Rise in Revolution (Chapter Fifty)

[tanadin]

 In which Devan picks flowers, Mars yells at Fan, and Emma touches the butt. Kinda. Not really.

Chapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldriel-RiR-map-594639189

Chapter Fifty

 

Fire and Memory

Edge of the city, Sector TZI. April 7, 2272. Time instance 842N.

Devan stepped easily past the buildings at the outskirts of the city and into the grass beyond. He focused on the trees ahead and continued walking, adjusting his bag and making sure that the flap was open. He was running low on medicinal herbs- at this point, they weren’t too picky with what they used to heal- and had seen some in the forest on the way in to assault the sector.

What a change this is from the Black Market. I’m not doing much different, other than traveling, but the pain in their eyes is of a new kind.

Devan shook it off, ruffling his red feathers. Thinking about it wouldn’t solve anything. He lowered himself closer to the ground to gently remove some flowers from a bush and dropped them in his bag. There’s some of these, at least.

As he moved between the trees he thought he caught of small movement of brown and stopped, turning his head and tilting it to get a better view. He clicked his beak and stepped forward, pushing past the leaves and towards what he had seen.

He paused. She paused.

“Hawk,” Devan said slowly, “are you...preening?”

“No.” Hawk quickly folded her wings and looked annoyed.

Devan tilted his head and blinked once, the aven equivalent of raising an eyebrow.

“So what if I am?” Her voice was defensive. “I can do what I want. They’re my feathers.”

“I’m not judging,” Devan said quickly, holding up his hands in a ‘peace’ gesture. “I was just wondering. What….is this about Goldtalon? Are you trying to impress him?”

“He’s another highly-ranked member of aven society. I need to be presentable.”

“Not fancy?”

“No. That’s unpleasant and annoying.”

“So you don’t have to be presentable for everyone else?”

“Levels of presentability are different based on person.”

“You’ve showed up to my apartment covered in debris and with your feathers sticking out in every direction.”

Hawk squawked in protest. “There was a storm and I was injured!”

Devan shifted his head and clacked his beak twice, an approximation of a smile. “Are you sure it’s not because I’m a vulture?”

“Devan!” Hawk sounded personally offended.

Devan cawed with laughter and almost dropped his bag, quickly stopping at Hawk’s venomous look. Her eyes were the most intense of anyone’d he’d ever seen when she was angry.

“I’m not classist. I’m just aware of when I need to make a good first impression.”

“Okay, okay.” Devan shrugged it off. “Do you need anything?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll get back to gathering, then.”

“Have fun.” Hawk watched him go before returning to fixing her feathers.

She had a lot of work to do.

~~~

The door burst open.

Mars looked up from the book she was reading and frowned. “Didn’t I just kick you off the couch?”

Fan stormed up to her. “Give me something alcoholic.”

“I don’t-”

“Now.”

Mars put her book down and crossed her arms. “I don’t have anything. It’s all back in IAL. I’ve been a bit busy fighting against the Mainframe. Or did you forget why we’re here?”

“I don’t give a fuck, Mars! I want-”

“You see, that’s your problem.” Mars jumped to her feet. “You don’t care. You don’t try to care. You just sit in the corner high or drunk or whatever and don’t do anything to help. It’s starting to really piss me off, Fan! People are dying, every day people die to the Mainframe and you don’t even care!”

“I’ve lost someone to the Mainframe! Don’t you tell me that I don’t care!” Fan snarled.

“We all have, Fan! You aren’t alone in that but you act like your loss defines who you are! Dammit, Fan, I lost my mother when I was six! Do you think that doesn’t hurt me every day? Do you think that doesn't make me want to curl up and cry? But I don’t! I fight to make sure that never, ever happens again! I won’t let another six-year-old lose her mother like I did! But you just sit there and drink and take drugs and let people lose their loved ones! You hurt, I get it! You have every right to hurt! But it doesn’t have to shape you!” With each word, flames rose and brightened in Mars’ eyes, flaring outwards into bursts of maroon. Fan stepped back, shuddering.

“I…” Fan looked for an escape and bolted out the door she had just come through.

Mars sighed and fell back onto the couch, shutting her eyes.

Maybe she had been a bit too hard on Fan.

But that didn’t change the fact that she was angry.

~~~

“You can’t go in there,” Neves said, crossing his arms. “Doctor’s orders.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s the doctor?”

“Me. My orders. You can’t go in. Fuck off.”

“Why not?”

“Kyir doesn’t want to deal with people. We just got Caroline out so we don’t have much reason to go in there, ourselves, except for Cataclysm.”

“I want to see Cataclysm.”

“Yeah, well, too bad. Kyir doesn't want you in there.”

“Can Cataclysm come out?”

“Fuck no. He’s-”

The door opened. Cataclysm lifted his eyebrow. “Why are we talking about me?”

“You get back in bed you idiot! You’re injured!”

Cataclysm shrugged. “Not very.” He stepped out and shut the door. “Kyir’s in a mood. Hi, Emma. Can I hang out with you for awhile? He’s annoying.”

Neves glared. “You better mean Kyir and not me.”

“I mean both of you.”

Neves considered that before slowly nodding. “I can accept that,” he said, and left them alone.

Cataclysm looked back at Emma, who glared after Neves. Asshole. “I was trying to come and talk to you, but he was being an obnoxious little-”

“He’s just doing his job. Do you want to go outside? I get fidgety if I don’t see the sky for long periods of time ever since…” He hesitated. “Well, for a long time. I don’t want to go inside at all if I can avoid it, right now, because of that stupid prison.”

Emma nodded and let him lead the way, watching his wings as they went. One of them was still injured and bandaged, but the other was as intriguing as ever, dark feathers gleaming in the sun as they stepped outside. Cataclysm spread his wings slightly, flinching at his wound, and folded them again. He sighed and glanced at her, but paused.

“You’re injured.”

“It’s not important.”

“It is. Why haven’t you seen Scara about that?”

“It’s just a cut. I barely feel it.” Emma resisted the urge to shrug, to avoid agitating the cut. “It’s nothing major.”

“You should still-”

“They only have so much energy! They need their rest. My arm can wait.”

Cataclysm sighed and looked away from her, focusing instead on the sky. Emma smiled. Stubbornness wins again.

She watched Cataclysm as he gazed at the sky, clouds imprinting themselves on his mind as the sun beat down upon them, gently, with the warmth of spring.

“Can I touch your wings?” Emma found herself blurting. She turned slightly red as Cataclysm slowly turned to stare at her in disbelief, regretting her sentence already. He looked slightly offended but mostly confused, but after a moment understanding dawned in his eye.

“Emma,” he said slowly, “how would you feel if I asked if I could touch your butt?”

Emma frowned. “Upset, I...guess?” What’s the proper response to that? That’s such an odd question.

“Well, that’s what you just did. You just did the angel equivalent of asking to touch my butt.”

“Oh.” Emma felt suddenly very small, despite her realization that she was taller than Cataclysm. “Sorry.”

Cataclysm snorted in laughter. “No big deal, just kinda surprised me.” He shrugged, glancing down at his claws and watching the light play over them. A short silence fell over them before another question occurred to her.

“What was it like?”

“What?”

“Being an angel.”

Cataclysm sighed, shutting his eye momentarily, before starting to walk. Emma frowned slightly and opened her mouth to apologize, but he interrupted her by motioning for her to follow.

It was several seconds before he spoke. “It was one of the most amazing things in the world. You never feel weak, you never truly tire, and you feel like you’re part of something more. You feel important and like everything you do is for the greater good.” He looked down at his claws again. “But you also feel like you can’t compare to the others who are better than you. You feel like you can’t measure up, even to those who are no more skilled or talented than you are. You sometimes wonder if it is for the greater good and if all the discipline and harsh ‘justice’ is really what’s right. At least I was that way, anyway. I couldn’t compare to my brothers, and when you’re an outcast like that, you start to wonder. You’d know that, though, I guess. You’re an outcast yourself. We all are.”

“Why do you fight, Cataclysm?”

“Because the Mainframe is doing something unacceptable and is hurting people. I won’t let people suffer as I have suffered.”

Emma pulled her eyes away from him to look ahead of them, thinking. “Maybe you’re not as much of an outcast as you think,” she mumbled. “We’ve all hurt at the hands of the Mainframe. We don’t want that to happen, ever again.”

“No,” Cataclysm agreed. “Never again. It has to stop. What can be done to another being...but the Mainframe isn’t alive, is it? It’s not another being. Not something with morals, and thoughts, and emotions. Just a machine programmed to be as efficient as possible.” Cataclysm practically spat out the words. “Are the aliens really malicious enough to program something like this? Or is this an error? Has something gone horribly wrong, and they haven’t noticed, or don’t care? Is this really how it’s meant to be?”

“I can’t imagine it any other way.”

“No.” Cataclysm sighed. “I guess you can’t. And I’m...sorry. That you haven’t ever lived in a world where you can realize your potential.”

“My potential?” Of what? Hitting people? Getting too mad when someone says something? Great potential there.

“You have potential. There is something about you that’s...I don’t know. Something.” Cataclysm crossed his arms. “I just hope you can realize it.”

“Are you sure you’re not just saying that to make yourself feel better about seeing a regular human in that mirror?”

“What? No! I like humans! Humans are great! They’re one of the few races that haven’t pissed me off!”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “Who else hasn’t?”

“Elementals, aven, uh...I’ll get back to you on the others.”

“Demons?”

“Demons have hurt me more than anyone.” Cataclysm shuffled his wings. “Physically, at least. Mentally, too, probably. Emotionally, I was badly damaged by my time in Hell, but maybe Heaven destroyed my emotional state first. I don’t know. It all blurs together, the hurt and the shattering. The memories are clear, though.” Cataclysm stopped walking, shutting his eye. “Too clear.”

“I’m sorry.” Emma stopped as well. “I shouldn't have brought it up.”

“No, it’s fine.” He re-opened his eye. “I need to talk about it sometimes, you know? Bottling it up doesn’t help me. Doesn’t stop me, though.”

“You have a lot of memories to sort through.”

“I’ve had a long life to accumulate them. Pray you won’t live as long as I have and see the horrors I’ve seen.”

Emma wasn’t sure what made her do it, but she reached over and hugged him. He stiffened in surprise for a moment, until she let go and drew back, looking away.

“Thank you.” Emma wasn’t sure if Cataclysm’s words were actually his own or her imagination, but she preferred to think that he had spoken them.

After all, if he hadn’t, then he had been silent, and that would be the worst reaction of all.