Chapter 12: Chapter 12. The Goddess, part 2.

The goddess sank beneath the surface of the crimson pool.
The liquid was warm and thick, and Tiel often wondered if this was what what it felt like to be in the womb. There were no worries in the pool, no fears or responsibilities.
There was only blood.
Her blood, mostly.
For the goddess with no past, seeing the future was as close as she ever came to peace. As she sank deeper and deeper into the red depths, she allowed her conscious mind to become still and her muscles to relax.
Her nostrils and ears filled with blood as small pockets of air escaped and bubbled up towards the surface. It seeped between her eyelids and found it’s way under her fingernails. Even though her mouth was closed, she could still taste its metallic tang on her lips.
She didn’t hate it.
The taste was a little bitter, and a little sweet.
Curling up into a ball, Tiel hugged her thighs to her chest as she let the sense of weightlessness overtake her.
She did not know what future she would see this time. She never did, but at least, now, she knew where to start looking. The sword had given her a precious hint.
Knowing what was about to come, she reminded herself not to bite her tongue.
Just as she reached a state of peace, it hit her like a tidal wave.
Pain.
Overwhelming pain.
Like a billion shards of glass dancing in her veins. It was torture, but as Tiel had learned long ago, even torture could be weathered, and to some extent, even be pleasurable. Suffering could push a person to a place beyond suffering, to a stillness. Curling in on herself, Tiel tightened her embrace around her thighs as she welcomed the pain like an old friend. She allowed the burning, aching, sting to move through her, and in doing so, separated from herself. It was necessary. She could endure anything that helped her answer the burning question in her heart.

“Who am I?”

Curled into the fetal position, floating aimlessly in a lake of her own blood, Tiel shuddered as the trance began to take hold.
Tiel pictured the man that the sword had shown her, conjuring up his image as accurately as possible. Everything from his deep green eyes, to his soft cheek bones, to the jewelery that he had worn. To her surprise, the thing that she recalled the best, was his smile.
The shape of his lips.
The slight quirk of his mouth.
He hadn’t stopped smiling, even as she had plunged her blade through his chest.

“Do not cry for me, Tiellian. There is always next time.”

He had said.

***

Tiel was standing in a large room with dark gray walls and high ceilings. Supporting columns rose into the shadows above and to either side of her, intersected by statues of people she did not recognize. At the far end of the room, was a raised dais, and atop it, was a chair.
No, not a chair.

It was a throne.
It sat directly atop a flight of stairs, maybe thirty or so steps high as to overlook the chamber below. The throne was gaudy and made entirely of gold. Tiel could see carvings in it’s surface, but from where she stood in the center of the room, she couldn’t see what they were. Even in her visions, her eyesight was never perfect. Actually, even if it had been perfect, she was probably still too far away.
And then they appeared, like actors taking the stage, like wraiths materializing from thin air.
First was the man the sword had shown her.
He was, to put it mildly, resplendent and more than a little ostentatious. He wore fitted plate armor of gold, golden strands dangled from his ears, and a golden accents adorned his flesh. His long white hair was different than in the vision the sword had shown her. There it had been short, cut at his neckline as if by a blade. Now it was swept back from his eyes, and tied into a long braid that hung down to his waistline.
Next to him was a woman.
She had strong features and broad shoulders, and her hair was bright red.
Tiel swallowed the lump in her throat, and tried to stay calm.
The red haired woman wore similar armor to the man, and was only a little taller than Tiel herself.
Surrounding the two of them, were the silhouettes of several more people, though through Tiel’s eyes they were blurry and undefined.
“I’ve failed,” said the man in gold, his voice deep and resonant, and frankly, a little unsuited to his features.
Tiel blinked, and then there she was, standing next to him on her own to two legs, like before.
Her hand was placed reassuringly on his shoulder, though she was uncertain what to say. He turned to look at her, and her heart skipped a beat.
He was smiling, but she could see the misery behind his green eyes. He had the look of a man who had gambled everything and lost it all. A million words jammed their way into Tiel’s throat, all of them trying to escape at once. For some reason, she felt a sense of dread, an unshakable urgency. She had to speak, she had to say something, anything.
“All is lost,” said the man.
Then he pulled an object from his belt and pressed it against his head.
Though Tiel had never seen the object, she knew what would happen next. She screamed as the object discharged, turning the side of the man’s head into a bloody mist. The red haired woman screamed in surprised in alarm, while Tiel reached out to grab the man as he fell.
Somehow, she knew it didn’t matter. He was already dead. This was the future, and yet…
Sadness welled up inside her and exploded outward. Collapsing to the ground, she clawed at the man with both hands. Frantically, she wrestled him into her lap and and wrapped her arms around him.
“No, no, no!” She wailed. “Ohm, please, Ohm, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me! I need you!”

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The silhouettes and the woman with red hair stood all around, murmuring, but Tiel was scarcely aware of them. Why did she care for this man so much? What was he to her? Even as she wondered, her heart was shattering.
Reaching towards her belt, Tiel unsheathed a knife she had not known she had. The woman with red hair leapt towards her, but wasn’t fast enough. Tiel plunged the knife into her own chest, and felt relieved as she did. Turning to face the silhouettes and the red haired woman, Tiel coughed, spitting out blood.
“Yien,” she said, as her voice began to fade.
One of the silhouettes stepped forward and regarded her.
“Yes?” asked the silhouette with a woman’s voice.
“Honor our contract.”
“I…”
“Promise me!”
“I will.”
Tiel turned back towards the man in gold and leaned forward as if to kiss his corpse.

***

Tiel’s eyes snapped open to dark crimson as she woke from her trance. Frantically, she began to swim upwards, the feeling of the knife in her chest still present. Breaching the surface of the pool, she gasped for air. From somewhere off the side she could hear the sound of splashing.
“Tiel, are you alright? Hold on!”
Tiel could feel Tezzariel’s strong grip wrap around her and begin to drag her towards the pool’s edge. Then, abruptly, she could feel the press of cold tile against her back. Tezzariel leaned over her, her expression wrought with concern, and her white training clothes soaked in blood.
“Tiel, Tiel!”
Tiel glanced down at her chest, and then around the room.
“I’m fine, Tezza. I’m fine now.”
She was back in the present. Stretched out before her was the pool of blood, just as it had been before she had entered. The pool was about thirty paces across, and fifteen deep. It had, in all likelihood, taken her centuries to fill it. She had probably drained herself a little every day, all so that a Tiel who couldn’t even remember why could use it.
“What did you see?” asked Tezzariel as she began wiping herself with a towel.
“I saw him, and he killed himself before I could get answers.”
Tezzariel sighed.
“I see… Sorry, Tiel. I know how much you were looking forward to this.”

“It can’t be helped,” replied Tiel, rising to a seated position. “Though I definitely wasn’t expecting him to off himself, what’s more disconcerting is that I followed suit.”
“You did what!?!?”
“Oh, calm down.”
“Isn’t that really bad?! Doesn’t that mean you’ll kill yourself at some point?”
“Stop being so dramatic,” replied Tiel, snapping her gaze towards Tezzariel to give her a piercing glare. “It’s hardly that simple in my case. For one, I’m immortal, so that could be a few days from now, or a hundred million years from now.”
“That’s true.”
“Secondly, even if I killed myself in the vision, the question of whether or not I can die at all hasn’t been answered. I certainly don’t think I would die just by stabbing myself in the chest. I would know. I’ve tried.”
“You’ve what?!”
“Thirdly, the future becomes less certain the farther away it is. For someone like you, with a normal human lifespan, changing it is almost impossible. It’s so statistically unlikely that it isn’t worth mentioning.”
“Wait, so I might not die like I saw in my vision?”
Tiel narrowed her gaze.
“When we’re talking about my lifespan, things become difficult to predict”
Tezzariel’s eyes were wide as the possibility of the impossible dawned on her. Tiel felt a pang of guilt for bringing it up at all. She hoped Tezzariel wouldn’t get her hopes up, and also, that she wouldn’t get any ideas.
“There is one thing that bothers me though,” said Tiel, still trying to change the subject.
“Oh?”
“It’s hard to explain… but something about the vision felt… wrong.” Tiel looked down at where her legs used to be, and wondered if limbs could grow back. She considered the man she had killed in her previous vision, and then seen die again today.
Things weren’t adding up.
So many things…
Regardless, she would have to continue her line of inquiry later, before the blood dried.
“Enough of that for now. Be a good friend and drag me over me over to the showers, would you? Also, food. Future gazing always makes me hungry.”

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