An Emptiness Not Even Worlds Can Fill (Marna's AU story, 2/3)
Marna takes one of the whitestone portals to a nexus higher in the Alabaster tower. The fortress-city was massive in a way that walking over would have been a grueling notion. Wards kept the air from thinning at this height, but even so, there was something about suddenly going from ground-level to over the clouds that always gave Marna a splitting headache for the first few minutes.
"Hey, ma? I'm coming in!"
She knocks on the door and waits an appropriate amount of time, but doesn't actually expect a response. Upon opening the door, Marna is greeted with what was, objectively speaking, a paradise. Flowing rivers sang through an icy glade dotted with quaint little huts and statues caked in snow and grey moss. Amelia Blake had been an herbalist once, and the feyish naturescape, though mostly a lightwoven illusion, was done precisely to the woman's tastes. It was a fantastical recreation of the forest they hailed from. Even the layout of the huts, Belial had told her, was meant to mirror the village he and Amelia had grown up in. The statues weren't just for show either. Each and every one monitored Amelia's every need, ready to spring to her defence or provide medical care as they monitored her vitals. The constructs even acted as butlers, should she have a request.
She never did.
Marna made her way to her mother's side as Amelia reclined in a chair by a babbling stream, bathing in the warm rays of an artificial setting sun. An objective paradise. Amelia was a perfect example of how objective measures so often fall short. For Amelia was, from her own subjective view, likely not experiencing it at all.
"Practiced with some of Luca's new science experiments today," Marna said, sitting on the ground and tuning her lute. "I'm getting better, I think. Even dad was impressed. Not happy, but... impressed. You know how he is."
Amelia didn't respond. She never did.
"We're going on a trip soon! Seeing a show in the Dwarven realms. You could come with, if you wanted."
The only sounds to fill the air are the steady flow of icy water and the plucking of lute-strings.
"Yeah... thats ok. Just figured I should ask. I'll just play for a bit then, and you can talk if you want to, ok?"
Marna liked to think music got through to her mother more than words did anyhow. Coming here used to make Marna sad. It still did, in a numb, melancholy sort of way, but so many things become something almost normal with enough exposure and time. Mostly she was just happy to take what she could get, things being as they were.
"In the stars, I see you there,
I fly to meet you in the air."
Long ago, when Marna was only a baby, they had lived in a lonely little village without a name. Nameless, for the people in that land had sold the name to a devil, or so the legend went. That a village of warlocks could live in such idyllic harmony was a curious thing. But they were careful, learned, and made their deals judiciously with the lowest of fey and fiends. Small favors eked out for generations on generations provided more learning than the sale of a single man's entire soul.
"In my dreams, I hear your call,
I wake, cruel fate, I fall, I fall."
Then, tragedy had come. When he was only a boy, the Lightless Flame, entropy made manifest, had chosen Belial as its next warlock. A notion the previous warlock, Arthur Black, took quite personally. The monster ravaged the village for years, trying to force Belial into servitude. To hold sole dominion over the Flame's power.
He unleashed flames that burned space, memory, color, and thought. Flames that burned the immaterial. Flames that erased people so thoroughly that you would never know they existed. One day there would be a fight. The next a mother would prepare an extra plate at dinner out of habit and choke back a sob of grief for a husband or son she could no longer remember.
"Back to the earth, away from you,
A future shared and lost too soon.
I read the stars with waking eyes,
I dream again, of sweetest lies."
The village bested him, in time. Together. Belial never entered that monster's cruel tutelage. Now the sole steward of the Flame, Marna's father was horrified with the damage magic could do. He made it his life's mission to protect his family, to bring a world of chaos to heel. To bring even even entropy itself into order's fold. And so, he joined the ranks of the Paladins of the Divine Flame.
"But no, no lie could pass your lips,
A future at our fingertips.
No fate so cruel could stand before,
The promises we maaaaaaade-"
Her voice cracks just a bit on the long note. Luckily, the bridge was instrumental. Marna liked to play around with this part, slowly building in intensity and speed. Like if she just played hard enough all the feelings would be forced out and she wouldn't have to carry them around anymore.
Amelia had never approved of her father's chosen alleigance. The Paladins of the Divine Flame exacted horror in the name of their perfect order. They had argued more and more each passing day. Her mother had threatened to leave more than once.
One day Belial came home. A city had risen up against the Paladins' rule and Marna's father had been dispatched to bring order. The Lightless Flame had been unleashed, something went horribly wrong, and now that city no longer existed. Amelia had heard the details. Marna had only been told that "entropy has not yet been brought to order." Belial had said little else for weeks. Amelia stopped speaking at all, retreating into her own mind.
The music slowed once more as tears began to fall from Marna's face.
"In the stars, I see you there,
I fly to meet you in the air."
"In my dreams, I hear your call,
I wake, cruel fate, I fall, I fall."
There was more to the song, but that was all she could bring herself to play today. Perhaps she wasn't quite as used to this as she liked to pretend.
"S-sorry mom. I guess I'm kind of in a mood. Next time I'll sing you something hap-"
As Marna looked up at her mother, for the first time in years, Amelia met her gaze.
"Marna, you need to leave."
To hear Amelia speak at all hit like a slap to the face. But after all this time THAT was what her mother said? That she should just leave her the fuck alone?!"
"M-mom?! What the fuck, no! I'm staying with you, you can't just fucking shut me out like I'm-"
"Marna. You have to go!"
Tears were streaming down Amelia's face. She wasn't talking about the room they were in.
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ART CREDIT: Personal Piece: 2018, by Ryan Rodero