The Work Day Never Stops...
Nine to five ceases to exist when you're a mage. Midnight to midnight mostly covers it, with some additional hours if you cheat. I haven't seen home more than a week total every month this year. Much has happened. Many successes, but it feels like far more failures. And there is still so much more work to do...
January 25th, A private airbase in Florida...
A private, corporate rocket launch wasn't nearly so much the big spectacal that the government counter parts down in Florida were. Not hundreds of starry eyed citizens coming to the air field to watch humanity touch space. No, this place was empty, almost lonely this far from the actual launching pad. The dawn sun was just getting bright enough to require sunglasses and the wind was calm. A perfect launch day. Liz stood silently at the side of the two men whom she'd given untold amounts of money to make this happen.
b, long red hair a halo around his face, looked oddly composed for the most exciting day of his life. Maybe he was fueling all of his energy into praying this worked. Nine was equally as silent, a darker counterpart to his brilliant partner. Only their breaths disturbed the morning as the silent count down began. No one really knew if this would work. No one had ever put a magically imbued satellite into space before. This must be how the humans felt on their first launches, waiting to stare at the sky and see fire or success.
Then it started. The blossoming clouds of smoke bubbling all around the rocket. The fire from the back, the neck breaking velocity to shoot up and break free from the greedy hands of the earth's gravitational pull. She held her breath, staring up at the sky through her sunglasses, waiting for disaster. Slowly, the rocket disappeared into the sky over head. There was nothing else. Nothing.
A few moments later, the radio b had crackled quietly, "Launch successful..." and it went off into a count down of reaching orbit. Liz didn't hear anything else. They'd done it. Broken earth's barrier and put magic into space for good. Eyes to watch the earth. She exhaled a happy little sound that was almost a cry. "You did it, boys... you really did."
February 18th, An island off of Seattle...
Long dark hair in pig tails, rosy cheeks, a little jumper and a smile on her face, the girl couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. She stared up at all the Awakened around her in quiet wonder, trying to be brave around her own fear. It was still hard to keep her attention, spirits bouncing around her from all different angles. To a woman without the gifts to see the shadow, the girl looked half insane as she yammered cheerfully at all her new friends. It was difficult to get her attention. But she was happy. That was a start.
"Liz, I think you should Look at her...Her fate..." Someone murmured against her ear, a gravity to their tone Liz didn't normally associate with little girls in pig tails. With a quiet act of Will, Liz began to See. See the fates, the ties, the lines of the universe. And the girl glowed so brightly it was almost blinding. Liz took a step back, leaning against a large rock from the cliffs as she sank deeper into her own magic. She carefully began to distill the threads, pulling out all the detritus so she could see only the girl before her. A little more will, whispering of those familiar words of power, and a vision flashed before her.
Bodies. Everywhere there were bodies. She recognized a few flashing runes of the pentacle on some of them, across faces and dead eyes. There was no doubt these were fallen mages. The ground was sticky with blood as a woman with long, dark hair and the girl's eyes walked across the fallen men and women. Dark figures followed her, chanting quiet praise to their leader. Their Goddess. Exarch. Divine soul. Mistress of spirits and the world. She laughed quietly...
Liz's eyes jerked back open to the laughter of a little girl. She was speaking happily to nothing that Liz could see. A coldness ripped through the woman's heart.
March 5th, A penthouse in Atlantic City
Icarus
The light was blinding. Sun, sun, everywhere sun. The power to rule the universe, to be worshipped across continents, across worlds. But it was freedom as well, flying through the heavens, out of the grasp of any commanders, any kings, anyone else. Pure freedom. Pure power. Slowly, though, the feelign of dripping wax became equally apparent. That slow, thickly hot trick between fingertips. Down a wrist. The sun was too hot...
Liz woke up in bed, gasping for air. She balled her hands into fits, trying to shake the feeling of melted wax off of her body which was now covered in an uncomfortable sweat. "Icarus...?" She breathed out, questioning the fates. Had this been a warning?
Before she could think about it more, the phone at her bedside rang frantically. Her eyes shot to the clock -- 3 am on the dot. She picked it up, knowing that her private line wouldn't be used unless it was an emergency. "Miss Parker, sorry to bother you, but the European markets just opened and there are some weird sell offs. An Icarus Corporation is buying up communication companies in east Asia like they're go-
"Buy. Buy now. I don't care how many millions it takes. You block this buy out now. Get as much off of them as you can and we'll figure it out later." No protests came. Just a quiet agreement and the sound of a dead line as her man went off to follow her orders.
Icarus.
The company Liz knew was the Seer's golden child. The biggest threat to Parker Industries. She hadn't heard from them in ages. And tonight, her dreams were practically a herald. She sank back into bed, hoping she had gotten the phone call in enough time. Slowly she exhaled as she waited for her racing heart to calm. She couldn't shake the feeling of melting wax between her fingertips.
April 17th, Deep in the Astral Realms...
The place around them was dying. A trio of footsteps cracked hard on the dry and barren soil as they walked towards the darkness in the horizon. Liz found no words to give her companions, Calliel at her right and Zos at her left. Though they knew more about this place than she ever would, she took the lead. She couldn't turn away from the damage her order may have done to this place. And it was damage indeed.
They slowly passed a pool of what should have been water, but it was not. A small creature drank from it, sipping for it's life, and with every sip the water erroded it's body. Fur ripped away, then skin, muscle, fat, until it was just a skeleton that drank. Then it pulled away, slowly rebuilding itself onto to lean down and drink again. The cycle repeated. Liz swallowed bile back down her throat as they walk passed the pool into the darker areas of the Astral. The circle above the clouds was black as tar.
"...Did we do this? Gods..." She whispered to the others, sick with guilt. "We have to find a way to fix this. And we have to fix it now." She'd never felt more helpless, or more guilty, in her life...
January 25th, A private airbase in Florida...
A private, corporate rocket launch wasn't nearly so much the big spectacal that the government counter parts down in Florida were. Not hundreds of starry eyed citizens coming to the air field to watch humanity touch space. No, this place was empty, almost lonely this far from the actual launching pad. The dawn sun was just getting bright enough to require sunglasses and the wind was calm. A perfect launch day. Liz stood silently at the side of the two men whom she'd given untold amounts of money to make this happen.
b, long red hair a halo around his face, looked oddly composed for the most exciting day of his life. Maybe he was fueling all of his energy into praying this worked. Nine was equally as silent, a darker counterpart to his brilliant partner. Only their breaths disturbed the morning as the silent count down began. No one really knew if this would work. No one had ever put a magically imbued satellite into space before. This must be how the humans felt on their first launches, waiting to stare at the sky and see fire or success.
Then it started. The blossoming clouds of smoke bubbling all around the rocket. The fire from the back, the neck breaking velocity to shoot up and break free from the greedy hands of the earth's gravitational pull. She held her breath, staring up at the sky through her sunglasses, waiting for disaster. Slowly, the rocket disappeared into the sky over head. There was nothing else. Nothing.
A few moments later, the radio b had crackled quietly, "Launch successful..." and it went off into a count down of reaching orbit. Liz didn't hear anything else. They'd done it. Broken earth's barrier and put magic into space for good. Eyes to watch the earth. She exhaled a happy little sound that was almost a cry. "You did it, boys... you really did."
February 18th, An island off of Seattle...
Long dark hair in pig tails, rosy cheeks, a little jumper and a smile on her face, the girl couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. She stared up at all the Awakened around her in quiet wonder, trying to be brave around her own fear. It was still hard to keep her attention, spirits bouncing around her from all different angles. To a woman without the gifts to see the shadow, the girl looked half insane as she yammered cheerfully at all her new friends. It was difficult to get her attention. But she was happy. That was a start.
"Liz, I think you should Look at her...Her fate..." Someone murmured against her ear, a gravity to their tone Liz didn't normally associate with little girls in pig tails. With a quiet act of Will, Liz began to See. See the fates, the ties, the lines of the universe. And the girl glowed so brightly it was almost blinding. Liz took a step back, leaning against a large rock from the cliffs as she sank deeper into her own magic. She carefully began to distill the threads, pulling out all the detritus so she could see only the girl before her. A little more will, whispering of those familiar words of power, and a vision flashed before her.
Bodies. Everywhere there were bodies. She recognized a few flashing runes of the pentacle on some of them, across faces and dead eyes. There was no doubt these were fallen mages. The ground was sticky with blood as a woman with long, dark hair and the girl's eyes walked across the fallen men and women. Dark figures followed her, chanting quiet praise to their leader. Their Goddess. Exarch. Divine soul. Mistress of spirits and the world. She laughed quietly...
Liz's eyes jerked back open to the laughter of a little girl. She was speaking happily to nothing that Liz could see. A coldness ripped through the woman's heart.
March 5th, A penthouse in Atlantic City
Icarus
The light was blinding. Sun, sun, everywhere sun. The power to rule the universe, to be worshipped across continents, across worlds. But it was freedom as well, flying through the heavens, out of the grasp of any commanders, any kings, anyone else. Pure freedom. Pure power. Slowly, though, the feelign of dripping wax became equally apparent. That slow, thickly hot trick between fingertips. Down a wrist. The sun was too hot...
Liz woke up in bed, gasping for air. She balled her hands into fits, trying to shake the feeling of melted wax off of her body which was now covered in an uncomfortable sweat. "Icarus...?" She breathed out, questioning the fates. Had this been a warning?
Before she could think about it more, the phone at her bedside rang frantically. Her eyes shot to the clock -- 3 am on the dot. She picked it up, knowing that her private line wouldn't be used unless it was an emergency. "Miss Parker, sorry to bother you, but the European markets just opened and there are some weird sell offs. An Icarus Corporation is buying up communication companies in east Asia like they're go-
"Buy. Buy now. I don't care how many millions it takes. You block this buy out now. Get as much off of them as you can and we'll figure it out later." No protests came. Just a quiet agreement and the sound of a dead line as her man went off to follow her orders.
Icarus.
The company Liz knew was the Seer's golden child. The biggest threat to Parker Industries. She hadn't heard from them in ages. And tonight, her dreams were practically a herald. She sank back into bed, hoping she had gotten the phone call in enough time. Slowly she exhaled as she waited for her racing heart to calm. She couldn't shake the feeling of melting wax between her fingertips.
April 17th, Deep in the Astral Realms...
The place around them was dying. A trio of footsteps cracked hard on the dry and barren soil as they walked towards the darkness in the horizon. Liz found no words to give her companions, Calliel at her right and Zos at her left. Though they knew more about this place than she ever would, she took the lead. She couldn't turn away from the damage her order may have done to this place. And it was damage indeed.
They slowly passed a pool of what should have been water, but it was not. A small creature drank from it, sipping for it's life, and with every sip the water erroded it's body. Fur ripped away, then skin, muscle, fat, until it was just a skeleton that drank. Then it pulled away, slowly rebuilding itself onto to lean down and drink again. The cycle repeated. Liz swallowed bile back down her throat as they walk passed the pool into the darker areas of the Astral. The circle above the clouds was black as tar.
"...Did we do this? Gods..." She whispered to the others, sick with guilt. "We have to find a way to fix this. And we have to fix it now." She'd never felt more helpless, or more guilty, in her life...