Six days ago.
Rhy'Din Post Office
Tara was on a mission.
The refusal of the duelist community to assist her with communicating with Mathew Simon by hand-delivering letters she had written to him (on average, five a day), whom she was now referring to as God Simon regularly in conversation, coupled with what she saw as their constant discrimination of her height by keeping all the liquor bottles in the Outback on the highest possible shelves, forcing her to use magic to retrieve them, which was outlawed according to Gren Blockman, had forced her to these desperate measures she was about to take today.
It was very clear, at least to her, that she had no friends there and that if she was going to be successful in telling Simon how she felt, on a regular
basis and update him as to what was going on in her life, something she personally felt was of great interest to him, she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.
This meant manual labor.
Something Tara had hated her entire life.
Despite the fact that she was filthy rich, a result of being married a stupefying fifty times over the years and collecting various alimony payments when the husbands dropped dead, and having an army of servants, no living Queen past or present could ever have matched simply because they weren't nearly as narcissistic as she was, circumstances being what they often were, sometimes Tara found that she had to rely on herself to get a particular job done the way she had liked.
Which was how she ended up in the post office, dressed in her all-white freshly-clubbed Rhy'Dinian fur seal dress and matching coat, staring up at the Postmaster, from her position five feet below him on the floor.
She was only four feet tall but the desk he was situated behind was on a platform higher than she was, which made him nine feet above her head.
She supposed this was constructed this way so as to make him appear important, but as she stared, all she could think of was how amusing it would be if she hung him from a noose that high up so that when visitors to the post office came in, his swinging body would be the first thing they saw.
There was a line forming behind her but she paid this no mind. All she could hear was the imagined screaming of the visitors seeing their beloved Postmaster swinging back and forth like a pendulum of a clock.
The more she imagined this scene, she just couldn't stop staring and giggling at the man so high up and in turn, he was equally amazed at the sight she presented below him.
Mostly because while she looked amazing in what was obviously a very expensive outfit, her red hair seemed to be moving, like snakes, underneath the fur hat she wore and he was fascinated by it, as a result.
Most humans were, in her experience. Like she often said, if she ever dropped the illusion she presented routinely and appeared as she really looked, everyone would die of fright, yet they were curious about her nonetheless.
Her living hair aside, she finally found her voice, when the Postmaster was joined by his scruffy looking, young male assistant who was now also staring down at her, in disbelief.
"Is her hair alive?" the young man asked, elbowing the Postmaster in the rib.
"Shh," the man said and smiled down at her. "Greetings, child!"
She almost cringed. She hated when people mistook her for being a child because of how small she was but no amount of trying to educate the fools over the many years she had lived here, had helped.
They were going to have their misconceptions.
And, she was going to continue to try and make them regret them.
"I want to write a letter to God," she said, simply, and tucked her hands further into the fur muff which immediately began to tremble.
Right, about that.
While her hair being alive was more or less left entirely up to debate, depending on your point of view, the outfit she wore, made from those freshly-clubbed seals that her third husband Arrithon Anarion had once procured for her on a fishing expedition he went on, was, very much, living. It's just the seals no longer had appendages, eyes or functioning organs, but they suffered both the indignity of being worn by her during the Winter months and physical pain from having been separated from their bodies, regardless.
Living in Hell and being what she was, afforded one a specific imagination that most humans didn't have because they lacked the appropriate intellect and ability to disassociate themselves from their emotions to pull something like this off.
So, to compensate, they called her crazy.
To her, this was just the way she did business. Being crazy was a bonus.
"What about Santa? Don't you want to write a letter to him?," the man asked with a smile down at her.
She scrunched up her nose in confusion. "I took his hand four years ago in what the papers called a sledding accident, which is only true if you consider that I used one of the blades on his sled to do the chopping. Otherwise, that was all me, baby. And, no, I have nothing further to say to him unless you want me to ask him how his fleshy stub is doing? I want to write a letter to God, " she repeated and turned her cheek so she could nuzzle with several moving tendrils of her hair.
The man, horrified, looked to his coworker who was now pointing to a Wanted poster on the wall that had a crudely drawn depiction of her, with and without pigtails, for comparison. It had catchy words on it like "Extremely Dangerous" and "Do not, under any circumstances, approach!"
This was part of the reason why many believed she was a child. The pigtails, not the being extremely dangerous part. That went without saying so really the poster was redundant, if you asked her. No, the hairstyle she had chosen because she had noticed that it set many of the humans she interacted with at ease when they saw her as being childish, rather than what she truly was, and made them easier to manipulate.
It was a matter of convenience and necessity to be able to function among them, not really a personal preference of hers. After all, brushing her long red hair was something she loved to do, not braid it.
The assistant, growing more concerned for their safety by the second, now pantomimed that they should call the authorities and the Postmaster, readily agreed and nodded to him.
She was bored waiting for the two men to stop playing charades and turned to the woman behind her who had a long, rectangular, brightly decorated box in her hands, complete with a sparkly bow.
"Is that for me? You shouldn't have," Tara said with a smile.
The woman snorted. "No, finish your business, you're holding me up."
Taken aback by the woman's harsh tone, she smirked. "Okay, but I don't want to hear you complaining later how surprised you were by my actions. Remember, you asked it of me," she said and turned round to face the Postmaster again.
His assistant was on the phone, covering the mouthpiece with his hand and speaking softly into it, relayed directions to where they were and what she was wearing. She tilted her head at his obvious attempt at deception and looked to the Postmaster for clarification.
"Is the young male aware that I can not only hear what he is saying but his thoughts as well? Who is Theresa? And, why is he going to ask her to marry him if she is sleeping with Raul? I, on the other hand, have never slept with Raul or any Raul for that matter, and now as I think about what the young man is obviously tortured by, I am sad for it. Raul seems a competent lover, if the boy's thoughts are to be believed, that is. He sounds like he is a lot of fun! Maybe when I am finished writing God, I shall write Raul a letter as well."
And, that was how she ended up writing those letters, seated with her legs crossed, high up on the Postmaster's desk, using the carved out hole in the young male assistant's head for an inkwell.
Yes, the letters were written in blood and some brain matter but they were written with love.
Raul's especially.
If he thought Theresa was any good, he was in for a real treat with Tara.
Letters to Matt Simon
By the time the authorities arrived, there was not a square inch of the post office that was not covered in some sort of biological fluid, be it blood or
something else and/or some type of gore.
Even her beautiful white fur outfit was no exception and as the first of many men of the Watch came storming through the doors and immediately began slipping on the floor due to the mess (and the fact that their superiors did not think it prudent enough to purchase for them proper footwear that would allow them to traverse slippery environments like iced up ponds and blood-spattered post offices), they all fell down while she pointed, proudly to the Postmaster, now thirteen feet up in the air, hanging from his own tie from a rafter, above her.
"I did that! Me! Isn't he cute? He's like a pinata! Who has a blindfold? I want to play a game," she said, excitedly and bounced in place.
One of the men on the floor who was closest to her when he fell, and that was only because he skated clean across the room on blood and entrails, reached into his vest and pulled from it a tazer which he tried to zap her in the ankle with but she was too fast.
She leaned down and snatched it from his hand and spent a few precious seconds, closely inspecting it at eye-level before she hopped off the desk and walked, gracefully, over to where the lady who had been holding the brightly decorated box behind her, was now pinned by the very gift she had been planning to send to some distant relative, against the wall.
The sword's pommel, ornately decorated and most likely ridiculously priced, was jutting out from what used to be the woman's intact midsection. Her face, made up as she was likely on her way to a holiday party when she made what she probably thought was a quick stop into the post office but proved to be a lasting engagement, was contorted into an expression of agony.
Tara smiled at her despite the fact that she was very dead and gently began probing her face, neck and chest with the tazer and was delighted each and every time the woman's body jolted.
"What a remarkable toy this is," she said softly as she applied the tazer now to the exposed blade. "It reacts wildly with metal. I need to ask Anpu to get me one of these but in pink. This one is black. That is a nice color but I am a girl. I should have things which reflect my gender. Boys are so dumb," she said with a smirk and turned to look at the pile of Watchmen all scrambling to find their footing several feet away.
Some of them were shouting orders to the others but mostly they were all failing miserably at defeating a gravity that seemed to be three times as heavy as it normally was.
For a moment, she frowned and moving her head from side to side, sighed at her predicament.
"I am so alone now. These dumb boys are no fun. No one wants to play a game with me. Yer dead," she said and tossed a look to the woman held up against the wall by the sword.
She blinked.
Then squinted.
"No, yer not dead I have decided. Jus' a few minutes more an' then I shall write my letter to God," she giggled and walking back over to the woman, shoved the tazer into her open mouth and the woman, who had been very dead, came screaming back to life as she was electrocuted.
Tara smiled brightly and screamed at her above the woman's own screams so she could be heard.
"DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE A BLINDFOLD ON YER PERSON?! I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY PINATA! JAKE SAYS I SHOULD ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO INVITE PEOPLE TO JOIN IN FUN AND ENGAGING ACTIVITIES WITH ME INSTEAD OF BEING ANTI-SOCIAL! HE SAYS THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS AN' TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE ME! DO YOU LIKE ME?!"
The tazer now shorted out and popped out of the woman's mouth and hit the floor. Tara's eyes followed it down. She then looked back up to the woman who was gasping like a fish out of water, her eyes bloodied but wide with terror.
Tara spent a moment opening and closing her mouth like the woman, mistaking what was pain for a primitive attempt at communication.
"I do not know what you are trying to say," she said, finally, after five minutes of this with not being any closer to the woman's message.
"An' I do not like those who sneak up on me in an effort to harm me," she said more harshly as she whipped around and her hair, which was very alive at least at the moment, in spite of conflicting accounts over the years, lashed out like ropes to ensnare the Watchmen closest to her who had been crawling on his stomach with a knife, ready to stab her.
Her hair lifted him high up off the floor, above her head, completely wrapping him and began to constrict him. He made similar choking sounds to the dead then not so dead but very dead now woman behind her.
Tara lifted a tiny finger and wagged it as she admonished him.
"I am not so young, you see. I am very old but I have been gifted the ability to look innocent so that those like you can be more agreeable towards me. I am told you all are not so fond of monsters. That they scare you. Where I come from, monsters are the norm an' I am a mother to many of them. If you doubt me, you will soon see that this is truth. Now I had not planned to dispatch you but you come sneaking with yer cutting instruments an' you dumb boys rush in here, like fools, an' disturb my merry-making. This displeases me. You do not wish to be friendly, as Jake might say, an' so I must teach you how to be like he taught me. But, not here. Here, I must write my letter to God Simon. But when I am finished, I am going to take you home with me an' you will learn manners, respect an' friendship."
There could be no further debate.
Her hair was most definitely a living pile of venomous snakes.
Because as she walked over to the steps to ascend the platform where the Postmaster and his assistant had been, the strands of her hair that had wrapped themselves around the Watchman, now broke off from the rest. He fell to the floor like the tazer. And, was strangled there.
By those serpents all vying to be the one to do him in first.
He could not scream. You need air to do that.
That's impossible when your ribcage is so confined as his was.
But he did wheeze.
He did whimper.
And, in the final seconds of his life he pleaded for mercy with a simple, "Help," that escaped his lips with the last breath of air he'd ever exhale.
The rest of the Watchmen, all still on the floor, now from fear rather than not being able to find their footing in the bloodbath around them, stared at the scene with the appropriate level of horror.
Their extensive level of training had not prepared them for this and they had seen some crazy things in Rhy'Din but none quite so disturbing as the room now being occupied primarily by demon underlings, who appeared out of nowhere, armed with rusted grappling hooks, which they swung, slightly from side to side as if waiting for further instructions.
Tara pointed to the group of Watchmen and yelled, "Seize them!"
And, so they did.
The grappling hooks sunk into their flesh easily despite their rusty nature and Tara picked up the parchment letters she had written with a giggle.
"I saw a play once where the actor who played a king yelled for his guards to seize his enemies an' I was so moved from it so as a result, I always wanted to say that," she explained as one of the demons led her, by hand, down the steps.
"I jus' never got the chance. Thank you very much for allowing me this unique opportunity. You are all so very kind. I need to go find me a Postman now that is alive to deliver these letters seeing as this place is pretty much out of order, but I do wish you all well an' hope you will join me later in the Hall of Sorrow for a fabulous feast I have planned. We're having roasted warthog which is something I recently learned how to hunt when Jake's manor ran out of food. The jelly monsters ate it all. I was in such a panic too when he invited everyone to come stay for dinner an' realized that the larder was empty. Those jellies are very hungry, as are my guests," she said and smiled as the demon kissed her hand.
She then walked to the door, holding her two letters tight to her bosom and then looked at them all one last time.
"Although, I feel it would be in poor taste if I were not to warn you that there is only so much warthog, so when we run out, we're going to eat what's left of you. I have to go now. See you later! Bye!" she chimed and hurried out the door.
Behind her, their screams reverberated throughout what used to be the post office.
Tara, on the other hand, only had to walk twenty eight feet before she found a postman who was walking in her direction, presumably to show up for work.
She cut him off before he could get there, thrusting Matt and Raul's letters toward him.
"Please deliver these an' thank you so much for your continued service to our community! Rain, sleet, snow or shine, yer always hard at work! I, for one, am very grateful for it. Bye!"
The postman took the letters, smiled at her and continued on his way until he saw the parade of demons, dragging members of the Watch on grappling hook chains behind them, out the door of his building and into the street where they popped open a sewer grate and began tossing all the men down into it.
He dropped Tara's letters and stared.
They eventually got to their destination but for the moment were on the street as he watched this all unfold.
All the demons were dressed like court jesters, but one stood out simply because she was in a dress.
It was this one that approached with a cunning smile.
It also spoke to him and said, "I would be quick about delivering those letters. The last person that defied her, she cut into a million pieces, numbered them an' made the man's wife put him back together again before she strangled her with her own intestines when the sands in the hourglass ran out. I wouldn't piss her off, if I were you."
The postman picked up the letters and took off running.
He would later relay all this to friends at the Red Dragon Inn.
None of whom would believe him.
But they would all get a good laugh out of it.
Matt, in the interim, would get his letter, as would Raul. Whoever he was.
And, sometime later on, there would be a great warthog feast in Hell.
In the so-called Hall of Sorrow.
And, Tara would be the hostess of this event with captive Watchmen as dessert.
something else and/or some type of gore.
Even her beautiful white fur outfit was no exception and as the first of many men of the Watch came storming through the doors and immediately began slipping on the floor due to the mess (and the fact that their superiors did not think it prudent enough to purchase for them proper footwear that would allow them to traverse slippery environments like iced up ponds and blood-spattered post offices), they all fell down while she pointed, proudly to the Postmaster, now thirteen feet up in the air, hanging from his own tie from a rafter, above her.
"I did that! Me! Isn't he cute? He's like a pinata! Who has a blindfold? I want to play a game," she said, excitedly and bounced in place.
One of the men on the floor who was closest to her when he fell, and that was only because he skated clean across the room on blood and entrails, reached into his vest and pulled from it a tazer which he tried to zap her in the ankle with but she was too fast.
She leaned down and snatched it from his hand and spent a few precious seconds, closely inspecting it at eye-level before she hopped off the desk and walked, gracefully, over to where the lady who had been holding the brightly decorated box behind her, was now pinned by the very gift she had been planning to send to some distant relative, against the wall.
The sword's pommel, ornately decorated and most likely ridiculously priced, was jutting out from what used to be the woman's intact midsection. Her face, made up as she was likely on her way to a holiday party when she made what she probably thought was a quick stop into the post office but proved to be a lasting engagement, was contorted into an expression of agony.
Tara smiled at her despite the fact that she was very dead and gently began probing her face, neck and chest with the tazer and was delighted each and every time the woman's body jolted.
"What a remarkable toy this is," she said softly as she applied the tazer now to the exposed blade. "It reacts wildly with metal. I need to ask Anpu to get me one of these but in pink. This one is black. That is a nice color but I am a girl. I should have things which reflect my gender. Boys are so dumb," she said with a smirk and turned to look at the pile of Watchmen all scrambling to find their footing several feet away.
Some of them were shouting orders to the others but mostly they were all failing miserably at defeating a gravity that seemed to be three times as heavy as it normally was.
For a moment, she frowned and moving her head from side to side, sighed at her predicament.
"I am so alone now. These dumb boys are no fun. No one wants to play a game with me. Yer dead," she said and tossed a look to the woman held up against the wall by the sword.
She blinked.
Then squinted.
"No, yer not dead I have decided. Jus' a few minutes more an' then I shall write my letter to God," she giggled and walking back over to the woman, shoved the tazer into her open mouth and the woman, who had been very dead, came screaming back to life as she was electrocuted.
Tara smiled brightly and screamed at her above the woman's own screams so she could be heard.
"DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE A BLINDFOLD ON YER PERSON?! I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY PINATA! JAKE SAYS I SHOULD ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO INVITE PEOPLE TO JOIN IN FUN AND ENGAGING ACTIVITIES WITH ME INSTEAD OF BEING ANTI-SOCIAL! HE SAYS THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS AN' TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE ME! DO YOU LIKE ME?!"
The tazer now shorted out and popped out of the woman's mouth and hit the floor. Tara's eyes followed it down. She then looked back up to the woman who was gasping like a fish out of water, her eyes bloodied but wide with terror.
Tara spent a moment opening and closing her mouth like the woman, mistaking what was pain for a primitive attempt at communication.
"I do not know what you are trying to say," she said, finally, after five minutes of this with not being any closer to the woman's message.
"An' I do not like those who sneak up on me in an effort to harm me," she said more harshly as she whipped around and her hair, which was very alive at least at the moment, in spite of conflicting accounts over the years, lashed out like ropes to ensnare the Watchmen closest to her who had been crawling on his stomach with a knife, ready to stab her.
Her hair lifted him high up off the floor, above her head, completely wrapping him and began to constrict him. He made similar choking sounds to the dead then not so dead but very dead now woman behind her.
Tara lifted a tiny finger and wagged it as she admonished him.
"I am not so young, you see. I am very old but I have been gifted the ability to look innocent so that those like you can be more agreeable towards me. I am told you all are not so fond of monsters. That they scare you. Where I come from, monsters are the norm an' I am a mother to many of them. If you doubt me, you will soon see that this is truth. Now I had not planned to dispatch you but you come sneaking with yer cutting instruments an' you dumb boys rush in here, like fools, an' disturb my merry-making. This displeases me. You do not wish to be friendly, as Jake might say, an' so I must teach you how to be like he taught me. But, not here. Here, I must write my letter to God Simon. But when I am finished, I am going to take you home with me an' you will learn manners, respect an' friendship."
There could be no further debate.
Her hair was most definitely a living pile of venomous snakes.
Because as she walked over to the steps to ascend the platform where the Postmaster and his assistant had been, the strands of her hair that had wrapped themselves around the Watchman, now broke off from the rest. He fell to the floor like the tazer. And, was strangled there.
By those serpents all vying to be the one to do him in first.
He could not scream. You need air to do that.
That's impossible when your ribcage is so confined as his was.
But he did wheeze.
He did whimper.
And, in the final seconds of his life he pleaded for mercy with a simple, "Help," that escaped his lips with the last breath of air he'd ever exhale.
The rest of the Watchmen, all still on the floor, now from fear rather than not being able to find their footing in the bloodbath around them, stared at the scene with the appropriate level of horror.
Their extensive level of training had not prepared them for this and they had seen some crazy things in Rhy'Din but none quite so disturbing as the room now being occupied primarily by demon underlings, who appeared out of nowhere, armed with rusted grappling hooks, which they swung, slightly from side to side as if waiting for further instructions.
Tara pointed to the group of Watchmen and yelled, "Seize them!"
And, so they did.
The grappling hooks sunk into their flesh easily despite their rusty nature and Tara picked up the parchment letters she had written with a giggle.
"I saw a play once where the actor who played a king yelled for his guards to seize his enemies an' I was so moved from it so as a result, I always wanted to say that," she explained as one of the demons led her, by hand, down the steps.
"I jus' never got the chance. Thank you very much for allowing me this unique opportunity. You are all so very kind. I need to go find me a Postman now that is alive to deliver these letters seeing as this place is pretty much out of order, but I do wish you all well an' hope you will join me later in the Hall of Sorrow for a fabulous feast I have planned. We're having roasted warthog which is something I recently learned how to hunt when Jake's manor ran out of food. The jelly monsters ate it all. I was in such a panic too when he invited everyone to come stay for dinner an' realized that the larder was empty. Those jellies are very hungry, as are my guests," she said and smiled as the demon kissed her hand.
She then walked to the door, holding her two letters tight to her bosom and then looked at them all one last time.
"Although, I feel it would be in poor taste if I were not to warn you that there is only so much warthog, so when we run out, we're going to eat what's left of you. I have to go now. See you later! Bye!" she chimed and hurried out the door.
Behind her, their screams reverberated throughout what used to be the post office.
Tara, on the other hand, only had to walk twenty eight feet before she found a postman who was walking in her direction, presumably to show up for work.
She cut him off before he could get there, thrusting Matt and Raul's letters toward him.
"Please deliver these an' thank you so much for your continued service to our community! Rain, sleet, snow or shine, yer always hard at work! I, for one, am very grateful for it. Bye!"
The postman took the letters, smiled at her and continued on his way until he saw the parade of demons, dragging members of the Watch on grappling hook chains behind them, out the door of his building and into the street where they popped open a sewer grate and began tossing all the men down into it.
He dropped Tara's letters and stared.
They eventually got to their destination but for the moment were on the street as he watched this all unfold.
All the demons were dressed like court jesters, but one stood out simply because she was in a dress.
It was this one that approached with a cunning smile.
It also spoke to him and said, "I would be quick about delivering those letters. The last person that defied her, she cut into a million pieces, numbered them an' made the man's wife put him back together again before she strangled her with her own intestines when the sands in the hourglass ran out. I wouldn't piss her off, if I were you."
The postman picked up the letters and took off running.
He would later relay all this to friends at the Red Dragon Inn.
None of whom would believe him.
But they would all get a good laugh out of it.
Matt, in the interim, would get his letter, as would Raul. Whoever he was.
And, sometime later on, there would be a great warthog feast in Hell.
In the so-called Hall of Sorrow.
And, Tara would be the hostess of this event with captive Watchmen as dessert.
Dear God Simon,
It is I, Tara Rynieyn, your most devoted and loving of former constituents now worshippers. Today I learned about the important role mail delivery plays in Rhy'Din when I took a field trip to the local post office. It is a nice place, filled with hard-working people. The wait time is not so long, the employees are very accommodating and it is so clean you could practically eat off the floor!
You should also be aware that the dedicated men of the Watch made an appearance and I, for one, am very glad to have that level of protection in what is essentially a town filled with godless heathens who are capable of almost any carnage. Just the fact that they stopped by to make us feel safe and see if we needed anything, made me feel so good. I was so impressed with them that I invited them back to my home for a home-made gourmet dinner that I am preparing in honor of their faithful service.
As you know from my letter two days ago, I recently saw your wife Lesser Goddess Koy and she was kind enough to offer to make my wedding dress should Anubis ever get around to asking me to marry him and stop pussy-footing around. Now, I do not want you to feel jealous over this. You must understand that Anpu and I have been in love for much of our lives but have never really been able to explore all that because of circumstances out of our control.
I married others while he married Dawn, thus pulverizing my heart into a fine dust that had he actually ripped it from my chest and stepped on it with his foot, would not have looked nearly the same nor been as badly damaged. I was an empty shell for so very long. I just recently got the opportunity to be his ONLY woman now instead of his secret mistress and you can, I'm sure, appreciate the level of excitement and triumph I am experiencing and realize that I'm like a kid in a candy store with him. It's a wonder the man has time to duel now that he's furiously mounting me left and right with none of the crushing guilt that used to be associated with our frenzied, if not awkward, past couplings in the dark. That and he isn't so depressed.
But, really, what I'm trying to say here is I do care for you very much despite being madly in love with him. I just cannot act upon it. Nor can I
particularly voice these feelings I have because whenever I do get the chance to talk to you, I feel very nauseous. It's almost as if I become the physical representation of Gren Blockman's various insecurities and traumas he's experienced throughout much of a life spent living in a treehouse in a forest and can do nothing to help myself whatsoever.
Like Gren can't find a real job.
So I am forced to write you.
Oh, before I forget. I want you to know I am not going to tell anyone about your God status, except for Jake, whom I call Muffin and is my second boyfriend next to Anpu. He is very sweet and can be trusted.
But because you ARE a God now, I felt it necessary to leave gifts for you AT the post office so that you could feel appropriately honored.
I hope you like them.
I made them with my very own hands.
If that does not indicate how cherished you are by me, I do not know what will!
Anyway, I should go now before I say something I will regret. I'm still considering that hug you should know but I'm going to really need you to shave those hairy legs before that happens because they do haunt me in my dreams something terrible.
And, I know men are supposed to be hairy but in your case, being as powerful as you are, your hair follicles are ridiculously overworked and it's just not a turn-on at all.
Jewelsie recently taught me a new term which I think is very apropos here.
When I was telling her a story she said she threw up a little in her mouth.
I need you to know that's what happens to me when I think of your legs.
So if you could get a handle on that, that would be most appreciated. Just please do not cut yourself because I think that might make me faint like what happens when you approach me without warning.
Okay.
It's Tara Rynieyn.
Bye now!
Bye bye!
It is I, Tara Rynieyn, your most devoted and loving of former constituents now worshippers. Today I learned about the important role mail delivery plays in Rhy'Din when I took a field trip to the local post office. It is a nice place, filled with hard-working people. The wait time is not so long, the employees are very accommodating and it is so clean you could practically eat off the floor!
You should also be aware that the dedicated men of the Watch made an appearance and I, for one, am very glad to have that level of protection in what is essentially a town filled with godless heathens who are capable of almost any carnage. Just the fact that they stopped by to make us feel safe and see if we needed anything, made me feel so good. I was so impressed with them that I invited them back to my home for a home-made gourmet dinner that I am preparing in honor of their faithful service.
As you know from my letter two days ago, I recently saw your wife Lesser Goddess Koy and she was kind enough to offer to make my wedding dress should Anubis ever get around to asking me to marry him and stop pussy-footing around. Now, I do not want you to feel jealous over this. You must understand that Anpu and I have been in love for much of our lives but have never really been able to explore all that because of circumstances out of our control.
I married others while he married Dawn, thus pulverizing my heart into a fine dust that had he actually ripped it from my chest and stepped on it with his foot, would not have looked nearly the same nor been as badly damaged. I was an empty shell for so very long. I just recently got the opportunity to be his ONLY woman now instead of his secret mistress and you can, I'm sure, appreciate the level of excitement and triumph I am experiencing and realize that I'm like a kid in a candy store with him. It's a wonder the man has time to duel now that he's furiously mounting me left and right with none of the crushing guilt that used to be associated with our frenzied, if not awkward, past couplings in the dark. That and he isn't so depressed.
But, really, what I'm trying to say here is I do care for you very much despite being madly in love with him. I just cannot act upon it. Nor can I
particularly voice these feelings I have because whenever I do get the chance to talk to you, I feel very nauseous. It's almost as if I become the physical representation of Gren Blockman's various insecurities and traumas he's experienced throughout much of a life spent living in a treehouse in a forest and can do nothing to help myself whatsoever.
Like Gren can't find a real job.
So I am forced to write you.
Oh, before I forget. I want you to know I am not going to tell anyone about your God status, except for Jake, whom I call Muffin and is my second boyfriend next to Anpu. He is very sweet and can be trusted.
But because you ARE a God now, I felt it necessary to leave gifts for you AT the post office so that you could feel appropriately honored.
I hope you like them.
I made them with my very own hands.
If that does not indicate how cherished you are by me, I do not know what will!
Anyway, I should go now before I say something I will regret. I'm still considering that hug you should know but I'm going to really need you to shave those hairy legs before that happens because they do haunt me in my dreams something terrible.
And, I know men are supposed to be hairy but in your case, being as powerful as you are, your hair follicles are ridiculously overworked and it's just not a turn-on at all.
Jewelsie recently taught me a new term which I think is very apropos here.
When I was telling her a story she said she threw up a little in her mouth.
I need you to know that's what happens to me when I think of your legs.
So if you could get a handle on that, that would be most appreciated. Just please do not cut yourself because I think that might make me faint like what happens when you approach me without warning.
Okay.
It's Tara Rynieyn.
Bye now!
Bye bye!
Tara sat on the park bench munching on a corndog.
Now that she was no longer technically a vampire (but still had her fangs), being outside during daylight hours provided hours of entertainment that the night hours just didn't deliver on, even with all the werewolves about.
There were people EVERYWHERE.
And, they were doing things.
Like riding bicycles, playing tennis, there was even two old guys seated across from one another playing a game of what she called "Angry Chess" because all they did was stare each other down in what she felt was a nasty fashion. They also would sometimes smack one another with their canes.
She thought that was very funny.
And, then Famine showed up.
One of the four famous Horsemen, he was on the same managerial level she was down in the Inferno but deferred to her like his two brothers, with War being the only holdout.
War and Tara didn't get along and that was because, well, he was War and she had his girlfriend murdered.
Yes, War at one point was engaged to be married. It's not something he typically discusses not because it would kill his reputation in a heartbeat, because he didn't particularly care about all that, but because of her name.
Which if you guessed "Peace" was correct.
Her parents were hippies. It's a long story.
She was mortal.
She was beautiful.
And, she was a fabulous cook.
What more could an engineer of the Christian version of the Apocalypse really want or need besides that, right?
Anyway, suffice it to say, War lost Peace when Tara had what he called one of her "moments" over an innocent comment he made one night at dinner by saying that if she kept up at her current pace there wouldn't be any guys left to sleep with and then the French Revolution happened.
Not that you particularly want a history lesson here but it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the French people were starving to death and more to do with some creative maneuvering from two of Hell's more artistic and passionate demonic entities.
No, the French Revolution was a direct result of Tara convincing the Marquis de Sade to mock War's romance with Peace in his book, "Justine," by making it look like a love story he had thought up all on his own.
War got an advanced copy, saw the allegory for what it was, lost his ever loving mind and complained to Satan saying that Tara was not only outrageous but entirely disrespectful.
Satan didn't really want to get involved in all that drama so he told them to sort it out on their own.
And, that's how the guillotine was invented.
Its intended victim was Tara, alone, but when War started to tell Robespierre how this all played out and the man started speaking to the French people, pretty soon the King and Queen were dead and everyone was finally eating cake. Something they had been denied previously when the royals were in charge but was now in great abundance for some strange reason.
Then they decapitated Robespierre to celebrate.
No one is quite sure why that happened but what we do know is that War and Tara had no hand in THAT part of the Revolution.
Tara didn't get her head cut off but did manage to use it to cut off other people's heads. Except Robespierre.
When War saw how much fun she was having, he had the newly-sprung-from-the-Bastille De Sade take out a few more women in increasingly gruesome ways and then forgot about him when they locked him up in an insane asylum.
Demons are fairweather friends that way.
The feud between the two then continued down in the Inferno and had been going on ever since.
So seeing Famine just as she was licking the mustard off the tip of one of her fingers, wasn't exactly a welcome sight.
First of all, wherever the guy went, he made everyone hungry and they transformed into skeletons when they couldn't eat enough to keep themselves sustained.
Secondly, he was almost never cheery.
So why he was there was anyone's guess but Tara didn't want to wait around for any takers.
She smirked at him as she walked over to the hotdog cart to get another corndog.
Actually, twelve.
She wasn't immune to Famine's influential presence.
Which sucked but that's the way it was.
"What do you want?" she sneered as she hungrily gulped down one and then three more corndogs. "Make it quick, too. I have to fit into a wedding dress soon an' if I start gaining weight from all these fatty foods, I'm gonna be pissed."
"Minos wants to talk to you," Famine said as he plucked a corndog from her hand and watched as it shrivelled in his.
She frowned at that. "Do you have to be such a killjoy all the time? Jesus! Why does Minos want to talk to me?"
"Something about you sending an innocent downstairs without due process?"
She took another bite and looked up at the sky as she thought about what this might mean. Famine was sometimes cryptic and that was on the days he was willing to give up information. Mostly it was like picking lice off a horse. You could spend forever trying to get them all.
"I have no idea what yer talking about. Leave me be. Can't you see that I'm on my lunch hour here?! You guys take two hours an' no one ever bothers you when yer eating but when I do, suddenly its open season!"
"Boss sent me. Said you have to report to the Judges immediately and if you refuse, he's taking away your dragon."
"He can't do that! It was imprinted to me at birth! I sat on the damn egg for a century! I'd like to see him try to get one of the other girls to ride him. That'll be a laugh. Oh, fine!"
Swallowing the last corndog, she glowered at her friend.
"When I come back if the corndog peddlar is dead, I will personally see to it that every soul in India has more food than they know what to do with in their lifetime."
Famine's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."
She squinted. "Try me. Stay away from my food, loser!"
And, then she disappeared to go deal with the Three Judges.
Now that she was no longer technically a vampire (but still had her fangs), being outside during daylight hours provided hours of entertainment that the night hours just didn't deliver on, even with all the werewolves about.
There were people EVERYWHERE.
And, they were doing things.
Like riding bicycles, playing tennis, there was even two old guys seated across from one another playing a game of what she called "Angry Chess" because all they did was stare each other down in what she felt was a nasty fashion. They also would sometimes smack one another with their canes.
She thought that was very funny.
And, then Famine showed up.
One of the four famous Horsemen, he was on the same managerial level she was down in the Inferno but deferred to her like his two brothers, with War being the only holdout.
War and Tara didn't get along and that was because, well, he was War and she had his girlfriend murdered.
Yes, War at one point was engaged to be married. It's not something he typically discusses not because it would kill his reputation in a heartbeat, because he didn't particularly care about all that, but because of her name.
Which if you guessed "Peace" was correct.
Her parents were hippies. It's a long story.
She was mortal.
She was beautiful.
And, she was a fabulous cook.
What more could an engineer of the Christian version of the Apocalypse really want or need besides that, right?
Anyway, suffice it to say, War lost Peace when Tara had what he called one of her "moments" over an innocent comment he made one night at dinner by saying that if she kept up at her current pace there wouldn't be any guys left to sleep with and then the French Revolution happened.
Not that you particularly want a history lesson here but it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the French people were starving to death and more to do with some creative maneuvering from two of Hell's more artistic and passionate demonic entities.
No, the French Revolution was a direct result of Tara convincing the Marquis de Sade to mock War's romance with Peace in his book, "Justine," by making it look like a love story he had thought up all on his own.
War got an advanced copy, saw the allegory for what it was, lost his ever loving mind and complained to Satan saying that Tara was not only outrageous but entirely disrespectful.
Satan didn't really want to get involved in all that drama so he told them to sort it out on their own.
And, that's how the guillotine was invented.
Its intended victim was Tara, alone, but when War started to tell Robespierre how this all played out and the man started speaking to the French people, pretty soon the King and Queen were dead and everyone was finally eating cake. Something they had been denied previously when the royals were in charge but was now in great abundance for some strange reason.
Then they decapitated Robespierre to celebrate.
No one is quite sure why that happened but what we do know is that War and Tara had no hand in THAT part of the Revolution.
Tara didn't get her head cut off but did manage to use it to cut off other people's heads. Except Robespierre.
When War saw how much fun she was having, he had the newly-sprung-from-the-Bastille De Sade take out a few more women in increasingly gruesome ways and then forgot about him when they locked him up in an insane asylum.
Demons are fairweather friends that way.
The feud between the two then continued down in the Inferno and had been going on ever since.
So seeing Famine just as she was licking the mustard off the tip of one of her fingers, wasn't exactly a welcome sight.
First of all, wherever the guy went, he made everyone hungry and they transformed into skeletons when they couldn't eat enough to keep themselves sustained.
Secondly, he was almost never cheery.
So why he was there was anyone's guess but Tara didn't want to wait around for any takers.
She smirked at him as she walked over to the hotdog cart to get another corndog.
Actually, twelve.
She wasn't immune to Famine's influential presence.
Which sucked but that's the way it was.
"What do you want?" she sneered as she hungrily gulped down one and then three more corndogs. "Make it quick, too. I have to fit into a wedding dress soon an' if I start gaining weight from all these fatty foods, I'm gonna be pissed."
"Minos wants to talk to you," Famine said as he plucked a corndog from her hand and watched as it shrivelled in his.
She frowned at that. "Do you have to be such a killjoy all the time? Jesus! Why does Minos want to talk to me?"
"Something about you sending an innocent downstairs without due process?"
She took another bite and looked up at the sky as she thought about what this might mean. Famine was sometimes cryptic and that was on the days he was willing to give up information. Mostly it was like picking lice off a horse. You could spend forever trying to get them all.
"I have no idea what yer talking about. Leave me be. Can't you see that I'm on my lunch hour here?! You guys take two hours an' no one ever bothers you when yer eating but when I do, suddenly its open season!"
"Boss sent me. Said you have to report to the Judges immediately and if you refuse, he's taking away your dragon."
"He can't do that! It was imprinted to me at birth! I sat on the damn egg for a century! I'd like to see him try to get one of the other girls to ride him. That'll be a laugh. Oh, fine!"
Swallowing the last corndog, she glowered at her friend.
"When I come back if the corndog peddlar is dead, I will personally see to it that every soul in India has more food than they know what to do with in their lifetime."
Famine's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."
She squinted. "Try me. Stay away from my food, loser!"
And, then she disappeared to go deal with the Three Judges.
Hell was not a static place. It did not have definitive boundaries and it changed for each damned soul that showed up there, depending on their beliefs.
This was done to make it easier for those who were trapped here, to transition better. Showing you things you never heard of or believed in, would defeat the purpose. So if you were of the opinion that the end of your life, which had been less than decent, was going to be spent being eaten by giant rabbits you once prayed to before you went to sleep every night, that's basically how you were going to spend your eternity.
Now Hell had lots of individuals in it. Most of them from mythological legends and some from recent memory as well. Tara's version had every soul's interpretation all woven together like a first-time quilter's attempt at the hobby that ended up being the most hideous thing you ever laid eyes on.
And, most days it gave her a headache. Because it was a chore to remember who was called what in a certain religion but called something else in another.
Tara preferred the ancient philosophy of the Greeks and was able to transform her version of Hell to her liking just so she could function. Which is how she found herself staring at the Three Judges who were enormous beings situated in an even larger antechamber just beyond one of the entrances to Hell that Cerberus happened to guard. There were many entrances, too. This was the main one, though, if you sided with the Greek's version.
"What?!" she said, throwing her hands up in frustration as she stalked into the antechamber.
Sarpedon was the first to speak, well, bellow. Being as large as they were, they didn't really do inside-voices and trying to explain that to them would have been an exercise in futility, if not entirely Sisyphean.
And, old Sisyphus was around here somewhere too.
She was nearly bowled over from the sound but managed to stand her ground.
"You dare send an innocent down here to yer little toy room without consulting us?! We have NOT had time to examine him!" he roared and the walls of the antechamber began to shake.
She glanced around, wondering if she was going to be crushed again.
The only other time she was crushed was when Jesus himself had come down to visit, a time most there referred to as the "Harrowing" and she happened to be standing in almost the exact same spot but was flattened by a falling rock.
Sarpedon had claimed THAT time that he was surprised and couldn't catch the rock in time.
But she knew better.
In her opinion, he did it on purpose, and she had been trying to get even ever since.
Jesus didn't even take the time to say hello, too, which kinda sucked. He was the one person she desperately wanted to have a conversation with. She imagined it might start with "I bore the son of the Devil and you're the son of God. Nice to meet you!"
But no such conversation ever took place between them, or any conversation for that matter.
"I did no such thing!" she cried and looked to Minos, who was usually more understanding of her schemes.
"We have had this discussion before, Tara," he said in a slightly lesser tone of voice that made the floor beneath her feet rumble.
Radamanthys then spoke up, cutting him off. His was usually the last word in any of the Judges' debates. "You will bring the soul to us within the hour so that he can be properly judged. Failure to do so will result in your army of Fallen being taken away from the gates of Dis as well as rights to your precious pet. This, Hades has assured us. Do not defy us again," he said, leaving no room for argument.
Two minotaurs appeared and carried her away.
Justice was dispensed quickly here. No one hesitated, there wasn't going to be any discussions or negotiations.
You screwed up.
You paid immediately for it.
She made no argument nor put up a fight even though she spent most of her downtime in Hell battling minotaurs and was rather good at beating them. She simply hung her head in defeat and let them take her away.
When she was safely delivered at the Gates of Dis, she didn't wait for the angels to open them, she scaled the iron gate on her own and marched up the mile-long steps up to the black tower.
Her private, impenetrable, prison.
Hades had it built for her back when they were calling her Ishtar and him, Shulmanu.
It was a token of his affection, supposedly, but seeing as he kidnapped his own wife and forced her to live here six months out of the year, it was a safe bet that he didn't know much about being a romantic and what girls really liked.
The massive doors opened into a great hall. The Hall of Sorrow. It was here where her true throne was.
From door to throne was one hundred forty-four thousand feet. She had once counted.
The throne itself was made of onyx, as black as the rest of the hall and was covered in concertina wire so that when she sat in it, it snaked its way over her body, cutting into her flesh and effectively held her firmly to it. At certain points in time she was able to get up, though, and leave. But, mostly she spent her time here, screaming in that throne and crying tears of blood, all while being petitioned by the many visitors she had to her "court" for things which were essentially out of her control.
This was done to drive her utterly insane and it had done a great job at that.
Presently, at the throne's base, half leaning against it, half-laying on the floor was the Watchman that had tried to stab her. The one her hair had lifted in the air.
She had chained him to the throne until she decided what she wanted to do with him.
A decision which was now taken out of her hands.
Like the Fates being in control of every individual's lifespan, the Judges' decisions were final. No one, not even Hades, not Zeus, no one could alter them nor convince them to change their minds.
As powerful a position as she had, she could not do anything to sway them.
She looked down to the man and frowned. She was going to miss him.
He wasn't all that beat up. Just a little bruising in places where her hair had strangled him.
She gestured toward the chains and they dissolved into scorpions, which all scattered away from him.
He jumped in surprise. "Who ARE you?! Where am I?! What the hell is going on?!"
And, put her hand up with a smirk. "I could take the time to explain it but then I'd lose things important to me and you'd lose your mind. You must come with me, now. There can be no further delay. If they take my dragon, I will make this place an even more unpleasant place than it is now and wind up hurting those I care for. Now, rise."
He did.
He didn't want to spend any more time in the Hall of Sorrow then he already had.
There were monsters everywhere. Monsters she had talked about as he lay on the floor of that post office, dying, although he didn't know at the time he was. While he didn't know her, he didn't think she was bluffing given that the things he had seen here that she had briefly touched upon while he was still alive, had been absolutely true.
So, he got up without another word and followed her out into the baddest acid trip he had ever experienced.
This was done to make it easier for those who were trapped here, to transition better. Showing you things you never heard of or believed in, would defeat the purpose. So if you were of the opinion that the end of your life, which had been less than decent, was going to be spent being eaten by giant rabbits you once prayed to before you went to sleep every night, that's basically how you were going to spend your eternity.
Now Hell had lots of individuals in it. Most of them from mythological legends and some from recent memory as well. Tara's version had every soul's interpretation all woven together like a first-time quilter's attempt at the hobby that ended up being the most hideous thing you ever laid eyes on.
And, most days it gave her a headache. Because it was a chore to remember who was called what in a certain religion but called something else in another.
Tara preferred the ancient philosophy of the Greeks and was able to transform her version of Hell to her liking just so she could function. Which is how she found herself staring at the Three Judges who were enormous beings situated in an even larger antechamber just beyond one of the entrances to Hell that Cerberus happened to guard. There were many entrances, too. This was the main one, though, if you sided with the Greek's version.
"What?!" she said, throwing her hands up in frustration as she stalked into the antechamber.
Sarpedon was the first to speak, well, bellow. Being as large as they were, they didn't really do inside-voices and trying to explain that to them would have been an exercise in futility, if not entirely Sisyphean.
And, old Sisyphus was around here somewhere too.
She was nearly bowled over from the sound but managed to stand her ground.
"You dare send an innocent down here to yer little toy room without consulting us?! We have NOT had time to examine him!" he roared and the walls of the antechamber began to shake.
She glanced around, wondering if she was going to be crushed again.
The only other time she was crushed was when Jesus himself had come down to visit, a time most there referred to as the "Harrowing" and she happened to be standing in almost the exact same spot but was flattened by a falling rock.
Sarpedon had claimed THAT time that he was surprised and couldn't catch the rock in time.
But she knew better.
In her opinion, he did it on purpose, and she had been trying to get even ever since.
Jesus didn't even take the time to say hello, too, which kinda sucked. He was the one person she desperately wanted to have a conversation with. She imagined it might start with "I bore the son of the Devil and you're the son of God. Nice to meet you!"
But no such conversation ever took place between them, or any conversation for that matter.
"I did no such thing!" she cried and looked to Minos, who was usually more understanding of her schemes.
"We have had this discussion before, Tara," he said in a slightly lesser tone of voice that made the floor beneath her feet rumble.
Radamanthys then spoke up, cutting him off. His was usually the last word in any of the Judges' debates. "You will bring the soul to us within the hour so that he can be properly judged. Failure to do so will result in your army of Fallen being taken away from the gates of Dis as well as rights to your precious pet. This, Hades has assured us. Do not defy us again," he said, leaving no room for argument.
Two minotaurs appeared and carried her away.
Justice was dispensed quickly here. No one hesitated, there wasn't going to be any discussions or negotiations.
You screwed up.
You paid immediately for it.
She made no argument nor put up a fight even though she spent most of her downtime in Hell battling minotaurs and was rather good at beating them. She simply hung her head in defeat and let them take her away.
When she was safely delivered at the Gates of Dis, she didn't wait for the angels to open them, she scaled the iron gate on her own and marched up the mile-long steps up to the black tower.
Her private, impenetrable, prison.
Hades had it built for her back when they were calling her Ishtar and him, Shulmanu.
It was a token of his affection, supposedly, but seeing as he kidnapped his own wife and forced her to live here six months out of the year, it was a safe bet that he didn't know much about being a romantic and what girls really liked.
The massive doors opened into a great hall. The Hall of Sorrow. It was here where her true throne was.
From door to throne was one hundred forty-four thousand feet. She had once counted.
The throne itself was made of onyx, as black as the rest of the hall and was covered in concertina wire so that when she sat in it, it snaked its way over her body, cutting into her flesh and effectively held her firmly to it. At certain points in time she was able to get up, though, and leave. But, mostly she spent her time here, screaming in that throne and crying tears of blood, all while being petitioned by the many visitors she had to her "court" for things which were essentially out of her control.
This was done to drive her utterly insane and it had done a great job at that.
Presently, at the throne's base, half leaning against it, half-laying on the floor was the Watchman that had tried to stab her. The one her hair had lifted in the air.
She had chained him to the throne until she decided what she wanted to do with him.
A decision which was now taken out of her hands.
Like the Fates being in control of every individual's lifespan, the Judges' decisions were final. No one, not even Hades, not Zeus, no one could alter them nor convince them to change their minds.
As powerful a position as she had, she could not do anything to sway them.
She looked down to the man and frowned. She was going to miss him.
He wasn't all that beat up. Just a little bruising in places where her hair had strangled him.
She gestured toward the chains and they dissolved into scorpions, which all scattered away from him.
He jumped in surprise. "Who ARE you?! Where am I?! What the hell is going on?!"
And, put her hand up with a smirk. "I could take the time to explain it but then I'd lose things important to me and you'd lose your mind. You must come with me, now. There can be no further delay. If they take my dragon, I will make this place an even more unpleasant place than it is now and wind up hurting those I care for. Now, rise."
He did.
He didn't want to spend any more time in the Hall of Sorrow then he already had.
There were monsters everywhere. Monsters she had talked about as he lay on the floor of that post office, dying, although he didn't know at the time he was. While he didn't know her, he didn't think she was bluffing given that the things he had seen here that she had briefly touched upon while he was still alive, had been absolutely true.
So, he got up without another word and followed her out into the baddest acid trip he had ever experienced.
Rhy'Din, as he knew it, was gone.
Before him, as he walked down the stairs, was a vast landscape of what could only be described as the visual interpretations of pain, fear and insanity.
It was hot, but even taking off his shirt seemed to do nothing to make him cooler. There were furnaces here, giant ones and new monsters with horns were feeding people into them as crazy as that was. He supposed this was what made this particular place so hot, the fact that the furnaces were constantly kept going. The sky was red and it was filled with flying monstrosities he had often read about in those horror novels he liked as a kid but was in no way, appreciative of now in actual practice.
Everywhere people were screaming. Some approached, begging him to relieve them of their agony, but the tiny redhead in front of him would shove them violently away or they would be removed by creatures he could not describe if he were ever asked to do so.
He saw angels with black wings.
People burning in coffins.
Blackened trees that would eat whatever got close enough to them.
Dragons but not like the ones in Rhy'Din. Here they were larger and meaner.
Armies of confused people, all asking the same question he had asked the red-headed girl.
Where the hell were they?
Eventually they made it to the antechamber with three minutes to spare.
She delivered him unto the Judges as ordered and didn't stick around to see what his fate would be. If she cared, later, she could ask Atropos. They sometimes had tea together but she wasn't in the mood at the moment.
As she turned to walk away, he called out to her.
"Little girl!"
She closed her eyes in irritation. "I am NOT a little girl, damn you!"
"Don't leave me here to die!"
"I'm not!"
"Oh God, those statues are moving! I'm gonna die! Please help me!"
"They aren't statues but what are called the Judges an' you are already dead. I strangled you. If you want to leave this place, I suggest you be honest in answering their questions. They'll know if you lie," she said with another frown.
"What do you mean I'm dead?! What did you do to me? You're not just going to leave me here alone with them are you?!"
This was very odd.
No one she dragged down here wanted to spend any more time with her than was absolutely necessary. She did things here to others which were not fit for print nor ever recorded by any soul, not even those who were charged with keeping an accurate record of things here.
They had names too but were not one specific deity with specific functions like some of the others. Tara referred to them as the busybodies but their official names were too numerous to count or list.
They mostly ignored but sometimes if she was missing for some length of time or had been unusually well-behaved, Hades, sometimes called Lucifer, would dispatch some of them to find her and keep him apprised of what she was up to.
Right now, though, they were nowhere to be seen. Which was also odd.
"I must leave. You are dead. This is a place where those things you call statues are going to ask you about how you conducted your life. If they like what they hear, you will be taken to a better place, a place where I cannot go. If they don't like what they hear, you'll be trapped here for the rest of time along with the rest of us. I cannot help you an' I cannot stay. No one is allowed to be in here when the Judges make their ruling," she said and continued on her way, with the Watchman screaming obscenities behind her.
In the winding cave leading out of the antechamber, Cerberus, happy to see her, came bounding towards her.
She smiled and waited for him to roll over so she could scratch his belly. While she did, one of his three heads was licking her foot while the other two were howling with delight.
"I know, puppy, I missed you too but I must get back to our brother Famine, who has, by now, probably reduced every person in Rhy'Din to dust. If I get my hands on any bones, I'll bring you some, I promise."
This pleased the hellhound and he jumped up only to run off after a sinner who was trying to escape. He picked the man up with one mouth and the other two bit him repeatedly as he was taken back to the antechamber, which was now echoing with his screams.
She laughed thinking of how that would irritate the Judges and how, until they passed judgment, they could do nothing to stop the screaming man.
Before him, as he walked down the stairs, was a vast landscape of what could only be described as the visual interpretations of pain, fear and insanity.
It was hot, but even taking off his shirt seemed to do nothing to make him cooler. There were furnaces here, giant ones and new monsters with horns were feeding people into them as crazy as that was. He supposed this was what made this particular place so hot, the fact that the furnaces were constantly kept going. The sky was red and it was filled with flying monstrosities he had often read about in those horror novels he liked as a kid but was in no way, appreciative of now in actual practice.
Everywhere people were screaming. Some approached, begging him to relieve them of their agony, but the tiny redhead in front of him would shove them violently away or they would be removed by creatures he could not describe if he were ever asked to do so.
He saw angels with black wings.
People burning in coffins.
Blackened trees that would eat whatever got close enough to them.
Dragons but not like the ones in Rhy'Din. Here they were larger and meaner.
Armies of confused people, all asking the same question he had asked the red-headed girl.
Where the hell were they?
Eventually they made it to the antechamber with three minutes to spare.
She delivered him unto the Judges as ordered and didn't stick around to see what his fate would be. If she cared, later, she could ask Atropos. They sometimes had tea together but she wasn't in the mood at the moment.
As she turned to walk away, he called out to her.
"Little girl!"
She closed her eyes in irritation. "I am NOT a little girl, damn you!"
"Don't leave me here to die!"
"I'm not!"
"Oh God, those statues are moving! I'm gonna die! Please help me!"
"They aren't statues but what are called the Judges an' you are already dead. I strangled you. If you want to leave this place, I suggest you be honest in answering their questions. They'll know if you lie," she said with another frown.
"What do you mean I'm dead?! What did you do to me? You're not just going to leave me here alone with them are you?!"
This was very odd.
No one she dragged down here wanted to spend any more time with her than was absolutely necessary. She did things here to others which were not fit for print nor ever recorded by any soul, not even those who were charged with keeping an accurate record of things here.
They had names too but were not one specific deity with specific functions like some of the others. Tara referred to them as the busybodies but their official names were too numerous to count or list.
They mostly ignored but sometimes if she was missing for some length of time or had been unusually well-behaved, Hades, sometimes called Lucifer, would dispatch some of them to find her and keep him apprised of what she was up to.
Right now, though, they were nowhere to be seen. Which was also odd.
"I must leave. You are dead. This is a place where those things you call statues are going to ask you about how you conducted your life. If they like what they hear, you will be taken to a better place, a place where I cannot go. If they don't like what they hear, you'll be trapped here for the rest of time along with the rest of us. I cannot help you an' I cannot stay. No one is allowed to be in here when the Judges make their ruling," she said and continued on her way, with the Watchman screaming obscenities behind her.
In the winding cave leading out of the antechamber, Cerberus, happy to see her, came bounding towards her.
She smiled and waited for him to roll over so she could scratch his belly. While she did, one of his three heads was licking her foot while the other two were howling with delight.
"I know, puppy, I missed you too but I must get back to our brother Famine, who has, by now, probably reduced every person in Rhy'Din to dust. If I get my hands on any bones, I'll bring you some, I promise."
This pleased the hellhound and he jumped up only to run off after a sinner who was trying to escape. He picked the man up with one mouth and the other two bit him repeatedly as he was taken back to the antechamber, which was now echoing with his screams.
She laughed thinking of how that would irritate the Judges and how, until they passed judgment, they could do nothing to stop the screaming man.
The ferry ride to the shores of the Acheron was mind-numbingly slow.
Charon took his sweet time navigating the river. She was never sure why. He had made the trip probably thirty trillion times over the years and could probably do so with his eyes closed, but still he was careful. What he was worried about, she never really cared to ask nor did she really strike up much in the way of conversation with him and that was because he was boring. Which annoyed her. He had met more people than any other person in antiquity or living memory and yet he never had much to say.
There were five rivers of the underworld. The Acheron (the River of Woe), Cocytus (River of Lamentation), Phlegethon (River of Fire), Lethe (River of Forgetfulness), and the infamous Styx (River of Hate). While Charon could access them all with his ferry, he typically only stuck with the Acheron as it was the most direct route to Hades proper from Erebus.
The underworld was divided into several parts, in one of her interpretations of it, most famously Hades, Erebus and Tartarus. While some would argue her eventual crimes against nature and mankind most definitely earned her a spot in Tartarus, the lowest and most vile of all the Hells, reserved for the most wicked, the city of Dis where she lived could be considered to be in Hades. It was only slightly more tolerable than the other levels but not by much. And, there was a very good reason for why she was placed there as opposed to the more unsettling nooks and crannies.
When the ferry banked, she was escorted off by some of the Fallen, who swore allegiance to her and their master, Lucifer. After the war in heaven, they were consigned to live out eternity here too. In her case, unlike them who had been made in heaven, she was forged here, like a sword in flame. So she was used to it as it was the place of her birth and she did not make complaints like they did, because unlike them she had never really known any place else.
Tara's function, well, the Whore of Babylon's function now known as Tara and that was only because she possessed and eventually became one with Tara, while not specifically a deity or a personification of something the mortals believed in, would not take place for some time.
Her eternity took place before any great misdeeds on her part that would earn her a spot here like all the damned. She was one of the few inhabitants here whose existences were unique in this one way. Because while mortals were born and got to live and then were sent here when they lived a bad life, her, Abaddon, the Four Horsemen and a few others were made to live here, never really being born, from the outset, and had to wait for an inevitable apocalypse in order to be activated, you might say.
It didn't matter if she was good or bad, she was stuck here with all the rest who had done bad, which was why she often alternated between being evil and being kind.
It was a confusing existence, to say the least.
A confusing place.
She often told those she knew that there was no such thing as a right turn in Hell. Only left ones.
She crossed the red sands toward the portal at the base of a mountain that would take her directly into the hearth of the Red Dragon Inn.
But was stopped in her tracks when she heard the flapping of wings overhead and felt the rush of hurricane-force winds on her face.
She turned and looked up, her hair whipping about her, to see the Seven-Headed Dragon of the Apocalypse.
Her dragon.
It had no official name like Abbadon, the great beast the Greeks called Apollyon or "The Destroyer", but she had many pet names for him, none of which the dragon knew about because if it did, it would likely make a complaint of its own.
It was a hundred times the size of other dragons and had ten crowns of gold with three of those seven heads having two crowns instead of one.
In the end, when it came time for her to get to work, finishing off what was left of mankind, she would mount this incredible beast and ride it off into the last great war ever waged.
Right now, though, as it let loose a steady stream of flame onto a grouping of recently deceased and very frightened souls, who all screamed as they were engulfed, she smiled.
Minos had come through for her.
The threat that they would take her dragon had she not delivered the Watchmen in time, was just for show. She had been sad because she knew that they were going to take him away from her whether she brought him to the Judges or not.
That he was flying overhead now, near her, meant that someone had changed their minds.
And, that could only be Minos.
She would remember this kindness when she returned and made the other two Judges regret threatening her.
The top of the mountain she stood in front of now, trembled, under the pressure of the winds around them. Large boulders began to break off and fall, crushing many of the damned who waited on the shores of the Acheron below.
These were those whose surviving loved ones had been kind enough to place a coin, known as an "obol" in ancient Greek times, on their tongues, before they were cremated. Charon's crossing was not free but what he did with the money, no one ever knew. It wasn't like he could spend it. He was trapped here too and him being the ferryman was his punishment. Those who did not have this payment for Charon, were ferried to the Cocytus, to spend one hundred years in what some called "Limbo". Then, after a hundred years, they were brought to the Three Judges for free, which Tara personally thought was absurd given that Time had no place in Hell.
A hundred years felt like the blink of an eye.
But this was one of its many rules, as ridiculous as they often were.
The summit of this mountain was the place where another gateway to Hell was, the place where Dante, in his epic poem "The Divine Comedy" called "The Foyer". It had the iconic stone warning on it which started with "I am the Way into the City of Woe," and ended with, "Abandon all Hope, Ye Who Enter Here."
Dante was not there now and he might have been glad for that because whomever was up there was likely blown clear off the summit thanks to her dragon.
She looked to one of the Fallen, the dedicated soldiers of Lucifer who had been exiled from heaven, as the avalanches continued around them.
"I must away to Rhy'Din for a few hours but when I return, we march on the Judges. Tell Malacoda that I agree to have dinner with him, if he agrees to set aside our differences for the time being and help me make the Judges pay for what they have done. I grow weary of their threats and posturing. If we do not act now, the whole of Hell will think they can strongarm us. This must not go unpunished," she growled.
Malacoda was, like her, in a managerial position. He was the demon leader of the demon horde of the Malebolge or to some, the eighth circle of Hell. For centuries, both he and Tara were locked in a bloody battle that stemmed from the fact that she would not date him.
Jealousy ran rampant here. There were no heavenly virtues, only deadly sins, which were punished in the first seven of nine circles in total. The Malebolge was its own universe, in a way, in that it was a giant funnel, with ten concentric circular levels in it, where certain souls who had committed specific crimes were tortured by demons with grappling hooks and made to tread in thick, suffocating tar from which there was no escape.
Some of these demons were her friends. These were the ones that at least when they visited Rhy'Din, were dressed as court jesters. But this was no compliment to her. Malacoda liked to make fun of the fact that she fancied herself a queen and he allowed them to be with her, so long as their being with her was a constant reminder of her place. Which like him, was that she was an inmate here like all the rest, not above any one particular soul as she believed.
Even Persephone, the true Queen of the ancient Greek's version of Hell, was a prisoner here.
The angels now, took flight, even in the midst of the terrible storm. The dragon had no effect on them. They would carry her instructions to their brethren and a formidable army would be formed in her absence.
Charon, in the interim, was inspecting a coin given to him by one of his most recent passengers and it appeared as if the coin's legitimacy was in question, judging by both the expression on his face and the face of the soul who had given it to him. The latter looked nervous.
She tilted her head at the unexpected scene.
While many souls had died penniless and had languished on the shores of the Cocytus, no one had ever tried to cheat Charon that she knew of.
This was unprecedented.
She couldn't even guess what the punishment for this deceit would be.
And, then Lucifer showed up.
Charon took his sweet time navigating the river. She was never sure why. He had made the trip probably thirty trillion times over the years and could probably do so with his eyes closed, but still he was careful. What he was worried about, she never really cared to ask nor did she really strike up much in the way of conversation with him and that was because he was boring. Which annoyed her. He had met more people than any other person in antiquity or living memory and yet he never had much to say.
There were five rivers of the underworld. The Acheron (the River of Woe), Cocytus (River of Lamentation), Phlegethon (River of Fire), Lethe (River of Forgetfulness), and the infamous Styx (River of Hate). While Charon could access them all with his ferry, he typically only stuck with the Acheron as it was the most direct route to Hades proper from Erebus.
The underworld was divided into several parts, in one of her interpretations of it, most famously Hades, Erebus and Tartarus. While some would argue her eventual crimes against nature and mankind most definitely earned her a spot in Tartarus, the lowest and most vile of all the Hells, reserved for the most wicked, the city of Dis where she lived could be considered to be in Hades. It was only slightly more tolerable than the other levels but not by much. And, there was a very good reason for why she was placed there as opposed to the more unsettling nooks and crannies.
When the ferry banked, she was escorted off by some of the Fallen, who swore allegiance to her and their master, Lucifer. After the war in heaven, they were consigned to live out eternity here too. In her case, unlike them who had been made in heaven, she was forged here, like a sword in flame. So she was used to it as it was the place of her birth and she did not make complaints like they did, because unlike them she had never really known any place else.
Tara's function, well, the Whore of Babylon's function now known as Tara and that was only because she possessed and eventually became one with Tara, while not specifically a deity or a personification of something the mortals believed in, would not take place for some time.
Her eternity took place before any great misdeeds on her part that would earn her a spot here like all the damned. She was one of the few inhabitants here whose existences were unique in this one way. Because while mortals were born and got to live and then were sent here when they lived a bad life, her, Abaddon, the Four Horsemen and a few others were made to live here, never really being born, from the outset, and had to wait for an inevitable apocalypse in order to be activated, you might say.
It didn't matter if she was good or bad, she was stuck here with all the rest who had done bad, which was why she often alternated between being evil and being kind.
It was a confusing existence, to say the least.
A confusing place.
She often told those she knew that there was no such thing as a right turn in Hell. Only left ones.
She crossed the red sands toward the portal at the base of a mountain that would take her directly into the hearth of the Red Dragon Inn.
But was stopped in her tracks when she heard the flapping of wings overhead and felt the rush of hurricane-force winds on her face.
She turned and looked up, her hair whipping about her, to see the Seven-Headed Dragon of the Apocalypse.
Her dragon.
It had no official name like Abbadon, the great beast the Greeks called Apollyon or "The Destroyer", but she had many pet names for him, none of which the dragon knew about because if it did, it would likely make a complaint of its own.
It was a hundred times the size of other dragons and had ten crowns of gold with three of those seven heads having two crowns instead of one.
In the end, when it came time for her to get to work, finishing off what was left of mankind, she would mount this incredible beast and ride it off into the last great war ever waged.
Right now, though, as it let loose a steady stream of flame onto a grouping of recently deceased and very frightened souls, who all screamed as they were engulfed, she smiled.
Minos had come through for her.
The threat that they would take her dragon had she not delivered the Watchmen in time, was just for show. She had been sad because she knew that they were going to take him away from her whether she brought him to the Judges or not.
That he was flying overhead now, near her, meant that someone had changed their minds.
And, that could only be Minos.
She would remember this kindness when she returned and made the other two Judges regret threatening her.
The top of the mountain she stood in front of now, trembled, under the pressure of the winds around them. Large boulders began to break off and fall, crushing many of the damned who waited on the shores of the Acheron below.
These were those whose surviving loved ones had been kind enough to place a coin, known as an "obol" in ancient Greek times, on their tongues, before they were cremated. Charon's crossing was not free but what he did with the money, no one ever knew. It wasn't like he could spend it. He was trapped here too and him being the ferryman was his punishment. Those who did not have this payment for Charon, were ferried to the Cocytus, to spend one hundred years in what some called "Limbo". Then, after a hundred years, they were brought to the Three Judges for free, which Tara personally thought was absurd given that Time had no place in Hell.
A hundred years felt like the blink of an eye.
But this was one of its many rules, as ridiculous as they often were.
The summit of this mountain was the place where another gateway to Hell was, the place where Dante, in his epic poem "The Divine Comedy" called "The Foyer". It had the iconic stone warning on it which started with "I am the Way into the City of Woe," and ended with, "Abandon all Hope, Ye Who Enter Here."
Dante was not there now and he might have been glad for that because whomever was up there was likely blown clear off the summit thanks to her dragon.
She looked to one of the Fallen, the dedicated soldiers of Lucifer who had been exiled from heaven, as the avalanches continued around them.
"I must away to Rhy'Din for a few hours but when I return, we march on the Judges. Tell Malacoda that I agree to have dinner with him, if he agrees to set aside our differences for the time being and help me make the Judges pay for what they have done. I grow weary of their threats and posturing. If we do not act now, the whole of Hell will think they can strongarm us. This must not go unpunished," she growled.
Malacoda was, like her, in a managerial position. He was the demon leader of the demon horde of the Malebolge or to some, the eighth circle of Hell. For centuries, both he and Tara were locked in a bloody battle that stemmed from the fact that she would not date him.
Jealousy ran rampant here. There were no heavenly virtues, only deadly sins, which were punished in the first seven of nine circles in total. The Malebolge was its own universe, in a way, in that it was a giant funnel, with ten concentric circular levels in it, where certain souls who had committed specific crimes were tortured by demons with grappling hooks and made to tread in thick, suffocating tar from which there was no escape.
Some of these demons were her friends. These were the ones that at least when they visited Rhy'Din, were dressed as court jesters. But this was no compliment to her. Malacoda liked to make fun of the fact that she fancied herself a queen and he allowed them to be with her, so long as their being with her was a constant reminder of her place. Which like him, was that she was an inmate here like all the rest, not above any one particular soul as she believed.
Even Persephone, the true Queen of the ancient Greek's version of Hell, was a prisoner here.
The angels now, took flight, even in the midst of the terrible storm. The dragon had no effect on them. They would carry her instructions to their brethren and a formidable army would be formed in her absence.
Charon, in the interim, was inspecting a coin given to him by one of his most recent passengers and it appeared as if the coin's legitimacy was in question, judging by both the expression on his face and the face of the soul who had given it to him. The latter looked nervous.
She tilted her head at the unexpected scene.
While many souls had died penniless and had languished on the shores of the Cocytus, no one had ever tried to cheat Charon that she knew of.
This was unprecedented.
She couldn't even guess what the punishment for this deceit would be.
And, then Lucifer showed up.
Last edited by Tara on Wed Jan 01, 2014 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
She covered her eyes to shield herself from his blinding light, something which had not waned in his time spent in the darkest freezing pit, the so-called ninth circle, where he was kept.
She gasped, in spite of the fact that they had long been lovers and were very close.
If he was here, the soul who had tried to deceive Charon was in the worst trouble imaginable and for a brief moment, she felt sorry for him.
He looked displeased, which was not out of the norm, he wasn't exactly an agreeable fellow most of the time. But something about the way he strode towards her, told her he was more unhappy than all the rest of his days here.
He pointed to her dragon. "I did that, not for you, but for me because I knew if I didn't, you would be impossible to live with moreso than you are now," he said and reached out to stroke her cheek.
She drew away at his touch, the first time ever, and frowned. "I do not need yer pity. I will march on the Judges regardless, " she said, defiant and raised her chin.
"I know you will and we shall discuss appropriate recompense for what you will do, later, but for now, I must deal with a con-artist apparently," he said and glanced over his shoulder at the man in the ferry who was on his knees, hands clasped, praying to his Gods who could not hear them even if they wanted to.
For Hell was the absence of all Gods love, protection and forgiveness, in all forms, male and female, this religion or that.
It didn't matter what you believed, here was the place where your God forgot about you.
His dumping ground for rejects and failures.
It may have been made up of many dimensions, all changing depending on your particular viewpoint, but they were all sealed from the presence of the One who made you.
That was its chief rule and what the stone, at the top of the mountain, was really warning its reader about.
Once you came here, although there were tortures untold, fire, brimstone and sulphur aplenty, you could never escape the fact that you weren't deemed fit enough to sit at your maker's table.
And, that is what burned you, day in and out, the fire was just the delivery method.
But for Lucifer, her suddenly empathetic lover, it burned the hottest, in his heart. She felt sorry for him in that regard too although at the moment she was not showing it.
She stepped back into the portal as he took hold of the deceiver who struggled and screamed in the first of the Fallen's grasp.
What happened to him, she would not know.
For now she was seated on the same park bench she had been earlier, next to Famine, who was squeezing mustard from a packet, into his palm and licking it, slowly.
She looked around.
Everyone appeared fleshy enough. No skeletons as far as she could see.
"You just cannot help yerself, can you?" she asked the Horseman with a smirk.
"What is its purpose?" he asked, licking the remainder of it from his hand.
"It is a seasoning, made to make the food taste better. I like it an' now apparently you do too. You should not be here. Return to Dis. Find Pestilence, War and Death an' tell them I said to make ready the horses. Tonight we ride on the Judges."
"What of Minos?"
"I do not want him harmed. The others, yes, but not him."
"As you wish but you know convincing War is going to be difficult. Perhaps it would be best if you went to him personally?"
"I have to think about that. You know how he gets."
Famine chuckled and went to do as she had ordered.
She crossed the street and broke into a house there.
The lady stirring the cauldron of stew she had made, was rightfully startled when she appeared.
Tara hit her on the forehead with the ladle, causing her to pass out.
She then crawled into the fireplace, as crammed as it was with the cauldron, and was transported back into the Inferno.
She gasped, in spite of the fact that they had long been lovers and were very close.
If he was here, the soul who had tried to deceive Charon was in the worst trouble imaginable and for a brief moment, she felt sorry for him.
He looked displeased, which was not out of the norm, he wasn't exactly an agreeable fellow most of the time. But something about the way he strode towards her, told her he was more unhappy than all the rest of his days here.
He pointed to her dragon. "I did that, not for you, but for me because I knew if I didn't, you would be impossible to live with moreso than you are now," he said and reached out to stroke her cheek.
She drew away at his touch, the first time ever, and frowned. "I do not need yer pity. I will march on the Judges regardless, " she said, defiant and raised her chin.
"I know you will and we shall discuss appropriate recompense for what you will do, later, but for now, I must deal with a con-artist apparently," he said and glanced over his shoulder at the man in the ferry who was on his knees, hands clasped, praying to his Gods who could not hear them even if they wanted to.
For Hell was the absence of all Gods love, protection and forgiveness, in all forms, male and female, this religion or that.
It didn't matter what you believed, here was the place where your God forgot about you.
His dumping ground for rejects and failures.
It may have been made up of many dimensions, all changing depending on your particular viewpoint, but they were all sealed from the presence of the One who made you.
That was its chief rule and what the stone, at the top of the mountain, was really warning its reader about.
Once you came here, although there were tortures untold, fire, brimstone and sulphur aplenty, you could never escape the fact that you weren't deemed fit enough to sit at your maker's table.
And, that is what burned you, day in and out, the fire was just the delivery method.
But for Lucifer, her suddenly empathetic lover, it burned the hottest, in his heart. She felt sorry for him in that regard too although at the moment she was not showing it.
She stepped back into the portal as he took hold of the deceiver who struggled and screamed in the first of the Fallen's grasp.
What happened to him, she would not know.
For now she was seated on the same park bench she had been earlier, next to Famine, who was squeezing mustard from a packet, into his palm and licking it, slowly.
She looked around.
Everyone appeared fleshy enough. No skeletons as far as she could see.
"You just cannot help yerself, can you?" she asked the Horseman with a smirk.
"What is its purpose?" he asked, licking the remainder of it from his hand.
"It is a seasoning, made to make the food taste better. I like it an' now apparently you do too. You should not be here. Return to Dis. Find Pestilence, War and Death an' tell them I said to make ready the horses. Tonight we ride on the Judges."
"What of Minos?"
"I do not want him harmed. The others, yes, but not him."
"As you wish but you know convincing War is going to be difficult. Perhaps it would be best if you went to him personally?"
"I have to think about that. You know how he gets."
Famine chuckled and went to do as she had ordered.
She crossed the street and broke into a house there.
The lady stirring the cauldron of stew she had made, was rightfully startled when she appeared.
Tara hit her on the forehead with the ladle, causing her to pass out.
She then crawled into the fireplace, as crammed as it was with the cauldron, and was transported back into the Inferno.
Last edited by Tara on Wed Jan 01, 2014 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Get out! Not another word out of that mouth or I will cut your tongue from it! I swear it, Tara!" Ares growled and chucked what appeared to be a spear at her.
She didn't make any effort to move, not even as it impaled her against the wall, like that sword did the woman in the post office, it was just in her case, her midsection would heal.
He couldn't kill her no matter how hard he tried, nor could she kill him.
"Would you just listen to me please? I need you!"
"After what you did to Peace, we have nothing further to discuss!"
"How was I supposed to know they were going to burn her at the stake?! Those Puritans were nuts!"
"When you RIP someone from their own timeframe and toss them into another that is foreign to them and they use technology that the natives have never seen and therefore do not understand, it does not surprise me that they thought her a witch!"
"I didn't rip her from her timeframe, I borrowed her an' saved her in the process! But no, let's not thank me for that! Let's keep harping on the burning part! Who told her to light up a bong in the middle of Salem village, huh?!"
"Knowing you, it was probably your suggestion!"
"No, I am the incarnation of lust, brother, which is one way to defile one's own temple but has absolutely nothing to do with drugs! I don't even like them an' opium's half fun! I have no idea whose responsibility that is but it's not mine! She told that drugdealer that she wanted to see another place and time and I gave that to her right before she overdosed! You falling in love with her was not part of the plan!"
"That's your problem! You NEVER have a plan!"
"The sixties was a plan! Yers too! Vietnam, right? Okay, so it didn't go quite as we had hoped but lots of people died an' in my case, lots of people were inspired to make love, free of inhibition and good decision-making! Peace was willing, she loved you. I had no hand in that. Honest!"
"Peace belonged to that time, not ours. What you did goes against EVERY law we have! How did you convince Lachesis? How did you manage to defy primordial beings who answer to none but themselves? That is what we all wish to know. You will answer for this, Tara!"
"Oh blah, blah," she sneered and tore the spear out from her stomach, then threw it on the floor. "I'm always answering for one crime or another an' the best you people can come up in the form of retribution is the Victorian era?! Really?! The sixties was my release from that embarrassment!"
She walked toward him, transforming from the four foot redheaded girl to that of the Gorgon Medusa. A terrifying apparition half woman, half snake and vipers for hair.
She cradled his face with her hands and spoke softly to him. He shifted, uncomfortably, in his throne and avoided looking at her for fear she would turn him to stone.
"How my Uncle Poseidon could ever love you, I do not know but you deserved this....this...."
"What?" she crooned, leaning close to kiss his ear. "Fate? Yes, let us talk about that a moment, shall we? There was even a night or two when even you loved me. Jus' calm down. You an' I have no time. We only will when all the stars die an' we are called to make the remaining few alive atone for their own crimes. For now, we are stuck here in this desolate place with only our illusions to amuse us. I am sorry for Peace. I will make it up to you but right now, I need you, Ares, please do not forsake me," she whispered and brought her lips to his.
With his eyes closed, he hoisted her up by what might have been her hips had she had legs at the moment and shoved her to the floor.
When she made contact with it, her head striking the stone floor, Medusa was gone and was now replaced with that of the biblical whore Delilah.
He stood over her, glaring.
"You could sit here changing into every beguiling, desirable creature ever made and I still will not come to yer aid. Get out of my temple and go rot in that tower of yours for all I care, but do not disturb me again!"
She rubbed her head where moments earlier serpents had been and was then lifted from the ground by Roman centurions and Spartan warriors alike. Every manner of soldier from the beginning of Time to the last, even robots with lasers, anything that was engineered from creation to kill, were here.
Ares held sway over them all.
They carried her to the exit and set her down gently, where at her feet were the severed heads of those who had died in battle against War's enemies.
Tributes, his supporters called them.
Angrily, she kicked one down the temple steps.
No one ever left any gifts for her and she gave them passion and orgasms. What did this guy do except kill everyone they ever loved?
What nerve.
"If he won't help me, I must find some incentive to change his mind," she growled under her breath as she extended her arms to either side of her and swan dove off the precipice of the cliff face the temple sat on.
She fell for miles before landing on her dragon.
"To the Fields of Asphodel," she said and pointed toward the stormy horizon where the hurricane was still raging.
She didn't make any effort to move, not even as it impaled her against the wall, like that sword did the woman in the post office, it was just in her case, her midsection would heal.
He couldn't kill her no matter how hard he tried, nor could she kill him.
"Would you just listen to me please? I need you!"
"After what you did to Peace, we have nothing further to discuss!"
"How was I supposed to know they were going to burn her at the stake?! Those Puritans were nuts!"
"When you RIP someone from their own timeframe and toss them into another that is foreign to them and they use technology that the natives have never seen and therefore do not understand, it does not surprise me that they thought her a witch!"
"I didn't rip her from her timeframe, I borrowed her an' saved her in the process! But no, let's not thank me for that! Let's keep harping on the burning part! Who told her to light up a bong in the middle of Salem village, huh?!"
"Knowing you, it was probably your suggestion!"
"No, I am the incarnation of lust, brother, which is one way to defile one's own temple but has absolutely nothing to do with drugs! I don't even like them an' opium's half fun! I have no idea whose responsibility that is but it's not mine! She told that drugdealer that she wanted to see another place and time and I gave that to her right before she overdosed! You falling in love with her was not part of the plan!"
"That's your problem! You NEVER have a plan!"
"The sixties was a plan! Yers too! Vietnam, right? Okay, so it didn't go quite as we had hoped but lots of people died an' in my case, lots of people were inspired to make love, free of inhibition and good decision-making! Peace was willing, she loved you. I had no hand in that. Honest!"
"Peace belonged to that time, not ours. What you did goes against EVERY law we have! How did you convince Lachesis? How did you manage to defy primordial beings who answer to none but themselves? That is what we all wish to know. You will answer for this, Tara!"
"Oh blah, blah," she sneered and tore the spear out from her stomach, then threw it on the floor. "I'm always answering for one crime or another an' the best you people can come up in the form of retribution is the Victorian era?! Really?! The sixties was my release from that embarrassment!"
She walked toward him, transforming from the four foot redheaded girl to that of the Gorgon Medusa. A terrifying apparition half woman, half snake and vipers for hair.
She cradled his face with her hands and spoke softly to him. He shifted, uncomfortably, in his throne and avoided looking at her for fear she would turn him to stone.
"How my Uncle Poseidon could ever love you, I do not know but you deserved this....this...."
"What?" she crooned, leaning close to kiss his ear. "Fate? Yes, let us talk about that a moment, shall we? There was even a night or two when even you loved me. Jus' calm down. You an' I have no time. We only will when all the stars die an' we are called to make the remaining few alive atone for their own crimes. For now, we are stuck here in this desolate place with only our illusions to amuse us. I am sorry for Peace. I will make it up to you but right now, I need you, Ares, please do not forsake me," she whispered and brought her lips to his.
With his eyes closed, he hoisted her up by what might have been her hips had she had legs at the moment and shoved her to the floor.
When she made contact with it, her head striking the stone floor, Medusa was gone and was now replaced with that of the biblical whore Delilah.
He stood over her, glaring.
"You could sit here changing into every beguiling, desirable creature ever made and I still will not come to yer aid. Get out of my temple and go rot in that tower of yours for all I care, but do not disturb me again!"
She rubbed her head where moments earlier serpents had been and was then lifted from the ground by Roman centurions and Spartan warriors alike. Every manner of soldier from the beginning of Time to the last, even robots with lasers, anything that was engineered from creation to kill, were here.
Ares held sway over them all.
They carried her to the exit and set her down gently, where at her feet were the severed heads of those who had died in battle against War's enemies.
Tributes, his supporters called them.
Angrily, she kicked one down the temple steps.
No one ever left any gifts for her and she gave them passion and orgasms. What did this guy do except kill everyone they ever loved?
What nerve.
"If he won't help me, I must find some incentive to change his mind," she growled under her breath as she extended her arms to either side of her and swan dove off the precipice of the cliff face the temple sat on.
She fell for miles before landing on her dragon.
"To the Fields of Asphodel," she said and pointed toward the stormy horizon where the hurricane was still raging.
Peace lay in the meadow of the Asphodel flowers, although she didn't know they were called that, nor the place she was in which the eponymous flower shared its name with. It was nice here, not too stressful of a place. A little washed out and nuclear-wasteland looking but nothing a good line of cocaine couldn't fix. She snorted it constantly here. It never seemed to be in short supply in the Factory where she worked.
In fact, the Factory had lots of things made inside of it that she and the others took advantage of. It was just no one else ever came here to buy any of it. That was very strange too but she couldn't find the curiousity inside of her to ever ask anyone why that was and why if the Factory never made any money, how it was still in business.
It was her lunch break. She lay under the gnarled tree with the flowers above her, on the branches, falling off around her and in her hair. In the meadow and in the trees, they grew. She wasn't sure why. It never rained here as far as she could remember.
Yeah.
Memories were strange here too.
She remembered being at a nuclear power plant with her friends Jim and Tony. They were carrying signs, protesting. In March of 79, a terrible nuclear disaster happened over at the Three Mile Island power plant. The movie "The China Syndrome" starring Michael Douglas and "Hanoi" Jane Fonda, had been showing for just two weeks when it happened. Everyone was in a panic.
Now just three months later, the American public was still uneasy about nuclear power. Peace was upset about it too. She didn't want to have babies with three heads. At just eighteen years old, though, she wasn't that concerned with finding a husband just yet. Her own parents weren't even married, not by law, more through common-law as they had been together for what Peace thought was forever. So while protecting the earth and its inhabitants was a top priority, marriage was not even though she sometimes caught Tony looking at her oddly and wondered if he had a thing for her. She never asked and he never offered an explanation for those out of place glances he gave her.
But all those cares seemed to disappear when she had woken up one day, in a very old, dark, dirty and smelly jail cell, next to a man they called the Marquis. He spoke French, which luckily she understood because she was taking it in school, but he seemed out of place here. The other prisoners seemed to avoid talking to him yet spoke freely with one another through the bars. There was talk of Revolution. Of injustice. Of hunger.
The Marquis wasn't interested in those things, though. All he did was write. He had only ever talked to her once or twice and in doing so, dismissed her it seemed. She thought he didn't have a high opinion of women. She tried to ask him if he had been at the nuclear power plant too and was arrested with her but he didn't seem to understand her and she couldn't see Jim or Tony in any of the cells near theirs. She spent the first day calling out to her friends and asking the others if they had seen them but did not get an answer. He looked at her strangely. In fact, most of the prisoners did.
Then Tara had appeared.
In the darkness of the prison where Peace found herself, the red head dressed in all black had violet eyes which seemed to glow. All the prisoners save for the Marquis were afraid of her. Even the Warden. When she asked him to unlock the cell, freeing Peace, he didn't hesitate. Peace left the cell and watched as the red head spoke quietly with the Marquis. He called her "Mystère" but later, when they were properly introduced by a guy calling himself Ares, in a temple which was on some movie set she imagined, he had called her Tara.
What was said between the red head and the Marquis was itself a mystery. Peace couldn't hear what they were saying even though the entire prison was silent, everyone terrified of this strange woman and she was just three feet away from them.
Peace laughed at these odd memories. After the temple, Ares had pursued her. The movie set she was on (and how she got there she didn't know) seemed to never end. It was a scary place. Hot, too. There were many actors dressed up as monsters she had read about in mythology books as a kid. She wondered who had the money to pay for such a production and what the movie was essentially about.
And, then there was the burning at the stake. That wasn't so much fun. The fire they set below her feet felt very real and very hot. She thought she remembered screaming, even seeing that Tara woman somewhere in the crowd as the rest were calling her a witch.
But then she had woken up here. At the Factory. Which was a huge complex of buildings set in the middle of this gray meadow with its strange flowers. Since she had easy access to drugs here, she didn't feel much like investigating her present circumstances or the events leading up to them.
Here was the easy street everyone talked about just without the riches. She didn't earn a paycheck but worked in the Factory and seemed to survive nonetheless. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten anything although she was given regular breaks from making the Pet Rocks she was given that came off conveyor belts. All she had to do was paint funny faces on them and box them up. Then others would come and take them away.
Just as she was thinking about those Pet Rocks, Achilles approached. She thought she remembered hearing a story once where someone with his name had been the main character but the desire to know more about him didn't quite rise to the level of burning curiousity and she immediately abandoned the thought and just smiled at him instead.
"Hi," she said as she sat up when he knelt down in front of her.
"You should go back to yer chamber," he said and looked up to the grey skies with what she thought was some apprehension.
Behind his ankle was a wound that never seemed to heal. He was always touching it with a frown. She had only noticed because it seemed to be an obsession. Even now as he warned her, he had his hand on it. She thought he had been injured on the movie set. He must have been because he was the first one she saw when she got here and he was dressed in a costume, like some of the others. In fact, she was the only one that was dressed in what she considered to be normal clothes.
Peace looked up to the skies too. "Why? What's wrong, Achilles?"
"The clouds are moving rapidly. Tis an omen. You should go," he said and lifted her from the ground.
Peace stood up alongside him and shook her head. Achilles was very sweet to worry but moving clouds was not exactly cause for concern in her opinion.
She tried to argue with him, even as he half-dragged her through the meadow but it was of no use. He wasn't listening.
Then there was a deafening thunderclap which sounded overhead and from the clouds, a seven-headed dragon could be seen flying towards them.
Lightning touched down all around them. Achilles yelled for her to run. Others, who had taken to the meadows for their own breaks, were running and screaming.
In the distance, someone sounded an alarm from inside the Factory.
And, then the immense dragon touched down in the meadow and from its back, the woman Tara had stood up.
She looked amazing, Peace observed, even in the chaos.
She wasn't very tall but there was something about her which demanded your attention.
Dressed in a black dress which was slit up both sides, she held a golden chalice in one hand and a severed head in the other.
On top of her head, like that of the seven heads of the dragon, was a crown but it was not gold like the dragon's crowns.
It was black.
Her eyes were glowing again too.
She pointed at Peace with the chalice.
"If you run, we will follow, child. Achilles protests too much. There was a time when he was arrogant enough to think himself the greatest warrior ever born an' like Attila, another great warrior, who was felled by a nosebleed in his sleep, Achilles was pierced with an arrow in the one spot on his beautiful body that was not touched by the waters of the Styx. It was there that Prince Paris aimed an' succeeded in killing a man no other warrior in history could ever best."
Peace could only blink.
Achilles moved in front of her and drew his sword.
"Leave her be, sorceress!"
Tara just smiled at his attempt to protect War's former mistress. Even in death his fighting spirit had not waned.
"Honestly, Achilles. Do you really believe that you will come out of this the victor? I will personally drag you back to the very river which made you ninety-nine point nine percent immortal an' DROWN you in it after making you drink from it, if you do not stand down, immediately! Do not make me get off my dragon! I am pressed for time an' not in the mood for this!"
Tara hurled the severed head at him, to distract him and drank deeply from her chalice.
Achilles swung his sword, batting away the head as Tara poured what was left of the chalice's contents onto the ground.
The dragon roared.
Peace screamed.
The grey skies grew dark.
The blood from the chalice being poured out, which was now seeping into the earth of Asphodel and its flowers, was now causing them all to die.
The ground became cracked. Gone was the grey grass.
The trees all splintered in half and fell.
A swift rolling fog raced across the earth and enveloped them all.
And, when it dissipated, there were every manner of Hell's soldiers around them.
Demons, wraiths, ghouls, ghosts, and even Cerberus himself, to name just a few.
They surrounded Achilles and the overwhelmed warrior looked at her with such sadness. He dropped his sword.
"What crime have we committed that you attack us this way, woman?" he asked with a frown.
Tara frowned herself. Struck by a sudden pang of grief that this once great man was giving up so quickly, she changed her mind about how to proceed here.
"This is no place for either of you, I do not care what the Judges have said. You, girl," she said and looked to Peace, "I have business with which I cannot explain to you here. You will not understand it because yer mind has been too addled with the effect of these flowers. As for you Achilles, I am bringing you somewhere that is more suitable where you will reclaim yer glory an' be the man you once were."
Her minions took them away before either of them could complain and she climbed back onto her dragon.
The Factory's alarm stopped and she looked to it, shaking her head.
"What a useless place. At least elsewhere they constantly remind you that you were once alive. That you had purpose. Here, though, this is the true Limbo. It must be destroyed. This cannot continue. To leave them here for all eternity would be too cruel, even for me. Come now. I must get to her before someone else does. By now what I have done here will be echoing throughout the whole of the Inferno an' there will be repercussions," she said with a sigh.
In fact, the Factory had lots of things made inside of it that she and the others took advantage of. It was just no one else ever came here to buy any of it. That was very strange too but she couldn't find the curiousity inside of her to ever ask anyone why that was and why if the Factory never made any money, how it was still in business.
It was her lunch break. She lay under the gnarled tree with the flowers above her, on the branches, falling off around her and in her hair. In the meadow and in the trees, they grew. She wasn't sure why. It never rained here as far as she could remember.
Yeah.
Memories were strange here too.
She remembered being at a nuclear power plant with her friends Jim and Tony. They were carrying signs, protesting. In March of 79, a terrible nuclear disaster happened over at the Three Mile Island power plant. The movie "The China Syndrome" starring Michael Douglas and "Hanoi" Jane Fonda, had been showing for just two weeks when it happened. Everyone was in a panic.
Now just three months later, the American public was still uneasy about nuclear power. Peace was upset about it too. She didn't want to have babies with three heads. At just eighteen years old, though, she wasn't that concerned with finding a husband just yet. Her own parents weren't even married, not by law, more through common-law as they had been together for what Peace thought was forever. So while protecting the earth and its inhabitants was a top priority, marriage was not even though she sometimes caught Tony looking at her oddly and wondered if he had a thing for her. She never asked and he never offered an explanation for those out of place glances he gave her.
But all those cares seemed to disappear when she had woken up one day, in a very old, dark, dirty and smelly jail cell, next to a man they called the Marquis. He spoke French, which luckily she understood because she was taking it in school, but he seemed out of place here. The other prisoners seemed to avoid talking to him yet spoke freely with one another through the bars. There was talk of Revolution. Of injustice. Of hunger.
The Marquis wasn't interested in those things, though. All he did was write. He had only ever talked to her once or twice and in doing so, dismissed her it seemed. She thought he didn't have a high opinion of women. She tried to ask him if he had been at the nuclear power plant too and was arrested with her but he didn't seem to understand her and she couldn't see Jim or Tony in any of the cells near theirs. She spent the first day calling out to her friends and asking the others if they had seen them but did not get an answer. He looked at her strangely. In fact, most of the prisoners did.
Then Tara had appeared.
In the darkness of the prison where Peace found herself, the red head dressed in all black had violet eyes which seemed to glow. All the prisoners save for the Marquis were afraid of her. Even the Warden. When she asked him to unlock the cell, freeing Peace, he didn't hesitate. Peace left the cell and watched as the red head spoke quietly with the Marquis. He called her "Mystère" but later, when they were properly introduced by a guy calling himself Ares, in a temple which was on some movie set she imagined, he had called her Tara.
What was said between the red head and the Marquis was itself a mystery. Peace couldn't hear what they were saying even though the entire prison was silent, everyone terrified of this strange woman and she was just three feet away from them.
Peace laughed at these odd memories. After the temple, Ares had pursued her. The movie set she was on (and how she got there she didn't know) seemed to never end. It was a scary place. Hot, too. There were many actors dressed up as monsters she had read about in mythology books as a kid. She wondered who had the money to pay for such a production and what the movie was essentially about.
And, then there was the burning at the stake. That wasn't so much fun. The fire they set below her feet felt very real and very hot. She thought she remembered screaming, even seeing that Tara woman somewhere in the crowd as the rest were calling her a witch.
But then she had woken up here. At the Factory. Which was a huge complex of buildings set in the middle of this gray meadow with its strange flowers. Since she had easy access to drugs here, she didn't feel much like investigating her present circumstances or the events leading up to them.
Here was the easy street everyone talked about just without the riches. She didn't earn a paycheck but worked in the Factory and seemed to survive nonetheless. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten anything although she was given regular breaks from making the Pet Rocks she was given that came off conveyor belts. All she had to do was paint funny faces on them and box them up. Then others would come and take them away.
Just as she was thinking about those Pet Rocks, Achilles approached. She thought she remembered hearing a story once where someone with his name had been the main character but the desire to know more about him didn't quite rise to the level of burning curiousity and she immediately abandoned the thought and just smiled at him instead.
"Hi," she said as she sat up when he knelt down in front of her.
"You should go back to yer chamber," he said and looked up to the grey skies with what she thought was some apprehension.
Behind his ankle was a wound that never seemed to heal. He was always touching it with a frown. She had only noticed because it seemed to be an obsession. Even now as he warned her, he had his hand on it. She thought he had been injured on the movie set. He must have been because he was the first one she saw when she got here and he was dressed in a costume, like some of the others. In fact, she was the only one that was dressed in what she considered to be normal clothes.
Peace looked up to the skies too. "Why? What's wrong, Achilles?"
"The clouds are moving rapidly. Tis an omen. You should go," he said and lifted her from the ground.
Peace stood up alongside him and shook her head. Achilles was very sweet to worry but moving clouds was not exactly cause for concern in her opinion.
She tried to argue with him, even as he half-dragged her through the meadow but it was of no use. He wasn't listening.
Then there was a deafening thunderclap which sounded overhead and from the clouds, a seven-headed dragon could be seen flying towards them.
Lightning touched down all around them. Achilles yelled for her to run. Others, who had taken to the meadows for their own breaks, were running and screaming.
In the distance, someone sounded an alarm from inside the Factory.
And, then the immense dragon touched down in the meadow and from its back, the woman Tara had stood up.
She looked amazing, Peace observed, even in the chaos.
She wasn't very tall but there was something about her which demanded your attention.
Dressed in a black dress which was slit up both sides, she held a golden chalice in one hand and a severed head in the other.
On top of her head, like that of the seven heads of the dragon, was a crown but it was not gold like the dragon's crowns.
It was black.
Her eyes were glowing again too.
She pointed at Peace with the chalice.
"If you run, we will follow, child. Achilles protests too much. There was a time when he was arrogant enough to think himself the greatest warrior ever born an' like Attila, another great warrior, who was felled by a nosebleed in his sleep, Achilles was pierced with an arrow in the one spot on his beautiful body that was not touched by the waters of the Styx. It was there that Prince Paris aimed an' succeeded in killing a man no other warrior in history could ever best."
Peace could only blink.
Achilles moved in front of her and drew his sword.
"Leave her be, sorceress!"
Tara just smiled at his attempt to protect War's former mistress. Even in death his fighting spirit had not waned.
"Honestly, Achilles. Do you really believe that you will come out of this the victor? I will personally drag you back to the very river which made you ninety-nine point nine percent immortal an' DROWN you in it after making you drink from it, if you do not stand down, immediately! Do not make me get off my dragon! I am pressed for time an' not in the mood for this!"
Tara hurled the severed head at him, to distract him and drank deeply from her chalice.
Achilles swung his sword, batting away the head as Tara poured what was left of the chalice's contents onto the ground.
The dragon roared.
Peace screamed.
The grey skies grew dark.
The blood from the chalice being poured out, which was now seeping into the earth of Asphodel and its flowers, was now causing them all to die.
The ground became cracked. Gone was the grey grass.
The trees all splintered in half and fell.
A swift rolling fog raced across the earth and enveloped them all.
And, when it dissipated, there were every manner of Hell's soldiers around them.
Demons, wraiths, ghouls, ghosts, and even Cerberus himself, to name just a few.
They surrounded Achilles and the overwhelmed warrior looked at her with such sadness. He dropped his sword.
"What crime have we committed that you attack us this way, woman?" he asked with a frown.
Tara frowned herself. Struck by a sudden pang of grief that this once great man was giving up so quickly, she changed her mind about how to proceed here.
"This is no place for either of you, I do not care what the Judges have said. You, girl," she said and looked to Peace, "I have business with which I cannot explain to you here. You will not understand it because yer mind has been too addled with the effect of these flowers. As for you Achilles, I am bringing you somewhere that is more suitable where you will reclaim yer glory an' be the man you once were."
Her minions took them away before either of them could complain and she climbed back onto her dragon.
The Factory's alarm stopped and she looked to it, shaking her head.
"What a useless place. At least elsewhere they constantly remind you that you were once alive. That you had purpose. Here, though, this is the true Limbo. It must be destroyed. This cannot continue. To leave them here for all eternity would be too cruel, even for me. Come now. I must get to her before someone else does. By now what I have done here will be echoing throughout the whole of the Inferno an' there will be repercussions," she said with a sigh.
Tara closed her eyes as she placed her tiny hands on the solid gold double doors before her, not knowing what to expect when she opened them. It was very likely she could be assaulted or worse, imprisoned here until one of her buddies could come rescue her. As this was her first venture into what some called the Fourth Circle of Hell, Greed, she was understandably nervous. There were two giant bas-relief question marks on each door and beside them, were leprechaun guards. Or at least creatures that looked like them.
They made no effort to restrain or stop her from continuing and that was because they were too busy counting the gold pieces in each pot they had. Thousands of them, at their feet, all along the entranceway to this new place she was in. More gold than any one man could spend in his lifetime.
She wondered if these were Charon's coins or if he had some dealings with them, although what exactly she could not even begin to imagine.
Behind her was a bridge, guarded by trolls that strangely allowed her to pass without demanding a toll that they were now trying to extort from a frightened woman, who was attempting to cross at the moment. She argued with them that she did not have the money and before she could run, they jumped her and dragged her screaming underneath the bridge, to do whatever it was bridge trolls did to those without proper payment.
She shoved the doors open and was immediately assaulted by the many sights and sounds of a modern day casino. Everywhere there were machines promising great riches just for pulling their levers.
Bells were going off and people were cheering from a nearby slot machine. She moved through this strange place, wincing at the chaos of it and was approached by four men in black garb.
"You must come with us," one of them said and took her by the arm. The others surrounded her as she was ushered through the casino and through another set of giant doors at the end of a red carpet they walked her on.
The last thing she saw before she was taken before Plutus was the cheering crowd being descended on by similar men in black garb. They beat them repeatedly with clubs and then forced the jackpot winner and their friends to swallow the coins free falling out of the slot machine they had won on.
It was a jarring sight. When she had first opened the doors, it seemed as if everyone inside the place was happy, that they were not being punished in some way as the rest of the Inferno but now this place's purpose was quite clear.
It was deceptive in that if you thought you had won, you truly did not. Eventually, your greed caught up with you and you were reminded of your sin.
Plutus was the Greek God of Wealth but in Hell he was a bank manager.
This is where his security force had deposited her, no pun intended.
She sat now, behind a desk, looking at a man who appeared to be mortal but was just as old as she was in age, give or take a few years. He wore a blue suit, with a red tie and had thick glasses. His hair was slicked back and on his person was gold jewelry, necklaces and rings and bracelets. More than any normal man would wear, she thought.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of Hades' mistress coming to see me? Making a withdrawal, perhaps?" the man grinned at her from behind a computer monitor whose light made his face appear just as green as the stacks of money behind him in the glass vault. She leaned forward to look at the screen and saw columns of dollar signs filling it.
She glanced around with some degree of apprehension.
It seemed to be a comfortable office with mahogany walls and furniture, a desk lamp, the computer and the chairs were cushioned. Everything seemed to be clean and orderly. There were diplomas on the walls, framed, which declared him a graduate of such things as "Avarice" and "Materialism." He even had a secretary who came in to offer her tea or coffee, on a tray and when she leaned toward it to give it a sniff, it did not smell like a sewer or make her recoil in disgust. It smelled like coffee should. Even the milk was perfect and not curdled.
Something wasn't right here. Hell wasn't supposed to be this....nice.
She shook her head. "No, thank you, I really can't stay," she said and shooed the secretary away as she looked back to Plutus.
"I need to see Tyche," she said, simply, and stared at him.
Plutus smiled. "Going to give the Wheel a spin are we?"
She nodded. "I intend to, yes, if she will allow me. Why?"
"I do not have the appropriate password and authorization to allow you to see her. I am sorry," he said with a shrug and then his eyes widened as he got an idea. "Perhaps I can interest you in some bonds? We recently started a new one, a thousand year, the rate of return is amazing, I think you will agree."
"But she is in yer domain, this is yer jurisdiction. I do not understand?"
The phone on his desk rang then and he nodded for her to pick it up.
Brows furrowed, she lifted the receiver and brought it carefully to her ear. "Hullo?" she said softly.
"Every time I hear that angelic voice of yours, it sends chills right up my spine. It reminds me of home, of better days, before I even knew you existed, before I knew how that voice and your presence could affect me in the ways it does. It is embarrassing to be so unguarded as I am around you. You both confuse and delight me, woman, and there are times when I often think you are the one who is the boss around here and not me. When I did meet you, you lessened my pain and when you bore me a son, there was no man happier than I. I think of our nights together and what you do to me. You could drive a man insane were he not already divested of all his faculties. They say I am, but we both know better, don't we? Do you want to know what I did with him, the praying man in the ferry?"
She gasped. It was Lucifer and while at first his voice had a wistful quality to it, it was now turning harsh. She looked to Plutus who did appear to feel sorry for her, as did the secretary and the security men, who all looked uncomfortable in their own skins at the moment. And, that's if you could consider what they were wearing as real skin.
"What you do is yer business, my lord. I do not presume to know what it is you do or the reasons for it. I have my own affairs to deal with. Please grant me access to see her. It is for a .......good purpose," she said softly, and bit her lip.
"I had him melted in Plutus' pot of gold. You see it behind you? When we are finished, have him give you a tour. There are steps leading down from the vault itself that go to a cave which flows with a river of gold. All the world's wealth is there. Every last dime. He melts there, at dawn, each day and is drowned in the river until he reaches the end at dusk. I give him twelve hours of reprieve but the next day? It starts ALL over again. You know how it is I deal with traitors here, how badly it makes me feel when those I give refuge to, go behind my back and try to cheat me."
"I did not," she whispered with a wince but was cut off by him.
"WHEN you are quite finished with Lady Luck, I expect to see you at the table in Castle Pandemonium for dinner. I want to see you in that dress I bought for you after our son's birth. Do not be late, Tara. You know how angry I get when you are tardy," he said and the line went dead.
She replaced the receiver with a heavy sigh.
"Good news!" Plutus said, clapping his hands together with a grin as he looked to his computer monitor. "It would appear as if I have been given the password after all!" he said and pointed to the monitor that was now flashing an "Access Granted" message on it. "Pray, Mistress, please follow. We will be closing soon, must not go off schedule!"
The doors on the wall behind him leading to the glass vault of money opened now. Plutus stood and gestured inside with a smile. She lifted the hem of her dress as she joined him inside as the floor was covered in gold specks and she did not want any part of this place transferring itself onto her. Just as Lucifer said there was a pot of gold in here. A big one that took up most of the room. Around it were similar stacks of money and on the walls were safety deposit boxes.
The gold inside was liquefied but there was no heat source that she could see under it. Only an opening in the floor which she supposed was a shaft that lead to the cave down below.
The security men, two on each side, lifted the pot by its wooden handles and dumped the contents down the shaft while Plutus directed her to a stone stairway.
"Ladies first," he grinned.
They made no effort to restrain or stop her from continuing and that was because they were too busy counting the gold pieces in each pot they had. Thousands of them, at their feet, all along the entranceway to this new place she was in. More gold than any one man could spend in his lifetime.
She wondered if these were Charon's coins or if he had some dealings with them, although what exactly she could not even begin to imagine.
Behind her was a bridge, guarded by trolls that strangely allowed her to pass without demanding a toll that they were now trying to extort from a frightened woman, who was attempting to cross at the moment. She argued with them that she did not have the money and before she could run, they jumped her and dragged her screaming underneath the bridge, to do whatever it was bridge trolls did to those without proper payment.
She shoved the doors open and was immediately assaulted by the many sights and sounds of a modern day casino. Everywhere there were machines promising great riches just for pulling their levers.
Bells were going off and people were cheering from a nearby slot machine. She moved through this strange place, wincing at the chaos of it and was approached by four men in black garb.
"You must come with us," one of them said and took her by the arm. The others surrounded her as she was ushered through the casino and through another set of giant doors at the end of a red carpet they walked her on.
The last thing she saw before she was taken before Plutus was the cheering crowd being descended on by similar men in black garb. They beat them repeatedly with clubs and then forced the jackpot winner and their friends to swallow the coins free falling out of the slot machine they had won on.
It was a jarring sight. When she had first opened the doors, it seemed as if everyone inside the place was happy, that they were not being punished in some way as the rest of the Inferno but now this place's purpose was quite clear.
It was deceptive in that if you thought you had won, you truly did not. Eventually, your greed caught up with you and you were reminded of your sin.
Plutus was the Greek God of Wealth but in Hell he was a bank manager.
This is where his security force had deposited her, no pun intended.
She sat now, behind a desk, looking at a man who appeared to be mortal but was just as old as she was in age, give or take a few years. He wore a blue suit, with a red tie and had thick glasses. His hair was slicked back and on his person was gold jewelry, necklaces and rings and bracelets. More than any normal man would wear, she thought.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of Hades' mistress coming to see me? Making a withdrawal, perhaps?" the man grinned at her from behind a computer monitor whose light made his face appear just as green as the stacks of money behind him in the glass vault. She leaned forward to look at the screen and saw columns of dollar signs filling it.
She glanced around with some degree of apprehension.
It seemed to be a comfortable office with mahogany walls and furniture, a desk lamp, the computer and the chairs were cushioned. Everything seemed to be clean and orderly. There were diplomas on the walls, framed, which declared him a graduate of such things as "Avarice" and "Materialism." He even had a secretary who came in to offer her tea or coffee, on a tray and when she leaned toward it to give it a sniff, it did not smell like a sewer or make her recoil in disgust. It smelled like coffee should. Even the milk was perfect and not curdled.
Something wasn't right here. Hell wasn't supposed to be this....nice.
She shook her head. "No, thank you, I really can't stay," she said and shooed the secretary away as she looked back to Plutus.
"I need to see Tyche," she said, simply, and stared at him.
Plutus smiled. "Going to give the Wheel a spin are we?"
She nodded. "I intend to, yes, if she will allow me. Why?"
"I do not have the appropriate password and authorization to allow you to see her. I am sorry," he said with a shrug and then his eyes widened as he got an idea. "Perhaps I can interest you in some bonds? We recently started a new one, a thousand year, the rate of return is amazing, I think you will agree."
"But she is in yer domain, this is yer jurisdiction. I do not understand?"
The phone on his desk rang then and he nodded for her to pick it up.
Brows furrowed, she lifted the receiver and brought it carefully to her ear. "Hullo?" she said softly.
"Every time I hear that angelic voice of yours, it sends chills right up my spine. It reminds me of home, of better days, before I even knew you existed, before I knew how that voice and your presence could affect me in the ways it does. It is embarrassing to be so unguarded as I am around you. You both confuse and delight me, woman, and there are times when I often think you are the one who is the boss around here and not me. When I did meet you, you lessened my pain and when you bore me a son, there was no man happier than I. I think of our nights together and what you do to me. You could drive a man insane were he not already divested of all his faculties. They say I am, but we both know better, don't we? Do you want to know what I did with him, the praying man in the ferry?"
She gasped. It was Lucifer and while at first his voice had a wistful quality to it, it was now turning harsh. She looked to Plutus who did appear to feel sorry for her, as did the secretary and the security men, who all looked uncomfortable in their own skins at the moment. And, that's if you could consider what they were wearing as real skin.
"What you do is yer business, my lord. I do not presume to know what it is you do or the reasons for it. I have my own affairs to deal with. Please grant me access to see her. It is for a .......good purpose," she said softly, and bit her lip.
"I had him melted in Plutus' pot of gold. You see it behind you? When we are finished, have him give you a tour. There are steps leading down from the vault itself that go to a cave which flows with a river of gold. All the world's wealth is there. Every last dime. He melts there, at dawn, each day and is drowned in the river until he reaches the end at dusk. I give him twelve hours of reprieve but the next day? It starts ALL over again. You know how it is I deal with traitors here, how badly it makes me feel when those I give refuge to, go behind my back and try to cheat me."
"I did not," she whispered with a wince but was cut off by him.
"WHEN you are quite finished with Lady Luck, I expect to see you at the table in Castle Pandemonium for dinner. I want to see you in that dress I bought for you after our son's birth. Do not be late, Tara. You know how angry I get when you are tardy," he said and the line went dead.
She replaced the receiver with a heavy sigh.
"Good news!" Plutus said, clapping his hands together with a grin as he looked to his computer monitor. "It would appear as if I have been given the password after all!" he said and pointed to the monitor that was now flashing an "Access Granted" message on it. "Pray, Mistress, please follow. We will be closing soon, must not go off schedule!"
The doors on the wall behind him leading to the glass vault of money opened now. Plutus stood and gestured inside with a smile. She lifted the hem of her dress as she joined him inside as the floor was covered in gold specks and she did not want any part of this place transferring itself onto her. Just as Lucifer said there was a pot of gold in here. A big one that took up most of the room. Around it were similar stacks of money and on the walls were safety deposit boxes.
The gold inside was liquefied but there was no heat source that she could see under it. Only an opening in the floor which she supposed was a shaft that lead to the cave down below.
The security men, two on each side, lifted the pot by its wooden handles and dumped the contents down the shaft while Plutus directed her to a stone stairway.
"Ladies first," he grinned.
The cave was as she expected it might be, hot like the rest of her world and there was a river, just as Lucifer had said, of gold. It was stirred by sinners on each side holding long metallic spoons that burned their hands as they spent most of the time alternating their grips and blowing on their skin. These were the ones not unfortunate enough to be drowning in it like the praying man on the ferry. She looked for his shade as she walked the narrow walkway of the miles-long corridor the river flowed through. There were so many faces in the river, so many crying out for help, it was hard to tell them all apart. She didn't have to look very long, though.
Plutus stopped before a door and opened it for her.
"Midas' men will see that you are brought before the lady you seek. Here is where my, jurisdiction as you called it, ends, dear mistress. Please tell Hades that I have the monthly reports he requested and there are some discrepancies that must be corrected, if you do not mind."
She smirked. "Nay, I do not mind, Plutus."
"Should you change your mind and wish to invest in some of those bonds I talked about, please come see me again. I think you will be very pleased with what I can do for your portfolio," he snickered.
She shook her head and walked through the door into a large treasury room. Here there was mountains of gold, each piece being counted by one sinner after another, but the specific one she had been looking for, that being the praying man in the ferry was sprawled out on steps leading up to another throne, occupied by none other than King Midas of Phrygia.
"Greetings!" the King cried and snapped his fingers at some attendants who rushed over to her to offer her food and wine, all solid gold.
She was annoyed now with the fanfare of this place, the clever references to days past when those among the living still believed in what had only been stories there but were actuality, played out comically for all eternity on a loop, here in the Inferno.
"Midas, I do not come to break bread with you although even if I wanted to, I obviously could not as everything you touch...."
"Turns to gold! Yes! Isn't it breathtaking?!"
"No, not really," she sneered.
"Hades has been exceptionally giving this time of year. Look what he has brought me, this young man," Midas said and leaned down toward the praying men laying across his steps.
The man was still praying, chanting almost, and cowering in fear of Midas. He begged the King not to touch him and she supposed the reason for that was quite clear as there were many statues here of people she could see that were frozen in mid-action of some sort. People that had been animated at some point but were touched by the King and stopped moving alltogether.
"Yes, I am aware of the young man's crimes. Right now, though, I am more interested in seeing Tyche," Tara said as she looked to one gold statue of a woman who had been frozen, apparently screaming and touching her head.
"O Fortuna, like the moon, you are changeable, ever waxing, and waning; hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty and power
it melts them like ice," Midas breathed as he gazed at his hoard of gold with such affection that was evident in his expression.
"I would like to see her now, Midas," Tara said more firmly, trying to break him from his trance.
"Yes, yes, I do apologize. I get easily distracted here. Go through that archway, dear, and you shall be in Tyche's domain."
He pointed to a stone archway to the left and she sighed.
Why did everything take forever to do here? Why was there was so much pomp and pageantry? She could not simply go visit someone without there being a lesson or ten attached to it in some way. It was so unbelievably frustrating. And, she had dinner with Hades to look forward to after this.
She started to walk through the archway and stopped.
"Midas?"
"Yes, pretty one?"
"The praying man, he lays there for twelve hours before being boiled again in the pot of gold, yes?"
"No, not all of them. I have tasked him with trying to find the fake coin in the hoard," Midas said and proudly gestured to them all.
"And, what if he finds it?" She asked, tilting her head.
"Oh he never will, mistress. There are too many coins to sift through. Could you?"
"Perhaps but you did not answer my question. What happens if he finds it?"
Midas blinked in confusion. "I...do not know, mistress. He was sent here by Hades. If he were to find the coin it would undo his punishment, I suppose, but that's never happened as you know. No one escapes the justice of this place."
"Just because no one ever has does not mean no one ever will," she said, her violet eyes beginning to flicker with irritation.
"Yes, but I do not think," Midas started to stutter before she cut him off. She was getting tired of people talking over her.
"I will return," she growled and moved through the archway.
Plutus stopped before a door and opened it for her.
"Midas' men will see that you are brought before the lady you seek. Here is where my, jurisdiction as you called it, ends, dear mistress. Please tell Hades that I have the monthly reports he requested and there are some discrepancies that must be corrected, if you do not mind."
She smirked. "Nay, I do not mind, Plutus."
"Should you change your mind and wish to invest in some of those bonds I talked about, please come see me again. I think you will be very pleased with what I can do for your portfolio," he snickered.
She shook her head and walked through the door into a large treasury room. Here there was mountains of gold, each piece being counted by one sinner after another, but the specific one she had been looking for, that being the praying man in the ferry was sprawled out on steps leading up to another throne, occupied by none other than King Midas of Phrygia.
"Greetings!" the King cried and snapped his fingers at some attendants who rushed over to her to offer her food and wine, all solid gold.
She was annoyed now with the fanfare of this place, the clever references to days past when those among the living still believed in what had only been stories there but were actuality, played out comically for all eternity on a loop, here in the Inferno.
"Midas, I do not come to break bread with you although even if I wanted to, I obviously could not as everything you touch...."
"Turns to gold! Yes! Isn't it breathtaking?!"
"No, not really," she sneered.
"Hades has been exceptionally giving this time of year. Look what he has brought me, this young man," Midas said and leaned down toward the praying men laying across his steps.
The man was still praying, chanting almost, and cowering in fear of Midas. He begged the King not to touch him and she supposed the reason for that was quite clear as there were many statues here of people she could see that were frozen in mid-action of some sort. People that had been animated at some point but were touched by the King and stopped moving alltogether.
"Yes, I am aware of the young man's crimes. Right now, though, I am more interested in seeing Tyche," Tara said as she looked to one gold statue of a woman who had been frozen, apparently screaming and touching her head.
"O Fortuna, like the moon, you are changeable, ever waxing, and waning; hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty and power
it melts them like ice," Midas breathed as he gazed at his hoard of gold with such affection that was evident in his expression.
"I would like to see her now, Midas," Tara said more firmly, trying to break him from his trance.
"Yes, yes, I do apologize. I get easily distracted here. Go through that archway, dear, and you shall be in Tyche's domain."
He pointed to a stone archway to the left and she sighed.
Why did everything take forever to do here? Why was there was so much pomp and pageantry? She could not simply go visit someone without there being a lesson or ten attached to it in some way. It was so unbelievably frustrating. And, she had dinner with Hades to look forward to after this.
She started to walk through the archway and stopped.
"Midas?"
"Yes, pretty one?"
"The praying man, he lays there for twelve hours before being boiled again in the pot of gold, yes?"
"No, not all of them. I have tasked him with trying to find the fake coin in the hoard," Midas said and proudly gestured to them all.
"And, what if he finds it?" She asked, tilting her head.
"Oh he never will, mistress. There are too many coins to sift through. Could you?"
"Perhaps but you did not answer my question. What happens if he finds it?"
Midas blinked in confusion. "I...do not know, mistress. He was sent here by Hades. If he were to find the coin it would undo his punishment, I suppose, but that's never happened as you know. No one escapes the justice of this place."
"Just because no one ever has does not mean no one ever will," she said, her violet eyes beginning to flicker with irritation.
"Yes, but I do not think," Midas started to stutter before she cut him off. She was getting tired of people talking over her.
"I will return," she growled and moved through the archway.
Lady Luck, Fortuna, Tyche, whatever you wanted to refer to her as, lived in her own dimension, accessible via many doors, one of which was in Hell.
It was a neutral place like Asphodel except the latter was for those in life who did not do anything noteworthy, took a neutral stance and were basically pointless individuals. Which made Achilles being there the most absurd thing Tara had ever heard of. He wasn't pointless. Peace, a druggie, deserved to be, but not him. That was its purpose, to house those who in life had never made any sort of difference.
Here, though, Tyche's Wheel of Fortune had the ability to change the course of both the past and the future. It was able to change what both the Fates and the Judges had decreed with one spin of it. War had asked her how she was able to defy primordial beings and snatch Peace from her own timeframe.
This was the reason although Tara wasn't too interested in filling him in on this little detail.
If he wasn't smart enough to figure out that all the worlds were connected, that one only had to read books that some referred to as myths and connect the dots from there, she wasn't going to help him figure it out. It was strange to her that he didn't even seem to be aware of the fact that one minute people were greeting him as Ares and then the next, War.
She, however, did figure it all out, long ago.
Well, part of her did, the part of her that wasn't born here, and that would be Tara herself. Mystery, the other half of her, learned all of this when she absorbed all of Tara's knowledge which was how she was able to do half the things she did in the Inferno that seemed to confound everyone else.
Hell made you forget what you were.
It changed you.
Henry the Eighth died and thought he was just a regular guy named Henry. He didn't know he was a former King of England. He didn't remember Anne Boleyn, nor any of his other five wives.
Tara had spent many hours trying to get him to remember. She idolized the guy but it was no use.
At the end of the day, the demons came to draw and quarter him only to do it the next day all over again.
It was worse for immortals, though.
Her own dog, Cerberus, didn't remember his parents. Didn't know that his sister Medusa, a Gorgon, was located in the Second Circle (Lust) and that he could see her anytime he wished, if only he remembered who she was.
In Mystery's case, she was born in Hell so she knew nothing else. She only learned of all this when Lucifer had sent her to Rhy'Din to possess Tara and her eyes were opened to the Great Ruse, as she called it.
That everyone here was a representation of something else.
Was someone else.
In one form or another.
They had all been lied to. Used. By someone. She supposed God, but who knew, He came in many forms too. It could be any of them.
Something had to be responsible for all this.
Years ago Tara had worked for a slaver. Anubis had too. It was how they first met. In those days, before the Whore of Babylon had come to possess her thus taking over her entire consciousness and BECOMING her, she had found Tyche's domain all on her own.
In those days, she had called her Miranda, who was, just as you might expect her to be, a gypsy fortune teller.
It was Miranda, the version of Tyche that Tara saw her as, that had created her voodoo doll, Arthur.
Situated in a normal looking forest with trees, fresh air, sunlight and lots of rabbits, was Miranda's wagon.
Tara walked down a path, uneasy about this place, even though she had been here many times before. Over the years, her friends in Rhy'Din, made fun of her because they thought she was absolutely bonkers. If they had lived where she did, experienced what she did on a regular basis, and had to contend with all the characters she had to in life, they might be a little nutty too.
But Tara was not crazy.
She was evil and uncaring and there was a difference.
Most people wouldn't slay their firstborn like she had and still be able to wake up the next day like it was nothing. And, that was just one terrible thing she had done in life. She had a whole slew of crimes after that to add to the list.
She lifted her fist to knock on the door of the wagon but it opened before she had a chance to do so.
Miranda stuck her head through the door and smiled. But she had changed.
The last time she had been here, Miranda was young with long black hair, blue eyes and flawless skin. Now her hair was grey, her skin was all wrinkled and that hourglass figure she had once enjoyed was no more. She wasn't fat, but she didn't have a dancer's body anymore either.
Tara stepped back, blinking. "What...happened to you?"
"Do you think that you are the only one who can evolve?" Miranda replied with a smirk. "Come in. We do not have much time."
"Why?" Tara asked and looked around. The forest was quiet for the most part, with birds chirping here or there, but otherwise undisturbed.
"Your brother is coming."
"My.....which one?"
"Which name would you prefer for him? Like you and the others, he's got himself an onomasticon of them."
"I have many brothers, he could be any of them, could you be more specific?"
Miranda moved behind her velvet covered table and flipped over a tarot card depicting a skeleton on a horse, holding a sickle.
Tara climbed into the wagon and joined her at the table. She immediately frowned seeing the card. "Thanatos."
"Also known as....Death," Miranda grinned.
"But you cannot die, Miranda," Tara said then, in a sudden panic and reached out to hold her hand.
"This version of me, can. Like you have had many versions an' have transitioned into the next when it came time for that, I must die too," Miranda replied and began to cough violently.
"But I don't really die, I come back, as something different each time! It's jus' lately I see all the aspects of me, I can change into them at will. Why can't you do the same?"
Miranda patted her hand. "I do not want you to worry."
"I AM worried! How can you sit there so calm when my crazy brother's about to come here an' chop off yer head?!"
"Because he's done it a thousand or so times before this. We are well acquainted your brother and I. This isn't the first time, it will not be the last. Really, child, you do not need to be so upset. I will come back."
"Yes, but different! What if I don't like her?"
"Who? The new me?"
"Yes! What if the new Miranda is ......"
Miranda reached over the table to stroke her face. "I think she will like you just as I do. I think you both will get along just fine without me."
She crossed her arms with a huff.
She didn't want Thanatos to chop off Miranda's head and wind up changing her into some other....thing.
She loved Miranda.
Miranda was a source of comfort for her, almost like a mother might be if she ever had one. They had spent many hours together, talking about the universe, the course of events, the future.
It was Miranda who told her that she would one day marry Anubis and that if she just had patience, all would be right in Tara's little world. The world outside this place that she one day hoped to stay in and not be forced to come back to the Inferno all the time.
"I won't let him touch you," she said finally with a sigh.
"This is out of your hands, child," Miranda said with a shake of her head, coughed three times and then shuffled the deck.
"I will delay him," she said with a firm nod.
"You can do no such thing and you know it. Now cut the deck."
It was a neutral place like Asphodel except the latter was for those in life who did not do anything noteworthy, took a neutral stance and were basically pointless individuals. Which made Achilles being there the most absurd thing Tara had ever heard of. He wasn't pointless. Peace, a druggie, deserved to be, but not him. That was its purpose, to house those who in life had never made any sort of difference.
Here, though, Tyche's Wheel of Fortune had the ability to change the course of both the past and the future. It was able to change what both the Fates and the Judges had decreed with one spin of it. War had asked her how she was able to defy primordial beings and snatch Peace from her own timeframe.
This was the reason although Tara wasn't too interested in filling him in on this little detail.
If he wasn't smart enough to figure out that all the worlds were connected, that one only had to read books that some referred to as myths and connect the dots from there, she wasn't going to help him figure it out. It was strange to her that he didn't even seem to be aware of the fact that one minute people were greeting him as Ares and then the next, War.
She, however, did figure it all out, long ago.
Well, part of her did, the part of her that wasn't born here, and that would be Tara herself. Mystery, the other half of her, learned all of this when she absorbed all of Tara's knowledge which was how she was able to do half the things she did in the Inferno that seemed to confound everyone else.
Hell made you forget what you were.
It changed you.
Henry the Eighth died and thought he was just a regular guy named Henry. He didn't know he was a former King of England. He didn't remember Anne Boleyn, nor any of his other five wives.
Tara had spent many hours trying to get him to remember. She idolized the guy but it was no use.
At the end of the day, the demons came to draw and quarter him only to do it the next day all over again.
It was worse for immortals, though.
Her own dog, Cerberus, didn't remember his parents. Didn't know that his sister Medusa, a Gorgon, was located in the Second Circle (Lust) and that he could see her anytime he wished, if only he remembered who she was.
In Mystery's case, she was born in Hell so she knew nothing else. She only learned of all this when Lucifer had sent her to Rhy'Din to possess Tara and her eyes were opened to the Great Ruse, as she called it.
That everyone here was a representation of something else.
Was someone else.
In one form or another.
They had all been lied to. Used. By someone. She supposed God, but who knew, He came in many forms too. It could be any of them.
Something had to be responsible for all this.
Years ago Tara had worked for a slaver. Anubis had too. It was how they first met. In those days, before the Whore of Babylon had come to possess her thus taking over her entire consciousness and BECOMING her, she had found Tyche's domain all on her own.
In those days, she had called her Miranda, who was, just as you might expect her to be, a gypsy fortune teller.
It was Miranda, the version of Tyche that Tara saw her as, that had created her voodoo doll, Arthur.
Situated in a normal looking forest with trees, fresh air, sunlight and lots of rabbits, was Miranda's wagon.
Tara walked down a path, uneasy about this place, even though she had been here many times before. Over the years, her friends in Rhy'Din, made fun of her because they thought she was absolutely bonkers. If they had lived where she did, experienced what she did on a regular basis, and had to contend with all the characters she had to in life, they might be a little nutty too.
But Tara was not crazy.
She was evil and uncaring and there was a difference.
Most people wouldn't slay their firstborn like she had and still be able to wake up the next day like it was nothing. And, that was just one terrible thing she had done in life. She had a whole slew of crimes after that to add to the list.
She lifted her fist to knock on the door of the wagon but it opened before she had a chance to do so.
Miranda stuck her head through the door and smiled. But she had changed.
The last time she had been here, Miranda was young with long black hair, blue eyes and flawless skin. Now her hair was grey, her skin was all wrinkled and that hourglass figure she had once enjoyed was no more. She wasn't fat, but she didn't have a dancer's body anymore either.
Tara stepped back, blinking. "What...happened to you?"
"Do you think that you are the only one who can evolve?" Miranda replied with a smirk. "Come in. We do not have much time."
"Why?" Tara asked and looked around. The forest was quiet for the most part, with birds chirping here or there, but otherwise undisturbed.
"Your brother is coming."
"My.....which one?"
"Which name would you prefer for him? Like you and the others, he's got himself an onomasticon of them."
"I have many brothers, he could be any of them, could you be more specific?"
Miranda moved behind her velvet covered table and flipped over a tarot card depicting a skeleton on a horse, holding a sickle.
Tara climbed into the wagon and joined her at the table. She immediately frowned seeing the card. "Thanatos."
"Also known as....Death," Miranda grinned.
"But you cannot die, Miranda," Tara said then, in a sudden panic and reached out to hold her hand.
"This version of me, can. Like you have had many versions an' have transitioned into the next when it came time for that, I must die too," Miranda replied and began to cough violently.
"But I don't really die, I come back, as something different each time! It's jus' lately I see all the aspects of me, I can change into them at will. Why can't you do the same?"
Miranda patted her hand. "I do not want you to worry."
"I AM worried! How can you sit there so calm when my crazy brother's about to come here an' chop off yer head?!"
"Because he's done it a thousand or so times before this. We are well acquainted your brother and I. This isn't the first time, it will not be the last. Really, child, you do not need to be so upset. I will come back."
"Yes, but different! What if I don't like her?"
"Who? The new me?"
"Yes! What if the new Miranda is ......"
Miranda reached over the table to stroke her face. "I think she will like you just as I do. I think you both will get along just fine without me."
She crossed her arms with a huff.
She didn't want Thanatos to chop off Miranda's head and wind up changing her into some other....thing.
She loved Miranda.
Miranda was a source of comfort for her, almost like a mother might be if she ever had one. They had spent many hours together, talking about the universe, the course of events, the future.
It was Miranda who told her that she would one day marry Anubis and that if she just had patience, all would be right in Tara's little world. The world outside this place that she one day hoped to stay in and not be forced to come back to the Inferno all the time.
"I won't let him touch you," she said finally with a sigh.
"This is out of your hands, child," Miranda said with a shake of her head, coughed three times and then shuffled the deck.
"I will delay him," she said with a firm nod.
"You can do no such thing and you know it. Now cut the deck."
By now, you're probably wondering where the Wheel of Fortune is. The enormous wheel that with one spin was able to change the course of the spinner's future.
Yeah, just like Miranda was once called Tyche, the Wheel of Fortune could change too. Today it was a deck of tarot cards. Tomorrow, it could be back to the wheel. Some days it was a pair of dice. Any symbol of Luck, it could transform into.
It all boiled down to your perception, after all.
If you also guessed that Miranda wasn't going to die, you are correct. She couldn't. Neither could Tara. It was just that Tara's perception of her was changing because Ares, War, whatever, had challenged her on what she had done, had questioned her about what she had done with Peace and what Tara was feeling, although she couldn't really articulate it at the moment nor really be aware of it, was guilt.
Her denial was standing in the way of her seeing the truth.
Tara had associated feelings of safety and love with Tyche so Lady Luck had always appeared to her as a gypsy named Miranda who could not only tell her future but fix things.
When Nokturnulz the slaver had harassed her endlessly as a young girl at the Slaver's Association where they both worked, Tara had felt isolated and alone. Anubis was not always there, he had business elsewhere, another life. He couldn't always be there to protect her, which he did when he was around. No one dared bothered her when they were together. And, people thought he was bad nowadays.
If only they could have seen him back then.
To say he was a bastard of infinite cruelty and proportions would be an absolute understatement.
The man could make your skin crawl with just a snap of his fingers and that was when he wasn't cracking his whip.
She needed someone to talk to, to confide in when Anubis wasn't around, to make her feel safe.
When things got real bad, she sometimes went to a place known as the Morkai Consortium where she had friends like Azrael, Vaenom, Rose and even the famous Tareth Thorn but they didn't visit her where she had lived at the Slaver's Association and so, once again, while at home she was left on her own to solve her problems.
Problems that were overwhelming and suffocating and they all had one name.
Nokturnulz.
Nokturnulz was a formidable enemy. He was called the Champion for good reason. Like Achilles, he enjoyed a fighting record that meant no one alive had ever beat him.
But one day, one very funny little out of the way day, he had challenged Tara to a spar.
It was a joke, meant to further humiliate her.
That day a slaver known as Diesel Vakel had agreed to oversee the match.
And, Tara had won, much to both Diesel and Nokturnulz' surprise. Tara's surprise too. She couldn't believe it.
Nok was relentless after that, unmerciful in his tortures. She had embarrassed him and in turn, he found new ways to scare her.
He even enlisted the help of one of the more famous residents of the Morkai Consortium, a monster of a man named Church, to help him scare her.
Tara didn't tell Anubis all this. She kept it quiet.
In her position where she worked, weakness was not an option.
She wanted Anubis to see her as an equal. She loved him. If she told him how terrified she was on a daily basis, what both Nok and Church were doing to her, he'd take action and that would solve the problem but everyone else would have thought of her as unable to come up with a solution on her own. And, she couldn't imagine what Anubis himself might think.
What if he rejected her?
What if he found her wanting?
That was the last thing she wanted.
In one last ditch effort to get Nok to stop bothering her, Tara went to the one woman she knew who could help her and that was Rose.
The beautiful vampiress was influential, she was well-liked and Tara saw that when Rose spoke, people listened. Rose was one of her closest friends.
Tara also knew that Nok was secretly in love with Rose and they were having an affair like she was with Anubis, although to her knowledge no one but her and Anubis knew about it.
Even though she was friends with Rose, she was not above using this tidbit of information to her advantage.
She had snuck into Nok's room one day and found their many correspondences. They were scandalous, to be quite honest. While the Slaver's Association and Morkai Consortium were allies, it would still create problems if it was widely known that Nok and Rose were lovers.
They didn't fit. Like her and Anubis didn't....fit, which was why any romance between them was also kept absolutely secret. Anubis called it their mutual "understanding" whereas Tara thought of it as the greatest inconvenience ever imposed on her by any one man.
What's more, the ONE man that mattered to her.
It was heartbreaking to say the least.
She wanted to scream to the world how much she loved this man and he wanted to do everything to ensure that everyone thought they were just, best buds.
Which was grossly unfair in her opinion.
Unlike the private dinners she had enjoyed with Anubis, which were at first a bit awkward because he treated her differently from other females and she was unused to him being normal around them, eventually he began to warm up to her, according to Nok and Rose's letters their private moments together were amazing.
Nok wrote things to Rose that Tara only wished she could hear come from Anubis' lips to her. He openly told Rose how he felt whereas Anubis only alluded to his feelings. This enraged Tara, mostly that her chief enemy could become weak in the knees with one glance from Rose, but whenever she looked at Anubis the most she was able to get him to do was smile.
Which was unprecedented if you knew the Egyptian.
One time his smiling was almost cause for war. They had been having a meeting, she had looked over at the Egyptian and brushed her hair off her shoulder and he had smiled, which the other participants in the meeting mistook for his agreeing with going to war and it had just been a mess trying to sort it all out.
Tara explained it away as him having some sort of stomach distress, which was why his face had contorted in such a fashion and everyone had believed her.
Because Anubis Karos?
Never smiled.
Once she saw Nok and Rose kissing. She had followed Nok and saw them through the trees, embracing. Anubis never kissed her in public. Oh, he'd die before he would ever let that happen. When they first began their "friendship", he would kiss her on her hand. Over the years he graduated to her cheek and in recent years, he would press his lips to the corner of her mouth.
Public perception was important to Anubis. He had an image to uphold. It didn't matter that when no one was around, they were ripping each other's clothes off and acting like every other pair of lovers did throughout time.
In public, there was a protocol to be followed. To deviate from that was unthinkable and any time she did, they would fight.
Anubis and Tara fighting consisted of his ignoring her and her screaming and throwing things at him as he was walking away.
There was only one day where he raised his voice to her but that was another story. Otherwise, he tended to get right up close and personal with her, in her face, and tell her, in frustrated whispers that her behavior was unacceptable to him.
Then when she started screaming, he'd leave.
They wouldn't speak for days, sometimes weeks.
Eventually they'd make up though and all would be forgotten until the next outburst.
But even in private, the man was guarded. He never would tell her how he felt. He was silent and this upset her greatly. How were they ever going to be together if he couldn't even show her his true face when they were all alone in the world?
Even as ridiculous as their private moments together were to her, she didn't even realize that she, too, was being unfair in not telling him what was REALLY going on at work.
Tara could tell Rose, though. Rose wasn't her lover, but her friend, and they were pretty much of the same rank and footing.
Rose was at one point Second in Command of the Morkai Consortium like Tara was at the Slaver's Association.
They were equals in business.
Tara went to see her and laid it all out, what Nok had been doing and how if it continued it would threaten her precarious position.
Rose agreed to talk to Nok if Tara agreed to stay away from him. Many of the incidents between them were caused when Tara did things that drove the slaver absolutely insane. She was always into his business, sneaking around.
But why he really hated her was the slaver they both worked for?
Had cared for Tara and gave her more power than he had given any other woman.
It all boiled down to jealousy.
Nok being jealous that Tara was in a position of power.
And, Tara being jealous that Nok told his girlfriend how he felt but Anubis wouldn't dare tell her how he felt for her.
Rose came through for her.
Tara wasn't around for that private moment between them but whatever Rose had done or said had sunk in.
Things were great!
Nok and her were even getting along in public!
Life was grand and Tara couldn't have been more happy.
Anubis was even feeling stirred to be something other than the austere and stern man he almost always was.
He had danced with her one night and it was this night that she often referred back to in memory whenever things between them were stressful.
That night he was normal.
Then, Nok asked for Rose's hand in marriage and the wedding was planned.
Public perception was a little mixed.
There were concerns that secrets that each of the slaving houses had (the SA and Morkai Consortium) would be divulged if two of its members married but as the time for the wedding grew near, any reservations the members had began to die down.
Love was in the air.
Tara had recently divorced her third husband, Arrithon, and one night he had shown up, drunk and desperate to see her, banging on the doors, Nok was the one to go outside and forefully remove him from the grounds.
Nok had defended her.
As unbelievable as that was and when he came back inside, he had put his hand on her shoulder and smiled a little. Even asked her if she was okay.
She was stunned.
Rose was awesome, that she could create in this man this unbelievable transformation.
Two weeks from the wedding, Tara travelled to the MorCon to ask her friend Azrael (whom she, and ONLY she, called Azzy, he wouldn't allow anyone else to do so) to accompany her to the wedding since asking Anubis was out of the question and she was no longer married to Arrithon.
The two went shopping for outfits and Azzy paid the bill.
He was great, Azzy.
A humorous fellow, he often made her and the others laugh at his many jokes. He had a go-kart that he called the Azmobile and he'd often take Tara for long rides into the forests surrounding the MorCon.
They spent a lot of time together.
He always treated her kindly, which was odd, since in private, he had another face too.
Azrael Rae was a slaver, through and through.
While he showered his friend Tara with compliments and gifts aplenty, in private, he was not the sort of guy you wanted to be left alone with.
Tara thought he was the funniest man she ever met.
But, his slaves, they didn't think him very funny.
Three days before Rose and Nok's wedding, Tara was in the Red Dragon Inn, drinking with friends.
A bard was singing some glory tale of old off in the corner.
In those days, bards were more common.
The jukebox that was at the Dragon now was not there, then.
If you wanted to hear music, you were dependent on someone playing it and singing it for you.
Everyone was laughing, the fire was high, drinks were being passed around like candy.
And, then Church Rhino walked in the door and suddenly, the place wasn't so hospitable anymore.
Yeah, just like Miranda was once called Tyche, the Wheel of Fortune could change too. Today it was a deck of tarot cards. Tomorrow, it could be back to the wheel. Some days it was a pair of dice. Any symbol of Luck, it could transform into.
It all boiled down to your perception, after all.
If you also guessed that Miranda wasn't going to die, you are correct. She couldn't. Neither could Tara. It was just that Tara's perception of her was changing because Ares, War, whatever, had challenged her on what she had done, had questioned her about what she had done with Peace and what Tara was feeling, although she couldn't really articulate it at the moment nor really be aware of it, was guilt.
Her denial was standing in the way of her seeing the truth.
Tara had associated feelings of safety and love with Tyche so Lady Luck had always appeared to her as a gypsy named Miranda who could not only tell her future but fix things.
When Nokturnulz the slaver had harassed her endlessly as a young girl at the Slaver's Association where they both worked, Tara had felt isolated and alone. Anubis was not always there, he had business elsewhere, another life. He couldn't always be there to protect her, which he did when he was around. No one dared bothered her when they were together. And, people thought he was bad nowadays.
If only they could have seen him back then.
To say he was a bastard of infinite cruelty and proportions would be an absolute understatement.
The man could make your skin crawl with just a snap of his fingers and that was when he wasn't cracking his whip.
She needed someone to talk to, to confide in when Anubis wasn't around, to make her feel safe.
When things got real bad, she sometimes went to a place known as the Morkai Consortium where she had friends like Azrael, Vaenom, Rose and even the famous Tareth Thorn but they didn't visit her where she had lived at the Slaver's Association and so, once again, while at home she was left on her own to solve her problems.
Problems that were overwhelming and suffocating and they all had one name.
Nokturnulz.
Nokturnulz was a formidable enemy. He was called the Champion for good reason. Like Achilles, he enjoyed a fighting record that meant no one alive had ever beat him.
But one day, one very funny little out of the way day, he had challenged Tara to a spar.
It was a joke, meant to further humiliate her.
That day a slaver known as Diesel Vakel had agreed to oversee the match.
And, Tara had won, much to both Diesel and Nokturnulz' surprise. Tara's surprise too. She couldn't believe it.
Nok was relentless after that, unmerciful in his tortures. She had embarrassed him and in turn, he found new ways to scare her.
He even enlisted the help of one of the more famous residents of the Morkai Consortium, a monster of a man named Church, to help him scare her.
Tara didn't tell Anubis all this. She kept it quiet.
In her position where she worked, weakness was not an option.
She wanted Anubis to see her as an equal. She loved him. If she told him how terrified she was on a daily basis, what both Nok and Church were doing to her, he'd take action and that would solve the problem but everyone else would have thought of her as unable to come up with a solution on her own. And, she couldn't imagine what Anubis himself might think.
What if he rejected her?
What if he found her wanting?
That was the last thing she wanted.
In one last ditch effort to get Nok to stop bothering her, Tara went to the one woman she knew who could help her and that was Rose.
The beautiful vampiress was influential, she was well-liked and Tara saw that when Rose spoke, people listened. Rose was one of her closest friends.
Tara also knew that Nok was secretly in love with Rose and they were having an affair like she was with Anubis, although to her knowledge no one but her and Anubis knew about it.
Even though she was friends with Rose, she was not above using this tidbit of information to her advantage.
She had snuck into Nok's room one day and found their many correspondences. They were scandalous, to be quite honest. While the Slaver's Association and Morkai Consortium were allies, it would still create problems if it was widely known that Nok and Rose were lovers.
They didn't fit. Like her and Anubis didn't....fit, which was why any romance between them was also kept absolutely secret. Anubis called it their mutual "understanding" whereas Tara thought of it as the greatest inconvenience ever imposed on her by any one man.
What's more, the ONE man that mattered to her.
It was heartbreaking to say the least.
She wanted to scream to the world how much she loved this man and he wanted to do everything to ensure that everyone thought they were just, best buds.
Which was grossly unfair in her opinion.
Unlike the private dinners she had enjoyed with Anubis, which were at first a bit awkward because he treated her differently from other females and she was unused to him being normal around them, eventually he began to warm up to her, according to Nok and Rose's letters their private moments together were amazing.
Nok wrote things to Rose that Tara only wished she could hear come from Anubis' lips to her. He openly told Rose how he felt whereas Anubis only alluded to his feelings. This enraged Tara, mostly that her chief enemy could become weak in the knees with one glance from Rose, but whenever she looked at Anubis the most she was able to get him to do was smile.
Which was unprecedented if you knew the Egyptian.
One time his smiling was almost cause for war. They had been having a meeting, she had looked over at the Egyptian and brushed her hair off her shoulder and he had smiled, which the other participants in the meeting mistook for his agreeing with going to war and it had just been a mess trying to sort it all out.
Tara explained it away as him having some sort of stomach distress, which was why his face had contorted in such a fashion and everyone had believed her.
Because Anubis Karos?
Never smiled.
Once she saw Nok and Rose kissing. She had followed Nok and saw them through the trees, embracing. Anubis never kissed her in public. Oh, he'd die before he would ever let that happen. When they first began their "friendship", he would kiss her on her hand. Over the years he graduated to her cheek and in recent years, he would press his lips to the corner of her mouth.
Public perception was important to Anubis. He had an image to uphold. It didn't matter that when no one was around, they were ripping each other's clothes off and acting like every other pair of lovers did throughout time.
In public, there was a protocol to be followed. To deviate from that was unthinkable and any time she did, they would fight.
Anubis and Tara fighting consisted of his ignoring her and her screaming and throwing things at him as he was walking away.
There was only one day where he raised his voice to her but that was another story. Otherwise, he tended to get right up close and personal with her, in her face, and tell her, in frustrated whispers that her behavior was unacceptable to him.
Then when she started screaming, he'd leave.
They wouldn't speak for days, sometimes weeks.
Eventually they'd make up though and all would be forgotten until the next outburst.
But even in private, the man was guarded. He never would tell her how he felt. He was silent and this upset her greatly. How were they ever going to be together if he couldn't even show her his true face when they were all alone in the world?
Even as ridiculous as their private moments together were to her, she didn't even realize that she, too, was being unfair in not telling him what was REALLY going on at work.
Tara could tell Rose, though. Rose wasn't her lover, but her friend, and they were pretty much of the same rank and footing.
Rose was at one point Second in Command of the Morkai Consortium like Tara was at the Slaver's Association.
They were equals in business.
Tara went to see her and laid it all out, what Nok had been doing and how if it continued it would threaten her precarious position.
Rose agreed to talk to Nok if Tara agreed to stay away from him. Many of the incidents between them were caused when Tara did things that drove the slaver absolutely insane. She was always into his business, sneaking around.
But why he really hated her was the slaver they both worked for?
Had cared for Tara and gave her more power than he had given any other woman.
It all boiled down to jealousy.
Nok being jealous that Tara was in a position of power.
And, Tara being jealous that Nok told his girlfriend how he felt but Anubis wouldn't dare tell her how he felt for her.
Rose came through for her.
Tara wasn't around for that private moment between them but whatever Rose had done or said had sunk in.
Things were great!
Nok and her were even getting along in public!
Life was grand and Tara couldn't have been more happy.
Anubis was even feeling stirred to be something other than the austere and stern man he almost always was.
He had danced with her one night and it was this night that she often referred back to in memory whenever things between them were stressful.
That night he was normal.
Then, Nok asked for Rose's hand in marriage and the wedding was planned.
Public perception was a little mixed.
There were concerns that secrets that each of the slaving houses had (the SA and Morkai Consortium) would be divulged if two of its members married but as the time for the wedding grew near, any reservations the members had began to die down.
Love was in the air.
Tara had recently divorced her third husband, Arrithon, and one night he had shown up, drunk and desperate to see her, banging on the doors, Nok was the one to go outside and forefully remove him from the grounds.
Nok had defended her.
As unbelievable as that was and when he came back inside, he had put his hand on her shoulder and smiled a little. Even asked her if she was okay.
She was stunned.
Rose was awesome, that she could create in this man this unbelievable transformation.
Two weeks from the wedding, Tara travelled to the MorCon to ask her friend Azrael (whom she, and ONLY she, called Azzy, he wouldn't allow anyone else to do so) to accompany her to the wedding since asking Anubis was out of the question and she was no longer married to Arrithon.
The two went shopping for outfits and Azzy paid the bill.
He was great, Azzy.
A humorous fellow, he often made her and the others laugh at his many jokes. He had a go-kart that he called the Azmobile and he'd often take Tara for long rides into the forests surrounding the MorCon.
They spent a lot of time together.
He always treated her kindly, which was odd, since in private, he had another face too.
Azrael Rae was a slaver, through and through.
While he showered his friend Tara with compliments and gifts aplenty, in private, he was not the sort of guy you wanted to be left alone with.
Tara thought he was the funniest man she ever met.
But, his slaves, they didn't think him very funny.
Three days before Rose and Nok's wedding, Tara was in the Red Dragon Inn, drinking with friends.
A bard was singing some glory tale of old off in the corner.
In those days, bards were more common.
The jukebox that was at the Dragon now was not there, then.
If you wanted to hear music, you were dependent on someone playing it and singing it for you.
Everyone was laughing, the fire was high, drinks were being passed around like candy.
And, then Church Rhino walked in the door and suddenly, the place wasn't so hospitable anymore.
"What are you thinking about?," Miranda asked, suddenly concerned when she had grown quiet and was not cutting the deck of cards as asked to do so.
"Church," Tara said with a frown. "What I did was wrong. I betrayed Rose. She forgave me but I can't help but wonder what would have happened had I just told him no."
"I know you can see some futures, but you cannot see them all like me. You couldn't have known what might have happened, Tara."
"No, but I should have done the right thing. I should NOT have interfered in that way. You know I spent years furious at Anubis' father for separating us, for getting between us which I believe caused Anubis to marry Dawn instead of me. What right did I have to take Rose away from Nok? They were in love too. I should have kept my mouth shut. I'm a hypocrite, don't you see?"
"What options did Church give you?"
"None. Church only knew how to give orders, he never gave options. But there might have been a different way, a better way, had I bothered to try and find it. When Nok first started bothering me, I came to you for help and you gave me Arthur. That helped, for a time. Nok hated that doll. He would avoid me at all costs but eventually he wasn't affected by it anymore. I went to Rose because I thought she could put an end to his torments but when Church visited me that night at the Dragon, what I should have done is come to you then, asked what I could have done about Church, but I didn't."
"How is the doll?"
Tara shook her head. "I do not know. I gave him to Taneth."
"And, who is Taneth?"
"I think of her like a daughter. She's an innocent in that place Rhy'Din I've told you about. An adult woman trapped in a teenagers's body, like me, with a mind jus' as splintered as my own. I thought the doll might help her as it had me, I don't know if it has, she calls me Red now. I think she's forgotten my name. Or, maybe Red jus' is another one of my many names, I jus' don't know it yet."
"Who is she really?"
"Honestly? I haven't been able to figure that out. I don't think I want to know. I care for her, as is. It doesn't matter to me what form she appears to me as, the one I see her in always, is the one I choose to identify her with."
"So you are perfectly fine with accepting this Taneth as she is, without questioning it, but you are haunted by a decision you made with that Church fellow."
"He wouldn't have known where the wedding was being held had I not told him."
"But others attended, did they not? Could they not have told him?"
"Yes, a select few, but none of them betrayed Rose. I did that. Let's not try to rewrite history, huh? That's not making me feel better."
"Okay, what would you prefer we do then?"
"Rose didn't want it to be a huge thing, she wanted it to be intimate, only her close friends. And, that was partially done because Church was not taking news of her engagement so well. I was special enough to be invited but she was explicit in her instructions that Church not find out. She knew that prior to her taking up with Nok that I knew about her and Church. When she announced her engagement, he was one of the first to voice his disapproval over it. It caused a lot of problems for Rose. He wouldn't give up. If you knew Church as I did, just to see him enraged as he was, it took a lot for him to let down his guard and admit he had feelings for Rose, to me, to anyone. He also wanted to kill Nok, I couldn't let that happen."
"Why not? Nok was your enemy, I thought?"
"He was but he was also...necessary. He had a function jus' like the rest of us."
"And, so Church was upset he wasn't invited but you told him because he asked it of you? I find that hard to believe."
"He wasn't upset he wasn't invited, he was upset that Rose had chosen Nok over him. She had broken it off with him to be with Nok instead. This displeased him. Rose was a very private individual, she didn't go around as I have, letting everyone know what was going on in my life. She had her secrets and very good reasons for them whereas my life has been played out on a stage and every damn paper in Rhy'Din would write about it on a constant basis. I was a central figure of the tabloids for years. Rose? Not so much. At least, not her private life, I should say. She was famous in her own way, in her own right."
"But you do realize that all these people that you know or knew, they only know what you tell them, not the truth."
"They know what they think is the truth, yes."
"So why couldn't you give Church his own version of the truth?"
"Because he would have known that I had lied. We were connected him an' I, in a very odd way. It's a very long story an' I don't want to get into it. Suffice it to say, if you ever wanted to know when I was lying, all you had to do was put Church in a room with me an' I'd talk."
"Therefore you had no choice but to tell him the location of the ceremony."
"You forget he threatened me too. I had no other choice or at least thought I didn't."
"And, so he threatened you with something and you felt there was no other way to appease him?"
Tara nodded and looked to her lap. "Yes," she whispered.
"What corner did this Church back you into that you felt you had no other choice but to divulge the location of Rose and Nok's wedding?"
Tara put her hand up without looking at her. She felt very ashamed. "I can't go there, Miranda."
"Why not? You did it, there was a reason why you betrayed your friend, you're obviously upset about it all these years later, tell me."
"I can't tell you, okay? Anubis asked me not one month 'go to let the past go, to heal from it, an' stop being so upset about my immortality. It hurts him to see me so sad. He doesn't know what to do when I get like this an' since he's very used to getting his way an' being in control, when something happens outside of it, he doesn't know how to process it in his mind. He gets very upset and jus' wishes I could move on from it an' be happy now that we are together, that we've finally achieved what we've both sought for so very long. When I get sad, it makes him feel like I'm not happy that we ARE together now which isn't true. It's jus', I can't let go of some things, no matter how hard I try. There's lots of things he doesn't know an' I'll make sure he never does because of my love for him. I'm trying to be better about this, to rise above this an' jus' be at peace now with the way things are versus how they used to be."
"But you're not at peace with it Tara."
"No."
"Tell me why. I know it has absolutely nothing to do with Anubis or Rose or Nok or even Church, so tell me the reason you've been avoiding all along. Tell me what you has you so distraught and what you can't even tell your Anubis."
Her eyes snapped up from her lap to meet Miranda's. They narrowed some before flickering wildly.
The door to the wagon flew open then and was then ripped off its hinges by some terrible force creeping up behind them.
Miranda's eyes widened as she leaned slightly right to look through the opening past Tara's head and saw Thanatos stalking toward them.
He was on her before Tara had even been able to turn around.
The sickle when it sliced through the air made a strange, musical sound.
She heard Miranda's head hit the floor and closed her eyes to keep from crying.
She had hoped she could delay him but talk of Anubis had her distracted, she hadn't even sensed he was near.
Thanatos took her hand and helped her rise from the chair. She smiled at him, this apparition that had no face at the present moment, but did have a face she knew well in another form of his.
She looked down to Miranda.
"What are you so afraid of that prevents you from enjoying your time with Anubis now?" Miranda's disembodied head inquired from the floor.
She reached over to flip the top card of the deck over and winced when she saw it was The Emperor.
"His Dad," she whispered and suddenly, the world went topsy turvy.
"Church," Tara said with a frown. "What I did was wrong. I betrayed Rose. She forgave me but I can't help but wonder what would have happened had I just told him no."
"I know you can see some futures, but you cannot see them all like me. You couldn't have known what might have happened, Tara."
"No, but I should have done the right thing. I should NOT have interfered in that way. You know I spent years furious at Anubis' father for separating us, for getting between us which I believe caused Anubis to marry Dawn instead of me. What right did I have to take Rose away from Nok? They were in love too. I should have kept my mouth shut. I'm a hypocrite, don't you see?"
"What options did Church give you?"
"None. Church only knew how to give orders, he never gave options. But there might have been a different way, a better way, had I bothered to try and find it. When Nok first started bothering me, I came to you for help and you gave me Arthur. That helped, for a time. Nok hated that doll. He would avoid me at all costs but eventually he wasn't affected by it anymore. I went to Rose because I thought she could put an end to his torments but when Church visited me that night at the Dragon, what I should have done is come to you then, asked what I could have done about Church, but I didn't."
"How is the doll?"
Tara shook her head. "I do not know. I gave him to Taneth."
"And, who is Taneth?"
"I think of her like a daughter. She's an innocent in that place Rhy'Din I've told you about. An adult woman trapped in a teenagers's body, like me, with a mind jus' as splintered as my own. I thought the doll might help her as it had me, I don't know if it has, she calls me Red now. I think she's forgotten my name. Or, maybe Red jus' is another one of my many names, I jus' don't know it yet."
"Who is she really?"
"Honestly? I haven't been able to figure that out. I don't think I want to know. I care for her, as is. It doesn't matter to me what form she appears to me as, the one I see her in always, is the one I choose to identify her with."
"So you are perfectly fine with accepting this Taneth as she is, without questioning it, but you are haunted by a decision you made with that Church fellow."
"He wouldn't have known where the wedding was being held had I not told him."
"But others attended, did they not? Could they not have told him?"
"Yes, a select few, but none of them betrayed Rose. I did that. Let's not try to rewrite history, huh? That's not making me feel better."
"Okay, what would you prefer we do then?"
"Rose didn't want it to be a huge thing, she wanted it to be intimate, only her close friends. And, that was partially done because Church was not taking news of her engagement so well. I was special enough to be invited but she was explicit in her instructions that Church not find out. She knew that prior to her taking up with Nok that I knew about her and Church. When she announced her engagement, he was one of the first to voice his disapproval over it. It caused a lot of problems for Rose. He wouldn't give up. If you knew Church as I did, just to see him enraged as he was, it took a lot for him to let down his guard and admit he had feelings for Rose, to me, to anyone. He also wanted to kill Nok, I couldn't let that happen."
"Why not? Nok was your enemy, I thought?"
"He was but he was also...necessary. He had a function jus' like the rest of us."
"And, so Church was upset he wasn't invited but you told him because he asked it of you? I find that hard to believe."
"He wasn't upset he wasn't invited, he was upset that Rose had chosen Nok over him. She had broken it off with him to be with Nok instead. This displeased him. Rose was a very private individual, she didn't go around as I have, letting everyone know what was going on in my life. She had her secrets and very good reasons for them whereas my life has been played out on a stage and every damn paper in Rhy'Din would write about it on a constant basis. I was a central figure of the tabloids for years. Rose? Not so much. At least, not her private life, I should say. She was famous in her own way, in her own right."
"But you do realize that all these people that you know or knew, they only know what you tell them, not the truth."
"They know what they think is the truth, yes."
"So why couldn't you give Church his own version of the truth?"
"Because he would have known that I had lied. We were connected him an' I, in a very odd way. It's a very long story an' I don't want to get into it. Suffice it to say, if you ever wanted to know when I was lying, all you had to do was put Church in a room with me an' I'd talk."
"Therefore you had no choice but to tell him the location of the ceremony."
"You forget he threatened me too. I had no other choice or at least thought I didn't."
"And, so he threatened you with something and you felt there was no other way to appease him?"
Tara nodded and looked to her lap. "Yes," she whispered.
"What corner did this Church back you into that you felt you had no other choice but to divulge the location of Rose and Nok's wedding?"
Tara put her hand up without looking at her. She felt very ashamed. "I can't go there, Miranda."
"Why not? You did it, there was a reason why you betrayed your friend, you're obviously upset about it all these years later, tell me."
"I can't tell you, okay? Anubis asked me not one month 'go to let the past go, to heal from it, an' stop being so upset about my immortality. It hurts him to see me so sad. He doesn't know what to do when I get like this an' since he's very used to getting his way an' being in control, when something happens outside of it, he doesn't know how to process it in his mind. He gets very upset and jus' wishes I could move on from it an' be happy now that we are together, that we've finally achieved what we've both sought for so very long. When I get sad, it makes him feel like I'm not happy that we ARE together now which isn't true. It's jus', I can't let go of some things, no matter how hard I try. There's lots of things he doesn't know an' I'll make sure he never does because of my love for him. I'm trying to be better about this, to rise above this an' jus' be at peace now with the way things are versus how they used to be."
"But you're not at peace with it Tara."
"No."
"Tell me why. I know it has absolutely nothing to do with Anubis or Rose or Nok or even Church, so tell me the reason you've been avoiding all along. Tell me what you has you so distraught and what you can't even tell your Anubis."
Her eyes snapped up from her lap to meet Miranda's. They narrowed some before flickering wildly.
The door to the wagon flew open then and was then ripped off its hinges by some terrible force creeping up behind them.
Miranda's eyes widened as she leaned slightly right to look through the opening past Tara's head and saw Thanatos stalking toward them.
He was on her before Tara had even been able to turn around.
The sickle when it sliced through the air made a strange, musical sound.
She heard Miranda's head hit the floor and closed her eyes to keep from crying.
She had hoped she could delay him but talk of Anubis had her distracted, she hadn't even sensed he was near.
Thanatos took her hand and helped her rise from the chair. She smiled at him, this apparition that had no face at the present moment, but did have a face she knew well in another form of his.
She looked down to Miranda.
"What are you so afraid of that prevents you from enjoying your time with Anubis now?" Miranda's disembodied head inquired from the floor.
She reached over to flip the top card of the deck over and winced when she saw it was The Emperor.
"His Dad," she whispered and suddenly, the world went topsy turvy.
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