Advent of Chaos

15

Mora's eyes shot open the moment she heard a soft growl, her heart pounding in her ears. It had become an overwhelming, thrumming sound that enveloped her thoughts over anything else. Darkness shuddered at the wake of her hands-- her door sliding open slowly. Mora shuddered with it, chills racing along her bare arms and breathing over her chest.

She glanced out at the vast galaxy outside of her ship, noting the faint shine of a light along the control panel just beyond her. The room was vacant, of course-- the ship not moving here. Everyone wanted to sleep, considering what they all had to take in. Mora didn't let her mind slip to such depths.

"What are you doing up so late?" A deep, smooth voice hummed from behind her. She recognized his thick accent immediately, whipping her head around to face the man.

He was seated in the corner of the room, a book without a title cover in his gloved hands. She wondered if he did anything else other than read. For a Loremaster, at least, he was still a guardian.

Mora pinned her eyes on him, unable to look away as he scanned her arms, then blinked over her chest, which she quickly folded her arms over. She felt the blight growing over her, but a thick light hazed over it, and she dropped her arms. It was too dark for him to fully assess her, but she felt as if he already knew what was happening to her. Already knew the marks it made on her skin.

"I should be asking you the same question." Mora countered, stalking over through the darkness to join him on the couch, leaning her head back. He kept his eyes on her, as if still trying to read her.

"I wanted to catch up on this book." He admitted, and she felt that it had some truth to it.

"Well, it's clearly interesting enough to keep your attention. What's it about?"

He looked up at her again, and she felt his eyes shift with a sort of surprise. He took a few breaths before responding to her, dipping her in a deep pool of confusion.

"A woman who dies every 24 hours." He said bluntly.

"Sounds gruesome." She chuckled, and found that he wasn't returning her amusement.

"Sort of. It has more of a backstory to it than that. She meets an man, who is actually a fallen angel, and they fall in love."

"But does it work out? Considering her deaths and all--" Mora leaned in, growing intrigued herself.

"I don't know. I'm not finished with it. But the author has them set down a path that suggests tragedy." Dorn looked down at his book, running a rough thumb down the page he had been on.

"If you want, I'll let you read it once I'm done. I've only got a few chapters left. It's getting pretty intense." He continued, lifting the book as proof of his depth into it.

Mora turned her attention away from him, leaning back to reminisce on what she could, with what little memories that stuck to her.

"I vaguely remember, before I became a guardian, I loved books. Just the smell of them, it seems too familiar to ignore." She smiled again to herself, and felt that Dorn had froze.

"Before I was a guardian, I was actually a mechanic. I worked on some of the first robots during the Golden Age." His eyes gleamed, the chocolate glisten drawing her own eyes towards him. She couldn't seem to peel away. It amazed her how much of his past he was offering to her, despite her being unable to offer him much with her amnesia-like state. He didn't seem to mind.

Mora parted her lips, trying to think of something to respond with. "How was it?" Was all she could think of, part of her enjoying the sound of his voice in her ears. He was the only sound she could hear, her heartbeat growing softer.

"It started out a bit difficult, even after my years as an apprentice to Dreyeth Morekei-- one of the greatest Techmasters of the Golden Age. Despite everything he taught me, I couldn't perfect my first robot. I found it easier to work on the sparrow prototypes and spaceships that our institution was perfecting." Before the fall. She knew his unspoken words, the ones voiced only in his facial features that she could hardly read in the darkness.

The looming Traveler Light over his shoulder grew brighter, as if responding to her eyes. But he quickly turned away, more than aware of her lingering stare-- and perhaps the time he'd kept his eyes on her. And she knew he could read her, the flicker in his jaw indicating a growing question that he swallowed down.

"It's okay that you've forgotten your past. Not many guardians have the luxury of remembering how they lived before they died. I like to think it's better to live now." To cherish the moments we have left. His eyes seemed to speak as he turned back to her, offering her a genuine smile. She didn't know how to take it, but she offered him a smile that didn't quite meet her eyes.

Because Mora quickly remembered why he was here, the relkan, and their influence growing stronger on her flesh. She swallowed hard, holding back the urge to push herself up and retreat to her room so suddenly. Dorn seemed to sense this, reaching a powerful hand over to her arm to lightly warm her skin. But quickly found that she was near-simmering. That didn't seem to stop him. His face only grew grave, and he soaked a bit of her warmth up before he lifted himself.

"I think it's time I rest myself, though. I've been reading for quite a long time." He said softly, as if the events of today weren't far off from his daily life. But Mora felt otherwise, his presence practically melting through the adamant barrier she wrapped around her thoughts. Loremaster was indeed a generous title for him, but she wondered truly who he was, and why she felt the things she did when he pulled away, standing from his chair.

Mora watched his book fall out of his hands a moment before it actually happened, and instinctively snatched it up before it managed to fall 6 inches from him. Mindlessly, she looked up at him-- growing lost in his dark eyes as he accepted the book from her-- scanning her own dead eyes. Gold seeped from her, it seemed, and she felt suddenly drained.

"Yes, well. I hope you sleep better than I do." She said, and meant it. But his gaze lingered as he walked past her, leaving her on the couch to wither in her own thoughts.