Chapter 7: The Deeper That Sorrow Carves Into Your Being, The More Joy You Can Contain
She stood in her nightgown on the second floor, looking down at the first. Her shadow spilled across the floor below. She was elegant, even leaning against the railing, her hair still a mess from a sleepless night in bed. One would have to admit the railing itself was elegant as well. Both her and the railing were elegant, their elegance need not be mutually exclusive and it wasn't. Elegance was required of everything in the palace.
The entire staircase and railing looked as if it had been worked from a single tree. Seamless and flawless it poured from the second floor down to the first, the dark wood looked as if it would be warm to the touch. When wood met tile, the ingenious builders shaped the wood into squares, working slowly out onto the floor, mingling with the actual tile. The wood getting lighter as it moved out until finally there was half wood half tile squares perfectly transitioning the dark wood into a slightly lighter colored tile. The tiles ran into the walls and entry ways which were a painted matte white, no wall paper, no paintings, a few light fixtures on each expansive wall leaking out a light soft light. The fixtures looked expensive. The chandelier even more so, intricate and crystal it hung heavily from the ceiling. She found it hideous but it went well with the room.
She looked around the immaculate room and thought about the impeccable palace. She rolled her eyes for the benefit of no one but herself. She was new to being immortal, relative to the life of the ageless, and she felt herself languishing. The trappings of eternal life and immense power were, well, they were a trap. Distractions were needed more and more often.
One of the twin doors from the courtyard opened and a servant walked through, closing the door gently behind him. The diminutive man looked around the room, she guessed he was trying to figure out where to go. She tapped her long sharp nails on the bannister. The sound carried through the cavernous room, he looked up to the second floor.
They made eye contact briefly before he snapped his gaze down to the tile and walked to the stairs. Upon reaching them he put a hand on the bannister but didn't start walking up right away. She tapped her nail again and he began ascending the stairs.
"Mistress, you called for me. What may I do for you?" The servant said once reaching the top of the stairs. Head bowed his voice tinged by a quiver.
She stepped back from the rail and looked at the man speaking to her. She moved closer to him; his heels rested on the edge of the top step.
He was shorter than her. Even though he stood in his shoes and she was bare foot she looked down at the top of his head, brown hair thinning on top.
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." She turned away from him and leaned against the rail once more.
"Um, well said mistress. You are as wise as you, um, as you are strong." The quiver in his voice was more pronounced.
"It wasn't mine, it's a line from a poem. A beautiful book. One I didn't have back home but one I've seen in a most of our stops. Sometimes his book is a bit darker, sometimes it was a bit lighter but always with that line in it. I feel the truth of it, now more than ever." Her eyes flicked to the side, watching him.
He started to talk, but she interrupted him.
"He always dies young, drinking himself to death. I met him once. Not here, not this time but I did meet him once. His life is always hard, not as hard as some," she paused and turned to face the servant while still leaning on the rail, "he had money and privilege and opportunity. He had a magnificent mind. He lost much in his lives, his family to their vices or disease or accidents. He flittered and floundered in his love life, always failing to marry or have children. Finding partners and pushing them away. Many lives stay the same general course in our worlds but his is strikingly similar in all. When I met him, I was charmed but I believe him to have been an amoral narcissist. A compulsive liar. His most famous work will always be The Prophet. A book of poems that speak of life and give advice and sound like the words of an actual prophet. A man that spent his life drunk pissing away his brilliance, when he wasn't giving advice of course. Rich, no? Perhaps he thought that he needed to suffer great pain to achieve great joy?"
She moved away from the railing and closer to him, "I wonder if I cause myself pain so that I can feel joy. What do you think?"
His head raised slowly followed by his reluctant eyes, the servant looked at her. He focused on her nose. He was clearly trying to fake eye contact. He wanted to seem unafraid. She was sure that if the waves of fear that were rolling off him were actual water, the entire branch would be submerged in minutes.
"I asked you a question." She said it quietly, almost intimate but devoid of warmth.
His voice barely registered above a whisper, "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. That is from Basho mistress."
"Gibran was a vain man with a god complex. He sought fame and liquor. So should I start a reality TV show and find some whiskey?" She raised her eyebrows.
"No!" He nearly shouted, "Uh, no mistress. I meant um. The poem is not about actually doing what they did or seeking what they sought. The rest of the poem explains that we can look to the wise and their words and we can use them to um, to be like an- to be a guide. So that we don't make the same mistakes they did. It's moving forward and learning from them. Seeing their mistakes and using it to uh, using it to not make their same mistakes." He swallowed hard when he finished speaking, his eyes still fixed on the bridge of her nose.
"So, don't become a drunk. That's what your response to my question boils down to?" He tried to speak but she raised one finger and long sharp nail in his face and he fell silent.
"I've got one for you. He who quotes Basho, thumbs the eye of his mistress, her cup fills with joy." Her eyes narrowed; the corners of her mouth turned up. At her smile his stare dropped from her nose to the floor.
"I don't understand." Was all he managed to say. He somehow shrank without moving.
"It was a haiku you incompetent traitor. Basho is famous for haikus," she laid her left hand on his right shoulder, he trembled.
"Traitor? Mistress-" Was all he got out before the five fingers of her left hand squeezed into his shoulder. She squeezed slowly when he opened his mouth to talk and after those first two stammered words the pressure of her grip increased ten-fold. Her nails punctured his skin and she felt the warmth of his blood pulse out over her fingers. She felt joy.
He did not scream or cry, he grunted and his eyes went wide. Something in his shoulder popped. Something crunched. There was another pop and some grinding. His mouth worked at a sound or words that would not come.
She reveled in his agony. It fed her. She breathed in deeply.
His right arm hung useless and his legs, to her surprise, hadn't moved. He wasn't trying to break away and run. The mystery of his failure to attempt escaping her grasp was solved when she watched his left-hand fumble at his waistline. There was a pistol stuck in his belt.
He had put the pistol in his pants with the grip situated so that he could reach across his body with his right hand to draw it. Writhing in agony and pulling a gun with his off hand at an awkward angle was probably not part of his plan.
She patiently watched him struggle. Her indifference turned to anger.
"You pathetic fuck." Her lips curled as she sneered at him. Looking at his hair reminded her that she'd noticed it thinning, "You pathetic balding fuck." She added.
"You betrayed the Life Tree Collective helping Baba," she loosened her grip for a second then squeezed again. His eyes rolled in his head as he fainted. She slapped him softly, closer to tapping than slapping.
His eyes opened and his head rolled to the right as he looked at his ruined shoulder. His white shirt was getting redder and more wet by the second, a small pool of blood was growing on the floor. He regained some of his senses and started working at the pistol in his waistband gain.
His movements were weak, he tried to move backwards and slipped when his foot failed to reach the step. Her grip held him in place and his grunting graduated to something approaching a scream. She reached down and pulled the pistol from his pants. Bringing it to her face she examined it. It was an ugly machine, the tool of those with no real power.
She swung the little piece of metal into the side of his head. She was careful not to swing it to hard. His head reeled and he fell silent. She wondered what his name was.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone