Time to Die
Suggested Theme:
Main Theme- The Globalist by Muse
Swirling in the air is a magenta-tinted fog. A cloud of poison. A mist of malice. Or maybe it's just his mother's orchid perfume. Where was he again? He looks around to see a room spun in colorful silk scarves. There are cushions covering the rust-colored floors like sheets over starved bodies. He is curled on top of an emerald-covered cushion like a house pet.
Where is my mother? He wonders and sluggishly looks around the jungle of fragile beauty. He sees her enter from a heart-colored door. His mother has long, magenta hair that touches the floor like a cape of faux fur. Her face looks like a sweetheart for a Queen of Darkness. Her water-blue eyes urge him to make his move.
Thirsty. Did the words leave his lips? He knows that speaking to his mother is unnecessary. She always seem to know exactly what he needs. She comes closer to his cushion; he sees her more clearly. She is wearing a bra and a long skirt made of ruby veils. Gold chains, silver rings, and iron necklaces decorate the rest of her body like protective make-up. He knows that his small hands could reach out and grasp her clothes, and then tear them like tissue paper. Her clothes are made to be torn; they get torn when she dances. Men like it when she dances. She likes to lie with them and then tear them apart. She is the Mother of Lies and likes to eat men.
Drink. She kneels beside him. In her left hand is a wooden staff decorated with ivy and topped with a pinecone. In her right hand is a poorly woven cup of flesh. He can see blood sloshing in it. She presents the cup to his mouth, and he drinks from it like a lamb at his mother's teat. His lips become dark red against his pale flesh; his lips are like her lips. When he empties the cup, he bites into the cup and rives the flesh with his mouth.
He likes to eat men too.
Riven weakly opens his eyes and sees a stone ceiling. He looks around and sees moss-covered walls. By his side, he sees Helia. The feminine-looking Specialist has his hair free from its ponytail. His indigo hair runs across his shoulders like a waterfall. There is a bottle of green liquid in his left hand. There are bandages covering his right hand; blood is soaking through the bandages like ruby veils on pale flesh.
"You won't be free from the basilisk's poison for another day. We'll leave once the poison is out of your system." Riven hazily recollects that he and Helia were assigned to eliminate a basilisk that's been terrorizing a Realm. That's all he can recall; his mind seems to ache when he tries to remember anything else.
"Is the basilisk dead?" Helia's blue eyes look at him like a man at the gallows. Wild and dead at the same time. Riven looks away because he has never liked Helia's eyes; they remind him of the night that Helia strangled those guards. Those eyes are far too deceptive much like the artist's appearance.
"No, you touched it and fell ill. This basilisk is some sort of mutant that secreted poison from its skin rather than through venom in its fangs. I carried you away and gave you a potion." He didn't even bother to go back and kill it, truly a pacifist. Riven thinks while looking at Helia's bandaged hand like a mysterious piece.
"What happened to your hand?" The basilisk did have fangs, but Helia would've lost his hand if it truly bit him.
Helia refuses to answer. His face is expressionless like the stone ceiling. Riven licks his lips; they taste like blood.
He has his small back to the wet wall. He is hidden behind a trash can, but he can still see what is occurring at the end of the alley. His mother brought him here to witness, to be taught. He needs to learn to hunt on his own. He needs to learn how to fend for himself. He needs to watch his mother kill.
His mother dances and tears her clothes like tissue paper. Her jewelry and perfume are the only things covering her skin. The man she's luring to the end of the alley is dressed in red armor. He didn't know what the armor signify, nor did his mother care. The man is prey, and that's what matters.
The man has her pressed up against the wall. She has her legs around his midsection and her arms around the man's neck like a viper. The man has his head buried into her neck; he cannot see her transformation.
Her skin becomes a deathly shade of indigo and her feet become hooves like a demon. Her fingers elongate and become sharp like Death's scythe. Her eyes are pupil-less and black like the deepest pits of madness. Antlers spring from the side of her magenta hair like tree branches. Her mouth is a giant maw of pointed teeth, while her lips are cracked like the alley's floor.
She is beautiful. This is who she truly is. She is his mother. She'll rip the man's throat out with her teeth, and the man will be dead before his brain can process what occurred. She'll eat him.
One day, he'll be as beautiful as her. When he consumes enough men, he'll look like her. He just has to wait and observe until that day.
I killed a unicorn. She opens her mouth and quickly goes for the man's throat. Then, in a flash of light, she is gone. The man in red armor is still there; he has a cross in his hand that is glowing like light. The man walks out of the alley and disappears into the night.
His mother is gone.
He's alone.
He'll never be as beautiful as her.
"It's not real." Riven wakes up to those words. He immediately scoffs. He knows that none of what he experienced in those….visions were real. The basilisk's poison and Helia's potion probably just gave him those visions. He knows that his mother abandoned him when he was young. He survived on the streets until he got accepted into Red Fountain. That's what happened in his childhood, and he refuses to acknowledge anything else.
"Drink." Helia hands him a cup of water. Riven downs it faster than the cup of…
"Of course I know that. None of it was real." He can feel Helia's gaze on him like harsh sunlight on his skin. He has yet to look into Helia's eyes since their first meeting in the light. He still has the drawing that Helia gave him. It's like being privy to a horrible secret, and Riven doesn't enjoy keeping Helia's secret because it's a silent lie. He doesn't like lies. He's not like his mother.
"Of course not. You are pale. You may need to rest some more." Riven looks at Helia's right hand. The bandages on his right hand are pure white; no red is bleeding through. However, Helia has yet to answer his question from the last time he was awake.
"I cut my hand on one of the basilisk's fangs." This time Riven looks into Helia's eyes. The artist's water-blue eyes are looking directly into Riven's; his eyes aren't looking in the right corner or blinking rapidly. He's not sweating, shaking, or gulping nervously. By all physical indications, he's not lying. However, Helia is very good at pretending; before he dropped out, he was the best Specialist when it came to espionage and martial arts. Helia should know how to lie and get away with his lie. He could very well be lying to Riven right now.
"Right. I'm fine. We should get going." Riven chooses to believe Helia. It's quite possible that Helia had to fight off the basilisk while getting his unconscious teammate to safety. Helia doesn't push him to rest. He helps Riven stand and they leave the cave together.
Helia ties his hair back into its loose ponytail. It's early morning; the sun is sleepily streaming orange and yellow rays. The sunlight halos Helia and turns him into a halation. He's bright but blurry to Riven. Like the voice in his….visions.
"Helia, were you talking to me when I was sleeping?" Helia gives no answer. He merely keeps walking directly into the sunlight. He maintains his shining aureole of the sun.
Riven chooses not to press the matter any further because it doesn't matter. Those visions aren't real. He knows himself well enough to know that. The past is the past. He is a Specialist now; his mission is to kill a basilisk. He's not like Helia. There's nothing more than meets the eyes.
Helia turns his head as he walks. Riven is walking in the shadows. His skin has almost taken on a deathly shade of indigo. His bandaged hand begins to throb lightly like a heartbeat.
He smiles and thinks,
Now, I consider you my friend.
Author's Comments- After writing the campy fun (at least to me) that was my Jem and Winx Club crossover, I decided to return to writing something cryptic and a tad dark. Surprisingly, it was for Helia and Riven rather than for anyone in the Wizards of the Black Circle. I started writing this story after The Brightest Darkness was finished. But then…..I guess I got bored and other stories warranted my attention. I eventually came back to it but deleted and re-wrote what I had, except the quote that I use as a summary. Granted, the quote is perhaps better used as a foreshadowing device rather than a summary for this story. Originally, this story was supposed to be lighter and more humorous, but I just wasn't in the mood to write that.
I also began re-examining my previous beliefs I had on Riven regarding his past. I used to believe in what the wiki stated which was that he was abandon by his mother and had to fend for himself in the streets. Or something like that. However, it didn't have a citation and I couldn't recall any episodes once mentioning Riven's past. Maybe, it was in the comics, but I don't read the comics. I also haven't seen seasons one through three in quite a while, and the later seasons don't broach Riven's past either. I still haven't seen season seven, so it could be in there. But for this story, I decided to have "fun" and make up my own version to his past until the show disproves me, which it most certainly will considering the mature and maddening nature of Riven's past in this story.
In regards to Riven's mother, I always believed she had Darcy's face, Musa's complexion, and Riven's hair color. I know there's a theory, at least How I Met Your Mother has led me to believe there is one, about how individuals can be attracted to people who are like their parents in some cases. I wanted to incorporate that theory, which might explain why he dated Darcy and later Musa. At least in a physical sense. His mother's true form is based upon "The Stag" from Hannibal, which is certainly based upon a certain mythical creature. I also made a few other references to Ancient Greek and Roman mythologies, but I don't want to point them out. The title of the story came directly from the last three words that Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty utters in Blade Runner.
I might have written Helia a bit too creepily in this story. He sort of comes across as Anthy Himemiya from Revolutionary Girl Utena throughout the story. However, I want to believe there's something more to the sensitive artist with super strength. Like Riven, there's not much known about his past. He could be from Linphea due to his connection to Princess Krystal, or not. He does have some family like Saladin who could be his uncle or grandfather depending on which dub you listen to. There's stuff in the comics about his skills, but there's nothing about why he left art school and returned to Red Fountain. Again, like Riven, I like to believe there's something more to him. I'll probably write a companion story detailing a certain event in Helia's past.