Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church…an unassuming place in Blackhaven. Not unlike the famed churches from the middle ages, still the unique portion of this place wasn’t on the outside but the inside.
Oriana was correct in the people that lived in Blackhaven didn’t give the sorcerer proper credit for his being an obstacle in the asinine things and even the horrors that came on in the city.
Declan never said anything, as Oriana by now knew, he was willing to face the harms of the world. Perhaps it was part of that six-year-old boy yearning to find his place in the world but it was very much visible in his eyes if she looked close enough. And Oriana did.
“Why we here then Wonder boy? Shorty wouldn’t say a thing even under threat of a firestorm.” Apart from telling her that she needed to see something she had been following him blind, no answer to what he wanted to show and really, she didn’t want to break his focus. There was something in his face today as if he was hopeful of something and daunted by it at the same time. Still, she kept her voice cheery to break the tension that was unfolding before her.
Declan was clearly struggling with something internally, still having the issues with Tinkerbell and what Achilles had said at the casino. He could not find the words…but for the first time ever since he’d been at Blackhaven, he entered the main area with the pews and altar, the grip on Oriana’s hand was similar to what she’d seen in her visions. Clearly, Declan didn’t want her to let go.
Friar Tuck was in shock but quickly raised the lights. By the expression on Declan’s face and the familiar redhead by his side he’s started to understand what exactly the sorcerer was up to. Oriana was a bit confused as she walked alongside Declan to why the Friar was looking at her as if he’d seen a ghost.
She’d never met the guy before.
Suddenly, Declan staggered a bit as if he’d been stabbed again, the wound Tinkerbell had caused began to bleed. His free hand went to it and he released Oriana’s hand to sit in the pew. There was a gasp as Oriana tried to steady him and bent down to stop the flow of blood with a handkerchief from her pocket.
“What-you were fine…what’s the matter?” Yes, he’d been quiet and reserved but why did his mark suddenly start bleeding again? They weren’t in a dangerous place as far as she was concerned.
Declan simply shook his head indicating he was okay and not to worry about him. Oriana followed his finger as he pointed it at the direction of the altar. Despite his insistence that she not worry it was difficult not to when he had turned a whiter shade of pale and it reminded her of his after effect of using blood magic.
Friar Tuck rushed forward and gently led Oriana away, who was an unwilling to leave his side and he placed a hand on her back to lead her to what Declan had been trying to show her all along. A wide array of stone carvings, the stained glass, and the most important thing…Oriana was now being shown some of the works.
“Child, you can only help him by seeing the truth. Yes…this is what he wanted to show you.” Friar Tuck was speaking low, but his voice still echoed around the otherwise silent walls.
“Oriana dear, he cannot say it, but I will, there was time when temples were built to honor gods and heroes alike. I don’t know what grief Declan carries, but this is our own temple to show our gratitude for all he’s done. Merlin gave approval for this as well…Winston and I have been painstakingly working on this. Come let’s take a closer look.”
Declan winced and laid back in the pew. This time there was no song from Bragi or Taelsin. Just simple writings in the pieces of what Declan wanted her to see…for the labors he’d endured. Everything was depicted with fragments or souvenirs from the labors, the art was different, varying from statues, Greek urns, stained glass, paintings, tapestries.
Oriana turned her head this way and that, her hands ghosting over the items but not touching them as she tried to take everything in. In the back of her mind the soft melody of Go The Distance was echoing around and she wondered if the muses were watching her right now in this moment.
Honestly, could she and Declan not have one private moment?
As Friar Tuck rushed her forward, she missed the one stained glass labelled Go The Distance and concentrated on the array of twelve spotlights before her.
Had she not known Declan so well she wouldn’t have recognized the enraged personality within the first stained glass, he was battling a werewolf which stood in front of a destroyed house of straw, sticks and seemed to be moving towards a house of bricks. She blinked, surprised and thought that her eyes were playing tricks. Of course, the glass had an element of visual magic.
Again, her hands traced the fragments of house in front of her, but she didn’t dare touch the wolf’s claw.
It still looked rather sharp.
Oriana followed Friar Tuck to a tapestry which showed Declan standing over the worm. It was cut clean in half. Gruesome. His back to the appreciative people. In front on a silk cloth, was a large Key. A tag identified it was the Key to Blackhaven owned by Declan himself. She felt…proud.
Of course, he should own this. It was his right…his two labors so far had meant that he’d earned it.
Yet, her tour was not complete. There was more. And it seemed never ending…
This time it was a carving in a slab of gold and the story unfolded like she was reading hieroglyphs, but she understood…a depiction of Declan with his face blocked by the skull portrayed on the Aztec gold coins. Even within the gold his eyes were glowing. Oriana remembers Phil’s words…this must have been when he had lifted the curse on Jack Sparrow and his crew. There was another item in front of her that she didn’t want to touch.
A sacrificial dagger. Had his eyes been glowing due to the use of blood magic? Oriana sighed and glanced back at Declan who seemed to still be struggling to sit. She wanted to ask him why.
Why did he spill his blood for the unworthy? It wasn’t anger…but frustration on her part.
These people did not deserve him.
Still, Oriana stepped forward to a large four-piece painting. The first showed a giant boar with burning red eyes, gold tusks, and fire in its hooved feet. The second was Blackhaven’s high town in flaming ruins, a hooded figure was seen observing. Her green eyes recognized the figure as Declan, who removed his hood within the third frame and was summoning a rainstorm. By the fourth painting Declan had turned the boar to stone. Oriana raised her eyebrows since she recognized that statue from where it currently resided in the city. She was relieved to see Declan walking off head bowed…thankfully, no injuries had been suffered by him.
This time she touched the medal in front of her in the shadow box with a smile. This fight she agreed with. No injuries and no pain. The recognition was well deserved.
Another painting, she wondered who had taken the time to depict them in such detail…she wanted to thank them personally. They’d truly taken the time to put in such color and vibrancy that Oriana felt she was right there.
Atlantis being hit by disaster.
Blackhaven was spared the same fate. In midst of a tsunami a large god like figure stood with a trident looking expertly furious.
Poseidon?
A large tidal wave caused by a river rising was being diverted and it created a natural spring by Declan. Oriana’s eyes stung, she didn’t like what she was seeing. He was taking the worst Poseidon had to offer and once again, just enduring. Within the painting it was as if Poseidon expression went from fury to…respect.
Oriana wanted to pick up the conch horn in front of her and blow it…but she resisted the childish urge and smiled once again. Declan wasn’t hurt in this. Just wet.
Oriana definitely recognized the next work. It was a wooden piece carved by Merida’s hand. She knew that style without doubt from the items back at Arcana Cabana.
Merida had perfectly portrayed Declan killing Acamas, the son of Theseus and saving the minotaur’s calf from Acamas. She almost nodded in approval at the statue of a Cretan bull studded with jewels and Declan’s name carved in it.
A silver urn, nearly the size of her took her breath away. She traced the engravings where Declan was engaged in single combat in a circle that looked familiar…
“The Tea Party?” Oriana asked out loud to no one in particular. It was a rose garden with red and white roses…she always hated the sickly-sweet smell. Declan was chosen to champion…Alice against the Queen of Hearts’ champion…the Jabberwocky. Standing next to him where Merlin and Phil. She flinched at the sight of the Jabberwocky’s clawed hand in the box at her feet. By its side was a ruby heart…literally in the shape of a human heart except it had the word hero threaded into it.
Anything to do with Alice had to be odd. Of course.
Oriana rubbed her face, moving away from the gold urn to look up at another stained glass hanging off the wall. He was fighting…and winning against the Blair Witch. She’d heard of her of course. Her Mother was…a fan. Yet, Declan with his cunning managed to imprison her within a dark looking crystal. Oriana didn’t dare lift the ever-lit lantern hanging next to the glass…for all she knew it might set the witch free. Plus, it was clearly old…heck, from the colonial era from what was written on its tag.
She almost jumped at the oil painting next, large and framed in chestnut oak. It was her standing next to Declan. In his hands was the Book of Shadows. Something she had dismissed and ignored at the time. She nearly laughed at the item lodged within the frame of the painting.
It was the business card he’d given to her…how had the Friar and Winston got it? She’d thought it was lost in the fire with the Ripper?!
Oriana could hear Declan moving about behind in the pew. Had he seen these more recent additions? She wasn’t sure how to feel being in them…and her stomach twisted at the next statue and painting combination. It was so lifelike, and she had to rub her own arms to give some comfort from the sight before her.
A grey stoned Oriana was throwing her hands out to the painting in which the Ripper was portrayed in that foul black shadowed cloud, trying to walk through her firestorm. She flinched at the flames within the painting – she could almost feel the heat radiating from it. This time when her eyes stung, she wasn’t able to stop the silent tear. At the statue’s feet…at her feet was a charred and burnt brick…presumably from her old home.
She quickly moved on. It did no good to dwell on such things. Oriana had a new home…right? The world was better off without the Ripper…even at the cost of her belongings, they were just material objects.
The last step took her to a mixture of objects. Combined the piece was still incomplete despite there being an urn showing Zeus’s irritated face and a statue of Achilles with his fist raised. She assumed that this was after Achilles had demanded for justice that Declan had help from Oriana with the Ripper, and that Poseidon was a god and biased in that labor…idiotic brute.
If Declan had never trained her, she would never been able to fight off the Ripper. The fire would still have come through her, but she had fought off her attacker for a good few minutes before loosing control. She had always felt grateful to Declan for that. His training had helped so he had indirectly completed a labor? Why was that so hard to understand? As for Poseidon, just because he was a God that didn’t mean he had a right to wage water-war on to innocents – even if few of them existed in Blackhaven. Declan had been right in standing in the way of that.
Sighing she started to walk back to Declan shaking her head at the situation he was in but from the look on Declan’s face it was as if he had already acknowledged this reality. She’d noticed a blank spot on the floor to what she presumed was his final labor…Oriana didn’t even want to imagine what that would be and what the cost would be from Declan on that.
As she headed back to the pew Oriana noticed the sorcerer wasn’t even looking at her but at the mural depicting her journey of “Go the Distance”. How had she missed it?
Declan was in shock, he had finally realized what Oriana had said about the dream.
Declan stood up from the pew and went up to look at the mural work titled Go the Distance. He’s almost to the last one he can’t quite see---until he focused--- it’s the girl…the one that he saw in Oriana’s memories.
Tigerlily.
“Declan?” Oriana asked softly, following his line of vision and stepping in front of him to the fresco which had his attention. Her eyes widened – seriously, how had she missed it? The little girl from her vision was almost dancing in front of her eyes. She lifted a hand to trace the little image.
Declan hadn’t replied but she could feel him standing behind her though.
“I’m sorry, this was the only way I could…show you.”
Declan scanned, the reflecting pool, to see if it was still in the garden area. It was.
“There’s something else, come on.”
He kissed her cheek genuinely before taking her out to the garden where a stone chest lay covered in a complicated array of runes.
Sensory overload was a real thing and Oriana was experiencing it. The sight of a miniature Tigerlily validating all that she had seen had her swallowing and following Declan out in shock.
Her silence didn’t last long when once again Declan fell over on the ground as the pain and blood overcame him once more. It was highly annoying.
Oriana sighed in exasperation, yes, fine, she wouldn’t worry about the fact he was falling apart and concentrate on the damn chest. How was this more important than his health right now?
Declan was trying not to show it, but he was dying to know if what Persephone had told him was accurate, his mind was on that last image with Oriana and Tigerlily.
Oriana held his hand in hers and opened the chest with her other free hand. Inside…was a heavy hammer and as she touched it with one finger a bolt of electricity went up her spine and she visibly shuddered.
A slip of parchment told her what it truly was. This was no ordinary hammer.
Mjolnir.
Oriana calmly lifted it, raising it high in the air and flame bells rode up from her elbows and up the weapon to fire off in the air like fireworks on a new year night.
“…Now this is what you call a gift.”
Really, who needed flowers and chocolates?
Declan couldn't pull himself in anything more than a sitting position, the pain was too much and the scar was bleeding more now, to the point it was going down his leg. But that didn't matter to him, whatever game the fates and muses were playing, they'd won now, she was it, sure the pain of Excalibur's death was there, but it was as if she was telling him it was okay, and as best he could he smiled not hiding his joy, he just couldn't get up and embrace Oriana...he didn't want to let go at all now.