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Message-ID: <36402asstr$1020931803@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "celia batau" <pinataheart@bigplanet.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} the Catalyst {celia batau} (FF fant)
Date: Thu,  9 May 2002 04:10:03 -0400
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hi everyone!

here is a new short story. :)

note: copyright 2001 celia batau. you may copy this story for personal use
so long as the author's name and this note are retained. permission to copy,
distribute, or display this work is not given to any website which charges
access to it. permission to copy, distribute, or display this work is given
to "no charge" websites with written consent of author.

this story was edited by Sam I am. yay Sam!

thanks to Oosh for part of the dialogue. :)

If you like this story or have any comments, please email us at
pinataheart@bigplanet.com.

-cb


the catalyst
celia batau, (c)2002

Lapis-lazuli. Cobalt. Quartz. Jade. Little irregular shapes up close, that
when seen at a distance revealed the pleasant face of a woman with black
curls, exposed to the light for the first time in over thirty centuries. But
Nika Kellopolis couldn't see her. At the moment, her face was held close to
the colorful jagged pieces of stone, carefully sweeping them clean with a
small soft brush. Up close, she could have been looking down over a rose and
tan hued sea, or the dusky lines of a desert. The pieces intrigued her. She
had never seen such colors in a Minoan portrait. But then, this ancient
woman wasn't what she had been expecting when she stumbled onto the opening
between the stones.

Up above her, Crete was bright with a Mediterranean glow. Its light cut down
through the subterranean darkness with a knife-edged sharpness to illuminate
what might once have been a bathing chamber. Nika was only a few kilometers
from her flat in Millia and only a short walk from her part time job at the
palace excavation. But it was millennia in time. So near and yet so far.

Nika's mouth quirked up in a smile as she worked. How many times had she
wandered past this very spot? How many times had her eyes swept over the
bits of rubble along the way with an archaeologist's sharp gaze? She doubted
she would ever know. But she had been drawn here none-the-less, taking lunch
under a nearby tree to get away from the press of her associates' minds. The
shade of the tree felt peaceful, and it wasn't until she was nearly finished
eating that she realized that it wasn't the tree or the slight breezes or
even her lunch that were gently soothing her, but a call, somewhere on the
fringe of her awareness. It was a soft voice, without words, or maybe just
without language, but it was speaking to her just the same.

Standing up, Nika turned around in a small circle, focusing in on the voice
and then following it to a small space in the earth made by two half-buried
slabs of stone. Nika crouched down and peered into the blackness. It looked
large enough to squeeze through. So putting her arms into the opening to
test ahead of her, she slid head-first from her world and into the realm of
the unknown.

--

Late that night, Nika lied tangled in the bedsheets, her mind wandering
through the frontier between awake and sleep. Her thoughts slipped and faded
through a thousand pleasant scenarios, only to return again and again to the
woman from the portrait. Her face appeared before her, not the ivory white
skin and black serpentine tendrils of the frescoes Nika was accustomed to,
but rich and alive and human. But who was this woman, and why had she called
her?

"She is your goddess."

Suddenly small hands pressed the mattress to either side of Nika's chest.
Then thick braids fell across her face and a warm breath blew through her
own. Nika opened her eyes. It was a young woman, more presence than fact,
with a sweetness that radiated out from her like a fountain.

Certain she was dreaming, Nika didn't move, letting the woman straddle her
body. The woman paused above her, as if waiting for something. They were so
close. Nika could feel the side of the woman's nose resting against her own,
feel her legs along her hips, the tips of her nipples grazing her breasts.
And still she waited.

"My goddess?"

"Yes, as you are mine."

Almost of their own will, Nika's hands rose up to touch the woman's skin. It
was warm and soft. She let her palms slide up to the undersides of the small
breasts, then down along the curve of the girl's hips and the backs of her
thighs. Each new touch displaced eddies of happiness within the young woman
that dripped down onto Nika's belly to soak into her growing passion.

Encouraged, the woman lowered her mouth to Nika's and pressed soft kisses
against her lips until Nika responded. She opened her mouth and accepted the
tongue. The two women cemented their kiss, but other than by hands, knees,
and breasts, they came no closer to one another. But it was enough. This
strange woman's emotions swirled around Nika, feeding her like nectar,
pushing the heat within her until, full and glowing, she slipped over the
edge and flowed into the spaces where two became one.

--

Nika stood at the wall of the chamber, lamp in hand. The morning light was
still too diffuse to light the darkened interior, yet Nika's mind took its
place, filling in the details until she could almost see the colorful
frescoes, the crimson columns topped by night blue capitals, the statues and
delicate urns filled with scented oils and the polished marble of the pool
with its mosaic portrait at the bottom. The image was vivid in her mind,
almost touchable, but after a moment it wavered and faded back into dull
reality.

Sighing, Nika set the lighted lamp on the floor and stepped back down into
the shallow pool. She had woken that morning to the voice, calling for her.
But now that she was here, she wasn't sure what to do. She looked down at
the portrait, then around its edges where the dirt and debris still covered
its surface. There was no answer for her nor welcome at the moment, so
picking up her brushes, she bent down to work.

Nika continued to work through the afternoon. She brushed and swept and
cleaned the portrait with a fevered care. The more she cleaned, the clearer
the voice became, the tighter her chest felt, and the more difficult it
became to breathe. A strange pressure tugged at her body, adding a heaviness
to her movements. But she didn't stop working. Not even when the air had
become thick and leaden, forcing her to struggle with each breath until she
believed she would suffocate.

Finally, Nika stopped. Rising up to sit on her heels, she broke the surface
of the water and found herself seated in a restored bathing chamber. Wiping
her eyes, Nika looked around her, speechless. Instead of the dim yellow of
the lamp, the room was lit by the bright warm glow of natural sunlight. It
gleamed off the surface of the water, casting rippled reflections across
walls covered in bold designs. It reflected over the columns, just as she
imagined them, and spilled in a warm radiance over a number of nude women
seated around the sides of the pool.

Immediately the press of minds closed in around her. Nika, afraid that her
associates had found her secret discovery, turned in the water, looking for
them, but only saw the women, talking and caressing one another, paying no
attention to Nika's surprise.

There was, she discovered, actually only one other person in the pool with
her. Large black eyes contemplated Nika from where the woman reclined
against the far edge. Her long black hair was twisted into three braids
which were piled on top of her head, lending her a look of authority. Her
golden skin glistened from face to shoulders and along her delicate arms to
where they disappeared into the water. The woman was immediately
recognizable. Nika had spent most of the past two days looking at her; she
was the woman from the portrait.

The woman watched her. Nika returned her gaze, more to help push out the
impossibility of the situation than out of any internal strength. The woman
smiled, almost as if she could read Nika's thoughts. But that was exactly
what she was doing. Nika could feel her humor. It was the same subtle
nothingness as the voice. Nika could sense the other women's thoughts as
well, flowing around her, lapping at her senses with a gentle rise and fall.
Unlike most, these thoughts didn't intrude. Instead, they comforted her,
forming a buffer around the two women in the pool from the ocean of humanity
beyond the chamber.

"How?"

"I called you." The woman turned her head slightly, as if their situation
were the most perfectly normal thing in the world and she was having trouble
understanding Nika's confusion. "And you answered."

Nika answered? She had always been sensitive to people's emotions, and
sometimes their thoughts. That was why she liked archaeology. The ancients
she examined seldom talked back. But she hadn't actually answered. No more
than she responded to anyone who sought her out.

"It is because you are mine."

"Yours?"

"My successor," she replied. "I have lain these long dark ages past until
you should come. And now that you are here at last, I see that you are she
who was promised. For you alone are strong enough to bear the gift I must
pass on."

Nika looked around the pool. Had these women all heard the same call? Did
they lack this strength Nika seemed to have? They were all beautiful, with
long black hair and  slender forms. Nika looked down at her own body, as if
to compare herself to the others, and discovered that her clothes, like her
world, had disappeared.

"A gift?"

"Yes. You'll take my power. Take my place. You'll have control over the
minds you meet, and through them, control of your world."

The goddess held out her hands, beckoning. Nika felt herself moving forward.
It was her own choice, though, and not by command. Taking the offered hands,
Nika floated into her embrace. The goddess was warm, alive. Her skin smelled
of jasmine and date wine.

Nika pressed herself against the woman. Turning her face, they kissed while
their hands began a gentle play across the surface of each other's bodies.
After a moment, the goddess shifted and pressed a thigh up between Nika's
legs. Nika pushed herself down and slid forward as close as their bodies
allowed.

A delicious swell of pressure blossomed within her. She wanted to become one
with her like she had with the girl in the dream. It felt so natural to be
held in this woman's arms. But this wasn't a dream. The touches were real.
The touches were for her. The pressure was growing, warming, and as Nika's
mind dissolved in the heat building between them, a stray thought tugged her
back.

"What do you get out of this?"

"My freedom," she answered, "My time here is finished. The world I craved
has long since faded into the past. But now your awakening appetite will
sustain me, and through you, I will live again."

Nika didn't quite understand the answer, but already her senses were
returning to the vibrations pulsing within her. Nika laughed into the
goddess' mouth. It felt so good, and she knew it was just a taste of what
was to come. Stretching her mind, Nika called to the other women. They
responded, closing around the two lovers and adding the press of their
touches and the heat of their minds to Nika's pleasure.

And at that moment, realization dawned in Nika's mind. She had answered the
call after all. Without knowing it, she had spent her whole life following
it, first in archaeology, then by moving to Millia, and finally by listening
to the wordless voice that had brought her here. The call was power. The
call was a desire she had suspected, but never tasted until this moment.
Nika accepted it. The call was hers. The power passed between them as if
from predator to prey, from lover to lover, from mother to daughter,
birthing a fledgling and hungry child onto a sleeping universe.


--
celia batau's story site: http://www.myplanet.net/pinataheart/stories.htm

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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