Well well well. Here we are back at chapter 3, and that means that there's some more suffering for Fomalhaut. Hope you guys enjoy it.
Thanks to all of my reviewers. I love all of you guys.
"I see. Then may I ask a favor of you?"
He looked up at her, his head inclined quizzically.
"My name is Echidna, the Witch of Greed. I am the witch that wishes to know everything in the world. So won't you tell me your story? If you do so, maybe I can help you with your memories?" She knew that she couldn't really, but he didn't and thus her offer was genuine to him. That made it genuine to her too.
For a long moment he said nothing. Then he opened his mouth and began speaking.
"I've never considered myself to be some kind of special individual…"
Arc 1: The Promise that I made
Fomalhaut knew that the other woman wanted something more than just a story from him. Or at least he was sure of it at first. However as he continued speaking to her, telling her of the memories that he was still sure were accurate, his certainty of that fact started slowly diminishing. She was simply too interested in everything he said. The way her eyes shined was almost disturbing. In fact he was sure that should he be any other person, he would have been disturbed, but he, Fomalhaut Anderson, felt nothing.
He finished his story at the point where his memories started feeling…false. He couldn't explain it really, not even after the woman, Echidna, pleaded with him to tell her everything in the greatest detail, but when his story reached the point of the whale there came a small, almost subconscious feeling. Like the ephemeral remains of a soft voice whispering that perhaps his eyes had deceived him.
He clutched his head as images assaulted his mind. Watching the battle with the whale, stitching a dying man, Theresia screaming and charging the pale monster in the sky...the crunching of massive teeth…
No, that wasn't right, he was sure he remembered there being another creature there. A girl with...sapphire eyes? That's right, a girl with sapphire eyes that…did what? She…was she even there in the first place? He struggled to remember.
The witch of greed watched him, an amused smile on her face.
"She couldn't have been back from home, which means she's from this place, but all I remember is the whale and stumbling here. You're clearly not her, and she wasn't present during the whale confrontation. That means that she's from my home…" he mumbled to himself slowly, his hands clutching his head, as he tried to concentrate.
To outside eyes, the eyes of the white haired witch, it seemed as if he was trying to fight something off, and losing.
"However all of my memories from my home are clear, which means she isn't from there…all my memories of the battle are muddled, but she wasn't from there either…so…" it felt like he was on the cusp of remembering something, but it always slipped away. It slipped away with the soft voice of a platinum haired monster.
He shook his head, trying to remember. The attempt was in vain. In the end he found himself unable to bear the pain of the memories any longer and turned back towards the present.
The dark eyes of a white haired woman stared back at him, gleaming with a hunger for more. A greed for whatever he could tell her.
"That was quite an interesting story Fomalhaut Anderson," she put an emphasis on his name, for some reason she seemed to be unhealthily fascinated in everything he told her. The more he shared with her, the more her smile grew until it stretched from ear to ear. Fomalhaut had shared his whole life story.
For a moment there was a silence as the two regarded each other.
"You said you could give me answers if I told you what you wanted to know." Once more he didn't ask a question, but merely stated a fact. Facts were true after all, facts couldn't be twisted. Facts couldn't deceive him.
"Of course, I would be happy to guide you to the answers that you seek, for I am truly fascinated to see what path you will take." She gestured at the table. There was a large black book lying on it. Fomalhaut noticed with a sense of uncaring apathy that the book hadn't been there before.
"This is the Gospel, a book of my own creation," said Echidna, answering a question that he didn't ask. "It will surely lead you, without any hesitation, towards your desired outcome. You should be grateful you know, only two other people have something like this."
He looked at her. The witch had a strange expression in her eyes, one that Mal wasn't too familiar with, but if he had to describe it, or if he had the capability to, he would have said that she looked like a cat. A cat that had found a fat canary with a broken wing.
He looked at the book. "The gospel of the witch, what a cruel joke," he said softly.
His hand clasped around it.
Re: Zero: The Prideful Plague
Chapter 3: My Sins Judge
"Hi Dona, what are you doing?" a voice came from the side. The voice was childish, and filled with curiosity. However it wasn't the same curiosity that filled the voice of the witch of greed. This curiosity seemed innocent and pure compared to the insatiable light that shined in Echidna's eyes.
Fomalhaut turned toward the source of said voice, and beheld a young girl. She had short, deep green hair that was decorated with a wreath of blue flowers. Her feet were bare and she wore a simplistic white dress that seemed to make a perfect contrast to her tanned skin. Innocent red eyes gazed at him as the newcomer looked around curiously. She looked about ten years of age and struck the image of one of those girls that had stepped out off the pages of a fairy tale.
Despite the childish innocence that surrounded her, there was something else. The same something that exuded from Echidna as well. Fomalhaut knew it was there, he even knew that it was oppressive, terrifying, and vomit inducing.
However he only knew this rather than felt it.
He knew it the same way that a man looking at a series of names on a monument knows that the people written upon it no longer walk the earth. He knew it in the same way a doctor that is given the report of a patient they will never see knows that the patient is incurable. He didn't react except for simply staring into the crimson eyes of the innocent girl that was not an innocent girl. He didn't retch or go mad, he didn't claw his own throat. He felt nothing.
She ran over to stand in front of him, before suddenly stopping and turning towards Echidna, "Hi Dona, long time no see! What are you up to? Are you planning something?"
The witch of greed took a sip from her cup, before setting it down and smiling in a way that seemed just a little off. "Oh, Typhon? What are you doing here? Did you want to ask my dear guest a question?"
The newly named Typhon nodded eagerly and turned towards Fomalhaut. He looked into her eyes with his empty black ones. She didn't seem to notice, walking over and looking closely at him.
"Mmm, I wanted to introduce myself but Dona ruined it for me, the bully." She pouted, puffing out her cheeks in a manner that was so adorable that, had it been anyone else, they would have been caught off guard by her charm. Fomalhaut simply continued staring, a blank and empty expression on his face.
"You too are a witch," he said, looking at her. His black eyes didn't change and his unnaturally still voice persisted. A dead man spoke, pretending to be alive.
"Mhm," she agreed happily, nodding proudly, "I'm Typhon, the Witch of Pride, and you're hmm…" she put a finger to her chin and seemed to think, looking at him all the while. "Hmm, and you are…Mal. Mal, that's right!" She smiled happily.
"If you wish to call me that, then I cannot stop you," said the young man. He remembered his few friends from back home. Jonathan, Atticus. They had called him Mal as well.
"Hey Mal, I've wanted to ask you this ever since Dona invited you," asked Typhon, taking a step closer to him, "Are you an evildoer?"
Hearing that question, Echidna's eyes glittered with a raw emotion that was far, far too intense to be mere curiosity.
"Are you asking me if I am a person that commits evil deeds, or if I am a person that has sinned in a way that pertains to the belief of a certain religious sect?"
Typhon tilted her head, seeming to be slightly confused by the fact that he answered her question with another question. Echidna simply watched them both with fascination.
"But aren't both of those things bad?" the girl asked. Not waiting for his answer this time, she continued, smiling innocently again. "That's right, both of them are bad, so are you a bad guy Mal?"
Fomalhaut felt something flicker inside of him. It was so faint he almost didn't feel it, a mere wisp of white ash flaking off of a cold and long abandoned fireplace. A forgotten relic of emotion. He didn't even recognize it for what it was. Confusion? Amusement? Hatred?
His empty black eyes stared at the Witch of Pride.
"That question is easier to answer," the black eyes focused slightly, "and that answer is yes. I am. I am guilty of a horrendous crime." He paused for a moment, then continued, his voice just as emotionless as before.
"I lost the life of a person who I had wanted to save."
"Hmm, that sounds pretty bad," Typhon nodded. Suddenly smiling once more, she held out her hand to him. "But what if it wasn't really your fault? Can I check?" she gave a toothy smile, her eyes closed and head tilted slightly.
It was the perfect image of an innocent question. A simple request of a handshake, made by an innocent young girl. And yet...and yet Fomalhaut knew. He knew that this was not an innocent question, just like he knew that Typhon was not an innocent young girl.
He looked at her outstretched hand with a sort of medical apathy. Small, five fingers, tanned skin, a bracelet decorated with flowers to match the wreath in her hair. Delicate. Almost Frail. So easily breakable.
He looked back up at her, and slowly held out his own arm. It trembled uncontrollably as he raised it. There was a ringing in his ears, and the further his hand reached out the louder it got.
Dimly he registered Echidna with his eyes. The Witch of Greed sipped tea out of her cup with amusement.
The shaking got more and more feverish as he brought his hand closer and closer to Typhon's open palm. It was uncontrollable, and he watched almost with an amused detachment, the only thing he could muster, as his arm spasmed.
The ringing had become so loud that it drowned out everything. The sound of the breeze, the clinging of Echidna's tea set, his own breathing.
He held the hand of Pride within his own.
"Sin can only be repaid with pain," invoked the young girl with a wreath of flowers in her hair.
The ringing in his ears, that had reached such a crescendo before, disappeared completely and utterly. So did the trembling of the hand that Typhon held. Both symptoms had suddenly just…vanished. Almost as if they had been judged and declared unneeded.
For a fraction of a second Fomalhaut felt a sort of biological curiosity toward the sudden phenomena. However, very quickly his attention was shifted to something else. It wasn't something too strange, or too unnatural, and yet it was just different enough from what he considered to be normal.
His other hand, the one that was clutching his pistol, was still trembling. So was the arm that was attached to that hand. So was the rest of him. Every part trembled except the arm in Typhon's grasp.
He became aware of a certain sensation racing through his body. It was muted, much like everything else was, ever since…ever since…
He shook his head, trying to clear away the painful memories, and that's when he recognized the sensation. Much like his memories, it was something that hurt. He was feeling pain.
It wasn't bad, mind you, nothing that would make him scream, cry, or even grit his teeth. It was merely a sense of small stings all over his body. Like prickles from a thorny bush, or a medical needle.
The interesting thing about it, he noticed, was that he only started experiencing it when he held Typhon's hand. And yet the arm that she held wasn't feeling the same pain. In fact, it wasn't feeling anything at all.
Slowly he moved his head to the side.
His arm wasn't there. In its place was a short stump. The reason his arm no longer trembled, no longer felt anything at all, was because it was no longer attached to his body.
There was no blood either. No messy rips or mangled bones. His body simply…ended. The veins inside, and the flow of blood within those veins, ended at that part and didn't spill because that was the end of his organism. His arm was taken from him.
It was taken as compensation for his sins.
Once again, like before, there was a shattering sound in his mind. This time it sounded different. Whereas before it was as if something whole shattered into pieces, this time it was as if those pieces were ground into dust.
He moved his stump curiously. There was not a single ounce of phantom pain. He shook it a bit. Not a drop of blood stained the grass under his feet.
Slowly, his eyes turned back to Typhon. His arm was held in her hands. His severed arm.
"Oh, it didn't hurt! That means you're not a bad guy Mal! That's great!" She seemed so genuinely happy. Her crimson eyes were filled with innocent warmth.
Fomalhaut felt pinpricks again. Not of physical pain, but something internal. Perhaps once he would've understood it as fear, and would've screamed out in horror. He would've scrambled back, shrieking and blubbering.
But the being that sat in front of Typhon no longer had the capabilities of feeling fear. It existed in a state of relapse. A sort of limbo where one emotion is so completely overloaded that it simply ceases to function. Or rather, it concentrates solely upon the cause of said emotion and ignores all others.
So Fomalhaut did not scream out in fear. He did not scramble back. He did not beg for mercy. He simply tilted his head quizzically, twin lightless voids, known as eyes among those more human, boring into the girl with a wreath of blue flowers.
"You amputated my arm. In a mere second, without any surgical tools, and without causing any blood loss." Once more there was no question. Not a how, not a what for, and certainly not a why. It was just a cold fact.
"Mhm, mhm. I wanted to make sure you weren't an evildoer, and it looks like you're a good person. Though I wonder why you said you weren't?" She seemed confused, as if she couldn't comprehend the idea of a good person believing themselves to be evil.
Good and evil, black and white. It was such a naive way of looking at things, Fomalhaut mused to himself, still staring with an abstract gaze at his severed arm. This view was not something he'd expect from a witch. It was too…pure. On the other hand, witches were supernatural, and until today he did not even believe in such things.
To think that his whole life his eyes had been deceiving him…
The pistol in his hand cluttered to the ground as his remaining palm came up to grasp his skull. He clutched at his scalp, trying to force the apparition out. The horrific visage of the beautiful girl with platinum hair.
"Mal, are you ok? You look like you're in pain…" he felt a small and soft hand caress his hair, as Typhon stood over him in concern, having taken a step toward him the moment he showed signs of agony. She gently placed his arm back in his lap, trying to comfort him.
He grit his teeth in pain and shook his head yet again, before once more looking up. "You'll have to forgive me Typhon," he said slowly, not trusting himself not to break down unless he carefully thought through each word. "I was just remembering a promise that I made."
Typhon smiled happily. "Promises are important," she said, holding her finger in the air, as she took a step back. "It would be really bad if you didn't uphold it, you know?"
Echidna watched the encounter with fascination. She hadn't planned on Typhon appearing so suddenly, but if she was honest with herself, the sheer ecstasy she felt from the interactions between the two outweighed any potential misgivings she might've had. Typhon's innocent cruelty and the boy's despairing apathy made for such a delightful mix. There were so many answers to discover, so much satisfaction to be gained, so much love to find.
The effect of Typhon's authority on the boy was interesting, sure, but expected. His reaction though, was sublimely unique. Or rather, it was the lack of reaction that was so captivating. Typhon was the second witch, or rather third, based on what he had told her, that the boy had met in such a short time, and yet he didn't react to her. There was a bare hint of something so faint she couldn't even identify it in his eyes, but other than that he didn't do or say anything. Even when he clearly saw that his arm had been removed, there was only a sort of clinical professionalism there.
Echidna wanted to see more of him, needed to analyze him, desired to understand him, and wished to learn about him. How would he react further? Would he even react at all? What stimuli would she need to finally provoke a breaking point for him?
She was curious. She was greedy. And so she watched, she watched as the boy and the witch talked to each other.
"Promises are important," said Typhon, holding up a finger in the air and taking a step back. "It would be really bad if you didn't uphold it, you know?"
And suddenly, that did provoke a reaction. A reaction so striking that Echidna felt not just curiosity, but even a flicker of surprise run through her.
The boy's head whipped up, and his second arm clamped on to Typhon's in a mad grip, causing her fellow witch to suddenly take yet another step backwards.
It was the first emotion she had ever seen him demonstrate ever since she had laid eyes upon her. The very first change in expression, the first twitch in the face muscles beneath the skin. The first indication of life.
He focused on the girl with a look of wide eyed rapture. Out of nowhere, hysterical laughter filled the clearing as the broken being directed a look full of insane delight towards the Witch of Pride. A manic grin decorated his face, the boy nodding rapidly at Typhon's last words.
"Yes, yes, you're right." he whispered out hoarsely, his monotone voice replaced with a manic glee. "Of course you're right. You understand completely. It would be really bad if I didn't uphold it, wouldn't it?" He gripped her tightly, as an unholy light shone from his once dead eyes. "I must go fulfill my promise immediately!"
He went to stand up, and his severed arm fell out of his lap and onto the grass. His eyes looked down at the appendage, and he was once more back to his cold emptiness. The ecstatic zealotry vanished into nothingness, as if it was violently suppressed by either fear, something Echidna found to be unlikely, or, and this was a far more fascinating possibility, sheer and utter willpower.
How wondrous it was, that he still had will, even after meeting that vain woman.
"You can't go, Mal!" pouted Typhon, seeing how he stood up. "How are you going to fulfill your promise all by yourself?"
The boy stopped short, and his, once more, dead gaze slowly trained on Typhon, staring at her with an intensity that was, in a way, so much more powerful than his previous craze.
Echidna merely observed. This was far too fascinating not to see for herself. She was quite proud of her decision of giving the boy her gospel. She couldn't wait to see his struggle. She wanted to see it all for herself. Everything he experienced, everything he would grow to cherish, everything he would feel, she wanted to experience it all. The possibilities of his story. She would write it all in her Tome of Wisdom.
Once again, the boy extended his hand to Typhon, his voice as calm as it was before. The husk spoke. "Then, Witch of Pride, I ask you this. Will you help me?"
For the first time in four hundred years, Echidna felt total and utter shock.
"Oh? You want a contract? Hmm, Dona's usually the one who tries to get contracts...I'm not quite sure what to do…" the green haired girl before him tilted her head slightly, a bit confused. Out of the corner of his eye Fomalhaut noticed Echidna's expression, or rather the emotion in her eyes, morph from surprise into an almost...predatory smile.
"If you're making a contract with a witch, doesn't that make you a bad guy Mal?" The most horrifying thing about her, Fomalhaut thought abstractly, was that she was completely genuine about the question.
Perhaps he should have been disturbed. Maybe he should have questioned himself, or at least attempted to organize his thoughts in a way that would at least resemble normalcy. He didn't do either of those things however. Subconsciously, or perhaps even consciously he, like Macbeth, already knew he was doomed. What a joke, he thought to himself. He too, like the Shakespearean character, was damned by the witches.
"A contract is a written or spoken agreement, especially one concerning employment, sales, or tenancy, that is intended to be enforceable by law." he spoke, his tone dead and emotionless. Yet another textbook definition from memory. Though he didn't know it himself, this tone would become his normal way of speaking in the future, creeping into his conversations like a disease. He would be forever haunted by it. One of the many reminders of how broken he was.
"By its very nature, a contract assumes a creation of an agreement where both parties receive something they want, and/or need. It is also done willingly. Therefore, if both parties agree to said contract, then neither side has the right to judge the other," he explained to Typhon. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought about how surreal this was. He was explaining what a contract was to a witch.
Typhon's brow scrunched up as she thought carefully. It was almost adorable, until he remembered who it was that stood before him. Finally she asked him a simple question. A question so obvious when making a contract that it was nearly impossible to create one without it.
It was this question that would forever define him.
"Well, what do you want then?" asked the red eyed girl.
The two stared at each other, one gaze full of youthful innocence, and curiosity. The other one was black and hollow. Not so much a gaze, as a tunnel into a cold and cruel pit, at the bottom of which lay something inherently and irreparably damaged.
Echidna watched both, rapturous fascination concealed by coy amusement.
Fomalhaut was silent for a single moment. To him it stretched into eternity. A thousand flashes ran through his mind, disjointed and random, not arranged in any manner resembling coherency. Hours of study, a school bully tumbling down the stairs, a cold academic advisor informing Mr. Anderson that his child was "problematic", filling out college applications, playing with his sister, burying his sister, arguing with Jonathan, debating with Atticus, tests, homework, Mrs. Anderson crying, a whale in the sky…
"I need a way to fulfill my promise."
Typhon grinned. "Okay, but in response you must take me outside. It's boring here."
There was a slight giggle. "My, how childish of you Typhon, though perhaps that would be inaccurate since you are a child. Still, it is quite rude to insult my home like that, you know. My heart is quite tender, and could be hurt so easily..." Echidna remarked with calm amusement on her face.
Typhon turned around and stuck her tongue out at her. "Beh," was the dignified response of the Witch of Pride.
Turning back to Fomalhaut, with a happy smile on her face, she waved her hands animatedly. "Well, Mal, will you take me with you so I can see the world? Will you, will you?"
Fomalhaut nodded his head, giving his answer. It seemed to fill Typhon with utter delight, and she ran around him in a circle, her wreath of flowers fluttering in the breeze. Looking at them pained him. A memory flashed in his mind. A silent slab of slate, lying coldly under the rain. A bouquet of blue flowers in front of it. A name ingrained upon it. Three figures standing before it. A fourth lying under.
The name on the Tombstone, Theresia Anderson, mocked him. It spited him for his failure. The hated bouquet of blue flowers withered in the pouring rain.
His expression didn't change in the slightest.
Typhon stopped in front of him, and suddenly became serious. "Ok Mal, I'm going to give you something really cool, then you'll be able to fulfill your promise with its help." A strange, almost unearthly glow filled the space of her right hand. Looking at it made Fomalhaut feel nauseous. It was a churning queasiness in his stomach. Not fear, but a disturbed recoil that he had to forcefully quash.
The glow ebbed away after mere seconds and a small box appeared in its place, held gingerly in her small palm. It was black, ornately decorated with gold trims, and had almost a touch of purple. Or perhaps that was the miasma ebbing from it. Typhon handed it over to him, and he took hold of it with his remaining hand.
She opened the lid, allowing him to look inside. It was a squirming mass of...something. Purple and amorphous, it shifted and writhed like a living being. Ghostly noises, obscene and unnatural pounded through his mind as he gazed upon it.
Detachedly, he remembered the Cthulhu Mythos and wondered if this was what Randolph Carter felt when gazing upon Nyarlathotep. This sudden, paling realization that he was looking at something inherently alien to everything that a human was and everything that humanity knew.
"What do I do with this," he examined the wriggling thing with curiosity. Typhon tilted her head at his question and brought her finger up to her chin.
"Hmm...I dunno. When Typhon got it, she just poked it, you know?" the green haired girl said, referring to herself in third person.
For a second Fomalhaut didn't do anything. It wasn't hesitation, but rather a sort of interest that caused him to pause. The type of wonder that causes one to pause at the border of a new moment, and anticipate it with excitement. Though, of course, Fomalhaut felt neither anticipation, excitement, or wonder. So he brought the box to his chest, and pressed it to his heart.
"And thus the deal is made…" remarked Echidna.
A torrent of blood erupted from Fomalhaut's stump. With it, chunks of flesh burst forth and began forming. New veins growing out, white shapeless chunks coming together into bones, muscles morphing into being, skin wrapping itself around the new arm, even the fabric of his clothes weaved to form a layer around the brand new appendage.
He looked at it carefully, before flexing the new flesh-thing. Five fingers, perfect skin, working nerves. He dug his fingernails into the palm. Working pain receptors activated for the first time.
Without a word he looked down at his previous arm. Bending down he unclasped his flamethrower from it, and attached it to the new one.
He felt it, the power inside of him. It burned through his body, and felt as it ate away at what made him...him. Or at least it tried to, for it found that there was nothing left to take. The monster with platinum hair had taken all there was. His whole being filled with agony, and at the same time a searing fire. A burning heat that engulfed him, burning hotter and hotter with every moment.
He grit his teeth and fell to one knee, but not a sound escaped his lips.
He became one with that heat, determined to win against its immolating blaze that boiled, melted and turned him into cinders from within his own body. Defiant against its corruption until the end. For it was that feeling, and the heat itself, that allowed him nothing else. It attempted to burn away his mind, but was rebuffed and doused into cold steel. It attempted to scorch his soul, but was suppressed and forced into fuel, it attempted to destroy his body, but was beaten back by ironclad willpower.
In the end, he won against it, and took it for himself.
"Thank you for your gift Typhon," he growled out as he stood tall. His eyes ignited, a fire burning inside his black orbs.
"I will fulfill my promise. This I swear in the name of Pride"
"Love...him" whispered the shadow.
The two witches and the male that had, until a moment ago, been human, turned all at the same time. Fomalhaut noticed how Echidna frowned in distaste upon seeing the kneeling woman who had not been there a moment earlier.
"Oh, it's Tella! Tella's here," cheered Typhon, waving her hands in the air.
The shadowy woman was saturated in wisps of the purple miasma that he had felt on the box. It was so potent that it wafted off her, and covered her body in a dark shawl. No, it was more like that the woman exuded, oozed this miasma, this feeling of sickness off of her. It was utterly terrifying and monstrous to behold. She felt like an abominable, vile, all powerful creature that could envelop the world in her shadow if she wished for it.
And she was crying.
Weeping quietly, repeatedly whispering one thing, and one thing only. Over and over, without stop, she would repeat this phrase, ignoring the others around her. Tears falling from her eyes, and her soft bell-like voice wavering with pain as sobs wracked her form, she called out again and again.
"I love him... I love him... I love him…"
Fomalhaut found himself approaching her. Perhaps he shouldn't have, in fact he was sure that any sane person would have run on sight of her, but he found himself unable to. Instead of fear, a different feeling emerged. It was just as heavy and damning, just as painful to bear.
Pity?
He stood in front of her now, this shadowy woman. Up close he could make out another feature behind the crawling purple mist. She had silver hair.
"I love him… I love him… I love him…"
"You lost someone precious to you as well." Yet again, he didn't ask a question. Merely stated a truth.
No, it wasn't pity that he was feeling, he realized. It was empathy.
She stopped and looked up at him. She had purple eyes. They brimmed with tears.
"...I love him…"
He titled his head to the side, considering the way she phrased that. "You speak in the present tense. You imply that the one you care for still lives. If so, then why do you cry?"
Another sob broke through. "I love him...I miss him...I want him back…"
Ah, so that's what it was then. He could understand that desire, even if he would never get his own. But maybe he could help this woman achieve hers. After all, he was a doctor, and doctors helped people.
"Is there anything I can do?"
This time she looked at him. Really looked at him, as if she saw him for the first time. He couldn't quite tell what she thought. She was too strange for him to even begin to even entertain the notion of understanding her after all.
"You...will help…?" she whispered softly. "Please...Find him...bring him to me...I love him...I love him…" She relapsed back into repetition, whispering the same phrase again and again.
Fomalhaut stared down at her, apathy in his eyes, pity in his soul, pain in his heart. "Of course."
He turned around and walked away.
Echidna observed the boy as he approached her, wondering what he would do. Pride was volatile, so perhaps she ought to handle this with care. Then again, she was far too curious about the changes within him to pass this opportunity up.
"I suppose I must thank you," he said quietly.
"Oh my, your words of praise make my maidenly heart flutter," she said coyly, feeling nothing at all.
He ignored her jab, simply watching her for a moment, as she returned the favor. The two sins gauging each other. Typhon, the hapless child, stood next to him, ignorant of anything that didn't concern her "judgement."
"Whether that gospel you gave me will be useful or not, is not something I know, but I am not one to remain in debt. I certainly do not wish to owe a being like you anything." He took a book out of his bag and placed it in front of her.
"You said you want to learn everything in the world. This isn't everything, but it's one of the stories from my home. As a witch, I think you'd enjoy it." He took a step back.
She looked at him, feeling her ever present curiosity greedily urging her to know more and more about him. He was far too interesting to just let go on even grounds. As his hostess in the castle of dreams, she really should let him off with a few parting words, shouldn't she?
"Whenever you want to come back, I'll be waiting here," she smiled, her black eyes boring into his. "I give you the right to take the trials of the sanctuary. When you understand the significance of that, come join me for a tea party."
He chuckled. It was a sad, inhuman sound.
"I will be satisfied: deny me this,
And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.
Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise is this?
Show! Show! Show!
Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart!"
Then he turned and walked away, Typhon following behind him. She didn't look at them as their footsteps faded, her eyes training on the book he gave her. Knowledge from another world...oh how wonderful this was. She wanted to learn all about that world, and through him, she would now begin.
She took the book he gave her in her hands, and read the title out loud.
"Macbeth"
Chapter end.
And so, Arc 1 is over. I hope you enjoyed. Follow, fav, and leave a review if you can.
Goodbye
