Tabitha Cain frees Monki

At the end of the small cave, she saw a series of metal bars. Behind them, a tiny cell, housing what looked like little more than a set of rags hanging off some chains. Tabitha stepped closer, and it took a moment for her eyes to recognize the form of a girl within the cell. She was tiny, if Tabitha had to guess, barely four feet tall, and thin as a broomstick. The rags hung loose and filthy over her form, and the chains, though not particularly large, seemed oversized for her body.

Looks were deceiving, of course. The creature before her appeared as a girl of oriental decent, almond-shaped eyes, dark brown hair, olive skin. But there was so much more to her. Tabitha could tell just from the sheer aura of power she sensed emanating from her.

“Greetings, little one,” said Tabitha.

There was no response. The girl kneeled in her tiny cell, wrists chained to the rock wall behind her by rusted shackles. They appear as mere iron, but Tabitha sensed them hum with a mystic force. The girl hung limply in her bonds. The shackles also chained her legs which were folded haphazardly beneath her. And lying across her lap was a long, furry tail, like that of a monkey, the end of which was likewise shackled.

“Are you the one called Monki?”

There was no response from the girl.

“Monki. The Wild Born. The Breaker of the Sky.”

Nothing still.

Tabitha cleared her throat. “The Ogress of Heaven.”

The girl’s head tilted slightly to the side. Her eyes were closed, but Tabitha could swear she saw the girl’s ears twitch.

Tabitha kneeled down before the bars. “Your name is still spoken of in awed tones. They say your wrath was a sight to behold. That even now, they had never seen any being whose sheer physical might matched your own.”

The girl didn’t raise her head, but her lips twitched in a smile.

“Of course, against the gods, raw strength isn’t everything. They have ways of circumventing strength, or circumventing the durability of an immortal body. And yet your power was such that even their magic, their warping of space, their twisting of natural laws could never hold you for long. Natural laws themselves bent to your legendary brawn.”

The smile became more distinct.

Tabitha continued, “They say you broke the sky with your bare hands. That isn’t physically possible, and yet you gripped the very atmosphere and tore it asunder, just to get the gods’ attention. They had to build this entire mountain just to imprison you, constructed from solid vacuum, mortared with displaced time. They constructed shackles out of things that cannot exist. Cold fire. Massless gravity. A demon’s love. An angel’s fear.”

The smile became a grin, but still the girl did not raise her head. Her tail did, however, twitch in its bonds, causing a small clank of her chains. As the links shifted, their appearance of rusted iron flickered, revealing briefly, loops and weaves of ethereal energy. The chains did not exist, thus, they could not be broken. And somehow, by the impossible will and work of the gods, they made the unreal manifest, and weaponized it.

Tabitha hesitated, then reached her arm through the bars of the cell. She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her smiled disappeared, and finally, she raised her head, opening her eyes. Golden iris’s reflected light from the cave back at Tabitha. She gave Tabitha a look so haunted, so intense, that she felt dizzied.

Tabitha had looked into the eyes of Death itself, unmoved. Relentless finality she could handle, and yet the girl’s raw presence swayed her. Was it madness from millennia of isolation? Was it shocked curiosity that something had actually changed in her prison for the first time since she’d been locked inside it?

“Why are you here?” said the girl in a barely audible whisper.

“You were chained here by the gods,” said Tabitha. “The gods have proven themselves to be monsters beyond anything I could have imagined, beyond anything even a demigod like you could have known.”

Monki’s smile returned, this time almost coy. “You saw them, then? You saw behind their mask?”

Tabitha blinked, then nodded. “Then you knew?”

“I knew. And I didn’t care. I just wanted a good fight.”

Tabitha let go of Monki’s shoulder, but Monki’s tail snaked up and snagged Tabitha by the wrist, looping a bit of chain around her forearm for good measure.

“Why did you come here?”

Tabitha steeled herself and stood, intending to pull away from Monki, ready to slither her hand out of the girl’s grip. But Monki’s tail was a snare that would not let go. With a small flick, Monki yanked Tabitha back down to her knees, causing the woman to grit her teeth with pain.

“I’m waiting,” said Monki, her low voice now tinged with a dangerous edge.

“I came to free you,” she said.

Monki glanced her over. “I don’t recognize the uniform, but I know Heaven’s scent. You’re an Einharier.” She grinned again, wickedly. “You’re turning traitor. You saw them. And now you run from them.”

“Not running,” said Tabitha. “Well, perhaps for the moment. But I will not let them continue their cycle of torment.” She took a breath. “I’m going to kill them, Monki. And you’re going to help me.”

Monki cocked her head to the side, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Kill them?”

Tabitha nodded. “All of them.”

“Why?” said Monki. “To save the world? I almost annihilated it on a whim. Nothing against the world, mind. Perfectly nice place. But I wanted to tick the gods off.”

Tabitha paused a moment, then said, “If that’s what it takes.”

Monki let go of Tabitha and laughed, a light and mirthful chuckle, undercut with a sharp twang of madness. “Oh, goodness,” said Monki, looking at her with a grin. “They broke you. An Einharier willing to sacrifice the world for vengeance, all because she couldn’t handle a simple truth?”

“Not vengeance. Freedom.”

Monki laughed again. “Keep telling yourself that. Although, speaking of which...” Monki held up her arms and jangled her chains.

Tabitha nodded. She stepped back and whispered words incomprehensible to mortal thought, until Monki’s chains glowed brightly, then vanished. Monki stood up and smiled. Then, with a speed Tabitha couldn’t follow, the girl slammed her fist into the floor of the cell, causing the entire mountain top to completely shatter into dust.

***

Tabitha gasped as her head broke the surface of the sudden sea of pebbles, dust, and sand that the mountain had become. She hoped this wasn’t going to be a much worse idea than she feared.

Before she could fully dig herself out and orient herself, she felt a hand grab her by the shoulder and yank her out of the dust, whip her overhead, and smash her bodily down onto the dust. So mighty was the blow, that all the dust was blasted away, leaving Tabitha coughing up blood as her body impacted against bare, unreal-made-real rock, hard enough to crack the entire surface of what now was the top of the mountain.

The next instant found Monki straddling her, and holding a red, wooden staff against her throat. Tabitha grit her teeth and choked. A flick of her hands, and twin cutlasses appeared in her hands. She brought them up in a deft, arcing jab, but Monki’s tail lashed out with lightning speed, knocking the blades away, and nearly breaking Tabitha’s wrists in the process.

“This was a big mistake on your part, wasn’t it, girl?” said Monki. Despite her still diminutive size, she was monstrously imposing at the moment.

“No.” Tabitha choked out the words through dirt, blood, and cracked teeth. “You were right. They broke me. Even if it kills me, I’m going to end them. One way or another.”

“You’re an Einharier,” said Monki. “Death merely means being reborn with the gods, used like a tool again and again, until there’s nothing left to resurrect, or they tire of you.” She cocked her head to the side again. “Is that what you meant by freedom? You just want to be free of them?”

Tabitha swallowed hard, almost choked on a bit of tooth, and spat it out with a coughing fit. Already, the magic imbued in her body was making repairs, re-knitting muscle and bone, regenerating blood, and re-growing anything lost. None of that would matter if a demigod like Monki wanted her dead anyway.

“I want everyone to be free,” she said. “They play with us all, like pieces in a game. I won’t stand for it.”

“What else are they going to do?” said Monki. “An eternity of eternities awaits them. Even an immortal like me doesn’t last that long. They have to pass the time somehow.”

Tabitha smirked. “So does a ‘mere’ immortal, doesn’t she? Agree with me or not, now that you’re free, you’re going to fight them again, just for something to do.”

Monki blinked, then laughed. She backed up, lifting the staff off Tabitha’s neck. Planting one end of the staff against the ground, it stuck there straight up, despite not being anchored. Monki curled her tail around the upper half and lifted her legs off the ground, crossing them in the air, and putting an elbow on one knee, to rest her chin on her hand. She watched with some amusement a Tabitha painfully raised off the ground. She could here the taller woman’s innards cracking and squelching as her magic fixed her. In another minute, Tabitha was whole again breathing heavily. A single blow had never been so devastating to her before.

Tabitha eyed Monki warily, who just smiled back mirthfully. With a flick of her wrists, the cutlasses Monki had smaced away returned to her hands, vanishing from their landing spots and reappearing in Tabitha’s hands. Tabitha flicked her wrists again, and the swords vanished once more, to Tabitha’s personal magic storage.

“So, when do we start?”

“You’re not the only one I need. I’m building an army.”

“Sounds fun,” said Monki, picking up her staff and giving it a playful twirl, before placing it against her back, where it stuck there on it’s own through some trick of enchantment. “Haven’t seen the world in quite some time. Off we go then.”

=========================

AUTHORS NOTE: Like the Intrepid, Tabitha Cain is an idea from over a decade ago, that has undergone many iterations, and proven often frustrating. Originally just another "wandering adventurer hero" character, albeit on a mythical scale, Tabitha's story eventually coalesced into a struggle against the nature of her very reality, and the endless entities who played at godhood. Numerous other character emerged in this universe, fracturing off from the original vision to further expand the setting and the struggle.

Like the Intrepid, Tabitha has often vexed me, but no matter how many times I say I'm done, she keeps popping her head out of the shadows of my subconscious now and then, to remind me that her struggle continues, for as long as she must fight it.