by Lucian Bane
“Wow,” Contessant gasped, seeming overwhelmed. “That is…. That is, oh my God!”
“You’d think you never saw anything like it,” Poe said to her.
She laughed and took a big drink, nodding. “Right.” Her eyes were still wide but seeming to catch his hint. “It’s just exhausting all this changing. I’m sure you’ll be glad when you’re finally finished?”
Bill shrugged, jovially hopeless. “I doubt I ever will be.”
Poe drank half a sip of the contents in his glass. The bite was intriguing. He looked at the red liquid and took another sip. Sabre set his glass down, empty, and Poe was suddenly compelled to drain his own.
“Say,” Sabre said in low excitement. “Poe here has a cool gift. Maybe he can help you?” He smiled at Poe who gave a low growl with an exhale of breath.
Bill beamed at Poe with his new set of perfect teeth, bright, large, and… Divinities, turning black and crumbling!
“Oh shit-takkie mushrooms!” Contessant grabbed Poe’s arm in alarm as the man rapidly aged to perhaps a hundred and three, right before their eyes.
Several seconds of stunned silence passed before Bill said in shocked awe. “Wow!” He turned a shaky head to Sabre. “I just lived… seventy-five years in a span of ten seconds!” He then aimed his now marbled blue eyes at them and held up a pair of brand new gnarly hands. “That was different!” He looked at Poe now. “What kind of gift you got, man?” Bill asked, his fancy new Rastafarian accent wobbling and frail now.
Poe eyed Sabre and was met with bouncing brows of dire empathy. “I don’t think…” Sabre’s brows drew together suddenly. “…I know which trick you mean.”
“You know,” Sabre said, his brows gradually raising back up. “The one like mine?”
“Ohhhh,” Contessant said. “Right! Yes, Poe,” she turned to him, holding his arm. “You could help his Scribbler decide.” She turned to the man, nodding. “Poe can have your Scribbler settle on a character, and-and story. Which character would you like to be for good?”
“Contessant,” Poe said gravely. She turned innocent blue eyes at him, clearly only concerned with helping the man.
“Do you not remember that my gifts are… not altogether in accordance with codes?” he whispered.
She whispered back, “You’re not violating anything but this Scribbler’s inability to settle on a character.” She turned to the man now with sympathy. “Which character have you longed to be?”
The man’s old eyes widened as he regarded Poe. “You can… make my Scribbler… choose something like that?”
“I can make some suggestions that… she will be unable to resist,” he mumbled in defeat.
Bill turned to Sabre who sat watching them with a smile. He looked at Contessant then, so much hope in his old gaze. “Once… she wrote me as a young boy of sixteen. I had a Labrador Retriever named Max. I got to name the dog and everything. Great dog. We were together for nearly a year,” he cried, like that was as good as a lifetime. “Best friends! And then…” his face slowly fell. “I woke up in another story. A biker. Dying with cancer.” He shook his head, the lines on his face grooved. “Suffered for six months before she decided to snatch me out of that frying pan and toss me in a slow cooker.” He gave a forced laugh, but the lines on his face didn’t lessen. “Spent nearly a year, tortured in concentration camp.” The man nodded absently as he reminisced with a good times smile.
Poe sighed deeply. If the man had thought to coerce him with his misery, it worked. What a wretched existence. But just where was he supposed to perform this kind of trick?
“We can do it right here,” Sabre suggested out of the blue.
Poe eyed him, irked that he’d read his thoughts again and now pretended he hadn’t.
“I need energy,” Poe said.
“You can borrow some of mine,” Sabre suggested, ever the kind gent.
The idea of rubbing powers again with him wasn’t something Poe wanted to do, and yet did, for the mere purpose of trying to peek at him. Hopefully learn what Poe knew of him but didn’t know of him.
The smile Sabre gave him beamed with have fun trying.
Oh, Poe would.
“On second thought,” Bill said, his voice trembling and frail while looking between all of them. “I think… we need to just let the Scribbler… be the Scribbler.”
They all stared at him.
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice sounding more and more like he was headed into the next world. Poe wouldn’t be surprised if he vanished in mid-sentence. “I’ve hung on this long. What’s a few more years? It’s not like I actually suffer any real calamities, man. ”
No, you are a calamity, Poe wanted to say. Few more years or fifty. It occurred to him then that the man probably suffered from MPDD. The multiple personality dependency disorder in the Indie realm was fast becoming a common issue. Soon, it would probably be removed from the disease side of the dictionary and labeled normal.
“You should come with us,” Sabre said eagerly, making Poe tense. “It could be like an adventure while you’re not working?”
The old man appeared confused momentarily. “What if I’m needed in my story?”
Divinities, the man’s faith in his Scribbler was certainly one for Octava’s Hall of Fame.
Sabre patted his back. “Then as per Octava’s protocol, you simply return!”
Again he appeared lost before he said, “I usually… hang around wherever I last worked.”
Pitiful. The man had no life outside his spottily scribbled one.
“Can I… can I use the bathroom first?” the man asked.
“Yes!” Sabre said, seeming unbothered by the man’s odd need to ask such a thing.
Bill eyed him briefly, then turned their way. Contessant’s smile beamed in the corner of Poe’s eye and he decided it was quite big enough for the both of them. “Okay then,” the man finally agreed.
Bill slowly inched his bottom out of the booth then stood and looked around like maybe he’d forgotten where he was.
“Over there,” Sabre helped, pointing him the way.
The old man slowly turned in the direction, stared a moment, then nodded before proceeding. They’d see him again on the morrow at the rate he walked.
“Oh my God, how sad,” Contessant said when he was out of ear shot.
Poe nodded with certainty. “And this is the perfect example of why the Indie Province needs proper protocols. The nerve of allowing people to exist in such a manner.”
“Agreed,” Sabre muttered, sounding just as unhappy, which surprised Poe. “It makes no sense to not require protocols of all inhabitants.”
Poe again nodded. “Giving creative license with no responsibility. Whoever heard of such a thing?”
“Or limit,” Sabre said in disgust as he sat back.
Poe voiced his long standing suspicion, “I do say that the whole thing is so preposterous, it seems…”
“On purpose?” Sabre offered.
Poe eyed him with severity. “Yes.”
Sabre pointed between their heads. “I didn’t read your mind, we’re just thinking alike on that, dear brother.”
Brother. The term made Poe pause. Technically they were related, in a sense. Both penned by the same Scribbler. “Why would they?”
“That’s one of the things we’re getting to the bottom of.”
“I do feel remorseful for this character…”
“Bill,” Sabre corrected.
Poe eyed him. “I do feel remorseful for this Bill character, but I don’t see how taking him with us is a good idea.”
Sabre wagged a hand in dismissal. “He’s harmless.”
“I still don’t see the point.”
“To give him a purpose outside of his story,” Sabre said in a quiet but sharp voice, as if the point should be obvious.
“He could sure stand one,” Contessant said.
Poe regarded her then looked at Sabre. “But now is not the time to become a social service to c
haracters with Scribbler’s that are clearly patients at mental institutions on a steady diet of psychotic medications.”
Contessant shot out a giggle. “Sorry,” she whispered, angling a glance at Poe. “That was really funny.”
“I am sadly being quite serious,” Poe said which earned another shot of giggles from both Contessant and Sabre now.
“He is funny,” Sabre admitted to Contessant. “You did great with him.”
Contessant smiled, of course loving the compliment. “Why thank you. I must agree, he is one of my proudest creations.”
Poe stiffened in annoyance. “Can we possibly pretend for a moment that Octava’s realm is in danger and discuss this?”
More snickers erupted that grew into peels of breathless laughter, all while Poe sat waiting for them to come to their senses.
“I’m sorry, Poe,” Contessant cried after several moments, holding his arm. “I think maybe I needed that laugh, I am… absorbing so many things that my-my human Scribbler mind has not seen, or heard!”
Poe considered her words and realized she was right. He remembered his shock of learning the inhabitants of Earth had no idea about Octava, so he could imagine the shock of experiencing Octava after having not even known it existed.
“Okay,” Sabre finally said, gaining composure. “I should tell you that it will take us merely three hours to get to the Capital.”
“How so?” Poe wondered.
“I have a few friends that are fond of the more modern forms of getting around.”
“A transporter?” Poe clarified.
“A… car,” Sabre said, smiling.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Poe wondered.
“It is, it’s just… referred to as a car. Or vehicle even.” Poe didn’t like his tone. He was six years old not six days. “Anyway,” Sabre went on. “We allow Bill to see the sights and maybe he’ll see there is life outside of the identity crisis he lives now. That’s all it will take, I think.”
You wish, Poe wanted to say but instead sighed.
“I think he’s right, he seems harmless enough,” Contessant said, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“Two against one,” Sabre said lightly as if Poe didn’t already know that.
Seemed to always be that way with the two of them, he very much wanted to say. But then that would make him sound like a child who kept score of such silliness.
A boy, the age of perhaps thirteen, suddenly slid into the booth with them, aiming a smile at Sabre. He held his hand out to him. “Todd Jones,” he announced in a loud voice.
Sabre angled his head in curiosity before grinning. “Bill?”
He nodded a lot and Poe shook his head in fascinated disgust while Contessant hid her shock in laughter that sounded more like hysteria.
Chapter Ten
“This happens a lot on Sunday!” The boy practically shouted the excited words at Poe and Contessant, causing the vein on his little neck to bulge.
“Wow!” Contessant said, “How exciting!”
“Yes,” Sabre said, nodding. “As I said, not a dull moment with him.”
“I’m ready to go when you are, sir,” he said with a salute.
“What sort of story are you going to be in?” Contessant wondered.
He gave a huge shrug. “She’s thinking about a circus story. Or something about an orphanage for now.”
“That will probably change in five minutes,” Poe said.
Silence preceded three sets of eyes on him as though he’d spoken villainously. The nerve of them having a conscience when it was his turn to jest.
“It’s time,” Sabre said suddenly. “The block is up.”
“I feel it,” Poe said, amazed as he lifted a hand and waved it through the light particles floating invisibly there. Fascinating. An airborne code. He should like to meet the one who did that trick.
They all walked out of the restaurant and Poe looked around to be sure it was working. At finding not a single individual displaying the least interest in them, he let out a breath of relief.
“The friend we’re hitching a ride with is a couple of blocks from here,” he pointed, walking briskly along.
“What kind of ride is it?” the young Bill asked. Or… Todd.
Poe noted Sabre held the lad’s hand and a pang of longing hit him. “A very fast car.” Sabre laughed happily at the boy’s bursting excitement.
“Perhaps you can help us find Kane,” Poe said behind him.
“That is second on the list after the Queen,” Sabre said, his voice taking on a darker tone. A tone that said he knew things. Poe itched to stop and demand he tell him everything he knew about that.
On the ride there, he would ask.
Exactly two blocks away, they walked down a long driveway lined with every manner of red foliage. “So pretty,” Contessant said lightly.
“Do not touch them,” Sabre warned. “They’re poisonous.”
Contessant eyed them as Poe kept tight hold of her hand. “Like…”
“Yes. Just like those.”
She gave a light gasp. “Is this…. Valentines?”
“The one and the same,” Sabre said.
“Look at that house!” the Bill-Todd character said pointing at the two story stone structure. “Looks painted with wet blood!”
“It does indeed,” Sabre laughed as though it were.
“Sabre,” Contessant hissed. “Valentine is a villain.”
“In the story, yes,” he said over his shoulder casually as he climbed red stone steps before stopping at a door. It too was shiny red like everything else. “Outside of our story, we’re best friends.” The smile and wink Sabre gave Contessant felt just like a knife to Poe’s eyeballs.
Instead of knocking, Sabre opened the door and walked right in. “V, you ready?” he yelled out.
“Wowwww,” the Bill-Todd kid said. “Everything is red!”
“He fancies the color,” Sabre muttered, plopping onto the leather couch.
Poe looked down at his reflection in the red mirrored floor.
“V!” Sabre yelled again.
“Coming.”
The annoyed deep voice came from upstairs and Poe looked up to find a man making his way down the set of red stairs. Poe studied the easy, casual gait. The man’s skin was white as goat’s milk and the long red nails sharpened to fine points on slim fingers were duly noted. He wore the same kind of coat as Sabre, only his glistened like it had been freshly dipped in… ink. Poe couldn’t imagine it would be blood, villain or not. His leg coverings and boots were of the same material as his jacket and completing the ensemble was a massive, bare torso, of course.
Poe measured him to be larger than himself and Sabre by several inches in all directions. Large enough to indicate a healthy dose of lethality infused in his frame. And given his Scribbler had written him as a villain, Poe didn’t doubt his deductions were quite accurate.
When the man finally stood before them, Poe regarded the extension of his hand with caution before deciding to shake it. “Muse Rider. A most surprising delight.” The grip said supernatural strength toned way down. Poe couldn’t help but be stunned by his perfection. Up close, he realized the red lips and irises were not make-up, but his natural features. Was he a vampire? Poe thought no.
The man turned his attention to Contessant who was on a steady roll of wordless gasping. “And the lovely Miss Sarah. At last, we meet.” The man took hold of her hand, much like Sabre had done. But only for the barest shake before releasing it. Poe realized the man’s hair was gathered at his back, a thick red braid that ended at his waist. He couldn’t deny a sense of pride that his Contessant had created him. He marveled in slight frustration that she’d neglected such a gift all these years with that horror rubbish.
“I…. I am speechless,” Contessant barely whispered.
“So I see,” he said, looking at Sabre then the boy.
“V,” Sabre called. “You’re looking great and bored as usual.” He gestured to the b
eaming, wide-eyed boy.” This is Todd. He’ll be coming for the ride.”
“Another one of your—”
“Friends,” Sabre said firmly.
“Right,” the man said, making his way to the large mirror next to the stairs for an open self-perusal.
“Your perfection hasn’t changed,” Sabre laughed. “I think I did hear Sara mention something about cutting your hair.”
The man stiffened, then barely muttered through Sabre’s booming laugh, “I do wish she’d give you a woman.”
“Watch what you wish for me,” Sabre warned lightly. “It will only turn and bite you.”
Poe regarded Sabre, noting he was quite serious. Was that one of his gifts?
“You’re like a red giant,” the boy cried.
Social projects. That’s what the man was about to say earlier, Poe was sure. Sabre may have rubbed him the wrong way but he was seeing the decent being under that irksome façade.
“And you’re like a tiny little man,” he said lightly while eyeing Sabre with a lethal gaze. He didn’t seem thrilled about being forced into kindness of any kind, and yet he seemed required to play along. Almost like he and Sabre had struck some kind of deal on the matter. One the man wasn’t so pleased with. Curious.
Poe decided he’d just ask the question burning his tongue. “What… are you, exactly?”
The man turned to him, a single brow raised as though surprised he wouldn’t know this. “I’m Valentine.”
Poe felt suddenly very out of the loop. He said it like all of Octava knew him and what his name meant. It hit Poe that since he’d recently woken on Octava, there had been not one in the loop incident. “I am usually up to speed on…” Poe paused as another realization hit him. His existence on Octava was merely a dust particle. He knew only as much as his limits allowed. Which were clearly many things. “I am… a fairly new creation and have much to learn.”
The answer seemed to appease the man. “Of course.” He regarded Contessant. “You have made him humble, unlike our Sabre.”
Contessant snickered while Sabre rolled his eyes. “Confidence, V. There’s nothing wrong with being confident,” he said. “Learn the difference.”