Destination, Part 1 (a behind the scenes UT#296 tie-in)

Writer's note: I'm taking some risks with this one, though I did email Ian first to figure out just what to do. I hope I didn't screw up anyway, though if I did I warned him it would happen.

Destination Part 1 (UT#296 tie-in)

    It was cold in this place Liu Xi Xian found herself trapped with Exu, otherwise known as the God of Murder, or the Doomherald. The kind of cold where a mist always hangs in the air, sticking to exposed skin and stinging her nerve endings into numbness.

    That's why she set her elemental senses on overdrive, trying to find some material that could be used as clothing. It was fortunate that she had landed only a short distance from where she could sense synthetic materials. Odd in such a lonely, cold place, but she was desperate.

    Liu Xi was very shocked at what she saw when she arrived at the center of where her senses pointed her, and it explained the persistent chill in the air of that place. There were live human beings in large rooms in some kind of suspended animation, and those rooms were even colder than outside. The cold was obviously to keep their bodies in that state without any kind of failure or decomposition.

    No matter how interesting it was, however, Liu Xi had to take care of necessity first. She looked from one person to the other until she finally spotted something close to her size. It was a rather odd looking synthetic red and silver jump suit and boots but she had to take what she could.

    "I'm sorry," she whispered to the unknown small blonde woman she took it from. At least it was nice and warm, though it fitted her loosely. She meant to apologize again as she looked over the group of silent people in a neat row, and she felt a yearning to take from them small amounts of the elemental building blocks which made up their physical forms for herself, to make herself whole again.

    Deep within her heart she felt a heaviness as she left and headed back to where she left Exu. She felt whole again, it was no longer a struggle to keep her spirit within her body, and she hoped that would last. She felt warm. But she also felt a sadness at having been forced to take without asking to survive - it had an eerie shadow of the time before the Manga Shoggoth found her and brought her to his lair. When she was lost with her heart and mind shattered, caring only about survival.

    She also stole something else on the way - there was plenty of processed and canned food and bottled water stored around the ruins of the place she found her clothing. Liu Xi couldn't help but wonder if that place used to be on Earth, or at least the people or the supplies. There was no time to think about that too much, though, because she had to bring what little she had back to Exu to share.

    Liu Xi watched Exu, still lying there with an open wound which gurgled once in a while when he breathed. The supplies she brought had been dragged in on a section of thin metal paneling she found while scavenging. Food, water, and extra stolen clothing she could use to make bandages.

    As she entered the temple she had holed up in with Exu - at least it looked like a temple, a pyramid shaped structure made of stone - she could hear a great howling echoing from far in the distance outside. It was a sound she heard before while scavenging but since she was on the move she didn't think much of it. But now, cornered, she had to consider it might be some kind of predator. She looked toward the temple's great stone door and willed it to slam shut, sealing them in.

    The fire on what looked like an altar was still burning. Most of the ruined temple was made of stone but the interior had been strewn with broken pieces of wood. Enough for several days' worth of firewood if used wisely. She struggled to pick up another heavy chunk of wooden beam and threw it onto the altar, willing it to flare into a warm blaze. She had no idea where the smoke went, but it all seemed to ascend to the very top of the high ceiling and vanish somewhere.

    Using her very unique talents she tore pieces of the spare clothing and set them briefly aflame and put them out. That left them warm, sterilized, and a little tacky feeling so when she wrapped them around Exu to cover his wounds they would remain in place without tying.

    "You're a genius," Exu moaned, sounding grateful and happy to be in her presence. He also smiled. He regained conciousness from time to time, but not for long before his body demanded a break from the pain to heal. It was while he was unconcious that she left to scavenge.

    "We need to talk," Liu Xi whispered to him, brushing her hair back as she sat on the cold stone floor next to him. She tossed a coat she had scavenged over him as a blanket.

    "You look so pretty in that," he said, seeming to ignore what she said.

    That seemed to anger Liu Xi. "Shut up!" she ordered as she frowned at him. "Shut up and listen for a minute." She didn't speak loudly for fear of her voice escaping the temple and attracting attention, but she sounded firm. "The last man who treated me as his without asking me if I wanted...I killed him."

    Exu's rapturous smile disappeared. He knew as much but didn't expect it to be applied to him. "I'm not sure I understand," he said.

    "You continue trying to speak to me as if I am yours," Liu Xi fumed, "And I am sick of it. I am working hard to keep you alive...to keep us both alive...and you don't respect me. I keep you alive because the Parody Master has not earned the right to kill you. But if you don't respect me and those I call friends...I will kill you myself."

    She then stood and looked away from Exu as she began rifling through the food she brought with her. As angry as Exu made her, she still had to eat, and feed him too. It was a good thing her training long ago allowed her to do so with a level head, and to make do with so little.

    "Is it okay for me just to like you?" Exu asked, his voice sounding small and defeated.

    Liu Xi looked up from where she was working next to the altar fire. "That is okay," she said briefly, her voice softened.

    Neither one of them said anything even as Liu Xi completed a meager meal of rice and canned vegetables. She kneeled next to Exu and gently raised his head, sliding a stone split at an angle beneath him to prop him up so he could eat. He winced as she moved him, and then she placed a wooden bowl and spoon next to him.

    "Did you make the bowls?" he asked.

    She nodded. "Carving wood is far too easy for me. And then I burned it so the food doesn't soak in." She looked at Exu sadly, and noticed that he wasn't eating. "Eat please, you need strength. You need to heal."

    He looked at her sadly again. "Do I really want to get better?" he asked. "I'm kind of a drag on you here."

    Liu Xi gently brushed her own hair back again. "I want to return home knowing I saved you," she said. "That is my goal. If you die I will feel like I've lost. Now eat."

    Exu looked at Liu Xi for a moment, seeming as if he were about to say something, but then he changed his mind and began eating slowly.

    She seemed happy about that as she continued eating her own food. Then she decided to become more daring with her requests. "Tell me about the Parody Master."

    "Huh?" Exu asked, wincing as he shifted position. "Why do you want to talk about that?"

    "Because," Liu Xi replied, sounding and looking serious, "When I return home I want my time here with you to be useful. I want to bring...intelligence with me."

    "Oh." Exu smiled at that. "You want me to like you enough to betray my master."

    Liu Xi nodded. "You do like me enough, yes?"

    Exu stared into his bowl for a moment before smiling to himself. "I knew you were beautiful and intelligent. I didn't know you were so...devious."

    "Just answer the question," she replied coldly.

    He sighed deeply, still looking away from her. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you anything about the Parody Master."

    Liu Xi frowned as she stood and moved across the room with her own bowl of food. "When I return home you can expect to live in a cell."

    Exu looked up, seeming more upset about her moving far away from him than having to live in a jail cell. "I don't want to upset you," he said, "You have to understand, I can't tell you any more than you can tell me about the Lair Legion. It's a matter of integrity."

    She immediately stood and told him very creatively in Chinese just where he can shove his integrity before switching back to English. "My friends are being hurt because of what you won't tell me! They shelter you, and I keep you safe here. And all you think about is yourself!"

    The Doomherald was speechless as he looked at a very angry Liu Xi standing over him. He noted that she was so much more demanding and agressive when she wasn't his captive. He loved that, the strength and power of her spirit completely unleashed.

    "I know you like talking to me," Liu Xi continued, quickly catching on to Exu's strategy, "so I will not talk to you or listen until you say what I want you to."

    Exu finished off his food and took a drink of water, and then lay down again to reduce the throbbing in his badly damaged chest. "I shouldn't be alive like this, you know," he said. "I don't know--"

    "It is impossible to die here." Liu Xi explained. She paused for a moment, unable to figure out just how she knew that.

    "Those people you found," Exu whispered slowly, "they are what I'll be if I don't heal. Soul trapped, suspended in a dream forever." He looked at Liu Xi and smiled knowingly. "If you sacrified one of them...murdered one...it would make me whole again."

    Liu Xi wanted to instictively say 'no', but she noted the blood slowly but constantly seeping through the bandages over his still unhealing wounds. She frowned sadly instead. She didn't want to fail - she wished she knew if rescue was coming soon.

    "If you make me whole again I can probably get us out of here."

    That, she knew, was just him lying to take advantage of what she was thinking. "You can't leave any more than I can," she replied. She then began to entertain another clever idea. "But perhaps I'll think about making you whole again if you tell me about the Parody Master."

    Exu visibly winced at that. "You really have me by the proverbial short hairs," he whispered.

    "Excuse me?" Liu Xi asked, once again running into an obstacle with her limited understanding of English slang.

    "I suppose you want me to tell you about his weaknesses?"

    Liu Xi nodded and kneeled next to him to listen.

    "I'm sorry to tell you," he said with a deep sigh, "there aren't any. He's pretty much all powerful all the time."

    She sighed angrily and looked away from him, sure that he was lying.

    "I'm not afraid of dying, you know," Exu told her in a quieter voice. "You know why I tried to befriend you? Because I'm afraid of dying alone, not knowing who I am. And you...you were open minded enough to let me in."

    Liu Xi looked up again and began staring at him with her dark eyes. "Then why won't you let me in?"

    Exu's smile disappeared, as she had a perfectly valid point. "I suppose it's because...what's left of me is tied up with the Parody Master. I have such a limited understanding of him, but...it's still asking too much--"

    "It's not asking too much!" Liu Xi scolded him, "He wants to torture and kill me! If you aren't a friend who will defend me you are not a friend at all."

    That stunned Exu into silence again. She seemed to do that to him a lot - scold him with painful truths, forcing him to reevaluate his thinking. Another thing he found charming about her.

    "I'm going to sleep," Liu Xi told him harshly. She brushed her hand over the surface of the fire to carry a piece of the flame with her to an elevated area to the rear of the temple, dragging a thick coat she found earlier along behind her.

    "That's the Parody Master's only weakness, you know," Exu said as he shifted himself into a comfortable sleeping position.

    Liu Xi perked up at that, pausing her progress across the room.

    "Irrepressible, unpredictable people like you," Exu whispered as he closed his eyes and began to drift off. "He has an answer for everything but that. You completely baffle him. And maybe scare him a little too."

    She nodded as she climbed into her sleeping space, making note in her mind of everything Exu said...and didn't say.

TO BE CONTINUED?

-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2006 by Jason Froikin, and may not be
-- reprinted without permission.
-- Liu Xi Xian, Yuki Shiro, Lara Night, Chiaki Bushido (Psychic Samurai) (C) 2006 by Jason Froikin, all rights reserved
-- All other characters property of their respective owners

Post By Anime Jason Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 01:54:38 pm EST	Subject Destination, Part 1 (a behind the scenes UT#296 tie-in)

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