Chapter Text
Sonia's right eye itched terribly. A burning sensation had been pricking at the edge of her awareness all morning, but she dare not remove the bandages covering that side of her face, lest one of the many healers combing the grounds of the Sanctuary saw her doing so. The last time she'd done so she'd gotten an earful from a healer about how her injuries wouldn't heal if she didn't listen to medical advice. She'd finally snapped at the young man that she was an enemy of the Sanctuary anyway, so no one should care. Then she'd stormed off, only to have man rush up a second later to readjust the bandages around her eye. His disapproving frown was not cowed at all by the one-eyed glare she'd levelled him with while he worked.
Trying to simply scratch the itch through the thick, sturdy fabric of the bandages offered no relief of the irritation either. All that accomplished was offsetting the bandages slightly, leaving them in an even more uncomfortable position than before.
The actions of the medic despite her harsh words was another reminder of a thing that made no sense to Sonia. No one here seemed to treat her like the enemy. She was the daughter of a man who tried to siphon of their goddess' power in order to claim leadership of a new world order. She'd fought Saints, and she'd killed Saints, but you would never know that going off how the very people she fought were treating her. Take now for instance, as she walked across the grounds of the Sanctuary. A few curious glances may have been shot her way, but no one shouted out accusations. No one attacked her. Everyone just went about their daily business.
The Sanctuary had held up surprisingly well despite the battles that had been fought here so recently. Jagged spires of rock encroached on all sides, ringing the valley that housed the Sanctuary grounds. The mountains seemed to lean inwards as they reached their peaks, encasing all that was below them. The large valley stretched out before Sonia, filled with the marble buildings and flat training grounds that housed the Saints and soldiers who claimed the Sanctuary as home.
It was impossible to imagine that just days before the land had been torn apart as godly powers drew away the Twelve Zodiac Temples, attempting to replace the very world that the Sanctuary resided in. Had she not seen it with her own eyes, Sonia wouldn't have believed such a thing had occurred, not after looking at the peace and calm of the grounds now. The only marks of evidence that such an upheaval had in fact happened were a few buildings still in repair, but even those marks would soon disappear as diligent soldiers were hard at work putting them back to rights.
Her eye wasn't the only itch that Sonia was dealing with. The other was much worse. One she hadn't the faintest clue how to deal with.
Her mind itched. Her mind prickled. Something was there. Something she could feel, but never quite reach.
Her Cosmos.
Since waking up in one of the Sanctuary's sickbeds to the aftermath of the Saint's fight with her father, Sonia had not been able to ignite her Cosmos. She could still feel it, however. She knew it was smoldering quietly in wait, but for all her attempts to raise it, to feel it flood her body, nothing. Each attempt amounted to only a cold, bleak emptiness and an unbridled frustration.
This itch was a thousand times worse than the one around her eye, and there was no bandage she could simply remove to get to it. No way she could think of it fix it. The burning around her eye at least would heal in time, but this…
No, like it or not, she was stuck with this itch.
Sonia heard her name called out behind her, pulling her out of her brooding thoughts and bringing a scowl to her face. She was in no mood to talk to anyone, especially not anyone she'd find within the Sanctuary's confines. With shoulders stiffened she continued walking, pretending not to have voice then called again, louder this time.
Sonia's strides quickened and she sought an escape route. She glanced out of the corner of her left eye. The wide open space of the training grounds filled her vision. Finding that path insufficient, she turned her chin over her right shoulder. There. Cut into the steep mountains that ringed the Sanctuary grounds was a set of stairs. She darted toward them, almost stumbling over the bottom step in her haste.
Damned depth perception. You never knew how much you appreciated it until it wasn't what it used to be.
Sonia took the stairs as fast as she could, doing her best to adapt her stride to her halved vision. The state of the stairs didn't help this endeavour. They were clearly old and not truly uniform; they curved here and there where they should have been straight, some steps wider, some narrower. She didn't hear her name called out again though, which was all she cared about at the moment.
The problem now was that Sonia had taken these steps on a whim. They were a means to escape, but she had no idea where they were leading her. They also didn't seem to have any intention of stopping anytime soon. They kept going up and up, appearing endless. Before long Sonia was beginning to feel winded, a reminder of the brush with death she'd had so recently. Her steps had slowed to nearly a crawl by the time she finally crested the top of the staircase.
She was met with the sight of a sprawling building of pure white marble. Towering columns supported a smooth white façade. Three sloping spires topped the roof of the temple, with a pair of ram horns engraved upon the center of the trio. Sonia eyed the symbol sourly. She should have known full well where these steps had been leading her. The last time she'd been here, the staircase had been scoured out of the mountainside and a different power had been in charge of the Sanctuary.
The Aries Temple spread out before her in all its glory, the first of the Twelve Houses of the Zodiac that guarded the way to Athena's chambers.
In the distance behind the Aries Temple Sonia could see the stairs continue higher into the mountainside. They would continue to climb deeper into the mountains that rose above all of Sanctuary, much further than her eye could see. Somewhere up there was the Scorpio Temple.
An idle thought crossed Sonia's mind, wondering what sort of shape it was in now. Had her Cosmos torn it to pieces? She recalled images of stones tumbling around her, of walls caving in and columns crumbling amidst the chaos she'd created. Nothing should have survived that destruction. Least of all herself.
Looking at the Aries Temple made her think differently. There was something about its silent stones that spoke of an ancientness. One that said it had stood watch over these stairs for eons already and would do so for eons more. No, somehow she knew the Scorpio Temple would still be standing, quiet and empty without a guardian. Sonia wasn't sure if the thought comforted or unsettled her.
Standing outside the temple, the prickling in the deepest corners of Sonia's mind started again. Absently she tried to reach for it with her inner self but it evaded her attempts. She let out her frustrations at her failings by trying once more to scratch at the discomfort under her bandages . That too was met with little success, doing nothing to alleviate her discomforts.
She took a quick glance behind her, looking down the tall stairs she'd just climbed. She wasn't quite ready to go back down yet. Not where she was likely to run into whoever had been looking for her. She'd heard the Aries Saint had gone on a journey to gather materials to repair the Cloths which had been damaged during the Saints' battle with Mars. He was likely still gone.
Face set in a firm scowl, Sonia started forward. She would enjoy the solitude a little longer.
Everything about the Sanctuary was old, but stepping into the Aries Temple felt as if she were walking backwards in time. Her footsteps echoed in the dead air of the voluminous hallway whose end was obscured by a darkness that the light from outside could not reach. She turned her head from side to side, trying to take in all she could, hating the way she had to turn so far to see anything on her right side.
She walked over a smooth floor of irregularly shaped tiles. On each side she was flanked by a row of marble columns. They rose up to the ceiling above, with a narrow band of stone arching between each to keep them linked in the upper reaches of the temple. Into them were carved scenes from the days of myth.
A flying ram whose fleece was etched with gold soared over land and sea. In another image it carried a pair of children, a boy and a girl. A third depicted the girl child tumbling down to treacherous waves, while a fourth showed the lifeless fleece, still flecked with gold, being guarded by a fearsome looking reptilian beast. There were more myths still, many featuring a boat and a curly haired young man who was obviously some sort of hero, but Sonia's eye was drawn to the third image.
They must be siblings, the boy and girl. Had they been happy once, before they had to escape whatever disaster on this mythical beast? What had the girl done to deserve her fall, while her brother flew away to safety? Had the gods cursed her, but spared an innocent brother?
Sonia decided she didn't want to know. She lowered her gaze and gladly left the images behind her as she stepped deeper into the temple.
A dozen or so more paces brought her into the shadows where the sunlight could no longer penetrate. Her steps faltered as a flame burst into life to her left.
She spun to look at it, narrowing her eye as she inspected the shadows behind the column. Had she been wrong? Was someone else here? She turned to the right, where she could now see a second flame had come to life in a mirroring scone on the opposite column. It couldn't have been a person lighting the fires then. She would have seen them, or at least she thought she would have. Sonia wasn't sure how much she trusted her vision anymore.
Tongues of pale fire licked at the air, and lit the way to the depths of the temple. She could now see the far wall of the chamber. At this distance she couldn't make out many details, but something glinted in the darkness, reflecting back the light from the flames.
Drawn by the far off flickering lights, Sonia ignored her worriers that she might not be alone, and stepped forward again. As she passed every second column a new set of flames began to burn, bringing more light to the darkness of the temple.
A final pair of flames, lower than those before, burst into life against the far wall, illuminating a great stone wheel carved into the smooth marble face. Glittering jewels were embedded in the wall all around the wheel. Cloth Stones which had lost their Saints. The wheel itself was made of twelve equal sized wedges forming a ring around a marble bust of the goddess Athena. She was garbed in a chiton and war helm. In the center of each wedge was engraved one of the twelve Zodiac Symbols, above which sat a small hole. Gold Cloth Stones glinted in some of the recesses. Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Libra and Sagittarius all sat empty, eating up the light that flowed from the torches. The eighth place in the wheel was empty as well. The Scorpio Cloth Stone was not resting in its nook.
Sonia turned her head to the right, and there it was.
She remembered the tales of Saint's Cloths having souls of their own. The Hornet Galaxy she'd worn as a Martian had been a dead thing, so she'd never put much stock in those stories. That was, she hadn't until she'd donned the very Cloth looking at her now. It was alive. Or at least it had been.
The Cloth was mounted on an armour rack, pieced together in a semblance of how it would look on a person, rather than curled into the likeness of a slinking scorpion as it had been when Medea had presented her with it. Whoever had done the work to set it up must have been intimately familiar with how it looked. Otherwise they never would have been able to reconstruct the shape from the shattered pieces it was left in. The greaves were tarnished, each ribbed chest piece was marred by dark fractals webbing across their surfaces, one of the shoulder spikes was shorn halfway through, and the links of the headpieces seemed to be hanging together by a single thread of golden star metal. The half destroyed mask of the Cloth stared right back at her. Only the left side remained, mirroring Sonia's own injured face.
It lacked the golden sheen it had when she'd first laid eyes on it. Now it was dull, and drab, and seemed to suck up the light of the burning torches, instead of reflecting it back as the glittering stones on the wall did. The only thing that appeared to have even a glimmer of life was the one red eye slit of the mask. The light glinted off it as it judged her with its cold stare.
Realizing she'd been chewing her lip as she stared at it, Sonia released the now tender flesh from her teeth and approached the Cloth.
That irritating sensation hidden at the back of her consciousness sparked to life. It itched again, more intense than ever. It was biting, scratching, gnawing at her. Was her Cosmos stirring? Or was it just her imagination?
Sonia pressed her eye shut, reaching for the feeling, grasping for the threads of her Cosmos that she could feel was there if she could just reach it. It slipped through her grasp, slick and oily as ever.
Frustration rose within her. Why couldn't she tap into her Cosmos anymore? Why did it refuse to respond to her calls?
She snapped her eye open, and glared at the red eye slit that so stubbornly stared back. It was because of this damned Cloth that she couldn't even touch her own Cosmos. That she was here at the mercy of her enemies. That she'd been injured. That she'd almost died.
A cry of rage burst from her throat, carrying with it all the anger and frustrations that had been building in her since she'd woken in the Sanctuary. She pulled her right fist back, not caring that she no longer had a Cosmos to power the strike. She would break it. She would shatter this hateful mask that wouldn't stop glaring. That wouldn't stop judging.
Her fist never touched metal. The Cloth was not so dead as it appeared. A hair's breadth from striking it, a shock of pain slammed into her fist, racing up her arm with such heat that she cried out and grasped her upper arm with her left hand. Her knees sagged, and she barely managed to keep her footing. A stark numbness settled in her arm, and she turned her eye to glare back up at the Cloth again.
It looked no different. It still glared. Still judged. But no it most certainly was not dead.
It seems they'd both survived their encounter in the Scorpio Temple.
"Sonia, I'm glad you're here."
The calm voice sliced through her roiling emotions like a boat breaking through water. She froze stock still aside from the panting of her breaths. Slowly, Sonia released the grip on her right arm, allowing the numb limb to hang uselessly at her side and straightened her stance. She turned her head, her feet following until she fully faced the speaker.
A young man stood a few feet behind her, the flames by the wall carving illuminating his features. Soft, lilac irises regarded her calmly beneath a pair of red, nearly circular eyebrows. Thick auburn hair swept down to his waist, pulled back by a simple ribbon. The man wore plain travellers clothes instead of golden armour, yet Sonia knew without a doubt that it was a Gold Saint standing before her. No one else could emanate such power, even being held dormant as it was at the moment.
The man strode forward. With a flick of his fingers a light appeared above the Scorpio Cloth, burning in a sconce hanging from the ceiling. Sonia wondered if what she had believed to be some sort of strange magic of the temple had been this man all along, with his own sort of magic.
"I don't believe we've been properly introduced." His voice was deep and rich, with a welcoming warmth in it. In one graceful move he ducked into a sweeping bow. It was a formal act, but somehow fitting instead of feeling either out of place or clichéd. "I am Aries Kiki, guardian of this temple and the Sanctuary's Clothsmith."
Sonia wasn't sure how to return such a greeting. Certainly not with a bow like the one he'd given. She lacked the polite grace for such a movement. As for her title…
She could no longer call herself Hornet Sonia. Glancing at the Cloth still standing dormant beside her she shuddered at even the thought of proclaiming herself to be the Scorpio Saint. It would probably seem like an insult if she introduced herself as such to a man who had clearly earned his Cloth and whose Cloth undoubtedly accepted him.
She would never be a Saint, but she supposed she was no longer a Martian anymore either. No one was now that her father had been defeated. She didn't even have a Cosmos anymore.
She was…she was just Sonia. A frightening reality when she realized that she didn't even know who Sonia was. For too long she'd been a title, a position, or a tool if she were being particularity bitter. The girl Sonia had been lost somewhere along the way. Lost for good.
Kiki cocked his head to the side, his welcoming smile sliding into something else. Maybe bemusement? Of course, she'd been standing there brooding, rather than offering him a response.
"An honour," Sonia hastily ducked her head, as way of returning his greeting and side-stepping the need of naming herself. Yes, no names were needed. Besides, he clearly knew who she was. He'd called her by name hadn't he?
The bemused look on Kiki's face didn't leave, but her response must have been satisfactory, for he straightened his shoulders and nodded thoughtfully. "I sent Raki to look for you, but I didn't expect she would find you so soon. From what I've heard, you've been spending most of your time at the Sanctuary in solitude, aside from seeing the healers."
Raki? That must have been who Sonia had heard calling her name. The one she'd tried to avoid and for that reason had ended up here. Some might say that was some kind of trick of fate. Sonia preferred to leave it to coincidence. As for his last comment, she was now silently cursing whatever whim had possessed her to finally leave her room that day. She made a noncommittal sound in her throat before saying flatly, "I'm here now."
Kiki let out a small chuckle. "No need to sound so defensive."
Sonia clenched her fists, sending a shock of sensation down her numbed arm. What little pride she had left took a stinging blow He was speaking to her as if she were a child, something no one had done for a very long time. She narrowed her brows in as ferocious of a glare as she could muster with only one eye. "Well, what is it?" She bit the words out this time. "What do you want?"
"I want to speak with you about repairing the Scorpio Cloth."
"What about it?" Sonia's eye slid unwillingly back to the Cloth. Its mangled pieces and scarred surfaces would certainly need repair. Not that she cared much if it got it. Stiffening her spine, she pointedly looked away from it.
Kiki stepped up beside her and reached out to the Cloth. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him running a hand over the broken spike on the shoulder pauldron. Clearly it hadn't reacted to him as it had to her. Kiki didn't cry out in pain, or pull his hand back instantly. Instead, his fingers gently traced its broken surface, his mouth turning down in a frown. "Of all the Cloths, the damage the Scorpio Cloth received was the most severe." He sounded pained as he spoke. "It is possible, however unlikely, for a Cloth itself to be killed, and the Scorpio Cloth is very close to that point. I shudder to think of the amount of power that had been needed to damage a Gold Cloth to such an extent."
Sonia did shudder. She could easily recall the surging, untameable energy that had swirled around her in the Scorpio Temple. Her Cosmos had burned stronger, yet more ragged than it ever had before, and when the Cloth fled her body it had shattered into the pieces it was now left in. Had all her strength gone into destroying the Cloth, and that's why she could no longer raise her Cosmos? Was that even possible?
Was that itching just the weak flickering of all that would ever be left of her Cosmos?
She eyed Kiki as she contemplated this. If anyone knew if this was possible, a Gold Saint certainly should, but she had no intentions of asking him his thoughts. Instead she chose the more steely statement of, "This still doesn't explain what you want me for."
Kiki smiled kindly at her. "My apologies, I hadn't realized how impatient you were," he didn't say it in an offensive way at all, but the Aries Saint's words still sent her hackles rising once again. "Fortunately it's not often needed anymore, but in this particular case I believe it may be best to use blood in the reparation. In fact its life may not be able to be rekindled without blood," he said. "Anyone's blood would do the job, but I thought you might wish to consider offering your own. It might help to solidify your bond."
"My what?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She took a step back, eying Kiki as if he'd just grown a second head. She must have heard him wrong. It almost sounded like he thought she really was the Scorpio Saint.
Kiki's peculiar brows puckered slightly. "Your blood, for the repairs. There's no need to be worried of course. It's only the one Cloth. I once saw a man give up blood to revive two Cloths that were as nearly as badly damaged as yours, and well, he's not so young these days," Kiki said with a small chuckle at some apparent joke. Whatever it was, Sonia didn't find it amusing. "It wouldn't be nearly so bad for you."
He thought it was the idea of giving blood that had disturbed her. He called the Scorpio Cloth her Cloth. The Aries Saint couldn't be more wrong in either of these things. "No, I don't want anything to do with that Cloth," Sonia edged further away from the offending object, shaking her head fiercely. "I'm not a Saint. I'm only here until I recover." Then she would be gone from here forever, she added silently to herself. To where she didn't know, but there was no place left for her among warriors and Saints.
That itch began again, but this time she suppressed the urge to try and reach for her Cosmos .
"I'm not sure if you understand," Kiki said slowly, almost gently. "Whether or not you wish it, the fact remains that you are the Scorpio Saint."
The smoothness in his voice might as well have been the most jagged of edges for all it did to calm her. In fact, it incited her more. "No, you don't understand. I am not a Saint. That Cloth," Sonia flung her right arm toward the silent armour, pin-pricks racing up to her shoulder as the movement brought more feeling back to her numbed limb. "It hates me." The shock of pain that had assaulted her came back to the forefront of her mind. She remembered how in the Scorpio Temple the Cloth had turned her own attack back on her. How it had left her to face her angry Cosmos alone. The Cloth wanted nothing to do with her. Even if this man couldn't see it, she knew it didn't think of her as its Saint, and it never would.
"Whatever would give you that idea?" Kiki seemed unfazed by her outburst, taking everything she said calmly. "I can tell that the two of you are linked."
"Bullshit," she snarled back.
Kiki's lips pressed together. "Sonia, I know more about the workings of Cloths than anyone else alive today, please at least consider what I am saying."
"What do you even care?' Sonia cried with boiling frustration. "Why would you even want me as a Saint?" Red hot anger came off her in waves. In any other circumstance her Cosmos would have ignited at her rising emotions, but it stayed so coldly dormant. Maybe that irritation helped fuel her rising anger at the Aries Saint. Maybe she wasn't even angry at him at all. She didn't care.
"I'm your enemy! I fought you! I would have killed any of you, and your precious goddess." Every word of it was fact. She still would have if there was any chance at all of getting back what she lost. Of getting back what she had tried so desperately to protect. Now she had nothing and no one left. Even Eden, the only scrap of family still alive was lost to her. In some sense she'd lost him long before those Bronze Saints defeated their father. She'd lost him as soon as he'd won the Orion Cloth, or maybe even earlier. Maybe it had been as soon as he'd met Aria.
Aria. The name echoed around Sonia's mind, sending a strange pang through her. She hadn't thought much of the quiet, unassuming girl who was immensely more than what she appeared to be. She purposefully pushed thoughts of the girl out of her mind, a habit she'd taken up ever since her father had struck Aria down in the Darkness Temple.
"You say that as if people are irredeemable," Kiki broke into her thoughts which were once again getting away from her. He stepped away from the Cloth, until he was standing directly in front of her. "As if people cannot change their minds, or realize mistakes."
Mistakes. Nothing Kiki had said thus far had incited her like this. It struck a chord deep inside, one that had already been worn red and raw. "What I did was not a mistake," Sonia said in voice like ice. It couldn't have been. She'd been protecting her family. That wasn't a mistake. She had to believe that, or her entire existence had just been a mistake.
"And in your eyes I should be irredeemable," she added turning her head and crossing her arms. Her right arm still twinged slightly at the motion. Her head dropped of its own volition. "I've killed Saints."
Rain. So much rain. And the blood. So much rain, but so much blood that the rain couldn't possibly wash it all away.
Brown eyes, so similar to the Lionet Saint's perplexing ones, but eyes that looked on her with a more fatherly expression than she had seen since the day her mother had died. An expression she had been praying to see from her own father, but she'd hesitated before drawing blood, robbing herself of the chance of such a grace.
The rain had only been good enough to mask the tears that had streamed down her face.
"It's not in my eyes that you have to be redeemable." Kiki's voice still hadn't risen at all. His blasted tranquility was only making him even more infuriating.
"You presume to speak for Athena then?" Sonia asked. "Because I very much doubt I'm redeemable to the woman I helped almost kill."
"No, not Athena." Kiki's reply was delicate, as was the soft falling of those ever strange eyebrows of his. A thoughtful expression crossed his face.
Sonia wouldn't allow her eye to drift past the dull glow of the firelight to where the Scorpio Cloth stood silently. The red eye slit was no doubt staring blankly at her even now. If there was anything left in that metal carapace if would judge her and find her wanting.
"In that case, it knows better than any of you that I am irredeemable." She paused for just a moment, letting her one-eyed glare bore into Kiki's serene face. She then turned and fled, pale strands of hair swirling around in the faint stirring wind she brew up.
Let that be the response to his proposition that she aid in the Cloth's repair.
Her racing footsteps quickly brought her back into the sunlight outside the Aries Temple. From nowhere the itch under her bandages intensified. In a fury she tore the bandages off and cast them aside to get to the one problem she could soothe. The sun hit the now exposed right side of her face, but no light flooded her eye. Her entire right field of vision remained cloaked in blackness. A blackness so dark and deep that it could only be the blackness of the blind.
Frustration ribbed her throat in a feral sound, and she raked her fingernails along the edge of her right eye, desperately seeking some kind of relief from at least one of the problems that plagued her.
Hot, intense relief flooded her as the ravaging itch receded. She must have caught the just healing skin with her nails, but she didn't care. A faint trickle of blood tracked down the side of her face, but the relief, any sort of relief, was just too sweet.