The Justiceers - Part Two: Chapter Ten
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
Part Two: Wave of Mutilation
2.10
Laurentine Daemenos had been coming forward in more overt ways for Miriam.
As they’d flown The Nebberath above Arthur on the ground of Grammaton, clearing ground above the High Court complex, herself taking station within its rarely used navigation hub, she’d felt them join her up close and personal.
They knew what was coming as well as she had.
This last cycle had been a most challenging time for Miriam, such expansion of self through the writings which flowed free, finding herself transform more each day into a fuller embodiment of her soul.
Her writings were more than just for Arthur. The intuitive connection with him and their family beyond led her works to contain messages for them both, with himself receiving many she’d not understand, yet her own reflection so constantly present as well.
Miriam’s spirit was of a most courageous, clever, and humorous sort — to have been shown this so clearly from her family on high was a blessing she could not begin to express the proper amounts of gratitude for. They’d finally helped her feel beautiful in all that she was. Having stowed the opinions of other deeply within for so long, to feel true love for herself was an incalculably powerful notion.
Yet, those words would also eviscerate her own sense of worldly attachment, reflecting coldly all the ways she’d once betrayed herself chasing validation, and the how she’d let The Periphery down by hiding within her trauma, allowing herself to become a victim.
Through her soul family’s grace, seeing their words of fire and spiritual wisdom come through, they would teach exactly who she was. More importantly, they showed her all she wasn’t.
By pushing her constantly to write things which terrified and hurt Miriam’s heart, embedded with such profound truths, she’d come to learn what not only the foundational structures of the universe and beyond truly represented, but the purpose of it all; learning together.
Arthur had often remarked how he’d felt her writings were ‘fucking with his head’, but they’d been fucking with Miriam’s the whole time.
Seeing this darkness come through her words which she’d once and in some cases still allowed to reside within her, along with the most blatantly obvious depictions of what a fullest embodiment of herself would really look like, forged change inside Miriam without any effort of her own.
Her goddess was coming out more everyday, seemingly newfound powers were being added to her repertoire constantly.
This final moment aboard her home had been of both bliss and greatest sorrow for Miriam. Flying one last time in The Nebberath alongside its soul-bound guardian, themselves having known it was time to move on. They’d explained with such assurance the gifts Arthur and Miriam wielded were theirs, and those stories of The Nebberath endowing them abilities had always been of myth alone.
Laurentine Daemenos would be with them both for all time, as would their entire family of soul.
Miriam had been dancing with them in the navigation hub when she’d felt it coming, having been worked out by forces beyond herself, she’d found it all quite effortless in the end. Still, there was a guilt which would live within Miriam for the rest of her days. It was her coming back which had sealed the fate of The Nebberath. She’d have prevented this all this from happening if she stayed beyond.
The hard way had been chosen. No matter how painful the route before her had become, she would walk it, because this was still worth it.
She’d halt her swaying hips in those final moments, shoulders held by Daemenos’ great spirit, grateful for this last chance to witness her home in all its glory.
Miriam stepped into the galley, thinking of all the cycles she’d spent here with Arthur, knowing these memories would live forever within the unchanging fabric of time, in which they were only now experiencing as this ever-changing phenomena, and would be places they could always touch and re-experience from beyond into eternity.
Her soul had even shown a truth she found most resonant with her heart. As always, confirmed by healing tears.
The reason all those most precious moments of Miriam’s life had come with such forceful sensation of purest presence, drawn into the experience of each breath and movement of her body so completely, was that her soul revisited those the very most.
In those times, spirit would come home in full.
Miriam had tears in her eyes then, the weight of this pending loss so near, the feelings of it all becoming too real. She thought then on how she’d not want to be here for what came next.
It was that moment the visage of Miriam Halafax disappeared.
After Arthur’s birthday Miriam had delivered some disappointing news. She’d told that she was finding herself quite lost in her transformation towards fully embodying her goddess’ soul.
It was a strangest ask she’d had of him, unlike any part of that Miriam he’d known. A thing she’d never ask under any circumstances Arthur could imagine.
Yet, she’d begged him to be patient while she completely abdicated herself from physical touch for an extended period of time. Explaining that to be in his presence would be more than acceptable, remaining the joy it would always had been to her heart, but professing a most dire need for this newfound barrier as she came into herself fully.
Arthur’s gut had grumbled much, especially on the heals of that renewed passion and wanting they’d stoked in their most divine of gatherings. He’d promised to abide her wish.
She’d then stressed again, just how completely crucial it was, thanking him most sincerely for his understanding ahead of time.
He’d found such blessing in Miriam’s grace of late, learning as much or more about his godhood than she’d been uncovering of her goddess, some sense of needing to catch-up within him. She’d had a head start at all this spirituality business.
His gut told him she’d needed it though.
Arthur was gracious in his time abiding her request, seeing it as a challenge to his own attachments, finding within it more chances to grow. This had been a most wonderful discovery to Miriam, as it would allow her to have her cake and eat it too. Though, she’d expected no less from her Arthur’s warrior spirit.
There were preparations Miriam would need to make for what was to come, incredible amounts of leading information surging in waves almost constantly, she’d mapped it all out the best she could. The only way it would be possible was with this most trying stipulation. At least, for her to do what needed to be done, and still get time beside Arthur.
Over a half-cycle before his birthday, something changed for Miriam.
She’d found one morning upon awaking early to do her yoga routine that most distinctive feeling of divine presence come upon her, now knowing it signified herself revisiting this individual moment throughout eternal existence, and in the wake of that realization a strangest thing happened.
She’d found her mind so pointedly focus upon her favorite planet in The Periphery.
A world of water, beach fronts, great storms, and sunny skies. The people there lived lives of practical and spiritual abundance. Something about the place always sang to her heart. Wisdom told often that her soul had deepest ties to some place like this in the universe, called to its themes so often throughout her lifetimes. Some most treasured existence where she’d lived as the Urikans did on Talamas.
Urikans thrived both within the waters of their mammoth ocean and upon its majestic landscapes alike, breathing so freely in both habitats.
Miriam never needed to be told explicitly beyond these initial insights to believe it, her heart knew it true. No more resonant thought had ever existed within her apart from the knowing of her love for Arthur. She’d been longing for that world and its ways her whole life. No matter how strange it seemed, it made more sense than anything inside.
Upon thinking of Talamas that morning, pursuing visions of the beach she’d visited on her all-time-favorite detour, and greatest gift from Arthur, she’d found herself standing upon its cerulean shores.
Miriam would soon come to realize she remained upon The Nebberath as well, that both selves seemed to bear the full functionality of her spirit simultaneously. There were two of her all of sudden, and she’d thought quite explicitly, ‘what the fuck is happening?’
She’d walked that beach, discovering herself gliding above its upon each footfall, not making a single indentation, confounded when a local boy clearly saw and reacted to her — ‘little fucker’ even waved — and was profoundly puzzled when she could still feel sensations of touch throughout her entire journey. That sand was of grain beneath her feet, wind a gentle pressure upon her face with Miriam’s hair even blowing by the forces of its gusts, though, she’d not been able to lift or move a thing.
Miriam found this experience both awfully strange and profoundly clarifying. There were things she’d come back from beyond knowing, much she had to do in preparation with lack of direction, and this new gift would be the key.
It was always going to be this way after she decided to come back, she’d just not been told.
Miriam didn’t mind, it came with little effort and felt so strangely comfortable, she actually thought it was pretty fucking cool once she’d gotten over the initial shock of it all. Except for the part where she’d need to deceive Arthur and take her physical body off The Nebberath, leaving behind a visage he couldn’t touch until its fateful end.
That part sucked.
It was more than Arthur’s gut which inspired that moment Urina had taken Miriam before him in the galley of The Nebberath. He’d in fact tapped the person he had for that task quite divinely.
Miriam went down a little on Arthur’s list of favorite people to include her in the gathering, so enjoying the presence of other women who’d been born into male bodies. It made her feel less alone.
Even within The Periphery, where definitions of self were so free of form and honored by default, to be born into male body as a woman, could be a most challenging thing. It was this fact about Miriam, beyond her gifts of the goddess, which made life upon her birth planet so trying.
The fact Arthur and Miriam were inversions of each other in this way had no relation to their role within The Justiceers, it was just cool deal. She’d actually invited Urina for herself though, unknowing what level that would come to manifest in action.
Even before the party she’d reached out to Urina for entirely practical and organizational purposes. She found confidence in her character immediately, and spirit told she would be a most necessary ally in times to come.
Miriam had been projecting her visage across Grammaton, watching its transformation up close, pinpointing the tools she’d need to complete her great task. Truthfully, she’d never seen more than a few steps ahead. She was being led the whole way. Its why in the end she’d feel so irresponsible for it all, so entirely grateful, she took every step and made each choice through the direct guidance of her soul family.
The trust she offered spirit would pay back tenfold — especially considering it was constantly asking Miriam to do things which tore up her egoic constructs and challenge the lies she’d held within — it always did, every time.
Urina had been overseer of operations at the spaceport, one of many, and a known leader. Her competence was unrivaled and it triggered the people of Oliath, especially those which invested in their blindness and unknowingly allowed Carrigan Marks dastardly technologies into themselves.
Miriam could even wield her healing touch of light through these visages she now projected at will. While still in physical presence on The Nebberath, which she’d only left in secret some days after Arthur had agreed not to touch her, she’d find herself doing things while she slept with this new self entirely outside of her control.
Those travels and missions of spirit were of flow beyond that capable in this body she still wore. There was no thought to them. She’d move and act on purest instinct alone, knowing always what she had to do, most often loosing track of all that would happen in one night.
She’d wake from these travels and find herself writing with new breadths of information waiting and available to her, some knowledge Miriam had left unremembered consciously, planted to lead on paths discovered most suitable through her excursions and learnings.
The most common feat she’d find her visage completing, was that of visiting each and every soul she could in orbit, and surviving upon Grammaton’s surface, pouring healing light where it was needed most. She’d been removing everything that monster of a man had put into these people.
Miriam was setting them free, one by one.
Tearing away through the perpetual night of Oliath in their newest speedship, a legacy model Lithos Miranos, Arthur had no idea where Miriam was taking him.
He’d wanted to know everything, still replaying that bitches head skipping past, insatiable in his curiosity to know how it had all been done. Miriam explained as much as she could, though Arthur was finding it all hard to grasp, despite his best intentions.
Seeing this on his face, she’d told him they’d have plenty of time to fill in the blanks. There was a lot she could tell him now.
Still, he’d been through so much in such short time. Arthur needed rest while his godhood was coming to form, and she’d be with him every moment he allow her to.
Frustrated, not yet letting go of his need to understand, he’d scowled at Miriam in a private moment when she’d walked to the speedship’s control panel. She’d put on the dumbest song.
Arthur knew she loved this one, he’d heard her play it before. Still, he found himself surprised of the choice she’d made in this particular moment with such profound weight and depth of realization. It seemed somewhat antithetical and undermining of the importance in all that had come before, even if it made a bizarre kind of sense in the way her musical choices always would. He sure loved it though. The bitch was dancing.
