The Foundry | Part Three | Chapter Twenty-Seven
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Three | Dominion
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Excitement from The Void’s premiere followed Echo and Alan, along with D’Artagnan, Leopold, and Poe from the simulation hall towards the cafeteria where they now sat surrounded. People had been watching, and more than might’ve been the case with any normal run on Dog Pound, if only because Echo had set the feeds to stream and called her shot most publicly.
“That was so fucking hot,” Poe most recently informed her, squeezing their belly, knees twisting into touch, and clinching their body in a way which seemed to prove the point to Echo most thoroughly.
Alan’s face had been permanently transfixed into a widest-tooth smile this whole time. For every moment they’d spent together recently, she found herself softening more to him. He was such a sweetheart, and it felt absurd how darkened those clouds thundering over his head had been when she’d known him before. There was hardly a thing more precious than seeing his own gentle nature come out. She’d feel awful when he joked about the ways other people had treated him poorly, it made her understand what created the shadowed person she’d first met.
Echo thought he deserved so much better. That notion itself was something which seemed innately born alongside Echo’s love for someone, perhaps, the reason behind it altogether. That's why she still couldn’t find it in her to care about Priscilla’s feelings; she obviously didn’t care about Alan’s.
His eyes were absurdly stunning, transfixing, evocative of something which would have Echo believe a most powerful soul was working through him. It reminded her of Rory. She wouldn’t tell him how obsessed she’d become with his eyes, because she knew he’d heard it a million times before, and from people who probably tainted the expression entirely. Although, there was nothing but truth to the matter.
Lately, Alan’s hands recently become much freer in touching Echo, and exactly how she always believed his eyes were portraying the desire to. For him to simply wrap an arm around her waist while they’d eaten, surrounded by friends, and contained within such a force of concerted communal focus — as every gathering of people in The Foundry had recently become — was most healing to a woman so newly home to herself.
Her peers had found a respect for Echo which felt most rewarding to see reflected in their seeking of her approval, which she’d be more than happy to offer anyone who wasn’t Chloe. She knew it came from that epic showdown with Rory, which she’d been glad to hear the entire crowd was rapt-to for the first fifteen minutes, before that word of horror had spread. Yet, it was beyond their shared glory in battle. All of those who’d been chosen to stand as leaders beside their administrators, by that happenstance of Rory’s invitation they join her in The Council Chamber, had been gifted a newfound level of reverence by all.
Completely subsumed by the passion her class and seniors were sharing, Echo was in holding of gratitude beyond that she’d feel from those many accomplishments only ever acknowledged by herself.
She’d been thinking about Rory a lot of the time. While Echo wished they could’ve made it, she understood why they’d not. The two hadn’t spoken much, and only ever before and after their scheduled time at Conclave every third waking cycle.
Echo unblocked Rory on all fronts of communication after having done so alongside a fiercest message she could muster amidst their feud. Although it’d been so tainted by her hurt, and Echo wished there was some far-better means available to her, she’d still found it needed to have expressed those long stowed and unspoken words of her pain’s truth. It happened in a haze after the simulation on Atreya. Although, she’d lost the ability to pinpoint that exact moment in her memory. It was a whole stretch that seemed ‘a bit wobbly’ to her. Yet, there wasn’t a single part of Echo which expected Rory to break those boundary’s down with all she’d done.
She’d caught herself losing a few tears at the thought of seeing them beside her here, and was hoping nobody noticed, before realizing D'Artagnan had. She’d forgotten for a moment that her crying would no-doubt be interpreted as a most normal occurrence under their current circumstances of fate, those same they’d all been trying their best not to think of through this joyful gathering.
Seeing his kindness reminded Echo they’d need to get going if she was to escape his enthusiastic and blathering magnetism, so she might get to sleep at a reasonable hour for once.
Echo also decided she’d check-in at the laboratory — just in case.
“Oh, god.” Echo told herself in false hope the words may steady her.
This felt strange. Nervousness wasn’t a notion Echo would often experience these days, if at all. Even through that great build-up to their last run on Apocalypse, she’d not felt a twinge of this most uniquely bred anxiety.
Her blooming heart felt like an innermost nesting doll within her constricted chest. There were so many thoughts she was ignoring outright, attempting to keep a peaceful state of mind, and she hadn’t even known yet that Rory was going to be there.
Every time she’d swung through the laboratory like this before, hoping to catch her afterhours, when there wouldn’t be so many others around at their own workstations, she’d most disappointingly found them absent.
Rory just never seemed to be here at the right time. Echo kept trying though, not quite sure why at any point, other than she hoped for a chance to speak in a more direct way. Truthfully, suppressing a dire longing to have them as a true and intimate friend in her life once again, only lying to herself in a mutually-suppressed hope it might inspire actions which wouldn’t burn away the little shred of goodwill she’d seemingly earned.
Coming into the room, Echo was doing what she had every time, and kept her head down with those earbuds in, pretending there wasn’t a singular purpose for her being there. She almost ran into them she’d been playing the part so well.
“Why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re going, dude.” They’d said, as always quite prone to criticize Echo’s coordination skills which would fall to pieces around them.
Pretending she had music playing, Echo reached up to her ears as if to pause it, then asked, “What’s that?”
Rory looked up slowly with her sorceress’s grin. Something in Echo’s performance had portrayed the falsity of it all. She’d been had quite plainly, and they’d realized why she’d come in the first place.
They’d been kind, and just told her, half-laughing, “Sit down.”
“Oh fuck, dude,” Echo heard herself say under her breath.
She was almost back to Alan’s bunkroom now, he’d likely be asleep with how late it was. Rory and her talked for hours, and D’artagnan stole about half of one before that. To be out this late wasn’t what she’d planned, her and Alan were going to celebrate. It just seemed to come out of her and Rory, and ended up being a most pleasant endeavor for Echo’s heart, finally having the opportunity to catch up with them after all that time.
There had been one dreadful moment near the end which was troubling her mind most entirely, however. In fact, it’d turned that pleasure inside Echo to something far more complicated.
It hadn’t just been the single thing. That only served as a trigger which left her reeling as they’d said their goodbyes, and unpacking the breadth of unseen feelings borne within her throughout the course of that entire conversation while she’d made her way back.
Echo was quite disconnected from her breathing, and that focused pursuit of peace. She felt very near the place her mind had become so lost after spending time near Rory in the past.
The way they were such a solitary creature, like Echo, was a most appealing thing to witness held so fiercely. Getting let into their private bubble felt like a blessing for every second she’d spent within it. She just enjoyed life more when they were around — too much — and it didn’t make sense to her.
Echo would be most embarrassed to admit it, but they made her feel like a pet sometimes, and she hated how much she’d love it. Echo just found it hard to leave their side, especially once she realized how sparse those opportunities to see Rory would be, for some time unknowing the breadth of that truth.
That one thing which triggered all this to rise so violently inside her consciousness with a most compounded flair of longing, was a silent moment shared after she’d spoken.
Just before leaving, she mentioned Alan in a most off-hand way, the occurrence itself having become a completely natural thing for Echo, so deep into relationship the man, and one she’d find herself doing with any friend. Echo saw this little look on their face. Rory’s nostrils had flared for a just a shred of second. There was this sense she got from their eyes — themselves a different breed of that same soulful sort which Alan wore, she’d decided after their conversation — which made her hurt for more of exactly whatever it was hidden within their expression.
Later, Echo would figure out what she’d believed herself to have felt; as if Rory thought she deserved better.
It wasn’t something she’d be used to having come back at her, most accustomed to feeling it for others alone, and it was the exact thing which got her so badly before with this woman. They’d show these little signs of some powerfully protective possessiveness over Echo, betraying in body language and words laced with subtextual meaning something unspoken, and nothing would make her happier than to see them, despite the lack of clarity and pain that inevitably birthed each-time it went nowhere. That made Echo go a tad crazy — thinking something could be hidden inside their feelings.
Echo found herself most glad to be the strongest willed woman she’d become. She was a truthful person, to herself and those fortunate others she deemed worthy of the grace; in all scenarios, eventually, once she’d figure out what the truth actually was. Echo would always try her best along the way for her people too, things just still got the better of her sometimes.
“Old habits die hard,” is what she’d been told Fox in his silence, after witnessing her lie through her teeth with such flair to one of those very unlucky people who she’d not care less about wielding such tactics against.
Those people who operated by means of purest manipulation and bad faith were not worth the time, in her opinion. They’d most often use her truth against her without hearing a shred of it. As long as she’d know the truth herself, and do her best for the people she loved, that would be more than enough. Echo always prayed for the folks she found herself despising and lying most joyously to. Not for some deliverance from them perpetrating the action which triggered her, simply because she’d eventually come around to feeling bad for having seen the worst in them.
Echo would be praying for herself tonight however, as she crawled into bed with Alan and held him tightly — only that she’d make the right decision for herself always, and never fail to be honest about who she was and how she felt to these people she loved again. Whatever difficulties came from feelings, Echo had realized they’d not matter when you were truthful from the start.
She loved Alan in such a unique and powerful way. Her heart would have no hesitation in becoming one with this man of such synchronicity to her soul. He felt like a most perfect sexy sibling she’d never had — not that Echo would roll those dice in a blood-related situation — and it was a coziest thing imaginable.
The way love was finding more space to thrive in Echo’s life had felt strange in the precipice of war. There was less holding to attachment by the nature of things, and that way she’d come to care for so many only increased the notion of freest love. Ever still — Rory proved most challenging.
Nobody felt the same in her heart. There wasn’t a flame which had proven to compare with the scope of her passion for their character, no matter how much they lashed out at her for it. She’d known from the start, and told them quite plainly on many occasions, even if leaving out some choice words which might’ve helped them see what she really meant; the actual truth.
Echo Béleaph wouldn’t ever love anyone more than Rory Tyrell, because they’d been her first love.
“God damnit,” she grumbled beneath breath before finally cracking open the door, hoping Alan was asleep, finally realizing this was the reason she hated Rory so much
“I’m just fucked.”
