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CS Worlds Destroyed Chapter 28

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CHAPTER 28


My stomach flipped in loops and loops, everything in my senses telling me that this spirit was some sort of unbalanced, mental and social miscreant.  Trapped in the web of feathers I tried to back away, ducking down and shimmying back out to the world of light as he pulled back, confused and hurt.  I put my hands up, my eyes now not quite focusing anywhere out of shock. or fear. I really forget, i was terrified.


"NOPE. noooo, not gonna..nooo" I spit out in plain English, hoping the language barrier might keep the Latin speaker from feeling the full force of my sarcasm and blunt opposition to this statement.  My body language was one that bridged gaps like that, hurting the cherub anyways as I hushed myself, trying to keep it together. "Sorry...yeah, sorry, no, you've got the wrong person, I'm afraid." I took a few breathes as the cherub looked down at the ground, saddened. I switched back to Latin.

"<Sorry>" I said quickly as I was planning to elaborate, the cherub cutting me off before I could.

"<No, don't apologize, i get it. You don't remember me. >" his voice was just saturated with sadness, something I didn't expect. Especially since it came off that he did this on a whim, like ever third person he ran across got this same treatment."<I can tell, it's all over your face that you forgot - that explains a lot.>"

"<Yeah, that's right, ummm...uh, wow, yeah. Maybe that'll...do the trick.>" It was damn near impossible to keep the sarcasm to a minimum. It was a defense mechanism.  "<What's your name?>"

"<Not important.>" He said lowly, switching the topic, "<How old are you now?>"

"<Wait, so how am i supposed to know you if you won't tell me your name?>" I thought on it again, "<My age? seriously? What is this, a personal ad?>"

"<Personal...ad?>"  The bird grew increasingly more confused <I guess so. I don't know what that is, but sure> I bit the bullet and just answered it's question.

'<I'm just about 3500 years old." Hesitating for a moment I shrugged, " <WHY. How old are you?" The cherub stared at me, slowly  smiling before laughing out loud at my general direction, shiny, pointy teeth just a few inches away. I leaned farther back.

"<Sure you are!> He said quickly, still laughing as I realized how far off topic this subject had gotten while the cherub calmed himself back down."<I'm noticeably older then you>"  

"< Wait...>" I pointed at him, taking a handful of steps closer while the cherub's eyes lit up excitedly. Grabbing near his eye, i peered into that orb like the reflection would pop up as a magic 8-ball "<You're not Zeus....are you? Because if you are...>" I pointed at the bird as he only seemed to grin, laughing at me while shaking his head.

"<If you are, you and I have some unfinished business. I don't care how big you are>" Gearing myself up for a fight, realizing the Comet wasn't sharing the same sentiment, my own anger fell flat into a two-dimensional plane "<Then we can...fight...and stuff. Stop laughing!>"

"<I'm not Zeus. >"  He only continued to stare at me, bemused at my antics, shaking his head again and spitting out a laugh at my expense.  He didn't say it just because he was trying to throw me off, it had that whole tone that he knew so much more then I did. I wasn't used  to that, I was normally the one sporting that aspect off.  Searching through, trying to get a bearing on that soul, trying to feel it out, understand it; it was as murky and damn near invisible as anything I'd ever come across. I could sense the cherub, I could sense Raziel still there, but this soul? It was perfectly covered, mysterious as his nonsensical words were. Augh.  This whole thing was just fucking odd. A sigh.

"<Listen, I'm sorry you mistook me for someone else, but I do have questions, if you can answer those>" I said quickly as the cherub didn't miss a beat.

"<I'm not mistaken, Adia>" He grinned as my eyes snapped back in my head. " <With our souls tied like they are, there's no way i'd be mistaken.>" ... tied? Adia was...not a name i was ever really known for, even pretty early out I took that pseudonym Clotho to distance myself from a common peasant background.  I stared for a while longer as the bird only sat there, happy with himself, slowly grinning as the pause got awkward. The enthusiasm was infectious, if nothing else.   What in god's name did he mean by tied? Like a tether?

"<Go ahead! Ask your questions!>" He smiled politely, batting his creepy cherub eyelashes at me while I stood there like a rock. My name was never a guarded secret, it just wasn't common to hear anyone call me that. Especially not the random multicolor comet in the life pool that swarmed with romantic proposals and snappy comebacks in a dead, forgotten language.

"<You often talk in riddles?>" I jabbed as he jabbed back.

"<I do, but you wouldn't remember them>" He grinned again as I couldn't help but return it.  Hands down one of the strangest conversations I've had, and it started with an 'i love you' proposal to boot.

'<Anyways... You sustain Raziel's soul. How?>" I spoke as the bird sat down, awkwardly trying to figure out how to move his limbs to do so.   Giving up after a few moments, he slumped over to the side and seemed happy with that.  

"<I bind it. Glue.  The boy's soul is a shattered, incoherent string of memories. Both our souls are fragile, they rely on one another to function.>"   He spoke as I stopped, noting something.

'<You're awfully aware of this situation for a comet>"  I scoffed as the bird only drew a smile, holding the cards at this point, waiting an annoyingly long time before shuffling his shoulders a little and keeping quiet.  Realizing there was no more to understand on that topic, I switched to something else.  "< Let's talk about the life-pool.">  I said quickly, sitting down onto the grass, arms folded like this conversation was nothing but to the point. The cherub only raised his eyebrows a little; similar how Raziel did it, but different still.

"<Yes, let's>" He looked up and over me, over-ly stern on the matter . Took me a moment to realize he was doing it on purpose, making fun of me.  I shook my head and continued on.

"<Anyways; souls are known to pass directly through the life pool, not lounge about in it. How exactly did you manage to survive there, oh Comet?>"  The bird laughed, re-adjusting himself and flicking that long cherub tail through the grass.

"<That's easy when you know the loopholes. >" I thought  he might be joking again, but there was a serious tone admits it all. "< The 'life pool' as you put it, is not infallible. It was built. It has its seams.>". Snorting my apparent knowledge in his face, I flaunted my distaste at his words immediately.

<The life pool is an action, not a recreation, it wasn't built, it's just always been.>" Guffawing to a crowd of just myself, I opened my eyes back to the cherub in a very smarmy mood, head slanted off to the side . Told me without words that my idea of the life pool and his idea, were vastly different. To be honest, arguing with the one actual soul that managed to get through the life pool probably spoke for who was correct in the situation.  Taking a half step back, I tried an alternative route.

"<Loopholes like becoming a cherub?>" I said flatly, maybe showing a little too much of my contempt now knowing how painful it was for Raziel to be in there.  

"<This beast was a way out, there were no other options.  Knowing what I know now, how this beast operates, I would've advised against even this. But these...cherubs are one of the few beings that pull soul fragments into a form. With as many soul parts as we have together, The form itself is unstable, bastardized, and unwanted by both parties here, I assure you.>" The soul spoke with real sadness , eyes lowered, unhappy. "< Your....'Raziel' was decidedly adamant about getting into the world, looking for someone in particular, and 'damn the consequences' if I remember correctly...>"

The cherub's eyes raised up like he  asked this himself, hopefully, concerned and wanting an answer on both their behalves.

"<I take that he's found her. Correct?>"  The bird nudged me as I sat there,  smiling faintly.  Looking into my eyes he settled back, looking up and away before continuing on, not terribly bothered by sharing affections with someone else like most would be. "Well, without that drive, I don't know where either of us would be at this moment. >"

"<Are you just a string of memories too?>"

"<I am one half of a soul. The boy is a third of his own, and  the creature is the last part.>" He grew serious, looking back to his wings with a sneer. "The boy wants desperately to be from this body, it causes both of us pain. But the cherub is a necessary part>"

"<How so?>" I sat up, noticing the cherub starting to get more tired, more out of it, eyes focusing in and out  for a moment before he kept talking.

"Praesens ...soul" He said in an odd mix of unintentional English and Latin, shaking his head and continuing on like it was a struggle.  " <The present soul contains us both, gives us physical form here. Our time grows short, the boy's pushing back with an..> impressive summa et resolve"  I turned my head slightly, watching him flicker back towards Raziels souls like a bewildered pedestrian.  He shook his head out again, looking back to me with a grin.

"Maybe next time you can just hijack Raziel's ability to speak English and then we don't have bother with Latin. " I said plainly, watching the cherub grin one more time, breathing harder. "It'd keep me from getting a headache talking like that"

"Don't neglect < your latin roots, my sweet>" The bird cackled out an uncomfortable laugh,  hovering there for a second before flopping down to rest on the ground like someone flicked a switch off;  my brain was back on alarm.  I shook my head, running for the bird, who was just shaking himself awake. I thought it was the same soul again as his eyes were half-focused; Raziel shook his head out, watching the pupils dilate and re-size, brightening back up to normal without incident. Bringing his head high he looked around and spotted me, worried.

" Did that work?" He said cautiously as I  fell against him, giving a giddy hug, happy to have this soul and personality back.

I took the next hour to fill him in, update him on what I learned. Obviously the news was hard to take, another blow to this struggle in just trying to sort out two lives. He and I stood there, silent, thinking about different parts of the same story, depressed. If his soul relied on the Comet's soul to operate, then a human form was completely out of the question. Unless he found away to sort out this soul, organize it, take parts of the other souls to apply it, he'd die off the bat. He could probably get into a human body, then die shortly after that.  He knew this.

I spent my time thinking about how this Comet knew me. Legitly, I had found most of my spare ends, had most of my life resolved. Someone who knew my birth-name, who acted like he and I were romantically entangled in those times was not part of the equation. As a human, as Adia,  i wasn't attached to anyone I could remember in my human life; so long ago, it was hard to pick it apart from so many others. Even afterward, as I had moved onto trying to start up my Grecian persona, at best there'd be a few kind servants out of a mass of them that I could remember, most too afraid to do anything but follow orders.  There just wasn't anyone in that era that I could say i was anything close to, besides my sisters. The thought drove me nuts.

The two of us stood there, not moving, not smiling or talking as the sun began to set.  Looking up, i frowned. Our entire day was dedicated to depressing, mulled over issues.  I didn't have a lot of days left, I couldn't afford to just squander what I had; thinking, that went for everything here.  Not just for the time, but for the people I was with. Worrying and depressed about the same issues, i was letting the fear of death get in my way once again.  I watched the clouds with a sense of regret, of sadness, before looking back to Raziel quickly.

"I don't care." I muttered out of the blue,  taking a step and a half to lean onto him as he only frowned. "It sucks. You agree with me that it sucks, right?" The bird shrugged, flicking an eyebrow up

"No argument here"  He said as I continued.

"Life is strange and weird in that way. Souls are too.  So what if you're a half person comet cherub thing?  By-the-rules souls are boring anyways" I smiled, trying to lighten his mood as well as he only continued to stare at me, a little perplexed.  "I'm just sick of living like this, you know? I'm sick of being sad."  The cherub finally smiled, nodding along with me.

"Yeah, me too."  I nodded along with him this time, smacking him in the wing.

"So let's go have fun, then. Let's leave. I'm not sure why we're sticking around here anyways."   I watched his face as he gradually smiled, starting to feel better. Ian. Ian was the answer to that question.  Though that was a hopeful opportunity, he knew as well as I did that just strolling up to the demon king himself wouldn't ever happen.  Nor did trying to sort out the screwed up social issues going on there as well.

  "See, best part about this is that it seems like we're only two souls, but between you and me  we've got enough people for  two baseball teams and a small crowd of fans. We're our own entertainment " I grinned as he put his head alongside me, latching onto it happily.

"I wouldn't want it any other way" He said softly as I laughed,climbing aboard.  Considering Raziel was a generally pretty subdued kind of romantic that only seemed to say terribly awesome things when we both thought we were about to die, it was the first time he said something like that openly.  I hugged around his neck, content.

"The three of you spoil me, I swear." I grinned, sitting back up as he got to his feet, stretching out his wings.  After a mild debate on where to go, we settled on a completely random direction, setting off into the sunset happily.
Caelum Sky Tumblr! [link]

Chapter 27: [link]

Chapter 29:[link]


Again, Ch. 28 is kinda the awkward middle chapter. Didn't fit with the next one, was too lengthy to put on the previous, SO HERE> have a short chapter. Keepin' you on your toes. Had a bunch of theories that the Comet was Zeus. THAT'D BE PRETTY WACKY, but no. I adore the guesses, though :D
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sunwukung22's avatar
Adia, I do believe I failed you  Adia, I know I let you down
Don't you know I tried so hard To love you in my way  It's easy, let it go
I pull you from your tower  I take away your pain