Okay, so my quality of writing seems to be decreasing since I'm a little unsure where to take this couple in order to get from the end of point A (which is Chapter 15) to Point B in my outline. Therefore there might be two or three chapters of kindasorta filler. (Ack.) But I shall try not to drag this on for too long, especially since CoaP is intended as a get-to-the-point story (with a little bit of humour in between).
Disclaimer: There are many things in this world that do not belong to me. Kubera is one of them.
S-C-N-D
Courtship of a Phoenix
…
The three judges stood with identical postures: eyebrows furrowed, one hand on their chin, and occasionally an impatient scratch of their feathers with the other, vacant hand. Being the last three living Suras from their line, each one had no choice but to endure the presence of the other two, even though it felt beyond awkward with even two of them together for longer than an hour. One of the three was currently questioning his loyalty to his king. Two of the three could think of much better ways to spend their leisure time. All three were wishing they were anywhere but here.
"Well," the pink haired woman finally offered her wisdom, "it's clear that one of you is in the wrong and I think I know who."
Her father crossed his arms. "Both of you have to apologize in my opinion."
His father rolled his eyes. "Don't turn to me. I only find it amusing that no one got thrown into a mountain this time."
"…"
"Considering all the damage you two caused the clan so far, I think you should just break up."
"…"
"Then again, seeing as Vegavis nearly died to bring you together, I feel that his almost sacrifice would be in vain if that were to happen. Perhaps what you need is a change of heart for the considerate. The last thing our Nastikas want is for Vinata to return to thirsting for the throne. It's almost like that saying: damned if you do, damned if you don't."
"…"
Garuda's hand pressed on her shoulder and Vinata, distracted, looked over it to see his poker face.
"You're heating up. You've been uncharacteristically silent the entire time. Why the effort? There's no need to hold it in. It's only Avifauna." The icy demeanor suddenly shattered to reveal an almost mischievous smile and an unmistakable twinkle in his eye. "Just scorch him."
…
Chapter Seventeen: The End of Us
N0 - approx. 54000 years
…
Several profane curses rang through Garuda's mountains. Minutes later, three sets of wings flapped as if the Suras were running for their lives. Halfway to the horizon, the pink-red Upani turned and winked. She was the only one of the three with an attribute of fire and had more resistance to Vinata's attacks despite being the lowest ranked Sura of the line.
Garuda scratched his head in wonder. "Ah, I had no idea your frustration ran that deep. I shouldn't have let them interfere with our personal affairs." His arm around her waist tightened. "Are you feeling better though?"
Vinata, with hand cupping her own cheek, was smiling genuinely for the first time in many years. "Better isn't how I'd put it, but… what should I say? The existence of these three affirms the notion that our clan is the best in the world."
She looked down almost depressingly into the palms of her hands. "It's been hundreds of thousands of years since I've been among my kin… people other than you and Cepphus and Kalavinka. We used to hunt together, eat together, laugh together. After they died, I spent many years with the Ananta Clan and the Gods. Seeing Myna and Vegavis and even Avifauna, cheeky as he is, made me realize how lonely I've become."
About to continue, Vinata sighed without really thinking about it. Garuda leaned down and kissed her, momentarily frying her brain and making her forget her train of thought.
"That is the burden of Nastikas," he said, "to continue living while others die."
Still in awe, Vinata stood there dumbly, mouth agape until he nudged her.
"Vinata?"
"Uh-s-sorry, I spaced out there."
He resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow in amusement. "It's okay."
"Mmhm."
They stood awkwardly, unsure of what was safe to say. Silence elapsed. Tension gathered. Vinata twiddled her thumbs.
Oh, what the hell. He's my husband. The planet's not going to burn down.
She yanked him down aggressively by the collar to kiss him again.
S-C-N-D
N0 - approx. 54000 years
S-C-N-D
Vinata insisted seeing his injury even after he assured her for the ten billionth time that it was fully healed. She just wouldn't have it. She was so adamant that he teasingly asked if she was only interested in seeing the wound and not his abdominal muscles. For that, he almost got another wound.
Garuda groaned and clutched his neck as he rose from the giant crater in the mountain, a courtesy of his wife. "Exactly how strong are you in your female form?" Accidentally, he let a begrudging edge slide into his tone. It was then that she realized something.
"Garuda," she called, jumping off the ledge. Vinata, suspended in midair grabbed his chin and turned him to face her. "Have you ever been female?"
"…" She let go when it was apparent that this was a bad subject for him.
But instead of being offended, he covered his face with a palm as if Vegavis had just informed him again that their Sura population was out of control. "I knew this was going to get out some day."
"Hm?"
She quickly withdrew her hand as white smoke began to rise from his fingertips. Vinata leaped back and landed, awestruck by the transformation of her husband and even more awestruck by the result of his transformation. Somehow, she'd always known that his female form was beautiful, but man did Garuda make her feel self-conscious about her own.
—That is, until the female Garuda slammed her fist straight into the wall of the mountain. Vinata closed one eye, expecting to hear a rumble reverberate throughout the ravines. What she heard instead was a small crack.
Waves of energy emanated from the white haired woman as she leaned forward and panted. Her white hair, disheveled, fell in strands and obscured most of her face. "Couldn't break a rock," Garuda bit out. "That's how weak I am."
It was then that Vinata noticed the cracks in the mountain wall that stretched out from where Garuda hit it. Although beyond what an average Rakshasa can inflict in human form, they didn't hold a candle to the size of her crater—and she hadn't even been using her full strength.
"Ah, is this why you didn't want to turn female for me? You men and your macho complexes. Maybe even more so for you since you're king, but I'll have you know that you're just as wonderful to me female as you are male." She smiled and put her right palm to her heart. "Had we encountered with me a man and you a woman, I'd have taken you over Shuri any day."
Garuda let out a small laugh as the smoke rose again. "Heh, you and Shuri?" he asked, emerging as a man. "Don't even joke about that. That's just absurd. She is from the Yaksha Clan and you are from mine. You guys are completely different things."
Vinata's feathers twitched. "I think you missed the point…"
"I didn't."
"Yes you did. I just gave you the most awesome speech of my life. That was like a defining moment in our relationship! Essentially I told you I'd accept—"
"I didn't miss the point." His voice was firm and his face a little grim.
She closed her mouth and lowered her shoulders, finally gripping the entire situation. Right. When she left her nest on that eventful day, she didn't just agree to be the wife of any Nastika. Garuda was not any Nastika. He was a king. And she was selfish to think that she could always keep him to herself. She had already been selfish enough in keeping him to herself for six thousand years.
"You know what?" she clasped his hands in hers. "Regardless of whether you missed the point or not, I want you to follow me for a while—no, actually I want your support for something I've been meaning to do."
Visnu once told her that she was more emotional in her female form, but hadn't she also told Garuda that regardless of gender, she was still the same person? The old Vinata would have been beyond humiliated at the emotional mess she'd been. And she was the wife of a king? What happened to measuring up to her rival? She'd only continued to fall below her husband's greatness. While he'd been the pillar that held up their clan, she acted as the weight that brought it down.
And Garuda's ashamed of his female form? I'd rather be male than be needy. She balled her hands into resolute fists. If I can't do at least this much, then I don't deserve to have him.
"Let's see…" She glanced skyward. "You wanted to know how much I could do in my female form? Well, I'll show you."
She lifted them both into space in a split second. Before Garuda knew it, he found himself clenched in the claw of his wife. It was a tight fist she'd made but with their difference in size, there was more than enough room for him to move around.
He lifted his head up, although it would have made little difference seeing as the only things in sight were the gigantic red and orange feathers covering Vinata's breast. By turning his body, he could get a view of the thousands of red, white and blue stars zipping by at breakneck speed. It wasn't a route he recognized by star position so he lowered himself back into her fist and found a comfortable position to sit in.
"Are you intending for me to remain in human form at our destination? If not, I'm going to transform. It doesn't quite feel… right in this position."
One Nastika being on another in human form was seen as a very invasive action, even for married couples. As he was the one currently doing the invading, Garuda found it hard to savage any grace in this position.
Suddenly, he saw a ruffle from the corner of his eye. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought that the slight ruffle of feathers was Vinata sighing. She didn't say anything, however, so he dismissed it.
Unbeknownst to Garuda, it was Vinata sighing and also repeating in her head rather intensely, wife of a king… wife of a king…
"Actually, that's not it." The voice that appeared in Garuda's head was surprisingly somber. "I just wanted to let you see what Kalavinka and I have been doing for the hundred thousand years we've been gone. I might not be able to tell you, exactly, but this will probably answer some questions."
He poked his body out because it felt like they were entering the atmosphere of a planet. It was good that he did too, as he soon discovered that he had one tenth of a second to prepare for a violent landing. Vinata, however, was not as considerate. Her claw jerked, whipping him out into the air where dust flew everywhere. Coughing, he flew up out of the cluster of dust into a purple sky.
A glint caught his eye.
That's—
"Do you see?"
He startled, dumbfounded enough by the landmark to temporarily forget her presence.
"It takes a while to absorb," he finally admitted. "I have not seen a Nastika corpse in some hundred thousand years."
"The first thing Kalavinka did after leaving the mountains is return to the site of Cepphus's death. I thought she was planning to spend the rest of her life unwilling to let go. I tried to stop her. In the end, I ended up following her here." Vinata heaved a deep sigh and her breath lifted another layer of dust off the ground but not high enough to reach Garuda. "After all these years, it still makes me sick.
"Nastikas are the strongest entities in the world and yes, it is a curse as much a blessing. But what about when we meet our own downfalls in wars with the gods and other clans? After Kalavinka died, I pondered for ten thousand years the inevitable outcome of this world. One day, there will be no Nastikas left. Then all Suras, unable to match the gods, will slowly but surely cease to exist. And maybe that will be the end of the universe. Or maybe Visnu will establish a new balance in the world, one where we will eventually become nothing but far off memories."
Garuda flew up and landed on her head, where the plumage wasn't as thick. "Actually, when Visnu made the human race, he did not think they would last very long. They were a faultily made defense for Nastikas and Astikas, taking on roughly the same shape as us should the need for camouflage arise." He closed his eyes briefly, trying to recall the words of his friend, when he had been the only close friend he had. A good two billion years had passed since then and Visnu no longer held the mystique he once held. Garuda no longer paid attention to his prophecies either, because Insight can always be changed. "What happened was," he explained tentatively, "that Visnu tried too many times to get the result he wanted."
Vinata blinked her eyes in surprise, a gesture that wobbled the spot Garuda was standing on. "He tried to get it? I thought Visnu knows what the future is."
"No, even Visnu does not know exactly what will happen. The best he can do is see which paths lead to disaster and try to steer the universe in a different direction. But even trial and error has its limits."
In his head, he saw an image of Visnu, with his back facing turned, staring into a white star that covered half the sky. "It's been incredibly hard on you, Garuda, being alone for all these years. I've made it so that you can find people to warm up to. Because you don't expect anything but a friend to hear you out, I've even solved most of your problems for you. But know this: I can't possibly keep track of everything that's happening at the moment. I can always help you out the best I can, but time moves too quickly for anyone to exert complete control over the universe. In solving one problem, a million more arise. I have to choose carefully what to and what not to interfere in. Every time I try to get a certain result, I risk the possibility of having another force emerge that will lead to the destruction of the universe."
Garuda never dwelled on those words long because no matter how many times Visnu tried to change the future, nothing disastrous ever befell them. However, he was well aware that it was only because he was a close friend, who Visnu deliberately put out of disaster's way. The accusation Indra made on Carte nagged at the back of his head. To what lengths was Visnu planning to go to protect his comrades? Yet what of what Gandharva had told him, about him being the second last to leave? If that was true, then eventually won't there also have to be a first?
"Let's just say that Visnu skews the future every time he interferes. He can only control one event at any given time; everything else could be spiraling out of control for all he's concerned. As a result, the humans, who normally wouldn't have been this successful, are."
She smiled remorsefully. "What is that? That just makes me feel bad. Maybe if I were as close a friend to Visnu as you are, those two could have been saved. And just when I told myself I was going to be a little less selfish from now on…"
"There's no knowing what's going to happen until it does. Don't think too much of it and don't take Visnu's words to heart. I did once and I made a fool of myself." He cringed a little, recalling a time when he feared that Vinata would sit on his throne. "Focus on the present and when death comes, it comes."
"To speak so easily of death… I'm almost afraid to admire you. In any case, it looks like most of your lieutenants are no longer viable. Let's cross our fingers and hope we stay out of war until the power of the eight clans are balanced once again."
Vinata was deeply pondering, but she wasn't pondering war. At least, she didn't seem to be. Garuda could feel her body emitting heat, though her uncanny stillness suggested that she was unaware of it herself. Or perhaps she was planning something?
A sudden flash of red! He perked up.
But it wasn't anything really. She was just craning her head right to get at an itch, rocking him as she did. Standing sideways, Garuda resisted the urge to punch himself in the face. Of course. Of course he would over-analyze all her actions and put merit into what had none. He had a feeling it was going to be the norm from now on.
"Well." She cracked her knuckles. "You should hold on tight. It's nothing personal, just that somehow Visnu found it befitting to give me Transcendencies that are a little crazier than most."
Strong gusts of wind whipped his hair back violently as Vinata brought them to a closer proximity to Cepphus's frozen body. Even while encased in a block of ice, the details were no less gruesome. All over his body, there were shredded feathers, flaking black blood that was easy to spot because it still shone, and dangling strips flesh. He looked like death.
"Why did Kalavinka freeze her husband?" He grasped the concept that it was excruciating for a Nastika to let go of their mate. If Vinata left somehow, he doubted he'd ever be able to fully recover from the loss. But if he made it so that he had to stare at her mangled body every day, he'd lose his mind entirely.
"The humans," she answered unexpectedly. "She did it because of their disregard for Suras. The bones of the once great Yaksha are to them nothing more than little artifacts that enable the capture of Halfs. I've been on a few human planets and I've seen the things they do to us. They dry the bodies of Gandharva's kin, eat hearts from Shuri's children, and decorate their cloaks with feathers from our bodies. Cepphus would have been no exception and someone was bound to find him sooner or later."
"If I ever see your feathers decorating any humans, I'd gladly dismember them."
"Against the wishes of Visnu?"
"Visnu will make an exception for me," he stated confidently.
"Of course. I suspect that he'd go to the end of the world for you if you'd asked. I would have done so for Cepphus and Kalavinka. I'm jealous of the friendship you have with them while my friends are…" She gestured to the structure with her wing. "Well, I better stop dawdling while I'm in my Sura form. If your female form has pathetic strength, then mine has pathetic endurance. You know, had you not interfered, Cepphus probably would have won that battle."
It took him a moment to realize that she was referring to the first time he'd seen her female. It was so long ago that he couldn't remember many details of that battle, just that he had been too distracted by the absurdity of her female body to think coherently. Yes, it was that absurdity that drew her to his attention and eventually put her at the centre of it.
"In my male form, I can probably obliterate the entire planet's crust with this attack. But right now, this is the best I can do."
A sharp whistle sounded the sudden intake of air as she opened her beak. In the space before her, a small flame lit. In a matter of seconds, it grew to the size of Vinata's head. She drew back her wings and sent it flying, giving it an additional boost of wind as she did.
The fireball spiraled toward Cepphus's frozen body. Garuda got a glimpse of black feathers for the last time as it went up in flames—corpse, ice and all. As quick as they lit, the flames extinguished, leaving behind huge wisps of smoke, mist and a charred crater. Nothing about the land suggested that a Nastika had once died here.
"It's the best I can do," she muttered absentmindedly to herself, her glazed eyes trained on the spot where Cepphus had once been.
"Why did you do it?"
"Why did I do it? Why destroy the one thing that was left? Because if I hadn't done it, someone else would have and I can't bear that thought. It's akin to what Kalavinka did for her husband and maybe I will regret this one day but right now it seems like the right decision."
She lowered him to the ground right before she transformed back into a woman. The crater before them was nothing smaller than a medium sized lake. Together with Garuda, Vinata took a few minutes of her time to admire the scene.
Finally, lifting her head, she whispered to mist and ashes, "well, Cepphus, Kalavinka, I guess it's sufficient to say that this is the official end of us."
S-C-N-D
That was an apt finish to this chapter in Vinata's life, methinks. And it sets the tone for Garuda, Visnu and the Rakshasa siblings. But first, there are fifty three thousand years of rocky courtship left to go.
Thank you for reading! Please leave a review!
-SCND