Sitting in the dark... it always starts with sitting in the dark. All alone, and scared to pieces. Then the wings - I hear them, first, and I'm afraid of them. Why? They are warm and soft when they appear in the darkness, and they make me feel... Safe... Safe as they draw around me, like silver Angel's wings. Almost like there's one holding me, only... I can't see him. Then... I can hear someone singing in my ear... Christian says he's never heard the song before...
She wrapped her arms around herself, the simple white nightgown she wore little protection from the wind. Below, the sound of a city, rising to be barely audible. She was far away from Christian here. He wasn't pleased, but he couldn't stop her. She'd been decreed fit and well by the doctors, well enough to be in charge of herself.
She'd had the dream four times. This time, she'd awoken with an image firmly lodged in her mind, the last image of her dream...
It changes so... strangely... there are cards falling, and the wings are pulled away by some unseen force... and... I think.. someone's screaming.. more than one someone... but the voices are so far away, and I can't understand them... I can't see the wings anymore... the cards are falling around me, like a strange snowstorm... then... the gunshot... but I didn't wake up this time.. I.. looked down.. I was holding.. one of the cards... she turned away from the rail, and went back inside. She sat on the small chair before the cortex access, and typed in an inquiry.
The image came up, and she had to stop a moment, and catch her breath. A image of a woman taming a tiger, done in a strange style, with the word "Strength" in English and Chinese at the top and bottom. A Tarot card. The woman was done all in shades of red, and the tiger was in blue. Dicey typed in a command, and the image was saved in her personal system. She shut down the screen, and stood up.
In the dim light, she caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. She moved closer to it, staring at the face. It was the only one she'd ever known, but still, it was something of a stranger to her. Fingers touching the glass of the mirror, her hair caught the light, glinting red.
wings... strength... tiger.. wild, dangerous... solitary...
"They told me you were a soldier. Did you kill people? They said you went to a prestigious school... you know things sometimes... but it's never what I want to know, is it? You can do things..." she trailed off, hand clenching into a fist. "I don't know who she is.. what doe that make ME. I'm not her." Frustration welled up, again, making her want to cry and scream and break something... and crawl away from the 'Verse and hide. If we are the collections of our memories, if we are what life has made us... I'm a ghost.. a wandering shrine to dead woman I'll never understand. I'm not even.. a real person.. I'm some sort of leftover.. she caught her own gaze in the mirror again, and the image of the card welled up in her mind.
"Strength." She looked down at the vanity table, and grabbed up her hair brush. In ten minutes, her hair was brushed, she was dressed, and she locked her door as she went out into the city, apparently on a mission.
If anyone had recognized Eurydice Morgan, they certainly would have questioned her on her presence in this part of the city. Her own apartment was far away, across town among the other wealthy people. Here, among the spicy mixture of different cultures, she sought out a specific artist. She started in a tavern, and ended up down a dark alley, facing a wizened oriental man.
He took a long slow draw on his pipe while he considered her proposal. "Much time. Much pain. You go to Big City Inker, get hi tech number one best job. You not looking for my work."
Dicey shook hr head, "Doesn't mean anything that way."
His dark eyes narrowed, and he watched her, "What mean.. to you?"
She hesitated only slightly, "Strength. Independence. Freedom."
He nodded, "You wait. You will drink the tea, and I will make the inks." He unfolded himself, and moved to prepare his tools. He called, and an elderly lady brought Dicey a cup of tea. She looked around while she waited, surprised at the clean though cluttered room. When the tea was gone, the elderly lady helped her remove her shirt, and lay down upon the mat.
***
Christian hated it. Dicey wore a back-less dress to one of his events, and the tattoo drew a lot of attention. From the back of her neck down her back, and under the edge of the dress enough to make a ew men gulp as they stared, ran a tattoo done in shades of blue, from midnight to ice, marking tiger stripes down her spine. The old man was a true artist, and the stripes were striking and beautiful. Three days later, she and Christian had a talk, and she didn't flaunt the tatoo anymore.
She refused to hide it, though, and Christian found his sister changed, yet again. She almost reminded him of the sister he'd lost, and he found himself more amenable than usual to her next requests....