absorption
-the process of something absorbing or of being absorbed
-interception of radiant energy or sound waves
-entire occupation of the mind
I return to the Viper mansion at dawn.
I walk among the empty road, hands in my pockets, no weapon needed. I descend from my trip over bridges, taking transports for only half the way, walking my soles off. The road is a safe path in the midst of West Archeon. Only a fool would walk down their tower at dawn and attack a bypasser that is clearly silver. And they are too busy with themselves.
The lights beside me begin to buzz and glitter in their electronic, pale grace. The lanterns bow to me as I strut past them. When the world turns dark, the lights that guide the way shine in bright, celebrational colors. They are searchlights for the stupid and the proud.
A few moths and other, small black insects that haven yet died in the coming autumn air, flurry around the lanterns. They steal the light and throw their small, inconsequential ominous shadows down.
I stare past them.
The sky is gushing in grey, filled with deep red clouds spreading thin like a slit throat bubbling in a puddle of blood.
It's as bloody as the tiny splotches on the tip of my shoulder. The smallest hint of a day's work hidden under my jacket. Just for me to know they are there, a secret I don't have to share with anyone.
No one knows about the small dip of taint on me. And no one will ever know, because I am in full control and I am in full perfection.
I wouldn't murder anyone in the safety of their home in West Archeon. The buildings stand too vigilant and high. And even if I can count on cameras in the palace being controlled if needed, this is still a warzone of the elite and their mansions out here. They stay insides their homes, and you only walk inside their homes if you feel safe enough.
No, this was about something to close one more chapter of betrayal. One final arc for a botched coup, for a botched assassination. A botched takeover that has ended well, except for the fact that all the public enemies are still free. But a cog is simply one bit of machinery, even if it is an important one, just as a hand has five fingers.
Just like Blonos, like the red servants that made the spectacle convincing, just like every person that knew or doubted about the involvement of the rulers of this country, this one needed to be removed. Last week, it was an old man, and I disliked that I had to suffer through his memories before it was over. Half of them were warped and unreal, but still. This time, it was not a murder.
I didn't do anything to her. She just coincidentally slipped at the end of our discussion. The splotches come from her wrath. She spit on me. And even though the aim of a badly maimed woman at the end of a spiral staircase in East Archeon is not the greatest, she hit the side of my face, with a few straggling drops of her red spit sailing on my clothes.
Needless to say, somehow her body got hurt worse than a simple fall would normally inflict. It's boring work. There ought to be more than a few sentinels, lower nobles, or soldiers to take care of a red usually.
But they're spread a little thin right now. More than one front means more than one change of their respected posts and stations.
And I think I know why Elara makes me do this. She wants to keep me busy so my mood stays good.
I was promised many, many things, many many years ago. It was a promise made by a young woman that wanted to be queen, and it was a promise made to a young boy. I still wait for some of them to be held. Others have been satisfied, and that is the reason why I trust in her to come around soon enough. I do my job, I get rewards. That is an easy system.
It also helps that the family is so small we can't afford to lose anyone. We are few, rare, and we need to work as one to maintain our status, our power. And our rule build out of violence and blood. Of pain and tears. We cultivate the mistakes and those tears like plants in a garden.
It is getting frustrated some people are off-limit to hurt, to read, or to break. Most of the entourage that Samos drags behind him. His daughter as well. As if she isn't prancing around Whitefire with her brother or the Haven girl. And as if it means nothing if she barks and basks in her own glory. Luckily, in that case, I have access to my wife's faded memories. I know everything about her. How she walks, where she sleeps, what she used to like for breakfast. Used to. Now that the widow is away, my access is far more limited. Admittedly, her spiders and bugs were disgusting as her true self, but at least she had some useful intel if nothing else that made her slightly better than most women.
Men may insult me on a personal level, but with most women, it is something else. It's not that I hate all of them. Many of them rely on their looks. Our society is built around beauty, so in itself, it is what they should do.
But when you're able to read their minds, you notice that they are cruel beasts rather than the exquisite companions or clever creatures that they want to represent themselves as. They are as shallow as a footbath too, for the most part.
Beauty suddenly becomes void.
It is always a construct based on the most public opinion, and whatever the taste is, it also becomes void of that. Aesthetically pleasing things are as petty and prone to being compromised as anything else. And when there is nothing else in their heads for the most part, except their dangerously stinging self-esteem and their propelling ambition for their children.
Some are better than others, in so far that they are more than that. Some are brilliant thinkers, cunning politicians, and a few are born for greatness, they know how to take it.
One sits behind a throne right now. Two others are dead or imprisoned.
Most of the silver ladies are so bland and frustrating to read that they lose my interest fast. It's a reason why I never married, despite my flawless reputation. They'd have broken easily, but they would have been a waste of my time to break.
An easy example for my personal distaste in many women expects my arrival at the house.
Now that I pass past the fence and ignore the barking from the backyard, I see the small blinking of lights inside the mansion. The main hall is empty and boring as ever. Something stings in my nose. It's the neverending scent of animals spreading their excrements and dirt through the halls. No cleaning can ever get rid of it. When I am in charge here, I will ban them from letting the creatures roam around. Especially the mutts.
"There you are," a voice strums behind me. I don't need to turn around to know Adayne is nervous, agitated and scared. I can feel her weaving around me, and in the cloud of screams, hers are almost soft in vain tumbling falls, like strands of her being brushed and breaking off the head. "Samson, something terrible happened."
Adayne is a woman that has been complimented on her looks among her peers when she was young. A woman that was relatively gifted as a musician. Aged significantly now, her lipstick looks too shrill pink, her dark paced eyes are smudged in crocodile tears, and her chestnut hair is curled like burned splinters of wood.
She is the most annoying person you can think of, and no beauty or elegance or even use can justify her sheer presence. It nips at my mood. First her husband, now this. Today is not a particularly bright day.
"She had the audacity," Adayne sniffs. If she clutches her chest, she can't be any more dramatic than now. "She had the audacity to send someone to my home, Samson, you need to do something. We're friends, aren't we? I need friends, especially now."
You stupid vain bitch, I think, raising an eyebrow. What did you do now?
"I would prefer not to have that discussion here," I tell her out loud.
When the cat is away, the mice will play, my father used to tell us.
Of course, you can't leave her alone for more than a few hours, she will ruin anything.
It's the reason I don't tell her anything useful and exploit whatever I can- she is scared of me, she splutters secrets about every Viper, and I don't even have to lift one finger for it.
She only nods and follows suits, hands holding herself in her deep personal injury.
It took me a few days to settle in one of the guest rooms. If only because I want that chair in the big study, and so far the current inhabitants fight viciously over it. First it was my wife, threatening me about it, then it was her father. He even keeps changing the locks.
I'll sit in it soon again. Or maybe I will just smash it into firewood for my personal amusement.
I take my time to sit down, stretch my legs as long as possible under the table. And I don't offer her a seat.
"It's that-" she swallows an insult for effect. "Terrible person- Larentia. She sends people to our home, they said it was about wishing Deror the best for his ailment, but you know what they did afterward?"
"They clearly didn't attack you, or drag you away," I take a deep breath, rolling my shoulders. "So words."
"They reprimanded me for my lifestyle, and they threatened me in her name." She sniffs one more time, but when I don't react, she gives up. "They chased my family away."
"I'm sure your lover will come around again."
"They chased my daughter away," she says with force, and her eyes are a green and dark mahagony flicker of anger. It poofs away fast into the vast desert of her brain.
I tilt my head. "Then go visit her, what do I care?"
"She threatened me because I tell you everything," Adayne mutters. "And because Daliah must have snitched."
Did she snitch? Maybe just another round of spite. Or because her devotion to Larentia Viper makes her blind. She would tell that woman whatever she wanted to hear.
I have lost all interest in looking at her. Instead, I start to comb through the side of my hair with my fingers. "Your parties are enough for anyone to come around when the rest of the city keeps themselves together."
"No, no, that is not-" She starts.
"You know, it must be hard for someone like you, but patience is at the outmost important for both of us. You wait for your Viper husband to snuff it so you can remarry. Just give it a bit more time, you may." I let my hand sink on the armrest with force and the smacking sound makes her flinch. "I need patience because I will be the most important man in Whitefire in the future. I only married your daughter for political reasons and I granted her and her father an ascension. I can grant you the opposite if you don't stop. So, for both of us, I say we keep it low until we get what we want. You will not complain about Larentia Viper or anyone else."
She isn't done yet. "But Samson-"
"Go away," I tell her.
She runs off.
I'm alone in a house full of reeking animals and compromised thoughts. Maybe it is time to call it a day and start better, new, tomorrow.
When I change out of the spotted bloody shirt, a dusty small jar sits in between the folded clothes. The moth inside is dried, crippled, and dead.