Chapter 16 - Black Flowers
Sitting and waiting for his wounds to heal was more nerve wracking than Lazar liked to admit. After spending so long in constant action, the stillness of the area felt almost artificial. His perception of time in the Abyss had been heavily skewed when he’d just landed, but by now he’d regained enough of a grasp of it to feel restless.
The more time spent in inaction, the more he became aware of what was different now. The wounds were indeed healing fairly well, definitely faster than a human’s would, but he still felt a persistent soreness when he moved that he realized was probably muscle fatigue.
So far, he’d been fighting the same way he had before falling, albeit in a significantly more limited capacity, but it was possible that doing so was only causing more damage. Like it or not, he simply couldn’t move the way he used to, and pushing it resulted in unnecessary strain.
Given the current circumstances, however, Lazar didn’t have time to develop an entirely new fighting style better suited to his current abilities. Instead, he settled on slowly resuming a modified version of his old training regimine once he was sure that doing so wouldn’t worsen his wounds. This he mixed between meditation sessions, giving his soul a chance to rest. He couldn’t afford to damage it any further by overexerting himself.
The return to some kind of routine did, at least, appease him somewhat. Even if he was constantly aware of how much faster he got tired or how he couldn’t do a fourth of the number of sets he used to be able to, he told himself that it was to be expected.
Do. Don’t think. He repeated the old mantra, letting it wash over his churning thoughts.
Still, despite his attempts to familiarize himself with his new reality, the moment he removed his bandages and found them all free of blood, he told Ciel that they should keep moving.
He liked the little alcove they’d found. He liked the stillness. He liked the peace and rare reprieve it provided.
But at the same time, the longer he stayed within its confines and the more the unease grew, the more Lazar realized that he was wholly unsuited to it.
—
When they returned to the main cavern, they soon found the red glow of the stones dimming until it was difficult to make out anything but a few dark silhouettes of stones and stalactites. The water continued to flow across the cave floor, but the two of them stayed on the small strip of dry land near the walls to avoid making sounds. Though not as plentiful as they’d been in the alcove, the black flowers remained a constant presence linking the different parts of the cave system together.
At first glance, Lazar didn’t see anything else, nor could he hear anything—no flapping wings, no splashing water. That didn’t stop him from keeping his guard up. The soul eater had been able to fly silently.
As they traveled, Lazar’s eyes kept scanning their surroundings, but the cavern remained quiet the deeper in they went. Neither one of them spoke, Lazar in tense wariness and Ciel with a casual languidness that was betrayed by her sharp golden gaze. In the darkness of the cavern, there was little to give indication of time. Lazar kept telling himself that the soul eater couldn’t have been the only demon inside, and yet the place remained empty.
Eventually the two came to a stop near a bend in the path. There was a little more room at the edge of the water, enough for both of them to sit down for a short rest, which they did. Lazar stared into the surface of the water, but that, too, maintained a glass-like flatness.
“Awfully quiet, huh?” Ciel remarked, breaking the silence. The seraph glanced up warily. His eyes darted around, searching for movement, and it was only when he found none that he responded softly.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Do you know what this place is?”
“I’ve got a few guesses.”
Lazar waited for the demon to continue, but she didn’t. Instead, the two settled back into quiet, and after some more time passed, Ciel rose again. A flower fell into the water, drifting aimlessly along the surface.
“Well, we might as well keep going while it stays empty. It’s not gonna be like this in the rest of the Abyss, that’s for sure.”
Lazar nodded and rose as well, casting the drifting flower a final glance. He agreed that it was best to get out as quickly as they could, before the stillness inevitably broke.
—
Against all odds, they didn’t encounter another breathing soul during the rest of the trip through the caverns. Lazar almost didn’t believe it when he saw the light up ahead and the water thinned until it only reached their ankles. His hold on his halberd had grown progressively tighter throughout their journey, and yet nothing had appeared.
Now, the exit stood in front of them, flashes of rolling clouds and the wine red sky visible through the gap between the stones.
Or perhaps “exit” wasn’t the right word for it. “Window” might be more apt, given that it was located high up near the cavern ceiling.
Lazar stopped, peering up at the opening with a frown. He eyed the rough stone walls. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get a good enough grip from just the slight protrusions, especially given the dampness of the stone. He gripped his halberd at the socket, fingers just below the blade, and swung the blade into the wall. It slid in fairly easily between harder stones, and when he tried to wiggle the weapon, it remained stable enough.
Lazar tightened his hold and gripped another stone with his left hand, then he carefully heaved himself upwards.
The muscles in his back throbbed a bit from soreness, but to his relief, it was a perfectly manageable ache. He smiled to himself and kept climbing, using the halberd to get a better grip on the wall. It wasn’t the same, but it was nice to be high up again, to be able to do something without failing.
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“Guessing you’re all healed up?”
Ciel’s voice called upwards, and he glanced down to see the demon watching with a raised eyebrow. Lazar nodded, then paused when he realized that the flesh eater hadn’t moved from her position.
“Are you—?”
“Yeah yeah, I’m coming.” She raised an arm, and the muscles around her shoulder rippled like water. Lazar watched in fascination as flesh bubbled and rose, roughly twisting and forming into a third arm that kept extending up and up, past Lazar’s location, until its blunt fingers gripped the edge of the gap. Only then did the warping stop, and Ciel stepped forward and began climbing up by using the extra limb as a rope.
“How exactly does that work?” Lazar couldn’t help but ask once Ciel reached the same elevation as him, her longer limbs and the use of the extra arm allowing her to climb faster.
She glanced his way and flashed a grin.
“It’s honestly pretty simple. I eat flesh, then I use it to manipulate flesh. Mine and other people’s. Kind of like a flesh stockpile, if you know what I mean.”
He hadn’t known she could manipulate other people’s flesh. Lazar hummed consideringly as he continued climbing.
“Are there any limits?”
“What, is this an interrogation?” She chuckled. “Fair enough. I’d do the same if I didn’t already have an idea on what you can do. But to answer your question, outside the whole ‘needing flesh’ thing, yeah there’s a few.” The surface of the extra arm rippled, shortening in length the higher up she climbed.
“To manipulate other people’s flesh, I need to touch them, and I can only do it once. Can’t manipulate shit I’ve already messed with.” She nodded at the extra arm. “Same with this stuff. If I detach an extra limb or something, I can’t manipulate that anymore either. Oh, and I can’t eat it. Or I can, but I don’t get anything out of it.” She shook her head and sighed. “Real shame. Would make it much easier to replenish reserves.”
Lazar nodded slowly, committing the information to memory. He couldn’t be certain that she was telling the truth about any of it, but it was good to have a general basis on her abilities, especially if they were going to be working together for the foreseeable future.
While they were talking, Ciel overtook Lazar and was the first to pull herself up into the gap. The extra arm detached itself, flesh flaying apart, and landed limply in the water. She waved at Lazar.
“See you outside,” she said before sliding through the gap and out of view.
Lazar pulled his halberd out and dug it into the cavern walls again a little higher up, resuming his climbing. He only glanced back once to eye the still, shadowed form of the detached arm drifting on the surface of the water.
—
When Lazar pulled himself through the gap and peered down at the ground to estimate how far the fall would be, he found not the hard stone he’d been expecting, but a mountain of those inky black flowers piled directly under the entrance. He paused.
Ciel stood a few feet away, casually flicking petals off her clothes. After scanning the distance, Lazar let go and let himself fall to the ground. It wasn’t especially high up, and the flowers helped to further cushion the fall.
Once he got up, Lazar carefully stepped around the pile, attempting to avoid touching any more of the flowers. The flesh eater had no such reservations, and she peered down at some of the blossoms she was crushing with her feet.
“Looks like I was right.”
Lazar turned to face her, remembering their earlier conversation. “You know what this is?”
Ciel nodded at the rocks and stones. From outside, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary mountain save for the black flowers spilling around its base.
“Looks like at some point this place ended up turning into a memorial site while I was stuck in that rock. Would explain why it was so quiet,” she added with a chuckle. Lazar’s eyes darted over to her, brows furrowed.
“A memorial site? But—” his voice cut off, remembering the flesh eaters devouring the corpse and Ciel herself crouched over that soul eater.
“But demons eat each other? Yep, that’s why.” The demon bent down and picked up one of the flowers, rolling the black petals between her fingertips. “These things grow around the Abyss. A lot of folks say they’re guides to the Cycle, and if there’s enough of them around when you croak, you might get lucky enough to get reborn on another plane when your soul comes back around.”
She tossed the flower carelessly back down on the ground and nodded at the cavern entrance. “It’s not everyone, but some demons like to toss flowers in places like these whenever they devour a demon or someone they know gets killed. Kind of like a, ‘hey, I’m just trying to survive, hope you get a better shot next time.’”
She shrugged. “Hell, there might even be some actual bodies inside. Some really determined ones manage to preserve the corpses long enough to bury them. Anyway, the whole thing’s kinda morbid, so most folks who bother with this stuff just chuck in a flower and go, and maybe some will actually enter if they’re extra dedicated.”
Lazar stared into the cavern, frowning. Burial, he knew, was a fairly common practice among humans, but it wasn’t one that seraphs shared. The death of the physical body was secondary to the passing of the soul. It was far more important to ensure that the soul passed into the Cycle peacefully and was kept away from the annihilation of the Void. Excessive concern with physical bodies was beneath the minds of seraphs.
His eyes landed on the flowers. Demons, especially soul eaters, were reviled for their role in sending souls to the Void. He’d never really considered that they might be just as concerned about matters of the Cycle.
He heard a shifting sound and saw Ciel turning away, her arms resting casually behind her head as she walked.
“Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it. We’ve got places to be.”
Lazar thought about the soul eater, the single living figure they’d found inside. Had he been visiting a grave? In the chaos of the fight, he hadn’t heard much of what he’d said. It hadn’t mattered back then, but now he found himself wondering.
He hadn’t been saying the passing prayer at all, Lazar suddenly thought. It used to be such an ingrained practice to utter those words whenever a soul was taken. It didn’t matter if the being had attacked or killed. There was never any need to think about it. But now that he’d had his power stripped away, he realized it was much easier to pray for things that were weaker than you.
The seraph gazed up at the pile of flowers, so large that they looked like a separate mound from a distance. He brought his hands together, breathed, and began speaking the familiar words.
Beside him, Ciel stopped and watched. Her face was blank, unreadable. She didn’t move to join, but she didn’t try to stop him either.
Lazar omitted any direct mentions of the Light in the prayer. It didn’t feel right to keep them, after what had happened to him and knowing how demons felt about Elysium. He expected it to be harder, to change words he knew so intimately, but he found it almost disconcertingly easy to do so.