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Scales & Shadows Ch6: Collapse
🕑 Added 2023-03-06 01:10:05 +0000 UTCOne month ago, Ess’Sylantziis
“Issa!” Ynna, my boss, shouted.
I jolted. “Ma’am!” I pulled my hands from the nearly clear water and started to pour it off the rice. I tried to focus, but found my attention slipping away immediately.
“Issa.” Ynna slithered over to me. She guided the pot, and my arms with it, to the table. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Nothing,” lied. My tired body, however, betrayed me, and a huge yawn forced its way up and out, opening my jaw all the way with a pop. My forked tongue flicked in the air before I had enough presence of mind to snap my mouth shut.
“Is everything alright? Lately, you look like you aren’t sleeping well.”
“Fine,” I tried again. “Just busy.”
“Busy?” Ynna gestured to the rice bowl. “You’ve been washing that rice for an hour.”
I was? Maybe sleeping every other night wasn’t working so well as I’d hoped. Even when I did sleep… I shuddered.
“You’re not involved with anything dangerous, are you?” Ynna’s tone suddenly shifted dangerously.
“No ma’am!” I answered quickly.
“Then what’s wrong? I can’t keep paying you if you can’t work.”
“I…” I looked up at Ynna.
The old lania’el looked down at me, her eyes soft but her mouth hard.
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Nightmares,” I told her the partial truth.
“Oh, dear…” she reached out and tousled my hair with a warm hand. “They must be bad. Why don’t you go home today and rest, okay?”
“B-but—I need the money!”
Ynna frowned. “Hmm. I suppose I can pay you for today. Get some rest though—tomorrow’s Founding Day and I’ll need you awake and capable.”
I nodded frantically.
Ynna smiled. “Now go on. Go home and get some rest. I’ll see you here at dawn tomorrow.”
I slithered past her and out the back door, trying to keep from swaying as I moved. At the threshold, I paused and turned back. Ynna was draining the rice from my pan and shaking her head. I mumbled a quick “thanks” and slid out the door, not checking to see if she’d heard me.
***
Kyrae got home late that night, and I didn’t tell her about what had happened at work. Like me, she was starting early tomorrow. Founding Day was the celebration of Jii’Kalaga’s unification, and of the founding of Ess’Sylantziis at the confluence of the Hssyri and Ea’llesu rivers. It was supposed to celebrate the cooperation of elves and lamia.
Ynna had gone on and on about the celebration the past week. And why wouldn’t she? Her shop was in a majority lamia district—and one a good bit nicer than where Kyrae and I called home. Elves saw things differently than lamia. Founding Day was the day they lost their independence. While it wasn’t a result of war, the transfer of their leadership to a lamian monarch—now empress—sat poorly with many of the older generations.
Tensions continued through the younger generations, although the current Jii’Ssyri and Jii’Hssen, head of the Temple and empress respectively, had apparently made decisions for the benefit of elves and foreigners both. Kyrae’s employer had gone on and on about that bit of news, and I’d gotten it second-hand. I’d also learned the elves called the Ea’llesu the “Greatriver” and I agreed with my sister that Greatriver was a better name than “elf river.”
Regardless of politics I didn’t care about, tomorrow was important—and tonight was my sleeping night. As Kyrae settled in and drifted off, her breathing evening out, I looked around the room and tried to summon a happy memory to fall asleep to.
Despite my lack of sleep, this past month had probably been the best one of our lives. Right now, Kyrae and I were curled together on soft taro leaves, rimmed by wood and linen and cozy against my coils. The room we shared had things in it: furniture, food, and even a small wooden statuette of Hse’aazh my boss had given me. The great serpent was posed regally, head down, eyes forward; beautifully-carved tongue darting out as if to taste the air.
Staring at it brought me some peace, but also an uncomfortable feeling that I had somehow wronged the great serpent. Perhaps wronged wasn’t the right feeling. My powers roiled when my thoughts or gaze lingered too long, and I felt something of a pressure that made me look away.
I didn’t doubt now that my powers were a curse. From where or when I didn’t know, but I was still determined to control them. I could do more with them than I ever could without—I didn’t want to go back to being useless.
The evening shadows of our room bent and twisted, begging me to dive in and play. I resisted, staring into the slit eyes of Hse’aazh until sleep finally took me.
***
Tonight, I weathered a storm in my mind. The black void writhed and roiled around me. My ears rang, and my eyes darted, unseeing, trying to find the source of the pressure, the presence that loomed large in my mind. Hours passed into days which passed into time I couldn’t measure.
The pressure never let up, until my eyes were too tired to move and my ears couldn’t hear anymore. On the cusp of slipping away, the presence crushing around me until I started to wonder what I even was anymore, cracks appeared.
They grew and brightened and before I knew it, my groggy eyes were staring into Kyrae’s frightened ones.
“Issa!” she shouted.
I grabbed her hand, my grip weak.
“Oh thank Jaezotl,” Kyrae whispered, pulling my upper body into an embrace. Behind her, orange rays of pre-dawn cast themselves across the room.
The statuette on the table seemed aglow in the morning light.
“I…” my voice was hoarse and dry after so long without use. “I’m fine. Just—just had a nightmare, okay Kyrae? Nothing wrong.”
Kyrae shook her head, hair flying everywhere. “No! I was shaking you and shaking you. I didn’t think you’d ever wake up!”
“I was really tired…”
Kyrae’s emerald eyes stared into my own. “Your eyes were open, Issa. Open and black as a starless night. Both of them.”
Despite the warmth of our bedding, I shivered. “I…”
“Issa. Please. I’m your sister—you can talk to me about this.”
I inhaled deeply, filling both sets of lungs, then exhaled slowly. “Just my powers getting a little antsy. Maybe I’ve been working too hard.” I forced myself upright on my lower body, hiding the aches and fatigue I felt. I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all. “I’m fine, see!” I smiled, my one loose fang popping down to press into my lower lip.
“Issa…” Kyrae hugged me again. “Don’t scare me like that. We can go see the temple tomorrow—today even if you need to.”
I shook my head. “Not today.” My eyes slipped over to the statuette of the manifestation of Jaezotl and my powers quivered. “And I said it’s fine. I’ll be fine—we don’t need to go there, and besides I might get in trouble for my powers or for stealing or something anyway. Let’s just get ready, okay?”
Kyrae stared into my eyes for a long while before nodding slowly. “Okay, Issa.”
I smiled right back, pulling her into a tight, quick hug. “Ynna’ll make me wish I was just tired if she catches me late today.”
I managed to stay chipper until Kyrae left, and then my fatigue hit me like a freak wave up the river delta. I wobbled downstairs, slithering in a not-quite-straight line, and headed for work using all the speed I could muster. I hardly noticed how the shadows I passed pulled toward me, almost hungrily.
***
I slipped into work quietly, somehow. Ynna looked at me with concern, but I did my best to smile and brush it off. For the start of morning preparation, all went well. The day was bright, and the open walls and doors of the shop helping to ease my frayed focus. The murmurs and shouts of conversation from the throng of people helped at first, too.
Unfortunately, all I really did was waste the last of my energy early in the day. By the time the rush started, and the celebration in the street outside worked its way into full swing, I was nodding off despite the energy in the air.
“Issa!” Ynna shouted. “Pace yourself, girl. We’ve a long day ahead.” She shook her head disapprovingly.
“I got sleep last night!” I protested. “I swear, but I just didn’t sleep well.”
“Tired or not, I need you giving your all and you’ve been doing well so far. We’re ahead on orders for now, so why don’t you take a quick break?” Ynna waved for her other worker to take the front and slithered back to me. “I’ll take over here—just come back before the next hour mark on the sundial, okay?”
Numbly, I nodded. When I rose and moved toward the back, my vision had spots in it. My head pounded, my mouth felt dry and rough, and my fangs hurt like I’d bitten something hard. I sprawled out on a patch of soft groundcover in the small courtyard between Ynna’s shop and the neighboring homes and shops and tried to relax.
The sundial showed it was just before noon. I focused on it, trying to calm my racing heart and will away the chills that washed over me. Under my gaze, the shadow behind the sundial’s gnomon writhed and twisted.
I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. My eyes locked in place, shadows tinting my vision. I saw things in the shade: outlines and vague shapes that moved in odd ways. A lone cloud passed overhead, giving clarity to my visions as I lost myself to them.
I need to stay awake! I need to go back to work soon! I felt myself losing the fight, but as I drifted off, I didn’t find myself in a black void. Somehow, what did happen was worse.
I slumped forward, and the shadows of the courtyard came alive. Through them, my sight moved into Ynna’s shop. I watched as if in a dream as the shadows roiled, knocking over bowls and food, snuffing out the oven, and shattering a clay symbol of Jaezotl on the wall.
Sound muted out, but I could hear screams—see people rushing about around and in the shop as tendrils of darkness tore at the very boards of its construction. At their peak, they spilled into the street, knocking over carts and revelers alike.
Dimly aware, I tried to pull back—I tried to control my own powers. But they weren’t my own. I barely stopped tendrils of darkness from shoving their way into the bright, warm lights of lives around me.
Slowly, the cloud passed and the shadows began to unravel, uncovering a ruined shop. They retreated back toward the courtyard, and then to me. I saw myself slumped forward black eyes wide and mouth open. And then my own point of view plunged down toward me, toward the last bright light of my own life in the shadows.
I saw my fangs, my tongue, my throat, and then my view whirled and twisted, falling apart like sand into a void of faux-sleep. I felt someone pushing against me—my body or my shadows I couldn’t tell. Then I felt arms carrying me, scales under my own. My own physical body.
Light filtered through eyelids and I forced them open, moaning.
The hands dropped me in dirt, and the scales pushed me away. “Go,” I heard Ynna say. “I’m sorry, Issa, but you have to leave.”
“…Ynna?” I croaked.
“Leave. Now,” Ynna said. “I’m sorry for whatever has done this to you, but I can’t let you in my shop. Not after what happened.”
“But…” I raised my head and looked at Ynna. She was pale; eyes wide and face tight.
“Go,” she pointed behind me. “The temple can help you. I can’t.”
I turned slowly, arduously. Behind me were the steps up to a temple to Jaezotl. The symbol above the doorway burned my mind. I heard Ynna slithering away, and I rolled toward her, feeling cold and weak and tired.
“Ynna!” I cried out, tumbling toward the retreating lania’el. “Please! I need this—I need… I can’t… I…”
She didn’t turn around, and I watched her slither away. Visions of her destroyed shop came back to me. Of the woman pinned under shadow as her livelihood was destroyed by the homeless orphan she dared to trust. I pulled my outstretched arm back. She was right. Am I beyond saving?
I turned back toward the temple. My throat tightened. Something pooled up behind my eyes and my breath came shallower. I can’t go there. Whatever these powers are… I can’t go there.
Slowly, painfully, I raised myself up on my lower body, my arms shaking. Unable to take one last look at the temple behind me, I slithered off toward our home. With just Kyrae working it’d be tight, but we could make it. I just had to find a way to control whatever this was. I had to get my life back.
***
Kyrae was waiting when I got home, her head in her hands. Her quiet sobs shook me out of my fugue, fragile clarity snapping into place around me.
“Kyrae?” I asked warily, pulling the door closed as I slithered in the room and around my sister, protectively.
“I-Issa?” She hiccupped, covering her mouth. When she looked up at me, her eyes were puffy and red.
“I’m here Kyrae—what happened?”
“Your eyes…” Kyrae whispered faintly, her lips saying more than her voice.
I shook my head. “I’m fine. What happened?”
“I…” Kyrae drew in a breath and released it shudderingly, a hiccup interrupting. “I got fired today.”
My hearts tightened, the cold shadows of our room inching closer as if to comfort me. I glanced at the closed shutter, but I couldn’t face the warmth of day right now. I let the shadows come.
As they swirled around me, drawing out my anxiety, I asked in a voice that wasn’t quite how I thought I should sound. “Who did this?”
Kyrae startled, and her eyes grew wide, darting side to side around me. “N-no! Issa! No one did this to me!” she tore her gaze away, another sob heaving out from her small frame.
I tried to curl around her, but shadows pressed between us. With great effort, I tore them away, resting my scales against my sister’s warm, shaking body. “I’m…” I coughed, trying to clear the strangeness from my voice. “I’m here Kyrae. It’s just me.” I wasn’t sure I believed it. But I had to, for Kyrae.
Kyrae shook, but she stopped pulling away. Tentatively she moved one blurry emerald eye to look at me, shirking away the moment she met my gaze. “Issa…” she spoke as if my name pained her to say. “I… it’s my fault.”
“What?” I asked, unbelieving. “No.” My shadows pulsed. “No, someone else did this, you—”
“I stole, Issa! I couldn’t help it.” Kyrae didn’t meet my gaze.
Something about the way she hunched away from me, but kept her hand firmly grasping mine told me there was more to her words. But I had no way to find out what that could be. “Kyrae…” I repeated her name.
Kyrae continued, “I can’t… something—nevermind. We’ll—we’ll be okay. We’ll find a way.”
My sister looked so… despondent. I hadn’t seen her like this since the night I found her after getting kicked out of the orphanage. Fatigue and chill rose up through me like monsoon floodwaters and I swayed. I felt my lucidity slipping away with the last of my manic energy. “Kyrae… I…”
Kyrae nodded, hiccupping again. “I know. You should be w-working. Something—something bad happened, didn’t it?”
I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood and nodded. I couldn’t seem to find words anymore. Kyrae’s tears renewed their strength, not yet exhausted. Soon mine joined hers. We didn’t even move to our sleeping area before collapsing into sleep. Fitful slumber for Kyrae, and a near eternity in a black void for me.
A/N: Scales and Shadows, as of this next week (and thanks to all the support from you all!!), will be going to two chapters per week, on Thursdays and Sundays. Ahead of tier reorganization around May-June, Patron Demons will get chapters on Sundays, while Sovereign Demons will get chapters on both days.
