Scorpio

TWENTY SEVEN - Answers and Darkness

The African wind was cool over the plains, tousling Estella's hair with the fondness of an older sibling and sending tendrils of melancholy through her - one she didn't understand. But she fought past it, shoving it far behind her and rising into the night.

She needed answers.

Had it been under any other circumstances, Estella would have noted how beautiful the plains were under the ethereal sky; like bits of ground quartz thrown across a navy blue canvas. But all she saw was the monstrosity of a legend waiting for her below its shadowy depths; watching, waiting for her.

Scorpio.

"What - what is going on?" Estella meant to sound accusing, angry, even, but her voice sounded desperate - scared, like a little child. "What did you do to me?"

What you asked for.

His voice was a quiet, calm echo; like a hand of a parent caressing her cheek, calming her...

"No!" Estella exclaimed, shaking her head violently. The calmness faded away. "No more invading my brain, and making me imagine things that aren't there!"

She inhaled deeply, her eyes ablaze. "Was this all it was? An imagination? Is this some sort of cruel dream where I'll wake up, no memory of anyone or anything I used to be? Where I'd forget my - my brother" the word tasted foreign on her tongue, but she barreled onwards "and anyone I knew so I can float around like a ghost in some Neverland? Are any of these people actually real?!"

Very much so, Scorpio answered, his voice a powerful break in Estella's terrified rambling.

Her tongue-tied jaw clamped shut as the fire in her slowed down, leaving her vulnerable to the coolness of the night. Yet, she stubbornly refused to accept any of Scorpio's attempts to comfort her through mental stimulation. Each attempt only made her more frustrated, more upset. He was the master director behind everything that had happened to her so far - almost all her movements, all her thoughts, every inch of her being had to go through some sort of censorship at his claws so he could orchestrate every twitch of her limbs like a creepy marionettist over a mindless puppet.

They stared at each other.

Surprisingly, Scorpio was the first to relent. What is it that you seek, Estella?

Estella's answer was quiet, but curt. "Tell me what I don't know."

The massive legend hesitated for a moment, before raising a tail of bulbous, segmented parts like glowing, misshapen snow globes and unsheathing a stinger the size of a small missile.

You cannot unlearn what you already know, he warned, seeming to grow larger before Estella's eyes. His stinger was only inches from her face now. Best, you accept it and move onwards.

Estella drifted closer, as if on a whim, even though every fibre of her being seemed to be protesting against it.

There is no other way to get around the pain.

The tip of the lance-like sting grazed Estella's forehead lightly, brushing aside her hair from her face. The touch was fleeting - gentle, even - and left behind a delicate warmth, like a cool cloth on a fevered forehead, or the lingering kiss of a loved one.

Then the memories came.

She was laughing, bounding through the bushes, too much wind up her windpipe and almost choking on the euphoria.

"Estella Bailey Robins, come back here this moment!" A girl's voice was calling her, making demands with that precocious voice only a couple octaves below hers. A sister, perhaps?