Partner

I had a lot of fun with this one. Who knew Koln was religious. Of course, if he follows De, the god of chaos of the world, that explains so much.

Like why he didn't shoot Mik when Mik destroyed his car.

His newest dream? Yeah, I didn't want to write it all out. Like seriously. Not cool. The one one rape I ever wrote I was not impressed with and it creepered me out.

I love Whisper, he's actually a really cool guy. Too bad he only appears as flashes.

Second update in one night. Whoot. In like an hour. And I'm fairly pleased with the writing, no less.

Read, review and enjoy





Mik slid into Koln’s office, closed the door and pressed his back against the door. The man looked up, then back down at his papers.

“Two nights ago I dreamed of a group of Sidhe massacring twenty people. Twenty-one people went out, one was taken. The bait they used was killed there, by the Sidhe. Blood all over, body parts all over. Meticulously there were pieces that were identifiable, lined up nice and neat where they could be found.”

Koln looked back up at Mik, stunned.

“Last night I dreamed that a Sidhe woman was being raped. She had a half-breed with her. When the man turned from mother to daughter, his own daughter, the mother went mad and started with the man’s toes, breaking every bone between there and his neck before she gutted him and fried his heart, serving it to his friends before she killed them all. She then took a knife and lovingly sliced her own daughter’s neck before plunging the blade into her own chest.”

Koln turned gray and turned through several pages of files, “sleep with the television on? Radio? Newscast of any kind?”

“We both know those incidents didn’t hit the newscasts, Koln, this was slaughtering of people by Sidhe, by the beings we tormented,” Mik rubbed the back of his hand across his lips as if he could erase the taste of the mother off his lips. As if he hadn’t been her tormentor and yet her at the same time.

“Doc can give you something for the nightmares.”

“Paw’s nightmares.”

“Excuse me?”

“They aren’t mine, Koln. My mother has an absurd ability to grow anything, anywhere, but there isn’t a drop of psychic blood in me. If it’s coming from anywhere, it’s coming from Paw.”

“Mik, I understand denying, but this is me, you’re talking to,” Koln opened a drawer and rifled through it, “have you ever seen your own test results?”

“Psychics are not real, not amongst people. But Sidhe. Sidhe have always had that…” Mik sighed, “ability. Violet will look at you and you swear she knows what you’re thinking. They say it’s just women, but Essuan can’t do it. Neither can Lillow. A Sidhe in the first dream said something about the one they took. A half-breed with power.”

“Power… power. I’ve heard that word before.”

“I’ve looked it up,” Mik pushed off the door and moved to sit across from Koln, “along with the circle of warriors constellation. Ancient, I mean, this stuff is so old that only the furthest, most remote villages could possible still use it. The circle of warriors represents the Death groups that once applied to every village and city. Six men around one master. Said to have been found in the sky at the time of the first group. First one star, then another, as each man and woman from the first group of Deaths died.”

“And power?”

“Magic. An… old… word for magic. When we say, ‘you have the power to stop that man,’ in movies, we aren’t talking about the strength or courage, we apparently literally mean, you are the only one with the power, the magic, to stop it. There are carvings all over of this stuff and Whisper is said to be the strongest magic of all.”

“Sidhe Whisper?”

“People Whisper,” Mik leaned forward, “People crossed with Sidhe and that was when Whispers began dieing out. It was like a priesthood amongst people but the Sidhe only have one, one true Whisper and five candidates per lifetime. And considering their lifetimes…”

“You sound like a mad man.” Koln murmured.

“But am I sounding like I’m filling in holes?”

“Sounds like this is connected in a way I’m not liking.”

“Why were the cameras shut off last night? And not turned back on again?” Mik asked quietly.

Koln sighed, “You are getting into the Sidhe stuff, into their tribe, learning secrets but they don’t want to tell you what they know, not with the cameras on. Is there anything you would like to share, Mik?”

“And betray their trust?”

“I meant about this,” Koln turned a picture over so Mik could see.

Souse entering his apartment.

“Well-”

Koln turned over another picture. Of Mik and Paw and Souse in bed, “I told Galt it would be best to leave you to your own happenings in your apartment. You’re the only one making headway and there’s no way we can grow the program without their trust and understanding.”

“Those…”

“Seems the cameras flicked back on. The men in charge of spying were removed from their position, shipped to the northern most encampment we have where the sun hardly ever shines and all tapes and photographs destroyed. I do not put up with leaks. And I’m not about to judge. I’d jump his bones if he looked my way.”

“Let him know,” Mik muttered, “since when are you gay? I thought you were seeing a woman.”

“Program kind of cut that off. Wasn’t meant to be permanent,” Koln shuffled through some of his files, “and a great deal of the population is bisexual.”

“Encouraged by the gods of old,” Mik grunted.

“You should stop reading,” Koln snapped, “maybe sleep, smudges aren’t noticeable, not really yet, but they will be in a few days. If you really believe Paw is the cause, then sleep in another bed. Consult with Souse and Essuan. Maybe there’s something they can do for you. Edno didn’t tell them about your nightmares, only Paw’s.”

“Koln…”

“What?”

“They said Whisper came from people. From us, from our blood. What is left in them is diluted at best so… if our blood diluted could make someone who could see so far and so much… Where does that leave us? The gods. The spirits. The spells and magics that we hear about from fantasy books and myths and legends. What if it is all real?”

“Then why haven’t the gods come down, waved their wand and simply told us to go fuck ourselves?” Koln asked quietly, “what makes you think that any god, anywhere, could ever care enough about us to interfere in our lives, we are nothing more than the scum on the bottom of their shoes.”

“Souse spoke of warriors of old, of that welling up in a chest of the fear these men would strike in the hearts of their enemies by taking to the field to stand for their families. We have redeeming qualities. The gods can’t save us if we don’t listen to them. But the Sidhe still listen. It’s something Paw said. The Sidhe are Illuva’s and Illuva’s alone, none may touch them, not god, not man, not ghost.”

“Man does touch him.”

“Look up Illuva,” Mik ran his hands through his hair, “I did last night. The literature is insane. Online encyclopaedias are filled with the myths and her temper and her … trying, just trying to explain this woman and it doesn’t make any sense and yet it does.”

“I know of Illuva, Mik, Not that you ever asked, but I am a religious man. I follow De, so yes, I know of Illuva. The opposite to De, the opposite of chaos.”

“And yet she is so meticulous, so plotted and planned out that she knows all and is the only omnipotent god we had-”

“Have.”

“And thus her bone scatter across the fates like a tinkling of chaos so much so that she appears to be chaotic in her motions yet every one of them is deliberate.”

“What are you saying, you’ve found religion?”

“I… I don’t know,” Mik shook his head, “I’ve never been religious. I know the curses. Oh my gods, seventeen hells. By Rahl-ta’s betrayal. Last night was the turning point it was just like. What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

“Well. You can look at what you’ve gotten yourself into, into what your future might be like here. You could look into your past and worry about what you did, at the shameful things you have done and the things that you will have to do. The lies, the treachery, the deceiving but you will never see the whole picture.”

“What other choice do I have?”

Koln wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it over to Mik, “You can live in the now. You love him, you aren’t rebelling, you aren’t fighting. You can consider yourself now. Are you happy with you are, if you consider only the now?”

“I have a job, stable income, a house over my head and food, fresh produce in my kitchen, clean and always mended clothing on my back. How many people can say that?”

“And the Mik from two months ago?”

Mik shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “what if it hadn’t been Paw. What if. What if I had gotten Souse instead of Paw, or what if I had gotten Essuan and been just like Alan.”

“Can you worry so much about what ifs?”

“Paw said it was his job to fix the others. To fix their problems and help them when they are upset. Not the way Essuan fixes cuts and scrapes, but… something else. What if he did that to me? If my…” Mik made a futile hand motion, uncertain of what to say, “change… is because of Paw and Paw alone?”

“So what?” Koln asked him, “If Paw had done this just to help you, do you think that he would have coupled with you?”

“Why did Souse give him to me? Why did Souse stress that he had given Paw to me? What… What if what makes Souse such a good leader is that he unconsciously knows the future? A power in itself? We move one way, he moves the other. He knows who is by him at all times, he knows when we come to him, even if he’s in a meditative state. He knows when to enter my apartments, when we need him to step in.”

“Okay, you’ve jumped topics.”

“Essuan fix all. I think Paw said that once. What if Essuan isn’t just a doctor?”

“A healer. A full blooded healer like you are implying hasn’t been seen in nearly a thousand years. The last was Aniege Pohstenshin a continent and nearly half a world away. People blood.”

“Please, some faith healer?”

“And yet you expect me to believe that you can see these places, these things before I get reports about them? That Paw is seeing things that he couldn’t possibly have seen but when I mention a possible healer you say that it is impossible.”

Mik took the piece of paper that Koln had slid over to him and read it, “the bible? You want me to read the bible.”

“There isn’t one, Mik, the Nuwe au Lishua is Illuva’s bible. It is the most wide spread tomb of the gods and I suggest you find an older copy, not the mashed up, translated to new age nonsense one that so many panhandlers are passing out these days. You could probably find it online, and if not you can certainly purchase it online and they’ll deliver it straight to your door.”

“What good-”

“Illuva is the patron goddess of Sidhe, they’ve said it, we know it. You’re babbling about her today. Maybe it’s a sign.”

“Yeah, that I’ve lost my fucking mind.”

“Read her.”

Koln’s phone rang and he snatched it up and grunted. Then he grunted and listened for a good long time before grunting again. He hung up the phone and looked at Mik.

“You didn’t say anything about a survivor.”

“Hide under the bed, mommy’s just going to deal with them now. Shhh, hush, they don’t know you exist and they shouldn’t ever know,” Mik murmured as he stood and made his way to the door, “I swear. And this part is blurry but it could have been the blood covering her eyes, “but at the end of that dream I swear that a man stepped into it all, looked around and then left again. His eyes were the colour of the sun and his hair was long and gray.”

“We’ve had several reports of him before.”

“Mark on his forehead. Seven pointed star, carved or burned, I couldn’t tell.”

“Mm, that would be him, though how you would know… without powers… is beyond me.”

“Who is he?”

“Whisper.”



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