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Between Lives

Eislynn tucked herself into a tight ball and rolled as she and her sister were thrown into a metal-lined cell.

They had been exploring an abandoned base. A base of whom, neither of them knew, but Stara swore she could sense magical resonance from somewhere, and Eislynn didn’t doubt her.

Stara was usually right about magic.

Her judgement about how abandoned the base really was left something to be desired, however.

Not that Eislynn could really cast that particular stone. She was supposed to be the one who looked out for them, and she hadn’t noticed the guards until it was too late.

The door slammed behind them before they could scramble out gain, and Eislynn left a significant dent when she hit the metal as hard as she could. Unfortunately, dent or no, the door remained where it was.

She muttered curses, turned to examine their cell, and froze.

Stara fell as silent when she spotted what Eislynn had a moment earlier.

There was a woman, tied to a chair, in the exact center of the room.

Everything about her screamed threat to Eislynn’s senses, and it was clear that their captors felt the same. Tough climbing rope bound the woman hand and foot to the chair, and the chair itself seemed to be bolted to the floor.

There was a thick blindfold over her eyes, her lips were painted a deep red, and she wore a skin-tight suit of something matte black. It looked like it might be sophisticated body armor, or maybe a stealth suit. Straps here and there were clearly designed to secure weapons.

“Don’t worry girls, I don’t bite.”

Eislynn flinched back when the woman spoke, muscles tensing, ready for a fight.

“And if I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it already,” she added, lips twisting into a crooked smile. “But you can relax. Killing children isn’t usually my wheelhouse.”

“What do you mean that you would have hurt us already?” Stara asked, peeping over her older sister’s shoulder. “You’re tied up, and the chair is bolted down."

The woman shrugged one shoulder, somehow casual despite her bonds and their captivity.

“Not exactly an issue. At least, no one I can’t solve easy enough.”

Eislynn gave the woman a closer look and edged nearer. There was a lot of hard muscle under the woman’s suit. She was a fighter, that was for sure. She wasn’t very big though. Probably not more than an inch taller than Eislynn herself, and thin as a rail to boot.

But something deep in Eislynn’s gut told her that this woman was the most deadly thing she and Stara had ever met.

And she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“How is being tied up not an issue? Do you have a knife or something?” Stara wanted to know, and the woman chuckled wryly, still easy in her bonds, and far too comfortable in their situation.

“Well yes,” the woman replied, still smiling. Eislynn tried to spot the knives and tilted her head thoughtfully. There weren’t a lot of places to hide a knife in that skin-tight suit. “Several, although I hardly need one for this. 9.9 climbing rope is crap for tying anyone up, and I’m not anyone.”

Despite the blindfold she managed to convey deep, catlike offense at being so badly underestimated.

“Do you want us to at least take off your blindfold?” Stara offered, clearly having decided that the woman wasn’t a threat to them. “I mean, it can’t be nice to have it on, right?”

Eislynn wasn’t as trusting, and she was careful to stay between the woman and her sister.

“Sure, go for it.” The woman answered Stara, but seemed to be tracking Eislynn by sound, or maybe scent. “Lack of sight doesn’t bother me much, but this rag smells like unwashed soldier.”

Stara nudged to get past Eislynn, and pouted when Eislynn refused to budge. There was danger here, and she wasn’t about to let her little sister walk into it.

She was thirteen, not stupid. She knew a trap when she saw one, and wasn’t stupid enough to mess with someone so quick after meeting them.

The woman laughed like she could hear Eislynn’s thoughts.

Maybe she could.

“Don’t worry, little warrior. I’m not going to hurt your sister.”

Eislynn didn’t believe her, and glared until Stara stayed put before cautiously coming to the woman’s side. The blindfold was tied tightly in place, and it took a minute of frustrated tugging before she was able to pull it away.

The sight of the woman’s eyes brought her up short.

Only Fae had eyes that particular shade of silver-flecked grey. The same shade that Eislynn and Stara shared with their father, and grandfather.

Stara came over to see what had rattled her sister so much, and gasped when she saw the woman’s eyes.

“You’re Fae!” she announced, like it was the answer to a riddle. Maybe to her it was. “I mean, only Fae have that kind of eyes, right?”

“I’m not a pure-blood.” The woman told them, smile still playing around her lips. “I just have enough to make the going a little easier here and there. Faerie blood has some advantages after all.”

“Are we cousins?” Stara was starting to bounce and Eislynn’s bad feeling was getting worse. She preemptively tangled her fingers in the back of Stara’s shirt, ready to pull her away if the woman decided to hurt them after all. “We have a lot of cousins. We keep meeting more of them in the weirdest places.”

“All Fae are related one way or another,” the woman shrugged casually. “There’s not enough of them around to avoid that. We’re not cousins. That I can tell you for certain.”

“What’s your name?” Eislynn demanded, curiosity making her nervous. The woman was hiding something, and she was starting to have an idea, a strange, impossible idea that didn’t make any sense, except that maybe it did, and somehow, she had to figure out how. “Who are you?”

“My name is Ghost.”

“Is that your real name?”

“No, but it will do for the moment.”

Eislynn tensed farther, wary of the way the woman was looking at them.

Stara noticed as well, but spoke up again, hoping to diffuse the situation.

“Have we met you before?” she asked, and Eislynn realized that she’d picked up on the same hints that Eislynn was reading, even if she wasn’t usually as ready for a fight.

“No, little one. We haven’t met before, and we won’t again, I think.” Ghost answered gently. Her smile went soft around the edges as she looked at the twelve-year-old, and sad when her eyes landed on Eislynn’s own. “Calm down, warrior. You’re on the right path. I’m not a threat to you, or her.”

“Maerie Teague then? Our grandmother?” Stara pressed, although her eyes flickered between them curiously. Eislynn kept her thoughts to herself. Either she was right, or she wasn’t, and there was no reason to alarm her sister.

“Yes, I know Maerie.”

There was fondness in her voice as Ghost spoke of their grandmother, and it somehow managed to send a chill down Eislynn’s spine and relax her at the same time.

Stara brightened like her namesake, and Eislynn noticed a tint of sadness come to the woman’s eyes. It unnerved her, and she backed away a step. The woman noticed her retreat but didn’t call attention to it as Stara babbled on, trying to find out more about the woman despite the sparse answers she was receiving in return.

The clues were starting to line up in Eislynn’s mind

When she met the penetrating grey gaze that had settled on her, she knew she was right.

Before she could ask the question that sprang to her lips, Ghost nodded, just barely.

“Yes,” she said, cutting Stara off. “Coming together, huh? Just about got it figured out”

Eislynn sat down hard on the tile floor and stared at the woman. Her hands shook and she curled them into fists so hard that her nails bit into flesh.

“How?”

“How do you think?”

Stara was looking between them, confusion wrinkling her forehead.

“What are you talking about?” she asked softly, trying to figure out whatever it was that Eislynn had seen. “Eisa, what’s going on?”

“Sorry, can’t tell you.” Ghost said apologetically. She looked away from Eislynn and gave Stara a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, little star, you’ll know soon enough.”

“But-” Stara tried to protest and was cut off again by a stern glance.

“Not yet,” Ghost told her firmly. “I meant it. I can’t tell you.”

“What’s your kill-count?” Eislynn asked as something like panic rushed through her veins. Her palms stung, and she ignored them. “How many?”

Stara gasped.

Ghost closed her eyes and sighed.

“Three thousand, five hundred, seventy-one. Four planets. One ‘Verse.”

Stara blanched and reeled away from the woman. Ghost hardly seemed to notice, although bone-deep sadness crept in around the edges of her eyes.

Eislynn couldn’t take her gaze off the woman. The panic she had been feeling was being replaced by horror with every heartbeat.

“How-“ she tried to ask, but realized she didn’t even know what to ask, or how to ask it.

Ghost did though, and she gave a short, abortive shake of her head.

“Most of them had it coming,” she promised darkly. ” The planets are a long story, but believe me when I say that the alternative was worse. The ‘Verse… is complicated.”

That did make it a little better, and Eislynn managed a nod, though Stara had gone pale.

“If you- do I…?” Eisa asked, hoping Sidhe would understand what she was trying to ask. “How-“

She did, and smiled, blood-tinted lips quirking up at the ends.

“You’ll never regret it.” she said, a strange sort of satisfaction in her voice. “Some of the ones who came later, yes, never that first one.”

Stara had regained her nerve, but before she could ask any of the questions that riddled her mind, there came the sound of the old key in the lock of their door.

Ghost’s smile became bladed again and her eyes hardened with murderous resolve.

“Get behind me, both of you,” she ordered shortly. “Stay there, no matter what you see.”

Both girls scampered behind the woman as the heavy door creaked in. The man who had questioned them before stepped into the room, his broad shoulders filling the door.

He looked a lot more nervous now than he had before, and he froze when he saw that Ghost’s blindfold was gone.

“Herk, I am deeply disappointed in you. I may have to kill you for this.” Ghost said lightly before he could speak.

The man, Herk, tensed, but he only moved enough to let four other men into the room. More that Eislynn could take on by herself, even with Stara’s magic backing her.

Of course, they were not the ones these men considered a danger.

“Very ambitious of you, Murderer,” Herk answered, deep voice rumbling. “The price on your head in this world alone will finance my army for centuries.”

Ghost’s smile only grew, and Eislynn saw her hands twist around the ropes that held her.

“Eislynn, cover her eyes,” she murmured to Eislynn, completely steady despite the bad odds. “Time to raise that count by five.”

That was enough warning for Eislynn. She pulled Stara back against the wall and pressed a hand over her eyes. When the younger girl tried to protest, Eislynn hushed her.

“It’s going to be a lot of blood,” she shared. She had no real way to know for sure, but if Ghost was who Eislynn thought she was, she would know about Stara too. “You don’t like blood.”

Before Stara could decide whether she was going to push Eislynn’s hand away, Ghost burst into movement.

The ropes that had been holding her snapped like they were thread. The knives she claimed to have mentioned appeared in her hands and at the tips of her boots like magic.

She was far faster than even Eislynn had expected, and she watched with a strange sort of detached admiration as the woman massacred every man in the room.

There was no other word for it, and Eislynn realized only seconds had passed when the last body, Herk’s she noted absently, hit the floor with a muffled and somewhat wet thud.

There was blood everywhere except on Ghost.

Gruesome business attended to, Ghost walked over and knelt next to them.

“Little star, I need you to close your eyes and keep them closed for a few minutes,” she said, and helped them to their feet. “My work isn’t something you’re ready to see.”

“What d-do you mean, your work?” Stara asked, but she let the other two walk her past the bodies. Eislynn noticed that she kept her eyes closed, and breathed a sigh of relief when they were out of the little room.

The stink of blood burned at her nose, and horror wrapped around her heart and settled there like a vicious parasite, sapping her strength.

There were more bloodstains on the walls, and Eislynn knew without asking that Ghost had caused some, or all, of them.

“I kill people.” Ghost explained to Stara as they made their way down the hallway and into open air. “You’re not ready to see how good at it I am. There we go. We’re clear.”

Eislynn looked around, and suddenly felt the tingle on her skin that announced the Gate was about to grab them again. It was time to discover a new ‘Verse, and whatever new things waited for them. With any luck, they would have a little time to recover before something new tried to kill them.

Ghost felt the Gate too, and sank to her knees before pulling them both in for a tight hug.

“Rely on each other always.” She ordered. “Don’t fight your instincts. They’ll keep you safe.”

Eislynn felt the Gate shiver again and hugged the woman back.

“Will you be okay?” she asked desperately. “We can’t leave you here alone.”

“I’ll be fine, I have help on the way.” Ghost promised, before pulling away reluctantly and pressing a soft kiss to each of their foreheads. “Be careful, be smart, be safe.”

Before they could say anything more, the Gate swirled around them, up-down-everywhere energy that had a grip as inescapable as it was fluid.

Eislynn’s last sight of Ghost was of the woman, one hand raised in farewell and a smile on her lips as a shimmering starship touched down behind her.

And then she was gone, and all that was left was inescapable power, shooting them forward between worlds.

When the Gate finally let them go, Eislynn let herself sit down and just breathe for a minute. Stara leaned against her side, rattled, but taking a moment to collect herself.

“You knew her.” Stara said at last, quietly. “You never trust anyone that quick, so you had to know her. How?”

Eislynn nodded and struggled to her feet. She didn’t know where they were, but it wasn’t home, and the air smelled like magic.

“Yeah, I knew her.” She admitted reluctantly, like saying it out loud would make it real.

Like saying it out loud would make it inevitable

“So who was she?”

“Me.”

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Uncollected Fantasy:

Below the Fog

Glitter Bold

God-Touched Tide

Into the Darkness

Turn Me

Wolf Moon

Blood Moon

Hallowed Halls Memorial

A Kiss to Heal a Broken Heart

Cursebroken

Nothing but Trouble

Build a House of Paper

Unspoken Words

Imagine Reality (Patreon-Only)

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So once I had finished my Eggman Dome piece at the Beatles Ashram, I still had some latex paint left over and a couple hours to spare. So I grabbed this lil spot in front of where @themetanoist was finishing up her mandala and threw down this quick experimental freestyle. Just having fun, throwing Color energy around, as you can see in the time lapse. Not sure what it is exactly, but the Beatles song “Octopus’s Garden” came to mind, haha. #beatlesashram #rishikesh #india #latexpaint #freestyle #experimental #play #artforfun #octopussgarden #thebeatles #abandonedashram #visionaryart #visionarygraffiti #interdimentional #entity (at "Beatles Ashram", Rishikesh) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtQzKYKgE3a/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=asmqj44rvb52

#beatlesashram #rishikesh #india #latexpaint #freestyle #experimental #play #artforfun #octopussgarden #thebeatles #abandonedashram #visionaryart #visionarygraffiti #interdimentional #entity