Time Throws Fire
by Ophelia Everfall
Part One | Redux Eterna
Part Two | Polymath Blues
Part Three | The Feather
Part Four | Wizard
Part Five | Coward’s End
Part Six | Whirls of Wind
Content Warning: This is only a story.
Chapter Eighteen
Rory was headed to the top; a center—two oligarchs oft unseen—Pauline and Marcus Demitrus. They were eldest statesmen of The Foundry and resisted support throughout by twisted and hopeless desire to suppress one thing; the heart of Echo Béleaph.
Something would be changed. Nothing would be seen as less uncouth than how she would again find form to these two. Echo wouldn’t want it with any part of her being but the heart—those places she’d touched beyond which would tell of some perfection in peace would whisper—something forcefully accepted through crass overbearance of its function would be righted if only from this place of technological remaking and it would heal her to simply know of the future before it whole.
The ways she projected anger. Her desire to transgress against normality so severely. It all stemmed from her deepest fear and what it had chained her to. Manifestations of consciousness bore into and glimpsed in part by mind through dreamscape had been a fright. Something which remembered would prove the lie had torn a hope of chance from another who might see her more wholly through knowing. It wasn’t the reality of what that change would bear; it’s what it revealed, and that was the true depth of unknown sorrow in the woman who would continue to transgress through her least favorite actions unknowing; self-betrayal.
She’d think these fears a warning, challenge, for God was not the friend people thought—that would be Echo’s estimation.
He would beg humanity to find the truth from those disparate emotional realities and layers of thought within themselves. The meeting had been quick. All was felt by these two in ways unexpected. They’d not meant to stand in the way of progress one bit. There was misunderstanding and it was the same as everyone else’s about the girl. Echo hadn’t been herself for a very long time.
Everything she’d ever done was out of bitter disregard for creation itself and the role she was foisted into. Nothing would be wanted for worse than another start in opposition of where she began. This holistic desire resonated through family and station and form. All fears would be conquered and this would see her right. She’d do it herself one step at a time once together.
Rory had been beside her body as it was reassembled. Echo remade as intended at this time and place, and she would awaken to find something splendid and evocative of her true spirit’s greatest hope. No lie would be cast from her lips again.
They were to be married.
Rory was making up for the biggest mistake she’s ever made in expressing how little she saw Echo. This blunder had been the start of a sadness which carried through her time since. Something needed to be repaired.
Crystal chandeliers hung in honor of the space, a spirit from the many planets in which they’d been excavated surrounding, some help to holding the space as this wedding chamber it had become. The dining hall was remade entirely and none would recognize a fixture.
Orator Coriseau was presiding. Rory couldn’t wait to see her bride. Echo Béleaph would be walked the down the aisle by Marcus Demitrus himself. This moment was stretched in a way invoking presence untoward. The people here were family alone and that was written. Echo had ‘seen it that way and they could eat a dick if they didn’t like it.’
The people here were few for the scope of room itself. Poe had been overseeing the ceremony’s organization. Leopold, ever busy at work in hopes to take some part at The Foundry—straddled by his Jocé in their seat near the rear.
Everyone loved it here. They’d know it deep within themselves from hence to forth—this place always carrying grandeur beyond its original form. A song of greatest remembrance played to the ears of Echo. One which had felt no other way than this before or since.
Rory couldn’t believe this was all happening and Echo wasn’t losing ground. The look on her face taught of truth sometimes obscured. When it came to what mattered at The Foundry, it was only them
