I know you guys are probably dying for an update before June 3…so I'm writing one now! I tried to post this sooner, and I would have, but wasn't letting me at the time. So sit back, relax, and please don't hurt me….
Disclaimer: And in this labyrinth, where night is blind, I own not these charries or their fate….only in my mind!
"Where ever this shadowed path might lead, we were both irrevocably committed to follow it to the end..."
Susan Kay's 'Phantom'
"Where are we?" She asked bluntly into the dark.
"Your home," he answered quietly.
They stood in the middle of a secret crypt, somewhere Raven had never seen before. All around her were dark walls, touched only by the light that a few hazy candles illumined. It was a cellar, but it was so much more: it was paradise for the night. The ceilings were high and vaulted, so dark that light seemed to get lost in its voyage up. The walls surrounded the most spectacular of objects. In one corner was a door, seeming to lead to other doors and more complicated passageways. In front of her, however, seemed to be a lair, filled with objects of magical meaning, sketches, blueprints, read-outs, graphics…things she recognized from the tower, but not just about the tower, but also about her friends.
She turned to look at him as he walked away from her, making his way to a large, ornately-shaped desk that was covered in papers. "How did we get here?"
He didn't turn to look at her, but only gazed down at the desk. His own head was fogged with preoccupation. Nonetheless, he answered darkly. "I tapped into your powers." His voice held no restraint, no tone of faltering.
Her voice went high, disbelieving. She thought her eyes betrayed her as she looked upon this billowing figure, clad in dark cloth with his back towards her. "What did you say?"
His eyes were now upon her, emblazed with emotions she could not recognize in their dark depths. In the pupils of his eyes was fire, hot and dangerously red. She could not escape those eyes…
"I am discovered! Yes, my dear, you do not remember me as well as you would have liked!" He shoved her into a nearby chair, roughly and abusively. She scowled at his aggression, piercing his eyes with her own.
"Figaro…." She started uncertainly.
He laughed. It was the most ghastly sound she had ever heard, and as it issued forth from the core of his stomach, she thought her ears would bleed with its murderous sound. She wanted to writhe and escape that noise, but in this hole in the ground, she feared daylight had dissolved into darkness.
"I am not Figaro! Not I!" He moved towards her, looming over her like a specter. "My name is Ignatius, now…" She looked at him, as if she were meeting him for the first time. Her eyes held fear, deep and uncontrolled. "Do not think that I am misleading you, my dear. You know me very well, just not as well as you should.
"You see, everything I told you was the truth. You and I were very good friends not long ago. But you left, and you became a good-doer. I however, did not." He paused, letting this information sink in. When she said nothing, he continued. "I brought a curse upon myself. I found out that I could use the powers of others when I so wished it. That's why I was able to transport us here. I used your powers. But one day I found that when I tapped into the powers of others, I also tapped into their personality. Their evil side." His eyes glinted maliciously, causing Raven to inhale involuntarily. Her fingers dug into the arms of the chair and his figure blended into the shadows. She could now only hear him, but now see that voice.
"Thus, I lost myself. The boy you used to know…he doesn't live here anymore. I'm now a creature of the night…much like what you are. We are one in the same." His voice was now all around her, as if it were bouncing off the lime-stone covered walls. "It was all a façade. A diversion from what really is and what really is not." He reappeared before her, lying at her feet and looking up at her, almost beseechingly. She was taken away by the abruptness of it, and despite his cruelty, his manner of antagonism and menace, she looked into his face without the fear she felt. His voice, now soft in the dampness of the chamber, wove its melody pleadingly.
"Even though it's stranger than you've dreamt it, can you even dare to bear to think of me, this loathsome gargoyle, who burns in hell but secretly yearns for heaven. Secretly…secretly…"
He took her small, pale hand in his and stroked the back of the soft skin tenderly. She looked into his eyes, her face expressionless and almost haunted in its moon-like appearance. She didn't make a move to go or to stay, but instead gazed lifelessly, hoping he would not be tempted by any trace of an emotion from her.
He tried once more, rising from his feet and taking long, shadowy strides. "Fear can turn to love! You'll learn to see! To find the man behind the monster! This….repulsive carcass who seems a beast, but secretly dreams of beauty. Secretly….secretly…."
She would have been moved to tears by this poor man's confession, but her stony heart would not be broken. He touched her cheek, almost afraid to break that porcelain skin with his rough fingertips. She did not move, did not look into his face, but only cried a single tear for him.
A single tear.
He stared at that tear as it trailed down her face, resting on her lips and disappearing forever. He sighed.
They sat for several moments in silence, Raven not breaking from her passiveness and Ignatius not breaking from his stubbornness. Finally, she spoke.
"Where is it?"
"Where is what?"
She looked up from the stone floor, up where he was sitting upon his desk. "The Dominatio Talisman, where did you put it?"
He looked at her before opening a small drawer in the desk. He pulled from it a bejeweled box, sparkling with precious gems, and opened the lid to reveal the necklace. He displayed it to her, shining darkly inside the box, as if it were a bad omen.
"It's yours, you know. I will not deny it to you. You could wear it forever and I will not stop you, will not remove it again. I only ask that you consider me. Consider us."
She looked at the talisman, desperate with a longing of the control it could give her, and looked away. She got up from where she was sitting and took a few steps towards the shadowy walls. "You still haven't addressed the issue of where we are." She looked over her shoulders at him, hugging her arms to herself. "I'm assuming we're not in our reality, correct?"
He chuckled, but this time it was not so threatening. Though she clenched her teeth in pain, it did not slit her senses like the previous one. "Au contraire, we are very much in your reality. We are underneath the Tower, in the lair I built and have been building for some time now. The Tower will be ours, of course, when the Titans are gone."
She looked at him sternly. "What makes you think they will leave?" she asked sharply, letting her words echo throughout the room.
He smirked, his all-knowing smirk that left her terribly unnerved. "I know they will, for when I give them the choice they will inescapably choose life over death. I'm afraid…." He studied the talisman as if it were the most interesting topic in the room, "I'm afraid that most humans do not care what the stakes are. As long as they are given the chance to live."
She looked at him unsteadily, as if he were a dangerous bomb that was about to go off and she should choose her words very carefully. Instead, she looked crestfallen, as if all the knowledge she had learned had left her cold. He noticed this, and try as he might, he could not shake the feeling of rejection.
She sat upon the cold, hard ground, staring at the darkness, feeling powerless and weak. He was in control of her powers, binding them, denying her usage of them. Even though she knew she could not escape, she had no will to, for even if she did, he would only find her again and kidnap her once more. In that moment she wanted absolutely nothing.
He never let his eyes trail from her figure. His heart was pounding with anger, impatience, danger. He seemed to be waiting for something, some response, something to happen. Even without her powers, she could sense his eagerness, and started to feel his anxiousness. The air was so thick with moisture and heat that it was no surprise that he lost his temper.
Then, softly, with a weak attempt to touch him, she spoke-sang a few words.
"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her mother promised her that she would send her the angel of music. Her mother promised her…her mother promised her…" She pressed her eyelids together, her eyebrows knitting. She got up from her position and turned towards him, away from the door, her eyes holding anger and resentment. "I trusted you. You betrayed me over and over. Have you gorged yourself at last? Now I know that evil is in your soul, where the true distortion lies…"
He didn't answer. Instead, his frown slowly but surely turned into a sneer of menace, causing Raven to frown with perplextion.
"Wait! I think my dear, we have a guest!"
I didn't get many reviews...you guys make me sad...
scathac's warrior: Lol. Knee him between the legs. That's funny. Here's your update, hope you liked it!
Blonde shadowcat: I AM SO SO SO SO SO sorry! Everytime I wrote Kate, for some reason, I meant you! I don't know why I thought YOU were Kate…that's so freaky. Anyways, everytime I wrote Kate I meant You. Anyways, I'm glad SOMEONE likes evil Figaro. Or Ignatius. Lol. And fear not, I am writing another story!
Girl: Cool, another phan. Thanks for the comment.
I'm going to update again soon. School is out in two our days, yay!
I remember there was mist…
