somewhere somewhen

Lucifia thought about these memories without any emotions, which was odd since she had amused herself a lot back then, considering that it was the most and only fun she had had for 300 years.

Then she felt the memories of her arrival in Los Angeles begin, thinking that would definitely be the most fun... Unfortunately, this was the time when she felt her soul being pulled to somewhere.

In the end it wasn't a draft anymore, but she felt herself falling.

03.08.98; 06:02; somewhere:

A brain started to work the first time and slowly, a pair of eyes opened to see for the first time.

~ Where? ~

The being looked around, seeing and beginning to feel that she was surrounded by water, or at least some water-like liquid, which she could breath like air.

Slowly, the memories returned and she realized where she was, which was the time when the liquid, she felt herself floating in with her black hair swimming before her, became fewer and fewer, until she just stood on two muscular legs that had never stood before.

The clone looked around, when the transparent tube around her became lifted up by the same mechanism, which had pumped away the liquid that had nourished her during her growth, and coughed, cleaning her respiratory tract of the liquid.

When she had managed this, she smiled.

~ I'm a clone ~ Lucifia thought ~ and such my soul has escaped death. ~

Still smiling, Lucifia jumped from the height of the clone-tube down onto the earth, landing on all fours since her senses were still untrained in this new, still completely naked, body.

~ Mother would criticize me ~ she thought when she stood up and looked around. ~ I wonder what her face will look like when she realizes that I'm alive. ~

Strangely, she didn't know how she had done this anymore, but she guessed that it had to do something with the stone, printed with runes that she saw still lying in the clone tube.

And with the three dead bodies that were lying on three stretchers, bled dry, with their blood forming a circle around the empty clone tube. Lucifia remembered that she had captured the three beggars from the streets, knowing that no one would care for their disappearance and more so that the humans would be relaxed of not seeing them anymore.

With a special medicine, she had made it unable for them to move any muscle or to say anything, so they had been at her mercy. Then she had explained to them what she would do with them; just to see the terror in their eyes before she had installed the machine, which cut their throats when the countdown wouldn't be stopped in time.

Lucifia remembered how funny it had been to mock them by renewing the countdown, for which the timer she had naturally placed just so that the three humans could see it, just in the last second.

She remembered this, but somehow she didn't feel the same amusement by this, as if something was missing.

Unsure, she walked to the corner of this large room where she had placed some of the useful material she had 'gained' during the years. There, behind a desk full of material useful for both, shamanism and magic, were two green eyes looking on her in wonder.

Lucifia stopped in shock when she realized that it was she, herself who looked on her through the mirror, showing her like she hadn't been for more than 300 years.

"No... " she whispered denying, but then a part of her realized what had happened.

She had lost the part of the darkness in her soul that she had once took with herself when she came from the world of limbo and naturally she had even so lost her old, nearly invincible body in the Eyrie tower... What her mother had done with it?

~ Oh yes, mother! ~ Lucifia thought smiling and switched the little mobile TV on, which seemed somehow displaced amongst all the occult things on the desk.

It didn't matter what television program she switched on, because on everyone the human reporters either retold the story of the cruel massacre done by a demonic monster or...

Lucifia stopped when she realized that there was her mother, being led away by some police officers, one of them Elisa Maza. At first she was perplexed, but then she realized what was going on.

"Are you playing the martyr, mother?" she asked the TV. "It doesn't fit to you."

Then she saw her mother hit by a stone, how she stumbled and nearly fell down and a part in Lucifia winced... This didn't feel good.

Confused, she looked on the TV as if a claw had come out of it and had hit her.

Suddenly she screamed up, her eyes blazing red and she threw the whole TV on the earth, shattering it into dozens of pieces of glass and metal.

~ What has happened to me? ~ Lucifia asked herself angrily. ~ I should be happy about this! I have humiliated her and shown her what I'm capable of. So why don't I feel better? ~

Deep down she knew the answer. She had lost the darkness and such her goal and being... But she would demand it back.

Hastily she searched the corner until she found the dried leaves she needed. Thus she placed them in an iron-bowl and sat herself in front of it.

~ Okay, what now? ~ She asked herself, even when she knew it.

The loss of the darkness inside of her had even so made her forget most of the knowledge it had brought. For example, she didn't even know how she had exactly brought her soul back to the world of the living, but bringing herself to the world of limbo was basic, all she needed was fire.

~ Damn! ~

Lucifia knew that her father would have been able to summon fire, simply by asking the spirits, but she wasn't able to do so. She had neither his equipment, which she had placed in another place to hide.

~ A world for matches, ~ Lucifia thought, feeling not amused that all her plans might fail because she lacked the ability that humans had gained thousands of years ago.

~ But are these plans worth it? ~ A part in her mind asked her and Lucifia had to fight hard to stop it.

She reminded herself of the spell her mother had taught her once to make fire and grinned.

"LUMINATI!" She ordered the contents of the bowl.

It remained, as it was, as if nothing had happened.

~ Damn! ~ Lucifia thought and a part of her shivered.

"LUMINATI!!!" she screamed again, this time louder and definitely more desperate.

The leaves were still seemingly unimpressed.

The desperation in Lucifia grew with every second, she had once heard that few, very good shamans had once been able to travel between the worlds even without such tools, but she was no good shaman, she even hadn't been just a good apprentice, so this was hopeless.

~ This proves it. ~ Lucifia thought. ~ Without the darkness, I can't even manage such a simple spell, no wonder that mother thinks that I'm worthless. ~

The young and still naked gargoyle swallowed and extended her claw, forming it in the way her mother had taught her when she had spoken the spell for the first time.

"Luminati." Lucifia spoke again, this time calm and nearly quiet.

A flame reached out of the bowl and the leaves were slowly consumed by it.

The young gargoyle grinned, while she let the well-smelling scent of the burning leaves carry her away into another world, maybe she wasn't so useless after all.

The world of cold stone and steel faded away and revealed a world so much different of what Lucifia had learned to know in the last years. It made her wonder that she was at the same place, as it had been when she had made the first voyage to this place, even the fire burned as if she had just left it.

Wondering, Lucifia looked around, studying the trees with it, seeing the distant mountains. At the same time she noticed that she wasn't naked anymore, but wore the same type of top and loincloth she had worn before she had learned of the advantages of leathers.

~ Is the world a single repetition? ~ Lucifia asked herself, but then rebuked herself for delaying what had to be done.

With secure steps and now, unlike the first time, not fearing what might come, Lucifia walked quickly up the way, remembering the first time as if just seconds, not centuries had passed. Back then she had feared the darkness on the way, now she was part of it.

She felt being watched, but the creatures living in the forest didn't come out.

~ They fear me! ~ Lucifia realized with a smile, ~ and they have good reason to! ~

Still smiling, Lucifia entered the clearing, but her smile faded when she realized that she wasn't alone.

A figure stood in the shadows of the trees, studying the newly arrived gargoyle intensively.

"Who is there?" Lucifia asked, even when she believed to know it.

But it wasn't the double of her mother who came out of the shadows.

"Hello, Little Panther." the gargoyle that she knew as 'Shaman' or 'Leader' greeted, his brown eyes still directed on her.

She knew that it was he and no new form that the darkness had chosen to speak with her, not just his eyes, but the soul she recognized in them showed her the truth.

"Father...." Lucifia whispered.

Shaman nodded.

"If you want to call me so." he replied.

Lucifia continued to look on him, unbelieving for a second, then she captured herself.

"I thought you would be at the other side." she told him. "Playing a harp on a cloud to speak in primitive human terms or being together with the rest of our clan."

"I was." Shaman replied, now walking closer to his daughter until he stood directly in front of her and they were both close to the little lake. "But some powers allowed me to come back to this place."

"Oh yes, naturally." Lucifia noticed. "The beings beyond this sphere are such worried about what I plan that they decided to send you to stop me.... I'm honored."

"No," Shaman explained, shaking his beaked head. "Not to stop you, but the darkness so that it doesn't claim your soul any longer."

His daughter laughed.

"This is good, Shaman." she told him, addressing him by his name, or better the title he had worn as long that it had become his name. "But they forgot that I AM the darkness. I chose it by my own free will and all that I did, I have done by my own free will."

"No," her father replied softly and his eyes glittered with love. "I know you were tricked, I saw it and was unable to do anything and I even so know that all you did since this time, you did because the darkness let you do it."

Lucifia eyed him angrily, but then an idea hit her mind and she reached ahead with her claw to his face... and went through it like air, proofing that Shaman did not fully exist, even in a world that was populated by spirits.

"HA! They should have sent someone with more consistency." Lucifia noticed with a smile. "You can not stop me."

"As I said, I'm not here to stop you but the darkness," he said, "I won't attack you."

"Oh, you really think I would drop my being just because you ask me of it?" Lucifia asked him, smiling evilly. "You are a fool!"

Shaman shook his head.

"Not for me, but for you and..." he stopped, pointing to the lake, "…for her."

Lucifia didn't want to look at the lake since she knew what she would see, but the same curiosity which had brought her much trouble in the past, already made her eyes wander to this place, nearly against her will.

~ This world is full of repetitions ~ Lucifia thought sarcastically when she saw what she had expected.

The lake had become a gate to the world of living once more, but instead of angry humans it now showed her mother, sitting on a cell-bench with her legs near her body and her wings covering her whole body. Despite her fast healing rate, she was still pretty much in a miserable state since her shoulder, like her wing, seemed still broken.

Lucifia couldn't see her mother's face since she had laid it on her knees, but then her mother looked up for some reason. Even when a part in Little Panther's brain told her that her mother had to look to something in the cell, she felt as if her mother would look directly into her eyes.

Her mother's eyes were cold and full of pain, pain she had suffered in this night.

~ Pain I have caused her... ~ Lucifia realized and her heart screamed up in pain.

She fell backward, landing on her back and crawled away from the lake and its terrible content.

Her father said something, but Lucifia didn't hear it, didn't want to hear it, since she had jumped up and ran up the dark way that she knew would lead her to new security, to liberty from these feelings as fast as her four limbs could carry her.

When she finally reached the place where just solemn death trees guarded the way, she breathed heavily, but had to notice that she hadn't been fast enough.

"Do you run away from the image of your mother… or yourself?" Shaman asked, leaning on a wall.

He asked this without cynicism, without trying to make fun on her, just with honest concern and love in his voice and eyes. Such he proofed that he wasn't like the image of her mother had been... He was worse.

"I just made my decision." Lucifia replied coldly, even when a growing part in her simply wanted to break down screaming and slowly walk further to the source of the darkness, which a part of her heart called for. "Besides, she doesn't matter to me. She thinks I am worthless... all my power is darkness."

Shaman shook his head and his beak seemed to glow in the darkness, as seemed his necklace with the image of his companion.

"This isn't true." he replied. "Your mother has always been proud on you."

Lucifia stopped shortly, looking in her father's eyes confused, but then she shook her head, remembering what she had heard back then when her mother and father had spoken to each other.

~ *She is back in her warrior lessons and the learning of magic and even her skills in the art of shamanism are a bit backward compared to her brothers...* ~

"You lie." Lucifia explained icily. She had just reached the border to the crater on which, on the ground, she saw the dark liquid that was the essence of darkness itself, shimmering tempting on the ground. "And even if not, there is no way back, not after what I have done... I killed them all."

With this, Lucifia began her way down into the crater.

"There is still your mother." Shaman replied, he stood at the border of the crater, unable or unwilling to come nearer to the dark sea. "She loves you."

"SHE HATES ME!" Lucifia screamed on him, now standing directly in front of the lake, but her head turned back to her father.

"No," Shaman told her "She doesn't, she couldn't."

"I killed our clan." Lucifia replied with her voice now weak and tears were threatening to leave her eyes. "She can't forgive me for this... or you."

With this, Lucifia turned away from her father, kneeling down to the lake.

"She has already in the moment she learned of it." Shaman told his daughter "As has I, the clan... and Wolf."

Lucifia stiffened when the memories of her lost love came to her mind, all the nights they had shared repeated in her mind.

Tears dropped in the black liquid.

"The pain you saw in your mother's eyes wasn't because of the humans you killed, or the injuries she had to suffer..." Shaman explained, looking on his daughter's back. "She is in pain because she believes to have lost you."

He stopped.

"If you are truly sorry," he began, "if you truly want to make things better, then come back with me and go to your mother. She wants you... She needs you, more than you might ever realize."

His daughter stared ahead and even Shaman didn't know what she thought.

Lucifia finally raised her head, very slowly and very cautiously, turning to her father.

Her eyes, so full of pain and tears looked on him and Shaman knew that he had won and that his love would have his daughter back, but suddenly the look in Lucifia's eyes changed and she looked in horror down on her left leg. Shaman followed her eyes and if he were to still have possessed a heart, it would have frozen at this moment.

A tentacle had come out of the sea of darkness and winded around his daughter's left leg's ankle.

The tentacle pulled and let Lucifia fall hard on her stomach, but she fought, making her father proud by trying to crape the tentacle of her ankle. Unfortunately the dark liquid didn't want to let her go and pulled her deeper and deeper in the sea.

When her knees had vanished in the darkness, Lucifia turned to her father, her eyes full of tears and her eyes, a single mask of fear and pain. Strangely she remembered Shaman of when she had been just 5 in human terms and had woken up from a daymare. Back then, a rookery mother had comforted her, calmed her down by saying her that it was just a dream and nothing bad had happened.

But Shaman, like his daughter, knew that the daymare was real and that it wouldn't end possibly until the end of time itself.

"Father..." she screamed on him, her voice that of a little hatchling while her breast was drawn into the darkness.

"I'm sorry..." Shaman replied, sad beyond words, while his daughter's face dipped into the dark liquid. "I'm so sorry..."

There he stayed, at the crater of the darkness, which had completely consumed his daughter and any creature that would have watched the scene, would have learned that even ghosts could cry.

03.08.98; 07:56; somewhere:

Lucifia's eyes became clear once more. When they once again began to see the world of living, they shone black even in the darkness, which surrounded her.

She smiled evilly.

~ You nearly would have got me, father. ~ She thought. ~ But I'm back! ~

Realising that dawn was near, Lucifia stood up, stretching her muscles, naked again.

There were a lot things to be done and even more to be planned. First she had to gain immortality and power once again and for that she needed an egg, but luckily the Manhattan-clan had a practically unguarded rookery.

Then she had to plan how to tell her mother of her rising from the death.

"This will be fun!" Lucifia told herself when an idea crossed her mind and the sun turned her to stone with an evil grin on her face.

To be continued...