The Outlanders

Heaven and Underhell

LANE

For hours I've been waiting just outside the meditation chamber. Strange how these people call everything around them differently, when each and every single segment of the mountain is just another empty looking room retooled for a different purpose. If you ask me, the Meditation Chamber is just a fancy word for dark empty room. But here I am, tapping my foot away as I lean against the cold wall, my heart skipping every other beat because my mind doesn't want to even bother with thinking the fact that Julia's here. After so long of trying to find out what happened to her, she's here. Which means every single question that my mind has been begging for an answer to, can be resolved. But I'm scared of knowing everything. And I don't know why.

It takes a few more hours of idly standing with my own thoughts, and a few priests I haven't seen before walking past me like I'm some golden idol (Which is a good ego boost by the way) before the door creaks open, and when it does, Julia --now referred to by most as Sezarina-- comes marching out. She spots me effortlessly, and my lips crack into a smile without me meaning to do so. What feels like an entire minute passes, not a single word being passed back or forth. I want to ask everything and nothing at the same time.

"Lane..." Her voice travels slow, but I welcome it in full with no questions ask. I haven't heard her voice in so long that even as she opens her mouth, I personally don't believe it's real. "...hey."

"Hey." For three years I've wondered where she had gone, if she really disappeared because of a kidnapping, or because she decided to run away to some place where nobody would find her. Julia had her own little eccentricities like that. "Did-- Did Othera say anything?"

She answers with a few nods, and it's clear on her expression that she doesn't know what to make of the news yet. Which, of course, poses a huge problem. If it's something that needs Ischell's attention, then it's going to take a lot more to convince her to trick the priests. Mars has put a lot of faith in me to think that I can persuade someone who's most connected to Othera, to lie to her priests. But just as much as he, I'm willing to pull that stupid little shit out of Underhell. I'd never tell him, but I love Kasper. So yeah, I am going to hell and back for him. Well, Underhell and back.

"Well, yeah."

"And?"

"Gaothanne's our destination."

"The city in the sky." My finger points in her direction, but she's unfazed by my antic. "See, I... pay attention. Contrary to popular belief."

She lets out a low chuckle, but it doesn't last. Back then, whenever she chuckled, she used to curl her locks behind her ear, but now her hair's far too short for that, however that doesn't stop her fingers from tossing invisible blonde strands back. "Yeah, you're quite the intuitive one, Seabrooke." Just like with her chuckling, her light-hearted nature disappears in favor of explaining more about what the goddess told her. "Othera said that beneath Gaothanne holds, what's supposed to be what saves Laethora, but--" She shakes her head. "--she didn't tell me what it is."

My tongue presses against the side of my cheek, and I pull her away from the passing group of priests. At first, it was played off as me making sure that she got out of their way, but as soon as the crowd pass, I speak up. "Hey, is there any place that we can talk? Like, in private?" I treat it as a delicate matter, although I try my absolute best to make it seem like what I'm about to discuss with her doesn't have anything to do with what Othera wants us to do. I show her both my palms and step back a few. "I mean, if that's okay. You know, I just thought that it's been a while, you know? And I was thinking that maybe there's a few things we should talk about?"

"Does it need to happen now?"

"Well, I was just thinking that as soon as you tell the others what big woman upstairs said, I don't think we'll have the chance to talk. You know?" I'm skirting around, verbally dancing to make sure I keep her on her toes. Aside from that, I lace my words with the ever so sought after "Good Guy" accent. Flirt around in bars long enough, and you develop a habit for knowing what certain people want. Sure, it's scummy for me to be doing this to Julia of all people, but I find peace in the fact that I'm not saying what I'm saying to get in her pants. It's really more of Underhell's pants, honestly.