Post by Cupcake on Jul 30, 2017 17:15:15 GMT
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.
L.R. Knost
20/07/17
Waking out of a dead sleep in a cold sweat, without thinking she’d picked up the phone, her voice hushed in the darkness.
“Momma, I’m sorry. I know it’s early.”
The heel of one hand ground against her right eye as she slid out of the bed, her naked form barred with shadows from the scant light that came in at the top of the window over the curtain rod. Her pale skin was at a distance flawless to the naked eye, but up close she was a roadmap of fine scars. Everything she had endured was displayed in some form or another, though she knew comparatively she was luckier than she deserved for some of the brutal matches she’d been involved in, she’d survived and thrived in two Pentagrams and one she’d walked away the victor holding tight her prize. That belt at the time had been everything. Now it sat in her trophy case in a place of penultimate reverence but nothing more or less. Below it sat her Rebirth Championship, held for less of a time but she was first and had defended it more in a shorter period of time successfully than anyone else she’d ever known with a title including the man she’d left sleeping in the bedroom behind her as she carefully closed the bedroom door.
“I’m sending Aubrey, with Rhiannon and Nicoleta. Yes I’m sure. I got one of those… yes. Like before Erin got cancer or Diego was hit by the car, and…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the name of the natural son that her adopted mother had lost to painkillers and despair. Relief shone in her voice and her eyes as she heard what she needed to hear, before she padded down the hall to tell Aubrey that while she couldn’t explain why, she needed to take their kids two states over and stay there for… a bit.
Legacy would take more explaining, maybe. A pensive look struck her fine features, her full lips compressing down. Or maybe not, because she knew what a delicate balance his own situation was in. One thing at a time, she knew she could handle. But this? As the saying goes, when it rains it pours.
30/07/17
Burnham Park
Ten days ago she sent the purest part of her heart to Dayton, Ohio. She missed them, but right now she couldn’t afford the distraction and she hated that part of her that could step outside her life and view what she loved as just that. She’d never quite managed to do that with her wrestling, no matter how keen her focus actually was. Right now, a part of her mind was set aside and devoted to her upcoming match on the 6th of August in Las Vegas, a place she hated most out of anywhere she’d ever been, including the Gettysburg Memorial Park. It was a match that she’d desperately wanted, and Sophie had come to her wanting the same. It didn’t matter to Aurora so much the why, even. Sophie was one of the few that had somehow sparked that maternal side of her, all while pushing that satiated desire she’d once had to rise up, and overcome. She had gotten to that point in her career where any chip on her shoulder she’d used to beat her detractors into a paste on the mat. She’d given everyone that had told her that as a woman she’d never be “the Main Event” let alone in the main event the world’s most satisfying middle finger.
What she did now, she did for her own enjoyment. For the passion she had for wrestling, that part of her that had become a trainer at RISE, the bit of her that wanted to give back to what had given her so much even after what it had also taken was smoothed out of the equation. Sophie would be across from her at Under the Colosseum Lights 6, and she wanted to give her the best match she could. The match that Sophie both desired and deserved.
Right now though she was walking along the path at Burnham Park, Lake Michigan to her right and huddled down into one of Legacy’s hoodies. The thing was big enough to be a dress, and during the day would have been far too hot to wear, but a chilly, almost winter-like wind blew in off the Lake and she shivered. Adding to that was the nebulous presence at her left side, who in life was a wrestler himself, Rich Ruger.
Rori looked over at him as she walked, her voice low but not that breathy whisper she’d been so known for in the past that it had become signature.
“I wondered where you were.”
He shook his head, turning his ghostly gaze past her towards the lake. “You shouldn’t be here, Aurora. It’s not… something isn’t right.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.” A wry twist of her full lips, as she paused and turned to face the lake, a bit of apprehension coiling in her gut as she saw the white capped waves and slate-gray of the water. While it was nearing 9 and the water would always look dark at this time of night, with the lights from the park there should have been some clearer spots and there just weren’t. She lifted up her voice then, sure no one was around but her and Rich.
“Angus! Harbormaster of Lake Michigan, come out and see me!” She felt something then, something she hadn’t felt in ages. Raw panic poured over her as she sank to her knees, her calling of the name had created a link which spilled images into her mind. The rugged form of the Scot that had guarded the Lake since his ship had capsized in 1853 coming up out of the water near ...something. Something big. He’d told Aurora more than once that he’d stayed on when he could have gone because if he didn’t something would send the souls of the lake-lost out into Chicago proper and she honestly couldn’t imagine what would happen if that was… the flash of light from near the middle of the lake was visible to even her physical eyes as she watched Angus spend every bit of his centuries old energy to keep whatever it was in the lake, asleep. To reinforce the stasis, she guessed. He somehow knew she saw him, because he turned and tipped his tattered cap to her before he disintegrated in ribbons of spectral energy and then winked out like a blown out candle.
She felt the tears as they rolled down her cheeks, she looked up at Rich… and the look on his face just made everything worse because she knew what he was going to do without him saying a word. It took her two tries to stand, simply because of the emotion that washed through her. He’d been her… companion, friend, since the head injury she’d had at sixteen had fully unlocked her abilities to See, and be Seen by ghosts and apparitions. She could remember his words to her with perfect clarity, the surprise in his voice when he realized. Wait, you can see me? Hear me?
“No. There’s got to be someone else. Rich, you can’t. He was so strong, you don’t…”
He reached to pat her on the head, she could feel the icy touch of those fingers sweeping over her hair. “I’m strong enough, kid. Kept your ass out of the fire for years. I can do this. Just trust me, one more time.”
She nodded, wiping her tears. If he could stand to do it, she could stand to witness. Her cellphone in hand, she snapped a few pictures of him as he walked out over the water. He’d either take up the mantle and be able to keep whatever that was asleep, or he wouldn’t. She’d just have to trust him. Taking a deep breath, she turned away from the lake and sent off a text message.
The Harbormaster is dead.
29/07/17
When the camera found Aurora, she walked in a shade cast over her by the umbrella someone else carried, though they were stood in such a way that the camera didn’t see just who it was. Along a nearly deserted beach, the sound of waves lapping at the shore accompanied her steps.
“How many times, Sophie?”
Aurora’s voice was firm, soft but clear as she stepped forward, her expression nearly serene. Her amazing green eyes were downcast, her thick black lashes making shadows on her pale skin. She wet her gloss-slicked full lips, her hands with their many narrow platinum rings brushing over the black gauzy layers of one of her baby-doll dresses.
“In our lives, things are finite. Well… in most cases, things are finite. It’s why we who have the will take the opportunities that are presented to us with gusto, grabbing with both hands what others hesitate or worse, falter to take when they have the chance. Not everyone is strong, Sophie. But I’m glad. I’m glad that you came to me, even though I would have in time come to you. So I know you must have thought about this, about how many times there could be for us to face in a ring. Here, under the mantle of the Phoenix. There, in the palace of Hard Knox. Maybe one day, down in Tijuana, though if I have my way I’ll be meeting a certain Molly Reid there first.
You are at the cusp, my wonderful Sophie. You have already done so many things, and I see you, you know? I watch what you do, where you pop up, the matches you have and the connections you make. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are enemies, but rivals? Definitely. You’re rare, Sophie. It’s something that you and your darling wife share - you’re so different that you can’t even be called two sides of a coin, and that is a truly wonderful thing. I hope…”
Rori steps forward, the camera panning over her, and despite how fancy her dress might seem, her legs and feet are bare; she stops as her toes find a smooth bit of water polished glass, bending down she picks it up and delicately brushes the sand from it, revealing the hues of blue.
“...that you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what’s about to happen in our match is because I hold you in such high regard. I have such affection for you, Sophie. I have more than that, I respect you. I know, more than you might even guess, why it is you do what you do. I’ve been accused at times, of being both arrogant and condescending when I speak to people I’m going to drop on their heads multiple times, but…” She lifts her gaze for just a moment from the glass to the camera.
“I know you understand, that it’s not either one. People always want to label real confidence as arrogance because it makes the pill less bitter to swallow. Of course some of the same people who say these things act like I can never lose - which is a blatant lie. The truth is, anyone can lose a match. What is also true? Is it's lie that on any given day, anyone can beat anyone. I could be dead, and still beat some of the people I’ve wrestled.”
A soft twist of her lips, somewhere near a smirk.
“I’m sure that one day you’re going to have a list like that too. Not because of who’s child you are, or who trained you, or who you are in love with. None of those people will be in this match against me. It will be because you are Sophie, and I want you to remember that I told you this.”
She turned that bit of blue glass over and over in her fingers, as if she sought to draw a vision out of it, a rough polished natural crystal ball. With a sigh she put it into a hidden pocket and started walking again.
“I’m sure, as sure as I’m standing on this beach with sun-warmed sand under my feet, as sure as the world will keep spinning until the day that it just doesn’t… that there will be those that look at what I’ve said today and wonder where the sting is. Where is it? Where’s the fire that burned up The Collective? Where’s the fire that drove me to a ridiculous win streak? Where’s the cursing and the denials, the wonton thrusts of words to break your spirit and crack open your soul?
To that I counter, that they never understood why I do what I do in the first place. When I started out, I was so confident in my abilities in the ring, that I would tell people what I was going to do to them. I would call my shot like I was some fucking Babe Ruth of wrestling, Sophie. I would time it near to the minute on when I would drop someone on their head as hard as I could with one of my DDTs, because I knew. I knew, beyond shadow of doubt that I was just too fast for them to stop me, even if I told them in great detail what was going to happen.”
That smirk faded out, replaced by something a lot softer.
“When it comes, Sophie … and it’s going to come, know that I understand everything that you’re going to try and do to stop me. I haven’t done this in years, but I am going to do it today. Sophie, for you? I’m going to end the match with the Ruger Special. I haven’t…”
Aurora took a deep breath, those amazing green eyes of hers bright, shining.
“It’s for you, Sophie. You’re the one, that after all this time… there’s a very short list, of people I’d use this for. Just remember that.”
As she walked the day darkened, a cloud rolling in off the lake.
30/07/17 - Later
Graceland Cemetery
Daniel Aaron Jansen had been six years old when he died. He was tied to the mortal plane longer than that, until she’d finally figured out how, and worked up the nerve, to release him. She should have remembered the old Romany proverb though. There are such things as false truths and honest lies.
Whatever was stirring, was caused by something… or someone. She’d gotten a call, barely home from her earlier outing, and it wasn’t one she could ignore. One of the groundskeepers letting her know that someone had disturbed the gravesite, she’d been that strange cross of white hot furious and chillingly calm. She’d paid a great deal of money to have him moved from the virtually uncared for plot in Dayton here, closer to her. To a city that she knew deep in her heart that he would have adored as much as she did, had he ever had a chance to be more than just a young boy that had drowned in a failed baptism, because his parents had cared more about appearances than the welfare of their child. The temperature had dropped further, to her it felt below even the 65 it had fallen to after the sun had gone down. Some of that, she put towards what had happened earlier.
It started raining, when she was let in the gates by the apologetic keeper, an older gent who looked purely distraught, and she took pity on him, her voice modulated and low as she asked him to take her to see how bad it really was. It wasn’t supposed to rain, he pointed her in the direction and apologized, running to get an umbrella even as she tried to tell him it was fine.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t fine at all.
There was a tall figure, standing near the plot, the grass was chewed up and the headstone broken, the small statue she’d commissioned was nowhere to be seen. That balance between white hot rage and chilling calm shifted and Rori felt that white, cold space inside her beckoning, but she waited. This could be another innocent, why would the culprit stick around? Or worse, a police officer and she had too much to do, to tangle with the CPD.
“Excuse me… I’m…”
He held up his hand, cutting her off as he turned, and she felt her heart drop to her belly. No. There’s no way.
“I know who you are.”
The tone was far too pleased, happy even, for this sort of setting and the suit he was wearing far too fine. A detective, maybe?
“Can you…”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
He stepped towards her, tall, fair as milk, a shock of blond hair combed back from patrician features. Full lips, Romany nose, vivid, amazing green eyes.
“No.”
Rori backed a step, out of sheer reflex as she looked upon her older brother as he would have been, if he had lived. If he hadn’t drowned, when he was six. If.
“It’s time. You know it is. You’ve been allowed a lot of leeway and now you have to make a choice. If you don’t, sissy… I will.”