Heroid

((Smileys are not an option.

And hi, Encharger! Weebleys and all that! ))

((You guys know as well as I do what the real option is -- lag will be so bad that it will be impossible to play. That's *if* you can even log on.

There. I hope that makes you all feel better and gives you some guidance on how to best enjoy this weekend.

*does his part to make it easier for himself*

))

((If you didn't read the illustrated part of the story, this might not make as much sense to you as it should. I can sum it up by just saying that Ares is cruel and the Fates are fickle.))

Red Night: Epilogue

This morning, in a hospital on the west coast of the United States…

A paramedic wheels a gurney into an emergency room. The attending doctor’s eyes widen at the sight of body on it.

“Good God! Where did they find this one?” he asks.

“A beachcomber found him down at South Point,” the paramedic answers. “Sheriff thinks he’s a shark victim.”

The doctor doesn’t have to look more closely to know that the medic is wrong. The wounds were not random, and they were cut, not torn. Plus, sharks are hardly known for their precision in choosing what parts of a body they wish to remove.

“No. Doesn’t look that way to me. Looks like some sort of ritual killing – notice what’s missing? And there’s no blood – it’s been drained. Yeah. Murder for sure. Human sacrifice? Maybe. But all that’s up to the police and the coroner to determine. You should have taken him straight to the morgue.”

The paramedic gives the doctor a strange look.

“Something wrong?” the physician says.

“Well… um…”

The doctor looks down at the body. “You’re kidding,” he says.

The paramedic shakes his head.

With a look of disbelief, the doctor places his fingers on the body’s right wrist to check for a pulse.

“Nuh-uh,” the paramedic says, “not there.” He points to its chest. “There.”

The doctor placed his stethoscope in the center of the chest. At first, he thought he imagined it, but then he was sure he heard it. Faint. Impossibly slow, but there it was. A heartbeat.

“Stat!” he shouts and other emergency staff goes into action.

A petite woman with a clipboard comes over to where the doctors and nurses are working with the impossibly alive mutilation victim. She begins filling out a record for the patient.

“Are we going with ‘John Doe’ again?” she asks.

“No,” the doctor says, “This one’s special. Let’s go with… Smith.”

((I couldn't really figure out how to tell this next part entirely first-person, so I decided to draw it.

WARNING: There is some mild nudity depicted. Also, and probably more importantly warning-wise, there is blood and gore. I'm not that good of an artist, so it's not going to like make you sick to see it, but it may still be disturbing.

Just click them in order, then click on the pictures to make them larger. If you have trouble with the links, please let me know. Thank you for reading. Comments welcome. ))

http://heroid.deviantart.com/art/Red...ge-1-139475857

http://heroid.deviantart.com/art/Red...ge-2-139475996

http://heroid.deviantart.com/art/Red...ge-3-139476080

“I like this joint,” Tiny said while stuffing what the menu called a “Turkish meatball” into his mouth. “It ain’t Italian, but it’ll do.”

The rest of us had already finished our meals and were enjoying the cool, sensuous sounds of the Kubert Jazz Ensemble. I was sipping a rum and coke, Polemo was drinking straight whiskey, and the girls were sipping something with pink umbrellas on top. Despite my misgivings, I had found myself having a good time. Miu was gorgeous – even more beautiful than she usually was – and I found myself thinking that maybe we should see if we can do more than pretend to be lovers…

Suddenly, Chloe stood, said, “I want to dance,” and instead of taking the hand of her date, she grabbed mine. And now I’m on the dance floor with her body pressed against mine swaying to a melody that sounds like satin and sweat.

“Can I tell you a story?” she whispers, softly, yet somehow audible over the music. It is not the voice I had heard this morning. Her voice now was soft, feminine, full of mystery and truth.

“You can tell me anything,” I reply, my good sense filtered through Bacardi. A quick glance to Miu tells me that she’s not very happy to see Chloe and I so intimate.

“Once, “ Chloe says (her lips tickle my neck, but as she speaks, it seems to come from far away),” there was a beautiful young man born to a high position. He had a great destiny, but he did everything to fight against it...”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but the music and rum, and the friction of her body against mine have captured me in a spell. I hear her, but I don’t listen. Though the music can’t drown out her words, the silky skin of her bare shoulders, the deep ocean blue of her eyes, the yielding softness of her breasts pressed against me… Nothing spoken can be heard over the pounding of my own heart. I don’t care who she is or who I am or who we came here with. I want to be closer to her – to strip away these layers of fabric and press flesh to flesh…

“… and the young man died, his destiny unfulfilled, a fate that was not meant to be his.”

Those words are staked in my mind even as I realize that I don’t know what they mean. She has told me a tale – told it to me for a reason -- and yet, I have not heard a word of it. And now she looks at me with sad eyes, and I can’t help but feel as though I have missed a reprieve of some sort.

“Who are you?” I ask as the song climaxes and finishes.

Her demeanor changes, and once again she seems like the gangster’s girlfriend I met this morning.

“I’m Chloe. Thanks for the dance. You’re sweet.”

Before I can say anything, Miu’s at my elbow. There’s something about the way she’s moving that shakes me back to reality, and now it’s Chloe that doesn’t look happy. “Excuse me,” she says, and her voice is accented with all kinds of veiled needles, “but can I steal my boyfriend back? I want to dance now.” Chloe and Miu stare at each other in a way that reminds me uncomfortably of two cats about to fight, but after a minute Chloe huffs off back to the booth. I start to watch her go, but Miu grabs my hand and turns me towards her.

Gods, she looks beautiful. She’s got that LOOK in her eyes like she’s about to do something wild, and the band starts playing an upbeat bebop song with a crazy rhythm. And she starts DANCING, and I swear I have no idea how I’m keeping up with her.

I think people are staring at us, but it’s all I can do to stay on my feet with how quickly she’s moving. The song goes on and on and I don’t care because she’s finally smiling at me like I’ve wanted her to for weeks, so full of mischief and energy.

The music comes to what they call a ‘grand pause’, and she’s spun into me, and I can feel her tense against me, breath tickling my throat, and all I can think is that I want to kiss her so bad. Just this once, even if she gets angry.

She beats me to it, pushing up on her toes to reach, forcing me to hold her tight to keep her balanced. The only sound in the room is a tshh shh shh shh rhythm from the drummer’s cymbals and a funny grumbling sound, like metal tumbling against metal.

I taste her lips, her tongue, and no wine made by man or gods could ever taste as sweet. The intoxication I felt when I danced with Chloe was nothing like this. I knew that I could give up every vestige of my past life – every one – every one – if all of the things Miu and I were pretending to be could be real, true.

The song comes to a tumultuous, blast of a finish, and suddenly, everything changes.

Miu holds me as our lips linger together, but the passion I had felt in her earlier is replaced with something else. Resolve? Can one communicate resolve in an embrace? And what is she resolved to do? Would this be the last kiss we would ever share? Or would this be the night that all pretenses would be cast aside and we would become what everyone around us assumed us to be?

Joey Kubert announces that the band is taking a break. No more dancing for now. Miu takes my hand and we went back to our table.

I pull her chair out for her and take in the scene at the table. Tiny has a fresh drink in front of him and watches with a lopsided grin on his face as the waiter puts a torch to what looks to be a skewer of lamb. Polemo is cutting his steak, but his eyes are on me, as are Chloe’s.

As I push Miu’s chair in for her, Chloe smiles up at me, but it is with her mouth only –her eyes look unfathomably sad.

Then things happen.

Polemo moves like a wild dervish! He stands shoves his steak knife into Tiny’s neck. Then he takes the flaming skewer and lunges at me. Miu leaps onto the table to defend me, but he spins and kicks her -- kicks her so hard she flails through the air like a flying rag doll.

I want to scream her name, but when I open my mouth I have no air! A sharp pain strikes me just below my right shoulder blade and the tip of the meat skewer shoots out of my chest!

I am lifted from my feet as a portal opens – a portal I had seen before on a dock in South Carolina – and now I recognize Polemo. He is Ares. And I am doomed.

((My teen tank fell in love (or maybe just in lust). Michael Marcone enjoyed a night of dancing in the D. ))

((I'm watching Batman Begins on AMC and I'm thinking how much better this movie is than the Michael Keaton movies. But then, that first one was really pretty good, but for some reason, I just never really liked it.

But now I know why that is...

Michael Keaton.

Yep. He's a great actor, but he's a little guy. I don't care how much rubber you wrap him in, he's still small. I never could accept him as Batman.

So I'm thinking that it wasn't really fair to put him in a movie as Batman and expect him to be believably threatening. Not fair at all.

Here's my solution: Remake the Michael Keaton Batman except instead of having him play Batman, have him play himself.

That's right. Himself. And have Jack Nicholson play himself. Then have them battle each other all over L.A. That would be awesome! You know it would!

Okay... I've wasted enough of your time. Go do something. ))

((This article is fascinating.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/ma.../20jung-t.html

I wonder what Mr. Jung would make of us role-players. I know there have been lots of psychobabbly articles written about us, but I think Carl Jung himself would have a different take on it all. Anyway, the article is long, but cool. But then, hidden books of secret knowledge usually are. ))

((This is an rp moment with Tami and Ryan. It's one of those moments that game mechanics won't allow you to visualize, so, I visualized it. ))

http://heroid.deviantart.com/art/A-C...ment-137722926

Life is so good. It was my birthday this week. I turned fifteen. I can officially date now.

*giggle*

And I have this boyfriend who is like the nicest, sweetest boy I’ve ever met and he’s got dark, dark, dark brown hair and dreamy brown eyes and strong arms that I just know could lift me up and carry me off…

*sigh*

He was really surprised to see me without glasses. That was one of Daddy’s birthday presents to me – these contact lenses. I don’t have to wear special glasses to keep my eye-beams from shooting out anymore! And I can see color for the first time ever! Everything is not green! I almost fainted when I saw Ryan in living color! It was so awesome!

And he told me my eyes are almost purple. He looked. Into. My eyes.

*squeee*

For our first date, he took me to the see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He bought us popcorn and candy and a drink, and when we finished that stuff he held my hand for the whole rest of the movie. He squeezed it during the sad parts – and wow, were there sad parts! – And sort of played his fingers across mine during the romantic parts. It was… nice. Better than nice.

Then he took me heroing and I finally got to show off my new costume! (Another gift from Daddy, though Daddy’s colorblind so I had to hand-dye it to make it look presentable and I was afraid the purple dye wouldn’t come off my hands before my birthday because I didn’t want Ryan to have to hold purple hands on our first date.) We defended this pawnshop that was run by reformed Freakshow from a bunch of Sky Raiders (which, I have no idea why they were invading a pawnshop…). And they had this great Olympus SLR camera that I’m going back tomorrow with my birthday money and buying!

After the heroing, we went down beside the pier near Spanky’s Boardwalk and sat on the beach. We sat in the sand and looked at the water and held hands and then… I couldn’t help it… I kissed him.

I know. I’m supposed to wait on him to make the first move, but he was sitting there looking so beautiful and handsome and strong and… I just wanted to kiss him more than I wanted anything in the whole world. Is that wrong? And after that kiss, we kissed again – this time he initiated. It was… it was like I wasn’t in my body anymore. It was like I was somewhere else, someone else. Someone living a perfect life in a perfect place, with the perfect boy…

*siiiiigh*

Anyway, I’m not telling any more. The way he made me feel… that’s all just for me to know.

But my birthday – beginning to end – was wonderful. I’m fifteen now. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not an adult either, thank God. I’m me. And I’ll always be me, for always.

Tami was in the garden at the Rock. She came here to think -- about her father, about her future -- but soon her mind had drifted to less troubled topics. She had picked a flower (was she allowed to do that?) and was pondering whether she should put it in her hair or pluck the petals to do a "he loves me, he loves me not" invoking Ryan. She was lost in such thoughts when she heard a voice --

"Tami?"

She looked up to see her nephew, Peter, Michael's younger brother.

"Hi, Peter. Didn't know you could get in here."

"Ms. Love let me in. I told her I came to apologize to you."

"Apologize?" she said with irony dripping from her words, "apologize for what?"

Peter actually looked contrite as he said, "For treating you like you were a pest. You're not a pest."

Tami was dubious. "I'm not?"

"No. I... I miss you. Mikey won't play Wii. He says he doesn't have time..."

"Mm-hmm."

"And... well... it's no fun having no one for me to pester."

Tami actually felt sorry for him. When it came to picking, Mikey was the type of big brother who could dish it out but couldn't take it.

"You mean that, don't you?"

"Yeah. It's no fun there without you."

"I'm not going back."

"I know."

"They have a Wii here."

"I can't come stay here. Dad won't let me."

"I know. But you can come visit."

"Thanks."

Tami hugged Peter's neck and stuck the flower in his hair. He grinned a goofy grin, then took it out.

"Well... I've got to go," Peter said, "but I'll come by later?"

"Sure," Tami said and watched him go.

Maybe there was some hope for the family after all.

((I laughed too. ))