Yep. I’m back. Bet you were thinking that onoes, Indescane has updated, let’s not check for a few years or so. DEAL!
I just read Stephen King’s Carrie and now I’m so happy. Happy happy happy. Happy- *gets hit by flying coathanger* OW! But my muse has returned! My brain is kinda steaming and udgy, poke it! POKE! *pokes self in eye* AAOW!

Strange, gory and confusing chapter up ahead. Also, Maple dates in my book are defined differently: Az and Essy made their fated trip to El Nath in early 9059, the events of Lowest Denominator began in early- to mid-9061. Hopefully this’ll help you to understand the chapter better. Not that you’ll understand it in the first place.

Welcome to Indescane’s Major Cop-Out No. 1.

This chapter brought to you by TEH SILVAR. So blame her, not me.
(Ya know I love, adore and worship you, insert phrases of random adoration etc. =P)
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i. Entry – Li

Date: 17th January 9062
Time: 4:32 a.m.
Location: Fusion Bar, corner booth
Today wasn’t really that interesting. I went to that Mushmom place in someone’s house today and managed to kill her on my own, no mages to interfere this time. I think I’ve had enough of mages for my entire life.

I got a set of Ilbis from killing her…I’m still debating whether to use or not to use them. There are too many memories written in the Steelys to let them go, but what would I do with the money anyway? Buy more potions and get even more drunk?

I hardly train any more. Maybe that’s because all of the best spots for killing in are in Ossyria, and there are now too many bad memories associated with that place. I can’t go anywhere around there without seeing Orbis Tower and remembering Finesse, or having to pass through El Nath and remember…all of it. Seeing snow just brings back too much for me to deal with. The best workout I’ve gotten since the last time I wrote was at Wraiths one evening, but unfortunately, that was cut short by some idiot Crusader. Fortunately, my aim is getting better.

Good luck to him trying to get those Steelys out without severing his face.

Hanging out here is interesting because of all the types you get to see. There are the ones who are coming through just to meet up, then the types who come to break up, then the regular occupants like me. Even then, there are divisions between the regular occupants: the ones who come in to forget, and the ones who come in to remember. I was talking to this White Knight the other day. He’s one of the latter. He asks me to call him Seth – I don’t care what his name is, anyway, half of the names given by the people in this bar aren’t even real in the first place – and he tells me all about this guild he used to work for and the people in it. After a while he’ll get drunk and nostalgic and start ranting about bar fights, or something. His DK friend comes by too, and they start yelling at each other midway. It would be funny if they didn’t both remind me of Az to the point where it gets painful to speak to them, just in case I do something stupidly embarrassing.

Let’s just not remember it that way. But it’s hard not to. Kerning City is full of him. Not in the sense that everywhere I turn, I think he’s there. That’s just too corny and clichéd; imagine what he’d say. It’s pathetic anyway. It’s just that I remember him, chasing Bubblings through the Subway and the subsequent puking his guts out. All the other times he came here, too. Getting his Knucklevest set and terrorizing the shopkeepers, party questing with these other girls and freaking the living Lava Dungeon out of them, getting smashed by Lupins in the L Forest…it all comes back to me. Well, maybe I am getting to that stage where I see his face everywhere or something. No. I’ll never get there. I’d never be able to think of him again without getting a mental mocking.

I know I should be moving on from a place where his style and sensibility is imprinted all over the place. But it’s more of that I don’t want to. I think I enjoy clinging on to the past…I find myself so pathetic for it, but I don’t find that I want to move on. I just want to stay here and hold on to all I have left of him. Is that wrong of me? I guess. Well, go get run over by a Taurospear.

I think I’ll sell the Ilbi and keep my Steelys.

Li. (I almost had the urge to sign off ‘Kitty-Li-kins of Doom’. Too many dreams.)

Date: 19th January 9062
Time: To the Lava Dungeon with that
Location: Fusion Bar, corner booth
I’ve begun talking to some of the other people apart from Seth and Deuce. There’s a lady in here called Dominica, but all her friends call her Domi; a Chief Bandit, but not a cutter user like…Az. Her friends are…fairly interesting, too: one of them bought my Ilbi for an altogether-unholy amount of mesos. His name is Adaire and he calls himself the Hermit of Helios Tower, but according to Domi there’s more to him than that. Apparently he’s a member of high society. Frankly, I think that’s complete Werewolf spit. He’s much too creepy and violent to be sitting around the table sipping potions and discussing decorations or whatever those people do. Though I can pick him as the hunting type; hunting people, that is. When he smiles sometimes I can actually feel chills up my spine.

For some indiscernible and completely insane reason, he’s also decided to adopt me under his tutelage and taken to calling me ‘fledgeling’ for some reason. Caine – another friend of his – says that it’s a good thing for me, but not necessarily for other people. I’m still undecided on what to make of that, but I have noticed that the amount of people who come by my alleyway has decreased. That’s a nice alleyway to think in; I’ve fallen asleep there a few times.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, though. Am I going to become one of them living in the Fusion Bar and always trying to remember or forget the past? Now I’m no longer sure I want to remember. Maybe it would be easier. I think soon, I should move away from all the places where we spent the most time together. Kerning City, and definitely Ellinia…the slime incident…

But if I do that, aren’t I just running away? What am I going to do, lock myself up in Sleepywood and only ever venture into the Dungeon to kill things? Dark Lord, with the money from the Ilbi I could probably do that if I wanted, but it’s not really an option, it’s an escape. So now what? If I stay around the places which hold the best memories, I’m trying to lose myself in the past. If I go to someplace where there will be as few memories as possible, I’m running away. I have a choice between being an idiot who can’t move on and a coward who can’t face the reality. Really appealing.

If Az was here he’d tell me I’m a silly person or whatever it was he liked to call me.

But that’s the point; he isn’t here, he’s no longer here and that’s why I’m stuck. Is that all of me, though? I’m trying so desperately to grab for memories of a guy who used to call me this name I can’t even remember. Or maybe I do.
Evil Kitty-Li-kins of Doom.
See? I remember. And I can’t forget because forgetting him would be just too painful, forgetting someone who should never be forgotten. He’ll never be forgotten to me. Trying to prove to myself I’m strong by cutting myself off from what I remember of him is just another stupid self-preservation measure. It’s not even self-preservation, it’s just simple selfishness. That’s what it is. I’m staying here, come lava and floods if you can. I’m going to hold on.

Li

P.S. I had that dream again.

Date: 24th January Some Year
Time: Who cares. Some ungodly hour of the morning.
Location: Dark alleyway, being pathetic again
I hate this. I hate him for disappearing. I hate me for being a stupid little Bain wanting to lose herself in memories. I hate it. I had that stupid dream again and I want it to stop. I hate myself for being so weak. I can’t even bring myself to get off my ass and move on because of him. Hate you. Hate you. Hate you.

I think I should go back to Ossyria. The memories are bad enough here, they can’t get any worse over there. Maybe I should go and get eaten by Yetis, that would show them all.

Chucking my pen away in disgust, I soon heard a crunch that sounded a bit too much like plastic being crunched underfoot and looked up to see a bunch of people gathered around the mouth of the alleyway. Rolling my eyes, I got to my feet, a little groggy from the lack of sleep, just as the leader of them – strong, but not too strong, dressed in an orange Calas that did wonders to accentuate his lack of muscle tone – stepped up towards me. As he did, an assassin girl behind him smirked at me and flicked her hair back.
“You’re the Assassin who hangs out in this alley, huh? Well, my girl over there-” He nodded at the girl, who fluttered her eyelashes, which in turn gave me the violent urge to mimic dry-retching motions. I suppressed it, though, and forced myself to keep listening to him.
“…so she needs a few new sets of stars for her birthday today. Want to make the birthday girl happy?”
“I’m not selling,” I answered bluntly, and he grinned idiotically.
“We’re not buying, either. You can give ‘em to us, or we can just beat you up and take ‘em.” He swept over me with a cursory glance, one that seemed to express dismissal and arrogance from every pore, and that was enough incentive for me to punch him in the face. He made quite a satisfying scream as he stumbled back straight into his girlfriend.

“Stupid little cow!” he spat, though it sounded rather nasal because he was clutching his nose. I hoped I’d broken it. It would’ve been fun to see the facial expressions of his friends if I had; too bad it was dark.
“Sugarpie? Are you okay?” Instantly, the girl was fawning all over him, and he made a pathetic failure of an attempt at being macho.
“Yeah, sure, sweedheart. I’m ogay, led’s just beat dis stubid bunk do a pile of dird.” Unfortunately for him, his bravado was spoiled by his injured nose. What could have sounded funny in a clichéd way just came out as plain funny. I tried not to laugh and succeeded in managing to restrict it to a snicker; I didn’t particularly want to fight, but if they persisted in being ridiculous then it was too good a chance to pass up.
“Geb her!” he shouted, pointing at me, and I stepped back to ready a few Steelys. There were a couple of warriors in distinctive Shouldermail, a hunter nocking an arrow to a Vaulter and, from seeing the pink flashes of light that glowed over them, it wasn’t hard to guess that a Cleric was probably somewhere around. Then there was the Assassin girl, but she was too busy caring for her ‘sugarpie’ with the broken nose. I resisted a hysterical giggle and Hasted myself, looking around for any more possible opponents.

Then, almost without thinking, I reached in, touched the ice, and suddenly time seemed to slow. One of my arms, moving without my consent, loaded two Steelys into the Avarice and aimed at the Warrior. The first one bounced off his shield, but the second, speeding at him as soon as he lowered his defence, lodged at the one point where his mail didn’t quite cover in his arm. He screamed, but I barely heard it; I was heading for the Cleric, at the front of the alley. I could just see him, hiding behind a dumpster. As he saw me approaching he Teleported upwards, so my Steely only tore a hole in the side of his robe – Starlight, Red Starlight. The next Steely I threw at him, while he was casting Magic Guard and trying to heal his comrade, sank half an inch through the magic shell. Unfortunately, it didn’t touch him, so I spun around and, while he was expelling the Steely and preparing to dodge any other ones, sent him to Dreamland via my boot. He slumped unceremoniously and fell off the edge of the dumpster, collapsing facedown in a heap of robes. His Fairy Wand clattered as it bounced and rolled away from him.

A Soul Arrow scorched the side of my ear and I snarled, “You’re gonna regret that!” at the guilty Hunter as I sprang, a little voice in the back of my head chanting, cli-ché, cli-ché. Another one was reciting, in a soft monotone, Skilled Longbow archers fire on average 12 arrows every minute. Assuming your opponent is skilled, you have five seconds. I didn’t even give him that, admittedly; the second arrow missed me by a distance too small to measure and in about two seconds I had pinned him to the wall with a pair of Steelys like a poster being shot with a nail gun. The next pair secured his hat, and a third his shirt.

There was another one; another Warrior. There he was. Near the others. The assassin girl was watching me with eyes mirroring fear and horror; the sort of look you see on people when they see the two-ton, angry Mixed Golem bearing down on you. Her boyfriend, still looking slightly groggy, blinked at me and half-raised his wand before I knocked it out of his hands with a throw. It clattered on the main street, catching the light, and as the warrior started menacingly towards me with a Crescent Polearm in hand, I dodged the swing and threw a backhanded curve, the blades slipping out between my fingers to stab him in the juncture at the back of the knees where the plating had slipped. He yelled in pain and I faintly heard the metallic, jangling thud as he connected with the dirty bricks. Then knives were in my hands, and the girl, clutching on to her magician boyfriend, was screaming incoherently, and then I sensed another presence behind me-

An unexpected hand trapped my wrist, and I turned, a feral growl ripping out of me, only to be faced with a mild look, the type you get from one who isn’t altogether impressed. I know I was tempted to rip out his throat at the time. Then he put one hand to my cheek, and pinched hard. It hurt, and I could feel the indignant curses rising to the back of my mouth…but I could also feel the cold leaving me, and my self, my being, becoming stronger. It was suddenly a harsh shock, to feel sensation returning to you and the raging adrenaline high fading. But I found I just couldn’t think about what I had done. It all seemed to simply coagulate into one rather blurry moment of speed and stars and action, but I remembered a voice inside me, whispering instructions, screaming, Kill!
“You’ve got to leave some alive, fledgeling,” Adaire said, raising one eyebrow. “Otherwise, how are others going to know your policy?” They didn’t need a second prompting; the magician’s defiant yells of, “We’ll be back!” were just met with one of Adaire’s creepy, sadistic smiles. Despite that smile, I was glad he was there.
Would I have killed them?

I didn’t realise I’d said it aloud until he replied, in a tone as conversational as the tone another person would have used to talk about the weather, “Of course you would. It’s natural when you’re in that sort of condition, and especially when you’ve got something you particularly want to hold on to.” His expression as he spoke was an idyllic smile. Not his bloodchilling one, but it might as well have been. When he had finished, he cast a significant glance at my Steelys.

Suddenly, almost inexplicably, tears rose up in my eyes and he looked at me, a slight look of puzzlement twisting the corners of his mouth as I started crying. Yet I knew why the tears were suddenly there when moments ago they hadn’t been. I was lost, I was mourning, I was alone and I was scared; I had seen a part of me that I never wanted to see again, and I was drowning in memories of a person who I would give everything to see again.

iv. Image
Always the same.

Walking through the wooden corridors, face wet. Touched it. Tears there when looked at hands. Sudden hole in ground; fall into darkness. Yet in darkness it is not dark. Like a tunnel, but you can see around you. The walls are black and striped with a deep ultraviolet colour. And you are falling, falling, falling; plummeting, head down, darkness, arms flailing, trying not to fall, tears still leaking from hurted eyes.

It rains. Snow and Steelys, Snow and Steelys. They fall. Snow sometimes Steelys. Steelys sometimes snow. Both dropping around. Help, call, no one hears. Then see them.

Essy first. She’s blind; her eyepatch is flipped back, and both eyes are no longer there, just burnt out sockets. One knife embedded in the side of her throat. Blood streams in long red ribbons like the one on the Steely, tailing behind her as she falls in a rain of snow and throwing stars and conflict. Then Finesse appears, both eyes intact and smirking, on the other side. She’s unharmed. She’s whole. But the innocent one suffers. Essy is crying and it’s making the blood flow faster.
He’s worthless, stupid girl. Saedas is much more our type. Finesse’s voice is mocking, mocking, pretty pretty mocking girl, musical mockingbird.
No! No! Az! It wasn’t his fault…none of us were to blame… And then she flies through you at her whole counterpart, and then they grapple, Essy slams Finesse against the wall Steely changes sides buries itself in Finesse’s throat Essy heals-

Then fall faster, Essy calling after, Don’t blame him or anyone, Li…blame me, blame Maestro. But he isn’t to blame.
Who is he? Cry back, but suddenly know, remember, the answer, know it inside of you but cannot put it into words, just know who he is and what he means and what he cannot be blamed for, but cannot remember him. Essy and Finesse disappear from sight. Snow and Steelys, Steelys and snow.

Saedas. Perfect, cold, pale Saedas. Not one strand of red hair out of place. Yet Red Requiem torn to shreds around him. Bloodied ribs protruding from the robe; red, red, red. One leg oddly cut short. And then Maestro, plummeting after him, smashing into him, green Linnex similarly decorated by smashed ribs and the sight of pale blue skin. Clash, clash. Red blue green. Priest screams in pain, then speaks.
The Black Angel means hope for someone else, Maestro. I cannot let you take that away from them. Saedas’ voice, soft and pale and barely audible. Ranger sneers at him.
You’re weak and a hypocrite, brother. What hope did you give me when you made me undead? Whose hope is so important to you that you have to preserve it? Angry, taunting, yet the Priest does not rise to the bait. Screams again, but this time from Maestro. Six white wings, light that burns the unholy. Saedas, too bright to look at, angel in the darkness. Healed. Whole. Manipulator? Angel, and that is all you know.
And you do not comprehend. He is everyone’s hope. He himself is hope incarnate. Warm hand touches wet face, impressions. Red hair, pale skin, smile. Ranger cries out, grabs at the seraph, golden bow and arrow form in angel’s hands. Shot. Irony. Maestro of bows shot down by that which has mastered one.
Soar, child. Fall further…or flying now? Cannot tell. Do not care. The Seraph, the Angel of Light, has brought you peace. No more Steelys. Only snow. Blood and snow, bloodied snow.

Allamar. Alone. Cold. Childlike somehow. Robes worn, clutching them around her. So imperfect and weak and she looks with eyes that are hard gems in her face.
I didn’t deserve it, you know. What was done to me. Arrogance and haughtiness, but behind spiked ice, a little girl lies waiting and hurt for her salvation to come. Reaches out with one hand, touches. Touch back. Grip hands. Share loss. Fall together, deeper, darker, snow whirlwinds dancing around and fighting, fighting the search. Fly past images half-melted and barely there and plummet into the deepest recesses of a soul.

Falling, falling, falling, sad, lonely, lost, eternity passes, want to cry and scream with loneliness because they arrogant men left without really saying goodbye, ripped out your heart not like it won’t heal but still hurts anyway, so cold
Close to each other, hate each other only slightly after everything know you’re somehow the same different as you are stubborn, worried, sad, filled with rage in one and void in the other and hoping hoping against hope that they’ll come back

Light.

The walls. They’re covered in light. It’s warm and bright and your fall slows, and it stops snowing, and you realise your face is still wet because it’s the only part that’s still cold. You let go of each other, wanting to feel this alone, and then the light is blotted out by pure blackness. But you’re not afraid. You know this blackness. It knows you. And it flies on six wings of shining onyx, and it grabs you, tilts you upright, and brushes the tears from your face. It is warm, welcome blackness, not the cold and bitter blackness of the tunnel. As you watch, it changes, into the form you know it for – him! – and whispers, Hey, Kitty-kins. Miss me?
You’re a stupid idiot! You just left like that without telling me?
So that’s a yes? Sputter with rage that’s only half-feigned, familiar feelings of exasperation, annoyance, devotion rising in you.
You bumbling, grammar-deficit, Zakum-spawned insincere peon! What do you think, huh?! He makes a face at you, grins.

Now why did I come here for you if all you’re planning to do is insult me? Then he grabs you, and twirls you around. He’s got that familiar ‘go on, punch me’ grin on, and you prod him, shouting curses at him, uncaring that he will call you an uncivil little kitty or whatever he chooses. He is here, after all, not in the place where you cannot reach him. And he knows you and you know him and he has pulled you from the tunnel and you are in his arms.

Then there are two. You are seeing it from the outside. One being of darkness, enfolding you. One being of light, enfolding her. And then you see them, shooting up through the tunnel, night wings and day wings beating, sending them rocketing upwards towards, out the gap, the corridors is gone and you are soaring into the sky and you turn and see her face, it is a child’s face asleep and content in his arms and his red hair streams out behind him and then you look at the Black Angel, your own angel, and you hold on to him because you’ve lost him once and you never intend to do so again.

She sat up, knocking the lid off a trashcan in the process, tears trickling down her cheeks. She dug her nails into her palms, biting her lip. It was the same dream she’d had over and over since…since he had disappeared. Was this how he had felt like when he lost Essy? If it was…she hurt so much already, it was hard to say how she would express her sympathy.

Viciously, she kicked at a cardboard box and sent it flying into another pile of trash. Still not satisfied with the chaos that caused, she stood up and tipped the unlidded bin over with a foot, watching the refuse go everywhere. Then she picked up a stray plank and smashed the tin construct, a manic grimace spread across her face as it clanged, still resonating as she dropped the plank and looked around. Her alleyway. Another dream like this, and her alleyway would be ruined. The thought brought a laugh inside of her, and the laugh bubbled to her lips as she pressed one arm against the wall for support. Still laughing, she sank against it, the laughs now almost hysterical screams, mingling with sobs. At length, the assassin collapsed to her knees straight onto the dropped plank.

She didn’t even cry out in pain. Instead, the sobbing, deranged laughter increased in volume, all the bottled-up emotion finding its release in the banshee screams of mixed hysterical amusement and broken agony that tore through the back alleyways of Kerning City. As was the wont in the dark town of thieves, no one stopped to listen.
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EDIT: BLEARGH. I’m really half asleep right now – tomorrow morning I’ll edit.