Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written by: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"Yes, I am." Alex agreed with this tired smile on his face. "The witches came and relayed my instruction. Apparently they're ok with us because my sister and I are adjacent to the Belmonts but loyal to the prince. In that 'yes we know he defies his father, but he's still his fathers' son so you're ok' way."
"Well that's a good thing." Max began then her head quietly dipped down.
"By the sounds of it our ancestors let you have your time fighting Francine be in peace... Which seems kind of odd in a way, given how active they were in life. If something happened to Soma I can imagine they would be the ones reporting it, and his dead wife was able to communicate without trouble." Alexis noted, her voice carrying her growing confusion over the matter.
"So what happened when Francine died?" Sam sounded a little distracted as he laid there, his focus was being pulled away.
"Not much, we still went through three more summoners before Balore was able to rip the pillar out of the ground so we could get to her. She didn't try to live after that and took her life as the pillar was being lifted up." Alex recounted as Max began shaking her hand up and down like she was holding a tube.
"I know you think that you're being funny. Which fair you are, but that 'is' what Balore did once he got the pillar loose. He shook it much like that, however; there was no bottom to the pillar it was just a tube on the lower half. So he slammed her upwards into the top which seemed to have snapped her neck and then sent her corpse slamming into the ground on the downward." Alex explained as the memory played back.
The Dark Children and Demons cheered their victory as Balore raised his massive fist and Francine's clothes 'kind' of made her visible.
"Well we know that Brauner is alive somehow and somewhere in the form of Michael... So if we find him..." Max acknowledged as she leaned back. Pulling out her phone she began looking up local food places. "Ok Sam what do you want to eat, cuz hospital food just shortens your life span faster than having Vampire Killer."
"His hand came off," Sam answered as he stared at the ceiling his gaze a strange way to reveal he was getting deep in thought.
"His right comes off?" Max quoted as she frowned. As much of a tease as the quote was it was still something concerned.
The twins shared a glance and turned their focus on Sam. Alexis because Sam had yet to talk about the battle, Alex because he knew to shut up and let his sister lead when the strange or mysterious happened.
"I faced Michael, but his hand popped? Like it was a balloon or something, and it strikes me as odd. Prosthetic limbs don't pop, but was it because it was holy power that was causing it to be destroyed?" Sam recounted, "I never saw any gears or wires, there was nothing there and I can't get it out of my head."
"... And there's a reason why it sucks that Francine is dead..." Alexis shook her head. "She would have worked with Michael long enough to know if something was off or not. While Reba..." Suddenly the young ice witch froze and stiffened in her seat. "I'm an idiot! We can ask Jane! She served his cult she should know about his prosthetic!"
"Could you ask her? Since we can't really get her here," Sam asked turning to look over at Alexis. She nodded with confidence so he relaxed and turned to look at Max. "Got any places with pizza? I need victory food. 'Real' victory food."
"On it!" Max began feverishly typing into her phone while Alex turned towards the window.
"Jane 'is' roaming about the outside of the castle, and even if she wasn't an Arachne, just being a big half spider woman would send anyone with arachnophobia straight through the roof." Alex agreed, "Its a pity we don't know her number, so it might be wise to craft a series of questions to ask her."
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The lavender clad maid's heels clicked on the stone floor in even equal measures as she guided Reba down the hallway. Warm smoke from dark twisted metal scorns that held torches lined the walls of the hall they were walking down. It kept Reba from being completely in the dark, but it meant she couldn't check her clothes. Were there wrinkles? Food stains? Did some of that flour from her time in the kitchen spread to her other clothes?
Reba had been collected by the maid with instruction from the Lord of the Castle. She needed to apply if she wanted to move in. But Reba had no experience with applications beyond her awareness of their importance. Couldn't get a job or an apartment without one! But she never thought to look them up while she was stuck with her parents... 'If I'm filling out an application that means there could be an interview afterwards... But what 'type' of interview?'
It was a question that had hung in the air over Reba's head the moment she started following the zombie maid through the castle. Jane had told her it was getting dangerous and needed to go with her, yet then once she had bustled Reba into the building...
"'Flecks of dead skin!'" That same irate British voice broke the quiet of the hall as a black haired maid came bustling towards the pair. There was this fairly mortified lavender clad maid at her heels chasing her down and lost at what to do.
Both women paused, though a pair of Janes' feet began tapping on the ground.
"I'll have you know young lady that we take great pains now to not let such things happen! As if we would sully our cooking with carelessness!"
"How are you supposed to do that? Your hands would break off from the heat of a stew and as a vampire Dracula doesn't need anything except blood! So why would you put in extra effort!" Jane argued back.
"We represent this castle you... you... Baby Spider!"
The lavender clad maid began shuffling herself closer to Reba, that movement causing the young woman to notice her. Before the maid gave a small tilt of the head to encouraged Reba to follow the her.
Night was falling, her passage across windows had revealed the various stages of the suns' descent. Her skin pricked with anxiety and worry, she had no job prior to arriving at the castle. Since her 'illness' kept her from such things as interactions with others...
Her feelings began beating in time with the maids' steps, each click of the maids' shoe was a judges hammer beating out a rejection. No one she knew was here, Francine had gone to deal with people outside, Michael hadn't been seen in a while. Especially after that rush earlier when she and Francine were ordered to stay hidden in the servants quarters.
But if the Lord of the Castle wanted to see her... Well they were 'supposed' to work for him, how could she say 'no'?
"Um... excuse me?" She finally voiced in the mostly empty hallway, there were a couple of bats she had seen in the rafters waking up.
"Hmm?" The maid didn't slow down, though she glanced over her shoulder at the young woman.
"I... I haven't ever filled out an application before, umm. Do you have any experience with them?" Reba fidgeted, her fingers dancing against each other while her eyes darted to the windows to the carpet, the bats, the vases...
"I only know of spoken interviews, where the butler asked a series of questions that I had to answer." The maid replied as she turned back to continue guiding Reba along. "You need not be afraid, so long as you do not anger our Lord you should be fine... enough..."
After all Lord Dracula 'did' kill his one follower out of hand just for the fun of it... There were no signs of their Lord observing them from the hallway. But it 'was' his castle and his paintings were just a mercy for them to know he was watching them. She felt the compulsion urge of his instruction, nothing threatening just the need to take this path. Other maids were further down the hall, just dusting, sweeping, mopping, stealing the leg bones from the butlers...
Bats above that knew better than the drop their waste on the nice clean floors, ghosts who were drifting about invisible but fascinated by the living behind her..
"Yes, but we hurt his son to get his attention. I know that was bad, I know the cult did a lot of bad things... how can anyone be that forgiving..." Reba pondered aloud.
"She's not stupid," Maxim recognized as he drifted along, "I mean she doesn't know what's going on, and Soma could very well want her dead."
"Indeed, yet we've seen how she is and Soma currently doesn't have murder urges," Soleli agreed.
"Here we are," the maid finally paused in front of a lone door. The room confused the pair of ghosts since this wasn't where Soma's body was. Sooo proxy time?
Maxim stuck his head through the wall and back out as he shook his head while descending so he was by Reba's side. Soleli followed suit as the maid called out her and Reba's presence.
Lord of Darkness, King of Evil, the True Satan... Michael had said a great deal about Lord Dracula. Much had been written about his forms, the towering multiple headed dragon of biblical lore, the snake that tempted. An scarred winged angel trapped in a lake of ice in the deepest pits of hell, while outside...
A sea of shattered glass instead of water that surrounded the castle that had been created the moment his rage burned.
When the maid opened the door, Reba braced for brimstone or fire, even the fog of ice.
Her soul shivered at the thought of what type of monster she would see given the crimes of the cult against his family.
"So..." she began...
The room was empty, save an official, if old style, desk in the room, there were no fireplaces just torches...
And a single fucking stuffed doll in the form of Soma sitting on the Atlanta Georgia Phone Book collections A-Z so he could be visible over the desk. Both 'hands' resting on the desk and if not for the whole gods damn plush doll appearance would look very much like a boss about to host an interview. He had a book in front of him, open to a page that she could not see but really? It could have been a comic for all the maid cared to know.
'My LORD!' the maid mentally groaned.
"Ooooh look at the little plushy!" Reba crooned before charging around the desk to take up the doll in her arms and give it both a huge hug. And the massive smooch on the middle of his face where his nose would be!
"AHHHHHH!" the maid shrieked in alarm as she panicked to grab the doll away from Reba!
"Is... is Lord Dracula on his way?" Reba asked, confused by the stuffed toy was taken from her even as the maid tried not to faint.
"No, he's right here." Said maid answered hoisting up the now red faced doll for Reba to see. Then she delicately placed the doll back on its seat. "Our Lord and Master can not currently host an interview with his own body..." The maid sounded off, she sounded completely put upon but holding it back with every undead fiber of her being.
"Wait... so.." Reba felt her world and possible future go up in a puff of smoke. The maid was occupied with placing the doll. Yet the doll was moving on its own, looking up at the maid and stood up on the books before fussing with its coat. 'My chance... my chance to get away...'
Reba couldn't see anymore as she dropped her gaze to the top of her feet while the world became lost to a sea. She couldn't see the splash of tears as they fell upon her sneakers, once that Francine had bought her as a gift when they first met.
'Shoes because you're going to run away from here to something greater!'
"You're going to need to look up to see what our Lord is saying..." The maid began brushing at her hair, giving her soft head pats as though she was a small child.
With a gulp to try and get the massive boulder out of her throat Reba peeked up at a message ticker that had appeared on the wall behind the dolls head.
:While I understand you mistook me for a simple toy, please do not just randomly kiss the toys here. Some of them aren't what they seem...:
"Dearest, she didn't know. Please stop seething..." Somas' gaze shifted up to his dead former life wife.
"I am not seething, I was merely taken aback that someone would just rush head long and start kissing toys. She has no idea where you have been, and she is supposed to be sick correct? What if she does that and catches another illness?" Elizabetha gave a dismissive sniff.
"Of course, my apologies dearest." Soma answered while in the back of his mind the word 'seething' was on repeat chant.
He sent the maid away and motioned for the girl to make herself a seat out of the chair that had begun rising from the ground on the other side of the desk. Thankfully the castle was trying for the uniformity of furniture. So she wasn't getting a bar stool or a sedan.
:So tell me a little about yourself?: scrolled across the markee in bright red dot formed letters.
Reba blinked before she looked across the table at the sound of something being dragged, just to see the doll towing the book closer.
"Well... I suppose you're wondering how I joined a cult... but well I come from a family of cultists..."
'That's a THING?! Like cults that are not exclusive to me?' Soma mentally blanked at the thought causing his doll face to go just as blank.
"They served God though, not you..." she squeaked out.
'Oh, so you still get idiots too..' Soma thought as his face returned. He brought his gaze down and studied what the book already had on file regarding her.
"My beloved, what is Lu-ke-me-a?" Elizabetha asked as she leaned over the side of the chair, looking down at the book.
"I'll wager with that look on Soma's face its bad." Maxim muttered to Soleli.
"Well... its cancer..." Soma began but realized she didn't know what 'cancer' was, it didn't exist in her time.. Though in retrospect it could have very well been the thing that killed her, just unknown in those dark times. "For the sake of time, just think of it as an illness that convinces the body to betray itself soinstead of healing itself it tears itself apart. Something spreads like a poison and steals their life from them."
But the word sparked Soma's gaze, he scanned down Reba's personal information discarding everything save 'her' illness... It gave her name, it gave her family name, and a sister who was 'not' Francine...
Jessica Richardson: Deceased.
Cause of Death: Untreated Leukemia.
'But they say its 'Reba' who has the illness...' Soma frowned as he continued to tear through the information presented, but the book was listing her currently with a clean bill of health. 'How? How is she saying she's 'got an illness'?'
'Oh don't be an idiot...' it was this voice in the back of his mind, whispering the contempt it felt over the information. 'She died of 'untreated Leukemia', their idiot parents tried to 'pray the cancer away!'
:Reba? You don't have Leukemia do you?:
"What's that? My parents just say I have an illness..." Reba replied, her focus on the words going above Soma's head granting him a clear view of her very naive answer.
'Don't go vamp. Don't go vamp. Don't go vamp...'