"Failure to Comply" / VS. Rora Sky

[Vanity]

Ice dancing always intrigued the audience of many varieties. Those who are interested in physical prowess are attracted by the strength it takes to lift one’s partner in such a careful environment. Many others are allured by the grace and finesse it takes to perform elaborate sets while maintaining their balance with ease. Sometimes, ice dancing, along with its ancestor, figure skating, meet criticism for its esoteric fascinations, receiving the label of prissy and irrelevant. The shortsighted nature of those comments is blocked by the fact that it’s an Olympic sport, which commands a massive audience. People seek out glory past its beautiful mask of elegance, making the sport hyper competitive, comparable by combat sports of today.

Jynx, the Second Beast of the Church of Oleska, twirled Vanity’s pink encased phone around, trying to find the best angle on the screen. She paused upon seeing the tragedy unfold; Sebastian lifted Aurora into the air. More than likely, this was the perfect moment to secure those gold medals for Canada. Jynx’s eyes widened as she heard Aurora scream out for her release. She didn’t give Sebastian a chance to follow her frantic order. Instead, her blade met his forearm, where blood immediately welled. The sight of red tantalized Jynx, who licked her lips at the sight of the injury. She felt her heart begin to race as Aurora’s chin met the hard, cold floor. Jynx wondered if Aurora’s teeth would spill out her mouth when she got up, which transformed into a genuine desire to see the ghastly sight.

Disappointingly, the injured, panicking skater got up, getting away with a mere cut underneath the chin. Jynx’s infatuated smile almost fell into a frown, but Aurora's scream—a vocalization of her unknown fear—gave rise to Jynx’s lust for Aurora’s anguish. She paused the video, where the frame was fixated on Aurora’s eyes. Ocean green, Jynx determined, and Aurora reinforced the thought when tears welled in her eyes. They were exactly like the deeper currents, but contained the beauty, no, the seductiveness, of pure sorrow. The Second Beast couldn’t help herself; she guided her hand under the buckle of her pants with saliva pooling at the corner of her mouth.

“Jynx, Rora has awful taste in music, don’t you think?”

Jynx popped up from her laid out position on the church upon hearing Vanity’s voice acknowledge her. She looked down at where her hand still was and opted to refrain from such activities until later. The harsh light from mirror lighting illuminated Jynx’s face some, temporarily blinding her as she looked intently. Seated at her vanity mirror, ripped directly from some deceased theatre dressing room, the All-Mother applied make-up with a steady hand.

“I don’t know what she was listening to,” Jynx said, tilting her head at her leader.

“Blurred Lines is a horrible song; it means the worst out of people, but we won’t bother with semantics,” Vanity said, combing her eyelashes—which kept her focus from what she really was talking about. Jynx reflected this with a wide-eyed expression, but she didn’t question any further. Mostly, her mind wandered back to her sensual reaction to Aurora’s bloody failure.

Jynx decided to relay her thoughts to Vanity, “she hurt herself pretty badly.”

“Not that much,” Vanity said. “Unless you meant emotionally, but I feel like she was already broken. Her failing her big moment was more like stomping on glass shards. It just makes it harder to piece her back together.”

The All-Mother rifled through her selection of lipsticks, picking them out with a careful eye. Black? Vanity shook her head, putting it back with a noise of dissatisfaction. Red? That was a bit gaudy, a little too seductive for her tastes today. Vanity took the cap off her hot pink lipstick, presenting it to Jynx. The Second Beast nodded, liking the color, to which Vanity gave her a small smile.

“Then what’s going to happen when you beat her?” Jynx asked, letting a wry smile crawl on her face.

Vanity giggled, having to stop her attempt to put her lipstick on. “Oh, Jynx, if she’s already shattered and stomped on, then I’ll do my job of grinding her into dust.”

Checking her face came next, each piece had to be perfect in her eyes. She looked up, down, and around her features until she was able to conclusively believe her makeup abilities. With a satisfied hum, she swiveled her seat, finally meeting Jynx face-to-face. She motioned towards a clothing rack; Jynx turned with an excited tone.

“The black—I’m attending a funeral soon,” Vanity stated, “I think it’s respectful to Aurora.”

Jynx retrieved the garment of choice, bringing to Vanity. A long, lacey black dress with chains adorned to the shoulders. The ends of the dress were cut partly, letting people to see a glimpse of her thighs, a taste of what people would desire. She took off her bath robe, without a care of Jynx’s presence. It went opposite to Jynx capturing her shocked reaction. She had never seen the All-Mother in personal measure. She almost covered her eyes, but her brain couldn’t send the right signals to her arm. So, she merely stared at Vanity’s naked form with a frozen, open grin.

Vanity finished clothing herself, walked over to Jynx, and closed her mouth. The door opened behind Jynx, which led to the First Daughter of the Church making her appearance. PANDORA, in all her stoic beauty, looked at the interaction between Jynx and Vanity. Without any clear reaction, she approached Vanity and placed her hand on her shoulder.

“All is ready, All-Mother,” she said, but as she started to leave, Vanity stopped her with a grasp of the arm.

“PANDORA,” she said, smiling at her protégé, “do you think I look pretty like this?”

The response came out in the same, hollowed tone that PANDORA always gave, but with the tiniest smile.

“Of course, All-Mother.”

PANDORA orderly walked away, her purplish hair trailing behind her with a flourish. Vanity’s attention returned to Jynx, who had since regained her ditzy composure. A pat on the head did wonders for the Second Beast, but Vanity clutching her hand made her almost lose the cool she just took hold of again. With a warm smile, Vanity began to tug Jynx towards the exit.

“Keep up your appearance; there are people always watching,” Vanity instructed, but as she concluded her sentence, Jynx left her grip. The woman rushed forward, meeting the massive frame of Sevele Ortega, the First Beast—Vanity’s most loyal subject. The hulking behemoth showed both strength and gentleness when he caught Jynx in his arms, returning her ambitious attempt of a hug with his own. The two shared a long kiss, probably adhering to Jynx’s earlier arousal. Vanity only replied with a soft giggle as she made her way through the ritualistic double doors into the openness of the building.

The sounds were everything that Vanity remembered and cherished. The sound of large drums being played, alongside the ravings of an endless audience. The myriad of conversations caught Vanity’s ears, as she heard people talking about what they did before they came to the emptied-out clerical grounds that Vanity founded the Church of Oleska in. The masses mostly wore the white Roman togas and stolas that many of the higher members wore. Oh, how they all tried to please Vanity. It brought some warmth to her heart to listen to idle conversations die, and to see the copious amount of eyes train onto her. She was at home, and she was the master of them all.

Vanity searched beside herself, seeing PANDORA sauntering close to her side. Sevele and Jynx had bottled up their primal feelings to stand by Vanity’s side. They all wore porcelain masks, Venetian in nature of varying colors. Jynx favored the bright reds, while Sevele went with cool blue. PANDORA subtly coupled her mask to the gradient of purple and blue that was her hair. Vanity, who was hidden among the lack of lighting, brought her mask—a pastel pink one to her face. From there, the room illuminated, with lighting fixtures drawn on the All-Mother. Before any words left her, she crossed her arms across her chest, in the traditional “Oleskan Cross.”

The whole congregation followed suit, even those who didn’t really know what they were doing. The fledglings would learn. Vanity lowered her arms soon after, which the audience followed. They remained in stark silence, another feat that always amazed her.

“My loyal renegades!” she started, getting a proud aura to radiate from her followers, “allow me to speak to you about failure!”

“Failure is the fear of every man! It’s what makes weaker beings tremble and wane. It’s what causes people to flee in terror. It’s the shadow that looms over the recesses of a feeble mind. It’s what lurks in the nightmares of Aurora Sky Vaillancourt!”

She spoke her true name; there wouldn't be hiding from Vanity.

“It will be her downfall! For every day that she trains, she allows the fear of failure to grow stronger. For every punch she throws in hopes of it being strong enough to put me down, she fears the moment that I rise! For every victory she hopes to capture, she remembers the tragic loss that forced her to come to my domain!”

Vanity pounded on the podium, getting a louder rise from the audience. Some people clapped, some cheered. The more frequent onlookers remained quiet, knowing that Vanity wasn’t finished. Yet, they silently appreciated the passion resonating in the hearts and minds of the younger gatherers.

“For I, Vanity, the All-Mother, the chosen vessel of our Goddess of Violence, Oleska, knows not of that fear. I am undefeated, unbeaten, because of my victory over Failure! I have transcended it! I have taught all of you to stand up to the shadow and cast it out!” she clenched her fist, “Rora doesn’t know the truth! She doesn’t know the weakness to vanquish failure, but I am a gracious mother!”

“She’s not my child, like all of you,” Vanity left her place, staring at the audience as she glided her hand over PANDORA’s face, “but I cannot go through this world without trying to save the lost, the weak, and the damned. I will save her! And when I do, she’ll come searching us out, my children! We will embrace her with loving arms, ones that are stronger than her partner who couldn’t support her in her most dire moments! We will teach her how to conquer Failure! She will know loss by my hand, but she will know of my power to change and to teach!”

“For her to learn that, she’ll have to learn another important lesson.”

Vanity rose her hand high up, fingers outstretched.

“For every life that I allow to live, there’s a life that I snuff out! For every person I save, there’s a person that I destroy!” Vanity brought her hand down, demonstrating the symbolic essence of her might, “she will learn that there’s something worse than failure. There is something worse than death!”

“Aurora Sky Vaillancourt will learn to fear my wrath, the most fearsome thing of all!”

“For I am capable of dealing her things that erase every fear from her mind and leave her wishing for what she used to have. I can leave her without a nary blood wound on her pretty, little head, but I can leave her mind in ruin! If she opposes me and rejects my gift, I will make sure that no one will be able to put her back together again.”

“Rora was brave and strong to pick herself up after her famous blunder, but she knows not what I can do. She only knows words on a screen, empty words in a digital void, and nothing more.”

Vanity gave the audience a sight of her wicked grin.

“So, why don’t I show her who the All-Mother is?”