3.7|A Fawn father’s fables

 

3.7|A Fawn father’s fables

 

Many tomorrows since

 

Torayl, now 8 kicked his legs by a shallow spring. Monarch sat by his side, observing the boy's notes. He had never expected to have a kid be so precocious and clever, it reminded of him when he was together with Amity. He wrote with extensive cursive in a diary, musing philosophical thoughts, the algorithms of Monarch's basic Synthatic code jotted on the side. While super intelligent, contemplative and bold, Torayl was ever the shy soul. He turned his head to the Synth.

"Is auntie Amity human?" Torayl asked.

Synth looked down. "She's a Felfling. A humanoid race from Xi artificially enhanced with cybernetic and genetic grafts and extensions of her own design and handiwork since, but you could say so."

"Cyber Felfling.. Fascinating.." The boy jotted several notes down.

"And am, I?"

Monarch had watched this kid grow, there was seldom a moment that didn't

have a lasting impression on him. "You're a Khepri given human shape."

The synth was ever disciplined, hiding his emotions. But he liked being able to

let his guard down around his kid. This kid, if on a bonding level he could call

it his kid.

"And you're a Synth?"

He nodded.

"Where did you come from?" Torayl's freckled face visited Monarch's eyes,

looking at them inquisitively.

"I was made. You could say I was born, but from a biological standpoint I have no single lineage. Everything from my womb to the life support systems that bred me were artificial. And after I emerged fully grown, I was integrated into technological Synth chassis."

"I see.."

Torayl picked up a pebble and tossed it into the pond nearby, watching the

ripples expand over their reflections.

"I see now why you kept so quiet about who you are."

Torayl turned around, looking deeply into the Synth's nodding face.

He could jive with his kid's thoughts, but the Synth was never that good in conversation. "Okay. I have another question.." He gave a solemn glance. "Why did you try to kill yourself?"

The Synth pat Torayl's shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

"I was created to serve, but I could never fulfill that purpose. I wanted to be

different."

"You were different."

"But I'm just a copy, just a replica of some entity who can never hope to be

 truly what he was intended to be. In doing so, I failed, but.."

"But I still wanted to exist, to do what I can to make the world a better place."

"You're the kindest man I've ever met."

The Synth was humbled, he didn't want to say he was the greatest thing that ever existed. Instead, he smiled, looking away. "I'd always hoped to meet someone who could get me to change my mind. I thought Amity could be that person. She, thinks on a whole other dimension sometimes. I thought that maybe if I discovered myself more and grew I could win her affection again, and so I.." The Synth fell into silence.

"You what?"

Monarch tried to repress it. Putting in that disc, assimilating the weight of every mission, of so many lives. Over the last decade he'd climbed up and down those painful memories more than he cared to know.

"Your mother trusted me with your sister, with Mercy. But I feared a machine could never raise her right, I wasn't sure of myself. But when I put back in my memories, I became more than a machine, I learned to hate my creators. To hate the people who had a hand in creating this nightmare. I remembered the terrible things I'd done in the name of liberation, in the duty of 'Making the world a better place' and.." He trembled. "It broke me."

"You needed repair?" Torayl asked.

"The kind in here." He pointed to Torayl's heart. "There's no medicine for it.

Only time."

“I see..” He looked up at Monarch. “Do you love Amity? I see you kiss her

sometimes, but you fight with her a lot of others. It’s quite the conundrum.”

“Love always is.” He stated simply.

Torayl nodded, looking around the lakeside. "Okay, but.."

He stood up and stomped a little, as if a fawn clacking hooves for attention.

"Why do you still have to bring all these latexy nun ladies everywhere? Isn't

that kind of weird?"

The Ladies of Dawn waved to the boy. Each had a blossoming smile, one coming close to pinch Torayl's cheek and put a fruitbasket in front of his shadow. The Ladies would follow the Synth loyally anywhere, like satellites circling a vortex.

He sighed. "You know what.. I think I'd like to go for a walk, get out, enjoy

nature. What do you say?"

Torayl put his diary down and perked up. "I'd love to!"

 

 

 

"My 18th First Day." Mercy told her mother in the Scholar's shack, a large hut

surrounded by books and recordings and effigies of Santri lore. "That's, uh

today."

"What's that?" Protlyn asked, putting a book away.

"That's the day I was born. Or, what my other mother, what Momutie said my

First Day."

Protlyn gave pause. "Oh. It's not, your birthday if you were wondering that.."

Mercy grinned. "No. Never thought that, but then, I guess Momutie doesn't

know who my biological mother is."

"Hey, you should read this." Mercy pointed to the book she was holding.

"Read that? Why? I can read your thoughts."

"It's, a compilation of all my discoveries and writings on the Hex." Mercy looked over the book. "All my research about what it is.. I haven't really made up my mind yet.. Just that, I think it can be accessed with different types of families."

"Families?" Protlyn pulled up a chair curious.

"Yeah.. when I say that I mean, the people you meet in your life. The butcher at the meat market, the nice librarian in town, brother and sister, Sway, Auntie Amity, you.. I wrote down 6 different types of love, since they seem to build the Hex in different ways, they have their own type of hex-ness."

"I never even thought about that." Protlyn took the book and looked thru abit. "Very impressive. All written with such skill and knowledge. You're very thoughtful Mercy."

The girl looked over. "Could we talk about something mom?"

Protlyn paused. "Hm?" She pulled up a chair and sat down. "What's up?"

Mercy looked over to her mother and sighed. "Mother, did you know what I am? What they did to me, to my brain while I was in Glimmer Kiss? If it's true my consciousness was..."

Protlyn nodded. Amity and Baron had scanned and analyzed this before. "They put Nanite Neural cultures in your head.." She remembered when Mercy first told her about the visions, the struggles and intrusive flashes of emotions. Thoughts not her own, ideas persisting through repetition. "It was an attempt to condition you to be the Queen's heir. I, I didn't know if you were aware of it.."

"Yes. But they said that it was to try and help ease the burden on my, my.."

"I understand." Protlyn showed Mercy her ring. "Amity gave me this. It looks

simple but, as my ring it doubles as a kind of, sanity device."

"Sanity?"

Mercy took it and examined it.

"The ring will give you a different perspective on things. It allows you to access your emotions, feelings and a few other things. It will put your mind atop of other forces trying to influence you." She slipped it on Mercy's finger, her daughter feeling calm wash through her.

"Mom.. why do you have this?"

Protlyn gave a sad look. "A long time ago, I had to make a great sacrifice to stop an evil entity. That one, originally was like your mom. It was a computer I had to absorb in my head. For a long time I had to handle it, trying to influence me. It was part of what created such a strong compulsion in me to raise a child and make them my heir.. That's not important, but I think I've mostly got the handle on it now. This ring will help you too. It won't let that Queen influence you or be in control."

"O-oh.. thanks mom."

"Anytime. And since we're here, I'd like to talk about, you and your father."

Mercy blinked. "What about Monarch..?"

"About you and Father. Your real father."

"Oh.."

Protlyn started to swirl her finger around a shelf of books, creating floating

runic symbols until they connected into a glowing ring.

"He's the reason why I've been having so much difficulty. When I was a young woman, I was working at an institute near the Capital of Marchwood. It was the year it was discovered, in a series of experiments with Auntie Amity, that there were two aspects to human consciousness.." She put it into the side of her neck. "On the micro-scale, it's not uncommon for humans to experience more than one thought at the same time, or be influenced by a number of stimuli, even at one time. On the macro-scale, a more organized and defined consciousness exists.. We might think of it as a soul or spirit. But there is a way to harvest and master that spirit, to subjugate it." The ring widened into a portal, Protlyn offered her hand to Mercy.

"I meant to show you and Sway this later, but you may as well get to call this

place home."

"What place?" Mercy reluctantly, took her mother's hand.

"Come now, I'll show you."

They walked into the portal, and Mercy instantly, felt her throat scorch this place. As they stepped off the portal, they noticed that this place was immense and vivid, the darks of violet skies, crimson lava and azule space meeting the vivid yellows, orange and greens flowing as bands in a sinister swirl of kaleidoscopic hues. Fire lit up the land in irradiated fields and cliffs, pools of oozing, inky black liquid flowing into pitch black seas. The land was ethereal, it was unlike anything Mercy had ever seen. Protlyn stopped her.

“What, is this place?!”

“The Void Realm. I discovered it with Grahim’s help during my century long exile in Neo Marsh. Me and your father laid out the kinks cough cough, and now we kind of rule it together. Or did, now it’s more of a quarreling household.. Spatially it’s the ultimate aspect of the Hex. The swirling nexus of the 6th aspect and element, of Void embodied. It’s here where you were born.”

“W-what?! I was, born here?” Mercy asked. “In this, spooky Void Realm?”

"This is your birth place, you were born here.. you think I stayed pregnant in that ratty shack the whole time? But I didn't want to tell you that yet."

"Why not?"

"To protect you from the truth of what happened to you. I don't want you to think about it for too long. But, I took you from your father." She took a deep breath. "The Shadow King."

"Wuhhh?"

"I was trapped, and he was after you. You can't imagine what he could do, until you feel it. I made a terrible choice to save you.. I made a deal with him. He would kill your other father if he knew that me and Monarch took you from him."

"I was, taken away under circumstances like that? Why didn't you tell me?"

Protlyn shrugged. "I'm telling you now." She took Mercy's wrist and teleported

away, reappearing near an obsidian throne.

"You didn't need to know yet, and I don't want to fill your head with a lot of weird stuff. But, like the things I've been telling you, I think what you're learning about the Hex will help you understand how to protect yourself from this evil.." She smiled, walking Mercy down a flight of stairs to a dark violet pool of liquid latex.

"But I have a request for you. The voices whispering in my head have been asking me to do this before you were even born. I want to see, I need to see how this will play out! You'll be a little different, but you'll still be you. Still my daughter. Do you trust me? Do you want to become one with the Void?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, that's all I ask. I don't want you getting hurt. Just be careful. You've got

a lot of powers now." She lifted her hand up, and a violet light was projected

from her. A wave of air, the smell of sulfur and ozone washed over her as they

approached the pool.

"I'm ready."

"Good, please climb in."

Mercy looked at the slick oily pool, and with a cold shiver, took a single step. The liquid began to its shiny thickness ebbing and flowing over her pitch and dress. She began to feel a tight squeeze all around her, sinking into her and sinking her in turn until the eerie lights of this strange world were eclipsed by a sea of black..

She fell down into the dark of the void, her mother calling out to her. Calling

her by her new title.

Protlyn smirked, sitting on the throne.

"The first Void Queen.. Happy First day."