#thelefthandpath

Sin: Her voice in my mind is a siren’s call. Even knowing I cannot enter my future, I find myself walking towards her, our eyes locked and my very soul reaching for her. Finally, knowing I dare not go further on the path I stop. Though I make no sound, my voice is clear and I know she hears me.

“How would you know of the choice I once made to avenge all I lost to a jealous god? What do you know of the love I lost and sought to balance the scales for?” 

There is a connection here. One I felt when I first saw her in that dark alley. And one strong enough that she is in a future that I would never have dreamed possible for myself.  I had seen her soul, seen the impossible in it and yet, it must be possible because souls do not lie. My eyes narrow, and again, I ask…

“How do you know of this? Who are you to walk the corridors of time and find me here? Who are you /to/ me?” @Seraphine_BDB

Seraphine: <My dreams have never led me to anywhere special. Mostly odd scenarios that I never remember when I wake up the next morning. Here … it felt strange and familiar all at the same time. I had no idea why I said those words to him, Sin. Maybe some sort of manifestation of my thoughts lately. I nonchalantly shrug.>

It’s just how I see you. You seem reserved and detached from the world … like you’re bored and just want to sleep. 

<Really odd. We only met for that one brief moment and somehow I was able to pick up his character … at least how I saw it. I started turning back, thinking I should probably wake up soon.>

Sin: *My eyes narrow at this assessment. However astute it may be, it is not one our meeting on a mortal plane would have given her the insight for. No, this only affirms a deeper connection than seems possible. It can only come from … our souls. And that is not possible. Soul connections only happen once and mine was made long, long before this vampire with her soul’s single lifetime was ever born. Regardless of how long her angelic blood stretches that single lifetime, her soul could /not/ have been in existence when I was mortal.*

Thirty-five thousand years is enough to cause even the hardiest of souls to develop, *pausing before continuing smoothly,* a level of ennui. Eventually, one has seen everything, done everything. There is nothing left to test it or bring it joy. I have one last challenge to fulfill and if the Fates had written my rest at the end of it, then I would not quibble with them. However, from the futures presented to me this night, that does not seem to be the case. The question seems to be will it darken endlessly, or will it find joy. You appear in the future that holds joy. Why do you suppose that is?

Seraphine: <Did he just say thirty-five thousand years. FML. He’s … ancient. Though one could not tell that his chiseled good looks have aged over 25, but his choice of words and demeanor does suggest someone older. I just can’t believe thirty-five thousand years older. How is that even possible? Vampires only live for so long … and angels … well I have no idea how long. That was one of the many reasons why I was looking for an angel. I hadn’t had a chance to ask #Lassiter too many questions yet. Considering his association with the #Brotherhood it made sense that his time was sparse. Rumors are the Scribe Virgin is also gone. Not sure what that means for the race or what’s going to happen. I shrug as I continue to walk away, trying to wake myself up from this odd dream.>

Be that as it may … when someone has nothing to live for … then tend to either find a way to sleep or make things more … interesting in dangerous ways. As to the Fates? You mean the ancient greek mythology about the three chicks who make your life good or crap and where one of them can even kill you? Surely that is a myth. We design our own destinies, don’t we with the decisions we make each day in and out?

<I wonder if there was such a thing as the Fates? Granted I was born in this millennia where technology and social media ruled and celebrities were worshiped instead of the Scribe Virgin. Was there ever a Scribe Virgin? Yes. My family always believed in her and asked for her guidance … though it often went unanswered. But wasn’t that the idea of “Gods” even with the humans. They believed in many different Gods and none ever answered directly. So were the Greek Gods any different? Did they exist as well?>

Me? Joy? Doubtful. My future doesn’t hold joy. Only unanswered questions and continuous running.

Sin: *A surprised laugh escapes me.* 

You don’t believe in the Fates? I assure you, they believe in YOU. *Striving to stop her from leaving me before I can understand how and why she is here, I put forth an argument.* 

The human myth of them is somewhat … garbled. As is so much of their understanding of things greater than themselves. I would not expect you to subscribe to such nonsense. The Fates do not ‘assign’ destinies. They merely put choices before us. We select one, which leads to more choices. The Creator subscribes to a ‘free will’ philosophy. Our destinies are determined by our choices. The two destinies I have been presented with here are the results of many millennia of my choices. And, *musing almost to myself* you appear to be part of one of them. The only one that holds great joy. For both of us. *Nodding towards the vision before us. The fact that her image is still there, standing beside my own and laughing while her soul has stepped from it to walk up the path towards me, tells me that perhaps she too has a choice to make. Perhaps the Fates want both of us to see what may be.* 

Tell me, battle angel, do you make a habit of walking between the worlds, seeking the corridors of future knowledge? For how else are you here with me? I cast the spell for myself alone, to seek guidance, and yet, here you are. Perhaps the Fates wish us both to see what may come to pass. Look there,*gesturing to future that shows us together,* does that show you a future with no joy? It does not show that to me. But I can show you one that does. *I hold my hand out to her.* Come with me and I will show you what lies down the right-hand path. Come and see the other destiny that is laid before me. Perhaps you may understand more about the choice that is laid before you.

Seraphine: <Damn, this dream is getting weirder and weirder. Looks like my conscious doesn’t want me to wake up yet, so I might as well enjoy it. I’ll forget most of it when I wake up anyway, like always.> 

I’m sure the Fates have better things to do than pay attention to me. Or clearly they like having me play mouse on this crap cat and mouse game I’m in. 

As for walking between the worlds, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re just a dream. As to the Hogwarts spell, I’m sure it's  just my self conscious telling myself to stop falling asleep with the Harry Potter movie marathon on the tv.

<Seriously, that was probably what happened. Then again, if vampires and lycan exist … makes only sense witches and warlocks do too, right? But I know, /I/ didn’t cast a spell. This is just a really strange dream due to all the recent changes in my life. Finally finding #Lassiter, finally feeding and coming to find out that I have a few small powers of my own. Looking at his offered hand, I remember its just a dream … might as well see where this goes.> Sure.

<I take his hand and walk to another blurry dreamlike scene on the right of us on this path we found ourselves walking on.>

Sin: *As she takes my hand a frisson of electricity courses through me. Even here, when we are simply soul to soul, there is that connection. The Fates have stepped back from the fork in the path, watching us from afar. Clotho catches my eye and nods approvingly. I can hear her in my mind.*

‘Show her. For if you follow the right-hand path there is no joy for anyone, not you, not her, not in any of the worlds on any of the planes. You will become a benign despot, not for glory or power, for there will be no power greater than yours when all is done regardless of the path, but because control will ease the pain of the losses you will incur from the choice that leads you down the right-hand path. Losses that need not happen. This female is part of the left-hand path. She needs to make a choice as well. A choice to trust you when she trusts no one. A choice to hope. A choice to allow herself love when for so long she has only allowed herself existence. For if you have that hope, that clarity of her soul when your turn comes, the choice that leads to joy will become clear.’

*As so often is the case, Clotho’s words are mystic, yet one thing rings clear. This female must see the consequences of a future without joy.*

Look there. See me on a dark throne of flame. Most of those I hold dear are absent and the ones present are in chains. Blood drips from my sword and even though there are many around me, they are little better than slaves, cowering before what I have become. Balance that against the other. There is no joy here. There are no friends, no family, no love. There is no /you/ here. There is only death and darkness. That is the result of choosing not to trust, not to hope. It is the result of choosing not to love. And it would seem, my future… the future of all the worlds... will hang as much on your choice as on my own.

Seraphine: <Sin seemed to be listening to something or someone … maybe someone I couldn’t see. Dearest Scribe, this dream is really getting weird. So weird, that I felt electricity run through my arm as I placed my hand in his. It was nothing I have ever felt before. It felt … right. I need to hurry and wake up before this dream creates ideas on finding ways to touch the male if I ever see him in reality again.

Then as I see Sin on the other side of the image … it /is/ a dream! NFW there were two of these sexy males. The image was of him in all his warrior glory, sword dripping in blood surrounded by the slaves he described at his feet. It was disconcerting but powerful in a sense. But my choice? I was no one. Why would my choice be a factor? I said as much to him as we continued to walk down this dreamlike path past this first image of him in a war zone.>

Sin: You are part of my left-hand path, but not the right. Our souls call to one another. Else, why would you be here? There is a choice you must make, a choice that influences the choice I make and in doing so influences the future of all the worlds. *Pausing as I consider how to explain it, then deciding upon a simple mortal metaphor that I have heard used before.* 

Have you never heard of the ‘butterfly effect’? The idea that the air stirred by the wings of a butterfly can in the end result in a hurricane thousands of miles away?  Our choices are like that. No one is an island. The actions we take, the attitudes we display, affect others we have never met. If I become this…*gesturing to the tableau before us* I will condemn to an existence of servitude and fear not only all those that I have ever had contact with, but all those who exist everywhere. I will become closed to the emotions that keep me in sync with mortals, lose what humanity of soul that I have left, and in doing so become as a cold, uncaring god who cares not where he steps. I can only surmise that it is /your/ soul that somehow prevents this. If you choose to shut yourself off from love, from family, this is the future for all of us. You are not part of this future. I do not know if it is because your life ends or because you shut me out. I only know that if you do there is no happiness for anyone.  But if you open yourself to the possibilities, if you allow this thing between us, whatever it is, to come to grow, then there is hope for the left-hand path. There is hope for all of us.

 I will come to you, and you must choose.

Seraphine: This is insane. I’m no one. I can barely survive my choices … let alone effect others. I’m trying to living day by day here and not really thinking too far into the future.

I have a mad vampire and his goons chasing me around the globe for my blood in order to make me his own blood slave so he can walk out into the sun and take over the human world like he has over our race. Dealing with the vampire version of the mafia … I can’t get involved in whatever monarchy, autocracy or dictatorship you got going on here. I don’t need more crap on my ever growing plate of WTF. 

And choose what? Between running for the rest of my life or becoming a mindless slave? What the hell are you talking about?

This is just a dream anyways. You’re not really here, fuck, I’m not really here.

<I /really/ need to wake up now. This dream is getting really weird. I start whispering to myself.> 

Wake up now, wake up now, wake the fuck up.

Sin: *I turn to face you, dropping your hand, my face growing hard and dark, my voice stern.* 

This is no dream. Whoever pursues you in the mortal world is of no importance. They are no match for me, their resources puny, their powers anemic compared to mine and I will deal with them. *In this moment I choose to reveal what I am to her, to show her all of me. And to accept the impossible that I have seen in her soul.* 

I am a reaper, Death’s First, the most powerful reaper to ever exist and these future paths indicate that regardless of the choice I make, I will become much, much more. You have only to show me your pursuer’s face and his death is written, for I protect what is mine.  I know not your name in this mortal life, but I have seen your soul and viewed the impossible. I was not always a reaper. Once I was mortal and I knew you. You were mine then and you will be mine again. 

*Raising my hand to your face, I cup your jaw and hold it firmly, not a lover’s caress, but a king’s command. Fixing my dark eyes on your blue ones, I command.* I have seen your soul. Now see mine. You are as much angel as you are vampire. You have the power within you and I call it forth. See my soul and remember.

Seraphine: <I could feel my face warming under this touch as my heart beat faster and faster. His focus was so directed at me that I did not understand when my eyes began to unfocus and started seeing different colors and seeing a fuzzy scene with him and another woman in some sort of negotiation. It felt like deja vu … I began to panic and shake my head of the unwanted vision, pulling away from his hold and I pinch my arm to try and wake myself up from this crazy dream.

The visions came quickly as the scene changed … all of sudden I found myself standing in front of Sin wearing a mask? Oh wait, it's a Princess Jasmin veil with delicate chains and jewels. Odd. I was standing behind some male, but I could still see him clearly over the guy’s shoulder and as we locked eyes, I felt something deep inside.

The next scene was with that male, which apparently was my father, or hers - this was getting confusing. He is handing her a dagger and shows her/me a map of the city and how to get past the guards and into Sin’s rooms. I had feelings of hate and annoyance about this male. Apparently I am supposed to kill him to collect the bounty on his head and for my father to take over his kingdom.

The scene changed again and I found myself outside our tents, without the dagger, and searching for Sin. My feelings were conflicting … obeying my overbearing father and saving a man that made me feel like a female with just one look. I knew I couldn’t kill him. I found him in his bed and felt an urgent need to wake him. But before I could tell him my warning, I felt his strong hold around my neck startling me.

Quickly I could hear myself telling him that the male, my father, had planned to infiltrate the city and take his head for a bounty. Inside I could feel the stress of warning him but I knew I hated my father and only another reason to defy his order but I also felt the need to save this male who I barely knew. But in the back of my mind I knew I had to hurry and run and find a new life away from my father and live my own life before I was punished for my transgression.

Then Sin asked me to stay and talk with him. Why? I assumed he would want to immediately take action against the incoming attack and be rid of me, if not try to kill me as well for being his daughter. I was even more apprehensive when he called for food and drink. The vision continued of us on a balcony having dinner as if the world was going into chaos in the next few hours. Strange and yet it felt familiar and good. I felt comfortable taking off my veil and turned to him to tell him thank you for sparing my life but before I could the night quickly progressed into him taking me to bed. 

The images warmed me from the inside and out and I could feel myself getting wet and my muscles loosen as the moments flashed before me. In the next moment we were being mated. How strange that I would mate a male I barely knew. Wait not me, this female whose visions I was experiencing. 

Instantly I sit up in my bed and start feeling around me and touching my familiar comforter as I try to catch my breath. I’m hyperventilating as if I just ran 5 miles. Sweat drips down my neck and forehead and I uncover myself from the comforter and sheets to cool myself.>

What the fuck was that about? 

<I asked myself absently. Maybe meeting this Sin has created some sort of warning to my self-consciousness. I quickly realize that something has changed and I need to escape again. I know I just found Lassiter and even though I still want answers … I also needed to run again. Sin must be related to #Cyrehn. Perhaps he’s part of #Cyrehn’s world and I had seen him in one of the visions. That would explain the deja vu I felt. That had to be it. I quickly get up and start packing my bags and making arrangements to leave #Caldwell.>

Sin: NOOOOOO!  *It comes out a despairing roar as she dissolves beneath my hands. I had looked in her eyes, seen her memories revive. She saw us. I know she saw us. And she rejected what she had seen. Hot tears burn behind my eyes as a pain I have only known once before spears through me and I drop to my knees and shout angrily to the Creator.*

WHY? Why did you bring her back to me, only to let her leave me again? Why did you show me what I could be, could have… what WE could have, only to tear it from me? *Slumping back on my heels, head dropping, and asking again in a quiet, broken voice.* Why?

*I feel their presence as the Fates appear and kneel with me.* 

“Sin.”

*Clothos voice is before me and I lift my head to look bleakly into her compassionate dark eyes.* Why? 

*She stands, raising me to my feet with her. Lachesis and Atropos, at either side, rise with me. Lachesis places a hand on my shoulder and says kindly.*

“Because you had to know what could be. There is a price for the future. Are you willing to pay it?”

*Anger replaces the pain radiating from my eyes.* I would pay /any/ price to have her with me again. Any. She is more than my soulmate. She is my twin flame, the literal other half of my soul. Without her I am only half a man, and I have been half a man for far too long. The oblivion of the long sleep would be a kindness. How could you ask me that? You have watched me for 35,000 years. The three of you,  of all beings, understand the choice I made to become Death’s First, the despair and vengeance that drove me to bargain with Death for the chance to avenge her. How ... *Shifting my gaze between them.* Could /any/ of you ask me that? 

*Atropos, eyes me shrewdly.* 

“Would you choose vulnerability over power? You, the consummate general who unified rabble tribes into a nation, the king who conquered his world by force and diplomacy, by sword and guile, the human who chose vengeance over rebirth, who bargained with Death himself and then rebelled against him, you who would overthrow him and take his place … would you humble yourself? Would you choose to live for her rather than kill for her? Would you give up the ultimate power, the chance to order the worlds to your liking,  for her? Because that will be your choice, Sin.”

*Before I can answer, Clothos raises her hand to silence her sisters and begins sternly.* 

“Enough. You cannot say more. He has more than one choice to make and he must be able to discern the path each will lead him down. Sin.” 

*She raises her impassive gaze towards me as she continues.*

“What you were shown are the ends of the spectrum. They are not the only outcomes, just the most probable ones. There is a great deal in between, depending on your next actions, but, I will be honest with you, none lead you to joy but the left hand path. The only sureties are you will survive this conflict, whether you wish to or not, and that you will be irrevocably changed by it. You could gain everything you have ever desired or you could lose all that you have come to value.”

*Her eyes soften as she continues.*

“Your Ishtar … your Eve was not prepared to see the memories you invoked. When she died, her soul was not ready for ascension and it refused rebirth. She stayed in Elysia, simultaneously afraid for you and angry with you, for thousands of years. It was a sad and lonely existence, regardless of how kind the Keepers of Elyssia were to her. She watched what you became and feared you. And when the massacre of the Ancients finally broke through the hard, callous shell you had allowed to grow around you, she both wept and rejoiced that the man she had known still lived. There, she thought, was hope for you and so she agreed to move her soul on. The Creator, with his daughter’s help, devised a plan and enlisted us. We put the choices before the angel that sired her and the vampire that bore her, but I will admit, the choices we gave them kept circling them back to the Creator’s desired outcome -- that they would meet, love, and make a child. That child was to be the vessel for your Eve’s soul. Her existence in her current incarnation has been filled with betrayal and fear, a legacy from the sense of betrayal she felt by your refusal to join her in death and rebirth, and from her fear that you had become someone she could not love again. She must overcome these issues. She must choose to trust. Choose to love. She has her own journey to make if she is to find you.”

But why? *My eyebrow raises skeptically* Why would the Creator do this? Did I not take myself out of His concern when I chose Death? What is there for Him to gain by this effort? Why would he work with the Scribe Virgin to create a new life for my wife? To give me a second chance with her?

“I cannot tell you that. But know it is rare that the Creator is so adamant about an outcome and that should tell you of its importance, not just to yourself, but to all the worlds. I can only tell you that you must make your own decisions, your own choices and have faith that she will make the right ones as well.” Clothos reaches to rest her hand on my jaw and smiles sadly.* “And now it is time for you to return. You have been gone too long and your people need you. Return home now Sin. And do not attempt to see the possible futures again. For the time being, the Aetheric Plane is closed to you. Now go.”

*She steps back from me and the paths begin to fade from my sight. The grey mist swirls around me as my soul finds the bit of it I had left behind anchored to Declan and the body I had left seated before the brazier inhales sharply as I return fully. My eyes open expecting to see him keeping guard only to see the tall, stalwart figure of a Goddess of War keeping watch over me.*

Freya.