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Eli grew up on a ranch in Montana. He had heard about Incursions, Breaches, and the Titans that came through those breaches to slaughter some people and capture others. To him though, it had always been something that happened far away to other people. His life was forever changed though when a Breach opened near his home, everything he knew was destroyed or taken, and he ended up Altered.
Chapter 40: Past and Future Amethyst |
Author's Note: Here's chapter 39 of Altered. This should have been posted last night, but general busy-ness and internet connection issues delayed it. As always, a big thanks to my readers and Big Closet for your continued support. ~Amethyst.
Chapter 40: Past and Future
Poppy sat on the gate to Moonlight’s stall, keeping her senses alert for predators like birds in the rafters or prowling cats as she watched Kelly give Selina a lesson on horse care. The Huli Jing was nowhere near as focused as she had been yesterday when working with Ainslee, but she guessed that wasn’t surprising given how shaken up she was from learning that her nightmares were real memories of her time beyond the Breach. Still, Lily was probably right to give her sister something else to focus on while she processed that horrific bit of news, something that comforted her.
She wished she could do something to help, but honestly, she didn’t really know Kelly or the others very well yet. It was something that she was trying to work on by striking up conversations when the chance arose, but she didn’t have the knowledge to contribute right now, nor the size to be more involved in the lesson. So, instead, she found herself watching over them protectively while her lover went to Vanguard Tower to take care of some business.
Poppy was not the only one protectively hovering and watching the Huli Jing, the Unicorn, and the young Mermaid in the stall. Ainslee was watching over them too. The Baobhan Sith had good reason to be protective of them since Selina was her little sister and she had grown up with Lily and Kelly and was obviously smitten with the white-haired foxgirl of many comfy tails. Why was Ainslee watching over her as well though? Was it only because she was Lily’s girlfriend or did she see her as a friend now?
She was still getting used to the idea that she may have friends beyond her girlfriend, and even to having a girlfriend. She was trying to be the best she could in both roles, but before the Incursion that changed her life, she had never been very good at relationships outside of her family, especially after discovering that she was gay. She fell for the wrong girls, straight girls, and blurted things out without thinking, scaring them off before they could even get close to being friends. And as for the one girl who was interested, she was oblivious to her flirting until it was too late for both of them.
The thought had a sigh escaping her lips, something that Ainslee immediately noticed with those pointed ears of hers. “Is everything okay, Poppy?”
“Yeah, sure,” she tried to reassure the redheaded Fae. “I’m just worried about Kelly, and thinking about things.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ainslee offered.
Poppy shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll be okay. I’ve just been thinking a lot lately about the Incursion that changed me. It’s not really surprising with all that Incursion-related trauma that Sergeant Vale put us through the other day.”
As much as she appreciated the offer, how could she possibly tell Ainslee the whole story? She wouldn’t believe her, nobody would. Who would ever believe that she had a glimpse of the future? The only proof she had was dead, lost to her when she was engulfed in a cocoon of her own blood.
She hadn’t even told Lily everything. She had told Lily that she was at a friend's house when the Incursion happened. In truth, she barely knew Lindsey Dimas. She was just a classmate who she was assigned to work on a school project with, who she now wished she could have gotten to know better. They could have been friends, or maybe more, had fate not decided to grind them both within its gears. Once again, she found herself thinking back to that last day when she was still Penelope Lancaster.
Penny looked around in interest as she followed Lindsey through the front door of her home. It was a nice place, certainly nicer than the crowded apartment that she shared with her mother and grandparents, her parents were probably doing pretty well for themselves. She didn’t really know the girl all that well since Lindsey’s family had only recently moved to the area and she had only started at school a few weeks ago.
Maybe she could actually make a friend here, if she could keep herself from saying something stupid and obviously flirty to mess things up… again. Sometimes the things that came out of her mouth when she was with a pretty girl surprised even her and came out in the worst way possible. Lindsey was very pretty with her dark hair, deep brown eyes, and Mediterranean features, but it was probably best to focus on their Civics project since Lindey had probably already heard the rumors about her at school.
She seemed nervous, which only cemented in Penny’s mind that somebody had warned her that she was a lesbian. “W-would you like something to drink before we get s-started, Penelope?” she nervously stammered.
“Just call me Penny, everyone else does. Only the teachers call me Penelope. Do you have any peach juice?” Dammit! She cursed in her mind as she realized she should have taken more time to think of something that wouldn’t have come across as an innuendo! “I… umm…if you don’t, orange juice is good,” she hurriedly corrected.
“I… don’t have peach juice. I might have to… try it sometime. I… we have orange juice!” she answered awkwardly before changing the topic. “Penny huh? You… don’t really seem like a Penny. I mean… the name sounds so drab to me and you’re so ho… energetic! I mean… umm… you seem like more of a Poppy to me than a Penny.”
“Poppy?” Penny asked, thinking the name over in her head.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s okay if you don’t like it, I just thought…”
“No, it’s good, I just never thought of myself that way,” she admitted as Lindsey trailed off and looked away. “Umm… anyway, what should we do for our project?”
“I… there’s no rush, right? We have two weeks. Maybe today we can just hang out in my b-bedrooom and get to… umm… know one another better. Maybe we can watch a movie… or something… until my parents get home. Have you seen S-s-sapphic Surrender?” Lindsey suggested, her voice tremulous and hesitant.
Penny had been looking forward to seeing that. It was supposed to be a very racy, not to mention adult-rated, lesbian romance movie. Why would she suggest that, unless… Was she messing with her for being a lesbian?
Swing and a miss, though at that time she never got the chance to think about it more deeply and come to the right conclusion because that was when both of their comm rings announced, -= Emergency! You are currently in an Incursion Zone, please evacuate to the nearest shelter. =-
Penny’s heart raced at the announcement, hazy memories clawing to the surface of her mind of when she was three and lost her father in the London Incursion. In her panic, she tried to call her mother and grandparents, but her comm ring didn’t seem to be working properly. She turned to Lindsey, but the other girl seemed to be in even more of a panic than she was, frantically giving verbal instructions that her comm ring was unable to put into action.
Of course, she was panicking. She had only been living in Leeds for a few weeks and probably didn’t know where any of the Incursion shelters were. So, Penny took charge. “There’s an Incursion shelter a few blocks away,” she told the other girl, trying to look a lot calmer than she actually felt. “Let’s go, if we hurry and try to avoid any areas where the Titans seem to be, we can probably make it.”
She was terrified, her hands shaking and her heart hammering in her chest, but Lindsey looked worse, and she needed to step up and look brave for her sake. She reached out a clammy, trembling, hand to take one of Lindsey’s in a grip that she hoped was reassuring and then led the way out of the house toward the nearest shelter.
Fortunately, the shelter she was leading Lindsey to seemed to be in the opposite direction of the chaos caused by the Titans’ arrival. She could hear explosions and screams in the distance behind them as they ran. Those sounds were far too close for her comfort, they were probably close to ground zero, though it sounded closer to her apartment building, something that only scared her more. She silently prayed that her family would be okay as she led Lindsey in the opposite direction.
They were halfway to the shelter and Penny’s lungs and legs were burning from the unaccustomed running when Lindsey’s steps faltered, pulling at their joined hands as the other girl fell to the pavement with a scream. Penny turned, half expecting to see Titan’s closing in on them, but there was nothing and Lindsey had pulled her hand free clutch at her head as she screamed in agony.
Penny couldn’t see any injuries, or anything else that could be causing such obvious pain, but she also couldn’t afford to wait to find out. She tried whispering encouragement as she pulled the other girl to her feet and supported her weight, half guiding and half pulling her along toward the shelter. She was half-terrified that Lindsey’s screaming was going to draw the Titans toward them, but she continued to support her as they made their way to the shelter, even if their pace was slowed to a crawl.
It must have been at least five minutes before the screaming finally stopped. “Are you okay, Lindsey?” she asked, even as she listened for the sounds of the Titan’s’ destruction behind them. Bloody Hell, they were getting closer.
“I… yeah, I think so,” Lindsey replied shakily. “F-felt like my head was exploding for a while there. I’m okay now, just let me… I can’t see!”
Penny’s eyes stopped scanning the streets behind them for danger as she focused on Lindsey in concern, and she gasped in surprise at what she saw. Lindsey’s eyes were now milky white, but that wasn’t all, she could swear that they were glowing, even in the light of mid-afternoon. She could barely get the words out, let alone make them sound anywhere close to reassuring as she said, “I… I think you might be changing, becoming Altered. I’ll be your eyes, just hold on to my hand.”
Once she took Lindsey’s hand in hers again, she set out again toward the shelter. The Titans were getting closer, there was no time to waste. Though their progress was slowed by Lindsey’s inability to see, it was also much faster than it had been when she was in pain. They were nearly at the entrance to the Underground, and there was a shelter at the station.
The streets were nearly empty, so most of the people in the area must have already made their way to the shelter. The only people she could see were the coppers, taking cover behind their hover-jets as they set up a perimeter. She barely registered the sound of nearby gunfire over the increased sound of explosions and destruction behind them growing ever closer.
“Poppy! Go right!” Penny barely had time to register the words and the warning they contained. It was her listening and pulling Lindsey into a ginnel that saved them both as a beam of heat and violet light eviscerated one of the police hover-jets and sent the coppers behind it flying while screaming in pain. They stayed in that alleyway, catching their breath, the entrance to the underground achingly close until Penny peeked around the corner.
The Titans were getting uncomfortably close. It was now or never, if they ran fast enough and used the damaged and smoking hover-jet as cover, they might be able to make it to the Underground before the Titans were finished with the other coppers who were vainly trying to resist the giant alien mecha. Holding Lindsey’s hand tightly and giving it a squeeze, Penny took off running, pulling the other girl along in her wake.
They made it to the Underground entrance, and she managed to piggyback Lindsey down the stairs before the sounds of gunfire and explosions ceased. Their way to the shelter was clear, and her heart was thrumming frantically in her chest from the adrenaline when it all seemed to happen at once. Lindsey shouted something about the ceiling and shoved her from behind as the entire Underground shook with the force of an explosion and several tonnes of concrete started to fall around them like deadly rain.
When the dust cleared, the tunnel was collapsed ahead of them and behind them. They were spared the worst of it by being underneath a support beam that hadn’t collapsed, well, mostly anyway. Penny hurt all over and Lindsey didn’t look like she was in good shape. She was half covered by rubble and was coughing up dust and blood, and her glowing eyes were the only light to see by. Horror and realization had Penny rushing toward the other girl. If she hadn’t pushed Penny, she would be covered in rubble too.
This was botched; they were so close to the shelter. No, she couldn’t think about that, she needed to help Lindsey. “Hey, can you hear me, Lindsey? Everything’s going to be okay, maybe I can pull you out and…”
“No!” Lindsey half coughed, and half shouted. “You’ll *cough* bring the rest of this down on us. I’m *cough* done for anyway, can’t feel my legs. Don’t have long, need to *cough* tell you things. Figured out what I am changing into… an Oracle. Losing my sight was the price for… seeing beyond.”
“You’re going to be fine, help will be here soon,” Penny tried to reassure her, but the words felt empty even to her.
“Not in time. By then *cough* I’ll be dead, and you’ll… I saw your future when you took my hand to guide me. Important. You’ll sleep in blood for almost four years, and when you wake, you’ll be different. Embrace it… you’ll find true love. Opposites attract. Your girlfriend is *cough* important. Will gather… broken pieces to make whole. You, her sister, her friend, the Dark one… She has the drive and power to… Remember this date. If you remember nothing else *cough* remember this. Saturday, October 26th, 2041, at 16:37 local time Rust Ridge *cough* Australia. Incursion. That’s your chance to change things, futures branch off at that point *cough* too many to follow.”
Penny was torn between humoring her or trying to find some way to help. Since there didn’t seem to be any way for her to do the latter at the moment, she found herself doing the former instead and committing what she was being told to memory. “Right, an Incursion at Rust Ridge Australia at 16:37 on Saturday, October 26th, 2041. I’ll remember it, Lindsey, just save your strength. Is there anything I can do to…”
“Kiss me, Poppy,” Lindsey said suddenly. “Not much time. I don’t want to die without being kissed once and *cough* I’ve been wanting to *cough* do that since we met. Heh, useless lesbians... both of us.”
She wanted her to kiss her? She was… No, she couldn’t take the time to unpack that right now. This was a last request, she should honor it now and think about it later if she lived that long. She hadn’t kissed a girl before, she wanted to, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to kiss anyone since she realized that she was gay.
All thoughts of doing it properly were cast aside as another coughing fit wracked what she could see of Lindsey’s body. As soon as the coughing stopped, she leaned forward, cupped the other girl’s face gently and let their lips meet. Lindsey’s lips were softer than she expected but yielded to her own with a slight sigh escaping them. She could taste the saltiness of her tears and the metallic taste of her blood and, even with that, she would have happily lingered in the kiss to make one last memory for the other girl, but that was when the pain lanced through her chest, causing Penny to hiss and stumble in pain.
The pain vanished almost as soon as it hit her, quickly replaced by an odd, warm pulsing sensation that was building up in the center of her chest. Then it was like her whole body was being overwhelmed by the feeling of pins and needles, getting stronger and spreading further with every beat of her heart. The feeling of warm stickiness on her skin had her looking at her arms as blood covered them. She tried to brush it away in her panic but there was too much, and it seemed to solidify before she could even do so. Her last conscious memory as the blood rose to cover her face was Lindsey’s pained face and the fading light in her eyes as she said, “Live, Poppy.”
When she found out that Fairies often renamed themselves after flowers or other aspects of nature, she chose to use the name Poppy to honor Lindsey’s memory. Maybe that was something that Lindsey saw in the future she told her about. Much of her first month in the Fairy Ward was spent mourning her lost family and the girl that she barely knew, the girl who had most likely saved her life.
She felt broken for a while, but she couldn’t let that stop her from living, or she would be wasting the life that Lindsey saved. Lindsey wanted her to live, not just exist. She didn’t think anything of her predictions of the future though, even when she first met Lily and it was love at first sight. She had just been humoring the dying girl.
Now though, she couldn’t help but wonder if Lindsey truly was an Oracle. She had saved her from death, twice, despite not being able to see, and some of her predictions were accurate. The bloody cocoon, waking up different four years later, and she even found what she felt was true love. Opposites attract, and fire and water couldn’t be more opposed. Lily was important too, and not just to her, but to the Vanguard and the fight against the Titans.
She was even right about the broken pieces thing and had even told her who, with some accuracy: You, her sister, her friend, the Dark one. Poppy and Ainslee were perhaps not quite as broken as Kelly or Karen, but they all were in some way, and Lily had brought them together. Perhaps she wasn’t talking about making them whole individually, but as a group, this team, family, or whatever it was. Predictions can be open to interpretation, right?
If Lindsey really could see the future, and was accurate, then she had given Poppy some very important information. She had even told her that it was important enough to remember, even if she forgot everything else. She had knowledge of exactly when and where a Breach would open. Saturday, October 26th, 2041, at 16:37 local time at Rust Ridge, Australia. It was less than three months away.
Not for the first time, she considered telling Lily about this. The last thing she wanted was to come off as crazy to the girl she was head over heels in love with, but this could be important. It would be so much easier if Lindsey was alive to support her, but one of the first things she had done after Sprouting and the whole issue of avoiding being pollinated was to confirm that Lindsey was indeed dead. That news hit her harder than she had expected. Why did she have to die and Poppy still lived? Lindsey would have at least been useful.
A sigh escaped her. Thinking back on that day always made her brood and get lost in thought. She didn’t have much time to think about telling at least Lily about this. Not if they wanted time to prepare for what she knew in her heart was coming, no matter how crazy it sounded to believe in Oracles. Maybe Lindsey wanted her to tell her, so that they could make arrangements before the day arrived.
She hadn’t been lost in her thoughts and memories for as long as she feared. Selina and Kelly had finished with Moonlight and were getting her saddle on for a ride while Ainslee was still leaning in the same spot and watching over everyone protectively. At her sigh, Ainslee had turned her attention back to her though and asked, “Are you sure everything is okay, Poppy? You were lost in your thoughts for a while there.”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she tried to assure her. “I’ve just been thinking about the past… and the future.”
“Well, if you ever need to talk about anything, I know that Lily would listen, and I will too. I know we all have rough pasts; it’s something that comes with being Altered, I think, but don’t fret about the future. Don’t forget we’re a team, and you have friends here. The future is what we make it, and I know we’ll make it a good one because whatever comes our way, we’ll all face it together.”
It was no wonder that Ainslee and Lily were such good friends. They both seemed to have so much optimism, either that or they steadfastly refused to let anything happen to the people they cared about. She was beginning to think it was the latter.
Ainslee was her friend too now, she guessed, she had just said as much. Well, if they were all going to face the future together then they should probably be prepared. Poppy nodded and thought to herself, “I’ll tell Lily when we go to bed tonight. If it goes well and she believes me, I’ll let her decide whether we should tell the others.”
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Comments
Lindsey Dimas?
Didn't catch that one on Patreon. Dimas/Dismas, patron saint of liars and thieves. But as Poppy noted, so far the oracular information has been accurate...
Eric
we’ll all face it together.”
the best way to get through stuff.