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Faith ran the tap with a shaking hand, the sound of water rushing down against the sink serving as a grounding anchor to the present, drowning out all other noise in the ranch.
She gripped against the edge of the kitchen’s bench, trying to recentre the storm in her mind as the pot began to fill up. Breathe in, breathe out, she repeated to herself. It wasn’t as comforting to her as it would be coming from Joseph, but it would have to do.
She couldn’t rely on him for this. He wouldn’t help in the first place.
Though if what that wretch said was true, he wouldn’t be around for much longer…
You’re thinking too much.
Faith shot her hand out to turn the tap off, standing still as she listened for above. She heard the slow, heavy steps on the floorboards on the ranch’s second floor – the wood creaking under the weight.
Faith swiftly pulled the pot of water out of the sink, rushing to place it on top of the stove, turning the knob to raise the heat up as she briefly left it to scour through the cupboards for a pan, wooden board and utensils for a few vegetables and eggs she managed to find stocked up in the fridge.
When she heard a stumble near the stairway, Faith was filling the pot with pasta and moving on to the mushrooms she placed on the board. By the time her ward made it to the doorway of the kitchen, Faith was in the middle of cutting up the mushrooms and a few of the remaining vegetables in the ranch.
“Oh, hello angel!” Faith greeted her ward – Silva, she’d been called – smile as bright as she could muster towards her ward, “I wasn’t expecting you to get up so soon.”
She received a head tilt in response, which was progress. Better than nothing, Faith mused.
Silva faced towards the boiling pot of pasta, then to the vegetables Faith was messily cutting up. Again, she tilted her head, awaiting an answer to her silent question. It was hard for Faith to discern any expression due to the obstacle in the way, but she’s adjusted to the small movements relatively better than even that evil woman had anticipated.
You’re thinking too much.
Faith put her thoughts aside to answer her silent ward’s curiosity, “I’m cooking up some, uh, pasta frittata. I found out about it in one of the still readable cookbooks John left behind here. Thought it’d make a nice lunch… for the two of us…”
In truth, Faith had just wanted to cook something relatively easy to put together. Especially with the shortage of ingredients that remained in the ranch. And it was probably a good dish too, something better than whatever that so called Saint fed Siva.
It seemed convincing enough of a reason to her ward, as she steadily entered the kitchen, ducking her head and body under the archway, cramping up the kitchen space. Faith hadn’t realized just how unaccommodating the interior was to her ward’s size, but she ignored it in favour of a distraction.
“In fact, now that you’re here-” Faith had spoken, earning her ward’s attention, but paused in her words under the weight of Silva’s looming gaze. Due to the small space, they were face to face, enough so that Faith could feel the heat emanating from her ward’s body. Swallowing down her nerved, Faith continued, “-since you’re here, you can help me out.”
Anything to keep out minds off from what’s going on outside, invaded the unspoken thought. Faith barely acknowledged it, focused on getting her ward to do something other than Matilda’s purpose of her.
Reaching over Silva’s right arm to grab the carton box, Faith gradually brough the eggs over to herself, opening them.
“I’ve prepared most of the ingredients already, so I’ll task you with whisking the eggs,” Faith said as she showed the eggs to Silva, whose head perked up at the perceived order, though Faith ensured to further explain, “All you need to do is break the eggs over the bowl, make sure the yolk gets in but not the shells, then mix it with the whisk.”
She gestured over to the (rather messy) bench, the glass bowl awaiting to be used along with the whisk. Silva readjusted her position so she could look behind her, but returned to looking back to Faith, no other movements made.
Looking her ward up and down, Faith narrowed her green eyes between Silva’s large hands and the small whisk on the bench. She frowned, before adding, “Actually… don’t worry about the whisking part. You just make sure the eggs get into the bowl.”
Presenting the carton of eggs, Faith watched as Silva hesitantly lifted up a hand from the ground, reaching over small carton, stopping.
Faith’s frown did not disappear and only deepened as she recognized the size problem rearing its ugly head again.
“…How about I pass an egg over to you?” Faith suggested, though she received no reply from her ward. Predictable, considering Silva is incapable of refusing her, even if she didn’t agree. She was as amenable as the traitor informed her she’d be.
You’re thinking too much.
“Here,” Faith caught Silva’s attention as she grabbed a hold of one egg, reaching it out to her ward, “Take this one. Hold it as gently as you can.”
With her new task received, Silva’s hand continued forwards, this time to the egg in Faith’s hands. Her hand shadowed over Faith’s, shifting into a position so her index and thumb could gradually close in on the egg.
When it seemed that her ward a grip on the egg, Faith let go.
However, it appeared she’d misread Silva’s hold, as due to the reduced amount of pressure Silva usually had in her hold, the egg managed to slip out of her index and thumb, falling to the floor where it splattered.
Faith stepped back so her feet wouldn’t be covered in eggshells and yolk. Looking back to Silva, she could see the immediate distress begin to rise up from her ward.
“That’s okay!” she called to her ward as clearly and loud as possible. That earned her Silva’s total focus on her, much to Faith’s relief, and she continued, “It’s alright. There’s still plenty of eggs left. We can try again. Just… keep your grip firmer, but not too firm, okay?”
Her ward didn’t express a response, instead reaching out her large hand into position, prompting Faith to grab another egg to try again.
When Faith presented the egg, her ward repeated her previous action, closing her index and thumb around the egg. Only this time, egg would not slip out, the grip firmer than before.
Faith let go, and the egg did not fall, though she did notice the slight application of pressure had cracked it, yolk leaking through.
Before Faith could warn her ward, the egg was crushed between Silva’s two fingers, more yolk and eggshells littering the kitchen floor, as well as being grinded between her ward’s fingers.
Faith heard a growling rumble within her ward’s body and observed how her hand shook in confusion at the eggs destruction.
Silva looked to her for guidance, and Faith did her best to breathe, closing her eyes to calm herself as to not allow these slip ups to impede on her temper.
I can do this, Faith told herself in the privacy of her mind, I can teach her to be gentle. I can prove she’s more than what Matilda made her. I can bring her bliss from this misgiving forced upon her.
Opening her green eyes, she gave her ward a smile, though it felt too tight across her lips. Not that Silva could tell, even as Faith took out an egg and extended it over to the other once more. “It’s okay,” she told her, in the most pleasant voice she could muster, “Just try again. And remember… be gentle.”
Her ward didn’t say much of a reply – she never does, according to her previous keeper – though Faith could tell she was even more hesitant, but she didn’t back down.
She’ll do this a hundred times over, if she had to.
Just as the water bubbled in the neglected pot, reminding Faith what exercise she was supposed to be running, Silva finally extended her hand out over the egg.
As slow and tender as she could be capable of, she closed her index and thumb over the fragile ingredient, taking it from Faith’s hand. Not so much as a crack, from what the herald could see, though she noticed how her ward’s arm shook. Was she nervous? Faith wished she could tell.
To her ward’s credit, she was doing remarkably well bringing the egg over to the glass bowl behind her.
But just as before, something went wrong.
Faith realized just what Silva failed to notice; the expansive guard over her large elbow colliding with the wall just as she went to turn. The violent shake caused her ward to instinctively clench her fingers, the egg an unfortunate casualty, crushed and broken into shards of eggshells and splattered yolk.
Faith heard the mechanisms whir to life, her green eyes racing over to the plates that repeatedly fluttered against her ward’s steel spine, emitting a cacophony that built up in volume for the resounding pay-off.
One of the components on Silva’s back twisted to the right, a clear cylinder full of yellowish fluid popping out of its slot, before twisting in place, releasing a dark red to permeate the yellow. The recall order was out of Faith’s throat in a panic, but it was for naught, as the steam screamed out of the cylinder’s port, drowning Faith’s orders with screeching precipice to the raucous finale.
The cylinder shifted, letting dropping back inside the slot, twisting shut with a clicking lock. With the chemicals infused inside, Silva raised her visionless helm tall, the horns scraping against the ceiling, as she directed her frustration towards the only viable source of her error. The helm, normally shackled from any form of speech, split open between a metal jaw and the eyeless sensors, as the Harbinger blared out the sound of a booming horn, like that of a freighter.
Faith dropped the cardboard carton to protect her ears from the unduly bellow, keeping her gaze down as the sound rattled the ranch. She almost lost her footing upon feeling the very floorboards shake from a prominent quake.
Back against the fridge to steady herself, the ranch quiet from the thunderous holler, Faith dared to look up, her gaze locking onto the source of the sudden quake.
One of Silva’s large, gauntleted hands had been closed into a fist, unbound strength brought down onto the kitchen bench, splintered and broken. The cooking supplies Faith scrounged together were amongst the collateral; the pot of pasta had tumbled over from the excessive force, boiled water thankfully spilt elsewhere from Faith’s position. The mushroom and vegetables were crushed to paste, the boards and cutlery beyond saving.
The culprit of it all shifted back, away from the destructive mess. The metal jaw had locked back in with the helm, the sensor plates directed at Faith in a kitchen too small for the Harbinger’s body. Dutifully awaiting her next orders. Unlike the Silva she knew.
Faith closed her shaking hands, her fingernails digging into her palms as she directed an infuriated glare towards the Harbinger. Towards Saint Matilda’s perfect monster.
“You... you ruined it,” she states lowly, her eyes crossing from mess to the worn and peeling dark red on the metal plating of the beast. Faith shook her head, jaw clenched as she tried to hold back the crashing waves of emotion breaking through the dam she’s been holding together over the course of these past few days.
“You’ve ruined everything,” she tells the Harbinger, voice slipped into a slight raise, just as the threads of control slipped from her hands. The Harbinger’s helm dipped down, backing up only to bump against archway in the kitchen, the body the woman Faith knew was trapped inside too large for anything except for fear and rampage, just as its designer intended.
“You’re thinking too much.”
Her white-clad twin told her with too much lightness in her voice, taloned hands reaching deeper into the crevices of the armour’s shell, thin fingers massaging the wires and cords underneath the placid monstrosity with such dark and sickly affection, a final goodbye.
But she knew the self-proclaimed Saint held no real, actual love for her victim. Only what the Harbinger could prove for her.
Faith paused as she observed the Harbinger. She saw how the armour’s plating shook, helm dipped down in shame for the failure of a task. Was she expecting punishment? Faith wondered.
That only made the anger worse.
Only this time, it was turned inwards.
Faith turned her gaze down to her feet; her bare, dirty, sore feet, tints of dried blood barely washed off properly. All that running around from a bloodthirsty monster didn’t do her any good.
She frowned again, her face falling ever lower. She let a shuddering breath out. She turned her gaze around her brother’s ranch – or what used to be John’s home, for all of them. Or maybe just their older brothers.
It was a wreck, truthfully. Furniture broken, walls and floor full of holes from the weight of unmatched strength. Claimed by the Harbinger, turned into a kind of den for it to return to during its run around for the blood of Saint Matilda’s foes. Or those she simply felt ambivalent towards.
Faith looked to her hands; her thin, dainty hands. She brushed her fingers on the skin just under her eyes. While didn’t need to see the dark bags, she knew they were there.
She looked to her downcast ward. Facing the floor and averting her gaze. Shunned, or readying herself to be shunned.
What a cruel master she’d been. To pretend for even a slither of a moment that she was no different from the wretch that stole an innocent woman’s life away for her own personal illusion from the harsh reality.
Because you’re not, Rachel rasped out from the dark pit Faith pushed her down, barely clinging despite the herald’s best efforts. Accept it or hate it, you’re cut from the same cloth as her, just like the countless sisters before.
Faith’s stomach churned at that truth; all those Faith’s worked on the Bliss. All those Faith’s had an inkling of what they were doing. Especially with their efforts in taming the wild tempers of the earliest Angels. All failed to procure anything from it, except for her. If Matilda hadn’t been lost to her own ideology, if she simply improved the Angels better than Faith herself could… would that have caught Joseph’s attention? Would he revoke the favour he’d given… the faith he entrusted her?
You’re thinking too much-
Shut up! Faith internally seethed at the all too familiar voice of that horrible woman.
Exhaling, Faith turned her attention to her ward once more. Her lips opened, then closed, before opening again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her own voice devoid of the cheeriness she’d so delicately crafted over the years, “It’s… it’s not your fault.”
She watched as the helm slowly raised, barely turned her direction. Not entirely willing to look at her. If Silva was scared of deception… Faith wouldn’t blame her. Even while unwilling entombed in a body not her own and conditioned by a program to act a certain way, her survival instincts were still remarkably well-attuned.
“None of this is your fault,” Faith told her, for how little it’d do in the end. Because there was an end to this. Only one way this could conclude, and she’d been warned of the outcome by the very woman who was responsible for this mess… who Faith allowed to shirk those responsibilities onto her own weak shoulders.
Why did she even choose this?
Because we’re weak, Rachel spat the words out as the pit’s darkness swallowed her whole once more, much to Faith’s relief.
Faith shook herself free from those thoughts. She needed to clear her head, reconsider things. And she couldn’t do it here… not with her gaze on her, expression locked behind an iron cage.
“I’m going outside,” Faith told Silva, or whatever remained of the woman in the Harbinger’s armour. If she was anything close to the same woman she met at her sister’s floristry – who wore a smile far kinder and honest than anyone she’s met before.
As she went to leave, she heard the heavy creak of robustly plated foot shift on the ground, and Faith turned to see that her ward had every intention to follow after her.
“No,” Faith shook her head at wide expressionless helm, letting the sensors pick up the movement, “You have- you must stay here. Guard the kitchen. That’s my task for you.”
She was unsure if the helm dipping in response was supposed to be Silva’s substitute for slumping shoulders, but Faith let herself be easily convinced so, if it meant she moved feet faster towards the gaping opening of the entrance.
Faith made a short distance away from the ranch, just enough that she’d reach the yellowing patches of grass. A breeze brushed past her, though it felt like it went through her dress.
She shivered. The chilly, overcast day was unanticipated, especially while in the middle of September.
Though she supposed it reflected the tone of her life. Staring down at herself, Faith could only grimace; her dress was dirty and torn, dried dirt and blood alike sullying the purity it was meant to represent. Her hair was knotted, there was dirt under her fingernails, and the soles of her feet had scabs and still retained a sore red.
She hasn’t had a shower in more than a week. Or proper sleep for that matter. Lying low with her ward while avoiding both her brothers’ faithful project members and the Sinners who wouldn’t give a second thought to gunning her down if they came across her was easier said than done. It was only a miracle that no one wanted to go near the Harbinger’s makeshift den, lest they invoke another rampage.
That’s not even mentioning Matilda’s other creations prowling about. The “Prophet Hunters” she called them, sent by the Saint’s former employers to bring both her and the Harbinger back to whatever hell awaited them.
And now Matilda was gone. Because Faith let her go, with some of the Bliss that survived her Gate’s destruction.
She exhaled as she let herself be brought back to that moment.
Faith observed Matilda work with delicate ease, her hands expertly twisting and unplugging and reconnecting the exposed components on the back of the Harbinger’s armour.
The main focus seemed to be the big cylinder full of a yellowish liquid, with four smaller ones guarding its corners, pumping into it.
The Harbinger itself – herself, Faith quietly chided herself – was prone, resting on the ground like a slumbering beast, while Matilda worked unperturbed on top of the armour’s back.
Faith heard the sound of latches unlocking, and the cylinder extended slightly further out, where Matilda grabbed hold of the handle on top of it, pulling the component out. The Harbinger armour shuddered, the metal plating shaking before going still, which seemed to prompt Matilda to hurry in her haste.
Faith gripped once more at the pistol in her hand. She could end it all right there and then. She could kill Matilda before she replaced the cylinder that powered the Harbinger. Then all that would have to happen next would be to let the Harbinger die. Let the woman inside suffer one last agonizing time, just as Matilda described, till she finally perishes.
It wouldn’t be her fault. In fact, it would be the right thing to do. She’s certain Joseph would agree. Hell, even John would agree with her for once that the best thing for the Project, for the sinners and the county, would be ending Matilda’s life to end the Harbinger’s.
Faith refrained from raising her weapon though. Even as Matilda reinserted the new cylinder into the port, a slightly darker yellow liquid transparent inside the major component to the Harbinger’s armour. Even as she lost her only opportunity.
As soon as the component full of fluid was pushed back down inside the Harbinger, the armour shuddered to life again, the sounds of deep groaning coming from within, though Faith was never certain if it came from the armour itself or the unwilling occupant within.
Matilda turned a switch under the back of the Harbinger’s neck before hopping off the back, the outer layers of the armour closing back inwards.
“There, it’s done now,” Matilda told Faith with a voice too soft, too innocuous, the exposed half of her face turned towards her without much emotion present, ”The Harbinger will no longer desire to harm you. It will only track your blood to protect. As its new warden, it should follow commands too.”
Faith didn’t acknowledge the woman with a response, watching as the Harbinger shifted in its position, but did not lift its eyeless helm up, nor bring its massive form up either.
Apparently attuned to where Faith’s mind was on, Matilda added, “It is merely recuperating its influx of strength again. It should be up in half an hour or so.”
That brought Faith some measure of piece of mind, even if she didn’t like it came from the vile Saint.
Matilda approached her slumbering creation, hands resting on the dark red armour, smoothly and tenderly running them over the metal plating.
Faith didn’t like that. Not one bit.
“So that’s it?” Faith questioned, earning Matilda’s attention, “You really are just going to give her to me and run off?”
Matilda surprisingly just nodded to her words, the twirl of auburn hair swaying from the movement, as she explained, “I’ve accomplished what I’ve needed to do here. While the Family we were brought into had helped me find my purpose in this rotten world, something I will be grateful for… I am still exiled, as I’m sure you will be soon.”
Faith sneered at the reminder, though Matilda ignored it as she continued, “Not that it changes road I will walk now. Grateful as I am to the False Father, I must return to where I truly belong; the horrible, horrible home that birthed me to walk in this putrid skin.”
Faith eyed the woman before her, frowning at her words, “To do what?”
She heard the woman let out a wistful sigh, fingers sinking under the Harbinger’s plating to caress further inside.
“So I may continue my work for a worthier cause,” she answered, facing the porcelain masked side of her face towards the Henbane’s former herald, “So I may gift the world more monsters.”
Faith’s grip on the pistol tightened, shaking in her hand at the declaration. Matilda seemed unconcerned by Faith’s reaction, merely focused on probing the crevices of her monster’s armour.
Faith had half a mind to fire upon the woman then and there, but she knew it’d make her efforts all for naught. The Harbinger’s sensors are still active, so if she killed Matilda then and there, she’d be killed the moment her new ward woke up, just as Matilda warned her beforehand. Some prioritizing the creator bullshit or something.
“I know you must think low of me for such a misunderstood mission,” Matilda continued to speak, much to Faith’s irritation, “But what I do is no different to what many others do in the world. What you did to your Angels in the Henbane. I am merely… a step above all of you. And that’s not arrogance; I’ve simply perfected my craft and know for what purpose it must be used for.”
Faith bit down on snapping at the woman, knowing it would fall on death ears. To be called similar to her so blatantly made the Seed sister uneasy. She refused to acknowledge such a connection.
Instead, Faith settled for saying, “And would reaping people’s souls and livelihoods for your own selfishness truly make the world a better place?”
Turning her exposed face around, her sole amber eye, a colour the herald knew used to be as green as her own, staring hard at Faith with a raised brow, Matilda merely responded with a condescending, “You’re thinking too much.”
Faith was roused out of her thoughts from the sound of heavy movement approaching from behind her. She felt a bump to her back, which almost made her lose balance.
Turning around, she found Silva had followed her out, the Harbinger’s eyeless helm closer to her own than it’s ever been before.
“You’re supposed to be inside,” Faith softly chided, telling her ward, “You’ll be spotted if you stay out in the open like this.”
Not unlike how Faith herself would be, and the risk was high with all the factions in the area.
Silva merely dipped her head closer, and Faith couldn’t stop herself from placing her hands on both sides of the helm. Gently, she brought her forehead against the surprisingly warm helm.
She wasn’t sure if the woman inside was lucid enough to understand the real tenderness she was trying to impart onto her. A kindness that she’d been denied under Saint Matilda’s thumb, and whomever had utilized her as an avatar of destruction and senseless death.
She wondered how much longer until Matilda’s final parting words would come true. Until Joseph is inexplicably dead, and the Saint’s other monsters come for her ward next. To torture a woman who Faith has only known to hold the kindest smile with a heart too honest for the world they lived in.
“They’ll come for it,” she’d been told by the wretched Saint before her departure, one hand occupied with vials of Faith’s Bliss, apparently for her journey home, “And you won’t be able to stop them.”
Then I’ll die trying, is what Faith promised herself. Hold clutching onto the Harbinger’s helm, the metal separating her from seeing Silva’s beautiful face underneath, her hair as dark as ebony and sombre grey eyes filled with a tender love that she never got a chance to keep on her.
I won’t let them take more of you from me.