The Ongoing Adventures of Stupendous Girl!

Götterdämmerung (Part 1 of 7) 09 Aug 2009

Irene shifted again, noticeably, trying to find some way to set herself in the small wicker chair that offered even a modicum of comfort. Nothing else in the room helped her to feel at ease, not the wispy smoke lazily sliding its way through every part of the small space, not the gloomy dark punctured ineffectually by a few candles on a shelf, and definitely not the mysterious Slavic looking woman sitting across from her, pale grey eyes piercing (or so she felt) into her very mind, reading her thoughts before she even knew she had them.

“You are nervous, yes?”

Irene isn’t quite nervous – not about any perceived danger in the situation, anyway, as she always has in the back of her head a piece of mind that comes from being able to fly, punch holes through walls, and lift a hundred times her weight over her head with ease – but she is quite uncomfortable in the dank, dark, smoky room with the strange old lady looking at her, and she is quite uncertain about what she’s thinking about doing here. So nervous, she figured, was a close enough description.

“It’s hardly a proof of clairvoyance to pick that up.”

The woman’s eyes remain impassive. If she is annoyed at the implicit challenge and disbelief in the statement, Irene will never know from her expression.

“You hold a secret.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Bigger, your secret is. More important. Better hidden.”

Irene said nothing. If the woman was fishing, if she was just full of shit and knew how to cold read, nothing more, she’d let her expose herself.

“You have power… immense power. A power you must hide, keep hidden, or else into great danger you will come. You and, perhaps, those around you.”

Okay, thought Irene, if that was a cold read, it was one heck of a read. Let’s see what she really knew.

“What do you mean by power?”

The woman laughs in response, not dismissively, quite, but in resignation. She’d been questioned before, many times, and her pride had long got over it. It was just part of the dance.

“I could speak in circles. It is expected. But instead I say just one word to you, one word which best describes the power that shrouds and protects you. You, devushka, you are stupendous.”

Stunned to have been so named, Irene is unable to stop herself from immediately confirming the seer’s… guess? perception?

“How did you…?”

“I am permitted to see many things. Things others cannot see.”

“Permitted? By whom?”

The older woman waits through a painful silence, trying to be sure she phrases her answer the right away, as if afraid a misplaced word would bring with it terrible consequences.

“By the Creator, we shall say. The Creator of all this, what we see, what we do, what we are. More, I cannot be explaining.”

With her greatest fear – her identity being discovered – out before she could bring up the subject herself, Irene is too flummoxed to get out the important follow-up question. Somehow, though, the woman knows and answers it without being asked.

“Worry not about the secret. Who would I tell? Why would I even want to? No, instead we talk about why you are here.”

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