Wishes and Lost Hope
Chapter Nine
Necessary Dialogue
The refugees trickled by, over and over the same expressions of fear and hopeless despair on hundreds of different faces. Over and over, Sierra gave directions to the Grottos; Daena had recovered well enough to lead the way, assuring safety with the help of the few warriors Domina had to offer. But the refugees kept coming in an impressive caravan. It was a miracle, Athena mused from her attic window, that no one seemed injured; and, though she didn't know every creature that had lived in the little burgh, the numbers seemed right that no one was missing.
With one exception.
Poé… friend, confidant, and keeper of secrets. He was Poseidon to Domina, and most of this new land. Their secret was an old one.
"Athena?"
The woman's thoughts scattered like the mice in the corner; frightened by the sudden, unexpected noise where they had been none. To Athena, it wasn't so much unexpected, rather it had been forgotten. The attic became quiet again as the mouse footfalls fell farther and farther away through the hidden recesses of the crudely built tree home, and Elazul kept the silence out of respect.
"On the table, there," Athena finally stated, turning to lean back against the windowsill. The Jumi's eyes were drawn to corner of the room, to the small table – it was more like a display stand for something – which upon rested a small nondescript box. After long moments of no further prompting towards, Elazul moved slowly from his place on the ladder to the mysteriously plain thing. The whole time, he was painfully aware of the woman studying him closely.
And the least he could have expected; as he lay his hand upon the lid, covering it unintentionally, he felt a reaction within his core. His interrogative glance at her found an expressionless wall of what was once a very lucid human face.
The lid slid up effortlessly, revealing the horror hidden beneath.
Elazul gasped; the pearly Jumi core, reverently set in the center of the silky velvet lining the box's interior was misleading. It had been carved into a tear's shape, bored through the top and strung as a pendant, and the living Jumi stared in horror at what may as well have been the remains of a gruesome murder.
The opalescence of the opal thing gave some relief, and its smell was of old death; although the white kept him mentally repeating the simple truth, Not Pearl.
Lifting it by the string from its cradle, Elazul tried to make out the faint letters carved into its surface.
"I've been a bad girl in my time," with his sickened gaze on her, Athena turned back to the window, "And I'm sorry."
oOo
By nightfall, everyone but Athena had taken to the road. Domina had been emptied entirely, and it was possible that the town would rejoin history as yet another set of ruins to mark the ancient world.
Of all those who considered themselves the mercenary's friends, only Elazul had the privilege of speaking on that last day, and it was only to be dismissed from her life, an act she went though as though it were the most rudimentary of tasks.
The twins behind him kept silent, and for that he was grateful. As they trudged along the highway, he spent the silence in contemplation over the opal core stowed safely in his pocket it.
Who was she, this opal Jumi? The thoughts had quickly become old as they circled his mind, phrased each time in under a new guise. The core could have been ancient, from before he was born, from the wars… and Athena couldn't have been that old. He hoped it was ancient, that she had simply found it, somehow, and been entranced the way she sometimes was by shiny objects. But the shadow in the back of his mind refused to leave, and grew every time he paid it any bit of attention. Was it guilt that made her cry, and not the tragedy of a fallen race?
Lost in thought as he was, Elazul neglected to check his pace; the twins were falling all the further behind him.
oOo
Three days after the revelation, Athena had returned to the domestic side of her life. Her past was now, all she had to do was wait for it to call on her.
Leaning against the fence, she watched quietly as the penned animals went about their grazing. Rolling a blade of grass over her tongue, she contemplated the way of things… or what little of the way she could comprehend.
"You life seems to have dried up; I may have to find a new epic,"
Athena tensed at the unexpected intrusion. Not in a mood to appreciate the amusement of Wisdoms, she examined the stringy, chewed-apart stalk sullenly.
"You know he was here?"
"I know for a fact he was not here. If by 'he,' you were referring to myself, of course. I'm slightly behind, I'm afraid, but the view was worth the fall."
The mercenary glanced sidelong at the Wisdom, who smiled in the way that only he did, "Would Master Storyteller unravel his riddles for his disciple, or does he enjoy leaving her in the dark?"
"I wouldn't resort to riddles if I knew what she was speaking of."
"I thought I'd forgotten the past…" Athena mumbled, ducking her head under her folded arms.
"I suppose it'd be my job to remember it for you," Pokiehl announced, puffing up into a prideful, feathered bubble.
"Yeah, well… you didn't have to pull up old ghosts, you know…"
"When did I do any such thing?"
The woman snapped upright, scowling at her unwelcome guest, "What do you mean, wh-?"
Words were cut short as the Wisdom gently took his 'disciple' by the arm and turned her towards the path leading back to the house, "My dear, I think you have a guest."
"And my, my, what similitude?" Athena stared at the stranger, and a rush of memory flooded past the point of perception.
"Atha!"
"Atha!"
Green hair, green eyes…
The young woman with the foreign clothes, dull desert colors; her brown eyes vindictive, and long blonde hair controlled only by a strategically placed series of bone tubing; approached confidently. Pokiehl chose that moment to disappear.
The young woman scowled. The plan had been so simple… How could the boy be so naïve? How could she have been..?
Athena stared past the girl, causing the stranger to become aggravated. Her eyes burned with rage, even as the older woman ignored her.
"Kraols told me a lot about you," Athena shook the clouds from her head, and took in the full appearance of the woman who, the mercenary imagined, was her replacement. Wait a minute, was I ever that..?
"Did he? What's my shadow like?" The question was poised in sincere wonderment, but the stranger was not amused.
"He requests your presence…"
Athena laughed – the man she remembered as Kraols would never have 'requested.' Demand, probably, but never so… cordially. The stranger only got angrier.
"You can tell him I'm not coming," Athena smiled once she stilled, but continued choking on the occasional giggle.
"He will undo everything you've accomplished here," the threat didn't do much, and Athena turned back to the pen.
"He will take your friends, one-by-one until you comply," but they could take care of themselves… couldn't they?
"He already has one of them."
Athena's mind stopped. That could not have been true… Looking over her shoulder, she found the girl appeared quite serious. Then again, it could have been an act. Then again…
"Where?" Not desperate, and who was not important; for that the girl seemed displeased.
"Leires," Athena wished the stranger to make up her mind – now she sounded a little meek.
"Wait on my doorstep. I want to feed my pets,"
A long moment passed before the stranger shuffled off, and Athena jumped the fence. The nearest creature was a young dragon sunning himself, and Athena sighed,
"I wish I were a dragon…"
oOo
The tower loomed over its land. Over the years, its uses had varied, but Athena had never known it to be hospitable. The monsters had better leave me alone… she had concealed a dagger for safety, but presumed unarmed and she hoped to keep it that way.
Pokiehl danced at the gate, much to her surprise. He stopped as she did and stared. The bird-features melted away, revealing another familiar shape, along with a smirk that would have done the young knight justice.
"True form," the mercenary accosted the shapeshifter, and Escad's form disappeared into a youth she had never met. Whether it was true or not, she did not truly care – just that it was not one she knew.
"He's waiting at the top of the tower," the girl's instructions were cut short as Athena turned her wandering attention to the matter at hand.
"Is that to say you're not coming with me?"
"I wasn't supposed to."
Athena grinned an, oh really? of a grin. She grabbed the girl by the shirt and dragged her along as she pushed onward to face the past.