098 Chapel Days · Scene 16
Chapel Days
Chapel Days · Scene 16 · Intentions b
“N
|
o! Well, I
have been waiting here all night, but that’s not it! You just can’t!”
“You’re not making any sense heretic, including waiting here
all night.”
Maye sighed and pressed her fingertips against her forehead
as Chain rambled on incoherently. The pout Chain wore only intensified as her
hands fell from her hips and curled into tight fists at her side.
“I at least have a good excuse to not make sense! But you
don’t have any excuse! So, no, you can’t! Stop even thinking about it!”
“You’re still not making any sense heretic and I came here to
practice, not try to decipher the gibberish pouring out of your mouth this
morning. Perhaps if you allowed yourself some sleep you might actually be able
to speak in a manner where I understand what you are trying to say.”
Finding talking to Chain to be a waste that morning, Maye
lowered her hand and took her rifle in hand from her back as she went to walk
past Chain. Chain allowed her pass, but not peacefully as she grabbed her tail
in her right hand.
“YEE~!”
Inhaling sharply, Maye’s face flushed as she looked back and
instinctually mule kicked. Chain easily however dodged Maye’s right rear hoof
and caught her other with her right hand. Finding herself tilted forward like a
wheelbarrow, Maye kicked her rear legs fruitlessly unable to free herself of
Chain’s grip.
“What do you think you’re doing⁈”
Finally asking the question she should have led with rather
than justifying Squawk calling her brutish, Maye sought to understand Chain’s
intentions. The icaran maid stopped pouting and let her face fall
expressionless beyond a hint of her brow furrowing as she spoke.
“Is this why?”
“Why what⁈”
Chain was still not making sense to Maye, but it was becoming
easier to guess what she was going on about. Where Maye struggled and strained
to no effect, Chain was not even putting forth an effort to keep the centaur’s
back end elevated. The next sentence that Chain spoke, while not a direct
answer, made it even clearer.
“It’s not worth it. You won’t be you anymore. There’s barely
any me left so I know what I’m talking. I’m lucky I’m still shaped like me.”
“Don’t tell me… Master Squawk spoke to you of my intentions,
did he?”
“Master Squawk…?”
Releasing her grip on Maye, Chain’s arms fell to her side as
her expression became crestfallen. Maye did not pay Chain much immediate attention
as she trotted away from her and shook her back left leg out. Not being
countered by Maye became Chain’s opening to continue and she put forth an
accusatory question as she lifted her massive eyes onto the centaur.
“That’s what he meant by having his arm twisted. Why would
you do that to him? How could you do that to him⁈ You don’t even know him, and you’d
ask him to follow me around knowing the danger I’ll throw myself into without
thinking while you throw away your humanity⁈ Why would you do that⁈”
“You already answered your own question heretic.”
“Eh?”
With a heavy sigh, Maye gave Chain a cross look.
“First it should be noted that you have no say over my life
and the decisions I make heretic, but I wonder if you’ve truly noticed how little
say you have in your own. You seem to keep getting in your way.”
“That’s…!”
Chain leaned forward to counter Maye before taking a weak
step back. The expression on Maye’s face spoke volumes about how she was pained
to be breaking down Chain’s state to her, but she did not apologize for her
words. Instead she pressed on taking a step towards Chain who retreated a step further
in kind.
“You just admitted that you won’t think about what you are
doing, and Finch told me about your uncontrolled assault of her. One prompted
according to the she-devil by the further spirits you’ve contracted. You’re
growing unstable not just in your thoughts and emotions, but also your self-control.
Can you really be trusted to travel on your own? I think not and it is why I
first approached Mater Squawk during your half a tenday slumber. You need
supervised, for your own good and that of the world. Realistically, you should
be sealed away and your stability left to the work of others, but I doubt that Darkness
in you would stay so quiet if you were treated so. Darkness that can consume
the light of the Lucifalz. I’d never imagine such a possibility and wonder if
even the Light of Her Eminence within you can pierce that Darkness.”
“So, if I can just summon my bow, you’ll forget all of this
then? If I can prove to you that I’m in enough control to go out on my own, you’ll
give up on this?”
“I can make no such assurances heretic. Venturing with you
and encounter that Foreigner and facing so large a Lucifalz speaks to the limitations
that the I possess. The strength of our enemies purified by Her Eminence though
compared to my own was unfathomable in its difference. But we are not speaking
of me heretic, but rather you, and I wonder if you can truly conjure up Her
Eminence’s Light through that Darkness within you.”
Her brow furrowing as she began to pout, Chain took Maye’s
goading to heart and curled her hands into fist once again at her sides.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! The Beast answers
to me and if I want to summon my bow then I’ll summon my bow!”
“Prove it.”
“I will!”
Lifting her left hand and extending it in front of her, Chain
prepared to snap her fingers. It was an unusual gesture, not because spell
casters did not make use of gestures to remind themselves of the effects of the
spell they were casting, but rather because it was how Chain opened the
Ambrosial Gate she used to draw in Nectar. She was unfamiliar with the
sensation of her own Ambrosial Gate and instead summoned forth the Ambrosial Gate
of the Foreigner beast that had infected her with a snap of her fingers. A
distinctive ringing sound filled the air as she did due to her chainmail
skinned fingers and a small sphere of white light appeared above her upturned
palm. Willing it to move forward, Chain twisted her hand around and clenched it
tight into a fist around the light. Experience told both Chain and Maye that in
response the gateway to the Nectar of Ambrosia would be transformed into a bow
of pure Light. To both of theirs surprise, far more the terrified Chain than
the slightly put off ease Maye, the bow that took form from within Chain’s clenched
fist was one of pure Darkness like that from which her cape spawned.
“No… What? I don’t… This isn’t…”
Chain could not find the words to convey her incomprehension
at the bow of Darkness she held, and Maye offered her a sympathetic look. There
was a third pair of eyes that watched the proceedings with interest from the shadows
and a look of curiosity with a hint of disappointment adorned Lute Mouser’s
face.
“Well, that is interesting. The way this job changes at a moment’s
notice. Whatever will brother think?”
.
Copyright © 2019 Joshua D Tarwater
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