* * *
Julia
* * *
The fight is glorious. Cary finally gave me the go-ahead and do my worst, saying that another Poet's necessary work had finished up. I don't care for any of that mystic shit - all I care is that Gwen and I are cutting through everything in our path as if it weren't even there.
Then they really aren't, and I'm left looking for the next nonexistant opponent as several other Armed and an entire crew of pirates do the exact same thing. I duck a few swipes from our supposed 'comrades' as confusion spreads over the battlefield. On the one hand, I suppose disappearing to let us attack ourselves is a clever battle tactic.
On the other hand, there's no sign of the spiders at all, not even a leg, not even a drop of blood. It's as if they were never even there. Instead, there's a bearded man in the middle of the courtyard in strange apparel--
I make myself unseen as I realize that the Gahalespbar-archo is present. He need not know too many nasty details on my division - which explains the sudden absence of Lute from the battlefield as well.
Sorry it was so short. Cary really is apologetic. He knows a good fight when he sees one. I'm not that sad to see the attackers vanish, though. We've enough problems right now. I feel the barest sensation of a yawn. And it's time for my nap.
I'm about to tease him, but then the Judge asks me to please look after Katherine as she brings another body to the place of Regeneration. It's rare that she needs a guard inside the Palace Complex, but these days certainly would engender caution if anything ever could.
* * *
Luciprochoros
* * *
Stevane sits up and surveys the work below her. She grimaces. My son Edward is... sleeping. I'll think of it as sleeping.
Everything seems a lot... quieter now. It worked, then. I have to remind myself to be thankful for that.
Stevane peers down the hall. "Huh. Sounds like even the fighting outside's died down."
I nod. I'm only half-listening - the outside doesn't matter anymore. What matters is...
"Ales! Ales! Wake up, ye sorry git!" The Captain is still attending to our unconscious new friend... and his preferred method of waking the man is to repeatedly ram his head against the stone floor. I'm concerned, but only a little. Considering the Captain has served as this man's guardian for so long, this is unlikely the worst Ales's head has been through.
"I can wake him." I stay back and wait - the Captain is a volatile person, after all, and very territorial.
He narrows his eyes at me, scrutinizing every bit of me, reading on levels even deeper than 'Sy might be able to. But the Judge cultivates his blind spots, and the things he looks most closely for are different than what the Captain would scrutinize. 'Sy looks for fear of Judgement - the Captain doesn't limit himself to just that.
I do wonder if I'll pass this test.
Then he nods, and gestures for me to come closer to the man he protects. "There's enough fear in yer heart for what would happen if ye botched this up. Pray that it stays that way."
I kneel in front of the man who looks so much like the former Jhe h'Logos. He looks as if he's asleep, but there's more to it than that. I reach forward and push his hair away from his face. So much like Elete... but younger. That might be the strangest part...
No, the strangest part is what I see once I touch him. Before, I could already get a sense of the man's past journeys. Now, I can't stop seeing them.
Now I'm stuck until I see them through.
* * *
Elesse
* * *
The spiders want me to stay where I am, to stay quiet. I listen to the spiders. They're in charge of me, for all that anyone's taking care of me now. They don't hurt me when I listen to them. They seem to like me, to want to keep me, and therefore they want me to succeed.
I'm their pet, after all. Their pet, and... his pet.
I don't like thinking about him, but I'm such a little fool. The fear's too hard to resist for my mind - so easy to dwell on. Maybe because it gets my heart rate up, maybe because it makes it hard for me to forget myself. Maybe it's keeping me alive, but... but then he hears me fretting because I can't keep quiet and--
Oh now they're coming for me now the spiders are comi
* * *
Every time it's a little harder to wake up, like they've wrapped my mind in silk and not just my body. It's so hard not to shudder, either - to shriek every time I see a long, skinny, jointed leg out of the corner of my eye...
Shivering just makes the webs draw tighter. Does that mean I'm being a good pet? I don't know what I am. Sometimes I hear a song in my head, sometimes I can't hear it but I can just faintly remember it, and sometimes I could even sing it if I wanted to. That always causes a fuss, though. But the song is warm, when it's so very cold in here. It comes through in many voices, on all kinds of instruments. It scares me with its beauty, gives me the sort of chill that makes me feel alive again.
Then one of the spiders bites me for the noise my mind is making. The pain burns my nerves into numbness, and I forget
* * *
I was a person once, I remember that. I was a person called Alestere, and I was young, and I was royalty. I remember that. I was a free person who could walk. I could sing, and draw, and go about without a chain. I could see sun and grass and I could touch the grass. I could talk to--
myself?
--to the future and the past, and get warnings and send hints, and I had a brother named Ebrelle and he talked to plants and made fun of me, and I made fun back, and that's how we knew we loved each other.
I miss my brother, even though his name's just slid from my head. I feel the prick of spider fangs and remember this makes me forget a lot. Forget about... the plants. Did I talk to plants? No, fairies, I'm sure of it. Maybe water? Oh water sounds lovely, I barely remember what it smells like. There must be lots of it somewhere. The ocean - did I see it once? I should like to see it again sometime. But I'll need a guide, because I can't remember what it even would look like.
My name. I am a person with a name. A pet who is a person, but a named pet. I think the name is Alesse... Alice? No, not at all Alice. Elessandre? That sounds proper, I think I might keep it. The one who keeps me as a pet doesn't call me by any name, and the spiders only chitter in that way I can't stop hearing, even in my nightmares--
there was a knife, glinting as I slept, and brother slammed it into my chest as one final gift for his favorite
--and they're talking to me now, asking me if I'll dance? They love to pull my strings. I'm just a puppet, really, not a person at all, they say. Stay here long enough and I'll just be a doll, an empty husk like their other mea
* * *
Broke today. Don't remember. Don't remember anything at all. Don't remember where I'm going. I should know. It should be familiar to me. I think they put me on a boat. The one who kept me as a pet is sending me to... someone.
Someone I feel like I should remember, but I'm afraid of her, afraid to remember. I try to remember and all I remember is the knife killing me. But I feel alive, even if I'm not, and it confuses me--
One of the spiders sinks its fangs into my neck as a reminder to stay quiet. Oh, I so very much wish that I could. I kept trying so hard, but the music never stops, and by now I don't want it to, because it's all I can remember. I can drag up my name--
Elessandre, right?
--and I can remember being with the spiders for so very long, and I can remember how they got me to scream, but I can't remember... where am I going?
The ocean. I want to go to the ocean. Is this the ocean?
There's a scuffle above me, possibly on the deck of the boat. Are the spiders dancing? Did I hear one screa
* * *
Someone's brushing my hair. I don't understand. This never happens. I don't understand feeling good - the tingle the brush sends through my scalp is a sort of bliss I've never imagined, or remembered imagining.
"Stay still. It's all in your hair. Captain Jules says you won't be worth anything all wrapped up in cobwebs." The person pauses, which I'm thankful for. The pause gives me a chance to remember the meanings of human words. I haven't heard them spoken in...
ever?
"Got to say, I'm impressed you're even alive, what with all those bites on you. D'you tick those guys off somehow? Them spid
* * *
"He plumb keeled over when I mentioned them, Cap'n."
I blink. I stare upwards. I'm lying on my back on the floor - which is rocking for some reason, but it doesn't alarm me. It was like that on the boat. Are we still on it?
"Mentioned what, Samuel?"
"The spi
* * *
"--HILARIOUS! Do it again, Samuel!!"
"Sir, I don't know if this is the best id--"
"Shut up and just talk about them again! Ain't met a man in my life that's so scared of spide
* * *
"Okay. Ales? That's yer name, right?"
"Elessand--"
"Aye, Ales. That's good enough fer what ails ye. Ehhhh, get it? Ye alright?"
I'm not aware of much beyond the blankets and the fact that I'm huddled in them. I can't stop shaking, although the tremors are slowing over time. They might eventually stop altogether. Other than that, there's the burning in my mind, but that might be what it feels like when it's healing.
And there's this strange man that kept saying he wanted to sell me, and now he's naming me, and I don't understand. He seems to like me the same way the spid--
No, don't think about them. Besides, he doesn't hurt me.
...Much.
"--Ales? Ye're goin all woozy again. Snap to!"
I try to focus. This is probably important. And besides, the pirates fed me. I don't remember the last time I ate something besides regurgitated--
Stop, stop, don't think of those days...
"He's very tired, Cap'n. This is the longest he's been awake yet." Samuel. That voice I recognize. He's been with me from the start of my... rescue? Was that what it was?
"Stay awake, Ales. Yer spider friends are following us."
I try desperately not to faint, but it is difficult.
"I ain't sellin' you anywhere near where those things are. I wanted ye to tell me why they want ye."
My brows draw together. "There's a song... in my head. They want to stop it." Another shudder goes through me. "They keep me quiet for their master. I don't know his name--"
"Don't try to. I already do." The Captain sounds more on edge than he has before. I wonder if he has a history with this nameless foe. "We're taking you far away from him, and them. And ye can stay with us, if ye make yerself more useful than a shivering whelp."
I contemplate that. It seems... almost fair. Like some gift has been dropped into my lap. "Pardon me... but why?"
"Because it's my ocean. Now figure out how to make yerself useful before I drop yer lazy ass innit."
* * *
Luciprochoros
* * *
I frown. It makes a little more sense to me... especially when I focus on the crown and draw up other Poetry that's been recorded in connection with this. Some wayward piece of Elete-- no, Alestere --was cut away and fed to the Jherent Nul... who wouldn't swallow it. Probably he sent Elesse back to Thelea, in the hopes that she could make him more palatable, or possibly use him in another one of her experiments. But before Elesse's boat could make it to her, Captain Jules and his crew took the galleon and all its contents... including Elesse.
Fine. But what did I see flash in Elesse's eyes? And why did he fall unconscious? The Poetry that I can access starts to fill in even that blank.
Ebrelle had a piece of Elete sealed into him? My stomach turns. It's been returned to Elesse now, but...
Why didn't we know? Elete didn't have to die for something done to him so long ago. Why couldn't we have seen it?
Why couldn't I? I see everything, I see so much that I turn my eyes away before I see too much. Did I truly hate Ebrelle so much that I blinded myself to this? Did rejecting my Duty cause all of this, or was it unavoidable?
I'm afraid to find out, and I turn away from the answers one more time because of it. Besides, there's something else happening now. The piece of Elete has finally settled back into Elesse.
He's paler. Sickly, like Elete. And...
Slowly dying, just like Elete was.
* * *
Elesse
* * *
I remember dying. It's the most curious thing. I thought it was just another hallucination from when the spiders kept me. But I'm remembering all sorts of other things now, too, and some of them seem fake, some of them seem real, and all of them are like a bright white hurtling towards me--
Oh dear, or am I hurtling towards the light?
Something grips me before I can hurtle all the way in -- and to who knows where, perhaps another adventure? Another life? It's not much of a yank, just a hand deftly hooked into the crook of my arm. I settle back down to...
The sea?
Ah, this again. I recognize the black sky above, the quiet waves below. I recognize the man who held me back. Eleth-travente. He's almost the man I used to be, isn't he?
He smiles up wistfully from the water. He's waist-deep in it now, his legs slowly kicking back and forth below the surface. I offer him a hand up, but he declines the aid.
"I'll stay here, thank you." He sounds so obstinate, as if he truly does want to sink. He looks at me reprovingly. "I do." He sighs, weary as ever. "I've died. It's time I rested with those who've already gone ahead." His face twists in a way that pains my heart. He looks so... crumpled. "Why can't I move on? You should have walked in my place. I don't understand..." He glares at me. "Why are you here?"
I feel out the memories coming back into my mind. Things are slowly making more sense, even things I never wanted to make sense. "Ebrelle let go of... some part of my heart. Yours, too. Ours."
He looks away, unwilling to meet my eyes.
* * *
Luciprochoros
* * *
I sense the pirate has drawn his sword upon me. I hear Stevane draw her Arms in response. "Shh," I say. "I know how to fix this. Captain Jules, please oblige me a bit longer. Stevane, please don't draw on guests if you can help it."
She sighs, then stows her weapons at the same time, and with the same grudging motion the Captain stows his. "I'll try."
"Your Father's already had to take your other siblings to task on that, don't make me tell him that you haven't learned from their mistakes."
"Yes, Unkie." Now she's glaring holes in the floor. The Captain gives her a pat on the shoulder.
I take one last look at Elesse. I'm pretty sure that if he isn't dead now...
Well, it's just a matter of time. No reason to wait. I gather him up and walk farther down the hall. I look back over my shoulder. "Stevane? Could you... show our esteemed guest around, possibly? Neither of you can follow where I'm going."
She looks taken aback, but not by the request - by the fact that she can't follow. She shakes it off. It's not the first time she's not been able to follow me into one of my 'meetings', after all, and it won't be the last. "Are you... oh." Her eyes widen. "That's where you're going."
I nod.
The Captain is busy mulling over my previous words. "Esteemed guest, the fop calls me. I rightly like the sound o that, that I do." He raises an eyebrow, then fixes me with a glare. "What do ye mean, I can't go where ye take me own crew member? Ales has rank, he does! He's Second Banana! That's right after First Mate!"
Stevane attempts to muffle a laugh with the back of her hand. I maintain my composure.
"He'll be back. Just wait for me."
And then, ignoring any more protests the Captain might make, I vanish with Elesse.
* * *
