8.4
The Ancient
The murk… shifts… and stirs.
Who stands before them? Who braved the Aerie of their lesser cousins?. Who ventured through the Shrine's Servants?
They peer through the endless fog… and they see.
This one did not travel. This one was simply here.
As if lightning struck from the heavens. It appeared and was here. A shimmering piece of the whole.
It fumbles with its limbs. A hatchling in all but name...
They watched and observed. Fathomlessly ancient eyes beheld this, a new curiosity. They drew closer, sifting through the fog, peering through the sliver of a fragment of a soul.
They breathed in the scent, tasting the essence of the spirit on their tongue.
And thus, they could see.
Grief.
Sorrow.
Struggle.
Joy.
Purpose.
Betrayal.
Anger.
Rage.
Fear.
Ecstasy.
Exhaustion.
Isolation.
Despair.
All of these...
Such a frail thing. With a myriad of emotions and memories.
Yet, still only a fragment.
And there. Just beneath the surface, past the thin veneer.
Dark.
To have such taint and not be twisted. It must have been a powerful soul. One with a will of steel. A soul tested by adversity.
Their eyes passed over the shard, their wills tugged and plucked at the slivers of emotion, of self, taking what they could, extrapolating more information from this little curiosity, disassembling it even further into nothing but the barest sense of self, where they could see… peering into the fog, in hope of answers from fragmented memories.
And it finds it there… as always.
It, like everything else, wants.
For the curse of life, is the curse of want.
Her want was always the most valuable… and the most treacherous…
It had led many astray. Driven them to madness…
But so be it.
With a whisper of thought… it was done…
They brought their eyes up, away from the sliver of a soul. Onto this one. The one that came from them.
She walked. Dressed in robes of green their daughter was.
There they could sense the other shards, other little fragments clinging to her like the fireflies of those created by the Dead One.
She did not speak, merely bowed once in respect before reaching forward and plucking this small thing. They gave a slight nod of the head as they breathed.
Then she was gone. The shard with her, allowing them to return to slumber, waiting for another to stand before them.
(X)
Emma Barnes
"They weren't kidding when they said Grantland Woods was the place to be." Mouse Protector commented. Even with the flooding, the homes were still largely intact, and while much of their lustre was lost in the thin beam of their flashlights, one could still see that this was a nice place to live. Really nice, even when putting them on standards that didn't include Nazis as neighbors.
"This? A-Are you sure this is right?" Emma asked suddenly, coming to a complete, startled stop as she stared at the Heroine in front of her.
Mouse Protector turned, smirking. "Yes!" She chirped. "I graduated my map-reading classes with a D plus! Of course I'm sure!" She let out a confident, boisterous laugh that seemed too cartoonish.
The humor fell a little flat when Emma continued staring at the place in front of them with the same look of a deer in the headlights.
Jennifer frowned, frankly their resident Psych-non-ward parahuman was the person she knew the least about. The main reason she was here was because she was the only Mover not dead or exhausted or off on some other call. And while she couldn't fly towards the area, she could get Miss Barnes back real fast once they were done… and get her to escape if it became necessary.
Emma Barnes might be the parahuman on base she knew the least about, but she was fairly sure that somewhere between teleporting out of Vegas with Strider and teleporting into the Bay, within that vast interim of time, the knowledge of Emma Barnes and Taylor Hebert going together like gunpowder and a lit match simply appeared in her mind through pure serendipity.
She looked at the girl, then back at the building. "You know the place?"
Emma nodded. "Yeah… but… Taylor… Taylor wouldn't come here!" She said. "This…"
Mouse Protector tilted her head. "Yeees?"
"Ummm… This is my house." She finally said.
"...Huh…" Jennifer grunted before shrugging. "Give her points for originality. If even half of what I'd heard about you and Taylor was true we never would have looked here."
"Sh-should we call back and double check?" She half asked.
Mouse Protector shook her head. "Nah. The big wigs wouldn't mix that up, especially not Alexandria, especially not in a way that just so happened to send you back to your house. Let's go in and check."
Emma sucked down a breath through her nostrils, moving through the knee deep water to make it towards her house, wondering why Taylor would be here, if she really was here at all...
When they made it to the door, Emma realized she didn't have her key, but she didn't need it. With a touch on the door Mouse Protector grabbed her hand, and a second later they'd teleported onto the other side of the wooden barrier.
The inside of the house was also flooded. Not as bad as outside, but even with the three steps on their front porch giving them some extra height there was a noticeable inch or so of water inside of her home, sloshing over the hardwood floors.
Emma looked down the hallway of her house. Completely dark, save for the illumination provided by Mouse Protector's flashlight.
There was only a few reasons she could imagine Taylor coming here. None of them good for her or her family.
She looked to the crystal that now hung from her neck, opaque and dull where before it was a clear white. Not quite a glow but certainly not like this…
The lady in white was tired. Silent. And she didn't know if the Knight's she'd used to stall the spreading Dark were gone forever or just recovering.
Taylor had killed Leviathan… she heard the murmurings and whispers at the Delany Town Center. Capes that were killed rising from the dead. Ashen idols that were used during the Outcry Incident appearing across the city like vengeful ghosts, screams and whispers straight into people's thoughts. And that wasn't even counting the promised death of her dark cloud.
If Taylor had come here to hurt her or her family Emma had few notions of anyone short of possibly Scion himself being able to stop it.
She followed Mouse Protector through the gloom, going room by room, searching everywhere, in closets and even the lower kitchen cabinets.
Taylor was small enough to fit in those… but… after the Locker… she might very well have killed anyone who would have tried to put her in there. Emma had seen and… re-lived the mere brush of those emotions enough to know that Taylor would never again enter any place even remotely similar under her own power.
Still… there was nothing. No ash, nothing moved or changed from what she could remember. Frankly, if not for the inch or two of water, her house wouldn't have even the faintest notion of something having gone wrong outside these walls.
"First floor seems clea-"
There was a flash, a wisp of something along her- their periphery before it was gone, vanishing as quickly as it had come.
Mouse Protector's flashlight darted to the right, back towards the house's main entrance and the stairway to the second story.
"You saw that too, right?"
Emma nodded, and Mouse Protector pulled out a collapsible rod from her utility belt, clicking it open. "Stay behind me."
They made their way closer, Mouse protector's eyes moving from the hallway to the stairs and up towards the second floor before slowly beginning to climb.
As her feet pulled out of the wet, dripping grounds, Emma realized that she hadn't heard any kind of splashing…
"Alright Red." The newly instated Protectorate commander breathed… "Not sure what it was that we saw but if anything dangerous happens you stay close to me. Do not run away. No matter what happens. You understand? I can get us both out of here before anything would even have a chance to blink, but only if I don't have to run down the room to chase you."
Emma nodded before Mouse Protector moved to finish climbing the stairs, rod in one hand, flashlight in another.
The upper floor was as dark as the lower one.
"Where's your room?" The Protectorate hero asked.
"Why?"
"If Taylor's here I doubt she'd be waiting in your parents room over yours. Or the guest room. Or the bathroom. Or the closet." She answered.
She turned and started walking, ahead of Mouse Protector, leading the way.
When she made it to her bedroom door, she opened it, with the same trepidation of someone opening a sarcophagus.
She… hears it before she sees it. As if the voice had been trapped behind these four walls. She knew something was wrong even before she saw Mouse Protector stiffen at the corner of her eyes.
The voice… the sound… its Taylor but…
She opens the door. And its there, a glimmering light, in her room, giggling and laughing, as she sits at the foot of her bed… the timbre of her voice… young… far too young.
"Okay… I'm officially weirded out now." Mouse Protector drawled before inching forward, turning off the flashlight and hooking it back onto her belt. "Taylor?"
But the spectre ignores her, still looking down at her lap as though she'd never been called at all.
Emma hovered by the doorway, as confused as the Protectorate Heroine as she listened to Taylor hum some idle tune.
Then, suddenly, she nearly jumped out of her skin as Taylor's high pitched voice called to her.
"Hey Ems-"
She froze like a deer caught in the headlights.
"You wanna go to Rapid Falls? I wanna go but mom hasn't taken me, maybe you could talk to your dad and he'll take us. You think he'll take us? Do you think it'll be fun? Oh do you wanna go somewhere else? He'll take us if you ask for your birthday-"
The words trailed off, fading in the wind, and Emma was left once more in confusion…
It wasn't the… sound of her voice, different as it was. It wasn't even the questions themselves. It was…
For over two years… Taylor's voice hadn't sounded like this. A series of rapid-fire questions, one after the other with barely a moment's breath in between. A motor-mouth with no filter.
The Taylor she knew… the Taylor she'd grown… to know… the one that she'd hammered relentlessly… she didn't talk like this. She measured every word, every sentence, with a deliberate care to make certain nothing in it could be used against her and her interactions could be kept as short as humanly possible.
The difference… had been gradual… something she'd barely even noticed when it first happened through the passage of the months and years. But… right now it was brought to such a sharp and rapid comparison… it was like comparing night and day.
"Taylor can you hear me at all? Do you know where you are?" Mouse Protector called.
"Can I do yours now Ems?"
The Protectorate heroine tsked, "Damnit this is bad." Her hand rose up to her ear. "This is Mouse Protector. I've found Taylor but we're dealing with some Master/Stranger power I've - Yeah? Huh? You mind repeating that Dria?"
As Mouse Protector spoke into her earpiece Emma finally pulled together what courage she had and stepped through the door.
The Phantom moved then.
She… couldn't see a face… no eyes… no mouth. There was no face. But… she felt her smile… a smile she hadn't felt directed at her for a long… long time.
"Can I do yours now Ems?" The ghost repeated in its childlike voice.
She didn't know how to answer. Not knowing what the translucent Phantom was referring to.
"I…" She began, trying to explain. "I'm sorry…"
Those… that wasn't it. That wasn't what she wanted to say. She wanted to say something else. Explain something else. Her apology… it had to come later. Had to be right. It had to be when Taylor could answer her… One way or the other...
She shook her head, sniffing as she blinked back the tears, a well of sadness pooling up in her gut as she tried to push it back down.
Suddenly, the spectre moved, shifted and changed, its smoke like tendrils losing all form before reforming at her side. She felt its strangely warm touch at her fingers, as though it was trying to grasp fingers too large for her hand.
"It's ok Emma. Your dad will be here! I'll stay til he comes. Don't cry."
The tears glimmered in her eyes. "I… I don't understand I-"
"Don't cry Emma! I'll stay til your dad comes, I promise!"
Suddenly… like a lightswitch there was a flicker of memory. An ember sparking the wick of a candle.
It had been… her first day. First day, or close enough at a new school… She'd made friends, met other kids… but then her dad had gotten into a minor car accident or something. He was late.
He was late… and the other kids came and went with their parents… none had stopped. None had noticed the increasing worry. The fear in her as the minutes past the time her daddy said he'd be there added up, and those minutes had slowly turned to hours where she grew increasingly more distraught.
Only one girl had stayed with her.
Even when her own mother came she didn't want to leave her there… leave her alone…
She feels the nausea burn at the back of her throat, a sick disgust welling up from her stomach as she remembers that it was a small act of kindness that had granted Taylor the curse of knowing her… branded her with it.
The knowledge that Taylor would have been completely better off not showing her that courtesy... How, she rewarded her for it… in the end...
"I'm sorry!' She shouted, hoping that by sheer volume her voice would break through whatever this was. "None of it should have… I should have gone to you… I should have waited for you to get back! I shouldn't have gone to Sophia! I should have talked -"
Her voice cracked and broke.
The Phantom shifted again, standing in front of her now, hands cupped and held out as though she were holding both Emma's hands, which would have been entirely possible if Emma was still a similar height to this… child phantom.
Now her hands grasped nothing but empty air.
"You can always talk with me Emmy…" It said. And once more Emma got the impression of a smile. "Because I'll always be right here for you."
When the laughter came this time… the innocence… the carefree nature felt like nails through her gut. Glass across her brain. The acid that had been burning in the back of her throat came rushing up and she had to run, had to get out of there. Had to get away from this memory!
She made it two steps free of her room before her legs wobbled. Grasping onto the upper railing of the stairs, she retched over the side, dry heaves churning her guts with a pain that wasn't just physical.
She felt a hand on her back, rubbing slow, smooth circles over her spine.
"You gotta go back in." Mouse Protector said softly.
She tried to speak, her voice coming out as a croak before she spat, trying to clear the taste out of her mouth even as she tried to gulp down air. In the end, she settled for shaking her head.
"You have to." The Protectorate heroine insisted. "If you're serious about wanting to help her… about making amends. Well then consider this step number one."
"Wha-" She swallowed, grimacing at the taste. "What can I even do!? I'll just end up fucking this up again!"
"...What did you do in your sleepovers?"
Sleepovers… is that what-
She heard a giggle in the room beyond… and the answer came to her… the first words the ghost had spoken now making sense.
When she finally caught her breath, and gathered enough of herself to pull away from the railing, she half walked, half stumbled back to her room… She noticed it there… on the bed. Ignored before due to the oddity of Taylor's phantom itself.
But it was there now, waiting for her…
She stepped forward carefully, sitting down on the bed before her hand reached, and grasped the brush… the one she still kept in her old drawer. One that she hadn't opened but was open now.
Her fingers reached and carefully went through the motions of brushing Taylor's long wavy hair, just as she remembered it… almost… if she concentrated… she could just feel the strands tugging against her hand. Taking style and form.
"Can I do yours now Ems?"
...
"... Yeah… of course you can Taylor…" Emma's already forced smile turned brittle… a piece of glass shattering further with every passing second. "We're… we're friends… aren't we?"
"Of course we are Emms… I'll always be your friend!"
It was amazing how such kind words… how such a simple sentence, not meant to hurt her… could make her feel so very wretched inside…
The phantom moved, like mist, dispersing before taking shape behind her, running her ghostly fingers through her hair.
She could almost feel it. Like wind through her hair. Gentle...almost unnoticed entirely.
…
"I'm going to talk to her."
Mouse Protector said nothing, standing at the doorway, leaning against it, arms crossed. .
"When Taylor is back to normal…" She affirmed. "I want… I need to talk to her."
Mouse Protector said nothing. Neither encouraging, or discouraging her.
She closes her eyes, allowing herself to feel the ghostly hands threading through her red hair, listening to the hum of a tune only Taylor ever sang trying not to cry...trying to remember this...these moments of an old friendship, even as the phantom of her friend reminds her that time is long gone...for either of them.
(X)
She walked, for… a time… She was not sure how long. Long enough for the sun to move in the sky, from being directly above, to being behind them.
She didn't know one could walk away from the sun…
She trailed behind the armored man, the orange light of the sun was shiny on the shield he had on his back. Up the hill and past the forest they could see a big building. Was it offices? She remember that big buildings were offices… Now if she could just remember what an office was.
Animals and little critters scuttled about around them, curious but not venturing close.
The older one, and the one with the all too pale face were further ahead, not saying a word, not even looking back.
It was only as they began to reach the doors of the building that the woman looked back towards her.
"Still there is she?" She… said? Was it said or asked?
The man in the armor turned, looking at her. "Of course. I invited her. And you know how no one can say no to this face!"
"Right."
"If she's hidin' a dagger in those ghost breeches don't come runnin ta' me!" The other man yelled from the front, still not looking back as he climbed the hill towards the building.
"That is an excellent point." The armored man said.
Too fast. Their words were too fast… She could hear but… her thoughts… it was like… trying to run after a car…
…
Then… She remembers that she doesn't know what a car is.
"Here you go."
The armored man was holding something out. When she looked, it was a knife, small, fitting in the palm of his hands.
"Take it. You might need to defend yourself in there. Just because Benhart couldn't hurt you doesn't mean that can't change."
It took some time… some… effort to understand what he was saying but she got it. She understood. When she reaches for the dagger's hilt… she feels her fingers pass straight through it.
"Oh well." He says with a shrug of his shoulders. "That's ok. I'm sure we'll figure it out soon." The dagger is back on his belt, and as he walks, she follows.
As they reach the top of the hill, they find the stairs and a pool of moss green water that leads towards the entrance… then, she notices something…
Shapes.
People, things, items; all blue, like her. Wisps of blue white smoke or flame. Not… human… not anymore.
She can hear their voices on the wind, see them even as the others, the older one, the pale one, and the kind one pass through them. Not seeing them even as the pale woman marches past one that looked so much like her it could have been her twin.
Can't you see? She wants to ask.
But they can't see. They're oblivious. Only she can see.
They walk and she walks with them, watching what they can't, seeing the things scatter around their forms like schools of fish moving because of a shark… and she remembers what those things are.
As they move towards the end of the hallway… there's a door. Its massive, all bandied steel and rusted hinges. It would normally take ten men to move it just on weight alone.
But there's more than that. More than simple steel. The glimmer of blue white. Where before the shapes and memories like her had moved away, here, they drew close, tightly packed to add another layer of invisible protection that the old one, the pale one, and the kind one couldn't see.
The old one places his shoulder to it and pushes.
It doesn't move.
"Let me try." The kind one says, stepping forward, past the pale one.
He places his hand onto the door, and… like an explosion of starlight, the resplendent wall of sheer white is undone, destroyed. And he pushes the door open with nary an effort.
"I loosened the hinges for ye." The old one grumbles as the kind one laughs.
But she can see what they can't. See the wound now open where before there was a closed door, blue and white fires bleeding out into the world outside like watery blood.
She reaches for them, trying to grasp at it, with fingers that couldn't hold a dagger, but could now feel the brush of energy. She tries to grip. But it's like sand passing through a net.
The doors are shoved wide, and there's a whitewash. Just for a second… and… She can think… it becomes easier to pull her thoughts free of the fugue that traps them.
Then it's all gone and she can only see a room.
It is a large room, with two great arched stairways on the sides. And… bones.
"A dragon skeleton. Don't see that everyday." The old one said as he drew forward.
It's not a Dragon. It's a Dinosaur. she thinks, infinitely pleased that she can remember that… and… and that his name is Benhart! Not the skeleton! The old one! His name is Benhart!
But she sees something more. Again, the invisible convergence of blue and white, rushing up the length of the bones.
Then the bones moved.
Whereas she saw it, in a different way, they, her… friends? They saw it as well.
"Back!" The pale one… Lucatiel. The one who's face was not a face but a mask, shouted and the old one, Benhart began sprinting towards the hallway again. The kind one drew his sword, backing away as well.
She watches, transfixed by the spectacle as she saw what pulled the puppet strings. What made the bones move and act like this, the memories that converged to make this occur.
It roared, or… it sounded like it roared, the blue white flames making it do so, becoming its skin, its flesh, muscles and nerves for however brief a time before it attacked, passing straight through her with blue and white fire that passed through her as well.
It crashed into the entrance, all teeth and plate and crumbling rock that cracked the bone and skull open.
Then it was still.
"Taylor!"
Her name. That was her name.
She drifted back, moving through the inert bones and finding the Kind One there at the hallway
"Yes?" She asks, remembering to be polite in her answer.
"You alright?"
"Oh yeah, sure, ask the untouchable ghost if she's alright but I don't get a so much as a second glance." Benhart groaned as he rolled himself to his back from where he'd been laying flat on his stomach from his dive to get that extra distance.
The Kind One laughed, pulling something else from his belt. A… bell? "Oh come off it. You know I'll help you in a minute." He chuckled.
She can… see it… but… no longer is it blue and white, it's… gold. Pure spun gold moving through him, into his hands where he made it do something, become something else.
The soothing light that she saw there reminded her of a warmth she'd felt before… somewhere. But… it is different. More… refined. Like it was meant to do this, and not… cleverly fixed to do it…
Benhart, the old one, sighed as he stretched. "Talk about a welcome party. Ye all think someone was spectin' us?"
"I think that dragon skeleton was created to ward off intruders. Or had enough of a sense of self remaining to strike one last time. So no, I wouldn't place any concerns on whether or not someone is ready for us." Lucatiel mentioned as she negotiated her way past teeth and shattered bone-plate.
"Meh. Ready for us or not, it's not like we can exactly turn away and go back to Majula. So no use worrying about it. Let's head up." The kind one said as he made his way through and past the Dragon's skeleton's now unhinged jaw.
As they walk, she can see the blue slowly returning. Like a tide creeping its way back up to shore after it had pulled back. Inch by tiny inch, rolling in.
There were several, gathered around a statue of some fat monster. Like moss.
"Ogres." Lucatiel all but spat. "I detest ogres."
"I'll be sure to leave him frozen then." The kind one laughed.
She walked up, towards the blue gathering, reaching forward to touch it, seeing it react to her, drawing itself close, like metal to a magnet as the other's jumped, hopped, and crawled their way around the Ogre that nearly took up the entire stairwell with his girth.
As they reached the top, they found a cage.
There was… something in there… she didn't know what it was. The only word that came to mind was 'lizard' but she knew that was wrong. The word, the name was wrong for this thing. It wasn't a lizard, just like it. She didn't remember its name.
"He's a big one." Benhart said.
"Stay to its sides. Let's not hurt it if we don't have to…" the kind one said, stepping carefully around the cage, giving it a wide berth as the big lizard stared blankly at the net of bars that trapped it.
"It's wrong for things to be in cages." She says.
Her words carry out to the others, and they each turn, looking at her. "What's that?"
"Things… shouldn't be in cages…" She said again… knowing somewhere that what she was saying was true, without really knowing why. "They get sad."
"Well… that's true. But this one is dangerous, Taylor. So we have to leave it alone for now. Sorry..."
She frowned. She… didn't like his explanation. It made sense… but… the more she thought of it… the word for what he was saying escaping her before she grasped it - Necessity - the more she thought of it, the more she didn't like it…
They walked… she followed.
As they made it through an archway they entered a room with a dragon statue. Then Benhart reached up, pulling something in its mouth.
They enter a hallway, long and impossibly tall for the door they just marched past. Its proportions were all wrong, even to her mind.
And the blue… the flickering white that had danced across her sight through the front rooms… now it was red. Like blood pouring from the walls and streaming across the floors, all she could see was blood red and streaks of black, see the movement of phantoms, hear screams and screeches of pain across a thousand years.
…
She didn't like this place…
There was… a gathering… a place where the red and the black took form.
There was no face… only armor, armor over a seething black flame.
There were others… other creatures, other gatherings, each taking a similar form. Augurs of black souls trapped in dark armor.
The others, the one's with her… drew their blades. They could see them!
"Forlorn." Lucatiel hissed.
"Ner seen this many in one place… Thought these things just wandered." Benhart hissed.
"Wonder what drew them here…" The kind one asked as he drew his longsword from his hip and his shield from his back.
When the fight begins, there's little fanfare, little warning. Benhart is the first to charge, moving towards the nearest shade of red and black with a cry that builds up from his gut. Lucatiel is more cautious, stepping forward rather than running.
But their fights are purely physical things, steel against steel and nothing else.
Yes… there's strength, there's speed and skill. The name Alexandria brushes across her thoughts for the briefest of moments. But she can see something else with these eyes. From this perspective.
It's like… the clash of the sea against a rock… an aurora of pure gold smashing into seething black, pushing it away as the kind one steps forward. His weapon hitting his enemy's weapon with sparks of steel striking steel.
It was… mesmerizing. The struggle she sees physically is not reflected… as futile as it was to try and stop the ocean, so too was this struggle in this realm that they couldn't see. Even as it fought. Even as it attacked with a fierceness that seemed to border on maddened… it didn't matter… gold overpowered black, swallowing it whole. She could see it withering away, finally vanishing entirely as the thin straight sword found its way through the plates of armor, cutting into whatever force or power held these things together, dispersing it like stardust, armor and all.
There was a scream. One that seemed to drag itself across a thousand memories in this place to reach her. And she… saw it… she saw its soul…
She didn't know how she knew it to be a soul… but it was.
Then a second later… it too was gone. Now a part of the power that had destroyed him in the first place… a bit more fuel, poured onto a bonfire to build it greater… higher… everything it was… gone… consumed to make it greater… whole…
She watched it happen again, as he turned first to Lucatiel's enemy… then to Benhart.
Both times… the soul… the memories. The whole. It went to him… and the gold she could see became a little brighter… a little stronger. A little more complete.
…
She was incomplete too…
Could she do the same? Make herself whole again? Fill in the missing pieces?
…
She could… Yes… she could. She'd already felt it once. When they opened the door. When the power of this place had poured out into the world. Washed over her.
Was that how she could get better?
She looked down… to the ground, the walls… where the last of the power of this place remained…
Is this what she needed?
"Taylor?"
She looked down from where she floated, towards the kind one with the brilliant soul…
"Are you alright?"
Was she?
"I think so…" She finally answered before turning to float away, moving towards the place where she could feel the first of the strongest memories remaining here. "I'll be back soon."
"Where are you going?" He asked.
She paused, her head tilting as she considered the question.
"I'm going to go remember now."