My Heart Doth Wander (c) 03-04 by me, MistressAli
All "Sonic the Hedgehog" characters and related indicia (c) and TM Sega/Archie/and DIC. Used without permission.
Packbell (only mentioned in passing) © David Pistone
Casssar and Cu Chulainne (c) MistressAli
This document may be freely distributed, as long as it's not altered in any way. This story contains: violence, sex stuff, swearing and other naughty stuff.
Italics thoughts, flashbacks or first person POVS
--- Cu's voice
Onto the lengthy A/N!:
This is the 3rd story in my series 'The Lifeblood of Mobius', which includes the preceding stories "The Glow of Something Bright" and "Following Tributaries". I would really suggest reading those first because this story would probably be confusing otherwise (and it's probably confusing enough, knowing my writing!)
It's quite a long story so I've decided to split it into chapters, which I don't always do...but one, I can get more exposure on , because well, you get bumped off the recents page very quickly there. Two, because the story is so lengthy, chapters will allow people to read it in smaller chunks, instead of the entire long overblown thing ;)
Also, when first starting to write this, I couldn't decide between doing it in third or first person POV, so I just did both! This was also partially inspired by the TV show 'Boomtown' which shows an event from different characters POVs. Just noting this to help avoid any confusion... I also bolded when it happens, so er yes.
This story is dedicated to John Roberts, because he always gave me such encouraging words on the previous stories and his interest in the series motivated me to get off my lazy ass and write the third part. Now, seeing as this story might suck to most people, you can just blame him for that! :P :P
OK, enough blabbing, onto the story!!
Lifeblood of Mobius
Story #3
"My Heart Doth Wander"
by A. Fleury
Chapter 1 : Dead Things
It's the fear that's in you,
that brings the fear out in me
it's the ghost unaware of where you might be.
And it's the feeling in you,
That brings the fear out in me
It's the ghost...I won't wake up this time...
I breathe.
"Fear" – Claire Voyant
From the mouth of I, Casssar, Queen of Robotropolis
I moved from those hallways and rooms of stale contained air, and out onto the balcony that hung on the high reaches of the building. The city of Robotropolis. It lay dark and quiet before me. The realm of dusty streets, empty.
This was his kingdom now. My Castdecass, my Black Flower.
But according to him, it was mine too. He said so...when he got the idea to fashion the crown...
Three days ago. I'd been gazing out the window. Somehow I thought there would be something more interesting out there than my surroundings of metal walls, and metal floors, and still more metal: ceilings, sentry guards standing in the doorways, whose archways were of metal too, all polished and glinting with the overhead lights.
I could understand why someone could go mad here. And how only someone mad could have built this.
I heard soft footsteps behind me and then, "Casssar?" came in an odd accent. I turned to see something not made of metal. My Black Flower, a tiny man, with pale pale skin and blue eyes that shimmered at the sight of me.
He smiled, or what I knew as one, the slight quirk of his pouting lips upwards. He was holding something behind his back and he withdrew it. A circlet of gold balanced in his outstretched hands. Two flowers were carved upon it, one at each temple, and between them, a strip of six tangerine jewels, glinting the light back three fold.
"It is beautiful," I said.
"It's for you," he said, and he beckoned me to bend lower. I did so and he placed the crown onto my head, straightening it to his satisfaction. He stepped back and I stood at my full height.
He nodded, his eyes sweeping my face. "It fits you. You look like a queen." Then softer his voice came, his cheeks flushing. "I...want you...to be my queen, Cass."
"Oh Cast..." I stroked his cheek and he nuzzled against my hand like a cat. He seemed to ache for any touch I gave. Endearing...and almost too needy...all at once.
I was in adoration.
"The Queen of Robotropolis..."
The crown was lightweight, but even small things can become a burden after a time.
Sleep. A time of peace.
For the lucky ones, the healthy ones.
For others, like him? The sick souls?
He sometimes loathed that spaceless realm, and all the horrors it brought him. Dead things come back to bite, forgotten things brought back clear and vivid as the day they were conceived. Memories and atrocities.
Everything he didn't want to see.
But Snively had to succumb to the need for sleep. So he laid his head upon the pillow and shut his eyes, and pulled the sheets up. He drifted away into what he hoped would be a calm flat sea.
But so often it was whipped into black frothing waves.
Waves. Of forest trees, the green tops waving. And he was somehow there, on a path, walking. Or was he? Blackness folded in.
"Snively..."
He heard a breathy voice. It sounded weak, like it couldn't get any louder.
A flash of red. And a scent.
It smelled like pennies.
He realized suddenly, in this odd blackness, that he was cold. There was weight all around him, like he was buried under a pile of pebbles.
Pennies?
That smell...what was it?
'Open your eyes...'
He did. If he could scream, he would, but there was no strength. He was covered in cuts. His throat was sliced open. His heart was torn. A massacre. He was a massacre.
And he was buried.
He realized he was quite large, and his face boasted a large orange mustache. He was...Robotnik.
Dead?
And then it all reversed, and he was himself again: Snively. He was trudging along a pathway in the forest, and the green trees were wavering in a breeze. His feet stopped him by a huge mound of dirt. He wanted to scream at himself to run, because he knew what was underneath.
He saw the dirt move. He saw himself startle and try to leap away.
But it was too late. His ankle was caught by a hand, and it reeled him in. Then it latched about his throat and he could scream this time.
It was his Uncle grasping him and he was towering, decayed, holes in his vengeful smile and caverns for eyes. He wore maggots like a white shirt.
He heard himself whimper and then gag as those hands clenched tighter around his neck. It was strange, for even decayed and dead, Uncle's flesh still bled. The smell was so strong. Blood, copper-penny blood, rotten. It choked him as equally as the deteriorating hands.
The blood oozed. And where the blood touched him
The nephew
The killer
It burned through him like acid.
He woke up screaming, flailing his arms, shuddering, gasping, drooling, crying, sobbing, retching.... He woke with mortal fear etched into his face and the sheets soaked with more than just sweat.
"NO, JULIAN, NO!" He sprang from the bed, his words coming out like machine-fire in their ferocity. He aimed a finger at the pale figure in the mirror. "YOU'RE DEAD, GODDAMN YOU!! DEAD!!" In fear-fed fury he launched at the mirror, punching his own reflection. The blows that came to his small trembling form were from his own hands now! Never again from Uncle Julian's!!
He fell to the floor and stared at his bare scarred arms. He tried to keep that thought in his head. That Julian was DEAD. That he could never yell, break, hit, again. He could never make new scars. These old markings of his would fade away. Julian was gone. Packbell was gone. These scars would fade...
He laid there until the shuddering subsided and slowly, with a groan of effort, he pushed himself to his feet.
He stared for a long moment at the pale slim body in the mirror. Then slowly, a smile crept upon his face. One finger reached out and stroked the reflection's cheek. "It's alright to smile. You're free now."
With his eyes, those ice-pale haunted orbs, on the mirror, he slid his hands across his shoulders. Down his chest, over those ridges of ribs, and down slim, flat sides, over the scarred stomach. Soothing the skin, telling it that there was nothing more to fear. His hands reached the hipbones, jutting through the creamy skin, and rested there. He grinned at the mirror, feeling strangely elated, and slightly silly...and then he turned and retrieved his clothing.
His normal gray uniform fit snugly as always, but he made a modification. The red armband imprinted with a black "R" for Robotnik was ripped away and tossed into the trash.
"There. Perfect." He gave a final nod to the icy boy in the mirror, before exiting and heading down to the command center.
Princess Sally sat at her writing desk, facing the window, in her hut. Outside it was strangely quiet. It had been ever since the day Robotnik died in the middle of their village. The day Sally had stabbed him under the spell of Casssar and by Snively's command. The day the villagers had been brainwashed. The day Cu Chulainne had wiped their minds of the incident to purge any guilt they would carry.
Dear Journal,
This place has been like hell, lately. A few days ago, we buried the villagers who had died fighting Robotnik. But we didn't bury him. Not yet. Nobody has touched HIS body yet. Nobody wants to! But I'm going to have a meeting about it today. Because well...the smell.
She looked out the window then, seeing that tarp-covered form. Robotnik was still where he lay. The blood had seeped into the ground. She imagined nothing would grow there now.
The blood had disappeared but his body remained, and no one dared lift the tarp to look, or even came within five feet of the corpse.
And Gods! The smell. At first the corpse had laid there, all nice and quiet and not bothering anybody.
Except for the look of it. That was unsettling. Bloodied flesh, stabbed and bitten and mutilated, and entrails dangling from a torn stomach. Someone had grabbed a tarp and thrown it over. So they didn't have to look anymore. And that was fine for a few days.
But the days had been warm in this beautiful late summer and that had taken a toll on the dead flesh. It began to deteriorate, as it should, and as it rotted, it began to stink. Such a stench...it was sweet, but in a sick stomach-churning way. Heavy. It hovered like a cloud and wafted on the air currents until the entire village could smell it.
It's so horrible. And I did it. I know...I've rambled about this already, right? But I can't get over it. It's too awful. And the villagers hate me now. They don't get it...they think I'm a freak. But they were under a spell too! They should know it's not my fault.
And it's not just about the villagers. I know that... but...
It's Sonic. He's been acting so strangely around me. He doesn't trust me. He just doesn't understand, because he doesn't know about the Source! If he did...if I could tell him everything... but Daddy says we can't. It's like this big family secret or something.
I think they think I brought Robotnik to the village... They think I'm a witch.
I don't know what to do.
A waft of air brought the smell into her room. She sat, breathing in the stench, and then the familiar look of resolve came into her eyes, hardening her gaze into steel. She closed the journal with a snap and stood up.
'This isn't a time to mope with words...
I have to take action.'
She looked out the window at the tarp. The first thing to do was to obliterate the constant reminder...to finally dispose of Robotnik's body. They had a new life now, and it was time to start accepting it.
"Does this city ever see the sun?"
Casssar thought she might peer out the window for days and never see a spark of light, never see the gray clouds turn red or purple from sunset. Sometimes the wind stirred them about, but never seemed to open a gap to the sky.
"It's always nighttime here," said Snively. He had entered a few minutes ago, dressed in his normal gray attire. He looked tired as he seated himself in the green throne that formerly had belonged to his Uncle. "I barely remember what sunlight looks like."
"We only saw it a few days ago," she laughed.
Yes, sunlight, and blood.
And guilt. And ecstasy.
And Uncle! And Uncle's hand around his neck, choking him! Snively gasped and his hand flew to his throat. He could feel the blood burning him.
"When we...killed Julian," he said, stammering. "We did see it then, the day he died. But I didn't really notice it..." He cocked his head, looking at her with eyes like a frightened child. "All I could see was the blood."
"Blood," said Casssar, with a devious smile, pretending not to acknowledge that fear-filled gaze. "I like blood..."
Snively's lip quirked half-heartedly. "Yes, but this wasn't good. It was...it was just sick."
Casssar turned back to the window, hunting futilely for that ray of light, and finding none. "Are you sorry he is dead?"
Could he say that? Did he feel that?
Snively reached a hand, gingerly, as if probing a wound, into the dark pit inside himself. There was blood once again, blood. Thorns, barbed wire and ripped flesh, maggots feeding off the decay. There were black holes and stagnant pools. There was so much disease inside him, and who had planted the virus? Who had infected him?
Julian.
Julian, Julian, Julian.
And so those fingers probed for thoughts of Julian, and he found everything, he found everything...bitter hate, the choking anger, the terror, the ecstasy upon death, the sweet taste of revenge. Guilt, horrid guilt. He found everything, even sick misguided love and broken trust, fragments of adoration and the naïve coveting of a child.
He found it all but one thing.
Regret, remorse, sadness.
"No. I'm glad he's dead."
"Yes," the ermine nodded, her finger sliding along the glass, tracing his reflection. "I thought as much." She looked over her shoulder, teeth glimmering in her black face. "I am pleased too."
The smile returned to his lips and this time it stayed, and transmuted, turning into something lewd.
Casssar loved it, and a purr leapt from her throat.
"We did it together, Cass." He sprawled lazily in the massive throne. Her eyes swept over his lithe body, the small slip of pale stomach she glimpsed when his shirt rode up.
"Indeed we did, Black Flower," she turned her back to the window, and back upon it she leaned, stretching, luxuriously. The overhead lights played across her silken fur, catching in her narrowed eyes as her lips pursed, blowing him a kiss.
Snively's eyes darkened from pale blue to dark...murky, like grit stirred up under a clear lake. Sudden lust made his breath quicken and his fingers tighten on the armrest.
"We can do anything together, Black Flower."
"Anything..." His voice was husky. "Come here, Cass. Show me one of those anything's..."
Another purr came from the slinky lady, and she danced her body over the floor and to the command chair.
"Computer," said Snively, his voice still caught in that drowsy raspy lilt, his eyes locked on Casssar's olive green stare as her face leaned towards his...
"...Dim the lights."
Sonic was talking to Tails when Sally found him. He held her eye as she approached, his mouth moving as he spoke to the young fox, and then, as Sally reached him, Tails slipped away.
Sonic gave her a smile that was so slight, she could barely justify calling it a smile. But at least it was something.
"Hi Sonic."
"Hi Sal."
He shuffled his feet. "So uh...how's it going?"
"Fine..." She said.
There was a long awkward pause, so unfamiliar to them both. It had never been like this before. This tension between them...this feeling of being strangers, somehow.
Finally he stole a cautious look at her, his brow crinkling. "You look..."
"What?"
"Serious."
"Don't I always?"
The hedgehog smiled. This time it was fuller, more genuine. "You look like you're really thinking up something."
"It's about..." The squirrel faltered, and then finally swung her arm in the general direction of Robotnik's corpse. "...that. Something has to be done about...it..."
Sonic looked over too, keeping his gaze there, not looking at her. She saw him gulp. "Yeah...yeah, that's just...mondo bad." He nodded a bit too vigorously. "Are you gonna call a meeting?"
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I think that's best." She tentatively reached her hand out towards him, then drew it back to herself as he finally looked her way . "Um...maybe you can tell everyone. We can have it," she glanced at the sky, "At four?"
"Sounds great," he mumbled, and then, his eyes shone forlorn as she backed away and fled the spot with quick striding steps.
She went down to the pool. Considering it was a rather warm day, it was surprising to find the place deserted. The waters were still, not one ripple, not one leaf falling to mar the pristine surface.
It should've seemed peaceful, but relaxation was the furthest from Sally's mind. Instead, she was tense, picking her way over the rocks to the opposite end of the pool. A rock wall rose up; most people didn't come to this side of the pool unless they intended to dive off the rocks and swim in the deeper part of the water.
The bushes here were thick, concealing this section of ground from anyone standing at the other side of the pool, and for that, Sally was thankful.
Nevertheless, she still cast a hunting glance all around, even scanning the treetops. She raised a finger to the top of a crack in the wall. Downwards she drew the finger, following the crack, until she reached the bottom, where she exerted firm pressure with her three inner fingers.
The rock beneath her fingers slid inwards, and with a slight grinding noise, a small doorway slid open in the stone. She entered quickly and the door shut behind her.
Before her lay a cavernous space; a hidden cave within the cliff wall. The ground was flat gray stone, littered with a few boulders here and there, but, covering most of the ground surface of the cave was a glimmering pool.
This was not water. It shone a swirled gold and silver; and its composition was thicker...it glowed and illuminated the walls around her.
A Source pool...the Acorn Source pool.
Only she and her father knew of it. Or were supposed to know. Some time ago, Snively, and his new companion, the slinky Casssar, had also discovered it.
That had led to Snively's discovery of something even more sacred in his eyes: Knothole.
And his Uncle had come at his Nephew's bidding...and the Nephew had slated his doom.
But...Sally gulped and tried to force the image away...of her own hand bearing down, dealing the final blow to the Overlord of Robotropolis.
She should be proud, maybe, at finally bringing an end to Robotnik's reign.
But it didn't seem just. It didn't seem...right...
She walked towards the pool; it illuminated her body. Above the pool, a ball of soft white light floated. She felt comforted by it, understood. She reached her hand towards the glow...