“It’s a damned mess,” the Herochan said surveying the destruction around them. “Leave it to a squad of Tank Vixxens to destroy a forest for one little human.”
A young Amazonchan, just barely released from her training, smashed apart a nearby ashy fir. “This way is clear, Grandmother,” the youngling said with a slight bow.
The Herochan chuckled. “All of the forest is open child,” she said and tapped another tall fir next to her with her walking stick. The dead plant fell apart in the wind like dust. “Only the past is hidden.”
The Amazonchan frowned, but nodded and followed the First Borne through the maze of trees.
…
“Well, if you ever change your mind you know how to find us,” Timmy told the winged Valkyrie as finished strapping her breastplate back on.
She shook her head. “I doubt it. My journey is not likely to cross your trail unless his does. I doubt it will after this.”
“I understand,” Timmy replied nodding his head. “Just do me a favor and look out for him. He’s actually a good guy. It’s just…” He sighed and looked out the stained glass window. “He’s a survivor,” he said at last. “He is my friend. I want to kill him, but I understand why he did what he did. If you aren’t crazed again, tell him that for me.”
The Valkyrie gave him a slight bow. “I’ll try. Thank you for healing me and clearing my head for me.”
“It was nothing,” Timmy told her with a chuckle. “You saved our lives back there. Consider us even,” he said offering her his hand.
“Humans are so strange,” she said cocking her to the said.
“We are. That’s why we won’t go away.”
…
They sat in the pews, staring at the man hanging from the cross, the burgundy stained wood capturing a face wracked with pain, disappointment, and pity.
“Who do you think he was?” asked Shar, the Charmelons. “They capture his torture with such grace and reverence, so why does it make me feel sad to see?”
Her two companions said nothing, just staring at the crucifix.
“He was a man,” Rosalyn said at last from behind the linen mask that covered her dog-face, “who believed in peace and forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness? Some things can’t be forgiven!”
Shar nodded in agreement with Margarita. “The fighting will never stop. Too many of us live for it, and the humans were pushed too far to stop their wrath now.”
Rosalyn gave the fire-lizard-woman a slight smirk. “Is that why you fight alongside us now? To continue the fight?”
Shar shook her head and looked to the ceiling. “No. Your master was right when he said that I would have to fight for what I believe in, for what I want. If the Creator wins, will I be happy? I thought so, but what would have happened to me? It doesn’t feel right somehow. This does.”
“He’s not God. We all had to learn that. There was no God for me.” Rosalyn sighed, starring at one of the stained glass windows, an angel crying.
Margarita placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We are a force that shatters all, absence of mortality. Maybe that’s all we ever were to him.” She looked at the crucifix, a tear falling from her face. “Why was he killed? Do you know?”
“He said he was the son of God,” Rosalyn explained. “Some of their priests didn’t like that.”
“Really?” Shar looked at the crucifix anew. “Two-thousand years ago.”
“That’s right. Now they praise his sacrifice as a gift form heaven.”
Margarita narrowed her eyes. “A gift from heaven?” She suddenly stood up. “That I can do. I have to try. He might be the only one who can do such a thing.”
“What are you thinking?” Rosalyn asked from behind her mask.
“I’ll ask the Creator himself,” Margarita said. “He gave us life, maybe he can bring theirs back.”
…
“It’ll never work,” Timmy told the two girls.
Rosalyn shrugged her pack on. “We have to try,” she said lightly. “Why not come with us?”
“No,” said Timmy. “We’re going to Washington. I don’t even want to know where you will wind up.”
“It’s a pity,” Margarita said hefting the large ice cube onto her back. “We could use your help.”
“I won’t force her to fight her own friends and family,” Timmy said shaking his head. “I owe that respect to her after what we put her through.”
He offered his hand to Margarita. “Be glad we’re still friends. That’s all that anyone can ask for these days.”
Margarita smiled and took his hand in her own. “We ask for more. We demand a penance and a price to be paid. Take care, we’ll meat again.”
“How could you know that?” Shar asked from the church doorway.
“We had a dream,” Rosalyn said. “A good dream.”
…
Rosalyn and Margarita hugged tightly.
“Take care, daughter.”
“I will, mother,” Margarita said letting go.
Rosalyn stroked the ice cube that Margarita carried on her back. “I wish I could join you, but this infection will claim me before long. I can’t hold it back forever.”
“Where will you go?”
Rosalyn looked over at the rising sun shining through the trees. “China or India. Rumor was that both of them had found the virus for the ‘Bloody Flu’ as they’re calling it. Maybe a cure can be found.”
She gave her daughter a warm smile. “They’ll need help. It’s part magical and extremely unstable. At the very least, I can tell them what I know.”
“You won’t like it,” Margarita said. “You’re just a bitch unless you’re in charge.”
The two hugged again.
“I guess this is really goodbye.”
“Yes,” Rosalyn told her, “it is.”
As her mother walked off in the opposite direction, Margarita just stared, tears in her eyes. Her hands stroked the ice cube behind her.
It was calming to her, in ways that she would never have thought of before.
“I will bring you back,” she told the two figures wrapped in the frozen shell. “No matter what the price, I won’t let you go, either of you.”
Tears fell from her face like crystals as she walked east, towards the rising sun.
“Yolanda, you are my sister-daughter, and are more a part of me than I will ever know. Your life is your own, as is mine. I only hope you understand why I can’t let you go.”
Each step was a burden, a price to be paid for the journey’s toll.
“Ignacio, I wish you knew just what you meant to us. I wish I had known what you meant to me. But you need to know this, that day when we first met; both Yolanda and I chose you. We chose you.”
*TIMELESSNESS*
I’ve felt darkness
Closing in on me
Chilling shadows
Surrounding me
I’ve had the poison
Leak into my skin
And it corroded
My heart away
Bled away
Cut away
Dark night of my soul
lyrics by Burton C. Bell
He looked out across the frozen wasteland, his eyes drawing in everything.
Barren and alone.
He looked over to his companion, a tall and muscular woman with long white hair that would have reached the small of her back, were it not wrapped tight in a bun.
“Well Athena,” he asked, “how soon can you begin?”
The General looked down the length of the forgotten Canadian landscape.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll begin as the light crests the mountains.”