Looking Back to Move Forward

[Jakobi Velenti]

Keemela'och

Jake blinked once, then several times, clearing the hazy outlines of sterile white tiles that had begun to form in his vision as he lay on the floor. A flicker of a person passed in front of him, startling him backwards and further into the little pool of blood that had been slowly leaking from his shoulder over the minutes he must have spent just laying there in a terrible memory. Sitting up in a brief flash of panic, his hand comes up to the injury to poke gingerly at the new hole through his duster. There was no pain, but he could feel the torn flesh and flow of even more warm blood over his fingertip. Just the feeling alone causes the machines inside him to finally stir into action, a silvery glob welling up from within over the hole as the nanites began the painful process of sealing the wound. A welcome pain, just as familiar as the coldness that still lingered, but anything was better than the emptiness. He could almost feel the facility sinking back to the corners of his mind before the next barely visible figure stepped around him, startling him once again and sending him reaching for his gun that lay a foot away before a gentle whisper stopped him.

"They are not hallucinations, dear." Staring down at the gun his hand hovered just above, his breathing grew a little more shaky. "Look around, Jakobi. You will see." His hand twitched, eyes burning down at the weapon before reluctantly pulling away to obey. It's then that he finally realizes he's on a ship of some kind, alongside all the other impressions of people and things that didn't quite come into view around him. One stepped right towards him, arm whipping out instinctively to batter the thing away. As though it was impossibly far from his reach and yet right in front of him, he missed, and it simply passed him by as he remained sat on the deck of the barge with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"The hell is goin' on?" Hazel eyes looked over the strange and altered surroundings beyond the boat as he rose up to his feet, grabbing his gun on the way up. "That shady bitch kill me or somethin'? No, can't be, you're fuckin' here too. Unless this is hell?"

"You are alive, dear. And now that you are no longer in imminent danger, we may have our talk here in the safety of the realm of Eonia." MoonBeryl couldn't have sounded less bothered by his insult as she spoke, her voice the pinnacle of soothing even as her answer only gave him more questions. Ones he couldn't voice as the sheer speed of the voyage finally registered in his mind, the sight of the same clouds above rapidly approaching on the horizon drawing his eyes wide. "Prepare to disembark."

All at once, the barge came to a stop with almost no warning. The pool of blood didn't budge from the sudden change in momentum, nor did any of the other passengers, but Jake wasn't quite so lucky. Any doubt in his mind that the ground ahead was made of the same fluffy material as what consumed most of the sky overheard was lost when he landed harmlessly in it after being ejected at speed, sinking enough to worry him before stopping just before he thought he'd fall through. "Disembark she fuckin' says.." It hadn't hurt physically, but he was still on edge, still full of a coldness that was slipping between anger and fear as he tried to keep it from slipping away into nothingness once again.

Once again getting back to his feet, a ribbon soared past him fast enough to nearly topple him back over out of surprise, flying along a barely visible path through the clouds ahead. Several more floated off to either side of the path, each one a source of curiosity that made him want to explore just what lay beyond the cloudy terrain as he took a step towards the closest of them. As his foot sank into the soft ground again, he hesitated, realizing there might not be something as soft to catch him if he strayed. Honeyed browns traveled down to stare at himself as the shadow of a ribbon drifted lazily overhead, looking at the little yellow stone that hung from his neck. Right, everything that had led up to now was for a purpose. His gun was slipped back into it's place at his hip. "What, uh, what did you wanna talk 'bout?"

"Your fears, dear." Jake frowned, mouth opening to protest before MoonBeryl went on to cut him off. "I don't say this to insult you, Jakobi. Everyone has fears, how long do you intend to let yours control you while posturing as though they aren't real?" The frown grew deeper, but his mouth shut. "It's just us, dear. You can't lie to me, and you achieve nothing lying to yourself."

"Quit fuckin' preachin' about nonsense and get to the point." There wasn't as much bite behind the tone as his expression would have made one expect, just impatience tinging the words. "Grab the one behind you." The look on his face twisted from anger to confusion, turning to look at what the Opal was talking about just in time for a length of ribbon that was lazily drifting to brush over his shoulder. Even the faint contact is enough to bring that curiosity from before back, joining MoonBeryl's words in sending his hand up to grab the thing before it could get any further away. The direct contact is enough to take him entirely, mind leaving his body behind as the multicolored memories in his hand swallowed him up for a moment.

Jakobi's hands trembled as he grabbed the corner of the shack to peer around it. His empty stomach had begun to hurt more than usual over the last two days, one bone thin arm coming down to clutch it as another shiver of pain wracked him. The people from the stars were leaving the chapel as the priest of Marne and priestess of Athelia escorted them out. The other priests and priestesses waved politely from in the doorway, causing Jakobi to whisper a quiet prayer to Athelia as he saw just how many eyes there were to spot him if things went amiss. "Smiling Lady, please don't be mad. I just need a little more luck." Sun kissed skin that was made even darker by the dirt and grime caking it helped to keep him unseen as the boy snuck forwards to the next ramshackle building, the twilight hour dark enough for him to blend in with the rest of the mud colored town.

When the two religious leaders turned to head inside again at the chapel gates, he bolted. With their backs turned, and the people from the stars returning to their flying metal carriage, he repeated his prayer once again as his bare feet quietly carried him behind the men in their strange armor. The Smiling Lady must have given him her blessing, as they didn't even glance back once while he crept aboard their ride just a pace behind them both. Cramming himself into a space between two crates made of a smooth material he couldn't even begin to understand, Jakobi watched in awe as the door behind him seemed to slide out of the very walls they were part of. Then his stomach growled, and the silent wonder disappeared with as the closer of the two star people whirled around on him, weird tube-shaped weapon in hand. "What the, hey!" Jakobi could barely get his hand up in surrender before the bullet ripped through the right side of his face, the pain the last thing he felt before it all went dark.

"You didn't know that he would shoot first and ask questions later, where another ship might have had less trigger happy crew to discover you had you acted sooner or waited another day." The world came back to him in a flash, honeyed yellow clouds all around. The ribbon slipped from his hand with a gasp as he gripped his jaw, the ghost of the pain still fresh on his mind. "What the fuck was that?" There was no blood, no bullet, just the jagged scar under his fingertips. "It was the first example, dear. Grab another, look again." He was still panting, bewildered. "Fuck you, why?" The cold anger was even harder to keep ahold of after that vision, barely able to remind him to be suspicious of the stone instead of just giving away to the fear tinged emptiness that still lingered beneath the surface and obeying mindlessly. "Because you must truly remember to understand the offer I have for you." An offer? "I thought this was supposed to be a conversation, not a sales pitch and mind fuckery." Another ribbon began to drift close, just as one of the clouds overhead moved enough to reveal something massive and dark behind it in the distance. "It isn't. I will explain more in a moment, but first, look." The clouds shifted back into place to hide whatever it was that loomed beyond, and Jake growled while reaching up for the strand of memories. He had to know.

Sometime between doses he'd heard the surgeons mentioning that it was their last day on this project. It was hard to remember when one came or went through the haze their syringes kept him in, but he knew it wasn't often. Only two, maybe three faces had changed in his entire time here. The hum of the fluorescent lights was telling him that it was strange for so many staff to change at once, the cold tiles underfoot voicing their agreement as his feet slapped against them. A hand on Jakobi's shoulder guided him to turn down another corner. Or was it 7's shoulder? No, the outside was still his. Right? Yes, and the hard parts were still his. 7 was his lungs, the sterile white wall knocked into his shoulder to tell him as much as he turned another corner. More humming from the lights reminded him of the topic at hand about the staff changing as the voice of whoever was behind him shouted about his clumsiness, words mostly going in one ear and out the other. The floor slapped underfoot again to agree that it was very strange, that it wasn't normal. The surgical room beeped as he stepped into it, passing a warning with the beep. It told him that it wasn't the staff's last day here, it was his. The project.

He couldn't figure out if he agreed or not, it didn't make much sense to let him go after all. White tiles slapped a few more times as he was directed towards the same table as ever, fresh white sheets over the white metal under the white lights in the white facility. They slapped to tell him he hated the color white. The lights hummed their agreement. A hand pushed him, the impatient shouter who had led him here knocking him facedown onto the table. Something in his nose bent painfully before making a strange sound, shocking his body enough for the next words to finally register. "I'll be so glad to be done moving this idiot from A to B finally. Help me strap him down." Someone else responded, but he couldn't tell what they said. The squeak of their shoes was disapproving as they approached, the footwear telling Jakobi that he really should have figured it out by now. They're not setting him free. A woman who was always kind to him before each procedure gripped his arm to try and roll him over gently, the fabric of her scrubs brushing against him with to agree with the shoes of the person who had his leg. She had been gone for a few weeks, and he was almost happy she had come back, but he was sad at what the fabric of her uniform said. The material told him that 7 wouldn't breathe anymore. That 4, 9, 12, and all the others ended here a second time if he didn't do something. But none of it mattered if he couldn't convince the machines to save anyone else. There was only one person they would fight for if he told them that person was in danger, the one he didn't really care to save out of all of them with the kind nurse so close by. While he was still deciding if he wanted to acknowledge the truth or not, the pinch of a needle in his neck made the decision for him as it spoke to him. A tear welled up in Jakobi's eye as it said sorrowfully that they were going to kill him.

And then the whirring began, one panicked shout cutting short as the side of the surgical table told him that the blood tasted good when he slammed the head of the guard who'd led him here into it. It asked for more, and his body began to obey regardless of what he wanted while he started to sob out an apology. He knew it wasn't the needle that hadn't even gotten the chance to flood his veins who told him the truth, and that the little push she had given him to save himself was why her neck was now snapping in his hands.

"You didn't know that such a simple action as picking the wrong day to try and be a stowaway would result in that." Jake collapsed to his knees as MoonBeryl's voice caressed his mind, gasping for air once more while the ribbon was released. The fluorescent hum still rang in his ears. He could still see her face, grey hairs and gentle eyes full of fear as she died. He could hear her voice telling him he was in danger even though she had to know how that would trigger his implants. "You didn't know what would happen."

"Why?" His voice was weak, pathetic to his own ears as he spoke to the cloud beneath him. His skin crawled, each shuddering breath a reminder of that it wasn't his lungs full of air. It wasn't his liver that kept him from killing himself with sheer volume of alcohol he consumed on the regular. That so much of what lay just beneath the surface wasn't his, the best salvaged pieces and organs of the other failed projects having been put to use trying to ensure that he wasn't a waste of their experimental technology every time one of his own would start to fail. "I'm sorry, dear Jakobi, but I needed you to remember what it was like to wish you knew."

"What do you mean?" The while tiles were threatening to replace the clouds under him, vision blurring as his breathing got further and further out of control. "Every goddamn day, I wished I knew not to get on that ship." The words barely escaped him as he hyperventilated, trying and failing to rise to his feet with a stumble that brought his hands down to catch himself. "Not just that. What will happen now?" Confusion bloomed in him, enough lift his gaze from the ground to look up fearfully around at the hazy mix of warped terrain and barely visible sterile walls that danced in his vision. "What?"

"Precisely. Look again, and then I will explain my offer fully." His chest began to hurt, air wasn't making it all the way in or out properly. His eyes were frantic and wild as they locked onto another ribbon that was floating towards him, his entire body coiling like a spring as he tried to decide if he should jump towards it or away from it. "It is common to fear the unknown. Does it make you afraid to not know what comes next, dear?" He froze at the question, but the colorful strand continued to drift lazily his way from out over the path ahead. It terrified him to the core, having seen two terrible memories and knowing full well there were several more it could pick from if he touched another. "Having the ability to know the outcome of a decision often helps one make them with more ease. For example, what if I told you the next vision would be pleasant?" His mind raced with possibilities, trying and failing to come up with anything pleasant enough from his entire life that could make the horrors worth risking again.

Then a different feminine voice interrupted his thoughts, asking a different question. "Do you believe in fate?" One wheezing breath followed, lungs finally filling as the ghosts of delicate fingers ran through his hair to complete the snippet of a natural memory while he let the strand pass him by without touching it. There was something he would risk reliving his worst moments for after all. Another shadow stretched overhead, the ribbon that cast it far above and out of reach, appearing as though it stretched off endlessly into the distance as Jake looked up at it. A memory that long had to be a lifetime, several maybe, if the size of them even had any correlation to the amount of time. A smaller one rose up from out of the ground before him, barely the length of his forearm as it slowly unfurled. From so close he swore he could make out the memories across it just by sight, sections of it glimmering red in a way that told him all he needed to know about what might be contained within. A shaky hand came out towards it, only hesitating at the last moment as a different memory played through his head in the same voice."She wants something from you."

"I only want you to look, this time a glimpse forwards instead of back, dear." MoonBeryl was as calm as ever as she countered gently, her tone reassuring. "So that you can understand the value of what I may provide you with. You would never have to worry about what the future held for you both, you'd know exactly what to say and do." The Opal's words eased the tension in him even further, the hollow feeling within filling a little at the notion of having true certainty in regards to her and what was to come. Just as his breathing evened out and he began to psych himself up for the task of grabbing the next ribbon, a thought occurred to him far later than it should have as he began to stand upright again.

"Say, Moony..." Jake spoke, fingers once again reaching up to stop just in front of the slowly twisting length of vibrant memories. "How come you ain't take me here the first time we went through the portal, if'n this was your destination the whole time instead'a the Isle?" The painless wound at his shoulder came back to mind, alongside the way it felt almost impossible until moments prior to drag to mind the one person who'd have made dealing with these terrible flashbacks bearable.

"The Dark Hunter's magic clearly interfered wi-" The pirate scoffed, cutting MoonBeryl short as he asked, "Oh did it? And it was just lucky happenstance for ya that she fucked with my head enough to almost make me not notice you doin' the exact same thing?"

"That isn't what's happening here, if-"" But Jake spoke over the stone again as it tried to continue it's answer anyways, a smirk finally finding its place as the Opal's error made itself apparent to him. "Look, you real clever, but you fucked it. Almost had me good, mighta even worked if'n you hadn't tried to take the easy way out by lettin' tall, dark, and spooky take a shot at me. Why the hell would she let whatever you did to get us here work the second time but not the first?" His hand came away from the ribbon in front of him to grip the chain on his neck, lifting the rock into view as he spoke. "Better yet, how come you ain't clarify why I wasn't supposed to talk until after I got her attention? You responded to my thoughts just after that, so we both know you had time to say somethin'."

The silence that met his questions made him laugh as he pulled the necklace up and over his head, feeling through the connection MoonBeryl's mild surprise and genuine frustration. "What's a matter? Ain't expect someone to pay attention to the little details when they bein' conned? Or maybe you just thought you could get lazy with me." One of the pockets on his coat was tugged open by his other hand before the necklace promptly fell into it.

"You will regret spurning me, dear Jakobi. I only wanted to help."

Jake pursed his lips as he strode over to the shoreline the barge had once been at, having left at one point or another during however long he'd spent lost in memories. "Call me dear again, and I swear I'll stuff you back in that cubby on my shuttle till someone comes to take ya from me. I got enough mercy in me to let all this shit slide enough to still bring ya round since I'm kinda runnin' on assumptions anyways, but ain't no more cuttin' deals." He knew he could have been wrong, if it weren't for the way the stone had seemed upset about being called out. The iridescent water, or whatever the liquid was before him, swirled despite the surface remaining completely still. A drunken memory finally returned to him of having briefly stepped foot on the barge once before, and how falling off the side of it was what returned him home. Turning his back to it, he extended both arms to either side and looked up into the yellow clouds above before tipping backwards with the words, "And it's Jake, mon ami. Jake Valentine."

His back never hit the surface of the water, instead smacking into the floor of the Red Dragon Inn as he fell out from the portal to the Twilight Isle. One of the bartenders stopped wiping a glass to look over at him with mild concern before he sat upright, looking around to gain his bearings while wincing as the pain that he'd been wondering about ever since the Dark Hunter's arrow had pierced him finally appeared. The faint presence of the Opal's tendrils in his mind was gone, connection seemingly closed even though a pat to his pocket confirmed it was still in there. "Fine, pout." Up and onto his feet, the pirate dusted himself off before finding a clock on the wall and cursing. It was far, far later than when he'd left despite how quickly it felt like everything had gone. He was going to be exhausted come time for the luau that evening, he could already feel it.

With one deep breath, he tried to tell himself that he made the right call, assumptions and everything. Knowing whatever MoonBeryl had planned to offer him was still tempting, but the words of its previous bearers from the night he'd won it still rang in his head, gentle warnings from the Gatito and Eregor. And as much as he wanted absolute knowledge that the future would go his way, or how to make it do so by force, he could already hear her teasing rasp in his head once more as though telling him the one thing he wanted to know anyways. He found himself grinning while climbing the steps towards the very source of the voice in his memory, and the twinkling rubies that shined in his mind as he mentally played it back once more. "You're stuck with me."