Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:45 pm
There had been few words between the stranger and her uninvited guests before her demise-- the nine had come to avenge their goddess and save her from the taint that was slowly spreading. As their voices rose in chants, Corbin had come close-- curious. The beasts had gone to hide, their mistress left to deal with this invasion of female saviors. Warriors. Whatever they may be. She had stood, eyes wide and the mirror at her throat flashing, just at the edge of the circle. As their Avatar had come forth-- words were passed back and forth.
" I am Aridia.." her words carried over dead leaves..."I am incarnate in this woman...I ask....Why have you done this to my Lady?.." she had said smoothly, pained. The other woman with her green eyes and black hair, her ill-suited clothes and empty gaze had answered easily enough-- "For myself. For my Master. For the deaths of those that deserve it--" And do they?
"What is this?....What is this arachic term of master?...and who would dare to blind my Lady's eyes?".... The Avatar's words did not carry a darkness or a threat...they were the pretence to darkness...the prologue of a threat....for her words were heard long before such a language was ever breathed upon the ancient mortals..
"I gouged out her eyes and I'll gouge out her heart to feed it to my Master for her strength-- if you do not intend to stop me now, I suggest you stop wasting my time and go back to wherever it is you came from," Corbin had responded, arms crossing and the small mirror bound to her throat fluttering like some stiff feather on its ribbon. She seemed content to wait for the odd Avatar's response to her words-- be it in language or action.
After those questions and answers and threatening phrases-- the sky bloomed with the pure light of the nine sisters and their goddess. Clouds swirled above to speak the words of the other they had come to confront-- twin moons once more rose in the heavenless sky to absorb those beams of attack-- minutes passed, an eternity, before the resolve broke for one-- for Corbin.
Within that fluttering mirror shard, a tiny crack appeared. As if a rock had been flung at the miniature pane, a splitering spider-web began to form-- and yet it held together. Corbin's lips dropped open, eyes even more blank than they would usually seem-- her body near limp in the way it stayed up-- concentrating on the dome above? She was like some twisted up little puppet of human flesh and black hair-- ill-fiting clothes and boots three sizes too large.
Suddenly, the minute mirror fragment shattered. The ribbon tore from around her throat and with little more than a hissing sigh-- the woman collapsed, body and attire both turning to a prone statue of glass. The twin moons burst, shooting spears that tear through the dome of tar spread so thin, so inpenetrable until just that moment, over Myrken Wood. She hadn't even survived long enough to hear the final words of the avatar-woman. Corbin there sprawls even now-- perfectly transluscent, perfectly glittering under the light of the newly revived heavens.
"It was the Queen of the moon who sent me, Because there was so much pain. Diana despises pain as death of the soul. Freedom is the teaching she imparted to me, and by me to you. The freedom to live our lives according to her golden rule. "Do as thou wilt and harm none. but if harm be done..let it be returned three folds." This is the only rule your need..." she had said through the tongue of Morghan. As the words died, the sisters collapsed with weariness.
A small child appeared.
Monstrous beings no longer haunt the trees of the wood. There are no shadows that tremble and terrorize-- no dryads or felines, not even the small, glowing dragon-bugs. All is still, and a statue of perfect glass humanity now curls like an unborn babe on the snowy earth-- every strand of hair and lash of eye delicate rendered in the fine glass.
Dead-- frozen-- lost. One of those. And with a child left behind! Oh, but where is the lost Kane? Poor lad.
Ah yes... the child Kane... He had been there of a sudden, standing over the glassy corpse, descended from the winterdead brush. Peering over that too-high collar with pristine blue eyes. Darkened with a childish rage. "You killed mother," he mumbled aloud, unseen and unheard by the sisters nine as they retreat to rest and mourn.