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A woman sat atop Mt. Alphet, forgotten by time. Her body seemed young, but her eyes appeared old, showing countless experiences and memories. She sat atop a white pedestal, one leg hanging loose and the second scrunched up to her chest. On the top of the mountain, she could think. There were no distractions but the soft chirping of birds and the wind, blowing her long white-blond hair out behind her. Up here, she was alone with her thoughts, her ideas. Or so had been her plan. The soft crunch of pebbles underfoot filled her ears like thunderclaps, and she mentally refocused herself on the world around her. Whenever she went into her thoughts, the world around her lost detail, and even the softest of sounds was seemingly huge. “You hurt my ears.” She said, not even turning to see who it was. After you had heard those footfalls as many times as she had, she recognized them immediately. “I’m sorry.” A mans voice said. She drew up her leg and spun around to face him, stretching her legs out and looking up into a very familiar face. “I missed you.” She said softly, rocking back and forth. “And I you.” He said, walking around the pedestal and took a seat next to her, facing out over the cliff face. She leaned her shoulder against his momentarily, and then spun back around so they were facing the same way. “What has happened, in the last thousand years?” She said, and she sounded so forlorn that her brother put his arm around her. “A lot, and yet not much. What do you mean?” “I mean the world. The elements are released. The beacons are lit. Earth is no longer the strongest of elements; its dominance has been challenged.” She waved her feet back and forth and began to hum so quietly that you could not be sure if she was really humming. “I know.” He said, and seemed reluctant to carry on. “I’m sorry.” “Sorry about what?” She asked innocently, looking sideways at him. “Sorry about letting our line fall into decline? Sorry about not even going to find your brother? Sorry about leaving me trapped in a rock for the past thousand years?” he voice was completely under control; she wasn’t even angry, despite her accusations. “About all of them, and more.” He said, moving to the ground in front of her and taking her small hands in his, holding them in front of her. “I had a problem, but I solved it. I came here as fast as I could afterwards, and then I was going to go check on my brother.” “You came here first.” She said quietly, looking deeply into his eyes. “Should I be touched or worried?” “Certainty not worried.” He said, and she nodded. “But not touched?” she asked. “I came here. To see you, not to discuss politics.” He said. “How are you? Really?” “I’m fine. Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” She sighed and let go of his hands, hugging her knees to her chest. “I am not sure if I am ready for this. This world.” Her brother sat back next to her. “You’ll be fine. You always were.” “But things were different.” He let out an elongated sigh and shook his head. “No, things are just the same now as they ever were. But our perceptions of them are very different.” She laughed slightly and he looked a question at her. “I’m sorry. You just sounded so much like papa there, for a moment.” He put his arm around his little sister, and smiled faintly. “You have no idea how good it is to see you, to hear your voice.” “And our brother?” “Yeah, well, we were never great friends.” Sudden excitement filled her voice. “Oh, but wont it be great? It will be just like last time, with just the three of us on top of the world!” And she gestured vaguely around them, at the lofty mountain peak. “Yeah.” He said, partially sharing her vision but partially restrained. “Just like last time.” “Except this time, we know what not to do.” She said, and he smiled again. “Your such a damned optimist.” “I’m a realist. You’re the one who can’t stop believing that life itself is a suicide mission.” “Everyone dies. Everyone has a goal. Sounds like a suicide mission to me.” “Everyone.” She said slowly. “Everyone but us.” “Because we don’t die, or because we have no goal?” She shrugged slightly, and then laughed, a clear sound that cut through the dawn air. “Just like last time.” She said. “Yeah.”
It had been hard. Hard on all of them, hard on Jenna and Sheba especially. Alex had come back, and he had hurt them. He had tried to kill Ivan, but Thorn saved him. He had allied with Deadbeard and the Champans, and he had killed Felix. Deadbeard had almost killed Sheba, but she bested him at the last moment. Alex had Kidnapped Mia twice, once out of love and once of spite, and the second time he had raped her, left her an empty shell of herself. Finally, it had come down to a showdown between Isaac and Alex, over Jenna, and Isaac had killed himself to defeat Alex, by filling the Mercury adept up with the full golden sun, overloading his systems. That was three months ago. Now, Jenna and Garet had retuned to Vale, and after the two funerals Sheba returned to Laverino, to mourn the death of her Felix, who’s love she had just recently realized and reveled in. Ivan and Mia, newly coupled, had returned to Imil, where Ivan was slowly helping Mia work through her psychological problems. Piers had choked on a lemon long before any of this began. Thorn chose to stay in Vale, with the two Mars adepts. He was Thorn Crescent by name. He had come to the seven adepts, restored life to Ivan, and brought him back from being nearly dead. He had laid open all of their lies and confusing adolescent love stories in a matter of minutes, and journeyed with them, leading them, on their mad escapade across the world to stop Alex. He had saved Jenna’s life, and protected them from several other enemies. They had all gotten to know him. Until they learned of the real him, the thousands of years old Venus Adept who told them the truth behind the “Stone of Sages” There was no Stone of Sages. The title was badly translated scripture. In reality, those ancient scrolls spoke of the Stone Sages, the three Venus Adepts who had ruled the world until they were overthrown. Life, Death, and Rebirth were their names, chosen to reflect the source of their power; life from the power that keeps people alive, death using his own undead existence to fuel his spells, and rebirth using the essence of life that left one dead body and sparked life in another. They had been imprisoned in whatever prison would hold them. Life was trapped in a Psyenergy stone, not alive enough to use her powers. Rebirth was placed in the dancing idol from Gaia rock, which was too alive to be reborn but too dead to be killed. And death was imprisoned in a body, which was made unable to die. Thorn was that body. He was Death, one of the most powerful adepts of all time.
“Shut up!” Kay shouted, for the third time. Jenna and Garet had taken to sitting in the garden, and she didn’t like it; she said that the negative energy of their voices were affecting her plants. “She’s just sad about Felix.” Garet said, and it took him a moment to remember what he had just said. “I’m sorry!” he blurted, looking to see Jenna staring icily back at him. Thorn saw all this from his perch on a nearby ledge, but did not comment. He was always around these days, always somewhere, sitting just enough out of the way that you didn’t notice him but close enough to show up if needed. He really had nowhere to go, so he stayed here, watching Jenna. It’s because she lost a lover and a brother, he told himself, over and over at night. That’s why I care so much, why I can’t stay away from her. Not because of her. Because of what she was going through. But thorn knew all about loss. Being immortal was all well and good for the first three hundred years, but afterwards it took a distinctive downward turn. Everyone he knew, everyone he loved was dead, was dying, only to be replaced by another generation of superficial relationships that he hated, anticipating losing them. He would not become involved, he had told himself, this time. I will watch, I will help, and I will move on. These are not my people, this is not my world. But rather he liked it or not, he was only deceiving himself. He was empathetic and charismatic, an easy friend to make and a hard one to lose. He knew how to tell people exactly what they needed to hear, without them knowing, and he knew how to make people feel every possible emotion by just entering the room. He entered the room, he entered their lives, he entered their minds. He entered their hearts.
Papers, blah blah, notice of some sort, blah blah, no letters from his friends. Ivan sighed and leaned back in his chair, knowing what time it was but not wanting to go, not wanting to feel the regular disappointment. After a few moments he went anyway, putting down his mail on his way out of his study. He silently closed and locked the door behind him, and walked bare-footed down a well-worn path, to a familiar door. He knocked, and when he heard some sort of muffled reply, and slowly entered. Mia was reading, flipping through the pages of a long, overweight history book that looked more useful as a weapon then as reading material. How pretty she looked, with the sun lightly caressing her long, feminine body. The way the shadowy folds of her robe were bundled around her waist. The way her eyes were slightly hooded over, her lashes long and curved. Ivan mentally slapped himself. He mustn’t think such thought. She could tell, and it frightened her. “Hello Mia.” He said simply, and sat down a good five feet from her. “I was wondering if you felt good enough today to continue with your recovery.” He tried to keep his voice cheerful, but it was hard. That b*****d Alex. He had hated her for giving him up, hated her for choosing someone else to share her heart with. So he had raped her, and left her lying in the middle of the streets of Imil, bleeding from a lost virginity and weeping for a lost sanity. No one really knew what had happened, but it must have been bad, to have broken a strong person like Mia. Ivan had been trying to help her, trying to aid her in recovering. He had been doing well so far, all things considered. Mia sat up and nodded slightly, and left the room. After a few seconds, Ivan also left, and he took the long way around, entering the sitting room from the other side. He sat down in a chair opposite her, with a three-foot table separating them. “Now, close your eyes and reach forward.” He said, as he had so many times before. She nodded slightly and slid one of her hands forward across the table, shutting her eyes tight. He took a precious moment to look at her face; she still wore makeup, but now it was more of an afterthought, and her hair was kept in a single ponytail instead of the elaborate designs he was used to. He slowly reached out his hand, and their fingertips brushed. Contact was a difficult thing for her now; most people could not even get within ten feet of her, as she made readily apparent with her Psyenergy. After two months, she once again tolerated handholding with her once lover, who sat across from her. He slowly clasped her hand in his, being careful to keep his touch light and gentle, but by no means sensual. She did not respond, which was better then her usual shudder. She had so much pain. Oh, how he longed to take the burden for her, to carry the weight of her memories. But he was only a visitor into the darkness of her heart, one who brought a mere candle to fill the empty black void with light, as it once had been. “If you ever feel uncomfortable, just say so.” He said, and she nodded a bit. He moved his other hand forward, and held her soft hand between his. After a few minutes of pure bliss for him, she withdrew her hand and folded it in her lap with her other hand. She was looking silently down into the folds of her robe, not acknowledging his existence. Ivan slowly stood and went to leave, going back the long way. Right as he walked out of her sight she whispered something, and he glanced back in to the sitting room. She was looking up at him, tears streaking down her face, terrible in her beauty, pain written in uncountable tales across her face. “I still-” she said, and then paused. He held silent, giving her time. She still did not speak, still stared at him, as tears ran down his face. Then minutes later, he was about to turn to leave when she whispered, so quietly that he almost missed it. “Love you.” She whispered, and then looked back down into her lap. How beautiful she was, Ivan thought as he looked at her. He longed to run to her to wipe the tears of her cheeks and embrace her, love her and be with her as they had been before Alex. But she had been scarred, deeper then could ever be fully healed. Every day he helped her he gave her more and more of his heart, and she gave him nothing in return. Soon, she would have all the love he could ever give, and he thought she would never be able to return it. But she might. He held onto this hope, and her silent words, almost a prayer, kept him alive.
It was hell. The others all shrugged it off, all “dealt with it.” Sheba could not. She couldn’t let go of Felix, the man she would forever love, and she longed to be with him. Ah, if only it could have been her that killed Alex, if only she could have felt his organs fail as she stabbed him, stabbed him so hard that she could see her own blade out his back, see his blood staining the ground a wonderful shade of red. She wouldn’t, couldn’t cope with it. She would find this ‘Stone sage, find the idol that he was trapped in, and free him. She would use the power that Rebirth wielded to bring back Felix. She would be in his arms again, feel his breath in her ear as he whispered soft words of love to her. He would be back, and he would be hers and hers alone, and death would come to all that stood in her way.
“You lied to me.” She said, almost before she knew that he was there. “I know. I can’t go to him.” He said, moving over to sit next to his sister. He had been gone three days and she appeared to not have moved. “Why not?” she asked him. “Because he isn’t awake. He could be, he had every chance. The golden sun reached its zenith and passed, and he did not leave.” She looked up at the sky, and laughed a bit. “That sounds just like him, to do the unexpected. You two are so different.” “I’ll take that as a compliment, sis.” He said, standing and beginning to pace around the summit. “But you’ll have to change forms soon. This one is too holy to be seen by mortal eyes.” “You did look a bit different.” She said softly as her body morphed slightly; a holy glow that had surrounded it faded until it was invisible, even if it could still be felt. “And watch out. Courting had changed considerably.” “Thank you.” She said, and lay down on the sun-touched rock. “Just like it was.” She said dreamily, looking at the sky. “The world, you mean?” She nodded sagely “That, and our roll in it.” “Those may be a bit different, with our brother missing.” “I know.” She said cheerfully. “But your good enough.” “I’ll be back. I can’t leave town for long, or they’ll find you even sooner.” He started back down the mountain when she called out to him. “Death!” she shouted, and he stopped. “Rebirth must have stayed in that Idol for a reason. He isn’t one to make mistakes.” “I know.” Thorn said back, and vanished, teleporting into his room at the inn and silently calling out to his brother. Why, he asked, why did you do this? But if he was heard, there was no response.
isaaclives12 · Sat Jan 12, 2008 @ 08:06pm · 0 Comments |
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