Choose Emotion
Reya had been waiting for Ava on the other side of the portal. She watched, as the Halo Bearer flopped unceremoniously onto the sandy ground. “Come, Halo Bearer,” she said in an ethereal voice. Ava followed, noticing that there was no pain from her wounds but also that she wasn’t healing. She followed Reya to a shining city.
The shapes and designs were perfect. Seven rounded towers dominated the skyline while smaller buildings were spaced evenly between them resulting in an open, circular city with wide curved roads. Very feng shui. White and silver appeared to be the common theme. Each white tower was patterned with swirling silver lines crisscrossing their lengths. Dark blue and white trees with silver leaves were scattered around seemingly at random. Ava was sure that if she could see from far enough away, or perhaps from above, she would find a pattern. The entire area seemed to be bathed in an azure blue light with no obvious source. It could have been glowing on its own.
“What do you think of my city, Halo Bearer?” asked Reya.
“It’s nice,” Ava replied nodding. It’s amazing. “The blue light is a nice touch. But—I don’t know—like, it seems kind of sterile.” Reya did not look amused.
Reya brought her to one of the lower structures adjacent to the closest tower. “Here is where the healing process will begin,” Reya told her. “Removing divinium is a time consuming process. You will lay here;” she gestured to a white table; “and I will check in on you periodically.” The removal had taken—a while, Ava couldn’t be sure how long, drifting in and out of sleep throughout the process. It was agonizingly boring. Alone with her thoughts and unable to do anything she found herself looking forward to Reya’s visits. Reya had not spoken much to Ava but seemed to be showing gratitude that Ava had saved her. She even offered Ava a place by her side in her realm. “We could rule it together,” she had said. “All you need is to choose to fight with me in this war.”
“The war between you and Adriel? No thanks. I basically killed him for you. I think I’ve done enough.”
“There are more wraith demons than I can hope to control. I need the Halo. I need you to choose to fight with me.”
“The way you convinced Michael to fight for you?” There was a hard edge to Ava’s voice as she asked about her friend. “You gave us both a suicide mission, convinced us both it was the only way. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about those images of a destroyed Earth you showed me the last time we spoke. You manipulated me into a plan that could never work. I beat Adriel anyways—you’re welcome. I’m sure your monster pets over there can handle the rest.” She paused, taking a calming breath, and tried to keep her voice casual for her next question but was watching Reya’s reaction carefully. “How did he get his hands on the Halo, by the way?”
She shouldn’t have bothered. Reya’s face was completely impassive and her voice even. “We were working together. Not friends but allies with what I thought were mutual goals. I knew better than to trust a demon.”
“Hang on,” replied Ava. “What do you mean by demon?”
“I am what you would call an angel, Halo Bearer. Adriel was a demon.” Ava looked at her silently, confusion evident on her face. “We, and others, left our respective homes and established this realm together.”
“You homes?” Ava asked, growing even more confused. “You mean, like, heaven and hell? Why did you leave?”
Reya simply stared at her and wouldn’t speak again.
When the divinium had finally been removed, the Halo healed Ava rather quickly and Ava was anxious to return to Earth. That’s when Reya started becoming grouchy.
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Beatrice. “Did you just call the ruler of—I don’t know, wherever that is—grouchy?”
“Yes, now don’t interrupt,” Ava scolded.
“I think, first, you should travel my city, so that you can see why you should choose to fight for me.” She keeps on phrasing it that way…
And so Reya had given Ava free reign of her city. Ava marveled at seeing the architecture up close. The silver inlays on all of the towers turned out to be tiny bricks, each one fit perfectly with the next to create the spirals the wound around the massive towers.
It all seemed odd to Ava though. There were other inhabitants there apart from Reya and the Tarasks. Not people, exactly, but near enough. She supposed that these were what Michael had referred to as “angels.” As far as she could tell they all appeared to be physically flawless, much like Reya herself but she couldn’t get close enough to really see or talk to them as they reliably removed themselves into the nearest structure whenever she approached.
So Ava observed them as much as she could from a distance, and their actions only reinforced her initial thoughts about the city. No one she could see did anything outside of their daily basic routine. There were no missteps. No one accidently walked into a wall or tripped on a rock. There were no mistakes, no errors in judgment, no fighting. There is no emotion!
It was so undeniably dull that on her second to last day Ava decided it was time to shake things up. Admittedly, this probably wasn’t the best plan she’d ever made, but she really wanted to see what everyone would do once they saw the devastation that could be caused by a Tarask chasing her through the city.
“You didn’t.” Beatrice interrupted. “Ava that’s awful.”
“Hey,” she replied, “you weren’t there. You didn’t see. It was so boring! They needed a spark.”
“But a Tarask, Ava? You know how dangerous those things are.”
“Beatrice, I promise, you would have killed somebody just for something to do.”
“I think you may have some thrill issues.”
Ava found one of the giants that was off by itself—she was bored, not crazy. Sneaking up behind it as close as she dared, she called upon as much power from the Halo as she could and sent a blast at the creature.
Then she ran. Energized by the Halo, and her own fears of being chased by an angry Tarask, she sprinted away in the opposite direction. She circled a building and looked back to see the havoc she had wrought.
It didn’t follow her. It had not even turned around. She stalked back over to it and tried again and again it didn’t respond.
That’s when she confronted Reya about returning to Earth.
“You should choose to stay, Halo Bearer,” Reya said. “The Holy War is coming. I need you here to defend my realm.”
“Reya, we’ve been through this. I want to go home,” replied Ava.
“Then you must give me the Halo,” Reya commanded. “It was stolen from me. It is rightfully mine.”
“Yeah, see,” Ava responded, “Adriel brought it to Earth. It’s been ours for a thousand years and to be perfectly honest, I have it on really good authority that I’m selfish so I’m going to keep it.”
“Give me the Halo,” demanded Reya again. Ava could feel the veiled threat intertwined throughout every syllable.
She wanted to tell the being to come and take it; she was tired of the argument and was really settling in for a fight. But before she could act, she heard a voice in the back of her mind.
“You do whatever you want! You let your emotions carry you headfirst into danger, sweeping the rest of us, the rest of the world up in your wake.”
She hesitated. This wasn’t causing trouble with a random Tarask. This was inviting an attack from its master. She thought back to her conversations with Reya, about the odd way Reya seemed to make her requests. Instead of challenging Reya, she asked a question.
“Why?” Now it was Reya who hesitated. “Why didn’t you just take the Halo from me? You’ve had me here at your mercy why didn’t you simply take it?” Reya didn’t answer and Ava smiled.
“You can’t can you? I have to give it to you. Just like you need me to choose to fight for you, I need to choose to give you the Halo. That’s it, isn’t it? The Halo is mine. That’s why the Tarasks won’t attack me here. Well, then I will make this simple for you. I’m not going to give you the Halo and I’m not going to fight your stupid Holy War for you.” She didn’t notice the high pitched ring or see the light behind her as the Halo began to glow. “I choose to go home!” The Halo let out a burst of power around her and Ava felt a shift in the air.
“Very well, Halo Bearer,” said Reya, back to that same ethereal voice that first greeted Ava when she passed through the portal. “I will initiate the portal back using the Halo. Think of home and close your eyes.”
Ava finished her story, head still in Beatrice’s lap. The Halo had still not recharged.
“Holy War,” Beatrice repeated. “Lilith mentioned that, before she disappeared.”
“Yeah Adriel had talked about it too. He wanted to use Earth as a staging ground to invade Reya’s realm, well Reya’s part of the realm. Apparently, Adriel’s side and Reya’s side are in a power struggle that started when he stole the Halo.”
“But before that they were working together. An angel and a demon,” Beatrice whispered. This information had shaken her very core. The foundations of belief that she had built her life upon had already been cracking. Now she was worried they would crumble completely. She rubbed her hands over her face. “This is much more than we can figure out now. There’s too much we’re missing. Did she say anything else?”
“No, she really just wanted me to stay and fight for her,” Ava continued, “but I didn’t want anything else except to come back to you.” Beatrice could see the transformation taking place. Ava talked about her time in Reya’s realm as easily as she talked about the weather. She stated facts, her voice laced with indifference; perhaps a little excitement or mischief at experiencing something new. Now, Beatrice watched as Ava’s face darkened, a haunted look stealing into her eyes.
Ava looked up into Beatrice’s face, her eyes glistening and went on in a whisper. “I missed you. There wasn’t really night and day but every time I fell asleep, I would dream about you. It was so real! I thought I was back here. I—I could hear you talking, I could feel your clothes in my hands, the weight of your arms around my shoulders, I could smell your shampoo in your hair. You were so real in my dreams I could almost taste you. And then I would wake up, back in that place, completely alone.” She turned her head away as tears ran down her cheeks.
Beatrice wiped the tears away with her thumbs, leaning over to get back into the younger woman’s line of sight. “I’m sorry I left you alone. I wish I could have been there for you, at the very least to stop you from trying to aggravate a Tarask. But I swear to you, you are safe here with me now. I don’t know if you noticed while you were ‘orbiting’ overhead but we’re by our lake, back in the Alps. You’re home.”
Ava sniffed. “Oh that was awful,” she said with a small laugh, a teary smile gracing her face.
Beatrice sighed. “Okay, I think you’ve lain about long enough. It’s about time you got up off your lazy ass so we can get moving.”
Ava started laughing, “Language, sister.” Beatrice laughed with her, it felt good to laugh again. As if on cue, the Halo sang as a glow appeared on the ground around Ava’s body. She gasped. “Oh fuck!”
“What’s wrong?” Beatrice grabbed her face, looking worried. Ava was squeezing her eyes shut.
“Pins and needles, pins and needles, pins and needles everywhere!” Beatrice broke out in laughter again and started rubbing up and down Ava’s arms. “Shut up!” Ava whined.
“It will go away soon,” the sister warrior soothed. “Just start moving everything around and it will go away.”
Shortly after Ava’s episode of healing was complete, “Shut up, Beatrice; it’s not funny!” they started to head back through the snow to town. “So why do you think Reya tried to teach you how to fly?”
“She’s just pissed that I wouldn’t stay to help her. She was just being a bitch.” Ava’s attitude about being dropped from sky was far too lax for Beatrice’s liking. What is she not telling me?
“Enough of that place,” Ava pushed on before Beatrice could interrupt. “What about you? I can’t believe it’s been four months. You look great! Have I mentioned that? What have you been doing?”
Beatrice took most of the walk back to tell Ava her story.
“I’m sorry,” said Ava simply. That’s not what I wanted for you. “I’m sorry it was so hard for you. I guess I probably wouldn’t have been much better. But I’m impressed you ended up in prison!”
Beatrice rolled her eyes. “It was just a lock-up, Ava. Camila got me out in less than a day. There weren’t even any charges filed.”
“Alright, but I bet Mother Superion wasn’t impressed.” Beatrice stared resolutely ahead, refusing to acknowledge the comment. A look of wonder and then a smile grew on Ava’s face. “She doesn’t know?” she asked, laughing. “Oh my God! Can I tell her? Please?”
“Language,” replied Beatrice. “And I don’t really think that will be necessary.”
“I—disagree,” declared Ava with a smug smile on her face. It wasn’t often she had something to hold over Beatrice. But the withering stare the sister warrior sent her way was enough to quash that idea.
“Anyways,” prompted Ava.
“Anyways,” Beatrice repeated, “about three months ago I decided that it was time to refocus my energy. I wallowed in self-pity for long enough and decided that if I couldn’t have you in the moment than I should get myself ready for you when you came back.”
“What changed?” asked Ava.
“Faith,” said Beatrice simply, after Ava was so enthusiastic to tell Mother Superion that she landed in jail, there was no way Beatrice was going to tell her about waking up in a random man’s bed. “I decided to have faith again—in you.” She squeezed Ava’s hands as the other woman’s fingers wormed their way into hers.
They walked for a ways in amiable silence; both women lost in their thoughts and working to come to terms with everything that had happened. Ava looked over to see Beatrice with her brow furrowed and looking thoughtful.
“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked.
“Oh,” Beatrice replied, seemingly surprised. “I was just wondering,” she glanced at Ava. “Did it hurt?”
“Did what hurt?” Ava asked.
“When you fell from heaven,” Beatrice replied. She looked at Ava, her face inscrutable.
Ava shook her head. “It wasn’t heaven, Beatrice, it was…” She stopped walking as her jaw dropped and she looked at Beatrice.
“Did you?” It was not often that someone, “did you just,” could render Ava Silva speechless. Beatrice continued to stare at her, the picture of innocence on her face.
Ava looked around them and quickly looked back at Beatrice, as if afraid that someone was watching and might overhear. “Did you just use a pickup line on me?” she asked in barely more than a whisper.
Beatrice shrugged, eyes as innocent as a new born fawn. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Her lips began to turn up at the edges as she fought to keep from smiling. “You coming?”
Maybe. A grin took over Ava’s face as she looked at Beatrice and they continued on their trek home.