Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 6 • Wit [NB]

AUTHOR GAMES: THE ABSENT EMPRESS - TASK SIX

Monstruo! Mi hijo! 

Oh, but mother, didn't you know? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Light was beautiful and welcomed by Nora, who had finally made her way out of the basement and risen to the higher levels of the building. She noted how clean the sky was, how bright and warm it seemed even though a golden afternoon had come along to dim it. It helped tenfold in easing the rapid cardiac pumping, in slowing her shaken steps, in reassuring her that the slim wisp of a figure down below was only the fabrication of a stressed mind. And she was stressed, there was no doubt about that. But she'd found things. It'll be over soon, she thought, breathing carefully. It'll be okay soon. I'm okay.

She soon arrived in the same room she'd found the rest of the team in before, and not much had changed aside from the lounging positions of oblivious adults and the volume of radio static. Nora stepped in, arms bundled with all that she'd found. Nobody acknowledged her entrance.

So she cleared her throat.

The group looked up in unison, and each of their tiny little eyes blew up into a much larger image upon seeing what lay in her arms. It was Obsidian, with his keen eye and quiet voice, that said, "That's the mask. Of the people who attacked us. I remember it."

"Smart puppy," Nora said, flinging the aforementioned object into the boy's lap simply because he was the first to recognize it. Then, she dangled the strip of black fabric from her peeling fingertips, and let it fall upon the mask. It was the label, however, that she kept close, stuck with the weak remnants of adhesive to her palm. "If I had to take one big 'ole guess, I'd say those little shits took this, what is it, Miguel's compendium?"

Nobody questioned how Nora found these things, preoccupied with the present, but someone, a girl, stepped forward to take the label, and Nora pulled her hand back to keep it in her own clutches. The girl sighed. "If they stole something, then your complaints about the Empress being off on vacation were probably in vain." Her pink lips tightened. "If they stole something, she's out there getting it back."

A gentle murmur swept through the audience of superhumans, and the golden light streaming in through the windows bounced atop each of their heads, as though signifying little light bulbs going off at every second. The room filled itself with statements like "so the Empress followed those weirdos in the masks, huh?" and "but it's been a long time - do you think they killed her?" Following that last one, the space erupted with noise and panicked voices. Nora pressed the butt of the flashlight to her forehead and clamped her eyes shut - I'm gonna get a fucking headache from all this.

Unfamiliarity caused the cessation of sound. It entered, masculine, caustic, and touched with amusement. "Oh, she's not dead. She'd be quite useless if she were dead, anyone could tell you that."

The voice made Nora drop the flashlight, and the heavy thing clattered to the tile loudly as she turned to look at the towering man in the doorway. He stood there, bored, almost, and donned in slim-fitting black. He'd look no different if he had a toothpick digging lazily through his teeth. "Huh," he said, glancing at her with faint recognition. "You're the jumpy one. Nosy. Well, then, I'm going to ignore you, and focus on your friends here." His gaze moved, and Nora's face reddened. "I assume you've all been looking for someone?"

"Yes," Irene said, standing cautiously behind the table in the back, "and I assume you know who that someone is."

"Oh, certainly. I know where that someone is, too. Say, d'you think we could quit referring to Sakura so cryptically?"