Time here,
all but means nothing, just shadows that move across the wall
They keep me company, but they don't ask of me
they don't say nothing at all.
Time means nothing when you just don't care. It stretches on forever and ever, but doesn't really at the same time. Yes, there s monotony, but there is salvation in the thought that it means nothing at all.
And I need just a little more silence
And I need just a little more time
Time meant nothing to the once great Kathain Bowen, Oracle to the Thirteen, Seer Among Seers, and Keeper of the Distant Mirror. It meant absolutely nothing when the power to keep and to use time had fallen into dark hands. She desperately longed to be away from that, but they would not let her. Instead, the powerful precognitive had slipped between the cracks, into a reality in which she just allowed apathy to swallow her whole.
It was Zaizen's doing. All of it. All those terrible, awful things were done by the hands of Solomon. Not of Kathain.
But you send your thieves to me
silently stalking me
Dragging me into your wall
Would you give me no choice in this?
I know you can't resist, trying reopen a sore
And, yet, her gifts had been the source of such death and suffering.
Kathain hated herself, straight down to the core. It had been months since the girl felt this way, felt the sorrow and sadness eating her from the inside out, tearing away at the temple of her very heart and soul. But this was what she deserved. Kathain had allowed all of this to happen, and, as such, the girl had to live with the guilt, the knowledge that her information had caused the torture of many.
It had been, afterall, her choice.
Leave me be, I don't want to argue
I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone
If I agree, well, it's just to appease you
Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for
They all had their roles, their little parts to play in the grand scheme of things.
Kathain abandoned hers that night in the Vatican when she handed herself over to Solomon. She shuffled loose the mantle of Oracle and drifted out of existence, out of the real world and into a fake world of darkness and false sunlight.
She betrayed her position.
The girl deserved anything that came to her as a result. Kathain had knowingly turned her back on the Thirteen, left their side, and left the battle. She was meant to be there, with Nycole, keeping the Thirteen safe and sound.
And, yet, now, she had become the puppet of Solomon.
You see lovea tight, thorny thread that you spin in a circle of gold
You have me to hold me
a token for all to see
captured to be yours alone
It had started rather simply, with quaint tests to prove her might and ancient glory. They made her play the lottery, and win. They made her pick out baseball games and horse races. And she did. Kathain played their little game back, answering their questions out of fear, fear for Amon and the Thirteen. She allowed this to occur, but kept the others in her heart, secreted away.
And, then, the games became more hostile.
And I need just a little more silence,
and I just need a little more time
It still hurt so badly, to see the image of what she had done. The smoldering cabin of a major passenger plane still blazed brightly in her mind. The twisted remains of a high speed train gleamed in the shadow of the distant mirror. These were her doing. These events had been caused by the knowledge Kathain shared with Solomon.
Zaizen saw nothing wrong with telling her.
The courage to pull away
there will be hell to pay
the deeper you cut to the bone
Kathain cried for hours.
She had become the very thing the girl hated and feared. Kathain had become too powerful, a weapon of murder and destruction. It was the very reason she had tried to take her life so may times before.
Kathain had longed to protect the world from herself.
Leave me be, I don't want to argue
I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone
If I agree, well, it's just to appease you
Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for
But Brett, he stopped her, again and again. He could come across her, committing some horrific act of self-hatred, and the elemental would stop her. If it came too late, Brett would call upon Nycole to help bind the wounds and heal the soul. And, if he feared it would happen again, the young man would call upon Kristo keep watch from the shadows, where no eyes could see him.
However, here, in this place, there was no Brett or Nycole to orchestrate ways to save Kathain from herself.
Time here,
all but means nothing,
just shadows that move across the wall
They keep me company, but they don't ask of me
they don't say nothing at all.
She smashed the glass soundly against a desk, feeling the broken shards sprinkle over her feet and stab lightly at the flesh. The girl ignored it, feeling a deeper drive and ration than ever. She just crouched down and selected a piece of glass, like a child picking shells at the beach.
Kathain used to do that, in another lifetime. She had collected shells as a young girl, along the Jersey shore. Maybe, in the next lifetime, the precognitive would do the same.
Leave me be, I don't want to argue
I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone
If I agree, well, it's just to appease you
Cause I don't remember what we're fighting forThe glass dragged across her wrist with a welcoming sigh from Kathain.
The world had become a dark place, and it was all her fault.
xxxx
"KATHAIN!"
Amon jumped awake in the middle of the night, his body covered in a cold sweat. The hunter reached to his side, but found nothing. The other half of the bed was occupied only by a jumbled mess of blankets, and not the girl he had been searching for. Dread filled Amon's heart at the very notion of what could have been happening to Kathain at that very moment.
"Rough night?"
The former hunter glanced up, seeing Geoff leaning against the doorframe; Amon swallowed. "Yes."
"Nycole's been having nightmares again. You're probably feeling the shockwaves from it." The bartender sounded so matter-of-fact about it, as though this happened all the time. "She's radiating."
"What?" Robin whispered from her air mattress, having been roused by the commotion.
Geoff closed his eyes slowly. "Nycole's an empath. She feels what other people feel. No." He wrung his hands. "More than that. When she's really upset or emotionally charge, she can radiate it out. Infect other people with her emotions." The bartender looked away. "She's making us dream her nightmare."
"Kathain…" Amon whispered.
Geoff nodded. "Yes." He sighed heavily. "It's what Kathain's feeling right now."
"We need to find her."
Brett put a hand on Geoff's shoulder, appearing in the hall behind him from nowhere. "She's saying something about America."
Amon clenched a fist. "Then we need to go there."
xxxx
Welcome to TOUCHING GOD. My, I am a globetrotting fic writer.