What Makes A Monster - Chapter 13

Screams of agony echoed through the stone corridors.

Imyra silently prepared several streams of zorne. Despite herself, she floated towards the screams, not away.

There was a story the common people told each other. About the monkey that was too curious. The one that died in its endeavours. It was a story her mother loved to dismiss, claiming that ‘if you’re killed by Curiosity, you’re a failure of an Imperial’. According to Her Majesty, Curiosity was supposed to be a virtue of enlightenment, not doom.

Imyra wondered about that as her steady flight forward did not falter in the slightest.

She had initially wanted to remain an uninterested party regarding the on-goings of Chennae’s Residence. The less she knew, the easier it would be to leave unattached at the end of this highly unusual internship. The less she would be perceived as a threat to Chennae’s autonomous peace.

But it was frustration born from her ignorance that was killing her from the inside. Suppressed smiles, whispered conversations, private jokes that nobody wanted to explain.

It was her curiosity that pulled her forward, the way sorcerers from legends control their Puppets, when she had taken a few wrong turns and ended up in this desolate stone corridor with screams echoing off its walls.

Just as she reached the wall behind which the noises originated from, the screaming stopped, only to be followed by manic laughter. It went on and on.

Somehow it was the laughter that creeped Imyra out more.

She placed a palm on the wall and sent through it some surveillance zorne streams. The hair thin streams of zorne slipped through cracks in the wall and slithered forth at her command for reconnaissance.

There seemed to be several humanoid bodies behind the wall, each behind a set of barred doors. Some seemed to be shaking, some talking, some sleeping, some deathly still and others actually dead. She found the one that was still laughing deliriously. Though it was humanoid in form, on its skin, her zorne stream could feel a furry sensation unlike the surface of humans and more akin to a furry mammal.

“I’ve told her time and time again to fix the sound proofing down here.”

Imyra visibly jumped in the air as she almost lost her grip of the zorne keeping her afloat when she heard the mumblings of the newcomer. She frantically turned around and put on her best-practiced I-am-innocent-and-confused face on.

“Imyra? What are you doing here?”

” I got lost.” This was no lie. She did get here on account of being lost.

“Goodness.” Yunae tutted with a frown, “Come with me. This isn’t the sort of place a princess should roam around.” With that, Imyra was led away without being able to satisfy her curiosity.

When later, Imyra tried to get lost the same as she had back then, to once more investigate the screams, she could not find her way there or find a way out and ended up lost in the maze of corridors within the mountain.

She was found seven hours later, dehydrated, ravenous, and just a little delirious.

Two hours before being found, she’d begun tearing through walls and ceilings to get out. She had no security clearance for any of the rooms in the vicinity and brute force seemed to be the only way through.

Her surveillance zorne streams kept turning up with false information, as though the rooms her zorne stream investigated was a place that differed from the place she actually came across after tearing a hole into the wall.

That was the first time she felt anything akin to magic at the Residence.

Even later, when she had had to rebuild those walls she had broken through, she tried to find that place again. Alas, she was not suited for mysteries, straightforward questions were her forte. She just feared that she did not yet know how much Chennae was willing to tolerate. Asking innocent questions was one thing and sniffing and nosying about was another.

“Why do you guys always call this place ‘the Residence’ anyway? You could just call it something like ‘home’, couldn’t you?” Imyra had wondered aloud one time.

It was Nara who had answered the question.

“‘The Residence’” she explained, “it’s a compromise. Back then, probably way before I was born, all the women who’d been brought here by Chennae were reluctant to call it ‘home’, but it needed some kind of word of reference, so they compromised by calling it ‘the Residence’.”

Imyra stared at the waterfall. It was breathtaking from this vantage point, where she stood some paces down the river from the bottom of the cliff. Only the tips of the majestic structure that graced the top of the cliff could be seen. On the face of the cliff that the river tumbled down in one wide curtain, surrounding the water’s path were various windows and balconies, many of which were encircled, if not curtained by vines and colourful flowers. The various strains of teralias of differing colours hanging off the teal-coloured spiral vines had shyly folded up their luminous petals under the afternoon sun but would bloom and glow magnificently when night fell.

It was a fantastic sight to behold both when the moons claimed their playground and conducted their eternal game of hide-and-seek as well as when the sun stood alone on the vast blue skies surrounded by only inferior clouds of gas that toiled to reduce the sharpness of her rays.

“More than ‘Residence’, ‘palace’ suits this place much better.”

“Nah, they weren’t princesses like you. They’d have cringed at the idea.”

“HmmI would have thought that even a place like this can become a ‘home’ if one lived here long enough. I mean, don’t phrases like ‘I’m going home’ just come naturally at some point?”

Nara grinned, “And I would agree. But there are many girls here who wouldn’t. And for their sake, we all agree to keep calling this place ‘the Residence’. Small kindnesses like these are all we can offer.” She looked wistful as she stared at the residence. Her voice took a sardonic turn as she murmured under her breath, barely audible, “On the flip-side, it might just be a small cruelty instead. The line between kindness and cruelty is thin indeed.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand. Not even worth calling gossip. What’s the point in understanding? There is no benefit to it. In fact, it’s best if you keep not understanding.”

“Talking to all of you is sometimes harder than trying to communicate with people back at the Imperial palaces, do you know that?”

“Why, because we don’t feel the need to stroke our egos in every sentence?”

“No, because you’re a big fat liar. And besides you, everyone else is so damn vague and evasive. Asking outright is pointless, so I have to remember every single little detail of every conversation and piece the bits of information together if I want to make sense of anything. It’s so tiring.” Imyra sighed.

“At least we’re straightforward and don’t coat our words in poetic nonsense hiding hundreds of double-entendres and allusions.”

“What a description.” Imyra gave her a probing look, “You’ve been to the Imperials palaces, haven’t you?”

Nara neither agreed nor denied Imyra’s question and continued, “Now, figuring out what exactly each person wants behind such purple prose is a task for detectives and diplomats. I’d be much happier to play this detective game; ‘What exactly is going on in Chennae’s Residence?’” she chuckled, “I envy your ignorance, truly. It sounds like such a fun game. Though,” and then there was a rare tone of seriousness in her tone when she said, “I’d advise caution. The knowledge of some things, Chennae keeps confidential with the price of lives. Don’t pry. Just keep piecing your puzzle pieces that accidentally get thrown at you together, and don’t speak of them out loud. That way you can stay safe.” Nara grinned cheekily, “You’re cute, I don’t want you to die.”

Imyra swallowed any complaints and said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”