ORIGIN

damask(?) wanted to drown. the details were blurred away, her control of the spell too new too weak to catch every nuance; she could've kept her distance, fought to restrain herself to analytic detachment; but instead she immersed herself in foreign emotions impulses sensations, reveling in them to blot out her own. faintly nerve and synapse tugged at her toes, wings, head — and she barely (don't do it don't give it away) held them still.

his words (mine?) seemed to swim in her throat — too indistinct for her to make out, though somehow she felt she could've parroted them if only she'd let it happen — and she got the spirit of them regardless in the accompanying swell of remorse. an otherworldly loop of rope tightened at her neck then yanked hard (go to me go to me) and before she could stop herself, she took a half-step forward, a perfect replica in time with his. one foot hung suspended just above the floor, hovered a moment; and then she set it down — a full pace ahead. another. another. one two three. gentle. deliberate. an invitation for auré — no, herself — no, himself — no no (not that far pull back pull back) her father to eat up the distance.

"dad ..." and she smiled: the extent of it earnest and reassuring — hazy half-lidded faraway eyes, too soft too sad too open to be hers —

and she burst out coughing. it was only a few brief wheezing barks tucked quickly into her wing, a slight bite in her chest, a warning yes that's what it was; and the break was far from invisible, a glitch in the system bolting ragged across her face. battery low. but not critically so. damask sucked in a lungful of oxygen (i'm not ready yet let me back in) and gave the spell a push.

it flickered back to life — the whole malfunction over in an instant. (we're up and running.) but she had to be careful now. she had a choice between a tenuous connection and an overpowering one, and ravenous as she was, she acquiesced to the former.

slowly she lifted her head to face her father, that foggy smile blinking on and off, and said at fifteen frames per second: "c-co-come here."

this time, she heard what he said — which wasn't to say she didn't feel it, too. "i missed you." a hollow pit hungered in her gut, the kind no meal could fill. again, "i missed you," and that was all damask needed to close the last of what stood between them.

one small, stiff step turned quickly into many as she sputtered up to him and stuffed herself into the thick plumage at his front. the fledgling strained as tall as she could, wing-claws grasping blindly, face buried and burrowing as deep as it would go. "i missed you, too," she rasped hotly into his feathers. i did. i really did. her features crumpled tight with gritted teeth and eyes squeezed shut, but — no tears, not the faintest glaze of moisture, only a phantom trace of dry weight in her throat. a moment passed there as the humid warmth of carbon dioxide built up around her nose.

and then damask's time was up.

crash and comedown, electricity lancing down her spine, solid black slashing over her vision — and when the camera came to, it floated far behind and above its prior operator. could've been through the glassy fisheye of the songbird she'd killed, even. through that severed lens, she watched her own legs jerk from frame to frame as she seized away and stumbled back. one moment, inches separated her from the black-and-orange shape opposite — the next, feet. the motion seemed to rewind minutely and fast-forward back, zooming in and out of focus, twisting dizzily back and forth. air rattled out loud in the faraway figure's ribs. she looked about ready to collapse. didn't, though. impressive.

close on those eyes, cold silver around pinprick apertures that jittered in place. the shutters clicked over and over in shock, then ceased altogether, the rest of the expression locked into perfect, near-blank composure. a knot coursed from mouth to chest, briefly stifling — whatever sort of trouble seemed to be happening therein. she got the impression this wasn't the first time, nor the worst.

"i need you to be honest with me," said a voice, level and even, as monochrome in delivery as it was in its casing. cough cough, "is," cough cough, "there," cough cough cough, "anything else you haven't told me?" wheeze. wheeze. wheeze. wheeze. "past? present? future?"

she thought she heard a slight emphasis on that last word. strange.

"a moment to breathe," said the larger of the birds, and "let me — think," advancing on the smaller. she didn't seem to respond to either his dialogue or his action, animated only by the ragged respirator-hiss of her rising-falling chest. now that she'd finished speaking, her breathing was starting to improve — her claws, to clasp the floor more firmly; her axis, to swing into equilibrium. a soft wheeze quivered out at widening intervals.

"i've made a lot of mistakes in the past few months."

an expository montage played out in damask's sights: dark crevices grinning toothless between stones; crystals around a damaged body; white spores in the skull of the one who told of them; myriad souls bearing mold in their mouths. the voiceover ended with a request. "if you — see or find anyone like that or find something, come find me or astraea and i'll take care of it."

no nod came, nor any other indication that the black-and-white fledgling had heard. completely catatonic. sort of unnerving, but damask couldn't blame her for being overwhelmed; it was a lot to take in. even she couldn't fully register it through the way the words shuddered and glitched — but with a memory like hers, it was all a recording. she'd correct the flaws and play it back later. in the meantime, she sat back and waited. something would be happening any second now. any ... second ... now.

all right. there was definitely a problem.

damask's worry was approaching secondhand embarrassment. those last inquiring lines had been — scripted, she realized, prepared before the scene even began. responding to this latest development off the cuff was proving a challenge. how was this character meant to be feeling that she wasn't showing? what comments and questions would she have? damask ventured from her vantage and swum through zero gravity. something like why didn't you tell me? or what other dangers are there? made the most sense, she decided.

but when she reached for the young heroine's mind, she found one vignette running on loop: a wyvern, a gryphon, and the pact of jasper that they made. another shiver of lightning came with the image. oh ... she clutched as if at slippery prey, fumbling and failing to step back in, the skin a shaking wall about to give way. that voice echoed quietly beneath her, much closer now, almost her own —

"why did you — make me?"

she was close, so close, to breaking this barrier and bridging this disconnect. invisible talons strained at the shoulders of her body below, and the feathers there bristled, fast-twitch muscle shivering as if at half-sent signals. she couldn't get in, but at least she could think. you're not moving, you just barely spoke after too long a pause, he's got to be getting suspicious — and look at you, you don't want to anymore, do you? frustration might've made her teeth grind, had she the control. reach. reach. reach. you're almost there —

but then auré pointed his magic at the stony stage once more; and this time, his aim was true. moving pictures appeared before her, not imagined this time, but manifestly alive. the interruption stole her attention away at once. her father's lights shone in her eyes, even granted them a hint of the color they lacked. he narrated the convolutions of his answer as they played out, and damask could only watch and listen adjacent herself: spellbound. but his words told of nothing but death, his illustrations a sandstone graveyard, the laughing face of a long-gone friend ... aza'zel's bones. and another skeleton waited in the wings. carefully unspoken, but it loomed all the same. she couldn't not think of it. every loss orbited around that nucleus. her own creation did.

it wasn't the story she wanted to hear. elemental tension, then fear, then creeping panic built with every image. it further distanced her, made her recoil at the thought of coming back to herself, of facing mortal inevitability — hers, his, every soul's.

but isn't this another kind of death? are you living, coward? are you breathing?

it was time she clawed her way back in.

my name is damask vita; i am two cycles and ten days old; i live with my father in the central chambers of canis; i am standing opposite him in orion, we are fifty-nine inches apart, the stone is cold beneath my feet, he has just told me why i was conceived, and ... he needs me to talk to him.

the ghost of her stepped into its body with a gasp — an agonal respiration in reverse. it prodded at the lingering pain in her chest, and she embraced it, anchored herself to it. contracted pupils swelled up to size, flickering over auré's face, his frame; her claws flexed and relaxed, her feathers ruffled and smoothed, and her jaws minutely opened and closed, as if to ensure that all her parts could still move. how long had it been since he'd finished? speak.

"in case you ..." her voice went dry as it trailed away into nothing, that final word unsaid; and she struggled to continue, grasping unwillingly for more. she had to be frank. she didn't want to. she had to. "i was to be a memento, a legacy — and a safeguard." dawn broke like glass over her face as she dropped her gaze to the space between them. steeling herself, borrowing his phrasing as if it would soften the blow she dealt, she concluded her reasoning with one final question.

"the last king fell; you became the next. if you fell, what would that make me?"

"you're so much more than that," auré told her, "so much more than spur-of-the-moment" — but ... that wasn't what she'd said. damask flinched slightly, keeping her eyes where they were. she'd accused her conception of being functional, not impulsive or accidental. he'd filled that blank himself. what did that say? but he means it, she knew; even if that's all i was once, i'm — more than that now. to him. and that kept her strong, even as she said what hurt the most.

his response was immediate: "it'd make you whatever you wanted to be, damask." and what is that, exactly? she restrained another cringe. what will you be? what are you now? listen. "the king, next of kin if you want to ..." — the ... th-th-the king? me — ? shiver shiver, down her spine; don't read into that too much, shut up and pay attention, he's not done — "... explorer, investigator, magician ..."

he named a series of trades, each more appealing than the last. she could have been anything, he said: taken her pick and made it hers. but damask couldn't give up on that word, the highest title of all; kept lingering on it, turning it over in her claws. king. that was what she wanted. but she did not want to rise from her father's fall. she scuffed at the floor as he finished, as if to kick an imaginary stone. shakily her gaze rose at last to his, pale on bright. quietly: "that's very hopeful." aza'zel had succumbed to the end, and his son could too. auré had all but volunteered to risk his life — might have lost it, had his luck swung to the opposite pole. it wasn't in his power to stop it. nor hers.

but you cannot linger on this. especially not now.

she couldn't know that he was right. but she wanted to believe it.

the young accipiter looked wearily over her shoulder, at the dead blue songbird smeared across the steps. she was responsible for that cadaver. her. she closed her eyes. "let's go home, dad."