The old streets of the unlondon glitched spaces with above ground at times, as if the spaces swapped places occasionally. One moment they are walking the side of cobble street of human city. The next they are climbing rubble of collapsed by war, blitz or broken empty version of Unlondon. The glitching was easy to navigate because the street layout is exactly as it was when the monkey puzzle trading house was at full hosting. So it is recent memories for her to pass this place like the back of her hand.
Her partner has been mute and not human for a long time now. She feels his cold... dead cold. She suspected this was the title of Ender while the host was long lost. It is as if the title is parasite that puppets the corpse. Normally the centipede lizards of such nature have warmth, this thing was empty. The soul of this thing felt consuming to be near, but its the consuming that is grounding her and she way to filled of energies always. There is potential that he was converted into a damned, Clothus or abyss creature of his own. Regardless, she kept him at her side. Regardless of what they are. Not even death do they part.
They make it around a rusted corridor, a sort of space station design - protype for constructing the space stations in practice here. The rust tunnel soon ended with a breeze opening that was covered in every inch of smoothed crystals. The open area was an massive reception hall with standing guards, a receptionist desk and there was even more very well carved arches to other areas. The air is clean, filtered and filled of artificial calming aroma therapy. Smells like salted lavender which made her trigger of knowing that was something her cult family would have requested.
There was standing crystal machines; part metal joints that is powered and controlled with the crystal cores that they are. Active beings being servants and staff. Wearing undertaker markers, demon court markers and there was the desk worker with a god crest... justice branching. There is waiting benches with normal looking people. Some are residents. There are a few humans in lab coats. There are hand cuffed captured agents that were the hackers from the SCP foundation.
She sweeps gaze at a bunch of the German speaking hissing with the set of mages she took from the train platform. The two sides in cuffs... alive. Not killed by the ritual of the blackhole. Or maybe they did and this is where they souls are transferred to. She thinks this over and then... she gets it.
They are the spirit bodies converted back to living by the ritual. They are successful passing the wormhole ritual from back then. This in mind, she sweeps more. Her shoulder was poked, and his hand pointed to a side room. A machine of more plate metal then crystal wafted them over. She takes his hand and they go over there. He slips her hands and shook. He walked away from meeting back. She sees he goes to the desk to talk to the machine alone. She goes into the private room.
"Thank the gods!" Philip clamps instantly around her, and she pats him softly. She scanned in about the folks... the gods - swapped back to those she should know. She sees the tomes were corrected from a trade about those. The vessel of her Loki is no longer containing the soul of the death soul. The death god has his own crystal body now, seated crossed arm with Omens. Omens... well his more abyss shape in human mock. Neon eyes and lips, a void black skin freak. Josh and Jessica... they are cremated in shared jar. Their tome passed on to the very fragile looking Daniel... his on his last leg. His timeline is coming to its end. Here just to pass over duty to Philip. Philip is in a reset body, reset mind and complete reborn. His a version that has no history with Daniel, Josh or Jess. Yet he knows her... Likely because she did help him as a enitity outside of the rules. She took a long time measuring... and then... well her husband is a busted Undertaker. He is barely kept... he been through a lot.
"The between times are rough times." She pets Philp's head and picked up the young boy, "The tome of souls is a record that keeps the density of an area in check. To many souls wrote on one page becomes problems. This is why the book is broken into its parts to maintain the balance." She goes into teaching mode, setting the young Philip onto Daniel's lap, "The books of life, death, duty and sleep." She pulled his current tome into these parts for this area, "Grim reapers or death gods will take the soul name from one segment, retranslate it and place it into the proper next segment that soul is path for. There is flaws but no systems are perfect. These flaws are useful and a big issue if you do so carelessly." She pulled the tome back whole, "You are to collect the souls that are removed off the book completely. The ones that don't want to be translated into the next page. This is a cruelty and a mercy. Souls sometimes just don't have the energies to continue. They leave the tome to no need be in a system. This is ok... for as long there is foundation and density keeping the reality whole."
She gave the new Philip the duty of ender. She taught him a few more sad things. That he must eat the souls or put them into the book as dust. The blood ink issues. The many maintaining the creepy books needs. She finds it grim as he did. He sees that she has had to do these things to survive. Now he has to too, for keeping the cursed book. Daniel is now able to pass over the last of his ender parts over this version. The cremation jar of him side beside Josh and Jess. Philip holds the book and ender mask. He nods and he casted a Glader made spell... and folded space to transfer him back to the world of his life. She stares at the empty spot with last checking the spell properly.
"Would you undo your hold of me?" she heard him and she softly collected the others into her. The jars sank through her void abyss face hole. She ate the tome parts. She tasted the things these souls learned language of while they weren't with her. She doesn't bother being human or mocking shape.
She just becomes whatever she is naturally. Her claws hands unties her bindings off his soul strings. Releasing their vows. His soul unshackled by her chains, lifted to heavenly realms. The clay corpse left behind is the busted one from the day her soul was meant to be sold... he fell backwards into the bathroom back then. Neck twisted... arm angle. Her work of untangled his soul threads. Now there are no soul threads, nothing in this empty vessel. She sinks the undertaker corpse in among many others she has in her domain of powers. His body added in her crown pond to be returned to clay. Private items are being sorted into the black market of purgatory sale or locked box as her own personal treasury. His soul released other souls. A whole mass of tome was left from her collection. She doesn't know where or who. She doesn't bother chasing shadows.
"You did my work for me." Death tuts, and she pays him exactly how she has always. She passed over mail, sand and coins. He accepted this and this version death leaves. There isn't any point of him being here. She looked to Omens and the Loki. Her Loki is a float set of bones puppeteer by damned power. Upon her taking him, his soul was released. She puts this corpse away to her pond in her domain. The personal graveyard of her pets and friends. So now it is Omens. She studies this version of him.
"The tar pit that was the ocean is gone. The beach I loved. It is time I moved on." She nods of this, "I am here for a final exchange." She lets this Omens do what he has to. He makes the last few things that kept him attached move on her.
He shifted and was gone from this existence as a puff of materials. She collected every last part. She internalized, understood the whole event of what happened to them all. She takes her time to take hold of the grief of loss. Those people and their time being here is gone. She however was strengthened to account they are in new timelines and new tomes. Gone from this tome. Gone from this place, moment, life. She recounted all her memories of these folks.
"Wife." She gets herself back together, and she fixed her shape back to being mimic human. She binds her body back to the now. The sound of this place instantly changed. The whole area turned into a massive glass palace and market from as far as the eyes can reach. Venders with small tables, signs and the occasional loud mouth sales guy. A hand brushed her waist and pulled her to pay mind with him.
"Husband." She sees the reincarnation of the man that took over the monkey puzzle. Well actually, even then this is a younger? A version after that one. An echo of the trades master. Not the aged MP of west minister abbey. Noble sharp features of someone wealthy, long silver tied back to a tail and the dark green styled suit. Hung of silver charms from the pocket watch chain. The ticking clock is in his breast pocket. Gloved hands are cotton white, cold tips. Grey liquid eyes that are tracing all over her and her complex expressions of her studies.
She stopped looking at him to scowl the area; mentally saying ' this place is the above ground glass palace that was to collapse soon'.
Just as she been of reading about her body language. He finished doing his own. Stopped tracing the not human features she mastered hiding. He sees her clothing as layered skins, tattooing her soul path and the languages she devoured. He doesn't bother looking at the face she is wearing, her real face isn't there at all and he knew it. In order to really know, was to feel her not human joints and the conditions of her made body. He was soon handling all over her, checking her about. Putting her face on right, that hung just softly a gap that someone could have noticed. Fussing her dress. And then, a very deep passionate kiss, over the mask lips to take her breath away. The display of lovers passion put a bunch of folks to gossip. The folks always on his trial are shocked at the display.
"Would you please mind your place, Brother?" A living version of Pride - he was just as human and alive, "And since when did a man of cloth plaster himself to a street bird?" Pride grilling about how out of no-where nobody.
"My lover is an allusive half spirit woman. She is a hard to capture prize that we need if we are going to make it through a desperate happening." He glares defensive of his chooses, "So, dear wife of the abyss. You are here in the crystal palace... why?" He knew she was the answer to save them out of a dangerous situation. She was always ahead of a bad thing.
"Well a massive glass house has a lot of structural problems that current metal working couldn't prevent." She blurts out, "Sheesh, and glass in direct sun light. We are ants under a bully's magnify glass." The sharp take in of that information, "And before you leave this glass cage of danger. Do not forget to prevent your sister's plan to kill folks again."
He lets Leana free and ran instantly about the set up that Pride left at a venders. Pride slaps across Leana's face and runs after, cursing the demon freak for ruining the purification of evil. Leana's mask left her face. Her lacking human was for all to see. She manage to take her mask back. But given she is visible. The living world become in fear of her, that she triggered panic. That everyone was running away from the faceless woman demon. A local bobby took to disciplining and then was pissing himself in seeing her. Directing people to avoid the demoness.
Time glitching, and from a historical crystal shelter in the heart of London. Turned to setting her soul to the last stable existence she can anchor. And this was.
She was stood in front of a computer touch screen of a self service window. She was poking a meal deal. She blinked a few times about the jolt of leaving a collapsing glass palace to... what? A restaurant? She frowned how disappointing this shift was. Yet, there is also a breather of relief to not being in a time pressured situation.
She leaned around from the window to eye the near empty restaurant. Sure, there was people eating at places but it wasn't overwhelmingly busy. A quiet time between busy hours. Mock pretending palace deco with that wash of being a fast food place. Semi-new. Not a lot of years of dust, grease and public. Its almost to clean and polished. If it was popular, this place would be at the edge of disaster always. Very much a fast food place, tray bin stations around tables.
'Crystal palace', an American fast food burger joint that is one of several rivals to Mccies, Burger king and Wendies. This the only British location of the entire UK... and the accents around her. Birmingham. As according to mental geography, this is 2 hours outside of anything to do with London. It isn't that crazy a distance if considering the train network. But walking would be like 2 days of no stop. Marathon hikers have done crazier. She looked around, she is completely alone. She looked at the cloak... the clothing. She focus back to ordering.
"Seriously I don't believe in crazy. You can't seriously believe that the answer to our grief is going to be stood in a grease joint." she heard this as the doors open. She completed the order, paid with touch pay. She made sure to have her email receipt with her order code. She stood at the waiting wall near the pick up counter as the back kitchen sorts the orders of the restaurant.
"Clearly you just never cared about how Omens work." The huff of a voice that sent cold in her, "Wait for me at the booth."
This group goes to have a seat and he uses the screen she just finished using. He pays when she collected her food. She takes her tray alone across arms brush each other passing. He felt the connection and was consumed by his feelings. Stood frozen at the spot. She ignores, sits at the single table right across from the booth. She tucked in. He snapped out of it when the order was called. He takes his tray and instead of going right over to his table. He rudely puts himself across from her. She was mid fry between lip, eyes met.
"It is cute that you try so hard to being human. You actually bothered having a burger meal." she pouted at him and slaps his hand from stealing her fries. He chuckled and she can feel that vibration in her chest, "Fine..." He poses surrender. Someone in his party takes the tray from between them. Getting their order and leaving the strange interaction.
"I was human once or a few times. I still have human morals and some habits don't change. I don't change the fundamentally parts of what make me who I am." She shoved more food down her once stating this. He makes a smile that might as well be illegal, "I love fast food meals as a treat." She muffled and turned away to continue eating while not lost in his stare of her.
"Sure... that's exactly why you are here." He crossed arms like her being here told him enough about the fate of this only store in the country, "I wish to hire you're abnormal side for a task." And she finished her meal faster, forgoing some human modesty. He has grappled her away from food before after saying these exact words. She downed her drink beyond human ability. She puts the cup in a slam down between. She pouted at him for not being allow to enjoy her meal, "What is going to happen with the souls that been displaced by the ritual that is failure of the wormhole experiment?"
"it wasn't a failure." She corrected him, "They are transferred correctly to the next over tomes. Or passes over the segments. So a living human changed to death status is a common happening. But if they wear protections, they are crossed to another living realm space or temporary passage through the other classifications." She turned away to look at those lot his with, "You crossing back again? There wasn't a lot leftover in that tome space." She tuts. He stares deeply of the implication.
"I want to return to the marble world, the corridor of hanging paintings and cot at the end." he was honest with her.
"That undertakers kingdom has altered. It is gone from that stage. They are a new crest and the corridor is erased." She shook at him.
"Then give me the glass butterfly I left behind." He demanded and she searched the private belongings he had as an undertaker. It was her Clothus and shadow touch that was prying through each of the chests. She has this mage from glass magic vessel in her private locked collection with soft care. She knew she has it. She indeed kept his glass butterfiles, scouts that been lost on missions or during his missions that Omens sent him on. She tilted her head several ways as she was seeking the directions her storage was reaching and then she has one. There was a display case of several. The exact one he asked for was the smallest one, the actual shape of a human world butterfly. A glass made peacock painted butterfly, she had recounted it was the same she met him all that time ago. It landed on his hat back then.
She straightened forward and made a soft smile about the recounted memory, closed eyes from counting all those lives it has been since. She peels her cloak and her chest skin, removed the glass butterfly and softly put on his open left hand. Her right hand smoothed her skins back to normal. He looked at the repairs is been through. She sits patting her tummy of the good food and being very human. She looked like a young woman in a green velvet dress and gold laced trim cloak and black lacing on her legs and arms. Wearing strange makeup that makes her face seem plastered, when really it is her natural abnormal face that hides the fact she doesn't have one.
"Ok, so would like to pitch in here." One the groupies pulled a chair to sit between them, "Hi I am like his older brother. I known him since forever. I know what he just asked about was from his dreams. He has not a reason to know who you are and he came over here just on a whim." She rolled her eyes at this little dance, sits properly and makes sure her right hand is occupied before she accidentally causes a supernatural event. She wasn't listening for a while with the frustration building with a bunch of beating around bush.
"Leana," She shook from trying to not sleep and stare instantly onto her partner for speaking her name, "Miss Fallown. Sometimes Eliza, short for Elizabeth. Sometimes that's a middle name." She softly made a gesture of full attention on him, "The abyss walker that was a human once. The Merchant between the god eaters and death gods. A library keeper of locked books."
"Yes, husband." She nods, "Well I guess this lifetime I am just a creature hunting around your shadows. A mutant whom has been guarding your back a while." The friend who was ignored between them is tongue tied.
"Yeah, that isn't a human." Another person pulls the idiot away from between the two, "But this one is an oath ranker and respects the cloaking rules. In fact, she very in keeping with the laws to actual eat human food and be visible to the rest of the people around us. We looking like a group cornering a lonely lady." this was true and plenty with looking around see the tension.
"Call me anytime, day or night." She slips a small crystal made card, he takes it quickly and adding it to his phone, "Here or over on the other side. Even if Omens hisses at me again about appearing from strange places." She play bumps his side, "You better move along now, the black car that parked at the front has a very mad energy from it." They all knew and clean up after themselves. He looks back with not wanting to leave her behind... he looked at his feet about it. He was holding that door partly in looking at her.
"Come with me." He voiced nervous across the restaurant. She stands puts her tray away like a civil person. She makes another purchase of a quick bottled drink and then she came with. He beams happy. She follows with right up to the car. He holds it open for her to come in. She however see a bunch of magic blockers that prevent a mutant like her from being allowed in. She instead scuffed his head. walked around. Opened the trunk and got in. She closed the trunk for herself. He stares confused a bit and is forced into the car by those within.
"What did you bring this time?" the passenger of the driver hissed, "That thing clearly isn't a normal issue. Who invited it?"
"Ask Raven. It's his creep that claimed to be his wife from his literal dreams." this twaddle tale was punched.
"You could have said it a little nicely. The abyss walker literally handed him a tool that was lost from the god practice days. Without a price or deal. No name exchange. Clearly she loves him, in her weird creepy lacking face way. And he named her. She didn't make a fuss or ruin the place. Heck the cashier took her order twice." Another tuts, "You don't be rude about the things that walk among gods. She clearly knows Omens. Her clothes looked like the old ways. The way clothes used to be sewn on."
"Normally I am telling off one you others." Their guardian leader is not much older then they are yet ahead in the mature department the the rest, imposes on themselves as the father figure, "How the heck did my perfect kid among you have a catastrophic for a contract?"
"Oh no, I don't own her. She doesn't own me. She just sort of hangs around. She has an oath rank and undertaker's crest. If I recount right, she actually the crown and host of her kingdom. Among confusing other facts. If crows appear but with no one dying. They are there for trading and messages. The not crows are scary. Don't smile at them. Like at all. No teeth." The group sighed at him like him the one that lost the plot.
"Oh gods, you took in a trickster." the fella concerned for the well being. They all were divide conversation that it was soft chatter that put her sleeping. She felt the cars driving to be soothing and like that she was curled in her natural form enjoying the nap. She was very deep into the sleep, regardless of the picked up speed chase it became. She didn't feel the way she was bumping around the trunk nor the free fall fleeting moments. Not feel of the tires drifting, loosing traction or leaving off the asphalt completely.
"Leana!" She felt it more then heard it. The car was on its side, there was smoke and the dents around told her a crash happened. She busted the trunk door at her left up with a kick, she cared little for her appearance.
She walked all fours, as if this was more grounding to the world now, moving around to the side doors facing up and peeled them like butter. She pulled herself inside and started helping them climb out of the wreck. She saved the driver and front passenger. She hung the two front car people on her floating cloth limbs safety without causing more pain. They were way to out of it, while the passengers were fine. She managed to get everyone out and was lowering to act on some first aid that she can manage.
"They 're going to attack us." She can't see the threats. She knew however that the fear is real in the humans and thus she made a choice. She paused time and does the first aid. Hid them away from the car fire.
This was a road was old country lane, more grit messy poured cement with a ditch that water drains. There was a second road with a concert partition, that became the move of cars going the other direction. Pot holes, cars crashed hazard around. there is a back up queueing building up behind that. This era has mutants and animals. There was a half deer in the treeline watching this way. There was a not bird above it, eyeing the deer mutant like food. There was a normal fox further along that the deer was hunting. Nature is messy, especially when humans screw around in things they shouldn't had. She made plenty of details, photographs of the scene as it is.
She goes back to the active time, stood ready with knitting magic caster spells into threading of her making. Taking the useless spells to be hers. The spells made the invisible casting to be spent, so now there is red shirt group of stranger along up turned cars. She had to pause in the joke of that.
"Good lords, you are walking target practice! That is funny." She creaks into a light laugh that kept bubbling out of her with several of her voices lacing, "You at a bunch of red shirts." She finishing the knitting and to get a grip, punched the floor with breaking the asphalt patch.. She sits like a animal, her shadow tail whips the near guy to fall on the floor. He broke his nose, "Oh you are weak too."
"Damnit! They summoned a Clothus!" She chilled in how they assumed she was one. Being called something she hated put the warmth out of her tones. She watched them back down. They stop spell casting in human methods. The backed off as human bodies and replace with damned masks. She studies the living damned folks.
"So you are bunch of cursed living humans. Wearing red shirts like corpse fodder." She posed her left hand as the sneer was bubbling a laugh a little back into it, "Chasing after my husband like a pack of dogs." She snapped that, looked at them and then casted a spell of purification. The blessing burns the cursed skin. The mask version had to retreat and the humans with burns came back out, "Just leave already. I don't want your mess. You're corpses aren't worth the market value to handle at my level. Don't make me send some low level demons to do the job for me."
"She doesn't kill people." Heard through the bond between, "They have to be dead first."
Stepping up to some assumed case. All these folks really just seeing her as some Clothus with higher authority and likely got paid will for being summoned here. This greasy sleek man wipes palms on approach and smiled tight lipped like he had the answers to the winning war.
"You clearly made a deal with one the punks. Couldn't we make a trade instead?"
"Fuck off. No. You're not worth my effort. Piss off." She hissed and just to make it worth the threat. She picked up a car and throw it at them. They had plenty of time to avoid that and run away. They scattered backwards, "Leave them alone or I will come after you all. I will eat your names."
"Oh gods." She heard, her partner and the panic that came from that exact threat from her, "Wife! No eating names!" He shouted from the hiding place. Injured he climbed up from the ditch they hide, "Do not dare open a tome here."
"But they started it." she whimpered, "They trying to shoot you with a gun and everything." She holding up the hand holding a gun... she lobbed off the person's arm that was holding the gun, "I am not inviting the gods of death to take you from me."
"My hand!" sobbing a guy that being pulled back. He had a delay reaction, as she had once more acted in pause of moments. She had not just cut it off. She did them a favour of preventing the human from feeling it or loosing enough blood to be death
"Oh shut up, you're not going to die right now." she hissed backwards to the red shirts, "I am having a lovely argument with my husband." Both groups looked at each other afraid of her and wisely they began to scatter for the hills hiding from the disaster they made, "Cowards!" She shouted at them and gave her husband the gun with the attached hand, "You going to need to take the gun off for me. Turn the safety on." She instructed and he holds it. He clicked the safety on first, then bend the fingers off the gun. He goes to drop the hand but she caught it, "Wow there, you need that more then the gun. That hand is perfect for evidence and summoning."
"What? Like a hand would make a summoning work." he huffed and thinks about. Then he get it. He takes both hand and gun to the ditch. She walked over to the edge of the ditch, looking down at the group no active unlike when she pauses moments, and she sits at the above the ditch for their sake. He makes the circle. His mates took the prints off the hand and pictures of hand with gun. On the last part, the hand was put into the circle. The hand is replaced. The summoned being that came from this was useful in getting this scene to be a little less magic attack and more like a gun fight. The summoned being got help that was needed, healing the worst wounded. The company or gang behind leader figure of the group arrived before the normal police arrived. They completely overlooked and ignored her, assuming she wasn't anything to do with this. Assuming she was a mutant of the roads.
"Wife." she heard as they were climbing into a new vehicle to leave. She softly shifted her shape to be back human enough. She tots over and lets herself be pulled in. She seated across the floor at his feet in this mini bus. He pets her head softly, and then was clumsy with styling her hair in plating tails. He was very peaceful.
"And this is why we don't trust tricksters." The guy said waking up from being out of it. His head wrapped from being knocked in the passenger window. Glass removed. It be weeping blood for a while, give how close the the temple that was. Very unfortunate, "And..." Looking at everyone in the mini bus and then at the floor, "What did I just say!"
"You have a cultist problem. Not me. I am owned." She mutters in a clicked tone, "I have no attachments that matter with them anymore. You can label me trickster but I have shit to do and books to keep. Humans aren't my deal or problem. The only one that matters is currently playing with my hair. Put up with it."
"Forgive my wife, she takes after the inner version of myself." that make sharp looks from plenty.
"Back up a little there. So you were a cultist?"
"I am dead or reborn or whatever. It doesn't matter." She huffed, "I am not that version of me anymore. That human is just a dead girl. A dead name. Nobody bothering." The long pause.
"Keeping books. You cause instant things between blinks of an eye. You know about the others yet your clearly not part of them. You wouldn't have lobbed someone's hand off otherwise." This leader was measuring the strange girl that is very attached to the very attached perfect child of the group. The one that behaved otherwise and helped when trouble happened. He holds his head from the pain.
The current driver is talking to the previous driver of the limo. The black limo that picked the up at the crystal palace in the heart of Birmingham. They were taking the M1 instead of the country lane that they were ambushed on before. The two were making talk to a phone with a computer tracker analyst that was making sure there wasn't following cars. She made a glimpse of the outside, they were taking the long way through back to the out skirts of London. They bypassed London after a major junction, meaning they were heading else where. Outside of London.
"You have stop far enough." She heard the thoughts like her own, his tone gentle, "You don't need to stop the wormhole project anymore. We are helping and keeping everything safe. I just need you to stay with me. Stay." His hand pets the finish of the plate he did.
"Are you ok with a thing like me being around?" I wavered unsure of his plead, "There isn't anything to hunt or smells interesting... but you." He brushed the back of her neck and she felt the cold pass through her spine.
"Stay." He repeated out loud and she made a shuddered breath. She leans into him more. She go comfortable, "Yes, you can sleep." with his permission. She softly fought it a little bit. He put hand across her eyes. She collapsed into him totally. Back into that depth of real restoring sleep.