A/N: A deviation, but still staying on track, from my usual writing. I've been on holiday—hence the lateness of this. Obviously, dedicated to Partners In Crime, Ophelia Who Is Insane, KittyRainbow, Blue Yeti, and Skye Firebane.
1.
Mog Ruith had been for decoration, from the start. The Council had erected it—and Lair Báln—simply for continuity's sake, as it was. Mog Ruith grow through the mud people's night, and Lair Báln through their day. To understand the Council's decision, you must first note the following things about the underground.
1) it is a giant cavern, with several adjoining caverns, though not as large
2) it is underground, therefore usually warm, but there is no light
3) it has no differentiation between night and day
The Council decided that, in order to keep life organized, that they would create a mixture of magical and technological entities. Several techno-wizards had been employed, and a mixture of magical energy stores, using the slight magical waves that existed in the underground—but no fairy being able to, as of yet, tap into them—as the power source. They were launched one fine 'morning', as it was, in 1648.
The level of technological advances that the people had in the sixteenth centaury was way beyond the mud people existing on the surface, and more in line with their current technological abilities in our current time, though slightly less advancedsup1/sup. It was quite a surprise when, several weeks later, dense cloud mass began to form. An analysis found the following results:
1) natural springs and lakes were slowly evaporating—and any natural/artificial water source in view of Mog Ruith.
2) this warm air floated near the 'roof' of the underground, and there cooled bt Lair Báln.
3) clouds were then formed
4) under the heat of Mog Ruith—and other sources—and the gravity of Earth's rotation, the cloud mass formed rain (and on occasions, snow and sleet, depending on the weather).
5) this rain fell into the underground, and refilled lakes and natural springs, starting the process all over again.
The results were both astonishing, and uplifting. Many had been complaining over the lake of semblance to the surface, which some still remembered, and this did much to thaw their doubts. The system evolved into a sprawling, underground micro-climate, and prediction of it's movements has become almost an exact science.
1though an upgrade of these entities was recently performed by a group of Council technicians. —an excerpt from 'The Weather System of Haven, In Comparison To The Rest Of The World', by Ratira Enis
2.
It had been raining that morning—the umbrella companies making a fortune—and Julius had carried an old grey umbrella that had never been used and sat in the cupboard in his hall. It had been a funeral—and people said you should never take an umbrella to a funeral, but Julius did because it was raining. The priest was nestled underneath a canopy with the pyre, and the body burned—
And the smoke burned Julius' eyes and nose. The words chanted and echoed, but the rain almost drowned them out. The ground was damp and the smell of burning dead flesh and the moist air was a strange mix—and so he stood a little way off, out from beneath the canopy with the umbrella up, and the smoke seemed to blowing in his direction: it was almost annoying.
But then, it was Briar's funeral, so he really didn't mind. The priest waved his little sticks of incense about in the air and the other two people coughed, just a little—but Julius was used to cigars, he liked how they looked more than the taste, but that wasn't really the case. He was used to strong things—and his lungs would pay for it—so he really didn't care about incense.
Mog Ruith was high in the sky, but hidden behind the clouds and the rain: it would be snow, in a couple of weeks, as the surface started to cool and the underground cooled with it. The weather was strange—a microclimate, they called it—but Julius never really worried about the weather. And the rain was being sun-dried as he walked home with the umbrella closed and he tried not to look silly carrying it.
He didn't really succeed.
3.
Holly sipped spring water and perched on the corner of her chair. The corner of her chair wasn't much room—but then, the office wasn't much room and the other part of the chair had her bag perched on it. And her desk was almost empty, which was a good thing: she was moving up/down in the world, it seemed. Her new office overlooked the gardens behind the LEP building.
It was closer to Julius' office: she didn't know if that was a good thing or not. He didn't think she knew—but she knew that he'd organized the move. The office was good enough, in a way. Bigger. More spacious. Well lit with a gorgeous view of the gardens—again. She sat on her chair and sips her spring water and debates the mould on the ceiling: the window opens out on to the street.
She could hear the traffic—tooting horns and annoyed elves and pissed off sprites screaming at other pissed off sprites while the dwarves were stomping around on the sidewalk and just making hell of things. Sighed and then put the almost empty bottle back on her empty desk and stood up—the bag slung over her shoulder without so much as a conscious thought and then she walked out of the room.
The bottle fell—rolled, and the left over water splashed the ground.
'Shit,' she muttered, and turned back.
Outside, it began to rain again.
4.
Gnomish could be listed as a pure language with the range and the amount of words that exist in it. There are so many definitions of thesis and anti-thesis that every concept has a word and an explanation. If you recall, in the earlier chapters, the discussion of language being the key to recognition, you can see how Gnomish is such a perfect, pure language; there are also many ways to say one thing.
For example, words are usually defined as having the thesis, the positive, the anti-thesis, and the negative, but Gnomish goes beyond simply just using words, and allows a broader view of the world, and the mind, through definition. More can be understood with the following sentences, and their comparisons to the human languages of English, Latin, and French… an excerpt from Gnomish, A Study Of, by Pierre Anise.
5.
Theatre was almost empty and playing an endless ream of techno/sci-fi movies and Chix was picking them to pieces and chewing on the rest of his popcorn: his wings were folded—almost entirely useless, because he hadn't flow for months and whenever he did the pain that shot up his back was almost unbearable—behind him, and the girl in the seat a few rows back was complaining—
'I can't see!'
'Shhh, you can see fine, love.'
—to her mother about something.
He didn't listen and watched the movie: the ending was predictable—hero/heroine dies/lives, gets/doesn't get the girl/guy, saves the world—that kind of stuff. He sat during the credits when the theatre was emptying and chewed down the last of his popcorn, and then went home and lay on his bed and watch the fan spin. When the tears came, it wasn't the now—it was the then, and the memory.
Holding on was letting go, he decided. He let go, and perhaps that was holding on in the same way—when he woke up the next morning, his wings were at least a little creased but they weren't numb, and his pillow was flat. He would buy a new one—maybe—but today was a day for—
sunlight.
When the curtains parted, the room was dusty and—the dust refracts the light—it's suddenly a rainbow. He would have laughed and pushed it away and gone and done his hair, fixed up his wings and put on his uniform and jacket and gone—Iflown/I—to work. But now. Now now now now—…
He fell back on the bed and died—while he tried to forget. And maybe move on.
6.
It rained on Saturday—Julius stayed at home: he didn't like umbrellas.
7.
Life was simply monotonous: coffee to wake up, coffee to drink by, coffee just to be—and the grave was muddy, because it rained a lot. He got used to the umbrella, but he didn't go out in the rain—and when he did he tried to dodge the rain drops, but there was too much of him and not enough space between the drops; so he didn't dodge many, and his cleaning bill just went up.
Rain was still monotonous, and he sat at that window and watched the drops sidle past and cascade down the glass. When he wasn't watching the rain he was watching the people walking past his windows; he got used to people watching`. The rest of the time he worked—not that work was anything more than just a little paperwork and Holly Short quickly climbing the ranks—and into the Public's hearts—of the LEP.
It was wet, that day; he took the umbrella out and went for a walk, and when the clouds were grey and you couldn't see Mog Ruith because of them, he took the umbrella out and opened it; it was an icy chill, at first; he couldn't breath—think—speak—touch—move—any…thing. Then—
He blinked: the rain was falling, and if he stared he could see every single little drop; the ground stank of wet soil, and the moisture made him sneeze. He didn't—tried to remember what he was doing, but didn't; decided to go home and put the umbrella back into the closet and went to bed.
8.
Chix took over Holly's old office—under her command, obviously. Almost everybody was under her command. Everybody except for Julius, because they couldn't figure what to do with him—and he wasn't very important, anyway.
His office was his office and he made plans to see another movie after work with the elf at the front desk: a guy movie for guys; and then he laughed and settled back against his chair and sipped tea, because he thought that coffee tasted like mud—and either way, it was bad for his skin and he couldn't have that.
He liked his skin, and shuffled the desk a little to the side so he could look out the window if he turned in the right direction or stare down the passage way if he turned in the other direction: he decided that it was a win-win situation, smiled, and gulped down the dregs and tried not to choke.
He didn't succeed; but then he laughed, and everything was ok.
9.
Yesterday was Tomorrow for Julius: he didn't know why, but he started the diet his mother had been trying to get him onto for years. The cigars had found themselves in a bin, far away from their safe little drawer that was now empty apart from an old map of downtown Paris—Paris, 1774 it said—that he hardly ever used. It had changed enough: he was never in Paris, too.
The rain had calmed. He was glad for that, but then he was just feeling glad and that seemed to be—'normal,' he said, when his neighbour waved at him like she always did but then got a bit of a shock when he waved back and came over and spoke to her. Not that he/she minded.
—Julius visited the gym: and decided that wasn't like him, but was too busy being healthy to bother.
10.
Holly's interview with the downtown paper went great—she sat in the cafeteria and stared just like everyone else when Julius bought lunch—unlike him, she thought—and stared a little more when it was—'healthy food?', shocked, but maybe a little concerned—and he didn't seem a little bit self-conscious in his jacket which had obviously been too small for him. But then, that seemed to be—
Changed. It became the cliché. Everyone was used to it—
'He's quite hot,' green-haired said—Holly knew it was bad to eavesdrop but she did it anyway—
'I know! And to think how—' pink-haired said.
'—he looked before!' blue-haired finished, and then the three laughed and sipped their café latte and stared at Julius from across the way, and he just looked normal—
Normal as Julius could ever be. Like that. He swore that he changed—
Holly swore—
—and he had. He just didn't know why/how/when/where/what.
He didn't care, either.
11.
'It's strange,' Chix said, after the movie: 'he's changed, you'd think. But then you think, "hey, he's always been like this", and that seems to explain everything.'
'Everyone changes,' she said. Holly sipped her coffee, and nodded. Chix sighed. Wondered if he would/had.
12.
Something told him he shouldn't, but he did anyway. He watched her.
13.
Holly got up at six; she started work by seven and was hardly ever late. If she was, it was because of the traffic. But then, the traffic wasn't really that bad—at least, that's what Julius told her, as he watched her from his office seat, and she leaned against the doorframe and was just Holly, 'the superstar' that everyone was painting her as. He couldn't see the fascination—tried to replicate it.
He knew her was. Watched how she walked and spoke and ate her lunch—salad, a sandwich and a mineral water; just because she wants to keep her figure right—and a part of him was telling him that this was the right thing to do but another part of him was—screams—telling him not; 'it's wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong—' before cut off—'right, right right! Do it!'
—he didn't know which was right.
But he did want it.
Watched, and maybe he waited. But more so he watched—the camera was bought in downtown Haven, and nobody recognised him—the first time his mother meets him after he's cleaned up, she says, she's really happy and glad for him and 'I'm glad you've cleaned up,' and then she sighs and says, 'it's because of Briar, isn't it?' and Julius wonders if she's (knows how) right (she is).
He was glad: the film didn't cost much, and it was black and white film and the man said it was easy to develop, and he had enough money to buy the little machine to put the film in, and enough stores of the chemicals and the paper and he turned his ensuite bathroom into a psuedo-darkroom, because he didn't use the ensuite. The normal bathroom was big enough—chewed down the sandwich.
Sat in the car.
Watched out the window.
Watched her.
Out the window—snap, snap, snap; the zoom was great. The man'd shown him how to adjust the lenses and he could zoom back—and out—and stuff like that. He used only one roll of film. And the car was unrecognisable. He didn't use it often—walked, nowadays and cleaned himself up.
Chewed down the sandwich and took photos.
Later that night, he developed them in his darkroom, and then looked up at the red light that wouldn't expose the film and do horrible things to his almost as horrible photos. His grin wasn't a nice one. His grins never were—because he never grinned.
He smirked. Proven his right side wrong, and his wrong side right.
He 'did do it! Now…'
14.
He asked her out—didn't know Julius was watching—and they were going for a while. Dates, coffee and stuff like that. Even though she'd vowed that she'd never date him, she broke it because it seemed like the right thing to do and he'd really turned out much nicer than he'd been before: but Julius just fumed and developed his photos, and slid them into boxes that went under his bed.
When he couldn't sleep, he'd look at—them.
'Holly?' conversation goes.
She looks up from her lunch in the park, and Chix sits down on the seat next to her, and his wings are folded beneath his jacket, but you can still see the corners so that's all okay and that. She knows they're there; he can't use them—she looks up and 'yes, Chix?' she asks. Decides that first names are all right because they're kind-of friends.
'Will you come to dinner with me?'
Hopeful(ly). Undecided at first. Turns and glances at the trees and the sky and can't see Julius sitting in his car on the other side of the park or hear the mad clicking of the camera; 'Yes,' she says.
Julius can hear them—he decides magic is a useful thing.
But hates it anyway.
15.
He keeps a framed photo of her, upturned in his bottom drawer. No-one looks there.
16.
Julius ran his fingertips over Briar's grave, almost wondering what it was and not really believing what he was reading. The umbrella was strapped to his waist, folded up neatly and he didn't look as stupid as he had done before. A year wasn't much. Lots had happened/would continue to happen. He liked a lot of things. Briar likes tea instead of coffee. Julius didn't.
But now he does.
He thinks he's turning into Briar (and he doesn't know how right he maybe is) and then the laughs and pats the gravestone familiarly, the memory jerking back into his head but then he pushes it away. Because it's painful looking up into—
His own face.
He blinks, and sees Briar standing there, right before he's about to say goodbye for the last time.
Right then, it doesn't make any sense.—turned and left the graveyard, and moved back into the past/present/future.
17.
Superstar, superstar and another scandal for the superstars: the most popular couple in Haven, they'd been voted. Holly thought that was cool and Chix couldn't really stand the glares he got from all the other guys and Holly seemed to understand—and then, the guy that had tried to push Holly into a river just so that he could save her. But he hadn't succeeded—somehow.
Guardian angel. Perhaps.
Julius found he was good at offensive magic. Force fields. Such as that.
'You're being neurotic,' his mother said. 'And obsessive.' She sighed and left when he didn't respond, because she didn't know exactly how right she was: when the door shut, he went off and looked at his photos, and debated developing the next roll.
He slept, instead, for the first time in days.
18.
He wondered if he was falling in love with her. And then decided that it wasn't love. He didn't believe—in love—any more. Because it was irrational. Closed his eyes and went back to sleep; but meanwhile, he was obsessed with her.
19.
It all happened really fast, at first; he was there one minute and the next, after a brief black-out that lasted how long, he was standing over her with the knife in his hand and he knew—'something's wrong,' Chix muttered, turned from his desk in the LEP and could hear a muffled noise, but thought nothing of it: walked, walked and then walked a little more and knocked on the office door—
There was a lot of blood when he came to—muttering 'evil bitch, evil bitch, evil bitch how could you! You're mine' or something like that under his breath—and then he blinked and everything was spinning, strangely. He didn't know how he got out of the LEP building. Didn't know how he found the empty bridge high over a lake in an empty park somewhere in an empty Haven that was.
A prison.
Corrupted. Corrupted—Chix ran, crying maybe, wings flapping lifelessly because there was a strong breeze—wind—and he. Couldn't breathe. Let go/hold on, hold on hold on grab her hand feel the blood.
Spin. Spinspinspin.
Spinning, off the edge and down into the water holding his breathe/letting go of everything else, trying to bring her back, trying to save her but then it wasn't working and he screamed, tried not to cry, screamed and then screamed again and suddenly everything made sense and the picture of her was on her back; impaled with a knife on her back. Breathing shallow, breathing shallow.
About to let go.
Let.
Go.
Gone and then suddenly there again; he would have wept, wept tears of blood and then he was lying on his back with her cuddled in his arms and whispered her name over and over and there was screaming and shock and the wailing of ambulance and medi-wizards hurrying up the stairs.
Spinning up the stairs.
Climbed the circular stairs, faces pale, and the magic tingling in their fingers—tingle, tingle, tingle tingletingle tried to hold on to the banister and then one slipped. Lost her footing. Slid onto the stair and another helped her up while she cried and the magic spun around her ankle and then she was fine.
Took a deep breath: walked forward, pushed the door open and the blood made the room smell like death. It was more like a—slaughter house, slaughter house, spinning slaughter house and Chix screamed and pounded the walls and the blood was all over his hands hisblood/herblood, someone tried to calm him but succeeded in nothing. Took a deep breath and medi-wizard touched her neck.
She's—'gone,' he said, 'too late…'
But Chix can't hear, because all there—is—is—spinning—around—…him…
20.
Julius feels like he's flying—then everything is black, and a familiar voice is speaking to him… 'it was fun,' it goes. Died and faded out, and then the voice was back: 'you should really be careful, Jule,' it said: goes and then Julius tries to breathe because hardly anyone called him that any more. Not even his—mother faded away and everything, and then there was white and the smell of anti-sceptic.
It's spinning, suddenly; still flying. 'They say,' the voice is really far away, 'that you can catch a soul in an umbrella…'
Ice cold. Water splash can't breathe.
'Did you know,' Briar said, 'that it's true?'
—Julius can't see any more. It's dark.
And then he can't remember.
21.
They find his body, a little upstream.
22.
The funeral is quiet. They don't realise what happened; they cut off all knowledge of him, maybe. But hardly anyone forgot him. His house was boarded up and no-body's been in there for a while. And Chix might have been there at the funeral: but everything was different, and he hovered over his fiancée's grave and wondered, just a little, what would have happened it he'd been there.
But then. It's the whisper, in the middle of the night that makes him shiver, and cuddle his wings around him and then wonder what on earth is going on. When he spins, he tries to hold on.
23.
Tomorrow, he sat at the downtown Haven bus-station in the rain; 'Chix?' a voice asked him, and he turned. 'I'm really sorry about what happened…' Trouble said; and Chix smiled, almost unhappily. He picked up his smoke scented umbrella and clambered on the bus. But didn't really go anywhere.
'Chix…' her voice was soft. But he can't hear it.
Holly wants to go home.
24.
Later, Briar lounges on the grass in Tir na n-Og; 'Jule?' he asks, turns over onto his stomach and Julius is staring into his reflection in the water. 'Isn't it nice here?' he asks; and Julius glances over at him with haunted eyes—
'No,' he said. 'It's tainted.'
Briar glanced around: 'I don't see it.' He said.
'It's corrupt; broken; defiled. It'll never be the same again.' Julius' eyes are far away.
'It's changed, I'll give you that. But everything changes, once in a while…' Briar said.
Nodded: Julius. 'True,' he said, 'but change for the worse, or the better?'
Briar didn't have an answer for that.