14 - Catching up

She was short walk from what remains of her house from that bench. Having gotten no peace from sticking on the main road. She finds her feet walking back to smoldering ashes and water damage shell of what was home. Thinking in her own world, leaning on the light post cross the road. The high street was to active of spirit people and living people that held judgemental glares. A young girl not in school is assumed a delinquent.

She was thinking about how they moved in. Looking at her memories of the little girl happy about having her own room and this nice place that was decent improvement from before that. A girl walking while helping her dad with lifting shelves through the cramped stairs.

Her head slightly shook in other thoughts clouded, hazing recall that she lived in this place before this life too. How it felt from working long shop shifts and come back to this spacious for a single person living. How it was a bus away from that work place and the werid Halloween that was. She came home and was petting many animals. She can almost hear the echo of the wooing dogs greeting her. The sloppy kisses from everyone and the demands that their love requires. She was never alone while living there, even back then.

She sighed in noting the time and that getting back should be something to consider. Going to lift a bag, another hazed curtain fell over her.

'If we keep having to cross between, we should make a place a secert slip way for us.' She stands in lip mimic her old self, 'The Tricksters have portals that go undetected and it just seems convenient for when I need to use the toilet or eat a meal that doesnt kill me.'

'Guess your not wrong, but how would I be able to stay here while time rewinds again.' The male voice was soothing like cold calm water that babbled. He held a aura of static that tempered her pains and held her emotions in check. Just this recalling was soothing to hear again, she was leaned back on the post. An arm held over her front like always and wishing to rest on a strong shoulder. It's difficult to be comfortable with a ghost. Yet their bond was like magic, she had such depths of patience and composure because of him. Even now when the bind was severed, she has built such a strong foundation from this experience and had lived through many traumatic lifetimes of other universes. She was a better as a person when he was her anchor.

It was only a brief fog over her eyes but it was more then enough. Plenty for a stem strength again and have that comfort in herself. That certainty of inner strength, confidence and belief for whatever fate ahead will be. The burden she was holding to since the start of this life as Luna seems to changed. Well it been changing a while but this looking back at the house for one last time, she can see through this change in her.

"I can do this." She stopped leaning on the post and takes a big breath in. She posed her right hand over the area and snaps fingers, "Return to me." She commands. Time stopped. More then that, the many things she had done to make those portals and maintenance to create a gateway between life and death. This place was still hiding a big secert that only her and the partner know. No matter how hard the world and the invaders of her house tried. The magic, the illusion and the very stone that made this building.

"I will return back to my role, I know this is what you wanted of me. I was just afraid and clueless then. And now... I know now. I will burden the depths of the abyss. I will give my warmth and hold for many chances. I will not be betrayed because I know now... You were afraid too. I am sorry that in was such a coward before." The rubble rattles and moves. She open her arms and posed at accepting whatever pain this will be. Ready to carry such painful chains and broken fragle dust. She stares forward, not a little girl afraid of looking away but as a harden warrior that has seen the depths that even the realms of evil deeds protects all souls from experiencing.

"If wrath is hate, revenge and vengeance. If that demon lord is what he accumulated from hurting others and relishes power forged in flames." Her voice was clear cut, "Then I am the cold and the burden someone feels from those he left behind alive or broken. That remorse. The cold that burns deeper. That step over the grave stone." She closed her hands, touching a broken cord like chain of shattered promises and broken links of hope, "Even the realms of dead people have the seven virtues and seven sins. But yet, undying hope is just another way of suffering Sloth. The living say the great seven are better because it's the ones they expressed themselves more. I have been to where death was life. I witnessed love as pain and lust is yearning. Greed was ignorance and unpon loosing what made them greedy, I seen the despair and struggle to become something stronger then such habits. The realms that make places for sinners to fall are mess up and yet they teach lessons. If you can fall and raise again, than you are stronger then those that became empty to lift higher." She crossed hands over her heart, "That's what I know now." The chain pulled into her. The rubble shove out reams of a cloth of torn fabrics, and embedded with melted gems and ores. The darkness no longer glooms a heavy weigh upon these soil no more. The runic chalks smeared and disappeared. The doors here collapsed for good. Bricked walls now.

She stands feeling nothing changed about her living body, it seems anticlimactic in how she looked like a weirdo with a pose of prayer. Yet the deed was done, no longer will this place be home again. She sighed glad of her other senses waking up, like her spirit eyes was stronger then before at seeing. She felt like she had other limbs then just the arms she can see. She was at the core so much stronger and a thick skin. Even her hands held callous marks, that what seems years of training left scars. She doesn't need to rely on gesture to control the reality around her.

She reached down picking up her bag and three steps.

Sound returned. A car drives past. The area was brighter and the sun dimming on the horizon calls it tome for her to get back. She looked ahead of where she was going, sensing soon that undertakers and Tricksters will be coming to this location. She did just get rid of a renowned gateway to smuggler realms. There will be some displacement and disruption but it's no big deal for her to worry about.

She had a sort of strange quirky moment. That she walked to the market for something else now. That she was willing to splurge to treat herself with. Her many lives all has some unchanged notions. She has a nack for drink making, mixology and tea brewing. It passed her a sort of sudden urge to go get a fancy bubble tea or a neat ice frappe coffee. A milkshake or smoothie. Whatever it was going to be, that's where she wad going before heading back.

She took a gateway to a pocket realm, there was always little hidden drinking spots that demons and angels would go off duty at. She wasn't any exception to locating these places. She had been to this one a few times after going to her nightmare crystal shop. She is a regular actually. She knows all the bar secert knocks and how to order without speaking a word. She always got same drink. But today, she wanted something else. She took her time approaching the counter while considering what the new order was going to be.

"Hey! Welcome back little girl." The demon always bothered her but she always never let's the demon have her. She makes her mind up finally. Left hand at making the order, fingers that tapped out what she was asking for and the waiting of the bar tender to reply. The demon thar was about to bother her backed away very carefully.

"Do you know what you order?" The undertaker nearby had to voice. She repeated the taps. The bar keep sighed and began asking up the cocktail, called God slayers cup. A drink of off realm fruits, blood and a cube of raw meat floating at the top.

"How strong do you want this?" She gave a hard knock, because if you don't go all the way with this drink. It can be dangerous. But when it has all the high concentrations, it should neutralize and it gets its iconic rainbow mist affect within the blood and fruit layers. It's why it's nickname liquid slayer scale. The bar keeper knows to make this drink, it has all the ingredients on show at the bar back shelf. She has more then enough for the price tag ans she has a vague idea of the sort of flavors she will get from it.

She takes her normal seat alone at the corner of the bar, sitting with her coat hood up and tucking all her bags around her tightly closed. She puts her broken phone on the counter, reminding her that she needed to enjoy this to go or to be wary of time escaping. The crowd sound has its own rhythm about it, while their isn't anyone breathing... it seems almost a choir of chaotic motion. She has sat here before, ease dropping in all sort of law talk and off work hour conversations. She has even been entertained by the debates these dead people had about living to dead world differences.

"So are you a run away or just unlucky?" The undertakers had a crowd of their own with this person insisted to talk with her. She studies their uniform and the small tells that all undertaker do. If they had bad intentions, they are hollow in wording. They also don't give expressive off hand gestures or incorrectly use them. This person was being genuine and turly did have a interest of why she was here. She never has spoken a word to anyone before. She does reckon that the bar keep thinks she's a mute in good human mock or something borrowing a human form.

"Our patron has been coming to this bar for a long time. They changed faces as human time jolts about like it does, and there been times that they weren't human. Yet this kid is a scary thing. Best leave it be." The last touches for her drink, she always loved watching this part. Where the liquid starts stirring itself from chemical defusion and shimmers. She smiles as the last Shot is put in, "Today's cube of meat is demon and that's all I actually know about it. Same delivery guy." She smiles accepting the drink and tilts watching it, her feet swing a little at the bar stool, "How will you like to trade?" She sits up and reached into darkness, with her hand back out. A single coin was placed, but it was an abnormal coin. There was a gemstone in the middle and it was carved with many runic pattern. The bar man looks at the coin then at her. She checked this object and tries that pulling darkness again. The next coin was more suitable, a blank unmarked one in gold. She took back the gem one and puts the blank down instead. This is accepted payment. Silence but the ramble around her. She leans looking at her drink, watching it settling down. By theory, the meat garnish melts and then it's safe to have. She enjoys watching her drink.

"Never speaks but is able to." The undertaker ponders, "A regular but disappears with human times." She can hear the drink fizzing down the meat, "Do you play any instruments?" She looks at the guy bothering her with a blank expression and then back to watching the colours intensify of her drink.

"Do you even know you don't drink that?" The bar keeper wonders. She took out a paper and pen, she draws put a pattern and then placed the paper above the drink. The paper lite on fire of all those beautiful rainbow effects. She smiles watching the liquid altering to a grained sand texture. She sways at her own world of thoughts, and eventually she takes out a empty jar. She transfers the content, wax sealed and then marked up with more runic pattern with a sharpie pen. The bar keep takes the empty glass away.

"Alchemist, can you do some trades with me?" The undertaker pats at the counter, "Would you be able to give me a cocktail into that sand affect?" She puts the jar away into her shop bag. Getting up from the stool, her left hand waved away.

"Until next time, Miss Tricky." The bar keep voiced.

"Indeed, until next time. Although I will likely be able to drink it next time." She spoke like they do and in a soft tone. She made she has everything and waved still with her left hand. The bar draw so quiet from hearing her, how she was watched through the bar door on leave.

"In a way, I am glad she took that well." The bar keep nodding to himself, "But it doesn't explain everything else about her. A lady who lives to her nickname, a woman to fear the wrong side of."

"Tricky? As in the undertaker thar goes MIA on the cross records?"

"More then that." The bar keep wipes glass clean and the counter properly disinfectant, "She ranked Mythical in the Sigil terminal. She accepted helping me with different customers in the past. She got rid of my god slayer problem. She has paid in all sorts of currency and travels many lifetimes. Her soul is a Reincarnation but she has always been consistent. She only ever speaks if you know her nickname and only as she leaving does she ever speak. Sometimes she's a living human and other times, I had feared her appearance. She orders the slayers scale at the start of her new looks. Her last order tends to be hollows tonic. She doesn't always order her last drink but it's the pattern counts."

"What's the weirdest currency she pays with?" The bar keep shurgs and then lifted a collectors pouch folder from under the counter. The undertakers look through it, "So many worlds, realms, and that doesn't even belong to this universe." The bar keep noted.

"If you wanted her serious with you, then you call her by her sigil ranking." Bar keep states putting a glass down and he turned pages to the middle, all her business cards of her past businesses. The only one not made of paper. It's a metal plate, hammered in her ranking and another name.

"The broken Mystic." Reading from the plate, "What? No. That a wandering nightmare that pretends to be a undertaker." The bar keep shook.

"She has always ordered drinks consistent. She orders the scale of slayer, maybe a actually human drink and if she makes it. The hollows tonic. She doesn't always appear human when she has all her drinks. Depending on the political situation of things, she has ordered drinks for those that hunt her down or wish to hire her as a client." The file put away, "There was a time when she came with a partner. The man has no idea what he got himself in. I am sure you heard of the monarch killer. Curiosity. She was more then he could handle."

"You know Curiosity?"

"I watched him change. He was mute, kept a barrier or distant aura and he was ready to drop to hell." Picking up a drink and pours glass for them, even the keep made himself a drink, "But she brought out the good parts of him. He became quiet a people person, welcoming and was the guy to talk to. He may have habit of straighten up menus or whatever at reach. He has an open mind and offered out help to just about anything. She was scared at times but when they were a pair. It was a whole level of safety."

"Shame he was locked up for beheading the last king." Shrugs shared.

"The guy completely screwed around her life." The bar keep shook, "He undid everything she tried to do right or took credit for her work. I didn't think it at the time of anything bad, protective of his living partner. But she order four hollow tonics and a dead man skull. So drunk she fell asleep here at the bar, something she would never do if she had anything left. Her life as a human and the life after death was trashed because of him."

"Did she says what she did next after being drunk?"

"She left. She left without paying anything. She didn't return to the living world. She took a grim repears token smashed it to my glass mirror and walked through it like it was liquid. I now have a gate to deaths tome keeping tower." The stares of how everyone stares around. The undertakers looked to a panel prompt, "Speaking of the tomes. She was a book keeper but the book was not a life or death tome. It was sentient too. She renounced herself from the title and duty when she left this universe. She left the book behind here at the bar." The keep shook at the recall, "When I went to lift it, it bite me. It altered into a paper god slayer and tried to follow her. The scratched on the walk around the mirror was from it. It couldn't enter the death realm."

"So where is it?" The bar keep posed hand to another fragile wall. The gate was straight to the Tricksters clan. So small that no one middle aged could get through. Only big enough for an imp.

This place was more a help for the current spade of lost and many mystery dead ends then all other places. A unlikely and back water of a bar, hidden out of mind and sight. A speak easy but without a password. Only the patrons that came here knew this place, inspite of being here. All the drinkers here turned to think words for a while of silence and at ready for the inevitable. Tricky was always followed by someone or something. Theu all held hunch that this pocket place is about to be to lively.