Summary: An arrogant young disciple of Bastet is forced to spend lifetimes roaming Earth in search for her soulmate, but what happens when she tries to run from destiny?
A/N: For those of you that have seen Fahrenheit 451, Abhimani is taking on the role of Clarisse McClellan. Writing cred for this chapter goes to @panthergoddessbast! I love you or whatever..
Stepping into his bathroom with a determined gait, he requested Yuxie go dark.
“I am secure now Montag,” a melodic electronic voice rang through the sanitary walls.
As he sat on the covered toilet seat, Guy revealed that which seemed to be burning a hole in his chest the second he put it there, pressing it against his body as Beatty stood in front of him.
Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
His fingers touched and caressed the cover. What could have happened if the captain would have discovered it in his possession? He shook those thoughts out of his head and opens the book to the first page of the first chapter.
“I am a sick man. I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts.”
Getting even more curious, he flips to page 25.
“I agree that two times two is four is an excellent thing but two times two is five is sometimes also a most charming little thing.”
“False.” That same robotic blurted into what Guy thought was his own solitary.
“We are dark. It’s just me and you but that is false. Two times two can only be four. What are you doing Montag?”
A wide eyed look of fear was written all over his face as he looked around for what to do next. The voice seemed to know he was doing something he shouldn’t be.
“Are you feeling ok?” The voice almost seemed concerned for the panicked man’s well being. He hopped up from his seated position and tucks the book back to its original hiding place, storming out of the room in haste with the voice questioning where he was going already in the background as he set out to his destination.
He approached the train station and ventured to the stop entrance where he placed in his finger in order to be properly identified and was allowed passage to catch his train.
“I don’t think that old woman killed herself. I think they staged it. It’s all fake. They didn't even bother to sync her lips this time, you saw that shit right? Yeah they definitely murdered her.” The man in glasses badgers away as Abhimani tries to focus on the tinkering task between her fingers. He was definitely annoying her.
“Why do you keep going on about it?” The man looks pensively at her as though he was wondering what made her say something that insensitive.
“Hey you good?” She ignored him completely.
“Mani you know what we’re working on. We need someone with your connections so you tell me when you’re ready to come back to us.”
At this point the two were locked in deep eye lock, staring each other down before Mani looked back down to continue her task then gathered her things to leave the shanty like bar.
I am not tryna to get mixed in with none of their revolutionary drama. I have my own mission.
Bag secured on her back with both straps, she set her trek for home.
As she walked further, she heard her Goddess’ voice.
“Pace yourself, child, and do not fear.”
She got deeper into her journey home when she felt a presence. Like she was being followed.
She cut through the power plant to see if that person would persist and went in between some trailers. Turning around abruptly and unsheathing her boxcutter, Mani confronted her stalker.
‘’Who are you? What do you want?”
“You'll learn to listen to me one day, my darling.”
There he stood with his hands up in surrender. Her mate had returned and this time he appears to have come alone granted she had her suspicions.
“No I just came to talk to…”
He had the looks of someone who had so much on their shoulders with not a clue as to what the burdens they carried truly meant. His eyes held hers with desperate but intent purpose. Like she held the answers.
“I wanna know what that old woman was.”
“I don’t know.” The hand holding her weapon began a slight tremor. Yes this was the person she was meant to be with but she had no inkling as to what he was truly capable of.
“She lit herself on fire for books. Why?”
His eyes blazed as he answered.
“Because I can still smell her burning.”
“And you told us exactly where to find her.”
At that statement, Mani slowly lowers weapon cause he clearly wanted something else other than to harm or interrogate her.
“She didn’t say coward. She said omnis. What is that?”
She was extremely hesitant to answer him. She wasn't sure if that was her place. It wasn't her secret to tell so she replied with an unsteady voice.
Guy stepped forward and began to unzip his jacket which put her back on the defense and made her hold up her boxcutter once again. He sensed her trepidation.
“I just wanna show you something.”
The zipper went down slowly as to not alarm the robust woman any further and his hand reached into his pocket to unveil the book he had been carrying. He held it like a delicate egg that would crack if you squeezed too hard, his eyes glued as he turned it over in his hands then connected eyes with Abhimani.
“I took it from her house.”
Him falling into her midst seemed much too easy to her. All the trials and tribulations she had experienced in all her past lives. In his past lives. It couldn't be this simple. Could it?
“Is this a trap pipeman?”
His eyes thinned and eyebrows scrunched in contempt. “If anybody sees me with this, I’m dead.”
She instantly put her knife down and he stepped even closer to her holding out the book to her as a peace offering. She held his gaze for what seemed like eternity before reaching her hand out to accept the book in her own hand. Their eyes transferring cosmic energy between them. Mani reached her hand out to grasp the bound written pages thus starting a ripple of emotions within Guy because nothing have ever felt so right to him.
So he followed her into that old dilapidated building. Trailing behind her and peeking around corners to make sure that they were not being followed.
The woman with the big baby which seemed to be permanently attached to her hip appeared out of thin air at the most inopportune time causing Mani to push her door open and rush Guy through so the woman would not see the pipeman. As she stood held up in the hallway, he took a gander around her space before crossing over the room to see out of the window to ensure again that they were not being followed. He was already in deep with this book in his possession. What would it look like for Guy Montag, the golden burning boy, to be seen at an Eel’s house?
“She didn't see who you were.” Finally she had been released from the hall and entered her space. She had never been in such close quarters with her mate before. Who seemed to her unattached to anyone and freely available.
Thank God. I couldn't take him having another family. No one needs to suffer more than they have but he's so dazzling. I might just understand why this is happening to me.
Wait no! You just got here, you can't leave I just found you!
No you dumb bitch dont tell him that.
Now that would be a little counterproductive, wouldn’t it?
Anubis’ voice rang in her brain as he slinked out from the kitchen towards them. Guy’s eyes flashing down to the tiny furry body before looking back up to meet hers from across the room.
Oh go spit up a hairball.
Reaching over, she turned on her lamp by the door and he followed suit with the lamp on her dresser then proceeded to look through her drawers.
“Please don't do that.” He looked like a deer caught in headlights as he slowly slide the drawer back to its original closed position then went about observing the rest of her private place.
Mani took a seat on her bed and clutched the book in hand, smelling its natural scent of ink and paper along with all the places it could have been in the past. Pine, cinnamon, gasoline. It transported her all over. Guy’s fingers twiddled between her vinyls against the wall and he picked up one. He had burned them but had never taken the time to actually look at them. They were so lightweight. No wonder his boots crushed them with the slightest effort. His eyes travelled to her, her nose still lost in the book’s journey.
“Can you read that out loud? Please?”
Turning her body around to face him, she opened the book and began to read.
“Even if men were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he will invent destruction and chaos. He will invent all kinds of suffering out of ingratitude simply to convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key.”
Her voice rang so clear in his ears. Flowed right through and soothed his erratic soul, his heartbeat ,which had been racing this entire time, slowed down to a steady beat. Nothing had ever sounded so right to him before in his life. And all he could do was stop and watch the way her lips moved as they embraced each syllable and word.
“Hard to understand right? The Ministry has been wiping away language in order to wipe away thought. There used to be 6,000 languages in the world. Today there are fewer than 60. Why do you think the Ministry wants to create one universal language on the 9?”
He answered without hesitation.
“For the connection and happiness of all Natives.”
They way his voice faltered. He used to be so sure and confident in society, its beliefs and morals, rules and regulations. He had known absolutely nothing so of course he thought nothing of it. Now he hadn't the foggiest idea of what to think about his world anymore.
Standing from her seated position on the bed, Mani made her way to the chaise against the wall to strip off her backpack and bulky jacket to reveal a thin tank with large sleeve cut outs. Her ample side cleavage just barely visible to Guy but enough to make his eye wonder to rest of her body as she removed her excess layers while still remaining totally engaged in the words she said.
“During the Second Civil War, the old tech companies, they built systems to predict our thoughts. Then they became the Ministry or the Ministry joined them and they sold us what we wanted, self and happiness, which the nine provides in spades and what you are hired to defend with fire.”
He was disappointed when she placed a thin sweater over her shoulders. Her pretty sable skin was like his own but seemed better? Silkier? He couldn't place it but he knew he didn't like the fact that she was shielding it from his gaze. Her declaration about the Ministry did pique his interest.
“So you’re telling me that people wanted it this way?”
“Nah they didn't do this to us. We did it to ourselves, demanded it even.”
The bright light of a drone passed by the window making Guy change his position so that the light would not catch him. He leans against the wall to further take his frame out of site, keeping his eye on the window he continues to speak.
“Let me ask you something. Benjamin Franklin. Did he start the first fire department?”
Mani knew that lie well. Why these mortals insisted in telling it, she had no clue.
“To put fires out, not start them.”
“Beatty told me the opposite.”
“Oh I know exactly what he told you. He’s really a creep, you should see about getting a new captain or something. He’s awful. He might believe that himself or perhaps he's lying. Maybe when he was in your position, his captain lied to him. Do you have trouble with memory? Take a lot of drops?”
He took a beat and was about to answer the question but felt too much in the hot seat so now was the time to flip the script.
“What about you? Can you remember your past?”
Now there was a question the short, once ethereal beauty had no answer to. She truly couldn’t recall anything of the life she had prior to becoming one of her Goddess’ holy disciples. She would get fragments ever so often but nothing was ever quite clear enough for her to decipher. Blinking rapidly, she briskly walked past Guy to enter her kitchen asking him if he was hungry. His eyes follows her full figure flitting about the space. He sensed her hesitation to answer but wanted to know more about her. Her delicate but brazen way of calling him out on his own and the world’s techno-totalitarian bullshit intrigued him. He would watch from afar during her meetings with the captain, always close enough to see and hear but not ever approaching her himself. He felt drawn to her by some odd cosmic force that there was no explanation for. He watches her pour some clear liquid into a small cup then turned to face with a bittersweet look on her face leaning back with her hands braced upon the counter tops.
“What about your parents? Can you remember them?”
“I was raised by Eels to be an Eel posing as a Native. We read, watched movies, all that you are instructed to burn was ours and by the time I was a teenager, I wanted to be like you. Normal. So I run away to consume myself with the life. Drowned my eyes in drops, got hooked on the 9, the whole bit and for awhile it worked, I was happy. Then shit happened. I started selling graffiti to survive.”
A sinking sense of guilt washed over Mani’s head like a destructive cumulonimbus cloud as she turned her back to him. That woman who burned herself on the 9.
“I didn't know that woman would be there.”
That got the gears in Guy’s head turning even faster than they already were. A whirlwind of thoughts invading his brain.
“I never thought about the people behind the things that I burn. I mean they must have spent their entire lives making things and here I come, in two seconds, it’s gone.”
Just like my life amongst the panthers and my Goddess. Taken from me without my knowing.
She had begun to slowly turn back to face his leaning body in her kitchen door frame, their eyes locked for what could have been an eternity. Electricity passing between their pupils.
You’re on your way my darling. Keep going.
“I want to show you something.”
She rushes back to the other room to her backpack to retrieve the harmonica she had found and repaired earlier that day. There were many things she was allowed to do in the Ancestral Plane that the Natives of this world couldn't even grasp the concept of since it had been completely annihilated from their culture. Music being one of them. Raising the small metal instrument to her mouth and cupping it gently, she blew out a beautiful clear melodic note almost scaring Guy then began a little jaunty tune. He had never heard this kind of thing before and was unsure as to what sound he would get. It was most definitely not what he thought would come out. He looks on at Mani, his eyes never leaving her as she stepped slowly around the open space of her apartment, playing the kitchy jiggle. She steps closer to her bed lowering herself to sit on the bed as she moved the hand she held on the outside up and down changing the sound and finishing the song with a bouncy flourish. A small and genuine small graced Guy’s face and she felt this surge of emotion in her chest as he looked at her. Shyness. No one hadn't looked at her like that in more years than she could remember. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t remember anyone every looking at her with the sense of adoration he seemed to. That made her cheeks warm and her heart flutter. She holds the music piece out to him.
He angles his head in a teasing manner as if to ask was she serious. Mani smiles softly at him.
With that, he walks over to take the seat right next to her on the bed and takes the harmonica in hand. He turns it over back and forth to try to see the mechanics of how such a small device could make such pretty and resonating sounds. Then he attempted to cup his hands around it in the same manner she had just done. Anubis decided it was a good idea to make himself comfortable on the lap, curling his tail around his body purring which surprised both humans present.
Mani smile widens a little and she nods her head. He blows out a harsh breath resulting in a loud harmonic toot which frightens them both causing them to chuckle. He liked the way her giggle sounded, it warmed him. He did it a second time, this time a much slower, gentler sound came since he had not put so much force into it. Giggling, she placed her smaller hands on his to form them better on the instrument.
“Here try it like this. There you go now try it again.”
He was starting to get lost in the way her hands felt touching him. Though it was innocent in nature, it lit a small fire in him. Mani had felt the heat the second their skin touched. She kept her hand over his as she instructed him to try again and shook his hand the way she had done hers to make that musical quiver. Judging by the look on his face when he stopped playing, he was pretty pleased with himself and even more pleased with her. Guy tucked his bottom lip between his teeth as they kept each other’s gaze while sitting shoulder to shoulder. The closest they had been the entire night. He would be coming back to see her without a doubt.
And he did for weeks on end, he would come and she would read aloud for him. He couldn't get enough of her voice, her smell, her touch, everything just had to be her. It was an almost suffocating but euphoric feeling he felt every time they spent within the 4 walls of her small apartment. She would read a passage of the book and then hand it over to him so he could take over. At first he took the book with trepidation, unsure if he could read as deeply as she does then that feeling was all but forgotten once he began to sound off. Work had began to get more demanding and Beatty more merciless as the pressure of his impending new position weighed on him. Flashbacks of his father being beaten outside in the rain by his fellow firemen flashed in his eyes constantly as he worked to capture the very people he had become. It became his double life coming to Mani’s place and he looked forward to every single visit. They began to get closer to one another. Small touches turned to lingering holds, sitting side by side to her cuddling against his chest as he read. They were falling in love and yet her Goddess hadn't come to take her from this hellhole of a universe.
Be patient my pupil. You still have much to learn.
With that, the fallen woman would leave those thoughts be and continue to enjoy her Guy. She was beginning to understand what all the mortal commotion was about. Until one night the fire squad came to the shop she often fixes graffitti and lined all who were there in a line demanding answers. The captain walks up and down the line like a predator stalking its prey, judging which one of them would be the easiest catch.
“I know one of your Eels knows something about the Omnis.”
He stopped right in front of her. eyes scanning and probing into her very being. He was much too close for her and Guy’s comfort, who was watching the encounter nearby. The desire to step in and interfere was overwhelming and hard to suppress but he know that if he did he would have more of an issue on his hand. He remained on his guard. The captain leaned close enough that Mani could feel his breath upon on her cheek and whispered.
“What if I told these people what you do? What would be worse… What I do to you or what they would?”
He takes several steps back to observe her firm face but eyes hard with a twinge of fear. Despite not truly caring about this world, Abhimani know the consequences of it. Having dealt with it herself in the past, she wasn't trying to get tangled in any of that ever again. And she had finally got her mate…
“We’re all the same here.”
A tall, slender man stepped forward out of the line in her defense shocking her and the man who stood to torment her.
“Whatever you do to her, you do to us.”
Beatty signals a weapon be handed to him and proceeded to go over to the outspoken man.
“Is that so? I understand. You wanna be help each other. Comradery and all that..”
With that last word, the captain bludgers the man with the blunt end of the weapon and continues down the line.
“I am your judge and I am your court. I receive you when you come and…”
He strikes another in the line.
“I dismiss you when you go!”
Guy couldn't watch anymore nor could he risk anything happen to Mani so he slicked off to the building’s breaker box, flipping the switch and shrouding the entire place in darkness right as Beatty was close to her. He ignited the fire on his flamethrower to shed some light as the Eels fled the scene rapidly. The captain commanded his subordinates to gather them back together and everything was in chaos around her. She tries to dip and dodge the firemen but trips over her own feet under the weight of her heavy backpack. Guy catches her in his arms.
His eyes dart around to make sure they are not being watched which seems highly plausible in all the ruckus. He guides her to exit and she turns to him.
You have to let him go for now!
But my Lady I just found him!
I never said it was over silly girl now go!
With the warning growl from her Goddess, Mani takes off running to her place so that she can gather some supplies to escape. There was still some people she know would help her if she just got to them before the firemen caught up with her. The city was on the ultimate lockdown, transit checkpoints, border patrols, and all were ordered to “stay vivid on the 9.”
Mani rummages around her small space, grabbing what she needed for her journey. Her adrenaline was still pumping from the earlier and her hands shook as she packed. The sudden knock on her door startles her. She gingerly approaches it before peeking out the makeshift peephole and letting out a sigh of relief seeing it was her mate. The door flies open followed by Guy hastily walking in and immediately grabs her in his hands looking her over frantically.
“Are you ok? You hurt? I wanted to leave with you but I..”
“Montag slow down. I’m fine but I have to get out of here. Did anyone follow you here?”
Mani gently wriggles her body out his iron grasp, turning to resume her semi-organized packing job. He watched her move around her place just as he had during his first visit but his eyes that were once filled with curiosity and desire burned with sadness and despair.
“No I was looking over my shoulder the whole way here. Wait where you gonna go?”
“A compound far out. Some family friends hiding out there I think I can help.”
“Mani there’s checkpoints all over the city. You think you can make it there?”
“I have connections to avoid those.”
By this time, she had stopped her rummaging and found herself standing face to face with him. They stared and stared hoping one of them could find the answers to all their problems. Both of their emotions in a tizzy. How could they give each other up so quickly when they had finally gotten close? She didn't want to let him go. What did all this mean?
I swear I love my Goddess but she's making things very difficult for me. This isn't fair.
She couldn’t express what she was feeling. Perhaps it was what it felt like when a puzzle was missing that one piece. Utterly incomplete and totally wrong. She wasn't sure if she could bare being separated from him again, not when she had finally gotten to know his heart.
“Will I ever see you again?’
She wasn't sure if the question was for Guy or for his soul that was connected to hers. The softly uttered question made his heart flutter. She raised a hand to his cheek, holding his face in her palm. His hand comes to her wrist wrapping his fingers around it gently with his thumb running across her skin. Their faces graviated closer to each other with each passing breath until they seemed to be exchanging oxygen, both sets of lips so ready to touch when the door unexpectedly bursts open and firemen pour in. Beatty saunters in, hands clasped together in front of him with a mischievous look in his face with an evil intent. The two were jerked apart despite the tight hold they had on each other.
“You really thought we weren't watching you. You should be a little smarter than that Montag.”
“Just leave her alone captain. I'll take whatever punishment you deem appropriate, just let her go.”
Beatty looked as though he was actually contemplating his request. Mani could hear her heartbeat in her ears, feel it in her throat, and struggled to keep it in her chest. The room was so silent you could practically each passing puff of air out of every mouth present.
“That’s a pretty good offer there. Why don't we start right here?”
He had unsheathed a blade that no one saw coming and filled Mani’s abdomen with its metal. Seeing what the captain had done, Guy began to thrash against the hold of his fellow firemen but they held fast.
As her vision began to blur all she could her was her mate’s cries and her own thoughts.
Well goddamn it that wasn't supposed to happen.
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