::About Oceania Azure::
A new Smoke Twines tale that follows Tyeko, a charrie from the original Smoke Twines and others.
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Imagine a world with constant war. Imagine a world where madmen control vast empires. Imagine a world where a mere vapor can kill. This is the world of Oceania Azure.
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Smoke Twines: Oceania Azure
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Friday, May 23, 2003
"It's people, Tyeko."
The wooden-porch swing swung gently in the fading hues of the sunset, as the little girl gently propelled it forwards by mere body motion, her body clothed in a dilapidated, grayed night-robe, her flesh of an equal, faded nature, a shadow the sun's light. Small creaks emittted dully from the transport, back and forth, as the shadows quietly increased, the eternal conlict between dark and light steadily shifting tides once more.
Tyeko's eyes filled with the blood-shaded contours of the sun's death, his pupils reflecting the fires upon their tranquil seas. The porch they were upon seemed irrelevant; a mindless importance constituted only as a cradle for the swing, as a definition of this spot, a preserver of this moment. His clothing shimmered in the crimson gleam, as did the little girls, once an aged cloth now revived by the sun's sacrifice.
"It's people, Tyeko. People who build this place, and people who will destroy it." The bench swung forwards with a muffled creak against it's aging chains, the expanse of yard expanding to the very horizon, completely uninhibited by any other human statements, merely this respite...this frozen moment...
"Yes, I know." Tyeko's voice responded, laced with an unknown sound he could not understand.
"Do you understand that it is the great people who build, but these same people destroyed first? Everything great that is achieved, something was sacrificed for it's creation. Do you understand that?" The chains creaked against the weight.
"It is the law of the universe..." Tyeko whispered, as the sun's eye perpetuated it's blink.
"It is not our law."
Tyeko's eyes quietly shifted towards the Girl, yet hers did not concur, persisting in their stare into the day’s annhilation, her own countenance augmenting the flames reflecting against her pupils, staring earnestly forwards, as if scouring the sun for it’s own source of truth. Anger…or hope…
“What do you mean?”
“Cycles are not broken because sacrifices are not willing to be made. A cycle is due to a requirement; if a process does not repeat, something horrible will occur, or something wonderful will be lost. But every cycle can be stopped; it will simply require the will of one. One single soul must defy it, and suffer its retribution, but then…it is broken forever.”
Tyeko’s eyes narrowed in confusion, the sun’s rays rippling against his flesh as it contorted, consuming his body as it shifted, “But, that is not true. Many may suffer from the sacrifice of a cycle. Some cycles would require the sacrifice of every living creature in the universe. And…and it is the most important cycles that bond the universe as one, that unite everything as a single Universal entity. Our entire, fathomable existence, stretching beyond the limiations of infinite space…all rests on the assurance that the cycles will continue.”
Silence echoed in the scarlet portrait.
The girls voice shattered the tranquil glass, “Not this cycle.”
“What…what do you mean?”
“The cycle of man’s mistakes.”
“Man’s…man’s mistakes?”
“You are about to perpetuate this cycle, Tyeko. Only you can halt it; you must oppose what your foolish species defines as destiny. You must defy what is in reality nothing more than a perpetual cycle. You can not allow the cycle to continue; you sacrifice the future for the past.”
His lips parted, “Whu----“
PAIN! Flaring agony, unlike anything he had ever known, fires, consuming, a darkness, people…people everywhere, a dark, swirling pain…darkness, shadow spiraling around him, spiraling, darkness, the darkness spirals, rushing past, a vortex of agony, a constricting chamber of torture cosuming his body, the agony, incapable of definitive motion, swinging…
A man. A single man…in the center of this misery…standing. Standing within it, his body enveloped in the gas-like tissue of this horrific organism…only his eyes visible…his horrified, horrified eyes…the man’s eyes consciously rose to meet his own…
A child, dismembered, body shredded, flesh explicated from the now clearly defined bones, screaming for it’s mother, for anyone to help it as the darkness flows into it’s open, shrieking mouth…it’s face bulging as bloody sprays from it’s Ears, it’s body bloating, expanding…eyes explode like blood balloons…
The sun set.
The little girl’s eyes emptily staring into his own. Her face, emotionless but for the indiscernible infection of misery, slowly turned away. Turned into the sunset.
“You have seen the future of a course yet undefined.”
“What…what are you?”
The little’s girls lips shifted dully against her face, “I am the one who has made the mistake. I am the one who has shown one the way, and must show the other the forgotten route. I am the future which has written the past. I am here to correct my error.”
Tyeko’s body collapsed limply against the darkened wood of the bench, struggling to confine the tremors which racked his body, broken by his mind, “I don’t…I don’t understand,” His breath trembled in unison.
“A moment will come when a man will make a sacrifice. If he is permitted to, the future will face it’s greatest challenge.”
“Who!? What are you talking about!?”
“A man will make a sacrifice for the future, out of spite, out of no reason but foolishness. Only you can stop it.”
“Me…me!? I’m going to make a sacrifice? What are you talking about!? WHEN!? What’s going to happen to me?!” The sun’s rays warped, darkening, the crimson fading to a hideous, undefined gray, as the little girls body seemed to fade beyond it’s own conception.
“The great builders must always be the great destroyers.” The world rippled. Tyeko felt his body dissolving, his consciousness consumed…
“WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN TO ME!? YOU HAVE TO TELL ME! WHAT DO I HAVE TO STOP MYSELF FROM DOING!”
“A man will make a sacrifice…”
“My…my father!? Do I have to kill him!? I WILL! I PROMISE YOU!!! I WON’T LET HIM STOP THE FUTURE! I WON’T LET HIM DESTROY HOPE! I PROMISE YOU!! HE WILL DIE!!!!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
The explosion of sound rippled against even Tyeko, shredding the bench apart in it’s awesome explosion, the chains instantly dissolving, shredded like fabric as the wood dissolved to paste.
The little girl’s voice radiated across the distance as the sun contorted, a darkened sphere in the distance, consuming the light, a black hole against the canvas…
“I AM THE FUTURE WHICH WRITES THE PAST! I AM THE FUTURE WHICH WRITES ITSELF! TYEKO, YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME: YOU MUST STOP THAT MAN!!! YOU! YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP IT!”
“I understand,” Tyeko whispered, as understanding soothed his brain. So…he would sacrifice his father for the future…yes…he would be strong. He was capable. The future would not be forsaken…
“But I don’t love my father…I would not see it as a sacrifice…more as a gift…so…Wait…a man…a sacrifice,” And with that, the true answer touched his mind, “……………..myself…” His voice barely approached as a whisper, as the universe finally consumed in upon itself, the darkness flooding his vision, a deluge from above, “ MY OWN DEATH!? I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE FUTURE WITH MY OWN LIFE!? BUT!! BUT I WILL SURVIVE! I WILL NOT DIE! I CAN STOP HIM AND LIVE TO FACE THE WORLD! I KNOW I CAN! THAT IS MY TRAINING! I WILL SURVIVE!!!!”
His voice could hardly equal the nothingness as it consumed him, and he quietly drifted into it’s domain…only the barest whisper of an answer met his ears…
“A man will make a sacrifice…”
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
"I'm sick of him."
Stephens gazed stolidly into his palm, the twisted lines of fate's script indescinerable, yet always apparent, blantantly matching his own eyes with their mystical grins. The darkness enveloped the small table, a single cande flickering dully against the onslaught of shadow, struggling with it's magnificent strength and defying all odds. But, as history defined, all warriors whom fought a battle impossible, no matter how noble, would eventually fall. Smoke quietly culminated in the darkened atmosphere defined by shadows only refined by the suffocating light.
"We all hate him; there's no one who doesn't. I doubt that guy has one ally on the whole damn planet." Jose, limply hung against the spine of the chair, his arms dangling limply down either side as his legs fluidly descended it's outer edge, rose his darkened eyes.
Stephens palm flickered like inverse water against the darkness, "Yes. But we can show him what it means to destroy our dreams. WE were the best on Earth. WE were meant to have the glory. But no, whose it go to? That son of bitch. Does he even deserve it?! NO! What's he done?! OH, everyone of their damn little biddings. He throws aside his own will to continue their sick little schemes."
Roberto's fingers drummed quietly against the table to the seperate rhythm of their hearts, each set at the same rhythm yet all started at different moments, none in congruency, all similar yet entirely different at that exact moment, a brillant chord composed of beats, "There's no way to stop him, you realize. IF you don't let him finish his job, this war will never end, and we will never achieve anything either. We have no choice...there's no way we can touch him..."
"Heh. Irieshu defied the code of a man's neccessary weakness for so many years, your right, Roberto. He cared for nothing, held no beliefs except one that none of could hope to quash...but, Oh, he's made his one and only fatal mistake. He created for himself a weakness."
Jose's eyes met Stephens', "The boy."
"YES, the boy. The one and only thing that matters to Irieshu that we can hurt. What is the purpose of the boy!? To "protect" this world from the reprecussions of Atmosphere after Irieshu's death. Idiocy. WE are QUITE capable of halting Atmosphere on our owns, without the use of any foolish child. What matters most to Irieshu!? His mission. His single purpose. His unique reason for existing in life to halt this war. He intends to die in order to do it; to cease to exist in unison. That is Irieshu's greatest weakness, that is his core, and if we could destroy it, stop him...it would be even superior to his annhilation. AH, but Irieshu had always been protected. He WAS the only one who could complete his mission, and indeed, his mission DID have to be complete. But...oh the poor fool. Just as he nearly crosses that beautiful line of success, he stumbles. There is one other who can now complete that mission."
Roberto's eyes narrowed, darkened spheres and horizons inversely curbed, "The boy."
"Yes. We can use the boy in PLACE of Irieshu! Make the BOY STEAL Irieshu's purpose right from beneath his pompous ASS! YOU SEE!? The boy will detonate Atmosphere. The boy will die, he will end the war, Irieshu's purpose will instantly be destroyed, he will dispatched a hollow, useless soul whose life was sacrificed for NOTHING! AND, in the wake of Atmosphere, with NO bastard little BOY to "save the world", who can step in and earn all the glory that they RIGHTFULY DESERVE!!!??"
"GENIUS!" Jose screamed, slamming his fist upon the table, the small flame flickering in the reverberations, the darkness flooding ever closer.
"Perhaps. But it will require intense planning...we have to both trick the boy...and Trick our dear friend Irieshu." Stephen's voice steadily ebbed, as yet again he gazed transfixed into the scriptures of fate. Yes...his palm was not one of mediocore status. His fate rested in glory!
"We must not convene here again...Irieshu is a surprisingly...resilient opponent, and if he believes we are suspicious, he will quickly monitor us. We must begin to decieve him...but all of that can come later. For now...let us all consider the glory that lays before US!"
And with that, in one, fluid motion, Stephens closed his palm around the flame.
And the darkness flooded inwards.
Friday, May 09, 2003
Tyeko dove to the Earth, as the blasts audibly rippled above him.
The battle...he clutched his rifle closely to his chest as he rolled, the radiated blast of a grenade erupting a few inches to his side. The only flaw of the entire system rested in that single action: the ground did not dissolve from the blast. 3-4 children instantly collapsed from the blast, bodies withing blindly as they hurtled backwards, propelled by their own suits, and fell limply to the Earth, where their bodies instantly froze.
"Gather the troops!" Tyeko screamed, as he, scrougning limply through the dirt upon his elbows, the rain pelting from the darkened brow of atmosphere above, clothing plastered to his flesh as his hair hung blindly across his enflamed eyes, entered the minor trench he had convinced the captain to construct.
"How do you propose we do this, eh?" The Commander was curled pathetically against the inner wall, body lathered in the deluge of mud appraising their flesh, "The're all scattered, we're lost..."
"Don't you get it, you idiot!?" Tyeko's shrieks were barely audible above the explosive eruptions that amounted to the guns, hundreds of different types, shreding the fabric of sound, radioactive blasts of bullet equality spiraling through the sky above the dirt, "The Captains! YOu have to get the captains to gather them! Didn't you give them a signal, something, to know when you required them!?"
"I---I....I didn't THINK 'BOUT IT, OK!?? JESUS!! The minute this started we were already already LOSING!!" The commander's voice cracked, his eyes bulging, as Tyeko realized that any faith he may have retained for the soldiers within this Institute was now purposeless.
"We're going to die because of your stupidity," Tyeko's voice suffocated in the blinding rain, shattering the muddy Earth with each solitary blow, disticintly place, uniquely defined, disparaging their very beings, mentally the physically.
The boy's lips quivered as his eyes struggled to defy in unison, "Well, it's not my fault you can't fight!"
"Your prides not going to save you either, fool."
"Who the hell do you think YOU ARE, you little slanter!?" Tyeko's eye twitched at the slang, aware of it's presence even despite his lack of expierence in these people's cultures, "You listen to me, and you show your respect, even if your freakin pissed off about losing. When it's your turn, then you can do what you want!"
Tyeko rose the pistol from his holster, and shot the boy in the chest.
His suddenly stiffened body collapsed limply forwards, the horrified expression forever engraved on his features.
The two remaining guards instantly reacted, Tyeko considering, as he turned the pistol on each them with the same intense accuracy he had employed for their master, thta perhaps they were more efficent than even the boy whom had beep placed in command.
He stood very slowly, the 3 stiffened corpses chipped with the continous rain rallied from the heavens, as the mud slowly shifted them towards the outer edge of hte walls, "Now, it is my turn."
The battle was already failing however; Tyeko doubted that he coud rally the troops against the onslaught. Who was the other commander? APparnelty, he was far more skilled. Tyeko gazed upawrds, the clouds rippling unconcernedly across the heavens. No...h could not even leave the confines of the Trench, as the other commander had stationed snipers to kill anyone who dared leave either side...was ingenious in truth...Tyeko had essentially constructed a holocaustic pit in which everyone inside would be quietly and efficently slaughtered. Now, he was the only remaining member. There had to be...
He gazed down at the stiffened commander.
Very slowly, his muscles bulging against the intense weight 3-4 times his own, he struggled to lift the drenched body upwards. He rotated the body within his hands, placing the face outwards, as he heard the commander's muffled, indignant shrieks.
He ran.
Out of the trench, he felt the Commander's body ripple, the suit's thrusters engaging to compensate for hte blows as the Snipers, aparenlty superbly accurate, tortured the commander's body with bullets, as Tyeko tucked his own head downwards behindhim. The first blast forced tyeko to the Side, his body twisting against the elusive founhdation of mud. The second hurled him to the Earth, his onw thought even as his own body was crippled by the commanders, to keep the human shield across himself, to never allow the sniper the oppurtunity...
Blast, after blast, after blast riddled the commanders body, each compressing Tyeko into the mudden Earth, and crushing his body beneath the commader's weight in focused blasts. Blood tricked from his lips as the next blow struck...He forced the body outwards, no other converns but to steady the body, to stand once more...he had to escape the range of hte snipers...
In one, explosive motion, he forced himself upwards with his arm, all focus divided between divided limbs, the body tediously balanced, all within the mere half second he expected between blasts...swung his feet inwards, standing, the body erect, try to---
His leg exploded in pain.
"ARRRRGGHHH!!!" He shrieked, the body isntantly sliding from the delicate balance of his palm...he collapsed limply, remaining foot sliding, as his knee struck the Earth, the injured leg entirely useless, completely limp as the dull, throbbing pain emitted from it, the suits electrons continously active in their sense of pain. He gazed off into the foggy distance, entirely aware he was gazing into the barrel of the sniper rifle, completely aware his only shield lay a foot to his left, completely unusable...his remaining leg slidden to the left, his injured knee pressed into the Earth, his matted hair drooling rain against his forehead...he gazed into the barrel...
And dropped.
One chance...he flipped the rifle from his hip upwards, sliding it onto his shoulder even as he began to drop...he felt hte bullet strike his side, but just barely, just barely graze him...the pain was intense, but he could only hope the suit was as sensitive to realism as they claimed...the rifle leveled with the blind distance which was no longer blind...every bullet was a brillant flash of sonar returning to the bat's ears...
As his body struck the Earth, Tyeko fired into the distance.
His shoulder absorbed the blow, the rifle clipping against his chin as it spiraled from his hands, converging with the Earth a few feet before him, isntantly conjoining with its mudden originator. Even as his body arched in natural reaction to the fall, the energy of the earthen repulse still striving through his body, his only focus, his singular awareness, was of the half second passing...of the pain that would or would not arrive...
The rain pattered against the brown, cultureless field.
Nothing. No pain...no final, concluding bullet...
He attempted to move. His leg's dull pain was suddenly silenced.
There was something far worse.
His side shrieked with agony, apparenlty the bullets trajectory had charted his kidneys, the bullet not merely striking skin as he had hoped...no, in life he imagined it would be a laceration, exposing organs...but to this suit, it was merely the establishment of a timer, as it quietly calculated Tyeko's estimated life expectancy after suffering such a wound...there was no medical attention to alleviate the wound, there was nothing more for it to do than decipher the correct period...and then, Tyeko imagined, his suit would join the others with the mud.
"No...time..." Tyeko forced himself upwards, lips curled before grated teeth as the pain undulated through his entire existence, hte mere trivial agonies of his brain struggling to overpoewr itself...pain, the greatest patricide...holding himself upon his two arms, he forced his leg forwards, forsaking the weakened. He slowly drew the pistol from his holster.
"It's not possible...not possible..." his lips twitched with the trembling murmurs, "Too many...too many of them..."
"TRAITOR!!!!!"
Tyeko's blood-shot eyes quietly contorted to the appropropriate direction.
The pistol hung limply in teh boy's hand, as the eye gazed into Tyeko's own.
"You...you're a traitor..."
This is it...I'm going to die...
"You killed the commander..." The boy's fingers twitched on the weapon, ach consecutively, as it convlused against his palm, the rain spraying against his shoulders, his left arm, the none engaged, swinging dully at his side, completely devoid of life.
Tyeko struggled to stand.
THe boy fired into his leg.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Tyeko's body slumped forwards, face slapping the mudied water of his maternal Earth.
"You...you are a traitor..." The boy's finger slowly constricted upon the trigger as the pistol paralelled his forehead. Tyeko's finger's slowly curled around his pistol.
"DON'T YOU DARE, TRAITOR!!!!" THe boy shrieked, jerking the pistol forwards, forcing it towards Tyeko's body.
"I can't do that," Tyeko whispered, as his fingers conclusively solidified into a fist around the pistol's handle.
In one motion, he rolled to his shoulder, leveled his weapon...the boy's finger's collapsed the trigger as his eyes expanded with fear...
In completey unison, the weapons fired.
THe enemy soldier behind the boy collapsed limply to the Earth, clutching his face in the last few moments before his suit entirely froze, his single remaining thought being no more than: How could he possibly have been so accurate? How could he have shot over the kid's shoulder?
The boy's eyes darted frantically from the steadily still soldier at his feet, body convulsed on the Earth, its' final stance curled, hands latched across his face.
Slowly, his eyes rose to met Tyeko's.
Tyeko clutched quietly at his stomach, as his entire body steadily began to freeze, his arms clutched at his chest, gazing into the boy's eyes...
His lips slowly forming a smile.
And with that, his body felt limp.
The boy slowly collapsed to his knees, as the sky rumbled across itself, the heaven's tribute to all of those whom died beneath it, a blinding flash of light casting his own dakr silhoutte across the Earth, yet shadowing himself as well in it's infinitesimal eternity.
"No...NO!!!!" THe boy screamed, clutching his forehead, hurling the pistol aside into the accepting filth, following Tyeko's now whitened empty eyes, as his body stiffened into it's position.
Gazing into the sky.
Gazing into the clouds.
The boy remained gazing heavenwards for a few seconds more before the bullet ruptured his back and erupted from his chest, his eyes widening only briefly before he slid limply into the dark oblivion that constituted this horrific world that man constructs for itself...and wondering how he could ever call a man upon this plain a traitor.
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