(Vol 2) Chapter 42: A Past Sown With Ashes

After assuring Dick that his ‘partner’ was quite capable and ready — and that they should all be thinking positive thoughts instead of talking about ‘disasters’ — Sammy had to see about actually getting her agent into the city. Instead of waking Orswyth, who needed his rest anyway, she decided to ping Tashome, noticing he was awake.

Instead of waking Bast, she could just get the priestification thing out of the way. She let Tashome know to prepare if desired, as she’d wait until she’d returned to the inn to conduct the ceremony.

I could just break and do it, but I’d rather stick my Avatar close to Azure for emergency needs as much as possible. I could’ve brought her with me tonight if not for her consecration time…

She was aware that In addition to a priest taking time for a ritual, she could activate her relic use and, during the duration, sending a Servitor to it was instantaneous as if she were there — if the Servitor’s ‘summon’ was available. But she didn’t want to waste the use at that time.

They made their way back to the inn and up the stairs to the room. When Sammy told Athos to open the door quietly, he informed her that Azure was already awake anyway.

Oh right… she sleeps like four hours at most. Yay — I can tell her about it all!

Azure unlatched the door to welcome her in, a wrap over her mark but otherwise with her hair down, probably for recent brushing by the look of it. “Hey!”

“Hey!” Despite the short time, she was happy to see her blueberry priestess. Unthinking, perhaps by old habit, she went immediately for a hug hello. Azure was surprised but adapted smoothly to return the hug gladly.

She smells really nice, as usual-

And then her mind was awash with a sudden, vivid vision.

The slaughter at Tora Vierre. The Ministry of Verity’s dead mingled with her own — faces of her friends staring back at her, contorted and bloody and mind-wiped. All because she couldn’t be in two places at once. ‘Make your move, pay the price; play your hand, sacrifice.’ In the end, she was only-

Her lover hugged her tight, trying to drown out the terror, trying to stave off the fury, hoping and praying and begging the moment wouldn’t break her. But even awash in the finest scents of Home and Her, even squeezed and ensnared by that perfect blue-skinned beauty — her blueberry — she did break then and there.

Hatred and rage gripped her heart far stronger than anything could counter and she swore within to the darkest vengeance she could muster. If she did nothing else whatsoever, the First Minister would die. That was the next play — that was the next price.

Any price for such ruin as what was dealt. ‘I’ll grind their towers into dust! The future will be sown with their ashes! His ashes!’

No sooner than it came, the vision was gone and fleeing, the echo of ‘ashes’ reverberating in her soul — even as Samantha’s mind was chasing for more, for details, for answers. They were simply not there any longer, like waking from a half-remembered dream.

But I have to! Come back! Fuck!

“Samantha… your hands, I- they’re hurting me…” Azure.

One blink and Samantha realized she’d pulled back from the hug, and her hands were gripped tightly around her lover’s — Azure’s! — arms far too tightly. Immediately she released them and backed away — backed up until her back hit the door, her hands still dumbly held up.

“Sorry,” Sammy muttered vaguely, monotone. Her eyes were still not focusing, as she tried to hold onto what she’d seen and felt. Trying to see more, trying to force it to imprint on her mind before the details faded.

“Goddess??”

Two faces she managed to imprint into her head — because there was recognition. It wasn’t the sort of physical recognition ‘mortals’ had to a face… It wasn’t that sort of face but something entirely different. Like looking at a particular shape and knowing its purpose, as to a tool, though these were far more precious... Instruments. Caught light beams condensed and twisted into snowflakes to catch all the other light of reality just so. She couldn’t replace them.

Tashome and Merril, two of my instruments, gone forev-… gone until… Sammy swallowed a throat as dry as the grave.

“Goddess, please. What happened? What did you see? Please tell me, Samantha!”

“No.” It came out immediately and subconsciously. Her eyes could only meet Azure’s briefly before turning away. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes fixed on one of Azure’s ringed hands…

The interlacing of fingers… The thought brought on the increasingly common fluttering in her gut, radiating through her more powerfully than such a tiny thing should. And now it held even more curiosities.

And danger. I’m me! I. Am. Me. Sammy. I don’t have to do any of this! And she doesn’t either- But what if I need to?

Doubt and counterdoubt, and then doubled-down doubts all fought together in a chaotic melee of confusion. It made Sammy want to do nothing but duck under the tables and flee the scene. So she pushed off from the door and made a b-line for the bedside.

Azure tried to touch her shoulder to stall her. “Your Majesty-”

Sammy shrugged her off immediately, not meeting her eyes. “Later!” Right before she came around the bed she stopped suddenly and half turned her head. “I didn’t… injure you, did I? Are you okay?”

“No, Your Majesty,” came the subdued response. “I’m okay… physically, that is.”

Strength equivalent to a level 4 Brute… I think that’s prime athlete, Lift Bros level now… I’ve got to be careful.

Nodding briefly, Sammy lowered onto the floor to dematerialize. Azure came around to watch her, looking sad and perturbed. Sammy turned her head to the side and closed her eyes.

I need time to think, damn it… and I’ve got shit to do, anyway.

Back on her throne, she did her customary slide down in the seat until she was basically lying in it. The situation was just awful and upsetting in every way. A whole new thing to worry about… Azure triggering past life memories of them. Her friends dead to some dreadful enemy. And it was just the tip of an iceberg, wasn’t it? How much did she even want to know? Would it help or hinder?

The Past cards have given both good and bad. This would be like both x10, probably. A bunch of them all smushed together. Sounds like a huge identity crisis considering the way one fragment of a life has utterly changed three of mine. Do I really want that? From that trip I took, I came back me. It has to mean something. The picture on my wall has to mean something. Being the Earthgirl… it has to.

She noticed Jeeves floating nearby — his dapper, suited form in a mirror. Sammy sat up and shook her head at him. “I’m so clueless, Jeeves. I don’t know what to do about any of it.”

Jeeves nodded in understanding. “One foot in front of the other with your chin up, Madam. That’s all one can do in life. Step 1, Step 1, Step 1.”

Sammy smiled a bit and deliberately raised her chin. “Like so? But if I get that down, what about Step 2?”

“There is no Step 2. Step 0 or Step 1, every moment. The ground is the same on the plain, in the forest, and in the temple. What steps have you walked up that you haven’t come back down from? Experience changes us but the walk is always the same: just falling forward on the rocks.”

“The harmony of the endless repetition, huh? I guess that’s a rather butlerish philosophy, after all. Still, what do I do about this — these — situations? Past lives… Azure?”

“What you’ve already been doing, of course. Trust yourself to adapt and adjust and keep steady on the path. Try to do what you always strive to do: the right thing. You won’t succeed all the time but pish posh. Don’t wallow in the zeroes, hmm? Dust yourself off and get back to Step 1. And — I might add — don’t refuse a helping hand up.”

“A helping hand, huh…” Sammy mused, looking off in consideration. “At any rate, I think Step 1 is raising up Tashome as a priest, and then, er, the second Step 1 is getting Belvedere down in Geirkos.”

“If I may be so bold, Your Majesty, I think that is indeed a fine attitude.”

Hakuna Matata, baby — it’s a wonderful phrase! Ugh. Easier said than done. ‘Just keep swimming’ is probably more apt…

She reached out to Tashome, finding him well-prepared with a mirror on display already, tucked away in some corner of the ship’s hold, presumably away from other sleeping sailors. Incense was burning nearby — on responsibly-placed metal catchpans, of course. Her priest-to-be also had on his nicest robe for the occasion.

Tashome did one of his customary bows. Samantha returned it, then said, “Hail, Illumined. How are you? Still no nightmares, I take it?”

He shook his head. “Not to the level of the effect description. The dread honestly wakes me up at night on occasion.”

“You can always ask me for help with that.”

He waved his hand. “It’s nothing. I get back to sleep easily when I’m ready.” He paused, studying her. “And you? You seem unsettled.”

“How do you always know?”

A little grin. “Familiarity, perhaps.”

“Let’s not get into it until you’re a priest. Maybe you’ll get a confession quest, after.”

He chuckled. “One can only hope.”

Samantha cleared her throat and drew herself up, invoking the Goddess class a little more. “Tashome! You are by far the most innately spiritual man I’ve met in Calrenazzod. You’ve been a keen advisor, ally, and friend. Your council will continue to be instrumental to me and to those of our order. I would have you as my priest, and likely my mystagogue in the future. What say you?”

Tashome bowed solemnly. “I accept, Goddess, and ask you to watch over and keep me, as well as all those you place under my charge. Bless us and guide our way to our best fate and fortune.”

“So I will, so I bless, so I direct. Now rise, Tashome — as my priest!” The light flared once more from her hand and enveloped her Follower. He rose slowly, head still bowed and eyes closed, before finally opening them and smiling.

‘You are mine. As meant to be, as always, as agreed. A sign of hope then the final seal of doom. Who else could it be? Until the end… if any.’

Follower is now Ordained as a level 0 [Priest] and provides 1 additional FE per day.

The voice thrown in soured the mood of the whole affair. Tashome’s smile faded as he sat back down cross-legged and said, “I’d definitely appreciate being in on your thoughts right now, Samantha.”

Sammy sighed deeply. “I owe you that much, I feel. And you are probably the best for further insights anyway, right? So. The, uh, greater voice of me across time, you know? I guess the Fortuneteller… It’s been chirping more at me, lately. Intruding in my thoughts to utter hints…”

Sammy related each thing that happened — what was said about Bast, then the situations with Azure (though she tried to blow past and be nonchalant about the ‘lover’ aspects), the occurrences with Devero, then what was just said about him.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he listened, eventually having a haunted look. When she was finished, he took a moment before nodding slowly. “Seal of doom… failure. Our failure. Whatever it is we’re trying to do. ‘The end, if any.’ Maybe your victory and dominion. I’m an important piece, possibly a kind of bellwether. What we should expect of the Fool, right?”

“You already know which you are?”

“No. I just suspect it. This Devero makes me wonder, now. But a real wildcard is one you don’t know about, right? You happen to know the Fool well as part of the game, whether the penultimate wildcard or not. What if you never figured Devero out? He could be anything.”

“Ugh… that’s really annoying. Sounds just like him.”

“Anyway, if I’m the Fool — and it suits the card’s meanings as I know them — I’m just a condensed icon of the whole story. The paper tiger figurehead. The piper of your music leading others off the cliff. We’re all damned fools, obviously, every single one of us. You especially.”

“Gee, thanks… also, you and your damn puns — suits the card? Really?!”

He grinned. “As if I meant it insultingly? You’re a literal trickster goddess, Samantha. It saturates your being. You’re silly, you make silly entities, you hypocritically — and wrongfully — accuse others of puns while loving them yourself” — Sammy interjected with “Keep on lying, Tash!” — “and you often faceplant your way to success. I feel that everything we are, you’ve injected into us. You’re amplifying those traits and changing us. That’s the tune I hear.”

“The tune I hear outside of time sounds a lot different. Cold, merciless, and controlled.”

“Well, see, that’s the thing… I don’t really think you were always quite like this. To this level. This occurrence might well be a brand new reflection.”

Sammy chewed her lip in thought. Then she felt a sudden bubble of excitement. “Wait! Hold the phone! What if that means I brought it all from my world?! That means there was a fucking point to it, dude! To the Earthgirl!”

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