Castle Hydra: Next Generation

[lycrawaterz14]

"Yes... he was supposed to fight with it!" Adele stepped forward and then back. She reappeared in seconds and handed it to him.

[frostmourne]

There was an audible sigh of relief from Jared and he put his head in his hands. He was sitting cross legged on a desk with a notebook in hand. "Where would he take her?" he murmured, frowning. He could almost hear her screaming for help. If I were Skulni, I would take her somewhere where she is most vulnerable. Somewhere bright. Sunny. Where she's been to before with either Kenan or me. Atlantis? Jared got up and started pacing, occasionally jotting down a possible location on a piece of paper.

Aza shuddered as she felt a the clammy touch on her neck and pulled away. She drew her hand back and attempted to weakly push him away, but he caught the hand and turned it palm up. The light was making her start to fade again. She was paler than usual, almost transparent at times. Skulni carved a heart into her palm with the knife. She tugged her hand free and ran as far as she could manage. She collapsed, her legs becoming as clear as glass.

[lycrawaterz14]

"What has he done to her?" Adele asked quietly.

[frostmourne]

Jared gave her a pained look and his voice was barely above a whisper when he finally spoke. "He's going to force her into a light bright enough to make her almost fade away. Then he's going t-t-to..." He abruptly broke off and turned away. He shouldn't have left her alone. He should have gotten there faster. What if he goes overboard and kills her? Overboard...Could they be on a ship? Jared pushed the door open and tore outside. "Adele, take my hand. I think I know where she is." he said rather distractedly. He offered a slender hand, looking like he was about dash off as soon as Adele touched him.

Aza opened her eyes and saw nothing but a clear blue sky. It wasn't bright enough to be painful, and it seemed almost perfect. She closed her eyes, willing herself to remember a happier memory. "Jared, stop it. It's boring!" a teenagerl with knee length black hair exclaimed. She was perched in a tree above a young man reciting Robert Frost from memory. He smiled and momentarily closed his mouth.

"When you look up,

Do you see the blue sky of what might be?

Or the darkness of what will never be?

Do you see me?"

"Aww...why are you crying?" Skulni cackled. Aza kept her eyes shut, wanting to hold on to the happiness for a moment longer. She caught a glimpse of a sail before she slammed into the ground.

Edited November 26, 2011 by frostmourne

[lycrawaterz14]

Adele grabbed his hand. "What's he going to do to her?" she demanded. She hated being left out of the loop.

[frostmourne]

Jared didn't answer, but let the plant life engulf them for a moment. When the plants cleared, they were standing on the deck of a huge, immaculately white ship. Jared lost no time silently striding towards the nearest door. He double checked every room on the entire ship. On his second time around a large, seemingly empty room, he found her. She was completely transparent, which was why he missed her the first time. When he got closer, he saw that she was almost like a glass doll. There were cracks all over her skin, like glass that had been hit repeatedly with a blunt object. Jared reached over to pick her up, but he had barely touched her when a brittle arm broke off at the shoulder and blood trickled out. It crystalized into a red crystal much like ruby. Aza would have screamed if she could, but the only part of her she could still move where her eyes. Jared frowned and a few plants with huge fan like leaves shot out of the ground, blocking the light. The darkness started to seep back into her. Jared carefully picked up the arm and placed it next to the shoulder. It was obscured by a dark cloud for a moment and when the darkness faded it was attached again. As soon as Aza was safe to move, he picked her up and prepared to leave as soon as he found Adele. Adrian popped up next to him with a silly grin. "You smell funny." he told Aza. "Like honeysuckle instead of roses tainted with blood." Adrian took Aza and disappeared again. Jared offered a hand to Adele, tiny frown still in place. He wasn't sure if Aza would completely recover. It could be that she would have to be stuck in a dark cell for the rest of her life if she didn't want to turn to glass.

[lycrawaterz14]

Adele looked afraid. "Master will be angry at me..." she whispered.

[frostmourne]

Jared's frown deepened and he turned to look at Adele. "Why? It was my fault she got hurt. Again." he said, raising one eyebrow. He thought for a moment one what Adrian had said. She really did usually smell like blood tainted roses, but it was a scent he missed everytime he left her. He was quite sure Adrian was just joking about the honeysuckle though. "I wonder if it'll work on him..." he muttered. "Sorry, just thinking outloud. Sense of smell is that last thing to go in coma patients, so I was wondering if it would work with memory loss. Maybe it would trigger a memory or something."

Adrian placed Aza on the floor and looked around. He really needed to reprogrammed the robotic, but extremely lifelike, mice that were scampering in the cells. The torchlight was really dim, so it would hopefully be dark enough for Aza to heal. Adrian walked to a section behind a torch and tapped madly at a touchscreen keyboard that popped out of the wall. The mice didn't do anything differently. He continued tapping and a few of them started squeaking. I should have asked Jared to tell me how this thing works.

 

((The thing about smell and coma patients is true.))

Edited November 27, 2011 by frostmourne

[lycrawaterz14]

"He'll recover backwards... so smell won't be the first... hey wait! Technically the first thing to go in coma patients is sight... so doesn't that mean he... might get his sight back? If only temporary..." Adele looked hopeful.

[frostmourne]

"Odd. He was going to become Death because he couldn't see, and now since he can't be Death he could possibly start to see." Jared murmured. Jared could feel the pain and the loss starting to return again now that he had time to think. He shook it off and let Adele and himself be surrounded by whispering leaves again. They were back in the mansion instead of the palace. Jared hurried around the room, desperate to keep himself busy so he wouldn't start thinking about Aza again. The hurt and betrayal made any anger he harbored against her seem as insignificant as a spark before the fury and wrath of a Arctic blizzard. Even now the sorrow weighed him down. His eyes had changed color with his mood. They were a sad hazel brown.

Adrian kept tapping at the keyboard and the mice squeaking more and louder. He was starting to worry that they would explode.

 

 

[lycrawaterz14]

"Why are you distraught?" Adele sat down beside him and blinked. "Are you worried for them too? I'm worried for Aza... she looked unhealthy." Adele stood up quickly. "Arachne's here for peaceful purposes." she informed him. Sure enough a tear-stained Arachne had arrived. Her hair was down, the top brown and the underneath gray. She just sniffled and looked at Jared calmly.

 

"How do you manage?" she asked, a near sob. "Knowing she choose someone else..." her eyes showed she was in the same boat.

[frostmourne]

"I would rather see her smile with someone else than be forever looking back and wishing she chose him instead. I knew it would happen since the day I met her.

"When you look up,

Do you see the blue sky of what might be?

Or the darkness of what will never be?

Do you see me?"

She looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing. I guess she didn't understand back then. I want to hate her, but I can't. I can't bring myself to hurt her or even leave her. I wish I would. I wish I could. I really should, but I can't. I'd miss her. So the answer to your question would be that no, I don't manage. Not at all. I fall to pieces everytime I look at her. Does that help?" Jared said, voice turning slightly bitter at the end. "I want her to be happy even if it her happiness makes me wish I didn't exist. I'm not unselfish or completely free from jealousy, I'm just good at hiding things." He sighed and mused for a while and eventually all traces of bitterness left his face. Another memory, one he really wanted to forget, made the sorrow come back again. He had spent hours trying to get the flower to grow right. He still hadn't achieved perfect control over his power, and this flower was particularly difficult. It was another few hours before he worked up the nerve to knock on her door with the flower hidden behind his back. The door flew open, and she beamed when she saw him. "Yes?" He saw at the mountains of flowers she had in her room through the open door. He crushed the flower in his hand, still hiding it behind his back, and shook his head. "It's nothing."

Edited November 27, 2011 by frostmourne

[lycrawaterz14]

"You are better than I then... I only want to be with him... to the point I would have hurt him..." She looked to Jared. "Kill me please. Make it end... I am uncapable of hiding. It hurts... just kill me..." she pleaded, almlost pitiful. (You hear that frostmourne? That was my heart breaking. That was sad... D:)

[frostmourne]

"Kill you? I-I can't just kill you! That's...that's...statistically speaking, over-" Jared abruptly snapped his mouth shut and stared at the ceiling to stop himself from rattling off percentages as he usually did when someone asked him an awkward question. "Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have. I sound like a cheerleader...did you kn-" He closed his mouth and very stubbornly stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. "Arachne, I'm a coward. I'm terrified of the dark, pain, death, and a few thousand other things I don't care to list at the moment. Do have any idea what kind of pain and guilt you would force on the people you left behind if you choose to kill yourself? There has to be better ways to get rid of the pain." Jared blinked rapidly after he spoke. He was absolutely terrible at cheering people up. A slight pink tinge colored his cheeks. "Did I just admit I'm still afraid of the dark?" he squeaked. "I'm not afraid of the dark! I'm just afraid of the umm...absence of light."

 

((Trying to find a picture of Jared that matches the description. Something like this?))

Edited November 27, 2011 by frostmourne

[lycrawaterz14]

"Darkness isn't scary. It's what is in the dark that I'm afraid of." Arachne murmured. "I have no one left who will mourn me. No friends, my father didn't stick around and my mother died giving birth to me. Kenan's father raised me to be a wife for him. There is no one else I'm supposed to be with." she tried convincing him.

 

(I know him! He's from criminal minds!)

[frostmourne]

((I thought he seemed faintly familiar. Am I putting in way too many sad memories?))

"Perhaps there's someone else you're suppose to be. You're more than a mail-order bride Arachne. You have your own hopes, dreams, aspirations. Your life doesn't have to be centered around one person. Didn't you ever want to do something new? To get away from it all? To learn, write, sing, cook, dance, anything? You don't even have to be good at it. Adrian sets half the building on fire whenever he decides to bake, but that doesn't stop him from churning out loaves of ash." Jared said, still slightly pink. He turned to pluck a book off the shelf, but knocked down another instead. The other book lay open to a page with a single battered navy blue ribbon inside. He suddenly paled and shook his head. He snapped the fallen book shut and placed it back on the shelf. "He's yours. Go on and take him." And with that, a husky, unfamiliar man snapped his gloved fingers and two men in black cloaks stepped in quickly, rushing for Jared. "Mother!" he cried. One of the cloaked men gripped his arm with bruising force, wrenching it away from his mother's embrace. She tried desperately to hold on to him, screaming, crying. It was no use. She had no strength. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE HIM!" The words were torn, ripped from her throat. She held on. "Mother, save me! Don't let me go!" Jared was red in the cheeks, tears streaming down his face and surprised, frightened sobs choking him. The men gave another tug and Jared's mother lost her last inch of fabric on his cloak, and he lost his handful of her dress sleeve. And with one last, desperate grab, he reached for her thick braid of hair, managing only to grasp one of the strings woven inside. With a great wrench, it came loose, and she cried out in pain and agony. "JARED!" she screamed one last time, getting up. Sobs scratched her voice, making it rougher. It was clear she was going after him. The movement was sharply stopped as Jared's father roughly pushed her into the side of the wagon house, shouting as he did so. The thin wood broke with a great crack, and she fell limply to the snowy road beneath, eyes closed, rosy lips slightly parted. A gash was on her forehead. Blood began to stain the snow. "MOTHER!" Jared cried one last time, to no avail. His voice echoed in the birch trees, his only answer. The men dragged him through the snow in a frenzy of kicking and resistance. They roughly threw him into the back of the fancy wagon, swearing at his cries of sorrow. He was told to shut up. His wails quieted, although the tears and rough sobs did not stop. It only took seconds. With the sway of people climbing on and the crack of a whip, the ebony horses took off at a brisk trot down the ivory road. Jared looked through a clear, polished window. His father was wrapping a loaf of bread... And his mother lay still in the snow, growing smaller by the moment. Someone was telling him how he would become a great scholar and teacher someday. He pressed a small, pale hand on the glass, a single navy ribbon hanging from the gap between his thumb and finger. "Mama.."

[lycrawaterz14]

(Yes!)

 

Arachne laid a hand on his shoulder. "You alright?" She asked, seeming to forget about herself for a moment. She sat down next to his feet. "I can't think of anything. I've been broken... I don't want anything anymore..."

[frostmourne]

"I haven't been alright for a while now, and neither have you. There must be something. Knitting, weaving, designing buildings? Have you mastered every instrument yet? Hobbies? I know someone who went to sleep for a few decades and woke up quite happy. He gave this long speech on how he finally understands." Jared babbled, trying to think of something. A teardrop shaped plant grew above his head and started to glow like a lightbulb. There was an ominous pop and the light fizzled out. "Oops." He had done that on purpose, although for what purpose he really didn't know. A lone morning glory shot out of the ground and swayed slightly. The flower was delicate cornflower blue with a graceful silver lines in a spiderweb pattern. Jared hesitantly plucked it and offered it to Arachne. "Gardening? What about a pet? At least they appreciate you." Jared suggested. "I'm surprised you haven't asked me why I stay around shadow spirits so much if I'm afraid of the dark. Those two do unnerve me every now and then."

Aza struggled to push herself to her feet. Most of the cracks in her had healed, but she was still almost completely transparent. She attempted to take a few steps forward, but her joints refused to bend. The result was a painful stumbling movement that made her look like she was going to fall any minute and break into a million pieces. She looked like a porcelain doll.

[lycrawaterz14]

She loooked at the flowers he made bloom. "What is that?" she asked, pointing to it. "I've never seen one of those before..." she thought about touching the flower, but pulled away. Adele was back with Aza. "Can I help you?" she asked, offering herself as a crutch.

[frostmourne]

"I haven't named it yet. Want the honors? You can have it if you want. I could make another one whenever I wanted to." Jared said lightly. "In Japan the morning glory is known as asagao, asa "morning" and kao "face". In China it has been used for medicinal purposes as a powerful laxative. During the Edo Period it became a popular decorative flower. By soaking the flowers from the morning glory in water for a couple of weeks a mildly alcoholic wine with a good flavor and mild psychedelic effect is created. Herbs or honey are often added to this to enhance the flavor. It is September's birth flower." He blinked few times and looked slightly embarrassed from talking too much.

Adrian turned and frowned when he heard Adele's voice. He looked at Aza and his frown deepened. "Do I have to put you in another void to make you stay?" Aza rolled her eyes and sat down on a seemingly half rotted wooded stool in the corner. A closer inspection revealed that it was steel painted and carved to look like rotting wood.

[lycrawaterz14]

"No... I do not need honors." Arachne murmured, and gently took the flower.

 

Adele gasped. "Kenan's awake." She smiled brightly. "He doesn't want you to see him..." she shooked her head, but still smiled. "He wants to see you, but doesn't want you to see him. He's in a lot of pain..."

[frostmourne]

Aza shot up so quickly, the stool she had been perched on toppled over. She swept out of the dark room and looked slightly annoyed as Adrian caught her wrist. "What?" she snapped, soft gray eyes hardening for a moment. "Wait until I get Jared." he sighed with impatience matching her own. "Why is that necessary?" "It would have made him cry to hear you say that. It's necessary because he's the only one who keeps you in check after you start sobbing hysterically." Adrian clarified sardonically. He marched off before Aza could respond with her own stinging remark.

Jared glanced up as Adrian came in without so much as a knock, looked at Arachne with something between distaste and unconcealed dislike, and unceremoniously started to pull Jared out of his study. His other wrist was still in the strange cast and he did his best to keep it out of Adrian's reach. He didn't put up much of a fight, meekly allowing Adrian to drag him out of the room. He offered Arachne an apologetic smile. The vines formed words on the wall. "You're welcome to stay or come with us as long as you don't try to kill someone. Aza won't mind too much, she'll be too distracted." it read. He thought back to how Adrian looked at Arachne like she was some disgusting bug, much like the way he looked at Kenan. Jared suspected that Adrian didn't particularly like Kenan, which wasn't very surprising as he despised almost everyone excluding Aza. Even she wasn't spared of his scathing, unpleasant comments.

Adrian kept towing Jared towards Aza. It wasn't necessary for any of the three to speak to one another. "Shall we?" Aza asked, turning to speak to Adele. Adrian muttered something under his breath but feigned perfect innocence when she glared at him. Jared seemed to be on the verge of smiling, but the expression faded and was replaced by a solemn, almost sombre look. There was a strange emotion swirling in his currently golden brown eyes. He noticed Aza was trembling, whether from anger, fear, or nervous energy she wasn't sure. "Lorem. (Relax.)" he murmured, lightly touching her shoulder with his uninjured hand.

[lycrawaterz14]

Adele smiled and took his hand, grinning. "Master will be pleased~" she smiled.

[frostmourne]

Adrian opened a gaping black hole in the ground and stepped in without hesitation. A few seconds later when the Aza didn't immediately follow, his hand reached back out and tugged Aza in. Jared shrugged and jumped in as well. The portal remained open and waiting for Adele and possibly Arachne. Aza blinked nervously and looked around. "Where are we?" she asked, turning to a smugly grinning Adrian. "Right outside the last place Kenan was." he declared with a smirk. "And how did you know where he was?" Aza queried, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." "How cliché. Do you consider him an enemy?" Jared broke in, voice uncharacteristically toneless. "Maybe. Now Aza, don't you have a memory to help regain?" he purred through a sly smile. "Where is he?" "Ask Adele." Adrian was still wearing an infuriating smile.

[lycrawaterz14]

Arachne and Adele had followed, but there was no need. There was loud screams of pain resonating everywhere, even more than usual. It seemed to be coming from a modern-looking, castle-like building. The arena was now decrepit, completely unable to be used. 'By order of the council' was placed everywhere.

 

"It's been almost a year since the last time you were here." Adele murmured, seeming uneasy. Arachne followed Jared like a lost, hollow puppy.