Shock and Awe

[Intimacy Excelsa]

Part I:

.x I suppose it is the price of falling in love x.

Oh, dear Amora, what have we done?

Intimacy Excelsa was one of the last Servants left on the battlefield. No, scratch that: one of the last of anyone on the battlefield. Everything was scarlet, painted scarlet, all shades of lurid and thirsty and deathly, deadly scarlet. The stench of blood washed up memories for her, but—none had been quite this bad. Everything encapsulated within the scene assaulted her senses with a fury, making Intimacy feel as though the Dark Goddess Aris was staring into the back of her head with hollow, reproachful eyes.

Even the Hellhounds bled, the evil glow in the eyes of the dead gone dark, and in the dying gone dim. Even the Hellhounds, they who were said to never bleed and never cry out—it was only now that Intimacy found this was a lie. Their dying whimpered too, twitching in pain and waiting—as they could do nothing else—as the Emptiness welcomed their souls with open arms. Or what souls they had left. Intimacy felt a slight twinge of guilt at this skeptical rebuttal that stole into her mind, but brushed it off, looking for those who might still cling, desperate and pleading, at the skirts of Life.

Life was not a merciful mistress, so Intimacy had to dispense the mercy herself. She traveled from one end of the blood-soaked clearing to the other, calling the cry of the Servant who found another, their kindred; hi-aki-lea-luo. Some called back, each one of their cries pained and hoarse with screaming, and somehow—by some Divine grace—Intimacy managed to find even those who had only the vibrancy left to whisper weakly.

She took the latter first to the Shimmerwood, whispering sweet reassurances into the ripped and torn ears of those she had gotten to quickly enough—the ones that still, through luck or fate, still bled. The ones she did not reach quickly enough she sent into the great black Emptiness with a prayer for their soul: hi-aki-lea-luo. Her heart broke each time she had to do this, shattered on the ground as if it were spun glass and had been dropped from the top of the Arc of Falling Water onto a sheet of cold, hard granite; a human coffin, perhaps. Intimacy returned time after time until there were no more to bring to Amora, no more to exhaust the inner strength that she had always prided herself on, for it meant that Aris’s Dark Will could not pervert her.

And quite a few times she dashed over to one of the dying and lifted them onto her back only to hear their last breath seep out of them with a hiss and feel an intangible weight lifted from her. Those hurt the most.

Hi-aki-lea-luo.

Though she wasn’t responsible to keep them from passing on—for, as Amora had decreed, Servants could not interfere with the journey of souls from one would to the next—Intimacy nevertheless felt guilty that she could not save them, too, that she could not sweep their souls back into her body with her great sable wings. The guilt weighed on her, forcing her tail downwards, like a living wolf, submissive and defeated; it stabbed first, then twisted the knife constantly, invoking in her a dull ache that would not leave her.

Nonetheless, Intimacy was relieved to not find any living Hellhounds still on the battlefield—they had all fled, leaving their own to die, and by now they were long dead. She felt a little twinge of satisfied smugness: they wouldn’t be able to host another attack like this for quite a while. Allowing that smugness to take hold for a moment—just a moment—so that she could feel some sort of break in suffering under the creature gnawing at her heart, Intimacy then went on with her duties.

Hi-aki-lea-luo.

And it was true; any Servant who needed to say that to a passing comrade knew it was true—even once was too much. Even once wrought pain on your heart, took it and soaked it full of hurt like a rag and then squeezed it out, bruising it so that the despair would come. Despair was a Servant’s worst enemy—in others, it physically repelled them, keeping the Servant from reaching the one needing help; in themselves, it made Amora’s Holy Light fade into the distance in their minds.

Being torn from Amora’s Holy Light was not something the Servant wished to contemplate.

Delicately, the wolfish character picked her way through the remaining bodies, seeing none who were breathing, and sighed heavily in mixed relief and grief. Too many of her friends had died here tonight; there would be silence in the Shimmerwood tonight, silence that bespoke unimaginable, wretched grief—the only time the Shimmerwood was ever silent.

A noise startled her—made her jump practically three feet off the ground. The Servant would have, too, if it were not for the weight of her weary wings. Glancing around wildly, Intimacy wondered—could she just have imagined the noise, replayed the whimpers that had surrounded her at the battle’s end? No—there it was again!

“Is anyone there?” Intimacy ventured warily, waiting for the whimper to start up again—but it might be a Hellhound; Intimacy could not venture into Aris’s realm all by herself, and she had learned her lesson with the one who called himself Obe.

“I’m here,” came the rough, hoarse whisper.

A puppy’s voice. Intimacy ventured closer, looking for any sign of life, and nearly tripped over the little Hellhound before she saw him. Involuntarily she gasped, looking down at the mutilated little thing—horns torn off, tail broken in several places, several claws ripped out. Mutilation was the right word.

And in that instant she saw him, Intimacy’s mind was made up. “Come, little one,” she commanded, though her voice was soft and forgiving. “We shall help you.”

Stay tuned for the next installment..

[Intimacy Excelsa]

Part II:

.x we are, we are all innocent x.

Amora Ne Elazha Lelethe, the Great Goddess of Love and Creation—and the one that Intimacy followed—was deep in thought, pondering the quandary of taking in this little Hellhound. Though she herself did not, being used to Amora’s softly-piercing gaze, Intimacy Excelsa felt the Hellhound child shiver each time Amora’s eyes passed over him, quivering in—what? Terror? Amora’s gentle visage didn’t exactly inspire terror, or anything but wanting to help her, for that matter. Despite the myths of Hellhounds being totally irreverent of anything and everything, Intimacy knew better—they were almost universally in awe of Aris, the eleven-foot-tall, dark-haired amazon who ruled them with a velvet-gloved fist that concealed something much harder than iron.

And this one appeared to be in awe of Amora, too. That was strange—Hellhounds usually were taught to have a mocking disdain for the Great Goddess; it was burned into their minds from birth—sometimes literally, if they did not take to the creed easily and willingly; Aris, after all, wanted to have her Hellhounds be as pliant as possible, and Aris’s Dark Will was not one to muck with lightly, without care or caution. Those that tried weren’t remembered except as ghosts.

It was Aris who had commanded the Daracha to challenge the Servants and negotiate with them for certain concessions—only five hundred on each side, and no magic. The Servants—bile rose in Intimacy’s brilliantly white-pelted throat—the Servants believed them. And it was almost their downfall.

Their numbers had been cut down without mercy—but then, it was foolish to expect mercy from a Hellhound. Hellhounds, to a one of them, had mercy bred or beaten out of them by the time they were old enough to throw pups through methods that Intimacy shuddered to contemplate. She couldn’t for the life of her imagine why anyone would go to them willingly, with their snarling fangs and triumphant, despicable griggling at any misfortune that befell another—but then, Intimacy had been one of the Duze because of what was, in their eyes, her abhorrent strong mind and self. Aris would not allow the strong-minded within her midst; the Great Goddess always, without fail, attempted to break their minds over her knee as one would snap a stick in half to make kindling.

Intimacy could not be broken, is why she was here, with Amora, and not spending her days ensconced in the grip of rage and hatred, waiting out her days in pitiful misery for the poisoning of her soul. Many others had been broken—some of them her friends.

Hi-aki-lea-luo.

The wolfish Servant said the prayer silently, in her mind, in the hopes that it would ease the pain of those souls who she had not managed to save from the clutches of the Hellhounds. She owed them, she knew—owed them for failing them, for allowing their souls to be wound around the finger of Aris so that they could be better injected with the poison that flowed through Aris’s Dark Will like blood ran through a rabbit.

Bitterness rose in Intimacy’s throat, bitterness at herself—for failing them, her sisters and brothers—and bitterness at they themselves for allowing themselves to be taken by Aris. They should have been stronger, able to fight the perversion, the seething venom that entwined itself in one’s heart and tried to squeeze all the emotion other than rage, hatred, and a petty sort of triumph at others’ misfortune out of them. But they hadn’t. And Intimacy knew that, had she been with them, she would have been able to save them; Servants were only perverted one at a time.

Hi-aki-lea-luo.

But for the ones who had subverted themselves instead of being perverted, forced against their will to submit to Aris’s Dark Will, who had chosen to drink the chalice of poisoned wine—Intimacy had no sympathy for them. They were traitors; they knew the Light and they knew the Darkness and they chose the latter.

But they were not a concern of hers—other than to kill them. And she would, if she had any chance to, for there were some things, some evils in this world that could not be redeemed. There were some people who would be forever twisted inside, crumpled and contorted into a caricature of something living—who took to the Darkness willingly, who embraced it and performed its will giddily.

Then Amora spoke, and Intimacy looked up, fanaticism shining in her eyes—anyone that saw her eyes would know, without a doubt, that she was deathly loyal to the Great Goddess Amora Ne Elazha Lelethe. Deathly, as in until death—until her soul was ripped from her broken body, until she was sucked up with the force of a gale away into the great black Emptiness.

“He is not yet sullied by my sister’s Dark Will,” she said softly, and Intimacy leaned forward, hanging on her every word. “But I think it shall take some time in the Aphoric Pool for him to truly… accept… the Sacred Law.” The Great Goddess’s infinity-blue eyes—blue like the very sky—looked down at the small, quivering Hellhound pup. A soft meep struggled out of him as he looked anywhere but her, absolutely terrified.

“But,” she continued quietly—a normal tone, as far as Amora was concerned, “it is up to you, little one. Will you not come to my aid? I promise you, you will have the choice to fight or not; you will have as many choices in the world as you can imagine.”

The last sentence somehow turned itself into a question, but before too long had passed, the little Hellhound pup whispered hoarsely, “Anything to keep from having to die.”

Amora smiled her wonderful, shining, forgiving smile and reached for him, picking the little pup up into her arms as Intimacy watched him grow glossy black fur. “Then welcome to the Shimmerwood, Arisal, for it is your new home.”

Intimacy almost fell down in a bow, but retained her wits not to do that here and now—at least they would have a new generation to continue the Servants…

Hi-aki-lea-luo.