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narrators-journal · 4 years ago

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Into Wonderland part 8

All of this is prone to massive changes

Luna did eventually go to sleep, waking up in the late morning out of the habit of being a maid. She would've gone back to sleep after she remembered she didn't have to work that day, but just as she was rolling over to snuggle back into her plush pillow she remembered where she was, and that Nico couldn't be trusted to keep to himself if she wasn't around to be his filter. So, begrudgingly, she threw open her canopy and scanned over her room with her tired green eyes. It still looked like a lifeless display room, generalized pictures on the walls, impeccably cleaned without even Luna's clothes on the floor from her changing into pajamas, because she hadn't, and little to no other sign of life, not even a blonde hare with an attitude sitting in the chair that was pushed into one of the corners of the room. That earned a relieved sigh as the ravenette got up and straightened her clothes and hair before heading out to get breakfast. When she got down to the kitchen, Nico was already at the table, chatting with a woman dressed in an elegant gown of red with hair of a darker, slightly browner crimson. "Uhhh, hey Nico? Who's that?" she asked, watching her brother turn to her and smile brilliantly, "Oh cool! you're up at last, Luna, this is Queenie, she's my Guardian!" he explained, making the elegant woman scoff airily, "I'm a Guardian, not yours." she corrected with a sniff, but Nico ignored that, just smiling and gesturing for his sister to say hi, and knowing he wouldn't leave her alone about if she didn't, Luna greeted Queenie with a small wave and a hello. she got a disdainful look and a huffy wave in response. She sensed the pompous Guardian and her would not get along. Despite that, Luna sat by her brother and did try to be at least polite to the woman while she ate the food some servants gave her. Meanwhile, Bacchus sat nearby, chatting animatedly with Lucy about his own things, which Luna didn't listen to, she had already pushed some of his buttons the night before, she didn't want to aggravate him more by eavesdropping. All during breakfast Luna talked to her twin and the pompous Guardian, Queenie. When the meal was over, Nico smiled, "Hey Luna, how about you come outside and we can see what Queenie can do?" her twin suggested, but Luna decided against it, needing a break from the snooty woman who did not seem to like her at all. Instead, while Nico and Bacchus headed outside, Luna went over to Lucy, the red haired girl being a more veteran Call member who she hadn't aggravated the night before. Lucy had gone to one of the many sitting rooms or lounges the mega mansion they stayed in had once she was done eating, so Luna followed, "Um excuse me? Can we talk, because I've got a few questions." She said, a bit awkward under the pressure of Lucy's intimidating air. The girl wasn't much older than 13 maybe, but where Bacchus was an expressive, happy dude with a bit of a dark humor, the girl didn't seem to be very open with her emotions, "Oh? Regretting your choice to join The Call?" she guessed, and sheepishly, Luna nodded, "I know it's stupid to suddenly be wary after going through the whole initiation, but...I dunno I just feel like I should at least start asking questions, it'd be better than not doing so." she babbled, the younger girl just looking at her calmly until she took a breath. "It's good to start asking about stuff, even if it might be seen as late." she confirmed, "what do you want to know about?" With that awkward part out of the way, Luna let out a small breath, "Well, first I want to know why The Call was created. I don't know a whole lot about the group," she admitted, feeling more stupid for joining after she'd said that, but Lucy just nodded, "The Call was formed after the Harding family vanished after a destructive blast wrecked their estate. People were aware that magical beings existed, angels, demons, other little creatures, they were all known about, but we didn't know of anything that could cause so much damage. So, The Call was created to investigate the odd occurance." she explained. Luna sat for a moment and let this information settle in. Than, she offered up her next question, "and...what about this Ink stuff? And the dimension it opens?" "Ink was found, not created. The blue-black substance began seemingly leaking up in random places. Sometimes in the roads, sometimes in bathtubs and sinks, we just collected it and now use it to help in our investigation into the world we call Wonderland." "why do you call it Wonderland?" "Because when our first team went into the dimension the survivor described it as very childish, debris, toys, stuff like that was floating around. At the core of it was a pieced together mish-mash of a child's decor and pieces of the Harding home. Since the Harding family had a young daughter named Alice, we sort of just began calling the place Wonderland." she said with a shrug, and Luna nodded, that was sort of understandable, "you said 'the survivor,' singular, did no one else come back?" she asked after a moment, her stomach tying itself into knots as she debated with whether she really wanted to know, "Yeah, only one came back. He's the one who told us of the first possible Guardian we've met. He said he met the 'author of our story' or something like that, so he called the creature 'the narrator'. We still aren't sure whether or not he was hallucinating or something, but since he was the only one who returned, we took his word." she explained, "Of course, that's a very shortened version of what happened, Henry or Bacchus can tell you more." she added, "Have you ever met The narrator?" Luna asked, but Lucy shook her head, "I assume we have, but there is no way to confirm because if we have met him, no one has survived to tell of it." That left a cold pit in Luna's stomach. "D-did this survivor describe The narrator?" she asked, some part of her already knowing what The narrator looked like. "Narrator is described as a bipedal black cat in a purple tail coat with a bowtie of the same color. Why do you ask?" The way Lucy looked at the ravenette didn't ease the pit of unease in her gut. It was bad enough that her dream now seemed a bit too real to be a dream, meaning she'd barely escaped without dying, she didn't need Lucy prying into her and making that worse. So, she laughed it off, "Was just curious, I'm gonna go talk with Henry," she said quickly, getting up and scurrying out of the room before Lucy could stop her. Instead, she went upstairs and went into her room. Luna was never a super social person, she was always more focused on helping her family than talking to others and making a bunch of friends. The thought made her sigh, her stomach twisting like a bundle of snakes of regret fighting in her gut, but she tried to ignore it.

#short story #into wonderland part 8 #ocs #original work #literature #writing

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gh0sthoodie · 6 years ago

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Jasmine Cottage, sometime after the End

[on AO3]

Anathema Device is four whiskeys deep when she cocks her head like a little bird and says “why?”

Crowley—who has kept pace with her mostly for the look of the thing, and because Aziraphale is off doing something fussy and bookish at an estate sale, and because the witch girl has half-decent taste in alcohol—tilts his head back until it touches the wall and says “why what?”

“Why help us? Why save the world?” she says, and then, when he rolls his head to the side and raises one dark eyebrow: “I saw you on that airstrip—”

“Clever of you.”

“—you. And the angel. You looked absolutely frantic about the whole thing. Why? Would they”—she wiggles her fingers at the ceiling and he can, at least, appreciate the complete lack of reverence in the gesture—"have killed you too?”

Crowley lolls his head a little more and lets his glass dangle loosely from the hand draped over his knee. He’s hardly near to drunk, but it’s a look.

“If the Host had won, yeah, sure. I wasn’t planning to stick around and see.”

“But you did.”

“Eh,” he says. “It was that or Alpha Centauri, and the angel was being a tit about leaving.”

Anathema makes an ah-ha! sort of face. “So you did stay for Aziraphale. Funny, I never fancied you for a romantic.”

“Nor I you, witch girl.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“And I’m…more than that. By six thousand years at least.”

Her eyes narrow and her lips purse. If the drink didn’t have her just a little bit off-center, and if her hair wasn’t falling in little wisps out of her bun and tickling her nose, Crowley reckons it would be a proper, hellish glower. The sort to cow mortal men and turn beasts from the door and yadda yadda yadda. It’s not bad.

“The point…” she says.

“The point,” he says, “is sushi. And orchids, and bizarre designer sex toys and classic cars and…” he raises the glass to the light and peers up through the lovely deep amber of it. “Macallan, is it? Quite good.” He tips his glass to her and throws it back. “Yeahhh, that’s the stuff. You don’t get this in Hell, witch girl. You’d think, oh yeah, vice up the wazoo. Just an utter Bacchanal of lust and gluttony and sloth and the rest, for all eternity.” He curls his lip and reaches for the bottle on the coffee table between them. “S’not. It’s mostly blood and paperwork. Humans invented the Bacchanal.”

“Not Bacchus?”

“Humans invented Bacchus. Good idea all around, really.”

“I’ve heard his followers got naked and tore men to pieces.”

“And I’ve heard the same about witches. Rumor’s a powerful thing.” He grins a big sharp grin while he pours. “Now that I may have had a hand in.”

“Great.”

“Not the nudity bit specifically, mind. Or the sexism. Or the gender thing at all, really. That was all your lot.”

She lifts a finger at that, opens her mouth, and then closes it, her brow creasing and her lips pursing. “Huh,” she says.

“Indeed.”

He refills her glass and lets a gentle silence fall between them.

She breaks it.

“You did stay, though. You were going to leave, whiskey and sex toys be damned. You just said so. But you stayed.”

He waves his hand as if to swat the whole train of thought out of the air. She goes on, undeterred:

“You really couldn’t leave him, could you?”

Crowley tilts his head back again, fast enough this time to bump it into the cottage wall. He takes off his sunglasses, blinks twice at the astrolabe hanging rather inexplicably from the ceiling, and puts them back on.

She waits.

“I thought he was dead,” he says, finally. “Real, proper dead. Extinguished. Gone. His bookshop went up in flames and I thought, that’s it, they’ve taken him, he’s never coming back.”

“Who’s they?” she asks, voiced hushed in a way that the room suddenly seems to demand.

Crowley snorts. “My people. His people. Not much difference, in the end; maybe he was asking too many questions, maybe he was getting in the way. Maybe Gabriel finally decided having a principality cavort about feeding ducks with a demon was a bit of an embarrassment.”

“So…you came to Tadfield?”

“What? No. I got drunk.”

“Oh.”

“Seemed like the right thing to do. End of the world, right? Why not spend it shitfaced in a gastropub.”

“But you were going to leave,” she says. She does the scrunched-up, confused-bird thing with her face again and throws her hands up on either side of her head. “If Aziraphale was what was keeping you on Earth and, and you thought he was gone and staying could have been a death sentence then why not just….go?”

Crowley takes his glasses off again. The window behind Anathema is open, and he watches the breeze puff the curtains out like gauzy white balloons. He looks down at his drink, and at the bottle, and then at her.

She blinks.

“Oh,” she says. It hangs in the air between them.

He closes his eyes.

“You know, I didn’t realize,” she says. “That day you hit me with your car, after you dropped me off, you called him angel. It never would have occurred to me that he was actually…I mean. I just thought. Well.” She folds one hand into the other. “It just seemed to fit. You and him.”

“Did it,” says Crowley into his drink. He puts his sunglasses back on.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #ineffable husbands #anathema device #crowley #aziraphale #good omens fic #My writing

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ventrue · 5 years ago

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[Short Story] The Act of Existing

Yo!!! I wrote a short story for a workshopping group that’s starting up with a group of friends, and I figured I’d post it here for people to read. It’s been a while since I've written seriously, so any feedback is appreciated as FUCK!!

WHAT REMAINS OF THE DAY is a quickly waning sliver of light that filters greenly through the window. The bright veil is split into two distinct floods right through the middle by a peculiar mountain, stretching up from the ocean and into the sky, narrowing as it climbs up until one can scarcely see the top. When one traces it down all the way to the bottom, one sees the ocean and the red clouds beneath, billowing from the depths and spreading all throughout the sea. From Lysander’s window, he can just barely see the ring of blue that extends from the base of the long, long tower that the city’s platform is perched upon. He pops a plum candy into his mouth, and flicks the paper wrapper off so that it may plummet listlessly into the miles and miles of current carrying it. Though, the wrapper fades into an imperceptible spec long before it hits the water. For a moment, there’s an intrusive thought, the unwanted desire to chuck something of substance out over the edge, just to see if it makes a satisfying plop. But as the sun’s soon swallowed by the horizon, he departs from the window, having to be content not knowing the things he doesn’t know.

As the last of the day sinks into the inner edges of the sky and the sun is swallowed into the horizon, an urn rattles on Lysander’s shelf, the brassy sheen flickering along the crystal light bouncing off of it. A stream leaves the very top, a massless and shapeless consciousness that speaks into the very deepest cortex in his mind. “Mornin’, mornin’, darlin’! If you think you’re gonna’ hit the snooze button on this shit today–.” The voice stops itself mid-thought, then deadpans. “Alright, what gives? You’re up way too goddamn early today. No sleep?”

Lysander slicks a look towards the urn and then to the presence. It is not quite visible, but it is a burly distortion of space, refractions of the world’s Essence that is as present as the very air itself. No one seems to notice it but him, and he can’t figure out why. He hums something absently and relays himself in a cool tone, “I had another bad dream, and there was only another hour until sunset. I went through our notes again.”

“Eh? Why?” The presence smooths over the room and flushes over the bed, coiling around Lysander and flopping his blonde ponytail and bangs with an exertion. “What’re you worrying your pretty little head over? Ain’t nothing more than a snooping session, yeah?”

“I would like to think so, Bram.” Lysander flips through a small notebook, a tiny black thing that he commands with only a motion of the finger to open to the desired page. “But I can’t help but to take precaution. Even the oldest and most stubborn noble families do not ignore the scientific advances of the day. If anything, they see more reason to be paranoid.”

The presence scoffs. “Yeah? And what science explains me, exactly?

Lysander shakes his head. “All the better that we add superstition to all of this.”

A deep, goading laugh, “Is it superstition if it turns out to be real?”

Lysander’s finger’s clench, bending into harsh angles like claws, “Oh my god. This is completely not the point. Let us be on our way, I’ve scheduled a tutoring session with the Vraccas family court mage for initial reconnaissance.”

“This is a helluva lot for exposing some minor corruption.” The presence remarks, slinking along Lysander until the form drapes around his slender shoulders like a scarf. “How much money did you spend on that?”

“Irrelevant. But the public works projects will never get better if we can’t make it clear that they’re being blocked in bad faith.” Lysander says, as he slips on his navy peacoat and wraps a deep maroon scarf around his shoulders. The loops and knots he has to undergo to maintain a manageable length are perhaps a touch too convoluted, but the presence happily slips into the fabric and nudges one side of Lysander’s slim jaw like a wavy appendage. This is enough to coax a smile that is slightly warmer than wan.

“You’re the boss, darlin’.” The presence says.

Lysander makes his way from the single dorm room and down the halls until he’s free from the building and out on the bricks streets of the Bacchus district. From there, he makes his way past the parked carriages and navigates through crosswalks of busy roads until he reaches the skyrail station. The building stands with grey bricks where the rest of the district blends into a sandy, contemporary shade of tan. Lysander looks up towards the monotype sign and flickering neon rails – pink like all essence – when suddenly his scarf tightens around his collarbones. “Do we gotta’ take the rail tonight?” The presence pleads.

Lysander chews on a thought. “It’s on the other side of town, otherwise–.”

The presence cuts him short. “I know, I know. But you’re a fast walker, aye? It’d be good exercise. Could stop and get a galaxy cup. Oh, oh! You might see a cute dog along the way! Maybe tip a street performer. Please?” The tone tries to play this off in some winsome charm, but Lysander knows the desperation that nips at his heels.

Lysander frowns gently, but concedes with a hand resting on top of the drape. “I’ll walk, but I’ll only have time to do maybe one of those things. This will be cutting it very close.”

“S’fine, baby! You got it, which thing?” The relief in his tone stings at Lysander.

“Galaxy cup. I’m parched.” Lysander murmurs, as he makes off around the building. When he reaches the stall about halfway to the estate, he stops by a cart with bricks of cooling runes scrawled along the bottom. Lysander floats him a few coins and receives a slushy, snowy concoctions that glitters and shifts like a swimming universe threshing with stellar life. This is swiftly consumed before they reached the front gates of House Vraccas.

The hedges are almost as oppressive as the sterling gates themselves, truly. Dotted along the uniform structures of plant life are wreathes of grown amaranthine flowers, enchanted to take life in a deeply purple hue. The meaning to Lysander is starkly clear, an expression of the eternal and reoccurring power of the nobility. As he touches his finger to a runic pad, he signals his arrival with an exertion of his energy, an Essential impulse of his latent power – a baseline level of expression for most people.

The gate lumbers open as Lysander touches the scarf once more. “Have care, Bram. Do not venture any further than I go. I will signal when I feel it is not safe for you to linger.”

The scarf’s end flutters on top of Lysander’s hand. “Worrywart.” Teasingly.

With that, Lysander chuffs and presses onward, where he is greeted by an attendant who graciously shows him the way. Passing through the silvered door, he is taken into halls of pure and pristine marble, blindingly white and adorned with lavish painting and rich purple silk drapes. Where their heels don’t find purchase on lush carpets, there is the chilling echo of clacking heels against marble. But as they make turns, and the attendant slows down, he pushes the grandiloquent aestheticism aside and begins to discern with his proverbial third eye. Color fades from his normal vision and fine details begin to blur as he searches the door frame for any runic wards. He finds nothing, and the door opening reveals no flood of Essential residue.

Bram speaks to him, “Safe to go in?” And Lysander’s answer is a reassuring touch to his collarbone.

Waiting just past the door is a lavish court and dining room, with gold braids hanging and looping from the ceiling, though the head of the table – the seat belonging to Harlan Vraccas – is empty. There are known magistrates and various official idling and partaking in lain out delicacies. Though, the gaze that slicks itself onto Lysander belongs to a mustached man in mage’s robes.

“Target spotted.” A sing-song inflection in Lysander’s mind. “You good if I snoop around for something juicy?”

Before Lysander scrutinizes the court mage, he sweeps the room with his third eye once again only to find nothing. His vision blurs just slightly from two exertions in a row, composing himself and sweeping a hand across his shoulder to signal that Bram may survey their surroundings. The scarf loses tension as Lysander approaches the man.

“I am humbled to finally meet the newest addition to Class VIII.” The smile that the court mage brandishes is oddly warm, though Lysander knows better than to expect seasoned swindlers within the Vraccas family ecosystem to always gleam so keenly like sharpened daggers.

“And the sentiment is shared in equal measure, Magister Halliday.” Lysander affects a minute incline of the head and a delicate fingertip to his own chest. “It has been quite some endeavor to adjust myself to the new curriculum,” He lies, “But I have been shown nothing short of absolute grace by both my professors and my peers.” Lysander flashes his third eye once more and sweeps over the magister.

The Essence thrumming within Halliday is an orderly ecosystem – nothing short of expected, mind – but nothing in the Essence along the man’s eyes would suggest the same anomaly present within his own. Bram is safe for now.

“Of course,” Halliday flashes a fancy flourish of his fingers, fanning faintly for effect. “Helios Academy does so well to nurture the potential within its ranks, and none would so much as doubt the Dean’s judgement in his scarce selections for Class VIII.” He rises from his seat, and gestures towards another door. “But your schedule must be pressing you for spare time given that you requested this so late in the eve.” He begins to glide effortlessly off, “Professor Bateaus was kind enough to provide the slides for his last lecture, we shall go over the sections you have trouble with in my office.”

“Of course. I will give him my thanks after Friday’s lecture.” Lysander says, as he feels a faint stiffness in the coils of his scarf once more.

After signaling his return, Bram chimes smugly, “Ooh-hoo boy! I hit some goddamn paydirt in the other room, found out a couple ‘strates have been talking about lobbying at parliament seats. Some people got some interests in making sure some curriculums in Helios are carefully edited. Gimme the clear and I’ll start digging around.”

Lysander slides his forefinger along the scarf in both approval and affirmation, though there is a tension within the bend. Lysander didn’t make a scan of the other rooms, he didn’t give him the go-ahead to venture off. Hell, he’s not even sure which room he entered or if he went into more than one. While the existence of ghosts is something unprecedented within even the deepest Essential academic communities, he cannot be comfortable with Bram acting outside the scope of any contingencies he can muster. Should Bram trigger any anomalous vacuum behaviors within any of the Essence constructs present in the building, he will be forever associated with the thought-seed of ‘anomaly’ and ‘Lysander’. Should that come to pass, the unique advantages that have been such a boon will slowly and inevitably mutate into his greatest liability.

Regardless, with a cleansing breath, Lysander slips into the office and takes a seat on the oaken chair. The room takes on a different, more personalized aesthetic. Like slipping into a different building entirely, the wood panels exude their own rustic charm. The dark finish and lack of polish communicate rugged earnestness, with décor evocative of a sophisticated hunting lodge rather than the bare and muted prestige of cutting-edge academia. Bram once remarked about these kinds of people, the kinds that go to hunts in flashy outfits, then toss prey of their own design and have hounds ceaselessly trail them the helpless animal is hopelessly tired. Only after fatigue outweighs the tremendous dread is when the self-purported hunter slugs a measured bullet into their skull. This room feels as if the center of a Venn diagram describing the worst aspects of philosopher and warrior kings.

He can practical feel the hostile vibrations making waves in the air, sourced from Bram’s presence. As if responding, Halliday’s smile is thin and wan. Lysander touches his hand to his scarf in an attempt to calm Bram, and he offers the magister a slow and humble smile. “Now, I believe the exact slide where I felt clarification was needed was when Essential energies shift from potential ether to active flux, and the exact syntax required when rewriting axioms to compensate for when it shifts from a pseudo-gaseous state to semi-solid matter.” For Lysander, the process was more time consuming than truly difficult, but the tedium of it will allow Bram to sift through surface level qualities and information so that he can give Lysander the necessary information to help steer the conversation to more productive avenues suiting his own purposes. As well, the repetitive nature of these axioms will allow Lysander the free mental capacity to active his third eye once more, letting his gaze drift naturally about the room so that he can discern any Essential patterns in the airspace.

As Bram sifts about the room, Lysander is sure to activate and deactivate the perceptive trance as per conditioning training as to not overtax himself in projecting his mental facilities, typically in between responses. As Bram snoops about, he slides pithy comments idly, “Hee hee, look at this! He’s got romance novels stashed away. Ooh, comics, too!”

Lysander suppresses the urge to roll his eyes as he continues, remains intent on obfuscating his understanding of the mathematics at play while displaying just enough competence to not frustrate the magister.

“Boring, boring, useless, nada, nope.” The waft of distortion flutters about, visually rifling through the room without sinking into any particular object or drawer. “I mean, if you’re interested in knowing about his taxidermy collection, maybe he snuggles with his kills at night.” Lysander continues to try and ignore him as he sifts about. Eventually, he sinks back into his scarf and waits for a small lull while Lysander writes dummy notes to buy time for the rundown. “H’alright, we got some drawers under the desk. Most are unlocked, but there’s one with a keyhole and another with a rune lock. Give that shit a peep and gimme the signal for what you wanna do. As well, he’s got a family picture facing his side of the desk, but beside him is Gresham Volte, the bootlicker parliament guy. Weird, huh?”

Weird, indeed. But there is no time to speculate. He musters another opening of his third eye and flicks his gaze to where Bram indicated. He searches for the rune’s structure and syntax, and makes sure to respond blithely to another inquiry before trying to cross-reference what he sees with other Essential wards that do not react to Bram’s spectral presence. He mimics needing a moment to write and look through his notes before he confirms that the spell Halliday used was mundane and non-reactive. He indicates to Bram to proceed with a small scratch to his scarf mimicking a subtle checkmark.

Halliday deviates from his explanation of theoretical Essence applications to cant his head and peer briefly into Lysander’s gaze. “Is everything alright, Lysander? Do you require coffee, or should we continue this at another junction?”

Lysander disengages with all other matters and computations as he aims to course correct, “I won’t say no to coffee, but I am merely churning through the theorem. Your insight has spurred quite a bit of progress in my understanding.”

Halliday’s smile is a slow thing for how bright it becomes, chin jutting out just so in equal measures amused and proud. “I am glad to hear, Professor Bateaus has always described you as quietly contemplative. I come to wonder just what goes on in that head of yours.”

Lysander does not like that. He plays it back in his head, tries to run it through several times in an effort to detect anything that might hint that he might mean more than surface level context would imply. “No more or less than anyone else, perhaps. Merely the things on my mind.”

Bram, all the while, is echoing absently as he digs through the contents of the hidden drawers, “Lots of financial shit, not really stuff I can make heads or tails of. Nothing so juicy as a candid photo, either. Pretty lame.” Quietly, Lysander begs him to be serious to no avail.

Halliday continues with his theorem untangling, rotely going over definitions as things start to stagnate.

“Wait! Love letters! One sec, one fuckin’ sec!” Bram pipes up, “Ooh, he calls them mommy. Hee hee.” Lysander groans internally, but the presence goes unfortunately on, “Oh my god, Sandy. Sandy! He gets findommed! He gets mommy dommed into giving away money!” Bram is cackling, he’s practically feral at this point.

Lysander has to maintain his composure at this point, so if Bram doesn’t stop being an insane and incessant goof he might actually try to throttle a ghost.

But Halliday begins again, almost thankfully, so that Lysander has literally anything else to focus on, “So in keeping with the spirit of Class VIII, I will provide a demonstration of the Flux parameters shifting the nature of Essence manipulation.” He splays a hand, utters something in an arcane tongue, and conjures an orb with spinning fractal runes. “I want you to perceive with your third eye and observe the way Essence must be carefully monitored and adjusted as it changes states.”

This is a problem. This will be the fifth time he will need to project his senses once more, and the strain has already proven to pose a challenge with a fourth invocation of the third eye. Should he be caught struggling, he will not be able to play this off as some physical lack from the time of night, it is a different resource altogether that will ignite suspicion if it can be inferred that he thought to use it so extensively.

Bram pipes up, “Yo! Hey, Sandy, I got something!” The presence briefly flutters from the drawer and coils excitedly, “You’re never gonna’ believe what I managed to dig up! So, you see–.”

But before Lysander allows Bram to continue, he languidly, casually, draws a gesture of an ‘C’ over his scarf. A safeword, should Lysander require Bram to cease for one critical reason or another. With silence assured, Lysander has the mental space to prepare his faculties for projection. With no more than a moment, he calls on his third eye and reserves the scantest of efforts in maintaining composure, as if this didn’t take any effort at all.

Easier said than done, though, seeing as Halliday takes his time to carefully run his fingers along the anchor points, drawing over specific runes while he explains, “Essence, being entropic in its nature, rarely goes dormant. When it solidifies and converts into potential energy, it is stored in such a way that creates a high pressure bubble that will create cracks in all known containment measures. Thus, it is critical to maintain focus and a steady diction as you incant, as you reshape the apparatus accordingly.” And it is thus, with Halliday making careful sure to enunciate with attention to clarity and purpose. The flow of energies rapidly shift, like electricity with the intelligence to seek out cracks in the barrier – and more importantly, like it has the intelligence required for an uncompromising desire to be free.

Lysander musters the mental alacrity to speak as he watches, but the dull gray of the physical world comes to fade just a touch as he splits his attention. “This is remarkably similar to the mechanics governing the powerlines of the skyrail.”

“It is, and thus the expenses required to maintain it have a lot to do with requiring an abundance of experts able to maintain the diction and switching out seamlessly. Far, far less expensive than the internal battery system used for auto-carriages.” The orb seems fit to burts even just from the mall break taken to make that sentence, and with the effort taken for concentration he doesn’t muster what it takes to conceal an obfuscation. Bram vibrates uneasily, as if wanting to speak.

“With the use of phoneme incantation, yes. Would not graphene methods be more prudent in maintaining consistency?” Lysander asks, and struggles not to show he’s buckling under the strain.

Halliday frowns, tracing over new burgeoning cracks, “Observe the erratic behaviors of the shifting Essence. The lack of a predictable pattern does not suit the static nature of graphemes. There are simply too many variances for graphemes to accurately predict.”

Lysander considers, has to try and formulate a response that does not put too fine a point on his intentions. He now has to stop and start the third eye strategically to maintain the state with the ease required to escape without suspicion. This is becoming a problem, seeing as he’s starting to make some real headway. “But it is known that graphemes will always be a spell’s natural conclusion. The nature of the spoken word is always imprecise, always in some way terrifyingly improvised, no matter how rehearsed. Perhaps research on shifting algorithmic grapheme matrices could–?”

Halliday cuts him off with a simple raise of the hand. “A convoluted wish-fulfillment proposal by an idealistic contrarian. The practicality has been brought into question with only gawks in response from Magister Sykes.”

Bram suddenly pipes in, which causes Lysander to need to rub his eyes to maintain the perception. “That’s what I was going to say! The dude in the picture is related to the CEO of Auto-Auto!” Autoflux Autoworks, this is making sense. An acceptable deviation from the safeword, thankfully.

Halliday begins to carefully begin retracting his hand, saying, “Now I want you to try and maintain the feedback loop yourself. Remember that precise diction is key, articulate at the tip of your tongue.”

There’s no way this is feasible. He needs this demonstration to end. He’s on the outer limits of what he’s capable of maintaining, to try and run through the mnemonics for equations he needs to process in order to shape the Essence. While Halliday is busy concentrating to time his disengage, he flashes a fleeting, pleading look towards Bram’s distortion. “Got you, dear.” He assures quietly.

Lysander reaches out as Halliday commands, “On the count of five, I need for you to incant as the notes specifically say. Quickness and precision are of the utmost importance, Lysander.”

Lysander gulps quietly, and attempts to pull together the fraying strands of his mind – splitting like images taken in by crossed eyes – and tries to run through the processes to project his will onto the flowing gouts of Essence starting to flow from the cracking sphere. The sphere cracks, failing to hold, and the energy begins to flicker dangerously.

“Just a touch quicker, Lysander.” Halliday instructs. He cannot. He feels like he’s about to lapse into a dream.

But before that could happen, a loud crack resounds through the room, the sound of metal clacking hard against the wooden desk. The lamp crashes through the sphere and sends a wave of kinetic force, the sound like a bell warped through tunnels of light and passed through black hole. Or at least, that’s what Lysander had imagined as before.

Halliday frowns deeply, then squints about. “How in the blazes–?” He cuts himself off, then trails into nothing as his gaze narrows into scrutiny.

Lysander quickly draws a circle with a slash through it on his collar, a covert signal for Bram to exit immediately, and then there’s no sign of him.

“Shoddy fixtures, I will make a visit to the manufacturing plant on the morrow.” Halliday says as he shakes his head and then sets the lamp back where it was, where it wobbles once more. Despite the frown that motion provokes, he maintains his same blandly pleasant tone. “Sincere apologies for this. I know that you might have a sensitivity to…” He struggled to word it.

“The accident.” Lysander says flatly. “I am fine.”

“I am sure you are.” The tail end of Halliday’s statement immediately implies a ‘but’, and he continues, “Have care, do not tax yourself overmuch in your studies. I know Bram van der Meer was someone close to you, but…” He shakes his head. “To see him between the two cars, and to pull them apart as he still took breath–.”

Lysander holds up a hand and stops him right there. “As I am well aware.” Keen, sharp ice.

Halliday looses an awkward breath. “I think we may take the lamp as a sign that the night has grown late. I hope you may find time in your schedule for a timelier tutoring session.”

Lysander affects a deep bow of the head, “It is ia privilege to receive your counsel and tutorage, Magister Halliday. I will endeavor in navigating my schedule with these visits in mind.”

The magister smiles blithely. “As you will.” Final. “He comes to a rise, as beckons Lysander towards the door. “I believe you still yet have a full schedule, and I would not see you lose sleep over matters such as these.” The tone is pleasant, but Lysander searches for ambiguity.

“Until such time. I bid farewell for now.” Lysander departs, and Halliday beckons an attendant to see him escorted from the property.

It is nearing midnight, and Lysander is in a cold sweat by the time Manor Vraccas is far in the distance behind him. “The gall.” He murmurs, having been stuck on Halliday’s treachery for some time.

Bram, now safely coiled around Lysander’s shoulders once more, tightens in support. “Fuck that guy, at least we have our hunches confirmed, eh?”

“None of it immediately actionable, but it is enough to know that we’ve hit a lead.” He speaks quietly as he makes his way through the streets, “Auto-Auto has a vested interest in snuffing out public transportation, and has connections within House Vraccas, Helios Academy, and Parliament. Auto-Auto keeps a stranglehold on public infrastructure with connections to Parliament seats, and exacerbates concerns with the Skyrail by stalling – or even tampering with – research on the Essential properties their technology uses by leveraging their connections with House Vraccas. Thus, developments are stymied on an academic level. There’s no other sense it would make to not attempt to develop past phoneme techniques and into grapheme.”

The loose threads on Lysander’s scarf visibly bristle at the explanation, “Everything’s fucking rotten all the way down to the root, you’re saying.”

“To a degree, yes,” Lysander affirms, coming upon the campus and navigating his way to the dormitory, “But none of the signs show in such a way that is admissible to any official as of yet, if such a thing is even feasible. The missing link, right now, is the individual or individuals influencing the parties necessary for this obstruction.”

Bram flaps both ends of the scarf upon Lysander’s body in frustration, “And will you manage to track the shit-lips down?”

“That remains to be seen, but such will come with time, dearest.” He pats the scarf as he makes his way through the halls, “With my partner on the case with me, we shall ensure this resolution as an inevitability. You are still my rock, after all.”

Bram chitters, “Y’know, one day you’re gonna’ oversleep and I’m gonna’ go out and possess a great big boulder, and I’m gonna’ sit right next to your bed.”

Lysander chuffs, “Break your cover and I disown you, darling.”

And with that, Lysander finally reaches his little dorm room. He’s thankful, at least, that the members of Class VIII are allocated individual rooms. Though not particularly fair, he laments, the circumstances of Bram’s continued presence necessitates privacy. Secrecy was his only chance at ensuring the change required to prevent another tragedy.

Regardless, Lysander tosses off his peacoat and slips off his shoes. Bram leaves his scarf as it’s hung on the rack, drifting off to take over a constructed, verisimilitudinous hand that scampers about on its fore and middle fingers, like they’re little legs. Lysander settles into a desk where he takes out a glass tablet, completely clear until he scrawls a specific rune onto its surface, using what little Essence he still possess this night to activate it. A scant interface fades into view, thin serif letters colored mauve and bright assembling into a journal-like structure. He begins logging the night’s events and finding in a neat, particular order with crisp specificity.

As Lysander is writing, the Bram-hand begins to make something simple with his limited capabilities. He assembles the ingredients for a sandwich of shredded chicken and provolone. He stacks them together on a brioche roll and slathers it with a bottle of buffalo sauce, then sticks it into a glass box on the kitchen counter. Bram makes a show of reading a list of sigils before he draws one on a panel that’s stained blue. The graphene incantation is inputted and the spell is cast, an orange light blooming from the panels of the glass. After some time has passed, he stops the heating spell and pulls the sandwich from the tray and onto a plate. With its mighty thumb and pinky, it balances the plate and skitters over to Lysander, who receives the food with a thankful incline of the head and a casual scrutiny.

“You pile these so high.” An absent remark from Lysander as he struggles to fit the gooey monstrosity into one hand.

A scoff from Bram, “Only ‘cause you get so caught up in studying that you forget to eat, buddy. Lookin’ out for you, you twig.”

“Never once have you complained when you rip me from my desk with ease.” Lysander counters, the lids of his eyes starting to sag with fatigue. Had he truly taxed himself this much with the meeting? He could scarcely feel it within Manor Vraccas, likely from the adrenaline of paranoia like Essential fluid afire in a spell engine’s tubes. Regardless, he does take some time from his extensive note taking to eat what’s prepared for him.

Bram leaps off the desk into a spectacular flip, landing in a stance reminiscent to superhero comics – wide, low, and like a dynamo. He scurries off to prepare Lysader’s outfit for the morning. Though, Lysander will inevitably make edits to the selection according to his own tastes.

When he finishes diagramming possible relationships between entities and parties, Lysander’s body begins to slump into the shape of least resistance as his energy wanes until it’s vapor barely keeping him awake. He tries to do more, to bring up a new page for extrapolation and conjecture, but he dozes off for a few scant moments.

During that time, Bram looses himself from the hand and floats off into Lysander’s comforter. He crawls along the ground and climbs up the chair until he drapes over Lysander’s form, two corners of the blanket conversing over his collarbone in an embrace. One reaches up, firmly nudges his cheek. “Sandy. Saaaandy, I think it’s time to go to bed, eh? C’mon.” And as Lysander’s eyelashes flutter, he numbly struggles against Bram’s attempts to pull him towards his bed.

“There’s still yet more that needs to be done before I sleep.” He murmurs, half sleep-drunk.

Bram doubles his efforts. “You still need to be awake for classes tomorrow, darlin’. It’ll be alright.”

Lysander considers grimly, “No, yes, I’ll be fine. Shh. I need–.” He murmurs as Bram continues his endeavors, “I will rest when this is all over, when you’re–. I just–. While I still draw breath…” He trails off.

Bram the blanket tightens, the shroud pressing deeply into Lysander’s lower back and waist. “I get you, I get you…”

A sob. “It’s not fair, Bram. That you–.”

Lysander feels fabric stroking at his cheek. “I know it’s not. I want to feel this as much as you want your goddamned justice. But please, don’t fuckin’ kill yourself. I knew what I was doing when I pushed you out of the way.”

Lysander shudders, eyes squeezing tightly shut. “Things will be made right.” He insists, toned as if he were contrasting the statement against a perceived contradiction.

Bram considers, then nudges again. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But I’m here, Sandy, with you.” He wraps the ends around his neck and firmly squeezes. “I’m awful lucky for someone with sucker’s luck.”

Lysander heaves out a breath, squeezed out like a deflating balloon. After silence, he lumbers to a slovenly stand and zombies his way to his bed. “Thank you, Bram. You’re still my rock.” He collapses on the bed, and curls into his smallest shape.

Bram shadows over Lysander’s sinking body and clings to him, hard. “It’s what I’m here for. Love ya’, Sandy.”

Lysander clutches the blanket, hugs as tightly as he can. “I love you too, Bram. Good night, my dearest.”

“Good night, my darlin’.” Bram echoes

Then, finally, Lysander sinks deep into the waters of unconsciousness. Bram remains, keeping careful record of every crevice of his partner’s body. The hours before dawn are long, quiet, empty as they are every night. Until, at least, he finally slips back into the urn of ashes on the shelf with the sunrise.

When Lysander wakes up, he remembers the shadow of his late night exchange with Bram. As he settles exactly into the clothes Bram picked out for him, he considers the act of existing as its own intrinsic exertion of power.

#my writing

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hudosan-mania · 8 months ago

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