Xilanada - Descending Dark Of Past And Future/Part 16

"The Descending Sun has been taken, my Mistress."

The guise of Rainblown Joybringer stirred on the bed's sheets. His eyes opened but it was the Lunar Solitary Coil who looked out from beneath those almost-feminine eyelashes. She brushed Rainblown's long velvety hair back, letting it fall to the rumpled bed.

Next to her, Piiro lay asleep, enshrouded in lace and flower and veil. She hadn't asked him why. Given what the Abyssal were, it seemed obvious why he chose to sleep prepared for the grave. The fact was, he was sleeping with her in truth now and that had been a pleasant change.

Too long had her bed been empty.

"Where?" she whispered into the air. She knew the old nickname for the Twilight and she knew it could mean no one else than the one she sought.

A faint spidery-gold trail of light, like a small host of indistinct fireflies, spilled into the air in front of her. Solitary Coil breathed it in, knowing that her Demon Wasp, the Agata, was answering her in a way more telling than words. One breath, silky sour like apples and honey, then another. And her nostrils burned as images entered her mind, almost sealed out by her reflexive mental defenses.

Xilanada, being kidnapped by a small group of roughs. Xilanada fighting back, flooring several. Xilanada, being captured as Juachius, Goddess of Contractual Punishment, robbed her of her ability to move. Xilanada, taken through the halls, out into the night, and into a carriage before moving beyond the Agata's freedom to roam.

"The Blessed Moon wept!" she cursed. She stood and dressed in a hurry, not bothering to be quiet. Piiro didn't just look like the dead, he slept like them, one reason she guessed he'd been reluctant to slumber near her before now. The blood she'd spilled and the truth he'd given her had bound them together in a way neither had expected. Even now...she actually thought about staying.

Xilanada had rejected her. Why should she go to the woman's rescue, when she had chosen the path of weakness? Piiro was a fine mate in his own way, in spirit even more than in body. He could give her strong children. Xilanada...most certainly could not, not without the help of a Neomah.

Solitary Coil snickered despite herself at the thought. It would guarantee that she could carry her Solar mate's baby. Or that her mate could carry hers. Oh yes, that was funny.

The snickering subsided and Coil sighed as she belted a loose robe around the middle. There it was. She wasn't over Xilanada. Maybe she couldn't be. One way or another, she wanted the pretty little blonde that her husband had become and, the Moon damn her otherwise, she was going after her even now.

Coil snarled as she slipped sandals on and moved to the window. She pushed the lacquered wooden-framed glass open and sailed through it with an effortless leap. Rainblown was not as hardy as she was but he was hardy enough for her purposes, which was good. The trail was growing cold.

She took a deep breath, breathing in her Essence as she did the air, and sorted through the thousands of smells in the air. There, the quintessential element of Xilanada, the sticky-hot smell that prompted the most embarrassing reaction. Stupid men and their anatomy. She just had to go pick a male to kill and replace, hadn't she?

But Xilanada's scent was in her nose and, now that the trail lay before her, Coil found herself sprinting in pursuit. Exhilaration filled her as she raced through the night. The moon would be gone tomorrow night and the nearness of her fixed cycle added to the excitement as her caste mark itched on her forehead. The aggravation of the past few weeks was fading fast as the thrilling prospect of seeing her love again filled her.

At the front of the School, someone had taken Xilanada by carriage, just as the Agata had said. Two horses, nine men...and her mate. Now that she was closer, she could begin to pick out more subtle gradations in scent. There was blood smell from the thugs' aroma. Some had been hurt. For her mate...no blood, but there was definitely fear/terror/pain in Xilanada's scent. As she followed, the mix became stronger until it became that peculiar odor only the suicidally desperate achieved.

Coil cursed and poured on the speed, not bothering to pay any further attention to the trail's contents. Xilanada was so much weaker than Final Starry Night had been but she was still the...woman that called to her, that she was meant to be with. That ruffian Coil had gutted for a Bone Lion, whatever his name had been...he'd had this same kind of smell on him. Xilanada, Exalt or no, was in fear for her very life.

The trail led into the even richer sections of Nexus until Coil looked up and saw its conclusion. Towering over here lay the headquarters of the Guild. It was tremendously tall and imposing in the dusky shadow of nighttime. Coil had seen taller mountains certainly, even taller cliffs, but nothing quite so large man-made, not intact.

No matter. Xilanada was inside. She had to get to her.

Rainblown Joybringer was athletic enough but not up to scaling the tower. Thankfully, the body was simply a shell, one Coil was able to work her Charms through as easily as her own. Coil abandoned her sandals and began going right up the side of the Guild Tower.

The further up she went, the more potent the Tower's defenses got. She was scaling the edifice through sheer Essence application and skill, having already assumed that claws could trigger some mechanism she wouldn't care for. It was a difficult climb, but very predictable. She could have circumvented all of this by simply becoming a bird of course. Then again, you never knew who was watching. For her masquerade to work, Rainblown's disguise had to remain inviolate.

She paused by window after window, scenting beneath the cracks for the familiar smell. It wasn't exactly time consuming but it was tedious. Coil found herself relieved when an abnormal silence caught her notice. The complete absence of sound, sudden as it was, had a number of implications, among them a Dragon-Blooded assassin. It was the only lead she had at the moment, though, so she moved toward it.

The Lunar crouched outside a room on the windowsill as she peered in. The sight before Coil almost made her lose her balance. She snarled, her claws flashing from Rainblown's fingers reflexively, and she dived through the glass.

For a bedroom, it was magnificently spacious and comfortable, rivaling the living quarters of the Solar-Aspected Manse Final Starry Night had once seized. It was that luxurious. A Merchant-Prince, rich in his coat, was flanked by a dozen thugs; those whose violent occupation was plain no matter how you dressed them up.

They were screaming.

Snake-like tentacles churned through the room, transforming this height of the Second Age into a nightmarish scene from one of the demon-summoning books Coil had long ago read. The glossy black tendrils were toying with the men, letting themselves be batted away even as more seized the thugs, one by one, from behind. Those taken screamed even more loudly once drawn back into the source of the tentacles and Coil had heard the sounds of body's being rent asunder enough to know that was what she was hearing.

Where was Xilanada?

"What is that thing?" she asked instead, knowing the Agata and her Erymanthus' had followed her as easily as any unmanifested being could. Thankfully, the void of sound seemed to block noise beyond a point but wasn't a dead zone on the inside.

The men were almost all dead and still no sign of her Solar. Given the prowess of the entity doing this, Coil rather doubted her minions could stand against it, but where their might failed, hers prevailed. Assuming she knew what she was dealing with.

"It is Hseiseh," the Demon Wasp whispered in her ear. Coil frowned and shook her head, not recognizing the name. "A powerful demon of the Second Circle, my Mistress. We are no match for him." She smirked, hearing the closest the demon would come to pleading for its own life.

"Tell me of him."

"He is the Prince of Soiled Purity, the Vizar of Lost Innocence. He is the Indulgent Soul of Erembour. It amuses him to bear Hseiseh the Churl as his speaking name, to blaspheme against the Dragon he hates so, for theirs is an old rivalry. Be wary, my Mistress, for the Prince is also of the element of Hate, Murder and Lust."

"Does he have any weaknesses?" Coil asked insistently.

"He cannot abide the touch of sunlight or virginity."

Solitary Coil rolled Rainblown's eyes. No help there. A Second Circle demon? She had bound their like before but it was a difficult proposition without extensive research. This kind was completely new to her and that could be deadly. Banishing, though, that she knew. Even a foreign Second Circle could be expelled but it would take a lot of strength. What other choice was there?

The tentacles lashed their surroundings but Coil moved with a speed and grace impossible for any mortal to achieve. When a tentacle tried to trip her, she simply leapt onto it and ran down its length, toward the source. The closer she got, the further away the center seemed, though. That was odd. The room wasn't that big.

A coming green haze in the air made her stomach clench. That wasn't just a demon, that was a tear in the Tapestry!

Coil gathered up all her strength, ready for desperate battle. She couldn't banish anything if the bulk of it lay in the Yozi Realm. Her instincts cried for her to run but...but Xilanada. She couldn't leave her. Fetching as Piiro was, as much as his sadism suited her, her heart and soul were already bound. Solitary Coil had spent the several centuries of her life alone, not wanting company. Final Starry Night had changed that...and she couldn't go back to being the Lunar she'd been before.

A hundred feet in, she saw the spectacle of the beast before her. Hanging in the air of the bedroom was a great gaping maw of a rift. From it, a hundred inky black coils waved across the room, the walls, the air, everything they could reach. Within the rift, some kind of dark outline could distantly be seen. Whatever it was...it had Xilanada.

"Demon Hseiseh!" she screamed in Rainblown's voice. The tentacles quelled. She had his attention. "Prince of the Second Circle and kin to Erembour, I presume?" The quiescence of the spiraling limbs encouraged her. "I stand between you and Creation. So will others, as you doubtlessly know. I make you a pledge, Demon Hseiseh, Great Lord, to stand aside for though I possess powers that can bind you back, I want the woman more than I want you. Release her to me and come to Creation with my blessing."

"Insolent animal," sneered a gravelly voice, vibrant with rich contempt. "Your magics are nothing to me. No matter what, I do not intend to relinquish...my prize."

The tentacles parted enough to show Xilanada. Her Solar mate's body was bent back in the air, just inside the maw of the rift. All the clothes had been stripped from her and, from the way the strands of the demon were coiling, the demon had her in every sense of the word.

Coil grimaced. That was not pretty. It would have been worse, but for the vacuous look on Xilanada's face. Her eyes were wide and she was quite clearly not remotely aware of what was happening to her.

"She's a woman," Coil called back, at once grateful for the form she wore. "What's one woman to you? You could have hundreds, in this Tower alone. Give her to me, Demon Hseiseh, and come forth to conquer worthier prey."

"Worthy or not, this woman pleases me. The trap meant for those here would only have allowed me to slaughter them and little else. Through her, though...I can return more fully." He sneered at her again.

"She can't possibly have enough blood for that," Solitary Coil sneered back. "Nor are you likely to get enough passion from her in that state."

"Neither blood nor passion," he said, almost agreeably. "There is a hole in the Tapestry, though, and it is she. Her threads are hopelessly tangled and, through that flaw, I can make my presence felt. I will not give her up."

Xilanada, a hole? How? Damn, if only those texts on the Loom of Fate had been more complete. She'd always meant to go to Heaven and study their libraries first-hand. Now she wished she had.

"Demon Hseiseh! I will not permit you to keep her!"

"Then take her!"

Hundreds of tentacles slammed into the ground where she'd been standing. The demon was quick but Solitary Coil was the essence of poetic grace and agility as she bound away from the impact zone, springing off a wall and somersaulting toward her mate. More tentacles sped in and her claws flashed forth.

Demon ichor spilled across the floor, like a painter throwing a vat at a canvas. Solitary Coil was that artist and she unleashed all of her rage and hate at her situation against her enemy. She severed some limbs, gored others, even sank envenomed teeth into what she could reach.

Still the Prince pressed her. Coil began evading blow after blow, shifting like moonsilver so one limb struck another. Hseiseh didn't slow. She screamed her frustration as she was forced to give ground. The demon...was too much! She knew Sorcery that might beat back such a monster but she was too close. It would rip her apart if she paused long enough to direct Essence into Circle-level effects.

"Night!" she yelled, Rainblown Joybringer's voice hardly carrying over the repeated thuds of tentacles against the ground and the delectable sound of demon blood pouring from eviscerated flesh. "Night, wake up!"

Xilanada hung in the tentacles, limp. She wasn't moving. What had happened to her? What had that demon done!

"Night!" No use. Coil gritted her teeth as she clove another tentacle in two. "Xilanada!" Her Solar mate lay limply as the demon had its way with her with one set of its limbs, even as another set was pressing Coil harder than she'd ever had to fight before.

"Luna's blood damn her," she mumbled under her breath as her Caste Mark flared into life from Essence expenditure, followed by her Anima. Rainblown's body fell away, revealing her true form. At once the tentacles paused...before aggressively renewing their attack. A sick realization cramped her stomach as she realized their angle had changed, that they were trying to subdue her now. Her unfortunate mate's condition gave her no illusions what would happen if they succeeded.

"Final Starry Night! Xilanada! Help me!"

Solitary Coil didn't have to feign frightened desperation in her cry. But at last it caused a reaction. Xilanada blinked once. Then she blinked again and lifted her head, looking like the effort was costing her.

Coil screamed again as two tentacles penetrated the blur of her claws to lift her from the ground. She cut them, fell a foot, and was carried up yet higher by more. They were grappling her faster than she could slice through them!

"Xilanada! May the Unconquered Sun turn your soul into a tyrant lizard in your next life if you do not wake up right now and help me!"

Xilanada yawned of all things and shook her head. Her eyes did not seem focused and she was having trouble getting her bearings, that much was obvious. Then, a look of absolute shock crossed the face of Coil's mate. Just noticed the tentacles, had she? Coil would have grinned if not for two things; that it wasn't funny and that she might be next.

"No!"

Xilanada's voice boomed forth, impossibly loud from such a small girl. Her mouth was open and she wore a savage expression. Tentacles pinned one of Coil's arms even as hope flickered within her. In Xilanada's eyes, she'd seen sunlight.

"It is too late for you!" the Demon Prince thundered in that malevolently vibrant way he had. "You were only a tool to me before but, now that you wake, I shall enjoy you as I have countless millions before you!"

Solitary Coil snarled as the tentacles locked down her other arm, tussling her up too fast to do much more than struggle futilely against their strength. She bit one that went for her mouth and squirmed that much harder when she felt one graze along her bound legs. That was just not happening.

"Your kind lost ages ago," Xilanada shouted. Her body was slick with sweat, shuddering from fighting the tentacles, but her face was that blackly impassive visage of power Coil had seen before. "You forget that the Exalted were made to fight your kind especially...and against me, you have no hope but to flee!"

Impossibly, Xilanada's Anima seemed to burst from every pore of her skin, rising out of her like water from a grate. It spilled across her body and, where it went, the tentacles recoiled as if burned. Solitary Coil had a single glimpse of her mate's undeniably attractive physique before her nakedness was obscured by a magnificent dress that flowed from the sunlight. It billowed out, draping her in swaths of sunbeams, and the train snapped the air where it stretched fully fifty feet behind her.

The tentacles holding her spasmed, even as the world itself seemed to. Solitary Coil gawked as the Book Burning By Enlightened Will flamed into existence above Xilanada...and the burning light of her aura turned the air black, sending ripples of reaction in all directions. All about her, Coil realized that a noisy roar so omnipresent she hadn't even heard it had stilled.

That was never a good sign.

The Demon Prince's tentacles withdrew as the hazy black bulk of its body shifted its full attention on Xilanada. For her part, magical runes flew about her, a Sorcery that coalesced into a diamond-like shaft of light in the shape of a sword. The Destroyer of Grey Falls took the sword up and pointed it at the demon.

"I give you this single chance to withdraw, before I unleash my Ghost-Eating Technique against you. I am skilled enough to see you destroyed, no matter your strength or importance here. Flee. I will spare you."

The beast hesitated, considering the two of them. It only took a moment. The tentacles flailed about like a whirlwind as it spun and shot straight off into the inky green blackness beyond. It reminded her of a squid. As its bulk moved away, Coil saw the entirety of Malfaes laid out before her, the damned realm of Hell where the Yozi's even now hungered for release. A release just like the one Coil was looking through.

"Xilanada, to me! You must get out of there!" Coil begged. The Destroyer didn't so much as walk as she floated yet she drew closer all the same. Xilanda's girlish body seemed to gain in size and substance. Then, she was standing in front of Coil, smaller again in person yet no less glorious for it.

The Twilight Solar raised her hand back toward the rift...and abruptly, the rift was gone and a closed box lay in her palm. The Destroyer smirked at the deeply burnished wooden container. With a single deliberate movement, she closed her hand around it, shattering the wood into splinters that broke further against her skin.

"Are you...alright?" Coil asked, stepping reflexively to her mate and caressing her face. The touch of Xilanada's skin was like blissful desert sand, a comforting familiar heat that sparked up her whole arm. Xilanada shivered, apparently as affected as Coil by the touch.

"I'm fine, Coil," she said. Looking closely, Solitary Coil realized that her eyes were still unfocused. What had happened to her? "I'll be fine," she repeated and smiled dreamily. "I'm just a little...drugged and a whole lot violated." The smile fell away and she shuddered at the memory of it. Coil shuddered with her.

Slowly, Solitary Coil felt something she'd never really felt before; genuine sympathy. Her love for Final Starry Night had always been the purest thing she'd ever felt, an emotion that made it natural to be as unnaturally close as they had been together; a Dune Person and an outsider. But he was male to her female and in an alien kind of way that hardly made sense even when she'd donned a man's form, as she recently had. Now she could relate to the Twilight in one more way she'd never thought possible. What Xilanada had just been through softened her. Though it didn't explain why she was acting so...strangely.

"What happened to you?" Coil asked, brushing the shining strands of curly golden hair away from her love's face. Xilanada looked like she was trying to focus but she couldn't quite manage it.

"I damned myself," Xilanada said, with a sudden heartfelt bitterness that cut through her haze and made Coil flinch. "That Guild Factor thought I was Captive Smile, his slave. I suppose she was the person I traded lives with. He captured me earlier this evening and brought me here. Along the way, he...injected me with something."

Coil lowered her head to Xilanada's neck and inhaled. Yes, there was that smell again, the same one that had fouled her husband's body when she had tracked him down. Coil's lip rose despite herself, baring teeth. "You're stoned. Really stoned"

"Oh yeah," Xilanada said, bobbing her head agreeably. "It made it a lot harder to reattune my Anima. I almost didn't hear your yelling. I'm sorry."

"Why would this dijellta give you what he must have thought was pleasure?" Solitary Coil hated the suspicion that crept into her voice but she couldn't help it. Escaping one's life through intoxicants was one of the worst things imaginable. She tried not to think how Final Starry Night's change amounted to the same thing.

"He was hoping to addict me again," she answered. Anger managed its way past those blank features and the golden dress of sun and flame billowed furiously behind her, the train sparking where it struck the back wall. "He really didn't believe that I was someone else. I'm not his Captive Smile. And I'm stronger than this, no matter what this body wants."

"Good," Coil growled. The Bright Morning colored Xilanada's aroma but the smell of truth was still on her. "Are you also done with this...occupation you've made for yourself? You embraced your powers again, Xilanada, yes I'll call you that now. Have you decided to embrace your destiny at last?"

"I'm a schoolteacher," Xilanada said softly. "I don't want to be anything more than that."

"These are words we've had before," Coil said, trying not to grit her teeth at the frustrating woman. "Surely you must realize how impossible they are. You are meant for so much more than any School, Xilanada. And it comes to you, or haven't you noticed? The riots. The assassination attempt I heard about too late. Now this. You may snub your identity but I don't think the Unconquered Sun releases His Chosen so easily. We are both weapons."

"Maybe you're right," Xilanada said. A serene smile came over her face. "I don't know and I know that's really going to worry me later. Right now...I just don't care."

"I wish you'd studied Medicine Charms," Coil muttered irritably. "Then you could purify yourself of those mind-killing plants."

"It's not so bad, Coil," Xilanada said, her smile growing wider. "I won't let it happen again...but I'll tell you...I feel...wonderful. Just wonderful." She twirled to demonstrate, the Impenetrable Sunmailed dress spinning with her in a showery display of light and warmth. "I wish you knew what it was like, Coil."

"Luna spit me on a spear, no," Coil said, almost gagging at the thought. She'd deliberately put the reasons for her aversion out of mind centuries ago and had no intention of bringing them up now. "You know how I feel about that."

"Not drugs, no. Happiness. Feeling good. Feeling like life is really good."

"This is the Age of Sorrows, Xilanada," Coil snapped back. "That hope is an illusion."

"It's not supposed to be that way," the Solar said, rubbing at her eyes and obviously trying to focus again. "Coil, you're so strong. You can do so much and you know so much. Has it never occurred to you to do something good with that? Haven't you ever wanted to make a difference? Haven't you ever wanted to know what real happiness is?" Xilanada's passion shone as brightly as her Anima did, thanks to the drugs that robbed her of her reserve.

"I already knew what it was," Solitary Coil answered grimly. "Final Starry Night showed it to me."

Xilanada only sighed and abruptly hugged her. It was nothing like hugging Final Starry Night, even if the thrill was the same. For one thing, Final Starry Night had been a bit taller than she was and Xilanada was quite a bit shorter instead. Coil felt herself flush as the blonde woman rubbed her face against Coil's chest.

"Do you really miss him that much?" Xilanada asked with a voice muffled by Coil's robe, now ill-fitting thanks to her Anima dispelling Rainblown's form. The Twilight hummed contentedly as she continued to hold on. Solitary Coil wound her arms around her Solar mate and rested her chin on top of her head.

"Not at the moment," she said honestly. Coil's skin abruptly crawled as she realized what that meant and how she was feeling right now. A sour taste rose in the back of her throat at the thought of intimacy with another woman. But...this was her Solar. A Solar who was purring against her.

Luna was mocking her Chosen, obviously. Instead of seducing Xilanada, she was being seduced.

Solitary Coil took a deep breath and tilted Xilanada's face up toward her. The golden halo was no longer painfully bright but still the woman glowed. Her face more than glowed; it was radiantly beautiful with joy, an expression Coil had never expected to see directed at her.

Xilanada's bitter words from weeks ago echoed in Coil's head. The Solar was not in her right mind. Quite the contrary, she was laced with enough mind-altering substances that Coil wondered if she could catch a buzz just from skin contact. Her body cried out for her Solar's touch, yearned and ached for it, but her mind hesitated. Was this taking advantage?

Did it matter? They were wedded, joined by the Unconquered Sun and Luna Themselves. They were meant to be together.

Solitary Coil lifted up Xilanada's left hand and kissed her fingertips as she channeled a flow of Essence just so. In her other hand, a small Egg Cache appeared from Elsewhere. Xilanada looked dimly interested but Coil distracted her with their first kiss, working the container's contents out of it and into her palm without looking. Her fingers nimbly slid her oricalcum wedding band on, then just as nimbly fit Xilanada's moonsilver band over her wedding finger.

Locking her left hand in Xilanada's, feeling the metal of the rings clink together, Solitary Coil sank a stream of her internal Essence deep into her band. The oricalcum resonated with her Anima peculiarly. Then...Coil felt it, felt the sensation of her wife come alive in her mind. The silvery glow that rose around Coil's gold band shifted and mixed with the moonsilver band on the Twilight's finger, giving rise to a golden glow from the glossy Magic Material.

Solitary Coil took in the slightly puzzled look on Xilanada's face and sighed. The Solar was so stoned she hadn't realized she was attuning. Maybe this was taking advantage of her. But Coil's conscience was clear. Xilanada had abandoned her, ran away from her and shoved her away when she wouldn't go. All Coil intended was to make things the way they were, the way they should be.

She swept Xilanada back into her embrace, kissed her passionately, and showed her exactly what Lunar mates were meant to do to their Solars.