Chapter Sixteen: Order
Someone was whispering to me. Someone wanted to find me.
"Get out, you little brat." My second mother wanted to find me but she was slow. I could hide from her for as long as I needed to. I turned farther into the small space just beneath one of the cutting board tables, turning so that I wouldn't have to see her stilted gait stumble past me.
She was weak. Only weak women laid their hands on children. That was what Corlin said anyway. If he knew that I was hiding from her right now he wouldn't probably be furious.
Darkness greeted my eyes as I turned further and further into the corner. My brows furrowed as I itched forward some more. There was a lot of room under here.
"I can smell you, Willa." A chill ran up my spine as my fingers chilled, small snowflakes melting on my nails. That voice. I gulped down a breath, squeezing my eyes shut. I knew that voice.
"I'm going to gobble you up!"
I jolted forward, suddenly rolling, snow, bitterly cold and agonizing smashing into my face over and over again. I was careening down a hill, the snow catching at my skirts and bodice until I couldn't tell what was fabric and what was skin or ice. Behind me, a cackle broke through the still, white sky sounding like the smash of bricks meeting a hard hammer and the whisper of silks against skin.
I gasped as I finally came to a stop, shivering as the cold finally hit me. What had happened? Wasn't I in the kitchen hiding from..? My teeth chattered as I forced my way up, my heart beating unsteadily as I finally looked around and found white - white for as far as the eye could see.
My head spun as I tried to pull myself to my feet, my legs sinking down in the dense snow up to my calves. I grimaced. I had two options: sit here and wait or try to make my way through this to a safe place. That really wasn't much of a choice at all. Grunting and grimacing, I started my gruesome trudge through the harsh terrain.
White. White at every turn - no sign of the ground beneath. The shadows that played along the hills and ridges were the only burst of color. Even the sky was a dismal white that nearly faded into the snow below.
Still, I trudged on, not entirely sure why I was here and with the vague feeling that I wasn't entirely here at all. One moment I would close my eyes and the next I would open them and feel as if I had circled back to the beginning. My thighs burned and my toes had gone a purplish black that should have distressed me more than it actually did. Sweat dribbled cooly down my back, a few drops turning to ice on their way down. My skirts had grown heavy with frozen water and every step grew heavier and heavier.
Was I going to die here? Did I really even care?
"You've come." I blinked, startled by the sudden burst of noise. Was I imagining it?
I blinked again and the whole world shuddered, the sky suddenly very dark compared to the ground. When had it become dark? I swear it had just been daylight. My steps stuttered and then stopped altogether.
In the ebony darkness of the sky, stars twinkled, bursts of green making it look like some had lit Wildfire. The snow gleamed like crystals beneath it, glimmering as the sky above swirled in a purplish tidal wave before wavering and sizzling back to Wildfire.
A few feet away, a pond rippled in the light wind, looking stark and out of place against the mountains of snow around it. I stared in wonder as the surface rippled, reflecting the sky above like a mirror, making the stars look as if they were dancing. It looked closer to bolts of silk than a body of water.
"Daughter of Bone Breakers, first of her name." My knees buckled at the voice, hearing it somewhere deep in my mind instead of with my ears. As I watched, the water rippled and the pulsed, quivering. Slowly, a mass of wild, ebony curls appeared and then the slow, sly face of a woman. She stepped from the water like she was floating instead of moving, her mass of hair poofing around her like a cloud, slithering down to cover her bare breasts.
Golden bangles adorned her wrists, slithering up to kiss beneath her elbows. Beads tinkled along her hips and neck, giving way to splatters of body paint that looked crude and gleamed white against her ebony skin. Glittering gold pins sat like stars in her hair. But far from the beauty of her body, it was her eyes that grabbed me and held me down like a flailing newborn. They were a milky grey, undoubtedly blind as they stared blankly ahead. Strips of that same whitish paint ran vertically down her eyes, ending sharply at her cheekbones.
She didn't come any closer to me, lingering so that the water lapped at her waist.
"This isn't a dream, is it?" I whispered, sitting heavily back on my haunches.
Her expression stayed decidedly blank, her eyes staring off into the distance and her face strangely serene. Had she heard me? I opened my mouth to speak again.
"Why do you come to my land?" I blinked, glancing around. She had to be asking me this but I didn't entirely know how to respond. As if hearing my inner struggle, she cocked her head, the only sign that she registered anything since her face still remained decidedly blank. "You are here for the things that were given and taken by the same hand. You are here for answers."
She sighed the last word, something like relief caressing that one word. Something in the back of my head clicked. "You are Order, aren't you?"
"Your people call me many things," she mused, her hair ruffling in a breeze for a moment before settling back around her. "Ruler of truths. The scale and the sword. Divine goddess of law and order. Choose one. I answer to them all."
"I didn't come here of my own free will," I hedged, shivering as another gust of wind whipped the matted tangle of curls into my eyes. Chaos' home was a cottage in the village compared to this place. The winds were unforgiving and they tore at my clothes. "I - I think Chaos might have sent me here."
"Chaos," she rolled the word around like a cat playing with a marble. Where Chaos was fire and brimstone, Order was ice and stone. I would freeze here before she allowed me to leave, I realized. Order was a slow, tedious master - one that bided it's time until things were just so. "You came to her lands dying." Her face didn't twitch even slightly as she spoke. "And she gave you your mortal life. She has always been so swayed by mortal affairs." Did that mean that Chaos was the charitable one of the pair? Oh no. "But in my land, if you wither away, your immortal soul will follow."
My body was shaking almost uncontrollably now, making the world vibrate with me. "You-you'd let me die - die?"
Something beat at the back of my brain, something quiet and warm.
Order's head tipped to the side, her milky eyes expressionless. "My duty is to judge the soul. You are to be weighed, Willa Stark. Let us hope that you will be found worthy."
That beating was getting stronger. It was almost roaring, dragging along my skull until it felt more like an animal than a noise. Something was… something wanted to get out of me. Something bad. Something uncontrollable.
"She-she told me that you needed my help-" I bit out the words, each cruder than the last. I was so cold that I could barely think. "She told me that the order was unbalanced - that you were growing weaker."
For once, amusement curled her lips, a scoff forcing its way up. "And what will you do? I was with you, you know. All those years ago when you took on your mother's household. Who do you think blessed you at night - made sure that your father and his many wives didn't skin your pretty back bare with the whip? Do you think you did that all by yourself? Or your precious puny gods? What were their names? The Stranger or perhaps the...virgin?"
It was jarring to think of it like that. To think that all of the things that I had been burdened with had all been blessed somehow. That I didn't do anything on my own. That I was a pawn from the very beginning.
"What did you want then?" I spat, anger starting to rise in me like a fire. I wasn't cold anymore even though my teeth rattled with it and my hands couldn't unclench from it. My eyes burned into her beautiful face. "Did you want me to worship you? Bow down at your feet?"
A tinkling laugh rattled the water around her. "Oh my, no. My sister and I are far from what you mortals worship. Do you think that the real holders of your fate care enough to walk beside you in the darkness? Do you think that they care about your mud altars and rotting food offers? Why allow humans to kneel at an alter when it's so easy to force them down into the mud yourself?"
My throat clogged, something like fear rising inside of me. Chaos was the better mistress. I could feel this death trap slowly closing around me. I needed to do something. I needed to get out of this.
"You need me," I bayed, crumpled into a ball in the snow, unable to right myself.
"And why would I need such a weak, scared little thing like you?" Her head tipped to the side, her face once again emotionless.
"Because I can see the chains around your wrists," I hissed, those delicate loops finally popping out at me. At first, they had blended into the water, they were so fragile. Now I could see them - a million tiny strings like a spider's web all circling her golden bangles.
Beneath me, the ground shook, the snow quivering and the beautiful woman in front of me jerked, her head flopping a bit on her shoulders, the hair around her wilting for a moment before she was straightening again and it clouded around her once more. Something like bile stung my throat. When I was very little, my father had allowed me to go see a puppeteers play. There had been a moment before the act started where the puppeteer had shimmied his hand up into that cloth shell. It reminded me of what had just happened.
Like this was all a shell and deep beneath me, there was something watching, playing this gruesome act out with me. Shivering, I forced my hands open and dug beneath the thick layer of snow until I reached something hard and unforgiving. Soil. Where there was soil there had to be plants and where there were plants I was pretty sure that there was also a way for me to defend myself.
"You're weak," Order hissed, her eyes luminous as she hovered in her body of water. Why water? Did she need to stay in it? I blinked, she hadn't gone forward enough for me to see her lower half. Maybe the Order's true form was just beneath that. "How could my sister possibly think that you're the one to restore the balance?"
My mind reached out, catching on the veins of sleeping plants just beneath me. Letting out a breath, I rooted around some more, reaching deep inside to that hidden well of power that I had felt before. I could use it. If I just concentrated, I could sharpen it enough to - to what? An angry voice seethed. What's going to happen when you attack a goddess? What's going to happen if you're actually able to knock her out for a bit? Where are we going to run? I let out a hiss, pouring water on that voice as the plants beneath me gave a wither of response at my cajoling. One problem at a time.
Desperately, I reached out, closing my eyes as I felt the vines beneath me respond, tunneling deeper into the soil, burrowing their way to the edge of the water. Distantly, I could hear Order ranting on, her face still twitching every now and then as if someone was poking out at the skin from beneath. Yes. There was something there. My vines withered closer, crawling along the water's edge. Like a beacon of light that kept pulsing with energy.
"What are you doing?" My eyes snapped open, something like fear withering through me. Beneath the water's edge, my plants shivered, pressing further into the muck at the bottom. Order's head rested at an odd angle on her shoulders, her whole body slumping to the side like a used marionette. Still her eyes stared blankly at me, her mouth gaping open. "What are you doing, little, scared girl?"
My mouth went dry, something running along the feelers that I had sent toward the real Order. The one that was lurking just beneath the surface. I was caught. Dryly, I swallowed.
"Feeling at your strings," I whispered, my voice breaking as the puppets head flopped uselessly on it's shoulders. "You don't seem to be all that pretty beneath the surface."
Stillness. Silence. Even my vines stopped withering, the water growing still. The puppet's arms shivered, her fingers twitching sporadically. And then her mouth was opening wider, wider until there was a click and it twisted out and unhinged itself from her jaw. The ground shook with her scream, the water ripping and crashing against the icy shore. Her grey, unseeing eyes gaped wide, her body slumping forward as thick black tentacles pounded onto the banks of the pond.
I didn't have time to scream as they rushed toward me. I barely have time to throw up my hands, my body aching as I desperately called for the vines just beneath me.
My body rolled as turned soil and snow knocked me back a foot or two, a tangle of vines ripping from the ground to curve into a wall over me. The tentacles from the lake rushed forward, ripping at my meager barrackade, forcing the breath from my lunges. Slamming my hand back to the ground, I pressed my palm to the ground, whispered words forcing their way from my lips. More vines tangled with the ones already in front of me but it was useless. Already they were bowing under the force of each hit.
"Did she tell you what comes with this power, little flower?" I gasped, biting back a scream as that voice rang through my head, sounding like the whistle of the wind or the scream of dying horses. It was elemental and raw in its insistence. My hands shook as another hit ripped at my small little shelter, pain lancing across my back. Shakily, I brought a hand back, feeling along the damp back of my corset
"What..?" Red coated my fingers dribbling down my wrist and dying the snow beneath me. Another blow tore at my vines, drawing a grunt from my lips as something slit along my back. I blinked, fighting back the tears.
"You are broken, Willa Frey." That same voice simpered.
Anger bubbled in me. I hated this bitch. And I wanted to tear her down
"I'm a Stark now," I snarled, curling my hands into the vines in front of me and pushing. My vines shot along the long expanse of the tentacles until I felt the bulbous slot of flesh that hid beneath the pond's surface. An otherworldly scream pierced the still, cold air as I felt my vines break through the fleshy exterior into the gooey center. Gritting my teeth, I dug a hand into the soil I had dug into, a cry ripping from me as my intestines curled. Roots burst from below the pond, piercing that mass of goo from below.
My muscles shook from the exertion, straining. Darkness seeped into the corner of my vision as I held my arms as steady as possible, biting down on my lips until I bled. I had to stay awake. I had to force away the exhaustion that was making my whole body shake. It felt like I had just climbed a mountain and now I was free falling from the edge.
I wanted to give into that urge to just close my eyes with the fall instead of clawing at the air. My fingers tingled as I felt a dribble of blood slip down my chin and on the other side of my barricade, I felt the dying twitch of the creature that I had impaled.
Which was good since I was definitely going to pass out soon. With a groan, the vines around me collapsed, exposing the shivering tentacles to my eyes and the overturned snow. Collapsed in the pond just beyond, Order's poof of star dusted hair fanned around her, her face slumped into the water.
Dizzily, I slammed to the ground, my cheek growing painfully number as I tried to keep my eyes open. My back was ripped open, blood oozing from the flayed flesh there. I could feel it warming the snow beneath me, turning it into water. That was a bit of a blessing, I thought dismally and then I had to laugh. Laying here in the cold, closer to death than I thought I ever had been, this was probably the sorriest blessing in the whole world.
My eyes drifted shut. I would miss Robb. My throat got tight, my heart beating painfully along with the ripped skin at my back. I wished I could kiss him once more.
"Well, that was very informative." A shiver of complete terror crashed down on me, making me choke as I opened my eyes. Blinking across the expanse of snow and water, the beautiful form of Order cocked her head, her eyes wide and inquiring. My heart pumped unevenly, my lunges working harshly as I tried to move - get up, roll, something. My fingers spasmed, the vines lying limply all along the bank of the pond withering with my horror.
"You have been judged and found worthy," Order said, her face as expressionless as before. Slowly, the tentacles still beached on the snow around me recoiled, going back to that black mass that I had seen before. "You are strong enough to defeat most humans - although that seems to be where your strength ends. Which is well enough, I suppose."
I gave a snarl, baring my teeth at the goddess before me. She broke me - ripped up my back to establish this bit of information. What would she do the next time she needed an explanation?
Her eyes blinked at me sluggishly. "You will continue on and when the time comes-"
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" The question came out as a shriek, bursting from me before I could stop myself.
Order paused, staring at me with those blind eyes. "We request your services-"
"You have ripped me apart - you are goddesses. What could I possibly do for beings like you?" I spat. I despised these inhuman gods. They played with me, pulling at my life like a child with a toy.
"These matters lie in the human realm." Her hands opened, palms up to the sky in a gesture that suggested pleading but that completely opposed her expressionless face. "My sister and I can only guide events, we cannot take the balance into our own hands. While I grow stronger, Chaos remains shackled. She will be swallowed by me if there is not a resolution within the next decade."
"Decade?" I hissed. I could be waiting for up to ten years for this resolution to come. "What do you need from me? What could I possibly resolve?"
"You will need to kill someone," Order said simply and my blood ran cold. I had never - I shivered, bile rising in my throat. "But first you must train. You will not know your purpose until you are sufficiently prepared. It would be ineffective to make a pact with a human to simply have it fall through."
My purpose? I reigned in my rage.
"You may go now," Order said, sinking further into the water as I opened my mouth to speak again.
"Wait!" I called, frustrated. "How am I to master these skills? Why am I so hurt from using these powers?"
Orders chocolate skin seemed to glow with an inner warmth as she slide deeper into the ice-crusted pond, the hair swimming around her. "With every strength there is a resulting sacrifice," she said simply, her words making my head spin.
"WAIT!" I cried but her mouth was covered already. "SHE SAID THAT YOU WERE GROWING WEAKER!"
Oh, little flower, a voice like the slide of paper and the sharpening of a dagger whispered to me. She meant my will was weakening.
What? What did that even mean? Her blind eyes glowed with a luminous light before they disappeared completely beneath the water's surface.
Leaving me crumpled in the snow, the wind harsh and unforgiving as it cut through my meager clothing. How was I supposed to get back to the mortal realm? My fingers had gone black, my breath growing shallow. I wasn't bleeding as much anymore, just a guttered gurgle from my wounds. Was that good? I had a feeling it meant was dying.
The world spun, the sky above pulsing with those lights. I was… so… tired…
Well, that was shorter than I wanted but I didn't feel comfortable adding it on to the welcome party that they're gonna get in the Vale. Plus I've been buried under other stories. I don't know what kind of insanity made me think that publishing another story would be a good idea. I mean, what kind of madness is that? AND IT'S HUNTER X HUNTER! I'm freaking out, guys.