NationStates Jolt Archive

So anyway, I've been meaning to write something new for a while now but haven't had any ideas. Thankfully, music is always an inspiration, especially the particular track that reminded me of this character. So, for those of you who remember Rezo and myself's Xmas thread, we're about to learn more about our hero...

"You're up.."
Yam blinked, he'd been quietly perving at his female classmates, inwardly praising the Board of Trustees for the PhysEd uniform of stupidly short shorts. However, this happy passtime had been interupted by the teacher in charge of the class, a balding, permanantly red-faced man named Watson, who rejoiced in the nickname of "Tomato", prodding him.
"Ah ok.."
Yam grabbed the bat, ambled up to the plate. Last period P.E, then to his car, go home, get changed, pick his girl up, go to the beach. Sunshine and love. He grinned into the afternoon light.
The pitcher glared back, hooked his arm and flicked the ball at our hero's head.
*Whonk!*
The ball spun away into the outfield, and Yam was running, gliding movements bouncing him from plate to plate, quiet awareness of the outfielders movements and pleasure in...

coldblackmuddarkTHERE

Shells burst overhead, the fire and fury of the explosions lighting the muddy crater Charles Over was hunkered down in. If they hadn't been mudcovered, the light would have reflected the brass emblazoned with the insignia of a Captain pinned to the prone infantryman. He swallowed, spat as he tasted mud and the copper of his own blood. He peered over the lip of his crater, swallowed again, and threw himself up, and onward "Yaaaahuhhhk!".
Charles was on his back. Couldn't feel anything. He looked up for a thousand miles, and the clouds broke, blue gleaming down. He smiled as the darkness closed in.

HERE

...and Yam stumbled and dropped over the plate. He rolled forward, bouncing to a halt, limbs flailing. Shaken, he clambered to his feet, ignoring the comments of his peers.
What the hell was that? Jesus. He shivered, the ringing of the bell for the end of the period barely sinking in. He grabbed his bag, and moved carefully to his car, it's familiar battered box-shape a touchstone of normality. Felt like World War One, like a flashback, but..shit. That was decades ago. I..
He unlocked his car and flopped into the driver's seat. He rested his head on the steering wheel and

forestsnowcoldgreenTHERE

Sergeant Quin Wayne swore bitterly and worked the action on his rifle. Missing a shot like that, shit, be lucky if the Kraut bastard doesn't realise I'm up here and run for it.
The German he'd fired at looked out into the darkness cloaking Wayne, a lit cigarette lighting his face. The man was between Wayne and a unobstructed path to the ammo dump the Sergeant was tasked with wrecking this miserable June morning.
A soft *bamphh* and the sentry was no longer an obstruction in anything but the most trivial sense. Wayne vaulted the log he'd been concealed behind, scuttled across the dead ground between him and the path into the dump. He reached the bunkers which formed the main part of the dump and opened the heavy steel door of the first, hurled a package of explosives in the door, ran to the next bunker and repeated the process, again and again, then ran back for the path. He skidded along, running hard, he wanted to be out of the blast radius before the timers he'd set as he threw ticked down. He'd just reached the edge of the forest and there was a roar and something slammed him into the loam. He tasted dirt, leaves and blood. The sergeant rolled over. A German was running toward him, rifle raised. Wayne grinned and blood leaked from his mouth.
"See you in hell you Kraut prick."
The world was engulfed in roaring flame.

HERE

Yam gasped and lurched back into his seat, hands clutching the wheel spasmodically. "Fuck me. What the fuck are those?" He scrabbled for his carkeys, jabbed them into the ignition and hurled his car into reverse, flooring it out of the carpark, running for the house his guardians had left him. He looked in the rear-view vision mirror and his own panicked, forest-green eyes looked back. "I've got to get home." His speed crept up as he slid through MutaMuta's barely-existent suburbs, onto the back roads that'd get him home.
The journey passed in a blur to our hero, his thoughts locked on the "flashbacks".
His car growled down the drive, into the carport. He slid out of the ugly vehicle, flipping the door shut, picking his keys out and something roared in his head...

He was...
A young corporal in Korea kissed the crucifix his mother had given him as waves of men rushed toward his foxhole...
A middle-aged bomber pilot, two days away from the end of his hitch, stopped wrestling with a nonresponsive ejector seat lever and grinned at the spiralling world outside his cockpit. "Well ain't that a bitch."
A rating pushed his younger brother onto the last spot of a life raft. The younger man had attempted to struggle, wanting to stick with his brother, but a hefty punch had stopped that. The rating walked clambered back up his ship. He perched on the superstructure with the other unrescued men as the vessel slowly slid into the water. A song tugged at his memory. The rating grinned and started to hum, then burst into fullthroated song "Always look on the bright side of life, oh always look on the bright side of life..."
A trooper sighed as his MP5 ran dry. He reached to his boot, pulled out his survival knife and looked at the keen blade. "Ah well, it was grand fun while it lasted." He peeked over the edge of the berm and yelled, "C'mon then yeh raghead bastards, lets be having yeh!"

And Yam was on his knees outside his house, and his head hurt like someone'd beaten him with a shovel.

And then you come back to yourself.
you're lying on the path outside your house.
your girlfriend is pushing at your shoulder, fear in her eyes.
there's something wrong. Your girlfriend...isn't. Oh it's her. the tanned skin, the cute as a button features. but she's not...well. It's like someone opened the blinds, she seems to glow now.
You, on the other hand, feel like you've died a million times.
And you have.
You remember doing it.
Every death by war in the twentieth century. Every single one. Women and children are, praise God, less common in your memories. But you still remember them.
You puke. Your girl remains by your side, worried and fluttering.
What on earth are you?
She's talking, saying your name.
You're not listening.
You're remembering...

All the long years of human war. Every century has it's Avatar, it's God, if you will, of War. Some are stronger than others, being formed of much longer blocks of years, back when time wasn't so precise.
Athene.
Mars.
Wotan.
They were Gods of other things. But faith spills, it needs somewhere to go. It went to...potentcies. Eventually each of them grew apart from the changing needs of Terran Man. Thus they stepped aside. Retreated to realms of their own choosing. Other planets, other realities. The need for a face was still there. A face for humanitys' dead. A memorial of them if you will. Others were formed.
For the Middle Ages he called himself Galahad. The perfect knight. As chivalry died, so he walked away, to sleep in the court of his King.
Gunpowder demanded a noisy, bragging avatar. So he was. For a while. The children of man grew in number. Eventually the numbers of dead grew too much. He retired. The new century birthed a new champion. A hundred years later she grew tired, and prepared the way for her successor. And her for her's.
Tradition.
At the end of the twentieth century they were...afraid. The avatar of the 19th had grown fat on the massive loss of life.
Pitiless. Remorseless. Insane.
He'd become a threat to all that lived. Enormously powerful, a God of War, and it's associated toys. The 15th, 16th and 18th century avatars had been...ended must be the term, because how can one kill a concept? in the battle that destroyed him.
So watchers had been sent.
Humankind on Terra had long been isolate from other worlds and shapes of life. The avatars no small part of the reasons for this.
The watchers had to be subtle. Powerful too. Blood of the Wilding Court had been chosen to watch the Terrans, make sure the next avatar wasn't...
pitiless. remorseless. insane.

So are you?
Your girl speaks your name again, she's really worried now. Probably thinking about calling an ambulance. She's a Wilding, a true member of that rare breed. Doesn't know who you are of course.
Doesn't know you know.
Could kill her. Could be well gone before she realises she's dead.
Can't.
Why not?
Because I'm human.
A good answer.

And you stop gasping bile out on your path. And you stand up, and you cling to the girl, and you tell her you know everything, who you are, who she is. That you don't care.
And you hope it doesn't all go to shit.
And you wait for whatever is coming next.

There is lightning striking the earth near him. The air tastes of ozone, sweat, eucalyptus and dirt.
He looks up, and the girl is struck by the intensity of those eyes, blazing blue, literally blazing as power erupts from every pore, he screams, a cataclysm of sound, and the girl is hurled from her feet, the earth grinding and writhing in his grip.
Power arcs in the air, an indigo blaze snarling around him, almost drowning out the screaming wrenching itself out of his throat.
He rears back onto his knees and the power continues pouring itself outward, scorching into the sky above, then, as abruptly as the fit had begun, it's over and he's slumped forward tiredly.
The girl, brown eyes wide with worry, is by his side almost instantly, soothing hands on shoulders which are still spasming, cooling words to calm the sobbing which has replaced the screaming.
She wraps tanned arms around him and looks into the distance as he gasps onto her shoulder.
This is the fourth fit in as many days. He's new at this, and the power is difficult to get a handle on.
As it should be. The lives of twentieth century humanity had all been inseperably bound to war, whether directly through being part of the largest armies in history, or in succeeding generations, economically and politically in the Cold War.
It had been a century sacrificed on his altar, and the energy it'd produced was almost too much to bear.
He eventually calmed and sat back, as they were joined by an extravagantly ruffed, dark-haired man, eyes a sea-ice green, beard pointed like a rapier.
He eyed the two, mouth twitching with frustration. "Mez Wilding...this boy is *bleeding* energy into the mythosphere at a phenomenal rate. If he keeps recycling energy like this..well.."
The girl looks back imperiously "Well what Master Tercio?"
The man stroked his pointed beard and looked back unaffected by the brown eyes glaring at him. "Then the Earth with have a mythosphere for the first time in a millenia. A far more potent one than it originally had. Magic will return. In fact, I suspect he's already pumped enough power into the mythosphere for it to return to it's pre-Christian levels."
The girl gasped, and Tercio smiled slightly, eyes softening. "You didn't realise did you child. This boy is the legacy of a century of wars fought on an unimaginable scale and his raw power reflects that. Your border skirmishes with the Sidhe have killed as many in a millenia as died in a month in the Somme. There's nothing like him in all the Empires."
The young woman swallowed, shaking herself. "What can we do about it then?"
Tercio shrugged elaborately, "Absolutely nothing. He'll stop when he's ready. If we kill him, we dump all of that power back into Earth's mythosphere at once, which will fry the place. Miserable dive though it is, it is my home and I'd rather it not be a floating cinder. No my dear, all we can do is wait."

Two Hundred Years Later (AD 2202), The Wilding Court.

Daebra Fairhall frowned and tugged at the neckline of her gown, trying to show off a little more cleavage than the strait-laced lines of the dress had been designed to do. Her grandmother, sat comfortably on the baroque chair next to her, mudshake in hand, grinned at her.
"Your mother beat you to the dressmaker again then Dae?"
Daebra gave up on the dress, summoned a wineglass from the circling spook-waiter, took a long swallow, and shot her grandmother, who's dress displayed a body that outshone Daebra's even at an age that even modern humans were unlikely to reach, a filthy look, much to the older woman's amusement.
"It's all right for you Gran, you're the much respected ArchSorceress and you can wear what the Unseelie you like. I on the other hand, am monitored constantly by Mother. Blasted woman treats me like I'm ten. It's not fair."
Her grandmother giggled, brown eyes amusedly sympathetic.
"You remind me of me when I was a bit younger than you are now. Of course I..well I got the magic. And your Grandfather."
She cast a fond look at where a pale, dark-haired man, clad in Sorceror's red, was gesturing expansively at some colleagues.
He looked round, grinned at his wife, and winked, then turned back to his discourse.
Daebra grumbled. "I certainly don't have anyone to match Grandfather, and magic is...uncomfortable...around Mother."
Her grandmother raised a black eyebrow. "Don't dissemble with me young lady. Your mother is jealous of your power, pure and simple. Silly woman. I know my daughter. Girl's been difficult since the day she was born, and even worse since your father died. Don't take any silliness from her about your magic."
Daebra raised her hands in an admission of defeat. "I know, I know. It's just so difficult...aside from you there's no one I can really talk to."
Her grandmother sighed. "Not a problem I ever had I'm afraid. But the only way to get around that, is to go out and find people to talk to, so scoot, out on the dancefloor with you kiddo."
She made shooing motions, and Daebra laughed.
"Alright, alright."
She dissaparated her wine glass, took a last tug at her neckline, and moved out onto the floor.

Mythosphere Re-established Earth, Wellington, AD 2003.

Debbie Fairhall laughed delightedly as the glasses spun above her head, tiny sparks of magic flying off them.
"Oh it's beautiful Chris, beautiful!"
Her husband smiled back, then looked round as a knock sounded from the door downstairs.
Debbie made a gesture and the locks on the door snapped open.
Someone jogged up the stairs, then edged through the door at the top.
Debbie and Chris smiled pleasedly and got up to greet the visitor, a young man, all dark jeans and jacket and glowing blue eyes.
After "hello"s had been exchanged Chris and Yam took seats and Debbie ducked into the kitchen.
"Yam! When did you get back?"
He shrugged. "Just now. I've got the teleporting bit down pat."
Chris looked interested, black hair flopping forward. "Really? We're not having much luck with it yet.."
Yam shrugged. "I just throw power at it."
Debbie reappeared, bearing a tray of drinks, shaking her head at Chris. "No shop talk!" Placing the tray down she joined Chris om his seat, then looked at Yam interestedly. "No Wilding?"
Unhappiness flickered across Yam's face. "We...uh..we broke up."
The couple exchanged a saddened look.
"Oh you poor thing.."

The Wilding Court, Now.

Daebra moved out onto the dancefloor, looking for an unattended human male. She wasn't speciest, she just had her preferences, as she'd put it to her grandmother in a previous discussion.
"Hrmm. Too old. Too pale. Too dressy. Too borderline paedophile. Ah. He's kinda familiar. Just right too."
She was eyeing a young man who was leaning against the heavily carved wooden walls of the ballroom, sharply dressed, but seemingly dozing. Even in his doze there was an air of readiness to move, so Daebra moved to a reasonable distance, cleared her throat, and spoke. "Would you like to dance?"
Spikey black hair flicked as the man snapped out of his doze, blue eyes zooming up her, freezing on her face.
"Ah..uh..Do I know you?"
Daebra shrugged. "Not that I know of, but you're kinda familiar too, probably just seen each other at one of these before."
The guy grinned, softening his grim features. "Nah..I'm not really big on these kinda occassions. 'Sides, I always remembered pretty dark-haired girls." He winked.
Daebra grinned back. "Oh dear, a smooth talker. My mother always warned me about your type. But I'm not very big on these soirees either, so, continue this conversation on a balcony?"
The guy nodded, and then followed as Daebra swept across the dancefloor, racking her brains as to how she knew the young man.

Mythosphere Re-established Earth, Hawke's Bay, 20 Years Earlier (AD 2178).

Yam fingered his combat webbing and looked down at the sobbing woman, cradled in her mother's arms as she cried, each body-racking tear shaking her body.
"I'm sorry Anna..there was nothing I could do. I...Richie died well."
Anna stopped sobbing abruptly and glared at him venomously. "He DIED WELL!? You CARRION CROW! You ghoul! How could you let him die! HOW COULD YOU!?"
Yam edged backward. "I.."
A hand on his shoulder, and he looked back into Chris Fairhall's saddened eyes. "C'mon Yam, we'll leave Anna with her mother."
He followed the older-looking man, shoulders slumped, out of the living room where his best friend cradled her bawling daughter.
Chris lead him into the kitchen, sat him at the magic-carved wooden table, and poured two generous shots of scotch.
"Damned pity. Sidhe bastards." He knocked his shot back.
Yam picked up his, stared into the amber liqour. His "Sidhe bastards." was almost a whisper.
A toddler stumbled into the room, eyes wide, framed by the Fairhall clan's black hair, and Chris scooped her up.
Yam smiled sadly. "Hey Dae."
A chubby toddler fist waved as her grandfather bounced her on his knee. The little girl looked worried, emotions in the house evident even to a two-year old.
Yam reached out for her and Chris passed him the child, who snuggled close to the War God, smells of his webbing and combat gear the familiar scents she associated with her now-dead father.
Yam looked down at her, and stroked her hair. "It's alright Dae. It's alright. I promised your Daddy I'd keep you and your mother safe. I promised."

Wilding Empire Border World of Angrigan Tan, 2 years later.(AD 2180)

Daebra walked determindly down the corridor, all the effort and willpower a four year old could muster clear in her eyes.
She wanted her Nanna. And her nanna was here. She didn't know why they'd come to Angrigan Tan, something about "colonists" and "teleport inefficiences". Whatever it was, it'd needed her nanna.
She turned a corner, little legs stumping on at a rapid pace, then stopped, staring at the backs of two people in blackish grey uniforms, kneeling in the corridor, looking through the scopes of their weapons at the door of her nanna's office.. They looked like guards. But her nanna's guards wore reddy-grey. So Daebra thought for a moment, then walked forward and tapped one on the shoulder.
He jumped and swore, then swung round, muzzle of his weapon aimed above her head, then at her as he noticed her height.
His eyes, a disturbing shade of red, widened, and he rattled something in a language which sounded like things breaking at his friend, who also eyed her.
Daebra was an intelligent child, and she was also a sorceress. An untrained one sure, but she still knew when people meant her harm. So she yelled out as loud as she could with her mind as one of the men reached for her.
A "foom!" came in the corridor, and a black blur threw both the men at the wall, hard enough for them to shatter it's pale plaster.
Hard as they'd hit, both not-men bounced upward, knives in hands, only for the blur to shatter one's skull and kick the other with a fully extended leg under the ribs, flinging him away.
The blur whirled back to Daebra, resolving into a worried-looking, dark-haired young man, who checked her over swiftly as her Grandmother burst out of her office, gaped at the two bodies, then swore.
"Blasted Sidhe. Is she alright Yam?"
The man looked back at her grandmother. "She's fine. I"
Whatever he was about to say was interupted as her mother burst out of the office and clawed at him, snatching Daebra away, clutching the girl to her, hissing at the man to get away, stay away from her child.
The young man sighed, then vanished, no "foom" accompanying him this time.
And Daebra was sad.

The Wilding Court, Temple District, 6 Years Later.(2186)

Dae frowned at her mother's exiting back, the older woman stalking away, fury crackling off her, little "pop!"s of red coloured light showing that fury for all to see as her rage over-rode her control.
Dae didn't know what the argument had been about originally, her mother'd found fault with something she'd done while they sat behind her grandparents in the huge wooden hall that served as the chief church on Wilding, and where attendance at the MidWinter Thanksfest was pretty much mandatory, even for just-turned-eleven year olds.
Whatever the fault had been, it had been magnified by her mother into a tirade as soon as they left the room, Anna's spitting fury carefully removed from her parent's view.
Dae's mother always seemed to be angry. Her grandparents were always sad around Anna as well, old pain in their eyes, but they never said anything, Anna was a grown woman after all.
The girl sighed and pulled her gloves out of her semi-formal gown's pockets, donning them as she considered her options.
Her mother wouldn't calm down for hours, her grandparents would be circulating with the other dignitaries and the few other children present would avoid her, as usual, because of her mother.
She kicked the stone bench she was sitting on with a sensible shoe, looking blindly out the window into the snowy gardens.
The Dark Gardens, as they were formerly titled, were the surroundings of the Church of Thanks for a practical reason, to remind those giving thanks of those who they should be thankful for, literally, those who'd died in service of the Court, the Gardens being the military cemetary of the Wilding Worlds.
Her father's grave was out there somewhere. She didn't know precisely where, her mother never visited it and she didn't like to ask her grandparents. She continued staring out at the gardens, expression turning thoughtful, then she hopped down from her bench, snapped her fingers, and the glowing blue ball of a fetch popped into existence in the antechamber she was in.
"Yes Mistress?" came the neutral, genderless voice of the fetch.
"Fetch, I want to see the grave of Richard O'Connell, if that's possible."
The blue ball bobbed.
"If the mistress will follow me?"
She nodded, and the globe floated sedately out into the still, crisp air of the Gardens, Dae's sensible shoes crunching in the snow, waterproofing spells repelling the powdery stuff away.
She followed the fetch down winding path after winding path, passing inumerable headstones, carved with names in languages she didn't know, styles of writing that were barely recogniseable as writing, the writing changing gradually into the spidery form of modern Wilding Prime, the names becoming pronounceable and the deeds recorded on the headstones within recorded history.
Wilding was an old world.
Eventually the fetch paused, bobbing outside a walled off sector, heavy silver gates swung open under an arch with "Terran Plots" wrought into it.
Dae pursed her lips, and shivered. The Terran sector looked somehow...realler than the Wilding, the headstones obviously that, not the more elaborate and escapist types of the Wilding.
The fetch bobbed again, and moved between the gates, Dae sighed and followed, wrapping her arms around herself, cold penetrating her gown's thick folds, and made a note to learn some warming spells in the near future.
She wandered after her guide, the human plots were laid out in a grid separated by low walls, walls about the height of an eleven year old girl.
The fetch halted abruptly, then hovered. "Mistress, this is the grave you sought."
Dae looked down.
A simple cruciform headstone with "Maj. Richard O'Connell, 2149-2180" on the horizontal bar and "Beloved Husband, Father, Son and Friend." on the vertical column perched solemnly on a heavy marble masoleum.
That was her father's grave.
Dae sat down with a "whoosh" of breath, legs suddenly rubbery.
She reached forward with a gloved hand, touching the snow "Daddy.."
A tear ran down her face, and a sob escaped her.
Dae had no idea how long she sat there like that, long enough that when she heard the crunch of footsteps, sounding far, far away through her daze, she wobbled as she tried to stand, legs cold and numb. She wiped her eyes, trying to listen.
Silence.
No footsteps.
She edged round the wall, peering out. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone in a graveyard with no one knowing where she was. She opened her mouth to summon the fetch, then the footsteps came again.
Heavy footsteps, coming towards her.
She gasped, looking frantically for somewhere to hide, to get away, panic flaring in her eyes.
No hiding spots presented themselves, so she ducked behind her father's tomb.
Hide me Daddy!
The footsteps kept coming closer and closer.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
They halted, sounding so close Dae darely bared to breathe.
A flat tenor voice spoke.
"Richie..."
The word carried overtones of regret and sadness so potent Dae could taste them on the air.
"I tried buddy. I did. She said no again. I'm sorry man."
Leather creaked, and she heard the the faint flap-thump of heavy cloth moving as a gust swirled through the cemetary.
Faint amusment coloured the next statement.
"Don't get frisky bud." The amusment ebbed away.
"I'm sure Anna'll come to her senses. Kid's gotta know her daddy some day right? She's only just turned eleven after all buddy, plenty of time for her to come see you yet."
The wind gusted again, and Dae swallowed, the voice was unmistakeably talking about her.
She started panting. Why was a voice talking to her dead father about her?
Dae leaned out, edging around the masoleum, trying to see..
The black cloak's sudden flapping made her gasp, sticking her fist in her mouth as she looked up, and up at the colour-swallowing black armour of the speaker, up and up until her eyes were fixed on the sharply swept helmet, and the glowing blue behind the eye slots.
She must have whimpered, made some little noise, because the helmet snapped down, that blue glare fixing on her, and Dae screamed, scrambled to her feet and took to her heels, reaching a truly respectable speed in the 3 bounds it took her to run straight into the wall, head-first, then bounce back into the snow dazedly.
Just before everything went black, a worried voice spoke questioningly.
"Dae?"

Someone was carrying her and talking quietly into the air, worry fading from their voice as whoever was talking back encouraged it away.
"She took a hell of a bang though Debs. Yes alright, I know."
She couldn't remember the last person to carry her. Her father had, she knew, she'd seen pictures of herself on his shoulders.
"Yeah. Straight into the wall. Faster than I've ever seen her grandmother move, heh."
This wasn't Daddy though. Daddy was dead, and though this person smelt like Daddy, there were differences.
Like Daddy hadn't smelt faintly of ozone.
Dae moved her head to look up at the face of her carrier, just as the finger's of the hand supporting her head started to knead her scalp.
"Go back to sleep little one. Rest easy Dae, I've got you."
She struggled for a moment, but her eyelids were so heavy, so very..heavy.
Conciousness ebbed away and she hugged tighter as it fled.

The Wilding Court, Now.

Dae leant on the marble balcony, looking out, up at the numberless stars, the cool night a vast black cloak studded with the gems those stars made.
She smiled happily, glancing at the guy, who'd followed her out, and who was also looking up at the sky, then back at her, calmly returning her study.
A black eyebrow quirked.
"Like what you see ma-am? I can pirouette if you wish.."
A smile accompanied his words.
Dae giggled. "No, no, I'm fine. Thank you. I'll let you know if you need to twirl for me."
The guy grinned at her and sketched a bow, "I'll endeavour it be a satisfying one."
He resumed his lean, looking at her.
Dae put a hand on her chin and looked back. They stared at each other for a while, before he spoke.
"Damn but you're familiar. I should know your name."
Dae twitched a lip in a suppressed smile. "Same here. Frustrating isn't it?"
He nodded, halting as the song playing inside ended, ebbing into the next one with the "plunk" of harp strings, then a female singer joined in in a wavering soprano.
"Yours, till the stars lose their glory...*"
He looked stunned and Dae leaned forward, chiding herself for the panic that'd ripped through her at his sudden change of mood. She'd only just met the man, didn't even know his name..
"Are you alright?"
"I..ah...it's an old song. A very old song."
"Yours, till the end of life's story..."
"From Terra. From an era no one else remembers..."
He looked back at Dae, blue eyes suddenly intent.
"I'd be really pleased if you'd dance with me to it?"
Dae smiled easily. "Sure. Don't like the soiree, love the dancing."
The dark-haired man smiled back. "Never met a woman that didn't."
They moved into a formal dancing pose old when steam was new, and spun and stepped on the balcony, in a world of their own, only seeing each other as they trod out the steps of a waltz predating Mankind's accession to the stars.
Gradually the music faded away, and...
"When I was born to be, just yours..."
The last note faded and the two leaned towards each other and, ever so gently, ever carefully, kissed.
Time stopped.
Or at least that's how it felt.
But time marches on, and people have to breathe, and eventually they broke apart, eyes locked, hands raised to faces which were found unutterably precious and the knowledge that this was the Moment most people wait lifetimes for.
They dived into a fresh kiss and confirmed for now, and for all time, that two bodies containing half a soul each had found one an other, and become a whole once more.
The kiss ended. As close as two people who're fully dressed can get, they regarded each other in wonderment.
Dae smiled, laughing softly.
A smile mirrors her own, but questioning.
"I still don't even know your name."
"Yam. Yamatto TwentyCee. And yours?" says the lover, soothing hands in his other half's hair.
And she replies.
"Daebra. Daebra O'Connell."

After all, love is proven through adversity, is it not?

*The song quoted is "Yours" by Vera Lynn, I have no idea if you can waltz to it or not, but it sounds like you can. Vera Lynn > Any chick singer you care to name.

Also, due to the fact that I use Yam's name as an irc handle, I feel kinda bound to point out that, whilst I would crawl over broken glass to have a love like described above, this is still fiction and I do not actually condone accidentally falling in love with a best friend's grandchild. There's something vaguely pervo about that when you put it like that, isn't there?
Well...Rezo will find something pervy in it I'm sure.
Still...FEAR MEIN UBERMENSCH.

The Wilding Court, AD 2202.

I can't do this.
The young woman smiles quizzically, lips quirking, half worried and half amused.
"What's wrong? You look shocked..." She half raises a hand, and Yam jerked back.
I mustn't do this.
"I...I can't...this...No!"
With a "bang!" and a flash of blue light, he vanishes, leaving Dae standing confusedly, embarrassedly on the balcony.
"But..."
Her knees wobble under her, and she sinks to the cold floor of the balcony, wrapping her arms around her legs, brown eyes sightless with confused grief.
Everything was right. So right! What did I do, why did he vanish like that?
She rocked back and forth against the marble balustrade, an unconscious low whine escaping her, shock painted on her countenance, horror at the immediate loss on finding of her other half.

Inside, Debs Fairhall, Arch-Sorceress and Magister of the Black Collegium staggers slightly as loss and grief pour down the subtle link she shares with her granddaughter, next to her, her husband catches the edge of it, grabbing her arm to support her as she sways.
Shaking herself, she frees her arm from his grasp.
"No, no, not me, no time for me, something is wrong with Dae, we have to go to her, did you see where she went?"
Chris shakes his head, mouth open with worry for his only grandchild and Debs hisses a curse, raising her hands to scry for Dae, before a calm, ancient Wilding man clad all in white, places a hand on her forearm.
"I know her laugh Debs, I heard it...there."
A finger the colour of pale wood points unshakingly at the curtained balcony. A quick nod of thanks to the Wilding and the two Fairhalls stride through the dancers, the magic crackling from them causing a path through the whirling bodies to ripple clear.

Chris, longer-legged, is first through the curtains, stooping to his grand-daughter's side, whilst Debs flicks the curtain back, grimacing at that awful soft whine.
From his crouch, Chris strokes Dae's hair back from her grief-stricken face, and essays a soft query.
"Honey, honey-bear what's wrong?" Unreplying, the young woman wraps her arms around her grandfather's neck, burying her face in his chest.
Debs scowls, an expression unsuited to her, clenching her fists and raising a black orb around the three. The orb lifts gently from the ground and into the night sky, heading arrow-straight for The Ebon Tower, home of the Black Collegium's Magister.

As the orb hurtles through the sky, Chris layers magic around his grand-daughter, searching for what could cause this...whatever it is, finding nothing before they land on the platform on the Tower designed for just such an entry.
The two half-carry the girl to their apartments, worry and rage radiating off them, before reaching the lounge and, still holding her between them, they continue to try and coax Dae from her fugue.

Hours pass before the girl recovers enough to speak.
"Why did he go? Why did he leave like that?"
Grief and loss is not what the two expected to hear in Dae's voice, Debs lifts the girl's chin, holding her eyes with her own.
"Who Dae, who left?"
Dae's eyes are hollow, shadows of their usual warm splendour and her voice sounds dreamy and far away as she replies.
"There was a boy at the dance. He was a very handsome boy and he was like someone I've always known, but never met...but he ran away. Why did he run away?"
Debs looks at her husband, who shoots back an equally confused look, before mouthing "I'll fetch a White.", before fading out of existence.
"Dae, honey, tell me more about this boy...why did he run away?"
Dae clutches her grandmother, eyes lost.
"He ran away. He shouldn't have run away, because when he was there everything was right, and when he ran away everything was bad."
The clouds vanish from her eyes, and she shoots Debs a look of unnervingly total intensity. "I shouldn't have told him my name. That was when he ran away and I shouldn't have said, no I shouldn't have!"

Chris fades back into view behind the girl, the white-clad Wilding from the ball beside him, over whose features shock ripples as he looks at Dae, he leans forward and places his hand on her head, white light flaring, Dae folding forward onto her grandmother's shoulder, still murmuring "Shouldn't have, no, shouldn't have, stupid, stupid name!, shouldn't have said, no..."

The Wilding man looks at the two older wizards, face expressionless, but worry still flowing from him as he speaks. "Where is he?"
A confused look passes between the humans, the Wilding's face falling at their confusion. "So...he is not here, the young man who is the other half of the soul-bond that is draining this girl?"
"Soul bond?!" squawks Chris "My granddaughter isn't old enough to soul-bond!". Debs rocks back, hissing, before the Wilding quells them both with a stare ages old.
"Soul-bonds are never formed between those who are not ready, Dae is part of one, thus she is ready. But not, I suspect, her partner."
"Explain Bodrigan, explain before I scry this young man out and fry him!" demands Chris, fists clenched, wiry body tensed and red robes flaring as magic surges around him.

The Wilding, Bodrigan looks down at Dae sadly. "He is crystal clear in her thoughts, this boy. Sealed it with a kiss they did, silly young fools. Why ever he ran, the bond is soaked in..." He licks his lips, ever-so-slightly, as though tasting the air. "Grief, loss. Confusion."
Bodrigan stoops down next to Dae. "From her, sadness so deep she will drown in it if not cured." His eyes darken. "From him, the echoes of a rage that would see worlds burn for what has been done to it."
"Worlds burnt?" Debs questions, covering her mouth with the hand that isn't stroking her granddaughter.
"Aye." Bodrigan rubs an eyebrow. "Whoever he is, he is very, very powerful, for he is far, far away and still I can discern his emotions as though he were next to me..."
Chris sighs, the rage flowing out of him almost visibly. "A soul-bond to an incredibly powerful wizard we don't even know the name of. That's my honey-bear, always getting herself in scrapes, and this time there's no Yam to rescue her."

Dae, still slumped on her grandmother, turns fever-bright eyes on her grandfather. "That's his name too, the boy who ran away." She smiles dreamily, Bodrigan's white light still holding her spirit-sapping grief back. "When I told him my name, bang! Blue light and off he runs! No more boy!" She giggled, the giggles fading away into body-racking sobs, clutching her grandmother, who shares a stricken look with her husband.
"It can't have been..."
Bodrigan looks at them both.
"Yam is who? The name fits the young man I can feel, it's not the whole of it, but it does fit...it is his true name."
The two human mages exchange stunned looks and Bodrigan falls silent, face an unspoken question.