Kilometres and kilometres of passageway. She could no longer navigate (save by the sight of her captor's retreating back) the tunnels, for the most part, unlit.
The sound of his boots on the ground, the friction of his coat against the walls when the pathway narrowed. The numberless branches he ignored, or, conversely, chose, in their journey. It may have been calculated to disorient her. She could have laughed. She was disoriented enough from the newest sight the Witchblade had decided to share.
It was all she could do to follow his lead, the long skirt of her gown wadded, some into each hand, to prevent her tripping. And her perception stepping in and out of another time, another tunnel, another her.
Disoriented, she laughed silently at the word, before the change again washed over her. It was to be one of those times, she realized, where space and time seemed to touch all points, and she lost control of the portent completely, as much a part of it as her own life.
Vicious sounds, war sounds. The pungent smell of humanity gone feral. The acridness of torches burnt in closed spaces. Tight stone all around, seized by a claustrophobia she had never before encountered, she moved toward the light--toward the sounds of death and attack, convinced the light would yield freedom.
Her body coldly sweat from parts encased in armor, the sweat running down her skin, causing involuntarily trembling when it met with exposed flesh. Half or more of her armor had been removed. No, she knew, not removed, taken away. She would ask for it back. She would ask A man's face sprang to mind, his brows dark and forbidding. She knew the face, his name, yet she did not. Still, she would go to him for help--if they had not killed him.
She rounded the corner. The lights so bright she threw an arm up to hold back the glare. This man stood, at the end of a warrior's gauntlet, either the prize, or the punisher. Disembodied arms and legs, maces and battle-axes flew up and down along the gauntlet, accompanied by men's cries and screams. Here was the death; here was the moment before resurrection. Here was what she must do: die.
One second and she would have stepped into the gauntlet. Something--someone--lifted her right hand to his face. The Asian man she had seen what seemed so long ago--before the theatre explosion, after the theatre explosion, during the theatre explosion. There was no before, no after, no during, no was or will be. Only, the Asian man.
He took her hand and she turned to him, the gauntlet and the other men--the dark eyebrows--melting away, gone. He lifted her hand to his chin, letting the back of her knuckles rest just below the front of his jaw. He had been speaking the entire time, but it was only this she heard, "all connected," he said, his wistful smile allowing her to focus, and again see the now, the retreating back of Connor O'Barragh's leather coat, and find her way on through the tunnels.
Though he did not speak again, and though he became more transparent, less a part of the now, the Asian man did not leave her until the light coming in was, indeed, from above ground, and she and Connor, as a pair, began to ascend.
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...to be continued...
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Disclaimer: I do not own Witchblade, nor the rights to its characters. Seek out Warner Bros. and/or Top Cow if you want to talk to people that matter. I'm not in their employ, and I'm not making any money off of their creation. But I am having a good time with it. ;)
by: Neftzer (c)2003
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