Hello Everyone! Sorry for the long absence :( I'm sure y'all thought I was dead XD But nope, I'm still alive and kicking! And I'm back with chapter 17 of Catharsis! Now, onto questions...
Isn't Ithnan 7 years older than Sheba?: Oh geez I don't know XD I just looked on the wiki to see their ages and nothing was listed TT_TT If something is incorrect, I deeply apologize!
Do you have a tumblr account by any chance?: I do, but I kinda stopped using it XD I don't have any time for social media, unfortunately. If you wanna go see it it's liv-loves-anime.
Will Solomon be born?: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Catharsis
By Gold Sparrow
CHAPTER 17: Destruction
"Little one, life isn't fair."
"What do you mean, Saul?"
"I mean," He turns his dark, melancholy eyes to her. She sees pain and horror in them, and she fears it. "That you will suffer. You will suffer terribly. And if your soul is not great and white, you shall Fall."
Though always tender, Tamar was never frail. Her gentle spirit is complemented with her energetic, healthy little body, which aids her endeavors to bring joy to the solemn and shadowed capital. Like her mother, she loves the "big, furry creatures" that roam under the guidance of the "scary towers". She vigorously pleads with her doting father to be allowed to play with them more and more, and she giggles when her mother compliments her fine choice in playmates.
Tamar is so spirited and hopeful that the whole world grows brighter when she's around. Colors are more brilliant, scents more vivid, and tastes even more delicious. She is a miracle that is adored by the whole world, but loved the most dearly by her parents.
Tamar was never frail.
"How did you suffer, Saul?" Saul looks at Bathsheba with his head tilted fully back, looking crookedly at Bathsheba beside him.
"How did I suffer?"
"What happened?" Bathsheba changes her question, recognizing the dazed, lost expression in his eyes. She wants his story, not his ramblings- though often times they are one in the same. She has to pick through the rubble of a broken man, and study his shards, before a glimpse beyond his veil of insanity is awarded to her.
"What happened." Saul says this not as though repeating, but stating. "What happened."
A chipper smile settles on his face.
"I loved, Bathsheba."
Ugo's hands won't stop shaking.
He doesn't know what to do, where to start, his eyes scanning the assembled books with dread and fear. He never looks at books that way. Books make sense. Books were always his friends when the other children wouldn't play with him. But Ugo liked looking at the other children. He liked studying the caretakers. He liked fantasizing about the guests who visited, about who they were and the adventures they've had.
Once, when he was only six, he remembers watching a girl glide through the front doors of the orphanage, her black robes fluttering about her. She had on the sash of a university professor, and her long blue hair was wrapped up on the top of her head in a bun. She eyed the children assembled before coldly greeting the head caretaker, who primly pursed her lips and managed a polite welcome.
Ugo remembers the first time he saw Professor Bathsheba of the University of Trignon.
He did not love her back then. Rather, he was awed. She was an orphan like him who grew up to become one of the most famed professors of the human world. He wanted to be like her, but he could not muster up the courage to introduce himself. Maybe that was what motivated him to work so hard as a student, when in truth all he wanted to do was read in the library. He wanted to become something, to prove that he wasn't just a nobody who didn't matter. And when he was accepted to the University of Trignon, he immediately enrolled in Professor Bathsheba's class, so that he could learn from the woman who was his role model.
Then, he fell in love with her. It was hard not to, when her eyes were so bright and clever, and her smile was a hard-won reward. He knew she didn't feel the same. Or, maybe more likely but so much worse, she was on the verge of it. Either way, it hurt so badly when she married another man. It hurt worse when that man was everything Bathsheba had claimed to hate- the embodiment of her version of evil.
That still didn't stop Ugo from loving her.
"Ugo." Jonathan shakes his shoulder, his voice a hiss. "Hey- these books, will they help? Which one first?"
"Ah," Ugo blinks away his reverie, looking down at his hands. They are still shaking, but now they do so on the top of a medical book. He grips the book and lifts it to his face, taking a nervous breath. "These- yeah, they'll help. Grab one."
"Right." Jonathan whips forward and grabs the next on the top of the pile, taking a seat across from him. "Shit. I thought this was a simple fever."
"Yeah, me too."
"But the blood-"
"Let's-" Ugo interrupts, before stopping himself. He sighs, and tries again. "Let's just read, okay?"
"Yeah." Jonathan studies him for a moment, his face considerate. "If we two geniuses can't do it...Well, I guess maybe only Bathsheba can."
The child jolts back, shocked by his words, and not just because of how strange they are. He rarely calls her by her full name. He never calls her by her full name. The professor laughs, a normal, common chuckle. It does not sound like Saul's mad cackle.
"I loved a long time ago. She was perfection, and I loved her. She gave me a daughter so beautiful and bright that the whole world glowed like a candle." Saul shrugs. "Then I lost both of them. And the suffering made me mad."
He smiles a sad, tired smile at Bathsheba.
For a moment, he does not look very mad.
"Where does it hurt, darling?" The moon shines serenely through the cathedral window, beautifully illuminating the Princess's bedroom. Silken pillows and fluffy blankets lay on a large bed, a small child tucked in the middle of the nest of riches.
"I'm okay, Mommy," The Princess murmurs, her hand stroked by her mother. Queen Bathsheba smiles slightly, before laying a hand on her child's forehead. Tamar turns her head away, her eyes looking glassy.
"What's wrong, sweetness?"
"I just don't want Mommy to touch me. Or she'll get what I have."
"Oh, Tamar," Bathsheba reaches forward, kissing her daughter's face. Her heart lurches and grows pained by the weight of love bubbling there, unable to comprehend how a girl so young could be so considerate. "Don't worry about me. Let's worry about you, okay? So, does it hurt?"
"...Maybe a little," Tamar giggles, before beginning to cough relentlessly. It's a horrible thing, to hear your child cough. For a mother, it's the harshest sound in the world. It makes a mother feel weak and helpless to see their flesh and blood quiver with sickness. All Bathsheba wants to do is coddle Tamar, or, better yet, take her place. That, suddenly, is the greatest wish she has, to give everything she is so that her daughter doesn't have to hurt.
"Well," Bathsheba composes herself, not wanting Tamar to see her nerves. She smiles slightly, stroking the girl's soft hair. Tamar looks so much like David, and it almost breaks her heart all over again. "Don't you worry. Daddy's getting you the medicine, alright?"
"I...Don't understand. I thought that the- er- Soul made you crazy?"
"The Soul?" Saul looks at her like she's the mad one. "No, no, that's not right at all. The Soul saved me, Bathsheba. I could've given up all hope and died without anyone caring, but I didn't. I refused! Because I, little one," Now he grows theatrical, his voice raising. He hopes atop his desk, throwing his hands out giddily. "I have Soul! And I shall make the world sing my name before I go!"
The worst thing about life, David decides, is the inability to control it.
That's why he must become God. He must shed his earthly skin and ascend to the heavens to claim his place as the rightness. There is no more greatness to this society now than there ever has been over the course of time. There has always been dissention and violence in Alma Torran, though people claim it is overpopulation that caused the divide. David doesn't believe this. From the moment he saw his mother being swallowed up by an ogre, he knew that hatred was destined- and because it was destined, all living beings were doomed.
Foolishly, he believed once he took control of the other species with the Gunuds, he had quelled the distracting disturbances of intra-species division. He never realized that his own people- the humans who he painstakingly put under his control through intense ethics training- may hold enough hatred to carry out the painful events Illah put forth through divine will.
Now, he must suffer, because it was destined to be.
"But...I have no intention of suffering."
Bath knows the minute she says it that it sounds stupid. Naive. But Saul just smiles at her, shaking his head. Then he lets out an even, sane laugh that soon dissolves into tears. He sobs loudly, dropping to his knees atop his desk as water plops onto the wood below. She knows she shouldn't be shocked by his wild mood swing, but she is. She finds herself unable to move an inch as he cries hysterically.
"Oh, Bath," He says at last, wiping at his tears. She realizes that they are genuine tears, real tears for her sake. As if he knew the pain she will endure. "Everyone suffers. We don't expect it. We can't possibly know the date that it will come. Even predicting it is impossible. But it happens. And that's why I must explain it to you, Bath. So you know."
Ugo's been awake for forty hours now.
His head lolls to the side, but his fingers still move with angry precision, jotting down formula after formula. Jonathan sits at the other side of the table, deep purple circles making rings underneath his eyes.
"We'll be done soon." Ugo says, but his voice is a murmur. Jon looks up and nods, but his eyes are dull.
"Is there-"
"There is a chance." Ugo snaps. He feels horrible a moment after saying it, because he is the kind of man who thinks before he speaks. "I'm sorry. That was harsh."
By the look on Jon's face, Ugo can tell he's using the last of his clear-headedness to reign in his exhaustion-fueled irritation.
"It's alright. But honestly, Ugo, how can we expect to have the medicine finished on time?"
"Because we have to," He responds. He sounds too eager, too desperate. "There isn't another choice."
"..." Jon looks down. "I thought you loved Bathsheba."
Ugo's throat grows uncomfortably tight.
"Why do this for the child she had by another man?"
His hands fist, and he swallows a thick pill of self-hate and undescribeable mercy.
"Because," He responds at last, his energy renewed and his heart aching. "I love her too much to want her to feel pain."
"Know what?"
Saul draws closer, too close. Every nerve in Bathsheba's body tells her to run. The voices are quiet, but she feels their presence. It's almost as if they too are frightened by Saul's wild, predatory eyes. Her teacher's breath fans against her face as he speaks, and it makes her shake.
"You have to be strong. You have to be so, so strong."
David watches the librarians scramble.
Ugo and Jonathan.
Silly pets his wife brought with her to the palace. He could have expelled them- he thought of it. But he had always felt indifferent about their placement. Now, he hates them. He hates them because they are all that stands between his child and the grim reaper, and he can't stand the thought of having them there instead of him. He could have been studying too. He did, in fact, study. Her symptoms, her ailment...But he felt as though he was missing something. This was no ordinary disease ravaging his helpless child. It was special, intense, and no one recognized its deadliness until Tamar began coughing up blood. He closes his eyes against the memory.
Now he knows why he didn't recognize the disease. The magicians know too, except unlike him, they had realized the cause earlier, and began assembling the cure.
Yes, David hates them. David is the thousand-year-old magician. He is the one with the most knowledge, the most wisdom, the most magic. He should've seen what was afflicting Tamar and instantly known what to do- not the two young half-wits racing about gathering the necessary charms and herbs for medication. It's a father's duty to protect his child. And David has failed his little girl.
My hunger made me love her, and now I am doomed.
I suppose love is also destined, isn't it?
"Just remember, okay?"
"Remember what?"
"That there is a tomorrow. There is a plan."
"I don't want a tomorrow or a plan. I want to make my own future."
"And you can, because you are blessed. You are the savoir. But that doesn't mean you will win, Bathsheba."
The whiteness the birds floating around her, the solemn twitching of nurses along the walls. They are comparable, Tamar thinks, but she's too young to find out why. What is the connection between living and dying? She wants to know, but she can't, because she hasn't learned enough to understand even if someone answers her question. She has not lived enough. But luckily, her little heart is too sweet to feel desperation or sadness. Instead she cluelessly wanders the room with her gaze, watching people's faces as if they will give her the life she desires.
What is hope like?
Ester's sweet eyes, jumping and moving, awaiting Ugo's arrival.
What is friendship like?
Arba brushes the hair away from her eyes, a deep pain written along the creases of her face.
What is love like?
Bathsheba squeezes her child's fingers, and kisses her forehead softly.
"It's okay, Tamar," Her mother whispers to her, her voice heavy and sad. "It's alright now. I know you're in pain."
"Mommy," She says back. She wants to deny the claim, but it's true. It's ever so true. She feels like her fingers are slipping on a wet rope. She wants to keep holding that rope, to keep climbing it with all her might. But her fingers are cold and her joints ache when she tries to move them, and she continues to slide down and down.
"You're in pain," Bathsheba repeats, stroking her cheeks, her hair, her voice now a heavy whisper. "I understand if you're tired, my darling. I understand."
I don't.
But that doesn't seem to matter anymore.
"I love you." Tamar opens her mouth to say it back, but she can't. "I love you, Tamar. I love you."
Tamar feels a deep pressure build up in her throat, and she wants to say those words one more time.
I love you too.
"Mommy and Daddy love you." A hot tear falls from her mother's eye onto her cheek. She stares at Bathsheba and wants to cry as well, but her eyes are dry. Why can't she control herself anymore?
I love you too.
"I don't think I've ever loved anyone before you."
I love you too.
"And I don't know if I'll love anyone after you."
I love you too.
"So do what's right for you, my love. And know that I-"
Her fingers give out, and the rope slips out of her grasp.
I love you too, Mommy.
"You can't win. But you can overcome."
"Bathsheba! I have it! I have the medicine-!"
"..."
"...I...I have it."
"...Ugo."
"I'm...Too late."
"You can overcome."
CH END.
So yeah, I'm pretty sad now TT_TT The main reason why this was so hard to update was because it's an important chapter and I didn't have the motivation to write it- nor did I want to write something crappy when it's supposed to be serious and grim. I hope you guys like it (even if you're crying)! Also, I appreciate all the support from the reviews- both for the current story and for a sequel (and from everyone wanting SinbadXBathsheba) :) Thanks everyone!
Also I am going to go through and update this later with edits- I had time to do a read through and fix major edits/make changes, but I want to do another deep reader for minor edits and consistency later. Love you guys!
Got any questions or suggestions? Something wrong about the chapter? Grammatical errors, something you didn't like? PM me or leave it in the reviews, I will reply and see what I can do to make the story better/clearer for y'all to understand. ILY MY DARLING READERS!
BYE~~~~~~~