All right, so this is my first attempt at writing Nix fanfic. Please be kind! ^_^
Spoilers for Abhorsen... beware...
Oh, yes, and the first part is rather melodramatic. ~_~() Sorry about that. I couldn't restrain myself.
By the way, if you haven't been able to tell, I'm not Garth Nix, and own none of this... alas...
~*~*~*~*~*~
Ashes.
Astarael.
After the First Death, they were all that was left.
The Destroyer ravaged the land until it was sure that all was in ruins, certain that it had left none living, that it brooded over a world of utter nothingness.
But Astarael lived.
And slowly, the Destroyer began to grow tired of this world, tired of the endless flakes of ash that swirled over what had once passed as fertile earth. And so it withdrew, stealthily, and ever patient, it waited.
And life, as life always does, slowly blossomed once more, rising from the ashes in an unquenchable surge of rebirth. After several centuries of steady growth, all forms of life, unrecognizable today, swarmed over the newly formed earth, and settled.
And the Destroyer struck once more.
Ashes.
Astarael.
Saraneth.
And the cycle continued, an endless welter of destruction, waiting with open jaws to crush whatever life would dare form. Even as more survivors joined her ranks, Astarael began to despair of whether it would ever end, this routine of terror and annihilation.
But then, after the Sixth Death, she knew they were ready. The Seventh Bright Shiner, the child Ranna, appeared, and she felt it. They had the power create change.
Finally, they were ready.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Astarael stared bemusedly down at the five slender digits that protruded oddly from this piece of flesh that was her 'hand.' Somehow, that word blossomed in her mind, although she was sure she had never seen anything like it before. Wide blue eyes traced over the tightly knitted structure of sinew and bone, the tracery of veins that formed this strange, spidery appendage, mystified by the complexity of this new body.
She gazed up at the other six, and jolted back in alarm at the sight that met her eyes. Where six blazing forms of Free Magic had sat when they had begun were now a strange collection of spindly, pale, fleshy creatures, staring in varying degrees of horror and perplexity at themselves.
She could still smell the Free Magic in them, as alive and real as it had been when they had begun the making of the Charter some time ago (how long had it been? Astarael wondered. Minutes? Hours? Centuries? It seemed so long ago, and yet not, when they had sat down here and sunk into the weaving of the Charter), but now it was tempered with something else, a whiff of wholeness, of life, that hadn't been present in the sharp, familiar tang of Free Magic.
As if in response to some unanswered question, she felt a quiet pulse flare comfortingly around a pillar of flesh (her 'neck'), and wonderingly, she raised her 'hand' and watched as it moved towards her 'neck' to feel what was there. Her pale fingers stumbled, her body still unsure of how exactly it was supposed to work, and grazed hesitantly, clumsily, over a rough cord of cloth around her neck, and she could feel the Charter there. The shape of life itself. She could feel part of herself in it, a faint whiff of familiarity that flowed along the endless stream of golden marks, and the others were present in it as well... it was their Charter, and after centuries of planning, they had finally completed it. A well of pride surged up in her throat, and the corners of her 'mouth' tugged upwards.
"I knew we would give up some of ourselves when we made the Charter, but I never knew it would be this much."
Six heads jerked up, staring. It took all of them a while to realize it was Belgaer who had spoken, and a while longer to process the fact that this dark form with golden fur tumbling shaggily over its top (a 'head,' and 'hair,' Astarael processed dazedly) was actually Belgaer.
"I mean," he continued, "look at us!"
Astarael knew what he meant. Before, she wouldn't have been able to force even a fraction of herself into this loose bag of skin, but now, she wore it comfortably. Or at least as comfortably as one could wear such an ungainly clutter of flesh...
She shifted uneasily. She suddenly felt vulnerable, and clutched at the collar about her neck for support, letting the familiarity of its power and strength wash through her, reassuring her. Drawing a deep breath, she felt the muscles in her neck tense and contract, and this strange sequence of twitches somehow bore her slightly rusty voice from her throat.
"It was worth it, Belgaer," she said as firmly as possible, drawing reassurance from the continuing flow of the Charter beneath her fingers, "For this world to survive, it needs some semblance of order. Such a stabilizer is what we need to defeat Orannis."
A collective flinch rippled through the group at the sound of the Destroyer's name, and Saraneth quickly made the sign of blessing as she always did when she heard it, bidding all who died at Its hand to rest in peace.
"It won't be long before the Destroyer strikes. There is no way that It could have missed the creation of the Charter, and It won't be happy about it. We need to be ready. We have to learn to adjust to this new form." Mosrael, always grave, pinned each of them with his piercing gaze as he spoke, watching them from beneath a veil of dark hair. He, too, grasped at the collar about his neck as if was a lifeline.
Dyrim nodded in agreement. "And we must begin to give ourselves wholly to the Charter as well," she said quietly, her musical voice echoing faintly through the darkened cavern. "Saraneth and I will give ourselves to our bloodlines, Astarael to her bells, and Belgaer and Ranna to stone and mortar. Mosrael and Kibeth, do you still stand by your decision to remain separate from the complete integration of the Charter?"
In response came two slightly exasperated grunts of affirmation.
Saraneth's voice was amused as she spoke. "As I have told you several times before, I have Seen that it isn't their time yet, Dyrim. Will you always be such a skeptic?"
Dyrim shrugged, an odd, rippling motion in her shoulders. She tugged at a strand of light brown hair and examined it as she answered lightly, "Yes, always, my dear Saraneth. It's why you love me so."
Saraneth rolled her eyes, and was about to respond when Mosrael interrupted them sharply. "Stop this, both of you. We cannot behave lightly at such a time. We must prepare for Orannis' next attack!"
A brief silence followed this. Finally, Kibeth piped up, "Does anyone know how to move these things? I've been trying to get up ever since we finished making the Charter."
*TBC*
What do you think? Questions? Comments? Feel free to plunk them down on my doorstep. ^_^
