Chapter Text
Narcissus used to love the rain.
The way it came down, like sheets of gray air falling across the world; the way it turned a single streetlamp into a kaleidoscope of yellow and white as the light passed through a thousand raindrops; the way it shone, danced, and flowed across the street in a thousand tiny rivulets on the uneven asphalt; all of it combined with the soothing sound of water hitting the ground in a symphony of sight and sound that had never failed to put him at ease. Until now.
Now, the rain seemed loud and oppressive. Now, the sheets of water fell like the falling of night over the world, and the streetlamps were out. Now, the rivulets joined together into a flood that lapped at his shoes as he marched through the rain under the cover of a ratty umbrella. He had never used an umbrella in living memory, until now.
Jeremy had loved the rain.
Narcissus walked through the torrential downpour, feeling the water beneath his feet as it stilled for just a moment, tempting him with the possibility of just falling into its reflection and never coming out. Then a volley of raindrops hit it, and the glassy surface was shattered. He wouldn’t have done it – there were too many people around, even if they were all busy running for cover from the rain. But the prospect of being alone in the world, of watching the rain pour down over an empty city forever, was enticing, alluring, seductive. He would be able to do whatever he wanted, with no one around to stop him. Say whatever he wanted, with no one around to hear. Feel whatever he wanted, with no one around to judge him for it.
Alas, the water would dry, and he would be out in reality once more. He had learned that lesson the hard way, after getting himself stuck in a puddle that had eventually become too small to crawl out of. As long as there was still a reflective surface, the mirror would keep its contents inside, but if it were marred or damaged to the point that it could no longer reflect light, it would eject all of its contents out into the world. It was more than a bit annoying, the idea that someone could just yank him out of his world and drag him back to their reality, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Besides, it hadn’t been his power to begin with. He had no right to complain.
Not about Jeremy’s last gift to him.
He ducked into a covered alleyway, unable to think about the rain any more. There was a large poster on the side of one of the buildings with a picture of a woman who might rightly have been called beautiful. She had long, dark hair, pale, almost pure white skin, and yellow eyes with slits in place of pupils. The last were an invention, Narcissus knew – everyone knew what Era looked like, after that message that Legion had broadcast around the world. The poster read: Do you know someone who’s been to China or Taiwan in the last five years? Inform your local Guard at once! It had been graffitied by multiple people. One had put devil horns on Era’s head with marker, and another had spray-painted the top half with the message No devils here. Free the Taiwanese!
So they were still putting those up, were they? He would have thought that IACOM had rounded up all of them by now. Still, he supposed it couldn’t hurt to be thorough. Not with Era’s victims.
It had been impossible to contain the people who had first interacted with Her in China, back when the world was still new to the Seven. She had driven some mad, not through some unseeable influence like Ammit, but with sheer pain and terror. The rest, though… the rest, she had empowered, in some cases given abilities that rivaled some of the strongest capes on the planet. It had been a bloodbath. With so much power in the hands of so few private citizens, especially in that prison She had visited, the Chinese government was unable to enforce its particular brand of governance, and Beijing fell into anarchy as the state grew more and more chaotic. She was an epidemic unto Herself.
By the time She had reached Taiwan, the newly-formed IACOM had found out two things about Her that made fighting Her next to impossible. Firstly, She could give Herself the same powers She gave out to Her victims. Second, and most terrifying, was the tendency of Her victims, and indeed every person and place with whom or which She interacted, to meet or cause some catastrophe. The Shanghai fire that never went out, the carpet bombing of Fuzhou that failed to kill Her, the war in Korea that killed millions before IACOM could put a stop to it – She was a harbinger, and Her plans were measured in decades, if not centuries. Hence the name.
Powers or no, Narcissus was only human, and he couldn’t find it in him to care about people in far-off countries to which he’d never been. But one of his friends from high school had been Taiwanese, and she had been taken. Not arrested, not sentenced. Just taken, to an internment camp in Wyoming. He had never heard from her again.
The rain was dying down. He kept walking.
Eventually, he came to a large green field surrounded by trees. Spartan Memorial Park had seen better days, but it was still a beautiful place. The drizzle cast a gray pallor over the field, and the sun shone through a break in the clouds onto the ten-foot-tall bronze statue of a man in ancient Greek armor with a spear in his hand, poised to throw. It had been almost a decade since Spartan’s death, and yet the statue was still clean and preserved, its metallic coat shining in the rays of the afternoon sun. The park was quiet, devoid of all human activity after the rain. It was always quiet. Maybe that was why he liked coming here.
He stood by a tree and looked out over the field. It seemed so serene, now that the rain was all but gone.
Jeremy would have liked it here.
For what must have been an hour or more, he just stood there, drinking in the dappled sunlight through the tall trees and watching the water evaporate off the dewy grass. The sun sank low over the horizon, turning the sky into a canvas of pink and orange. The clouds lifted. In the eastern sky, he could see a single star, burning bright against a backdrop of deep purple. It was quiet.
He could only remember feeling this peaceful once in his life. It had been right after their last fight with their parents, up on the roof of their apartment. He had been nine years old. Jeremy had held him close while looking out over the skyline, telling him that Mom would come around, that Dad would be there again in a few days. He said a lot of things. Something about the sun rising, and a promise about tomorrow. He said that even if Mom and Dad weren’t there, Narcissus would always have his brother.
He said a lot of things.
Had it started raining again? His cheeks were wet.