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Post By The Hooded Hood offers this suggested continuation with reciprocal "hope this doesn't screw things up" wishes Sun Nov 12, 2006 at 08:04:04 am EST |
Subject Destination – Part 2 Originally Destination, Part 1 (a behind the scenes UT#296 tie-in) |
In Reply To Anime Jason Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 01:54:38 pm EST |
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| Destination – Part 2 “I thought you were going to sleep.” “Well I’m not.” “Go to sleep. I’ll keep watch.” “I can’t go to sleep. If I stop concentrating I’m afraid my body will dissolve. I created it whole out of local elements here – wherever here is. It’s not holding together by itself. I’m having to strain my elemental gifts just to keep from dissolving. You go to sleep.” “I don’t sleep, remember? I’m used to long nights staring at the walls. But please… try to sleep. Your body remembers to breathe while you sleep. I think it’ll remember not to dissolve. Sleep, and I’ll watch over you. So you don’t dissolve. “Do you know how creepy it is to have somebody obsessively watching me while I sleep?” “Is it more creepy than dissolving?” “Point.” “Besides, the mind-numbingly horrible pain from the hole in my chest is going to distract me a little from my obsessive watching. I’ll just check you’re not oozing every so often. I promise.” “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that you took a full-force blast from the Parody Master. I’m amazed it didn’t kill you.” “He was careful that it didn’t. If he’d murdered the God of Murder on the astral plane I might just have been able to gain enough energy from that to stand against him for… oh, five minutes. But he’s not stupid.” “He’s cruel, brutal, vicious, heartless…” “He’s lots of things, Liu Xi. I followed him for his positive traits not his negative ones. Same as with you.” “With me? Why do you follow me? I’ve wondered ever since you… let me go rather than gave me over to the Parody Cultists. Why me? And, hey, what do you mean, my negative traits?” “Well, you can be a little self-righteous, you know. You spent all day bullying me about only thinking about myself. You seem to have forgotten how I got this hole in my chest in the first place. Why I was there to get it.” “Well… okay. Thank you for coming to find me when I got taken by the Parody Master. I owe you that much.” “I’m not the kind of man who tries to trade on debts. But I would like you to judge me for the good of me as well as bad.” “You’re the god of murder.” “And you’re a murderess. You reminded me of that earlier: ‘The last man who treated me as his without asking me if I wanted...I killed him’.” “You know that. You know all about that in your… official capacity.” “Yes. I also know he wasn’t the last man who treated you like that. Neither was I. It was the one who put this hole in my chest.” “The one you saved me from. And then I saved you from him. And then… this is going to get ridiculous, isn’t it? Ridiculous and complicated.” “Yep. And it hurts when you make me laugh. Ouch.” “You’re shivering. Let me feel your forehead.” “Feel whatever you like. Do I have a temperature? This place with its mists and damp just makes me feel chilled all the time. I know cold doesn’t affect you, but it bothers me.” “It bothers me here. This cold isn’t just temperature. There’s something else. I can’t keep warm either. But I have to admit, you’re regenerating from a wound that should have killed you outright, Exu. Regenerating fast.” “I think that’s why ended up here, Liu Xi. This place, with these faceless statues… this is my temple. People believed in me here. Murdered for me here. This place still holds traces of faith in me that I’m using to recover.” “This is a temple of murder? Of human sacrifice?” “I honestly don’t remember. I don’t remember the people, the liturgies, the hymns, the customs. Any of it. But there’s that big altar you built a fire on and it had channels around it for blood to run away along. So let’s assume they killed people here. For me.” “And you’re okay with that? Every time you fool me into believing that you’re not a black villain and then…” “I never asked for it. At least I don’t think I did. I don’t think I would. It doesn’t seem like me. They might have just decided that was the right way to worship a god of murder.” “But you didn’t stop it.” “I guess not. Preventing murders wasn’t part of my job. That’s be the god of, I don’t know, TV private detectives?” “You’re shivering worse. Hold on. I’ll create you a blanket from this stuff I scavenged. It’ll take a moment. I’m using almost all my power just to keep me from… to keep me together.” “This place spooks me too, Liu Xi. The temple and the land, for different reasons. The temple because the people here knew more about me than I do now. The land because… I’m starting to suspect where we are.” “Where?” “I don’t want to say. I might be wrong. I hope I am.” “Enough secrets. I’m getting angry, Doomherald. Tell me.” “Well, maybe… have you heard of Comic-Book Limbo? The litter-tray of the cosmos, where the broken concepts go? The natural habitat of the Hero Feeders? The place you end up if you drop between the gaps between worlds?” “The transdimensional vortex?” “No. This is worse. That’s the stew between realities. This is the trash bin where the soiled soured stew and the lumps of reality floating in it get tossed when they’re not needed any more. And there’s no way out.” “I can fold void. Xander showed me the multiversal substratum…” “It doesn’t touch here. If here is Comic-Book Limbo. There’s no way out unless you’re pulled out by somebody else. That’s the way this place works. We… we might be here forever.” “No. This is another of your games. I don’t play them any more. We aren’t stuck here, forever, together.” “And if we are?” “We’re not.” “There are predators in Comic-Book Limbo. Lurkers Below, what they call Hero Feeders these days. In their hubris, the Second Oldest Race punctured the Vortex and freed the Hero Feeders from Comic-Book Limbo. Their entire civilisation was… wiped from history. Their culture, their science, their past, their future.” “Their gods.” “Yes. Except for some sad echo that the Parody Master found and nurtured and revived.” “Why did you survive then? When none of the other gods did?” “I don’t know. Maybe what the Hero Feeders were doing was enough like murder to sustain me? But that doesn’t feel like the right answer.” “You said you followed the Parody Master for his positive traits. Because he rescued you?” “One reason, yes. He literally remade me.” “And you said about me… That I had…” “Oh, there’s plenty of positive traits about you, Liu Xi Xian. You don’t even see most of them. You should see yourself through my eyes.” “You keep your eyes to yourself, Doomherald.” “It’s hard. Whenever you have to concentrate especially hard not to dissolve then that dress you made goes kind of transparent.” “Shut up! And stop looking! This isn’t fun. It’s not some adventure outing. We’re not on a date! You’re almost dead. I’m only alive as long as I concentrate to keep my body together. We’re trapped somewhere that I can’t find a way out from. This isn’t… You’re not…” “Don’t cry! Ouch! I really shouldn’t try to sit up. But don’t cry. I don’t want you to cry. I never meant…” “I’m not crying. I’m fine. I’m not scared.” “Well I’m terrified. If that helps.” “I’m fine. I don’t need help.” “Everybody needs help sometimes. Even us.” “There is no us.” “Okay. No us. Although that idea sure irritated the Parody Master, didn’t it? Heh. I really thought he would murder me for saying that.” “Yes. I admit that was kind of clever. You can’t affect him physically, but you hurt his pride.” “And you faced up to him, even though he was your worst nightmare. That was magnificent.” “You’re shivering again. You shouldn’t have tried to move. You’re feverish.” “I’m freezing. It’s this place. What are you doing?” “Lying beside you. Under the blanket. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m sharing body heat. I can control your temperature better with physical contact.” “Like you shared a bed with Visionary? Don’t be startled. I do my homework.” “Not like that. That was innocent. I like Visionary. I trust Visionary.” “I think you’re safe from my unwanted advances while I have a sucking chest wound, Liu Xi.” “And after that?” “You’re safe as long as they’re unwanted.” “I see.” “I hope you do. We might be here for a long time, unless the predators get us. Things fade slowly in comic-book limbo. Like my temple.” “Exu?” “Yes.” “I am a little afraid. Of what’s going to happen. Of how long I can keep this body going. Of trying to sleep.” “Like I said, you have to trust. Trust yourself if you can’t trust me.” “What if I sleep and die?” “Then that’s a blessing. But I’ll keep watch.” “In case my dress turns transparent when I sleep?” “So no harm befalls you. You watch over me. I’ll watch over you. We’ll survive.” “And then?” “And then we’ll survive some more. Tomorrow.” “I’m only letting you hug me to keep you alive, Exu.” “I’m only hugging you to stay alive, Liu Xi.” “Good night, Doomherald.” “Good night, Liu Xi Xian. Sleep well. Sleep safe.” Continued… by Jason? Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2006 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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