Time Surge 1986 - "The Emerald Lights"

                Octavia didn’t say a word, but Tempest noticed she wasn’t flying upward toward the platform but rather back to the elevator shaft where they entered this realm from the Tripskip Annex.  The other time warriors were already far behind in the fog for being trained as a warrior was nowhere near the same as being born as one.  The air was blasting through Tempests thin layered armor and her helmet was tight against her chin, rubbing it a bit raw right on the tip.  She was astonished at how easily Octavia was able to fly while holding her, then she noticed that she must’ve initiated her skirmishers while catching her because she had two thick black bands clinched on her wrists and two more on her ankles.  The skirmishers were attached to the apparatus that held Octavia in the air.  The wings were magnificently designed with prongs and spinning dials that made no sound but were in sync and creating a flight pattern that was mesmerizing.  The material that was in between the bone structure of the upper wing looked like thin animal skin but she wasn’t sure.  The cogwheel pumped up and down as she flapped each time stretching the skin cells thinner.  It was hard to tell how she was making them pump because she didn’t have them on the platform and Tempest had not noticed her using them before now.

            They approached the doorway that she and Octavia had left from and so they glided upward slightly to land smoothly.  Octavia put Tempest on her feet and instantly the skirmishes fell off and disappeared.

            “Get back to the Tripskip and find a gentleman by the name of Everett Palmer Fogg, he can be found in the Ironbark car.  He is a friend and is the best detective mind that I know.  If there is a mystery to solve on Celeruan Isle, we will need him!  You will be safe in the Ironbark car until I retrieve you.  I must appear loyal to Zebulon in the meantime, now make haste! I can tell you no more.” Octavia said briskly.

            The elevator shaft opened with no elevator inside. With a stare from Octavia’s crystal eyes, the opposite side of the shaft opened and Tempest could clearly view Waterman Annex just on the other side.  It was the hallway where they had entered the door.  First Octavia ran and jumped out and turned her head to see if Tempest was coming.  She didn’t notice how petrified and novice Tempest was, and possibly even forgetting that Tempest wasn’t raised a Lingermancer and had no concept of her speed.  Tempest took a deep breath and ran toward the open door and jumped through to where Octavia was standing.  She let Tempest pass and then shut the door behind leaving her alone in the Tripskip hallway with all the random doors.  She needed to find a gentleman named, oh she had already forgotten, and like that was super easy on a seven story vessel that’s about a thousand miles long, that you have also only been on once, she thought to herself.  She looked up and down the corridors and with so many passengers going hither and fro, she didn’t know who to ask.  Then she saw a map on one of the fluorescent walls.  She did remember the name Ironbark car and hoped she could find it on the map.

            “Your destination please?” said a voice from inside the life-sized map.

            Tempest squinted carefully and could see a digital face formed out of letters and shapes speaking to her.  Once it started speaking nothing was legible anymore so she decided to answer.

            “Iron….bark….car?” she muttered like a robot.

            “Right this way.” Said the voice.

            A door opened in the screen and at the top it read ‘Ironbark Car All Aboard’.  Tempest took a step and her leg entered the screen and as she continued to move she slowly vanished into the map.  On the other side she reappeared in what she knew to be the 1920’s.  She looked down at herself and her armor was gone and instead she was wearing a black tasseled dress and funny looking black heels with a buckle across the top of her foot.  She even had a small black coin purse clutched in her hands.  It wasn’t long before she noticed that everyone in the car had stopped for a moment to look at the new arrival and she so wished she could remember the gentlemen’s name at that moment.  Fortunately the passengers all went back to their normal activities of smoking, everyone seemed to be smoking.  Some people were reading in big leather chairs, others had tea and dessert sitting in front of them on tables with white table clothes and shiny silver spoons.  The waiters all had tuxedo’s on and many of the men had this tiny little pencil shaped mustaches just under each of their nostrils.  The ladies were tall and thin and very pale, until Tempest looked down at her own arm and saw that she too had fair skin, in fact she fit in almost too well.  After taking a few steps into the room a man appeared from her right, like he was part of the furniture.

            “What brings a young doe like you into these parts of the cosmos?  Felt you wanted to dabble in the arts of debauchery?  You see, I can be a guide for you as I tend to know most of the important people who board this vessel, no matter the likeness, they have to pass through me.”  He said as he walked her by the arm.

            In his right hand he had a cigar, and he swaggered a bit while he took each step, making is oversized suit buckle at the knees and giving the jacket the appearance it was about to fall off.

            “That’s very kind of you sir.  I actually am looking for a certain fella, maybe you can help?”  She spoke with a squeaky girlish voice.  Hoping to appear naive and vulnerable, she seductively adjusted his tie while she waited for his answer.  He swallowed a little and his mustache and lip curled up on one side.

            “And who would this lucky fella be?”  He replied.

            “A Mr. Everett Palmer Fogg.” She said and sat quietly staring him in the eye.

            The room went quiet again.  His curled up face went flat.  Tempest thought for a moment that she had said the most vulgar word in their world’s history.  Internally she regretted even trying to find this man because there were many walls and passengers and corridors between her and her blood circle echo.  She stood still and let her eyes scan the room.  Every black and white clothed person held their position looking in her direction, almost like they were from a silent movie that had been stuck on the film projector.  The only thing moving was the smoke.  As she continued to count heads she spied one head, a hat covered head looking in the other direction.  Curiosity got the best of her and she removed her hand from curly lipped man and walked straight to the bar where the hat man was standing.

            “Excuse me, I am looking for Everett Palmer Fogg?” she said as she tapped him on the shoulder.

            “Who sent you?” she heard a deep reserved voice reply.

            “Lady Octavia Featherstone.” Tempest answerer.

            He turned his head slowly and Tempest was surprised that he was a normal looking dude, pleasant face and sharp looking features.  He removed his hat to reveal slight greying just above his ears and a head full of swayed back hair.

            “Radical Fantastico!” he finally replied.

            Tempest laughed out of the relief and he chortled back and then the black and white mannequin people all went back to their socializing, smoking, dancing and tea or whiskey drinking.

Within the Veil

Within the Veil

A glimpse of tender suffering

A wasted choking breath

Come swiftly mighty stallion

Be my one and final rest

Lay in the night and whisper

How petals fall by choice

Oh hear the thunders Opus

Above the fallen ice

Fury takes a hold of the victim

Hollow soulless greeted stride

Alone it finds its prism

My foe my feast my bride

Where has the midnight loosened?

The grip within its belt

Tightened among the laces

The straps with velvet felt

Arise from ashes my rosebud

Take hold within the flask

Drink deeply Scarlett letters

And unveil your hidden mask

Dreaming of Braxia - Sample from "The Emerald Lights"

Dreaming of Braxia

            She had been there before, not entirely sure how but the memory was there and it was fresh and real.  There were dogs barking in the distance and a few stragglers walked here and there in the shadows.  It was a melancholy night and the streets were shining with reflecting water and a smell heaved in the fog like moist coal.  She could hear noises in the street, some were small like a rat running to a gutter and others sounded like a pail of water being dumped from a high window.  She wasn’t positive but she thought she had emerged in a dream here before and that this was not a new experience.  Behind her there was a blank grey wall, with no real character other than a basic empty perception of being abandoned.  If she touched it, she had the distinct impression it would take her life, spirit, soul and she would be gone from this place in an instant.  Her eyes stung thinking about leaving because if she was correct this was the one place that was the perfect fit, the one place that was somehow right in ways she didn’t understand.  There were details she could imagine that reached her deepest desires, worries and fantasies.  Here she was once again and now she was afraid to move.  Taking a deep breath, she filled her lungs with the icy air and turned her face toward the road on her left.  There was a fountain in the square, it had water spurting from a horse’s mouth and the rider was a man wearing a captain’s hat as he pointed his sword toward the sky.  The sword was lit up in a sapphire blue and the handle had the word Gladius engraved on it.  The stone that comprised the horse and rider was a large milky marble cut from a single mass.  Water shaped like tiny droplets soared downward as time seemed to slow down.  She got caught in a magical thought as she reached in her pocket to pull out a cigarette.  She remembered she didn’t have anything to light it with so back in her pocket it went.

            Quietly, she slipped down the silent road into the mysterious and wondrous night.  She passed a street sign, she could’ve sworn it said ‘Goodbye Street’, but it all seemed blurry and distant.  Her ears were ringing a bit and her mouth was dry.  Her body felt sore and overworked and possibly a tiny bit damp.  The chilled air didn’t move but it choked her in its deathly stillness.  She continued to walk.  Each step hummed a song in her mind that gave her life purpose.  It was a song that drove her to love life and to hope for a time when it could all be laughter instead of trepidation.  She missed the days of gentle living but this life also offered mystery that a boring life could never give her.

            The night sky was getting lighter and the stars were starting to slowly disappear.  Silhouettes of buildings and homes started to form on the fuzzy horizon.  Her heart beat a little hurried because it was real, it was here and she was too!  This could be the most exciting time in a girl’s life, being able to explore a foreign land and have total independence.

           Morning perpetually felt like a mystery, like she was stepping out of a book.  The pages were full of color and life, her breath was heavier and deep inside her body was waiting to burst forth.  You rarely have to look at your real life and wonder if you are dreaming but in dreams you invariably wonder if you are dreaming.  That is how Tempest felt but she was usually afraid to wake up.  The sound of a train in the distance made the baby hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she dodged briefly behind a large oak tree.  She ran her exposed fingers across the trunk and the bumpy bark created imaginative walk ways under her finger tips as they ran over them, almost reading them and she thought she could tell their story.  She was exhaling loudly and felt a grim shadow engulfing her mind.  She had to think, try to recall exactly why she was here again.  It was somewhat like a dream but it was too certain, too absolute and she could feel the moisture on her fingers as they tightened and trembled.  Slowly the sounds of the Annex were coming alive.

            It became hard to breathe as her heart swelled, she fixed her leather corset as it was digging into her sweaty shoulder blades and pushing her swollen chest into her throat.  Her long fur skirt was revealing her muscular legs on both sides and exposing two brass Storm Brakkers, strapped on each leg.  Her boots wrapped her legs like snakes, but flat metal looking snakes that had nuts and bolts holding them together.  There were brass buckles and chains holding the boots in place.  The color of the metal changed with each step and the gears twisted and tightened or loosened as it needed to so it was consistently tight enough but not ever too tight.  The fur skirt was fascinating because it was almost alive and holding on to her hips as they shook with each step.  Her waist was small and formed just like her corset and she filled in the bust like liquid.  She had nothing on her arms but they were glistening in the new sunlight with dusted sparkles and a tiny taste of shimmering powder.  On each hand was a black fingerless glove, stitched on her hand to stay forever.  Her nails were short and silver, perfectly manicured and yet those fingers could inflict a lot of pain if provoked.  Tempest’s hair was orange and wiry, at least in this place it was, just to her shoulders and on top of her head sat a fascinator, just tilted a tad to the left, with a tasteful feather and a leather strap much like the material on her corset.  On her neck was something that was hard for others to understand but it was common among Transcendents.  Tightened like a cuff, was a thick black choker laden with gears and chains that served to keep Tempest’s status known to all, she was a warrior and this is what warriors wore.  She didn’t realize how completely exclusive she was.  She didn’t know how unique she was.  After all, she was a Transcendent.  For that reason she was created and chosen to use her blood circle to converge the Legion of Ages in order to find the Emerald Lights.

            It was in that moment as she surveyed her curves and gear it dawned on her that she was actually in someone else’s body, because it appeared she wasn’t a Transcendent at all, but rather a Lingermancer.  At least in this incredibly convincing illusion she was a Transcendent warrior and there was no denying it.  This body, this being, was a different race all together.  She was now intrigued at where this was all going so she continued on.