Cas wore the fresh robes of an acolyte, raided from a clothing chest that occupied a hidden corner of the priestess’s palanquin.
The clothes were of silk construction, flowing lightly on her shoulders as she stepped down the palanquin staircase.
Under the effects of her aura boost, Cas’s habit of memory was heightened, and she had been expecting a soft breeze to greet her on the outside – as was the habit of this region, but the air outside was as stolid and motionless as a cubicle’s.
That was right; the demon had cast a bubble of silence over the area before…
Well, that was all in the past.
Cas stepped down onto the dirt and paused, waiting for Sara to join her.
Sara had yet to, apparently comfortable with staying inside and doing what needed to be done.
Cas had assumed she would be the same. Her aura boost turned her emotions to iron, and she was feeling introspective about the whole issue. But, now that she was outside, in the artificial tranquility of the silence spell, staring up at the noiseless sky which was just beginning to sport a few dim stars, she couldn’t help letting out a shuddering breath.
She didn’t feel any panic, not like she had during the spotted unit’s massacre.
Maybe it was the aura boost, or the adrenaline crash that explained it, or maybe she was just panicked out.
Whatever the reason, she worked hard to distract herself with idle thoughts, ignoring the sharp memory of the Priestess… her throat popping in a burst of violence, or of the demon...
The shell of silence which covered the palanquin was completely invisible, but Cas could guess its extent by the character of the dim interior noises, and by the subtle grains of pollen which were beginning to trap themselves against its surface.
Only several pollen grains, though. There hadn’t been enough time for more to collect.
It was amazing for her to realize that the combat had lasted less than a minute. She’d spent an hour with Sara in the time bubble, strategizing, asking desperate questions, psyching herself up. She’d spent so long running game plans that she almost felt prepared when the time came to actually fight. If only she’d gotten the same courtesy before being forced to order the demon’s-
“Cas.”
Sara lifted the veil covering the entrance way. Slipping through, she let the cloth drop before Cas could get a better look inside. “How are you feeling?”
It was a simple question. Sara managed to ask it without pretension, doing so well enough that Cas almost believed there wasn’t more behind it.
Cas didn't know, so she simply parroted with what was on her mind. “I feel… very responsible.”
Sara didn’t say anything.
Cas had expected her too. She’d expected a series of ‘It’s not your faults,’ or ‘don’t worry about it’s’, but Sara was more honest than that, it seemed. Cas almost wished she would lie.
Sara was a master of changing topics, however, and this time she managed the effect without speaking a single word.
Moving in front of Cas, she turned around, directing their mutual attention to the casket-still exterior of the Palanquin. Cas followed her gaze; she couldn’t help imagining the blood and horror that awaited any unlucky intruder into that space.
Of course, there would be many unlucky people tonight, to tell by Sara’s expression.
“I take it we’ll have to report this?” Cas asked miserably.
Sara nodded. “Only to the higher ups, for now. I’ve just sent a message to the Liuetenant.”
“What’s the word?”
Sara took a moment to receive the mental signals running over her psychic connection, squinting painfully as she tried to translate thoughts into word. “Well…. she’s saying a lot of things, but the pertinent orders are to bar the locals from the area until she sends an investigation over.”
“Investigation?” Cas seemed offended.
“Yes,” Sara sighed. “Even for regular soldiers, killing a priestess is a matter of investigation. And we – “ she pointed at their mutual ‘auxillary’ pins, “aren’t even regular.”
“Ok,” Cas said, unable to muster the effort to express any offense. “So we have to guard this place until they investigate. What then?”
Sara shrugged. “Then,” she sighed, seeming tired for the first time, “we have some explaining to do.”
----------------------------------------
As it turned out, Sara was mistaken. They, in fact, had a lot of explaining to do, but Sara managed easily by using her refined powers of speech.
Cas managed even easier by using her power of "letting Sara do the talking."
For a talking Sara, expressing all her social charms, was quite an amazing sight to see. Over the hours of interrogation and mutual scene scouring that followed, Sara cut through every suspicion and preempted every question such that, before even the commander had arrived, everyone seemed satisfied that they were in the right.
It helped, of course, that they actually were in the right, but that didn't need to be the case for her to get them off, as Sara had attested to Cas in private.
Afterwards, they and all the soldiers left the refugee camp. Cas was glad to leave that place behind – to tell by depression and generally dour mood in the army encampment, she struggled to imagine how much worse the refugee camp would be, given the circumstances.
Thankfully, she never had to find out. The army left at the start of next morning, parting ways with the refugees.
Cas, for her part, stuck to herself the next few days. She was hardly in the mood to see happy faces, much less to face the general shock and disturbance that the marching army displayed. It was all just so depressing, and Cas was depressed enough as it was.
As it turned out, the root cause of the melancholy was the news of the Priestess's demise.
This surprised Cas. After all, while the army had been disheartened, they could hardly have been described as sad after the prince’s death. So, why the extreme reaction, now?
Perhaps two notable deaths, along with the unit massacre was just too much. The straw that broke the camel’s back was often the most insidious, after all. Or, perhaps it was the priestess’s position that inspired the dread. Cas, had overhead some of the regular soldiers gossiping. Something about the Church and demons was the topic of conversation, and the priestess’s… conversion had been deemed as a terrible omen.
Cas snorted plaintively at the analysis. Tell her about it.
To be honest, she didn’t believe in omens, and she particularly didn’t see what all the hubbub was about. It was sad, sure, but no sadder than the unit massacre, or the prince’s death, in her eyes. They were all human beings, after all, so what if one of them wore fancy robes?
Cas had never been all that religious, even as a child, and as an adult she’d gone full unbeliever. Maybe she just wasn’t able to understand the feelings of these people she found herself amongst? She wondered if she would always and irrevocably be a stranger in this land, just like the last?
She looked up at the starlight and wondered if there even was a place for someone like her in this world, if she hadn’t been placed here by some cosmic mistake.
She let her eyes wander across the alien constellations. Her aura-boost had accelerated over the past few days She enjoyed looking at the stars under its influence. An accelerated mind was fond of finding patterns, it turned out, and the stars had so many to provide. Cas would look at a new section of sky – densely packed with points of light, and a vista of images and ideas grew out from whatever quarter she directed her attention to.
It was especially pleasing to do this while waxing philosophical. Might as well have some nice scenery to go with her dark thoughts, which had only darkened over the past few days.
She remembered again, vividly, the death in the Palanquin. She forced herself to remember it, to watch every detail over again in her mind.
She’d never been so close to someone as they’d died before. She wondered why she’d even gotten involved.
So what if she was evil? Was she even evil? Maybe Cas had gotten on the wrong side. What even was good?
Cas asked this of herself, just as a pattern of stars took the shape of a winking cat.
Suddenly, both the thought and the cat were interrupted by a bright face that hovered into view, winking at her like the Cat had been and asking: ‘So, I hope you’re not busy, ya?”
It was Anne, her dark hair falling down either side of her face in long tresses, the tips of which tickled against Cas’s cheeks.
Cas sighed, sitting up through the black curtains and looking back at the fellow auxiliary.
Anne stood with that ever-winning smile of hers, bordered on either side by Reginald and Dacula. All of them looked at her with earnest and concerned faces.
“Hey,” Cas said, wanting to be alone but not having the heart to turn them away. “Why are you here?”
“Because… we wanted to look after you, ya?” Anne said. She was a woman in her twenties, with round features that looked especially child-like it times like this.
“Why?” Cas turned back around, resting an arm on her knee.
“Because you’re our friend,” Anne answered simply.
It was a simple statement, said with full confidence; it was exactly the sort of pure belief that Cas – mired with complicated thoughts and doubtful philosophies – had lost the ability to express. Heck, she’d been stunted in that capacity even on Earth – evolutionary psychology did a lot to destroy one’s belief in the power of love, and things had gotten only worse under the auspices of her aura boost.
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And, Cas was jealous, when she heard Anne say such a thing. It just didn’t seem fair.
After all, Cas was right. She knew that nothing mattered. She knew that they were all basically just self interested creatures confusing themselves with instincts. She knew that they were all just bags of meat that could be killed with a simple stab of the throat… gurgling blood as they collapsed....
So why should she be jealous of someone like Anne, who was so ignorant of everything?
Cas sighed darkly, turning a harsh look back onto the woman.
“We’ve known each other for literally four days now, Anne. We’ve only spoken to each other what… three times?”
Anne scowled, puffing up in that self righteous manner one only ever did with close friends. “So?" she remarked again, falling back to her more basic habits of language, her accent reasserting itself with full force. “So what?" she asked again, looking pointedly at Cas. "We survived Sable together. We worked hard together. We ate and shared stories together. I haven’t done every that with my brothers.”
The woman stepped forward with an assertive composition, kneeling down to face with Cas until their noses were barely grazing. “We are friends, Cas,” she said with no room for argument. “It doesn’t matter if we never meet again, after this, you are welcome in my house. And I will break into yours if you don’t welcome me!”
The woman crossed her arms and sat down with a thump, a ‘this is final’ expression in her body language.
Cas didn’t know where it came from, but she suddenly laughed, enough so that tears almost came to her eyes.
Anne scowled again, heating up and nearly rising to a stand.
“You know…” she snarled, “another duty of a friend is to beat you senseless when you do insulting things.”
Cas suddenly noticed just how well built and strong the woman looked, especially compared to her 16 year old self. But, for the life of her, she just couldn’t stifle her laughs completely enough.
Thankfully Reginald, ever the peacemaker, took this moment to interject himself. “Give it a moment, Anne,” he placed a calming hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Cas is still young. She’s processing everything. I think we can allow her a bit of angst. Not to mention…” he railed off, hinting at some mutual knowledge of theirs.
“I don’t care about the Karma,” Anne said. “Don’t you see that’s exactly what I’m saying? She doesn’t have to worry, and we’re still her friends regardless of what anyone else says!”
Cas, choking on the last of her laughs, and feeling tears in her eyes, raised a hand to interrupt them, managing to get a few words out. “I… haha … I’m not laughing at you, Anne. I’m just laughing because I want to admit defeat. Hahaha!”
Anne’s anger mellowed into confusion as she asked. “Admit defeat? We haven’t started fighting yet, ya?”
“I think she means she’s ackgnowledging you as a friend,” Reginald translated politely.
Cas nodded in attestment to that in the midst of her trailing cheer. “Yeah. I guess I was just a bit dour, and I didn’t expect you’d beat my philosophy so easily.”
“Ok?” Anne tilted her head quizzically, not getting it, but happy to have helped.
“But, anyway,” Cas said, regaining herself. “You said something about Karma, and people talking about me?”
Immediately, everyone looked away from Cas, guilty expressions abound.
“Anne?” Cas pressed, knowing that pressing someone specifically was a guarantee of cooperation. The by-stander effect, she thought it was called. Another evolutionary psych trick.
“Well,” Anne drawled. “It doesn’t matter. It’s stupid. We just want to say we’re still with you, ya? Anyone who says you have bad Karma is talking nonsense. The priestess was obviously corrupt.
Karma? Was she back in LA?
“What? Are people saying I have bad Karma because I killed the priestess?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t a real priestess,” Anne hastened to add. “You’re not going to die.”
“Die?” Cas stood up, looking around with a sudden panic. “People want to kill me because of her?”
“What? No, no, no!” Anne consoled, pausing as if trying to translate some very difficult concepts from her native language. “I… hmm,” she wondered.
Thankfully, Reginald once again stepped in. He took a seat between them, facing the common center as he leant back and started packing his pipe – a sign that he was making himself comfortable for a long conversation. “I believe what Anne is trying to say is: no. No one would try to kill you because of that demon worshipper. I doubt she’ll even be buried on church grounds, come time.”
“Then what’s with all the death talk?” Cas said feeling calmed.
“Because of the Karma!” Anne answered.
“Karma?” Cas said.
“You don’t know about Karma?” Dacula interjected, amazed.
“I know about Karma,” Cas answered. “It’s when you do good things and good things happen to you.”
“Yes!” Anne snapped her fingers. “And, when you do something bad, bad things happen to you," she completed.
“Yes?” Cas said, curious where this was going.
“Well, as you know,” Reginald said, “the consequences of your actions usually happen in the next life, but… for truly heinous things, sometimes the consequences are more… immediate. And, well, universally, killing a holy being is one of the worst things you can do.”
“But she wasn’t holy!” Anne spoke up hotly. “She was working with demons!”
“And I agree,” Reginald said plaintively. “I’m just explaining the situation to Cas, so she’s not surprised if she hears some of the more ignorant sort talking.”
“Oh? What happens if you kill a holy person?” Cas said, withholding another bout of laughter at just how seriously they were all taking this superstition.
“Well,” Anne started, “people say… that you die in three days if you kill a person who’s truly holy,” placing particular emphasis on the word truly, looking over at Cas to make sure her feelings had been sufficiently spared. “You don’t have to worry about that, though.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Cas nodded with a cat’s smirk. It was heartwarming how much they cared, even if about something so particular.
Remembering Sara’s reaction to her blasphemies against the Priestess, Cas elected not to argue with them on this front, instead shifting conversation to other pleasant topics, where she and her friends had a long night of pleasant jokes and catching up.
----------------------------------------
Sara, on the other hand, she did not spare for an instant.
“See… I told you the priestess was evil. I told you so. But did you listen to me, noooo….”
It seemed Aura boost had the effect of amplifying your emotion, Cas noticed, taking three pages of mental notes even as she worked diligently to annoy Sara.
There was a sixteen year old inside everyone, especially Cas when she turned 16. Well, 15 and a half, now; she’d lost some mass in the fight.
“It’s a bit late to gloat about that, don’t you think?” Sara questioned. “I mean, the priestess was unmasked three days ago, then would’ve been the time to go through your ‘I told you so’s’.”
Sara, unperturbed, sat forward, looking into the mirrored lid of the carrying chest she rested on her crossed legs, delicately wiping away her makeup.
“I’ll have you know, I was too depressed to take advantage,” Cas neener neenered at the woman as she dabbed away her mascara.
By now, Sara was almost wearing a plain face. An extremely beautiful one, which only further made Cas believe in an unjust universe. Some people just get all the luck.
“I’d noticed you were acting a bit strange,” Sara said, done with her night time preparations and gently placing away all the tools of her craft into their respective spaces in the satchel. “I was planning to intervene if you didn’t get any better by tomorrow. What’s got you in such a good mood?”
“Oh, just conversation with friends,” Cas admitted.
“Oh,” Sara replied coldly. “Those auxiliaries of yours? I forget their names.”
“Yeah,” Cas nodded. “Anne, Reginald, and Dacula.”
“Right,” Sara said, not feigning her interest well enough – which was her way of expressing disinterest. “What did you talk about.”
“Oh, lots of stuff,” Cas sighed, not noticing the hint. “They said I don’t have to worry about dying from Karmic backlash, though, so that’s nice.”
“Oh?” Sara said, no longer having to feign. “They said what, now?”
Cas, still on her roll of smugitude, riposted instantly. “Oh? I think the unit Psychic is losing her touch. First the priestess, now this? It seems like you’re not keeping your finger on the pulse of information as well as you should be.”
“My job is to track relevant information, not idle gossip between lower ranks," Sara corrected. "Anyway, tell me about the gossip,” she fluttered her hand in a ‘go on’ motion.
Cas sighed again, as if recounting something embarrassing to admit. “Oh, just some silly stuff about Karma. Apparently I can’t get away from California insanity, even in another universe.”
Sara raised an eyebrow. “Karma isn’t silly,” the woman replied. “What could they possibly have said to give you that impression?”
“It’s not what they said,” Cas admitted. “In fact, they actually said I wasn’t going to die.”
“Again,” Sara replied, “why would you be dying?”
“Because I killed the priestess.”
Sara grew confused. “But... you didn’t kill the priestess.”
Cas shrugged. “Maybe it makes for more interesting gossip if I did.”
“Well,” Sara looked up thoughtfully. “I suppose I can see how it would work. The Karmic consequences of killing a holy person and all that. But I wouldn’t worry about that. Karma expresses itself in future lives, anyway.”
“Come on, don’t tell me you believe in all that Karma stuff?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Sara replied, a bit smart. “In fact. Are you saying that you don’t?”
“I mean… just because the church says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Cas!” Sara said, warningly.
“I mean look at the Priestess. Are you saying no one in a robe is capable of being wrong? Tell me this, have you ever seen Karma in action?”
“Of course,” Sara answered confidently. “When I was a child, for instance. There was this grounds keeper who stuck a horse with a rake, and the horse died. Two months later, that same grounds keeper fell down a flight of stairs and broke his leg. Coincidence? I think not.”
“That’s obviously a coincidence!” Cas supplied, revolting from the complete disregard for basic reasoning.
Surprised at that answer, Sara searched for something else. “Well… what about the power of prayer?”
“Is that power anything other than making you feel warm inside?”
“... well, what about the tales of God? I mean-”
“And, are these tales in the stories written by the church?”
“No," Sara began triumphantly, "they’re written by God –” .
“-- according to the Church,” Cas finished for her, victorious.
Sara paused suddenly, as if reexamining her life with a calculating expression. “Maybe you’ll open your heart one day,” she said at last with a 'se la vie' posture. “Faith can difficult to comprehend, for those who lack it.”
Cas, taken aback by the usually serious Sara’s exclamation, and feeling she’d offended the woman, softened her answer: “I dunno…” she said at last. “I guess I’ve just never been for this religious stuff. I mean, God? Karma? Consequences in future lives? All that stuff is just a bit too speculative and ‘woo’ for my taste, is all.” Cas said, air quoting the woo.
“Really?” Sara said, voice expanding into a chuff as she looked over at Cas.
“Yes, really,” Cas said, frustrated and unwilling to hold back her feelings any longer.
Sara only sent a hard, expressive look in her direction and said: “Cas… you quite literally reincarnated into this world.”
Cas blinked.
“Oh…”
Sara laughed. “Feel like praying?” she joked. “I mean, you did kill that priestess three days ago, now. Your time should be up soon. Midnight strikes in what... half an hour?”
“I didn’t kill the priestess,” Cas said.
Her feeling wasn't in the denial, however. Cas was dour, as her aura-boosted mind raced to reorganize her fundamental beliefs about the nature of reality.
“Yes,” Sara admitted, "howeverrrr," stretching the syllable into a teasing note, “you did have a hand in her death, and that’s certainly almost as bad.”
“So did you!” Cas said. “So why are you laughing, huh? You’d get it just as bad as me.”
She grew heated as she realized that her entire life was a lie, and that evolutionary psychology methodologically untestable
“Oh, I’m too pretty to die young,” Sara explained away.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve got the saying backwards,” Cas retorted.
“Maybe,” Sara shrugged her shoulders, lying down and slipping her legs into her sleeping bag. “I’m just saying… It has been three days. I’d be worried if I were you.”
Cas… wasn’t at all worried. Beyond the fact that Sara was obviously joking, her recent experience of surviving without a head did a lot to take the fear of mortality out of Cas.
Besides, this Karma stuff was obviously silly, if the only evidence for it was a childhood story about a horse.
What were ineffable Karmic consequences to an unbeliever, after all?
“So.. what, then?” Cas said, finally. “Is it supposed to happen at midnight, or will it happen tomorrow, at the same time the priestess died?”
Sara, by now curled up in her sleeping bag, had grown tired of the joke and merely shrugged.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it. The priestess was definitely evil.” She yawned. “Probably did some good Karma by helping her die. Not that it would matter. You weren’t trying to kill her. Karma is intention, as they say. No... I wouldn’t be worried in the slightest…” she said, trailing off into a sleepy voice.
“Besides,” she added after a moment, forcing the words out through a relaxing body. “That whole ‘die three days’ nonsense isn’t even dogma. Just…” another yawn, “local superstition by the lower classes. They have such earnest hearts...”
----------------------------------------
The curse of an overactive mind was how many thoughts it could juggle.
And, while the vast majority of her aura-boosted thoughts wrestled with practical matters, and philosophy, and the fact of her reincarnation, there was still enough capacity left in Cas to worry about even superstitions.
It was a terrible fact that Sara fell asleep just as the patrols rung the bell for the changing of the guard.
They did that every hour, and a small part of Cas’s mind – amidst her chaotic thoughts – was able to recognize what that meant:
It was midnight.
And midnight was when it was supposed to happen… her death.
It was a small worry, hardly even noticeable amidst all the other considerations running through Cas’s mind.
In fact, Cas would have been embarrassed to notice it consciously, and she quickly ignored the superstitious nonsense.
At least… she tried to ignore it, because no matter how hard she tried, that small, superstitious part of her started counting the seconds down to the full minute:
60, 59, 58…
After all... this was all complete nonsense, but it would become even more nonsensical if she survived the first minute of midnight, right?
...38, 37, 36...
Cas wasn't nervous at all.
..21, 20, 19...
Cas, looked at her status sheet, at the ever accurate clock, just to make sure she was counting the hours properly.
And yes, there it was, midnight still, with a twelve seconds left until the next minute.
It was with nine seconds left, in her countdown, that Cas felt suddenly her heart spasming, and her vision going dark, and her nerves turn to acid as her body collapsed and died.