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Ch.43 (Phoenix): Twin Souls |
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About the last entry: Yes! I used Tarot Plain and Simple for my story again. For full details on the Celtic Cross spread, see Ch.20.
I had to find Anastasia's henchmen before I could do anything else, post haste! Flying would be too much to ask of my body as one full morph into a raven had taxed its limits a little too much already. So after spending the night with The Fortune Teller, I made my way, via mouse paws, back to where my most recent pupil and I had met the day before. 'She was heading west,' I thought, 'since Sunset Town is the western most part of this region. So, I should head east to find her home.'
Techinically, I wasn't stalking her, but having to find out where her home is, and therefore her henchmen, might be considered a little obsessive as I hadn't seen her in almost two years. Although it had taken me a little more than a day to reach Port de Gambino, the town I assumed was the place Anastasia called home now, I had spent the better part of the other two asking around for where a young, blue-skinned sorceress might live. (I'd rather not go into the details of the responses I recieved, but let me just say that that's more times than I ever want to be called "freak", "idiot", or "noob" again. I'm still confused as to what that last one means.)
I was sitting on a dock near the edge of town, a grotto not too far up the beach from where I was. 'It's obvious that she doesn't live here,' I thought, contemplating giving up the search and going after her myself. And then, suddenly, a barn owl flew over head, a barn owl with an all too familiar stream of sparkles flowing out behind it. 'Jareth!' I thought harshly as I leapt to my feet and ran after my bird-brained older brother towards the unpredisposing grotto up the beach.
I reached the entrance to the grotto in no time at all. (I have been surprisingly good about retaining the vitatlity of my eternally 26-year-old muscles, so it shouldn't surprise you that I can flow as fast as a fleeting shadow.) I was about to knock on the door and then scope the place out if no one was in, but I heard voices comiing from behind the closed door. One of them was my brother's. "What is it Anastasia wanted to tell me?" he asked.
"She wanted to tell you that you didn't explain everything and she wants to know the whole truth," shot back an indignant voice. (It seemed I wasn't the only one my brother had pissed off today.)
Changing strategies, I stepped into the shadow of the doorway and slid into it and under the door. Being part fae, and immortal, had advantages; aside from being able to shape-shift, I was able to become virtually invisible as long as I could dissolve into a shadow first. (This had been a handy talent even before my eternal damnation had begun.) I hid on the wall near the door as I listend intently to my brother.
"Are you sure that isn't what you want?" he asked, keeping a cool head with the obviously fuming green eel humanoid in front of him. It could've been a trick of the sunlight but I thought I he looked like Jasper in sea-creature form. Looking back at him though, as he ranted about how dellusional, self-absorbed, and uncaring Jareth was, I noticed his eyes were sparkling-blue, not the grey-green eyes that Jasper and I had shared.
"You have no idea what of what it's like to love a woman who doesn't love you in return," he finished, breathing hard with frustration. Anger reared its ugly head slightly when I heard that he had not only romanced Ana behind my back but also behind that of her, currently furious, green-scaled servant. Knowing that giving my position away would be suicide, I chose to let it dissappate; I hadn't lost my temper in so long, but whenever my brother was involved somehow with my most recent student, I felt tempted to unleash my dark side as never before. "I wish I could tell you what you say is true," Jareth responded calmly, "but you pre-maturely judge me. I, too, have fallen for a young woman who scorns my love,a nd no. It is not your mistress."
That certainly was a surprise. "Tell me what her name is," the servant asked skeptically.
"Sarah Williams."
I had seen that name before, in the history of the royal family of the labyrinth where Jareth was king. She had been the only person ever to defeat him in a challenge, and he still had a bruised ego from the encounter. I had known better than to ask him about during my stay at his palace, but even still, it was good to know he wanted nothing to do with Ana, romantically at least.
My brother turned to fly out of the hole in the ceiling of the grotto he had entered through. "Oh, and Flotsam-" he said. My ears perked up; Ursula had said that name when she had turned Jasper into her slave and servant over a year ago. I knew then that he must be close by. "Make sure she never brings her child (What?! Since when had this happend?!) to my palace again. It would cause a lot of painful memories to resurface in my mind, things I would rather forget. Farewell my friend. She's all yours." And then he left.
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Later that night, I peeked into what must be Anastasia's new bedroom. It had the essence of the one I had often snuck into when she was under my tutelage, but it had undertones of ocean all through-out, including the ginat scallop shell bed, where Flotsam was currently tossing and turning. I looked on her new desk and saw the photo I had given to her a little over a year ago, the ink still prominent as the day I had inscribed my message. I took it out of its frame (It must have hurt a lot when she found it, but she had had the incentive to keep it as a mementio of our time together. I was touched.) and placed it on top of a bunch of documents she must've been sorting through before I had met her a couple of days ago. From the look of it, they were all related to my mortal identity, in some way or another.
Flotsam stirred slightly, muttering, "Mistress, don't do this." in his half-wakeful sleep. I quickly exited the room, via moonlit shadows on the terrace outside her room, and warped back to the front entrance.
Another green, scaly servant, identical to Flotsam but for his dark skin and brown eyes, was standing outside, keeping vigilance for any sign of danger. When I appeared in front of him, he fingered a bottle of clear liquid near his waist, his tail twitching intently behind him. I held up my hands as a gesture of immediate surreneder. "I don't want to hurt you," I said, intending to go full on with im if he engaged me.
"What do you want then?" asked Ana's other servant. (I was forced to call him that since I had no idea what his name was right then.)
"I want to speak with Flotsam about something. He might have information as to something I'm looking for, a matters of the heart you might say."
The fact that I had known his comrade's name without him even saying it was probably the reason why he led me to Anastasia's bedroom without another word, stunned into silence. Flotsam was bending over the photograph I had left for him to find. (It was about time someone else knew my secret so I would not have to carry the burden alone, and since he, too, loved Anastasia as I had done, and maybe still did, I felt I could trust him.) "So, no you know," I said, breaking the silence surrounding us.
Flotsam started. "He came so suddenly," his friend replied. "He said he wanted to see you, something about matters of the heart."
Judging from her eel-humanoid servants and the oceanic theme of her decor, I theorized that my most recent student had become a sea-witch in my absence, though how and why I knew not. I walked over to Flotsam, giving him a good look at my golden eyes as I picked up the photograph I had left her, nostalgia clinging to my voice when I spoke. "Anastasia was a muse worthy to carry on the art of ocean magic. I only wish I had had the time to teach her myself. She would have benifitted from the mental barriers I could have built with her to help prevent her from forgetting Melissa."
Why I had included that last part I don't know, but then I remembered my dreams about my "twin", Lelouch. It was apparent he was in love with her and would stoop to anything to keep her for himself, as I had once done with Christine. I had also learned that he could order anyone to do anything by just looking at them, Geass I think his power was called. "You should do all within your power to make sure she doesn't forget her completely," I continued. "It is your duty as her student to help your teacher."
Again, I blanked out for a minute, but then when Flotsam asked, "How did you know I was her student?", it came back to me. A couple of nights before Jareth and Ana had encountered Lelouch in the Realm of Dreams, I had dreamt of an eel-humanoid with magical capabilities. I had told him to take the initiative to become a full-fledged sorceror in order to protect his teacher and also to be ready when the need arose to protect her. My thoughts settled, I turned and told him plainely, "I am her teacher, Phoenix Rose."
The two eels just looked at me. "You might know me better as Erik Legrange." (I had seen my name among the documents on Ana's desk, so I knew that at least Flotsam knew something about me. He seemed the studious type.) "Before you comment on my appearance, I must tell you this is not my true body. After I let my first muse find her own love with that insolent Vicomte de Chagny , I was both blessed and cursed with an immortal soul. A blessing because I would live to foster the gift of song in many more young muses. A curse because I would never be able to get married or have children and also because I would have to change bodies every few years."
There. Ana's most trusted friends and servants knew my secret. Both of them stood in awe of the person I had once been, and still was, for a few moments. After a while, Flotsam asked, "What can I do to help her?"
I responded witht the advice the Fortune Teller had told me to give. "You must make sure that she never forgets her friends, acquaintance or otherwise. The Tarot reader will expose her feelings to her soon so she will know how to solve her problems. However, she will not be able to do it alone. Write a note on this picture and swim to Sunset Town in three days. She will need your help, of this I am certain."
Taking care not to mar the beauty of my picture with Anastasia, Flotsam tore off a blank corner and quickly scribbled Remember your friends on it in green ink. Just as soon as it was finished, it blew out the window. As I took my leave of Jetsam (I had asked him his name, finally.), via flying off after the note with just my raven's wings, I heard Flotsam think, 'I hope this finds you, wherever you are.' I was not a mind reader, but I had never been able to hear anyone else's thoughts besides those of Lelouch. I pondered this as I flew off across the ocean to the west and towards a certain reunion with Anastasia.
 srs diva 2011 xxl · Wed Mar 31, 2010 @ 03:17am · 2 Comments |
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