Setting
Before me was—well, I was not certain what it was. The harder I strained, the fainter it became. Only once I had turned away did I see the shape of a man—on the other side.
Kianna rubbed at her brow before finally picking the book up out of her lap and throwing it across the room. She steepled her fingers, pressing them to her lips as she stared at the multitudes of books contained with the library. Try as she might, her mind kept wandering to the events transpiring within the mortal world.
Why had he gone after her? There was no rational reason for it, no political gain in it. He was an idiot is what he was. She swept an arm, knocking more books from the table. They were useless, none of them held any text that was comprehensible to her.
Standing up, she paced the room restlessly.
"You have a man that's on a suicidal rescue mission to rescue you, how does it feel to know that you lied to him, and ultimately will lead to his, and countless other deaths?" Marlene said, shaking her head. "I want you to reflect good and hard on each decision you've made, every lie you've told over the last several years." She said, pacing some more.
She hadn't lied to him, not really. If anything she had been nothing but brutally honest, and regardless of her feelings on the matter, she had performed within the capacity of her duties. She had asked him once why her motives mattered, so long as she provided results. She had never claimed to be more than she was. Why then did she have this nagging feeling of guilt that she couldn't shake. Guilt was a useless emotion. It made you hesitate when you needed to be ruthless.
She frowned.
The success or failure of your deeds, does not add up to the sum of your life. Your spirit cannot be weighed! Judge yourself by the intentions of your actions.
And there was the crux of it. While her actions may have sufficed in the performance of her station, her intentions had been less than honorable, less than sincere. Her lies hadn't lain within her words, but within the genuineness of her motives. It had all been a curiosity to her. Something to be examined, poked, and prodded.
Each and every one of her choices was made with that simple thought in mind. Self-interest.
Within her scope of the world, people used people and that was all there was to things. You were either using, or being used. Mollem's stunt confused her as she could find no practical reason behind it. It left her reassessing her image of not only him, but of herself.
Her frown had deepened and her pacing grew almost aggressive as she swept back and forth across the room with measured paces. There was something here, something she wasn't grasping yet.
The colours of the scene were not quite natural. The green and brown hues that you would expect from a grove were there of course, but they were joined by surreal oranges and blues, purples and reds, blending in just well enough that unless you were looking carefully you would miss them, and only get the feeling that there was something off about the place. Something supernatural.
And of course, there was. This grove wasn't a natural occurrence, but rather the constructed home of Avaria, a Divinity. Spirit of Life, of the World, of Terra - some would call her a demi-goddess, others an elemental. She wasn't quite either, but rather something in between.
Nathaniel breathed in the perfectly clear air deeply as the warmth and energy of the place washed over him. This was his home, where his creator dwelled and where he could recuperate and gain strength. That wasn't why he was here today, though. Instead, he had been called.
"Avaria?" he spoke as he approached the side of the pool, leaves crunching beneath his boots. "I'm here."
The water rippled, as though a pebble had been dropped into its center. The lily pads and other plants warped, seeming to begin to merge together as a shape started to ascend from the water, forming steadily into a humanoid figure. Finally, rising up to hover a few inches above the water, the figure of Avaria herself looked down upon Nathaniel. She was a beautiful woman, long blonde hair falling about her waist and almost seeming to merge with the surreal dress-like garment she wore, composed of what appeared to be a cross between leaves and feathers in a vibrant mix of orange and blue. The dress itself merged with the pool, spreading outwards to the point where she almost became one with the entire grove. A golden crown of feathers rested upon her head.
"Nathaniel Israfel, last of the Seraph," she intoned, extending a hand towards him, "My hand. Do you know why I brought you here today?"
Nathaniel knelt down, his iridescent wings folding behind his back as he lowered his head. "No, Lady Avaria."
"Then you truly are blind. Can you not see how far you have fallen? From the representative of all that should be in the world you have become an example of excess and arrogance. From a servant of mortal life you have risen to consider yourself above it all even as you chose to live amongst it." Avaria's voice was not accusatory, but instead disappointed. Sadness was clear on her face as she addressed the kneeling Seraph.
"I- Lady Avaria, what was I to do? I sought to pass my time with mortal pleasures, my service was done, my purpose gone! I alone remained loyal, chose to stay manifest as long as you remain, but I had nothing else!" Nathaniel lifted his head to meet the Divinity's eyes as he protested.
Avaria shook her head, "It is not your vices that I care for. Sex, drugs, alcohol - they cannot corrupt you as your own arrogance has. Your actions have condemned thousands to death."
"What?" Nathaniel shook his head, "Lady Avaria I never-"
"Look upon what you have wrought, Nathaniel." Avaria drifted backwards from the pool and the water began to shimmer, showing images of Terra, outside the Wing City Police Department and across the city as Terran forces began to engage those of the Taiyou. A declaration of war was broadcast across the land and fire began to fall from the sky.
"I- I didn't know! They were going to kill my friends! How is the absurd response of this nation of men my fault?"
Avaria sighed sadly. "You did not submit to them. You could have sacrificed your own freedoms and prevented this, all of this. Now it is too late. Look upon what you have wrought, Nathaniel, and consider the path you must now take. In reckless disregard for human life you have brought about another great war upon our world. Such is not the behavior of a Seraph."
Nathaniel slumped into a seated position, leaning onto the ground. "I never wanted any of this. They do this to themselves, they were just looking for an exc-"
"And you gave it to them." Avaria said quietly, interrupting Nathaniel despite her voice seeming to be but a whisper. "It is in their nature to war, to be flawed. You should hold yourself to higher standards, to standards ultimately selfless. Give yourself. Give what you love. You are a guardian of life Nathaniel, that is your sacred duty. That is why even though the mortals shrug away our aid I chose to remain. Because their lives are ours to cherish, each and every one both good and evil. Reclaim your heritage as my avatar, Nathaniel. Return to my service and protect life."
There was a long silence as Nathaniel stared at the ground. "What must I do?" he whispered.
"Return to Terra. Return to the war you have created and do everything in your power to put an end to it with as little bloodshed as possible. You have the full extent of my power to wield in this endeavor. Go forth as my champion and let them prosper."
And then the grove was swallowed by light and Nathaniel found himself ejected from the realm, back to that of mortals, back to face consequences.
She never truly gained a sense of peace in this place, but rather a single minded focus had taken hold.
There were days when she found herself reminiscing over the past, but they grew fewer and far in-between as the time spanned onward. Today was one such day though. She couldn't focus on the book at hand, her mind wandering to the war that ravaged the Taiyou and Aschen Empire's.
All the knowledge, all the secrets of the universe couldn't change the fact that Kianna was a creature of carnal pleasures, and she missed the life she once knew. She closed the book, forsaking the pursuit of knowledge for a time in favor of letting her conscious awareness drift.
"Walking the Great Path brings great responsibility. You cannot fear it nor hesitate in your resolve." She said, moving alongside Kianna, and nodding slighty. "I see you have come far on your journey." She said, moving with the woman, and looking out to the shimmering but slightly blurry image that bore the Aschen-Taiyou battle, which played out in slow motion.
"You have come a long way on the Path."
She nodded to the mirage of blurry images as she set the book aside. "Why can't I let it go?"
"All the knowledge of the universe," she remarked with a wave of her hand to the library, "And I've yet to answer that one."
Kianna frowned.
"I want to go back. Maybe seeing through the eyes of a mortal again, with all that I've learned here... maybe then I'll understand what still eludes me. As long as I remain here, it's all speculation, observation and theory. What good are the secrets of the universe when I still can't understand myself. I want to be alive again, I want to feel again."
She shook her head.
"It is possible, is it not?" she asked.
"If you believe you are worthy, then I am not stopping you." She said, standing there quietly. "I have not kept you here, you have kept yourself here."
"One cannot reach enlightenment by running from death." She added. "Lightning flashes, sparks shower, in one blink of your eyes you have missed seeing." She affirmed again, stepping back.
One could almost make out the vague surroundings of the bordering realm, at least for one attuned to the ethereal plane as Whisper was. A brief image here and there wavering through the haze of her surroundings, the hint of a building, the movement of people out of the corners of her eyes. They were as insubstantial as smoke and just as difficult to grasp. Should one try to look too directly they would lose sight entirely.
Whisper had long learned the art of traversing the realm though, utilizing it to cover vast distances in brief spans of time, and to slip in and out of the Patronus Temple when Nagala was otherwise too occupied to take note. Still though, after the blunder in Wing City the other day, it was best not to dally tonight.
This monstrosity clawed at the blurred vicinity and used whatever leverage available to drag it's deformed mass across the vapory pavement. At it's center walked the maestro to it's composition, He seemingly unaffected by the abomination's existence and more concerned with the presence of the other who traversed this place.
'Laments of the Great Old Ones... To what do you owe the pleasure, sweet maiden, to happen across despair this evening?'
"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied.
A silly thing to lie to such a fiend as Maleficus, especially to lie about that which Maleficus claimed dominion over. Despair.
Though the gloves she wore concealed the discolored veins and track marks that wound their way up her forearm, there was no denying the poison that filled her body, nor that which had driven her to such ends.
"You're supposed to be dead," she added, her voice tight and strained by his presence.
The attempts at deception however excited the lone entity. The behaviors of the living always emitted their own signatures and those which possessed a negative quality never failed to bring forth a show of cheerful mandibles upon the sinister countenance of the abysmal behemoth. She was flirting despair, dancing with sorrow, embracing torment. Vivid imagery assaulted the ancient's fragmented mind of what the mingling of spirits could conceive.
'You have forfeit the deeper recesses of your mind to lesser pleasures and minor demons. Your flesh proclaims it's desires for pain, for a virulent presence beneath the sinews and within the plasma... Why submit to these earthly pleasures when you know I offer much more?' The creature dissipated leaving only the approaching construct with naught between the two there besides the intangibility of false matter.
"Stay away from me," she warned.
"I don't desire pain, and I don't want what you offer. Not then, not now."
Instinct told her to flee this realm, to leave Maleficus behind and to take comfort in the false sense of security that distance would provide her, but logic told her that Maleficus was not bound by realms nor distance. She would be rid of him when he was ready to leave, and not before.
"You swore to leave me in peace, so long as I did not stand in your way," she reminded him.
Though expecting such a fiend to honor his word was likely a fools hope.
The image of Maleficus would vanish as well, leaving only his voice to reverberate across the intangibility of their environment. Soon after, amethyst serpentine appendages would begin to wind upon their paths upward, originating from behind the weary maiden's back and wrapping around her waist. Her backpedal would be met with resistance as her own back would meet a torso to intercept her efforts of retreat.
"And here lies the impasse. I know the truth, Whisper. Your spirit is crying... Such a mournful lullaby... Such sweet lamentations... My promise... Why do you continue to refuse me, Whisper?"
Swallowing down the bile that rose in her throat she held her ground and shook her head.
"You are a loathsome thing, who feeds of the despair of others. That is not me. It was never me. Even... not even then."
She hadn't in her to utter the name of the one she had served before.
Maleficus' words did not fall on deaf ears though. It was true she reviled him, but how many nights had she spent atop the skyscrapers of Caprica City, wondering how much simpler it would be to simply fall. To fall and never stop falling. Always she turned away from the edge though, always she returned home with the resolve to continue another day.
"Are we so different, You and I? Are you not repellant to something or other? Do you not desire the anguish of others. How can you so rightfully declare what you have outright refused to glimpse?" The rhetorical prodding of her psyche was merely a means to view what had yet to be revealed.
She opened her mouth to object again, but something in his words made her hesitate. The lie lingered there upon her lips before it gave way to a simple truth.
"Mollem," she whispered softly.
The weeks of abuse she had suffered at the man's hands reared within her memories. The torture, the isolation, the months of propaganda and efforts to break her spirit. The lives she had snuffed out at his orders. They were all there, swirling beneath a sea of loathing that rivaled even that of the abomination that stood at her back.
There was shame in her words as she made the confession though. It was one thing though to confess the desire to see the man suffer, and another to act upon such thoughts.
"Purity tainted. You possess knowledge and prowess to achieve these dark desires. Speak of why you hesitate- Why the blood of this maggot sates not your thirst and stain not your beautiful form..."
"I can't," she whispered softly.
At the admittance she turned her head away once more.
"He holds all the cards."
She couldn't be certain who made her more sick in that moment. Maleficus, or herself for entertaining these thoughts he would see her act upon.
Regardless of her desire though, fear stayed her. Mollem's threat held weight over her yet, for the young woman had yet to learn of the fate of the Aschen Empire, had yet to learn of Mollem's fall from power. The woman had yet to learn that Mollem no longer held her leash any longer.
At that point Maleficus no longer appeared before her a violet abomination from which winged appendages and bladed protrusions emitted themselves. No longer did his composition breathe the corrupted celestial that tainted and defiled the air and atmosphere, nor did his touch bring with it the eerie sensations of a horribly demonic presence. In that instant, the creation before whisper was seemingly mortal, tangible, earthly. Short white strands protruding from a pale crown, cast over bright silver eyes.
This new figure would place a single finger between the bandaged brows of Whisper's ruined eyes and for this moment she would notice that they were not so ruined.
"Whisper, what are you looking for? What is your purpose here? Why have you summoned me?"
Reaching a hand up, she pulled the bandages from her eyes. She blinked pale blue eyes upon the image of herself that stood before her. She was confused, and wary. The suffocating presence had faded, but this new figure... it was no less Maleficus than the one before it. She shook her head.
"It was you who came to me," she said finally.
"It is not a waste to cling to such bonds," she added, a hint of boldness reaching her words in the absense of his corrupted aura. A realization had dawned on the woman. "Was it not envy I felt in you?" she asked. "You're like her, Mollem's watchdog. You envy what you cannot feel, what you cannot possess. For all your power, you envy mortals the things that give us the fire to commit atrocities." She made the accusation boldly as she met his eyes.
"Whisper, what is it that you possess which I cannot take from you? What is it that you feel which I haven't in all of my existence? Why is it that for what has seemed ages none in this realm has perceived of me and you stumble across me in passing? Why Are You Able To Perceive Me At All?" His unblinking stare leaped from musing over his digits to meet Whisper's new found sight, wondering what was happening behind those weary blues. And then a manic grin spread from ear to ear, albeit less dreadful by leaps and bounds in comparison to many of the grins that have come before.
"Would you believe me if I told you that I was hallucination, brought on by your own Madness?"
She hesitated in her uncertainties, but no amount of desperation could have compelled her mind to conjure up this fiend of all things to haunt her she resolved. Reason gave way to doubt though and she rubbed at her arm, and the sores that lay beneath the cloth.
"I wouldn't. What do you want with me," she finally asked quietly. The hesitation within her voice betrayed her self-doubt.
"I've been looking all over for you. Is this anyway to greet a dear friend? I was concerned about you. They told me that you... uh... were on something. Listen, I'm not here to judge you. I'm just here help."