Rune
06-01-2004, 11:05 AM
Its been ages since I managed to update this fic, & I'm not sure anyone apart from SK even read it but since I just added a chapter 6 (which is in effect a Jack-less chapter) I thought I'd plug it anyway. At least I'm now a tad more inspired to carry on (ie chapter 7 will be a Jack-full chapter - yay!)
If anyone wants to read what's done so far it lives HERE (http://blueplanet.deep-ice.com/fix/gift-1.htm) (in fact it won't make much sense unless you have read the previous 5 chapters but since it is five chapters long I didn't feel it was right to be a forum hog & post the whole lot here unless I get a nod from Mods to do so.
Anyway, here's chapter 6 of Samurai Jack & the Gift of Aku:
*****************
Part 6: The Promises of Darkness
Spangles of colour bloomed vividly behind Mir's eyelids and the cold water keened in her ears as the pressure in her empty lungs mounted. Held immobile by uncouth hands she felt rather than saw fate swim languidly up at her out of the inky depths. A spasm shook her slight frame, the body's last desperate fight for oxygen. No use. No use. These folk were simple but they were strong, possibly she was not the first victim they had despatched this way, though before the day was out and Aku's wrath had descended amidst them, she would in all likelihood be their last.
She fought to keep her lips pressed together as every fibre in her body clamoured for air and slowly the roaring in her ears faded to no more than a distant hum. Death. It meant nothing for it was unattainable. How many times had she been dragged to its very threshold? How many times would she have willingly thrown herself boneless into its maw only for Aku's dark protection to deflect the final blow, to douse the flame, to stay the hand, gift her with the breath of life and drag her back from the brink of blessed oblivion.
Dark bubbles rose from the suddenly depthless trough, bursting soundlessly about her submerged head as with a familiar and mocking touch the demon embraced her. Stripped away the layers of dull panic clouding her mind and the feel of rough hands upon her skin, drove aside even the searing need for air and with a twist of dark sinew wrenched her from reality and into his domain as easily as a thrush would pull a snail from its shell.
Vaguely some part of Mir knew that her body still remained on the mortal plane, held fast in grasp of the villagers, still choked for air, still invited scorn and hatred and desire but she was no longer a part of it.
Her eyes opened wide, straining into a darkness that was absolute. She could no more see the fingers she held in front of her face than her feet beneath her. Black. All was black. A smothered whimper jumped from her throat as the black vacuum hugged her, yet she was not there, not truly there for she had no corporeal substance, no throat to scream with. She floated in the void. She waited.
Is this death? Is this death at last?
The answer came suddenly lashing out at her from the vacuum, a buffeting, sentient wind torn from previous silence so absolute that her mind screamed soundlessly in its churning teeth as it dragged her downwards into its gape. Fleeting images, a lifetime of colours loved and lost fled across her inner vision and dashed echoing before her to implode on her quailing consciousness like cold fat raindrops under an arid desert sun. She was helpless as the gale twisted her, turned her, spun her inside out, knitting reality and illusion together until finally spitting her retching with nausea, face-down upon a narrow stone ledge overhanging a pit of uttermost night.
Mir opened her eyes. Red light pulsed softly about her, bathing her in tender crimson yet beneath her body the rock was cold, hard, unforgiving. Anxious to quell the bruising ache gnawing at her limbs she pushed unsteadily to her feet while nausea still rocked her and a gasp of horror tore unbidden from her lips as groping for support one hand missed the ledge and clawed emptily at the gaping drop below, sending small stones skipping into the void.
The ledge was narrow indeed, leaving her with precious little room to stand on and yet somehow she managed, gazing about her in dry-mouthed awe as aided by the gently throbbing light she found herself poised at the very lip of the black-throated shaft whilst around and above her thrust countless stalactites and stalagmites flickered in the echoing cavern's light like a million frozen flames.
She had scant time to draw breath before the gale returned, this time howling upwards from the pit. Mir's hair whipped wildly about her face as the sheer strength of the wind flattened her against the cavern wall, forcing the air from her lungs and leaving her choking in a shower of dust and heat as liquid darkness welled up from the depths below.
A darkness that was Aku.
Half-paralysed by the heat that washed over her as the shapeshifter appeared, Mir tried to back away along the ledge only to find it crumbling beneath her boots, tapering away into nothing. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Through the familiar spikes of desire that shot through her frame and clouded her reasoning she dully realised that Aku had brought her there to serve some darker need than her own pathetic wants.
The shadowy form settled back downwards like a receding thunderhead. As its lower body disappeared sinuously back into the unfathomed recesses of the pit so the deep red glow of the cavern faded with it until the only source of light left came from the silently dancing flames that crowned the demon's head. As the black shoulders and horned head loomed above her the demon's eyes finally met the woman's and at once the fanged mouth curved upwards in a leer of malicious pleasure.
'Do you know why I have brought you here?'
His voice plucked at Mir physically, every syllable impacting on her flesh with the kiss of fire before tunnelling up beneath her ribs in coils of emptiness. A deep groan forced its way unbidden from behind her clenched teeth as she hunched over the pain with her arms wrapped tight to her stomach. Seeing this obvious misery Aku burst into gloating laughter and smothering under the weight of her own spell Mir's legs suddenly gave way, dropping her grovelling on hands and knees before her tormentor on the slender ledge.
Mastering his mood Aku ceased laughing and his voice became quite cold. 'Truly woman, you are pathetic. Have you forgotten that you exist only to do my bidding?'
She couldn't answer. His every word stole the shapes on her tongue.
'Aku shall ask you again, have you forgotten that you exist only to do my bidding?'
'... please...'
In response the demon's hooked grin appeared again, 'You do not have to answer. You are strong-willed yet my pretty, foolish toy and so you amuse me.'
As she watched through grit-filled eyes, his gaze swept away, moving slowly over the cavern walls as onegreat hand lifted slowly to his face and the tapering fingers twined themselves in his long reddish beard as though engaged in musing thought.
'Though perhaps, upon reflection, I find you too strong willed.'
Something in the demon's tone warned her of his intentions and she found herself suddenly scrabbling upright, fingers clawing desperately at the sheer rockface as the wide eyes turned back to her, the fires dancing brighter above them.
'Yes too strong willed indeed. Consider the people who hunt you, consider your own suffering, consider the Samurai...' - here his voice fell to a hissing whisper and he bent over Mir like a venomous cloud as she shrank back against the cold cliff face.
'Aku, I beg you, please don't ...'
'Aku has have given you a gift and yet you choose to withhold it'
'Please don't ...'
'But you shall withhold it no longer.'
'Please.'
The plea died softly on Mir's lips as beneath her now tight-clenched eyes she felt him smile and the silence that followed was so terrible that against her will her eyes tore themselves open and she saw the shapeshifter reaching towards her and a black clawed finger touched her softly, eloquently, above the heart.
'You are mine. Utterly. Do not forget that you exist only for Aku's pleasure and to do his will.'
The demon withdrew his touch and the spot where his claw had rested like a catalyst blossomed instantly into avid darkness, a black flower unfurling cold inside her breast. In fear and misery Mir shuddered as icicles of frozen malice bore swiftly down into the very marrow of her being, giving life to the power she had so long held dormant.
Torn between razor sharp pains of desire and shame she turned her face to the wall, all the while feeling the rank darkness growing within her and the realisation of what would quell it. Now she was truly the work of Aku. Blood red roses burst from the barren rockface beneath her hands and feet, nudging against her, twining about wrist and ankle and thigh as the demon's face drew closer and his breath misted her skin with corruption.
It was like being stroked with knives.
'Give me the sword and I will love you.'
Black despair tore at Mir's fading consciousness as the void gaped below but the instant she opened her mouth to scream she felt rough hands hard on the back of her neck again as water flooded into her empty lungs.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
'Seems a bit of a waste lookin' at it now don' it, friends.'
One of the small knot of men holding the struggling woman head down in the horse trough looked up at his companions slyly, his rough face split by a wide leer.
The closest grinned back, his single eye wide in mock innocence. 'Waste you say? 'Ow'd d'yer make that out then?'
The first speaker, the tow-haired man Mir had tried to warn could hardly take his eyes from the slender form held beneath him, his gaze raked ceaselessly at her body and swallowing thickly he shifted his grip on her neck before continuing husky-voiced.
'Well, way I look at it if we play this right we might stand to make a bit o' gold out of this one.'
His friend pushed back a hank of rain-soaked hair. 'How d'yer mean? Speak plain.'
The man struggled briefly with his victim as Mir's desperate struggles sent up a spray of dirty water from the trough. 'Well, way I sees it we could take 'er to Aku ourselves, after we've 'ad our way like. You 'eard what that bounty 'unter said.'
A third man, his face bisected by a badly healed scar spoke up angrily, 'You never lissen, Aku wants the swordsman he don't care nothin' about the likes o' this -' he slapped Mir hard on the rump to emphasise his disgust.
'Still seems a shame to waste 'er.',
'Waste 'er? She's a witch. She'll bewitch us all and 'sides we got orders from the Shaman. '
The one-eyed man, clearly tempted by the thought of making a profit from the woman spat at his wavering companion scornfully. 'Since when did the Shaman run the village an' since when did you start believing all that talk o' witches and curses? That's woman's talk. Yer goin' soft. She ain't cursed, she's just foreign, 'cause she don't look like our womenfolk they say she's a witch.'
'Well 'ow you gonna prove she ain't? We got orders!'
The one eyed man grimaced, his face pale in the ghostly lightning flicker. 'Shut up. We could take 'er to the slave market down he valley, fetch a right good price.'
'Not if she's babblin' on about Aku all the time she won't.'
A knife appeared in the rain, 'Then we'll stop 'er babblin' won't we?'
The blond man who had been staring at the woman with his face closed as if locked in concentration suddenly looked up, 'Damn yer both. Got a mind to 'ave 'er meself now. I needs a wife'
Ribald laughter exploded about the trough.
'Aye, an' what do I say to you after you've wed 'er an' she's stabbed yer in the gizzard an' stuck yer head up on a spike?'
The fairhaired man's lips split into a cruel sneer, 'She just wants tamin', I've broken wild 'orses, she'll be no diff'rent...' His voice trailed off suddenly as a powerful spasm shook the woman and a silvery bubble came slowly to the surface of the trough to burst with a sound like a sigh.
Each man was suddenly, curiously aware of the chill rain clinging to his skin and the wide vulnerable space about him in the dark.
The scarred man shivered. 'Don't be a fool. We gotta drown 'er. She's cursed! The Shaman told us, don't you feel it?' he clutched savagely at an amulet strung about his dirty throat, his fingers automatically coming up to make the sign against evil.
The blond man spat again, 'Aye an' who amongst us who's a man believes what the old sow says. I've made me mind up friends, she's mine an' to hell with what the women say about it.'
The one-eyed man raised his voice in cruel mockery of Mir 'Oh Aku! Aku! What about Aku?'
'Hah! Aku don't care about us, besides I reckon Aku is a just some dirty grubbin' shaman same as our old hag and demons is just a thing the 'igher ups use to try and keep the likes of me an' you down in our places.' He let go of Mir with one hand and prodded the scarred man firmly on the chest to help emphasise his words. 'Fact is fact my friend, there ain't no such things as demons.'
But scarcely had the words left his lips when from the depths of the trough came a flash of red light as the whole surface of the water began to bubble fiercely.
---
End of part 6, Jack will be back in chapter 7, promise ^_~
If anyone wants to read what's done so far it lives HERE (http://blueplanet.deep-ice.com/fix/gift-1.htm) (in fact it won't make much sense unless you have read the previous 5 chapters but since it is five chapters long I didn't feel it was right to be a forum hog & post the whole lot here unless I get a nod from Mods to do so.
Anyway, here's chapter 6 of Samurai Jack & the Gift of Aku:
*****************
Part 6: The Promises of Darkness
Spangles of colour bloomed vividly behind Mir's eyelids and the cold water keened in her ears as the pressure in her empty lungs mounted. Held immobile by uncouth hands she felt rather than saw fate swim languidly up at her out of the inky depths. A spasm shook her slight frame, the body's last desperate fight for oxygen. No use. No use. These folk were simple but they were strong, possibly she was not the first victim they had despatched this way, though before the day was out and Aku's wrath had descended amidst them, she would in all likelihood be their last.
She fought to keep her lips pressed together as every fibre in her body clamoured for air and slowly the roaring in her ears faded to no more than a distant hum. Death. It meant nothing for it was unattainable. How many times had she been dragged to its very threshold? How many times would she have willingly thrown herself boneless into its maw only for Aku's dark protection to deflect the final blow, to douse the flame, to stay the hand, gift her with the breath of life and drag her back from the brink of blessed oblivion.
Dark bubbles rose from the suddenly depthless trough, bursting soundlessly about her submerged head as with a familiar and mocking touch the demon embraced her. Stripped away the layers of dull panic clouding her mind and the feel of rough hands upon her skin, drove aside even the searing need for air and with a twist of dark sinew wrenched her from reality and into his domain as easily as a thrush would pull a snail from its shell.
Vaguely some part of Mir knew that her body still remained on the mortal plane, held fast in grasp of the villagers, still choked for air, still invited scorn and hatred and desire but she was no longer a part of it.
Her eyes opened wide, straining into a darkness that was absolute. She could no more see the fingers she held in front of her face than her feet beneath her. Black. All was black. A smothered whimper jumped from her throat as the black vacuum hugged her, yet she was not there, not truly there for she had no corporeal substance, no throat to scream with. She floated in the void. She waited.
Is this death? Is this death at last?
The answer came suddenly lashing out at her from the vacuum, a buffeting, sentient wind torn from previous silence so absolute that her mind screamed soundlessly in its churning teeth as it dragged her downwards into its gape. Fleeting images, a lifetime of colours loved and lost fled across her inner vision and dashed echoing before her to implode on her quailing consciousness like cold fat raindrops under an arid desert sun. She was helpless as the gale twisted her, turned her, spun her inside out, knitting reality and illusion together until finally spitting her retching with nausea, face-down upon a narrow stone ledge overhanging a pit of uttermost night.
Mir opened her eyes. Red light pulsed softly about her, bathing her in tender crimson yet beneath her body the rock was cold, hard, unforgiving. Anxious to quell the bruising ache gnawing at her limbs she pushed unsteadily to her feet while nausea still rocked her and a gasp of horror tore unbidden from her lips as groping for support one hand missed the ledge and clawed emptily at the gaping drop below, sending small stones skipping into the void.
The ledge was narrow indeed, leaving her with precious little room to stand on and yet somehow she managed, gazing about her in dry-mouthed awe as aided by the gently throbbing light she found herself poised at the very lip of the black-throated shaft whilst around and above her thrust countless stalactites and stalagmites flickered in the echoing cavern's light like a million frozen flames.
She had scant time to draw breath before the gale returned, this time howling upwards from the pit. Mir's hair whipped wildly about her face as the sheer strength of the wind flattened her against the cavern wall, forcing the air from her lungs and leaving her choking in a shower of dust and heat as liquid darkness welled up from the depths below.
A darkness that was Aku.
Half-paralysed by the heat that washed over her as the shapeshifter appeared, Mir tried to back away along the ledge only to find it crumbling beneath her boots, tapering away into nothing. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Through the familiar spikes of desire that shot through her frame and clouded her reasoning she dully realised that Aku had brought her there to serve some darker need than her own pathetic wants.
The shadowy form settled back downwards like a receding thunderhead. As its lower body disappeared sinuously back into the unfathomed recesses of the pit so the deep red glow of the cavern faded with it until the only source of light left came from the silently dancing flames that crowned the demon's head. As the black shoulders and horned head loomed above her the demon's eyes finally met the woman's and at once the fanged mouth curved upwards in a leer of malicious pleasure.
'Do you know why I have brought you here?'
His voice plucked at Mir physically, every syllable impacting on her flesh with the kiss of fire before tunnelling up beneath her ribs in coils of emptiness. A deep groan forced its way unbidden from behind her clenched teeth as she hunched over the pain with her arms wrapped tight to her stomach. Seeing this obvious misery Aku burst into gloating laughter and smothering under the weight of her own spell Mir's legs suddenly gave way, dropping her grovelling on hands and knees before her tormentor on the slender ledge.
Mastering his mood Aku ceased laughing and his voice became quite cold. 'Truly woman, you are pathetic. Have you forgotten that you exist only to do my bidding?'
She couldn't answer. His every word stole the shapes on her tongue.
'Aku shall ask you again, have you forgotten that you exist only to do my bidding?'
'... please...'
In response the demon's hooked grin appeared again, 'You do not have to answer. You are strong-willed yet my pretty, foolish toy and so you amuse me.'
As she watched through grit-filled eyes, his gaze swept away, moving slowly over the cavern walls as onegreat hand lifted slowly to his face and the tapering fingers twined themselves in his long reddish beard as though engaged in musing thought.
'Though perhaps, upon reflection, I find you too strong willed.'
Something in the demon's tone warned her of his intentions and she found herself suddenly scrabbling upright, fingers clawing desperately at the sheer rockface as the wide eyes turned back to her, the fires dancing brighter above them.
'Yes too strong willed indeed. Consider the people who hunt you, consider your own suffering, consider the Samurai...' - here his voice fell to a hissing whisper and he bent over Mir like a venomous cloud as she shrank back against the cold cliff face.
'Aku, I beg you, please don't ...'
'Aku has have given you a gift and yet you choose to withhold it'
'Please don't ...'
'But you shall withhold it no longer.'
'Please.'
The plea died softly on Mir's lips as beneath her now tight-clenched eyes she felt him smile and the silence that followed was so terrible that against her will her eyes tore themselves open and she saw the shapeshifter reaching towards her and a black clawed finger touched her softly, eloquently, above the heart.
'You are mine. Utterly. Do not forget that you exist only for Aku's pleasure and to do his will.'
The demon withdrew his touch and the spot where his claw had rested like a catalyst blossomed instantly into avid darkness, a black flower unfurling cold inside her breast. In fear and misery Mir shuddered as icicles of frozen malice bore swiftly down into the very marrow of her being, giving life to the power she had so long held dormant.
Torn between razor sharp pains of desire and shame she turned her face to the wall, all the while feeling the rank darkness growing within her and the realisation of what would quell it. Now she was truly the work of Aku. Blood red roses burst from the barren rockface beneath her hands and feet, nudging against her, twining about wrist and ankle and thigh as the demon's face drew closer and his breath misted her skin with corruption.
It was like being stroked with knives.
'Give me the sword and I will love you.'
Black despair tore at Mir's fading consciousness as the void gaped below but the instant she opened her mouth to scream she felt rough hands hard on the back of her neck again as water flooded into her empty lungs.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
'Seems a bit of a waste lookin' at it now don' it, friends.'
One of the small knot of men holding the struggling woman head down in the horse trough looked up at his companions slyly, his rough face split by a wide leer.
The closest grinned back, his single eye wide in mock innocence. 'Waste you say? 'Ow'd d'yer make that out then?'
The first speaker, the tow-haired man Mir had tried to warn could hardly take his eyes from the slender form held beneath him, his gaze raked ceaselessly at her body and swallowing thickly he shifted his grip on her neck before continuing husky-voiced.
'Well, way I look at it if we play this right we might stand to make a bit o' gold out of this one.'
His friend pushed back a hank of rain-soaked hair. 'How d'yer mean? Speak plain.'
The man struggled briefly with his victim as Mir's desperate struggles sent up a spray of dirty water from the trough. 'Well, way I sees it we could take 'er to Aku ourselves, after we've 'ad our way like. You 'eard what that bounty 'unter said.'
A third man, his face bisected by a badly healed scar spoke up angrily, 'You never lissen, Aku wants the swordsman he don't care nothin' about the likes o' this -' he slapped Mir hard on the rump to emphasise his disgust.
'Still seems a shame to waste 'er.',
'Waste 'er? She's a witch. She'll bewitch us all and 'sides we got orders from the Shaman. '
The one-eyed man, clearly tempted by the thought of making a profit from the woman spat at his wavering companion scornfully. 'Since when did the Shaman run the village an' since when did you start believing all that talk o' witches and curses? That's woman's talk. Yer goin' soft. She ain't cursed, she's just foreign, 'cause she don't look like our womenfolk they say she's a witch.'
'Well 'ow you gonna prove she ain't? We got orders!'
The one eyed man grimaced, his face pale in the ghostly lightning flicker. 'Shut up. We could take 'er to the slave market down he valley, fetch a right good price.'
'Not if she's babblin' on about Aku all the time she won't.'
A knife appeared in the rain, 'Then we'll stop 'er babblin' won't we?'
The blond man who had been staring at the woman with his face closed as if locked in concentration suddenly looked up, 'Damn yer both. Got a mind to 'ave 'er meself now. I needs a wife'
Ribald laughter exploded about the trough.
'Aye, an' what do I say to you after you've wed 'er an' she's stabbed yer in the gizzard an' stuck yer head up on a spike?'
The fairhaired man's lips split into a cruel sneer, 'She just wants tamin', I've broken wild 'orses, she'll be no diff'rent...' His voice trailed off suddenly as a powerful spasm shook the woman and a silvery bubble came slowly to the surface of the trough to burst with a sound like a sigh.
Each man was suddenly, curiously aware of the chill rain clinging to his skin and the wide vulnerable space about him in the dark.
The scarred man shivered. 'Don't be a fool. We gotta drown 'er. She's cursed! The Shaman told us, don't you feel it?' he clutched savagely at an amulet strung about his dirty throat, his fingers automatically coming up to make the sign against evil.
The blond man spat again, 'Aye an' who amongst us who's a man believes what the old sow says. I've made me mind up friends, she's mine an' to hell with what the women say about it.'
The one-eyed man raised his voice in cruel mockery of Mir 'Oh Aku! Aku! What about Aku?'
'Hah! Aku don't care about us, besides I reckon Aku is a just some dirty grubbin' shaman same as our old hag and demons is just a thing the 'igher ups use to try and keep the likes of me an' you down in our places.' He let go of Mir with one hand and prodded the scarred man firmly on the chest to help emphasise his words. 'Fact is fact my friend, there ain't no such things as demons.'
But scarcely had the words left his lips when from the depths of the trough came a flash of red light as the whole surface of the water began to bubble fiercely.
---
End of part 6, Jack will be back in chapter 7, promise ^_~