Author's notes: Get Kleenex. I command you to get Kleenex.
P.S. Magus, I found out, tranlasts literally as "magic." Creative name for your mage-class character, ne?
"I don't think you
Trust
In my
Self-righteous suicide.
I cry
When angels deserve to
DIIIIEEEEEE!!!"
-System of a Down, "Chop Suey"
~*~*~*~
Dressed in black, alone, I sneak out of the palace. I don't want Janus to see me. I take the Skyway down to the ground and I run through the blizzard swift as a deer. I kneel, pulling out the knife, and slice both wrists open.
The snow melts from my warm blood. Hot tears spring from my eyes and freeze on my face. My nose runs, forming a layer of snot- ice above my lips. I wipe it away, leaving a bloody trail on my face. I feel a mind near mine, one that merely sits and thinks, rather than reaching out and grabbing things. The darkness envelops me, and I collapse. The last thing I hear is, "Are you okay?"
~*~*~*~
I open my eyes. I am... alive? No. This cannot be. I am dead. I have to be dead; I want to be dead. Dead dead dead. I inhale a lungful of unclean, slightly stale, but nonetheless welcome air. I open my eyes. The entire room is brown and gritty in the oily lamplight. A curtain moves across the far wall. A child walks in, bearing a tray with some sort of soup on it. I inhale the scent and my stomach rumbles. I moan, then try to talk, but no words come out. I attempt to sit up, but as soon as raise my head off the pillow it falls down again. I feel as if the bones were plucked right out of my body, leaving me a useless, fleshy blob. The child turns around, miraculously not spilling the soup.
"MOMMY! THE ENLIGHTENED ONE'S NOT MOVING! I THINK IT'S DEAD! WHAT DO I DO NOW?" I wince. The child's boisterous shouts are very different from Janus's sullen mumbles. The child's mother comes in, throwing back the curtain to reveal half-dozen grimy children and a man fixing a crossbow around a small fire.
I attempt to greet her, but it comes out a wheeze. "Shh, don't try to talk. You've lost a lot of blood. I'm Shana, my husband Biron found you, and the yeller is Tess. You may meet everyone else later." She places one hand low on my back and the other behind my head and lifts me into a sitting position. I fall sideways, and she catches me and leans me against the dirt wall. "Te-ess. Our guest wants the soup."
Shana spoons the soup into my mouth as she chats up a storm. "When Koles, the eldest one, on the far right, found you there was quite an argument between him and his father. Koles wanted to save you and return you for a ransom, and my husband wanted to leave you. Guess who won?" I can feel my mind grow clearer. I pick up the surface of her mind. She is warm and caring and concerned. I drink of it, and feel better. "When they brought you home with their harebrained scheme, I wouldn't hear of it. We'd have the entire kingdom down our throats. So, soon as you're better, you're off." She looks at me. "All better?" I nod.
"Schala." I tell her my name. Lifting my hands up, I see the black thread they used to sew up my wounds. I focus, sewing them up with my mind. I reach under my pants and pull out my dagger to cut off my stitches. Shana gasps as I pull the thread out of unharmed flesh. "I was trying to kill myself. I am sorry if I have troubled you. I'll go now." I stand up and immediately fall on my face.
"Even magic-users must rest, my lady." She helps me lay back on the straw mattress. I close my eyes and slip into the most restful sleep I have had in years.
~*~*~*~
"My lady, a man is here to see you." I sit up and rub my forehead to rid myself of this headache. Perhaps I tried too hard last night.
"Ungh, I'm not here." I lay back down.
"He appears very dangerous, my lady." Dalton? No.
"Stall. I'll escape. I am not going back. I'll need different clothes." I change into the smelly, ragged garments she holds out to me. I pull out my dagger and creep to the door, ignoring my body's protests.
I look to both sides and dart out, listening with my mind for the presence of an Enlighten One. To the left! I turn right, speeding myself up with a spell. I hid behind a fossilized tree root and catch my breath. The Enlightened One is close. I peer around and see the prophet. Oh, no! He'll know where I am headed! I run full speed as far away from him as possible. I turn right, then left, then sort of slanted left, heading down. He would expect me to go up, but I will go down and lose him.
I pay such close attention to the prophet's inaccessible mind I forget to watch where I am headed. I turn down a dead end. All that is down this corridor is someone's home. I run into it, ducking behind the curtain that divides it into rooms.
"Just what do you..." the owner protests.
"I am hiding from an Enlighten One." Among the Earthbound, the Enlighten Ones are considered oppressors and the enemy. Aid is given, no questions asked. The man's wife and their teenaged daughter nod. They pull the curtain around me and the girl pulls out a knife from under her bed and hides it under her dress.
Magus stands outside. His mind crushes mine. No way is he my baby brother. "I am looking for a young woman, about twenty years old."
"We have but one daughter, and she is of fourteen," the man explains.
"The woman I look for is my sister. She has disguised herself as one of you, and wears a glowing pendant." I reach up and touch my pendant. Did they see? Oh, what a fool I am. "She carries a dagger made of ivory and is barefoot." They all shake their heads and block the doorway. A spider crawls up my back. "She ran into your house and said, "I am hiding from an Enlightened One." You then hid her behind this curtain." The curtain is pulled back, revealing my huddled form.
"Stay back!" I hold the dagger in front of me. I leap forward to drive the knife into him, and he knocks me back with a bolt of lightning. I drop my dagger and grab my heart. I will it to beat steadily. I force my charred flesh to become smooth and white once more. Magus holds his hand out.
"Don't make me hurt you, Schala," he says gently. I freeze as his hand brushes a strand of hair out of my face. He takes both my hands between his. "Together, we will win. You will be free. Let me help you, just once, Sis. I owe you so much."
"Liar," I hiss. The girl with the knife charges, and Magus stops her in mid-air. She falls to floor and does not move.
"Sis, if you continue on your path, Lavos will consume you. And then you shall destroy the world." His eyes blaze truth. My hands loosen their grip on the dagger. One reaches towards his hood. I rip it off; revealing a face lined with pain. I look into his ruby eyes, and I look carefully and the mud clears and I see the odd combination of kindness and cruelty I have seen in my little brother.
"NO!" I bring my knife across his chest. Something inside me prevented my hand from driving it downward into his heart.
"Shhh..." and the world turns black.
~*~*~*~
I don't know anything anymore. I'm okay. I don't know anything. I'm dead it doesn't matter. "Schala, you up?" Something's sitting on me. "Did Magus hurt you? If he hurt you I'll kill him! I'll make his head explode! I'll... I'll... turn him into a frog! And then I'll make Alfador eat him." Ooowwwwww....
"Janus?" Am I back at the palace? Are you okay? How did I get here? I open my eyes. The same oily, dim lamplight as before. "Janus? How did you get here?" I don't try to sit up. The lump on my lap shifts and digs its claws into me. I winch. Janus picks up his cat.
"Me and Alfador followed you. Then we hid. It smells in here. Everyone's asleep now, so I came out. I don't trust the prophet. Do you?" I was so certain... now I... everything's different.
"I... don't know." I felt him... but... it can't be... No. I will not accept it.
"Did he hurt you? When you ran out I couldn't follow you 'cause I would get caught, but I saw them carry you back in."
"Them who?"
"Magus and Shana." Janus lies down next to me. "Why did you hurt yourself?" No, Janus, please don't anything Mother Dalton Magus anyone anything just not that. "I saw you, with the knife. You cut your wrists and I screamed and screamed and someone came and I hid. You were smiling. Why were you smiling?" Tears run down his cheeks. "I was scared. They thought you were dying. Why didn't you heal yourself? Why did you run away? Did he hurt you? Are you scared? Is it Magus"?
"My heart hurts." I sit up and hold him in my lap.
"Why?" I hug him and cry. I'll never leave you again.
Why?
Even now, I don't know why it matters, dead or alive, anymore. Janus will better off without me to take care of. I'm scared, not brave. So scared. "It's okay. I'm okay." I'm not okay. I haven't been, ever. "Don't worry, everything is okay." Everyone's dead. Everyone and I killed them... "Shh." Janus...
"It's not okay! Stop lying to me! Why do you hurt yourself?" Janus pulls away from me and stands up at his full height, looking up at me. "Why do you want to die?"
"Janus... Why do you think I want to die? I don't, and if anyone ever says..."
"Don't lie to me! Why?" He cries again, and hugs himself. "Why do you want to leave me?"
"Janus, I don't want to leave you. I love you." I don't want to leave him, but I want to die, I want to die so much...
"Then why?" He stamps his foot. "Why?"
"It... hurts," I sob. I hide my face in my hands, my cheeks flaming in shame. Pride, what do I have to be proud of? I reek of their corruption; I am as guilty as they are.
"Did Dalton hurt you?" Yes. I hug myself as I re-live recent events, watching as Dalton kisses me, watching as he rips my dress off, watch as I cry and try to hide, then I go limp in his arms and let him, and I cry and it hurts he's crushing me.... "Schala?"
"Dalton... hurts me a lot."
"Then why'd you marry him?"
"Because... I would be hurt worse if I didn't." It would hurt more than anything to lose you.
"Why don't we kill him?" Janus? Don't talk like that it scares me.
"Because then Mother will kill us."
"Don't we have to fight Mother, though? Isn't that what you're training me for?" Never. I'll fight, and die. I couldn't bear to have you hurt.
"Not yet," I lie. I will go back home, get the gurus, and fight Mother that way. "Someone's coming. Hide." Janus scrambles under the bed.
"Alfador!" He hisses. The cat crawls under with him.
"Schala, tell your brother to leave us alone." Magus walks in. I move my legs to cover my brother's shadow. He sneezes.
"AAH-AH-AAAH-CHOO!" Alfador streaks out from under there and Janus crawls out, miserable and dusty. "AAH-CHOO! AH-CHOO!" I step between him and Magus. I reach for my knife.
"Looking for this, Schala?" He holds up my dagger. "Let him go. I want to talk to you."
"Leave my sister alone!" Janus shouts and clenches his fists. "Or else!" His eyes glow red.
"JANUS! NO!" He ignores me and lightning flashes all around.
"You think that does you any good?" Magus says, calmly keeping it back with a spell of darkness. "Take this!" The darkness grows stronger. Janus closes his eyes and holds it back with the lightning barrier. He clenches his fists tighter, to where his arms shake. He's tired.
"JANUS! Stop, please!" He doesn't stop, and holds his ground. I look at the prophet. He holds his scythe tightly, and I can hear them both breathing hard.
"You... can't... defeat... me EVER!" Magus hisses. More than half the room is cloaked in the night sky. The lighting regains it ground, Janus whimpering a little. "I will... win.... eventually." A lone bolt of lightning streaks through the barrier and hits the false prophet in his heart. A dark fist strikes down Janus, and they both lie still.
I kneel at my little brother's side, calling upon the gods of light to heal him. He opens his eyes and hugs me, crying. I keep my eyes dry. "We have to leave now." I grab my old cape, and throw it over my Earthbound rags. He nods, and follows me out, picking up Alfador. Shana and the others do not wake up. We head up, and out into the snow. I carry Janus, and pray, though it has been a long time since they listened.
~*~*~*~
"Janus? Wake up. You have to walk." My back is on fire. I set him down and shake his shoulders. We're under a copse of pine trees, out of sight of anyone, be they Earthbound Ones, evil prophets, or searchers. My brother's eyelashes flicker, and he mumbles for me to let him sleep. Alfador wiggles out of his arms and hides under my cape. "Come on, wake up before he finds us."
"I don't wanna," he murmurs and closes his eyes again. "You're tired."
"We can't rest now. Magus will find us."
"I think I killed him," my brother states matter-of-factly. How can he be so calm if he murdered someone? "Don't worry, I don't think we'll get caught."
I bolt upright and drag him to his feet in my fury. "That's not the point! Killing is wrong! We," I point to him and myself "Don't kill. They do. We're better than that. We'll only kill someone if we have to." Janus pulls away and crosses his arms.
"We had to." How can he stand there so calmly and say that?
"No, we didn't. If you had left like he told you, none of this would have happened!"
"I didn't like the way he looked at you."
"Janus..." I throw myself down under a tree and cry. "I can take care of myself. I... It would hurt me, here," I hold my hand over my heart, "If I lost you."
"I can take care of myself, too. And protect you." He crosses his arms. "Why don't you let me help? Why do you have to protect me all the time?" His cat rubs up against his ankles. He picks it up. "Why do you want to hurt all the time?" I don't I never wanted this I don't want anyone to go through this no one deserves this.
I curl up and sob myself to sleep.
~*~*~*~
So cold... I sit bolt upright, cursing myself for falling asleep like that. Janus stirs from having his pillow taken away and returns to sleep. They shine down on both of us with their pale, cold light. The moon is a mere sliver in the sky. It will be easier to travel under the cover of night.
I don't want to wake Janus, though. He looks so peaceful, sleeping there. His eyelashes fluttering, knocking a thin dusting of snow onto his cheeks. He hugs Alfador tighter and pops his thumb into his mouth. He looks so cold. I lay my cloak over him as a blanket and brush a strand of hair out of face.
"Schala." NO. "Don't run." A hand tightens itself on my shoulder, keeping me from fleeing. "Please, Schala. Don't make me lose you again. You have to trust me." no. "Why don't you believe me? You always trusted me before."
"Don't act like you know me. Don't pretend you're my brother. I am no such fool," I tell Magus coldly. Why is he so persistent in his lie? Does it bring him pleasure to cause me such pain?
"Only a fool refuses to believe what is right under her nose." He spins me around to face him. "Schala, why do you have to be so self-sacrificing? It hurts me to watch you die like this." His eyes shine in the moonlight with a wet light. Tears?
I raise my hands to his face and he jerks away. "Don't touch me." He turns away from me. "They're coming for you, Sis. They'll take you away and make you work on the Mammon machine. They're almost upon us. You have to trust me." I listen to my heart and it says Yes. He holds out his hand and I take it. He pulls me close. I have nothing left to lose. "Sis, This is what we do..." Ma... Janus outlines his plan.