Brass Automaton

21 - Revelation

"I don't understand. I see what's before me, but I don't –"

King Odc, panting heavily, held onto Sky's elbow for support. He too looked upon the mangled artifice that was neither machine nor human.

"It is the queen that you look upon."

"It is me that I look upon," Sky argued.

Odc closed his eyes and inhaled. His lips moved as if he were praying silently. His eyes opened, and he turned to Sky. "From where do you hail Sky?" Odc asked the confused Sister.

Sky didn't have the time or strength for this. She wanted to run and tell her queen that the brass automaton was defeated. She wanted to run before her blood ran out, but she felt the eager pull on her hand. She felt the still powerful grasp of the dwarf king, and it made her sigh.

"I'm from Oossah." She declared with great exasperation. "I was born there."

Odc nodded and replied, "So was the Evil Queen."

Sky sheathed her brass scimitars; the broken one required her to complete attention to work the broken blade into its leather scabbard. "That-" She returned her attention to the wounded head of the Dwarven Guard. "That doesn't prove anything."

"What did you do when you were a young maiden?"

Sky crossed her arms over her chest and felt a twinge from her elbow. "I helped my father at the brewery," she replied.

"You were a common girl?"

Sky looked down at Odc. "I guess I was. We all were until the day Ceridwen took the kingdom and our men."

"Yes, yes, but what about after that? Were you married; did you have children; did you continue brewing?"

"I-" Sky started to reply, but then stopped, the words dead in her throat. "I cannot remember," she confessed.

"What do you remember?" insisted Odc.

"Fighting," Sky answered. "I remember fighting beside Snow as one of her Sisters." A blush crept across her cheeks. "I remember falling in love with Reese and making love to her." Her face fell with another memory. "I remember the day she went away and the day she died and the day we fought Ceridwen before she escaped." Sky knelt in front of King Odc. "Why do you persist with this line of questioning? We must advise Queen White of the battle."

King Odc placed his hand gingerly on Sky's shoulder. "Those are weak memories, frail and small. It was when you were re-created that day that memories began to form. Before that, this you," Odc tapped his gnarled finger on Sky's chest. "And this," he waved his hand to encompass all that they could see, "did not exist." Odc twined his fingers and stretched, his knuckles making a soft popping sound. His eyes never left hers, and he appeared to wait for a response from the befuddled young woman.

Sky stared at the dwarf king with her eyes wide and mouth agape. Who was she? She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the memories of her youth. They were just out of reach. It was as if they were fish, swimming in a crystal clear pond. The perfect surface of the water bent her sight. Each time she reached for one, she missed and the fish swam away. The analogy was apt since she now felt as if she were drowning in the new information. That couldn't be right, could it? Why would Snow White allow her to fight at her side if she knew what she was? If what Odc had said was true, then Sky didn't want to speak, unless her words unravel more of how unreal she was.

Odc nodded as if he was aware of her train of thought. "You must ride and fetch Snow White. The portal will be ready soon, but you must seek her and call her here for we, I am afraid will be dead soon. I cannot say more now Sky, but soon you will know more. Run now, do your duty."

* * *

Sky stumbled through the forest, her limbs weary and her body heavy. She ignored her wounds at the hands of the brass automaton. She refused to call the aberration within the metal construct herself. It was easier to hate it if she ignored the possibility that it was she. She hacked and slashed a straight path back to Oossah Keep with her scimitars, no longer caring to look after the foliage that she longed for as a master of woodcraft. She also knew, as a master tracker, that should anyone wish to follow her, she was making their task infinitely easier. But what of it? Did the gods of old care what an echo of hatred and malice did with her abhorrent existence? Was she in some way responsible for Ceridwen's wrath, or the devastation through time caused by the brass automaton? Did she kill Reese, her lover? Could she even atone for the sins of her other self? Her past self? Her wretched self? What would happen to her once all of Oossah discovered that she was a fraud?

Sky realized that she had slowed and stopped in the wood while she pondered her new understanding of existence. She propped herself on her broken scimitar and waited for her will to carry her onward. But she had no will of her own. She was a piece, a fragment, not a person or a friend, not a lover or a warrior. She was no more whole than one of the magical fragments of the Enchanted Mirror were. Just like that mirror, she was but a shard of her true self. Was she, not unlike those fragmented shards, just a tool to be used as someone else saw fit? These thoughts and so much more stampeded through her head, and for the first time that she could ever remember, she was frozen in indecision.

Lost in these grim thoughts, Sky wept for the second time that day, and her quiet sobs continued unabashed until a soft puff made her look up. Cloud Dancer, unsaddled, prodded the soft dirt with his hooves. Sky offered him a weak smile, sheathed her weapons, tenderly pushed herself up and let her trusted companion carry her to the Keep where she would find Snow White.