12 Ashan 722
Parental figures.
It was a ridiculous concept in a way. It felt like a crutch for the absence of that traditional, nuclear family she had missed out on. Orphans, like other children with some sort of parental deficit, were especially prone to search tirelessly to fill that basic, instinctual void in their lives. Some clung too tightly to the skirts of whoever staffed the temporary home they were raised in, or to the closest thing that resembled a constant and reliable presence. The desire was blind to morals and appropriateness. It didn't see "good" or "bad." Only a fulfilled need. Childish or not, Max was no different.
She found it in the Raggedy Man when she found him that bloody trial she wandered too far. He was a murderer and a brute, different from the others, but he was still both of those things all the same. He was a beacon of strength, independence, and resiliency at a time she felt she had none. She found it in Chrien. The Immortal was perpetually angry, without emotional regulation, and fed the flames of grudges long held even if it meant she herself might get burned. Everything that she emulated felt like the turmoil within Maxine mirrored back for her own eyes. Then there was Audrae.
Truth be told, the Rusalka never knew Audrae well. The Immortal showed up on a fateful, hard trial wherein it appeared that Max would be forever condemned to be swallowed by darkness. The ex-convict had weaponized her fear and the mysterious Immortal of Shadow seemed to take notice. Fingers wandered over Maxine's skin until they wove themselves through her hair, the Immortal's palm pressed against her scalp.
"Most Interesting..."
She would never forget those words. She'd never forget the way she made the outfit of Elements quiver with fear at her very presence either. As soon as she came, she went. The small gift of her blessing served Maxine well. Her fear was tempered and the abundance of shadows embraced her when she needed them most. Their newfound relationship wasn't as strong as the one with Chrien, and her intentions remained a mystery to the Rusalka. It should've come as less of a surprise that the Immortal of Secrets, Deception, Shadow, and Fear kept her so firmly in the dark. It always felt like there was an uneven tip in the scale of knowledge. Audrae always had the upper hand and never shared.
Ignorance didn't hurt. Betrayal did. When Maxine was seated across from who she believed was Ellasin, she felt anchored with Audrae sitting in a seat right beside her. Why wouldn't she? Audrae was one of those maternal figures, as elusive and withholding as she was. She took her hand, placed it on the mortal's head, and blessed her. She had called her something of a "daughter", right there where the trio sat. Audrae watched when Ellasin proved only to be Famula in disguise, and did not intervene when the other Immortal bestowed her wretched collar and leash curse upon Maxine. And then she left her.
"This is rich, you know that?" Max said aloud beside the sea, staring up at the dark sky. "You know how long it's been?" She took a long swig of rum and pointed a finger at the largest shadow above her head conceivable. "It's been over an arc! An arc! And nothing!" Another long pull on the bottle and she opened her arms out. "What do you want from me, hmm?"
Max looked around, pausing to steady her bloodshot eyes on the buildings around the docks. The streets were mostly empty. Only the shadows rested in abundance and wait around her.
"Do you want me to apologize to you? Is that it?" Max laughed darkly at the notion. "You want me to say sorry for telling you to fuck off? Well I'm not sorry. You're the one who should be fucking sorry. You should be the one out here, drunk in the night, calling out for me!" She staggered, eyeing the enemies in the dark she couldn't see in the black contours naturally existing. "I should be the one that's silent! Fuck you!"
The Rusalka cursed, nearly tripping over her own feet when she wandered toward a set of barrels piled beside a dock. No doubt someone at sunrise would come to collect them and fill them with whatever people were putting in barrels these trials. Another suck on the end of the rum bottle and there was only a few drops of the burning liquor left. She should've never gone soft in that brothel and talked to Sabrina, even vaguely. She should've kept this door with Audrae's absence slammed shut.
"You did this to me!" Max turned and smashed the rum bottle on the dock. Glass spewed in every which direction. A shard sliced open a small cut on Maxine's exposed shin, but she wouldn't notice the blood leaking down from it for at least a trial. "You did! Look at me! Go on, take a look! Is this what you wanted?" Max ran her hands down her face and rubbed at the dark circles under her eyes. When she was trapped in Slags Deep, Chrien rose like a hurricane in that small body of water to aid her escape. Even an arc later, this she could not understand. "This served you?! To punish me? For a fuckin' conspiracy? You!?"
"I was loyal to you." Max nearly fell over when her heel hit a barrel. She let it take her, riding her back against the splintering wood until she sat on the worn dock. "I was. What was I worth? What did you trade to sit at that table and give me up?" She rested her hands on her knees. One of her feet bounced against the dock in a rapid, anxious beat. "Was I even worth a trade? Or was that just a show for you at my expense?"
A couple deck hands walked slowly down the walk from a nearby ship. Their brows were raised and their eyes were trained on her as they moved. They made eye contact with her and quickly turned their heads, picking up the pace away from the crazy woman shouting at shadows in the night. Max sighed and leaned her head back against the barrel. She closed her eyes.
"Why does it feel like you're not even there anymore?"
Maxine bit her lip. The back of her head gently tapped a couple times against the stupid barrel she rested against. That was the big question she’d finally said out loud, wasn’t it? All of that challenging and attention-seeking tantrum-throwing was for something. She could no longer believe she wasn’t heard.
Two possibilities remained: either Audrae was diligently ignoring her as some sort of punishment…or there was something painfully devastating in that emptiness she felt each time she reached for the Immortal. The first possibility was infuriating and frustrating. The second was far more dangerous depending on the exactness of that reality.
Chrien was that perfect, destructive mirror. She put power in the rage, spite, and resilience Max turned into dumb luck. Everything that she was in her most untempered, impulsive moments was given a place to channel before it consumed her from the inside out.
Audrae’s grip provided the polar opposite. The Immortal was far more subversive and cunning. She beckoned Max to pull back from her fire and use the shadows to her advantage instead. She guided the Rusalka to pause, observe, and question. She dared Maxine’s over-the-kettle boil to an efficient, scorching simmer.
Maxine was a world away from anyone who had a hope of teaching her balance. The last with the most promise to keep her on both the literal and metaphorical leash and tame her, was gone.
No, not gone.
“Gone” suggested something different. Or something more like the mystery of Audrae’s status. It absolved her of that hated culpability that she had started to feel like a crushing weight. “Likely dead” was the more apt description. No. “Killed.” Her fault. Yes, that was more honest though she hated the taste of it in her thoughts.
Nonetheless, the vacancy was a dangerous one. There was no one left on that other end of the spectrum to impress or disappoint. It was in silly vanity to perform acts for those who would not observe them. She would find no solace in trying to make proud those who could no longer feel it.
So, as Maxine wallowed in her drunken melancholy at the docks, she couldn’t help but wonder ever so briefly on the future. Murder, violence, vices, and treachery were lately the palpable spices in her life. She let her perception of the injustices that she’d suffered color her world, real or imagined illusion. She’d drank the poison for so long and so deeply she had become it.
Immortals tended to find her at her most vulnerable. When they were the most alike or she could be swayed to agree to the benefits of their proposed relationship. Ellasin was right. She was a puppet with many strings, heavily and easily influenced by the various puppeteers she’d aligned herself with. Some of those strings had been cut, and the opportunity was ripe for the taking if one was so bold as to restring her with strands of their own.
Maxine would be right to fear the next Immortal that might think to drive their claws into her flesh and declare her theirs. She had done so many things already that she thought she’d never do… things she never believed she would be capable of doing.
And if she could do all of that?
To herself?
To the small few she actually, genuinely believed she cared about?
How far would she truly go to willingly serve a new master, especially one that fed the worst parts of her nature?
