Janus 02.Redemption #Wattys2018

4.08 Icarus

Eden got out of the house and covered herself so that no one would recognize her. She started walking fast among the shadows. She was only a few meters away from the Old Souls' frontier with the New City when a young boy stood in her way.

"Can you help me my lady? Do you have any spare change? My mother is sick and I really need your help. Please help me." The young boy reached for her hand when Eden saw men moving among the shadows, surrounding her. The boy grabbed her hand.

"You can't get out my lady. You have to respect our rules. It's extremely impolite to take advantage of our hospitality and then dishonor us. We are not savages. You are coming with us or you will have to kill me first."

He had Ed's eyes. She had never seen his son before but she was certain that it was him, prepared to die if he had to so that she wouldn't make it back to the New City.

"I am prepared to die if I have to. Can you tell the same?" The boy told her as he reached for her daggers and the rest came closer. Cassandra knew that she would never kill her son so she put him in front of her. It was getting darker. She could easily kill them all. She could run but they would shoot her and if she wasn't killed on the spot, it would be impossible for her to arrive at her hiding place. She started examining every possible scenario of escape with the minimal casualties when she heard a thud.

The boy was lying on the floor and a hand had immobilized him.

"Life and death are both a choice. You can make that choice now. If we die, he dies. By our law then you have to follow the next one of our Bloodline. The only one that will be left then is Faceless. Are you ready to surrender to the Outcasts?" Ed asked the Lost Souls who had surrounded them. "Tell them!" Ed ordered his son. "You have always known the truth. Speak it!"

"He's telling the truth" The boy responded. "Faceless is his father's brother. We share the same blood." Ed removed his hand from the boy's back and both stood up.

"I choose life but if you are making a different choice, I will honor that one equally." Ed grabbed the boy and placed Shylock's blade on his throat. "I have used this blade to free us all from my father. I can use it now just us easily to surrender you to his brother. The choice is yours."

"Step back!" Cassandra came forward ordering the men. "Should you shed a drop of his blood, I shall torture her in ways that you are going to beg me to kill her. But I won't. I will keep her alive and start all over till the moment that your only thought will be how to kill her on your own to end her suffering."

Cassandra was holding her arrow while picking up an Ouroborus arrow. Ouroborus was a psychotropic poison that turned the inflicted one into a self-destructive mess of a human being. She placed that on her elbow and aimed for Eden.

"Should you use Ouroborus without a trial, you shall be the Priestess no more. Are you ready to renounce your power over the Lost Souls for revenge? Once you fall from Grace, surrendering to Faceless' will is Lost Souls only option. Are you ready to become a traitor of your tribe?" Ed asked Cassandra. She took the Uroborus arrow and placed it back with the others.

"Unlike you, I honor my tribe. There has already been a trial. Icarus is our new Father. I can use Uroborus on both of you but I chose to protect your blood instead of a whore. Let him go and you will be free to cross our borders. If either of you comes back, Ouroborus will be her penalty." Cassandra nodded to her men to put their guns down.

Ed removed his blade from Icarus throat.

"You think you make choices but the choices will make you a true King of this tribe, not your mother. Each time you are walking on an easy path, you are walking on someone else's path. Walk your own path as each one of your bloodline did before you." Ed whispered to his son's ear and then took Eden and left.

"I didn't expect you to come back" Eden told Ed as they were approaching the New City.

"That was impossible because I never left you." Ed told Eden as he was wiping out the blood from his face. Eden took a closer look. 

His bridge had been activated.

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* The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent/snake or a dragon eating its own tail. It originates from Ancient Egypt, yet via Greek Magical Tradition and Rainaissannce magic was adopted as a symbol of alchemy, introspection, eternal return, cyclicality, nature's infinite cycle of life & death, creation & destruction.

"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious." Carl Jung.