Post by LACKLAN on Apr 27, 2019 0:09:42 GMT -5
Ichabod
I write to you today because I want you to understand, to the very core of your being, that what I am doing, and have been doing for over a year, is changing the very foundation of the company you hold dear. There have been very few people who have fought under the banner of UGWC who can be seen as a guiding light, as someone who the world could look up to. I suppose, in his own way, Monsieur Roberts did a fair job of it while he was World Champion. And, if I am kind, I can give a touch of credit to Monsieur Edwards when holding the Cross-Hemisphere the way he did, but we both know that championship has been tarnished many times throughout the last decade. Unfortunately for that particular title, not everyone can be Deimos.
But I am different, as you know. I am the embodiment of Chaos, as I take what God gives me, weave it into fires and pain, and burn the world asunder so that we may create what He wishes. And my light, shining from atop a tower, is bright enough for the entire world to see. For the entire world to bow to. To obey. And I have a suspicion that you fear the day I decide that I should carry the world championship in the place of my Chaos championship. Because you fear me.
As you should.
I am aware that you think of yourself as some kind of master of puppets. That you wave your fingers in the air and make the people dance, pulled and tugged by the strings you placed around their necks. I am aware that you have made an impact on the minds of fools and pushed lesser people across a checkered board at your own convenience. I am aware of just how much influence you have had in the UGWC’s incessant need for groups to dominate and hog the light. But I wish to tell you something, if I may:
You are no Lacklan.
You lack the patience, sir, for true control. You move with the impetuousness of a toddler who sets their eyes on a toy, giving anyone paying attention the truth of your focus, and giving away what should have been hidden behind subtle movements over years. I was watching when you stepped aside and let my step-daughter crush Lobo. I saw the desire for her revolution in your eyes. You outed yourself then, sir, and I saw more as the year progressed, ultimately leading you to make the foolish decision to face my friend at Horizons at the end of that year. Your movements, quick and sudden, open for all to see, led to your back being crushed by the Good Doctor.
Your attempts at manipulation are sad, and I see through your most recent.
Phrixus Deimos has no designs on my championship. He has no desire. The object of his affection, if not obsession, is held by Rydell, at least for the moment. So why this match? Why the Blade and Fear? Simple, really: You do not want us together. You do not want the growing tide of what I bring. You have already seen the destruction that Yamazaki can cause with just a short amount of my influence, and you desperately worry that I will bring the Year of Fear anew.
You should worry. You should be afraid. Because I do indeed fully intend on bringing Fear back to the world.
Deimos is a patient man. He understands the importance of biding his time and moving with subtle precision, so unlike your clunky leaps and flits about. I understand him. I feel him. I KNOW him in a way no one else would dare to. For instance, did you know that Phrixus Deimos has had two hundred and sixty five matches under the UGWC banner? I do. I have watched everyone one of those matches. An amazing feat, having fought so many times for a Consortium who still remains both without name and face. And before you ask, no, you do NOT want to know how many times he has faced Jet Somers. Now, many people would point out that he has won less than a third of those, of course, but they would be missing the point. Fear never dies. It never rests. It perseveres. It survives. And now and again, it finds greatness. And with me, he will find something that he has never found before, because I am a patient woman.
Tell me: If I told you that I...ultimately...was the reason why your little rat-eyed charge had her career so forcibly altered as to find herself out of the spotlight, would you be surprised? Would that shock you that the supposedly unhinged Blade of God successfully did what so many people in this industry have failed to do? If it did, you would be even less of a “master” than I think you already to be. But then again, I doubt you realize just how much of your current main event title match is my doing, as well.
No one realizes just how patient I am, which is part of why I have been so dominant with a title so important to many. One by one, I have stripped the Chaos history of its accolades. Defeated former champions. Walked into matches designed to take the title away from me and walked out with it around my waist. Defeated undeserving challengers hand-picked by power-hungry amateurs such as yourself. And as I enter Deadly Sins on my one hundred and ninety-fourth day as champion, I will be but a few weeks away from ripping away the only accolade left to you and your contemporaries. And while your clumsy shenanigans will slow my hand on Monday as I face someone I hold dear, it will not stay it.
And then after?
After I set the Chaos Championship onto a pedestal which no one else will ever be able to reach?
In the sixteen months I have been in the UGWC, I have never actively sought the World Title. My inclusion in the Round Robin was to spread God’s will to as many as possible. But after I take away Chaos’ record?
My patience may well come to an end.
The Year of Fear was a long time ago, Ichabod.
The resurrection looms.
“That WRETCHED child!”
The large man does not flinch as the voice screams out, followed by the slamming of a door, the sound of the heavy door shaking on its hinges hinting at pushing past the thin metal and finding itself upon the floor. His eyes remain shut, his body rigid, his legs crossed on the floor. He can feel the pains in his body. The ache in his kidney from the injury long ago. The grown in his knees for supporting his bulk. The scars on his face from the fire. But most of all, coursing through his body, in his very blood, the sickness that was slowly taking away his life.
Cancer was patient.
“Fils de pute!”
He ignored the voice as it began to curse in its native tongue. Loud curses. And some of the more filthy terms. He ignored it and instead felt within himself. Felt the sickness. Felt the cancer. He has been diagnosed several years ago now, and he had poured much of his vast wealth into fighting it. And while an endless array of injections, techniques, and herbs had helped to keep it at bay, he could feel it slowly pushing and pressing against his defenses. It would win in the end, he was afraid.
Cancer was patient.
“She doesn’t even TRY!”
He ignores the stomping of heeled boots on the floor around him. He liked those boots. They looked good on her. Helped her lower half shape pleasantly. But matters of the fleshly world were quickly falling away for him. All of his plans, all of his machinations. All melting away. He was patient. His whole life moving people into position. Building his people. Creating his rock. But the cancer was even more so.
“Puddin’!”
The pleading voice finally makes him take his attention from his own body. Away from the cancer eating him from the inside. Away from the aches and pains of a long wrestling career. Away from himself. He slowly opens his eyes and is greeted by the pouting lips of his wife.
His wife.
That still surprised him. He had had many wives over his lifetime. Often several at a time, as befitted his position as the Voice of God. But he had never actually “married” any of them, as the flesh would desire. And while his recent decision confused many, including a particularly loud reaction in private from Sebastian, he knew how important it was to marry the woman. After fifteen years, he had finally been blessed with another child, but she had miscarried his seed. The pain was immense. For both of them. And this marriage, this love, was needed by them both to heal.
“What is it, wife?”
It hurt to talk. Every day hurt more. The cancer had started small but it grew. It stretched its fingers slowly, like the growing shadows of a boogeyman in children’s tales, and worked its way through all of his body. It ate away at his throat. The Voice was losing his ability to speak.
The cancer was patient and was winning.
“That DEMON child of yours!”
His wife’s face turned from a pleading pout to angry rage in but the flick of an eyelash, and his desire for her lurched deep within him. He was the Voice, but the demands of the flesh were strong, and this woman had vexed him from the moment they met. He smiles slightly as her arms begin to flail in the air and she begins to pace back and forth, a motion he was quite accustomed to by now.
“She never lets me in, Jean! She pushes! She presses! Everything was GREAT before! She confided in me! But now! NOW! All she does is push me away! And then-”
Her words washed over him but he ignored everything but his name; he had heard as much before. But his name. From her lips. Perfection. Many people mispronounced Jean-Paul, a gift from a mother from Louisiana, putting too much emphasis on the J. He always understood this confusion, of course, for the name of their house was hard on the tongue. Lack-Lan was as New England as one could get, and the juxtaposition of the soft J followed by the hard K confused many. But this woman, initially from France, pronounced it perfectly from the moment they met. The soft J flowed off her tongue. But most important, above all else, she never flinched when she looked at his face.
“And you won’t BELIEVE what she did with the jeans I bought her! I have never seen her wear normal pants, so I figured a nice pair of blue jeans would look good on her, but she had them cut up and set on fire! Je ne comprends pas!!”
He had worn a mask for many years because of the fire. Ugly and massive burns covered every inch. Red and purple lines. Peaks and valleys. His entire scalp. But she didn’t flinch when she saw him without it on the morning after their first night together. She touched his face. Said that he was beautiful. She did not realize it at the time, but she had his heart from that moment, even if she was far too young for him.
“Patience.”
It might hurt to talk, but his voice was still strong. Deep. Bellowing. She ignored it, of course. Continued to stalk back and forth in her pacing. Her green eyes glaring in a way which made that desire deep in his body rise further and further to the surface. Their relationship had begun as a tryst, unwise and forbidden. But he saw something in her, something that he desired as much physically as emotionally, and she repaid his kindness and actions with affection. She chose him, chose God. Chose well.
“Help me to my feet.”
Neither a question nor a command, yet somehow both. A technique he had developed which had proved valuable over the years. He had taught his daughter to use it, though she seemed to prefer relying on screaming and throwing things to get her way. He was not sure, but he believe that screaming was her default mode.
The tactic seemed to work well for her.
The woman stops her pacing and moves to him. He shivers as she places her hands on his shoulders, a reaction that nearly a year together had not dulled. She smirked knowingly with the touch, and the desire rises ever toward the surface, heating his skin. She grabs the hand he offers, his large mit engulfing hers, and grunts as she pulls and he rises to his feet. He looks down on her, nearly a full foot shorter than he, and squeezes her hands.
“Come.”
She snickers and he rolls his eyes grandly in response. Pulling her, the two make their way over to a tall standing mirror set at the side of a walk-in closet, and he positions them so that they can both see themselves.
“I am old, wife.”
He raises his hands so that can point out the reflection of himself. He was a large man, even by wrestling standards, as a lifetime obsession with bodybuilding had given him an impressive physique. Wearing only a pair of tight black shorts, all of his bulging ripples could be seen under the pale hairless skin. His eyes twitched at that thought for a second; the hair from his head would forever be lost in the fire, but the experimental chemotherapy had taken the rest.
“See these?”
He points on the features of the tattoo covering most of his torso. She knew well what it represented, but she should still hear the words. His fingers find the fist in the center.
“Creature.”
His fingers find the snake coiled around it.
“The Savior.”
Finally, they find the sword clenched in the snake’s maw.
“Swing.”
He motions his fingers to take in the entire work.
“The Three Kings of Wrestling. It took many months to bring us together. It took many ploys. Suggestions whispered in dark corners. Grandiose declarations during meetings with the press. Assisting during matches, both scene and unseen. It took a very long time to make the three of us come together so that we could teach the world what TRUE wrestling was. And it took much...much...patience.”
He turns to face her and reaches up to clasp her chin in his hands.
“If I did not take my time...we never would have been. If I had given up when my first plan went awry...the battles for His glory never would have happened. It took patience, wife. If I had not been patient, I never would have build our Church, never would have seen it move from a few people heeding my words from God to several hundred people living and breathing His wants and desires. All things important require patience.”
He moves his left hand away from her face to draw attention to his right shoulder. A tattoo was there, as well, this one of a woman clothed in nothing but long hair, bright white at the top and darkening to brown at the tips, her body circled by a long snake.
“If I had not been patient, WE never would have been.”
He can see the woman’s green eyes shining brightly with emotion as she looked at the tattoo bearing her form, and his breath catches by her beauty. He lifts her chin up to look at him, to have those emerald eyes look into his old marble blue, and gives her a smile. He didn’t remember smiling this much in many years. Not since that terrible time when he lost both Selena and Mary so close together. He bites down on his lip momentarily, hard enough to make himself bleed, at the thought of Mary. He had loved her. And would never understand why she fled without a word. And never let go of his anger with her for it.
“Jean-”
He reaches down and presses his finger against her lips to silence her.
“Patience. She is my only blood. My only heir. She will learn to love you as her mother.”
He turns his head to look into the mirror, taking in his reflection. The reflection of a man whose body seemed that of an Adonis on the outside, but was being eaten alive on the inside by a slow-moving poison.
“You have done very well in your short career, wife. Television champion. Ultraviolent champion.”
“Ultraviolet!”
He shakes his head and turns back to her. His eyes are stern but he cannot keep the smirk from his mouth. She had mistaken the name for the “hardcore” championship she had once held, but now refused to admit the mistake, instead demanding that everyone around her accept the new reality.
“But not World.”
Her own smirk falls away.
“The world deserves a Lacklan on the throne, wife. While I held a world championship less than a year ago, it still feels like a lifetime. And the world yearns for our house. Texas calls me.”
She smiles at him, her eyes full of delighted malice.
“I can’t wait, puddin’. Can’t WAIT to smash some balls again!”
He gives her a shake of his head, but then smiles once more.
“Patience, Ava.”
Aveline Lacklan wakes with a start.
Glazed eyes of green look around the room in confusion, slowly taking in the darkness which is only pushed away by a fire roaring in its place. Shadows dance across the towering portraits of her family, from the original patriarchs of centuries ago, to the dual contrasting colors of her step-daughter and daughter in law. She shakes her head as she looks back to the table in front of her, the long table of fine Lacklanland wood set with crystal panels. The dull eyes take in the half-empty bottle of wine, the two pieces of paper, and the pen in front of her.
She sits back in her chair, feeling the coolness of the wood against her bare back. She wore only a slip on her body, her robe having fallen to her waist, and the touch of cool wood on her shoulders makes her shiver. She looks down at her arms as she recalls the dream of her late husband, taking in the dozens and dozens of scars on each one. She had given herself those scars throughout what had been nothing more than captivity in that “hospital,” a showing of patience. Her husband would be proud of her for the display. Some jagged, some clean and sharp, depending on how here mood had been at the time. One for every week she had been in that room.
She looks down at the set of papers in front of her. A letter to her most recent employer. A letter of warning for the man who thought himself so clever. She leans forward and takes the papers in hand, folding them into three sections with fine creases, before stuffing them into an envelope. Secured, she takes a bit of wax from the station next to her and lets it drip onto the back, sealing it into place, then takes one of her rings and presses it into the wax. The head of a dragon stared back up at her afterward, a beast of red seeming to be ready to blow fire at the reader.
That was who she had been those years ago. Not just the Queen of Lacklanland. But the Lady of Dragons. HIS Lady of Dragons. A fitting symbol for Ava Quinn. Perhaps even for Aveline Merovingian. But was it for Aveline Lacklan? Ava had been quick to fight, quick to attack, but the woman who came out of that hospital in hell had become more patient. More reserved. Had learned, out of necessity, to not allow today’s failure to affect tomorrow’s plan. THAT person had, even in a state of madness, set into motion a series of events that had led to someone in a wheelchair, another in a coma, and several lives forever changed. All for revenge.
Her late husband would have been impressed.
She sets aside the envelope and takes up another piece of paper. Picking up a pen, she holds it above the paper for some time, and then finally places its tip to the paper.
Dearest Phrixus
We meet again in but a few days. And something strikes my interest. It piques it. It makes it quiver with anticipation. That thing?
At Battleground, I gave you the Embrace of God. I felt your neck snap in my arms. It felt wonderful.
You felt His embrace twice last week.
And I yearn to do it again.
I will not apologize for what happens on Monday, dear friend. I would think you to be dishonored and insulted if I did. But I wish to warn you:
Travis Roberts is no Le Bord de Dieu.
Hayleigh Fear is no Le Bord de Dieu.
There will be no victory for you at your third Seven Deadly Sins.
But I promise that you will enjoy every moment.
Yours,
She sits up from the letter and looks at the few words. She gives herself a small nod and folds the paper into its three perfect thirds, and places them into an envelope. She then reaches down into the pocket of the robe which has fallen to her waist and fishes out a kerchief. She looks at it in the firelight and nods again. She presses the cloth to her neck, first the left side and then the right, pressing hard enough to give it her aroma, and then places the cloth alongside the letter. Wax is dripped, the ring pressed, the face of the red dragon ready to breath flame.
It would be a good symbol.
I write to you today because I want you to understand, to the very core of your being, that what I am doing, and have been doing for over a year, is changing the very foundation of the company you hold dear. There have been very few people who have fought under the banner of UGWC who can be seen as a guiding light, as someone who the world could look up to. I suppose, in his own way, Monsieur Roberts did a fair job of it while he was World Champion. And, if I am kind, I can give a touch of credit to Monsieur Edwards when holding the Cross-Hemisphere the way he did, but we both know that championship has been tarnished many times throughout the last decade. Unfortunately for that particular title, not everyone can be Deimos.
But I am different, as you know. I am the embodiment of Chaos, as I take what God gives me, weave it into fires and pain, and burn the world asunder so that we may create what He wishes. And my light, shining from atop a tower, is bright enough for the entire world to see. For the entire world to bow to. To obey. And I have a suspicion that you fear the day I decide that I should carry the world championship in the place of my Chaos championship. Because you fear me.
As you should.
I am aware that you think of yourself as some kind of master of puppets. That you wave your fingers in the air and make the people dance, pulled and tugged by the strings you placed around their necks. I am aware that you have made an impact on the minds of fools and pushed lesser people across a checkered board at your own convenience. I am aware of just how much influence you have had in the UGWC’s incessant need for groups to dominate and hog the light. But I wish to tell you something, if I may:
You are no Lacklan.
You lack the patience, sir, for true control. You move with the impetuousness of a toddler who sets their eyes on a toy, giving anyone paying attention the truth of your focus, and giving away what should have been hidden behind subtle movements over years. I was watching when you stepped aside and let my step-daughter crush Lobo. I saw the desire for her revolution in your eyes. You outed yourself then, sir, and I saw more as the year progressed, ultimately leading you to make the foolish decision to face my friend at Horizons at the end of that year. Your movements, quick and sudden, open for all to see, led to your back being crushed by the Good Doctor.
Your attempts at manipulation are sad, and I see through your most recent.
Phrixus Deimos has no designs on my championship. He has no desire. The object of his affection, if not obsession, is held by Rydell, at least for the moment. So why this match? Why the Blade and Fear? Simple, really: You do not want us together. You do not want the growing tide of what I bring. You have already seen the destruction that Yamazaki can cause with just a short amount of my influence, and you desperately worry that I will bring the Year of Fear anew.
You should worry. You should be afraid. Because I do indeed fully intend on bringing Fear back to the world.
Deimos is a patient man. He understands the importance of biding his time and moving with subtle precision, so unlike your clunky leaps and flits about. I understand him. I feel him. I KNOW him in a way no one else would dare to. For instance, did you know that Phrixus Deimos has had two hundred and sixty five matches under the UGWC banner? I do. I have watched everyone one of those matches. An amazing feat, having fought so many times for a Consortium who still remains both without name and face. And before you ask, no, you do NOT want to know how many times he has faced Jet Somers. Now, many people would point out that he has won less than a third of those, of course, but they would be missing the point. Fear never dies. It never rests. It perseveres. It survives. And now and again, it finds greatness. And with me, he will find something that he has never found before, because I am a patient woman.
Tell me: If I told you that I...ultimately...was the reason why your little rat-eyed charge had her career so forcibly altered as to find herself out of the spotlight, would you be surprised? Would that shock you that the supposedly unhinged Blade of God successfully did what so many people in this industry have failed to do? If it did, you would be even less of a “master” than I think you already to be. But then again, I doubt you realize just how much of your current main event title match is my doing, as well.
No one realizes just how patient I am, which is part of why I have been so dominant with a title so important to many. One by one, I have stripped the Chaos history of its accolades. Defeated former champions. Walked into matches designed to take the title away from me and walked out with it around my waist. Defeated undeserving challengers hand-picked by power-hungry amateurs such as yourself. And as I enter Deadly Sins on my one hundred and ninety-fourth day as champion, I will be but a few weeks away from ripping away the only accolade left to you and your contemporaries. And while your clumsy shenanigans will slow my hand on Monday as I face someone I hold dear, it will not stay it.
And then after?
After I set the Chaos Championship onto a pedestal which no one else will ever be able to reach?
In the sixteen months I have been in the UGWC, I have never actively sought the World Title. My inclusion in the Round Robin was to spread God’s will to as many as possible. But after I take away Chaos’ record?
My patience may well come to an end.
The Year of Fear was a long time ago, Ichabod.
The resurrection looms.
A.L.
“That WRETCHED child!”
The large man does not flinch as the voice screams out, followed by the slamming of a door, the sound of the heavy door shaking on its hinges hinting at pushing past the thin metal and finding itself upon the floor. His eyes remain shut, his body rigid, his legs crossed on the floor. He can feel the pains in his body. The ache in his kidney from the injury long ago. The grown in his knees for supporting his bulk. The scars on his face from the fire. But most of all, coursing through his body, in his very blood, the sickness that was slowly taking away his life.
Cancer was patient.
“Fils de pute!”
He ignored the voice as it began to curse in its native tongue. Loud curses. And some of the more filthy terms. He ignored it and instead felt within himself. Felt the sickness. Felt the cancer. He has been diagnosed several years ago now, and he had poured much of his vast wealth into fighting it. And while an endless array of injections, techniques, and herbs had helped to keep it at bay, he could feel it slowly pushing and pressing against his defenses. It would win in the end, he was afraid.
Cancer was patient.
“She doesn’t even TRY!”
He ignores the stomping of heeled boots on the floor around him. He liked those boots. They looked good on her. Helped her lower half shape pleasantly. But matters of the fleshly world were quickly falling away for him. All of his plans, all of his machinations. All melting away. He was patient. His whole life moving people into position. Building his people. Creating his rock. But the cancer was even more so.
“Puddin’!”
The pleading voice finally makes him take his attention from his own body. Away from the cancer eating him from the inside. Away from the aches and pains of a long wrestling career. Away from himself. He slowly opens his eyes and is greeted by the pouting lips of his wife.
His wife.
That still surprised him. He had had many wives over his lifetime. Often several at a time, as befitted his position as the Voice of God. But he had never actually “married” any of them, as the flesh would desire. And while his recent decision confused many, including a particularly loud reaction in private from Sebastian, he knew how important it was to marry the woman. After fifteen years, he had finally been blessed with another child, but she had miscarried his seed. The pain was immense. For both of them. And this marriage, this love, was needed by them both to heal.
“What is it, wife?”
It hurt to talk. Every day hurt more. The cancer had started small but it grew. It stretched its fingers slowly, like the growing shadows of a boogeyman in children’s tales, and worked its way through all of his body. It ate away at his throat. The Voice was losing his ability to speak.
The cancer was patient and was winning.
“That DEMON child of yours!”
His wife’s face turned from a pleading pout to angry rage in but the flick of an eyelash, and his desire for her lurched deep within him. He was the Voice, but the demands of the flesh were strong, and this woman had vexed him from the moment they met. He smiles slightly as her arms begin to flail in the air and she begins to pace back and forth, a motion he was quite accustomed to by now.
“She never lets me in, Jean! She pushes! She presses! Everything was GREAT before! She confided in me! But now! NOW! All she does is push me away! And then-”
Her words washed over him but he ignored everything but his name; he had heard as much before. But his name. From her lips. Perfection. Many people mispronounced Jean-Paul, a gift from a mother from Louisiana, putting too much emphasis on the J. He always understood this confusion, of course, for the name of their house was hard on the tongue. Lack-Lan was as New England as one could get, and the juxtaposition of the soft J followed by the hard K confused many. But this woman, initially from France, pronounced it perfectly from the moment they met. The soft J flowed off her tongue. But most important, above all else, she never flinched when she looked at his face.
“And you won’t BELIEVE what she did with the jeans I bought her! I have never seen her wear normal pants, so I figured a nice pair of blue jeans would look good on her, but she had them cut up and set on fire! Je ne comprends pas!!”
He had worn a mask for many years because of the fire. Ugly and massive burns covered every inch. Red and purple lines. Peaks and valleys. His entire scalp. But she didn’t flinch when she saw him without it on the morning after their first night together. She touched his face. Said that he was beautiful. She did not realize it at the time, but she had his heart from that moment, even if she was far too young for him.
“Patience.”
It might hurt to talk, but his voice was still strong. Deep. Bellowing. She ignored it, of course. Continued to stalk back and forth in her pacing. Her green eyes glaring in a way which made that desire deep in his body rise further and further to the surface. Their relationship had begun as a tryst, unwise and forbidden. But he saw something in her, something that he desired as much physically as emotionally, and she repaid his kindness and actions with affection. She chose him, chose God. Chose well.
“Help me to my feet.”
Neither a question nor a command, yet somehow both. A technique he had developed which had proved valuable over the years. He had taught his daughter to use it, though she seemed to prefer relying on screaming and throwing things to get her way. He was not sure, but he believe that screaming was her default mode.
The tactic seemed to work well for her.
The woman stops her pacing and moves to him. He shivers as she places her hands on his shoulders, a reaction that nearly a year together had not dulled. She smirked knowingly with the touch, and the desire rises ever toward the surface, heating his skin. She grabs the hand he offers, his large mit engulfing hers, and grunts as she pulls and he rises to his feet. He looks down on her, nearly a full foot shorter than he, and squeezes her hands.
“Come.”
She snickers and he rolls his eyes grandly in response. Pulling her, the two make their way over to a tall standing mirror set at the side of a walk-in closet, and he positions them so that they can both see themselves.
“I am old, wife.”
He raises his hands so that can point out the reflection of himself. He was a large man, even by wrestling standards, as a lifetime obsession with bodybuilding had given him an impressive physique. Wearing only a pair of tight black shorts, all of his bulging ripples could be seen under the pale hairless skin. His eyes twitched at that thought for a second; the hair from his head would forever be lost in the fire, but the experimental chemotherapy had taken the rest.
“See these?”
He points on the features of the tattoo covering most of his torso. She knew well what it represented, but she should still hear the words. His fingers find the fist in the center.
“Creature.”
His fingers find the snake coiled around it.
“The Savior.”
Finally, they find the sword clenched in the snake’s maw.
“Swing.”
He motions his fingers to take in the entire work.
“The Three Kings of Wrestling. It took many months to bring us together. It took many ploys. Suggestions whispered in dark corners. Grandiose declarations during meetings with the press. Assisting during matches, both scene and unseen. It took a very long time to make the three of us come together so that we could teach the world what TRUE wrestling was. And it took much...much...patience.”
He turns to face her and reaches up to clasp her chin in his hands.
“If I did not take my time...we never would have been. If I had given up when my first plan went awry...the battles for His glory never would have happened. It took patience, wife. If I had not been patient, I never would have build our Church, never would have seen it move from a few people heeding my words from God to several hundred people living and breathing His wants and desires. All things important require patience.”
He moves his left hand away from her face to draw attention to his right shoulder. A tattoo was there, as well, this one of a woman clothed in nothing but long hair, bright white at the top and darkening to brown at the tips, her body circled by a long snake.
“If I had not been patient, WE never would have been.”
He can see the woman’s green eyes shining brightly with emotion as she looked at the tattoo bearing her form, and his breath catches by her beauty. He lifts her chin up to look at him, to have those emerald eyes look into his old marble blue, and gives her a smile. He didn’t remember smiling this much in many years. Not since that terrible time when he lost both Selena and Mary so close together. He bites down on his lip momentarily, hard enough to make himself bleed, at the thought of Mary. He had loved her. And would never understand why she fled without a word. And never let go of his anger with her for it.
“Jean-”
He reaches down and presses his finger against her lips to silence her.
“Patience. She is my only blood. My only heir. She will learn to love you as her mother.”
He turns his head to look into the mirror, taking in his reflection. The reflection of a man whose body seemed that of an Adonis on the outside, but was being eaten alive on the inside by a slow-moving poison.
“You have done very well in your short career, wife. Television champion. Ultraviolent champion.”
“Ultraviolet!”
He shakes his head and turns back to her. His eyes are stern but he cannot keep the smirk from his mouth. She had mistaken the name for the “hardcore” championship she had once held, but now refused to admit the mistake, instead demanding that everyone around her accept the new reality.
“But not World.”
Her own smirk falls away.
“The world deserves a Lacklan on the throne, wife. While I held a world championship less than a year ago, it still feels like a lifetime. And the world yearns for our house. Texas calls me.”
She smiles at him, her eyes full of delighted malice.
“I can’t wait, puddin’. Can’t WAIT to smash some balls again!”
He gives her a shake of his head, but then smiles once more.
“Patience, Ava.”
Aveline Lacklan wakes with a start.
Glazed eyes of green look around the room in confusion, slowly taking in the darkness which is only pushed away by a fire roaring in its place. Shadows dance across the towering portraits of her family, from the original patriarchs of centuries ago, to the dual contrasting colors of her step-daughter and daughter in law. She shakes her head as she looks back to the table in front of her, the long table of fine Lacklanland wood set with crystal panels. The dull eyes take in the half-empty bottle of wine, the two pieces of paper, and the pen in front of her.
She sits back in her chair, feeling the coolness of the wood against her bare back. She wore only a slip on her body, her robe having fallen to her waist, and the touch of cool wood on her shoulders makes her shiver. She looks down at her arms as she recalls the dream of her late husband, taking in the dozens and dozens of scars on each one. She had given herself those scars throughout what had been nothing more than captivity in that “hospital,” a showing of patience. Her husband would be proud of her for the display. Some jagged, some clean and sharp, depending on how here mood had been at the time. One for every week she had been in that room.
She looks down at the set of papers in front of her. A letter to her most recent employer. A letter of warning for the man who thought himself so clever. She leans forward and takes the papers in hand, folding them into three sections with fine creases, before stuffing them into an envelope. Secured, she takes a bit of wax from the station next to her and lets it drip onto the back, sealing it into place, then takes one of her rings and presses it into the wax. The head of a dragon stared back up at her afterward, a beast of red seeming to be ready to blow fire at the reader.
That was who she had been those years ago. Not just the Queen of Lacklanland. But the Lady of Dragons. HIS Lady of Dragons. A fitting symbol for Ava Quinn. Perhaps even for Aveline Merovingian. But was it for Aveline Lacklan? Ava had been quick to fight, quick to attack, but the woman who came out of that hospital in hell had become more patient. More reserved. Had learned, out of necessity, to not allow today’s failure to affect tomorrow’s plan. THAT person had, even in a state of madness, set into motion a series of events that had led to someone in a wheelchair, another in a coma, and several lives forever changed. All for revenge.
Her late husband would have been impressed.
She sets aside the envelope and takes up another piece of paper. Picking up a pen, she holds it above the paper for some time, and then finally places its tip to the paper.
Dearest Phrixus
We meet again in but a few days. And something strikes my interest. It piques it. It makes it quiver with anticipation. That thing?
At Battleground, I gave you the Embrace of God. I felt your neck snap in my arms. It felt wonderful.
You felt His embrace twice last week.
And I yearn to do it again.
I will not apologize for what happens on Monday, dear friend. I would think you to be dishonored and insulted if I did. But I wish to warn you:
Travis Roberts is no Le Bord de Dieu.
Hayleigh Fear is no Le Bord de Dieu.
There will be no victory for you at your third Seven Deadly Sins.
But I promise that you will enjoy every moment.
Yours,
A.L.
She sits up from the letter and looks at the few words. She gives herself a small nod and folds the paper into its three perfect thirds, and places them into an envelope. She then reaches down into the pocket of the robe which has fallen to her waist and fishes out a kerchief. She looks at it in the firelight and nods again. She presses the cloth to her neck, first the left side and then the right, pressing hard enough to give it her aroma, and then places the cloth alongside the letter. Wax is dripped, the ring pressed, the face of the red dragon ready to breath flame.
It would be a good symbol.
x2
