Metal Stages

I. INCUBATION (CHILDHOOD SHOULD BE CAREFREE, PLAYING IN THE SUN; NOT LIVING A NIGHTMARE IN THE DARKNESS OF THE SOUL -THAT'S WHAT THE DUKE TOLD YOU.) You are not what Mother Miranda would consider a "resounding success," if anything you are average, almost mediocre, you were blessed with what she calls blessing, even when deep down you couldn't disagree more. You know you are lucky —luckier than the ghosts that haunt the hallways, deformed and sick, screaming in pain that they no longer feel. You don't remember much of the feeling of humanity, much less mortality, you don't think you have blood to spill anymore. You are not special, much less powerful in the physical sense, but like a mother, Miranda loves you, that's what she says, even when you are ignored in favor of the other possible candidates, she keeps you because while you are not powerful in body, you are powerful in mind. You remember hearing stories about her, about what your parents called "The Protector", so when you see her, you can't help but vibrate with excitement, few have the honor of seeing her face to face, let alone talking to her; she asks you what you consider most valuable, and you answer family. You see her smile and you feel proud. The first time you meet Mother Miranda, it is also the last time you hear from your parents. She takes you by the hand, while you are warm, she is cold, she doesn't say much as she leads you away from home, you don't say anything either, it is an honor to spend time with her, you almost feel special. The days after are a blur, you remember only what the trauma leaves you with, even now, you feel the ghostly wounds of what you lived through, she told you that you were special, that you would be part of her family, you ask that your family also have that honor and like any mother, she fulfills your whim. You no longer know when you are awake and when you sleep, you come and go, come and go, until you never leave again. The first thing you see is your mother, she doesn't seem upset with you for sleeping so much, she just says that now you'll never be alone. You don't understand what she means until days later; you hear in a daze the voices of your parents, siblings and relatives —they scream and cry. Mother Miranda keeps an eye on you for a while, sometimes you bleed from your nose and sometimes from your ears, it's an after effect of the "cadou," after effect of the agonizing chorus of voices in your head, they just scream at you that you must endure it —be luckier than the others, because you know there were others. When you sleep, you don't dream, you see things you never knew, but which inexplicably happen in consecutive days, you always tell her what you see, she never looks upset with you, she is not violent, but you know she is not maternal either, deep down you are grateful she ignores you —not like your deformed brothers who cry as they receive what she calls a blessing, the "cadou." Eventually, you are free to roam your home, it is the house you lived in before her, a merchant lineage, you are next, you used to fear the responsibility that comes with that, but now with your family always helping you, you know you will be able to maintain your family's prestige. Eventually, someone like you comes along, who Miranda calls your sister, you feel nothing for her, in another time, you would have been happy, but now it's not just you —you will never be just you again. So you will always be impartial, because there are so many opinions inside your head, that, if you think about it too much, you will just faint from the pain hammering in your brain, so you don't think or make decisions that are not of importance. Your sister; she's Donna Beneviento, you don't know much about children because you were never the oldest among your siblings, but you know she's not normal —your siblings yell at you in chorus that she's not normal. She looks terrified, hides between the columns and never lets go of the doll she brought with her, you see her once and don't see her again until months later, when Mother Miranda tells you she is now officially part of the family —your parents cry for the girl, just as they cry for themselves. You are an educated child, so when your parents tell you to treat her well, you do, you know that unlike you, Mother Miranda considers her a failure, but as a mother, she still welcomes her and gives her a home to belong to. She never develops like you do, where you mature, she stays, while you have obligations, she just takes care of flowers that always leave you dizzy —sometimes you think you see your mother's soft silhouette, even when you know she's always with you, in your head. So you never have things to tell her, so you just let her be free, just like Mother Miranda does with you. The second to arrive, is your brother; Salvatore Moreau, he is a shy boy, you can't see him much thanks to Mother Mirada keeping him tied up while his little body accepts the cadou, sometimes you hear his screams and when you finally stop hearing them, you can see him. Mother Miranda this time does not hide her disdain for him, she does not hide that she sees him as a failure, he is not like Donna who keeps innocence in his form, he is impurity itself, where once there were big sad eyes, now there are only sunken sockets and a repulsive hump, where once there were feet to walk the earth, now fins were born to swim the swamps. And like the mother she is and claims to be, still accept him into the family —your brothers wept for him, as much as for their dismembered bodies. This time, no one says anything, so you choose to ignore him, just as your sister and mother do. You know no more about him. The third time, you meet another sister, she unlike Donna and you, acts different, Mother Miranda says she is of the nobility, she is different from your two siblings, where they cried and hid, she accepts the blessing with pride, she returns of her own free will, you recognize the expression on her face, it radiates desires of motherly love, Mother Miranda's love —you laugh silently, you know she only loves one, not two or three, only one, now and forever. When you see her again, she is taller than you remember, like your siblings, she is yet another failure, but unlike them, she does receive a better purpose than them, where one plays with dolls and the other swims in pestilent swamps, she resides in a castle, is given the gift of a family of her own and is granted servants. You don't like her, and for the first time, your family says nothing. So in the days you wander the town, you use your blessing to make her life difficult; you let the freezing cold disturb her daughters, you mix the blood of her maidservants with Moreau's swamp water and plague her gardens with Donna's flowers, as you see in dreamless dreams, she can never catch you, always ten steps ahead of her. She hates you and you hate her and her daughters —your aunts laugh and tell how not all siblings get along and you agree. The fourth to arrive is a new brother and the latest member of the family, Karl Heisenberg, where you all failed, he did not. He is the strongest of all and also the favorite, you know it by the way she spoils him. When you see him, you know even without seeing beyond the present that he will be so much more than you, unlike your other siblings, where they tied shackles on their hands willingly, he still tries to break them —your family trills with amusement, they cheer knowing that his only success is also his only failure. He reminds you of a bird, he is free when all your siblings are imprisoned. Even after the blessing, his eyes remain ablaze with flames, you recognize his gaze, it bubbles with hatred —like a wild animal being cornered. You know it won't end well, the day she asks you about the future, for the first time you're not impartial, so you lie, you tell a future where he loves her as a mother, even when such a thing doesn't exist. Your family doesn't speak to you, so you decide to speak to him instead, it's almost comical how unaccustomed you are to someone with such a character; where Donna is innocent, he is sly, Where Moreau is pitiful, he is proud, Where Alcina is elegant, he is rough and Where you are evasive, he is direct. You don't see much more of him, besides fuzzy dreams about metal giants and humans devoid of humanity. You don't tell that, neither to Mother Miranda, nor to him. On good days, you disturb your sister Alcina's peace, both of you hate her almost as much as the two of them hate each other. On neutral days, you hear his screams from the factory, insults about traumas and dreams that never really go away —sometimes you understand that too, even when you remember little. And on the worst days, you see all your siblings together, you don't listen because you already know it will happen, even before it happens. You always laugh at the irony. You are disinterested in the face of this family made of pieces that don't fit together —and dead, deformed children. Donna is impartial in the face of Mother Miranda's disinterest. Moreau is like a parasite, begging and drooling for the slightest attention from her. Alcina is like a capricious child, whining and raking with her sharp claws, wishing to be the favorite of a mother who, while not ignoring her, pays no particular attention to her. While Heisenberg is her favorite, the only success she considers as such, he is the only one who loathes her body and soul —you scoff at the irony. The one time she didn't fail was the one time she did. You know he hates being the favorite, feels it's the very world he was dragged into, mocking him, giving him everything and yet giving him nothing at all. Mother Miranda's pride, reminds you of the very metal he manipulates, you know silently that, like metal, his life will follow an order —a movie you can't change. He is young, he still possesses a wild and untamed soul, you know he is destined to succeed where you did not, he will not fall as you did —the chorus in your head prays with that it will, that where you gave up, he will stay true to his goal and himself. You remember the old books your brothers forced you to read and when you see him, you find him amusing as appropriate how much he fits in with the very metal he manipulates at his whim, the first stage of the metal is incubation. (The metal is in a protected environment, a situation that remains so over time, as long as you manage to slow down or prevent the penetration of contaminants into the metal. This, after being repaired, is destined for plastering.) Even before she saw him as he is now, she cared for him far more than all of you combined, protected from Alcina's anger, Moreau's stupidity and Donna's worthless innocence, he was always his own person, and even when she could twist him, she never broke him mentally like your siblings, she avoided contaminating him as much as she could, and the moment she released him, no matter how much he was damaged, she repaired him with a loving hand —you know she would not care for them the same way she cares for him. She punished you, where she rewarded him, she gave him freedoms where she gave you responsibilities. She doesn't allow Alcina to bother him, which is saying a lot, considering she almost always complies with his whims —your family laughs, because the more she coddles him, the more he hates her. Sometimes you see him at gatherings, he's the only one who doesn't feign adoration for her, he insults, kicks and screams like a child —the child he never was. You don't see him much, since you're not needed at meetings, but when you do, he's taller than you remember, his face is sharper, his eyes more tired and you notice a new kind of hatred in his gaze —hatred of himself. You are no longer as before either, you don't hate, but you don't love either, you are more cunning thanks to the teachings of the eccentric Duke, so you fulfill your purpose and offer Mother Miranda more test subjects, you are surprised when you see for the second time the humans in your visions, they are just as you remember, humans without humanity, they are savages and as Mother Miranda adores her favorite son, she gives them to him, you don't know their names, but you all decide Lycans is appropriate, so they stay that way. He doesn't hate them, you see in his eyes that he is amused —you see that they will be his ladder to a much greater goal. It makes you proud to know that you are the one building a part of that ladder for him. When the meeting is over, you approach him, Alcina ignores him, Donna is lost and Moreau is crying, so you know they won't listen, after all, the only thing that's worth anything from you are the words of your family members that resonate as one, your own voice. You draw close and whisper to him in a chorus of one voice about a weapon of which you keep drawings, you saw it in visions and never forgot it, you know it belongs to him, that it fits between his calloused fingers like a custom-made ring —wild as nature, sharp as death, it's a hammer. For you, only for you. That same night, you melt into the shadow as you run to his factory, jump where you know Mother Miranda can't see, where your siblings can't reach you, you teach him in whispers, and like a good listener you're surprised he is, he listens and when you finish, in his hands lies a new part of the puzzle that will trace the future you see little by little. Something thunders in your chest when you notice the wonder in his eyes, it's nice to see something other than hate, you know you can only hate so much until you can't anymore, that's what happened to you and it's something you don't want him to lose too. The will to shy away from a future that wants to write itself, so you guide him, you lead him away from the pen that wants to write itself over him, to write his future the same way it wrote yours. —You pull him out of the well, even when you know you won't be able to get out later. That same night, you bring from the family cupboard that you keep with love, an old wine, it is not like the one your sister, Alcina, usually prepares, it does not contain anguish or virgin blood, only a bitter taste of grapes, you are supposed to save it for someone who can pay for it, but you consider that it does not matter much if the payment at the end is a pleasant evening with someone as peculiar as him, you can't get drunk no matter how much you drink, yet you still stay by his side, tell him stories as you watch him sharpen his new possession, advise him with the knowledge of the future on how to better control his element and when morning comes, you leave with a silent promise of another meeting and a little gear around your neck. And if you both huddled close to each other at a campfire, with an empty excuse about a cold that doesn't come because the windows were closed, neither of you says anything.