Time Throws Fire | Volume Two | Chapter Three
volume two of the second story in The Foundry series
Time Throws Fire | Volume Two
By Ophelia Everfall
Part One - Cosmonaut | ONE | TWO |
Part Two - Holy Fire Priestess
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 ONE | COSMONAUT
CHAPTER THREE
Jaundiced tendons in Mary-Cate’s arms were of soreness which bore itself deep within from youngest years. Her place on Exile was forsaken until the changing tides began sweeping about when consequence of Echo’s liege over the ship had struck. Things changed.
Investigations turned to obsession amongst the ship’s populace, and especially its uppermost military elites. Mutilation of that degree bestowed upon their fallen fellow was simply unknown. His tongue felt some sign. It sent people spiraling. Everyone wanted to know.
“Why?”
Echo knew. She wouldn’t even tell herself. Still with some part deep within, she’d find it most aware through latent reconnection to Semblance, Echo was reborn anew from finding of comfort within her newfound and expansive etheric vantage. It was always meant to be that way.
Those strokes of action didn’t mute performance of the woman herself. She would only strive forward because of that constant awareness towards place in Ecatosh holding fast within—some plan of destiny holding true despite—beyond a mind so entirely steered by instinct.
Mary-Cate was some mother to be—one Echo would make so. She wouldn’t have choice in the matter. That woman had paid it forward to everyone always for the way life made her hate some inner-held perception of God. Demitrios Harper needed place to land his seeds for changing the universe—a womb—and Echo would seek to create suffering of malicious doing.
That woman chosen would be made into something they’d not want by Echo’s forceful and sumptuous grotesquery of hatefully elegant manifestations to headings fated in willful disregard for all.
Echo was resting in Leslie’s cabin for much of her time in the material while operating some formation of plan from within, utilizing ship systems in full. Yet those actions made weren’t proving functionally efficient at the task she’d set forward to achieve.
Foundations of thought would be exhumed for exposure within her time spent judiciously consuming sweet treats. It was an important part of the process.
Leslie hadn’t been going quickly. Remnants of what she’d left would no doubt be glad for how large their closet had been made—some divine happening from their own egoic wanting—it was now her home.
Echo made Exile aware Leslie would not be leaving her cabin anytime soon—leveraging the woman’s reputation to earn solitude and rest from the respect of all she’d done in her time—ordering deliveries of many foods which Echo would have no need of for sustenance itself; remade by the etheric within to only have stomach for joyful consummation. She wouldn’t feel hunger at all unless she stayed materialized longer than usual and that occurrence had been eliminated entirely—some proof taught the why by mounds of frozen-food containers sharing Leslie’s private space.
Echo believed in the principle: out of sight, out of mind.
The future was written somehow, in proof, of that refound connection Echo had feeling back towards The Foundry’s future. To get it right was the trick she’d have to learn herself towards for achieving that.
It wasn’t in the plan she’d make. It wasn’t the people she’d take. It wasn’t that woman she’d break. It was how she held herself alone.
Chosen marks were hard earned apart from Mary-Cate. She was a bigot of highest degree and against transgender women in particular—something within her twisted most. That station she found her own would be a transgender woman’s dream and leveraged for cruelty. She was beautiful. She’d much privilege to rest. There wasn’t a wanting for supportive abundance surrounding her.
Mary-Cate never wanted any of it. She’d hated the way she looked always, especially how people fawned over it. Where others saw privilege, she only saw shackles. There was something else unseen—she was gay.
She was a gay boy, a top, and exclusively, on the inside.
Echo was quite the opposite in most ways.
Taking people over from the inside out was a gift she’d found after casting forth by throughput and beyond into Exile’s own heart of infinite power. That permanently sealed chamber within the bowels of their nigh immortal ship was never trifled with her way before. It proved boldly fortuitous. Echo’s only fear was that she’d not put herself back together upon return to Skarlet in Boreál.
Within Mary-Cate had been strange. Echo liked it better than she’d thought she would. She’d felt straighter than she ever had before. There wasn’t a hold on her from bodily ridden trauma to take anything away.
Once and only once had Echo Béleaph ridden a cisgendered man. They’d been quite taken with the way she took them. They’d been large—very. He’d not fit so well with another before. He kept asking her kindly, “Are you okay?”
She was and proved it laughing over again at the boy. “Oh, I’m great.”
His girlfriend would’ve been more put off if Echo hadn’t been all the way around their girly cock with her mouth and making them scream most of the night. Each took turns. That woman Echo’s solitary cis steed would know his own had been a bottom of bottoms—a watcher. Yet even she was compelled to take one so prone to riding a dark horse into the lowest reaches of her goddesshood’s mighty and cavernous underworld.
There’d been tradeoffs—swapperoos—variations of many sorts shared between the three—excluding any which precluded Echo taking it all.
How she’d pulled them close, stunned in longest gazes, just before walking out their door after blowing their mind for hours one end—after relenting to herself once, half dressed, and resuming for a whole other roundabout—she’d felt as the goddess of her soul while planting most delicate and sumptuous kisses onto them both.
Later she’d hated herself. Echo wasn’t that person in her lifetime. She’d only had it in her and needed to prove it. It was the man’s lingering smell which taught of the singularity which would be that moment—bitterness from it stowed deeply.
That had felt like everything to her. While between them and before, simply existing in the presence of a woman like her living with a supportive force of masculinity, had felt some sight to what she’d need.
To discover herself moored in regret and nausea for time on end would prove to permanently wound her heart. She’d been too traumatized. Her body was conditioned against the smell of men. A woman’s scent would seem to prove her only hope of comfort. One with strongest hands the goal she’d seek. Someone with a lion’s heart and a protective spirit the knowing of what they’d need to be her rock.
Mary-Cate’s body was free of that trauma. She’d loved men. She loved them a lot—gayer than anyone from the scent of their pheromones alone. Her afflictions were of mind.
Echo utilized that while dampening in whole, with her intention—focused choices now proving as beyond as herself—that woman’s dysfunctional relationship with her own pheromones to wane. Released was the way Mary-Cate’s own smell made her sick. Echo wouldn’t want to experience that, so created an exception while within by near entirely subconscious making.
Taking Demitrios had been a pleasure. She’d not held back for how Mary-Cate inside would be cringing towards the submission. Something dark of intention sought to destroy that woman for proofs seen of her doing the same to girls like Echo.
Understanding dark intent within her was an allowance. It passed and what stuck would hold from fate. Echo wanted to break Mary-Cate into the little girl he’d pretended to be for good. Demitrios would need a companion even after she carried his child and was forced to repair their reputations out of consequence.
He was getting close and Echo knew what Mary-Cate hated most—that thing she’d never do. Her men despised her for it but loved the woman she’d become, so apt at pretending, all the same—enchanting ways placing spell on their chase. Demitrios would have it always and forever and never again by the steering force of Echo.
Mary-Cate swallowed it all. There was a lot.
