kay_brooke (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kay_brooke) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2015-05-06 11:14 pm
kay_brooke) wrote in rainbowfic2015-05-06 11:14 pm
Amber #3, Azul #22, White Opal #20
Name: kay_brooke
Story: The Prime
Colors: Amber #3 (mud), Azul #22 (Sympathy for a lion), White Opal #20 (hope)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads, Pastels (origfic_bingo prompt "forgetting")
Word Count: 1,544
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: The last day.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
The corridor was dark, the only light coming from the single torch that Sheila held before her, its flame casting orange flickers off the stone walls. All around them the temple was, finally, silent. Her and Beryl, the only ones left, and they’d waited too long.
Sheila knew Beryl assumed she was being led to the chamber beneath the lake. A place where she would assume no one could find them. But that had always been Beryl’s problem: underestimating the enemy. That was most people’s problem, Sheila knew. It had been the problem of her predecessor, and it was only because of that Sheila had ever taken over leadership of the temple. She knew if things had tumbled out differently, if Tenna had lived to formally appoint her successor at such time she grew too old and weary to continue leading herself, the other priests of the temple would have prevented Sheila’s appointment.
But Tenna had not lived to do so. Tenna had been brutally murdered in her own office, her life’s blood seeping through the rug and into the stone beneath. And in the subsequent panic and confusion, Sheila had been the one to set things right.
A long time ago, that. And the priests who had been there at the time, including Beryl, had forgotten exactly why they would have refused her appointment.
Sheila stopped before the hidden door that led to the tunnel beneath the lake. “We’ll talk here,” she said.
Beryl looked up at her, puzzled. “We need to get into the tunnel. We need to be gone before they get here.” She paused. “If they’re coming at all.”
“They’re coming,” said Sheila. It was time to disabuse Beryl of her ridiculous hope. “They’re coming, and it won’t matter where we hide. They’ll find us.”
“They don’t know the tunnel is here,” Beryl argued.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sheila. “They’ll burn the temple down to find us. They’ll dig up every inch of the rurs. They’ll drain the lake. If we go down the tunnel, it will be our death. Only one exit, and it will be theirs.”
“They wouldn’t,” Beryl said. She crossed her arms as Sheila responded with a glare. “Why put in all that effort just to get at us? The temple they may destroy, I’ll give you that. But everyone is gone, and we’ll be hidden away beneath the lake. They’ll find nothing and go home.”
Sheila shook her head. “We’ve stolen something far too precious for them to do that. They’ll search until they find everything. The tunnel, the chamber, the other temple. Poston.” She gave Beryl a look.
“Is he that precious, though?”
Sheila thought about Mikal’s reports, about what the Corporation had done to create the man who even now slept at the other end of the corridor. “He’s everything they’ve spent the last century looking for. Yes, he is that precious.” And even if he wasn’t, she was certain the Corporation would use his abduction as the excuse it needed to wipe out the temple. For years the city and the temple had existed in an uneasy truce, each benefitting the other in some small way while they kept stony gazes on each other’s hidden hands. A pretense on both sides. Sheila had not wanted the reveal to come this way, but there were reasons for haste.
Beryl cast an anxious look down the corridor. “He’s still here? I thought he had gone with the last carriage. We’ve left him unguarded.”
They were the only two in the temple. Sheila had looked for Jericha, but the woman had only delivered the man on the temple’s doorstep, before disappearing off into the night. Where, Sheila couldn’t guess. Jericha was loyal to her word, had done what was asked of her, but she had never forgiven Sheila.
Let her go, Sheila thought fiercely. Her part is done, and she is longer my problem or my responsibility. “He’ll sleep for awhile yet,” said Sheila to Beryl. “He’s no danger to us.”
“But what are we to do with him?” said Beryl. “If the Corporation comes, they’ll find him with no trouble at all. This will have been for nothing!”
“He won’t be here when the Corporation comes.” Sheila glanced around. She had, in truth, only come to this spot to be as far away from the boy as she dared.
“If that’s what you wanted, then he should have left with the others.”
Sheila snapped her fingers in front of Beryl’s face. “You don’t listen. None of you listen! I already told you, the Corporation will not stop until they find him. There is no place in this world he can be hidden. They will find him eventually.”
Beryl swallowed hard. Her gaze firmly on the floor, she said, “Then we have to kill him. That’s what you planned all along.” She sounded almost like the thought didn’t make her physically ill, like she had anticipated and even accepted Sheila’s methods. It was admirable.
But. “No,” said Sheila. “We can’t kill him. We might have use for him.” Use the Corporation’s own tactics against them. It wasn’t even a plan, just a barely-formed notion, but Sheila would have at least ten years to work out the details.
“Then what?” said Beryl. She was beginning to look panicked, her eyes wide and dark in the torchlight.
“We have to put him somewhere,” said Sheila. “A place neither we nor the Corporation can get to. A place the Corporation cannot look, no matter how much of this world they rip apart.” She looked down at Beryl. “Not for ten years.”
Understanding dawned in Beryl’s eyes. Understanding, and increased fear. “It will kill him.”
“It won’t,” said Sheila. “The Corporation made sure of that.”
Beryl didn’t know all the details, but she knew enough of the boy’s origins that she nodded. “We’ll need to take him out in the boat.”
“Yes,” said Sheila. She knew outside it was pouring rain, the same as it had been all day. The wind was high, the lake lashing at the shore in angry waves. Not a good night to take a boat out, but they had no choice. “If we’re still alive after we get him through, we’ll continue on to Poston.”
Beryl paled. “All the way across the lake? In this weather?”
“We can’t come back here,” said Sheila. “It’ll be harder for the Corporation to track us if we cross by water.” One good thing about the weather: the rest of the temple had gotten out early enough that by the time the Corporation arrived, their trail would be obliterated by the pounding rain. But Sheila and Beryl might not have that luxury of time. There was so far no sign that the Corporation had sent anyone outside the city, but Sheila knew it would happen soon.
“Are we going to wake him up and tell him what we’re doing?” Beryl asked, looking frightened again. Sheila didn’t blame her.
“No,” she said. “The sleeping draught Jericha gave him will have him out until morning. We don’t have the time.” Not for explanations, and not for what the boy might be like when he woke up. He was vicious, Mikal had told her, possibly insane. Years of imprisonment and experimentation had taken their toll on his mind. She reached into her pocket and drew out a syringe, still cold from the icebox, the Corporation’s logo stamped on the side, and full of a clear liquid.
Beryl’s eyes widened as she read the label on the side. “It can’t be! Where did you get it?”
“Mikal’s last mission.” It wasn’t entirely because he was growing old that Mikal had never returned to the city. They couldn’t take the chance that the Corporation figure out what he had stolen. At the time she wasn’t sure what use she might have for it, what could possibly be important enough for their one and only dose of something so powerful. Now she knew.
“Is it wise,” asked Beryl, eyeing the syringe warily, “to just wipe his memories?”
“It’s the only way,” said Sheila. “He’ll be awake in a few hours, and the portal is open for two more days yet. If he remembers, he might figure out how to get back.”
“So what happens in ten years?” asked Beryl. “If he can’t remember anything, how will he help us when we retrieve him?”
“We have ten years to figure that out,” said Sheila.
“This is beyond a gamble, Sheila,” said Beryl. “Anything could happen in that time.”
“I know,” said Sheila, but she knew that was why she was a far more effective leader than Tenna had ever been, even if her fellow priests disagreed. Tenna would have never taken the risk.
“This will end badly,” said Beryl, putting one hand on Sheila’s shoulder.
“It will for certain end badly if we don’t do it,” said Sheila. “If we do, there’s a chance. A slim one, I know. But a slim chance is better than none.” Pocketing the syringe again, she strode off down the corridor, toward the boy’s room.
After a moment, she heard Beryl’s footsteps following her.
kay_brookeStory: The Prime
Colors: Amber #3 (mud), Azul #22 (Sympathy for a lion), White Opal #20 (hope)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads, Pastels (
origfic_bingo prompt "forgetting") Word Count: 1,544
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: The last day.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
The corridor was dark, the only light coming from the single torch that Sheila held before her, its flame casting orange flickers off the stone walls. All around them the temple was, finally, silent. Her and Beryl, the only ones left, and they’d waited too long.
Sheila knew Beryl assumed she was being led to the chamber beneath the lake. A place where she would assume no one could find them. But that had always been Beryl’s problem: underestimating the enemy. That was most people’s problem, Sheila knew. It had been the problem of her predecessor, and it was only because of that Sheila had ever taken over leadership of the temple. She knew if things had tumbled out differently, if Tenna had lived to formally appoint her successor at such time she grew too old and weary to continue leading herself, the other priests of the temple would have prevented Sheila’s appointment.
But Tenna had not lived to do so. Tenna had been brutally murdered in her own office, her life’s blood seeping through the rug and into the stone beneath. And in the subsequent panic and confusion, Sheila had been the one to set things right.
A long time ago, that. And the priests who had been there at the time, including Beryl, had forgotten exactly why they would have refused her appointment.
Sheila stopped before the hidden door that led to the tunnel beneath the lake. “We’ll talk here,” she said.
Beryl looked up at her, puzzled. “We need to get into the tunnel. We need to be gone before they get here.” She paused. “If they’re coming at all.”
“They’re coming,” said Sheila. It was time to disabuse Beryl of her ridiculous hope. “They’re coming, and it won’t matter where we hide. They’ll find us.”
“They don’t know the tunnel is here,” Beryl argued.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sheila. “They’ll burn the temple down to find us. They’ll dig up every inch of the rurs. They’ll drain the lake. If we go down the tunnel, it will be our death. Only one exit, and it will be theirs.”
“They wouldn’t,” Beryl said. She crossed her arms as Sheila responded with a glare. “Why put in all that effort just to get at us? The temple they may destroy, I’ll give you that. But everyone is gone, and we’ll be hidden away beneath the lake. They’ll find nothing and go home.”
Sheila shook her head. “We’ve stolen something far too precious for them to do that. They’ll search until they find everything. The tunnel, the chamber, the other temple. Poston.” She gave Beryl a look.
“Is he that precious, though?”
Sheila thought about Mikal’s reports, about what the Corporation had done to create the man who even now slept at the other end of the corridor. “He’s everything they’ve spent the last century looking for. Yes, he is that precious.” And even if he wasn’t, she was certain the Corporation would use his abduction as the excuse it needed to wipe out the temple. For years the city and the temple had existed in an uneasy truce, each benefitting the other in some small way while they kept stony gazes on each other’s hidden hands. A pretense on both sides. Sheila had not wanted the reveal to come this way, but there were reasons for haste.
Beryl cast an anxious look down the corridor. “He’s still here? I thought he had gone with the last carriage. We’ve left him unguarded.”
They were the only two in the temple. Sheila had looked for Jericha, but the woman had only delivered the man on the temple’s doorstep, before disappearing off into the night. Where, Sheila couldn’t guess. Jericha was loyal to her word, had done what was asked of her, but she had never forgiven Sheila.
Let her go, Sheila thought fiercely. Her part is done, and she is longer my problem or my responsibility. “He’ll sleep for awhile yet,” said Sheila to Beryl. “He’s no danger to us.”
“But what are we to do with him?” said Beryl. “If the Corporation comes, they’ll find him with no trouble at all. This will have been for nothing!”
“He won’t be here when the Corporation comes.” Sheila glanced around. She had, in truth, only come to this spot to be as far away from the boy as she dared.
“If that’s what you wanted, then he should have left with the others.”
Sheila snapped her fingers in front of Beryl’s face. “You don’t listen. None of you listen! I already told you, the Corporation will not stop until they find him. There is no place in this world he can be hidden. They will find him eventually.”
Beryl swallowed hard. Her gaze firmly on the floor, she said, “Then we have to kill him. That’s what you planned all along.” She sounded almost like the thought didn’t make her physically ill, like she had anticipated and even accepted Sheila’s methods. It was admirable.
But. “No,” said Sheila. “We can’t kill him. We might have use for him.” Use the Corporation’s own tactics against them. It wasn’t even a plan, just a barely-formed notion, but Sheila would have at least ten years to work out the details.
“Then what?” said Beryl. She was beginning to look panicked, her eyes wide and dark in the torchlight.
“We have to put him somewhere,” said Sheila. “A place neither we nor the Corporation can get to. A place the Corporation cannot look, no matter how much of this world they rip apart.” She looked down at Beryl. “Not for ten years.”
Understanding dawned in Beryl’s eyes. Understanding, and increased fear. “It will kill him.”
“It won’t,” said Sheila. “The Corporation made sure of that.”
Beryl didn’t know all the details, but she knew enough of the boy’s origins that she nodded. “We’ll need to take him out in the boat.”
“Yes,” said Sheila. She knew outside it was pouring rain, the same as it had been all day. The wind was high, the lake lashing at the shore in angry waves. Not a good night to take a boat out, but they had no choice. “If we’re still alive after we get him through, we’ll continue on to Poston.”
Beryl paled. “All the way across the lake? In this weather?”
“We can’t come back here,” said Sheila. “It’ll be harder for the Corporation to track us if we cross by water.” One good thing about the weather: the rest of the temple had gotten out early enough that by the time the Corporation arrived, their trail would be obliterated by the pounding rain. But Sheila and Beryl might not have that luxury of time. There was so far no sign that the Corporation had sent anyone outside the city, but Sheila knew it would happen soon.
“Are we going to wake him up and tell him what we’re doing?” Beryl asked, looking frightened again. Sheila didn’t blame her.
“No,” she said. “The sleeping draught Jericha gave him will have him out until morning. We don’t have the time.” Not for explanations, and not for what the boy might be like when he woke up. He was vicious, Mikal had told her, possibly insane. Years of imprisonment and experimentation had taken their toll on his mind. She reached into her pocket and drew out a syringe, still cold from the icebox, the Corporation’s logo stamped on the side, and full of a clear liquid.
Beryl’s eyes widened as she read the label on the side. “It can’t be! Where did you get it?”
“Mikal’s last mission.” It wasn’t entirely because he was growing old that Mikal had never returned to the city. They couldn’t take the chance that the Corporation figure out what he had stolen. At the time she wasn’t sure what use she might have for it, what could possibly be important enough for their one and only dose of something so powerful. Now she knew.
“Is it wise,” asked Beryl, eyeing the syringe warily, “to just wipe his memories?”
“It’s the only way,” said Sheila. “He’ll be awake in a few hours, and the portal is open for two more days yet. If he remembers, he might figure out how to get back.”
“So what happens in ten years?” asked Beryl. “If he can’t remember anything, how will he help us when we retrieve him?”
“We have ten years to figure that out,” said Sheila.
“This is beyond a gamble, Sheila,” said Beryl. “Anything could happen in that time.”
“I know,” said Sheila, but she knew that was why she was a far more effective leader than Tenna had ever been, even if her fellow priests disagreed. Tenna would have never taken the risk.
“This will end badly,” said Beryl, putting one hand on Sheila’s shoulder.
“It will for certain end badly if we don’t do it,” said Sheila. “If we do, there’s a chance. A slim one, I know. But a slim chance is better than none.” Pocketing the syringe again, she strode off down the corridor, toward the boy’s room.
After a moment, she heard Beryl’s footsteps following her.