The Justiceers - Part Two: Chapter Two
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two: Wave of Mutilation
2.2
Miriam was weirding Arthur out as she’d cooked late breakfast in The Nebberath’s kitchen, something about her newfound energy felt inexplicably alien to him. She’d the same heart of that woman he’d always known, yet there was far less worry about everything. Her mind was changed.
Her rises and falls had evened out — made less of extremes and more of balance.
Parts of Miram’s soul had returned with her, cleansing this woman now before him of distortions he’d not known were such, changing her into something he’d not quite recognize. It was some of those subtlest parts washed away which Arthur had grown to love most over the cycles.
Source wasn’t even speaking to Miriam anymore; its voice had become her own.
She said it’d always been herself.
Miriam was still that silly joyous girl, always commanding fire at will, but the sadness which permeated everything had gone. He’d never wanted Miriam sad, that’s just who she was, to see her free was strangely bittersweet.
It made him feel guilty, but Arthur knew she’d say he deserved to respect and honor his feelings. So, he was letting himself bitch about it internally and trying his best to not feel bad about that.
Arthur was happy for her and could see how Miriam was more his equal than ever been before, her stability now mirroring his own. Yet he’d come to realize there would still be grief to navigate in this transition, even if it paled in comparison to the utter hopelessness he’d felt at the thought of her demise.
There would be a sense of loss which would live inside Arthur.
Still, gut told it clearly, this had been the woman Miriam was always meant to become, and with time, he’d find his love eclipsing even that he’d felt before. It would be standing beside this woman, different as she was, wherein he’d finally meet the woman of his dreams.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do with this,” Miriam blurted out in reference to her teeny-little regrowing hand.
“I feel like I should wear a glove or something.”
Gut spoke then to Arthur, a whispered tale which birthed his widest grin, something quite devious in fact. It told of a use for that hand.
Arthur reckoned he might get over this pretty quickly. Things were looking better by the moment.
Miriam had always been a highest-class lover, empathy offering most useful talents to the mix, sadness stowed embedding such vitality to her presence, but this was not like anything he’d experienced before.
This shit was cosmic.
His gut had been right — her regrowing hand proved very useful indeed.
Yet, it was far more causing Arthur to wear a shit-eating grin; this goddess had just blown his fucking mind, rolling his eyes so far back into his head he was surprised they still worked. To know she was all his, for the rest of her time on this plane, was a notion of purest joy to his heart.
Miriam always had the healing touch.
A way she’d held him, fucked him, had always been embedded with that light so connected to her soul. Miriam would channel it consciously showering waves onto Arthur. It made him uncomfortable when he’d first met her, even if he’d enjoyed it. Something about opening himself to it had just felt strange, unaccustomed to such healing energies
He’d found in their reconciliation, this light becoming his safest space to re-charge and empower himself, the healing she wielded so naturally becoming his balancing force.
With her soul integrating within, there was no intention needed anymore, Miriam carried a field a love that would touch all. To be near her, was to be brought back into alignment with yourself. That had always been her light’s power, but the tactility of it now was staggering to Arthur.
He’d felt it before he even made it back to The Nebberath. They’d spoken as he made his way home. Just able to hear her words, he could tell there was something brighter shining through her voice’s song.
When Arthur finally met Miriam, just inside The Nebberath’s docking hatch, he’d cried like he had in that dream. The simple sight of this woman had become a most healing event. He’d no doubt her light would be felt by every person they’d meet from now on, even with her goofy little hand.
Miriam always triggered the strongest reactions from people. Pulling out the truth of who they were. Those of balance and peace would find her the most refreshing presence imaginable, others lost to their own demons would see them reflected, often making her out to be something perverse, a projection of their own unwillingness to heal in her light.
The abundance of this energy was the one thing which triggered Arthur most upon spending time with Miriam since she’d been back. He was feeling uncomfortable again, like so long ago, this new level of light was hard for even him to take. At least, until she’d held him.
Arthur had no way to explain better than ‘his heart just came’.
He’d not share that with Miriam though.
Three months had passed since Miriam’s time beyond. Oliath was no longer a city by any reasonable definition, quickly becoming a ruin. Grammaton was alive.
The Cryptoids, despite how disgusting they looked, and how terrible the horrors they’d afflicted, were an extension of the planet itself. They were natural to Grammaton; their mother. Respect had been overlooked in the aftermath of their most violent arrival, the sights of terror it wrought, both Arthur and Miriam now feelt regretful for the callous attitudes they’d held toward these creatures.
Nature, that most unknowable beast, far past the will of human’s ability to tame, had revealed its true colors here. This galaxy in which The Periphery made its home was cruel.
The entire universe, this whole plane of existence — at least, as explained by Miriam’s channel — had been built for pain and suffering, to learn from it all, each soul taking part to make great sacrifice for the unique experience of crafting these lives of love and hate which helped the entire oneness of the universe to understand itself better.
It seemed a lot to think about for Arthur, but he appreciated the context it gave the awfulness of it all. If Miriam was right, and on some highest level the universe was just one big being trying to discover the infinite number things it could be, then the nightmares people perpetrated upon each other were ultimately self-inflicted. Which made things slightly less horrible.
Now back from beyond, Miriam embodied this truth deeply, and it was why she’d felt so oddly steady to him, seeming to carry far less concern.
This worried Arthur, caring so much, feeling things so completely. He’d a great healing moment when explaining all which had befallen Grammaton in that time she’d been unconscious, her phases spent in the regen-tank. Miriam cared about the things that mattered more than ever.
It was only herself she’d lost worry over.
The way she held compassion for others now, the way he could see it on her face and feel it in her energy, it reminded him of himself. Something he’d never seen in that girl she’d been before. So caught up in her own life’s traumas, there was always a barrier she’d held between herself and the suffering of others which bothered Arthur.
He’d wanted to be with someone who cared like he did.
Now Arthur could see that Miriam was quite literally the most compassionate person he’d ever known beside himself, only having learned to keep it for herself while navigating a most dreadful past. By the time he’d met her she’d forgotten how to use it for anyone else.
Being in Miriam’s presence as he’d shared that information about the evacuation efforts and ongoing search for life, feeling her newfound levels of empathy for other’s pain and hearing her light’s most pertinent questions, those which would’ve never come through before, Arthur had been stunned.
He’d assumed this Miriam would be even more aloof about the things which really mattered to him, that her spiritual connection to the beyond would have caused her to take less seriously the suffering of these people in The Periphery whom he’d made it his life’s work to do the best for. Yet she was all fire for these she didn’t know, furious for them, for Grammaton itself.
Never had Arthur seen Miriam wield such passion for anyone other than herself. This was the moment he’d finally believed what gut had told him.
This goddess was his.
The next few weeks had been heaven on The Nebberath. Love was not only renewed between Arthur and Miriam, but deepened in ways they’d never thought possible.
His Miriam’s soul was a goddess.
Arthur was finally opening to the ideas of that old fable passed down within legends of The Conclave, and it made him realize she could’ve always been right; he might just have a god inside himself.
The thought always made Arthur cringe when Miriam expressed it in the past, bizarre notions streaming through her channel. She’d become a beliver. To him, it’d felt like an egotistical and delusional view of what was surely something more grounded in reality.
Yet, as Arthur opened himself to this strangest possibility, he couldn’t help but feel it answered questions he’d been asking his whole life. Something different had always lived within him, and he’d known it from the start.
It was an oddest thing to exist in the world without Miriam’s reflection. No one else had ever seen Arthur the way he felt. He’d taken it to mean he was mistaken about himself, allowing himself to be less than he was by the verdict of other’s estimations.
Even through these cycles spent beside Miriam, all the time with her writing, he’d still seen her faith as a beautiful lie. Now, Arthur’s gut was finally speaking to him about those things he’d never wanted to see before. That was beginning to change.
Miriam woke up early to eat and meditate. Before she’d have used this time to take-up at her writing table and pour out the swirling thoughts of her source.
Now, with it becoming part of her, she wasn’t feeling that pressure build up. Peace was becoming Miriam, and the fear in her was finally beginning to die.
Miriam would be making up for the way she’d wasted herself so long, the ways she’d let her birth circumstance so define the woman she had become. She’d also live with joy in every moment.
Taking this newfound opportunity to do what she really wanted, Miriam slipped back into bed with Arthur. He’d felt her lay beside him and rolled over, throwing an arm overtop, laying his head onto her chest.
Arthur fell right back asleep.
Miriam wasn’t tired at all, wide awake in-fact. She’d looked up past the ceiling of their cabin, towards that light above and her family within it, reflecting on this decision to come back.
“Worth it,” she’d told them.
