“Look, it’s best not to fight the madness.” Anna waved at the campus as if pointing it out, but then had to pirouette around and take a step back to keep the kite from crashing to the ground. “So you are new here? I mean, there’s only 15,000 people here but I think I’d know if I saw you before.”
Damon again laughed, “Sure kid…whatever you say.” He tried to suppress another wave of laughter but his body again convulsed and he let it out, allowing himself to clutch his aching side with the movement.
But she continued to her kite flying/dancing/looking incredibly insane as she twirled about trying to keep the kite in the air. “Yo…kid,” Damon asked trying to keep his laughter down, “where is your mom? Shouldn’t you be with her and not running around a campus by yourself? You are alittle young to be playing on your own, don’t you think?” he asked as he looked around for an older woman who might be Anna’s mother.
His eyes only found themselves on Ikrisia and the brief conversation Anna and Ikrisia shared had made him gasp for air and cock his eyebrow. “Unless…” he looked from Ikrisia to Anna and back…Anna was furless…but with dancing kite kids and murderous fox women running around Shiro, he could not push the notion to the back of his head.
He again let another wave of laughter overtake him. “I…think…I am…going…to die…” he laughed louder, clutching his side at the thought of Ikrisia being a mother.
“Bet that was some tough love growing up, kid?” he asked Anna as he looked to Ikrisia, “did she try to eat you when you were born?”
“Yeah, but that was just because I was the runt of the litter. We’re totally over that and the violence stopped once my eyes finally opened.” Anna patted Ikrisia’s side lovingly, an act that caused the dragon kite to buzz the skylights of the dining hall. “And I’m not playing on my own, I have a full campus full of responsible adu-” Anna stifled a laugh hard. “Responsible adults to keep an eye on me.”
Ikrisia merely laughed at his comments. “A good soldier never leaves a comrade behind, right? Unless that comrade is trying to destroy what you were sworn to protect… then what orders would you follow? Where would you go? Disobey orders, or follow them into madness. I’ve made my choice. I don’t think you have.”
As Anna and the human spoke, Ikrisia moved her tongue over her teeth in thought. “This human can’t be helped, apparently. Ivalsa always was good at playing with people’s emotions, figuring out what they want and how to morph it to her own desires. Never was my strength. But perhaps that should change.”
She began to pay attention to the conversation at hand again. “It almost sounds like you believe I’m her mother. What an mor-” she was suddenly interrupted by Anna’s comment, which nearly made her laugh (amazing, laughter from Ikrisia?). She backed away, and instead messed Anna’s hair with a thin hand, remembering it was somewhat of a good gesture a parent makes to a child from a movie she saw. Sure, it was a father / son relationship, but it probably worked for mother / daughter relationships as well. “Heh, I guess so. Just… uhm… too much of a will to survive, I guess you could call it. And I don’t eat my children, but I happen to love the smell of human blood.” She smiled.
“Responsible adults! This woman tried to kill Ivalsa. Kid, are you trying to kill me?” Damon could barely contain himself, grabbing his side as tears formed in the corner of his eyes from the laughter.
He found himself sitting on the ground, instantly relieving the splitting pain in his side. He struggled to regain his composure. “I have not laughed this hard since…” he cut himself off, realizing that it would make no sense to them anyways.
He laid on the ground, tucking his hands behind his head, and looked up at the dancing dragon, no longer feeling rage or anger towards Ikrisia, but rather that peaceful calm that he often experienced after a good gut wrenching laughing spree. The dragon dipped and lifted, dancing in the wind by Anna’s movements, but they began to cease being puppets of one another to Damon and began to take co-dependent relationship, each depending on the other to perform its seperate dance and both guiding the movements of the other.
He replayed Ikrisia’s response in his mind as he watched the dancing dragon above him, as if it were dancing to his very train of thoughts. They were from different worlds…two different worlds despite living on the same planet. Perhaps it was his life under Dante’s Empire that shaped his way of thinking, an entire generation spawned from the epic Reich war that molded his perception of battle. Betrayal was common, not following the orders of psychosis was one thing, but you never left a partner behind. Could she not understand that…that they were not the judges?
“Tell me kid. Do you ever want to grow up?” Damon asked as he turned his head towards Anna, becoming aware that the dragon was indeed puppeted by Anna. “And what about you,” he nodded to Ikrisia, “do you ever want to be young again?”
He could hear it even now, in echoes through his ears. Dreary, weary, he could hear the words of the horrible poem he had heard in grade school.
“Step a triple step every fifth!
Iffin’ you don’t you’ll find your legs unable to lift!
Make sure to even if your legs are wobblin’!
Because for alls sake, if you don’t you’ll be ate by a goblin.”
He could hear the poem with every triple step every fifth he ran, the boy huffing and puffing as he skidded to a stop around a corner past the entrance of Shiro Academy. After him, the soft steps of someone could be heard, and soon after a voice could be heard.
“Sir, I wanted to thank you for what you did!”
The boy of a young man winced, cowering in the shadows of the stony wall on the outskirts of the Shiro Academy. Today was horrible luck for him, horrible luck. First a solid black cat came over to him and rubbed against his leg, even when he tried to walk as composed and calm as he could away from it. Then a deathly pale girl in strange black clothing waved to him and told him she thought his plaid clothes were cute. Now, this woman. He just had to do what his duty as a heir to Clanntaichy would require, he had to be a white knight. To clothes line a running purse snatcher, and to wait for the woman to see him, and he see her blood red hair. Things did not seem well for the boy, Lunima Caunster as Warre, son of Ryain Caunster as Warre, current Clanntaich of the Caunster Clann, and director of the WORD*.
The girl called again, and he collapsed a little further into his shadow. He whispered something that some might confuse for ‘As I walk through the shadow of the valley of death’, but which was far more close to the mumbling sounds of ‘Oh please powers at be save me, oh please powers at be save me, oh please god save me, oh please powers at be save me, oh please raptor dios save me, oh please powers at be save me, oh please powers at be save me, oh please Keiga save me, oh please powers at be save me, oh please powers at be save me, forget this, I’m running for it!’
And so he ran, much akin to a jackrabbit might run from a predator, in that not only did he not stop, but he was running and stumbling half of the way. His day out to investigate and to buy interesting books had been a failure, even if he had escaped his greatest fear.
Red haired girls.
As he entered the halls of the school, it was not with any slowing, and it was with the same sort of chaotic skid that he had entered the grounds with. If he had been dealing with anything else, he’d have been hoping they didn’t have cameras to notice this and make him clean the skid marks and replant the grass in the other skid marks.
The youth was a wild man at the moment, wearing a tartan long sleeve button up shirt, with the pattern of his clann, a green, purple, orange and blue tartan with the a deep level of inter-meshing. Dark brown hair which at the cheek length it was, with the mess it was in, and the sweat upon it, looked black. Crystalline blue eyes pierced the area around him, even if his mind didn’t pick up anything but the pat pat pat of his feet upon the ground. His pants looked a bit messy, well worn jeans, with well worn tennis shoes. Combined with the fact that he was sweating in various parts of the body, it made him seem very wild.
Especially with the fact he was roaring the words, ‘VICTORY. NATURAL TWENTY.’ So he was, so was Looniema Caunster of the House of Caunster, Counts of Caunster desmense, servant to his royal highness, King Warren II of the House McCue.
*WORD, either ‘Warreic Otherworlds Research Department’, or ‘Warreic Organization for Research and Development.’, even ambigious in-game. Lunima isn’t even sure what it stands for.
“Some things are best left unknown,” Ikrisia responded, convinced the human wouldn’t listen to her. After all, he was already under Ivalsa’s ‘spell’.
Ikrisia watched the kite move around and suddenly became fixated with it. Her concentration was broken by the human’s inquiry. She rolled her eyes, then stopped herself. “I’m 22. I have no need to be younger.” She wanted to reply more, but stopped herself, knowing there was much about her past that was still highly sensitive. “I am content at this age.”
“I don’t…uh…” Anna looked unusually surprised by the question. For someone who’d just spent all day flinging a kite at people, this took some work. “I can’t…”
“Look.” Anna regained her composure, which lasted just a second before she had to step too the side and run one arm out to turn the kite, then stepped back and moved the other arm. “A word of advice that could change your life.”
“Yes?” Damon said, curious.
“If anyone who has the capacity to follow through on it ever offers you eternal youth, it pays to check how old you are before accepting. The cosmic powers of darkness can accept a ten-year hiatus. As much as you may want to be polite, the alternative is not worth considering.”
Damon shrugged and took in a breath of air, turning back to the kite. He watched the dragon again dip and lift, dancing in the wind. His world began to split again, tearing at the seams, as he watched that dragon dance in the wind. It was a graceful creature, circling above him…oddly similiar to a vulture circling its meal.
He watched as the dragon continued to circle above him. He thought about Anna’s response…eterrnal youth, death, life. “I wonder where my childhood has gone sometimes…” Damon spoke, his voice emotionless, disconnected, as he were no longer there. He spoke of himself as if speaking about another person. “I wonder if people knew their life’s end if they would live each day, each moment, differently? Would you embrace life more and try to fight your fate? And if you knew…would you choose eternity? Could you choose eternity?”
“No.” Anna’s voice had a conviction that was distinct from her words so far. “Everybody’s got to pay the reaper’s toll. Everything dies. You can’t choose eternity. What you’ve got to do is -” She stopped just as the dragon descended, wings spread, toward a small group of Kelssekian students and a tour guide showing them through the campus. Anna pulled back as hard as she could on both hand-tethers, sending it on a twirling pattern up into the sky. “- you fight death by living.”
“I wouldn’t want eternity,” Ikrisia finally confessed. “It’s something we believe in very much, but I don’t feel ready for it. I don’t know what it will be like, and what we can’t see, we tend to either try to see or give up. Some have given up.”
The words filled Damon’s head as if a distant voice in his head. They were not coming from Anna but produced themselves from within his mind…as if a part of himself were saying them in response to his questions.
He watched the dragon plummit, a dark feeling of terror clutched his gut. He saw his own life play out in those moments. The pain that ceased to hurt. The loss of physical control that became his prison. The dying body that tortured his being. It all replayed itself before him as his face conveyed a sense of deep reflection.
You can’t choose eternity.
He watched the dragon re-ascend towards the sky…going up, up, up…and his mind continued to climb, beyond the clouds to the vast nothingness beyond this sphere.
Freedom.
His mind longed for it…every bit of his being wanted it. He reached out unknowingly, as if to touch it, his mind being pulled to the stars. It was as if all time stood still around him as his mind reached out. He was lost in his mind, lost in his desires, the world around him ceasing to be for that moment.
“To live life by fighting death…” his disconnected voice spoke more to himself than to anyone. “What have I done? What have they taught me? …” he laid there silent for a moment, lost deeply in his thoughts. “Never leave your partner behind,” he again repeated, a deeper significance than he had initially conveyed eminated from it, as if this very comment was a profound knowledge he needed to share.
The dragon soared up, and up, and suddenly jerked to a halt that shook its frame. Anna tugged hard on every tether, seemingly straining herself to stay on the ground, but finally it fell limply into a slow, mournful turn. “I wouldn’t want to live in a world where everyone lived forever anyhow.” She added. “Think of all the pain that would never go away. Think-” it was a sudden change of direction, but she went with it anyway. “Think of all the evil that people would keep doing forever and ever. If there’s no justice now at least there’s that.”
Again, the conversation continued not as people conversing, but as aspects of Damon’s mind internally dialoguing within his mind.
The dragon stopped in its flight, slowly falling again. Think of all the pain that would never go away. Think of all the evil that people would keep doing forever and ever.
It was if the words themselves could cause pain. Damon’s face wretched with the psychological spasm of pain. He could feel his bones being crushed again in his attempt to flee…could feel his body wretch with the ingestion of that vile black liquid…could feel the just for the hell of it rib shattering kicks.
“No,” he spoke as he shook his head, trying to force away the memories.
Could he allow evil people to continue to abuse the innocent? Could he allow war and brutality to continue?
Death prevented them…or did it?
Remember the idea, not the man. The man can fail, he can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten.
“What about ideas? Can death kill what people represent? Can death remove brutality and cruelty or kindness and compassion?” Damon asked aloud, speaking to no one particular but the internal voices.
“We’re not just ideas.” The kite turned, then dropped, then rose again. Anna had to step over Damon to keep it from lodging itself in a palm tree. “You can’t kill an idea, no, but you can kill a man.”
“I loved that book, by the way. I think I missed half the things it was trying to say.”
It was at that moment that Anna stepped over him that Damon became aware again that the dragon was not a being of its own, a construct in his mind, or an independent creature choosing to continuously circle above him, but rather a kite guided by Anna.
He shook his head and stood up, regaining his Kuro composure as he straightened out his uniform. He looked to Ikrisia who had silently withdrawn to herself, sitting beneath a tree and watching Anna. Anna seemed preoccupied with her kite. He vaguely recalled what they were conversing, or even if they were. It all seemed clouded in his mind as he looked from one to the other.
He only remembered arguing with them and then laughing at their absurd relationship. “Right…” Damon said to himself as he again looked back and forth. He looked to the kite, a construct of strings and cloth, nothing more. “Well, nice seeing you kid,” Damon flashed his grin, “try not to wander around and eat your vegetables.”
And with that…he turned and trailed off to find Viktor and Ivalsa. He needed to debrief her on the events that had just transpired and they all needed to find Prospero.
In an universe of infinite colors, and infinite sounds, he lay. Surrounded by blanketing and ever encroaching darkness, but nestled against strange and vibrant colors, every color which one would imagine.
He lay there, with sounds of every sort he could ever hear battling out and all at the same time as the sound of silence engulfed him. He was in a storm, a pilgrim grasping for the light, grasping to find their place in the world or touch something holy.
In this world of infinite light and darkness, of hues and shades, of cries and coaxes, he only wished to see the stable world, to see the ground at his feet, to scream for help. His whole essence trembled in rage and in fear.
His hand moved, his hand stood in the same place. There could be no winning for him, it seemed for infinity had passed twice and he still had not been freed. So steeled against fear, against rage, against want.
He let out a scream that defied his immaterial and inescapable hell. And as he defied it he Shattered it, sending the infernal prison of nothing and everything he had just languished in to it’s own afterlife.
So there can light, and dark. The real world, the world of shadows and light, came into view. He was within the University Pool’s room, and the pool’s waters were red as blood. His eyes widened, as he noticed the red drums of paint which had been pushed over by some hooligan, and he seethed with rage. He had not stopped them from their heinous act! How could he call himself a Warreic Lord’s son?
He woke up to blood dripping from his own forehead ever so slightly. “Son of a drunken raptoregg devourer…” he muttered in irritation, seeing a slight pool of blood on the ground, and instantly reminded of the pool from his dream.
So he ran to the university pool, looking all about as he entered the room, and seeing the water clear as could be. He saw the barrels from his dream, and instantly reasoned that they must be painting something in here. But he had to make sure no one tipped them over.
He ran, and he ran as quickly as he could. Ran right over a puddle, which sent him skidding into the barrels, which flew over him, before unloading their contents into the pool.
He blinked, and groaned. He had not stopped the happenstance from happening.
So he ran from the scene of the crime.
Damon found Ivalsa and Viktor talking with Prospero near one of the larger dormitories.
“Yo, nice shades,” Damon grinned as he nodded towards Prospero to indicate who he was talking to. It was a habit of Prospero to wear the sunglasses during the day and Damon could not resist the temptation of pointing that each time he saw them.
Damon just shook his head and plopped himself onto the gound under the shade of a nearby tree. “I have only been at this school for a few hours and already I watched another fox woman try to kill Ivalsa and a strange motherless girl dancing with a kite. This place is odd…really odd. Can you imagine what Novac would have done if Kuro students tried to kill each other? I am still being reprimanded for that plane incident,” Damon laughed as he rested his head back on the tree, looking up to the group.
He silently looked at Ivalsa watching the madness play behind her eyes. One could only but watch her eyes to see the insanity dance behind it as the dragon danced in the sky earlier. “Now Ivalsa, what exactly happened back there? Who was that woman? I am under the impression that was personal and you two go back. If you are going to be on this team, we need to know what is going on.”
Ivalsa was immersed in the kite, half in awe, half afraid it would swoop down and pick her up, sending her away.
“She’s from my past, yep,” Ivalsa confessed. “But she’s just jealous of me… I’m very smart, and she’s not nearly as smart as I am, so she gets angry about that. I can’t stand it when people get jealous, but at least I don’t try to kill people over it…”
“Don’t worry.” Prospero patted Ivalsa on the back in some combination of cameraderie and reassurance. “You’ll get plenty of chances to kill people over trivial things later on. You went to the right school for that. Be patient and it’ll all come to you.”