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#13
MAY 11 |
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“Parliaments of Stone, Part One: Flint”
The top of the mountain was cold. More than cold, it was freezing, and tiny crystals of ice clung to the three day stubble that scratched it's way down his face. The trench coat that had been flung over his costume clung to his back and legs as the winds pushed against him.
“I've climbed your highest challenge,” he began, kneeling down to the collection of rocks that jutted from the top of the mountain. The wind had covered them in snow and pushed other travellers away from their ancient resting site unconsciously. They knew that only the worthy, only the ones who truly understand what they represented, would find them.
“I give everything to you. I left my wife and abandoned by children. They never understood what it meant to be a stone.”
He removed the goggles that covered his tired, bloodshot eyes. His body appeared to be thin, weak, almost as though he'd taken no food through his mouth since he began his pilgrimage. He dropped down onto his knees before the collection of rocks, a veritable cross-section of the Earth's crust. Every form of rock imaginable was displayed in the fifteen monoliths that sat next to each other at random angles, as though they had exploded from the ground.
“My career is dead...Geology is dead. I don't need humans, I gave them up and I wanted nothing more than to serve you from the moment I found you." He tore his costume open at the chest and revealed the experiments he'd been performing on himself.
“My body is a temple to you, I put you inside of me so you could grow, so you could use me the way I am supposed to be used.” He fell forward, tears pulling at the corners of his eyes as he fondled his chest and the pieces of rock he'd jammed violently into his skin, which were surrounded by bruising and pus. His body was rejecting his love as forcefully as he was pushing it against himself.
“WHY WON'T YOU JUST LOVE ME!” he screamed, slamming his fists into the ground, the mountaintop shaking with his power. "I want you to love me the way I love you. Every night you must feel me, you have to feel me. I was inside you last night. I was inside you and you loved it and I loved it and why won't you love me back? Why won't you make me you?” He pulled himself up as he tore off his trench coat and let the wind take it, his costume stripped down to his boots.
He stood before the Monoliths, naked and aroused. "I should be your elemental. I should! Make me your elemental!!
The mountain shook again as the Monoliths responded.
“MAAAAKE MEEE!”
“I have been unable to gain contact with her for a while now.” Diana stood in the light of the huge bay window behind her. Brion Markov, the King of Markovia, sat in bed with a tea cup in hand. He watched her with interest as she moved around, a look of panic on her gray features.
“Maya?” he asked. He'd been listening to her story for weeks now; it felt as though he were an intricate and important part in it. Her retelling of the last few months of her life had been filled with detail, almost giving the tale life in Brion's imagination.
“Yes. It’s as though she's simply ceased to be,” Diana responded.
“Do you think, Diana,” Brion began, swinging his legs out from under the covers and patting the mattress next to hiunderhat perhaps something more unpleasant than capture has befallen her?”
Diana's heart sunk. She shook her head violently, unable to accept this possibility.
“She gave me my powers. She set me on this course of action, Brion. She made me a new woman and I cannot accept that she is dead.”
Brion nodded slowly, getting out of his bed and sliding himself into a long, silk dressing gown. Tying it around the waist he picked up a second and opened it up, walking toward Diana and draping it over her shoulders.
She smiled and turned to him as the fragile silk began to smoulder and shortly burst into flames. She offered an apologetic look as Brion sighed. "Don't get so frustrated, Diana. My home is full of antiques,” he said with a smile, brushing some ash from her shoulder.
She returned his smile weakly. "I can't help it, Brion. I've not heard from Maya for months and it concerns me. I would have thought that an Elemental would be able to speak directly to the Earth herself.”
Brion nodded slowly and crossed his arms. “I would have thought that too but,” he paused for a moment walking to the windows and opening them wide to allow the cool Baltic air to circulate the room, “I've never been able to talk to the Earth herself. Does this mean I am unable to become an Elemental?”
“I don't know if it means you are unable to become one, Brion, but I don't know if you ever were one, either.”
He paused and cradled his chin on his forefingers. "Quite a question, Diana…was I ever truly an Outsider?” he turned to her, his face blank.
She squinted at her lack of tact and placed her hand over the top of his. “I do not believe you were ever an Outsider in the truest sense of the word, Brion. You have an entire country of people who love you.”
“I have been many things in my life, Diana, and I have failed a great many people, such as Terra and Denise. I've failed my country time and time again...” he began, as Diana put her finger to his lips.
“You're a brave man, Brion. For every time you've failed, you've come back and fixed things. Not many people would return to their country and rebuild, retry and relive their failures. I've never met a man who would consider such strength of character a failure before.” Diana kissed him gently on the lips and stood at his side.
“It occurs to me, Diana,” Brion began, his hand stopping on her shoulder and moving across the length of her back in a gentle stroke. “Have you considered that, instead of talking to the Earth, you should talk to a representative of it?”
Diana paused for a moment, as this was something that she had never considered.
“During my time as Wonder Woman I was able to communicate with plants and animals, and I know that I have communicated with a Lava flow once before. I don't know why I didn't think of this before Brion,” she said, pulling away from his touch. He let his arm hang in the air for a moment before he allowed it to drop to his side.
“Glad to have been of some service,” he said, watching her walk out of the bedroom and down the stairs of the grand palace before him.
Brion ruffled his hair and headed back toward his bed, gathering the paper and documents he'd been handed with his morning tea. Although Diana was sharing his chambers with him, they were taking it more than slow. Although he'd never tell her directly, for fear of ruining what they already had, it meant more to him than any rushed relations or sexual liaison.
In both Brion's mind and, what he suspected was in Diana's, taking time over more intimate relations meant that there was more affection and care than over-powering physical lust. He would be lying to himself if he were to say that he did not feel that, but Diana was a gentle being, despite evidence to suggest otherwise. Her outward physicality was designed for violence and a harsh world, but her mind and heart were made for care and compassion.
Snow settled gently against the small of the naked man's back as his final thrusts of violent love against the sedimentary monoliths died into panting. It quickly melted form the heat of his body as he pulled away, panting and bending to his knees.
“Make me. Make me," he repeated, a mantra that could almost not be ignored. The Monoliths before him began to rumble, speaking in twisted ancient tongues. He gasped and fell back from them onto his bottom.
He wiped his mouth, the spittle from kissing the rock spread over his lips and his chin, as the huge jagged forms began to move together, interlocking and sliding from the ground as though they were parts of a larger whole. Stones skipped off their flat surfaces and formed terrible approximations of fingers and elbows, allowing the monolith's almost uniformly rectangular structures to fit together and appear more naturally 'human'.
“My love...” Geo-Mancer said as the rocks hurtled downwards and covered him, wrapping themselves around his waist and lifting him into the air, facing the huge maw before him. It appeared to him as though Stonehenge were approximating life and transforming itself into a living, moving Parliament of Stones.
GEO-MANCER.YOU.SPEAK.AND.YOU.LOVE.THE.STONE.
“Yes! YES! I LOVE THE STONE! I NEED THE STONE!” he screamed as the rocks grew tighter around his waist.
OUR.ELEMENTAL.DOES.NOT.LOVE.HER.STONE.
“She won't love you the way I love you!"
SILENCE.SHE.DOES.NOT.COMMUNICATE.WITH.US.
The creature set Geo-Mancer down on the ground and bore down on him.
SHE.DOES.NOT.LOVE.OR.WANT.HER.PLACE....SHE.IS.NOT.OUR.ELEMENTAL.IN.SOUL.
“I love you, with all my heart and soul. I want to be you, I want to be in you.”
The stone creature before him didn't move. It said nothing, as though it had returned to it's original incarnation as a stoic symbol of geological time.
THE.CALL.IS.SENT.
The rocks began to shift back to where they originally stood, the smaller stones rolling off of each other and onto the ground.
“The call? What call?” Geo-Mancer asked as he felt the growing fear and trepidation within the small of his stomach. He snorted and stepped forward, feeling the ground call up to him.
A spire of dirt and rocks shot into his face, gripping him tightly and returning his previous kisses with a tongue of silt. He coughed as the message permeated his brain.
COME.TO.THE.PARLIAMENTS.STANDPOINT.A.CHALLENGE.HAS.BEEN.ISSUED.
Geo-Mancers arms wrapped around the spire and attempted to pull it close, ignoring the message for the most part. He enjoyed the feeling of the dirt on his tongue and the stones in his mouth.
A.NEW.ELEMENTAL.MUST.BE.CHOSEN.
Geo-Mancer stopped his violent kissing and dropped forward into the spire. He exploded through its fragile form and onto the ground before the Monoliths.
“It will be me. It will be me...” he chanted, looking up at the Monoliths as tears rolled down his face in pleasure.
Paul Booker stumbled out of the bar with a bottle of half-drunk beer in each hand and a girl under each arm.
“Use'ta be par' the Jussiss Leaguek, girls. You wanna party like I'm Supermun?” Paul gurgled, as the gravel underneath them started to pop. It was as though they were walking over a carpet of Pop-Corn. He smirked and pulled the girls closer to his chest, where they cooed and clung to his open blue-trench coat.
“Stay clos't me girls, I'll make sure y'don have a disaster, you have a resaster...”
“Mr. Booker, that don't even make no sense,” the red headed girl replied, stroking the underneath of his stubbled chin.
“I ain' needin' t'make sense, I'm needin' t'make you,” he trailed off as the gravel began to jump higher and higher. He could feel the girls recoil and push against him, trying to push him back to the relative comfort of the bar behind them.
The gravel swirled up into a mist of rocks pelting Booker and the girls. They screamed and broke away from the man, who downed the remaining contents of the bottles in his hands and stepped forward, attempting to use his powers to pull the rocks back.
Instead he felt the call in the back of his mind, pushing itself into his stomach and forcing the booze out.
Dropping to his knees, Booker knew that he wouldn't be able to drink until he answered the challenge, which was signified by the rocks that he'd passed up with his liquid vomit...rocks he knew he'd never eaten...
He stood in the Royal Gardens, observing the beginnings of spring as the flowers around him slowly came to life. Their flowers unfurling from buds and splashing color over his long and carefully crafted garden. He smiled to himself as he slowly strolled down the paths that he'd moved into place.
Waving to the gardeners as he passed, he stopped and looked back. He was sure that the path he'd taken would have led him back toward the castle but, instead, it was taking him back into the garden. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose...perhaps he was more tired than he had first believed.
Turning back on himself, he followed the path to its original joining point to the paved grounds that led to the back of the garden. To his surprise he found himself further away from his original start point.
“What?”
His hands glowing, he lifted himself into the air, repelling himself against gravity and into the sky. It was only from this vantage point that he could see what was unfolding underneath him.
The paths he'd so delicately arranged when the Garden was first being planted had rearranged themselves. No longer did they spiral around the beautiful flower beds and stunning trees; now they spelt out a challenge to Brion...a challenge that made his heart sink.
“Diana, it appears as though you were wrong.”
“Hrm. It seems as though I am wrong,” Diana mused as her fourth and final attempt at talking to the Earth yielded no results. She sank back into the sand that littered the edges of the lake that she sat before, her stone coated feet dipped into the water.
Closing her eyes, she ran her thick fingers through the unruly formation that was now her hair. Cracks formed around the edges as she tried to pull it into a knot between her fingers. It didn't seem to work. Clicking her tongue in frustration she remembered that she could no longer perform things like that. She wasn't a part of the world of flesh any more, so her hair did not act as it had once done.
She felt the sand shifting behind her and expecting Brion to be behind her, so she rolled onto her front in almost a playful manner. "As good as your suggestion was, Brion, it didn't work. The Earth gives up as little secrets as Gaia herself,” she said, finally opening her eyes.
She gasped, as she found before her not her current beau but a sand version of herself. Stoic and unfeeling it pointed to her.
DISAPPOINTMENT.
Diana got onto her knees and sat before the creature as it crumbled and rebuilt its face in a rolling torrent of sand.
“I'm sorry?”
OUR.ELEMENTAL.IS.INSUFFICIENT.
Diana realized who she was speaking to and rearranged herself. Getting to her feet she straightened her back and offered a slight bow. "Insufficient? I have done as you asked. I've performed more tasks as your elemental than I have my other tasks...” she attempted as the sand creature lifted a shattering hand into the air to halt her.
THERE.ARE.NO.OTHER.TASKS.YOU.ARE.ELEMENTAL.
“I have to try and fix my life. It is broken beyond ways that you can't imagine.”
WE.DO.NOT.NEED.TO.IMAGINE.WE.ARE.STONE.
Diana stepped forwards as a cage of sand exploded from the ground and the image of Geo-Mancer stood next to her sand doppelganger.
YOU.OLD.LIFE.IS.DEAD.
“It will never be dead. I have lost my way, but I will always be Diana, regardless of my position in life. I can't just leave everything for the whims of the Parliament of Stones.”
THEY.ARE.NOT.WHIMS!
The sand creature bellowed, knocking Diana off her feet and into the dirt.
YOUR.APPOINTMENT.WAS.NOT.OFFICIAL.MAYA.CHOSE.BUT.WE.DID.NOT.
“Surely Maya knows the world and its weaknesses better than anything else on its surface?”
MAYA.IS.DEAD.HER.OPINION.IS.NO.LONGER.RELEVENT.
“Dead?” Diana asked. The Sand version of herself nodded and turned its attention to the sand statues of Geo-Mancer, Geo-Force and Major Disaster, as well as a number of other men and women who were able to control the Earth.
YOU.MUST.FIGHT.FOR.YOUR.POSITION.DIANA.
“Fight to be elemental?” she asked, her heart threatening to explode from her chest. “How? Why?”
BECAUSE.YOU.ARE.LACKING.DIANA.AND.WE.DECREE.IT.
Diana attempted to get to her feet as the sand above her collapsed and rained over her form. She covered her face instinctively, even though it would never affect her the way it used to.
YOU.MUST.FIGHT.DIANA.OR.ALL.YOU.LOVE.WILL.DIE.
The remaining statues of the Geo-kinetics fell back to their original state as sand on a beach, leaving only the sand form of Geo-Force standing n silence. She knew a threat when she saw one.
She had two options.
Fight to remain Elemental.
Or let Brion die.
She knew that she really had no option at all.
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To Be Continued...
Next: In Wonder Woman #14: Stone Throwing!
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