For Jaz and Nyohah--Thy beta-reading saved my life ^_^
Thanx to L for letting me mention Leander :^)
NOTE: The blocks of italics indicate portions of the diary itself; the stuff in regular or mostly-regular (except for foreign words or emphasis) text is what is going on in the "real world".
Diary of Mileena of the House of Kahn, Sword-Sister to the Nomads of Tenneil,
Put Forth in this, the Second Year of the Reign of Shinnok
I: The Present
Attributed to Mark Twain (S. Clemens)
I'm tired of being different things to different people, and none of them what I really am. Daughter, killer, enemy, sister, lover--none of these are me, yet I have been all of them.
It's my own fault, I suppose. I was always a flawless mimic, able to imitate anything and anyone. It was one of many, many traits cultivated in my DNA--I know what that is, now, what it means. My "father" had the Earth Realm in his grasp for a brief while, and I took full advantage of the opportunity. I've always learned quickly. It took me no time at all to figure out what a clone is...
Enough. The facts of the matter, no more than that.
I am Mileena, "daughter" of Shao Kahn, former Emperor of the Outworld. He's dead, now. Finally. Kitana killed him. She actually managed to do it...
Kitana conspired with her paramour, Liu Kang, to bring about the Emperor's downfall. Liu competed in the Tournament mostly as a distraction. Shao Kahn never reached the final kombat--Kitana assassinated him. Immortals don't die naturally, but they can be killed, and my "sister" has ever been a calm, efficient murderer.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's learned to like it. I do, especially in my present form. You see, this isn't my first life. As a clone, or whatever it is I am, I can be remade over and over. This is more like my fourth or fifth life, I think.
The more often you die, the more difficult it is to tell which memories go with which life. After a while, it doesn't even matter. Death becomes a dream that wakes you sweating in the middle of the night, leaving you unsure why your heart is pounding.
I'm Nomadic this time, a full-blood at last. No more posturing, no more lies, and most of all, no mask. I swore I'd never wear it again, and I won't. Not in this life.
Oh, there are things I miss from the last one. My teleport, for one. Nomads are immune to Edenian magic, and so can't use it themselves. And my sai. I've no use for them now, but I kept them. For old time's sake, I guess.
Ugh, sentimentality. Elder Gods forbid!
The New Era, the reign of Empress Kitana, was a time of celestial joy and peace. The Centaurans and Shokanii did the unthinkable, signing a ceasefire treaty. The Nomads declared clear boundaries between the holdings of each Clan, staving off feuds that went centuries deep. The land began repairing itself with the help of Edenian tree-singers. (They're like what mortals call "biologists"; their magic is that of green, growing things.)
Good things die quickly, and the New Era was no exception. To make a long story short, Kitana was betrayed. And not by me, this time. Tanya, Kitana's friend from childhood and most trusted advisor, turned her over to Shinnok.
Shinnok. My Master, now. The uinforms he makes me wear are humiliating and ridiculous, even compared to those I was forced to wear under father's rule. Fortunately the Netherealm is always dank and roasting-hot, hotter than Hell. Literally. But back to Shinnok's victory...
In terms of kombat, there was never any doubt. Liu Kang and Kai, the Earth Realm's vaunted Chosen Ones, were slaughtered in the first few days of the takeover. Oh, they had the skill to oppose Shinnok, but they were too busy rebuilding their precious Temple of Light. He caught them completely off-guard.
Most of their companions--Johnny Cage, for instance--were killed instantly when the Realms merged. The reason for this is chillingly simple.
Portals to and from the Netherealm take their energy from human souls, much as my father's magic once did. Shinnok, quick to press the advantage, opened gateways over major cities and important military installations. That move wiped out hundreds, even thousands of people in minutes. The nations of Earth were shocked to the core, so severely crippled that most of them surrendered within hours.
The few that didn't surrender became Tanya's priority. She used every method--and recruit--at her disposal. When the standard promises of boundless power and unimaginable fortunes didn't work, she applied terrorism, threats, and blackmail. Tanya is now regent over the entire planet in the name of Shinnok's wife, Leander.
Meantime, Reptile was given control of the Outworld. He is vastly more intelligent than either Shang Tsung or my father ever suspected. Shinnok gave Reptile credit where it was due, making him leader of what should, by all rights, belong to me.
I get the feeling it's nothing personal. To Shinnok, I must seem a wild card--protecting Kitana from father for years, then turning on her in the second Tournament, and then helping her escape Kahn's forces. Most people refuse to believe me capable of even that small mercy, and wrongly place credit with Jade.
Incidentally, I have no idea where the public image of Jade as close to either of us came from, unless it was her imitation of our outfits. She has so little to do with us--so little to do with anyone at all, except for Smoke--that some people question her very existence...
Where was I? Oh, right, current events. Let's see...
Quan Chi, Shinnok's pet wizard, is a loner. He's off in one of the darker Realms, mixing his potions and muttering vile prophecies, doing whatever it is evil magicians do in their spare time. Refining his shrunken-head collection, perhaps. Shang Tsung--one of the few wizarding folk I trust--has simply vanished.
So has Kitana. She disappeared on the eve of her downfall, but I know she's alive. I can feel her, sense her thoughts like a soothing blue stone in the back of my mind. It's another part of me, another trait, this one so strong not even Shinnok could alter it. I know I will find her, and I know I must destroy her. But I owe her so much...we were close, once, closer than blood, closer than the truth. I do not want to kill her.
But I know I will...
* * *
I must be more careful than ever, now. Tanya is on leave from Earth Realm, and her spies are once again everywhere.
Of all my rivals, she alone poses a serious problem. Scorpion is content as the overlord of the slave-souls in Outworld's massive Cobalt Mines.
Once Kahn's prison for discontents, Shinnok has refined the Mines into a private little piece of Hell. I never pitied the old prisoners--after all, if they betrayed father, they must have deserved it. But this is different. Now, not even death brings them relief. Their spirits are bound fast at the moment they leave the body, forced to continue their work for eternity.
Scorpion is their overseer. He succeeded in killing Sub-Zero during the takeover, and it's changed him. All that was once human in him is gone, perhaps stolen by Shinnok. Whatever the case, the Mines are Scorpion's priority, and he has no interest elsewhere.
Reptile, while ambitious, is more concerned with learning to use the secrets of necromancy to restore the Outworld Raptor-broods. He's convinced only the magic of the dead will restore his people. Which I don't understand--if they're dead, how can they be "reborn," or whatever it is he keeps muttering on about? I think the fate of his kind may be the one place where his cold, reptilian logic falters.
Leander is far too powerful, and too important to Shinnok personally, to deign to notice me or any of the rest of his "humble servants". As his wife, she has enough to worry about on her own, she of the red hair and green eyes. It's good that she has little to do with us; something about her makes my bones shiver. I get the feeling that if she truly believed in her own power, she could become even stronger than her husband...
But Tanya--there's the real threat. She's deceptive, a thief, cutthroat, and consummate liar. All the things I am, with a beauty I do not possess. I'm all too aware that skill paired with ugliness just doesn't go as far as a pretty face.
Doubting her skills as a fighter was a mistake. I saw only too much flesh held back with not enough yellow cloth, tight enough that it looked ready to rip at the seams. She reminded me of a younger version of Shang Tsung's old slave, Vorpax. I assumed she was just as weak.
Judging by appearances. I, of all people, should know better. Tanya's quite fast, though not as quick as me, and fights with ruthless dispatch, on and off the arena floor. She was raised on the harshest of Edenian intrigue, and it's made her a clever, lethal planner. Most of her enemies never face her in kombat--they simply disappear.
Her grudge against all of Kahn's "family" extends to me. She would kill me, without Shinnok's intervention. Our feud amuses him, but only so long as it doesn't extend to murder.
Be that as it may, I'll find a way to be rid of that troublesome little strumpet...
* * *
...I switched hiding-places for this again today. Hopefully, it will remain a secret, though I am unsure how long I can keep it that way.
Shinnok has given me new orders: to return to the Wastelands of Outworld, and seek out Baraka. Nothing a simple spy couldn't do. But I get the feeling that, for whatever reason, My Lord wants us back together. That could prove difficult: Baraka was the one to end my last life. The spurned younger daughter of a king, killed by her illicit lover: how Shakespearean.
Yes, I'm familiar with the human Bard. My learning during "father's" brief conquest extended to more than science. Against Kahn's wishes, I dabbled in literature, philosophy, and Earth-history as well.
And music. Mostly classical; humans wrote more of that than they did anything else. I found it soft and civilized: pleasant at the time, but anathema to my present nature. Metal suits me, now; dark, hard and agressive. That and something called 'trance' music. I have no idea what it has to do with religious states; it isn't calm enough to induce them. But I digress.
Baraka. I fear and hate him for destroying me. I miss his warmth beside me in the dark. He is violent and arrogant and cold-hearted. He is thoughtful, intense, and fiercely protective. There was suffering behind his eyes, and a love that no one else ever saw. With him, as with no one else, I have been honest.
He is out there, someplace: the Squads' last reports place him somewhere south of Tenneil, probably Rhango, the Outlaw District, if I know him. A good place to hide and drum up mercenaries and thieves to fill out the ranks of his army--they were disbanded, but units here and there remain loyal to him. From there, perhaps he will plot an attack on My Lord Shinnok.
A new thought occurs to me. Perhaps Baraka knows what happened to my sister...
* * *
I don't want to seek out my lover, my killer. One of us must die, I know that already. Shinnok wouldn't have sent me unless he meant for it to end in killing. That's what I am, what I've been all along--a killing machine.
One more pain, atop all the others--I've no use, or desire, for it.
There are some good points to this mission, however. I'll be going alone, for one. No more Shadow Priests hounding my every step, relaying my every move to Shinnok.
For the first time in days, I'll be able to hunt. That's the largest drawback of this form: I need warm, living meat, and I need it often. In my last life, fresh blood in my wine now and again was enough. Not anymore.
I used to think it cruel, what I have to do. Now, it's merely practical. I don't eat intelligent beings--that's a scare-tactic my "father" forced me to use in the Tournament, to discourage his enemies. It's actually most unpleasant. When was the last time you tried to eat something your size in a single bite?
Either way, it has little to do with the mission at hand. The formalities are taken care of, this book remains a secret, and I depart for Rhango tomorrow...
* * *
The nightmare is always the same.
The skin of my chest simply opens, splits cleanly, easily, around the blades. The blood pours free, blossoms outward, a lurid red flower of death. Straight from the heart. My last gift to you, love...
His voice, harsh and tortured:
"I am sorry, kiija. I am so, so sorry..."
I hate this dream. It's different from the rest, subtle and insidious and for some reason, very sad. A whisper of despair in the depth of night.
Why does it always have to be this way? Why does everything I love destroy me?
I would cry, if I could. There's no room for such nonsense in Nomadic biology. The gland is there, but hidden under the skin: tears are a waste of water.
Why did he kill me? Foolishness! Does the why of it even matter? That life, that woman, is dead! And in my present face, he may not even recognize me. That is what I'm truly afraid of--that he won't know me at all.
Everything has changed--the pitch of my voice, the shape of my bones, even the scent of my skin.
I feel different, so unstable. I get unfocused rages, groundless bloodlust, a frenzy ruled by the turns of Outworld's red moon. The red moon is the face of D'hete the Unforgiver, the terrible goddess the Edenians call War God. Here, in a Realm so far from home, I still hear her song. I long to tear off my skin and dance in my bones, dance to death, singing back to the moon. To call down the stars and dance in my blood...
It's a strange thing, this body. Built on tension, poised to explode. Sharp angles of muscle and tendon, coiled around metal-based bone, tightened to the breaking point. Even the blades in my arms work as a result of muscle pressure.
Pressure I've been under for an entire lifetime...
Smell, taste, hearing, touch--all of these are painfully strong. I can smell people's blood under their skin, and sense their body heat, or lack of it, from a few feet away. I could hear a single leaf rattling against the bark of a tree in the midst of a windstorm.
My eyes have changed--It's as though everything's been polarized. Light, and shades of light, are subtle and bewitching. I remember, once, staring at a candle flame for hours, watching it shift and seethe and change.
I put my hand in that same candle, just because I could.
Gods help me, or I am lost.
* * *
The suns are behind me, and Rhango is far off yet, in the east. I dread what I may find there. Or I may find nothing at all, learn that this is merely an elaborate trick, the newest turn in my Master's demented game...
No, it would be foolish to hope for that. I am many things; a fool is not one of them. I know Baraka will be here. The question is, where? Rhango is a sprawling area, almost a province of its own, and he could be anywhere.
Then again, he's not the sort that's easy to miss. There's that temper, for one thing. Despite it, or maybe because of it, he inspires a mixture of fear and worship in his troops.
Which gives me an idea: if he's looking for a few good men, he'll be looking for female officers as well...
* * *
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"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
----------------------
It could get me killed, but I need to write this out before I die--again.
I can feel them looking at me--the few who are foolish enough, or desperate enough, to be walking the dust-blown streets this close to sunset. Nightfall, especially here, tends to bring out the worst element of the Wastes.
Most look the other way, or simply ignore me. One or two leer rakishly--blast this filthy outfit!--and follow me with their eyes.
On a bygone day, I might have killed them, or at least thrashed them about a bit. As it is, I'm too weary to do more than scowl. It's been a long journey, and on foot. I don't trust horses, or those steel cages on wheels the humans use--automobiles, I think they're called. They're an absolute horror. If I'm going somewhere, I'll get there on my own, or not at all.
A sudden turn into a narrow side street leaves me facing a weathered, white-plaster building. It's mostly grey, now, in some places cleared down to the wood, the facing blasted away by sand and time. An ancient sign hanging out front proclaims this the Sword of the Chancellor Inn.
Checking behind and to either side of me for inquisitive idiots, I take a deep breath and step inside...
* * *
I'm assaulted by sound and sight and smell. For a few seconds, the entire room sways on its axis. Perhaps I walked too far, or ate too little. I should have hunted. Again. Curse this body, anyway--it's always hungry...I shake my head to clear it, trying to get my bearings. Eventually, the floor stops its swirling dance, and everything falls into place.
The room is jammed end-to-end with people of all Clans and Factions, most of them in various stages of drunkeness. The conversations are a roar of rough-and-tumble jokes, boasting and mock threats.
Tables have been cleared from the center of the room and arranged as a makeshift border for a wrestling area. A slight, stringy fellow and a broad-shouldered old-timer are litterally locked in combat, their wrists tied together in such a way that neither of them can draw their blades. A skinny man with a jagged, s-shaped scar across his right temple approaches me, trying to convince me to place bets on the smaller one.
I decline and move on, looking for space enough to stand still without being crushed by the crowd around me. An old, old fear starts clawing around in the back of my brain: claustrophobia. I push it aside and keep searching.
There. By the rear door, next to the stairs. Two women, tall as trees and built stronger than some of the men, are standing guard at the foot of the staircase, barring the way to the rooms upstairs. People are giving them a wide berth. I head in their direction. I don't care if one of them guts me like a fish; I've got to have some space...
A high, strident shriek cuts the sweat-heavy air, rising over the din.
"Not going noplace with you!" the voice is fear-shrill, a girl's. She's a skinny bag of bones with too much elbow, un-dressed in the scanty style of those who walk the Avenue of Burnt Flowers, struggling wildly in the grip of an unkempt soldier. I can tell by the fight she's putting up, and her tone of voice, that she's genuinely scared. No show for her john's benefit, this. "Curse your mother! Let me go!"
"Siss duri ged? 'Rho du khanja, meija," he says with a sneer. ("Not your type? You work for it, pretty.") The snappish accent marks him as from the Drydens somewhere--if there's any place lower than Rhango, it's the Drydens. Bastard.
With a final longing glance at the clearing near the two guards, I begin moving through the throng, imitating the manner of an experienced Avenue-walker, coy and sly and not at all repentant. Perhaps this horrid outfit is of some use, after all. At least I look the part. Those who think they know what's going on make way for me, preventing a scene.
I stand squarely behind the bickering individuals and hook one arm around the soldier's throat, whiplash-fast and very tightly. The rest of the room sees a 'walker, enthusiastically engaged in her trade--they don't notice my other hand, fisted, jammed into his back. The blade is extended ever so slightly, just barely sticking him in the soft flesh covering the kidney.
"Think you big strongman, eh? You pick on girls, mercenary. A real woman, she not have you. Put you to sleep like the dog you are," I hiss in his ears. Observers will take it for sweet-talking, or dickering over the price.
He twists uncomfortably in my vise-like embrace, the girl forgotten. She flashes me a smile of gratitude and is gone, whisper-fast, melting into the crowd.
"How about you, rho'hana? You want some?" he growls, nonplussed.
I only smile and let him feel a little more of that blade.
"Your general," I say, "What him think of this mess? Officers acting like animals, like less than animals. I think him not be happy with you. We'll go tell him, eh?"
"Your kind not get anywhere near him," he says, barking a laugh. "Him act major crazy--not eat, not sleep, not fight, and not love." He winces as I press deeper. "Like a walking dead man." This through grit teeth. Sweat runs down his neck, beading on my arm, intrusive and unwelcome.
"Watch it," I snarl. Rage prickles the inside of my skin, sudden and fierce as a lightning storm. I'll kill this piece of trash for daring to talk about my mate!
"Come on, pretty." It's more of a wheeze than a taunt. "You know you like pressing against me so tight."
"Shut your filthy mouth!" My arm trembles with the urge to loose the blade. The blood sings in my ears.
A voice I despise, clear and cold and bitterly female, interrupts.
"Somehow I thought I'd find you here," she says with a sniff of disdain. I find that my vulgar prisoner isn't the only one breaking into a sweat.
What in Nine Hells is Tanya doing here?
TO BE CONTINUED...
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Translations:
Kiija = a term of endearment, roughly "lover" or "my love".
Sis duri ged = literally, "not your type?" But it can also mean "(this or that) ain't good enough for you?"
Meija = "pretty". This context is vulgar, roughly equal to "broad", "dame", etc. The polite form is meijana, which is just "pretty" with an honorific hooked on.
Rho du khanja = "you work (for it)," which again is vulgar in context, implying that she's a ho. The statement isn't vulgar in itself, but the context of the conversation made it so.
Rho'hana = "working woman", insult context, "ho" or "b*tch". Proper form, meaning simply a gal who has a job, is rho'hini. It gets really, really complicated after that. Please don't ask ;^)