Flashback As the New Unborn

[Philomena]

Fall 18, 480
University District, Zeltiva
(In parallel to Thwarting Tanroa)
-----------------------------
The bell chimed low and dull and slow, and Lanie growled irritably.

"Ass-petch-a-god, I'm hungry. Minnie you were too petching slow back there! We could've 'ad the whole petching loaf, and probably a dinner out of the deal!"

Minnie sighed, "Come on, Lanes, we'll find something else."

It had been several bells since Lanie had eaten her white bread, and half the pile of ash-crumb, and they'd made it back for dinner. Minnie was used to the girl's moodiness, she understood it. She had known it so long she could translate - the language was an easy one to discern after all, for it really had only one phrase formulated a thousand ways: "I'm hungry."

"It's late, Mins, we're not finding anything, and we'll have to hurry or we'll be sleeping under-gutter again."

Mins sighed - the truth was Lanes was right. Minnie half considered breaking in somewhere, but she knew it was a pipe dream. Neither of them were really thieves, not in any professional manner, and breaking and entering, that was too much even for the cleverer of the Kennel girls, "We could try just begging."

"Begging? That never works. Besides, Mins, you look like something Rhysol shytes when 'e has a rumble-stomach."

Mins frowned sourly - just because she could translate the language didn't mean she enjoyed it after all, and even she had her limits. She'd given Lanes the whole petching loaf, after all, of white bread! Real white bread! IT wasn't as if she weren't hungry. She sniffed and wiped her nose. The smell of creosote on her arms filled her nostrils… no. No, that wasn't creosote. That was smoke.

"Lanes, you smell that?"

Lanes stopped, sniffed, "Burning… tha' taint a chimney fire, that's…"

Mins turned, "House fire!"

Lanie's eyes brightened, and she started to run. Minnie ran after her, with a sigh.

It wasn't that the girls enjoyed, per se, the idea of someone's house burning down. If pressed to consider the reality of a house fire's implications, both girls would probably have - eventually - confessed in fact that it was a tragic thing. Yet, the exigencies of the moment, in this sort of situation, were paramount - and the thing of it was this: when a house is burning down, the neighbors all running around pell mell with well buckets, the Wave Guard rushing in to try set up brigades (mostly to prevent the fire spreading, is all), well... a few little girls slipping in the door to snatch a few abandoned sale-ables before the fire gets too hot were not necessarily noticed, and were seldom the first priority of those involved. There were stories, in fact - legends both girls figured, but desired to believe they were true - that years ago, some orphan girl had run in to such a place and saved a baby inside, and been adopted into a rich family for her heroism. And for that sort of bounty, even Mins might show a touch of gallantry. Lanes was even easier - she'd do it for the story, or maybe to try to win over one of the kindlier hearted or courageous gods. When you've not too much in your life, you don't consider the price of losing it so much.

The fire was quite near, just up the hill in the jumble of streets beneath the university. It was an awful place for a fire - there was a parchment tannery nearby that already begin to give off the reek of overheated calf-skin, and a private book-binder as well, both ready kindling if the business was not stopped. A great group of students had already arrived, and were splashing down the surfaces of the buildings next door. It was an office of some sort on fire, some arcane student, people were figuring, with the sort of scraps and cinders floating. Sort of damned accident the Reimancery professors always warned about. Sure to be some sort of inquest.

And with the work of dousing the neighbors down, there was no one terribly worried about the front door of the office itself.

The fire, Lanie figured, was high and not too smokey - must of started on a table, perhaps, and hadn't gotten into the floor-boards. "Come on Mins! Student's quarters, maybe we'll find you a book or an ink pot too, eh?"

She grinned, eyes flashing and excited, then without waiting, she ran. Minnie, hesitating, ran after her, wiping her sleeve across her eyes, first.

They got inside at almost the same moment, the fire was mostly in the roof - the best kind of house fire. One had to watch for falling, but the floor was usually full of retrievable bits. There was a desk, Lanie was already rifling through it - a half empty ink pot went down her neckline, a hand held at her waist to make pouch for other things. Minnie picked up a book - she couldn't even read the title, but the binding was pretty, and she couldn't just watch it burn.

Then, Hannah grabbed her.

Hannah was Hannah, but only barely. Mostly, she was a cloud of burning hair, of charred face. Her screaming had failed, too choked by smoke, and her eye - only one remained - seemed to be incapable of closing anymore, the white almost red with blood and cinder-cuts.. Her body had the scorched, and smoldering remains of a dress, and one of her legs clearly was no longer of use. She clung to the edge of the desk, "Minnie! Minnie its you!" Her voice had been beautiful once, and Minnie's heart turned contracted into a knot of horror, now, to hear it as a scrape of smoking bones and a hiss of rattling breath.

"Minnie, Minnie, help me, help me… the tongue, that horrible tongue, that horrible black tongue, on my neck…"

She coughed hard, then, Minnie frozen in terror. With each cough, Hannah's throat pulsed, and a gobbet of thin blood ran down her breast. The smell was overpowering and horrible, burning flesh, burning hair. Minnie opened her mouth and closed it, three times, feeling faint.

Then, she felt Lanie grab her, and she could hear again, hear that Lanie had been shouting, "Minnie, run! Run! Run Minnie! Petch it, wake up! Wake up!"

The smaller girl's eyes were streaming and frightened. Minnie stumbled backward, clumsily, drunkenly, then felt Hannah's hand reach out and grasp at her, grabbing a sleeve in a death grip. Minnie stumbled back, Lanie pulling her, now.

The two fell out the front door, Minnie wildly hitting Hannah's arm with the heavy book in her hands. The ink in Lanie's dress fell and shattered on the stone, soaking both of their legs in black, mixing with the dark blood running from Hannah's neck. Lanie leapt forward now, wildly, both of them horrified beyond an appreciation of the creature as a human, much less one they had known and… if not loved, at least understood. Lanie kicked the girls arm, and it dissolved just behind the the elbow in a shuddering crash of ash and bone and broken flesh.

Now, Minnie screamed, finally awoken.

For years after, Lanie would tell about her nightmares of that night, lying by Minnie and shivering miserably. Minnie never told hers in return, because it frightened her, for she did not see Hannah, did not see the house, did not see the streets they barreled down blindly. She only saw that book, that great heavy book, falling on the ground, a cinder catching it, and curling the pages slowly into ashy tendrils of black, saw the illustrations burning into her eyelids, and saw her own bare feet, soaked jet with ink, and felt that sudden, horrible, illogical feeling of murder.

[Philomena]

Minnie stumbled along behind Lanie, a useless appendage. IT took her four blocks, for Minnie to realize she was still screaming, and shakily choke the sound. Lanie had a hand on Minnie's arm, half dragging her along, as she muttered terrified under her breath.

"Oh petch, oh petch, oh petch-petch-petch a petching petcher…"

"Lanie, he's going to come for us next."

Lanie turned, pale and shaky and shook her head, wildly, "No. No, no, no. No, no, no. We're going to hide, Mins. We can't go back a-kennel, not now, we've got to hide…"

Minnie heard this, but comprehension escaped her grasp, and she stumbled out the same words, "Lanie, he said he would… he said he would come for us next." Her legs started to shake, and she stumbled and fell.

Lanie stopped abruptly, and went to her knees to pull Minnie up, "Mins, no, no, no, no, not here, not here… come on, Minnie-Wren. Not here. Would… think, Qalaya wouldn't want you stopping here, would she? You haven't written it down yet!" she stumbled awkwardly through this second half - her understanding of her friends devotion to Qalaya always a bit shaky.

Minnie, though, heard this, and nodded, her face still slack and lost, and fought to her feet, "The roof… the roof. We're… in the University, its far from the Kennel, Lanes. We go up on the roof. I… I can't run like you, Lanie-mae, we need to hide…"

Lanie looked at Minnie, her face worried, and nodded, "Okay. Okay. Come on, Mins. Come with me."

Lanie pulled Mins into a space between two buildings, an art classroom on one side, though it seemed more or less abandoned in this season. Lanie scrambled up a pile of discarded ash and lumber, and leapt up, gripping the roof, to pull her skirts up behind her. she leaned over to reach for the minuscule Minnie, who leapt three times before catching Lanie's hand, and squirming up the side of the building with her help.

-----

They huddled on the top, together, and sat very still for a few minutes. Lanie went to scout the top, to see how safe they were - no obvious entries or exits. A skylight, she peered through that - there was someone inside… a woman? The woman was slouched in a chair, and very still. It was shadowy in the room, but the whole scene felt wrong. Lanie didn't like it, and ran back to Minnie.

"Mins, Mins!"

Minnie lay on the stone roof, her eyes closed, her breathing troubled, and didn't react.

"Mins!" she grabbed the girl's arm, "Mins, wake up!"

Minnie woke up, her eyes flying open in pure animal terror, and began scrabbling backwards. Lanie grabbed her in a tackle, to keep her from the roof's edge, "Mins! Stop! Stop! Stay still! Its me, Lanie!"

Minnie looked up at her, her eyes wide and rabbity in fear, the pupils blown, "Lanie…"

"Shh… its okay, we've gotta move, okay? We can't stay here… there's someone in the classroom underneath us…"

She gave Minnie an arm, and tried to help her to her feet, Minnie scrabbled, instead on her hands and knees forward, "Lanie… Lanie, my foot, summit's wrong wif it…"

Lanie, in the gathering dark, felt along her friends leg to her foot - the ankle was badly swollen, "Oh Petch… Oh Petch…"

Minnie looked at Lanie, her lips shaking, "Lanie, Lanie… you run. You run, and get away, please…"

"Mins, I'm not going to do that!"

"Lanie, I… I can't, I can't walk on it. I can't, I can't…"

Lanie was silent a minute, and shook her head, "Can you crawl a little bit?"

"Not… off the roof…"

Lanie shook her head, "I know. I can't carry you down, Mins… I… here. You crawl up, with me, to the skylight. There's a lady inside. You watch her, and make sure noone else comes in, and nottin' bad is 'appening. I'll clim' down and fin' us some rope so we dunny fall off, an' summat to eat."

"No! No, you can't! You have to run hide! Lanie… Lanie, he's looking for you, I know it. I know it. I'll be safe, he doesn't even want me, I --"

"Hush it, Mins! You know you'd do t'same! Now, you sit quiet 'ere, and dunny say nuppin! I'll be right back, I promise; now, come on up, I'll help you up to look in."

Minnie, crawled painfully across the rough stone roof, pushing with her bloody knees, and her greasy hands, to try to take the pressure off her ankle. Lanie got under her and pulled, and they managed to get to the window.

And then Minnie looked in. Just as she did, the moon unbuttoned her shift of clouds and dropped it from her breast, her light shining across the rooftops, onto the woman inside the art room.

Minnie had never seen anything at once so terrible and so beautiful. The woman was high-boned and delicate of feature, her skin a pale, marble-stone color, so pale she was nearly white in the bluish hue of the moon. And smeared across her face, and down her slender neck, and across her breast were long, dark smears of red, red, blood.

Lanie shivered, "I think she's dead, Mins."

Minnie shook violently, "Oh… oh… " An odd mixture of emotions thrilled through her tiny body, and her mouth felt dry and empty, and ached for the figure to move. To show some sign of life. To still be there, to still be real, and present. A strange feeling welled up in Minnie's belly - loneliness.

Lanie looked worriedly at Minnie, "Minnie… Minnie! Wake up!"

Minnie murmured very soft and still, pulling her ink splattered knees up close to her chest, "I'm here, Lanie. I'm here… I… I'll be fine. I'll watch over her. You go… you go. Be careful…" But she did not look up at her friend as she said it.

Lanie frowned, not wanting to leave her friend in this kind of state, but shook her head. It had to be done. Minnie had already almost slid off once, and Lanie was not so big to hold her in place. And they'd need to eat eventually. Lanie shook her head, again, and murmured prayers under her breath, "Sweet Mother Qalaya, Lady of the Plume… watch over Minnie, for her sake, not mine… keep her safe, keep her safe…"

And she slid from the roof into the night.

[Philomena]

Minnie watched the skylight, only her eyes peering over the edge of the glass, in the shadows of the night. Her body felt shaky, but it was her mind, mostly, that was exhausted dousing her under into sleep, over and over, as she fought back awake. The vision of her eyes began to mix strangely with the texture of her dreams, and forever, she remembered the night in a peculiar blend of the two. Remembered the woman slumped, and then remembering her rise to stand, tall and narrow, throwing back her hood, breathing deep, licking her lips languidly to get the last congealed gobbets of blood from them. Then, she remembered the woman dancing, twirling, round and round and round, in the center of the room, remembered little spirits dancing around her, little fire-winks and star-spits, like she'd heard of in fairy tales.

Then the woman was herself again, suddenly, lucidly, walking through the room, drawing lines on the floor, drawing a great circle, with spirals within, spirals lined with letters, that curled and murmured and whispered through Minnie's brain. She could not read them, but her ears heard them, felt their breath in her mind, felt the warm tips of their tongues in her ear.

"Sleeping, sleeping, dreaming, dreaming, hungry, hungry, thirsty, thirsty,
This one sings a sallow song, of copper mizas, pocket jangled,
Sleeping, sleeping, dreaming, dreaming, hungry, hungry, thirsty, thirsty,
Hush a bye, my darling one."

And then, she was floating in the room, as if she were held in the breast of a bird, slowly descending, and the woman held her arms up to catch her up, and wrapped her in a great black sheet of soft, soft wool, and she moaned and murmured, and felt warm, so warm, so terribly warm, and she looked up at the bloody-faced woman, and murmured, "He has killed you too, mama?"

"Yes, my one, my darling. But you see, I waited here for you."

And then the woman drew a knife, and cut a slice across her breast, and pressed Minnie's face against it, and Minnie drank the flowing blood, blue-green, and sweety-sour like a candied lemon peel, and it was cool and refreshing in her throat, and she thought softly how she would not have thought that blood would taste so free of salt.

The mother-demon smiled gently, and stroked her face, "You would not think so, no? But do you know how long, my beloved girl, I have wept for you? I have wept all my salt out, now, and all I have left for you is the sweet."

But then she was on the roof again, and the woman stood in the center of the circle, and waited, and the door opened, and then, the man was there again, and Minnie knew, clearly, coldly, that now she was awake.

The woman spoke now, a deep cowl on her head, and all of Minnie could see was the pale, pale lips, moving slowly, smiling, and Minnie shook her head, murmuring soft, "No, no, no lady… no, run from him, run from him." But she was awake enough now to know not to pound on the skylight to her, and stayed very still. The man undressed. Minnie had seen naked men, a few times in her life, but there was something different about this, about sitting on a roof, shivering, and watching this old man slowly undress, watching the woman's slender hands stroke letters of black ink across his skin. She felt a peculiar tingling from her belly to her toes, and began to imagine with a sort of horror, that the ink staining her stockings and skirts and legs and feet was beginning to burn, to crackle against her skin. But she was frozen now.

The woman came around the man's back, to the nape between his shoulder blades, and drew a series of characters on the man's back, and these were in long, curved strokes of letters:

"Evalin"

Minnie read them, and murmured them under her breath, "Evalin…. Evalin…" IT sounded more like a name than a word, and she murmured it softly to herself as she watched.

"Evalin… Evalin…"

And then, the woman crossed the room, and took a wooden pail, holding it beneath her arm. Then she drew out a knife, and slit her flesh. Minnie gasped, felt her stomach lurch, and vomited up the ash she had eaten at dinner, on the roof beside her. When she looked back, she saw the woman's blood, saw… it was pale grey, but in the moonlight, it looked almost blue… almost sweet, and sour, and free of salt.

Minnie's breath caught. The man took the bucket up and then took the woman, the Evalin, and forced a kiss on her lips. Minnie gasped, and let out a tiny, miserable moan. His voice was husky, and dark, and the night was still, and she heard it, faintly.

"Until we meet again, Evalin."

And then he lay, and drank th bucket, and lay on the floor, his body cringing and shaking. And the Evalin turned, and walked out of the door, staggering slightly, her hand clamped tightly to stop the bleeding, of the sweet, tearless blood. And Minnie watched. Her heart yearned to leap from the roof, to take the woman, to hold her and find her safety, to save her somehow.

But her body did not sleep now - it fainted.

[Philomena]

Minnie's mind fled from the experience of the current moment with the speed of Lanie's feet earlier in the evening. But no one had followed Lanie. Minnie's mind, on the other hand, pursued itself. In the twilight dream-state, she dreamt horrible mixtures of fantasy and nightmare. She was a grown woman standing with the Evalin underneath a willow, holding hands and singing, and she looked up, and the Evalin had a snarling dog's fangs. The murder-man stood in rings of flames, and the flames had the weeping faces of all the girls from the Kennel. Lanie lay upon a buffet table, shivering and whimpering, as the murder-man cut slices off her left leg like a great sausage, and forced them into the Evalin's lips. The Evalin leaned and kissed Minnie, and Minnie felt her lips dissolving, felt her body melting into the flaccid, naked form of the Murder Man.

And then she woke. She felt a tight, rough line about her belly, and smelled the odor of long dead fish. And she looked up and there was Lanie. Lanie gasped and fell on her quickly, crying volubly, "Oh Minnie! Minnie, Minnie, you're awake! Are you okay?"

Minnie gasped, and tried to speak, but it caught in the dry rolls of her own parched throat-flesh. Minnie tipped a battered pitcher of stale water to her mouth. Most of it went down her dress, and this made her gasp, and awaken, sitting up quickly. The water ran down her stained legs, making the ink run, drawing long black lines down the surface of the room.

"Lanie… Lanie, he's a… he's a monster, he's still there… he's still there."

Lanie frowned at this, putting the pitcher back down, "Minnie… of course he's there… he's… he's dead… Minnie…"

Minnie shook her head desperately, "No! No, no, no! HE's not dead, he's not dead… he's… he's sleeping, or something, he's… he's not a human, he's a monster! He's a bad-witch, just like stories, he.--"

Lanie grabbed her shoulders, "Minnie, hush! Hush, come look!"

She took Minnie's hand, and led her up the surface of the roof. Through the skylight they looked, and there lay the Murder Man. He hadn't moved, not even a little. And he did not move. His chest did not rise and fall.

"Its impossible… he… he did the whole thing… he…"

Lanie took Minnie's hand in her own. Minnie felt the contrast - her own hands were icy cold.

"Lanie, I saw it… he… he made her do it, he stood there, and she moved around, and I couldn't see her eyes, and… and she painted her name on him, and I… Lanie, I… its…"

"Maybe… his spell thingy… like, maybe it didn't work? Maybe he messed up, and it killed him."

No rising and falling of the chest. No blush of color in the cheek. Nothing. Minnie was silent for a moment, "Lanie, something's wrong, it can't…"

Lanie squeezed the hand, "Come on… he's dead, right? We'll… we'll just go make sure. I'll go… cut his neck, or something. Then you'll be sure. The ash pile, it had an old hacksaw for cutting frames."

Minnie stared at her in amazement, "Lanie, that's…"

"Murder? Petch it. He's a murderer. And he's already dead. And if he weren't, you think I'd leave someone out there, to kill you, Minnie-wren?"

Minnie's heart froze. Then she wrapped her arms around Lanie and cried.

"I'm coming with you, Lanes."

"Your foot--"

"--it hurts, yeah. I'll get a… a plank, and crutch myself. You're not going in there alone."

They argued for a few minutes, but then, with a careful, clumsy work of the length of rope, and some rummaging, they stood at the door of the classroom, Minnie leaning on a rough bit of painting-frame, some of the canvas still clinging to it, and Lanie stood with a rusted hacksaw in her hand.

"Minnie, you sure you--"

"Open the door, Lanes."

Lanie straightened her back, and quietly, very quietly, opened the door. The room looked the same, but standing in it, it felt so much more… present. It smelled, smelled of the blood that had been on the woman's face, of the strange cold blood she had poured from her arm, not sweet or sour at all, just cold and sickening, it smelled of sweat and old men. The floor creaked. Minnie started towards the man, but Lanie grabbed her arm, and shook her head, pointing her backwards. Minnie moved to lean against the desk at the front of the room. The floor around her was dark-stained with blood, and she realized this was just where she had started to dance with the Evalin, just the place that they had spun, round and round and round and round. There was a pot of ink there, open. Minnie put a lid on it, picked it up. It left her fingers smeared with ink, and she looked down at her hands, her wrists. She took the black finger, and with the dull confusion of a day she could not possibly understand, began to stroke letters out against her skin. Her fingers did not have the swoop and whorl of the Evalin, the ink grown thick with drying. She drew clumsy letters on her bared, soft inner-wrist skin:

Alanza-Mae

Philomena-Wren

Then she heard a gasp, and looked up, grasping the ink pot. Lanie was within a few steps of the man, the saw lifted over his neck, her hand, trembling visibly moving forward, to hold head in place. The man looked obscene in a way that he had not from the roof, his nakedness flailed almost casually over his hairy legs. And then Minnie saw what Lanie had seen. The Murder Man's mouth was open, and inside was a tongue, a tongue stained black, black like the night, black like the letters she had drawn on her own wrists, black like the hand that gripped Minnie's heart.

"RUN!" she screamed the word with a violence of which she did not think herself comfortable, and launched herself toward the door just as Lanie turned to do the same. Her foot screamed at the movement and she stumbled to the ground, losing her crutch. She turned and the man's throat gurgled volubly, and he began a hissing sound, like a laugh. Lanie dragged Minnie to her feet. The pain was unbearable, but the terror was worse, and they both stumbled back towards the door, the naked Murder Man's inked limbs grating into life with a stuttering suddenness. And then he spoke, the words devoured by the thrumming in Minnie's ears, and cackled wildly, an eerie high pitched giggle, with a strange note of almost childish freedom and cruelty to it.

The girls ran. Minnie vomited at the pain after three blocks, but they ran, Lanie yanking Minnies arms over her own shoulder, the ink of Minnie's wrists smearing Lanie's own name across the pale flesh of her neck. They tumbled together down the hill from the University

[Paragon]

Philomena

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Running	3
Climbing	2
Observation	3
Writing	1
Larceny	1
Stealth	1

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	"Evalin"
•	The Murder Man
•	Making a Monster: Nuit Creation
•	The Walking Dead: Nuits

Legend Becomes Reality

I am so sorry for the time taken to grade this - but thank you for your patience. This was a great solo, very vivid descriptions in the first part gave it a cinematic depth! I just love the insights your flashbacks give into the "street urchin" children of Zeltiva - just wonderful. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can work from there.