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mood |
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 predatory |
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music |
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Telescope Eyes - Eisley |
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Time, even as the most abstract of concepts, was meaningless to those who had already lived for millennia. In her years of service to Leviathan, Atia had watched nations rise and fall, kings ascend to their thrones only to fall into dust at the end of their lives, and great armies sweep across the globe like locusts. And none of it was more than the briefest flicker of existence to her. Out in what she had come to think of as The Nothing, she watched. And planned. Looking backwards through the fabric of reality, marking certain events to help her thoughts become solid, the Bride considered Las Vegas little more than a killing field.
There were many here whom Elfleda had already touched, or at least tried to touch. But there were still others that she had not, and those would be the ones she would begin with. The stench of desperation was heavy over the city, scattered like grains of rice on black cloth, and where desperation did not exist, ambition did. Ambition, cruelty, hatred. In the blankness of The Nothing, Atia smiled, looking down on the obsidian chessboard, its ivory pieces already set in their places as she pondered the selection of her first pawn. Leviathan's first pawn, for was she not closest to her husband now?
"I have always despised you," the madwoman said, her voice echoing across the ether. Not that Elfleda didn't know it, but to finally be able to give voice to the sentiment was like Atlas being relieved of the obligation to hold up the sky. She formed a fist, squeezing so tightly that her nails began to cut into flesh, and unnatural blood dripped onto the board. The black droplets spattered on one of the chess pieces, and she leaned down to study it more closely. Yes, she had seen this one before, when she had been looking backwards. She could not see the future, had not been given the gift of prophecy, but time was like a book. If you re-read what had already been written, the knowledge was yours to keep. To use, should you see fit.
She saw fit.
"Soon. Very soon..."
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