14
Vinnie

“I thought you knew where you were going.”

Ropo looked around the chapel, scratching the top of its head as it did. It looked back at Vinnie and shrugged.

He groaned. “Aren’t you connected to this place? Can’t you just, I don’t know, sense where Atropos is?”

All he got was an eye roll.

“Okay, then would you know where she might be? Like a place she hangs out often?”

The little inkblot pointed toward the center of the room where they assumed her statued form would be.

“Of course…”

This was starting to piss him off. ‘You’re precisely the one I’ve been waiting for’ my ass! It was his own fault, however, for getting invested in the plot he found himself in— if Reese were here, he’d surely chastised him for such recklessness.

“I doubt we would be able to find for her on our own,” Vinnie commented. “Last time I tried exploring alone, the hallways kept spitting me back out to the foyer.” Maybe this trip was a bust. “C’mon, let’s just head back to the house. We can try again in the morning—”

Ropo snapped its attention towards something, skittered off his shoulder and onto the ground. It went over to where Atropos’ statue would be, surveying the surroundings again before slithering to the back of the room.

“Something the matter?” he asked. He followed the little one to where it scampered off to, finding an inconspicuous door blending into the wall. “Is there something through here?” Ropo climbed back onto his shoulder and nodded.

Trusting Ropo’s instincts, he opened the door and was greeted with nothing. A white void stretched out infinitely in front of him, the door he stepped through looking as though it was suspended in air. The only things truly denoting a ground were the tall white grass and flowers that grew from the nothingness.

Ropo tugged on the collar of his shirt, pointing him to walk straight ahead.

He casted an uncertain look toward the little one. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Unsurprisingly, Ropo urged him to go. He stepped out of the chapel and walked forward as directed. When he turned his head back to where the door was, he was met with the continuing expanse.

Guess there’s no going back.

~***~

Despite Ropo’s assuredness, Vinnie could not see an end. They would stumble across an odd landmark or two— a lamppost or a bench, sometimes a statue of someone he didn't recognize with pieces of it broken off and suspended in the air— all of it in the same stark white that surrounded them. When they found one of these landmarks, Ropo would take a moment to get its bearings before pointing Vinnie in another direction.

Having been raised by a deity, Vinnie was familiar with the peculiarities of their homes. Domains were highly personalized extensions of self; they could range from grand establishments like Lady Virtua's library to humble homesteads like his godmother's house. But as they traversed the void around them, he got the feeling he wasn't meant to see this, that he crossed a boundary into an area that had yet to be developed. The air was silent and stiff, with the only note of them existing in this place being the crunch of flowers beneath his feet. It was growing harder to believe they were still within the domain.

Color returned to his vision when they spotted a dark set of doors standing against the white scenery, decorated in gold trim in much the same way as other parts of the domain. When it came into view, Ropo tugged on Vinnie’s shirt collar to get him to go faster.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m going.” But Ropo wouldn’t stop pestering him until he started jogging.

When they reached the door, he hesitated. While he trusted Ropo’s judgment, he didn’t know what the little one was leading him to see. The space he was in was wrong. Deities were strange entities, but this place was even stranger.

A tug at his shirt collar brought him back to the moment, and he looked over to see Ropo giving him an annoyed look.

“Right, sorry.”

With little other choice, he opened the doors.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark room, but soon he saw what looked to be a little balcony. Leaning over the railing was a tall figure with flowers tangled in her hair and modest cloaks draping her figure.

"Vinnie?" Atropos spun around when she noticed him. "I didn't expect you to come that way. How did you get here?"

Suddenly, Ropo hopped off his shoulder and scuttled up into Atropos' hands.

"Ah, I see. So, it was the little one that led you here." She chuckled. "She's truly a little trouble maker. A perfect match for you, yes?"

Vinnie gave an uncertain smile as he closed the door behind him, then a faint sound below them caught his attention.

Is that someone... crying?

"Where are we?" Vinnie asked.

Atropos set Ropo onto her shoulder and turned back toward the balcony. "Have a look for yourself."

He joined her by the railing. The scene below him looked to be a theater, though broken statues littered the walkways and seats. What few were still intact looked to have been crawling towards the stage, and sitting in the middle of the wreckage was a silhouette so black that it was as if it had been cut out of darkness. They were in the shape of a person on their knees with their face buried in their hands— the source of the weeping, their voice broken and distorted.

“That shadow… is that the shapeshifter you were talking about?”

“A shapeshifter, yes,” Atropos began, “but not the one you encountered in Janahad. I believe you’re already acquainted with this one. He is the reason you are here, is it not?”

Images surfaces in his mind of the liquid black wings that saved him, and of the man that bled the same substance.

Orias.

“What happened to him?” Vinnie asked.

“I forced him to show his true form,” said Atropos. “You came here looking for answers, so I’m showing you what he really is.”

Vinnie kept his eyes fixed on the silhouette. He did want to know but… not like this…

“He had followed you here,” she continued. “He worried that something might happen to you coming back here. I suppose he has good reason to be concerned.”

Vinnie tilted his head. “What reason?”

“You’re being hunted.”

Vinnie blinked. Hunted? He then remembered how Orias had been acting yesterday, how his eyes kept flickering towards the bluff like he was looking for something.

“He knows the other shapeshifter is looking for you and did not want you to be alone.”

“What does it want with me?”

“Revenge,” Atropos said flatly. “The Patrons are responsible for the culling of their kind— your position as the Regis Vicaria is a weak point that can be exploited.”

A weak point… Vinnie gripped the railing tighter. Does that mean Orias found out who I am?

“If Orias really is one of these shapeshifters, then why haven’t you killed him?” Vinnie asked. “You’re a deity— you’re programmed to destroy anything related to the Storm. So why haven’t you?”

She was silent for a moment, something melancholic settling on her face.

“You’re right, they’re children of the Storm, beings that were never meant to exist. What few that survived were left trapped in the desert to burn.” A small smile crept up her lips, but her expression was devoid of any joy. “I was created to free them.”

There was a finality in her statement that he couldn’t seem to grasp. The Storm consumes all it graces, freeing these shapeshifters would only do more harm than good.

Atropos spoke once more. “You should go to him. I put him through too much.”

Before he got the chance to reply, Atropos was gone, leaving Vinnie alone in the theater box to overlook the unsettling scene.

His knuckles had turned white from gripping the railing. He felt… something. Anger, distrust, even pity for the crying figure, but it all melded together into further turmoil. Do I go to him? Orias was of the Storm, the very thing that took his father away, that took Reese away.

But is that his fault?

There was no way to get into the theater proper except for the door he came through. Ropo had disappeared with Atropos; he wouldn’t be able to navigate the white void without her help, but there was little other option he had. Pulling open the door, however, he found that it now led to the entrance of the theater, and he could see the carnage first hand. Broken bits of statues laid at his feet, the insides of which were black and oozing. On the stage, he saw the silhouette. Statues stood around him that appeared to have once been larger, but all four of them had been cleaved in half and were scattered around the wings.

The shapeshifter seemed to have calmed down, though he still hung his head like a limp doll. Black wisps rose up from his back slowly, dissipating into the air as they separated from him. It felt wrong for Vinnie to be seeing him like this.

Approaching the stage, he spoke his name, “Orias?”

His head lifted to see who entered, then he began to scramble away as Vinnie climbed up on stage.

“Stay away!” Orias cried. It sounded as though several voices were speaking in unison, though Vinnie did not see him speak. If Orias looked permanently worried before, this shadowy form emphasized it, with thin white lines denoting eyebrows knotted together and stark white doe-eyes looking like they’d burst into tears at any moment. When Vinnie tried to approach him, he recoiled. “I said stay away!! Please just… leave me alone…”

Vinnie hesitated. What do I do? What do I even say to him? Orias was like a scared animal in this state. He didn’t want to make things worse.

“It’s okay, I promise— I just…” He bit his lip. “I just want to help.”

Do I? He must of deep down. He would not be here otherwise.

Orias paused, still regarding him with caution, but he allowed Vinnie to kneel down beside him. Words failed him in this moment. He couldn’t string together a sentence that didn’t betray his turmoil. Instead, he reached out to wrap his arms around him.