the Darkness spark a Fire
I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background, and Storyseeker for correcting my fics, helping me with great ideas, and for the characters of his ficverse.
"Chavez just confirmed it," Elisa stated, looking around at the gathered clan. "The dome over the Yankee Stadium appeared nearly at the same time the castle went to sleep. Without explanation or anything sustaining it from the outside."
We see Lucifia sacrificing followers to open the gate between the worlds.
Seeing it, she felt her legs giving in, but Ajax was already there to grab her, cradling her close to his massive chest and taking her inside as quickly as possible.
"Please." Darlene heard herself begging as she leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling increasingly dizzy. "My child."
"Your dislike for my kind will always stand between you and yours," he added, suddenly sounding very tired and sober. "Aren't you ready to just let go? If just for your sake alone?"
Demona turned around to tell him to mind his own business, but then stopped, her eyes growing big.
Before she could make a sound, Macbeth felt a slight pain in his chest, no more, and so he found it very surprising to see a blade sticking out of him, slicing his armour as if it were nothing.
"I've waited a thousand years for this," the voice behind him whispered. "The father falls like the son... Weak."
"Gillecomg..." Macbeth said, blood pouring out of his mouth.
"Take the half of the Phoenix Gate!" Demona told the still kneeling and totally surprised hybrid. "NOW!"
Lucifia snarled, as she realised what was going on, and her eyes actually seemed to shine a brief dark red, redder than any Gargess, as she tried to break her mothers defence and get to the back...to no avail.
Painfully standing up and hobbling, Delilah neared the half of the Phoenix Gate, forming the connection between the pool of blood, with the bowl and the rift in the dimensions above. The hybrid got hold of it and pulled, finding it fixed in thin air, as if it were held in solid stone. But she had endured far too much this night to give up, so she pulled with both her claws and all the strength she could muster, despite the blood pouring from her leg and the pain in her heart.
A look above her showed her something nearly surreal, amidst all the madness and death. It looked to be a peaceful forest of some kind, and in it's midst a pool of black liquid. Delilah tried to see details, but she failed when the half of the gate finally loosened, and she fell on her back, the black-shimmering magical object in her claw.
***25. And the sky will weep blood***
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21.09.98; 02:13; Castle Wyvern, Combat Centre:
"We need it!" Ajax insisted in a tensed voice.
"We have been over this!" Goliath replied firmly, getting tense himself. "It is tainted."
"Indeed," Owen cut in from the background. "Though, I admit, I can't tell anything about the strength or nature of it."
With this, everyone looked on the half of the Phoenix Gate lying on the table.
"This city has gone through enough for us to take this risk," Goliath explained. "We will wait until we can be sure it is safe."
"And abandon our brother to his fate?" his rookery brother replied.
This hit his brother's nerve, causing his eyes to lit up.
"You can't change time with it, lad," Hudson intervened, taking action after having stood beside Xanatos and Brooklyn. "If your brother is to be saved by the gate, waiting won't change it."
Ajax stopped, always having had troubles with the finer points of time travel.
"You can't be sure of that." Emilia jumped in to help her mate. "Besides, what about another attack? Having it would make us safer."
"Inactivity has brought us to this situation," Kronos added. "Allowing Lucifia to gather her followers, and summon these beasts that attacked our dreams."
"As matter of fact." Xanatos stepped in. "After this attack, she will have to re-supply. Gaining new strength. As should we."
The billionaire gave the Gargoyles a look.
"I agree that using the Gate is our best option for now," he noted. "But first, let us prepare for any consequences."
After a moment of silence, Ajax nodded.
"I will wait," he said. "But not for long, not with the clan's safety in stake."
With this he left, Kronos and Emilia following behind.
"Thank you," Goliath told his former enemy.
"Oh don't thank me too soon. I am more on his side than yours in this," Xanatos replied. "Holding back did allow them to stage their attack...an attack that endangered my wife and son."
He looked hard on the Gargoyle. "I will not allow such again."
Goliath met his look. "Neither will I"
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21.09.98; 02:16;
Resting Room of the Infirmary:
"How did you say goodbye to them back then?" Darlene asked.
The females who sat around her shared a look, as it was the first thing they had heard of her in a while.
"Say goodbye?" Desdemona finally asked softly.
"To the dead," her sister replied, looking at her frowning. "Especially the young ones, I mean."
"All are the same," Aerie noted. "Young and old. They are all part of the clan."
"Mother told me there were two ceremonies," the laying Gargess remembered. "One with water, and one with fire."
"Aye," Desdemona explained, her tone becoming even softer, almost reverent. "Back in Wyvern, there was a cave where we laid our dead. During the day, the tide would claim the corpse, as it gives us life in the form of fish and more."
Slowly, she laid a claw on her sister's shoulder.
"Then there is the ritual where we hand the body over to the flame, so that the winds may claim the ash, thus we are united whenever we glide." She smiled slightly. "It was decided mostly by when one of us died, or what their wishes were."
"Fire then," said Darlene, and made a small smile, while at the same time shedding a tear. "Paul was cremated, and my father..."
"Then we will hold a remembrance ceremony," Aerie added, trying to distract her thoughts. "Every member of the clan gets one, even the eggs who didn't hatch."
"We can cremate them together," Arnadela suggested.
This gained her hard looks from everyone in the room except from Darlene.
"Them?" she asked, trying to get up. "Who else died tonight?"
Desdemona laid both hands on her sister's shoulder, holding her down while shooting a glare at Arnadela.
"She needs to know," she thus replied.
Her four-winged sister looked at her a moment longer, and then down at Darlene.
"Macbeth." she revealed softly. "He was killed by the Hunter while trying to undo the dome, together with your mother."
Darlene let herself fall back, suddenly feeling even weaker than before.
Macbeth, the man who had been nice to her from the beginning, was dead. Why couldn't the dying just stop, why...
Suddenly, she felt a shudder rising in her.
"Sister!" Desdemona exclaimed.
Darlene managed to compose herself, fighting the shudder down until it stopped.
"Anyone else?" she asked weakly, looking up at her.
"No," the caramel-skinned Gargess replied softly. "There are some hurt, but they will make it through the day."
Darlene relaxed for a moment, and then, as a thought flashed through her mind, she noticed for the first time that there were some people missing.
"Angela and Delilah, are they hurt?"
"No." Aerie explained quickly. "Roland and Broadway are only slightly hurt, but they are all right."
"I can let them come in if you want?" Desdemona offered. "They might not even know what has happened."
Darlene thought about it for a moment, but then she shook her head.
"No," she decided firmly. "Let them rest together... It is precious."
Desdemona nodded, and Darlene grew silent again, staring at the door.
"I want him to be in Macbeth's arms during the fire," she said after a minute or so, her tearful eyes looking at her sister. "He shouldn't go alone."
"He won't," said Desdemona, and embraced her as tightly as possible. "I promise."
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21.09.98; 02:17:
Angela and Broadway were lying on the bed, with Angela softly stroking her mate's baldhead, and him looking very relaxed. He would have looked even better if not for the large bandage running over his chest, where the undead creature had managed a slash.
Turning his head, the big Gargoyle noticed the absent look on his mate's face.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"I was thinking about safety," said Angela. "What with the danger on the streets, and these spiders probably still around."
"Ours or the humans?" he asked, stroking her hair in return.
"Both!" she exclaimed firmly, settling a bit. "If we could tell them the truth, tell them everything, then life would be easier and safer for all of us."
"That would be a dream come true," Broadway agreed, looking at the ceiling. "We could just push Lucifia into a corner and…ouch!"
Concerned, Angela looked at her mate, noticing his bandages were turning red.
"Your bandages need changing," she noticed, concerned.
"It will last until dawn," he replied.
"I won't take the risk," she stated. "You know what Moore said about this."
"Having you near me is all the medicine I need," Broadway insisted, trying to kiss her, but Angela had already escaped his strong embrace, and was walking to the door.
"The medical station should have some," said Angela earnestly. "If not, I will look elsewhere in the castle. I will be back soon."
With this she left, leaving Broadway to cross the arms behind his head, and sigh in frustration.
Angela, meanwhile, walked through the castle's floors on her way to the medical station.
"Sister!"
Bea came up to her, the smaller and orange-skinned Gargess's face looking concerned.
"We just heard," she said. "Lexington and I were so busy listening to the police radio that we missed it."
"Well, I'm just trying to get new bandages for him," Angela began, "but it isn't that serious."
The smaller Gargess looked at her for a second, not understanding, and then her eyes widened. "You haven't heard."
"Heard what?" Angela asked, feeling a tension run through her spine, and if she had been human then goosebumps would have erected.
Bea hesitated for a moment before answering. "Darlene has lost her hatchling."
Goliath's daughter grew pale.
"No."
Bea just nodded, as Angela's eyes began to tear.
"Where is she?"
"The healer might know."
Both set to continue their way to the medical station, but the yellow skinned elder who seemed to appear out of nowhere stopped them by spreading her wings.
"Stop it!" the older gargess ordered. "Both of you."
"This is no time to be lecturing me about blood relationships!" Angela snapped angrily. "My sister needs me!"
She wanted to push pass the other gargesses wings, but she then held her by the arms.
"No, she doesn't. Blood or not." the older one responded. "What she needs right now is some females who know what it's like to carry an egg, only to lose it."
Angela angrily looked into her eyes, but she just returned the look calmly.
"You can't know," she began.
"I lost one egg, and one other that nearly didn't hatch," the yellow-skinned female replied. "Believe me, daughter, I know."
For a moment, both younger Gargesses looked at her in stunned silence.
"Elder..." Bea said, unbelieving.
The elder sighed, and caped her wings. "Follow me," she ordered. "I was checking outside, to see if it was safe for the young ones to go out and get a bit of fresh air."
Silently they followed her outside into the courtyard, where clan-members, as well as some of Xanatos's security guards still thickly guarded the walls.
"When I lost my egg, my sisters, who were still with eggs, couldn't help me," the elder said, sniffing the air, and avoiding to look directly into their eyes. "Neither could my mate, though he tried. It was only the elder who had already had an egg who could truly help me. She helped me to get through the pain."
There was a moment of silence.
"Some things you can't get over another way," she continued, "no matter how much you wish... Do you understand?"
Bea nodded, and after a second so did Angela, albeit slowly.
"If you want to help someone, there are a lot of clan-members in need of it tonight."
The way the elder said this, and her posture, made it clear she wouldn't say anymore, so Bea laid a claw on Angela's right shoulder.
"Come, sister," she said. "I think our mates need us."
Angela nodded, and gave the elder a short, sympathetic look before leaving.
As the younger gargoyles left, the elder emitted a sigh, relaxing a bit. This was not a story she had planned to tell, but she knew it had been needed.
Still, telling it had made the memories more vivid. How she had woken up from her stone-sleep the first night after she had lost her egg, her mate trying to comfort her, but unable to. Then, when her second egg had turned out to be small and sickly looking...
She found herself touching the place where her right breast had been before, and forced herself to stop, and instead concentrated on looking around. She sensed the tenseness in the guarding gargoyles and humans, smelled the slight scent of smoke coming from the city below.
No, she decided, it was not a wise decision to bring the hatchlings out tonight, not even for fifteen minutes of fresh air, so they would have to spend a night without it. Even taking the slightest risks would be unforgivable.
Protecting its youngest was after all the heart of the clan, and she would do it as long as she breathed air.
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21.09.98; 05:34; Castle Wyvern,
Combat Centre:
Elisa slowly opened the doors to the Combat Centre, not wondering whether she'd find her mate there alone, as one of his brothers had told her so. He was looking at the news report of WVRN, leaning at the table, but the moment he noticed her the large gargoyle rose and raced to her.
When they met with each other in the middle of the way, the embrace and feeling of his wings around her gave Elisa the feeling of relief she had missed during this too long night. Looking up, she saw the same feelings in his face.
"It has been too long," she whispered.
"It always is," replied Goliath. "I was worried."
"I know," she said with a sigh. "But after you managed to hold the zombies and spiders at bay, it was just cleaning up the rest...and counting the victims."
Goliath took a short look on the television where the reporters were still talking, mostly making totally wrong guesses about what had happened
"How many?"
"We don't know yet." Elisa replied. "Twenty at least, mostly victims of the spiders."
Her mate gave a tortured sigh, causing her to lay a hand on his chin.
"If not for us, there would have been hundreds."
A long moment later, Goliath relaxed a bit.
"Lexington told me of Macbeth," she added. "How many of the clan are wounded?"
"Too many," he replied, then adding with a second of hesitation. "Darlene' lost her unborn child."
Elisa gasped, staring at him in shock.
"We think it was the magic cast by Lucifia," he continued.
For a moment she looked at her mate, and then she simply leaned her head against his broad chest.
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21.09.98; 02:45;
Castle Wyvern, Courtyard:
Jarred had swept the floor from one end to the other, always looking down and never up, thus he was quite surprised when he looked up and didn't discover his sister behind him. For a moment, the hatchling looked stunned behind him, then down on the broom, and then threw it away.
He knew he probably should have gone looking for his sister, but Ruth had come to them, silently helping them clean the floor, so he guessed she would be okay with her.
Frustrated, he climbed up the stairs until he finally found himself at the lower level of the highest tower.
"Hey!" a male voice called him, as he walked outside.
Jarred looked up, and discovered a stout red male with a mace in his hand looking down in surprise at him.
"It is not safe enough for you here," he berated him. "You and your siblings must stay in until tomorrow."
"I just need a bit fresh air," the hatchling begged, hearing his voice breaking. "Please."
The male was about to answer when his mate, a rather thin, yellow-skinned, and blonde-haired female laid a claw on his left shoulder, holding a sword in the other.
"It is okay," she told him in a soft voice. "You can stay here for a short while. Do you want company?"
Jarred shook his head no, and so the female led her mate to the other side of the tower, while the hatchling climbed onto the battlement and looked down on the city, which looked peaceful from topside, despite all the horror that had happened there this very night.
The hatchling let his feet-claws dangle a bit over the side.
He couldn't get it. He couldn't get how the city just got on with life while his unborn sibling was dead, and his mother and they were all in so much pain. It wasn't fair!
"It isn't fair at all," he told the world in general, feeling tears dripping down his cheeks.
"No, it isn't."
Quickly, Jarred wiped his tears away with his arm, turning around angrily, furious that the elders hadn't left him like they had promised. Yet, instead of the female elder, he found April standing there, the red-skinned and blonde-haired hatchling looking at him worriedly.
"Leave me alone!" said Jarred, irritated that one of his friends had seen him crying.
Darlene's son looked back over the city, hoping the other hatchling would just leave, but instead she placed herself beside him on the battlement.
"I'm not good at that," she admitted shyly. "Leaving people alone, I mean."
Jarred remained silent, looking down over the city.
"Dad was good at making buildings," he explained. "He would have liked it here."
"I don't like it here."
Now Jarred looked up in surprise.
"Why?" he asked, unable to imagine why someone would dislike this fantastic city.
"No cliffs, no forests, and there is nowhere where we are allowed to play," April stated. "And everyone wants you to be someone."
Despite everything, Jarred found curiosity waking in him.
"To be someone?" he asked. "Aren't we always someone?"
"I'm me!" the female hatchling replied. "Who do you think I am?"
Jarred hesitated for a moment, enchanted by the strangeness of this conversation.
"April?" he tried.
"This is just a name," she pointed out. "I'm someone's sister and someone's daughter. I like to glide low over the snow-covered fields in Wyvern, and hope to do so in this city. I can cook good, according to the elders, and hate too much training. Most of all, I'm me, and this means every night someone else."
"Then why do you have a name then?" Jarred asked, not quite able to follow her.
April shrugged her shoulders. "The elders want me to do so."
"But some of them don't have names," he pointed out desperately to get a point.
"Most have," April replied, looking over lower Manhattan. "We live in a human city now, and humans have names. They think they know things by naming them, and the elders think so, too, now... Who are you?"
This question and the intensive way she now looked on him made him gulp.
The answer, which should have been so simple, suddenly wasn't anymore. Who was he? He was Jarred Anderson, though he hardly used the name anymore. Jarred then...once human, now free to glide through the night, and now...right now...
"I'm someone who can't help his mother..." he decided, feeling tears dwell in his eyes.
"Tomorrow you might be someone else," she noted confidently.
For a long moment there was silence, and then Jarred couldn't help but smile.
"Maybe."
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21.09.98; 20:58;
Castle Wyvern, Courtyard:
The clan had gathered, as they had too many times before.
Silently, Goliath stood at the head of the pyre where Macbeth's body rested, the old Scotsman in his body armour, which was also holding a small bundle in his arms.
Around the Gargoyle leader, his brothers and sisters, his elders and children waited. Most spent this time by their mates, Desdemona and Othello, Angela and Broadway, even Bea and Lexington, who gave each other comfort. Others found comfort near their rookery siblings, like Asrial and Thersities, and many hatchlings that had taken place on the walls, watching in unusual silence.
Once the leader was sure everyone was present, he began.
"We've come together to say goodbye to these two," he intoned in a calm, wide-carrying voice. "One, a warrior we first met as an enemy, and then learned to know as a friend and ally. The other, an innocent hatchling whose life hadn't even a chance to start."
He threw a short look at Darlene, who stood straight on the other side of the pyre. Her normally beautiful face was marked with deep emotional pain. Her surrounding, with Gem in her arms, and Jarred and Lana by her side, showed an unusual nucleus in the normal grouping of the clan.
"Macbeth sought death for a long time. He knew more than anyone that life without friends, love or purpose, is not a life worth to continue. In the end, he found the strength to fill his life again, not only saving himself, but enriching all our lives, and I was proud to call him an ally."
"The hatchling..." Goliath looked at Darlene, "…Paul, is one of the innocent victims of this war. His life robbed of him before it began. We mourn him, the chance to welcome him into this clan, and our failure to protect him."
With this, Goliath fell silent and stepped back to allow other members of the clan to say something.
"I'll remember Macbeth as a fellow warrior," Hudson spoke first.
"I'll never forgive myself for abandoning him back in Scotland," a smaller, blue-skinned gargoyle said, and many of the gargoyles from Demona's former clan in Moray nodded.
"The egg…" Eve, standing on the wall, began from above. "…He should have at least lived long enough to feel the wind under his wings."
"Macbeth was the one who first got me to begin reading," Broadway noted, while holding his mate. "I'll always be thankful to him for that."
Shy and reluctantly, Jarred stepped forward.
"It isn't fair that my brother died so soon," the hatchling said. "He should have known us...and dad."
With this he stepped back, tears in his eyes, and was embraced by his mother.
On and on it went. Small tales were told of the past that wouldn't come back, and a future that would never be. In the end, there was only silence, and Goliath was going to take the torch when Darlene stepped forward, having handed Gem to Lana.
"I regret a lot," she said in a weak voice. "Not getting to know Macbeth better, despite him being good to us from the first second, and not being able to thank him..."
The gargoyle hesitated for a second, while behind her Gem fussed in her older sister's arms, barely being consoled by her.
"My youngest child... There is so much I am sorry for. Not being able to see him smile, grow up or just breathe. But I think most of all, I regret never letting him know his family, his clan."
With this, having tears in her eyes, Darlene stepped back, nodding to Goliath who silently placed the torch on the pyre, allowing the growing flames to slowly surround the two bodies.
From a short way away, Angela silently cried in her mate's strong arms, enveloped by his wings.
"We must make an end to it," she noted. "No one should suffer like this."
"We will," Broadway promised her, resting his face on her shoulder. "I swear we will."
Minutes later, the fire now completely hid the bodies, and Angela began looking around.
"I really thought she would come."
"Demona?" a voice near her asked.
Surprised, Angela looked around, discovering the clan's healer near her, watching them with interest.
"Yes," she replied. "Have you heard anything from her?"
"No," the healer said in irritation. "She told me yesterday she wanted to bring me some anti-venom, but she seemingly decided not to."
Angela tensed, freeing herself from Broadway's embrace.
"She has been missing since yesterday?!" she asked, unbelieving.
The clan's healer stiffened, showing all too clearly that she hadn't thought of this, but before she could say anything, Angela raced past her, while behind her Delilah and Roland exchanged looks.
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Later; Destine Mansion:
"Mother?!" Angela called upon entering the mansion from the front.
Broadway, Delilah and Roland quickly followed her.
"There," said Delilah, pointing to the broken dining table.
But it wasn't the only thing, as all over the room they discovered signs of a battle, and yet no sign of Demona anywhere.
To Be Continued...