HOME | DD

Freckledsleeper — CS Task 14 Yellow Light (WIP)

Published: 2016-11-07 03:18:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 965; Favourites: 14; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description Of course this is for  This is for task 14: Yellow Light.   It is a work in progress for the art part, but I

TLDR:  After having the "yellow light" dream, Cordelia and Les find their link severed and their powers gone. Les is reduced to cat form and Cordelia's healing powers are suppressed.  Cordy gets hit by a car and is left healing at a normal pace.  At the end of a very long week, their powers return and Cordelia heals in the CW and her link with her brother is reestablished.

Stash link is here: Dream Task
Thanks for your use of Catori.
Also, all other characters belong to their respective CS owners. 

_________________________

Golden hues lit the inside of her eyelids and morning warmth washed over her. Cinnamon filled her senses. Instantly, her hand reached out for him, “Caine, it is dawn. My handmaidens will enter soon.”

                Her heart clinched painfully when her hand found the linens empty. He was gone. And she was alone. Again.  She twisted the soft, white muslin sheet around her body as she moved from the bed. She pulled a corner to her nose, inhaling the masculine scent but it had faded completely. Sighing softly, she shook her head to feel her tresses tickle her naked back and her cartouche falling coolly between her breasts.

    She moved from her room to the empty halls of her stone temple and called to her ladies. Only her echoes responded. Room after room was vacant. Next, growling at her brother, another hoax of his, “Akar!  This game is unkind!”  The temple faded into the majestic corridors of the her Cloaked World residence.  Her footsteps quickened towards the pool, recalling other faces and times. Her cries extended to the constellation family, old and new.  “Jia! Les! Arina? Lady? Please?”

     She swallowed rapidly, desperate to squelch the rising panic.  Her soul recognized this part, dreaded it. This dream came more often the she’d like to admit.  Despite the length and fervor of her searches, she always found herself curled on the edge of the pool, surface choked with blue lotus lilies.

    She gasped as the dream diverged from its lonesome pattern with heavy, measured footsteps.

    “Pathetic,” the voice mused behind her.

    As always, he was breathtakingly handsome. Every angle was perfectly sculpted, with those mesmerizing eyes framed by strong brows, a wicked smile played at the corner of his lips. He felt wrong to her, different, yet she knew him.  He mien as hard as the golden jewels he wore and as powerful as the heat from a desert sun. He glowed an aura of divinity, and she whispered his name, “Cepheus. . .”

    Her entire body thrilled at the sight of him.  She stood to meet him with bright eyes, but halted with at the slight gesture of his hand. Though his words were cold, his voice whispered through her soul like her warmed spiced liquor, “Your familiarity is misplaced. I do not know you.”

    Her soul insisted that he did.  He did know her! She knew him!  She froze in terror, mouth agape.   She didn’t know.  SHE didn’t know who she was!  Selcis ached for him the way Serqet ached for Caine.  Cordy, well damn it, didn’t know anything.  Was she one or three? She looked down into the pool hoping the reflection would tell her, but the lilies blocked her view.  Frantic, she turned toward him and holding her brooch as proof, having transformed from its disguise, “Scorpius.”

    His eyes glowed with a dark laughter, “Scorpius? A title, you pitiful thing.  A nameless, wretched creature is all you are. Unworthy of such a title, given what you lack.  Then again, lack of seity seems to be a recurring trait.”

    This was not her Cepheus.  His counsel was always blunt, but never cruel.  Her dreams of him might be sentimentalized, but never dark.  She reeled back as if the words had stuck more than her heart.  Her toes pressed into the meticulous decorated edge of the pool.  Cepheus was friend, brother in arms, confidant, and lover. This was not how she  remembered him, dreamed of him.  She’d not allow herself to dream of this person any longer.

    White knuckles released her brooch to dangle and wink on its chain.  She raised her chin regally and set her eyebrows and jaw.  She probably only imagined the flicker of approval in his gaze, “You’re correct.  I do not know you.”

    Matching her gaze with a flat stare, he swatted the air dismissively.   A swift step forward, the gilded king lifted her chin with bored appraisal, “She was nothing.  A wanton courtesan. Even resurrection could not correct the flaws, I see.  The value has diminished.”

    He was deliberately hurtful, seeking to wound.  But who was he trying to convince?

    “Don’t delude yourself,” as if reading her disbelief in the crease of her brow. “Have you become so worthless, you cannot even speak in your own defense?  Have you no mind of your own? You certainly cannot even command the powers of Scorpius alone.  Crippled under the burden no doubt.  I have no use for a broken . . . ”

    Anger burned in her green eyes as she smiled at the radiant viper before her, interrupting his censure. She softly interlaced her fingers into his sash of his tunic and pulled him closer still.  He moved to pull away, but she took command of her dream and pulled him within a whisper of her lips, “Do not assume your cruelty carries more weight than the air it falls on.”

    His eyes bore into her, daring her to prove it or back down.   Rising to the challenge, she snipped, “You are mistaking love for weakness. If I cannot save those I love, then I will kill the thing that took them from me.  I loved you once, and I love you still.”

    She seized a small kiss with a taunting smile and gripped his tunic harder. Leaning backwards, she let her weight pull them both into lily-filled pool. 

    Cordelia woke up gasping in her bed in her Florida home.  She curled into her sheets, clutching her brooch.  The truth of her last words sinking deep.  Dream or no, she knew she could face him now. The fear was absent. She was feeling oddly numb.

     Only a second later she sat up realizing that it was more than that.  She felt alone! So alone, she felt severed and incomplete.  She had NEVER felt truly alone in her entire life. She always felt Les, sensed him as if they were standing in the same room. He was in Montana with the Moxie family, but distance was never a factor.  Furthermore, since returning Cloaked World, she always felt the love of her new family and comrades.  Reflexively, she tried to call out through the brooch to Moni, but the brooch didn’t respond.  When Cloak didn’t respond and the transformation failed, Cordy ripped herself from from bed.

     “I’m not some pawn to be toyed with,” she growled as she grabbed her jacket, her cell, brooch, and keys. She didn’t even know who she was growling at.  She need to try to teleport to the CW through someone else.  There were a few others in the city, maybe they knew what was going on. She needed to know if this was a special form of self-torture or if this was a power play by an arrogant prick.  She needed to know that Les was safe.

    Cordy tried call Les from her cell on speaker phone as she got into her car.  She was directed to voicemail three times, before she tried leaving a message, “Les, something’s REALLY wrong.  I need you to call me back.  I don’t know how to explain it.  If you’re with Catori or anyone, ask them if they’re feeling magically cock blocked. I can’t transform or contact anybody.   Just call me back.  I’m feeling very exposed and think that . . .”

    Tire squealing, metal crunching, and glass shattering filled the rest of her message to Les. 

 ****

                Les thanked the stars, his new favorite cloacal oath, that he had been with Catori when it happened. He shifted.  He couldn’t explain it.  He always scheduled his Earth trips it so that he had plenty of human time left before shift back to his anima form, but it happened suddenly without warning.  To complicate matters, he was stuck.  He couldn’t revert to human.

                “The hell, fluffy butt.  You’ve got to give a gal some warning before you just up and do that!” she chided, dumping him on her couch next to a very annoyed Sarge and picked up his dropped cell phone.  He mewed loudly, pacing back and forth, ignoring the irate mews from the one-eyed cur Catori doted on. Something was WRONG!  This was not normal and that’s coming from a man-cat shifter.  Oh hell, what if he was stuck as the cat for good.  His fur stood on end in dread.  “You claw that couch and I’ll have a blanket lined with Egyptian Mau!”

    His tail up twitched as he butted his head against her elbow.  With a high pitched mew, his mind screamed for his sister.  Why couldn’t he feel her?  Couldn’t she feel something was off?  He could always feel her and push his emotions to her.  Like breathing, he never questioned it until it ceased.  He pushed the word ‘cell phone’ to Catori, desperate she’d hear him.

    “Woah there!” she reared back as Les pounced to her lap and his thoughts shouted loudly in her mind.  He frantically nosed and pawed at her hand holding his cell phone.  She turned on his phone with wide eyes.  “Four missed calls from Cordy.  Hold up, there’s voicemail. Les, this is not good.”

    Sarge saluted, if cats could salute, the clearly agitated Les and excused himself to a quieter place.  Catori’s face went pale as the voicemail played out and scooped up the over-sized cat.  “We’ve got to go, Catman.  I think something bad has happened.”

    Les still thanked the stars for the Moxie family and those in its circle.  Without Catori, he couldn’t have found the hospital Cordy was in after the wreck.  It was Catori that convinced the nurses to let him stay rooted on her bed.  Without her, he wouldn’t have found out about the constellation senshi powers, active and innate, hiatus was trending and that it had something to do with that yellow ass wipe.  Without Catori, he probably would have given way to the stewing of helplessness within him as he watched his bashed and broken sister groan with each breath – her healing powers repressed.

    Blood loss, broken bones, a concussion, the works.  He rubbed his forehead against Cordelia’s unresponsive hand.  She was stable and sleeping, but in pain.  She had always felt pain when injured, but she healed so quickly it never lingered. Although the little sister, she had always taken care of him.  Never leaving or abandoning him.  When she was twelve their parents shipped her off to private school, she refused to eat until they sent her home.  She never threatened to move out even when he pushed her. She never condemned him for his unchecked behavior, understanding he needed the extreme balance.  He nestled down by her side knowing he’d rather die than allow Cepheus to risk her life again.  He knew that the truck running the light was just a random accident, but traffic accident or no, this travesty was that bastard’s fault. She could have handled anything if she could have healed. Human or anima form, Les was going to kill him.

    When she woke, her hand absentmindedly scratched Les’ head whenever he chirped or chortled at her. Catori filled her in on how some of the others were fairing with the experience and how it seemed to range from a day to two weeks. Cordy should have been relieved knowing Les would be returning to human form, but she felt nothing.  She should be grateful for Catori’s comfort and information, but she felt nothing.  She should have been concerned that her ‘heart’, Les, had been severed from her soul so easily and as a result she felt NOTHING.

    The terrible truth Cepheus had hashed out boiled in her brain.  She lacked all sense of self.  Taking a sabbatical from work, refusing any dating advances, spending most of her days in the Cloaked World, and over indulging in the ancient liquor.  Some days even waking up believing she was Selcis or Serqet.  Her now exposed secret was a glaring flaw, more painful than her broken bones and bruised limbs.  How can I save anyone unless I know who I am?

                “What do you mean, Cordy-babe?” Catori whispered, hearing that stray thought. 

     Cordelia met her friend’s questioning glance with a half lidded stare and a half lie, “Morphine addled ideas, Kit-Cat.  Once we are back to normal, I’ll be fine soon enough.”

    Soon was six excruciating days later. She feigned sleep when new visitors came and when she slept she dreamed of rooms filled with sunflowers.

     It took Cloak a matter of seconds to register her brooch’s active state. It was as if the Lady had her on alert ready for wretched senshi’s arrival in the medical bay.  Les fretted over her as The Lady carefully guided Cordy into a healing pod.  She felt her healing blood quicken, moving beyond its normal pace with the aid of the pod.   The accelerated speed caused her to cry out as bones shifted and skin stretched.  Her soul sighed as it felt the bond to Les reestablish and flood her senses with joy and comfort at being surrounded by friends.  This was right.  This was home.  The sting of Cepheus’ words lost their bite and truth.  She was three in one, and one of three. She smiled as she pictured those she loved and her eyelashes fluttered close, “I was never alone.”

                She jerked up as Catori tapped her nail on the pod, “And don’t you ever forget it.”

Related content
Comments: 2

Re-Pyper [2016-11-07 17:30:35 +0000 UTC]

Asdfghjk~ Poor babe T0T <3

I thought of having Thura get in a wreck when she gets hers back from this task/being attacked by a rifter and saved. But idk, might be too much. ;o; lol!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Freckledsleeper In reply to Re-Pyper [2016-11-08 01:25:23 +0000 UTC]

I believe in harassing my poor babes with a purpose. Because Cordy's inate power is healing, I needed a way for her to feel a consequence of not having it without conpounding the injury with a supernatural attack. I wanted her to feel vunerable in a very human way.

I was worried it was too much. I hope the risk paid off

👍: 0 ⏩: 0