The Resistance

Intro: “Never”

-PLANET FOOR-

“What is this gift they speak of, my child?”

I stood silent.

Seven days ago when I broached the front steps of the Emerald Estates, there was an exquisite bravery that radiated through my spirit. Seared.

Icing across my skin in place of what should of felt like sweat.

But that had since dissipated. And though I now shook heavily under the iron clad slave chains that adorned my neck, wrist, and clamped snuggly around my waist, I was no longer cold.

They clanked and chattered noisily against my quivers, that at this point were involuntary, as I stood meekly a feet away from a massive cave of fire they called “The Furnace” used to haphazardly heat the room.

 “You must look me in my face, dear child, or I’m afraid I will think you are merely trying to offend me.”

 His light chuckle shook in his throat like running water, deep and tumultuous, yet flowed out decadent. Somewhat symphonic. His fingernails, painted a scarlet red, were medium length and pointed painfully at the tips like that of a witches boot. They moved in an unrealistic blur with every walnut he pinched at and would suddenly, with languid effort, stop for him to delicately remove the nut and dismiss it into the air for a small feline like creature at his side to dissolve of. Though his statement made me quickly glance to his face, I was sure he had never formally glanced into mine. He simply did not have to.

 “You are aware you have been in my countenance for seven whole days and nights the same?”

His fingers paused thoughtfully.

“And every single day you have been summoned to these very same private quarters of mine to unveil, if you will, this remarkable gift my soldiers have rambled insistently about. A gift that furthermore due to my own curiosity has kept you alive.”

 He quietly dropped a walnut into an ancient cauldron full of precarious nuts and animate fruits, which seemed bottomless at first glance, and placed his hands into his lap.

 “My patience, already weakened at this flaccid stage of immortality, has grown if possible, quite weaker with this charade now,” His voice quickened in subtle anger. “As you are wasting already irrelevant minutes, hours, DAYS, of your LIFE!” pausing he sighed in a rather satisfied manner.

 “By law of the Anald Doctrine I have the right to grant you the true death for your untimely trespassing onto sacred property.”

 His eyes remained closed as he fettered on in mock monotone the laws and the rightful reason for my sure to be soon death. And I immediately found my voice.

 “The True Death?” I mused.

 Hearing my own voice sent obvious vibrations throughout the small space. Exposing this “gift” the guards chattered about nightly. My voice sailed around the room. Lightly trembling the chandelier, blowing smoothing under the guards garments. Swallowing fire from the pits of the furnace nearly flushing them completely out.

 There had been two ghostly women. Disgustingly thin, with sunken cheeks and skin of old wet graying clay. With extremely thin strings of hair clinging in an awkward matted fashion to the top of their abnormally small heads. Their backs hunched over dramatically making their posture appear beastly. With fingers long and thinner than pencils that did not separate at the nail but further blended into a pointed tip of raw flesh. When I had entered the room, despite the two guards that accompanied me, they snarled a low hissing growl at me, inches from my face splattering thick drool onto my chin. Their teeth were a sickening shade of bronze and contained what I assumed to be little pieces of rotten flesh between them.

 In the few seconds the words resonated off of my tongue, they moved in an unnatural rush. Kneeling now at my feet, they spoke quickly in an inaudible gibberish that only faintly came out as painful whimpers. At once the unmerciful shackles that clung to my dampened skin shatter violently, scattering into a mist over the head of the women clamoring obnoxiously at the very tips of my feet.

“I’m afraid I do not understand.” I spoke slowly.

 He moved, also to quick for me to register, in a blur, stopping inches from my face. His mouth, that seemed to pass no breath, perched open, and held an old wet stench. His eyes I noticed, as they searched over my entire body before resting feverously on my face, were a startling shade of amber. They danced in excitement, and though his lips never moved nor closed his eyes smiled euphorically.

 “Your voice…”

He stammered, his appearance becoming frenzied. Almost in a childlike manner, he clasped his hands together and nearly jumped into my arms. His fingers, so cold, they seems to not feel like actual fingers, slithered along my wrist, up the base of my elbows, across my arms, resting on my shoulders.

“You are quite warm.”

 His voice once musical and excited rose in a faint whisper that resembled fear as he become further aware of my uniqueness.

 “Who are you? Who is your creator? Why have you come to the Estates?”

 He stepped back shrewdly, almost as if disgusted by the possibilities. I on the other hand stood erect and confused. I had been aware of the bloodline. I knew the history of Emory and the Anald Doctrine. The Emerald Estates. But I grew quite sure he had no knowledge of me. And in turn I found myself quite agitated at the turn of events and unmistakably afraid.

I stepped away from the two beasts of women that coward at my sides cooing and shook my head in sharp snatches side to side, as if to make sense of his blatant lack of knowledge. I continued to back away from him and his servant women until the heat behind me became unbearable, only reminding me of the massive furnace at the end of the room. He watched me in a statuesque posture, nothing moving but his eyes. He now glanced at me in amused bewilderment. He reached down to silence the women, still in their same spot, reaching out to me in a yearning manner whimpering in anxious shrieks. He silenced them with a wave of his hand never looking away from my eyes.

He clasped his hands together and seemed to glide toward me although he never appeared to come any closer. My shoulders trembled as I found myself lost in his glance. He abruptly stopped, contorting his face into a vivid expression of malice and anger, as tears sprouted from the edges of my lashes. He shrunk back in a roar that nearly crumbled the room, causing his servants to flee from him altogether with fearful hisses, and snarls.

 I backed further into the furnace overcome with fear, and agony from the scorching heat. Now, at once, they all moved towards me. The Servants reached their claws outward to grasp me. The guards lurched forward from behind to snatch at my shoulders.

Again I found my voice.

 “You all must be very confused.” I blurted anxiously with my eyes clenched closed, arms spread at length for futile protection.

 With a sudden start, I looked into the eyes of Emory Anald and with pleading eyes I stepped forward.

 “Has no one told you I am only human?”

-PLANET FYVVE-

“We’d rather skip the pleasantries if you don’t mind.” He quipped short and stark.

The tired eyes of The Melanated Few cast a saturating red glow into the dimly lit room.

My own propped open. Alert. To signal strength to my people. Staring into the eyes of my enemy. Allowing the strength to resonate.

Swarming my pupils. Swallowing my Iris. Orbs of blood, cinched in stress lazily looking over prey of mine.

Eyes trailing up his face, stopping to count the large globs of sweat that began to pool into the creases of his forehead. Glancing down to watch his thin, almost non existent lips as they curled grotesquely into a snide smirk.

Anger.

That’s what settles in me. That’s what permeated the room casually from both sides. Dancing through the sea of red, hiding in the dark corners. Bouncing from body to body. Landing on brown and redskin alike. Simmering under the flesh.

My Elder family was dead. All of them. My earliest bloodline...completely washed away in this war. And the only comfort I’d had up until this point was knowing that just as much as I’d lost, so had they. I carried that emotion with me until this moment. It serenaded my spirit as I mourned the field of my lost ones. My bile, the very pit of me, in various human forms. Splattered and eroding the land.

It seemed even.

We shared in defeat.

We shared in loss.

But...

The dying elders, under direct orders from the ancestors, called for a treaty. Immediately. For the bloodshed to stop. I realize, myself...had it not been for the calling of the ancestors, I would have fought until not a soul walked. And then more in the afterlife and anything in between. As far as my power would carry me is where this could have gone. It would have been relentless. And...indeed pointless. But to the pink inflamed. To this red blistered flesh, I would not bow.

So now we sat in counsel. Dripping in auras and color. Hues of yellow, red, and orange melding around the room. Guiding our interactions. And...Here we were again, giving. No. Having something taken from us. Just the thought made me nauseous.

“We want to know what it is you’re willing to offer our people to uh....well “remedy” this little situation here.” He drawled in deep southern twang and sarcasm.

“We have demands of our own if you don’t have any ideas yet.”

I glanced at my partner in exasperation and he in turn immediately cast his eyes into his lap. Tired eyes. That defiantly, and with weary context, refused to meet mine. He simply cleared his throat before briskly letting go of my hand.

“Well then. Let us hear your possible demands first and we’ll see if we can come to an agreement-“. His deep island slur of a voice rumbled around the room. Literally. Deep and throaty, wafting a breeze through the curtains and sending vibrations through the cracks in the wall.

“Lucian! What-“ his large, ragged hand shot up and perched in the air centimeters from my face to silence me aggressively. In an instant.

“Well, we hate after all this, to be the ones to bring us all back to the beginning issue but...we still want to make a deal in exchange for access to your women. We want our rightful gifts. There can be nothing else but silent understanding and acceptance of this request.”

Pausing, I assume for effect, he lowered his bifocals onto his nose, casting a judging gaze across the room.

“Like I said we’d rather skip the pleasantries and get straight to it so I won’t harp over the amount of money we’ve spent, the family we’ve lost, the now impending order to have your blood sent to our testing site . Or simply have you exiled...” his eyebrow raised menacingly in my direction.

“OR the destruction your wife has caused the great state of Louisiana.” He stated casually with a soft flick of his hand.

“Honey I OWN Louisiana. Unlike what those history books taught you. This is MY land and if I choose to bleed it dry, darlin I CAN.” I’d forgotten the sultry deep rasp of my own voice as I moved from my stance of silence.

“BE THAT AS IT MAY.....Shura-“

“QUEEN...Queen Shura to you white demon.” I snarled leaning forward sharply in my chair.

“.....if I could interrupt here for a second father...”

All eyes turned quickly to the left side of the room. Way in the back, in the dark corner of the room, a tall, slender white boy emerged. Very young. 17, possibly? Blonde. Startling blue eyes.

Beautiful. Like a true demon.

He strolled stylishly into the light of the room, slowly trekking to the front of the desk and sliding on top of it with silent ease. Like a feline. He was mesmerizing. But not supernaturally like my husband and I. But....he oozed power. And before he could even speak I’d already decided I wanted him dead. Nothing good would come of this boy.

“Queen...” he paused with his hand poised and pointed. His voice soft and caressing. Like flowing water..before evaporating into a mist of whispers.

“Here’s what we’re proposing: we’d like access to your women, by request of course, until the last remnants of the bloodline of The Melanated Few expires. We will not disclose to which capacity the woman will be used for and you will not ask questions. Should we want one that is underaged we will sign for them and they will be in our care until of age. And for myself personally..” he paused, standing to walk around the table and sit next to his father.

“Well. Seeing as you took my wife from me, for my retribution I’d like your first daughter to be signed over to me upon her 18th birthday. That should remedy my loss.” He tipped his foot, leaning to rest on the back of his fathers chair. Clasping his hands together in a dismissive yet satisfied manner.

Rage.

I arched my back and leaned forward. Pressing my feet into the cement below me, gripping the arms of my seat. Planted in defense, waiting to pounce. Waiting to submerge myself back into a sure battle.

I grew tired of having these demons fuck with me and my family. Setting their claws into a family I had yet to have seemed to have been the pinnacle of the conversation.

Taking from us.

I was tired of them taking from us. My partner ..he would understand. He knows I have been right this entire time and he knows, we must fight. To the death we fight...

“Fine.” My husband whispered.

...fine?

“WHAT?!”. I shouted, standing quickly.

“Fine? FINE?! Sweetheart you have lost your feeble human mind if you think I’m giving you any of my priestess...and my child for a.....do you know who I am? Do you know I can make it so you don’t leave this room alive??” I spewed, full of hatred. Spit splashing from the corners of my lips.

“Actually your not the only one whose magical..” he smirked knowingly.

Rolling my eyes hard and pointedly I thought of the White Mist. Old white lady from the mud of the south. Down deep in the bayou. Thought she knew true majic. Poor old white bitch thought she could cast a spell. She knew a few things, but this here came deep from the marrow of my brown tarnished bones.

“Do we have a deal Lucian.” He looked at my husband casting a judging eye over his weakness.

“My husband don’t make those calls and that white bitch can’t save you.”

In a sudden flash I found myself levitating. Being held by the throat. Lil white boy beet red, snarling as he held me in a tight choke.

“You watch your filthy mouth you disgusting bitch. You black sweaty heap of an excuse for a woman. You stink, you’re unkempt, and you’re not as strong as you use to be. Face it Shura, you don’t have the strength to keep this war going and your son is to young to challenge me. You may be powerful in ways that I am not, but you aren’t immortal. And you have no allies, half of the Orlean Harem is dead. Thanks to you. YOU are the reason my family is dead AND yours. Your destruction is DONE Shura.” Releasing me I crashed into the floor with a quiet yelp. Tears washing my face with truth.

Because he was right about a few things. But not all. Standing back to my feet I took a few breaths before snatching the oil point pen off the table and quickly stabbing it into the palm of my hand. Watching the blood pool I narrowed my eyes before glancing around the room at all we had left. On both sides. No more than 3O people total occupied this room. And we were the outnumbered side, it wasn’t even.

Closing my hand into a tight fist, I squeezed the blood onto the desk and smeared the incantation out in quick erratic swipes.

“There. You have your deal. But it can be broken should you abandon the rules.” I said low and solemn before snapping my fingers in the air.

Letting the last of my clan exit the room first I turned around before we completely retired from the location and looked Father Mist in the eye.

“Your mother cant save you. I know all about her work and what’s she’s trying to do. I also know YOUR future....and I want you to know from my own mouth, by MY blood...this will NEVER be over...Never.” 

~~~~~T.B.C