freosan

For K-san, who wrote a lovely novel last November about demonic posession, cultists and the wizarding Mafia.

PG, Angie/Mickey/Van, 2 650 words.

When Angie got her own apartment, it came as something of a relief. In the four years since – that – had happened, things had gotten better. Damien no longer jumped when he saw her. She hadn’t had a nightmare in… well, enough time. He’d even stopped checking her room for whatever it was he checked for. She’d put basic wards and more mundane traps around her room, so she knew when he checked. And when he stopped. She never mentioned it.

*****

Van being here doesn’t make it a home, but it does make it safer. There are still things she needs protecting from, and things she needs to learn. She doesn’t want to admit that; she’s been through enough already. Van knows she knows, and doesn’t press the point.

*****

It was still good to get out of Damien’s house. She’d brought him nothing but grief, no matter what he said, and she didn’t like owing him. Also, he wasn’t comfortable around her – almost always, but not always, and she hated when he’d look at her and wince.

There were a lot of reasons to leave, but none of them were the ones she’d have liked to have.

*****

She’s a little disorganized shading to messy, and her walls are half black and half white and covered in band posters, sports pennants, and assorted subculture paraphernalia. The only things she really cares about are the journals and the scrapbook, lined up neatly on a half-hidden bookshelf.

Ming doesn’t show up in photos, but she likes to take them, and she gave Angie the scrapbook on the third Halloween (never Christmas) after Angie met her. It’s full of normal images of a normal sister and brother having a normal life. Most days Angie just likes knowing that it’s there, but some days she can’t stop flipping through the pages. Those are the bad ones.

*****

Van showed up about a week after she moved in, saying something about lacking barriers and carrying more guns than an armory. Angie only put up a token argument. Together, she and Damien had built something like a family, and it wasn’t comfortable to be living without that protection anymore.

She could tell too. Malmorgra hadn’t tried anything in a while, and it had been starting to get – not better, but easier – but when Angie moved out, the nightmares came back.

*****

Van isn’t around much during the day, but that’s okay, because Angie has classes and clubs and something approximating a real life. She’s majoring in the arts – she has no idea what she’ll do with it, but she does good work, even when it’s distressingly graphic.

Her classmates all think she’s a romantically consumptive artist type, and she plays along, because it’s easier to pass off fainting spells by saying she’s forgot to eat than by explaining that the voices in her head want her to kill something. The psychologist she visited – once – was nice enough, but she really doesn’t think he’d understand.

*****

When Van moved in, the nightmares left again.

*****

Van is always there at night, when Angie needs it, not that she’d tell him that in a million years. More than once he’s woken up the upstairs neighbors with gunshots; Angie always yells at him a bit, but he always has a good reason.

Once he’s made the fifth circle of the perimeter of the building, Van settles on the couch. Angie doesn’t know if he sleeps and has never asked.

*****

Damien didn’t want her to leave, of course. Overprotective, scared, maybe with misapprehensions of responsibility. Angie knew how to take care of herself – well, mostly. And there was nothing out there worse than she was herself.

*****

On the really bad days, Angie doesn’t go to class, and Van doesn’t leave the house. He’s never in the same room with her, but she can sense his presence – reassuring or painful, depending on whether Malmorgra is being talkative, but always there. It’s nice, almost. Van is learning silence. Someday, he might even learn subtlety.

*****

Angie had thought she’d be prepared for college. She was smart, she’d gotten into her top school, she’d lived in a group home for years, and she had a guardian angel. What kind of trouble could she get into?

Not so. Her first month was horrible; she missed classes, embarrassed herself (so no one else had noticed she was taking the wrong bus to the opposite end of campus. She knew.) and failed her first test.

Mickey showed up a week into the second month, dragged her out of bed, made her tea, yelled at Van for being emotionally retarded, and teased her until going to class was the less stressful choice.

*****

She has friends, here, though her old friends have all gone off to different schools. They’re all artists, emotional (don’t shorten that), have wardrobes that feature a lot of black and lace and heavy eyeliner. They enjoy long involved philosophical bullshit sessions.

Once Angie brings up the idea of possession, quite naturally she thinks. There is a moment of awkward silence, then somebody says, yes, maybe, but… and someone else says, a lot of people the Church said were possessed were schizo, and the conversation derails into the idiocy of the patriarchal model of religion, and Malmorgra laughs and laughs.

*****

The second month was easier. Not by much, but enough. Mickey took time out from whatever was he did to visit her at least once a week, make sure she’d eaten, say all the things that she’d yell at Van for saying. He didn’t let Van off the hook either – he found fault with everything, up to and including the way he cleaned his guns (Jeeze, Van, just because you’re indestructible doesn’t mean your weapons are, even if you do view them as a phallic substitute!).

*****

Now Mickey is as much of a staple as Van is, keeping her sane in a much less ethereal way. Van keeps her calm, but Mickey keeps her happy.

He encourages her to go out with friends, take in the occasional party, play, or concert, to have sleepovers or to date.

When he comes out with that last one, she laughs at him. She can’t help it; she can’t see herself liking the casual sex thing, and of course she can’t be open enough for a relationship with someone… normal. There, she’s said it.

He nods, and promises to see what he can do about it.

*****

There was a Halloween dance and just the thought of it was enough to send her into a panic, so she didn’t set foot out of her apartment on the thirty-first. It’d been bad enough in high school, when she could just skip that day and not have to hear about it; this was all over campus. Looking out her window, she could see zombies, vampires, and demons walking down the street. She kept the blinds drawn.

Van didn’t like the holiday either, and since she was inside, he was too. Mickey, however, loved it, and was at her door at eleven in a red velvet cape with a skull mask over half his face.

No, she is not coming out.

Yes she is, she doesn’t want to be a complete shut-in. Or maybe she does? In which case he’ll happily go away, unloved and alone, and probably cut himself to let his agony out.

He is a manipulative brat and needs to keep out of where he’s not wanted.

She is scaring her friends and anyway, what’s the problem?

He should know what the problem is.

He’ll protect her, and even get that trigger-happy hermit of an angel to come protect her to.

And so it was that Angie, in a full-skirted gown with blonde hair piled on her head and a slash of red around her throat, swept into the ballroom at the stroke of midnight flanked by Prince Prospero and Othello.

Her classmates were surprised, but not half as surprised as she was.

*****

Angie has a certain set limit of social interaction she can take; after a week she becomes completely agoraphobic and has to shut herself in her room to reset. This is difficult, because these are the times when her cravings for grace are strongest.

About every other week she does this, Van and Mickey have a blazing argument just outside her door. She doesn’t mention that she can hear them, but she knows the arguments are about the drug. Specifically, getting her back on it. Van is deeply opposed to this. Mickey is not.

*****

She visited home for Thanksgiving, and somehow ended up the central topic of conversation, even though she was pretty sure that Mickey or even Damien did much more interesting things than she did. Ming, waving a glass of I-do-not-drink-wine, pressed her for gossip and details of everything she’d even glanced at on campus, and Damien seemed excited, when he could get a word in edgewise.

They had to be the weirdest family ever, but they were definitely the real thing.

*****

Angie doesn’t do other drugs; none of them would compare, and also, the withdrawal will only make everything worse. Her new friends give up passing her the joint or the absinthe or whatever by the second month. Van approves of this, and disapproves of her hanging out with people who do drugs and are also godless heathens. Angie is just as happy to have that excuse to never introduce him to them.

*****

The fourth time they had the argument, Angie stepped out of her room and glared at both of them. Then she explained in cold, clipped words that she did not now, and would not ever, need them to decide her substance abuse habits for her. Then she told them to get out of her apartment and not come back until they could be adults.

When they did come back, Mickey had a broken nose, and Van had a black eye and a distinct aura of superiority. There were no further arguments.

*****

Very few people can say they have a wizard and an angel looking out for them because they’re possessed by a demon. Angie isn’t one of them, not because it’s not true but because it’s not sane. No matter that the angel puts up holly to keep her protected in the winter, and the wizard paints her door with arcane symbols and pours salt around the boundaries, and the demon sends her disturbing images and chips away at her sense of self.

If she is delusional, at least she’s very thorough about it.

*****

Mickey was still hung up on the idea of her dating, or maybe being seen to be dating, in December. He bought her a dress for the Christmas dance (weren’t themed dances for high schoolers?) in black velvet and blue silk, and insisted that if she didn’t find someone to take her, he’d do it himself.

Because she was still somewhat annoyed at him, she convinced Van that he really needed to be her bodyguard that night. Mickey’s face when he saw the pair of them wearing matching black roses almost made up for the effort.

*****

People have started to ask her about her ‘boyfriend’ – is she really dating him? Is he as scary as he looks? What about that guy at the Halloween dance? – and she always laughs and tells them that he’s just a childhood friend. They both are. It’s almost true.

*****

New Year’s at home was a welcome break. Damien was happier than Angie remembered seeing him, and Angie had to think (Malmorgra said) it was because she wasn’t around anymore, but maybe Ming really was good for him. Certainly she brought a lot of life to the party – between her and Mickey, Angie didn’t have time to be depressed.

Damien didn’t flinch away from her once the whole break.

*****

Van keeps telling her things, little things that she doesn’t need to know, like which saint is in charge of teenagers (she doesn’t remember) and how to slay a dragon (cut off its head, quickly). She has no idea why. Perhaps they’re his mental equivalent of silver bullets.

*****

On Valentine’s Day, she woke up to a room covered in rose petals. Stepping over them, wondering when she’d started dreaming in scents, led her to the living room, where every available surface was covered in red roses. She froze.

Mickey, standing in the middle of it all with a huge grin on his face, produced a tea tray and a box of chocolates from absolutely nowhere and told her to consider this his bid for her affections.

She sat down, very hard, on the nearest chair, missed, and sat up in a flurry of red. Oddly, her first thought was to wonder where Van was.

*****

Mickey is a very gentle and persistent suitor – that’s the only word for it. He’s not a boyfriend, not a significant other or anything so common – he is courting her. They go out dancing, to fine dinners, on romantic walks – or flights, sometimes. Angie is not open about it, but all her friends know. They like Mickey, and they approve.

Damien doesn’t, but he says, if it makes her happy. Angie thinks she is. Van doesn’t either, and adds no qualifiers.

****

A few weeks into the spring semester, Van and Mickey had another fight, and this time Angie had no idea why. She refused to get involved.

Van stayed away from the apartment that night for the first time ever, and Angie couldn’t sleep.

*****

Van is not around lately, and Angie finds that she is more and more nervous. Malmorgra says that she’s driven him off. Angie doesn’t believe it – doesn’t want to – but she can’t see another explanation.

*****

Angie woke up at three one night to find Van sitting on the tree outside her window. He didn’t notice her, or she didn’t think he did, but the sight of him was physically painful and she almost stopped breathing.

The next day, she had several opportunities to mention it to Mickey, but she didn’t take any of them.

*****

When Mickey finally kisses her, she realizes she is going about this all wrong.

*****

She left a note for Van in the tree, and got Mickey to sit on the couch and wait; then she paced a hole in the carpet for half an hour until the angel finally showed up.

It took her a while to get up the courage to explain what she wanted, and when she finally got it out, the men didn’t react for several seconds.

With Malmorgra chanting pessimism in the back of her mind, she was all ready to head back to her room and never talk to either of them again, but Mickey shrugged and said that, if it was what she wanted, they could probably swing it.

Van didn’t look convinced at all.

*****

She spends more time with Van; he needs it more. She limits her kisses to the cheek until he starts responding, then moves to his lips, his hands, his neck. He has an amazing, if subtle, blush.

She still goes on dates with Mickey, but now they bring Van along every other week. Ninety percent of the time, the evening does not end in a fistfight.

*****

In April, coming home from class, Angie spotted Mickey cornering Van against a tree. She was ready to stride over and give them a piece of her mind for fighting again, but then Mickey moved in for a kiss, and Van let him.

She smiled, and had ‘Van and Mickey, sitting in a tree, kay-eye-ess-ess-eye-en-gee’ stuck in her head all afternoon.

*****

Angie may be doomed to strange relationships, but she wouldn’t give them up for the world.

Since there are only a few of each of these, putting them in the same post. You should be able to tell which is which.

47. Storm

Acacia is not exactly afraid of thunder, but she puts up an extra screen between herself and the wall during storms. There are too many stories about wild-wind nights for her to feel comfortable.

Behind her screen, through the window, the lighting-gods and the wild hunters fight, a thousand thousand hooves trampling the sky itself. A hell-wolf howls its loneliness through the tears of a goddess.

Acacia counts her breaths and does not sleep at all. One day, she thinks, she will step off a cliff and join the wind – but until then, she must try to keep her distance.

48. Moon

Artemis ran under such a sky as this, and it was a night like tonight that sent the rabbit leaping into the fire. It is clear and cold and Acacia can see every star in the sky. The moon is pure silver above the trees.

She knows eight myths for every constellation; she can see the Pleiades, and name each one; the stars –

glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid

- and she does not do anything so undignified as raise her hands to them, but all the same she feels the moon’s light calling to her.

49. Uniform

The first time she sees Ryoka wear his dress uniform, his mother cries. His little brothers are mutely impressed.

He has medals on it, in purple and gold. They ask. He says, this one is for ‘devotion beyond the call of duty’, and that one is for ‘bravery in the line of fire’. He doesn’t say, ‘my best friend should have gotten this only he died first’, or, ‘this was for nearly committing suicide with a hand grenade’.

They’ll find out themselves, someday, and he won’t have to tell them why he hates looking in the mirror dressed like this.

50. Scissors

The most common sign of a captive is short hair. It’s disgraceful, among the Ab-Syllans, to have a ponytail any shorter than waist length. So of course, the first thing Xeng Kho does when he captures Ryoka’s men is give them all haircuts.

They’re not cowards, but they’re marked as it, and Ryoka rages for them.

The bastard doesn’t cut Ryoka’s, and that pisses him off – he’s their captain. He should be the first into battle, last to retreat, first to suffer. But his soldiers are in prison, he is in the enemy’s tent, and he doesn’t get the choice.

I'm still dubious about the canonicity of number 33, but I thought I'd post it anyway because it's so likely. I may call it an AU later, though.

26. Haircut

Yohko holds her hair, a brown rope that falls past her waist when it’s down, in her right hand. In her left hand, she holds a freshly sharpened knife.

Her husband looks at her in disbelief, fading to anger. Before he can yell at her, she puts the knife at the base of the ponytail and saws, once, twice, thrice.

She throws the dead hair at his feet. It scatters like so many twigs, lain to start a fire.

He raises his hand. She raises her knife, and backs out of the house.

Once she’s past the threshold, she runs.

27. 1000

Years and years and years ago, there was a woman, a healer, who walked an ice-cold leyline, never stopping until she reached the sacred island, the source of all.

One thousand generations have passed since then. Her story lives on in the name she gave her land, and the colour of her descendents’ hair.

Now there is a woman, a healer, who walks an ice-cold leyline, accompanied by a goddess, two mages, a witch, and three soldiers. They stop every damn night and they’re headed in exactly the wrong direction.

But the goddess says that the world is a circle.

28. Midnight

Lirael always takes Laeson’s watch. It’s the second hour after darkness falls, the time when the moons are up and White creatures shuffle just out of sight.

She’s sure that there’s nothing to harm them; they’re crossing fields now, not forest, and she’d feel something nasty a mile off.

She keeps watch anyway. The silver light softens everything. In it, Hosi looks relaxed, Mahabra looks… right, Sakli is calm, Ryoko almost smiles, even Irvine looks honest.

And Yohko, under moonlight…

When she wakes Yohko for her watch, it’s with a kiss.

There is nothing more beautiful, Lirael thinks, than mid-night.

29. Famous

It’s a problem she’s never heretofore encountered: what to do when people recognize her.

“Look, it’s that Life Mage…”

“Look at her, think she was Queen Yalsi from the way she’s standing…”

“They say she’s Guersi’s descendent, if that’s true she might as well be.”

Mostly, ignoring them is easier than calling them out. When they plead for help, she snaps at them and does whatever they ask of her.

Yohko asks why she doesn’t just take the sash off. Hosi doesn’t dignify that with a response.

She hates being famous, but she’s still got a goddessdamned job to do.

30. Disguise

When Lirael tosses the sheet over Hosi’s head, she thinks her appearance doesn’t bother her like the loss of her voice. To create the illusion of being pious, she’ll have to keep silent.

The Iguerisan word for ‘human’ has its roots in the word for ‘voice’.

Whenever Yohko speaks for her, she has to grit her teeth to keep from screaming. Whenever Irvine explains her silence, she remembers once watching a shepherd take his mute child into the woods and come back alone.

Later, when she can speak, she takes a more than usual pleasure in ripping out creatures’ throats.

31. Witch

Hosi remembers a witch when she was three. The woman wore black, a colour Hosi hadn’t seen outside of a temple, and cut a path through the square like a wolf through sheep.

Hosi’s father spoke politely to her and ushered Hosi inside. Hosi’s mother looked tense and suspicious as she offered the witch a place to stay. She declined.

Hosi remembers how relieved her father looked, and how distant her mother was that night; and how, when she went out the next day to play, she traced the path of bootprints, which had not strayed far from the leyline.

32. Snow

Mahabra likes snow.

“Oi, ‘Hab, stop that!”

Ten points! A square shot to the back of Irvine’s neck. He piles up another snowball, a bit of Laeson’s heat making it stick.

Yohko showed him how to make snowballs today. They and Ryoko had a good fight. Yohko throws a lot harder than he can. He aims at Hosi.

“Throw that and I will make your hair lice grow exponentially.”

That sounds nasty. Mahabra re-aims and hits Sakura. She grins at him, and sends a flurry that gets in his hair and makes him shiver, and laugh.

He really likes snow.

33. Pregnant

When she finds out she’s pregnant, it takes her almost completely by surprise, which is stupid, considering.

Fuck. I knew this was going to be trouble.

Don’t curse at me; it was all your own fault.

It shouldn’t take nine months to get to the border, and once they’re there she’ll only have to find somewhere she can stay until the birth. It’ll work out.

She’ll make a horrible mother, and no child of hers is growing up with him for a parent. She has no idea what to do.

She doesn’t tell anyone else, least of all the father.

1. Labyrinth

Somewhere in the area of sky dominated by Ophiuchus, there is a rock. It has the strange property of being fixed in Earth’s sky. Astronomers haven’t discovered it, which is lucky, because they’d have kittens.

In this rock, there is a labyrinth. It looks like a straight line from the entrance. When you walk in, you’re in an eleven-dimensional maze.

There are twelve mazes. You can solve them if you have the keys. If you don’t, you stay in the maze.

If you get through, you’ll wake an angel. It’s up to you whether that’s a good thing or not.

2. Staff

Kaos is fighting something with copper blood and a temper. When she kicks, it flows away. Her magic doesn’t dent it. She’s not scared, yet.

It sends her sprawling and charges. Her foot gets stuck. Now she’s scared.

She closes her eyes, prays, and strikes straight up. There’s a sharp pain in her palm. Then the thing falls over, dead.

She pulls the staff out of the body and gives it a spin. Her glyph marks it in sapphire. It is perfect, and very familiar.

Capricorn says, later, that he remembers when she first made it. He won’t say how.

3. Memory

Leoran’s memory is paper, vellum, ink and clay. It stretches out in an endless circle, volume upon volume on shelf upon shelf in the centre of his castle. Given time, one can walk from one end of it to the other, the development of the Angel Capricorn spelled out in forty-nine scripts (one to a life) from cuneiform to hanzi to Roman.

He writes every day, putting down every event – no matter how small – in meticulous copperplate handwriting, so he can’t forget.

Because script never changes, though memories do, he reads aloud every day in languages his mouth never learned.

4. Paint

Of course Kaos doesn’t care what her house looks like. It’s new and that’s all that matters. She doesn’t spend much time in it anyway.

She takes care of it, but only to the extent of keeping the floors clean and the windows transparent. She doesn’t do it because she wants to. Given her choice, she’d live outdoors.

She doesn’t notice what colour the walls are - they’re not alive, so they don’t register in her vision. She has no time for things that don’t change.

Every time Wild comes over, the house is painted a different shade of green.

5. Friends

Kaos and Wild don’t talk much; neither of them feels the need. Wild understands Kaos; she knows what it is to be loyal. Kaos understands Wild; she knows what it’s like to be alone.

They’re both quiet, and when they’re on Earth they’re the ones who get stared at longest. Wild’s eyes and Kaos’s scars mark them in a way even the wings don’t.

Wild wouldn’t call them friends because Kaos is a pack mate, and Kaos wouldn’t because Wild is an angel. Both of these are more than friends, or family, even. They’re defenders, confidants, allies – and outsiders, together.

6. Shooting star

Somewhere above the sky, where gravity is negligible and air is rarified, there is a woman who flies.

She doesn’t ever look down at Earth, because she spent too long there to want to see it again. She looks away, up to the stars and the endless black of space, and thinks of diamonds and how inadequate metaphor is.

She’s too old to be idealistic, she’s seen too much to be an optimist, but from here she can believe that the heavens – the celestial spheres – are and will be perfect, now and forever.

Behind her, her black wings trail fire.

7. Encore

One of the rules of magic is that you never perform the same trick twice. That doesn’t extend to offensive magic – just the cards-and-doves type – but Amazon lives by it anyway. It’s more fun.

Of course, a weather mage never really has to worry about effects being repeated. She’s cast the same rain-summoning spell a million times, and gotten a million different clouds.

Her spells are tied to her voice, so she has a list of silly weather rhymes: nothing like “O feathered clouds that hang up high, let lightning hit this weird thing’s eye” to lighten up a fight.

8. Fireworks

Explosions are all well and good, but Tempest never really cared about the Fourth of July. Independence Day? So what? He never asked for independence; what he’s after is freedom.

And seriously, it’s not like he cares about government. No one would, if they’d just figure out what it is, which is perfidious. Humans are so memetic. Give one the idea of ‘law’ and they all pick it up.

That was before his perceptions became angelic; he understands the cultural aspect. He still doesn’t get the big deal about the titular quality. On the other hand, the fireworks are cool.

9. Selfish

Fury has been accused of being selfish. She cops to it. So what? She gets her job done, and what’s in her best interest is in everyone else’s, too.

However, it’s not helping the resistance.

If she were good with words, she’d sit down and write an essay on the difference between selfishness and self-centeredness, and why her sister has too much of the latter. Not being Capricorn, she’s not up for it. Anyway, it wouldn’t help much – everything she does these days is filtered through ‘stars and sparks, what a bitch’. Just once she’d like to be listened to.

10. Date

Leoran insists on taking her to a restaurant. She forgets which language she should order in, a child screams at her scars, and she doesn’t understand anyway – she doesn’t eat.

Next is a cinema. The figures look like humans but without auras, and an explosion makes her panic before she realizes it wasn’t real.

A week later he tries a museum. The main attraction is circa 3 000 BC and she can’t get near it without flinching.

When he asks her to a ballet, she grabs his collar and kisses him. It’s a hell of a lot easier her way.

11. Coin

Toss a coin a hundred times, and it’ll come up tails about fifty, or so say the laws of chance.

If Cosmos flips, it’ll come up fifty exactly.

If Kaos flips, the thing is just as likely to burst into a cloud of copper molecules.

If Destiny flips, it’ll come up whatever he calls it as.

If Fury flips, the odds will skew eighty-twenty in either direction.

If Tempest flips, it’ll look right, but every sequence of a hundred flips will be identical.

If Infinity flips, every toss will have the same result.

They don’t rely on coin tosses much.

Amazon and Magic:

“Almost every human culture has something like angels in their mythology.”

“I wonder which came first, us or the legends?”

“I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Do you want to be the product of some human’s overactive imagination?”

Rose and Joseph:

“Don’t even start. You’d believe anything if someone told you it was God’s word.”

“I’m faithful, not blind. Willfully or otherwise.”

“I’m not blind. I just know what’s real.”

“What’s real and what’s true don’t have to be the same thing.”

“That’s what real means.”

“What’s real is that we’re indistinguishable from anyone else. What’s true is that they fly from us.”

“Odd pheromones, or some superstition among -”

“That’s neither real nor true.”

“I won’t believe it’s some supernatural… curse, or something.”

“You don’t have to.”

Rela and SingKueh:

“One day you’re gonna die too. Everybody does.”

“I don’t plan to leave anyone in my wake.”

“Best start reversing engines now, that’s so. ‘S not just me you’ll leave.”

“I won’t even leave you. You’ll go out long before I do. Gloriously.”

“I’m not ‘Tatsu.”

“No one is. But you’re the same.”

“’Cept I still have something to live for.”

ETA: No matter HOW hard I try, Kaos is not a bloody Gemini. Therefore, I'm switching things up again. Meet Kaos Angel Virgo, for one. ::headdesk::

( Backstory )
( Characters )

So I guess I have DEATH on the brain, or something (promise I'm not angsting!). No wonder Hosi is screwed up.

Hosi, others, 772 words.

Warnings: ANGST and badly-translated fake languages.

On the trip out, Hosi stands in the bow and prays, head held high. Kali is silent, for once; paradoxically, these prayers are better left unanswered. For three days and nights, as the ship sways, she does not move from her post. Lirael and Sakli stand behind her, backs to her, keeping the profane from her as she readies herself.

Elsewhere on the ship, sailors talk in whispers rather than drown out the sound of her voice. Sailing is smooth, though the clouds promise a storm, and Irvine and Mahabra belowdecks can hear only the creak of the timbers, the splash of the waves, and the high, hoarse chanting in a language they can’t understand.

~

Kaa, Syaan, Maguen, Dasyoth, houka isoul, lensye isoul, thalye isoul, hyasen isoul, yaaler kath reth. Yaaler kath sunthe, houaal, leshuen, demoun syeth dalyen isoual. Yaaler kath gueryin thus isoual.

~

When the ship docks, Hosi steps out first, cloaked in three layers of wool and a heavy hood. Her clothing is white; her hands are white; her hair is white; and these are the only things that can be seen. Yohko, Lirael, and Ryoko stand near her, ready to press the spectators aside, but it is not necessary. The crowd parts before her like the sea below an oar.

~

Source, Peace, Circle, Absolute, one most pure, one most true, one most holy, one most high, save us. Save those whose souls are free of sky, sea, flame, and stone. Save those whose voices cannot be heard.

~

The first day is earth, and she digs a shallow hole in the ground and allows herself to be covered completely in soil. Unable to see or hear, with earth in her mouth, she prays to Kali and to Mearlek. She does not move at all until sunset, when she sits up

The second day is fire, and she lights thirty-six white candles in a close circle around her. Surrounded by steady flames, she prays to Kali and to Laeson. When a strand of her hair catches fire, she makes no move to put it out, and the flame goes on burning until the last candle finally burns out at sunset.

The third day is water, and she dives from the docks into the sea. Floating in the water, she prays to Kali and to Koreul. When she is retrieved, she refuses help, and resumes her prayers soaking wet and shivering.

The fourth day is wind, and she strips naked standing on the roof of the bell tower. With nothing to protect her or keep her from falling, she prays to Kali and to Devern. She steps back down only at sunset, accepting the white robes of death without a word.

~

The acolytes of Kali perform a death rite peculiar in its sympathetic nature. …
Of note is the manner in which the priestess to perform the rite prepares herself. For days before the rite, the priestess will neither eat nor sleep. … During the period of fasting, the priestess symbolically prepares herself for death, purifying herself with earth, fire, water, and wind.

- from Followers of the Four White Ladies, Feyuli, Lunesi 16.

~

The land where the Academy once stood is barren, grey ash on glass-black stone. Above, the sky is pre-dawn grey, stretching into infinity. Hosi stands at the edge of the former grounds and cannot breathe, her voice catching in her throat.

Though hundreds, maybe thousands, stand in a circle around the land, when she walks out she walks alone. It is only her, the sky, and the ashes of what used to be her home.

~

Sakel kath mafol idensal. Sakel kath densal mensyel lyenrek ikath taun. Geluer reth ril fuaner syer kath guern, len, lyenrek: yaaler kath reth.

~

This was the library; this, the lecture hall. After eight years living on this land, Hosi needs no walls or doors to tell her where she is. She tries not to step where she knows someone has died, but there were so many dead. In her mind – she can’t speak – she asks their ghosts forgiveness.

Standing in the spiritual centre of the inner sanctuary, she turns to the South; to the North; to the West; to the East. She bows four times and four times more. As the sun rises, she begins the final prayers, her voice small and scared and carried away by the wind.

~

Lead your daughters who have lost their way. Lead your daughters to join your soul.
By the voices and the minds and the souls you have given us, we call upon you: save us.

So you know the Angels Zodiac universe I've been trying to make resemble something other than Sailor Moon high fantasy for the last five, maybe six years? I FIGURED IT OUT.

( This is long and contains, of course, mad spoilers. Sarah-chan, READ THIS PLX. AND RESPOND, PRETTY PLX. )

Frack, it's another war story. Anyway.

Sarah-chan, I want your input on this. It's mostly your universe, and, well, a collaboration might be fun.

I seem to have a thing for human vs inhuman POV. Hm.

For those who were not present or did not care, Seijirou and Jester broke up... sometime last year, I believe. Seijirou took it rather hard.

For the newbies, Seijirou is an angel who keeps demons off earth, Kiros is an angel who keeps angels off earth, and the god they work for is not nearly as powerful as he would like you to think.

Kiros POV, G, angstish, 1 387 words.

Kiros is not worried. He refuses to worry about a man who has spent the better part of the life of the universe fighting things too horrible for thought. It wouldn’t be right. He is concerned.

He is concerned enough that as soon as another angel comes to the Gates, he hands off the Book, citing a matter of pressing importance. The young man, Peter, takes on the job with barely a breath of complaint. Kiros is glad. It’s been a few thousand years since he’s found an assistant as good as that boy.

Instead of doing what he usually does – go to Earth, go out, perhaps find Chiyo, or meet with Lirael or Abby – he finds himself at the door to his counterpart’s rooms.

He considers going in. The hallway here is bright and open and anyone could come along, to find him standing outside this door contemplating the sunburst carvings.

He shrugs and, because he doesn’t want to make noise, walks through the door. Or tries to. The other angel has put some sort of ward on it and Kiros bumps into the wood. He looks around, grateful that no one else seems to be within line of sight, and reaches for the doorknob.

The door opens easily, which is strange. Perhaps he just didn’t want to be taken by surprise? Kiros looks around. The rooms –

The last time he’d been in here – he thinks back, that would have been nearly six months ago – the floor had been cluttered, things blowing every which way in a wind through the open window. Now it is eerily neat, the hardwood floor shining, all trace of personality gone. Kiros glances into the bedroom. The huge four-poster is gone, replaced by a utilitarian cot. The sheets have been made perfectly. Kiros suspects they haven’t been slept on.

Humans have to sleep. Angels don’t.

Kiros would curse, if he could.

He stands in the centre of the main room and glances about. “Seijirou?”

He doesn’t expect a response, but he gets one. The blond steps out of the third room almost immediately.

“Use not that name,” he says flatly. Kiros stares.

He is in full angelic regalia, all white-and-gold robes and tongues of flame. His eyes are the hard, metallic colour of gold, rather than warm amber. He does not smile, he does not laugh, there is nothing in his manner or his voice to indicate that he has ever been anything but ineffable.

“What has happened to you?” Kiros wants to ask, but doesn’t. Instead he takes several steps forward, almost entranced, until he is within a foot of the other angel.

“Then what…?” he says, and reaches up with one hand, stopping just short of touching his face. The other angel does not move.

“Vimael. It is the name Our Father gave me. Kirel.” He isn’t breathing. Kiros should be able to feel the air moving, but he can’t.

Seijirou always took the time to sleep, to eat, to breathe, to keep his heart pumping. Vimael… Kiros doesn’t know Vimael all that well. It’s been a long time.

“Don’t call me that. Please.” Kiros’s hand drops, and he looks at the ground. “How can one human have done this to you?”

He says it almost to himself, but Vimael answers anyway. “He did nothing; I brought this upon myself. I should have listened to Zohe -” Kiros cuts him off.

“Don’t call her that, either. We decided we were more than what we were created. How can you throw away years – centuries of work for one man?”

Vimael turns away. His silks swish on the floor. Kiros can see now that his hair has been cut, a mere half the length it has been.

“It is because he is one man that I must. If one man can do so much, how can we remain attached to their world? I shall not.” He bows his head, and his wings relax so that they drape on the floor.

Kiros can’t stop himself; he takes a single step forward and wraps his arms around Vimael, resting his head on the angel’s shoulder. He sighs.

Vimael tenses, almost bolting; he doesn’t relax even when Kiros steps back again, leaving only his hand on the other’s shoulder.

“I understand. I wish I didn’t, but I understand. But….” He trails off, unsure of himself.

There is silence for a moment before Vimael breaks it. “I know not why we continue this. Zero tried to be human, and she failed. I was beyond prideful to attempt what she could not do. I tried to love, and I failed. I only wish… thou wilt still try, wilt thou not, Kirel – Kiros?” he asks.

“I have to. I think we all do, even if it can’t be done. But that’s not important now, is it? I came here to see if I could help you.” He finally lets his hand drop. “But I guess I can’t. I’m sorry – I’ll be going.”

Vimael turns back to him, suddenly – Kiros is momentarily fearful, but it passes when he sees the expression on his face. He looks lost, almost. Kiros can’t remember the last time he wasn’t certain of himself.

He turns and takes a step, then looks back. Vimael has stepped forward, without really meaning to judging by the expression on his face.

He can’t leave him alone. He takes the angel’s hand, stepping close again. Vimael is almost vibrating with nervousness, and Kiros unconsciously starts smoothing the tension out of his palm.

“I wish it could have worked for you,” he says. They’re the right words, but they lack something, and Kiros doesn’t know how to force it out, whatever it is. He moves to the other hand. “The three of us – sad, aren’t we?” he asks. Vimael nods.

“We try too hard, and then we fall. Even men warn against such arrogance,” he says. Kiros doesn’t look up at him, but he knows without even trying that his expression has turned thoughtful, that he’s watching Kiros’s fingers move up his arm and to his shoulders.

“This would be easier if we sat down,” Kiros mentions after he’s worked his way to the wing joints. Vimael says nothing, but turns to walk into the bedroom, and Kiros follows.

Vimael has several knots of tension in his wings. When Kiros has worked them out, they both sit on the bed, leaning on each other with their wings wrapped together. It’s an intimate position, but not in the way that it might have been a year ago. For one thing, angels don’t have a sex drive. For another, that would be the last thing Vimael needs right now.

There’s nothing Kiros can say. He’d like to try, but he can’t put enough meaning in any of the words.

Vimael is staring intently at a frayed feather on the end of Kiros’s wing. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, and detached.

“He said, ‘you don’t do anything unless it benefits you in some way’. Is that true? I ought to know, so that I might change…”

Of course ‘he’ is Jester. Who else? Kiros’s response is immediate. “It’s false. You cannot be selfish any more than the rest of us can.”

“Then why should he say that?” Vimael reaches out and smoothes the feather into place. His hands are cool – his blood isn’t moving.

“Humans do not think the way we do. He was emotional and he struck where it would do the most harm,” Kiros says. He thinks this is the right answer. He’s not positive, though he sounds it. Vimael has spent more time around humans than he.

Vimael doesn’t show a reaction, merely continues his inspection of Kiros’s wingtip. Kiros leans against his side, curling an arm over Vimael’s silk-clad shoulders. “I wish…” he says, too quiet to carry, but he doesn’t know how to complete the sentence.

Heaven tends to have noise, not too loud but at least a low background susurrus, but these rooms are dead quiet. He can’t even hear Vimael’s heart, and soon he realizes he’s holding his breath in sympathy.

“We are not supposed to be dead,” he says.

“Neither are we alive,” Vimael responds. There’s no answer he can give that will be true or hopeful, so Kiros says nothing.

Trying to get some more history fleshed out here.

Lest you think Schuu's actions are unnaturally precocious, know that SingKueh told him what to do.

Rela POV, angst, 519 words.

I’m standing in a river. It’s cold, and it’s strong. I don’t know where the water’s going, but it’s taking the dust and blood away from me. That’s all that matters. I don’t have to follow it. I don’t want to. It needs to be somewhere else.

I shot a guy today.

It’s cold. Schuu is standing on the bank beside me but he’s not looking at me.

I did not know I was going to. It wasn’t planned. Who wakes up in the morning and thinks Today I will put someone’s brain out with a piece of lead? Maybe some spacer fuckwits. Not this girl.

Schuu has killed before. He’s younger than me. The first time he killed he did it for me.

The shot was loud. I mean, I’ve shot guns before. Lots. I’m good at it. I’m used to the noise they make. I nearly lost my hearing from this one. Think I did, for a while. Can’t remember a damn thing. Right afterwards, it all breaks up.

The second time, too. Every time. I’m shivering. Schuu never broke up like this.

I remember right before it. I remember looking up at the guy. Ready to shoot if I had to – never had to before. Had to this time. He was aiming for Boss. I don’t take kind to that.

Schuu never had blood all over his hands. I do and it is not coming off.

I said I was behind him. Yeah. Just a foot behind, gun aimed. Saw his shooting hand come up. Fired.

It has soaked through my shirt. I take that off, toss it by my hip holster on the bank. Schuu jumps at the noise, looks at me, blushes, looks away. Doesn’t matter.

The sound, first. Loud like only a gun is. Then the smell. Gunpowder and copper. Death.

I’m sinking into the water, so only my head is above it. My hair is starting to float downstream. If I take one step forward I can go with it.

Then the feel of it. His blood all over me. I hit an artery in the neck from below. Blew the top of his skull out. Sprayed blood like a solar flare.

Schuu looks at me again. I will stay on land.

Don’t remember after that. I said that. I must’ve got out somehow. Didn’t see anyone from then ‘til I got home. Don’t remember getting home. I remember looking at my hands. Gunpowder and blood. Copper and iron and lead.

Anyway my feet are bare. If I move I’ll cut myself on something. And I can’t swim.

I didn’t put my gun down. Didn’t let go of it ‘til Schuu found me. He took it, took my hand, led me here. My hands turned the water red and grey.

I should strip the gun. It’ll get jammed. No, Schuu did that.

And now I’m here. In the river. The water’s not cold enough. I can still think. Schuu’s just motioned to me. I should get out, but I shake my head. I need to stay here. Until the blood comes off.