in our stars [Angels Zodiac canon]
Dec. 30th, 2007 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freosanIt seems that I need to split my canon off from my fanfic, because I often decide later that old fics are out of character. Therefore retcons whee! But this? This is canon. Caution: may contain plot.
Kaos is out flying patrol when she all but slams into Fury’s floating castle. She spins backward, orienting herself to it. It’s both larger and darker than it was when it was still part of Mars. Fury is no longer what she was, and her home shows that. Even the aura – Kaos can hardly see the place.
She doubles back, because the first thing she should do is tell the Lady Leo that she’s found her sister. She doesn’t get far, though. Before she can get far enough away to teleport, something big and black and sharp runs into her and she has to spin on a wing-tip and get her feet on the castle, so that the stars are ‘up’.
The castle walls, old as the planets, are a dull ache through the soles of her boots. She stays down anyway, quietly bringing her staff to bear – she’ll take the discomfort for the cover offered by the decorations.
The big black sharp thing is one of Fury’s ravens, Kaos doesn’t know which. Doesn’t matter. It will have recognized her and that it’ll be wanting to take her to its master. She isn’t planning on going. She has no idea what Fury is capable of.
Behind her, something twitches on the edge of her perception. A wing and a shadow – the other raven. The distraction is just enough that the first one is able to dive toward her before she can attack. She swings her staff half-circle and uses the momentum to get out of its way, but it catches her on the leg. Broken.
It’ll heal but she can’t touch down. The other comes up beneath her in the half-second it takes her to assess the injury and flies straight into the blade of her staff. It screams, and feathers fly everywhere as it disappears.
It’ll have gone right back to Fury, but she can’t worry about that right now, there’s the first one to worry about and it’s on her all of a sudden and just as she brings her foot down on its wing, the shadows of the castle itself come out for her and her wings get fouled up in their blackness. She struggles, but it’s useless. Fury is a lot older than she is.
“Kaos,” she hears, and freezes, trying impossibly to hide her aura. Fury strides up the side of the castle with heels clicking, wearing a completely impractical dress of black silk and lace. Of course, she doesn’t need to be practical. This is her territory, and Kaos has just trespassed. If Fury wants her dead, she has very little choice in the matter.
“I wonder if you came here deliberately. But then you won’t tell me, will you?”
Kaos shakes her head and returns her mind to the somewhat futile task of getting her wings free.
“That’s okay, I’m sure I can talk for both of us.” Fury leans forward. “I want to know why you’re still on Leo’s side.”
Kaos ignores her, or tries to. She’s heard this argument a hundred times before and she doesn’t intend to start paying attention to it now, but Fury is very attention-getting. Especially when her shadows are pressing Kaos against her castle wall, and she’s about two inches from Kaos’s face.
“My sister is dangerous to us. She’s irrational. Uncaring. Despotic, even. Haven’t you noticed? How did you get those scars, Kaos? How have you died, the last three times? Don’t bother answering, I know.”
Kaos died, an uncountable number of times, doing her duty. The last time her body was two hundred and three and she threw herself in the path of an oncoming fire spell. The time before last her body was ninety-eight and the last thing she remembers is grabbing the cut ends of a thread that was supposed to have magic running through it. Three lives ago… she doesn’t remember. Oh, she knows, but that memory is gone along with everything before it.
Her face hasn’t moved, she’s sure, but Fury smiles when Kaos gets to that bit of her mental narrative. “You gave up your entire memory for her. You, and Destiny, and Wild, gave up a total of two and a half thousand years’ worth of built-up power and memory for a supernova that would close the gap between our universe and a parasite universe.” Fury’s face grows sharp, her eyes looking at something even Kaos can’t see. “Do you know why? It was on her say-so.”
“If she ordered it, it was necessary,” Kaos says.
Fury snorts. “No. No it wasn’t. She’s had her memory for more than eight thousand years. Right from the start. If she’d done it, it would have only been her who died. She asked you to do what she wouldn’t dream of doing.”
“I am loyal to the Lioness,” Kaos repeats.
“You didn’t get reincarnated for eighty years after that. You were lucky. Wild came back sixteen years ago as a wolf. A wolf! Her soul was so weak that she became an animal. And who knows how long it’ll be before Destiny returns to us,” Fury says. Her voice rises in pitch, her aura stabbing out wildly. “Your loyalty is to a woman who thinks you’re disposable!”
Kaos fixes her eyes on a point out in space and says nothing.
“You shut down when you’re out-argued. I had more respect for your stars, Virgo.” Bitterness, mostly, tinges Fury’s tone.
“I knew this, Aries,” Kaos replies.
“Then why haven’t you joined me yet?” Fury asks, but she’s defeated. The shadows start sliding away from her, letting her wings free to move. She tests them, preparing to fly off.
“Leo is the one to lead us. It’s in our stars.”
“You of all people know how mutable the stars are.” Yes, she sounds bitter. Not angry, but resigned, and her aura stops spiking, coiling in on itself like a snake.
“Those haven’t changed.” Kaos spreads her wings and takes to the sky again.
“Everything changes, Kaos. Everything,” Fury says, but Kaos barely hears her.
Kaos is out flying patrol when she all but slams into Fury’s floating castle. She spins backward, orienting herself to it. It’s both larger and darker than it was when it was still part of Mars. Fury is no longer what she was, and her home shows that. Even the aura – Kaos can hardly see the place.
She doubles back, because the first thing she should do is tell the Lady Leo that she’s found her sister. She doesn’t get far, though. Before she can get far enough away to teleport, something big and black and sharp runs into her and she has to spin on a wing-tip and get her feet on the castle, so that the stars are ‘up’.
The castle walls, old as the planets, are a dull ache through the soles of her boots. She stays down anyway, quietly bringing her staff to bear – she’ll take the discomfort for the cover offered by the decorations.
The big black sharp thing is one of Fury’s ravens, Kaos doesn’t know which. Doesn’t matter. It will have recognized her and that it’ll be wanting to take her to its master. She isn’t planning on going. She has no idea what Fury is capable of.
Behind her, something twitches on the edge of her perception. A wing and a shadow – the other raven. The distraction is just enough that the first one is able to dive toward her before she can attack. She swings her staff half-circle and uses the momentum to get out of its way, but it catches her on the leg. Broken.
It’ll heal but she can’t touch down. The other comes up beneath her in the half-second it takes her to assess the injury and flies straight into the blade of her staff. It screams, and feathers fly everywhere as it disappears.
It’ll have gone right back to Fury, but she can’t worry about that right now, there’s the first one to worry about and it’s on her all of a sudden and just as she brings her foot down on its wing, the shadows of the castle itself come out for her and her wings get fouled up in their blackness. She struggles, but it’s useless. Fury is a lot older than she is.
“Kaos,” she hears, and freezes, trying impossibly to hide her aura. Fury strides up the side of the castle with heels clicking, wearing a completely impractical dress of black silk and lace. Of course, she doesn’t need to be practical. This is her territory, and Kaos has just trespassed. If Fury wants her dead, she has very little choice in the matter.
“I wonder if you came here deliberately. But then you won’t tell me, will you?”
Kaos shakes her head and returns her mind to the somewhat futile task of getting her wings free.
“That’s okay, I’m sure I can talk for both of us.” Fury leans forward. “I want to know why you’re still on Leo’s side.”
Kaos ignores her, or tries to. She’s heard this argument a hundred times before and she doesn’t intend to start paying attention to it now, but Fury is very attention-getting. Especially when her shadows are pressing Kaos against her castle wall, and she’s about two inches from Kaos’s face.
“My sister is dangerous to us. She’s irrational. Uncaring. Despotic, even. Haven’t you noticed? How did you get those scars, Kaos? How have you died, the last three times? Don’t bother answering, I know.”
Kaos died, an uncountable number of times, doing her duty. The last time her body was two hundred and three and she threw herself in the path of an oncoming fire spell. The time before last her body was ninety-eight and the last thing she remembers is grabbing the cut ends of a thread that was supposed to have magic running through it. Three lives ago… she doesn’t remember. Oh, she knows, but that memory is gone along with everything before it.
Her face hasn’t moved, she’s sure, but Fury smiles when Kaos gets to that bit of her mental narrative. “You gave up your entire memory for her. You, and Destiny, and Wild, gave up a total of two and a half thousand years’ worth of built-up power and memory for a supernova that would close the gap between our universe and a parasite universe.” Fury’s face grows sharp, her eyes looking at something even Kaos can’t see. “Do you know why? It was on her say-so.”
“If she ordered it, it was necessary,” Kaos says.
Fury snorts. “No. No it wasn’t. She’s had her memory for more than eight thousand years. Right from the start. If she’d done it, it would have only been her who died. She asked you to do what she wouldn’t dream of doing.”
“I am loyal to the Lioness,” Kaos repeats.
“You didn’t get reincarnated for eighty years after that. You were lucky. Wild came back sixteen years ago as a wolf. A wolf! Her soul was so weak that she became an animal. And who knows how long it’ll be before Destiny returns to us,” Fury says. Her voice rises in pitch, her aura stabbing out wildly. “Your loyalty is to a woman who thinks you’re disposable!”
Kaos fixes her eyes on a point out in space and says nothing.
“You shut down when you’re out-argued. I had more respect for your stars, Virgo.” Bitterness, mostly, tinges Fury’s tone.
“I knew this, Aries,” Kaos replies.
“Then why haven’t you joined me yet?” Fury asks, but she’s defeated. The shadows start sliding away from her, letting her wings free to move. She tests them, preparing to fly off.
“Leo is the one to lead us. It’s in our stars.”
“You of all people know how mutable the stars are.” Yes, she sounds bitter. Not angry, but resigned, and her aura stops spiking, coiling in on itself like a snake.
“Those haven’t changed.” Kaos spreads her wings and takes to the sky again.
“Everything changes, Kaos. Everything,” Fury says, but Kaos barely hears her.