Firstly, don't kill me. I've decided to set the Gray Between down for a bit and let it settle. You know, until I feel up to it. So, to keep you all pleased, I'm starting the new story a bit early. Obviously, the title is Perennial Rose, as decided by my faithful poll goers. And I'm trying something new. There will be twelve chapters, one for each month of a year long plot. It will explore the relationships between humans and each other, and the effect of nature upon said relationships.
And it will be different, I promise you. And now, I present...
PERENNIAL ROSE
Part One: Spring
1. Bloody Sunday
The dawn was splattered with blood.
Remember that.
It was not old blood, mind you. It hadn't chalked over and begun to smell of half dried paint yet. You could still touch it and walk away with red fingertips. Not that you would want to touch it. It smells horrible, fresh and sweet, intoxicating and addicting, like poisonous beauty. And it stains not just the skin, but the heart. You can rinse off the color, but never the feeling.
It had been recently spilt. The clouds bumped against each other in a rush to get away from it. It hovered around the sun like a smoggy curtain that refused to open. Normally, sunrises are streaked with color; today, it was overwhelmed. Color overload. The normal, dusty gray and pink of morning did not appear. It was red as an opened vein, red as the rosy lips of a lover, red as hell.
So the curly petals of the poisonous dawn unfurled.
...
"And you call me your friend!"
"I never called you that."
"Touché."
She doesn't like him. He gets on her nerves. He makes her jump up in the air and want to rip her hair out.
"Piper, I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't cut it!" She knows she shouldn't be this mad, but she is. She knows he didn't mean to make her upset, but she is. She knows she shouldn't snap at him, but she does. And that's what hurts the most. For both of them. It's not a game any longer. Piper closes the door on him and watches it slam shut. It's not particularly satisfying, but she pretends it is.
Maybe she's being silly. She's never silly. Finn frowns and turns away from the door. "I think she's PMS-ing," he says to a silent Radarr, who tries to understand the meaning of the phrase...PMS. Someone pokes their head 'round the corner and sighs in a rather disappointed manner.
"You did blow up her lab," Aerrow says, shaking his head. "She has a right to be angry."
"She doesn't have to rip my throat out," Finn mumbles, his voice weighed down and heavy. "And I apologized."
"You know Piper. Give her a few hours and she'll be fine. I promise."
"Says you, Sky Knight."
Aerrow pretended not to hear. Which wasn't hard.
...
Sometimes, you try to realize what the meaning of the word "good" is. And you then end up realizing a whole bunch of other things along the way. All except your original realization goal: what does "good" mean?
It means an awful lot of things, really.
It means kindness, which is an abstract notion to begin with. We all sort of associate that word with rescuing drowning insects and saving kittens from high up tree branches, or helping the little old lady down the lane with her groceries. I suppose "good" can also be associated with purity, and all things right, and when you do good, you are making the world a better place.
Good is also a compliment. "Did I do good?" "Yeah, you did good."
But good is no black and white matter. What is good depends on the eyes of the beholder. No one, not even nature, is purely good. We all have a dark side. We all have hearts. The question is, what will we fill those hearts with?
See? I told you so. We have realized many things. Except for what "good" really is. In the words of some famous dead guy, the work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.
To suit our purposes: The philosophy never really amounts to what you thought you could philosophize. So in the end, we're all just wannabees. Isn't that a joyful thought?
So when I say the day was good, really, I mean the day was many things. It was a Sunday, for one. The first Sunday of March. It was also spring. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so. It was also cool, but not uncomfortably so, either. It was a mediocre day. It was a good day.
But I say good now. By good, I mean that this is the first brick to fall in a long succession of falling bricks. A journey of ten thousand miles begins with one step. The banishment of a million falsehoods begins with the banishment of one. By good, I mean that the people involved in this very good day, would not realize the magnitude of its goodness until many, many months later. Perhaps a lifetime.
If there's one thing that's certain in this world, it's that nothing is certain.
...
Her body was bent over in a graceful sideways, open end down C shape. She had escaped from the confines of her self-inflicted banishment to the comfort of the bridge, even if it meant looking upon Finn's ugly mug again. He smiled winningly and attempted to make her do the same, but only received a hurtful glare for his troubles. Stork and Junko were looking over a faulty pipe with interest; in reality, they were just trying to stay out of the mess.
Intelligence is not a matter of IQ, but of knowing when to quit. And the Merb and the Wallop were doing just that: quitting. They knew when the situation was hopeless. By dinnertime, Piper would be herself again.
She was tracing the trading routes with an ink-stained fingernail, almost like a parent would trace the contours of their child's face. The tilts of the eyes, the warmth of the cheek. Piper felt the smoothness of the paper and the silky ink. Someone breathed on her neck. His breath smelled like sand cakes.
"Hello, Radarr," she mumbled. Sure enough, the padded hands of the little whatever-he-is pressed against her shoulder. She could feel his gaze penetrating her head.
"There you are, buddy." The weight was gone. She looked up to see Aerrow. It was his shoulder Radarr had taken up residence in.
"Hey," she said, smiling. He watched her eyes light up and knew that she'd be fine. And it wasn't even quite ten o' clock, yet. He hadn't even eaten lunch. It was astounding.
"Hey yourself," he said back, and he leaned over the map as well. "How far are we?"
"Not far. We'll be passing by Vale pretty soon." Her finger landed on an extremely large terra towards the south. "It should be smooth flying."
All of a sudden, Stork whirled around and dashed over to the table, jerking the map away. "V-Vale? Did you say Terra Vale?"
"Yes."
"We need to change course. NOW!!" His eyes bugged out of their sockets as he grabbed Piper by the collar and shook her violently.
She eased him off of her and smoothed out her shirt. "Stork, there's nothing to worry about. The fastest way to Tropica is via Terra Vale. I can't believe I didn't think of this route before," she said, shrugging.
"Yeah. You're usually so smarticle," Finn said sourly. She shot him a dirty look as Stork continued.
"Terra Vale is famous for its...mysterious magic. Once you land, you don't get up! No one's lived there for centuries. It's supposed to be...cursed." He twitched. "I'm changing course," he said promptly, before heading to the controls. Aerrow shrugged, causing Radarr to cling on for dear life.
"Cursed?" Junko asked, his eyes getting wide. "Oh, that's bad. Yeah, um, let's go a different way. Maybe Stork's right."
"Finally, someone who's smart," Stork mumbled. "Wait. That...didn't make sense. Junko's normally such a scatter-brain..."
"Whatever. We'll just get there a few days later," Piper said, glancing at Finn. She was counting on him to do what he did best: whine.
"WHAT?" he howled. Right on cue, Piper thought, smiling in spite of herself. "We can't do that! By the time we get there, spring break'll be over! All the hot chicks will be back in school! We have to take the shortcut!"
"If there's one thing I detest more than YOU, Finn, it's SHORTCUTS!" Stork barked. With that, he began to bank away from the terra they were just beginning to spot through the front window.
Suddenly, the alarms began to ring. Red light flashed across the bridge like fire. Stork smacked his forehead with a green tinged hand and moaned. "Why does this always happen to me?"
...
Life is a whirlwind of what-ifs.
What if I hadn't gone to that dark alley late at night jangling the many coins in my pocket? What if I hadn't handled raw meat and then gone to pet the giant, hungry tiger? What if I hadn't forgotten to put on my pants that day of the job interview?
So many what-ifs.
What if the Cyclonians hadn't attacked that Sunday? What if they hadn't won? What if the Condor hadn't plummeted onto Vale in a fiery plume of smoke and ash and burning metal?
I just ruined the ending of this chapter, I suppose. But I don't believe in foreshadowing or eluding or beating 'round the bush. I'm not a story writer, I am a story teller. And let me tell you, there is no such thing as an ending. There are beginnings, but there are no endings. Think of it this way: You are born. Before you are born, you are inside your mother's womb. Before that, you are a tiny egg. Before that, you are nothing. Imagine that. You. Are. Nothing. In a world where the one person who matters most to many people is "I", the idea that you were once nothing, not even an idea, is rather chilling, is it not?
But after you are born, people will say, "Oh, that was the end of a very long pregnancy!" But it's also the beginning of the rest of your life! Something cannot be both an ending and a beginning, can it? If that were the case, every second would be an ending. Every second would be a beginning.
The world never began and it will never end. It will always be. And it is my solemn duty as a story teller to tell you a little piece of that being that neither began, nor ended.
The dawn was splattered with blood.
Sound familiar?
They were not the first words of this story. The first words, not even I know. Nor do you. You do know the last words, however. I don't. You do. Don't go scrolling to the last chapter. After you finish this story, look into your heart. There lie the last words.
...
So as I already said, the alarm-setter-offers were indeed, the Cyclonians. More specifically, Dark Ace, terror of the skies to all but six. Make that five; Stork is still pretty terrified at the mention of him. Perhaps even four; Junko's knees still tend to lock up when he sees the Talon commander.
They came with two battleships. Obviously, someone had tipped them off on the Storm Hawk's whereabouts, and rather than risk the mission with Ravess or Snipe, the Master had sent her right hand man. He was grinning at his teenage nemeses from his ride. Grinning like a shark. He showed his teeth when he smiled. His red gloved hand gripped a sword that winked in the mid-morning light. It was almost eleven, and the sun was almost halfway up in the sky. It arched towards the ceiling of the world in its daily routine.
Aerrow and Radarr settled onto their ride and were waiting for the others.
"Are you coming?" he asked Piper.
"Nah. I'll stay and keep Stork...relatively calm."
"You mean you'll stay and try to keep Stork calm." Aerrow placed a steadying hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes.
"Be careful." She beat him to the punch with her words. He nodded and took his hand back, before revving the engine and taking off, into the golden blue sky. Then Finn, who didn't leave without throwing her a customary raspberry. She felt like flicking him off, but didn't. Finally, Junko lumbered away with his skimmer laden with bombs, and faded into a cloud, streaming after the others.
I suppose you know what happens next, don't you? If you don't, something's wrong. Go and watch some episodes. Then come back. Maybe then you'll get it.
The battle was not any different from the others. It was just one small thing that threw the entire shebang out of whack. Something you must always remember when you get in a car to go on a road trip is gas. Same thing with skimmers. You need crystals.
And Aerrow, I am sorry to tell you, had no crystals.
Which turned out to be a bit of a problem. Need I say more?
...
"Piper, come in, Piper, come in."
"Aerrow? What is it?"
"I'm out of fuel. I repeat, I am out. Of. Fuel."
She set the mouthpiece down and looked through the periscope. Aerrow was sitting on the seat of his ride and waving frantically, then pointing at the fuel gauge with one of his blades. Flying at him full speed was the Dark Ace himself, and Aerrow had no choice but to turn around and continue his duel. Piper chewed on her lip. Going out there with a box full of unstable fuel crystals during the middle of a heated battle was no option. But neither was letting him fall.
"Stork. Blast Dark Ace."
"What?"
"Just blast him."
Stork turned the Condor, swinging it away from the other ships. It seemed to trail silver across the blue sky, and then it belched blue. The ball of energy whammed into the Switchblade and ripped the wings off of its left side. He jumped off and his jet wings sprang open, caught the sky, and pulled him upwards. Aerrow turned and shot Piper a quick thumbs-up, then began to fly for the Condor again.
The battle had moved directly over Vale, by now. Stork was moaning and groaning.
"Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad. No one gets off of Vale. You better hope they don't hit our engines."
Suddenly, there was a BOOM! and a cloud of smoke following.
"They've hit our engines!"
"I spoke too soon."
...
When the Dark Ace fell, it seemed to happen in slow motion, as if it was a movie.
Aerrow grinned as his wings sprang open. The man looped upwards, somehow still clinging to his sword. Aerrow turned his ride back to the Condor to refuel. He didn't see the Talon commander loop for his own ship and give the command to fire for the Condor. He didn't see the big, red blast tear a five foot wide hole in the Condor's side, knocking out the engines. And he most definitely didn't see the smaller blast that whammed into his back, sending him towards ground.
Personal experience told him that this would hurt.
It hurt.
The ground...hurts.
A lot.
Really.
There was a whamming sound of bones banging against each other, but nothing cracked, and that was a blessing in and of itself. He ached all over, but nothing seemed to be broken. His first thought was, "Radarr!" And then there was the sound of breaking metal, and a tiny chirp. He pulled himself up to see Radarr, sitting atop his skimmer. Or what was his skimmer. He sighed and rubbed his sore joints, then looked up to see a tiny problem. Forget tiny, HUGE. The Condor was falling, its tail on fire, red flames licking the metal, enveloping the blue hawk that once soared unhampered. In the distance, there was the whirring flash of Heliblades, and he could just make out Piper and Stork. Stork was screaming, as usual.
The Cyclonians, their mission accomplished, were turning back to the north. Heading home. No doubt Dark Ace was sitting smug in one of those battleships, a wicked little grin on his wicked, ugly face. Aerrow sighed in relief as the others landed. First Junko, then Piper and Stork. Finally, Finn touched down shakily.
"You okay, man?" he asked, jerking Aerrow up from the ground.
"OW! I was. Up until you pulled my shoulder out of its socket, thanks." He frowned when he saw the burning pile of metal that was the Condor. Stork seemed to be on the verge of tears. "This has the potential to be very, very bad."
"You're telling me. It'll take forever! She's even worse than when we first found her!" Stork shrieked, yanking on his ears. "I NEED TO GO TO MY HAPPY PLACE!"
"First, let's put out the fire. We'll need water. Anyone?"
"I salvaged the only chart of Vale I have," Piper said, waving around a rather charred piece of paper. "Although half of it sorta...burned off." She glanced at the remaining map piece. "There's a small lake to the north of here. Junko, just head straight for those trees and you'll...Whoa."
She had looked up to see the skyline for the first time. The first thing she saw was mountain. Lots, and lots, of mountain. This terra was huge; they had landed close to the center, where there was nothing but grass and a few sparse trees. The sky was blue over this patch of earth, and the sun stroked the ground with warm fingers, enticing blades of grass to grow.
"Go, Junko." He nods and disappears over the grassy rise. She sits and feels the grass stroke her legs. It's beautiful here. She thinks she'll like it.
...
Noontime whisks by with a meal of salvaged food and water from the lake.
They put out the fire and watch the wisps of steam rise from hot metal like ghosts. Stork is silent.
The world ceases to move.
When night comes, no one is hungry. They are all staring up at the sky as it changes from golden to blue to black and white and gray.
Stars dance and sing in the darkness and quiver where they stand. It's a beautiful sight. She thinks she could wear them on her ears and let them sparkle. When they lie down to sleep, it's absolutely perfect and the world no longer cares. The world is beautiful and everything is beautiful and she is beautiful. She lies down in the grass beside her friends and closes her amber colored eyes. She thinks it can't get any better and it can't get any worse.
And she can't get any wronger.
...
2. Rain on Monday
When the rain came, it came quickly.
The sky was gray when they got up. They had no breakfast. She sighed and turned towards the still smoking wreckage. "We need food."
"Darn right we do." Aerrow was up, too. He had his hands on his hips and a smile on his face. A perpetual smile. He never stopped smiling. Sometimes, she wanted to smack him for that smile. The mountains etched a black outline against the gray sky. They looked like the end, but something told her that beyond them was more land. More, and more, and more. She sighed again. She sighed a lot.
She was the worrier, you know?
"I'll go and have a look," she said, starting for the woods and the mountains. She consulted her chart. Someone's hand grappled her shoulder. Jerked her back.Air rushed into her mouth.
"We can't split up," Aerrow said. "Stay here. We'll all go later."
"It'll take forever. I'll go, and you guys start patching up the ship. It's the easiest way."
"I prefer safe to easy." His green eyes stopped sparkling, of only for a moment. A shadow behind green frosted glass. It almost scared her. She nodded, and then he let go. Then he was gone, gone behind the wreckage. She counted to five, then started off into the wilderness.
...
Have you ever smelled stale milk? It's pretty disgusting. Stale is a polite word. Disgusting is a polite word. You don't want to, trust me. And then you get it on your skin, and it dries and flakes and you end up smelling like stale milk for a couple of hours. Unless you happen to have some very strong soap around. Like, automobile soap.
You'll run away from it, right? Toss it into the garbage and forget about it. Take a shower to rid yourself of the thoughts and feelings that accompany ruined milk. You might even go out and buy yourself a new one.
If only we could do that with stale memories.
If only we could do that with the bitter truth.
...
The water she walked beside laughed. It sparkled and danced in the light and teased and taunted and a million other things. She checked her chart. They were, at the moment, in Alainn Valley. She wondered who had named these places. In front of her, the Sliab Range. Tall and rocky and imposing. There was no walking around those big old men.
The sour taste of nothing lingered in her mouth and made her want to retch up even more nothing. She quickened her pace. Started up the mountain. The incline made her legs bleed pain. But she just looks down at the valley that's getting more and more distant. The Condor landed face down and will need plastic surgery. She smiles at the thought. Then laughs out loud at the notion of an ass on fire.
Hilarious. Really.
She notices a river, on the far side of the valley. It's big and blue and white all at once. She checks her chart. Allta. His name was Allta. She had already decided the river could only be a man. What with his strong and muscular arms. And the mighty roar of defiance. He would carve a canyon and then some, all for a love. Who did he love?
And then behind her, more mountains, smaller, more woody. Rustic and older. small and rounded, softer. As if you could stroke them with a large hand and come away with pine smelling fingers and the memory of soft. Glas, they were called. It suited them well. She wanted to stay and observe the graying valley forever. According to the remaining chart, a deserty place lay beyond the Sliabs, golden and bare. Not even mountains, but they were called the Mac Tire. The Wildlands, settlers had called them. She could hardly blame them.
They sounded unruly, even from a chart.
And then, again behind her, closer to where she'd left the others, bordering the edge of the terra, was one more mountain range. The Oir Mountains.
The mountains of gold. Those she had heard about. They used to hold treasures that were eventually sucked dry. And then, the men and animals who mined them were also sucked dry, sucked into their own greed, into the earth they ravaged.
Stork was right. This place was magic.
She continued up the mountain.
...
"Where's Piper?"
"I don't know."
"She ran off!"
The truth hurts.
...
Piper sits down on a rock and stares at the dark sky above her. It's a very scary sky. She decides to keep going, though. Not like she has much of a choice. Going back means Aerrow ripping her head to pieces. The wind picks up and cuts at her. She just shakes her head and keeps on going.
And then, fingers. They knock the air out of her throat and constrict her lungs. Pry her hands open and tear away the paper. It floats and twists, as if it was made to fly. She shrieks something incoherent.
It sounded like, "NO!" but I could be wrong.
And then came the rain. All she could see around her was trees, and rock. And above her, a wall of stone. She could just make out the snowcapped peaks. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to block away the cold. She started to run, this time, running down, down, down, but her foot hit something. Something called the truth, the realization of what was. She fell, sideways, into the forest, branches whipping across her face. And then, WHAM! and something hard knocks all the breath out of her.
She's collided deftly with a big rock, and her head is in a fog. She can't see worth a damn. And then there was naught but rain. Rain on her head, rain on her shoulders, rain dripping down from her eyes. But they came not from clouds of gray; they came from orbs of amber. And the mountain wept, a wall of rock and snow and ice. It hurt all around.
Pain.
All of a sudden, her hand finds a crevasse. It's dry and warm. She needs dry and she needs warm. Her mussed up brain can tell that much. It can connect a few strands that were already kissing each other in the first place
She stumbles inside, only to realize it's already occupied. Not because she can see; she can't see a thing.
No, the occupier says something.
"If you're trying to drown yourself, the lake's that way." You could feel him smile from a mile away.
...
Guess who he is.
Guess.
I'm leaving you here.
Last words don't mean anything to me. If you want something meaningful, go find some idiot who'll tell you something idiotic. I'll leave you with truth:
Love is strange.
There. Two chapters in one. Sorta, kinda. Review, please. I hope you liked it. :)