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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 3, 2013 0:24:13 GMT -5
The night snuck up on the day like a black panther. Phoebus could have sworn the sky was blue and bright just moments ago, but now it was a silky black with white stars dotting it. The moon loomed lazily, having a slight yellow hue. It was only half full. In the past month, with everything that had happened, Phoebus was noticeably more tense than usual. His upright posture now felt rigid and his loose hands had turned to tight fists. He had a lot on his mind, and he was growing more and more withdrawn. The disappearance of Temperance, the banishment of his captain, and the war pointlessly started between the Capital and Eagle Point had his teeth on edge. Even Achilles, his horse, was more anxious in his stable. To clear his head, Phoebus decided that the best possible solution would be to get away from everyone. When it was late at night, he left his room and walked out to the river. He kneeled down at its edge, looking into the dark blue water that glistened from the moonlight. His reflection stared back at him with hard eyes. Phoebus put his hands in, cupping them to collect as much water as he could, and then splashed it on his face. He sighed in relief, letting the cool drops trickle down his skin.
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 3, 2013 7:33:16 GMT -5
The girl swung her legs from the bed and jumped to the floor, the dream still strong in her mind, her inky hair lank with sweat. Moonlight streamed through the open window of her room, bathing the ceiling with a pale white light. She could still hear the voices, like whispering echoes in her mind.
"You're our girl. You're our forever girl. Our girl. Our Ai."
"No," she whispered, sitting down at the centre of a rug and pressing her hands to her ears. "No, no. I don't want to." The rug was warm and she lay down upon it, staring up at the moonlit ceiling. Something was wrong with the room. She gazed around, the dream forgotten, but could see nothing amiss. Her toys were still scattered about the floor. Her books and drawings were on the tiny table. The girl stood and walked to the window, climbing up on the bench seat below it so that she could look out into the garden. Leaning out on the sill she gazed down … at the moon. The gardens had disappeared and stars shone all around the house, above and below, to left and right. In the distance there were no dunes, no plains or hills, no city and no river. Only the dark of an all-consuming sky. The girl's fear was forgotten, lost as she was in the wonder of this miracle. Perhaps it was always this way, but no one had bothered to tell her. The moon was an incredible sight, no longer a silver disc but a scarred and pitted shield that had seen many battles. The girl could see the marks of arrows and stones upon the surface, the dents and cuts. And the stars were different also, perfectly round, like a river stones, glowing, pulsing. In the distance she saw a movement, a flashing light, a tail of fire … then it was gone. Suddenly the girl teetered on the edge of the abyss, her balance failing her. With a despairing cry she fell … tumbling among the stars. The voices came roaring back to her as she hurtled through the sky, and she heard a shout of triumph from the voices.
"Our girl is coming! Our forever girl! Our Ai!"
She screamed and saw again the face of the god - a malevolent grin on his face, his golden eyes gleaming like a ball of fire.
Fast as she could, she got her feet under her and stood up. While she stood there, hunched over, coughing and struggling for breath, she blinked water from her eyes and looked around. She was in the middle of the river. How she came to be there was a mystery. Perhaps she had been sleepwalking again. Gritting her teeth, she trudged towards its shore, but stopped when she saw a soldier with golden hair by the rivers edge. The girl watched silently from behind a clump of papyrus as he splashed his face with water. When he was finished, she asked, "Where is Achilles?"
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 3, 2013 12:25:36 GMT -5
Phoebus splashed his face once more, clinging desperately to the divine drops as if they could cleanse him of all evils that spread in the desert like wildfire. He stopped, closing his eyes, tilting his head back, sighing, and then he heard a quiet voice pipe up. Phoebus's eyes shot open, and he immediately looked out to the river. So much for being alone. The odd young girl he had met before was hiding behind a thicket of plants. She blended in with the night like a predator. Her long black hair matched the sky perfectly. The only reason he could see her was because of her pale face and large red eyes. Phoebus would be lying if he said he wasn't pleased to see her, having not talked to her at all in the past month, but his feelings didn't stop him from being stern. He stood up. "Where is Achilles?! The real question is why are you out here at night by yourself in the river?" Phoebus put his hands on his hips. "You've got to stop that, Ai. You really could get hurt, and for God's sake, aren't you cold in there?" There was a strange protectiveness he held towards her. It was like having a younger sister to care for all over again. Gruffly, Phoebus began to walk into the water towards Ai. It was heavy, sloshing around his legs with each step. "To answer your earlier query, Achilles is in the stables. That's where he stays. Poor horse usually sleeps at this time, but now I'm not so sure. He's been fidgety lately. He can be difficult even when I take him out on patrol." Stopping a small distance away from the girl, he held out his hand to her. "Care to come out of the water now?"
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 3, 2013 20:30:51 GMT -5
The girl did not know how to respond when he asked what she was doing alone at night in the river, so she remained silent. She looked at the sword scabbarded at his waist and pictured it in her chest. She didn't think it would take long for her heart to stop beating. "No, I am not cold. The sea is getting warmer," she told him. "The dolphins don't like it. Sometimes at night I come here and we swim together. Me and Cavala and his wife, Vora. They are my friends." She watched him through the papyrus wade towards her. Her face blank, her eyes dim and dazzled, for the most part her mind was a shambles, voices invading, whispering, but there was a part of her mind which thought clearly. Remnants of the once upon a time girl. And it was this part that was in control at the moment. It was also this part that would do her remembering later … unless it became convenient for her to remember some other truth. Or any other truth, for that matter. "That's a shame. I would have liked to have seen Achilles again." When he offered his hand to her she looked at it a moment, then she said, "I'm not an invalid." Giving him a wide berth she waded back to the shore. Then began wringing water from her nightshirt. It was pink, pale like the first blush of hurt skin, just a little blow to let you know you were there, that you were not leaving. That you must open your eyes and see. Pink like the voices made her. She knew that and they did too because they smiled big and fond as she rubbed the bruise on her chest, saying, "Remember? Remember how you used to be." She remembered.
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 3, 2013 21:15:25 GMT -5
As soon as Ai refused his hand, Phoebus withdrew it to his side and rolled his eyes with a sigh. That was like his younger sister too. There was something about young women where they were even more determined than young men to show how strong and independent they were. He assumed it was some sort of ingrained feminism. Ai and Rose would have gotten along well if that was the case. He didn't bother humouring her about her supposed dolphin friends. It was common for children to name whatever they saw and make stories out of it. "I'm sure he would have liked to see you too," Phoebus said with another sigh. He turned and went back to the shore, feet trudging heavily. His sword brushed against his brown pants, making soft noises. "He likes attention." Phoebus didn't approach Ai, instead cutting through the water on a diagonal, ending up a fair distance away from her at the shore. He sat down with legs crossed and looked out to the water. His expression was stoic and flat. Phoebus recalled when he met Ai that he was friendlier than he was being now, but his behaviour now was something he couldn't help. His personality had suffered in the past month. He was cynical, losing hope in humanity. What had happened to his old city seemed to have happened here too and he was too helpless to stop it. It was why like a virus that continued to spread, and it angered him immensely. "What about your friends in the daytime?" Phoebus said at last. His voice was calm, though absent-minded. "You should at least bring them with you at night. The desert is known for its dangers at night."
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 3, 2013 22:22:13 GMT -5
"I have no daytime friends," she said. The girl sensed the change in him. It was in the way he spoke. It was in the way he behaved. He was less tolerable - of her, of life. "The desert at night holds no terror for me." She sighed. "The gods gave me a great gift, you know, for seeing the hearts of men. I only have to take one glance to know if he is a hero or a coward … Five years ago my brother's ship hit rocks. Her hull was breached and she was shipping water. She rolled on the sea like a pig in a swamp. Her speed was gone and she almost sank. He kept her afloat and made it to port. Then she was repaired. She was damaged in a storm. You are like that ship. Your heart was breached when you lost someone close to you. And from the heart comes courage." The girl moved away from the river edge and sat down on the grassy bank beside the soldier. "There is no courage without fear, Phoebus. A man who rushes into battle fearlessly is not a hero. He is only a strong man with a big sword. An act of courage needs the overcoming of fear." Raising her hard, palm outwards, she instructed the soldier to do likewise. Then she reached out and pressed her palm to the soldier's. "Push against my hand," she said. When he did so the girl resisted the push. "This is how courage and fear work, Phoebus. Both will always be pushing. They are never still." Dropping her hand she looked out over the water. "And a man can't choose to stop pushing. For if he backs away the fear will come after him, and push him back another step, and then another. Men who give in to fear are like kings who trust in castle walls to keep out enemies, rather than attacking them on open ground, and scattering them. So the enemies camp round the castle, and now the king cannot get out. Slowly his food runs out, and he discovers the castle is not a very safe place to be. You built a castle in you mind. But fear seeped through gaps in the walls, and now there is nowhere else to hide. Deep down you know this, because the hero I see in you keeps telling you."
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 3, 2013 23:22:54 GMT -5
Phoebus would have said "You have me," when she said she had no daytime friends, but he wasn't so sure of that now. It wasn't that he wasn't fond of Ai, he found the girl strangely charming and endearing despite the fact that she didn't seem all there, but he did have a stronger desire now to isolate himself. Achilles was his only true friend. A horse was his only true friend. Even Phoebus recognized the oddities in that idea. He sat calmly, tolerating Ai's long story about her brother. A part of him was interested, but the other part was listening to it in a way that an adult would humour a story they knew was strange. She sat next to him, and he looked at her from his peripheral. His lips went a bit tight. She told him to hold up his hand. His chest heaved impatiently, and he did so. At this point he was willing to do what was needed of him. He pushed against her hand with his, but not hard enough to knock her over or badly harm her wrist and all things attached. He knew the idea she was trying to get across, so he used the strength necessary for her small hand to resist. His neck craned so he could look at her fully now. A brow was quirked upward in question. Then he sighed and smiled slightly. "You are very intelligent and observant for your age," he said, meaning it. "But that can be a dangerous way to look at things. If you look at others that way, you end up looking for things that aren't there. I'm not a hero, Ai. I wish people would stop trying to convince me of that. I came to the Capital simply to redeem myself, not to be related to a king in a castle or put on a pedestal. In the past, I had no mercy for people. I had no mercy for young girls like you." He looked at her seriously. "I used my power as captain in ways that degraded the people I was supposedly hired to protect. I started riots, I set fires, I bullied people, pushed them into walls, had them shot if they ever disobeyed. I was moulded into something by the military, and then the minister I worked for hardened it into stone. You can't change stone. You can change the use of stone from bad to good, but you can't actually change the stone itself." He closed his eyes. "The Capital is exactly like my other city. I had hoped, had been optimistic, that it would have turned out different, but I realize ... people inevitably go corrupt. There is no utopia out there for me to find."
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 4, 2013 7:52:43 GMT -5
The soldier's voice had gone hard, angry edge like the voices when their eyes in her mind weren't gleaming but disappointed. Little girl full of lies how could you? After all we've done for you. She rubbed the bruise on her chest, stiff sore muscles cramped, and screamed without sound, her mouth closed, her face still. She was good at doing that. She was use to it. "I'm sorry," she said, hunching into herself, he was not the voices but he was angry, and if he got angry he might hurt her like he had done to the just-like-her girls in his story. She gazed at him, awed by the power he emanated. It was the perhaps the first time she had ever truly seen him. The face was handsome and framed by a golden beard, the shoulders broad, the arms thick and powerful. "Many men are," she said, turning away. "I have seen cruelty. I have seen kindness. Sometimes I have seen cruel men being kind, and kind men being cruel. I do not understand it. I do know, though, that you are a hero. Maybe not now, but someday you will be. You will see." Then she laid flat on her back and stared up into the starry overhead abyss. She smiled a little. Sometimes she was happy, but not the way she wanted to be happy, not the way she saw people being happy. Sometimes she would wake in the night and go out and look at the stars and there were so many, and she knew they were there before her, and they would be there after her. That was sort of awful and sort of wonderful. Sometimes in the later months, the wind would blow around her and flap her clothes and hair and she would grieve for something that was lost, like the once upon a time girl. Sometimes she would look at the sky in the spring and see a bird, and it might maker her happy, but just as often it felt like something inside her was getting small and ready to break. It is bad to feel like that, she would think, and if I do, I shouldn't be watching the birds. But sometimes she would look up at the sky anyway. The Capital was all right, but sometimes she still got scared. There were many people in the city, and not one gave a damn for her. If they looked, it was only because they could see she was all wrong. Sometimes she would have a little fun, and sometimes she would just get frightened. Now, gazing up at the stars she was having a little fun.
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 4, 2013 18:17:05 GMT -5
Phoebus's hard face slackened when Ai said she was sorry. His eyes sparked for a moment, and he turned to look at her. She spoke more, insisting that he was a hero, and he realized it would be futile to try and deny it. Sighing, he lost the upright posture, and slumped back, leaning on his arms. He felt a bit bad for her now. "Don't be sorry. There is no reason for you to apologize," Phoebus shook his head. "The fault is mine. I've just been so uptight lately. And because you're so well-spoken, it is easy to forget your age." Phoebus looked out to the river, watching the water ripple around the papyrus and other spindly plants. "It is frustrating to not have control over anything. Especially when it involves the people you're fond of." He was thinking of Chainey and Temperance in particular. He respected the two women. At least he still had Ai. She was young, but she was reasonable. She seemed more grounded than her cloudy exterior let on. And he did find her endearing. He could say he had a fondness for her as well. Phoebus remembered back to when she said he could be her friend if that made him happy. The comment still got a smile out of him on occasion. It was such a peculiar, random thing to say. Without really thinking, Phoebus lay back on the ground as well. He didn't look to Ai. Instead his gaze looked up to the sky where the little white stars continued to flicker like fireflies. He rested his hands on his chest, feeling them rise and fall with each breath. "I think you're very wise," Phoebus remarked, his voice honest and matter-of-fact. He continued to look up at the sky. There was now a warmer look to his face. "And clearly, your observations can be quite generous. Flattering to one's character regardless of whether it's true or not. I'm honestly surprised that you claim to not have daytime friends. Such a thing sounds unreasonable."
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 5, 2013 8:49:53 GMT -5
"I turned fourteen two weeks ago." she said, as if he had asked. When he lay beside her she turned on her side facing him. She didn't bother to brush aside strands of long, dark hair that had fallen in her face. He stared up at the stars and she stared at him, through him, past him, and she felt her heart cramp. It would be over soon, finally, but the thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating. There was another Ai before herself. The voices let her go when she turned fifteen. They took her all the way back to where she used to live, to where she was when she was another girl, back to her before. Her body was found in a river, floating downstream just a short distance from the house she grew up in. The voices used to tell her this story a lot, pulling her close and saying, "But we'll make sure that doesn't happen to you. We'll keep you safe. All you have to do is be good. Be our little girl forever. You can do that, can't you?" The girl was fourteen, and she figured soon the voices would kill her. She couldn't run and she couldn't hide. She belonged to them. She was their little girl. All she had to do was be good. "Not wise. Observant," she said and sat up. "I am not flattering you," argued the girl. "War makes heroes. Herakles was a warrior, as was Ormenion. And they have both been made immortal. Father Zeus turned them into stars in the night sky. Yet their hands are stained with innocent blood. In a drunken rage Herakles bludgeoned his wife to death, and Ormenion sacrificed his youngest daughter so that Poseidon, god of the sea, might afford fair winds for his attack on Kretos." When he said that her having no daytime friends was unreasonable she leaned over him, and said, "Then you would be the first. What is unreasonably, though, is that you seem to have no night friends. You are sitting here on a cold and lonely river bank in the middle of the night with a girl who can offer you nothing, when you could otherwise be drowning your sorrows in cheap wine and in the warm embrace of big-titted whores who would sell you their souls for a copper coin - not that their souls are what you'd be looking for."
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 5, 2013 17:39:52 GMT -5
Phoebus smiled slightly, a crooked twitch of the lips. Her explanation of heroes was reasonable, he was glad that her perception of him wasn't distorted into thinking that he was something grander than he was. Her take sounded more logical than ideal, even if it went back to her belief in the Gods of Greece. When Ai brought herself closer to him, Phoebus narrowed his eyes and angled his head to look at her. "The first, hm? We need to find you kinder friends," he said with a wry smirk. As soon as she brought up "big-titted whores", the corner of Phoebus's mouth violently twitched and an abrupt laugh left him. While it wasn't a friendly or hearty sound, it did ring with amusement. "That is quite the interesting obersvation, albeit a lewd one. You surprise me, Ai. Is that what you think I should be doing? Indulging myself with others in alcohol and prostitutes?" He shook his head, finding the thought both ridiculous and entertaining, and then went back to looking up at the stars. "I may as well say that a fourteen year-old girl like you should be fawning over men and bursting with hormones if we're going to make silly presumptions. I have no problem with a good drink now and then, but I have no interest in relationships of any sort even if it is just a night for temporary pleasures. I have always valued my work above anything else. There are many things out there to distract you. And if you give in to distractions, you may find yourself more alone than you were originally." He glanced over at Ai, taking in her face for a moment. His hands had lowered from his chest to his abdomen. "That sort of system has always been what I've gone by. So no, my dear, I have no night friends. That is not completely unreasonable for someone in my line of work. Especially with how the city is now ..."
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 5, 2013 20:57:30 GMT -5
The girl jerked back and blinked at him, frankly startled by his laugh. She didn't laugh with him or even smile back in acknowledgement because she did not like people laughing at the things she said or did, even if they were only being friendly. She got up and walked over to a tree not exactly far, but not exactly close either. Peering from behind it she said, "It is common for a man to seek out a woman gifted with the talent to make a hard man soft, a priestess of Aphrodite, the delight of warriors and sailors who miss their wives and their homes." When he spoke of her and the way other girls her age behaved she frowned a little. ""I used to dream that my brothers friend Axylus, would marry me. He is a kind man with a good heart," said the girl. "When I was little. Before I knew better. I thought it would be wonderful to live with him in a palace." Voices in her mind heavy and pushing, always pushing. "You. Remember. Who. You. Belong. To," they said. "You. Remember. Whose. Girl. You. Are." And she nodded. From where she was the girl silently observed the soldier as he spoke of his work and of how he viewed distractions. Then he reiterated that he had no 'night friends.' A long silence fell between them. "Perhaps not unreasonable … uncommon," she concluded. "I see nothing wrong with the city as it is now. It has a ruler. All is as it should be. You are a soldier, and you have a duty to obey whoever is in rule. It will not go well for you to dwell on things unfair."
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 6, 2013 22:37:53 GMT -5
Phoebus looked up at the stars in admiration, not uncomfortable by the silence between him and the girl. It was odd, and a bit discomforting that she had fled and hid behind a tree, but she was odd already and he assumed such behaviour was normal. The stars shone brightly. With the way that they gleamed, he almost expected them to take on a life of their own and dance in the sky. He would have loved to see them move. He would have loved to get a glimpse of true freedom up in the black, but the stars stood still and though they were beautiful, they were lifeless. Phoebus had been lying down for a while, but now he was much too comfortable to sit back up. His breaths had slowed. The heaving of his chest was so heavy and weighted and peaceful that it was barely noticeable. He considered sleeping on the soft sands and grass; it would be gentler and more comfortable than the atmosphere of his lonelier room back in the main house. Phoebus smiled at Ai's words. It was a knowing smile, a smile not of kindness but the one you would show a person who did not understand what you spoke of. "It is very good that you see nothing wrong with the city. It is better that way," Phoebus said. "When you are a soldier, you are working behind the scenes ... you can see all that is wrong. All that is kept from the public. Such as how wars are pointlessly started." Phoebus said his last sentence bitterly. He sat up, and leaned back on his arms. His gaze drifted ahead to the water. "When I used to obey everything I was given, people died. People who barely did any wrongs." He looked to Ai and then gestured his head to the water. "So in reply to your comment, I pose this hypothetical scenario: If your dolphin friends became human and I detained them without giving you a reason ... would you just allow it to happen? Simply because it will not go well to dwell on things unfair?" He gave her a knowing expression, before looking away from her and out to the water. "To answer quickly would be foolish. Life is too complex to look at impulsively. Sometimes it is difficult to know where we stand. That is why we must consider our choices and observations carefully."
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Post by missemj88 on Mar 8, 2013 8:18:30 GMT -5
He posed to her his hypothetical and for a long while she was silent, her large eyes staring at him, inscrutably from behind the tree. Finally she said, "You are more hero than you know … but to answer your question, If the gods willed it, I would cut your head clear and put out your eyes. Then I would leap in and save my friends and I would be a hero because that is what heroes do. A common soldier does not question his superiors and the orders they give. A common soldier does not think upon the right and wrong of his actions. He is there merely to obey orders; to fight, to win, to stay alive." For a moment the faintest hint of a smile touched the girl's lips. She came out from behind the tree and went to the waters edge. She moved her arm in a sort of sweeping movement across her chest. She did not know why she did it; it was a move from a dance she'd studied that morning, which seemed to her very sad. At the same time she thought about her brother and how her life would be so much better if she could rely on a person like him. As she watched her arm sweep through the air, the smoothness of its movement seemed to express these feelings of sadness and desire. Her arm passed through the air with great dignity of movement - not like a leaf fluttering from a tree, but like a dolphin gliding through the water. When her body felt heavy, she could move with great dignity. And if she imagined her brother observing her, the movements took on such a deep sense of feeling that each movement of dance stood for some little interaction with him. Turning around with her head tipped at an angle might represent the question, "Where shall we spend our day together, Hecateus?" Extending her arm and splaying her fingers told how grateful she felt to be in his company. And when she snapped her fingers shut, this was when she told him that nothing in life mattered more to her than being with him. After some time she grew tired of dancing she wandered back over to Phoebus, kneeling beside him. "Do you miss your sister?" she asked.
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Post by UltraJKatt on Mar 8, 2013 17:15:38 GMT -5
Phoebus listened to the silence between them. He didn't notice the sound of the faint trickling water or the desert cicadas that occasionally buzzed in the night. When he finally heard her voice, Phoebus turned to look at Ai with a slight smile. He wanted to laugh again when she rather calmly said that she would behead him, but he knew she was sensitive so he forced it back down his throat. A soft snort noise came out instead. His eyebrows raised. "You see? Doing that would get you severely punished, but it would be the right thing to do. That is certainly a very drastic response to an act like detainment, but I see you're at least on the right track." He looked up to the sky thoughtfully, pursing his lips, but then smiled again. It was more dry now. "I used to be very common. Painfully common. But now I am painfully abnormal instead. It's a wonder they allow me to work here still." Ai stepped out from her hiding place behind the tree and began to dance near the shore. It was graceful, yet still had undertones of a young, clumsy preteen. She was just barely above a child yet still below a teenager. She was at an awkward age where she didn't seem to fit anywhere. He thought she did rather well though. He did find her insight on things very interesting. Amusing at times, but interesting. As she went on, the dancing improved, as if she was losing herself. When she finished, Phoebus was tempted for a split second to applaud. Instead, he held his hands together on his lap and sat in an almost meditative position. She kneeled next to him and asked about his sister, which drew a look of surprise. Phoebus craned his head to look at her fully. "Admittedly yes." It didn't take him much thought to answer. "Rose and I were quite close. Though her fault was that she had a very charming, feminine personality, so many men went after her. She loathed whenever I tried to ward them off. I was like a father and a brother that way. Most of the men were pompous imbeciles. Just stupid peacocks strutting about." He smiled for a moment, before sighing. "But there came a time when the headstrong girl didn't want her brother doting on her anymore. So she eloped with one man, a fellow whose name I didn't know. She left behind a note and that was it. It was the last time I ever saw her."
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