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rainbowfic2017-02-21 08:44 pm
kay_brooke) wrote in rainbowfic2017-02-21 08:44 pm
Argent #15, Rain Cloud #13, Valentine's Day Pink #3
Name: kay_brooke
Story: The Prime
Colors: Argent #15 (Sense of loyal avowal), Rain Cloud #13 (last in line), Valentine's Day Pink #3 (white)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 2,065
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Coming over to the other side.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
She blinked, and in her next awareness she was teetering on the edge of a drop that led straight down about six feet, ending abruptly in a shallow stream dotted with water-smoothed rocks. Her arms flailed as she struggled to keep her balance, but she was too near the edge, and disorientation had tipped her body forward too far over the gap. The fall wasn't far, but she had no control, and all she could see was the dark water, the edges of the stream rimmed in ice.
She had just resigned herself to falling and getting wet on what she was slowly realizing was a cold night when a hand grabbed her and yanked her back from the brink.
Words of gratitude hadn't even started processing in her brain before she was whirled around and a small, pale, angry face was thrust into hers. "Follow me, idiot!" her rescuer shouted, before turning and stalking off into the--
Forest. She was in a forest, surrounded by trees that stretched up, touching the deep purple sky. She took a few stumbling steps forward, her breath still coming in harsh gasps contained in white clouds, until she came into contact with one of the trees. Its ridged skin was hard and rough beneath her hands, and she ran her fingers wonderingly along one of the ridges even as she used the tree to keep her balance.
Then her rescuer was back, yanking on her arm again, screaming at her. "Move! Do you want to die? Move, you fucking moron!"
"These are trees," she said, her voice hushed like she was in the temple's cloister. The gods were dead, everyone knew that, but some inborn instinct kept everyone quiet and respectful in the place they had once been. "This is a forest." Saying the words aloud were strange, yet thrilling.
Her rescuer had taken off again, and she stumbled after, her breathing slowing but her feet finding and catching on every bit of detritus on the ground. And there was a lot of if, a thick mat of organic matter that crunched and slid beneath her feet. It was dark already--she could see the very last of the setting sun in the gap in the trees where the little stream widened and joined a larger river--but there was just enough light to see that the organic matter looked like desiccated leaves. Gaping, she took another look at the trees above her. They were bare, their branches swaying slowly against the moonless sky.
Yanked again. "Would you move?"
"Who are you?" she asked, this time keeping up a little more successfully. "Are we in danger? Why?" She hadn't been told the name of her contact, as that was information controlled by this side, and her handler hadn't known it. She had also not been told of any danger, and that seemed like something everyone should know.
But she had also been told it would be day when she arrived, and she had clearly missed that by several hours.
Her rescuer still jogged ahead of her, feet confident and sure on the ground. The rescuer was dressed in a bulky coat and pants made of some rough fabric, but she was pretty certain it was a woman, with tied back dark hair that reached halfway down her back. Something else she had rarely seen before. People in the city sometimes kept their hair long like that. She found her steps slowing. How did she know this was her contact, and not the enemy? "Who are you?" she asked again, coming to a stop.
One thing was clear, and that was the woman was impatient and angry. She stomped back, but refrained from grabbing any limbs that time. "Are you serious?" she hissed. "You show up hours late and now you're dawdling? Just what the hell is your problem?"
"Who are you?" she insisted stubbornly.
The woman cocked her head at her, her teeth audibly grinding. "Who are you?"
"No. I'm supposed to meet my contact. Give me your name so I know that's who you are."
The woman's lips lifted into a sneer. "You don't even know the name of your contact, so what good would it do you?"
She trembled, only partly against the cold night air. She was becoming more and more certain she had stumbled into a trap. "I don't know who you are," she said. "You have to give me proof of your identity."
The woman grumbled and thrust a hand into the pocket of her large coat. "This is a fucking waste of time," she spat, as she pulled an object out and held it up for presentation. It was only a piece of stone, but large enough that it could have only come from the temple's vaults. It glittered even in the absence of light.
But she still wasn't convinced. "How do I know you didn't kill my real contact and steal that?"
"Who else would be out here?" the woman snapped. "If that's your way of thinking, then nothing I do or say will convince you. So be it. Stay here and freeze to death for all I care." Then she was off again, and there was no choice but to follow.
They were moving quickly, and before long she found herself breathing hard again. The air was so much clearer than where she was from, easier to breathe, but the woman was leading her at a fast clip along a slight incline, and she found herself slowing down, her calves burning. She stopped looking at the forest around her, all of her energy focused on her ragged breaths and the tricky roots trying to snag her feet.
But her narrowed vision wasn't so complete that she missed the sudden opening in the trees that led to a mud packed, flat area that widened and sloped gently down toward the river, a contrast to the steep banks on either side. "Wait!" she gasped out at her rescuer, who showed no signs of slowing down. "Wait!"
"We can't wait," said the woman, slowing only slightly. "What is it?"
"Is this where I get on the boat?" She'd been told there was a boat, a small one, and the area right there by the river sure looked like a crude boat launch. But there wasn't a boat, nothing waiting by the bank, nothing coming or going as far as she could see down the river.
"There's no boat," the woman snarled, coming to a stop. "You're hours late. The boat's gone." Then she continued, in a lower growl that was likely not meant to be overheard. "Idiots, I was very clear on the time! Out there waiting in the cold until dark, anyone could have come through!"
"I went through on time!" she protested. Now that she'd had a moment to catch her breath she was able to jog right up behind the woman. The path wasn't wide enough for side by side. "My handler told me noon, and that's when it happened." And it was true she was supposed to come through at approximately noon on the other side, too. But the dark sky said differently.
"Must have calibrated something wrong," said the woman, throwing her a glance over her shoulder as if the whole thing was her fault. "Who's your handler?"
She swallowed hard, remembered the stories she'd heard about people who went through without proper calibration. Though she already knew she was still whole, she checked her fingers and wiggled her toes in their boots. Everything present. She'd been lucky. She also didn't answer the woman's question, and the woman didn't ask again.
They walked for what seemed like hours, until there was no sign of the sun left, not even a faint glow. The woman began to slow down a little. The sense of unease that had surrounded her drifted away, but her movements were still short and impatient. Eventually they came upon an even narrower path that broke off from the first, and the woman followed it.
A short while later she saw there was a light coming closer to them, and as they approached she determined it was a flame shining through the window of a building. Very small, made of...wood? She supposed it was wood. It seemed similar to the trees around it. But the woman didn't give her a chance to touch the outside of the building and determine for herself. She shoved open the door and dragged her through it, into a small main room in which three other people crowded around a small fireplace. They all jumped up at the sound of the door opening, and knives appeared in the hands of two of them.
The woman snorted. "Calm down," she said.
"There's a passcode," said one of the other three. The voice was a man's though the figure was short and thin. Like the woman, the other three were all wearing bulky coats. For good reason, she thought, rubbing her arms. Though the brisk walk through the forest had kept her warm, the night air still bit at her. She had not only missed daylight, it seemed she had missed seasons. It was clearly winter here, maybe very early spring at the latest.
"There's no one else out here," argued the woman, which seemed hypocritical given her great rush before. She turned abruptly. "Name," she said.
She hesitated. Did they want her real name or her city name? How would they even know her city name? They probably didn't, so she said, "Jezamine."
The woman cuffed her on the side of the head, leaving her ears ringing. "No, idiot! Your name! They didn't send you over here without a name!"
Oh. Feeling stupid, she said, "Laurenmassey."
"Lauren Massey," the woman said slowly. "It's two words. And are you absolutely sure? Have you got it written down anywhere?"
She shook her head. "It was given to me. I memorized it. Like I was supposed to." Writing things down was beyond dangerous. Not only could information fall to the enemy, but it made agents too complacent, less likely to recall the information from memory. "Lauren Massey." She made sure to put the pause. "From Detroitmichigan."
"Fuck's sake," spat one of the other three, this one another woman, and one of the two still holding a knife in her hand. "Look at these morons they're sending us."
"Detroit, Michigan," said the first woman. She suddenly seemed kindly compared to the others. "Two words. And when you give your name to people, they will call you just Lauren, not the full name. That's how it works here. So you must think of yourself as Lauren, and only give the second name in appropriate situations."
Lauren felt herself blushing. "No one told me."
"As I said," the woman by the fire interjected, shrugging.
"I trained!" Lauren said defensively. "I was told I was ready!"
"You were likely just convenient," said her rescuer. "There's getting to be too many of us, and they've slowed down the training. But we still need more people." She looked Lauren up and down. "My name is Rita Goode. You call me Rita to yourself and anyone else. There will be no time you will need to use the second name."
Lauren nodded.
"Those three are Adam, Melinda, and Barry," she continued, pointing them out in turn. "You don't need to know their second names, you won't be working with them." She grinned. "You're mine."
"Thank god," said Melinda, sitting down again.
"The gods are dead." The reply was automatic, almost a litany in itself.
Rita shook her head. "It's an expression," she said. "I'm going to teach you how to talk more like them, because you clearly got shit training on the other side."
Lauren almost argued in defense again, but why was she defending her handler and the other trainers? She had never liked any of them anyway. So she nodded. "As it is."
"Okay."
"What?"
"You say 'okay,' in response to something like that, not 'as it is.'"
"Okay." Lauren rolled it around on her tongue. Well, it was a shorter, quicker response, anyway, and that could only be good. "Okay."
"Good," said Rita. "Now, we're going to get you some warmer clothing, and then your real training begins."
kay_brookeStory: The Prime
Colors: Argent #15 (Sense of loyal avowal), Rain Cloud #13 (last in line), Valentine's Day Pink #3 (white)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 2,065
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Coming over to the other side.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
She blinked, and in her next awareness she was teetering on the edge of a drop that led straight down about six feet, ending abruptly in a shallow stream dotted with water-smoothed rocks. Her arms flailed as she struggled to keep her balance, but she was too near the edge, and disorientation had tipped her body forward too far over the gap. The fall wasn't far, but she had no control, and all she could see was the dark water, the edges of the stream rimmed in ice.
She had just resigned herself to falling and getting wet on what she was slowly realizing was a cold night when a hand grabbed her and yanked her back from the brink.
Words of gratitude hadn't even started processing in her brain before she was whirled around and a small, pale, angry face was thrust into hers. "Follow me, idiot!" her rescuer shouted, before turning and stalking off into the--
Forest. She was in a forest, surrounded by trees that stretched up, touching the deep purple sky. She took a few stumbling steps forward, her breath still coming in harsh gasps contained in white clouds, until she came into contact with one of the trees. Its ridged skin was hard and rough beneath her hands, and she ran her fingers wonderingly along one of the ridges even as she used the tree to keep her balance.
Then her rescuer was back, yanking on her arm again, screaming at her. "Move! Do you want to die? Move, you fucking moron!"
"These are trees," she said, her voice hushed like she was in the temple's cloister. The gods were dead, everyone knew that, but some inborn instinct kept everyone quiet and respectful in the place they had once been. "This is a forest." Saying the words aloud were strange, yet thrilling.
Her rescuer had taken off again, and she stumbled after, her breathing slowing but her feet finding and catching on every bit of detritus on the ground. And there was a lot of if, a thick mat of organic matter that crunched and slid beneath her feet. It was dark already--she could see the very last of the setting sun in the gap in the trees where the little stream widened and joined a larger river--but there was just enough light to see that the organic matter looked like desiccated leaves. Gaping, she took another look at the trees above her. They were bare, their branches swaying slowly against the moonless sky.
Yanked again. "Would you move?"
"Who are you?" she asked, this time keeping up a little more successfully. "Are we in danger? Why?" She hadn't been told the name of her contact, as that was information controlled by this side, and her handler hadn't known it. She had also not been told of any danger, and that seemed like something everyone should know.
But she had also been told it would be day when she arrived, and she had clearly missed that by several hours.
Her rescuer still jogged ahead of her, feet confident and sure on the ground. The rescuer was dressed in a bulky coat and pants made of some rough fabric, but she was pretty certain it was a woman, with tied back dark hair that reached halfway down her back. Something else she had rarely seen before. People in the city sometimes kept their hair long like that. She found her steps slowing. How did she know this was her contact, and not the enemy? "Who are you?" she asked again, coming to a stop.
One thing was clear, and that was the woman was impatient and angry. She stomped back, but refrained from grabbing any limbs that time. "Are you serious?" she hissed. "You show up hours late and now you're dawdling? Just what the hell is your problem?"
"Who are you?" she insisted stubbornly.
The woman cocked her head at her, her teeth audibly grinding. "Who are you?"
"No. I'm supposed to meet my contact. Give me your name so I know that's who you are."
The woman's lips lifted into a sneer. "You don't even know the name of your contact, so what good would it do you?"
She trembled, only partly against the cold night air. She was becoming more and more certain she had stumbled into a trap. "I don't know who you are," she said. "You have to give me proof of your identity."
The woman grumbled and thrust a hand into the pocket of her large coat. "This is a fucking waste of time," she spat, as she pulled an object out and held it up for presentation. It was only a piece of stone, but large enough that it could have only come from the temple's vaults. It glittered even in the absence of light.
But she still wasn't convinced. "How do I know you didn't kill my real contact and steal that?"
"Who else would be out here?" the woman snapped. "If that's your way of thinking, then nothing I do or say will convince you. So be it. Stay here and freeze to death for all I care." Then she was off again, and there was no choice but to follow.
They were moving quickly, and before long she found herself breathing hard again. The air was so much clearer than where she was from, easier to breathe, but the woman was leading her at a fast clip along a slight incline, and she found herself slowing down, her calves burning. She stopped looking at the forest around her, all of her energy focused on her ragged breaths and the tricky roots trying to snag her feet.
But her narrowed vision wasn't so complete that she missed the sudden opening in the trees that led to a mud packed, flat area that widened and sloped gently down toward the river, a contrast to the steep banks on either side. "Wait!" she gasped out at her rescuer, who showed no signs of slowing down. "Wait!"
"We can't wait," said the woman, slowing only slightly. "What is it?"
"Is this where I get on the boat?" She'd been told there was a boat, a small one, and the area right there by the river sure looked like a crude boat launch. But there wasn't a boat, nothing waiting by the bank, nothing coming or going as far as she could see down the river.
"There's no boat," the woman snarled, coming to a stop. "You're hours late. The boat's gone." Then she continued, in a lower growl that was likely not meant to be overheard. "Idiots, I was very clear on the time! Out there waiting in the cold until dark, anyone could have come through!"
"I went through on time!" she protested. Now that she'd had a moment to catch her breath she was able to jog right up behind the woman. The path wasn't wide enough for side by side. "My handler told me noon, and that's when it happened." And it was true she was supposed to come through at approximately noon on the other side, too. But the dark sky said differently.
"Must have calibrated something wrong," said the woman, throwing her a glance over her shoulder as if the whole thing was her fault. "Who's your handler?"
She swallowed hard, remembered the stories she'd heard about people who went through without proper calibration. Though she already knew she was still whole, she checked her fingers and wiggled her toes in their boots. Everything present. She'd been lucky. She also didn't answer the woman's question, and the woman didn't ask again.
They walked for what seemed like hours, until there was no sign of the sun left, not even a faint glow. The woman began to slow down a little. The sense of unease that had surrounded her drifted away, but her movements were still short and impatient. Eventually they came upon an even narrower path that broke off from the first, and the woman followed it.
A short while later she saw there was a light coming closer to them, and as they approached she determined it was a flame shining through the window of a building. Very small, made of...wood? She supposed it was wood. It seemed similar to the trees around it. But the woman didn't give her a chance to touch the outside of the building and determine for herself. She shoved open the door and dragged her through it, into a small main room in which three other people crowded around a small fireplace. They all jumped up at the sound of the door opening, and knives appeared in the hands of two of them.
The woman snorted. "Calm down," she said.
"There's a passcode," said one of the other three. The voice was a man's though the figure was short and thin. Like the woman, the other three were all wearing bulky coats. For good reason, she thought, rubbing her arms. Though the brisk walk through the forest had kept her warm, the night air still bit at her. She had not only missed daylight, it seemed she had missed seasons. It was clearly winter here, maybe very early spring at the latest.
"There's no one else out here," argued the woman, which seemed hypocritical given her great rush before. She turned abruptly. "Name," she said.
She hesitated. Did they want her real name or her city name? How would they even know her city name? They probably didn't, so she said, "Jezamine."
The woman cuffed her on the side of the head, leaving her ears ringing. "No, idiot! Your name! They didn't send you over here without a name!"
Oh. Feeling stupid, she said, "Laurenmassey."
"Lauren Massey," the woman said slowly. "It's two words. And are you absolutely sure? Have you got it written down anywhere?"
She shook her head. "It was given to me. I memorized it. Like I was supposed to." Writing things down was beyond dangerous. Not only could information fall to the enemy, but it made agents too complacent, less likely to recall the information from memory. "Lauren Massey." She made sure to put the pause. "From Detroitmichigan."
"Fuck's sake," spat one of the other three, this one another woman, and one of the two still holding a knife in her hand. "Look at these morons they're sending us."
"Detroit, Michigan," said the first woman. She suddenly seemed kindly compared to the others. "Two words. And when you give your name to people, they will call you just Lauren, not the full name. That's how it works here. So you must think of yourself as Lauren, and only give the second name in appropriate situations."
Lauren felt herself blushing. "No one told me."
"As I said," the woman by the fire interjected, shrugging.
"I trained!" Lauren said defensively. "I was told I was ready!"
"You were likely just convenient," said her rescuer. "There's getting to be too many of us, and they've slowed down the training. But we still need more people." She looked Lauren up and down. "My name is Rita Goode. You call me Rita to yourself and anyone else. There will be no time you will need to use the second name."
Lauren nodded.
"Those three are Adam, Melinda, and Barry," she continued, pointing them out in turn. "You don't need to know their second names, you won't be working with them." She grinned. "You're mine."
"Thank god," said Melinda, sitting down again.
"The gods are dead." The reply was automatic, almost a litany in itself.
Rita shook her head. "It's an expression," she said. "I'm going to teach you how to talk more like them, because you clearly got shit training on the other side."
Lauren almost argued in defense again, but why was she defending her handler and the other trainers? She had never liked any of them anyway. So she nodded. "As it is."
"Okay."
"What?"
"You say 'okay,' in response to something like that, not 'as it is.'"
"Okay." Lauren rolled it around on her tongue. Well, it was a shorter, quicker response, anyway, and that could only be good. "Okay."
"Good," said Rita. "Now, we're going to get you some warmer clothing, and then your real training begins."
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This is really good. I love the sense of suspense you built.
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