A/N: Hear those words again: Tajeri Lynn the Extremo Luchadore brings back to you the rage that is "Souls Between the Walls", but first, he shall speak of a few things.
Extremo Luchadore loves hearing what everybody's been saying. I feel like there are some fans sticking next to me, hoping they would get the news in record time. Especially that Shadowcell guy; he can't be shaken off anywhere in this site…
Lil' Spleef is getting real close to finishing "TSTL", and I can be assured one thing besides a wondrous close; that once she is done, maybe fans will start posting death threats on this work too. I don't know how I'll handle it, but I'm amazed Spleefie puts up with this. By the way, did I say I wanted you to build THAT site?
Officially, I have announced that I am making three projects, but chances are I won't complete all of them at one time. Therefore, at the end of this fic and my joint adventure-series "The Life Before The Party"(plug of shame, or shamless plug?), there will be five different choices hanging on the line, and you fellow readers get to hoist your ladders to knock off your top three. I shall dub it the Extremo Vote 2002! So whether you love this or flame this, don't forget your vote's gonna count.
By the way, Spleef, heed these words; don't steal all the world's tomato soup. Some accidents could happen. Accidents…heh heh heh.
Souls Between the Walls
Night cloaked over the city as Seymour adhered under the roof of a whole new sanctuary, the shop that once housed a mighty chi wizard, who under alteration of history had been reduced to a droning and unwilling trading card merchant. The young girl Jade had permitted him to snuggle tightly inside this foreign territory, to the room where she cradled her nights in tranquil rest.
Seymour ditched his sheets, leaving them behind on the floor like thin, overlong carpets. They were too malleable for the roughness all over him. In the millennium he served as a prisoner without bars, the Sky Demon had thrived without soft, reassuring instruments of slumber. As a demonic being, His Wu kept himself amidst the solid, dusky particles of the Netherworld. It was crucial to harden his endurances against mankind, in preparation for the day that the mortal populace would regret having banished him, when they could've slain his body to the voids instead.
Those voids, however, were now what he feared, for laying just a few steps away was Jade, who had such heart to allow him inside this place. He absolutely disliked the Shift, spilling foul drinks on him and all, but he had to appreciate the enigma's decision to take the Sky Demon away from the lumbering Dreamscape and into the rather salubrious San Francisco. But the journey was only half-complete, or half-unfinished, he knew not which to reside, for now he was to make Jade his own, his mate as the payoff for wallowing away an eternity without true, immutable feelings. That journey, however, had yet to begin…
Seymour yawned audibly, and unwillingly revealed an odd-pitched tone evident of his actual self. The Sky Demon held his hands to his mouth, and then stared long at his hands, his mortal, human hands with five fingers on each of them. It was a peculiar feeling indeed, that humans were weaker than him and yet wielded two more fingers than he had with his malicious claws. He then recalled how Jade had become a little stronger than before, knocking his head forcefully with just two fingers. Shifting his mud-brown perception to the girl, Seymour frowned with curiosity as he looked at his hands and began cuffing his left hand over one right finger at a time. Was it worth all this, being human to appeal Jade and then sacrifice all sense of his image as the cruel, merciless Sky Demon?
Yet again, Hsi Wu's inner questions drove him to the state he least desired; the state of sleep. While his mind relaxed upon the silken creases of the pillow, his body reflexively raised one knee to his waist, and dropped it back to its straightness, and this recurred rapidly, as if it was observing to his mind how to flee from dreams, flee from a state that should mean nothing. But how so often his mind craved the escape of doubt, and always returned bearing more doubts on him.
******************************************************************************
Hsi Wu was a demon again; he knew this because every scrawny feature of him was being accentuated by a slender shape, pouring over his wings and playing on the ribs that were barely veiled by his skin. His eyes could not see, for his face locked into the shape, which was vivid black everywhere he managed to peer. But why take regard for sight? The feeling in itself was astonishing. Wherever His Wu motioned in his lithe stride, the shape seemed to follow and complement all the hideous markings that formed him.
"You are mine to behold", he chuckled triumphantly. The shape uttered not a reply.
"Being quiet, now are we?" the Sky Demon pondered. "Then try to remain quiet when I endow you with this."
He closed his eyes and coiled his long tongue to touch the surface of the being before him, and lashed at stale air. He lashed to the opposite site, and still it felt nothing.
Hsi Wu cocked his thorny head backward, opened his eyes, and noticed the shape was sinking down to the floor. What once were trim arms and legs melted down in the ground like ink, leaving a dark puddle that flooded up to his bony ankles. And its face, its anonymous face that possessed the body, joined everything else in the puddle.
"NNOOOO!" he cried as his claws scoured across the puddle, sending it streaming wherever he lashed thoughtlessly. "Come back! I-I never knew who you were! Stay in the presence of a demon, I bade of you, or you shall suffer!" He kicked and stamped over the puddle immaturely.
Out from the puddle, dark tendrils shot out and coiled over the Sky Demon's belly. Pausing from the horrific revelation, he then wrested back the tendrils by digging his claws with all might, even stabbing through his own skin, dark blood seeping off his wounds. But the tendrils retaliated, and like faceless snakes, constricted Hsi Wu. The Sky Demon cried out in anger of this betrayal and want of escape, until a far longer tendril shot forth, wrapped around his neck, and yanked it with a sickening snap. Hsi Wu felt his breath run short, before the tendrils thrust him deep into the puddle, with no end in sight.
******************************************************************************
Gasping in brief huffs of breath, Seymour restlessly sprawled off his bed and collided his earthly head into the creaky wood floors. When he did this, he laughed softly and perkily, and immediately banged his brow some more, feeling pain, but at least knowing that he was feeling alive. Hearing Jade rolling over as the sheets perfectly clasped over her head, Seymour quit his display of personal pleasure and sat up on his bed, turning focus to Jade Chan, whom he didn't intend to stir any snooping upon his behavior.
Licking his dry lips, he crept on the balls of his feet and silently bowed his face down to Jade's snoring, sleeping form. Jade could not be able to notice him if she had just woken up, since her face was directed to the window, which filtered an eerie ray of moonlight. Seymour took the opportunity to raise his wobbly hand and pry several strands of her delicate, shadow blue hair. His fingers slid over the sheer softness of the hair with ease, and after several strokes, he raised the strands up to his cheek, and rubbed, sighing contentedly as his breath drew warm air, flowing into Jade's cool aura. When Jade's face shifted right in front of the Sky Demon, though, he found it best not to upset her.
Hsi Wu departed back to his bed, hopping at the center of the mattress with knees crossed over. He just had to keep himself awake from those accursed nightmares. Those dreams were reminding him timelessly of the fears he elicited as an adolescent demon, fears made all the more spiteful in that he couldn't translate them in clearer expressions. What could make him so anxious long before he flew into Jade Chan's life?
It could not have been love; if it was, he should have left to Hong Kong and rebuild his rightful dominion. Was it mating, perhaps? Mating. That word left him sick to his meatless stomach. Back in the mystical ages that marked the peaks of his demonic life, his brethren had undergone human transmutation to ravage human lives under their iron-hard claws. But Hsi Wu noticed how mating had its disadvantages. He had witnessed, as a child then without inhibitions, couples enjoying their dance of rapture and suddenly destroyed by vast portions of Shendu's scorching, uncaring flames. While the other brothers and sisters reveled in carnage over the sight of this death, Hsi Wu only grew uncertain. If it happened to them, could it happen to him? He was, after all, a Sky Demon, possessing no real powers but a dual set of leathery wings. Manipulating the forces of the outside world wasn't within his gamut, and, granted that he make physical contact with a human, he couldn't fly away in a heart beat, for his wings needed time to retract to their accurate position. That would be moments too long, moments too late. That fear relayed into his fear of being undressed, or revealing weaknesses; that was why he always tried to keep his amethyst sash secured on his waist, and if it meant relishing bubble baths in it, so it was assured.
Seymour rose and then libeled to himself in Cantonese about how outlandish his complaints were. He, the Sky Demon, didn't have to fear mating with Jade. She was a harmless girl; of course, maybe she hit hard, but that was all. Even her fearless uncle Jackie was no longer an archaeologist searching for Chinese artifacts. He held a less threatening livelihood; he was searching for ancient cookie molds to sell for the Ratty Man Candy Co. (He never thought he'd see THAT day).
At the same time, though, Hsi Wu then recalled the lies he left empty to Jade, about him not having a family and being abandoned by vague circumstances. She was kind to have Jackie contact help, but once it was done, perchance he would be swept under the care of nobodys who may never permit him to go to San Francisco ever again. And if he couldn't go to San Francisco, he was to be denied Jade. He couldn't mislay her at the most critical prospect ever in his years. Maybe that's what he was fearful of; lying this way and that, and not fulfilling any conclusion from all this. His brethren never knew why he refused to use their mortal offerings, and for that he was branded an embarrassment, revealing a humanity never exhibited by any other creature. He couldn't let the embarrassments take the best of him anymore; now, he knew, he had to attest to Jade that he was able to inhabit her quiet circle of living.
Somehow, the words had to come off his mouth.
Be he human……..or otherwise.
To Be Continued…..
A/N: Hmmm…, slow responses these days. Tajeri Lynn guesses it's slow because everybody's got to go to do college exams while he has to write papers for his teachers, simple as that. Heh heh heh…
To Alaer Kino, my e-mail address was wrong. It's zatoshiro1@juno.com. I missed the one out there so please keep that in mind.
Adios Amigos, and keep on writing!