LJ IDOL - Week 7
Prompt: Steadfast
A strange girl with a full head and an empty heart sat huddled in my doorway. Her chin was rested against her knees, which were pulled up to her chest; her long blonde hair cascading down her shoulders and shielding her face. It was raining, though she seemed to pay the inclement weather no mind. Rivulets of water ran down her bare arms and dripped down off the ends of her elbows. Large droplets splashed against her dirty, grey sneakers.
Her presence itself was unusual enough, but from my place halfway down the alley, through a veil of steady rain, something even more curious caught my eye. I pulled my hood tighter around my head as I approached, stomping heavily in every puddle that crossed my path. I figured my conspicuous movement would draw her attention, but it wasn’t until I stopped directly in front of her, arms crossed, that she finally looked up.
Her eyes were a deep, mossy green, but they were lifeless and cold. They were dull. Flat. Like the eyes of a fresh corpse. From beneath my hood, I cocked an eyebrow and tilted my head, my curiosity piqued even further. But, I was also soaked through to the bone and my clothes hung heavy and wet against my skin. I was amused, but I was more uncomfortable. She, however, seemed unfazed and continued to stare up at me blankly.
“Uh, you’re in my way,” I growled, motioning towards the door behind her.
She slowly turned her head to look.
“Oh.” Her tone was monotonous, but she quickly scooted off my stoop and down onto the curb.
I stared at her incredulously. Were her legs broken? Was she really going to just sit there? Did she even realize it was raining? Somehow she seemed even more impossibly drenched than I was, yet she was making no move to find shelter. And then, of course, there was the matter of her aura, which was what had given me pause in the first place.
All of these questions and curiosities swirled around in my head, but I simply shrugged and moved past her. I knew better then to get involved. If there was one thing I could be certain of, it was that she would bring me trouble, and trouble was something I wanted none of. I didn’t have the luxury of chasing a whim or exploring a curiosity. I had a job and a purpose. The line I walked along was straight and narrow. Yet, as I pushed the heavy metal door open and took a step over the threshold, I made the mistake of tossing one more look over my shoulder.
Her aura was like an oil spill - muted swirls of rainbow against a muddled, grey backdrop. Even through the thick curtain of rain, it somehow found a source of light to reflect, rippling like a liquid prism. I’d never seen anything like it.
It took all of my willpower to tear my gaze away, but then I had none left to continue on, to go inside and close the door behind me, leaving that bizarre, pathetic girl alone out in the dark, wet alley.
For 658 years my resolve had never wavered. I had never entertained distractions. I had come across plenty of interesting and bizarre things and afforded them no attention, and yet her pull was too strong to ignore. I considered the very real possibility that something otherworldly was to blame for this connection. Maybe I was being tested. I knew better than to involve myself. Surely, nothing good would come from it. No matter how unique she might be, no matter how much her presence puzzled me, I knew it would be a mistake to engage any further.
Don’t do it. Walk away.
I pushed my palms against my eyes and audibly groaned, then twisted back around.
“You. Come.”
I didn’t wait to hear a response or to see if she made a move to follow my command. A large part of me hoped I would be completely ignored. Certainly any rational girl would disregard such a risky demand from an unfamiliar, and frankly ominous-looking, stranger.
I entered my extremely humble abode and turned to close the door behind me, immediately and unexpectedly slamming into the small, strange girl. Her head came up only to the middle of my chest and I was sure my momentum had been strong, yet she didn’t stumble back. In fact, her face simply stayed pressed into the front of my wet hoodie for the few seconds it took me to regain my composure and step to the side.
Her empty green eyes peered through her curtain of damp, limp hair as she glanced around the one room hovel I called home.
“You live here?” she whispered.
Her voice lacked any tone of judgement or surprise. In fact, it lacked the presence of any emotion whatsoever. Still, I found myself feeling the tiniest sliver of embarrassment as I followed her gaze around the unkempt room. The feeling annoyed me.
Sure, it was quite pitiful, but it was plenty sufficient for someone like me. The floor was concrete and a few pages of old newspaper and take out food brochures were scattered about. There was an old, wood burning stove in the corner and a small refrigerator next to that. A beer crate had been upturned and repurposed into a table which was stacked with a few mismatched plates and cups. There was a shabby blue couch against the far wall with a thin, brown blanket tossed over the arm. For the first time, I noticed a rip in the left-most cushion where puffs of stuffing had started spilling out. Below that an open bag of orange cheese balls littered the ground.
I cleared my throat and rubbed the back of my neck over my wet hood.
“Uh, yeah. I do.”
Irritated and tired of the charade, I quickly turned and leaned over her to close the door, pulling my hood down to my shoulders as I towered above her. She had been either really brave or really stupid to come this far, but once I revealed my true nature she would certainly realize her mistake and go running from this place. I wanted to make a clean exit as easy as possible for her and so I paused, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Slowly, she looked up, her stringy blonde hair falling away from her face and exposing a tiny pointed nose and a pair of small, pink lips. Her skin was deathly pale and her features were delicate. I waited expectantly for them to twist into horror. I waited for her to bolt away from me, back into the dreary alley and the cold rain.
But, none of that happened.
She stared at me; slowly studied my face from the chin up and stopped, predictably, at my eyes. The irises were silver and luminescent, like shallow pools of liquid mercury. One dark pupil was significantly larger than the other and the scleras were unnaturally black. They were unusual and they represented danger.
“Oh.”
Oh? I blinked at her incredulously a few times then pushed the door closed, realizing she had no intention of moving, let alone fleeing. A weird tugging sensation pulled in my chest, but I pointedly ignored it, turning away instead and pulling off my damp hooded sweatshirt. I laid it on the floor in front of the stove and tossed a lit match into the firebox. Then I opened the fridge, revealing a single bottle of beer.
“Um, you want this?” I asked, standing and holding it up.
She shook her head from her place by the door. I shrugged and popped the metal cap off with my thumb. As I brought the beer to my lips, I noticed a dark red stain on the cuff of my undershirt sleeve. Self-consciously, I rolled it up with my free hand and glanced at her from around the bottle, but she didn’t seem to be paying me any attention.
“You can come in further, ya know,” I said, crossing the small room and flopping down onto the couch. I used the heel of my boot to push the open bag of cheese puffs back under the ratty piece of furniture.
She inched closer and then slowly sunk to the floor, cross-legged, a few feet away from me. I wasn’t sure if she was purposely keeping her distance or if she had simply lost the will or the energy to move any further than that. It was quiet for a moment, save for the gentle pitter-patter of rain outside, but then, much to my surprise, she spoke.
“You kill people,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “I know what you are. You kill people with bad auras.” It was the longest string of words she’d offered me so far and for a moment it caught me off guard. It was a statement, simple and direct, but she didn’t sound accusatory or disgusted.
“Black auras,” I corrected after taking a swig of beer and regaining my composure. “Lots of people have bad auras, but black auras…” I paused and tilted my head. I’d never had this conversation before and I wasn’t entirely sure why I was having it now. I looked at her and she stared back, her expression earnest. For the first time, she looked alive. More surprising than that, her aura swelled and brightened, the bands of colors seeming to vibrate with anticipation. I found myself continuing on. “Once an aura goes black, they’re past the point of no return. If you leave someone like that, well… they become something else.”
“A demon?” she asked. She had shifted her position and was leaning forward on her knees now.
“I guess.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t care,” I answered sharply. “I don’t ask questions. I just do as I’m told.”
She looked down at the floor and silence stretched between us. I felt an itch of disappointment, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. It made me feel restless and awkward and I found myself racking my brain in search of something else to say. I cleared my throat and rolled the beer bottle between my palms.
“You got a name?”
“Rachel.” She paused then asked, “What’s yours?”
I laughed bitterly and shook my head. “I don’t have one. Or I don’t remember it, at least. I’m sure I had one at some point. A long time ago.”
I watched as she slowly inched closer to me, her eyes wide, her aura flickering with deep blues and dark reds and muddy greens.
“You’re not like me, are you?”
“I’m not sure anyone is like you,” I scoffed, without a hint of sarcasm.
“No, I mean, you’re an Endless.”
I sighed and rubbed my chin. “Technically speaking, I suppose, but no one refers to us like that. If you’re being polite, the lay term is Aurator. Most people aren’t polite, though.”
She nodded slowly. Her expression was a blank, empty canvas, but she tilted her head curiously.
“What did you mean by ‘you’re not sure anyone is like me’?”
I shrugged and felt my lips pull into a small smirk. “Well, for one, your aura. It’s… strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Most people’s aura is a singular, muted color. It can brighten or darken a bit depending on their mood, but that’s about the extent of it. Yours… it’s… different. It’s every color, somehow.”
“What color is your aura?” she asked, her gaze moving along the outline of my body. It made me feel uncomfortable. I crossed my legs and cleared my throat.
“I don’t have one.”
“Well, at least you don't have to worry about it turning black.” Her eyes seemed to brighten with the tiniest flicker of light.
I considered her reaction and a thought popped into my head. It would explain her lack of fear and trepidation in her dealings with me if I wasn’t the first Aurator she’d ever run into.
“Your aura,” I asked, cocking an eyebrow, “has it given you trouble before?”
“No. I never really… got out much. Not until recently, anyway.”
Her cryptic response didn’t satisfy my curiosity and I wasn’t sure how it was even relevant to my question, but she didn’t seem willing to offer any more of an explanation. I let the conversation drop and finished the rest of my beer. It had been a long day and this bizarre, unexpected encounter had made it longer still. It was also the most social interaction I’d had with a mortal in a very long while. For hundreds of years my routine had been strict and unchanging. Every day was more or less the same as the one before. This was so far from the norm that it had exhausted me. I stood up, grabbed the scratchy, brown blanket and tossed it at her.
“You can take the couch,” I said.
If she protested, I didn’t hear it. I moved to the front of the wooden stove and laid down on the hard stone floor, curling up on my side and pulling the still damp hoodie over my shoulders. I kept my back to her as I closed my eyes, visions of oscillating rainbows playing behind my lids as I slipped into unconsciousness.
What followed was the most naturally unnatural companionship. A quiet, human girl with a dazzling aura and a tall, nameless Aurator shared a barren room with cold floors and only a wood burning stove as a source of light. We didn’t talk much nor did we really spend a significant amount of time together. We didn’t discuss where I went and we didn’t discuss where she’d come from. I would leave most mornings before she woke and return well after dusk. Sometimes she’d have a small meal prepared when I got back. Sometimes I’d find her sitting on the couch staring blankly at the walls, her eyes dull and her aura bright. One night, as I returned home, I found her in the alley, dragging a shoddy mattress across the cobblestone street. I didn’t ask any questions, I just simple grabbed one end and helped her lug it through the door. I didn’t have to sleep on the hard floor in front of the fire that night or any night thereafter. From this new vantage point, however, I found myself staring at her restless form curled up on the couch more often than I was comfortable with. I ended up pushing the mattress as far away across the room as possible and started sleeping facing the wall.
We continued on like this and somewhere along the way, things started to change. The changes were small, but to someone who had known a strict routine for as long as I had, they felt tremendous. I noticed that it took me longer to get going in the mornings and I caught myself looking forward to the time of night when I could finally head home. I doubted she was ever actively waiting for me to return, but just knowing she was there at the end of the day made the cycle less unsavory. It wasn’t that I hated my job, but I also didn’t particularly like it either. I just simply did it because it was what was required of me. It was my purpose. Aurators were not a welcomed bunch by any means, as our presence usually signified impending death, but we were told our job was important. When an aura went black, a person changed. In fact, they were no longer a person at all. They became a sort of conduit between the planes. Leave too many black auras roaming around and you’d be inviting creatures much more ominous and deadly than Aurators to walk the mortal realm. And so we were dispatched to take care of these situations. My weapon of choice was a push dagger with a matte black blade and a silver grip, sheathed at my hip. It was easy, quick and relatively painless for it’s victim. But the task never brought me any pleasure or satisfaction. I went through the motions because I had no choice. To reject my charge was to lose my purpose. It meant I wasn’t needed, and then I’d have no reason to exist. It wasn’t until Rachel had appeared on my doorstep that I realized hundreds of years of monotony had left me bitter and apathetic and cold.
More time passed and, at some point, I started attempting small talk. Born mostly out of boredom, progress was slow, but eventually I discovered that she liked books and begonias and thunderstorms. Still, trying to pull her out of her shell was usually a fruitless endeavor and she wasn’t ever much of a conversationalist, but it was fine because I found her fascinating to simply watch. I was intrigued by the way she would settle into a task, like sewing up the ripped couch or stacking old newspapers into a neat pile, but then randomly freeze and zone out, her large, empty eyes seeing something far beyond the bare four walls of the small room. Her aura would shift and cycle through colors so rapidly that it made my head swim. She was an enigma, a chromatic Rubix cube, completely unreachable and aloof and yet somehow she brought warmth to my empty, concrete home. She brought a bit of welcomed chaos to my staunch, dull existence.
Even more time passed and I found myself wondering things that I didn’t want to wonder. Things that made me abnormally irritated and uneasy. What her hair smelled like. How soft the skin on her bare shoulder felt. What her face would look like if she got genuinely excited. I found myself wishing I had a name, just so I could hear what it sounded like when she said it. But, there was an undeniable coldness that surrounded her. Most of the time, her eyes were somewhere else, somewhere far away that I didn’t even bother attempting to reach. She’d answer my questions, but she never asked any of her own. She seemed detached and distracted and her nights were spent tossing and turning on the small piece of couch. There were a lot of things I was starting to want, but most surprisingly, I found myself wanting to help her. I wanted to free her from the things that seemed to be holding her out of arm's reach. I had a few connections to other members of the Endless, immortals with far greater powers than I possessed, but involving a human in otherworldly affairs was always a potential dangerous arrangement.
Physically, I was still going through the motions that were expected of me. I was resolute in my duties and spent my days fulfilling the jobs I was assigned to do. But, my mind was wandering and wavering. There were tiny, nanosecond hesitations where there had been none before. There were new sparks of hopes and dreams that had long burned away many, many years ago. It felt like waking up. It felt like breaking free.
And then one day, I returned home to find that Rachel was missing and I knew I had gone too far. My divergence had been noticed. I’d stepped out of line. There was no evidence of foul play. It would be totally reasonable to think she had simply gone on her way and was now loitering in someone else’s doorway. Yet, somehow I knew. I knew the higher ups had their bony hands in this. For centuries I had never questioned anything. I had followed the rules. I had held to a strict schedule. I had investigated and sought out and dispatched the bad auras. I had fulfilled my purpose. But, my purpose was shifting and I was changing. A new priority was taking hold and, for the first time, I had ambitions all my own. I wanted to learn more about Rachel. I wanted to know the thoughts and emotions that hid behind her stoic facade. I wanted to spend time with her. To help her. I wanted to protect her.
But now she was gone. In order to do those things, I’d have to get her back. I’d be willfully breaking from my mold. I’d be making the conscious choice to veer off the path that had been chosen for me. I’d be breaking a 658 year habit and welcoming certain punishment. It seemed like a daunting choice, but, instantly, I’d made up my mind. I couldn’t just go back to my routine. Not anymore. I had to find her. And I knew just where to look.
Thank you for reading! I am a HUGE fan of the 'Character A's routine/boring life is upended by the unexpected presence of Character B' trope. As such, this prompt sparked an idea that ended up kinda getting away from me in terms of length and scope. I'd love to continue this piece one day and make it a longer work so any feedback is greatly appreciated, as always. ^.^![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
