Chapter 1 - Her Struggle

Sister Ann Alfie sat for a timeless eternity, holding trembling hands to her lips, baring the vile sounds that wanted to burst from her.

Moments later a rasping moan escaped her, despite her best efforts, clawing up her nape and cutting through the gaps of her fingers like maggots crawling from her very soul.

Is that me?

She wondered in hollow horror.

Is that me making such a piteous sound!? I am one of the glorious. One of the chosen. One of the SUN! A child of MANA!

Ann knew that even more then all of this she was now, as of two days ago, the Second in Command of the Brotherhood.

The right hand to the glorious savior of Mankind and Grand Master. And yet, sitting here whimpering like a bitch in heat, the moans continued to escape her, trembling out of her being and there were tears to accompany them.

Shameful, large, wet tears that painted her cheeks, dampened her palms and burned her eyes and gullet with perverse embarrassment but also with calming release.

It had been an eternity since she had done such a contemptable thing as weeping.

Sister Ann had decided a long time ago that she would never show such frailty to a world so unconcerned with providing mercy to the weak. So she battled the sobs as one whom would go to war with an enemy on the battle field. And somehow she prevailed. Slowly climbing up from the floor she bent forwards, swiping at swollen dark brown eyes. Her garments clung to her form. The brotherhoods traditional garb, thick, flowing white robes, were cumbersome at the best of times, but in this moment she found that she truly detested the fabrics as they bunched up about her lean for and genial curves, which hardly announced her femininity to the world.

A cool sweat sent shivers up and down her flesh and sickness threatened as her choked voice made her lightheaded. She needed no mirror to tell her that she looked quite over wrought. Her large back eyes, were dulled with lack of sleep, her hair, curly like wool, and cut to a mere two inches from her scalp was just as black as her eye thin eyebrows and delicate lashes. She was a tall woman, with limbs reminiscent of a swans neck, and just as small. Her skin was graham cracker brown and her lips were narrow, as was her nose. Her face was drawn with nameless struggle.

“Strengthen me father, Brother, Lover, Eternity Giver.” She murmured and almost on auto pilot she fashioned her pointer to the knuckle of her thumb and pressed her middle finger to the pad of her thumb, curling her middle fingers into a fist.

The act was a symbolic representation of a pupil and an eye, which the Alchemist pressed to trembling lips as she voiced her plea to the Dark Ones. Their God Bane.

Such an act was one of wide practiced benediction among the brotherhood and one that had been used to instill great reverence and peace into the hearts of Mana users.

But in this she felt no familiar wash of peace, awe and certainty. Ann only felt empty. She felt...fear. And Loss. She saw the milky white eyes in her head and she wanted nothing so much as to have the chance to pluck the memory from her mind.

Ann like all of the other Alchemists in the Brother Hood had never seen their God in the Flesh. The Bane spoke through the Savior. The Bane moved through the Grand Master. The Bane and the Grand Master’s Will had always been one....and so none had ever been in the presence of the God. None but Hovel and his Second Hand had even been allowed beneath the Base...Into the Bowels.

She had once envied such a thing....now?

Threatened once more by the frightful sting of tears, the woman tried to settle her mind on the task that she had been about, when melancholy as deep and cloying as the sear had tried to snatch her away. She glanced about the room, forcing herself to behold it in detached scrutiny.

The room was larger by far and a half then the rest of the barreks that were often shared and occupied by the vast majority of the brotherhood. The walls floor and ceiling were a glossy alabaster, as it was all over the Base. There was giant cold bed in the far right of the room, a giant desk cluttered with papers and notes, and an old cup of coffee that had grown cold waiting on its drinker to return. Candles, nearly melted to stubs, sat burning still in their holders illuminating the room, and making the air smoky with the scent of burning wax....and another scent. The scent of a man, vanilla and musk. His scent.

The floor was covered at one point beside a hearth in the wall, with thick volumes and texts that had been placed one atop another as if the reader had been trying to read all four at one time. An inkwell pen and a stack of black sheets sat beside the books. Everything in the room looked in a half state of being disturbed. The covers were messy. The closet was full of clothes that did not belong to her. And the air smelled of him.

The vastness of the room had once given her a reason for to feel great envy, as all she could remember was all her days being forced into cramped dens that could barely accommodate her and her trunk of robes and books.

And now here she was. This was Ann’s room now. Everything that had been his was now hers. And wasn’t that just amazing? Wasn’t that...great?

Her breast seem to clench on the mockery of it all.