The Investigator

I will be updating this, at the very least, 2-3 times a week.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Kearie


Child
You laugh
You cry
Your love is pure
Innocent
Much like your heart
And your mind
You find joy
In the simplicities of life
You hurt when fallen
You cry at loss
And the pure jubilation
In your life
Is timeless
Contagious
Child
Listening to your laugh
Is like
Listening to heaven's music
If I could
I would take delights
In simplicities once again
And be called
A child
Then time slips by
And slowly you age
Angst fills your heart
Depression in your mind
And anger
Makes fists fly
Suddenly you have grown
Suddenly
You are an adult
You can't find
Happiness
Any more
And each little moment
That caused such mirth
Flees
Like the sands of time
Slipping through your fingers
If only we adults could learn
To find joy
In the simplicities of life
Perhaps then
We can truly be happy
Again
Even
If the entire world
Wishes to call us
An immature child
For purity of heart
And innocence of mind
Makes for a peaceful
And beautiful life

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Aensa: Blackout

That night, strange things happened. It was like a dream of a nightmare, swirling in the alley as the cube fell apart, broke into glittering pieces that fell to the muddy puddles at the woman's feet. An ethereal figure stepped from the soft clouds that seemed to waver before her eyes. He was easily the most handsome man she had ever seen, but as quickly as he appeared, he vanished. And as many times as she described the turn of events, no one fully seemed to grasp what happened to her that night.

“I think ya just need something to drink, Aensa.” Raz gently patted her shoulder as she slumped next to him on a chair in the room they had rented with a blanket pulled tight about her shoulders. No matter how heavy the woolen blanket was, it wasn't able to shake the shiver of things to come from her bones.

“Raz...” And as happened many times in the past, bogged down heavy with emotion and weary thoughts, her rogue filtered from her voice leaving the taint of the well bred. “I don't think you really understand what happened. He knew my name.”

“Everyone knows yer name! Yer Aensa!” A chuckle was quickly choked back when he lifted his gaze to the searing look of annoyance on her face.

“You remember my last dream, don't you? They always feel so prophetic. There was this weapon, this chained claw. And the cube. I think they are all related somehow. I just don't fully understand what is going on.” A groan passed her lips as she ran her fingers into her hair and grabbed fist fulls of the corn-silk tresses. “Raz...” It was a warning call. He dropped everything and ran to her just in time to catch her before she toppled forward from the chair.

Gently he laid her to rest in his lap upon the floor, stroking her hair with concern. When she drank, this stopped happening. He hated that priest for making her stop. Every time she had one of these dreams, trying to understand it would cause her to black out. And every time she blacked out, there was a chance she would have another dream. It was a vicious cycle and he wanted it to end. He just wanted Aensa to be the happy cheery person she always seemed to be when she was drinking. This couldn't possibly be the real her, could it?

A light frown touched his face as he stroked over her cheek in a loving manner. Why did she do this to him? To herself? Lips lightly touched her clammy forehead, a sad look in his eyes. “Don't worry, Aensa. I ain't ever going to leave you,” he whispered quietly as his eyes closed in hopes of creating a dam for the tears he could feel welling behind his lids. He worried about her. He worried so much that he had spoken to some friends of his, hoping to get some insight. They were all planning to have lunch together. Duran, Ketara, Tertius: they would have an answer, some kind of solution for him. They just had to.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Aensa: The Cube

It seemed to float in the fingers, rotating this way and that. It was as if she knew exactly how to open it. Perhaps it was merely opening itself. Panting, she sat with her back against the wall in a dark alley where she was least likely to be seen.

She didn't know what forced her to creep out of bed that night, away from the slumbering Raziel. What drew her, of all places, to the church? Azure gaze studied the glowing gold object in her fingertips as a chill ran down her back. What possessed her to steal something from the vault of the Royal Church? Her thumb smoothed over the item trying to understand what the possible draw could have been. There had to be a reason she sat here holding an object that felt so familiar, so warm, so inviting and yet it terrified the priest to no end. Why was it that she felt comfortable around such a thing?

Feeling eyes on her, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Glancing first one way and then the other, she finally spied a pair of golden eyes deep in the dark, watching her, as if trying to assess what was going to happen. Picking up a stone near her foot, she tossed it down the blackened alley way.

“Shoo cat! I ain't gots nothin' ya wants!” And just as quickly as they appeared, they glimmer of eyes seemed to disappear like the moon hiding behind a curtain of clouds. She still didn't feel comfortable, didn't feel confident.

“Why dids ya want me? What is it abouts me?!” She shook the cube in anger, not understanding why her dreams and black outs would bring her to suddenly be a thief.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Aensa: Theft

It wasn't her doing what she was doing. It couldn't possibly be. She had broken into the church and watched, as if caught behind some glass where her voice couldn't be heard, as she broke into the vault. Kylus lay at the desk, head in his arms, asleep with that gold cube seated by his right elbow.

“The Cube of Noth..” came the only words she was able to utter past the divide and reached out for it. Once again, it felt so familiar and safe in her hands. I am so sorry, Father Kylus, she thought to herself as she made her way back up the stairs and out of the church.

----------(*)----------

He woke from the desk feeling discombobulated and cloudy. He couldn't quite remember everything about last night. He recall the crate, the cube, coming down into the vault--

The cube! He frantically began to search the desk, under books and papers, for the strange cube that seemed to follow him, in his dreams and his reality, from room to room and thought to thought. Did he knock it to the floor while sleeping?

“Kylus.” It was Paetines at the top of the stairs, calling out his name. He certain of it. Or was it the cube? Sleeping hadn't been his strength recently and everything felt fuzzy and undefined.

“Paetines? I'm in the vault. I was just logging in. Just researching. Just looking for--” and the priest's voice trailed off in a haze as his head ducked below the desk, feet shuffling to search where light was finding it difficult to touch.

“Kylus.” The call was still soft, gentle. It felt like a lovers caress to the priest.

Suddenly the thought washed over him. The door to the vault was wide open. Thieves? What if it was somehow opened? Certain this could rain destruction down on the good people, his good people.

“Great Paladine, what have I done?”

Friday, February 4, 2011

Aensa: Dream


Again, there she stood in the center of this war, fluttering overhead that constantly blackened out the moon, and the castle, not far off in the distance, had fiery tendrils slipping out each window. The smoke was thick enough that she gagged in trying to catch her breath as she ran towards the flickering flames, the stench of burning flesh hanging heavily in the air. Everything blurred and swam around her as each crystalline blue orb watered with the stinging pain of the darkness in the air. Over bodies she jumped, over bodies, swords, horses sprawled over the ground, dogs yipping not far off in the distance. Or were they wolves? She never could be certain at this distance.

And still she ran, clutching, clutching, what was that again? The metal claw. That weapon from long ago that was stolen from her by some enraged woman. And in trade she received, what, a smattering of opium? She called out, waving the item above her head, screaming out a name she didn't even recognize. And suddenly, the war was over, just like that. The bells droned and she stood there in the field of massacre, the smells of the blood and the flesh burning to intense for even her. And then there was the rotting decay in the humid summer night air. She gagged. She tried desperately to keep down the bile that rose in her throat, and with a thought, fingers fluttered upwards to clench over both nose and mouth. But she couldn't cover her eyes. Bodies lie everywhere in guard uniform, in enemy attire, decapitated, disemboweled, sliced and diced by some horrendous weapon. She glanced down to the claw that now lie snapped upon her arm, the shimmer even in the faint moon's glow enough to take her mind off the bodies all around. And suddenly, with a jolt, it released, flying out towards the only movement, the only noise she heard. Her lips fell open as a silent cry whipped forth. She killed them all, didn't she? With the 'chink' of the chains rolling back into place, she lurched forward as the claw seemed to be dragging something along with its retreat from the bloody fields. She couldn't do much more than wait, the smoke still brash in the darkness, only allowing her to see inches of the chain at a time. finally, there it was, a woman at the end of the line.

The woman lay limp on the other end of the claw, more or less slumping over the chains that were still held taught in place. She was a fair woman, not looking too old at all, long silver streaked black hair falling over more of her face then less. The clothing she wore...she looked like nothing more than a woman soldier. Nothing more. But she was more. It took Aensa's scrutiny for more than five minutes to note the small tiara like crown upon the woman's head. With a stuttering gasp she tried to drop the claw, tried to force it out of her grip, away from her. She desperately tried to get the weapon to release its grip to no avail. She was stuck with this murderous weapon and the royalty on the other side. Tears streamed down her face as the yipping came closer, surrounding her, all around her. It wasn't the yip of a dog, but instead that of wolves that now came from every crevice of the dark, the smoke lifting just enough so she could see them all feasting on the bodies.

Then they tore apart. Each wolf seemed to explode leaving a man in its place. She counted, what she could, and found one third of the men to have wings growing from their back. Those men seemed more to enjoy the entrails of the fallen which caused her again to waver a hand to her mouth to keep the rising vomit from spewing forth. The rest, they seemed more to enjoy bathing and supping on the vital fluid of each of the fallen. 'Vampire.' The name rang in her head before she closed her eyes, swallowing harshly at the burning lump in her throat. Her hand clamped tighter to her mouth before she managed to open her icy blue visage once again only to see a darkly clad man chanting a war cry for his beloved come streaking through the dark, through the bodies and crunching bones, through flickering flames of the building. Her lips parted in a sudden jolting cry as she braced herself, her one free hand trying to find a weapon upon her person. Nothing.

Mid jump, mid pounce, mid attack, golden flickers filled the air, roiling, roiling in the darkness, filtering, spinning, whizzing in a noise that hurt her ears. And suddenly, the man's paranoid face was captured within the confines of the golden cube that slowly shrunk, slowly filtered down, flitted down from the sky to fall before her feet.

"The Cube of Noth...” came her breathless whisper, lower lip trembling as her brow furrowed. Laughter surrounded her. Harsh horrid laughter that shook the trees, lifted the clouding smoke, lifted the darkness and dampened the flames. Images flashed before her in the sudden enlightened state, images that hurt her head, hurt her mind, hurt her heart.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Aensa: The Church

Kylus had been pacing back and forth with worries weighing heavily on his mind. A crate had been delivered that Paetines had taken in at some point while he was out doing daily devotions with the less fortunate. He couldn't remember who had delivered the crate and it had no known markings anywhere on the aging wood. Yet he could feel, inside, that there was something terrifying within that he needed to get into the vaults right away. Such a large package wasn't able to navigate the stairs, though, so he was resigned to opening the crate and needing to handle exactly what was inside.

“Kylus! Father Kylus!” It was Aensa. She had been staying with him for the past two weeks, taking the offerings of the church in helping her to become well once again. She was a strange woman with a strange past, as much he gathered. Straightening his robes he turned in her direction, a little dismayed when he saw the young man following close at her heels with some form of excitement. This could only mean bad things.

“Aensa. It is good to see you. How are you doing this evening?” He began to stride towards her, but immediately she walked right past him towards the large crate.

“Hey! What's this things ya gots here?” She began poking at the box and it took all his strength he could muster to not slap her hand away like some young child reaching for a burning log in a fire pit.

“It is simply a delivery that needs to be brought down into the vault. Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

“Ain't never gonna gets down the stairs likes that, Kylus.” Again she gave the box a good old slap on its side, hard enough that the priest cringed. “Ye wants me to open it up and get it down there fer ya?” Raziel waited patiently, as he always did, for her attention to move back to him. The priest had decided long ago that the two had a pretty strange dynamic, but it worked for them.

“No, Aensa. It will be alright.” With a glance towards the young man, the priest focused on Aensa once again. “Aensa, is there a reason you brought your friend here along? You know I can not allow such couplings under the roof of the church.”

With a quick thrust upwards, Aensa jumped atop the crate to sit, legs dangling downwards. Her heels knocked against the wood now and then in an idle rhythm. “I know. I was jest thinkin, I ain't gotta spend every night here, right? I means, ya gotta trust me a bits. I respect ya. I'm not abouts ta go and get back in the slump, ya know? I mean, hells bells, Kylus. I ain't no kid and you ain't not father. I mean, you are a father, yer jest not my father.” She was starting to ramble. It was obvious to the priest that this woman just needed a night away from the church to be herself. It wasn't as if he were holding her captive. To the contrary, she was the one that suggested she stay there in hopes of remembering what her mind had never forgotten. She was a lost soul in need of finding her way, and wasn't that what being a priest was all about?

“Aensa, it's fine. You can leave here any time you want. Just always remember that this place is your sanctuary. You can return whenever you need. Our doors are always open.”

“Yer always so good ta me, Kylus..” She jumped off the box with a grin. “Let me do somethin' fer you and get this monsters down into the vault fer ya.”

He quickly started towards her, waving his arms, “That isn't necessary, Aensa. Really,” but it was too late. Aensa had already wedged the top off the crate and was beginning to sift through the hay inside to find whatever it was that needed to go down stairs.

“What the-” came a mumbled retort to seeing the item for the first time. Up from the hay she lifted a heavy cube of some sort, plated in gold and looking much like a puzzle. It seemed as if she could just find the latching mechanism the whole thing would shatter into bits in her hands. It felt right in her hands. It felt familiar in her mind. But the feeling drifted and passed almost as quickly as it had come. The lopsided grin came easily to her face as she tossed the cube up in the air and caught it easily as it returned downwards. “Well, gonna be much easiers ta get it into the vaults now, eh Kylus?” Her azure gaze drifted to the priest. “Kylus?”

The priest stood, stricken with fear looking at the object. To him, too, it felt familiar. It did not feel right, though. It needed to be locked up and it needed to go now. His face drained of all color as his eyes sat trained on the cube in the woman's hand.

“Raz, grab the Father and brings him to his room. It's jest over there. Poor guy looks likes he's gonna fall down. I'll gets this thing locked in the basement and we can heads out.” She pointed out the direction of the priest's room and instructed Raz to just lay him in his bed. Hopefully after some sleep he would feel better. Herself, she started the journey down the winding stairs to the vault. After pushing the large bar out of its lock and opening the door, she placed the cube on the desk inside for inventorying and closed the massive iron door once again, barring it tightly. She knew once it was inventoried it would be properly locked away in the vaults and she was certain no harm would come to the cube until then. Paetine's would be back in the morning and give it it's number and lock it away, certainly.

On her way back up the stairs, she heard the door click to Kylus's room and figured Raz was ready to go. She met him by the exit and together, talking madly of what they planned to do when they got to their destination, they exited into the night. Just as the door began to close, there was a muffled noise so weak that Aensa wasn't certain she had heard it. With a simple shrug it was ignored and the door to the church closed for the night.

Kylus, on the other hand, had just opened his eyes from where he lay in his dark room on his bed to see the gleaming gold of the strange gift seated on his night stand beside his desk. The muffled noise was the cry of a man who feared he would be driven insane.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Aensa: Raziel

“Whaddya mean ya stopped drinking?” He held out the bottle of rum, brows furrowed together in worry.

“Raz, ya don't understands! I suddenly remember things agains. I remember whats I was doin', ya know? Yer still cute, kid. We don't needs no rum. Plus I gots that job with that Lightwind fella. I gots ta have a clear heads fer that, ya know?”

Aensa and Raz were sitting lazily by the docks, watching the ships as they loaded their cargo as the clouds melted into an inferno of color. The bottle of rum was finally, reluctantly, settled behind the young man as he kicked his feet lazily at the water. His eyes moved to look over at Aensa, pensive yet still grinning that silly lopsided smile of hers that he had come to love. She was certainly a special kind of woman, not at all like the dainty delicate types whose laughter sounded like tiny bells tinkling around in a glass bowl. No, Aensa had a full out deep and throaty laughter that swelled from the belly and bubbled out with true emotion. She didn't wear frilly lacy dresses or have the need to powder her nose. She didn't sip wine or cross her legs whenever she sat down. She didn't even remember to say please and thank you like most women. There were so many ways she was different from the others. It is what caused him to become so fond of her. He would dare to say he loved her.

“Sides, I lost who I was. There's so much at stakes, Raz. I keep getting' this feelin' in the pits of mah stomaches, ya know?” He nodded gingerly, eagerly, at her words. No. He had no idea what she meant, but it was so much easier to agree with her. Whenever he agreed she got large grin on her face and would wrap her arm around his shoulder with a jostling, just like she did this time. “Yer such a good listener, Raz. What woulds I do without ya?”

“Well, hopefully you wont ever need to find out!” The grin was wide as he looked up at her. If he was, in fact, a puppy, his tail would be wagging furiously at this point, pleased that he was able to please her so. He flopped against her, resting his head upon her shoulder as the sun set before them. He didn't consider it romantic, truly, since the only reason they were here at this moment was that this was when she got off of work. That and she worked at the docks. Some kind of book keeper. He didn't understand. He didn't really care. He just was happy that day in and day out that she asked him to come see her again and again.

“We should be getting' backs ta the church.” A scowl hit his face when she mentioned that, not really wanting to depart from her just this moment. “Kylus is gonna be mighty angry iffin' I don't gets back soon. Makes sure I stays sober, ya know?”

“Yeah. I know. But you don't work tomorrow, right?” Again the tail began to wag in hope.

“I... yeah. No workin' here at the docks. But I gots some business.”

“Oh.” His face drooped as he thought this meant the end to their getting together.

“Will ya meets me at the fountain tomorrow? Maybe arounds noon?” He nearly jumped for joy at the thought of it and showed his reply with enthusiastic nodding which made her laugh her merry soulful laugh, thick and rich and straight from her core. “Ya know, Raz... maybe we can jest checks in with the priest and I can spends the nights with you, yeah?” The thought of it nearly made him melt off the dock.

“Well, we best be getting you back to the church then, huh?”