Time Throws Fire | Volume Two | Chapter Seven
volume two of the second story in The Foundry series
Time Throws Fire | Volume Two
By Ophelia Everfall
Part One - Cosmonaut | ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE
Part Two - Holy Fire Priestess | SIX |
Part Three - Get Guts
Part Four - Demon
Part Five - Synecdoche’s Synapse
Part Six - Viscera Rising
Part Seven - Exile
Part Eight - Semblance
Part Nine - Threnody of Lojack
Part Ten - Time Throws Fire
PART TWO | HOLY FIRE PRIESTESS
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tundra’s breath was ice to flesh and Callo Erion wasn’t used to sensations which tore by such furor of heat-felt stabbing upon the skin.
That simulation had been his last first. Hover hadn’t been run for a reason.
Faith in control of mind would be the key to bridge some gap. He knew it wasn’t for why but how he’d been of fright that held him in failure to rise. Nothing meant less than fear and Callo was aware. Coming felt of some mistake. The longing to be abreast from challenges alike ahead was for wholesome becoming—slower growth—less chance towards failure.
Never apart from chance—always a grafter of luck, he’d wielded truth consciously, always while steered from unknowable places within to forget and remember one thing. He’d been lying to himself.
Callo was quite mad and the sight of fall between these towering cliff faces so shrouded in swirling motes of blizzardry, blurs of torrent around, careening pieces crumbling into white mists below would take his heart to beat of fleetly repetition.
He wasn’t happy to stand upon the shaking ground. It had Callo to leap.
Focus was sought from thoughts of his feet landing softly on free float towards the open-hanging cargo hold of some in-atmosphere fleet carrier programmed into Hover. To hear his boots clank, to know this challenge done in one, would be the sum of intent grafted from his glooming, glowering, grimmest brood for weeks ahead.
It hadn’t been more than three seconds which led him forwards into that gap for tumbling by right of terrors towards flightful sights he’d forever challenge.
Nothing would keep Callo from a Foundry warship, not even that fear of his death.
Something happened upon Callo’s awakening in the simulation hall. He’d not been aware throughout, but the place was emptied. Even the late-cycle overseer left. He even considered that he might’ve been asleep.
Callo was hungry, yet not for anything but a toke. That run had taken his will to step forward without some force of relaxation. The food here was bland and people saw him not.
Boyhood inside proved him always a man. He’d left that child within behind to faults of his own.
He felt wrong most about knowing it all the while, grafting pain atop his heart embedded too deeply within callous folds of grotesquery done to self in how he’d treated others with such disregard. People like Callo’s time was running short at The Foundry, so they’d seek to grasp some independence in the now which might wield toward freedoms of leap into time.
His throat was slit the moment he’d exited the hall.
Callo Erion had been the last of three to fall in an hour. Nearest everyone within simulation flooded from the hall in great haste upon that first announcement. All but he had been open to receiving messages within their preparatory runs on gauntlet legs and quit, that trend of challenge renewed with newfound safety nets in Echo’s honor. They’d dispersed to leave him nigh alone for only moments.
The simulation operator left behind, overseeing in stunned silence, was then drawn by word of Gerron, who’d fallen most recently, alone in his bunk room. It took her into sprint without thought. He’d been her most precious lover.
Many would fall in times to come—all statures.
One man of the kitchen’s staff had been known to make a meanest fish pilaf. He’d been first.
Semblance strode, not walked, as if gliding on air. Something inside known. She’d seen a future and knew it hers to hold. It was finally before her. She would have it at last for all she’d shown of herself and would prove it to the world for earning exactly what her echo always wanted most.
Something deep in the bowels had taught of it. She’d felt it grown inside for some time. Yet the moment of becoming had finally become clear—what was to be done—who she’d take—how it all had been divine—why there wasn’t a single lie told by fates seen.
Distraction bought reaction. People were foolish in crisis. Most at least.
Poe would be the one Semblance worried on, they’d been of such thunderous voice. Ways she took to leading had no doubt intwined that woman, so carried on the outside, with senses of justice prevailing around her people. It would take no effort imagining the warrior Poe had become. Her heart was iron.
Dungeons were many, findings within sparsely ordained. Semblance found a favorite.
Some petty voice there told the tale, shown its hand at last, told of ways it taught by malicious fastidiousness, despite the horrendous machine they were a part, proving to reflect some execution of her perfect plan in nearness.
Only one would be missed most. Someone who’d graft change to take by the hand, who she’d wanted all along, would finally be hers. Patrols of intuitively soldiered will drove men and women about, others too.
Shadows lifted on her dress—Semblance beyond beautiful as she’d been remade so differently. None would recognize the woman. She wore herself as some devout. Shrouded her face would often be by chain. Her cloak’s hood worn up most often. Those eyes were still of lightning, changing, her colors now many. She’d been pierced—marked—torn from what she was to hide.
Their chamber was as expected. That presence less than ever hoped to know. Some loss of self would prove towards least of all the one before her. Semblance realized at last what it was she’d really wanted with the fool.
She’d wanted them dead.
Boundaries crossed would twist sheets over face and the guttural voice of shout borne through her froze them to wakefulness from sleep. Tossing them over, knees to back and what she’d perceived a throat, pinning them by weight, unsure which way was up, throwing blows unneeded for their basic incompetence bestowed, she’d eventually decided it not the way.
Semblance froze herself. She was lost again. Nothing had been wanted for more than something different with the boy inside those sheets. She’d only wanted to be his friend but feelings made for so much more.
Steps away would teach of her stopping. She’d gone too far. There was need to turn back.
So she did.
Semblance uncovered Rory Tyrell and ripped each gut from his throat with bare grip and loved every long-lasting moment of it.
