The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 5

(The poem at the end is a slightly altered version of 'Moribond', from the Wordspring blog "Manny's Book Of Shadows")

Who would have thought it would come to this?
Oh, the opposition was expected. More than expected. It was the tone of it, even as the weight began to be pressed down.
They couldn't kill her.
All the hatred and rage in the world and they couldn't kill her. They'd been reduced to this. It would make her laugh, if she could do it properly. But all her feelings were poor simulations, her attempting to puzzle out how a person would properly react in this situation.
What to do? One last blast of resistence, put a scare into them? What was the point? They'd caught her off guard and they had the hooks in deep, a depth that shadowed the pit they were to bury her in. But she would not die.
They so wanted her to die, but they could not kill her. Rera had wanted to craft a better spell; she had succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
It would not last.
She would not fade away.
It was a funny thing. The air people breathed, they needed it to live. But there was a corrosive effect in air. It worked very slowly, and showed its efforts on other things moreso than flesh, but it was a destroyer all the same. Same with water, its brother. But anyone who called air and water deadly in and of themselves would be considered mad. It was not madness though. Just perspective. And understanding.
She would not fade away. Would not rot. Would not cease. She was the corrosive.
She could tell how strong these bindings were, but in time, they would wear away. She would be free. She could wait. The end result would be the same, whether in seconds or eons.
She was what she was, a product of the world around her, and she knew what was needed, something only her eyes could see.
It was amusing. Haruspices saw powers in threes, and many of their rituals were based around it. Yet they did not see it.
...she supposed it didn't matter.

The house was gone now. The people who had lived here had long moved on, repeatedly. The bridge had fallen into disrepair, not that it was needed. Strangely, the sign marking the river still existed, barely. Perhaps it was the river's short name length that allowed the sign to persist: it was mere "On", though it was pronounced with a long O sound, so it came out "Oooooooh-own." in proper speaking.

The last time she had done this, she had waited three days. This time, she waited one, the sun rising and falling. The lone person who saw her made it their business to get away and forget they had. No one else bothered her, and so she moved on.

The second house she found, at the edge of the small town named Astbow, wasn't in much better shape than the first, and considering the first was no longer there, it wasn't saying much for the state of it. The path to the house had long been consumed by grass, and the insects singing within in grew quiet as she approached. The door was not locked, not like that would have mattered.

The notable thing, to those who understood such things, was the smell. There was none. Such a place always had a foul odor of some sort. A modern person who understood such things might have noted the atmosphere almost seemed sterile.

Hrodohaidis's eyes were almost wholly covered in milk, the cataracts having slowly grown over the last six months, even as her strength ebbed. She had by now resigned herself to death, alone out here. But despite all much her vision had faded, the cold red of the eyes that swam into the remains of it was as visible as if the bearer seared its presence on the very light that passed around her.

Familar eyes. If they had not bourne memories, the voice would have.

"It was Hodie, wasn't it?" Canught said. "I forget these things..."

"...Royse?"

"No...I'm afraid not. You wanted to drown her in that river...you succeeded. Royse is dead." Canught said. "...I thought that when I finally did this, I would ask you why. I realized on my way even that doesn't make me care. In fact...all of this has been a waste of time. The idea was based on revenge, my teacher told me I should take revenge...but it was always a motions thing. I never felt...anything. I just did it because it seemed like something that might stir a spark in me...no such luck. Maybe some would say that's exactly what you earned. Such a hard life, done by by someone who doesn't even care it's being done."

"...what...are you?"

"A corpse, I guess. You could also call me a Haruspex...but if I was really one of those, I think I would have killed you decades ago. Instead, I let you live. Made sure the paths of your life always ended in misery, but you lived. It does not strike me as something they'd have the patience to do...considering how old you are now, maybe I failed. Most would have given up long ago. I wonder what our lives would have been like had you not chosen to drown me in the river. Do you know why you did that?"

There was no answer.

"Not surprised."

Canught raised a hand, contemplating.

"Do you want to die now? It means little to me otherwise. If you chose to die now, you'll only be preceeding the world by a short time."

"...What?"

"...My brethren talk of sins, and curses, and the need to punish the peoples...but I see all they see and I simply do not see the purpose. It does not inspire, it is...tedious. A circular motion that goes nowhere. I tire of the circles, here, there, everywhere. It ensures I never find it...whatever it is. You and I are the same, that way. Neither of us achieve anything in this life, on this world. So...why not destroy it? Just to see if I can. If that works, if I exist...maybe I'll have an answer for what my purpose is. If not...perhaps I will speak my Word backwards, and see if I can put the world back together. Perhaps that is why I exist. I am the fire to clear away old growth. Or simply the end of all growth. Whatever it is...it means more than just going in circles."

"...Royse?"

"That's not my name." The woman said, as she cast another off. "It was lost in the river. I accepted a new name, but only because it seemed like I should, just like it seemed like I should take revenge. If I am to create after I destroy...perhaps I should begin. Starting with a name I actually made and choose myself. So what I am then? I am a hateful shade made by your river.

"...Hadeon. I am Hadeon, The Destroyer. Hadeon of the All-Consuming Word. That is the fanciful term. I think I prefer the simple word, the truth of it.

"Annihilation. Hadeon, of the Annihilation."

"...I'm sorry."

"...I don't know if that matters." Hadeon said. She said nothing more. Hrodohaidis spoke a few more times, but Hadeon no longer cared to listen. When the last breath left her, she sat there for some more time.

She'd never seen her fairies.

The world was empty of them.

The world was empty.

Let it be so.

---

It was one of the great secrets of the world, that the foul witches of blood and death actually allowed the world to continue on. They struck not to save it, but in the ways of strange things, it seemed fitting. They struck, they sealed, they buried, and they scoured. And in time...all that was left was story and possibility.

Until the people from the stars came. Until others were inspired to seek the truth in the story, so many risings and fallings gone by.

The truth in the words written by a Haruspex named Erikodi.

"All hail Hadeon, killer of kings
The ultimate leveling ender of things
None can escape her fast-felling grasp
Once one’s heartbeat she’s sought out to clasp
Much less avoid the nigrescent haze
Which swirls within her soul-quashing gaze
Wanting of ears she hears not the pleas
As fey humanity beg on their knees
Their solicitations and piteous cries
Rebound off her countenance, haloed with flies
Her scythe sounds a ring like the toll of a knell
As it soars through the fated with impetus fell."

----

"THAT'S your solution?! You want to wake up Hadeon?!"

"Even if she exists, Mireya, and that is a considerable question, even IF we could awaken her, no being on this world can control her. Not even us, no matter how much we'd want to."

"And...and what if...what if the beings from the stars...are even stronger?"

"...what, indeed."

The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 4

Sometimes she remembered. Flashes of faces. Words that no longer had any meaning. Some of those old words had come to her, being told to eat everything on her plate so she could grow up healthy.

Growth.

Men were rarely on the level of beasts, but men could be surprisingly innovative when it came to their survival against beasts. Men could use tools, and numbers, and tactics. A Therian was made so that none of that mattered. Cut, bash, burn, impale, a Therian would never stop. It would rip and tear until there was nothing left, or until even it had acquired so many wounds it could kill no more. She understood, more or less, why such beasts were the primary way of her kind in collecting souls.

But Canught had no interest in collecting souls. All the things that did interest her faded swiftly, like fireflies. And this...

Growth.

Therians had to grow back from their wounds. What most living things could do, but swifter, without the consequences of loss of blood or flesh, or pain growing too great. Canught suspected that was why she was seeing what she was seeing. Most Haruspex followed the old ways, never deviating, but there were always those who were curious, who sought to improve. Unbeknowst to Canught, that was why she was the way she was. Rera's process had been imperfect, not fully able to repair the damage the drowning had inflicted on her brain, but the new connections the attempted...growth had formed had resulted in something wholly new. A knowledge later heroes and societies would access in their own ways. Her All-Consuming Word.

Growth.

Rinekuyd's experiments had been all about that. To take the ability of a Therian to knit wounds and improve on it. While a Haruspex could only consume the souls of people who had damned themselves, experiments held no such prerequisites. So Rinekuyd had come, and this was the mess she'd made.

Growth.

That was what had happened to these people. Rinekuyd had experimented, and they had grown. She'd wanted Therians to be able to call upon more flesh, a process that would require refinement. And so these dozen or so survivors of a town once called Bool now envied the dead beyond most normal human comprehension. Their bodies had been changed, and started growing. They couldn't die...and they couldn't stop. Their forms had twisted into hideous, barely functioning masses; cancer golems was the best description, and even that wasn't wholly right. The mortals not caught up in Rinekuyd's work had long cleared away from this town, screaming of its cursed, doomed nature. Even under current stars, no one had ever returned to Bool. It had eventually fallen into ruin, and returned to the forests.

Strangely, they were in no pain. Their bodies were warped beyond belief...but the changes had altered their nervous systems as well. It was no comfort to these once-men and women. As they shuffled towards Canught, all they could whisper was one thing.

Death. Oh how they wanted to die.

But they could not die.

Growth.

That was their curse. Endless growth. Cut them down, they'd rise again. Cut them apart...such a thing was beyond the crude tools of these lands.

Canught didn't like them. They were ugly.

"Do be quiet." Canught said. "Your pain is meaningless. The world doesn't hear it. It doesn't care. It gives no purpose or sympathy. It simply does."

The cursed of Rinekuyd did not listen. They kept moaning, begging, pleading. Why not? What else could they do?

"Oh, you irritate me." Canught said, raising a hand. "Blind eyes and bleating mouths. I see so much finer. I see every single spark and ever single wire in your flesh, no matter how changed..."

"Plzzzzzssss..."

"So I sever them."

Canught's tools were so much more refined, so much greater. She took the ugly things apart on a molecular level. She did not understand why it seemed so saitisfying.

Not like it mattered. The feeling was as fleeting as all the others. She couldn't even muster anything when Rinekuyd came to her in a rage of her experiments being ruined, turned to dust and freed of their bondage. Canught almost didn't strike back when Rinekuyd struck at her. Almost. She suspected Rinekuyd felt her demise moreso than her experiments.

That was two of her sisterhood she'd killed. One could be seen as an anomaly, but two? An unforgivable sin. They'd come for her.

...and she still didn't care.

...In fact...the only thing she could say she did care about was due to end soon.

...maybe it was an omen.