When had he become the paper slave?
Mechanically, he took the quill and scribbled and scrawled, signing his approvals and disapprovals over to the king for notarization. The parchment rattled as he slammed one form on the desk to trade for a more menacing piece, almost black from the flurry of words that resented its prison of pulp and rallied the entire Campira language to break down the barriers and spill out to freedom.
He wanted to eat the words and somehow gain the power to hone them into weapons that would spray from his mouth in a volley, immobilize the Tadasuni troops, and win the war. Surely, he had enough of them for each soldier, their squires, their horses, and the words implanted on their important documents desk--for they could not have a more vocal bunch of people than in Andalari.
If only he trusted his advisors, his own men, and his so-called "allies"! Maybe they'd lend their ink-bereft hands for the soiled, sodding cause, but he learned early from life and from his own experiences that to trust a soul, any soul, was to condemn himself to death...eventually. He'd made the mistake of ladling a few spoonfuls of trust in the past and it hadn't killed him--only his reputation. It took the entire recrafting of his image to move on from defeat, an exhaustion that about killed him in other ways. From then on, the only trusts he doled were as false and rigid as his deal-making handshakes. And he was damn good at pretending.
Messino doodled circles in the upper corner of the parchment when Lieutenant Renalto called out from the other side of the tent flap.
"Your Highness, the Rigas reinforcements have arrived."
Nothing like haughtiness incarnate to add needless words to his overstuffed mind library.
"Bring them in!" he said, dropping his quill and half-wondering if he could pretend the black of his hands were frostbitten. He discounted the story: too far south and near sea level for the phenomenon. Just a typical case of writer's rot.
Light flooded inside Messino's abode as Renalto marched in with the aforementioned reinforcements. He squinted against the very bright reminder that the day spanned on, endless, and that silken bed in the corner floated farther away from him like the moon he wished would rise.
Renalto arranged the four Rigas's like playing cards, all fanned out and as similar to each other as the color schemes on the deck. They all dressed in blue, white, and gold, they all sported blonde hair and blue eyes, and they all looked rather gender neutral with only small lumps beneath tunics distinguishing female from male, of which Messino identified two of each. However, one stood apart from the other triplets, bronzed from the sun and with a harder line rimming his luminous eyes. A small bulk cocooned his arms into a muscle the others did not possess, as if they shunned the very idea of grunt work over magic. As if in rebellion, a splash of a different color trimmed the edges of his short cloak: a deep forest green.
He was the only one who bowed.
"Your Highness," he said, and the others mumbled assent.
"We have come to lend aid to your army," a triplet said, stepping forward to take her place as the de facto leader of their little troupe. "Our noble Rigas blood holds with it unparalleled magic that will serve you amply and with the highest capacity of success." She droned on with all of the pride for her product but with none of the verve that even street hawkers could achieve. "Four of us will more than suffice, if you are wondering of the quantity."
"I've no doubt of your prowess, miss--"
"Chara. My colleagues are Davos, Tivia, and Alster." She pointed to the outlier.
"Yes. Very good, then. Thank you for your support, and the continued support from your most venerated family." He contained the sarcasm that threatened to topple the ink pot at his side. "My Lieutenant will escort you to your living quarters. Tomorrow at dawn I will speak with the troops and we'll assign you all to a unit. Until then," he paused, glanced at his hand, and jutted it forward, "rest easy, my friends."
The sticky ink pooled around in the dimples of his palm, wet in places, and it hovered atop the immaculate white of Chara's gloved hand. She blanched and her lip quivered, as if reacting to a slap of disrespect. After some hesitation, she interacted with his hand, participated in the customary pump, and pried it away before the salt of her glove darkened into pepper. Inside, Messino smiled, and was surprised to see its manifestation onto Alster, who watched the proceedings with conservative glee.
Like pearls on a string, the Rigas casters followed Renalto in single-file, clearing the tent with another sunburst into Messino's eyes.
Well, that encounter wasn't too painful...yet.
Give it time, he thought, and for once he was glad to return to the methodical calm of his papers.
The stars danced around Alster like fireflies as they hovered in wait for their placements in the sky. He used both hands to conduct each bulb of heat and gas into constellations, with a precision that came from meticulous mapping of the heavens each night. They winked when he slotted them back into their proper homes. The entire battalion followed suit, flashing in staggering patterns as he simultaneously took groupings of stars and threw the disorder into order.
When he completed his task, a diaphanous sphere encased him, a near-exact replica of the World Above.
"Impressive."
Alster turned to see Valente's standing shadow gleam with the light of a million stars. He entered the bubble and nodded at his son's handiwork. "That took me ages to perfect," he said. "You're almost there. Pah--and at a younger age than me! I thought I was the prodigy around here."
"Not a fair comparison," Alster said with a snort as he spun the sphere around the them, inducing a rotation over their heads.
"Power means nothing without skill." Valente shrugged. "You have that power in scads. If you wanted to, you could blast yourself a new sky. Any caster in your position could do so with no measure of training. However," he pointed a finger to the twin universes, "Skill, precision, and mastery are artful disciplines, and they try the sanity of many a caster. Creating is in honing. Power by itself, with no regard for its cultivation, will careen and sputter and destroy on not your command, but its own." He lowered his brow, leveling his eyes at Alster. "So when I say 'impressive,' boy, you better take my damn compliment."
"Long-winded, as usual." Alster grinned a row of teeth at him. "No wonder Mom calls you Fartbag."
"I don't see what farting has to do with my tendency to orate. Really, your mother has no understanding of the nom de plume, and she's the wordsmith around here."
As they talked, the night lifted, the sphere dispersed...and the sky fell.
Alster stood in a ring of serpents biting their own tails, unable to escape. He tried, but the magic choked within himself, and the rest washed away with the cascade of blood and gore, losing the will to spark when the sparks in his parents' eyes flickered out like all the other stars before them that no one cared to track.
Dead. Dead. Their eyes slatted lengthwise, splintered pupils, acidic and exacting. Tongues forked around them. Hisses swelled where screams dispersed into the earth.
The hissing never stopped.
He found himself back in Andalari. In Stella D'Mare. The city that abandoned him. The family that hid him. Their eyes all blinked the same, narrowing lengthwise, hissing and spewing venom and injecting their intentions into his veins, down down deep down...
They all spoke in unison.
"The pride of the Rigas family. He couldn't even keep his parents alive."
"Well, I'd feel bad for him, but this is all his fault."
"It's pretty pathetic what happened with his magic."
"-p. Wake up! Alster!"
Alster rolled his eyes open, staring into a blur that focused into the predatory hunch that belonged to Chara. She hooded her gaze, hawklike, and screamed into his ear.
"Your eyes are open but I don't see you moving! It's dawn. Don't shirk your responsibilities just because you don't want to be here!"
"Dammit, Chara!" He planted a hand in her face and moved her aside, which she took about as well as expected. She sent a shock of electricity up his arm until he shivered his hand away with a yelp.
"Dammit, yourself! I could have roused you like that, but I'm considerate!" She pushed herself from his cot and rose, looming over him with the most impressive vantage point up her nostrils. "Remember what we came here to do! Now move it!"
Alster did not forget their purpose--their main purpose.
"Stella D'Mare once belonged to the Rigas family." Adalfieri loved to whip around that little tidbit, scarfing it up like table scraps to a dog. "The royal family supplanted their capital here, and expected us to move aside. We never did. We gave them the illusion of rulership, and quietly pulled their marionette strings from the shadows. No more hiding! We take back our legitimacy---and this war will provide the perfect distraction."
His speech spurred the family in predictable directions. Rigases stored their pride in their chests and they inflated like roosters about to crow to a city still in slumber. They jumped at the opportunity for usefulness.
Alster hadn't a choice.
"I'm sending you to Prince Messino's command," Adalfieri told Alster. "Like the other casters who have volunteered, you will spy on him, his troops, his battle formations, his weaknesses, strengths--everything you deem useful. You will report your findings to me. We must all do our part." He raised his hand for silence before Alster could protest. "You, especially. Your image is failing. If you one day hope to take my place as Head you must rebuild rapport with your fellow peers."
"What about--"
"You and I both know there is nothing to be done about the 'other' situation. You, so out of touch with your magic? What do you hope to accomplish in Stella D'Mare? Why," he added, chuckling as if he lost the conviction to lie convincingly, "perhaps this little soiree will reawaken your latent abilities."
Alster joined Chara and the others in the center of camp. A wide swathe of tamped down grass comprised the whole of Prince Messino's troops: sizable, but not a terror-stomping force of immensity. They, the Rigas's, inhabited a place of honor in the inner circle of the arrangement, where Prince Messino stood in the nucleus, wearing a cuirass over his night things, his hair wild and stirring in the breeze.
He was eating an orange.
"My breakfast," he said through his dedicated chewing, spraying bits of juice on the unfortunate who lingered within his spitting range. His men, one half of the circle, laughed their endearments to his presentation. The second half, mostly mercenaries, stared straight ahead, daring themselves not to react.
"You'll excuse my mess." Prince Messino waggled sticky fingers in the air and popped the last orange slice into his mouth.
"Why can't that man ever keep his blasted hands clean?!" Chara muttered beside Alster, watching their questionable commander the way one watches a child in case he tries to jam seeds up his nose or consume a cockroach.
"Well," Prince Messino grinned orange pulp at his men, "on to business. For my new arrivals, you will soon understand that there is only one rule in my Command: follow my lead. Simple. He who asks for clarification is a fool. This means," he paced, flinging his orange rind in the air like a slashed up ball, "you are to remain on your guard. Always. I will move camp whenever I so fancy it. I will change battle plans on a whim. Keep. My. Pace. Or I will leave you behind. Watch. Listen. Observe. If you demand more information, I ask you this: what is the point of details if you cannot follow simple instructions? There will be no hand-holding or spoon-feeding at my command!"
Alster's arms and legs stiffened. The Prince knew of spies in his midst. Why else would he take such extreme precautions?
"Understand? Good. On to my next order." He sashayed to the Rigas's like a peacock on a mission. "We are blessed to have received the aid of four Rigas casters." He placed a gluey hand strategically upon Chara's shoulder. She looked about to summon a storm with her eyes. "A most esteemed honor. I have devised a special unit--if they are willing to partake."
"What do you have in mind, Commander?" Chara said with orange-sweet pleasantness. The hand upon her shuddered.
"As of today, I am establishing the Compound Unit, an amalgam of soldiers and magic-users working in conjunction with each other. The magic-user acts as support for our soldiers, casting them defensive and offensive spells from afar, reinforcing and heightening their abilities. We pair off, one caster per soldier. If all goes well, it will boost our attack strength exponentially and double our projected man-power."
"If I may speak frankly," Chara began, a lambasting ready on her prideful tongue, "that is a waste of our talents. We would better serve you in the Casters Unit. We are not support." Her hand smoldered and a small flame appeared. "We are your fire."
"Of course. I am remiss to believe otherwise." Prince Messino winked at her and removed his hand, possibly to avoid an imminent scorching. "Be that as it may, I welcome volunteers. From the Elite Guard, mercenaries," he whirled back into the center. "Anyone, really."
The circle quietened as the Prince paced, searching for victims. Alster looked at his hands, once tools of great power and skill, now reduced to ghost flecks in the sky that claimed to be clouds. He clenched them, feeling the strain of each individual finger, hoping to squeeze the power back. With a resigned sigh, he released them and stepped forward, into the circle.
"I will volunteer."
"Excellent!" Prince Messino spun on his heels, facing Alster. "And a Rigas, to boot!"
Behind him, Alster felt a trio of glares threatening to carve out his back and pluck out his spine. The thought made him giddy with defiance. It tingled something alive in him; while not magic, it sated his inadequacies, however temporary.
"Do I have a warrior willing to partner with this caster?"
Alster wanted to snort. Good luck. A Rigas was far from a desirable partner.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She didn’t budge. She didn’t have to hear her name to know she was being addressed. She didn’t need to look sideways to know that, in this room full of people, there was not a friend in sight, not even among those who shared in the very blood that coursed through her veins.
The crown prosecutor continued. “You stand accused of negligence to your duties—the very duties into which you were sworn but a year ago, as an ordained knight of Atvany.”
Still, she said nothing, her stoic visage betraying not a sentiment towards her bound hands and the cloaked figures behind, beside and before her. This was nothing more than a dramatic pause in the white-haired judge’s monologue; she had no real say, and even if she did, well… She had nothing to say to these people, in any case.
“Your task was, according to your commander, not beyond your capabilities. You were to escort Duke Herizon back to his home in the mountains, only to be overwhelmed by an ambush of brigands. Simple-minded country folk who craft weapons from wood… And yet, somehow, Duke Herizon’s blood is now a red stain against the white of the snow. We are all eager to hear your explanation in your defense.”
Elespeth wanted to snort—almost did, in fact—because it couldn’t have been more clear to her that regardless of what she said, they had already made up their mind; every single person in the room. But that was not the worst part. The once-imperial knight of Atvany also stood before her own self judgement, in a quiet feat of introspection. They were right; her task had not been beyond her capabilities. If anything, it had been an insult to her almost unrivaled combat skills… which, unfortunately, did not play in her favour, in this case.
The truth was, Elespeth hadn’t intended for Herizon to die. But when the opportunity presented itself… Well, she wasn’t entirely sure that she hadn’t let it happen, that her subconscious hadn’t caused her to hesitate for that split second that cost the Duke his life. She could not in good faith tell the judge, her commander, and everyone surrounding her that she was innocent.
Just as she could not tell them about the way the old Duke had always leered at her, making inappropriate passes that she, each and every time, refused. Or that he had sworn he’d frame her family for treason and have them locked away for life if she continued to shirk his advances. Because in both instances, not a single person in the room would believe her.
“Well?” The judge’s fat lower lip jutted out as he frowned. “What say you, traitor?”
“With all due respect,” Elespeth sighed at last, meeting the old man’s eyes and quirking a brow, “We were ambushed on a particularly tricky turn, if I recall. Had the carriage’s cargo been lighter, I think we’d have made it past the brigands with little to no damage, and no lives lost.” Shaking her head, she added—and only because she already knew she was condemned—as she tied to hide a smile, “To be honest, had this trip not killed Duke Herizon, then a heart attack likely would have, and soon.”
The room came alive with incredulous murmurs, fingers pointing in Elespeth’s direction. Only the judge, his hammer and his raucous voice was able to cut through the din, to deliver the sentence she had been expecting. “Elespeth Suria Tameris, you are hereby found guilty of manslaughter and negligence of the duties you swore on your life. For that, the penalty is death.”
Stripped of her weapons and title as imperial knight, Elespeth had been escorted to the dungeons, but her stay there was not long. It was both a blessing and a curse to be a woman underestimated; she’d had to work twice as hard to become a part of the imperial guard, but locked away in that dank cell with its rusty bars, her best hope was that they saw her as nothing but a misguided and selfish girl who cared as little for her own life as she had the Duke’s.
Wouldn’t they be astounded, then, when come morning as they delivered her meagre meal of stale bread and water, they found her gone, with the rusted bars of the tiny cell’s only window chipped away (they’d failed to confiscate the butter knife in her boot) until they had snapped off completely. A hole hardly big enough for a man, but not so for a slender and determined young woman.
That had all taken place three years ago, and even now, Elespeth’s renegade status earned a pretty large sum of money in exchange for her live capture. It had likewise been three years since she’d tread Atvanian soil, so she couldn’t know for sure, but the last he heard, the reward had gone up by half. Atvanian nobility’s thirst for revenge was just that notorious; as a precaution, her ventures took her further and further from her homeland, secretly making her way through Thorndel and Kelledan, before putting up her weary feet in Andalari.
But those nomadic feet never rested for long. Money was difficult to come by, and frankly, odd jobs were not Elespeth’s style. Stripped though she might have been from her title as a knight, her attachment to her sword hadn’t waned, nor had her willingness to use it to the benefit of others—for a price, of course.
Trainer, bodyguard—hell, even jumping into the ring to face a rowdy opponent for the chance of winning gold whenever the chance arose, Elespeth made good temporary use of her skills in order to wake up day to day with some financial assurance. For her safety, she’d assumed a number of different aliases so as to provide clients with a name, changing it up every few towns she passed: Suria, Ele, Su, Beth, Meris… Recently, at a small village in Andalari, she passed herself off as Tam, a sellsword from afar. But it had been two weeks; inns were expensive, cash was running low, and it seemed as though no one in Andalari cared for the services of one in possession of a sword, and the skills to match.
So Tam the sellsword made the decision to simply pass through, and onto the next empire, where she’d hopefully find word to replenish her quickly dwindling coffers. And she would have followed through with that plan, had it not been for a conversation she overheard one morning at a pub, where she spent the last of her coin on a good meal, one that would hopefully last for a while before hunger ravaged her body.
“Don’ wait up for Fenwick. Last I heard, he was off to be part of Messino’s army.” A balding man shook his head and downed the last of his early morning ale. “Thinks he’s still good with a bow, after all these years… hate to say it, but I doubt we’ll see him again.”
“Ye really think Messino’d hire a geezer like Fenwick?” The man across from him laughed, his round belly jiggling. “He must be damn desperate!”
The other man replied; “And that’s the truth! I hear he wants manpower and’ll take whatever he can get; the weaker ones are likely just cannon fodder. Like I said, doubt we’ll be seeing Fen again.”
“Excuse me.” While Elespeth did not make a habit of eavesdropping or weighing in on conversations, she decided to make an exception to her general penchant for politeness. “So sorry, forgive my rudeness… But would you mind telling me what you know of this Messino and the army he is forming?”
The initial speaker took one look at her—a young woman—and snorted. Elespeth didn’t mind; she was not only used to that kind of reaction, but often, she used it to her advantage. “Prince Messino di Andalari believes that Tadasun, the empire to the south, is planning to wage war on this kingdom. So he’s gathering an army to mold the standards of whatever odd strategy he’s planning… You know someone who’d be interested or somethin’, little lady?”
“Something like that,” Elespeth shrugged as the other man snorted his laughter. “Where might I find this Messino and his army?”
“Two hours north… wait a second.” The balding man paused, glancing at the blade strapped across the young woman’s back. “You’re not thinkin’…”
But the ex-knight was already on her way out the door, waving without so much as glancing over her shoulder. “Thanks for the tip!” It felt like eons since she’d drawn her sword. Serving nobility had been her soul purpose her entire life; she only hoped that this particular noble deserved it more than the Duke. That was a mistake she could not repeat.
The two hour trek north was not Elespeth’s greatest ordeal in the days that came. On her arrival at the war camp, she hardly set foot upon its overly trodden earth before being accosted by a handful of who she expected must have been Messino’s generals. “You must have lost your way,” one heavily armoured man declared, holding a helmet under his arm. “This is a war camp, girl.”
“I know. I have come to offer my services to Prince Messino di Andalari, in his mission to deflect the forces of the Tadasuni.” She even offered a small bow, despite that they were not the ones deserving of such a gesture. “My sword and skills are his to command, should you allow it.”
The two generals exchanged looks before turning back to the sight of the girl, in her torn and worn travel attire. “You’re serious,” the other one said at last, and shook his head. “Listen, lady, you can’t just walk in looking like you do and expect anyone to believe you ca be of any use. We don’t even know who you are.”
“Oh—of course! I don’t expect that.” Her mouth stretched into a wide grin as she stepped forward with confidence. “You can call me Tam. I’m a traveling sellsword, and I would be more than happy to demonstrate my skills.”
“You’re real determined, aren’t ya.” The second general, an older man with graying hair and bushy eyebrows angled his head, appraising her with a curious eye. Without another word, he drew his own sword from its scabbard at his back. “Okay then, Miss Tam. I’m General Rixon, the one in charge of Prince Messino’s swordsmen around here. They take the front lines, so I’ll warn you, we don’t let novices into those ranks. Take on me, and we’ll see if you make the cut.”
Not five minutes later, a crowd had gathered around a panting, sweating and fallen General Rixon, before which stood the newcomer, a woman called Tam. Swordsmen, archers and magic users alike gaped in awe and confusion; even Rixon’s slightly younger counterpart, the general who had first addressed her, seemed uncertain as to whether they should allow her in the ranks, or take punitive action towards her aggressions.
“Rixon! All hells, man, are you all right?” He hurried to help the other man up, the lines of his face sinking into deeper confusion when Rixon erupted in laughter.
“Unbelievable! I haven’t lost so quickly since I myself was a novice, over forty years ago!” He bellowed, dusting of the armor on his defensive shoulder.
There was never a good reason to gloat, however, and Elespeth knew better than to draw too much attention to her feat. Humbly replacing her rapier in its scabbard, she rolled her shoulders back and put forth the simple question: “So, then; do I have permission to serve Prince Messino de Andalari in his ranks of warriors?”
Lilica hadn’t any aspirations to fight on the side of Messino’s army. War was neither here nor there for her, and taking orders from some higher power by blood was not exactly her forte. Yet for one who went to such lengths to keep a low profile, the prince of Andalari’s forces seemed to have no trouble in finding her.
“I understand that you were not born as a citizen of Andalari,” the recruitment officer struggled to keep up with the dark mage as she made her way through the winding streets and alleys of the small village she had come to inhabit. If he wanted to speak to her, then it was his responsibility to keep up with her. Lilica D’Or stopped for nobody, gave no one the time of day.
“I was born in Garjenah,” She replied for clarification, stopping at a market booth to purchase fresh herbs for a tonic that she was working on. Darkness was both her gift and her curse, but her recent endeavours in herbology was an attempt to veer from that path. Finally, after struggling all her life to identify with something other than the yang in the universe, she was beginning to make headway. Only for that asshat, Messino, to catch wind of her unrivaled prowess in the darker arts, with the expectation that she would use them to his benefit. “But I have traveled all over. Just because I happen to currently reside in Andalari does not mean I claim it as my home.”
“And yet, here you stay, with no warrant.” The recruitment officer went on, his cheeks going pink at the lackadaisical way that Lilica seemed to pay him so little heed, refusing even to make eye contact. “Do you even pay taxes, young lady?”
“So if I understand correctly,” Lilica said at last, trading the merchant coin for a large assortment of herbs. “You are trying to threaten me with legal action should I refuse to serve in Messino’s army. Simply because I do not identify as a resident of Andalari, despite residing here.”
“I expect, Miss D’Or, that should I choose to investigate, I could find ample reason to resort to legal action, above and beyond the fact that you are not a tax-paying citizen of Andalari.” The connotations there were clear. While no magic, dark or otherwise, was outlawed throughout the empire, its usage required certified licensing, to ascertain that its usage was not intended to facilitate any sort of illegal activity.
Lilica, of course, had never sought certification, as the requirements varied from kingdom to kingdom, and it made little sense to jump through those hoops when one led a life as nomadic as hers.
Tucking the herbs into the basket hooked in the crook of her elbow, Lilica heaved an irritated sigh. “You mean to tell me your prince doesn’t have enough herbologists to satisfy his strategies? Because I am still learning the art, and I can’t imagine he would want to make use of my other talents, sir. And if he does, then he has no idea what he is getting into.”
“I cannot speak on behalf of Prince Messino di Andalari’s intentions, Miss D’Or, but I can assure you that your agreement to aid his army will not only earn you the certification to use magic that you are lacking, but you will be handsomely compensated.” The recruitment officer grinned, stepping in front of her to interrupt her stroll. “What do you most desire? Perhaps your own fortified home, sturdy as the king’s palace, in a quiet and remote area of Andalari? Where you might practice your arts in privacy, and with enough funds in gold to last you the rest of your life?”
Lilica’s eyebrows knit together. Money was always a commodity, and she was no less drawn to it than anyone else. And while she had never thought to exchange her humble, wooden hut for something more remote and more fortified… she could not deny that the idea did intrigue her. “I feel there are only two reasons why the prince would reward my participation so handsomely,” she began, her voice low with a wary edge. “Either he is willing to invest in my alternate abilities because they play into his strategy, or he is certain that I will die in this battle, and he will owe me nothing.”
The recruitment officer stammered a moment, at a loss as to how to reply, before he cleared his throat. “Every war has its casualties, of course, but to my knowledge, few of the prince’s magically adept recruits possess abilities such as… well, those that make you… unique. I am willing to bet that he is, in fact, already very invested in the possibility that you will participate. And—pardon me if this comes across as rude or presumptuous—but from what I’ve heard of you… Sometime tells me you would not fall so easily in battle.”
He had a point; for all of the lives that Lilica had ended at the hands of her dark magic, her own life, for as long as she’d known, had never been in danger. Used the right way, dark magic could render its user untouchable; for a price, of course, which more often than not tended to be his or her health, in the long run. It wasn’t exactly something to brag about, when you sat down and thought about how many years you’d shaved of your life, by cheating death again and again.
“Well? What do you say?” The recruitment officer interrupted the dark mage in her moment of thought, coming forward with a quill and what looked to be a contract. “With your mere signature, I can guarantee everything I promised you.”
Including incrimination should I refuse, Lilica thought sourly, realizing that this man hadn’t come all the way from the prince’s war camp to make her an offer; this was an ultimatum, if ever she had seen one. Pressing her lips into a flat line, she raked a hand through her dark hair and grabbed the quill. “I very much hope that your prince lives up to the promises that you have made me on his behalf,” she said, looking the man in the eye, watching the colour drain from his face as she added. “For your sake.”
Neither Elespeth nor Lilica knew just what sort of part they were intended to play in this comparatively small army of prince Messino’s—the latter more than the former. While Elespeth was one among many capable sword wielders, it did not take long to confirm that Lilica’s source of magic did not resemble those of the other casters within the ranks. When the day finally came that the prince would reveal his strategy, both were eager to attend, Elespeth for her zeal to use her sword again, and Lilica for the sake of her curiosity.
Both stood within their respective troops, neither any more aware of one another’s presence than they were any other stranger among them, as they listened to what Messino had in mind. While most certainly eccentric, Elespeth did not feel as though the prince was a particularly dangerous man in any shape of the word. ‘Immature’ was a word that had come to mind, but not necessarily mean-spirited, or vicious; his intentions seemed to span no further than that of any other monarch preparing for war, and she had to commend him on his immediate involvement, as opposed to hiding away within an ivory tower while men and women alike died for him. There was no real harm, she figured, in fighting for this man’s purposes; if, down the road, she discovered some ulterior motive, then she would quite simply take her leave quietly in the middle of the night. Until then, she was more than willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt.
Lilica, on the other hand, was not so quick to be quite as trusting. In the short time she’d spent within the war camp, after reluctantly signing her life away on that contract, she was quick to establish that she trusted and meant to trust no one, and in turn, the majority of the other casters did not trust (nor particularly like) her. That was just fine; she wasn’t there to make friends, and anyone stupid enough to blindly follow a man like Messino was certainly no friend of hers. He acted like a child, not like someone worth trusting to strategize for an entire army. To think that he’d be dictating her actions in battle… That alone would be the only reason she could see herself becoming a casualty of war.
As soon as he brought up his ludicrous idea of what he called a ‘compound unit’, the dark mage could hold her tongue no longer. “I assume that you intend this for your revered Rigas casters alone,” she began, the corners of her mouth turning downward. “Because back-up is not my style; it is a waste of my time and talents. I do not wait for things to happen, your highness, I make things happen.”
Elesepeth shook her head at the outspoken mages. What was it about magic users and the hubris with which they all seemed burdened? Personally, she found this idea of compound units curious, and potentially useful. To fight as a pair, to have someone watching your back… Why, it was far more sound a strategy than she had ever expected from a personality such as Messino. At his command for volunteers, the ex-knight only took a moment to think it over before stepping forward.
“I’d like to volunteer,” she confirmed, coming forward. Elespeth knew little of mages alone, let alone any of the Rigas, who were native to this kingdom. But they were people like any other, and frankly, this strategy made her curious. “Tam; not long a resident of your kingdom, your highness,” she introduced herself, knowing full well that he wouldn’t have remembered her name or face from days ago. His attention span seemed too distracted for that. “Should you see fit, I’d be more than happy to be part of this strategy.”
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I am forcing no magic-user to participate in what they believe is beneath their skill-set." He spread his hands with a magnanimous flourish. Time to mollify the magic-users, he thought. "I only ask for volunteers from any background. Dark mage, you are free to apply yourself wherever most complements your performance. This unit will not concern your preconceived predilections. Carry on."
"You presume we were hand-picked for back-up?!" Chara lurched forward to seek out the aggressor in the crowd. She brushed aside Alster, ignoring his presence now that he assigned himself as "back-up" and no longer mattered. "And what makes you exempt from the same request of us? I demand to know your family lineage if you think yourself so superior--"
"QUIET!" Messino threw his voice against the nearby mountain. It returned with the force of a landslide, all abrading rocks and raining pebbles. "The army is out there!" He thrust a finger in the fields beyond camp. "I am not attending to children with petty quarrels about the size of their magic staffs, ladies!" Satisfied by the restored order returned to its rightful place, he continued. "Stand down, both of you. Volunteers only will stay in my inner circle." He urged Alster back into the ring and coaxed out his secondary volunteer, a lady warrior, with a come-hither hand. "You as well, Tam. And you--" He gave the Rigas caster a once-over. "Your name eludes me."
"Alster, your Highness."
"Ah, yes." He threw up his desiccating orange peel. "I am your Commander before I am your prince. You may drop the honorific, or," he gave a pointed look at his men, "Mad Mess, that will suffice. Now how did that name come about again?"
"The Battle of Rintare, five years ago," said Lieutenant Renalto, tilting his chin heavenwards in recollection. "Those sinkholes. How can I forget? With that freak accident?"
"Oh, wasn't it?" Messino tittered. "Lucky for you all, there's no sinkholes from here to Tadasun. That we know of. But here I go rattling off." He stroked his chin while regarding his only two volunteers. "The two of you will partner up. And as you both were brave enough to volunteer first, consider yourselves in charge of the unit."
Alster quailed at the very thought. With such little magic at his arsenal, he'd be outed as a fraud or become a laughingstock of the unit--should anyone else volunteer. One thing at a time, Alster, he thought as he observed his partner in question, sucking in a courageous breath when he checked, double-checked, and triple-checked Tam's status as a woman. Of all the warriors available for partnership, he had the rotten luck to be paired with a sex with which he had trouble communicating. Chara and the Rigas family line--no problem. They were unavoidable. In avoidable cases, however, he was quick to wander in the opposite direction.
He couldn't call her out in the middle of the crowd, or demand another partner without appearing chauvinistic. With his mind racing, he half-turned towards Prince Messino, seeing Chara's face in his periphery, her lips curled into a sadistic smile.
"Commander," he began, meek at first, "if we are to be squad leaders, may I address the crowd?"
Messino blinked in disbelief. A non-opinionated Rigas asking permission to speak? "By all means."
Clearing his throat, Alster directed his eye contact away from Tam and that dark mage who reminded him too much of a Rigas caster to address at without devolving into sputters and mouth gaping. He focused on the wall of men from far beyond the inner sanctums of the circle; with a burst of confidence, he began.
"For those magic-users who believe their talents would be consigned to back-up in this arrangement, that is not altogether true. Some spells take preparation. Wouldn't you want someone watching your back while you prepare? It works both ways. We magic-users are not as infallible as we lead ourselves to believe. Why else do swordsmen often take the front lines while the casters follow up the rear? How is the Compound Unit any different? After all, it's named 'Compound,' suggesting equal participation of both parties. Think about it," he concluded hurriedly before his speech deteriorated into ceaseless babbling. Of course, he'd pinned some ulterior motives into place when conceiving of his discourse; one reason in particular would ideally attract volunteers and give him options for a partner swap.
And one by one, a few volunteers offered their participation.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With the room's attention divided between the scene between the mages, and the sudden interest and consideration for Alster's reframing of Messino's plan, the ex-knight could only shake her head at the quarrel. What was it with mages? Was inflated pride a prerequisite to using magic? Not that sword wielders and others who favoured physical assault tactics couldn't suffer from such a chronic case of hubris, but in Elespeth's experience with mages, necromancers and any others who called on the elements or the fabric of the universe as part of a unique skill set, she hadn't yet been acquainted with one who did not think themselves to be some gift of the deities.
Then again, she hadn't yet--technically--been acquainted with this Alster.
There was uncertainty about the male Rigas mage, of that much Elespeth was already aware. And yet his small, logical and inspirational take on the situation suggested that he at least believed in the concept. She had to admit, functioning as a single unit was beyond what she had been trained to do; as to how she would fare, covering for another person and vice versa, remained to be seen. When it came down to technicalities, though... Was that not basically what she had sworn herself to as a knight? To fend off adversaries of a protectee, to fight with likeminded comrades for a cause that was at least better than the given situation?
Well, she had no idea just how likeminded she was to any of these individuals. But she'd find out, sooner than later, and there was only one way to do so. Fortunately for Alster, she did not share in the awkwardness incited by the opposite sex.
"Well, you certainly seem impassioned about Messino's tactical brainchild." Elespeth waited until he finally turned to face her before offering a smile and quirking a brow. If she didn't know better, it almost appeared as though he was avoiding her, or at least wished to avoid her. While it had been a handful of days since she'd seen a mirror, the fugitive from Garjenah hadn't thought she would come across as quite so intimidating, or unappealing, for that matter.
For good measure, she offered her half-gloved hand. "Tam. Alster, is it? Why am I getting the impression you're holding out for another warrior?" Unfortunately for the mage with the uncertain expression, the volunteers offering to participate in this tactic--particularly the warriors--sought out other magic users, assuming that Alster was, technically, already spoken for. They wouldn't have been entirely wrong, considering Elespeth had assumed the same, being the first to offer her skills in this compound unit. "Well, if it assures you any, I've been training with a sword for a pretty long time. I'm not one to let people down; you don't strike me as being that sort, either. So?" Raising her eyebrows, she rolled back her shoulders. "What do you say? Give me a chance. If you don't like what you see--er, if you don't think I'm suited to be an efficient partner, then by all means, I'll find you a new one, myself."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Until then, she waited out the little charade of Messino's army all gathering together like toy soldiers improperly wound up and unpolished. Her grin towards the tattered derelict signaled a promise that she'd fulfill. Very soon.
At watching the sudden influx of volunteers drift and jumble into the circle, Messino discarded his orange peel as if it were causing the previous stop-up and then regarded Alster, the secondary reason for the unclogging, with a curious air. The man had an angle, a motive: different from the single-minded tactics of his family. A Rigas acting anything other than condescending and pretentious concerned him. After all, enemies not acting like his enemies usually piqued his caution --and he'd always considered the Rigases the shadiest of his adversaries. Just a bias of yours, his father always assured him. No. He didn't think so.
"Well," he piped up, over the din of volunteers rummaging to the circle like cows to pasture, "it looks as though you have the situation properly handled. Not that I would expect any less from my instinctual choosing of natural-born leaders!" He laughed and clapped Alster on the shoulder. "Do me proud by this unit. Everyone else!" He announced with another rock-grinding roar, "you are dismissed! Go, carry on, train, eat, sleep, and do resume the throttling I've so rudely interrupted, oh mages!"
Alster watched Messino depart the circle with his his ranks in tow, leaving behind an ample cut of breathing and wandering space. How he yearned to sprint to the sunnier side where a mass of humanity wasn't kicking up dust clouds and where he could breathe in the willpower to actually speak with the woman who seemed insistent on his partnership! The other volunteers bypassed him and Tam with wide berths, suggestive of their reservations towards any Rigas association--or they assumed his commitment with whatever fate dropped onto his person. In this case, Tam.
He at least owed her some explanation, however malformed and fighting to stay alive in the cruel world of its creator. Coughing and clearing his throat in preparation to speak, he stared at the ground, at her feet, ignoring the hammering of his heart that in turn hammered his fingers into little pings against his slippery-slick palms. He focused on her good qualities--she seemed nice. Upstanding. Almost knightly, and willing to cooperate. Different from the women in his life. Different from the women who sneered their way through his presence with pinioned fangs and a bite to match.
With a nod, he summoned his head to look towards her, his mouth to open...
And he spoke words at her.
"No. Probably...yes. Alster. Err. Rigas. But you...know that." He laughed away the stupidity. Oh, if only he actually laughed the entire concept of stupidity from his being! No measure of magic could aid him in this endeavor. He chose not to take her hand; the thought of making physical contact was enough to render him into a rock formation.
"B-believe...I ah, I believe you. I just, well...you probably don't want to work with me. Many many many reasons. Many. I mean, the reasons really are..." he counted them on his fingers and held out his hands. "...Eight. Could be ten. Or more than fingers. I mean..." With a frustrated groan, he thrust his hands into his hair, hiding the fire within his cheeks that threatened to spark free and immolate him to a crisp.
"Hah!" Chara chirped in from behind him. "Like an adolescent boy. The shame. Oh, good luck with him, Tam." Alster lowered his hand in time to watch Chara saunter past him, a tune on her lips and a ball of etherea hovering over her palm as she approached the dark mage.
"What in the hells is she thinking, that pickled puss-sore princess!" Alster stalked after Chara until he realized Tam was still there...in which case he clamped his mouth shut with wide eyes and scampered to Chara's side.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The ex-knight's suspicions were confirmed at the mage's rambling, and an eyebrow arched on her behalf. She knew little of the Rigas family, and while Messino appeared to hold them in high regard, lineage meant little to Elespeth. Her own lineage had betrayed her and disowned her on the allegations that she'd neglected her duties as a knight; the severance still hurt, some mornings when she'd wake up and remember she was wholeheartedly alone, but she was quick to move past it and look on to other duties. Right now, that duty appeared to be finding a way to put this strange, wayward man at ease. It wasn't haughtiness that defined his persona, but rather, a keen lack of confidence. Were there time for pity, she might have offered sympathy. But, alas, this was war.
"No, I can understand; don't get me wrong, I have my own faults." Elespeth shrugged one shoulder. "I'll admit, I'm very quick to act, sometimes without premeditation. I am often guilty of oversleeping and wasting good daylight snoring. Um... what else... Oh!" She snapped her fingers, a grin spreading across her face. "I've been accused of being too stubborn. I'm not entirely sure if that is true, but in this case, I think I'll live up to the accusation and insist that we give this a try." Placing a hand on his shoulder, she leaned in, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Please? You're the first magic wielder I've met whose ego doesn't rival the size of the sun--"
Her thoughts and plea were interrupted by the peal of laughter from Chara, the haughty blonde who had taken to arguing with the stoic and cold brunette. A peal of sympathy pricked the contents of her chest the way she so easily put down Alster. Sure, he was far from a model mage, his mind too bloated with self-doubt to make room for any confidence. That would definitely surface as a problem when it actually came down to combat. But that only made him all the more qualified to be part of a compound unit and, in a way, it struck her with that familiar urge to protect. Elespeth didn't want a partner who bested her; she preferred one whose potential she could help bring to the surface. Fugitive or not, chivalry still ran thick in her blood.
But that would have to wait. One disaster at a time.
"Whoa... hey, now. This isn't the time." She almost didn't act fast enough. Magic flickered in Chara's palm, and the ex-knight didn't miss the tendrils of darkness, like coal-black smoke, leaking from the cracks of Lilica's clenched fist. One on one, she might have allowed them to go at it and kill each other off, but other people still milled about, and were at risk of being caught in the crossfire.
Without another thought, she drew her sword in the tense air between the two of them. "Which side of this war are you two fighting on?" She asked, looking from one mage to the other--night and day, personified. "We are all allies, here. Let us start acting the part, hm?"
"Last I checked, I am not here to take orders from a woman who feels that drawing a sword opens her up to entitlement." Lilica's words were like razors on flesh, and immediately, Elespeth knew it would be unwise to make an enemy of this woman. "Step aside."
"I won't. And there will be witnesses if you harm me, or one another," the ex-knight pointed out, shaking her head. "Really, what is it with you mages and your pride? Pride kills. Review the fallen heroes of your history; I am willing to bet that 8 out of 10 of them lie in the ground before thirty years of life, on death by hubris."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Or was it because he understood, firsthand, how magic could utterly destroy the lives of those who were privy to its demands? Carelessness in magic presented monumental consequences. No one being should hold enough power to destroy cities or lay waste to armies--because no one being could respond to power with any sense of responsibility or proportion. Unfortunately, magic-users held the keys to unlock the world's doom--and their awareness of it radiated like the halo of the sun. Simply put, magic-users were heliocentric because their collective abilities could very well destroy the sun.
"Oh, what a riot!" Chara's ball of etherea tittered in tandem with her mouth in response to Tam's sword-wielding interruption. "You shan't delve deep inside your own archives to view the same of your ilk, or better yet, of warriors succumbing to the wiles of a magic-user because they could not unseat themselves from matters irrelevant to their legendary nosiness. Do you wish to lose your nose, warrior?" Chara cocked her head to one side in that hawkish way she favored, clucking ideas in her tongue that sounded out like ellipses in the air. The ball of etherea shifted shades in her hand, a visible change of form and intent, and her fingers twitched in conspiracy to her thoughts. A shift in tactics.
"Catch!" She screamed and whizzed the ball towards Tam's face. It touched a shiver of air that surrounded the warrior like gossamer, ricocheted, and hurtled back to Chara with a speed she barely deflected in time. As she dissolved her spell, she snapped her neck at Alster, whose hand shimmered with the same consistency.
"I was only having a lark, Alster!" She barked at him, her skin puffy-red like the sheen of a pimple come to a head.
"Your spell had all the innocence of a rock disguised as a dirt-clod," Alster said, dissolving his own spell with a practiced flick, an exactitude he still exuded with precise form and skill, despite the iota of magic he utilized. "I'll not let you harm my partner in any way." Hot ire plumed from his chest and with it the conviction, rushed forth by magic, to cast his lot with a warrior whose actions had called him to take up arms and fight.
"You dare speak for a peasant over your own blood!?" Veins spidered their way through her temples like the wisps of a spell designed to self-destruct.
"Hmm. Why not?" He said with a tug of a smile, a noncommittal answer that infuriated her the more.
"You....you are no Rigas!" With sparks of electricity dancing off her skin, Chara fluttered away like a butterfly who thought herself a stomping giant.
Alster deflated with a sigh. Shaking out the pinpricks of his hand, he regarded Tam with apprehension and dared to move in her proximity. After a minute of arranging, rearranging, and making last-minute arrangements to the rearranged sentence, he said, "Are you all right?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The ex-knight couldn't help but crack a grin. Someone who shared in her sense of chivalry? She could work with this man; he'd do.
"Well, if you want to speak to technicalities, my blood doesn't exactly run to the extent of that of a peasant's..." Elespeth corrected the haughty blonde, lowering her sword as she had no intention to fight any of them.; not even the dark-haired dark-mage, whose fist still leaked tendrils of black smoke. "But what's the point in splitting hairs on insignificant matters? We're here to fight, but not each other. I'll not raise my sword at an ally; like it or not, we are all equal on this playing field."
"Keep telling yourself that. If it helps validate your pathetic existence." Lilica glowered, the tendrils of dark energy dissipating from her fingertips. Anger was a waste of energy on these people, and these people were--frankly--a waste of her time. She was not long in following Chara outside to escape the foolish audacity of the she-warrior. For all she didn't seek the other mage's company (unless she truly was interested in coming to blows; it was never a waste of time to deservingly teach someone a lesson), their tents were, unfortunately, located in the same vicinity. As if Messino thought she'd integrate with the elementals, a yang to their ridiculous yin. Didn't the fool have any idea that adeptness to magic did not breed kindred spirits?
"Watch yourself," was all she said to the Rigas mage before their paths parted. She contemplated returning the possibility of Messino giving her a private tent at her request; as far as she knew, she was the only of the mages who dealt in dark magic. He should have known she wouldn't mesh with the Rigas brats from the moment she set foot on the soil of this filthy encampment.
Elespeth was by no means about to chase after either of the female mages in their heated departure. Perhaps they'd cool off enough to stop seeing red, and realize that the fighting for which they were all destined was not meant to be among one another. At least, she was willing to be optimistic. "Partner, huh?" She flashed an appreciative grin at Alster. "Thank you for that intervention. I might have swordplay down to a science, but I daresay I wouldn't know the first thing about defending myself against magic. So--are we two halves of one unit, then? Or are you going to make me do something foolish like make me prove myself to you?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Yes," he said, deciding to break down his speech patterns in small clumps. To prevent overwhelming the sputtering shocks to his system, he compartmentalized the words and organized small segments, which he would utter, a little bit at a time. "Two halves. Yes," he repeated, but refused to berate himself for losing control over his already failing system.
Then she mentioned proving oneself, and he devolved into an impassioned string of words like yarn, wrapped over itself, and slowly unraveling.
"Don't be silly! Rigases are full of hot air. They'd float away if their big heads didn't tether them to the ground! They do not represent magic-users as a whole--do not for a second believe we are all a group of blowhards who catalog our importance with the biggest and brightest of the stars! On the contrary, my fathe--" He severed the string. It was too early in the day to be thinking about him. About them. With a cough that did nothing to hide the stigma of shame scrawled on his face, he tilted his head toward the training grounds, where members of their "unit" traveled--now that the vagaries of the almost-mage-battle fizzled into the mists of early morning.
"We should...ah. Follow suit. Shall we?" He returned to the collected monotone of his speech. It was safer than his bursts of unpredictability. That's right, he thought. Treat conversation like a spell. Break it down to its constituent parts and practice. Hone. Perfect. No surprises.
Surprises kill.
They reached the borderline of the training grounds without much fanfare: Alster made certain of it. The unit, some sixteen strong, turned heads at their arrival, as if awaiting direction, or--he inwardly panicked--a demonstration. Challenges arose in their eyes. They were sizing him up, examining his worthiness for a title he believed was only honorary. No doubt they directed the same treatment to his partner. A Rigas caster and a lady warrior. A ridiculous duo, he realized.
"We'll figure out the most effective methods through simple trial and error," he said into the stare-down silence, hoping his false confidence translated into a man with a plan, and they'd leave him and Tam to their devices.
They didn't.
"Why don't you both show us what you have in mind?" An earth mage shouted from the back of the small crowd, an antagonizing simper etched upon his face.
Tam hadn't needed to prove herself to him, but she apparently needed to prove herself to them. Magic-users were doing a fine job disharmonzing his defense of them to her just earlier!
"We're in the same boat as you," he reasoned. "We've yet to practice. We haven't a technique, but once we do--"
"--We saw you two earlier," the mage interrupted. "Certainly it's no imposition at all for a high-and-mighty Rigas to impart his magical superiority upon us peons. Or do you only show off for the ladies?"
Another man, a warrior (Alster thanked the gods) said with a chortle, "if only she were a lady."
"Lady?" Another warrior joined the heckling party. "What lady?"
"You mean the Rigas brat?"
Damn it. There wasn't much choice. Respect required earning, and they hadn't much to give by simple virtue of being. He gripped his hands into fists, imagining his magic pulsing through his veins with the white-hot vitality of days long past. ...But he only felt the pulse that every creature shared to stay alive.
No matter. He'd make do.
The impulses pounded his brain like dough, yearning for release. For manifestation.
Frankly, he was peeved.
"Well then," he said with a fire still possessed within him, "I don't see any of you jumping to volunteer to take us on."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
At Alster's look of bashful confusion, she simply added, "What? Hot air or not, I feel privileged to have a Rigas on my team. You show me yours, I'll show you mine, and we'll see where we can meet in the middle, hm?"
She was, of course, referring to their unique abilities, it never crossing her mind once that it could put the poor young man more ill at ease than he already was.
Far less than she'd expected Alster to warm to her and trust her so quickly, given his quirky uncertainty, was the reaction of the other mages and fighters on the field. The barrage of jibes and disrespect was unlike anything she had ever witnessed. Among her former brethren, the knights of Ilandria, there had been nothing but brotherhood and camaraderie. The occasional playful pranks or criticisms, but never such hateful remarks as those spewed by men and women who were supposed to be on her side! This was unacceptable; there was a war happening. They should not be fighting amongst themselves, but if this posed as some sort of initiation...
"You're right; were I, by title, a 'Lady', I certainly wouldn't have volunteered to take part in this dirty battle," Elespeth confirmed, arching a brow as her green eyes scanned the crowd of a dozen and plus people who were supposed to be their allies. "And neither is my partner, for that matter. Though were it true on either of our accounts, your asses would still be on the line by the time we'd be done with you."
"Oh-ho! Those words sound like a challenge to me, if ever there was one." The man who stepped forward--easily twice her age and weight--brandished an axe before her. "I'll take you on, little girl. You and that pansy little Rigas you call your partner. Hope you can hold your own, 'cause he sure as hell won't be backing you."
The confident grin on Elespeth's face did not diminish in the shadow of the man, and the tall, regal-looking mage who stood next to him as his equal. "Well, I suppose we'll see, won't we?"
Simultaneously as she drew her longsword, the fugitive from Ilandria took a step back, until her shoulder was flush with Alster's, allowing her to pass on a hushed whisper. "I'll take on this axe-handler. What are the chances you can boost my weapon's prowess, huh? Make it a little more than the steel it's made from."
There was no time to form a true strategy, and that quick idea was all she had, for Alster to interpret as he may. The burly axe-man came at the swordswoman with a frightening zeal, such that she hardly had enough time to pivot out of the way. Blows to a sword by an axe were devastating; this man, like her, had a talent for thrusting his weight in just the right way, familiar with the feel of his weapon. What she also suspected was that the way a breeze suddenly picked up, his mage must have been using the force of the wind to curb his turns and thrusts just so, to maximize accuracy.
All the while, her blade remained unaffected.
"Alster...come on." The ex-knight breathed through her teeth, just as something caught her eye. The steel of her straight blade was glowing faintly, as if it had suddenly become a source of light. There was no time to spare a glance at Alster with an axe just inches from her face. What was supposed to be a simple block, steel against heavier steel, ended with the axe's tarnished blade meeting the soil at their feet--in two pieces.
Her sword had cleaved the axe in half, rendering her opponent, well...
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this means we win." Elespeth's pride for herself and her partner swelled at the look on her opponent's face, and that of his partner mage's--not to mention everyone else in the small crowd. Everyone had doubted them; nobody had thought they'd come out on top. "Any more volunteers?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster assessed the way the wind moved in patterns that tingled at his arms; with his unbroken magic, he could scramble the mage's helpful breezes with a barrier similar to what he cast on Chara, bouncing away those streamlined attacks and confusing the direction of the wind. Ideally, this would stymie the warrior and slow him down in time for Tam to take the upper-hand before the mage devised a counterspell. Alas, he hadn't the power, and Tam's previous suggestion required what was beyond his current ability to conjure.
With a sigh, he peeled off his fingerless gloves, for maximum dexterity, and flung forward his hands, crossed and crosshatched with innumerable scars that would make many a magic-user cringe. He began to draw in the air, quick, jerking motions that he hoped no one wouldn't notice. As he worked, he kept one eye on the battle, monitoring Tam's movements with a muttered plea to hold on a mite longer. A faded light shimmered before him, not from his aura but from the translucent drawing that weaved through his fingers. At his activation, the spell engaged Tam's sword and it hummed in blue-glowing fury--hot as lava but firm as steel. It sliced through the warrior's axe like warm butter, and the dramatic result seemed to sate the captive audience.
Until he realized the audience was paying rapt attention to Tam.
"Well," a shy voice spoke into the ensuing silence, "she sure can move."
"Oh wasn't that an eyesore!" The earth mage, who relocated to the head of the crowd, croak-burped like a bloated frog after feasting on flies. "A Rigas, using rune circles? Innate users wouldn't dare perform a technique that even non-gifted people could learn with ease! You must be all dried up!" Alster could see the dead flies in that contemptuous grin, blackening and blackening until his teeth was one big black hole and oh how he wanted to fold him up inside that gaping maw for the crime of speaking the truth.
Truth or not, he wanted the mage to suffer.
"How about another demonstration? If you claim to have inherent celestial magic, let's see it!" The mage parked behind his partner, a lithe-muscled warrior with striding legs and a grip on twin scimitars.
Ashamedly, he fell for the earth mage's bait and curled his fingers in anticipation to surround Tam with a spell to replicate her sword arm in a mirror image, an illusion capable of dealing a shock of damage and some confusion to her opponent who had been blown hunks of dirt and given natural armor by his dirtbag of a mage.
Nothing happened.
He tried again. A spark limped out of his fingers like a worm drowned out of its burrow.
He opted for a simple fire spell. A flame coughed into his palm, flickered once with blue pallor, and choked on its own color.
The earth mage roared with delight. All the while, the dirt-armored warrior clanked and cleaved at Tam, and Alster kept at his failures, twisting his fingers until he heard them pop and strain under pressure. Something--anything! He couldn't let them down. Or Tam...or himself. His parents...
"STOP!" Alster shouted into the fray. In conjunction with each other, the scimitar man and the earth mage ended their barrage and seized their victory.
"So you show us your true colors, hm? The cowardice of a Rigas--all talk and no skill to back it up. What frauds!" The earth mage said, a gloat bobbing in his inflated throat--then he gurgled and gaped at Alster's hand.
It was brimming with the black hole darkness of the mage's own waggling mouth. A mass of it. A blur. Like a rip in the sky, and it twisted with mocking grace, reaching for the mage, desiring to lick away his lifeforce and chew it into grist.
"D-dark magic!?" The earth mage retreated at the shadow puppet that slithered and stretched a forked tongue out to skewer his soul.
Alster blinked. The spell dissipated, leaving him with a tremor that cramped his hands into the contortions of spiders with only five legs. He averted his gaze, feeling an illness that increased with every hollow stare, every receding step, every unspoken word that breathed more anathema into his veins.
"C-carry on," he blurted.
He turned from them. From Tam. First he walked. Then he ran like he had wings on his back that would pump him into the sky, far and away.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It did not glow, did not cleave through steel or iron twice its mass and weight. And this... this was precisely why Messino had seen fit to create a system of compound units. Twice the power meant twice the potential; more birds would be hit with a wide variety of more stones.
Still, it was not enough for the haughty mages before them, and their companion warriors. About to look over her shoulder and inquire as to how Alster felt about a second match so soon (did the use of magic exhaust the wielder the same way that swordplay made her arms and back ache?), but before she could draw breath to speak, she was faced with twin scimitars, and only a split second to react.
So the ex-knight resumed her footwork and movements, so engrained in her muscles that it felt nothing short of choreography at this point, one against two as she faced off dual assailants of yet another of Messino's brand new compound units. But as she waited for Alster to step in with more useful parlor tricks, she began to lose her edge. This team was good; they had already fallen into a comfortable rhythm with one another, as her imminent defeat served as evidence. Elespeth's foot slipped on the dirt, taking her leg in a direction that would have put her neck directly in range of the twin scimitars, when she heard the mage call from behind her: Stop!
Heart beating in her throat, she waited until the scimitars were lowered to spare a glance at Alster. A dark, smoky substance leaked from the cracks in his tightly clenched fist...
She just like that, he was running in the other direction. Collecting her sword from the ground, the fugitive from Ilandria sheathed it, scrambling to her feet. "Hey! Alster! Wait!"
But he didn't wait, and she had to sprint in order to catch him by the shoulder and slow him down. "Hey--what's wrong? Didn't you see us back there? We don't even have a strategy worked out, and we still came out on top!" The look on Alster's face, however--embarrassed, uncertain, and strangely taken-aback--dissolved the smile on her lips. "So we didn't exactly come out on top during round two. I've seen enough to know we've got potential. That is, I mean... if you're still willing to work with me?"
His magic had slipped, that second time, but then, so had her feet. In terms of being a let down (if that was really what concerned the young mage), they were on equal footing.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
His sprinting legs waddled for release and his heart, carrying the twin burdens of physical and magical exertion, drummed such a rapid-fire tempo that he expected it to rupture. Black dots assailed his vision, blocking his periphery, muddying the row of tents within his wayward route. All the while, he heard his name, distorted as though he were submerged underwater, bear closer and closer...
A sudden force lurched him backwards, in time before he careened into a canvas-sided tent wall. He whirled around with the last of his effort to regard Tam standing near him, radiating a sunny-faced optimism that further agitated the black dots conspiring to cast a death shroud over his eyes. With a wobble he could no longer repress, Alster collapsed upon his feet, not caring that he exhibited his weaknesses for the entire camp to behold. As if to confirm, he looked at his hands, streaked bloody with the open wounds of his failed spell casting and shivering from the aftershock.
In spite of what happened at the training grounds, what naive and misconceived bits Tam had thrown at him, and the breath that never recovered in his lungs, he laughed, an airy little wheeze that not even the wind on the worst of days would admit to producing.
"There are so many damn things that are wrong; where do I even begin!?" He said after regaining his second wind, and laughed again. The blood from his hands dripped onto his clothes, but it, like his unruffled words directed at Tam, didn't faze him. He was simply too run-down to concentrate on his blundering of social decorum. One failure at a time.
"No. You have potential. I, on the other hand," he hesitated, "am dried out. I've lost it...it's gone." He curled his fingers into a fist, biting into his injuries and re-engaging the blood flow. "Just that cursed chthonic magic. And silly cantrips. That's all I've left."
"Go. Find another partner." He stared into the yellow grass, wishing he could lay upon it and never awaken. "...You really don't know how much I've fucked things up."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Before he could answer, the fugitive ex-knight grabbed him by his wrists, mindful of the open wounds in his hands, and pulled him to his feet with more ease than any woman should be able. "Come with me--come on, Alster! I am not going to leave you bleeding and wallowing in the middle of this encampment."
Without waiting for a response, Elespeth dragged the woesome mage toward the medical tent, worried he'd lose consciousness through the gaping wounds in his palms. "How do you think to survive a war when you cannot even take care of yourself?" Her reprimand was laced with the same concern mirrored in her green eyes. Completely ignoring the medics that cast them a curious glance (for she did not want Alster to suffer the indignity of explaining he'd been hurt by his own magic), she gathered gauze, antiseptic and clean water on her own. While she was certainly no surgeon, wrapping wounds was child's play.
The ex-knight was silent as she pressed a clean rag to his bleeding hands, the white turning pink quickly enough as it soaked up excess blood. Even when the silence was too much to bear, she was loathe to look away from her task. "Your potential is as strong as mine, you know." Smearing an herbal salve on the gaping wound, she pressed a wad of gauze against his palm, taking care to avoid his fingers as she began to wrap it. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here. You're a Rigas, aren't you? Doesn't that mean something? Let me see your other hand."
With his left hand tended to, Elespeth took his right palm onto her knee and repeated the process. "Listen, I realize we hardly know one another. I don't exactly know your strengths and weaknesses, and you don't know mine. And, frankly, I don't care about what you've 'fucked up'; because this is the here and now, and the here and now is what matters. This war, this partnership... It makes no sense to write yourself off as a lost cause before we've even seen the limits of our potential."
Both of Alster's injured hands were securely wrapped and staved from infection, the ex-knight straightened her back and stood from the stool on which she'd been sitting. "You're going to have to find other reasons than wallowing in self-defeat to break this partnership. Believe me when I say I've worked with causes far more lost than you, Alster Rigas."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I-I'm fine!" He used his mortification as a means to direct his anger. "I have rune spells; I can heal this on my own. I've done it before!" He dragged his heels into the dirt, but the woman in all her behemoth strength lugged him forward with the ease of a sack of feathers. "It's a common problem! Very easily solved. Just---dammit, ease up!"
Despite his appeals for release, she bullheadedly charged into the medical tent. Alster maneuvered his body to enshroud himself within Tam's presence, hiding so that he may retain even a modicum of anonymity and dignity--though he was certain the latter was an nonrenewable resource.
While she could ignore the medics, he kept looking over his shoulder at them until the sting of pressure snapped him to the task that she elected to do and he couldn't escape. She mopped the blood away, revealing the ugly welts that overlapped over the old welts--all of it a testament to his gross inability to function as a Rigas well should. "You can't sincerely think it's a good idea to mummify a caster's hands like that!" His fingers twitched when she applied the gauze and began wrapping, monitoring the process with an unsatisfied huff as she completed one hand and demanded the other.
"Look, Tam," he said, his dysphoria wearing away with every leeching of his blood and vising of his twisted palm-flesh, "while I appreciate the optimism, let me be frank with you, since you don't seem to understand. You deserve as much--to know some of the truth." He lowered his voice, mindful of the medics lurking in the background. "That display of dark magic back there--at best, it can cost me everything. At worst, it could cost me everything and my life. You're right. I'm a Rigas--part of the oldest and most exalted family of celestial magic-users. Dark magic manifestation from a Rigas will single-handedly destroy the family name. That means my head."
When she completed the wrappings of his right hand, he turned it over and scrutinized it as if belonging to some marble statue, cold and white and petrified, than to himself. "We're on two completely different wavelengths, you and I." He sighed, but with that sigh, frustration grumbled in his voice like a brittle snapping. "You can forgive me if our partnership or this war are not foremost on my list of priorities." A self-satisfied smile crossed his face as he stood in time with her, his wrapped hands flouncing at his sides, fighting their bindings. "...Is that reason enough?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Tam's helpful hands fell away from his bandages as the caster went into hushed explanation. Her thin brows knitted together in a mixture of confusion and concentration. "No, you're absolutely right: I don't understand," the ex-knight confessed, just as quietly. "But--and correct me if I'm wrong, but it is no secret throughout this war camp that Messino has specifically recruited a dark mage. And--correct me if I am wrong--but such a title would lend the assumption that their field is that of dark magic. That dark-haired woman... do you remember? The one who seems to have taken issue with your sister. If my memory serves me well, she has been very open about her abilities and her role in this war, and yet she is not penalized. So... so why, Alster, would a trace of dark magic sully your reputation in the eyes of your family? Or, for that matter, endanger your life?"
That, however, did not appear to be a circumstance of his life that he wished to divulge. Not that she could really blame him; beyond that small pang of disappointment at the obvious lack of trust that she'd taken for granted, of course. The two of them, caster and master swordsman, were by no definition "friends" or "companions". They were soldiers in a mutual warm, partners in a unique scheme, but nothing more. This was the difference between having a title and being a pawn, it seemed. Back in Ilandria, before she'd forsaken her own name, the royal guard to her had been a band of brothers. Such was not the case in Messino's war. She knew that now.
"...so to speak, I have been disowned by my own family." The comment was tossed out with a mere shrug of her shoulders, as if it didn't hold quite as much weight as it actually did. "It was... over a major conflict of interests. Ever since, I've been traveling, doing what I can to make enough coin to survive. When I caught wind of this--" Tam spread her arms, indicating the war camp as it stretched from one end to the other "--I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use my skills and make some money doing it. Similar to your case, this partnership and this war are also a means of an end, for me. I don't fault you for it, Alster, and whatever reasons you have for being here, they are yours to keep."
Rising from the stool upon which she sat, she wiped the remnants of the caster's blood on her slacks until her fingers were clean. "I'm sorry to cause you so much discomfort. If you'd prefer to be paired with someone else, then I'll understand. Or, at least, I'll try to." The ex-knight attempted a smile. "I guess it would probably be better for you if you did. Regardless of what you think of yourself, you're a Rigas; you're held in high regard. I'm a... I'm..." But she had nothing to say to that, not without the risk of revealing her real name and the treachery attached to it. In the end, she only offered a shrug, and made to move past him. "Nothing much, I guess."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Chara is not my sister." As if to further ferment his new source of unrest, he continued to saunter on down to his babbling breaking point--with flailing hands to guide him to his destination. "And no, gauze won't stop an accomplished caster--but I'm talking about dexterity. Maneuverability. Different hand positions--like sword positions. It's not just in the fingers--the entire palm is involved. Squeezed. In and out--and it's just an annoyance to have anything covering the hand when casting and--especially with the wounds already there and--she's my betrothed." And just like that, the babbling brook stopped, only to be dammed up with stagnant waters of the truth washing to shore.
It was no point of contention that he and Chara were engaged--that had been arranged since they were children. The fact that he could still say they were engaged proved that the Rigases hadn't yet disowned him--that he still belonged, in the most basic sense of the word. As much as he enjoyed railing on the Rigases, their high-flung attitudes, and their legendary exclusivity, being without them meant that he had lost every member of his family. And what then? Where could he go? Who would care?
If word spread quick as wildfire, after today, he was certain that he'd forfeit all ties to the Rigas name.
The pit in his stomach stretched to bottomless depths at the thought.
As his hands and his burst of restless energy waned, he dared to look across at Tam--with full-on eye contact. He didn't realize how much he wanted, nay, needed, someone who cared. Someone who offered an ear to listen, no matter how untrained or uneducated the ear to his very specific circumstances. Even he wasn't certain of all the multifaceted layers that added to his impressive tower of troubles. She'd been receptive thus far, and whether or not it was her optimism that rubbed off on him, he was willing to adopt a more open stance to her honest--albeit dense--inquiries.
"I'll give you the short of it," he offered, leading her outside the medic tent when he could no longer stand the watchful eyes in the background. "This is common knowledge among the people of Andalari and of its capital--Stella D'Mare. Long ago, Rigel--our founder--defeated a Serpent that rampaged this land and commanded vast amounts of dark magic. But he could not kill the beast. Instead, he sealed it away in an inescapable tomb far below the earth." He wandered behind the tent, away from prying eyes and better hidden from any passersby. "It lives--but in a deep slumber. Any Rigas with dark magic is seen as having been marked by the Serpent. An usurper. And I already have a bad reputation." He raised his hands to play with the frayed ends of the gauze, to give himself a task, any task, not directly related to his rotten lot in life--that he only brought upon himself. "So everything's gone sour for me, now. Not like it hasn't already, but you know. Actually," he tilted his head at her, a tug of a smile fighting its way to the fore, "you do know. You've your share of sour moments, haven't you?" He worded it as less of a question, more of a segue. He looked upon her again, an additional scrubbing of scrutiny. With wrinkled brow and a hushed voice, he said, in a parallel to mimic her own speech, "correct me if I'm wrong, but were you a Knight of Illandria?" He paused to let his words sink in, enjoying, for a time, a surrogate to his magic--knowledge.
"I'm well-traveled and have an ear for accents, if you're wondering. Everything else--your distinct fighting style, your worldview and impressive skill-set--speaks for itself. I'll consider your discomfort as revenge for this," he waggled his bandaged hands at her. "You're definitely not nothing much."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Had she known her bloody past would catch up to her so easily, pausing to rest as she did at this war camp, she'd never have come.
A shade of pigment drained from her face as the swordsman froze, turning to face her caster partner once again. There was no other way to describe the sensation of dread that spilled over her; like being caught and suffocating in your own skin. How long had he known? And why had he waited until now to let her in on this dangerous knowledge?
Shifting her weight from one leg to another, Elespeth's face was a somber and serious yang to the yin of her supposed partner's smile. "It was a long time ago; at least, it feels that way." She shrug her shoulders as if it meant nothing. But that could not be further from the truth. "And it was fun while it lasted... but things change. Ultimately, I suppose I got selfish, and that selfishness won out... and now, here I am."
Pressing her lips into a firm line, she took a bold step towards the caster, who was not nearly as awkward anymore. Not now that he realized the magnitude of the power he held over her. "You're right, though. Things went sour for me, and I can't say much has improved. I still wake up every morning with the ambition to fight for my life, because were it not for that, I would be long dead. Ilandria is unforgiving of what they perceive as misconduct among their imperial knights.
"So, it seems, we're both at risk of being touched by a certain serpent. Maybe we have more in common than I thought." A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of the ex-knight's mouth, but the muscles in her jaw jumped. It was difficult to maintain such a guise of composure. "But I don't believe in blackmail. That is not how I operate, and I hope you are of the same mind." Closing the distance between them, she placed a hand on his shoulder, and brought her mouth close to his ear. "Elespeth Tameris. That is my prosecuted name, and I give it to you in confidence, and as an offer for trust."
She hadn't spoken her given name in years. As far as she was concerned, Sir Elespeth Tameris had died back in Ilandria, years ago. All that remained were fragments, shadows of her former self. The name, in fact, no longer felt as if it belonged to her.
Taking a step backwards, she clasped her hands in front of her. "Forgive me for assuming Chara was your sister--I do hope, when this is all said and done, that the two of you will have a happy and fulfilling life together. In any case, you know my secret, I know yours. And I'll fight to protect you and your secret, if you promise to do the same for me. Do we have a deal?"
At first, she held out her hand for him to shake. That was until the gauze around his mummified digits registered, and she sheepishly let her arm drop to her side. "It... feels good, you know? Sharing a secret... I should be worried, but instead, I feel lighter. You've taken a weight off of me..."
Alster was not the only one who sought to be heard. It had been so long since she'd had anyone she could call an ally; and now, this partnership offered her just that.
"Keep that name to yourself, won't you?" She added, before turning to walk away. "For me, it is literally the difference between life and death."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
However, before he opened his mouth to apologize, she confided in him the truth he'd practically wrenched from her like the pits from a lemon. At first, when she approached him, he half-expected a swift slaying, or a clunk on the head (her fist would surely subdue him; he was a lightweight in all ways). But her words poured out, and he understood them. Hells, she recited from a page in his own book. With a sigh intermingled with an almost sucking of breath when her mouth whispered a name--her real name--into his ear, he realized that he had effectively tied their lives to each other.
"We're both fugitives, then," he said, with an air of conspiracy animating his arms into a flutter. Anything to undo the bit of his damage--even when she outright stated the relief of breaking a secret to someone. "If our deal is to be solidified, I'll grant you a little more leverage. We'll make it interesting." He spread his fingers out, sketching patterns into the air as he spoke. "I am under Rigas protection. If the public were made aware of my hand in the mess that occurred in Stella D'Mare some years ago, I'd have been long dead by lynching. Threat of death--it's nothing new." The pattern turned circles around his right hand, embedding itself into the skin beneath the gauze. "The Rigases took the fall for me. And dark magic--that's my swan song. They will help me no longer. So--I am well aware of this fragile dance between life and death. And of struggling to survive in a world that wants you dead more than alive. Perhaps," he unwrapped the bindings on his spelled hand, "this partnership is important. And I will shake on it." He thrust his palm forward, marred with old scars--and an addition; pale-pink jags, tender, but otherwise healed. "Imperfect at best. Always leaves scars. But not to worry," he swayed his bound left hand into view. "I'll keep this one properly smothered for now."
Alster reached for Elespeth's hand, his own a shaking thing that, despite the promises made with such strong convictions, flailed with uncertainty before the anchor of her grip steadied his swaying. "To you, I offer what little I have to see you safely through this war. And I promise, Tam," he spoke her alias, but he mouthed her true name, "to keep your secret."
As he released her hand and watched her walk away, he called after her, a smirk hooking its way across his face."Tomorrow. At dawn. Training grounds? ...We have to put those boil-brains in their places."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Depending on how deep Alster's understanding of her situation ran, he could have taken that knowledge and turned it into money. With the money that Ilandria would have handed over as a reward for her return, alive or dead. Or, even for lack of deeper understanding, simply picking up on the fact she hailed from Ilandria, a kingdom with a monarchy that yielded a reputation for being particularly tyrannical when they did not get what they wanted, he could have turned her over to alternate authorities.
Something told her that Messino (though she could be wrong; and she hoped she was) might not have so strong a moral framework as to not turn her over to Ilandria, himself, should the news reach his ears that surrendering her could translate into money and fair relations with another strong empire...
Fortunately, Alster was--as she had suspected--a better man than that. Nothing could spell out her relief like the way colour returned to her face, the way her shoulders relaxed or the sigh that she breathed, expelling air from her lungs that she hadn't realized she'd been holding in. Elespeth stared at his proffered hand for a beat, as if she were assessing whether or not it was real. When at last she shook it, her smile was genuine, and far more relaxed. "I wasn't suggesting that you had to even the deal by telling your secret," she said, "but I'll keep it all the same. That goes for the dark magic, as well, but Alster... if, for some reason, the Rigases do happen to make the discovery, know that I will have your back. I come from a background of knighthood and chivalry, and if I know anything, then there is value in backing a brother in arms."
But it was not safe to continue to commiserate over their newly found commonality or their partnership. Nowhere was safe, in a war camp, considering that privacy was a luxury not awarded to soldiers, regardless of whether they wielded steel or magic. They were lucky if no one had heard their whispers or seen their handshake just then. Turning to retire for the evening, the ex-knight paused in step as Alster called at her back. She shot him an affirming grin over her shoulder.
"Tomorrow at dawn. Don't be late, Rigas; I hope you're as eager and chipper a morning person as I am."
Elespeth was a morning person by necessity, however. It came with the territory of being illegal, being hunted, and the price was the sleep she sacrificed being perpetually alert. Yet somehow, the Ilandrian fugitive still managed a broad smile when Alster wandered onto the training grounds the next morning, squinting against the early sunlight. "And here I was betting you would sleep in," she teased, playfully shoving his shoulder when he approached. "So I think we need to devise a real strategy. Maybe hone what we had going before? We're partners, but we're still, in Messino's eyes, considered a single unit... I wonder if there is a way we can work together to combine our strengths to make us one superhuman."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
That evening, he poked his head inside of Chara's tent. As the de facto "leader" of the Rigases in Messino's army, she not only commanded her own tent, but it was the largest and most flagrant of eyesore-elegance. Silken canopies draped overhead, garlands of color serving no purpose other than the flaunting of wealth and title. A ball of etherea floated in the center, rotating and flashing pinpoints of starry light against the cathedral ceiling.
"Did you really need the high-vaulted ceiling?" Alster spoke to the shadow in the corner who lounged on a palanquin-type construction, festooned with pillows.
She shot up from her seat of self-awarded honor.
"Who told you to barge in here?! I'm still furious with you, you know; making a spectacle of yourself reflects poorly on our family's prestige!"
"Then you're not going to like what I'm about to reveal. In any case," he released a noxious black mist from his unbandaged hand, "I beseech your cooperation."
The following morning, Alster arrived at dawn, as promised, yawning away the droplets that formed in the creases of his eyes. He preferred the evening, when the stars could poke out of the dark like a multitude of pinholes. But the stars reminded him of what he lost, and lately, he wished for the sun and the clouds to swab and outshine them into forced hibernation. By default, he became an early-riser and an early-sleeper.
He spotted Tam in the fields; they were among the first to gather and Alster saw no traces of their unit poking out from tents or behind rocks or the sparse, scattered trees. For now, he and Tam could concentrate on their strategy, hone it, and display it with confidence by the time the naysaying mages arrived with their constipated faces of doubt.
And fear. Disgust. He needn't forget; they witnessed his chthonic magic, watched it spiral and retract fangs with all intents to kill the target. No mage would silence what he saw. He accepted that his dramatic reveal would not remain a secret within the confines of the camp, but he needed the information to stay within the confines of the camp--and never leak to the Rigases in Stella D'Mare.
Alster about quailed at Tam's rough-play, not expecting her physicality so early after he'd braved passing her a handshake. But he gauged her proclivity to touching and bodily contact, and assured that his palpitations would cease over time and familiarity. He hid his blush.
"Betting I'd sleep in so that you could turn around and return to bed, hmm?" He waggled a finger at her, tsking. "You may be chivalrous, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't be glad for a no-show. Sorry to disappoint," he said, returning her smile--mostly to hide the redness rimmed around his eyes. Last night had been rough on him; a result of yesterday's events, no doubt. And nightmares defined themselves in more than just shapes sailing across his subconscious; they followed him to wakefulness and manifested into pressure that sat behind his eyes and squeezed.
"My celestial magic is unreliable," he said, refocusing his attention on their nascent strategies. "I'll be utilizing rune spells. I've an entire book of them, and I can always conceive of more. Unfortunately, they're not as powerful, and there's a delay involved because it takes time to draw them into activation. Fortunately," he added, spreading his hands--one rebandaged with fresh gauze, the other pocked with unfresh scars, "I've taken the time to learn how to dual-cast. That may cover for any gaps on my end. I recommend we add range to your attacks--or find a way to draw them closer to your blade."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Fortunately, Alster was not someone who would take that advantage. That alone, and the potential for their camaraderie, was enough to keep her eyes wide open at the crack of dawn, this morning.
"Rune spells, huh? I'm going to have to familiarize myself with your different magics." Hands planted on her hips, Tam squinted into the brilliance of the early morning sunlight and lent her ear to her new partner's explanation. When he finished, she tapped a thoughtful finger against her lips before replying.
"Interesting. Sounds as though you've really done some thinking on this. But listen, Alster; don't feel as though you need to carry the full brunt of this strategy because you're the one adept to magic and I'm the sword-wielder. It's just as much my job to cover for your 'gaps' as it is for you to cover my shortcomings. If dual-casting is your perceived solution, then I'm open to it, but should it drain you too quickly."
With the offer to compassion and equal contribution in their strategy, however, the fugitive ex-knight was excited to move on to the crux of their new strategy. "Range to my attacks, huh? Well, I certainly must admit I can only reach as far as the tip of my sword will extend." Elespeth's blade was neither stunted enough to be a swortsword, nor lengthy enough to contend with a longsword, settling somewhere in a comfortable middle. Should the opportunity arise, she was more than capable of handling something twice the length...
But perhaps overcompensating for range was not the answer. Not in and of itself, at least.
"What about both? Listen, do you remember how your magic intensified the impact of my blade yesterday? But then you faltered, and the others felt as though they had the edge?" Elespeth's grin widened. "Let's stick with that, for now--or, in a premeditated way, at least. You're worried people don't think you're enough? Well, people don't think much of me until they see me fight either. So why not use this to our advantage?" She draw her blade, the tarnished steel glinting sunlight into her eyes. "What do you say, we hold out until the last minute? Fight like a couple of novices, before taking everyone off their feet. Literally or figuratively. If you can think of a way that your magic could serve as an extension of my sword, then you can leave all the choreography up to me. Does that sound feasible?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Perhaps that's what made the strategy so effective.
"That's not much different from what I'm doing already," he said with a self-deprecating smile. "What does it hurt to keep at it? Just don't blame me if my whole weakness 'act' lasts for the entire battle." He glanced at Tam's blade, silently calculating its length versus the distance by which his magic could expel if attached to its surface. "All boo-hooing aside, I may be able to use your sword as a launching point to bounce certain spells from. And if our enemy is, well, convinced we are weak, and comes in for the final blow, he'll get a nasty surprise from your sword, point blank. Our act will give me time to set up those finishing spells, and at the same time I'll use my other hand to cast faulty celestial magic--as a distraction." To demonstrate, he overturned his hand and a sputter of sparks, loud and airy, popped and crackled like a fire with too much energy and not enough fuel. "Nothing like a flashy and loud spell failure to both confuse and embolden the enemy."
**
Chara marched on forth to the training grounds with a purpose in her step. Each stride pulled her foot down in crushing motions, as practice for when she'd grind that black magic hellion into pebbles--pebbles with sensory organs that would feel every one of her kicks from here to the other side of the world.
She hadn't slept a wink after Alster arrived with his off-the-walls revelation last night. The conversation repeated itself in her head, ad nauseum. Short of plugging her ears or somehow muting her mind, she hurried out of her tent and blasted at the sky with soundless, lightless etheria (she was angry, not daft!) But the words trickled down like a leak in the roof, and she was privy to them, drop after drop, until she made the decision to attack the source of her frustration--the dark mage.
Bits of the conversation returned with a fervor that manifested into a biting headache, one that Chara would surely transfer to that accursed ink-stain--and blot her out of existence.
"--Chthonic magic!?" Chara gaped at the sight and, jaw relaxing, she massaged it with words aplenty. "...This is no joke, Alster! I hadn't realized you'd anger still at that spell I threw at your little darling splinter-wielder. But this is low, even for you. Why, simple smoke and mirrors. You've always been clever at illusions whenever it suited your agenda. Stop it now this instant! I am no longer amused nor have I ever--"
"Chara." He silenced her with a tonal injunction; a voice from out of the dark. Did he speak, or did the chthonic masswork of threads speak through him? "I am not joking."
"Then the Serpent...you--"
"I've had it since birth," Alster admitted, dropping his hand and dispersing the offending clumps that writhed and taught the comfortable shadows of her tent to writhe as well. "My father--he had it, as well. A well-kept secret between the two of us. I..." he slumped his shoulders, and the darkness dwindled in light of the Alster she always recognized. "I can't keep it any longer. It's escaped. I've always been careful in the past, but," he sighed, and she read the implications buried in that sigh, "not lately."
"What," she said, a croak that sounded before her thoughts aligned with what she uttered, "am I able to do? There is no being or object powerful enough to leech that magic from you."
"No. There isn't. Not really." He said his last words like an afterthought, and his head turned upwards, a gesture that worried her. Ideas bloomed in his head, no doubt. Bad ideas. "I just need you to keep this knowledge from reaching Outside. From Adalfieri. From any of the Rigases."
"You're asking me...to betray my family--for you?"
A defeated smile tugged on his lips. "No. That would be presumptuous of me to ask such a favor from you." He turned from her, raising the tent flap into the night. "Keep your reputation unblemished, Chara Rigas--because if you stand by me, things will go horribly wrong."
Damn it. Damn it all! Manipulative bastard, playing on her emotions so!
By luck (and a little bit of magic), she detected the dark mage practicing her sordid arts away from the unit to which she belonged. Of course--for who would willingly stand by a dark magic-user?
With no warning, she lobbed a ball of etheria over the mage's head, where it exploded and sizzled in the tree not far behind. Once she had the woman's attention, she stormed into her space, all lightning flecks and a drop in pressure--a tornado in the making.
"You!" She shouted, feeling the wind cumulate through her fingers and halo around her hair. "What have you done!? Your kind shouldn't exist. I should obliterate you now! You...all of you...Ruin lives. You're all Serpents!" Holding back tears of rage, she formed a lightning cloud, the spirit of her fury in one unstable sphere. "Die."
She threw the ball at her.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
That was in addition to the fact it was all precautionary; there was never any telling just how chthonic magic would affect bystanders.
It hadn't taken long for Lilica to realize that her ticket to maintaining her sanity in this muddy war camp was to keep her distance. Ultimately, that decision would yield the best temperaments for both parties, and the fewest casualties. But wouldn't luck just have it that the dark mage was not lucky at all, and secluding herself from unwanted interferences in a place where privacy was a luxury afforded to practically no one was a wish that, if granted, seldom lasted.
And today appeared to be one of those days.
Hopelessly distracted by the din that surrounded her, Lilica was struggling with meditation when the ball of searing energy came sailing her way. She felt it before she saw it (and Chara's cries beforehand), and fortunately turned just at the right moment to catch the sphere of fury in the depths of a dark miasma-like cloud that formed between her curled palms. Chara's charged attack fizzled out, dissolving in the darkness like sugar stirred into black tea.
But it didn't have to stop there. Lilica could have expanded that cloud. She could have reached deep inside herself to that core centerpiece that made her what she was, and mustered the strength to swallow this haughty Rigas brat whole. It wasn't impossible, and it wasn't beyond her.
But that was precisely why she had stopped practicing her art in the first place. And only on that brief self-reminder did she remember to reign in the darkness leaking from her hands, and take several safe steps away from the angry blonde.
"You, Rigas, have a simple and limited way of thinking." Lilica inhaled and exhaled slowly, regrounding herself in the here and now. People like Chara could never understand what it was like to have to defy your own nature in order to function from day to day. Those like Alster, on the other hand... "I take it you've caught on that I am not the only one capable of wielding this energy. But you can't take it out on him, so you're unleashing your rage on me."
The dark mage counted her exhales quietly, until she was reassured that she was not about to unleash her fury the way this Rigas woman had.That small accomplishment, in light of how much the woman infuriated her, would become her best feat of the day. "Yes, I know what he can do. Like calls to like, and there are so few of us now, thanks to the witch hunters that condemn and kill us, that it's like a beacon in a storm. But perhaps what you should consider is not the nature of any given magic, but the fact that we will, ultimately, all be using it towards the same goal. Did that not occur to you?"
Taking a bold step forward, she brushed her long hair over her shoulders, as the last tingle of chthonic energy left her fingertips. "Under any other circumstances, I'd likely prefer to just do away with you. And I'd be lying to say that my time and power is not being wasted for this stupid cause. But if you are too foolish to forego your tunnel vision of binary good and evil, then pack up and go." With a jealous frown, she added, "because at least you have the luxury to do so. Which is more than I can say for myself."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And now, it was personal--once the image of that ravenous nightmare swallowing drops of her purity left her mind.
"How dare you presume that I am simple!?" She held fast to a rope of etheria, as a handhold, feeling the energy wash her hands clean of the residual filth of chthonic magic crackling in the air. It remained a lifeline for her--a clutch of courage to stand her ground against a veritable serpent in human skin. "I am doing the world a favor by eradicating your kind. With your death and the death of others of your ilk, you'll release the hold you have on him. He is a Rigas. While that means nothing to you heathens, he cannot be allowed to endure the indignity of your tempestuous abominations." Before she could dispense with silly sentiments, or lock them away and deny their existence, a few choice works leaked from her mouth. "He has suffered enough."
Promptly, she bit her lip and lowered her head, pretending to concentrate on wrapping the sinews of etheria around her hands--all while hiding the flushes that burned her cheeks with well-timed rope-flares. Dammit! Why did she dare flub about Alster's affliction? It mattered not that the dark mage knew; it damaged Chara's sense of propriety and of keeping family business strictly family business.
But she had already forfeited her discretion when she sought the accursed woman out of pure spite.
...Was that the only reason she was sought?
Electing to focus on other matters, she ground her teeth and spiraled the etheria around her hands with the skill of a juggler bouncing water in lieu of balls. "I will tell you what has occurred to me. Neither you nor I wish to be here. You may philosophize all you'd like about all magics finding common purpose in matters of warfare or otherwise, but no being can control the nature of their magic any more than a lion could become a lamb. Regardless of where or how you focus your magic, it will always be dark. Chaotic. A detriment to the progress of society and civilization."
Silencing her juggling motions, she recycled the etheria into a model of the earth, which she rotated about on her finger. "Feel superior if you must, believing I have no color in my worldview. But I beg to differ! My view is progressive. There is simply no want or need of your magic outside of war. That is the only reason you are here. ...Feel free to prove me wrong." As she clenched her shoulders with the anticipation of her unorthodox request, all her magic dispersed. She hated the raw vulnerability, the fear of tackling something she didn't rightly understand nor could defeat, but she hated more the feeling of uselessness...of asking for a favor in the throes of desperation, sans magic.
"...Help him." Her voice lost its verve, the commanding vibrato accustomed to seeing results at her directive. "If chthonic magic is not bane from the Serpent , then help him."
Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 12:25 am
She would know. For it was not long ago that Lilica D'Or had fallen into that trap and, in many ways, continued her struggle to not fall in again.
A moment later, the dark mage amended: "Nothing has a hold on him but his own nature. I don't deign to discredit what you say, but here is the truth: if you can control the shadows, then you suffer. Anyone who ever has done so has suffered, and that is likely not to change, not by anyone's efforts." Would it matter if she told her that she could understand the suffering? That for years, she had drowned in her own darkness? That every day she had gone without using it was nothing less of an astonishing accomplishment?
Perhaps. Perhaps it would make a difference, make her more human in Chara's eyes. But owning up to her own suffering meant that she had to relive it. And Lilica wasn't prepared for that--not at that moment.
Unfortunately, Chara decided it was an ideal moment to poke a finger into those wounds, anyway. She didn't need this lecture, and frankly, the dark mage wasn't interested in hearing it. And it was enough to tear the truth out of her. "I am an herbalist." Such a simple statement, and one that might not appear to be appropriate to their given conversation, until she went on to explain, her words pulled as taut as her muscles. "I study herbs, their dangers and their potential to be remedies. I have for the past five years. Until I was blackmailed into fighting for Messino. That is my occupation now, not... not magic. I never wanted to do this."
It was far from an obvious truth, but if she and Chara had something in common, it was hiding behind a facade of bravado and pride. And the Rigas woman had just dropped it; all for concern for her bumbling Rigas companion. That was a bond that Lilica could hardly understand, and should she have chosen, she could have sharpened her edge and left the woman in her proverbial dust, bemoaning the nature of Alster Rigas. Whatever it was that convinced the dark mage to act otherwise, even she didn't understand, but something about Chara's plea struck a cord that could only be experienced by someone who had been (and, in many ways, still was) Alster's decision.
"I can't. I wish I could, but I can't. If it were as easy as finding someone to 'help'..." Frustrated with the truth, Lilica sighed audibly and raked her fingers through her dark hair. "Chthonic magic is a part of him, and it always will be. Resisting it is not the answer; it will build under his skin and fester until it seeps through his pores. Don't look to me for hope, because if there was any, then I would not be here right now. Perhaps... perhaps I wouldn't even be here at all." But there was no point in getting into her origins, so she went on. "Darkness is darkness, but it is not always a curse. It is the way that it is used that determines the future of its wielder. Some uses strengthen the magic until it is on the wielder's control. But if he can find a means to use his magic that serves as an outlet, it can be controlled--do you understand? It can be controlled, so that it will not control him. And that," she raised her hands, and then dropped them emphatically, " is the best hope I can offer. But if it brings you any solace, if someone of my nature can control it, then I have no doubt that a Rigas should succeed."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"That cannot possibly be true," she said in defense, but any attempt at an assertive response bled away with each silken wrapping of the thing inside her that spun and spun with those pinioned legs. "The Serpent has a hold on him; he is but a victim of unfortunate consequence. You are buggering with me!" Her hands roared to life, but they mimed harmless little flicks into the air. Chara wanted to grasp that air and twist it until it exploded from the pressure, but a thought she fought to ignore blossomed into a flower with thorns for petals, and they attached to her skin like burrs. What if...the dark mage spoke truth? She didn't seem the type with a particular motive to withhold or spin the information in a backwards arc. No nonsense; that was her approach.
With a dry, tickling gulp, Chara's mind coughed out a horrible conclusion: Alster was in league with the Serpent. The sickness called chthonic magic perhaps wasn't a sickness at all, but himself. His nature. A nature of that level could not bode well for any unsuspecting person with the misfortune of being in the way. What further confirmed Chara's conclusions was how the dark mage distanced herself from her own magic.
"If you are trying to prove me wrong about chthonic magic, you are doing a horrid job," she huffed, and returned her hands to the sides, which clenched in frustration. "You chose the path of an herbalist to escape your stigma, seemingly with the knowledge that your magic is harmful and corrupt. The way you describe it--if a dark magic user cannot conceive of its merits, and denies her previous vocation, then how are we, as a collective magic community, able to look at chthonic magic as anything positive? As anything above swift annihilation? Why else have hunters stamped down your kind? What have you all to offer that is not your own doom--that is not the doom of others?"
An image of Alster popped into her head, an innocent face displaced by a world-weary traveler--a victim of fate. For years she discredited the rumors that his intentions to unleash the Serpent were malicious, instead of an unprecedented accident. Perhaps, the truth sat on both sides. Already, the darkness had imprinted a great deal of damage upon his soul--and already, he lost control long ago. Without his celestial magic buffering the regression of his morality, she feared the worst. And ultimately, she was afraid...of him.
"It is already controlling him," she muttered, staring at the grass and the fresh dew that clung to each individual blade. "He has been resisting it all his life." A hard edge returned to her voice. "It sounds like you, too, are resisting it if you have denied its usage until this moment. If not for Messino's war, you would have remained an herbalist--idealistically speaking, of course. How do I know you truly have it under control, aside from all those surface deep shadow puppets you've strung along? I've no hope of his recovery--excuse me, "mastery"-- when you are the sole speaker of this despicable art." She wrinkled her nose at the dark mage. "You are only painting yourself in a more unfavorable light. Excuse me...an unfavorable shade of black."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Turning away before the hot-headed blonde could get another word in, Lilica turned and made for the privacy of her tent. Whether or not Chara chose to follow mattered little to the brooding dark mage, but her penchant to accommodate the woman's whims and temper was thin and finicky, at best. In fact, she was rather surprised when she turned around and found that Chara had, in fact, decided to follow. A strange sense of self-consciousness washed over the dark mage then, one that you only ever experienced with unexpected company. Her tent, like the others, were relatively spartan. It was the fact that she had her own tent at all--a small touch of Messino's to better guarantee her cooperation--that made her uneasy. As if she wasn't already singled out enough, being the only known dark mage in his army. That she also received different treatment from her other mage colleagues did not help in her desire to simply blend into the background.
"Before you open your smart mouth, I didn't ask for this--any of it. Not the private tent or a 'premier' position in Messino's army." Lilica went on to explain, dropping her voice a few decibels lower, even in spite of the privacy of the canvas over their heads. "But that doesn't matter to you. So I'll indulge you on something that does, if you care to keep quiet long enough for me to explain."
Unlatching her cloak where it gathered at her throat, Lilica tossed it onto the cot behind her. While still far from comfortable, it wasn't quite as threadbare as what Chara might have been assigned. The blatant difference in treatment might have triggered jealousy in the Rigas woman, but for the dark mage, it only triggered nervousness and suspicion.
"Since when is any magic the same in any two people?" Although she posed the question to the only other person in her presence (who, too, was magically adept), it was obviously rhetorical. At Chara's pause, Lilica furrowed her eyebrows and nodded. "Exactly. It isn't.What I have... what I experience and what your companion experiences might be of the same nature, but they are not the same thing. You keep referring to this... Serpent. I have never heard tell of it or anything like it; my demons are the shadows. The gathering dark that is not distilled by light. It is always there, I will never be rid of it. But it does not mean I heed it. Even if I can control it."
Where anger had been etched into the lines of her face only moments ago, weariness had replaced it. This woman and her problems exhausted her, and it wasn't as though she hadn't her own ails. "I am not going to try and convince you that there are not dire consequences for this breed of magic. I will never live those consequences down. But I know little to nothing of your chthonic companion, and unless I were to gain insight into how it is uniquely manifest in him, I cannot offer neither you nor him options. If you want to rest assured of alternatives, then I'll... I need to see him. I need to see what he can do. And we can take it from there."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She entered the mage's tent--a squat, muted little eyesore that reflected the resident's personality quite well. Whether in a war camp or not, Chara believed in carting about a little bit of home, for she surely missed her cozy quarters in Stella D'Mare. Having such baubles in her private space made no sense to outsiders--and unfortunately, to Alster--but they improved her morale with a daily reminder of why she fought. What she beheld inside this tent, with its flat colors, uncomfortable bedding and boxy furnishings, caused her mood to plummet, grounding itself with the dirt and worms.
"Oh, I beg to differ," Chara opened her "smart mouth," whilst ignoring the ratty chair that looked to be winking at her in the shadows. "A deplorable tent is no thing of privacy when at every angle, the walls threaten to scream at you. If I actually fancied you, I'd offer you a little decor."
Before she cared to ramble about the importance of one's own sanctum and how decorations were extensions of the self, the mage readdressed the topic of discussion, which, in relocating from open field to stuffy tent, she had blotted out of her head.
"I will agree that what he possesses is not what you lot typify. His demons began externally and worked their way within--penetrative and invasive. At least, that is what I understand." To prevent from fidgeting, she kept her arms crossed, but her figure-eight posture tightened and gripped itself into knots. Should she untighten them and reveal a truth better left unsaid? With a regretful sigh, she nodded. Needling desperation uncrossed her arms and with that, her reservations. "The Serpent is a major demon in his life. It is a real entity. A literal beast our family is sworn to keep imprisoned from generation to generation. It wields dark magic and as a result, we protect ourselves and others from its influences." A sigh accompanied her next part. "I will tell you this much. Alster and the Serpent are deeply intertwined. The Serpent...it awakened." She said in vague undertones, casting her eyes downward, at the folds of her tunic she'd gathered in bunches. "It killed his parents and stole the magic of his birthright. The Serpent is safely imprisoned again, and slumbering--but the damage has been wrought."
When she returned to some semblance of awareness, she found herself seated on the ratty old chair with her legs locked together at the kneecaps. "Of course, the biggest challenge for you will be to speak with him." Unbidden, a humorous little chuckle parted her lips. "That will make itself quite apparent." Finding vestiges of her pomp and circumstance still within her, she rolled it all up into a healing ball and used it to revitalize her agenda. "By the way, I do not believe in charity cases, nor do I expect you to work for free. Everything in this world has its price. If you do this for me," she leaned forward in the chair and lowered her voice to a whisper, "I'll find you a way out of this war."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
As it turned out, that was precisely what Chara meant. If it were possible for the dark mage's fair complexion to pale further, the blood that she could practically feel drain from her cheeks would have showed. Nonetheless, the concern was obvious in the widening of her dark eyes and the tightness around her mouth. All of a sudden, what she had thought to be a mole hill had revealed itself to only be the tip of a enormous mountain. This was not simply a case of yet another adept of the dark magic learning to come to terms with a force that sought to control him; this was a matter of something horrible and insurmountable that was already out of control.
It killed his parents. That was something with which the young woman was all too familiar. Forever would she be haunted by the memories that manifest as nightmares of the her father's body, long dead by still bleeding out in front of the pantry. And of her mother's corpse, neck bent at a grotesque, unnatural angle, broken swiftly from her fall to the bottom of the cellar stairs. Worst of all was the image of that little girl, no older than ten, with stringy black hair and cold eyes who had walked away after what she had done. Who hadn't chosen to look back on it and never look back, not until just a few years ago, when her life had taken a drastic turn due to unforeseen circumstances.
Darkness killed. Whether it manifest as a Serpent or an all-controlling, amoral state of mind. But in this respect, Lilica had something upon which she could empathize with Alster.
"I... have no experience with chthonic magic that has manifest in such a way," she admitted, but the desperation in Chara's blue eyes prevented her from turning her back on this cause completely And when the blonde leaned in from her seat and met her eyes with conviction, the proposition that she put forth was too good to turn down.
Lilica blinked rapidly as she replayed the words in her mind, thinking she must have misheard. "You think you can do that?" Her voice cradled fragile hope, and was hardly audible above a whisper. "You think you can really get out of this? Out of here?"
It was possible she was being played. Chara was desperate to help her wayward mage companion, and the desperate would promise anything. But the dark mage was not one to be deceived; she paid close attention to eyes and bodies and voices, and even if this feat were not possible for the Rigas woman... well, Chara at least thought that she could do it. This had nothing to do with deception, and had everything to do with hope. And for those so seldom encountered good fortune, often, it had to be enough.
"You have a deal," Lilica said at last, offering her hand and clasping Chara's in a confirming gesture. "And don't worry; he can be as silent as he wants. I have ways of finding out what I need to know. Rest assured, he'll be fine."
Sure enough, early the next morning, as soon as Alster was awake and mobile, and on his way to meet Elespeth, he was seized by the arm and dragged towards a supply tent. "Alster Rigas." Lilica was firm, no nonsense, and had no intention of letting him go until he cooperated. "Your better half sought me out in regards to certain aspects of your gifts that you might find troublesome." She met the startled man's eyes, lowering her voice, though she was sure no one was eavesdropping. "Believe me when I say it is in my best interests to help you. So, right now, you need to tell me about the Serpent."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Chara gave a little half moon smile when the mage visibly brightened from the details of their inner dealings. So there was a little light in her, after all. Even the darkest of persons, soot-covered from sharing the opposite end of burning ambition, still bore a clean spot of hope, however small. "Do you forget that I am a Rigas? In all but name, we are the monarchy. Messino only believes he has command over his armies. So...yes." Her smile widened, displaying the magnanimity of a benefactor to her ward. "I can do that."
Morning came with blood trails in the sky, leaking from clouds that sickened in their pallor. Alster wandered from his tent, both hands unburdened and bandage-free. No new wounds, no new scars. Yesterday, he and Elespeth walked through a few strategies. He played on the safe end, using only rune spells and trick angling to compensate his weaknesses for when they shed their wounded deer charade. As members of the Compound Unit milled through the field to practice, they noticed him, but chose to ignore his presence. Silent contempt, he gathered. By no means was he unlearned in the different appearances of hatred, for he had experienced all forms. Fortune favored this form the best, while Alster liked it the least. The likes of the earth mage and his active-aggressiveness was something to combat, however infuriating, but nothing brought him more unease than those who eyed him from afar with hate in their eyes.
As Alster strode towards the training field, his footfalls faltered and his senses sharpened. Someone was watching him. Chara always downplayed his hyper-awareness, calling it paranoia, but it wasn't paranoia if proven right.
He was right.
A sudden swooping motion grappled his arm and yanked him through the flaps of a tent before he could summon a running start or an explosion of failed celestial spells. In the muted dark of his new locale, he managed a small flare with his free hand and held it to his assailant's face, preparing to smack it at them point blank. When he saw the dark mage, and listened to her loaded words, he froze, and the flame fizzled to nothing.
Already, she had lambasted him into submission--with the bite of her tongue. Frantic with confusion, of events spiraling way too quickly for his mind to comprehend, his mouth waddled audible syllables before he had the chance to formulate anything resembling an answer.
"C-Chara? This is her...what? I don't.. Are you--? What do you... I can't--" He struggled to twist his arm free, but it was as if Death's hand was pulling him to his grave. And nothing stopped Death. Why could he never escape the clutches of stubborn women!?
In the end, he did find a nonphysical handhold and used it like the rung from a ladder to propel himself to a higher state:
Serpent.
"...What do you know?" The unbroken sentence spilled like a cascade, coursed with anger and apprehension and mistrust. Chara would never ask for this woman's help! Just the other day, she wanted to stuff her into a black hole! No force of nature would bend Chara to the mercy of a dark mage.
Except for...
"And what do you want?" he blurted before an impossible thought finished collecting a few key components.
Perhaps...
Perhaps Chara...
Perhaps she actually...was fond of him.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With a quick glance in either direction beyond the flaps of the tent, when she was confident that no one would take notice, Lilica reached up and pulled loose the ropes holding them back. Early morning sunlight gave way to the shade of the canvas shelter, making the sharp lines of the dark mage's cheekbones stand out all the more.
Not the best effort to not come across as intimidating, perhaps. But that was not the point of this meeting anyway.
"Let me make this clear for you: you Rigases are as good as royalty. Chara was quick to remind me of that fact." The more she spoke the woman's name, the less it tasted like bitter venom on her tongue. There was something to be said about keeping your enemies closer than your friends. "The truth is, I never wanted to be part of this war. The only reason I am here is because I was blackmailed; I can't talk my way out of here. But your significant other has significantly more sway than I do, and has assured me that, if I am able to help you, she will help me get out of here. So don't think for one moment that any of this is about charity or one tortured soul yearning to help another, but if you'll let me, I think I can grant you more restful nights, with better control and understanding of your dark magic, if you'll let me."
One thing was for certain: Alster was no middling nave of a caster. She could tell by the energy surrounding him that there was far more to him and his potential than what he seemed to think of himself.
When the tent flaps were suddenly pushed aside, spilling daylight onto the startled faces of the two dark mages, Lilica quickly adjusted her posture as if she meant to go on the offense--despite that she'd never let darkness leak out of her fingertips, if she could help it. "What business have you here?"
"Weapons; we need them for practice." The straight and assured form of the swordmaster, Elespeth, strode past the two to examine the pile of blades and their sheaths, pushed carelessly into a corner. "I thought I heard our commanding officer tell us intimate encounters were prohibited among units; I'm not one to rat on fellow comrades, but you might want to find a better place than a public tent."
"You know very well that is not what is occurring, you asinine imbecile," Lilica snapped, colour rising to her cheeks regardless of the falsehood. "But that doesn't matter, because none of this concerns you."
The swordsman picked up a shortsword, testing its balance on her fingers before pulling it free from its sheath. "Alster is Chara's other half by marital engagement; he is my other half by virtue of the compound unit that we make." There was nothing outwardly threatening about her stance when she pivoted, turning her body to face Lilica and Alster, sword unsheathed and in hand. It was, perhaps, just the knowledge of her adeptness with the weapon, and the fact that even though everything about her sense of honour might prevent her from stepping out of line with her offensive prowess, there was still the possibility that she could. "Lilica, you are really the only one whose 'business' here is questionable."
"I'm trying to help him. Ask Chara," the dark mage snapped, lifting her arms and dropping them to her sides in a dramatic motion. "And only because she's agreed to help me in turn."
She could have been lying; and for all Elespeth knew, Lilica was. But the dumbfounded yet slightly hopeful expression on Alster's face gave her pause to consider otherwise. "You're okay with this?" She asked her partner, as a way to disguise the offer of her support if need be, whether that meant walking away and leaving them to whatever they were discussing or guiding him safely out of the supply tent.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"She is not my..." An embittered sigh scratched his throat, and he strained out the rest. "Cousin. She is more my cousin than..." In defeat, he dropped his arms and attempted involvement in a conversation he'd rather not have. "Chara has less sway than she believes. She does not speak for the family." He searched the crowd of weapons for the halberd, but it since lost its shine, and nothing now could distract him from the hard truth. "We are all here against our wills. Personally, I would love a free pass out of this war, but even we 'royalty' are used as pawns by those who are actually in control. The key is allowing us to think that we are. She is not, and she is disillusioned." He snapped his conclusion at her and felt the strings loosen from the taut anger he had roped around himself. While he was still peeved by what she had arranged behind his back, pushing the megalomaniacal Chara off her high horse helped him to reconcile his reservations on the whole affair--because the affair would fall apart once Lilica learned she hadn't a reliable escape from the war. "So, your side of the bargain won't be necess--"
The morning sun shot through the tent like an arrow, and before he could prepare a defensive spell, a silhouette stepped through the threshold and reformed into Elespeth. Rays from outside danced along the openings of the tent until the flaps swished closed. He wanted to laugh. The imagery was just too heavy-handed.
He stood between darkness and light.
As expected, darkness and light bickered at each other.
He listened to the back and forth, wanting to interject but finding no opening to cut through the din of dueling voices--nor had he felt up to the task. His tongue teased into his mouth, hissing from the inside, desiring to speak the words that would stand his ground and aid him in fighting his own battles but knowing he'd stammer himself into unconsciousness. He could only watch the situation play out. All the while, he spun scenarios in his head and hoped an opportunity would gift him a chance to represent himself--as a person, not a pawn.
A moment had arrived, allotted by Elespeth, who asked the question he'd been struggling to answer.
While the entire prospect of a chthonic "teacher" intrigued him, even swayed him with the idea of control and harmony with the fears he wished to disperse, he already made his decision. Shortly after the death of his parents, he approached the leftovers of his magic and discovered the dominant aspects of chthonic magic swirling around his lifeblood. He tapped into it, could even harness simple energy balls of black smoke. Once, he held the essence of a tree in his hands. He dispersed the cloud, intending to pull the magic inside himself, whence it came.
The entire forest had died.
...Following that sensation, in the height of his chthonic casting, he saw sickness and disease and flashing slits for eyes and death, deaths he caused, mutilated bodies with heads carved open, spilling black blood that slithered, that vised around his heart, that killed him slowly...
He would never again wander down that road.
"First off," he bit into the silence tailor-made for him, "I don't care what arrangements were made between you and Chara." He cast a glare at Lilica. "I was not privy to them. Tell Chara I am as good as helped, since you're both bosom bodies now. Would you like to marry her?" The string of anger reattached itself, this time around his head, where it throbbed and constricted something fierce.
"And that's another thing. Leave my engagement out of this. Both of you. This is a war, not a blasted wedding reception!" He huffed aloud and ran a hand through his hair, trying and failing to assume mastery over the spike in his emotions.
"I am a celestial magic-user. My father had chthonic magic. He did not lose control. It did not break open and spill and make a mess he had to clean. He focused his energies on his birthright and taught me thus. That is what I will continue to do. Call it denial. I call it progress."
He turned to face the tent flaps, his back to both Lilica and Elespeth. The escape route marked itself clearly, with halos from the outside forming a vertical slit that could expand and engulf him and set him free.
"I unleashed the Serpent," he said, flat and matter-of-fact as he glanced over at Lilica. "With celestial magic. I was tired. I was angry. I was sick of my family. In turn, it killed the two most important people in my life. I don't need chthonic magic to complicate matters. There's already too much I'm responsible for. I can't afford the risk."
Without another word, he pulled apart the flaps and faded into the dawn.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But this wasn't deceit, not if Alster's appraisal was accurate. Chara had thought she had made an honest deal with the socially solitary dark mage; and for that, Lilica had fallen not for the celestial caster's lies, but for her own, unadulterated ego.
That said, if Alster thought he was beyond needing help, then he was just as foolish. She saw it in his eyes, heard it in his, that very seed of uncertainty surrounding his control of the chthonic that she had harboured (and, for all intents and purposes, continued to harbour). He truly thought he could fake it until it was real; belittle its hold until it could hold nothing. But magic did not work that way, and darkness was far too cloying to be brushed off your shoulder like dust. And, worse, it did not appreciate being ignored... for which, often, dire consequences resulted.
Beyond all ego and self-importance, Lilica wished someone had taken her aside at her darkest hour and promised to help. The simpleton had no idea the opportunity that he was passing up... But if this was his decision, then she as happy to leave him to deal with the consequences.
"If you think you've already done your worst, with the chthonic or otherwise," she hissed, as Alster turned his back and proceeded to leave, "then I will not take it upon myself to prove you wrong. But know this: you are."
Elespeth found herself standing alone in the storage tent just seconds later, her mind struggling to comprehend what she had just walked in on. Alster's chthonic magic was apparently not as secretive as she'd originally thought, but what gave her pause to worry wasn't the fact that someone such as Lilica D'Or was aware of it. It was that someone as proud and defensive of her name as Chara Rigas would seek Lilica's help on Alster's behalf. How much did the caster really know about his potential, let alone his magic?
Before he could get too far, the ex-knight hurried out of the tent to catch up to her partner, leaving a beat of silence between them as she thought of what to say. "Back when I was still a knight, part of my oaths I'd taken encompassed backing my brothers in arms," she began, and there was no mistaking by the hesitant tone of her voice that it was an apology. "To have one another's back at all cost. Unless, of course, you fail in your duty and are arrested because of it... In that case, all bets are off, and no one cares anymore."
The gentle upturn of her lips was sardonic at best, but it did not reach her words. "What I'm trying to say is... I didn't mean to make you feel so dis-empowered, back there. I just happened to see the dark mage drag you into that tent, and while I'm certain you can handle yourself, I'd never have forgiven myself if something horrific had transpired, and I'd simply chosen to let it unfold and not intervene."
But it wasn't just that she might have tread upon Alster's ego and agency. He was worried; he had already expressed the worry that his chthonic magic inspired back when they had revealed mutual secrets. And for him to sweep it all under the rug in a contained pile of bravado only emphasized this suspicion. "...don't think for a moment that I am advocating for Lilica, or even Chara, for that matter, but... are you certain that it is wise to turn down help? I'm not trying to patronize, I'm simply curious. It just seems as though you've changed your tune, a little, from the last time we spoke of your magic."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I should have known I wouldn't have chased you away with all my Serpent talk," he said to the slowing footfalls of Elespeth. He presented a smile when he turned to greet her--disarming and free of anger. It wasn't, not really, but if he was going to play up the whole denial game, it had better be thorough. Belittling the situation was the first step forward. Or backward. "I mean, it's nice to have support, unlike whatever support someone who believes I can do worse than a Serpent-triggered earthquake that killed hundreds and the deaths of my parents would grant me. But, you know, if you look at it laterally, I could do worse. Wouldn't surprise me at all!" A shrug rippled his shoulders and a misplaced laugh skewed his head with the weight of a sound rarely used of late. It darted across the camp with all the raucousness of a drunken seagull. Stopping its trajectory took more than a clamp to the mouth; it took the realigning of his common sense. It was too early to be losing his mind!
He relocated Earth and made contact with the ground. This time, he opted for a little more discretion when out in the open air. "You're only backing me because of undue influences that bind us both together," he said in a whisper, overcompensating for the bellow of his uncouth cawing. "Nonetheless, if I snapped at you, that was not my intention. There isn't much you can do to disempower me that I haven't already done, myself. So I can't fault you for stepping up and looking out for me. If I could," he hesitated, lowering his head to drain away the color that boiled his face, "I-I...I'd do the same."
As they resumed walking toward the training fields, Elespeth voiced her opinions on what transpired in the tent, and the hand that Alster swung like a metronome ceased into a caesura.
"I appreciate your concern," he said, concentrating on the tops of the rock-strewn mountains so as not to devolve into what other mixed-bag of reactions his mind had in store. With a sigh of defeat, he directed Elespeth to a rock outcropping at the base of a small hill. After scanning the fields and the camp for any passersby, he confirmed an all-clear. Sinking behind the rocks, he erased all strategies of denial and belittlement in place of an explanation.
"I haven't changed my tune," he hushed into the rocks. "I know that it is wise to seek help, but...well...it's complicated. I will fully admit that I'm terrified. I don't want to know what's mucking about in my head, trying to escape. I've already seen vestiges of what's in there and I doubt I'd survive an encore performance." He rolled a loose pebble around his fingers. "All this time, I've been playing it safe. I can't sacrifice the stability I've built over these years for the off-chance to fix what's never been a problem until now. And..." He trailed off. And I don't want to become a Serpent.
The pebble dropped from his fingers, clanking against the gray-green flecks of the granite jags that formed a crown at his feet. "It was never meant for any one person to wield two or more disparate magics. If it occurs, one magic will dominate and the other will recede, remaining dormant. My celestial magic is fleeting into dormancy. If I can't stoke it back to life while I can, chthonic magic will have a choke-hold over me. I will become an enemy to the Rigas family, and my life is forfeit unless my legs are fast enough to escape. But," his voice chipped and honed into a hard edge, "I refuse to run. I've set out to kill the Serpent, however impossible, and I will do what is necessary. Unfortunately, necessity calls for the snuffing of my dark magic. So, it does make me wonder," he said conspiratorially, "if Chara is naive...or if she has a secret agenda."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She followed him to privacy at the base of a hill, where they were shrouded in shadow and not the first things to be seen by onlookers. It was as though everything they discussed, every conversation that unfolded was in secret... But, given their unique backgrounds and circumstances, that was likely for the better.
Picking up a pebble, Elespeth examined its pristine smoothness due to years subjected to corrosion as she listened to her other fighting-half try and explain. "I cannot speak for Chara--I'm sure no one can, save for the woman herself," she replied at last, as soon as Alster had lifted the weight from his chest. "Personally, I don't find it difficult to believe that someone such as her might be harbouring intentions not otherwise known to anyone but herself, but... if they do involve you, what I do have trouble believing is that she would enlist Lilica to help you, when it wasn't about your personal well-being..."
Then again, Elespeth had been raised with the tendency to assume the good in everyone, unless proven otherwise. Chara was hot-headed and stubborn, but she felt that the blonde caster wouldn't bother to seek help for Alster if she didn't care for hm by even an inch. And then there was Lilica, who for all intents and purposes should have been on her radar as bad news, simply due to where she was situated on the spectrum of magic. And yet, there had been something genuine in her willingness to help, despite that her offer had been borne of smart bribery.
Alster perhaps had far more support than that of which he was aware...
Shifting to settle her weight on one leg, the fugitive ex-knight brushed her hair out of her face as a gust of wind took it, grabbing the follicles in a tight hold before proceeding to weave a quick braid. Her parents and everyone ever affiliated with Ilandria's imperial guard had cautioned her about the dangers of long hair for one expected to fight. Keeping those lengthy, chestnut tresses was likely the only rebellion (aside from fleeing her country to save her life) in which she'd ever engaged. "Is it possible that there's another way? Other than struggling to extinguish your dark magic for good. Could there be a way to balance it in that you wouldn't be struggling to resist being consumed by it?"
With her limited knowledge of magic, Elespeth was essentially throwing daggers in the dark, and with Alster's wildly fluctuating mood at the given moment, she feared that one of those daggers might hit too close to home and send him storming off again. But what use was she as a sounding board? Nor to mention, if he was too focused on suppressing the chthonic in favour of boosting his celestial abilities, how were they to properly function as a compound unit? It was imperative that all thoughts and energy be focused on a mutual endeavour; they had yet to experience the turmoil of real battle, real war, and at this point, the ex-knight was not convinced that they ere yet prepared...
Tossing aside the pebble she'd been examining, Elespeth turned to face Alster, arms folded casually across her chest. "It isn't my place to convince you either way, Alster, but I do see value in at least consulting with Lilica. She might know something that you don't. And, if you don't like what she has to say, then you can walk away. What do you think?" Try though she might to maintain it, the ghost of her smile faded with the severity of the predicament that resonated with her words. "I don't want you to lose the battle before the war has even begun. And I speak as your friend, not as your other half in a compound unit."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
...and wanton destruction of the soul.
He dared a direct look at Elespeth, watched the wind tousle her long locks into waiting hands that plaited her them with the grace of a caster in motion. He imagined the trouble of hair-length to a warrior, and of its maintenance, and why she bothered to preserve what others deemed a frivolity. Even Chara kept her hair short, and casters needn't worry as much about close combat or use of their hair as a potential handhold for resourceful fighters in the heat of battle. Perhaps Elespeth's hair waved as a banner of resistance--a last stand in the face of those who would peg her down by way of her gender. What served as a detriment to most became her strength.
He could get behind such a cause.
Realizing he stared all too familiarly at her, his face heated and he whipped his head away with a snap that rammed against the rock he'd been using as a headrest.
"Fuuck." He sucked in a breath and cradled a hand over the tender spot. "I'm fine. Just...I apologize. I uh...well...that was brilliant. At this rate I'll batter myself before the battle even begins." Forcing a tunnel vision mindset on the last of what Elespeth mentioned, he honed in on a proper response despite the renewed pattering of his heart that drummed in tandem with his head-throb.
"There's always another way, but I'm ill-equipped. It takes enormous skill to juggle both magics. Incredibly taxing, as well. Could stop the heart. Too risky, and I need to stay alive." He viewed Elespeth, this time from his periphery, and his heart pattered anew. "But...I, well, as a...friend," a smile came over him, "I'll consider your counsel."
A set of frantic horns blowing from the distance near threw Alster's head into the rock a second time. He ceased the knee-jerk reaction of his body before he concussed himself out of commission and shot to his feet, leaning an ear against the wind.
"Tadasun's forces approach. They always like to make a damn show of it." He listened to the repeated staccato blasts and gauged the proximity of the sound. "We've an hour. Maybe two."
Within moments, Messino gathered his army in the collective crop-circle made just days before, during his first briefing. Unlike his first briefing, he donned his finest brigantine and pauldrons, dressed as so for a battle and not for breakfast.
"Tadasun's army plans on pushing back our offensive." He spoke to the crowd, grasping the hilt of his bastard sword, the pommel glinting with the head of an owl. "We cannot allow them to gain the upper-hand this early on. We march on the defensive. Then, we push through like we're emerging from your mother's bloody womb!"
He crossed over to the Elite Guard and assigned stations. He seldom prepared for a strategy beforehand, preferring to improvise on the fly. Less chance of a subterfuge. Spontaneous and intractable.
"Guard, you're out front. Keep an impenetrable wall. Shields high. Fighters, you follow--crouched and swords at the ready. Casters--watch their backs. Take advantage of any openings in the ranks--and fire away. You are our range. Compound Unit--flank. Make sure none escape. You are the back end of our wall. Close it on them." He clasped his hands together. The sound of a thunderclap rumbled forth. "Dark mage, you're with me. I have a task for you. Everyone else! Places! Now!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Well, we're not directly at the front," Elespeth murmured to her partner, casting Alster a sidelong glance. The Rigas mage looked pale, and beads of sweat formed on his brow, despite the chill in the day's breeze. "I guess our biggest weak point is that Tadasun is attempting to catch us unawares... We don't know how much time they've had to prepare. And Messino doesn't seem to give a donkey's rear about our own formations."
She was used to order and protocol; it didn't appear that either of those words had a presence in Messino's lexicon. While his strategy wasn't the worst she'd ever had to follow, it also wasn't flawless. "We need to keep our eye on Chara and the other casters," she whispered to Alster, gaze straying to the small array of casters--his fiancée included. Despite their brave face, the former knight could smell their fear from afar. So wound the Tadasun. "If they are quick to read into this arrangement, they will seek to take out the magic users, and then deal with the fighters when their back-up is gone. If Messino thinks that those at the front of the mob will be the most vulnerable, he is wrong."
"Is there a problem, Tam?" He commanding officer blocked the sun with his large shadow, arms folded against his armored chest. There was no hint of either amusement nor patience in his stance and voice.
Elespeth straightened and held her chin up at attention, but at the invitation for concern. "Sir... Is it possible to have the casters don armor?" Compared to her, in her chestplate and gauntlets that easily came to a quarter extra of her weight, Alster and the other magic users seemed so... vulnerable. "In the event that Tadasun's offense sees fit to attack our range--"
"I think you should leave the strategizing to your superiors," the big man interrupted. "And stop doubting your other half. We've seen these casters in action: they know best how to stay out of harm's way and take care of themselves."
Colour rose to Elespeth's cheeks, but she offered no more words of concern and, waiting until the commanding officer moved down the line. "It isn't doubt. He has no excuse not to equip you equally..." Gnawing on her lower lip, the fugitive knight pressed a sight of defeat from her lungs. "Even if you're behind me, I'll have your back."
Lilica stood apart from the others, her skin even paler than the rest of the nervous array of casters as they took their places. "So then you already know what I'm capable of." It was a fact: not a question. Or else she wouldn't be here, and this discussion would not be taking place. "Then you need to know I must stand at a focal point far apart from the others... I can't emphasize this enough. Don't worry about it making me a target; believe me when I say they can't touch me."
But gods help the souls of anyone who ventured too close...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It exploded, a mini supernova on his palm.
So much for meditation.
Pretending he hadn't witnessed a small-scale prediction of the coming battle, he perked up when Elespeth spoke. He hid his hands behind his back along with the small, bleeding scratch that blossomed in the shape of a comet tail.
"Speaking from someone who knows," he said to her in a whisper, "the prince is exercising super-vigilance. It appears he's aware of traitors in his midst and his defense against insurgents and informers is to uproot the army. Leave us without any sense of stability or balance. If we're in confusion, so will the Tadasuni. His strategy is chaos, and no one can pin that down." He watched a few soldiers pass, wondering if he'd see their faces again. Or if they would see his. "It's hit and miss. More miss than hit."
He scanned the crowd for Chara and her Rigas doppelgängers. Looking didn't take long. The three blowhards wore blinding white and gold tunics emblazoned with the Rigas sigil. Chara caught him staring and wrinkled her nose at his burlap sack of an outfit. At least he blended with the dirt, not with the side of a palace wall.
"Noted," he told Elespeth. "If they're trying for intimidation, I don't think it will work." Unless...if Adalfieri back home made arrangements with the Tadasuni, perhaps wearing the Rigas sigil would entitle them to immunity. Whether true or not, Alster would rather exercise caution. For Elespeth's sake, he would fight--and fight to kill. As far as the Rigases were concerned, he already had defected by choosing to stand by the compound unit--and by her.
"Tam." He waited until the commanding officer distracted himself with some other logistical error brought to his attention. "Be my armor, and I'll be your shield." Realizing what he uttered, he wrung his hands--still clasped at his back--and stiffened not unlike a soldier at attention, but for different reasons. "I mean...I meant...Well, I meant to say the same." Feeling eyes searing into his skull, Alster turned his head to see the rest of the compound unit looking at and beyond him. The earth mage in particular gave him the whale eye, showing him all whites and the pinpoints of his contracted pupils. Nerves assailed him anew.
He forced his concentration over to where he spotted Lilica with Messino. The heavy pall that surrounded the two reflected back a white fear that shone from the dark mage. She was terrified.
Messino nodded at what Lilica said of herself, confirming how he planned to use her expertise. "Exactly what I need from you. When we march, wherever we meet Tadasun's army, I need you stationed at the highest vantage point. I give you free rein, to clip the enemy as you please. But I advise you to concentrate your ability towards any who attack or plan to attack the casters unit." He leveled his gaze at her, his lips pursing into a thin line. "Wipe them out."
At his last words, he wandered away from Lilica and repositioned himself between the spokes of the wheel his army had formed. "Whether you're prepared or not, we march now! Officers, to your stations. Let's bash the living daylighting out of this lot!"
His rallying cry elicited a cheer from some of the veteran soldiers. At least a share of Messino's forces believed in his command--somewhat.
They marched. They marched until they met with an undulating line of faces and metal, which glistened like a mirage in the hot morning sun.
Tadasuni troops had stopped advancing beforehand. For a significant time, they stood in position.
And waited.
"If they're up to any tricks, we'll snuff them out," Messino growled aloud. "Head-on. They're expecting intelligence. Let's give them a mob. Go!" He spurred everyone forward. "Trample them down!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Nodding at Alster's appraisal, Elespeth pressed a profound sigh from her lungs and nodded. "So we have to roll with the punches and adapt. A tactic that will work better for some than for others..." She only hoped that Messino's troops were prepared to be unprepared, because the battle could belong to anyone.
Resting her hand upon the hilt of her unfamiliar sword, the ex-knight smiled and met her fighting partner's gaze. "I'll be your armor, Alster. On that, I you can depend."
Following the cheer that resulted from Messino's brash and hardly motivating speech, Elespeth took up position and marched onward with her allies, towards victory or certain death, and it was anyone's guess. In the distance, she could make out the fair-haired Chara and her Rigas look-alikes among the other casters, and even further, the solitary form of Lilica, whose dark hair contrasted her pale skin. Fleetingly, the fugitive from Ilandria wondered just how many casualties it would take for the mad prince to realize that despite their long-range attacking prowess, the mages were not invincible, nor impervious to the bite of steel. If it comes down to it, she thought, daring another glance at Alster, I'll be your armour 'and' your shield.
The shining blades and breastplates of Tadasun's army came into view all too soon, the gleam of steel enough to make Elespeth squint. The troops were eerily still and silent, as if they'd been waiting... As if they'd been prepared. The words flying from Messino's lips brought no comfort or confidence to the ex-knight, but there was no time to ponder morale.
Not when they were ordered to charge.
And the chaos began.
Fighters at the forefront immediately came to arms, steel meeting steel in war's morbid symphony. Those on the offensive front met with others of the enemy, steel to steel, while those flanking the back--namely the casters--sought the strongest and most dangerous, and the air was awash with their magic, whittling away at the Tadasuns' endurance one by one.
And then there were the compound units, dangerous at all angles, small armies-a-pair, in and of themselves. With a fighter and a caster a piece, their backs were not priorities for the other casters to watch.
Elespeth was aware of this as she and Alster flanked the Tadasun along the sides, far less thick a wall, but no more inefficient. The majority of the opposing army was focused on breaking through the guard or tackling the brazen fighters; for the most part, few knew what hit them before their world went black. The compound units' offense was, indeed, the best defense, and the ex-knight did not hold back. Her sword was an extension of her arm, the blade turning crimson almost as quickly as she'd drawn it from its sheath. Always several paces before Alster, she ascertained that no enemy steel was to touch him, and he, in turn, laid siege to those who were not within Elespeth's immediate reach.
The problem with relying on spontaneity, however, was that there was no guarantee to the edge that they might have had. People fell, Tadasun and Andalari, inevitably fell, the former moreso than the latter at first, until Messino's haphazard formations became apparent. It was only by accident that Elespeth, on felling a man with a broad axe, caught a glimpse of the way the Tadasun troops were advancing; beginning to ignore the threats they could reach--the offense--and seeking to destroy Andalari's range. The casters.
"Alster!" She hissed, indicating the unarmed casters. "They're going for the unprotected! They're--"
But that was when she noticed some of the Tadasun men who clutched their throats or grasped at their chest, and then... fell. Many of them appeared to be harmed; in fact, quite the opposite, they were the stronger of the Tadasun, having forced their way from the back to the front, like secret weapons unveiled.
That was when, out of the corner of her eye, Elespeth took not of a figure in the distance--someone who stood atop a hill far behind the Andalari troops. From her vantage point, it was impossible to discern identity... but there was one person who she'd noted to have not marched at the same pace as everyone else, someone who had remained purposely behind. That was when the spontaneous deaths began to make sense.
Lilica...
But the dark mage's help wasn't enough. Not of she was only picking off soldiers one at a time, and not while for every Tadasun that fell, a path became clearer for others to march over the fallen, ducking under the guard, evading the offense and going straight for the casters. "They've figured it out!" She cried and, completely against orders, turned and made her way towards the back. "We need to reposition--they're going after Chara and the other casters!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He partitioned away the screams, the smell of burning eyes from the flash-arrows aimed to bite the face, the clumps of severed feet rolling around with sinews of gore trailing behind like morbid wicks. They played a more muted role in the background, secondary to what lay directly before, behind, and around him and Elespeth. Bursts of color erupted near any threats needing swift annihilation. Strategy fell to the wayside when survival ignited within him like a needfire. Clipping enemy forces, however, wasn't as easy as the muscle memory of innate magic doing the work for him. Clunky rune circles spilled from his hands with a notable time delay. He kept them writing, moving, a blurred mess that somehow activated spells in the correct direction. He bounced an optics spell off Elespeth's rapier, disorienting the vision of a behemoth in her way. Twin spires of static pulses induced temporary paralysis to a spearman's arm. An invisible hand wrenched the gut of a footman who bowled over and vomited. Cantrips. All cantrips.
Meanwhile, Elespeth toiled to resist every enemy that dared dwell in his vicinity at all. She reached beyond her range to fell what belonged in his range and closed tight around his quarters, making it difficult to spread his fingers and cast. Dammit, I'm powerless! he thought. I need it. Need more power!
And power, true, raw energy, almost snagged him with its tingling death. All around him, Tadasuni soldiers floundered and foundered, stabbed to silence by an unseen force. It radiated a soupy, viscous tar, languid and...familiar. Chthonic magic. Lilica's magic.
He faltered a moment, staring at the result, wide-eyed.
...And strangely, in awe.
When he looked up, Elespeth had gone.
"El--Tam! Wait!" He shouted into the fray. Realizing she headed into the thick of the battle, towards the caster unit and the surrounding advance of enemy troops, he ran to catch her--cursing in his head.
There's not enough of us. What do you think we're able to accomplish, Elespeth?
"Compound unit!" He bellowed at any who would listen to him. "Recovery! Casters unit!"
As he charged ahead, Tadasuni men gathered to block his path. He slammed them down--with something. He didn't know what.
Elespeth had slowed, as if aware he were missing.
...Or aware that a group of men proceeded to mob her with swords and axes and cruel, jagged cutlasses.
She fought. Of course she would fight. She moved like a whirling dervish. And he moved to reach her, but he felt so slow, encumbered by a weight that would not lift. A rune spell on his fingers stretched like slug-trails against dirt. Too timely. Too costly. Could she fend them off herself?
I'm your shield, whether you believe it or not...whether I believe it or not.
...Shield.
A syrupy, smoky mass leaked from him. From the ground. From dying men. It hissed and forked and stretched, forming an amorphous plate of volcanic glass that pressed against his hands. It pushed forward and overhead and slid between Elespeth and her assailants.
The smoke from his hands melded with the smoke from their skin. It burned and sloughed away to reveal bone and their mortal yowls shredded into pieces, like their bodies.
The plate dissolved. And so did he.
Alster rushed over to Elespeth, fear dictating his every move. Did he kill her? Melt her into a skeleton? Brand her to oblivion?
Please, please...I can't have done wrong again. I can't...Please let her be all right.
Chara and her team performed with every intention to kill, following orders from their true commanding officer. Make your participation look convincing, Adalfieri told them. Even if you must kill. Tadasun is aware of the bigger picture. They will not mind the loss of their fodder if it means keeping allies in strategic positions. Even so, while harm is minimal to you...do not be afraid to die.
Bogged down as such with Tadasuni men who broke through the ranks, pointing all manner of weaponry at her, she wasn't convinced of Rigas immunity. But this was war. With the unpolished savagery of Messino's attack, refined promises made outside of the battlefield died on the battlefield.
She took a more serious investment to the battle and blasted etheria on an individual basis, chipping away at her unit's invasion with tiring fury.
Not today. I will not die today!
Not far from her, she descried a bulbous shadow-screen eliminating a number of men into bones. Lilica's magic, no doubt. But she saw Alster emerge from the carnage--and she redirected her objective.
"Tivia! You're in charge! Man your station!"
She hurried to him--before anyone else would do the same.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The trouble with fury, however, was that it revealed nothing past shades of red. And, through red, it was difficult to take into account what was going on in your peripheral vision.
Elespeth failed to take notice when the Tadasuni suddenly closed in on her, finding the opportunity to surround her, four against one. Gone was strategy and tact, and the fugitive knight found herself embracing the very chaos that Messino preached, moving and blocking and swiping in all directions, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, simply reacting to the danger. I won't fall, she told herself. Not now, not this early, not this easily...
Perhaps it was the adrenaline, or exhaustion that she wasn't yet aware of, but her assailants suddenly seemed to... melt, before her eyes, a strange smoke eating away at their skin, muscle, their bone... Forgetting their target, the Tadasuni cried out in fear and pain, their voices so raw that Elespeth stumbled away from them, away from the smoke, in fear. "The hell..." She breathed, her heart in her throat, hardly able to comprehend the scene that had taken place before her eyes.
That was when she took notice of Alster, standing just feet away, his face pale, stricken. Bewildered. "A-Alster... was that..." She didn't have the right words. There were no words to appropriately what she had witnessed, nothing that could make sense of the burned human matter that littered the ground. The grip on her sword weakened and trembled, but for the vigor of her white-knuckled determination, she did not drop her weapon. "Did you..."
She never had a chance to finish her question. Suddenly Chara was beside the both of them, winded and panicked, but seemingly unharmed. "Chara--you're all right? Are the other casters unharmed? I saw that the Tadasuni were..."
What she had just witnessed in Alster's wake, however, was nothing compared to what her wide green eyes took in as she returned her attention to the advancing Tadasuni. They were not advancing anymore: the entire army was retreating, running from what looked like an invisible enemy that snatched them from the ground up. It looked like fire, but it was no fire that she had ever seen--ebony and violet-tipped flames that consumed the enemy one inch at a time. Inextinguishable. Her first thought was, of course, Alster, but the mage looked on with just as much awe as she.
And that was when her frantic mind calmed enough to remember that there was more than one dark mage in this army...
It wasn't enough.
Lilica watched from her vantage point with her mind's eye, input from her telesthesia allowing her insight into who was the most dangerous, where, and when, at any given moment. She prioritized her attacks, psychically crushing the hearts and throats of those who neared her comrades with the intent to kill. But their range weapons, those arrows and explosions, changed the game very quickly, to the point where even she wasn't able to keep up.
One by one, Tadasuni soldiers dropped. But in the time it took them to fall, two Andalari were attacked, one fallen. Her tactic had lost its value--she had lost her value.
Unless...
Forgive me, she prayed to no one in particular. In fact, it was her own self from who she hoped she would receive forgiveness, as the dark mage reached deep into the dark pool that was her own existence, and projected her caustic aura. As if a looming entity cast shadows on the terrain, darkness crept towards the battlefield--and it did not discriminate. Anyone, Andalari or Tadasuni alike, who happened to step within its line of fire ended up consumed by it.
On the bright side, it had the effect that she desired. Moments later, after the death of dozens of men at the hands of her toxic aura, the Tadasuni were ordered to retreat. And as they did, Lilica struggled to rein it back in, to draw the shadows back into her body.
They resisted. Just like she'd feared. "No... no, you will not control me again," she hissed, trembling as cold sweat trickled down her back. "I command you... I command you!"
Slowly but surely, the shadows dissipated, until all that was left her the bodies of the fallen, and the hasty footprints of the Tadasuni, who were no longer in sight.
This was, for all intents and purposes, victory. But it didn't feel like it. Spent and exhausted, Lilica fell to her knees in the dirt, lightheaded and parched. Something never existed of nothing, and the dark mage couldn't even begin to comprehend just how much of herself she had put into the offensive. Or how much of herself she would get back, and how long it would take.
"Gods..." Elespeth breathed, watching the Tadasuni retreat, in awe of a victory that no one had anticipated. "What... what in hell just..."
Cheers rose from the Andalari army, as commanding officers sought out their units, barking out directions concerning the fallen and the wounded. "All able-bodied and physically capable," the fighters' leader hollered over the cheering, "Give aid to the wounded in helping them return to camp. We will come back later for the fallen."
"No acknowledgement for those who gave their lives in this battle..." The ex-knight breathed, adrenaline finally draining from her blood as she reconnected with cold reality. "None at all... This army has far to go. Come on, let's--"
One step, and suddenly, Elespeth's body met the ground horizontally. Pain shot through her leg, warranting a grimace, and it was with astonishment that she noted the left leg of her slacks was drenched in blood. It didn't feel as though that blood belonged to those she'd felled, given the gash that she noticed, half a foot long and jagged down her thigh. Where and when she had acquired it was a mystery; such was the effect of battle-ready adrenaline. Enough to boost immunity to pain, but only long enough until it was safe to finally fall. "I'm fine," she insisted, either to herself or to Alster and Chara, remained a mystery. "I'm fine, just... just give me a hand up. Please."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
What did, however, was his magic. It ventured all the way to the bone. Bled through their insides. Cooked them. A pile of steam rose from their pyre like a banner, but it blended so well with various horrors that none would notice the memorial or the cause of death. Just that the dead had died.
He turned away from the sight and the malodorous stench that flumed into his nostrils and threatened to burn him from the inside. Or empty him of the burning, through his mouth. Instead, he concentrated on Elespeth. Her wan features. The way she regarded him with fear. Her unfinished inquisition.
All he could do was nod, a feverish little flap in the wind.
Chara reached Alster and his partner with time enough to experience the unforgiving stench of the bone-pile before it blew further downwind. She covered her mouth to prevent a more visceral reaction and sidled between Alster and Tam. "Are you--?" She muffled to Alster, a fragment of a question she'd been unable to finish.
"We're fine," she said to Tam, dropping her hand with hesitation. "We've lost some casters and there are plenty wounded, but we're holding back the brunt of the advance and--"
A strange drop in pressure silenced her talk. The air felt scratchy and thorny, and pricked the back of her neck. Cold and heat lit both ends of whatever headed in their direction. A nebulous purple, dark as the galaxies and bright as an aurora, flashed through the battlefield like a wayward bolt of lightning. Its bottomless appetite swallowed victims whole. Hunger hadn't any alliances. Only one single-minded goal.
Consume everything.
Before she or anyone chose to run from its slinking path, the flames lessened and died. The final plumes flickered in the air like a forked tongue tasting its victory.
Tadasuni soldiers stampeded back to their home-base.
And just like that, the battle had ended.
Alster stared at the blackened patches where the underworld fire had raged. He couldn't fathom how Lilica had conjured up such an intense conflagration without suffering serious repercussions for her actions. When the battle had gone sour, she turned the outcome and saved them. With chthonic magic. However destructive and tortuous, its dark properties served them well. It had served him, too, and prevented Elespeth from injury...
Until he watched her fall to the ground.
"Tam!" He crouched beside her and held her aloft by the shoulders. Glancing over at the gash in her leg, he worried on his lip, wondering if his careless magic had sliced her open. Of course it wasn't flawless, he thought. But I can't afford flaws. I have to be good enough.
A low, exasperated sigh rattled out of Chara, as if responding to his thoughts.
"Bloodsport in war. Bound to occur. You also have an injury, Alster." She rolled up her sleeves and lowered herself to the ground, lifting Tam's injured leg over her knee. Without waiting for consent, Chara ripped the clothing away from Tam's gash and laid hands over the wound. A silken thread of etheria stitched the wound closed. "This is not permanent. You must have your injury cleansed of impurities. We will reopen the stitching once we return to camp."
Together, she and Alster lifted Tam from the scorched earth. She slung the warrior's arm around her shoulders and carried the weight of her injury.
"Don't think I didn't forget you." Chara pointed to Alster and his back wound.
"I'm perfectly capable of tending to it, myself." Alster snapped and, seeing as he was not needed (as Chara would not renege on a task once begun) backed away from them to stare out at the battlefield. He lifted his hands and drew upon the air, simultaneous whorls that depicted different shapes. The shapes blared with light and color. When he completed the sketches, the sigils of Andalari and Tadasuni illumined the sky. On the left, the owl and stars of Andalari shined in a bright blue. On the right, the hawk and sun of Tadasun glowed dusky orange. He lowered his hands and head and whispered prayers to the fallen, Andalarian and Tadasuni alike.
When he completed the prayer in the harsh notes of the Tadasuni language, he acknowledged Elespeth and Chara with a nod. "That will have to do, for now. I'm...I'm going up to check on Lilica." He shuffled away from them, awkwardly, and scaled the hill upon which Lilica was situated. Chara watched him depart, tsking as she did.
"What a show-off."
Messino strolled down avenues of the deceased, making notes along the way in a small ledger he carried. "It looks as though we've had less casualties this go-around," he told Renalto, who trailed behind him. The prince had participated in full during the battle, hair matted down with blood and his twin swords humming with the residual energy of stolen life-force--now tucked away in their sheaths. The Elite Guard hadn't suffered any casualties; their talent to sway with the vagaries of the battle aided in their continued survival.
However, the Guard was not infallible. Even Lilica, who was an indispensable investment, could not always hold the result of every battle with her fire of the furies. Alas, he was a betting man, and seldom satisfied. Such was the way of royal living in a rich country whose only threat was Tadasun to the south and a sleeping Serpent with the vaguest of sinister undertones.
And Rigases.
Messino knelt by an Andalarian deceased, his body in tact save for a gaping neck injury that had long-since bled him dry.
"You will have to suffice," he said to the soldier. Drawing one of the humming swords, he pressed the pommel into cold fingers already submitting to rigor.
One by one, the fingers moved of their own accord, wrapping themselves around the unusual warmth of the sword.
Messino smiled and pulled the sword free. The fingers stiffened back into rigor.
"Renalto, collect all the weapons once we reach camp. ...I think it's nigh time we experiment."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Her concerns were readily assuaged, however, for the simple fact that her caster counterpart stood only feet away, and did no melt, did not catch flame, did not disintegrate. So she had managed to rein in her hungry aura just in time. The rapid return of her caustic magic had taken its toll on her energy resources, as if it were taking revenge on her for allowing it so short a leash, if any leash at all.
Swallowing a dry lump in her throat, her dark eyes studied the concerned and curious face of the Rigas mage. The only other mage in Messino's army capable of chthonic magic, and who thought he could outsmart the dark shadow of his identity but concealing it with light. Who had turned down her offer to help, which would ultimately be at his own expense. "I didn't want to do that," she explained, as if on the off chance that he might have perceived the way she'd had them achieve victory as underhanded. "I didn't want to... I wasn't supposed to. It wasn't supposed to unfold like this, but ultimately, I had no choice. Do you understand the primary difference between the chthonic and the celestial, Alster Rigas?" It was a rhetorical question, one that she answered before he could open his mouth. "The celestial is passive and at the discretion of its user. The chtonic is in and of itself an entity that senses when it is not enough. And it will compensate, all on its own... and it doesn't care who it has to take down to achieve what it wants."
What she was trying to get across was that the feat that had caused the Tadasuni to scatter and flee had not been her conscious doing. Not insomuch that the fear of defeat had been enough to cause her aura to flare, project, and cover all the ground it deemed necessary.
Pressing air from her lungs, Lilica extended her hand expectantly after a beat. "There's something I need to show you. The result of unbridled chthonic magic on its user... help me up. What are you waiting for? If you're not already dead in my presence, I can assure you my flesh will not burn you alive."
Though agitated by Alster's hesitation, she really couldn't blame him. Not after she'd practically painted herself as caustic and dangerous as the Tadasuni's exploding arrows. When at last he saw fit to take the chance, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and pulling her upright, she made no move to conceal the grimace her features expressed. Reacting almost as if instead of helping her up, he'd struck her.
Which was precisely the point she sought to make.
"Look," she urged, holding out her hand after Alster's fell away. Everywhere his fingers had touched, everywhere he'd applied pressure, he'd left a developing bruise in his wake--dark, violet and indigo spots, in the shape of his fingers as they'd squeezed her wrist. Lilica waited for the astonishment and confusion to sink in before she ventured to explain. "No, you weren't squeezing to hard... this is the result of what I cast. Don't think for a moment that the chthonic doesn't steal resources from its user, especially untethered," she began, gently rubbing the pale skin surrounding the bruising. "I let it loose, and it stole from me. In a day or so, I should be fine. But if I fall off a step, I'll tear my knee open and probably break a bone. And even if I had any inclination to embrace anyone, their reassuring touch would leave bruises. You can't fucking cover up this blowback, Alster. You can't pretend your celestial magic will trump all, and the sooner you come to realize that, the better."
Pressing her lips together, she folded her arms across her chest, an unconscious gesture to protect herself from the world that, given her weakened state, could destroy her. "This is why I jumped at Chara's offer to get me out of this war. This is why I was so quick to make you agree to let me help... Say what you will about my intentions, but if I can prevent another person from mistreating and misunderstanding their chthonic magic so that they don't end up like this--" at that, she motioned to her hand again "--then it is worth it."
She had been winded before her lecture, but after her fervent plea to get Alster to understand, the dark mage was downright exhausted. As if she'd stumble, were she to put one foot in front of the other, and having already explained the dangers of this 'condition' to her comrade... "...I need you to help me back to camp. Please." Though her tone had grown soft, the urgency was there--right next to the distinct loss of dignity, in having to ask for help of that nature.
---
Thanks to Chara's help, Elespeth painstakingly made it back to camp, her injured quad muscle practically ready to give out by the time she was administered to the medical tent. Where her wound was not the gravest, Chara's stitches had to hold for another couple of hours as the medics and healers dealt with more life threatening injuries.
When the time did come to tend to her leg, they offered her ale for the pain, though she was quick to refuse. The last thing she needed was the imbalance and light-headedness that accompanied inebriation, even if it meant the pain would be lessened. The ex-knight settled for biting down on a leather glove as the healers went through the process of thoroughly cleaning the wound, and then stitched the raw skin with durable thread. The pain was no small matter, but Elespeth astonishingly didn't make a sound.
No sooner was her thigh bandaged, however, that she was on her feet and ready to leave.
"Warrior! Sit back down, you fool, the sutures will tear!" One of the medics chided her, an incredulous look on his face. "Are you listening to me? You need rest!"
"You have my word that I'll be careful, sir," the fugitive knight replied, an obvious limp in her step despite her astounding ability to keep herself upright. "But I must have a word with the captain of this army. I'll rest as soon as those words are exchanged."
Injured leg and all, Elespeth made her way slowly to Messino's tent. She ignored the man who asked her if she had a scheduled audience with the prince, and pushed through the tent curtains, where she found her commanding officer speaking with Messino himself. Both exchanged a look of confusion to see the injured swordswoman standing before them with determination in her green eyes. "Sir. Your Highness." She greeted the both of them with a nod; it hurt too much to kneel. Forgive my intrusion, but I must have a word with you."
"Tameris," the commanding officer frowned, eyes on her injured leg. "What is the meaning of this? You are in no condition to be standing, let alone demanding permission to speak."
"I simply wish to be heard, Sir; I won't consume too much of your precious time." Turning her attention to Messino, she offered another nod, in lieu of a bow. "Your Highness. I wish to express concern for the battle strategy earlier today. I believe we could have had a cleaner victory, with fewer casualties, had we not resulted to chaos."
Before Messino could speak, the commanding officer was quick to come to his defense, and Elespeth's chiding. "Soldier. It is not your place to question how this army is commanded," he snapped, a frown turning down the corners of his thin lips.
"No, Sir, I realize this," Elespeth went on boldly. "But you must agree that there were flaws. Keeping the casters to the back did not protect them--they had no armor, and they had no chance--"
"Tameris. It was reported that you abandoned your compound unit," the man snapped. "You went against orders and formation. If I were you, I would be thankful that His Highness does not see fit to formally reprimand you."
Pressing air from her lungs, she nodded. "I did. For concern for our casters, sir. Their vulnerability distracted me--had they not been vulnerable, I could have more easily focused on my task. Your Highness," she turned once again to Messino, who appeared... what, amused? At this exchange? Were her concerns truly fodder for laughter? "I beseech that you take this into consideration before we face Tadasun again. We cannot rely on the same strategy--not that they now know Lilica is our secret weapon. They will take her our, and then our unprotected casters. The fighters and compound units cannot be looking over their shoulder to keep an eye on the magic wielders while simultaneously going on the offensive. It is not... forgive me, but the formation is not sound."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
If he felt exhausted, then she transcended the very idea, and developed it into an art form. She had a stare that was almost comatose, but she still blinked. She appeared not to breathe, yet she drew breath to speak to him. She had utilized unfathomable power, yet only looked ready for sleep, and not for death. From one magic-user to another, he was impressed by her unparalleled stamina and ability to stifle some of her pains.
Though he worried for the toll that spent magic taxed from the mind...and would come to collect.
"How much did that inferno take from you?" He questioned aloud, but clung to her comparisons of celestial and chthonic magic, and distracted himself with the discrepancies. "That is but one interpretation. With every magical ability, there is temptation. Lack of control. Manipulation. We don't speak of it," Alster hesitated, "but in the Rigas family alone, there are those who fall to the whims of their celestial magic--myself included. There are those who think themselves above its influences, and die because they are unprepared. But we are affected. By the sun, by the moon. The stars. Every fleck that streaks across the sky. Every celestial event, be it minor or major. It can...warp our abilities. We're in constant flux. Our magic is alien and invasive--like a meteor--and the entire world responds to it with defensive anger. Chthonic magic has its place here on this planet and on both sides of the spectrum. Passive and active. And every case is different. Yours, mine...my father's..." He trailed away and cleared his throat, squinting up at the sun in hopes to blink away and redirect his commentary--with the possibility of not inviting the dead to join the conversation.
That was when Lilica held out her hand and implored him to grab hold. He hovered a hand over her own with varying reasons of reluctance. He seldom responded to touch in a calm and consistent manner, especially with so intimate a connection. And what if he hurt her? He of all people knew the sensitivity of hands--doubly so for a caster. With a shallow nod, and half-aware of what to expect, he closed his fingers around her wrist--ignoring the concentrated heat upon his cheeks--and hoisted her from the ground. The flinch elicited from her made him all the more flustered. With an apologetic murmur, he withdrew his grip once he'd seen her safely upright. Bruises purpled all over their point of contact, creating a shadow-contour of where he laid his hand just moments before. With wide eyes, he stared at his palms, believing his magic had done her harm, but all logic pointed out the truth: it was her magic.
"I have realized it," he said after a long pause, processing all that Lilica had explained and appraising her hand-print bruise with burgeoning apprehension. Did chthonic magic siphon his energy to leave behind those raking tears of flesh upon his back? "I've realized it some time ago, but I chose to ignore the facts. I'm making amends now. I've no choice." He viewed the fresh comet scar on his palm for confirmation. "My celestial magic is gone. Receded. I used chthonic magic today. Willfully. Threw up a shield to protect Tam, but it protected her by melting her assailants down to their bones." He closed his eyes and shuddered. "I've different views on chthonic magic, and a different purpose in mind for its use. And I will not allow it to control me. So..." he opened his eyes and stared at the ground, shuffling his feet, "I...I mean, if the offer still stands, would--?" His tongue flattened itself against the roof of his mouth, but he sputtered the words forth, forcing more air out of his lungs and spattering spittle as a result. "Help. I mean...I would appreciate your help. I hope I'm worth it to you," he said, then he blushed, kicking a pebble to alleviate some of his discomfiture. "But--yes. Of course." Partitioning his mind from the task, he led her down the hill and back to camp, careful as possible with the handling of her ravaged body.
No sooner than Messino retired to his tent did Officer Sergio blunder in to discuss odds and ends specific to their clunky victory over Tadasun. Messino realized how their strategy, or lack thereof, affected those enmeshed in it, but they hadn't his perspective on the situation. Not like his perspective would matter, of course, because it was unadulterated madness. None would understand the soundness of his propositions--or whether they were sound or not. Let them all think that war is structured, he thought. That there is some purpose as to why they kill and how they kill. In the end, we're all dead.
And the dead surrender to the capriciousness of life.
A circle of connectivity. Nothing dead truly died, and nothing alive truly lived.
Messino was interrupted from ignoring Sergio when the same lady warrior who volunteered with the Rigas brat limped right into the tent. Well...wasn't this unprecedented.
He listened to the back-and-forth between her--Tameris--and Sergio, allowing them to play out their course and tire. They bounced well against their abrasive walls, but they both had too-similar views on the mechanisms of war--when there weren't any to be had. Not on his watch.
"No." He waved off Sergio. "Even mercenaries are welcome a say at my command. You express legitimate concerns, Tameris," he said, straightening up behind his desk and pressing his palms together in a gesture of patience and magnanimity. "Though I have made my viewpoints abundantly clear on day one, some are not quick to enforce them, like our commanding officer, here." He shook his head at Sergio as if he'd been a grievous disappointment. "Here is the trick. The formation isn't supposed to be sound, because there are no formations. It is but a guideline. You are allowed to wander where you feel most needed, and you have done so. No reprimanding is necessary for so-called abandoning of post. You only but transferred your post." He shifted in his seat to grab the pen lodged in his inkwell, to busy himself writing gibberish on a blank page. Nothing looked more official than faking an officious demeanor.
"Furthermore," he said, "I am not without some pre-planning of my own. For example, Tadasun is aware of our not-so-secret weapon. Most-likely, I will not have Lilica participate in the next battle. We will have them biting their nails in anticipation for a threat that does not exist." He scribbled nonsensical sentences on a line, reveling in the scritch-scratching of the pen, which punctuated the silence hanging out to dry in the tent. "The first battle is simple testing of the waters. Now I know better what to expect--and so do you. As for the casters--armor for all is above our budget. But if the Rigases wish to provide the expense, I am more than willing to ensure that every soul is well-equipped." There. Diplomatic enough. Flippant enough. He looked up from his "writing." "Does that allay some of your fears?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"The offer is still open," she assured him. "Whenever you're ready... that is, after I've had a little time to recover. Just give me a day or two of bed rest. It isn't anything I haven't fought off before..."
As they were approaching Messino's tent--located conveniently in the middle of camp, as if to keep an eye on everyone, Lilica caught the familiar sight of blonde hair in the near distance. "Chara," she said, in hopes of getting the Rigas woman's attention. "You're all right? They didn't happen to neglect to provide you with armor, too, did they?" I heard..."
That was when the familiar timbre of a female voice filled Messino's tent, reaching the ears of any and all who heard. Lilica raised her eyebrows and attempted to peer past the tent flaps, but she need not see the woman to know who it was. "I think you'd better run some quick interference before your compound half gets her tongue cut out," she advised Alster, glancing to Chara. "Would you mind lending me a hand back to my tent? I've already spoken with Alster, but I have something to discuss with you."
---
It was as though she was being heard, and yet not heard at all, simultaneously. Officer Sergio's comments glanced off her like water on a duck's back; he could say what he wanted, and she knew how to respond, in kind. He was a military man like any other... which was more than she could say for their Captain of the army, His Highness, himself.
At first, Elespeth was astounded at how quick he was to dismiss Sergio's pompous and dismissive remarks; that had not been something she'd anticipated of the eccentric prince. It was almost as though he saw her concerns as valid, worth considering, to the extent that he would take them to heart and apply them to next battle.
That is, until he dismissed them--particularly the bit about the casters and the armor. For someone with character like Elespeth, who had pledged her life to brotherhood with comrades and having their back, irritation was not commonplace. The feeling of heat rising into her cheeks as words rose from that hot center in her chest was uncomfortable, particularly because she knew she was in no position to argue. With a hidden identity and a bounty on her head in another nation, it would have been best to forego the compound units entirely, focus solely on survival, and overall walking in the shadows of others as an invisible hand. Play the game and get out alive.
Unfortunately, a sense of honour and dedication stood in the way of staying her tongue.
"I am glad that you do not share in Officer Sergio's disappointment about my last minute switch," she began, choosing her words slowly. Carefully. "But the truth is, your Highness, that I should not have needed to abandon my other half. The compound units were your idea--and a brilliant idea, so long as they can remain a compound unit. Alter and I, in the end, were only another caster and another sword wielder. Not two parts of an unbeatable whole like you'd imagined. The compound units can't focus on interdependence when comrades who could use their help are dying at their feet."
Struggling to step forward, Elespeth placed the flats of her hands on Messino's desk, partially for balance, but primarily to make a point. "With all due respect, your Highness, we are playing with lives, here... Tossing people onto the battle field and observing what happens in order to formulate a better strategy the next time around is reckless. And if providing armor is too far above your budget, then I daresay that sounds an awful lot like you simply can't afford to provide your troops with the best chance of success." The feeling of heat and vigor flooded Elespeth's limbs and mind, no so different from the adrenaline at war. "The fallen, your Highness--did you even know a single one of their names?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Thank you."
They encountered Chara on their way into camp. She pretended to fiddle with the sleeves of her tunic, which had transformed from white to rust-brown, but he saw how she positioned her head with an ear out for gossip. Specifically, gossip that transpired within the flaps of Messino's tent.
Lilica's greeting startled her to attention, but she relaxed when she spotted the two of them. "I'm uninjured, but I can't say the same for you." She noticed the hand-print bruise on her wrist and her eyebrow raised with confusion and alarm. "We Rigases do well for ourselves on the defensive front." She moved as she spoke, over to replace Alster at Liica's side. "A triple-enforced barrier spell. Very effective against armaments!" Underneath her braggadocio, she whispered to Alster, "Her Holiness is going to get herself killed," and jerked her head over to the tent. "Lilica!" she enunciated with the honeyed-notes of one who was inviting a friend for tea, "I shall assist you to your quarters. Come!" She led Lilica by the shoulder with a gentle hand, and, after giving Alster a pointed look, sauntered away, leaving him with damage control duty.
Messino bobbed his head to his writing as Tameris opted for a more brazen approach in her rambling little discourse. How he loved it when soldiers thought themselves above reproach simply because their commander fancied hearing a word or two from their waggling mouths--as a courtesy. Even when idealistic twaddle fouled their words. "As you have stated, the compound unit is, as it is designed, meant to represent two halves inhabiting one position. It is not my responsibility should you choose to leave your half behind to embark on some other endeavor. And if you are to leak your bleeding heart over every soldier and caster in need of saving, you, instead, will suffer their fate. Do you understand me, Tameris?" He dropped his pen against the parchment and leaned forward to intercept her silly table-leaning threats. Who did she think ran the operation? Did she expect to use intimidation to sway him to her favor? "War means that we will suffer casualties. It does not matter if the strategy is a masterful work of art: people die the same. In fact, masterful strategies often rely on well-timed sacrifices and misdirections where people, in fact, die. It is a natural phenomenon of life," he said, speaking with languid precision in case she'd gone daft.
"You will have a difficult time as a whole if you cannot compartmentalize your tasks. Focus on you and your partner. Then, your unit. How will you contribute to this effort if you cannot remember your own objective? I daresay your distracted mind will stay your sword, and we will have one less able-bodied soldier for this army." He met her gaze with one patient enough to battle with her all day long if need be. Petulant behavior provided great fuel for him. Made for verbal target practice. And he soon wouldn't forget her name--or shades of her own history that she unwittingly dredged for him to sniff and exploit if she proved too...difficult to cooperate.
"May I ask--do you know their names? I know them by their actions. They fought bravely for me and died for me. How will sentiments aid us further? War is a playground of lives. A chessboard consisting of pawns fighting on behest of their king or queen. Many don't know why they are fighting, only that they must by royal decree. Do you think war any different? Honorable, even?" He chuckled and patted her cheek with an ink-stained hand. "I admire your naïveté, but it will not win us this war. As for supplies--we. Shall. Procure. Them. Now, you--" he raised his head when a ruffling of the tent flap signaled yet another uninvited guest. What use were guards if people were going to come trampling about his damn tent, regardless?!
"Your Highness," said the intruder--her Rigas brat of a partner, "you will forgive my intrusion, and forgive my partner. She has sustained a painful injury and requires bedrest." He slithered his way to Tameris, but kept his attention on Messino. "I could not help but overhear, however, that you require financial aid from the Rigases. Consider it done." He dropped a fat pouch on the desk, clanking with noisy greed. Messino pulled back the drawstrings and scooped up a small handful of heavy gold coins. "I expect this to be more than sufficient for the purchase of armor--for our casters."
"...Yes," Messino said, in a daze from the generous weight and donation.
"I will touch base with you later, to ensure our order is a successful one." He bowed and, without waiting for dismissal, pulled on Tam's arm (with some hesitation), and guided her out of the tent.
Messino glared at their backs as they retreated.
Damn Rigases.
Once free from the tent, Alster gasped for air, receiving little in the stifling canvas chamber. Together, he and Elespeth walked a good distance from the center of camp and settled near the outskirts of the living quarters.
A few good breaths later, Alster narrowed his eyes at Elespeth.
"What are you doing?!" he said in a harsh whisper, keeping track of whoever crossed their path. "You can't afford to draw attention to yourself, especially to Messino! He's of a mercurial disposition; he'll have you hanged for insubordination or worse." With a sigh, he deflated his nerves and took her to the tent he shared with Tivia and Danos, ensuring first that they were absent. "Look. I know you care deeply for preservation of our troops, but you can't go barking demands to someone that unhinged. We'll make our own changes." He lowered his voice despite the (relative) safety of the tent. "We plan to."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And, over ninety percent of the time, Elespeth Tameris was not far off on her good judgement. Ninety percent of the time, however, she wasn't in pain, suffering blood loss, physical exhaustion and dehydration.
It didn't even occur to her that she's effectively gone on the defensive, like a cat that couldn't retract its claws, and on the worst possible person to antagonize.
That is, not until a fourth party made himself present in the room. Elespeth's brows knitted together in surprise and confusion as her battle partner so readily apologized for her, for himself and for the situation at large--on to of piling coins atop Messino's desk. No! You shouldn't have to provide the funding for this army, that is not the point! She wanted to argue--wanted to shout at him--but before she realized what was happening, the conversation had come to a close, and she found herself escorted from the tent, back into the overcast evening of an upsetting day.
"You shouldn't have had to do that--give him the money," she chided Alster, her limp causing her to struggle to keep up as he ushered her away from the Prince's tent. "That isn't your..."
Alster wasn't the one deserving of reprimand, however--and he was quick to point out why. "I... the entire formation, this morning... And he continued with such a laissez-faire demeanor..."
Elespeth trailed off, as soon as they passed through the flaps of Alster's tent. No, there was no intelligent rebuttal for his comment; there was no excuse for her actions. How was it that, in so little time--had it even been a couple of weeks since they'd registered at the encampment?--she had almost entirely forgotten that she was continually at risk? That the slightest misstep could have her hanged or, worse, back in Atvany to suffer days of starvation and neglect before being put out of her misery before her family, and the very people whom she used to call friends?
The swordmaster had gotten careless. And she had become careless only because she cared.
"I'm sorry. You're right, that was ridiculously stupid of me." Sitting down upon one of the cots to take the weight off her injured leg, El raked her fingers through hair that had long since come free of its tidy weave. "I am... I know what war is. I know war means death, but you must understand, I was raised to fight with honour. To fight with respect for my brothers in arms, and Messino... we are but pawns to him. He has no honour, no sense of camaraderie, just a goal that he will attain by any means. No matter how many lives are lost, or how many..."
As the Rigas caster's tone grew quieter, however, Elespeth grew more aware of it. Regaining her composure (and, therefore, her character), she eyed her partner skeptically at the loaded comment. "What exactly do you mean?" She asked her tone of voice matching his near whisper. "It sounds as though... But you're not... Do you mean--" The Atvanian fugitive held her breath as several pairs of boots passed outside the tent. When all was clear and silent again, she went on. "It almost sounds as if you are suggesting... conspiracy, among the troops. Do I understand correctly?"
Of course, he didn't answer right away. Alster had divulged something very deep, perhaps in hopes that she was too far gone from her own mind with bloodloss to register it properly. But now it was out in the open, and it could not be taken back. "You already know who I am," she pointed out, as the caster struggled with weighing the benefits and setbacks of letting her in the know. "And that is more than I can say for anyone who I have ever encountered since I fled Atvany years ago. If there is something that you plan... then you should already know, from my most recent antics, that I swear no allegiance to that warmongering madman. I haven't sworn allegiance to anyone, since I learned that it earns you nothing, and is akin to signing away your soul."
Shifting on the cot, still a bloody mess as she had yet to seize any opportunity to scrub the dregs of war from her body, Elespeth turned to face Alster head on. "You know you can trust me; you have my vow of silence. But Alster, if we are to survive this war intact with our bodies, let alone as parts of a compound unit... then secrets are far too dangerous to harbour. And you'll find no more secrets on my part."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I gave him the money for reasons beyond supplying us with armor," he said, creaking against the cot to hear more than one squeaking voice. "I bought his temporary defeat. His prestige depends on following through with my request, and the money is a warning that he better not step out of line--or he'll lose his supporters. As much as he abhors the Rigas family, he fears them more--because they--we--are his equals. Not his subjects. 'Your Highness' is but an honorific to us--but it holds little clout." He stared at his filthy fingernails, blackened with muck and blood--little crescent reminders of the battle that weighed him down with thoughts of sleep. To curl up atop his cot and forget this entire affair. Alas, every organ inside of him thrummed with reserve juices and refused to shut down. And he knew sleep was no friend. "To understand what we are trying to accomplish, you must learn a little of the power struggle between the Di Andalari and the Rigases."
I can't believe I'm telling her this. Am I so careless to blab family politics to the uninitiated? True, he and Elespeth suffered together and bonded together in a short period of time-expedited by the necessities of war. But the ease in which she acquired intelligence about him and his family worried him. He had himself to blame for his lack of reservations and questionable judgment calls. But he had gone too far. Invested too much. Practically handed her a lifetime's worth of trust and expected her to honor an unwritten pact. Knight or no knight, people were not inherently faithful. Was he so desperate for support that he would sell family secrets in exchange for catharsis?
I hope I'm making the right decision.
"Stella D'Mare, the capital of Andalari, was once a great city-state all its own--run by the Rigases," Alster began, an uncertain rattle in his delivery. "Andalari sat to our west, a newborn country with ambitions. They eyed our stretch of land--our pristine waters, our silver and gold mountains, sapphire streams...They wanted our riches. At first, they forged an alliance. We traded ores and gems for arable land, vineyards, and citrus groves. For sheep and goats. They protected us from invaders. Always quick to our rescue. Always helping--rebuilding, gifting, defending. Until we became indebted to them. Reliant. Dependent. And slowly--as if this were the plan all along--they absorbed Stella D'Mare into Andalari. Moved their capital and settled there. Changed our government. Politics. Unseated the Rigases. We stepped aside, out of a sense of loyalty. However, we never allowed them to forget: this is our land. They're just borrowing it. And one day--we'll take it back."
"So it has been this way for countless generations," Alster concluded. "But the Di Andalari have never been able to conquer us--nor us, them. We remain in thrall with each other--waiting for weaknesses...waiting for the other foot to drop. This war--it's just a facade. A distraction. It may not be ideal for you," he paused, trying to gauge her reaction beforehand, "but we wish for chaos. For anarchy and dissent and for Messino to lose grip on his tactics--should he have any at all. I know you fight with honor--but you'll find little honor here. We're just settling an age-old score--by any means necessary." He glanced over at the tent flap, watching the loose ends waggle in the breeze and freezing in place for fear of Rigas interference. "If you wish to leave--before this situation grows uglier--now is the most opportune time."
By the end of his historic retelling, he had crushed his hands together, fusing fingers with fingers and digging into the fresh tissue of his comet scar. Again, he searched through the shadows of their small enclosure, and listened for outside, and listened to his heart, which never ceased its unyielding thump.
"You're right. About secrets," he said, a dead calm skating over his voice, despite the turmoil enclosed within. "I've told you my mine. I've even told you that which is not rightfully mine to give. As a sign of good faith...what are yours? Why--may I ask--are you a fugitive?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She couldn't blame the Rigases for wanting it back. This coup was not to be an act of vengenace; it was a reclamation, as he had said, of what was rightfully theirs.
"I see no dishonour in your plight," she commented when it was her turn to speak. "You... your family has been diminished by Messino and his reign. Understand, Alster, that I do not fight battles of vengeance. But this is not about revenge; it is about correcting a wrong that has long since been overlooked. And you will not see me take off you, or any of this, just because it might get ugly. I do not abandon brothers in arms."
But he was right; it was only fair that, with his story laid bare, that she reciprocate. Lowering her voice, the ex-knight leaned in, for what she was about to tell him was just as sensitive and just as dangerous as his own game plan. "I was a sanctioned knight of Kingdom of Atvany, a privileged member of its Imperial Guard. I had been raised as such, for my family has served the kings and queens for generations. My predetermined path in life has never bothered me, because I desired it. And I felt at home among my brothers in arms--that feeling of truly belonging, and knowing that there were so many people you could trust, you couldn't even count them on all of your fingers. To fight alongside them... I was meant for it.
"Perhaps I would still be there, among them, today, had I not failed in my duties. There was only one person in this entire world who I wished would cease to draw breath... and I was assigned to guard that person." El's posture became unmistakably uncomfortable, then. Her shoulders tensed and she dug her fingernails into her arm, recalling a memory that would continue to haunt her. "He was nobility, but he was far from pure. He liked to have his way with women, and their own desires did not matter to him. The countless lives and marriages that he has ruined... I can't even count them. He had no honour, and did not deserve mine."
Exhaling, long and slow, Elespeth straightened her spine, finding herself unable to look at Alster as her lips spilled the guilt that weighed her like lead. "One day, it was my duty to escort him to another nation. But we were ambushed, and I... I could have saved his life. And I am not sure that I chose not to, but... I hesitated. He died." Finally looking up, she tried for a wry smile, and failed. "I had officially failed in my duty to protect. I was held accountable for his death out of negligence, I was found guilty, and I was officially sentenced to death. Not one of my brothers in arms stepped up in my defense... not even my own family."
Lifting her stiff shoulders in a shrug, the ex-knight raked a hand through her tousled hair. "It was flee or die. So at my first opportunity, I fled. I have since heard there is now a bounty on my head, should I be captured alive. But it has been so long since I've lingered anywhere near Atvany that I cannot say whether or not the bounty has gone up." Hold her hands palms up, as if to indicate she was empty of solutions and hope, Elespeth finally concluded. "So now, I find myself here. Far enough from Atvany that my family name, Tameris, is hardly recognizable. It's been a long time since I've been able to use it, but I still hesitate to provide my given name. You, my friend, happen to be the only one here who knows."
Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 1:53 am
In so doing, surrounding nations would sniff out their blood trails--and eat them while fresh and newborn.
The alternatives were few. Stella D'Mare could remain connected, and foster peaceful relations with Di Andalari. They could unseat the monarchy and replace them with a new elect. Or...they could take Andalari by force--and absorb it into Stella D'Mare. As revenge.
Alster foresaw the latter plan belonging to Adalfieri's grand scheme. For that reason, he withheld his suspicions from Elespeth and her outdated code of ideals. Her support, while unnecessary, did comfort him, and...he wanted it. But at what cost would this uneasy solace afford him, in the end?
Not another death. He'd make certain.
"At any rate," he stared at his hands, watching a bud of blood rise from his picked-apart scar, "I advise you to stand down. This is not your fight, and Andalari is no home to you. Your loyalty...it should be to yourself. Foremost. If you change your mind, and wish to flee, I'll," his face heated, "I'll miss you, but I'll help you escape. Because Rigases, they--we--are not much better than the Di Andalari. If anything...we're worse."
After his ominous warning, he listened to Elespeth relay the details that redirected her path, which ultimately led her to Andalari. His habitual scar-picking ceased as he engrossed himself in her words and found a great deal of empathy for her plight. In many ways, their disparate stories overlapped. A close-knit family, a Serpent unleashed, the ensuing backlash...the resentment from those you once trusted...
All for the sake of honor. Honor. It never once served him or protected him. Never did it invite him into its fold with warm arms that embraced and welcomed, that cared for his well-being and steered him away from the darkness. Before...
Now, all that he saw when he closed his eyes were those flickering slits lodged in a pool of acid. One look and he would dissolve.
Deserve. He deserved it. The dissension. The abandonment. The honor that forsook him...
Yet somehow it found him--too late--and expected to make amends through immense foolishness in human form. Elespeth...I may never hope to understand why you continue to stand by me.
With the intention to brighten the black-tar pits of deepening despair between them, Alster cracked a smile--in remembrance of a ridiculous appellation that, from an renewed perspective, he thought mildly amusing. "No--I don't blame you. The man was full of scales--a vile serpent. A Rigas insult, to be sure--they refer to any non-Rigas as a vile serpent. But this man--definitely writhing around in the chthonic reaches of hell. ...That's another Rigas favorite. But I digress."
"It's ridiculous. For them to sentence you to death due to 'negligence'...remind me never to return to Atvany. Nice country--but if they caught wind of my own crimes, their entire justice system would devolve into an angry lynching mob." He laughed away his own vileness--however much the truth still stung. For that, he had little choice but to laugh. "It really is no laughing matter...I apologize. I cannot fathom of their skewed sense of...well, honor. They tout it around like a badge that deserves earning, yet will strip it away just the same if you, as the bearer, no longer reflect their beliefs. What good is there, then, in the entire concept, when it's nothing more than a vacillating title? Personally...I see little of it in this world. Honor, that is. A tired old thing--admirable though you are for living it, and--" He clamped his mouth shut--but not before biting his tongue a second time. With an even hotter flush flaming his face, he shrank into himself--and hurried yet more apologies.
"Not my place to tout my own philosophical agenda. I'm sorry. I...I'm just..." he shied away from an explanation, fearing another nonsensical rant that would circle back to yet another round of sputtered apologies. "Tameris." He locked on her name and its long-standing associations with Atvany and knighthood and...why had she carted it around with her to Andalari?! Sloppy trails made for easier tracks. And she'd already crossed a powerful man...with knowledge of the nations. "Tameris," he said again, enunciating the name. "Why did you...Andalari is well-aware of the existence of Atvany. You may say...that we're old adversaries. That name...it's not safe here." He scanned her face with widening eyes. "Especially now."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But Alster faced a future of uncertainty, on cloaked in black magic and betrayal. He knew what he had to do, and he wanted no one else to become unnecessarily caught up in the whirlwind of his plans. He might have spat at the concept of honour, but there was more honour in his genuine concern than he gave himself credit for. Leave it to knight (well... technically an ex-knight) to notice.
"Alster. Even if I did not believe in what you and your family feel you must do to reclaim what is yours... I cannot just leave. Imagine how suspicious it would look; and gods only know, I've already drawn too much attention to myself." Elespeth shook her head, and pulled her loose hair over her shoulder to be replaited. There was something therapeutic about that mundane act. "It is more difficult to live a nomadic lifestyle by odd jobs and a concealed identity than I'd ever imagined--I was raised almost like a noble. Imagine the culture shock the first night I had only the moss beneath me as a cushion."
She shook her head with a grin at that awful memory, how cold and afraid she had been. Those days did not feel so far behind her. "I've toughened up a lot, since then, but there have been weeks I've sustained myself on little more than water. As I was moving through Andalari, and caught wind of this war... Well, I knew that if I could see it through and come out alive, I wouldn't have to worry about money for quite a while--provided that Messino meant to come good on his compensation. This was an opportunity that I really couldn't turn down."
The Atvanian fugitive lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "But that is neither here nor there anymore, and given what I know now... I wouldn't walk away, even if I were not guaranteed a penny. I might not be a knight anymore, Alster, but my sense of duty has not changed. The only difference is, now I am fighting for a cause--and, frankly, for people--who I feel I can believe in. And I am not talking about Messino." The corner of her mouth tugged into a sardonic grin. "Above and beyond your cause, I've heard some unsettling things through the grapevine of this encampment... allegedly, the dark mage, Lilica, is only here by virtue of the fact that should she refuse, she will be arrested. If helping you means liberating people like her from the unfair clutches of overzealous law, then I am happy to be of assistance.
She was staying; that much was no longer up for debate, no matter how many injuries she sustained, or how much Alster would urge her to do otherwise. But the Rigas caster did bring up a valid point with the distribution of her name. At that, Elespeth's half-grin diminished, the dimple in her cheek disappearing with it.
Justifying her desire to stay and finish this fight was one thing. Her name was quite another.
"When I joined this army, I attempted to register as Tam. For as long as I've been traveling, I have never used the same alias twice. But..." He fingers hovered near her shoulder, where she would typically draw her sword. The ghost of its presence was always there, although she'd left it back at her tent. "I got unlucky. Another sword-wielder happened to recognize the make of my blade; I think he himself was a blacksmith, but must have also been familiar with Atvanian nobility. Because he managed to put two and two together, an derived Tameris from Tam." Elespeth sighed, her face painted in an utterly helpless expression for perhaps the first time since setting foot on Andalarian soil. "It was in the presence of my commanding officer, and I was at a loss for excuses. But not all Tameris are sworn into knighthood in Atvany, particularly not the women; so I simply said I'd left Atvany so as not to remain a stubbornly unmarried burden on my family. Made no mention of being a knight, but... who knows. It may just be a matter of time before someone else calls me on it--in which case, that would be the only reason you would see me flee this encampment and nation. And should that happen, you'll have to forgive me by abandonment."
Scratching the back of her neck, El caught herself digging her fingernails into the prone flesh out of anxiety. She didn't want to think about the possibility of being caught and arrested; she didn't have the energy to expend to worry about it. "What about you Rigases, though? Are you alone in this, or are you counting on the chance of any allies of Stella D'Mare who were not in favour of its absorption into Andalari to come to your aid?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Concealed identity--odd jobs--culture shock--I can commiserate." He raised his head to the small vault in the tented ceiling, recalling his own nomadic lifestyle with a dash more nostalgia than disdain--but always lined with regret. He'd gained what he desired most from in life--escape--but with the loss of lives miring his entire misadventure with pounds of sacrificial blood and flesh. "For forty-odd years, we lived like vagabonds. Sleeping in midden piles by night and shoveling frozen muck by day-- herding sheep and milking cows and selling wares like hawkers on the street...character building exercises, my father called them. Also, punishment. We stayed with nobles--allies in varying nations, for a time, but we could never linger for long. Oh, right..." he followed the shadows from the apex of the tent, guiding him back to the ground where Elespeth awaited his return. And in case she appeared flummoxed by the obscene number he railed off to her, he added, as an appendix, "I'm ninety-seven."
Before he could further explain, he distracted himself on the subject of money. With a shift of his hand, he could draw from his enchanted pouch great stores of gold, savings of which he hadn't completely relinquished to Messino, and grant her what she wished. After all, what use was he as a Rigas if he could not his influence for an unselfish cause? Alas, he could not bribe her out of the war. As such, she might see charity as an insult, if other aspects of her knightly code flared as bright as her honor.
To hell with it.
"Messino may well short you..but should you need it," he tapped the pouch buckled to his belt, a flimsy, deflated thing, "I have a few coins in reserve. May it be some sort of reminder--though monetary--that Rigases...well...some of us are trying. But I can't say the same of Lilica's fate should she fall into Rigas hands." He chewed the inside of his lip, ruminating on his gums and the circumstances. "Between incarceration and possible execution, I believe the former is more merciful. Remember--Rigases will not stand for any resurgence of chthonic magic. Myself and...strangely, Chara, may understand, but not those in power. Not Adalfieri, or his council." He remembered the council: a number of goons, bobbing heads that mumbled in assent to his schemes, however hackneyed. A collective hive-brain that deferred to, in this case, their king.
With a dismissive shake of his head, he followed Elespeth onward to her talk of an unfortunate run-in with a blacksmith who knew too much of his craft. "Well, what's done is done. For now, avoid Messino. If he should seek you out, play dumb. Insist that your injury bled you out of common sense. Whatever will placate him--until we muster our offensive. Tadasun is already on our side, though we must pretend otherwise. They're age-old enemies and would fain watch the country burn. But common foot-soldiers know nothing of the insurrection and will fight us to the teeth. We've also steady alliances in Mollengard to the North and the Fallow Isles in the South."
"My father," he scratched behind his pointed ear, in need of some distraction to keep him as unruffled as possible, "was an ambassador for the Rigas family. He traveled around the North and East quadrants and forged good relations with like-minded nations. It's only recently I realize the reason: for this moment. Otherwise," he hastened along to less personal affairs, "we've the support of Old Town. There's a noticeable schism taking fold in Stella D'Mare. New Town is where Castello Di Andalari sits. It's an annexation of Stella D'Mare proper, and it's brimming with Andalari loyalists. Traditional families reside in Old Town; they live under the shadow of the Rigas estate. There's more of us than there are of them--and many practice magic. After all," he said, slapping his tensed-up knees as he leaned forward, "Old Town is not referred to as The Arcanum for nothing."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But she would not be the only one. Alster, Chara, Lilica... None of them could foresee the future with certainty, none of them were without their own unique complications. And now, knowing them as she did, the stubborn righteousness that spread through her veins as thick as lifeblood left her unable bear the thought of what might become of them, should she turn her back now. Many a person could walk away from the troubles of others far more easily than their own troubles; Elespeth Tameris was not one of those people.
For she would dream of it, in the aftermath. And they would be among the others who haunted her in the twilight; the people in Atvany who she had let down. Who would never respect her again.
The thought of respect was far out the window, however, when the caster began to relate his life to her own. His very eclectic, very eventful... very long life.
"What?" The Atvanian fugitive's eyes widened and she leaned forward, wincing as she accidentally put the weight of her palm on her injured leg. "Bloody hell, you're... but you're... I mean, you look... Are you... I mean, you're a Rigas, but you are human, right? Right?" Beyond the absurdity, El found herself feeling incredibly dwarfed by the information he had just shared. Ninety-seven?! Yet with the face of a youth?
Drawing a deep breath into her lungs, the ex-knight straightened her spine and cleared her throat. "Were my grandfather still alive, you'd be older than him," she quipped, her mouth stretching into a hopeless grin. "I apologize, just... I never would have thought. And I'll admit, in taking that in, I..." El's words trailed off in a sudden wave of fatigue. She pinched the bridge of her nose and squinted her eyes shut, waiting as it passed. "This conversation isn't over--rather, we're not done talking. Or planning. I'm in this with you, Alster Rigas, whether or not it is my battle to fight, and whether or not you like it. But right now... I don't think I've ever needed to rest so badly."
Elespeth as not alone in that need. Chara couldn't have helped her back to her tent fast enough. As soon as she reached her cot, the dark mage all but collapsed into its stiff canvas. She looked as if struck by influenza, pale with a cold sheen of sweat coating her forehead, tendrils of black air sticking to her cheek. If Messino wanted her back on her feet by morning, then he'd be faced with a very harsh reality.
"He didn't agree. Not at first," she explained to the blonde Rigas, fixing her tired gaze on Chara's face--referring, of course, to Alster and her offer to help him control the chthonic before it learned to control him. "But I think... after today, I do believe I've convinced him. And I am still willing to help, even though... He mentioned something to me. That you don't hold as much sway over Messino as you claimed. Was he... is that accurate?"
Had she been in any other condition aside from positively spent, Lilica might have been angry. Hurt. Disappointed in herself that she had invested so much trust in the blonde Rigas brat. But there was no room for emotion when she could hardly focus on her own thoughts. "If I stay... If Messino uses me to his advantage, then this... it will only get worse." By this, she meant her current state, gesturing with her palms up with a helpless sigh. "It isn't that I'm afraid of death. I've already lived an entire lifetime, to tell you the truth... it wasn't real, none of it. But it was my reality, until I woke up from that dream... Anyway, dying in this ridiculous war is not the worst that can happen. What Messino doesn't understand is that he is forcing me to let my magic go unleashed to serve his purposes. And if it continues, it will consume everything--and everyone, not just the Tadasuni alone. And the same will happen to Alster, if he doesn't learn what it means to tether chthonic magic to prevent this sort of disaster. I do not want to be the undoing of my own comrades. I am sure Alster would feel the same."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I'm human. Well...maybe," he rubbed a finger under his chin with uncertainty. "We aren't sure of Rigel's heritage. Elf, demigod, lesser god--Whatever the case, we believe he parsed out his age to his progeny--his future family legacy. In doing so, he surrendered his immortal life so that we may all enjoy an elongated lifespan. He conceived of a complicated spell-form that allows us to live up to four-hundred years. This was done not only to grant us more time for magical study but to preserve our family name for much longer--so that we may always guard the Serpent seal. And our legacy has survived--for three thousand years. So," he shrugged, trying now to allay her sudden-onset stress (in lieu of continuing his empathetic pleasure in it), "I may be ninety-seven in number, but I'm the equivalent of twenty-four. But I'll grant you the time to recuperate. My apologies for dropping all this dirt onto your lap." He rose from the cot and helped her to stand, guiding her to the mouth of the tent. "Rest now. We'll talk more about this when we're both struggling not to keel over. Besides," he frowned as he touched the tender splotch of torn flesh from his back, "I should probably get this patched up."
In the meantime, Chara ushered Lilica to her quarters with a sort of burnished pride when her peers in passing gazed over at them and whispered. If she raised her head high enough and paraded herself with deadly grace, they may cease their babble and leave them to walk in silence.
Oh, but that never worked. She turned down her head and glared little lightning bolt sparks in their direction.
The remainder of their walk was met by welcome silence.
Inside Lilica's tent, she watched the dark mage hobble to her cot while she returned to that ratty old chair--but not before dragging it closer to her cot-side. I'm not a nurse, she berated herself as Lilica's breathing rattled like a death-adder--a white serpent with a cold, dry, scaly appearance. Stuck in torpor for the winter. Not a nurse, oh no. Not when she looks so reptilian.
"Of course he would not hasten to agree," she retorted with a snort, once Lilica rummaged the strength to speak. "He is a Rigas. We are conditioned at birth to reject Serpent magic. I am forever left nodding in agreement--especially after today." She thought of the violet plumes that slurped away both armies, and any warmth still left in her bones sloughed away to the floor. "That was," she fished for words, "unseemly. Perverse." With defeat, she sighed, "terrifying." Even more terrifying--that after such a display, Alster wanted to tackle the responsibility of his chthonic magic. It could run away with him like a wildfire. Lessen the deeds of the Serpent uprising. Worse yet... Chara wanted some of that power for herself.
A celestial version, of course. She wasn't that far gone!
"He would say that," Chara blathered on to a less polarizing topic. "He probably wanted you out of his hair. The truth is that I cannot set you free--but Adalfieri will. He is our family head. I only need to send him a message. We as Rigases do not fancy the Di Andalari--and we can utter such treasonous thoughts without causing trouble. It is a stance that we have shared with each other for many generations--as equals. Therefore," she lowered her voice, "to cause a stir, Adalfieri may very well release you from this war."
Only Adalfieri saw the full scope of his plan, but he shared what he wished of her involvement. Take from Messino his wildcards. Unseat his powerful toys. Throw his favors off balance--however you see fit.
She saw fit to use Lilica against Messino.
"An entire lifetime--in a dream?" she said aloud, not quite understanding if Lilica spoke in a figurative or a literal sense. "I myself am ninety-four, but I do not believe that is what you mean." She'd heard stories, of magic enfolding its user into a stasis that deferred aging for a certain number of years. Itself, the spell was difficult to master, and activation could trigger an early death--or a coma from which the user may never awaken. Often, the pros never outweighed the cons. If Lilica managed such a feat, and survived the incurrence....Chara paled. Exactly how much power did Lilica harness? And to what extent could it rage out of control?
"While I cannot predict the trajectory of your magic--and we shall undergo whatever preventative measures we can to avoid such a tragedy--I can at least speak for Alster when I say this: his greatest asset is in his control. Even when," she faltered," even when he awakened the Serpent, he did so through intense study and practice. With this combination--perhaps the two of you can learn from each other."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
To whom would she have recounted the tale, exactly? The last flicker of companionship that she remembered was from a life that had never been real. She was more an outcast in her own skin than what might have been imaginable.
Placing her palm flat against the cot, the dark mage pushed herself into an upright position, though not with expended effort; her arms shook under her own weight. "Do you know what it means to be born into hate? I'm assuming not, as you have family--alive and well." She tucked her dark tresses behind her ears as her memory toyed with a time that she wished she could forget. "When I was young, my own parents died at my hands. I had no siblings, and I cared for no one. In a way, it was almost easier to live such a life... no concern for anyone but yourself, and your continually beating heart. Until you come to realize that such a way of life is hardly living at all. All of the people I'd hurt..."
She trailed off a moment, wondering if it was even worth divulging. Ultimately, she'd already said too much to go back on. "To make a long story very short... somewhere along the line, everything violent thing I'd left behind me became too difficult to bear. I had no family, I didn't trust myself around anyone, and it came to the point where I couldn't live with myself. So I decided to get creative and toy with the concept of curses." Her mouth drew into an ironic smile. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to curse yourself? No, probably not, as you'd have to be adept in dark magic to have that familiarity. But I can tell you, it is not easy. Who'd have thought that I could manage to mess up an attempt on my own life?
"Because I wanted death, you understand--not pain, and the coward that I was, I couldn't take a knife to my skin. I thought a curse would be easier, more painless." Lilica's shoulders shook in a chuckle at her own failure. "It was a curse called reve du mort--death dream. A sleep that is supposed to steal the victim's life with every second that they fall deeper into unconsciousness. I fell asleep, all right... for eighty years, in a stasis, without aging. To this day I am not sure what went wrong, and I don't care to investigate it, but for better or for worse, it changed me. Because in that sleep, I was... it was almost as if i was awarded the chance at different life."
Dark eyes flicked to Chara. Whether or not she cared for an explanation this long was irrelevant; getting this off her chest really did feel like a weight lifted. "Do you think I was lying when I told you I am a herbalist? The entire reason I chose that path is because, eighty years later, when I opened my eyes again, I already knew it all. In my dream, I was still me, but... not me at all. There was no magic, no curses. I had a family, friends, and even the capacity to fall in love; gods help me, I even had children, and grandchildren, of all the absurdities. I'd chosen the life of a herbalist, and it was so nondescript that I daresay it verged on plain... No stupid wars to chthonic magic with which to contend. I lived it, was satisfied with it, grew old in it... until that version of me died, of old age and natural causes. And then I woke up to the nightmare that was my reality."
Those first few days were days she would never forget: the confusion and anxiety, the shock of how her world had changed in eighty years, and the realization that she was still burdened with her own magic. There was no worse feeling in the world that suddenly seeing everything you thought you'd invested in unravel, and knowing everyone you'd ever cared about wasn't real. "All I could do was strive to replicate what I thought I'd always had; I went into herbalism, tried to live that life that wasn't real... But anyone born with magic knows that there is no living without it. The worst part it all is that, three years later, I still find myself myself looking for the people of that world that didn't exist. It's become too much of a habit to break."
Shifting so that her legs draped over the cot, Lilica leaned her elbows on her knees. "If Alster doesn't learn how to anchor his chthonic magic to his own will, it will either destroy him, or everyone he loves--or both, and not necessarily in that order. I know the theory behind how it's done... but it is too late for someone like me to anchor it safely, even if it were possible." A hundred and ten years of living with it coiling beneath her skin, after years of its constant practice and misuse... There was no hope for it in the dark mage. But Alster was a different story. "He has what I don't: a link to the celestial, which gives me hope, if he can learn to keep it balanced. And I will come through on helping him, if you can promise me a way out of this war. Before I end up reliving old traumas. But, Chara Rigas..."
The lids of Lilica's hooded eyes dropped ever so slightly, as her hands curled into small fists. "If I find out that your part of the bargain was all an insidious lie, then I will happily fall at the hands of my own magic, eternally. And I will take you with me in doing it."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But what transformed her frown to one of near-hostility was Lilica's dismissal of her own family complications. While not as extreme as killing off her own parents, she hadn't an unblemished lifestyle--and not all her family were "alive and well."
"Did you know that the name Chara translates to 'joy'? I assure you, the name was an ironic choice." Her voice sharpened into ice shards. "Do not speak to me about hate. And do not belittle me again." With an exaggerated flourish, she spun her hands into a continuing gesture, then crossed them with her arms. She was a listener, yet far from a passive one. On the contrary, every word she uttered reinvited Chara into the annals of her own childhood: caring for little, a helpless runt, a forgotten strand of the Rigas legacy--an unwanted stain. A bad year.
Bad years never achieved the status Chara now enjoyed.
That thought had placated her. As for the murder of Lilica's parents...Eerie. Almost evil. Vile. Like a Serpent. And Alster. His parents, their deaths---evil and vile and serpentine...
The similarities. Creepy and uncanny. A reflexive shiver enfolded her arms closer to her body. Some details of Alster's story hadn't made exact sense. How could the Serpent kill his parents unless through projection of Its consciousness? But into whom? Did chthonic magic act like a beacon to other chthonic magic-users?
If so...
Perhaps Alster was not so innocent as his claim.
"What is it with chthonic magic and the ease in which parricide occurs?!" she blurted without thinking, but dipped her head and allowed Lilica's detailed travesty of a life take the floor, uninterrupted.
Except for one point.
"Celestial magic, if you knew anything about it as you so obviously do not," she said, adopting Lilica's belittling words, "does have its fair share of curses. Ever wish to know what it's like to sit trapped in the vastness of space, surrounded by nothing and everything all at once? Feel yourself pressurize and expand until you're little more than dust and star matter? We simply call it the Infinity Curse. No happy dreams to occupy the mind. Only you. Forever." Of course, she didn't know how to enact the Infinity Curse, much less on herself...but she had the feeling that Alster knew how to bring about that sort of oblivion. On both ends.
Chara absorbed the rest of Lilica's story, and while she tried for impartiality and apathy (for she hadn't wished to bond with the woman or hear of her plight so!) she found herself feeling a stab of sympathy for the dark mage, however fleeting. She couldn't even fathom awakening from a lifetime only to discover another lifetime unfinished.
"Your dream-world--it was real, Lilica. Because it was real to you." Why am I saying this to her? "There is an interesting theory we Rigas believe. Everything in life that happens to us, be it on a conscious or a subconscious level, is, coming from a dimensional viewpoint, valid. Your peers, your romances, your children, your profession, and--importantly--your happiness--that is not false, for the emotions you felt have traveled with you to this life. Faces, people, and experiences repeat. However, they do not repeat in the exact same pattern. And you are doomed to fail if you force that pattern to replicate. It is admirable to follow a dream--but do not live the dream. Be happy that it happened. It did not cut itself short. It ran its course, naturally. But it is over. And you are here now." She smiled, grim and tight and stark. Little assurance--but they didn't exactly frolic in a field of flowers under an azure sky. She would not trivialize war. But the reality, and Lilica's new reality, resided in a filthy war-camp nestled between the border of Andalari and Tadasun. The disputed lands. Had Chara been asleep, she doubted that wakefulness would bring her any sense of joy at all.
Chara uncrossed her legs when mention of Alster floated back into the conversation. Barring her small outburst from earlier, she nodded with a spike of enthusiasm. "He will learn. Though he will not admit it, he is a prodigy. And if he can teach a lost cause to hone her abilities," she pointed to her chest, "he may help you yet. For, you need help from those who are willing to offer it. Otherwise...it may be too late for you. Like it was for my mother. Like it might have been for me."
She was about to elaborate, about to open up to her own experiences in her shorter life...
But Lilica had stoppered it. With a threat.
Needling from the inside and the outside, Chara stood with such force that the chair knocked itself backwards. "You dare threaten me?! Do you understand who you threaten? By the time you make good on that promise, the Rigases will have ground you into dust. You will die alone--without me as your leverage--and friendless. And hated. And before you dream yourself another life, consider yourself Infinity cursed!"
Without further warning, she proceeded to stomp out of the tent.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She hadn't registered them at first, but as the haughty blonde mage stood to leave, the words suddenly resonated painfully in Lilica's chest, like a sob that wished to tear free of her lungs. Chara might not have had any idea of the ache that accompanied recounting the story and memories of her life that had never been. Then again, neither had the dark mage, as it was the first time she had ever recounted the tale.
Regardless, she knew with painful certainty that it was easily the first time she had never been on the receiving end of such a validating comment. Chara had every reason and opening to ridicule her on her fanciful dream life. Instead, what she'd received was dangerously akin to understanding... and to a means for hope, even when everything amid this ridiculous war coloured her already dark world in further shades of night.
Understanding and compassion: perhaps the first she had ever received in the very fabric of this reality. And she had spited it with her own selfish insecurities in the form of a threat...
The celestial mage was already a few paces beyond the tent before Lilica reacted. She wasn't even sure as to what had spurred that reaction--a reflex, perhaps, something her body understood that her mind had yet to grasp. As soon as she stood, she fell to her knees, practically feeling the bruises form under her skin as she grabbed one of the tent poles to haul herself back to her feet. How she thought to pursue Chara in this ridiculously weakened state was beyond her current considerations, so on her weakened legs, she hurried as quickly as she could to the front of the tent. The late afternoon sun glinted off of Chara's stark blonde hair like a beacon, several yards away, and before she could think twice, the dark mage heard herself shouting.
"Chara! Wait... wait. Please."
But the hardheaded celestial mage didn't stop. Daring her feet to take her further, Lilica rushed to catch up with Chara's long, measured and steadfast strides, managing to grab a fistful of the mage's sleeve when she was close enough. "Please. Wait. I... I shouldn't have..." What was she even trying to say? What did she want to say? Something trite as an apology? Maybe a justification for her behaviour?
She and the Rigas mage might have had more in common in terms of pride and obstinacy. Perhaps they were equally guilty of it in comparable measurements; but right now, it wasn't Lilica who was holding the cards. She had a hand full of nothing, and this stubborn blonde was likely her only means of ever having a grasp on anything ever again.
"I don't care if I die friendless and hated. I am both of those things already, and they are far from the bane of my existence..." Her trembling fingers only released their vice grip when she was sure the celestial mage wouldn't flee or turn her away. "I'm not asking your forgiveness. Gods only know I've never deserved forgiveness, or help, or anything of the sort, and that fact keeps me wary. It keeps me doubting the intentions of others, and when Alster said that you were gloating beyond your actual ability to help me... I was apt to believe him. Deceit is so much easier to believe in than good will or promises. But if I'm wrong... and only if I am wrong, do I offer my apology."
Though she had long since reserved herself to a lost cause, Chara Rigas did not strike her as someone who toyed with fanciful possibilities. And if there was just as great a chance that Alster could help her, in return for her own aid... This was not a chance that she could afford to botch. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Lilica D'Or felt something akin to hope.
"I'll no further belittle or ridicule you if you will grant me the same respect," she said at last. "I'll help your dark Rigas kin to the best of my ability, as promised. If there's... if there is even a modicum of possibility that I might..." Pausing to exhale slowly, Lilica rerouted her words. "I went into this war thinking that I would not see the end of it alive. If that path can not only be avoided, for the better of all of us... then I guarantee you my cooperation." The corner of her pert mouth turned upward in a ghost of a grin. "If... I don't have to struggle to live my dream to make it real... I'd like to explore other paths."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Those words...they had found her before. Over forty years ago. Why had she walked away from them? A literal cry for help that rang through the Rigas halls rang now through the war camp. She had ignored the first cry, reeling still from the hurt he'd thrown at her with reckless disregard. That cry, unanswered, turned in on itself. Stewed in loneliness and abandonment--and fed on hate.
That innocent, desperate voice had awakened the Serpent.
All the while, she lived her years denying her role. Her knowledge.
She could have stopped him. She could have helped him. But pride angled her head to the sky and the stars and assured her that nothing on the ground was worth touching. Even Alster Rigas--too weak to handle his own affairs.
By then, Lilica secured a grip on her arm, sputtering explanations that broke off into fragments, and died on her lips. Keep going, she urged herself. What are you waiting for? She is not worth your time. Her elbow lifted, preparing a shove-away from the parasitic attachment that crawled all over her arm. Break free now. Escape with dignity. We must not sway from our decisions lest unsavory sorts detect weakness and take advantage. Waver now, and you'll waver forever.
No. She lowered her elbow. I will not walk away! I will never again do that to another person! She half-turned to Lilica, watching fresh bruises float to the surface of her skin like blood in the water. If that makes me a fool, then so be it. But I can never forget where I started in life--and all the backs I rode to get where I am now.
Her feet anchored to the well-trodden loam of the earth. The mud squelched beneath her boots, sinking her into the muck as she faced Lilica head-on. Captive by the earth and by Lilica, she'd imprisoned herself to their collective will. And listened.
"Alster speaks from a place of truth--perhaps more than he realizes." She sighed and lifted her newly-liberated arm to brush her hand against her crooked fringe. A pointless activity: her hair had gone limp and frizzy from the battle. Even so, she welcomed the mundane distraction. "A long time ago--we were both but children--Alster sought me in the hallway. We had not spoken to each other in quite some time. I thought he had turned his back on me; in reality, our paths diverged. However, I was livid with him. How dare he show up now, beseeching my help!?" She shook her head, the blonde strands she'd affixed bouncing back into disarray.
"As I've told you, he is a prodigy. As a child, many of the family looked to enhance his abilities, including his mother. They pushed him too far. Exploited his power. And him. In their bid to secure his highest potential, they robbed him of his potential. His mother squared the blame on him. He didn't 'want' to improve, she said. When he came to me, he wanted a friend. Someone to listen. He was almost hysterical. He told me he was losing his grip on reality. The pressure--he felt himself unraveling. ...I walked away. Not my problem. We Rigases do not indulge weakness. So...I left him." Leaning forward, she whispered in Lilica's ear, "The Serpent took him. I didn't speak with him for another forty-five years."
Clearing her throat, more as a palate cleanser than as a need to reenergize her voice, she returned to the subject at hand. "I may not have the ability to help, as he has stated. I could not help him when it mattered most. However," she raised her head and found Lilica's eyes, "I want to help. I have influence and I will use it. That is my new promise to you, Lilica." She proffered a hand to shake, but lowered it mid-rise at viewing the handprint-bruise on her wrist. In place, she drew the Rigas sigil in the air with a spark of etheria--a physical manifestation of said promise.
"I do not plan to die in this war. It is a means to the end--not the end. You will not die, and Alster will not die. You will live to see another dream. Whether that dream is a a nightmare or not is yet to be determined. However," the sigil disappeared into a flutter of cinders like little pinpricks of stars, "I will no longer walk away. And, if at all possible," a smile crossed her face, a flicker of life and hearth-light, "I will pull us towards a better future."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She listened, just like Chara had listened to her--and it made sense. Chara, for the first time since laying eyes upon the haughty, blonde mage, her with her perpetual yet bemusedly attractive frown and sharp eyes, made sense to her. Because they were more alike than perhaps either of them cared to admit.
"You were children." It was neither an accusation nor an excuse, but rather, a statement. And spoken so softly that it was almost a whisper. "We were all children, once. And imagine if we all held against our self worth, what we have done wrong in childhood, where it is easier to walk away and run away than to want to help... You are beyond that. The past is stuck as it is, but it does not mean that you have to be. It does not define what you are, nearly a hundred years later."
Advice that she wished she could apply to herself, but there was a difference between guilt and remorse. With remorse, there was the hope--and space--for redemption. Guilt was just a heavy, endurable burden, and once it settled upon your shoulders, pushing it off was a feat that many simply couldn't perform.
Lilica had death and blood on her hands, and that was difficult to wash clean. What Chara experienced was more indirect... But she was not about to trivialize something that had been holding the blonde woman's heart hostage for so many years.
The breeze picked up the dark mage's ebony tresses, which she brushed from her face with a swipe of her hand, not once looking away from the solemn promise on Chara's face and on her lips. "I think we both have a lot of tracks we'd like to cover. Many that are worth regretting... and forgetting." If forgetting was possible. Although even with magical intervention, some scars never faded. "Here is my promise to you. That in this better future, when this war and Messino are less than even a memory, so to will be what plagues us now. You'll have Alster's forgiveness--in fact, I would be surprised if you don't already have it. And I'll..."
You'll what? What could possibly lie ahead for a cold blooded murderer and a coward? The only answer was, of course, hope. And a chance at living another lifetime that would not leave her with any further regrets. "Maybe," she finished, after a thoughtful pause, "maybe, I'll forgive myself."
---
Only an extensive amount of herbal remedies to treat pain and disruptive wakefulness allowed Elespeth to sleep that night, exhausted though she was. Following the battle, her diatribe in Messino's tent, and then some shocking revelations about her compound-unit partner, her mind was wide awake, and so were her nerves. It didn't help that every time she moved, she could feel the tug of her stitches--which, she found out on revisiting the medical tent the next day, would keep her off her feet for the next handful of days, for the very least.
When at last she had both the energy and the mobility to train with Alster again, some days later, the sutures had yet to be removed, and the wound had yet to fully heal (without a literal 'magic touch', that could take a weeks, she'd been warned), but she was no use to anyone, bedridden. So with a promise to the medics to keep her footwork light, she went in search of the wayward Rigas mage to discuss the future; or, at least, potential formation and plans for the next time Tadasun attacked.
And perhaps, beyond that, the future of Andalari and Stella D'Mare.
"Alster!" The ex-knight called across the encampment, noticing the mage's pointed ears from yards away. When he turned her way, she picked up her stride, feeling the pull and sting of the healing wound, but not enough to deter her. "Sorry I've been out of commission for almost half a week. That gash ran deeper than they thought, so I was ordered to rest with minimal movement." By the exuberance she practically exuded, just being out in the open air and on her feet again, there was no doubt that remaining stationary for so long had begun to drive her stir-crazy. "I thought maybe we could do some training--keep it light, or I'll get yelled an earful from the medics, but we could rework our strategy. Last time, we... well, I strayed from the original plan... and I apologize if I let you down."
Glancing left and right, noting that no one paid the swordswoman or the mage any heed, Elespeth lowered her voice to add, "And... I wondered if you, Chara and the other Rigases have had any further discussion about, well... the future beyond this war. If there is anything that I can do to help--I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I'd like to be of assistance to you and yours in this cause." Her mouth quirked into a wry smile that unsettled her otherwise placid features. "If I bleed again, I don't want it to be for Messino. He is not the cause that I care to whom I care to dedicate myself and my skills."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And that--never completing her rigid goals--drove her crazy. No amount of helping Alster in the present could deflect the damage from the past.
Redirection, however, served its purposes. Just as Lilica wished for forgiveness, Chara wished for absolution. She too required a new dream--or she would be doomed to look over her shoulder for experiences that meant little to the current reality.
She would move forward--to the future. Prepared or not, she hadn't a command over life or its faulty flow of time. It would proceed with or without her cooperation.
"I will never forget. Forgetting will weaken my resolve," she said, and her body swayed little to the strange chill that blew between them. "'Maybe' is no promise, either. A promise must exude confidence, or it is a promise that will fall and falter at the first sign of failure. Even if you do not believe--especially if you do not believe--you will nix out 'maybe,' and say this to me--'I willforgive myself."
Alster did not forgive himself. Should he chronicle all his faults that might deserve forgiveness, he would still lose track of the count, and later surrender to the belief that it was not worth the effort to clean his conscience. Nothing rang more unproductive than laying awake at night and lamenting over his general awfulness as a person. He hadn't many options, at this rate; he was too exhausted to move, yet too awake to sleep--and too afraid of the string of perpetual nightmares that greeted him at the border between the two worlds. Sometimes, that border blurred, and the nightmares would find him through open eyes.
Counting shadows on the transient walls, intermixing with darkness and the fires from camp, granted him a welcome distraction from the constant torrent of raindrops that sizzled the ground in his mind, up from a cloud that resembled a face, and it dripped and melted and pitter-patter pitter-pattered like a roving pack of wolves painting puddles with the blood of their victims...
Alster discovered the strength to scramble out of the cot. His back wound, freshly cleaned and stitched, pulsated like a star in the sky, and with it the white-hot intensity to burn and melt his flesh in agonizing seconds.
He pushed aside the tent flaps and stalked into the night. En route to nowhere, he paused by Chara's tent...contemplating. Should I--?
With a shake of his head, he wandered on. Without intending to, he gazed to the sky.
Too many clouds curtained his view. A severance to the celestial done without leaving sloppy trails. Hope for the stars was far crueler.
On his way back to the tent, he saw one: Debine, the beak of Kormoranos, spearing through the clouds.
"Why that one!?" He said aloud to fate, or to whatever bump in the night fancied a loner's monologue.
Debine was his mother.
By some miracle of human endurance, Alster stood without keeling over from sleep starvation. While always a poor sleeper, the last few days taxed him of his ability to do much else beyond eating and breathing. With Elespeth and Lilica on bedrest and Chara preoccupied with avoiding him (for some reason), Alster whiled away the days by watching the compound unit train. They danced and hobbled in a collective mass of uncoordinated motions. Oh, wouldn't Messino be elated. As pairings, harmony persisted. As a unit, they lumbered along like competitors in a three-legged race.
On occasion he joined the fray, offering to partner with a fellow warrior or spar with a mage, but they skittered from him like mice from the jaws of a...
...Well, a Serpent.
"Your secret is well-kept among our ranks, Rigas," said the earth mage to him, the apparent spokesman and new appointed leader of the unit. "So why do you insist on hovering about this unit? Dark mages work alone. You'll fry us all, otherwise!"
"This is where I am assigned. I belong here." Alster checked his tongue. "Belong" was too strong of a word.
"Messino will discover what you have, or someone'll rat on you," the earth mage spat before he walked away. "Then you won't have to worry any longer about where you 'belong.'"
He was right, of course.
Damn earth mages.
As he observed the compound unit from afar, a great bellow of his name jerked him to the source with an almost-yelp. When he spotted Elespeth from the distance, he relaxed--and berated himself for his unnecessary jumpiness.
"You are looking better. I mean, your leg looks better. Not that I can tell, since you have it covered, but your gait is more balanced and so I assume you are healing. Well--eventually, we all must heal. In one way or another. I only wish I had my celestial magic. Now, celestial magic is not known for its healing prowess, and Chara never picked up on the art, but I was able to stitch together flesh wounds with some degree of competence and...oh, I know you've seen me heal my own gashes, but that particular spell only extends to myself and...welcome back," he finished with the requisite heating of his face and scuffing of his feet. Only several days had elapsed, and already he lost the ability to chat with his battle partner!? After detailing the complexities of revolution and magic theory without fault, he was left stymied by an orthodox greeting after a casual reunion.
He waited a few beats before attempting to speak again. "Keep it light--I'm in agreement. Sleep is a difficult commodity for me, nowadays," he said with a shrug and a dismissive smile. "No apologies are required, by the way. In a way, your wanderings granted me a healthy connection to the chthonic. Well--I suppose. I'm working on the...aesthetic." In other words, I don't wish to melt faces.
"For now, we're trying to blend. Nothing drastic. Not yet." He spoke in vague fragments in case any birds happened to pick up on their treasonous liaisons. "Just...well--do not pick any more fights with Messino. That's a good start. If you bleed again, and must alleviate your rage, I'll shoulder that abuse. Better me than him." At that, he cracked a small grin. "I'm used to Chara stringing insults at me. At your worst, you can't possibly compare to her...ah...'candor.'
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She hadn't forgotten the wound on his back, one that he had likely acquired during her moment of distraction during their encounter with the Tadasuni. Of course, she should have known that he wouldn't accept her apology and sooner than he would accept her guilt, but one thing was for sure: the ex-knight had learned a hard lesson from her folly, and would not be abandoning her partner in the throes of war again. Chara and the other casters could look out for their own, and as soon as Messino came through on providing them with armor to protect them from physical offense, the majority of her worry would be assuaged. All that was left would be to perfect the formation and tactics of the compound unit which she comprised.
"Well, I'm glad you think that there can be a healthy connection to the chthonic," she said a moment later, tucking stray tresses of hair behind her ears. She'd woven it in such a hurried brain that morning, eager to be on her feet again, that the tresses were already coming loose and hanging to the length of her collar bone. "Perhaps even healthier when you've spoken with Lilica... you still plan to seek her advice, yes? That is, if she's able... Word around the encampment speaks of her having been on bed rest, but I'm not privy to the details."
Some asserted she had been wounded in battle; others claimed that she had run, and was simply faking it to be kept out of battle. But nobody could confirm, as the dark mage chose neither to see nor speak to anyone.
As Alster proceeded to fill her in as to where he and the Rigases currently stood, she motioned for them to start moving, perhaps more out of ear shot of their comrades--if they could call them their comrades. It was difficult to determine, now that she knew the Rigases had actually allied themselves closer to the Tadasuni, for their mutual desire to overthrow Messino and to re-elevate Stella D'Mare. It did make her wonder, though... At what expense would this all come? Or, more importantly, whose expense? Were they more concerned for the people in this encampment, or for the Tadasuni who they were expected to fell, and without hesitation?
Ultimately, it was a question better left for when they were not out in the open.
"I... couldn't agree with you more, at least in part. With regards to Messino." Elespeth bit down on her lower lip as they made their way towards the training grounds, which didn't appear to be unbearably occupied. Not with a good quarter of the infantry, at the very least, recovering from the assault carried forth by the Tadasuni. "I don't know what came over me. It isn't the first battle I've fought, but it was... something about that man and the ease at which he brushes off strategy, substituting it for pure chaos. And his lack of regard for the lives of the very people fighting for him, I... I lost my temper. And I promise that it won't happen again, if for no other reason than the fact I don't want you to have to shoulder the abuse."
As to Chara, it wasn't often she saw the two Rigas mages interact. The blonde woman was certainly haughty, that much was obvious, but it hadn't been lost on the Atvanian fugitive that Chara cared for Alster. In her own, unique way, perhaps, but the ghost of affection was there, all the same. "We are hardest on those who have our hearts; for we never know if it is in the right hands." Elespeth grinned and gently nudged Alster's shoulder with her own. "That is what my mother used to tell me as a child, to justify the tones she'd take with my father, who was the gentlest man you could know. I don't know how much of her motto rings true... I've never entrusted my heart to anyone. But it's a possibility; if she didn't care, perhaps she would never insult you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Well, I expedited the healing process a tad." He pinched his forefinger and thumb together, for emphasis. "All but gone. Otherwise, I'm standing. I'm functioning--somewhat." He quirked a smile. "That's all I can ask." He chose not to detail his late-night romps around camp, or some of the meditation exercises he practiced--in opening his mind to the dead, and the essence of death, the energy that kicked around the expansive fields like dust with nowhere to go. And in that expanse, that dust-storm, there was one cloud he wanted to reach. But it was far. Too far. And possibly lost.
"Well, I don't see why chthonic magic can't provide benefits to its user," he said, shaking his mind free of weighty distractions. "Whatever they are, I intend to research and utilize the possibilities. First, to weed out the undesirable." He spoke of chthonic magic like a puzzle with an easy solution. Thinking that way helped him to conceive of a solution in lieu of cataloging all that could--and would--blow up in his face. And fearing the worst. "I still plan on consulting with Lilica once she recovers. She is on bedrest." He chose to omit the details of her specific ailments: that everything she touched turned her into a bruise. For his own sake, as well, he wished to hone in on more practical endeavors, and it was impractical to worry about a chthonic-casting outcome that he'd yet to encounter on his own. Best to approach Lilica with realistic expectations. Every magic was, inherently, a discipline, and he would approach it as such.
As they started moving, Alster regarded the dwindling perspective of the compound unit fighters and wondered of their concerns about him. Could he maintain his participation, fighting alongside Elespeth, and harness chthonic magic? Or would he end up standing on high vistas, purpling into a blister, while victims melted all around him?
Not if he could influence his outcome.
"Commanders like Messino plan to win at all costs, damning the casualties," Alster said. They meandered around the field, tamping down the few remaining bushels of burnt-yellow grass that slanted upright, then withered into surrender and joined their fallen comrades on the ground. "The best defiance against such a commander is to voice your dissent--as you have--and then survive. Every. Single. Battle. It will drive him mad. He can't raise a hand to harm you, because you are winning his cause. Yet, he will despise you all the same. It is a certain power you are able to exercise over him. It will not spare lives, no, but as I've told you, this is not the kind of cause where one fights to spare lives. ...This cause is powered by the loss of lives."
The words died on his lips, however, when Elespeth unabashedly discussed matters of the heart. He froze in place, choking on the ghosts of thought that had yet to materialize into communication. He found himself tugging on his tunic to avoid looking over at Elespeth--or her facial expression.
"Oh, well--most mothers have some adage or proverb stashed away for convenience sake. My mother's favorite phrase was Those in disgrace are undeserving of love.. ...I suppose that explained her stance on most things." He shrugged, then rubbed one shoulder self-consciously. "Chara feels beholden to me for many reasons. She might mistake paying it forward to...well, something deeper. Besides," he unfroze his legs and attempted to walk, "I think she is avoiding me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Yet it was all a moot point, because she was never, ever going back. Not while she still had two legs and a heartbeat.
"You can bet, Messino will see my defiance. He already knows where I now stand," the ex-knight agreed, the corner of her mouth quirking into a grin. "Ironically, I don't take much issue with ending a life. I've been required to do it many a time... and only once has it ever haunted me." A fact that bothered her more than she cared to admit. But to say she didn't harbour remorse for the feat had had earned her permanent excommunication from her family, stripped her title as a knight and had sentenced her to death had not weighed on her was a blatant lie. And Elespeth Tameris didn't make a habit of lying about anything more than her name. "But I will decide which lives I have to take, and which I have to defend. And this time, I promise you, I will not fail in being your shield--and your armor, if that asinine fool fails to provide you with any."
The mage's recount of his mother's proverb stung his battle partner in a place that she hadn't thought could hurt. Perhaps it was her heart, or just the effect of such a blatant rendering of de-personification on the code of personal morals and ethics that kept her upright most days. What a thing for a mother to say to her own child...! Even her own mother, one who would sooner spank than praise, somehow managed to make it clear that she loved and respected her many children (Elespeth was, in fact, only one of six).
That is, until one of her children came into the utmost disgrace with Atvany's law. The last time her mother had so much as looked at her had been before that fateful day when a life had been carelessly lost, under her guard.
Pressing her lips into a resolute thin line, the Atvanian fugitive reached out to place a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Forget about your mother for a moment, Alster--in fact, forget about Chara, and forget about every other Rigas in existence. Take a moment to think only of yourself." Turning her head, she waited until he looked up to meet her eyes. The pain and uncertainty mirrored in his irises nearly made her ache. "Do you really, truly believe yourself to be undeserving of love? Or of anything good or positive in your long lifetime? Even though you so clearly care and worry for the well being of others? Even though the reason I am likely still standing is because you cut down several men in my path, men who could have killed me, when I was so foolish as to get distracted at just the wrong moment?"
But the more she spoke, the more Elespeth realized that the source of that ache was not limited for her sympathy towards Alster. No, it struck a much more personal note, one that, she realized, she purposely pushed from her mind each and every morning. "Tell me the truth. Do you think that disgrace warrants--and only warrants--suffering and loneliness? And suffering in that loneliness? Because, Alster Rigas, you are not the only one who stands here in disgrace."
Sliding her hand from his shoulder, she spread her arms, as if presenting herself. "I like to think I can justify what I did. That it was all meant to be, somehow, since Atvany finally contradicted my morals and pushed me too far, but... I let a man die. It was not a conscious decision, but nonetheless, and unconscious one. I am no better than guilty of manslaughter, a failure as a knight, and I brought a world of disgrace upon my family and the House of Tameris. I live in disgrace, Alster; I try to run from it, but I never will, because it is part of me. And while I might not have awoken any Serpent, I did much worse, in creating trouble and dismay where there should have been none. I have no chthonic magic... I have no excuse."
El's smile was despondent, her words ceasing for a moment for the tightness in her throat. "Tell me the truth--tell me what you really think. Because if those who fall from grace revoke their right to be deserving of love... then if I do fall, in this senseless war, I hope that no one will shed a tear for me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
As far as he knew, Debine was never pleased with his progress. Progress, in fact, implied weakness to her. One should exist in the image of perfection--always. Take one misstep and Debine made certain that the step shall never miss again. Even if it took hours. Days. Weeks.
Therefore, Alster reasoned it was only a matter of time before Debine vocalized more than flagrant disappointment, which she already provided in scads. No, she combined unworthiness and tied it to love. Love: the only tool left in Alster's arsenal. He fell from grace, disentitled and discarded to the winds, and with only his parents for support. But she made certain he would not mistake her support for love. For, he broke a cardinal rule of the Rigas estate and it was by the "unyielding mercy" of Adalfieri that he should live.
Foolish children serve me little, she often told him. I only wish to complete your training. Your magic is the only iota within the filth of your soul that is worth saving.
What would she think of him, now? Deprived of his celestial magic, there was nothing left in him to save. And, if Elespeth assessed him correctly, and love filtered through the hollows of his heart, it wouldn't matter to Debine. That love would go nowhere. No one would dare catch something so sour, coursed through with wasted talent and tainted so by the venom of the Serpent.
Connected as they were, through hand to shoulder and eye to eye, Alster took another moment to think upon Elespeth's words. He concentrated, not on his insecurities or what others believed of him, but what he believed of himself. "I did, once. My father, he..." trailing away, he released a shaky breath and closed his eyes, severing their connection. "...But he's dead. They're dead. I don't feel undeserving of it. Rather, I find that love is wasted on me. Also, I am providing a service to you, Tam." He spoke her alias in case of eavesdroppers--and to detach himself from his speech. "It is an agreement. I protect you, you protect me. Don't forget that, either--that I am also your shield and your armor." He opened his eyes and felt the resurgence of the care and worry he stupidly thought he could toss aside--all to further darken and besmirch his character.
Not when Elespeth enfolded her tribulations with his own. Dammit. He didn't want to pull her with him to the existential abyss. "N-no. No. Disgrace compacted upon itself will only cause further distress. And further disgrace. For one, I'm grateful for them: My father...my mother, as well. I didn't suffer alone. If not for them...well," he stared at the ground, "I'd be dead, or far worse instead. But my past misdeeds, they came back around. ...I don't want to hurt anyone else, and for that, I will believe my mother's words. But...not you. Don't believe them. For you are not me." When Elespeth released her hand, he'd normally ease up from the uncomfortable sensation. But her warmth, it provided a comfort, and he planted his own hand there to incubate the heat signature she left behind. It failed, and his own aura, cold and clammy, reclaimed the spot.
"You believe in justice, Tam. You want a more ideal world. One that makes sense. The fact that you can justify your actions means they were not inherently wrong. They were only wrong by context--by your nation's own sense of order and morality. What I did--by any context--was malicious." That cold hand traveled up to his hair. He pulled through its stringy clumps, mired down by the perspiration of another humid and sticky day. Sticky--but not warm. "I was aware of what I set down in paper to do. I wanted them to suffer for how they treated me. I wanted chaos. Destruction. For the high and mighty Rigas to tumble and fall. It was...vengeance. Petty vengeance--because I disliked my lot in life. I, too, had no excuse. Chthonic magic didn't influence me, either. I am now and forever responsible for my actions." His hand dropped, like a pendulum, slicing at his side. "The addition of magic does not validate what I did."
It pained him to see what a careless sentence had wrought on Elespeth--her face...the breaking of her words. He couldn't even speak without harming another person! "What I really think--is that you deserve every tear." With a dash of courage, he moved his hand and cupped it over her own, feeling the bastion of warmth that radiated from her skin. "The disgraced can love each other." ...Wait. What did I just imply?! His face heated. "I-I mean..."
He smartly shut his mouth.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Nevermind she had taken lives in the name of a kingdom she no longer believed in. Or the fact that she had let let a man die, when it had been well within her power to save his life.
Alster Rigas had wronged, but he was not wicked. Yet how he could deny the part of him that sought redemption, and disavow its importance, and yet find excuses for her own misdeeds... Whether or not he realized it, Elespeth Tameris knew what it felt like to be alone with the demons that one created in the wake of their own decisions. They were not company; rather, like his Serpent, they were a reckless force that sought to pick apart their maker, one piece at a time. And, for whatever twisted reason, they always sought to attack the heart first, as if they believed it to be their one and only passage to the soul--where they would take over.
And then, there would be nothing left.
"Alster... if you did not believe in justice, either, then you would not be here right now," the ex-knight reminded him, voice dropping to the gentle cadence of an above-whisper. "It's been... how long? You're nearly a century old... how long have you carried this opinion of yourself? This belief that you've committed the utmost evil deed that anyone could even imagine of executing? You can't... you can't carry this with you any longer. It's too heavy, and you..." She pulled her lips into a thin line, green eyes drifting to the scuffed toes of her boots. The stitching was growing week along the side of the right one; it was always the first piece of footwear to go, given her tendency to block with that leg. "You need to let go. If you don't learn to let go, it will destroy you. And then what does it even matter, to be worthy of love, if your existence is snuffed out by the defeat of your own spirit?"
El wondered if her words were enough. This man had almost a century to wallow in his misdeed and draw his own conclusions... Who was she to think that her mere twenty-six years of existence warranted enough wisdom to change his mind? How did you convince someone that they were inherently worthy of love and respect, when they couldn't even describe themselves within that frame of reference?
She felt the warmth of his hand before she saw it, and had to avert her gaze to confirm. His palm felt damp, undoubtedly a symptom of his perpetually nervous nature, and yet it reassured her. Because it was a direct link between two lonely, desolate islands. And it reminded her that even when she was alone in a crowd--well, in the end, she wasn't. Not really.
Elespeth didn't realize her cheeks had grown warm until a welcome breeze cooled her face. A smile, unbidden, tugged at the corner of the mouth, and she covered Alster's hand with her free palm. "Then the disgraced can also believe in each other," she added. "I'll believe in you. Even when you refuse to believe in yourself. But that's no excuse not to train to be stronger as a team--so come on."
Her hand slid to his wrist, a gentle hold that urged--but didn't force--the mage to follow. "And, Alster?" The swordmaster tossed him a glance over her shoulder, her expression lingering on an awkward line between jest and all seriousness. "Don't ever shed a tear for me. Even if you think I deserve it."
By the time Lilica wandered from her tent and into the daylight, in search of the cause that she had promised to help, she happened upon Alster as he trained with the other half of his compound unit--the swordswoman, Tam. By the perspiration on their brows and their quick intakes of breath with every movement, the looked to have been at it for a while. Good; so she wouldn't have to feel guilty interrupting their session. "Alster Rigas," she called, standing just to the side of the battle grounds, not wishing to get swept up in any magic or weaponplay recklessly taking place. "If now is as good a time as any, I'd like to talk to you."
Elespeth, blade in hand, turned her attention to the dark mage in the distance, her dark hair pulled away from her face in a tight, fishtail braid. It would appear as though she were off bedrest; the Atvanian fugitive wondered how long she had been. "This is important. You should go," she urged Alster. "We can resume this tomorrow. I should go and rest my leg, in any case."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Over a hundred people perished that day--including some ten Rigas volunteers who braved the death trap so that they may survey the area and cordon it off in case any other hapless fiend decided to break the seal to the cave, and finish the job.
The stares--they still haunted him. Conveying so much with so little. Each pair of eyes eviscerated him, scalded him, drowned him and then electrocuted him. They quaked him until he too lost his foundation and sundered to the abyssal jaws of the Serpent, where he would fall forever.
No one, no matter their resolve, could blacken out the memory where tragedy spelled out your name. No one, with such ties to the event and with a hand in its conception, could simply let it go.
"I am not here by choice," he said, staring at a pointed rock that reminded him of a sharp, cruel fang. "I wished to stay behind, in Stella D'Mare, to research methods by which I may hope to defeat the Serpent. I can't let this go--but I also can't let this go on. I know what I must do. To prevent incidents like this from happening ever again, I will sever the source of evil. If I can't succeed, I will offer up my life as penance and appeasement. You say my spirit wrests in defeat. I say my spirit is doing whatever it takes to make things right. Well--the past can never mend, but at least, the future won't have me to muck up progress. At most, the Serpent will cease to exist." He clicked his tongue, tasting venom in his mouth. He looked away from the pinioned rocks. "It's been forty-eight years. Time to clean up my mess."
His focus roved back to their hands, a bridge between their two different worlds and a contact that combined their like-minded disgraces into something not so opprobrious, after all. A smile whittled its way into his face when he noticed the color that blotted her cheeks. "Well, I can't begrudge you that. Let's take all this belief we have for each other and harness it into energy." With a compliant nod, Alster followed Elespeth to their veritable proving grounds. "That is not up to me, Tam," he retorted, rolling his words forward with a facetious barbed tip. "That is up to my defeated spirit."
Training had collected together in harmonious syncopation. Whether from their soul-baring walk or from the few days' reprieve since the last time they gathered, they about danced across the field, magic and sword weaving through like extensions of each other.
War would never capitalize on the synchronicity of two fighters. Too many factors embittered technique, transforming it into raw desperation attempting to follow an arrow-shot of precision. But for practice sake, and for utilizing only rune spell forms and circles, his arrow never shot truer.
In the middle of wrapping a whip of blue fire around his person, Lilica wandered to the outskirts of their little performance. And watched.
His fire spell choked and sputtered and, were it possible, immolated itself until it roped into smoky tendrils that wisped away, far far away, from Lilica.
Alster hid his reaction with only marginal success than the grandiose failure of his spell. By marginal, it meant he didn't try to light himself on fire.
But he choked. And sputtered. And reached fire-level temperatures.
"Lilica. Ah. Yes. I will--yes." He scratched his head and scratched it with a purpose, just to give his mind some distraction other than the death knells in his head that announced: This is it! Chthonic magic training! ...You won't stand a chance. You're doomed.
Legs that lost the ability to function as legs lumbered and flopped and shuffled forward while the rest of him lagged far behind. Some godly force up above had bludgeoned the sun, for it hung against the sky, bloody and throbbing and moving almost retrograde--for the time it took to reach Lilica stretched by in a matter of hours.
"Sorry." For what, warping time? "I'm here." Of course you're here, you blithering idiot! "Let's go."
With an awkward wave of farewell to Elespeth, Alster trailed Lilica, hooking his thumbs behind his belt to hold his arms up from sagging to soggy pieces on the floor.
"So..." His voice lost all its moisture and it abraded against his tongue like sandstone. "How--are you faring any better? Physically--at least? Your bruises...seem...faded. So that's a good sign."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
A week ago, Lilica would have fully expected Chara to be lying to her. Now, she doubted that to be the case, and even if this Rigas mage was not the answer to her troubles that the blonde wielder of celestial magic thought he could be... Regardless, for whatever reason, Chara genuinely believed that he was. The woman was too proud and far too self-assured to be wrong; the only other explanation was that she was crazy.
Aside from the possibility, of course, that she might be right. Lilica had little more at her disposal than to have faith in Chara's promise.
"I'm fine." They were the first words that she uttered, after he was finished tangling himself in his own string of words. "The blowback of my magic fades in a matter of days if I get adequate rest; it's never permanent. Not as of yet, at least." Sparing a glance over her shoulder, she eyed the so-called prodigy with curiosity. "Your chthonic magic doesn't appear to have any such after-effects... probably to do with the way you are using it. Bear in mind that that might very well change. But allow me to assure you... though it may not seem like it, it is well worth the control you will gain." Or it might not occur at all--a thought that struck her with just as much jealousy as it did relief. For all she knew, she might be the only one to suffer the painful blowback.
Foregoing idle conversation, she led him back to her tent, ignoring the various and sundry glances their proximity warranted. What was the dark mage doing with the Rigas caster? they seemed to say. They were, of course, at liberty to think what they wanted, though she expected that none perceived it as an otiose afternoon stroll. Lilica did practically nothing at leisure; it always needed a purpose.
"We're going to need an environment free of distractions for this," she ventured to explain at last, when they reached the small, lone tent towards the end of the casters' barracks and pulled the flap aside to grant them entry. The noise beyond was only faintly muffled, but it was the most privacy to be found around the entire encampment.
Without another word, Lilica took a seat on the ground, tucking the hem of her long tunic around her knees. "Have a seat. Try to get comfortable... it could very well be the only comfort you derive." She waited patiently for him to sit in front of her on the cool earth before bothering to explain.
"I can't help you if I don't know the very roots of your magic, from the inside out. Just because we both share in chthonic capabilities does not mean they stem from the same source; that would be impossible, in fact, as he we were under completely different conditions." Without further preamble, she extended her arm, cool fingers pushing aside the collar of his shirt to find the pulse at his neck. "If you think it will feel invasive, then you're right. I'm not going to tell you that anything about this is at all comfortable, no more than you could imagine it being when someone picks at the fabric of your soul. What I can guarantee is that you won't come to harm, even if it might feel that way. And... if it makes you feel better, my own comfort will not be spared in this."
Exhaling slowly through her nose, she pushed her dark locks behind her shoulders, exposing her own, pale neck. "We need to create an open connection; a free-flowing circuit, so that I am able to explore all necessary corners of your magic's existence. In turn... you are technically able to do the same to me. But you will not." She pulled her lips into a tight line, brows furrowed in displeasure. "This is not about me, and delving into the fabric of my existence will not help you. Don't go through that door, even though you feel like you can; keep your mind open, but your mind's eye closed. And, most importantly, don't resist the intrusion. You're going to want to--it's a natural defense mechanism, but just remain calm and trust that you aren't in danger."
The caster hesitated, of course; it was likely a lot to take in, and Lilica hadn't awarded any effort into conveying it as a comfortable process. But honesty was the best way to prepare him; nothing would be gained from taking the Rigas caster off guard.
"Give me your hand--and wipe that look off your face. I'm fine, you won't cause bruises." Impatient, she took one of his hands, guiding the fingers just under her chin, where her own life pulsed through her arteries. "It isn't difficult. Just close your eyes and relax, and focus on my pulse. Give your mind freedom to wander where it will, and you'll know when you're in the connection. Just linger there, do not go through door... I can't stress that enough."
With her own pulse humming rapidly with trepidation, Lilica closed her eyes, and focused on the steady rhythm against her fingers, working towards opening the gates of that preternatural connection that would allow her access to everything that Alster Rigas wanted to forget.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The Rigas family jumped on the opportunity to cultivate the magic that churned within Alster's lifestream. The ease in which he learned the craft delighted his peers, and they started flinging the word "prodigy" about as if it meant something. For a while, it did, and he tirelessly worked to preserve such an honor--for prodigies often washed themselves out and faded into the oblivion of night.
Alster's oblivion had occurred. Nothingness took hold, carting away his silly ideals of the past. To complete the circle, the hidden chthonic magic, basking in the light of its spectacle of a brother, swallowed it whole. And now, he had a whole other darkness, a literal one, to placate. Before it swallowed him next.
"That's--good to hear," he said to her lamely, however much he meant those words. If Lilica represented what he would gain and lose as a chthonic magic-user, he wanted to monitor her conditions so to better understand his own. "I siphoned energy. Took it from another source." The volume scratched low against his throat as they passed a few nosy onlookers with their noisy stares that spoke even when their mouths pursed shut. "At least, that is what I believe," he whispered once they cleared the obstruction and wandered over to Lilica's tent, the outlier in a sea of similar, yet close-knit waves that lapped together and traveled together.
He entered the tent, and the draft of cool air he received reminded him more of the inside of a cave. A reflexive shiver pimpled his arms, but he set upon his task without much distress, and seated himself opposite her so that their knees touched. As much as their proximity unnerved him, he accurately predicted a meditation session and prepared for the inevitable human contact.
After giving himself a few experimental shifts, he silenced his movements and listened to Lilica's explanation. It made sense; he had done the same to help Chara tap into her magic's characteristics all those years ago. However, he had approached the situation in a different way. Less...invasive. Speaking of invasive--his entire body petrified to stone at Lilica's probing neck jab. Breathing came in shaky, clumpy jolts. He tried to route his mind to somewhere dead and neutral and muted, but hyper-awareness shut down his attempts at a pre-meditative phase. With a soundless sigh, he managed a nod of compliance.
Although Lilica stressed the importance of not rummaging through her own cellar wherein her magic dwelt, and the fear of disobeying her stringent rules for privacy squeezed out another nod and a stifled "yes," a rogue thought streaked across his mind like a comet. To comprehend the varied and tumultuous conceptions of chthonic magic, wouldn't it behoove him to learn of her history? To observe, to gather data, to analyze--for his benefit. And possibly, her own.
Sometimes, a clear perspective, away from the headache of his own inner bedlam, was all that he required. And if she would foray into the darkest recesses of his matter (a thought which near caused his heart to eject from his chest), he, in turn, wanted leverage.
Lilica gripped his hand to position it in such a cutthroat manner under her chin. He resisted the urge to pull back, to slink away, and to forget the entire enterprise. But he filled his lungs with a rejuvenating burst of air and, within time, steadied his breathing to a long, humming rhythm. In following the slow yet erratic beats of her pulse, he closed his eyes and slipped into a dark fuzz.
Images coalesced. A sparse forest. Cypress trees towered overhead, yellow-green pine needles cushioning the bed of the earth. The sea brine from the ocean drifted across the knobby little hills in the distance and pushed purple and blue wildflowers into a wayward flutter.
The forest. That forest.
A shadow slithered among the trees, warping everything in a dim filter. It reached and expanded and blotted out the sun and still it reached...
It reached--out of him.
Screams scattered the winds. Blood painted the trees. Grisly bodies, mangled into ropes laid down a new path for him to follow. A trail of gore, leading to some unholy place beyond the trees.
He dared not look at the bodies. At their near indiscernible faces. At the violence that pressed him to walk over them.
No no no no no.
His bloody hands formed claws. The shadows imitated the gesture.
And his hands turned into claws. ...No. Fangs. Slathered in venom. Dripping down and blistering the skin, eating and chewing and dissolving and reforming.
The skin sloughed away. Revealed scales. Obsidian black. Reflecting everything and yet nothing.
He ran. Ran from the forest, the mountains, the trees. The...murder.
His murder.
But he could not run from the transformation. From who he was, not so deep down inside.
In running, he found a door, etched into the mountain. Wooden. Utilitarian. An escape.
He opened the door.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
This was a dark place, darker than she'd imagined the Rigas mage could possibly harbour. Bloody hand prints on the trees and corpses eerily resembled the size of Alster's hands, while the dead, their bodies otherwise inanimate, murmured his name on their lips.
"This is exaggerated, though..." Lilica murmured to herself. It was real, but not in the sense that Alster believed. The symbols revealed, clear as day, that he felt responsible for each and every life that had died at the Serpent's wrath. As if that indirect responsibility burdened him just as much as it would, had his hands literally, directly, taken these lives.
Guilt. Guilt fueled his magic, but so did something else, something that emanated from the bloody corpses at her feet. As the Serpent passed, their hands reached for it, springing forward like morbid daisies at a grave.
That was when it occurred to his. "His magic. He draws it from--"
But suddenly, that door closed, as another door opened.
The forest was gone. A familiar hard wood floor appeared beneath her bare feet. There was still bodies, but not faceless, not nameless; a man, familiar but whose name she'd never known, and a woman with sleek, ebony hair, and full lips. Blood trickled from the corners of their mouths, indicating a clean and quiet death, but the sight brought no solace to the dark mage. "You made me do it..." Her voice--it sounded years younger. On looking down, she observed the hands and feet of a seven-year-old. "This is your fault... you made me!"
Lilica turned and ran then, out the door and into darkness, which gave way to a street full of people coloured in grayscale. They didn't look, didn't acknowledge her as she ran, but each and every one she so much as accidentally touched in her flight fell to the knees and bled. She didn't have time to look at them, all she wanted to do was run...
The street seemed endless, at first; there didn't appear to be an end in sight. Not until a wall appeared just yards from her face; stone, solid, dark. The people on the street disappeared. Lilica found herself in an enclosed room with no exit, just four dark walls, a cot, and a table with a knife. She stood taller, now, back to her older self. And as soon as she saw the knife, realization hit. "This isn't real... It's not." Turning this way and that, the dark mage turned her gaze toward the ceiling. "You can't make me do this! Not again!" She cried, as if she expected someone--or something--to hear. "I am in control, here...I am! This doesn't have to happen again."
Yet unlike a lucid dream, nothing changed. Lilica was faced with two choices, one that involved remaining trapped in those four walls, or getting out. She knew how to get out--but what it required...
Dark eyes drifted to the knife on the table, then to the cot. She hadn't succeeded in taking her life when she'd tried... But there was only one way out.
"Fine...fine! Is this what you want?" She grabbed the knife, tears leaving tiny streams down her pale face as she shouted into the darkness. "Because this is what I deserve? Then you win."
Moving towards the cot, Lilica laid her body on the straw mattress, holding the tip of the knife to her throat. "Only one way out..." She whispered, heart racing. Without another thought, the dagger met its mark, all the way up to the hilt...
She opened her eyes.
Lilica sucked in one breath, and then another, feeling as though her lungs hadn't drawn oxygen in days. Her hand no longer rested at Alster's pulse; it clung to his shoulder, shaking, with the rest of her body. "You went through the door," she hissed drawing back and wrapping her arms around her chest, suddenly freezing, despite the warmth of the humid day. "I told you not to go through the door! None of that... It was none of your business!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The hardwood floor upon which he trod darkened at his feet, not by shadows, but with blood. "Not again," he hissed as he skirted the blood pools, determining a route around. But all routes led to the inevitable carnage. A man and a woman. Married? Parents? ...And a little girl who wavered on her heels, surrounded by a spiderweb of dark threads.
Lilica.
He made it through Lilica's mind-door.
This is your fault...you made me! The little girl shouted and the air about them shivered, like the drop of a stone into a pond. Murdered...she murdered them. Them--her parents? He grappled his arms, checking for scales beneath the skin--if they had reacted to the news. Unmarred...but prickly. Something in him wanted to bridge a connection, an association between their two realms, but he left that forest behind long ago. Another world away. Another door away. Out of sight and out of mind.
A new vision replaced the death-house: a grayed-out street, monochrome and drear, save for the spurts of crimson that afflicted the crowd with rivulets and rivulets of liquid rust...
The street darkened into a room with no windows or doors. Despite the lack of natural light, an eerie glow emanated from the knife with a wicked point. He saw Lilica buzz about the cell like a disoriented fly hurling itself against all edges of its confinement. He waved his hands at her but she didn't see. Just a ghost--a visitor--in her lucid nightmare. Useless, he stood at the corner between the knife and herself, dreading the worst. The knife seemed to smile and wink as she lifted it to her throat. A repeat performance of the past--or was it?
He flinched as she jabbed it into her throat, which gurgled a bloody smile to counteract the friendless curve of steel.
Hatred. Hatred had guided her magic. And a feeling of imprisonment perpetuated the hatred. A figure-eight with no conceivable end.
For now, she had broken a cycle, even if only in a dream-state. He succumbed to darkness once again.
And opened his eyes to the sight of Lilica clutching his shoulder, on the verge of hysteria. As she retreated inside herself for comfort, he felt a pressure behind his eyes and committed to having it stay hidden--lest he too lose control.
"I'm...I'm sorry," he breathed. He wanted to help her, somehow. Reach out and channel some warmth into her freezing joints. Empathize with her plight--if he could remember that connection he made between what he forget in the forest and the corpses of her parents. The cuts in her heart bled through him, yearning to breach his skin and trickle free. How the itch had pained him! But he wouldn't scratch. He invited what he himself had willfully wanted.
Besides, it was an itch that one could never relieve.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, but with a little more confidence. He pulled resources from all his reserves, summoning the convictions to convey his reasoning. "I needed to know. No...that's not good enough. ...The stirrings of your magic--this goes without saying, but...hatred powers you. It powered me, once. In pursuit of the chthonic--in order to better know it and to know myself...I defied your request." He checked his arms for scales. No scales, but they slugged and snaked around his body, awakening from their torpor. "I know you're here to help me. But we can learn how to combat this magic together--if you want to bother, after what I did."
With a less inhibited hand, he drew a fire spell into the air. A blue flame cradled itself between his fingers, a warming light powered by his lifeblood. "You and I...are a lot alike. Let me... let me try to help you, too."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Well... that and a botched attempt to take her own life, that is. But the latter had little to do with survival and who she was then, and more to do with who she was now
Rubbing the cold from her arms, the dark mage pressed her lips together, staring at the space between them on the ground rather than meeting Alster's eyes. "I know it feeds on hatred. The problem is, it doesn't like to be redirected and draw from something else... When I try, it punishes me. Makes me fragile for a time, bruise easily... My magic isn't compatible with any other feeling than hatred. Which means I am torn between having others suffer and walk away unscathed, or using it for the better, and ending up no more useful than any other fallen soldier on the field."
Let me try to help you, too.
Just as Chara said--and not so differently from how she had said it. It had been shocking enough that the proud, blonde Rigas caster had expressed desire to help. To hear it from this so-called prodigy, it made her wonder if the Rigases truly had some sort of ulterior motive in their offer. That it was not quite so altruistic as they'd like to make her think...
No. Stop thinking that way. You'll never be rid of the hatred if you don't trust...
"Chara... she said you... well, that she..." Lilica reeled in her words as soon as she realized she had no idea where they were going. Had she really come to expect resentment so readily that asking for help was so physically draining? Collecting her thoughts, she tried again. "I don't know if you can--I don't know if anyone can. I was born into darkness and have only recently, as of these past few years that I've learned to defy it and live by my own means. You... you are adept with the chthonic. But it is not who you are; only as much as you allow it to be, and it is your guilt that ties you to it. Not your blood... not like me."
Hesitantly, the dark mage placed her pale, thin hands inches over the small fireball in Alster's palms, its ethereal heat enough to thaw the chill of her fingertips and promote circulation once again. "I think I might know where we can begin, though. In terms of your own magic. I saw... if I'm interpreting correctly--and I think that I am--you are drawing on energies embedded in the earth. Not of the earth itself, however, but in the decaying tissues that are laid to rest in the ground." The eerie glow of Alster's fire cast a ghastly hue to Lilica's pale skin. As if to both emphasize and mock the very nature from which she wished nothing more than to run. "You are, effectively, a necromancer's worst nightmare. Alster Rigas. For the energy on which your chthonic magic draws--in part, at the very least--is the dead."
She shut her mouth, then, allowing him time to digest the possibility of her observation. Such a strange adeptness for someone who possessed abilities beyond chthonic magic... Then again, these Rigases appeared to be full of surprises. And something told her that the surprises had yet to come to an end. A mere glimpse into his soul only offered a snippet of the truth, and even that was up for interpretation. Based on what she had witnessed, however... The bodies, the way those hands reached for him as he passed... Lilica had a feeling she was not wrong.
"There's still a lot that I don't know; and that you don't know, I imagine. But the next step is being aware of yourself and your surroundings when it manifests." When at last her hands had absorbed an adequate amount of heat, she folded them in her lap. "I realize this may not be easy, particularly not in the midst of battle, but it is crucial to pay attention to what influences and hinders it. Emotions, people, environment... I am sure you know that magic doesn't express itself in a vacuum. And learning how it plays, external of your intended influence, is the most important aspect of learning to control it... Or, more specifically, commanding it."
Bringing one warm hand to her face, she stared into the leaping, indigo flames, somewhat mesmerized by the fact that it didn't sear his flesh. Something so simple shouldn't be so astounding; it was just the fact she was unable to mimic that trick that made it so. "My magic stems from hatred--as you have already seen. At least, that is where it wants to stem from. It so much easier to kill with a bitter sense of revenge than for fear of the lives of others... That last battle, I wouldn't have ended up in such a fragile condition if I'd felled those men in hatred of their very existence. But it wasn't hatred." Her expression turned to one of weariness. As if the very thought of that battle was exhausting. "I acted out of concern for the lives on our part that were being lost... but the chthonic doesn't like that. In my case, at least, I defied its nature. And so it punished me."
Slowly getting to her feet, Lilica stretched her muscles, cramped as they'd become in that sitting position. "Whether or not you or anyone else can help me remains to be seen, Alster. But I can guarantee, you are by no means a lost cause. For as long as I can survive, I think... I can help you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You have given your magic a voice. Magic is a tool, primarily, but it likens to emotions, especially those under duress. Emotion-based casting is far more powerful, but draining, and control is limited--though we don't always have a choice as to how our magic decides to manifest. Unfortunately, your magic has a mind of its own. But we musn't enable it, for, at its core, the magic is youand not some foreign entity that has come to roost in your mind. We shouldn't depersonalize magic--especially in your case. It is not an 'it'. It is you. You punish yourself. You're not compatible with any other way, because you may not know another way. Truths are hard to swallow, which is why we reroute the blame to something more blamable, like magic." A pause allowed him to wet his tongue, dry with the length of his lecture. "Alas, the answer is not as simple as changing your frame of thought or your perspective. You may have to change your entire magical identity--and build it back from the ground-up." In analyzing all of the possibilities, he nearly didn't hear Lilica murmuring Chara's name in midst of broken fragments. A common problem--for him. It mollified him to see another person stumbling to speak, and encouraged him to carry-on with his own bursts of vocal unpredictability.
"Chara? What did she tell you about me this time? I hope she's not relaying embarrassing stories to you." He about rolled his eyes heavenwards, but stopped the motion when Lilica shifted her dialogue. "I will be honest with you." He sighed. "Your path to reinvention--it's difficult. Tedious. Sure to tear the fabric of your being. Could very well destroy you before you obtain any favorable results. However, it's not impossible. I've seen it done. And, as much as I may have denied it before," he waggled his fingers around the fire, casting shadow puppets on the ground...that resembled snakes, "chthonic magic is in my blood, as well. It does not pump as strongly, but I have ties. All my magic is inherent. It," he hesitated, "it is a part of me, and I alone am in control of how much or how little I allow myself to use. Guilt may have manifested the magic, but guilt will not perform my magic for me. I will not be at the mercy of my emotions any longer--aside from the emotion of needfire." A fanciful belief. A story he read to himself every night. Guilt would forever rule him, but if he could at all help it, he would keep its vile influences partitioned from the hand that channeled his magic outward.
The fire that fed on his essence, hot and burning from natural causes within, lowered towards Lilica for easy access. He gazed to the earth, in wonderment, apprehension, and a sense of knowing, at Lilica's assessment. His free hand brushed through clumps of dirt and the sinews of plants decomposed from long ago. A tingle of energy awakened his fingers and shot through his arm. The color of his fire darkened to a deep navy blue. "I think you're right. When I created that shield in battle...I could feel death...all around me. Sometimes, at night," the focus in his eyes blurred; for a moment he saw nothing but the contours that comprised Lilica in the flicker of the low flame, "I hear them. Fresh voices. Those who have recently passed. They murmur now, but if I meditate, their voices cry for mercy. They relive their last painful moments on this earth--eternally. I suppose it's apt," he said, covering his pensive observations with a stifled laugh. "To suffer the voices of the dead--and to take from them beyond their lives. As if that weren't bad enough, I'm taking away their death, as well."
If anything, guilt would hold back his power. Why would he encourage further carnage if that carnage meant fertilizer for him to grow? Unfortunately, necessity called for action. Wartime would exploit his power, and he wouldn't have a choice. The guilt would compound upon itself with each drawing of his chthonic magic--and he'd find himself stuck in his own infinity knot, just like Lilica.
He had a lot of work to do.
"I'll have to unleash it--to practice," he said, more as an extension of his inner thoughts than a direct response to Lilica. "I can no longer hide behind rune spells and cantrips." As if to confirm his decision, he dispelled the fire in his hand. It winked out, sinking them into a darkness made darker by the sudden snuffing of the light. "It wants to protect. No--I want to protect. Tam was in danger, so I threw up a shield. It...well, it made a mess, but it was a shield, nonetheless. As for the death I take--energy cannot be created nor destroyed, though I fear the form I shift that energy into is much darker than its inception. That will change--to the best of my ability. Anything to deflect the guilt, so I will not be ruled by it." Voicing his tentative plan, however simplistic, inspired innovative thinking and distracted the self-loathing corner of his mind with the intricacies of problem solving. He had plans, ideas, and a course of action. In a sense, it reminded him of the days where celestial magic bewildered him with its broad-sweeping mosaic of infinite possibilities, in which he toiled to create the patterns that facilitated smooth, uninhibited spell-casting.
Just think of it like a puzzle. ...A puzzle with more at stake.
No pressure.
"Do you only receive blowback when your magic 'punishes' you?" He said, redirecting the topic back to her own unique brand of chthonic magic. "The magic seems to be conditioning you. The mind wants what is easy and will condemn any progressive thinking. Perhaps, if possible, you can utilize your magic and stem it from a place outside of hatred, as you have done before--but on a smaller scale. The blowback will be less intense--and if done on a regular basis, it is possible that your 'punishment' may lessen. In any case, it's just an idea." He shrugged and then shrugged himself upright, cracking the cricks out of his neck and straightening the spine that had hunched forward for far too long. "You may not be as lost as you believe, either. I better understand the hurt which powers your magic--however much you spurn me for my peeping." He gave her a disarming smile. "We help each other, by virtue of learning together."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Perhaps he didn't realize it, but Alster had put before her one of her greatest fears--and a long-time suspicion that grew far more real with every use of her chthonic magic. If it were possible for any colour to drain from the young woman's already pale face, then it did, traveling from her cheekbones, down to her neck, returning to her still racing heart. Of course this was the case: after all, Lilica D'Or had not been borne by means of natural conception. She had been her mother's own curse... born from darkness, and into darkness. She was the nature of her own magic, and the nature of her own magic was a result of who she was, and that maelstrom of emotions that she kept carefully under lock and key.
You punish yourself. He wasn't wrong; in a way, her century of isolation had been a punishment in and of itself. Before she could stop it, a tear trickled down her cheek; warm, until it met its end at her chin, cooling on her chilled skin.
"I don't think... you quite understand." Her words were quiet, reluctant as she was to give them voice. Thin fingers brushed her dark hair behind her ears, something of a nervous habit. "I was born a curse to my mother's womb... I am a curse. I am darkness, manifest. And that cannot be changed. Not so long as I live in this skin... You, however. It seems as thought you have already come farther than you give yourself credit for."
Lilica's attention averted back to Alster, curious at the look of conviction on his face. He was so strong; so strong in will and in mind, and yet he didn't see it. He continued to doubt himself, all because guilt continued to weigh him down. Was that truly his only demon left to defeat? Aside from his Serpent, of course... The dark mage found herself almost envious of the awkward Rigas prodigy. If only guilt were the only shade of black on her soul...
"It sounds as though you know more than you think you know, Alster Rigas," she said at last, with an affirming nod. "And you've realized the most important thing: what has power over you. Along with the fact that it has no power over you at all. Now, all that stands in your way is the confidence and conviction to put one foot in front of the other, make your words into practice. If you want to protect, you can; you blood does not control you. It serves you. As do the energies of the dead... they reach for your like a sunflower reaches for the sun. It is not that you take from them, because they desire, for whatever law of attraction, to serve you."
Ugh, that smile. Lilica frowned and looked away from the Rigas mage's charm. Damnit all, what 'was' it about the Rigases that made them so inherently charming in the first place? He was so sure he could help her. She wanted to believe it. But she couldn't... not right away. The results of his suggestion had yet to be seen. "I will take into consideration your perspective on what you were never supposed to see," she told him at last with a decisive nod. Chara said he could help. She wanted him to help. And she was no so proud as to turn it away in light of doubt. "As for your concern for the dead... I would not be concerned at all. But if this war comes to an end, and we still have our lives in tact, I may know of someone who you can talk to. Someone who is far more familiar with the dead than I."
Attempting to rub warmth back into her arms, Lilica made for her tent flaps, glancing over her shoulder at Alster. This session was over, for now. "You'd do well to meditate on my suggestions as well. We can reconvene in a few days' time. Oh--and one more thing." She sought his gaze, and beyond the stern gleam of her dark eyes laid a plaintive plea. "Speak not of what you saw in the recesses of my darkest memories to Chara. Or to anyone, for that matter."
Without further conversation, she left, in pursuit of that one person who's favour she was (oddly so) reluctant to lose. She found Chara among the other mages, at least one of them also a Rigas, discussing the strengths and best uses of their magics. The conversation diminished to a murmur when the dark mage walked on to the scene. But of course it would; she wasn't one of them.
"You seem to have lost your place," A tall caster with dark hair suggested, the tone in his voice unmistakably conveying disgust. "Because it is not here."
"I have no business with you," Lilica replied, but her eyes were on Chara. She lowered her voice as soon as the haughty, blonde Rigas shared in joint-attention. "We've uncovered some important information. I thought I might discuss it with you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I'm sorry. I-I didn't--I meant...it is my understanding that a healthy relationship with magic begins with acceptance and attributing it as something beyond yourself will only...I'm making it worse, aren't I?" He dipped his head over his chest to shield the hammering of his heartbeat with its visible syncopation. But she mollified him--with talk of her sordid inception. A range of reactions flowered out of his head; he hadn't a chance to arrange the torrent according to importance before his mouth translated the mush.
"A curse? Curses, in general, serve an express purpose. To bring darkness into the world is not specific enough--and probably a weak curse to begin with. As a curse, have you already, well, 'succeeded' is too harsh of a word, but, has it been fulfilled? If so...I would wager that you are no longer a curse--for you have lived beyond that 'goal.' If not...well, curses are combatable. And darkness--it's just a shade. ...I was meant for the light," he said, lifting his head when his heart had stabilized. "After consulting the star charts and constantly observing solar activity, I was conceived. Even so, with everything perfectly aligned for me to succeed and thrive, I still erred. If light can err, then dark can avail."
Simple enough of a statement, but for her sake, he wanted its simplicity to speak truth. To begin life not only cursed but as a curse, breathing life into a world that scorned your existence--it rattled his nerves. Just as his birth brought about exaggerated expectations, her birth instilled the same: the expectation of destruction. Upheaval. They were both received into a world of extremes, and suffered by those extremes.
"Confidence and conviction. My downfall." He quirked a one-shouldered shrug in an attempt to make light of the heady globs of information that needed sorting through meditation. Too much solemnity and he would crack from all the strain. Lilica, too, seemed ready for a reprieve. After their foray into the ether, and the following conversation that worsened with his every word, he didn't blame her. "I will uncover the extent of my energies in connection with the dead. And if my, well, 'conviction' wavers, I'll know who to consult, by your recommendation. At any rate, I'll let you go. No need to worry, either." He placed a hand to his chest, a silly salute the likes of which a knight would gesticulate. Had he been too exposed to Elespeth and her chivalrous inclinations? "I would say that your secrets I will take with me to the grave, but that no longer seems appropriate." After a click of his tongue, he remedied his words. "...I will not tell a soul."
Chara, meanwhile, had gathered with the somewhat dwindled numbers of their Casters Unit. With Tivia at her side, the two hosted an informal strategy session, as word of Messino's apathy towards independent planning spread around the encampment. A hush caught the throats of every caster in her vicinity upon the viewing of Lilica's approach. While liaisons behind the scrutiny of their peers were not quite discreet, Chara was floored to watch Lilica up and strut right to her and loudly proclaim their open involvement with each other. She narrowed her eyes at her specific conundrum. Respect and cooperation; she needed both from her caster companions in order to succeed--to stay on top. She could not afford to slam down their opinions regarding the resident black sheep, no matter their alliances or promises. A Rigas would never yield to a dark magic-user, or even entertain the idea of compliance. Then again, war-time brought about a whole other set of circumstances. Age-old enemies became allies under the banner of a bigger threat. Their threat--as far as anyone knew--was Tadasun.
"We cannot forget, Jarden, that she is likely the reason we have not suffered further casualties. As much as I hate to admit," she added, souring her lip in a show of exaggeration--though not quite exaggerated. She did hate to admit that such a dangerous, all-consuming hate that blazed around the battlefield had contributed to their victory. The fire had licked clean the lives of Andalari soldiers, as well. Lilica proved a perfect asset for Messino and his chaos theories, but for an army bent on survival and structure, she was but a reminder of their own mortality. Who would she take, next?
"Nonetheless, I shall deal with this interruption. Do carry on." She waggled her fingers at the perplexed casters and sidled over to Lilica. As they exited the earshot and eye-shot of the unit, Chara whispered out a spray of harsh susurrations.
"Where is your discretion!? We musn't speak in such conspiratorial tones before a crowd of dissenters! They already suspect too much and I'm the one having to conceive of excuses to placate them!" With a frustrated sigh, she looked about the camp for any eavesdroppers. At the all-clear, she directed Lilica forward and through avenues of tents."We'll go to my tent today."
"You shouldn't defend me," she said at last, contrary to how that small act had made her feel. The very words from her lips were enough to extinguish that warmth, returning her to that everlasting state of chill. "Let them hate me; let them think you hate me, even if it is only true by a fraction. They won't suspect you if you share a common enemy among the troops." A sad truth, but true, nonetheless. "But, you're right... I shall keep discretion in mind from now on. I only wanted you to be aware that I was engaging in my part of the deal."
She followed Chara all the way back to her tent, which was mercifully vacant, likely due to the gathering of casters from which they had just walked. Tucking rogue tresses of hair that had escaped the frenchweave she had hastily arranged after waking that morning, she then folded her arms and clutched her elbows, hoping her palms would offer some semblance of warmth. "Alster opened up and allowed me a glimpse into his soul today. It..." Lilica trailed off, dark eyes scanning the ground, as if it would give her the words she sought. "He harbours more guilt and turmoil than I'd expected. And I wasn't allotted a lot of time to explore, but I saw enough to get a feel for the roots of his chtnonic magic. Some of it came as a surprise, but the rest, not so much."
So the dark mage took the next part of an hour to relay, as best she could, the nature of Alster's subconscious mind, the very essence on which his soul bordered. Chara shouldn't have any problem understanding, acquainted as she was with the nature of magic, and knowing Alster as well as she did. "His guilt is what anchors the chthonic magic, and possibly influences the way it manifests. But where it draws from... I never would have guessed, because I have never seen it before, myself. But it comes from... As far as I can tell, he is drawing on the energies of the dead."
This, however, put her rather at a disadvantage. Given his strange, anti-necromantic abilities, and how uncommon such a manifestation of dark magic was, the dark mage had begun to doubt her ability to help. Fortunately, she was not at a loss for solutions. "Frankly--and this is only in my own opinion--but I feel that what anchors his magic is more crucial to deal with, right now, than the energies on which it draws. Guilt can be tackled; and while I cannot say with confidence that I am the best person to help him tackle it, I will try all the same. Although, I am sure that encouragement on your part would prove astronomically helpful, as well.
"If his anti-necromantic ability is truly a burden to him, I know of someone who he can talk to," she added, after a moment. "Although it would be easier to simply shoulder the burden than to seek that help. Regardless, that should not be priority, tight now, as it is neither here nor there. But... it's a start."
Lilica lapsed into a silence, then, tying up her encounter with Alster and finding there was nothing more she had to tell Chara. So long as the blonde Rigas knew that she was keeping her end of the bargain. About to leave, she hesitated a moment, before turning to ask, "Alster mentioned something about the alignment of the planets, during his birth. I don't know much about the impact of celestial events, but... What is done under circumstances can most easily be undone under those same circumstances. It's something to consider, though I cannot guarantee the plausibility."
Placing a hand on the tent flaps, she turned her back to leave, paused once again by her thoughts. "I recall my mother telling me, the night I was born, the sky was radiant with stars. Until it began to rain fire, and an entire forest went up in flames."
She wasn't sure why she felt compelled to tell Chara, this; maybe it wasn't even true, or that her mother had exaggerated. But, if it was true, then she felt it would be a long time before the sky rained fire again.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
That was her hope.
"No. That is no longer an option," she said, her legs pumping forth to its original speed. "We have been seen together many a time. I aided in your convalescence by walking you to your tent. They have spotted you with Alster. They realize our connections. We only need to show cooperation in the public view--but not respect. I will solidify my perspective to the casters. If we are too busy infighting, we may never achieve togetherness as a unit--and our lives mean little if they are gone."
She pulled back the flaps to her surrogate home, elegant and plush in design, and invited Lilica to sit atop a weaved carpet beset with silken pillows. When they first arrived at camp, Chara brought her own tent, refusing to abide by Messino's rules. He hadn't contested her on it, while she made it abundantly clear that, as chosen dignitary and speaker for the Rigas family, she deserved her own tent. As she tucked her knees under her own corner of pillows, she listened to Lilica's "report," keeping silent for the better part of an hour--absorbing every tidbit of information that the dark mage presented. At its completion, Chara frowned, speechless during the overhang between the dispatch and her expected reciprocity. Guilt had plagued him--no surprise to her at all. As for how his magic had manifested...it made...sense. Eerie sense. The shivers ran all over her back with the implications. To envision Alster, a veritable celestial master, harnessing death energy like puppets on a string...
She gripped her arms, feeling a chill she could not shake.
"Encouragement. Of course." The voice tickled her throat with its unfamiliarity. It emerged as tinny, uncertain--afraid. She cleared her throat and tried again. "His guilt is certainly hard to shake. He's carried that burden for near to fifty years. However, you bring up an intriguing point. Are you suggesting he may regain his celestial prowess through the influence of a celestial event? No doubt he has tried that. If you mean to suggest such an event may improve upon or somehow change his chthonic abilities, then you must elaborate."
In a sense, she had elaborated--by mention of the circumstances behind her birth. Chara uncrossed her legs and stood, in part to escort her to the exit as a hostess well should, and in part to hear her more clearly. "Raining fire...a celestial event. Are you insinuating--has such an event influenced your chthonic inheritance? Enhanced it, even? Alster--he was born under an eclipse. Could that have impacted..could certain celestial events have...My apologies. I am speaking my thoughts aloud." How unprofessional. Uncouth. She turned her head away, to hide her pallor or any other adverse reaction. She must remain impartial. "Thank you for your thorough investigation. It could not have been easy for you. I...Take care, Lilica." To shield any breach in her impartiality, she spoke her final words with a brusque edge--and then whirled away to enjoy the relative safety of her tent.
For the first time in many moons, she gnawed on the smooth veneer of her nails.
"Alster!"
She caught his arm before he could even turn to acknowledge her cry. Lashed to his back, he carted the rolled-up canvas that had comprised the quarters of Tivia, Danos, and himself. Messino had given the order to pack and move camp an hour ago; they were to depart before noon. The sun throbbed in the sky, almost directly overhead--and her tent stood, as of yet uncompromised, inviting the unobstructed light of day.
"Chara--what is it?" He looked at her with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She was unkempt, her hair in disarray, her clothes in wrinkled bunches from collar to ankle. Alarm rose in his eyes; he seldom saw her so disheveled. In such...distress. "What's wrong? ...Why haven't you packed?"
"I...wished to speak with you this morning, and this--" she threw an arm at the breaking down of camp, as if done purposely to annoy her. "...I must tell you something. I realize it is horrid timing, and you will hate me for my observations--but it pertains to your parents."
Why?
Why would she tell him such things?
Why now?
What had changed her tune? Although reluctant, Chara had wished for him to hone and understand his chthonic abilities. It was due to her damn interventions that Lilica approached him in the first place. And now?
I fear for you.
You command death. There must be a reason why your chthonic magic manifested as so.
...I sense that it was responsible for the deaths of Debine and Valente.
Ergo...
She implied...
I killed them.
Alster followed the mass of humanity from the giant mud splotch that once housed a tent city. They marched onward, farther south, into the thick of Tadasun territory, advancing so as to retain their advantage from their first battle--that Lilica had won for them.
He trailed along the outer rim of the army, the rolled-up tent pressing against his back. He traveled alone and far from any company, mired down in the thoughts from that morning.
What now?
Would Chara withdraw her support of his training? Either way, he hadn't a choice. Commitment sallied him forth to whatever destination his dark energy prepared for him. ...However brutal.
Could he live with himself if he uncovered the actual truth?
Squeezing the straps of his pack, he floated along the slow-moving stampede and into a mindless march, of which he remembered nothing and felt nothing.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth, despite that her own muscles had begun to ache long before the rest of the camp had awoken, certainly knew better than to open her big mouth this time around. She loaded weapons and armor onto the convoys for hours, alongside older and far burlier comrades who criticized her for being 'too slow' or for 'not carrying her fair share of the weight'. It was annoying, at times exasperating, but fortunately, the ex-knight was no stranger to hard, menial work. Odd jobs that she'd taken since escaping Atvany had required more of her, under far more dangerous circumstances; the generals kept the bullies in line, at the very least, but anger was rampant when morale took a dip.
The sun was high in the sky when they began to march, and there was still more complaining to be had. By then, disgruntled attitudes had averted from aggression towards one another to discontent with the fraction of the work that the casters had been required to do--particularly the Rigases, who carried their heads too high, who walked with too much ease, who had others to lug the majority of their belongings.
Elespeth, contrariwise, wasn't keen on taking part in the passive aggressive (or outright aggressive) bout; frankly, it was more draining than energizing, and she was more inclined to want to share company with the people in question than criticize them. When it didn't appear as though anyone would take notice, the Atvanian fugitive slipped away from the other swordsmen and arms-bearers, hurrying to the front of the large mass of bodies, where the casters walked, carrying significantly lighter loads.
It wasn't difficult to find Alster among them, from the way he carried himself as if he wanted to shrink into the backdrop, to that faraway look he wore while everyone else appeared so focused. Heads turned when the sword wielder's intruding presence made itself known among the magic units--gods forbid, her kind setting foot on their turf--and made her way to Alster's side. Such a strange, territorial bunch, these casters... Was he really the only exception to the rule?
"In approximately two hours, I'll have been wide awake for twelve hours; how do you think Messino gets away with it without being confronted by hundreds of angry weapons wielders?" The ex-knight certainly looked as though the past ten hours had not been kind to her, with dark half-moons beneath her eyes and signs that she'd been pushing her body well beyond its normal training routine.
But she wasn't the only one. Alster's face, so lost as it had looked in thought, suggested he, too, had seen better days. "Don't tell me Messino had you up before the sun as well," she mentioned with a frown, but something told her this had little to do with physical fatigue.
In the distance, a familiar dark-haired figure who walked apart from the other casters caught Elespeth's eyes. Suspicion prickled her tired mind, and she lowered her voice, conscious of others within earshot. "Have you and Lilica come to any useful revelations?" She asked, only realizing after the fact that it might well be something he might not be keen on discussing. Not if it made him look as bad as she did after ten hours of heavy labour.
"I don't mean to pry; we don't have to talk about it," she was quick to amend, but not without a hint of worry in her eyes. In the afternoon light, they appeared more green than they did grey. "You just look as though... that is to say, far less well than the last time we spoke."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
We are not built with the muscle to cart around rusty weapons!
You need us for something more dignified!
I hail from a family who derive our ancestry from fae. We are allergic to iron!
However, some progressive casters aided in packing away rations and provisions--although they tackled the lightest loads, the ones filled with meal and hardtack and grains.
Alster had, during the morning rush, volunteered his services to help pack weapons into the convoys. When he arrived, the soldiers on duty leered at him, then a gout of laughter spurted from each one like a gargle gone wrong.
"Look, a Rigas has come to police our work!"
"Stand aside, little boy. We can't let you play with knives."
"Go back to your dippy caster party since we all know how you enjoy la-de-laing about!"
He had stormed away, after trying and failing to cooperate with the bawdy soldiers who shared more with the casters in pride than they cared to admit. Already, the camp had fallen into old prejudices between units--and it didn't end among the casters, themselves.
"Alster," said Danos, batting at the side of their canvas tent as a cat would with a toy, "you're stronger than us. Take apart this tent and carry it, will you?"
"What are you doing in the meantime?" Alster said, narrowing his eyes a touch at the flippant attitude from his own blood.
Danos inflated like a puffer-fish.
"Don't argue with me! You've no right, Serpent Bane. You're only here by the grace of Adalfieri! And just because Chara fancies you does not mean I shall exercise the same patience. I outrank you--so pick up the tent!"
But that had been hours ago, in another lifetime--before Chara relayed him the news that shut down the sectors of his brain...all but for the part that controlled basic motor functions. He stayed upright, shuffled his feet to the beat of a thousand men, and bobbed along the sea with the rhythm of monotony.
Then, Elespeth appeared at his side.
He turned to her--as did half of the casters unit, who gawked and pointed accusatory glares at him. Curb your soldier! they seemed to say, hisses lolling around their forked tongues. As she spoke, he regarded her, a reality he left behind. A reality that turned the sun back on and made him aware, painfully aware, of everything he yearned to snuff into blackness. He noticed how the vagaries of camp had treated her body, so ready to fall that he about expected to catch and guide her towards their new site.
The stares intensified.
"He didn't," he said, an uninspired response to Elespeth's little inquiry. "But I was awake, anyway."
Insomnia kept him awake most nights. The wails of the dead had grown louder, their voices still inconsistent. Meditation did naught to numb them. Alas, they only intensified--audible fingers poking and prodding him until he sundered to exhaustion. And yet, despite the events of last night and that morning, only one solitary thought, one fear, scrolled across his mind in repetitious infinitude.
I killed my parents.
"I don't want to talk about anything right now," he said, commanding the sudden flux of his emotions to remain cold, numb--distant. He could never tell Elespeth. She might have dismissed his role in awakening the Serpent--for it was near to fifty years ago--but his parents had...died...three years ago. As much as she touted loyalty and support for a brother-in-arms, would she really abet in aiding a cold-blooded murderer?
No. Best to push her away now--before she learned the truth and pushed him away.
I'm sorry, Elespeth.
"Worry about yourself, Tam." A stifling breeze blew from the valley they approached, pushing strands of dirty blond hair into his face. He lowered his head-- both as a deterrent against the wind and a reason to look away from her. "You can't be here. Go...go back to your station."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was a feeling akin to those silly cliques everyone experienced as a child. Where those bold enough to approach an elite group would try to be friendly, share their toys, find reasons to foster companionship, because weren't they all just human in the end? But this was a clique to which Elespeth Tameris would never, ever belong, and it had little to do with a matter of personal preferences--although she did suspect they came into play, somewhere.
Nonetheless, he was right. And perhaps it was that realization that hurt the most.
"I've embarrassed you; I apologize," she said, heat creeping into her cheeks, burdened as she was by the hindsight of her simple act of camaraderie. "I... you're right. I am completely out of my element; this isn't my place."
And what had she hoped for? Casual conversation? Someone to whom she could relate for all of the woes that accompanied moving camp, when he hadn't been required to carry anything? The last she'd seen of him was before he had gone off with Lilica, for however it was she meant to help. Immediately, her slate green eyes searched for the dark mage in the crowd, finding the ebony-haired caster walking apart from the others in the near distance. As if she felt her eyes on her, Lilica turned, and for a moment, they shared an uneasy glance with the swordswoman, one that impelled Elespeth to look away.
Whatever had happened, even if Lilica was the reason for Alster's somberness, she was not so stupid as to confront the dark mage. None of this was even any of her business.
Without another word, Elespeth fell away from her fighting partner and returned to the back of the moving crowd, shouldering the heavy packs on her back. "What was that, huh? You think you're too good for the rest of us?" A tall man bearing almost twice her load grunted. "So that you're gonna go walk with the bloody casters?"
"No. No... I'm not too good for you at all. Or for anyone." she replied, and the truth of the statement sunk in. The disgraced can love each other. Hadn't Alster said that, or had she only imagined it in the delirium of the rush that had followed the last battle?
If not, then perhaps it was that she simply was not the right kind of disgraced.
Lilica had watched from the corner of her eye, overhearing the conversation between the Rigas and the sword-wielder. Her first sentiment was, of course, to take offense at the look that Tam had cast in her direction. How dare she! Wielding darkness did not make her responsible for everyone's woes. But... there was something more about that look. Concern that the soldier reserved for Alster alone, and quiet hurt when he turned her away, greeted only with accusations from her own kin.
Not so different from what Lilica herself felt among the casters. Whether she liked it or not, she could relate.
Slowing her pace until she fell into step with Alster, the dark mage addressed him without looking, her voice low to avoid prying ears. "What do you mean to achieve by pushing away those who want to be there for you?" She asked him. "Or does it not occur to you that those same people might be reaching out to you, in turn?"
Tresses of hair stuck to her face from wind and perspiration. She tucked a few unruly strands behind her ears. "I get it; something is bothering you, and you're afraid to talk. I can practically feel it in the air around you. But you are only fueling your dark magic to run rampant like a forest fire by harbouring those sentiments alone. So stop... if not for your own sake, then for those of your allies and comrades."
Having said her part, she wanted to walk away--she should have. But the heaviness of Alster's aura practically held her in place, as if waiting for him to send her off, as well. If he had the gall to do so, that is.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Nothing could be further from the truth. Since he set foot upon that blasted encampment, nearly every caster, including his own, had snubbed him. They belittled his magic, his family name, and nitpicked every little detail on display that appeared wrong, or weak, or uncharacteristic of his prestige. Elespeth, however...she viewed him as an equal and never discriminated. Although she could not understand the intricate underpinnings of his magic-related plight, on an emotional level she commiserated and even empathized along with him.
He had considered her...a friend. One that he would never have encountered during his long and eventful life. And one he would never have again.
Could he salvage all that they built? Could he risk her seeing such darkness from which may burn upon her soul?
No. ...Hate. He was terrified of her hatred of him. Hatred and fear, the latter of which blinked in her eyes during the last battle. His shield--the melting faces...
This world of casters and magic--she didn't deserve such mental torture.
This isn't my place.
How many times have people uttered similar words--to him? You don't belong. Why are you here? This isn't your place...
He clutched his chest, feeling the sting like the barb from a bee. He hadn't wanted to imply exclusion, or rejection.
But he did.
I don't want you to leave. ...Say it. ...Call her back, you idiot!
"I'm sorry..."
The whisper died on his lips...and he let her go.
Those in disgrace are undeserving of love.. and he heard his mother say it with more clarity than when she last uttered it--alive.
He tried to lift his head, to find some horizon line, some strange puffy cloud in the distance, a rock formation--anything at all to distract his quickly deteriorating mind.
What he found, instead, was Lilica.
Where Elespeth had been standing mere moments ago, the dark mage trampled through the residual aura and replaced it with her own: hairy and spidery and black as the ocean deep. He shivered despite the breezes that belched oppressive heat coursed through with the blare of the ever-expanding sun.
He was desperate to speak with another being that ladled him with not-so-negative attention. Mere moments ago, he wanted nothing of the sort, but he hadn't realized how wide of a fissure had cracked through his faulty foundations when Elespeth departed. Now, he teetered, and he would welcome any support--even from the likes of Lilica, who always looked ready to knock down any sort of structure with only the flashing of her eyes.
"I don't...I don't want to harbor anything alone," he said, his head realigning downwards, to the unenthusiastic ground and its mottled brown and ashen pallor. "I...wanted her to stay. But she can't know the truth, the possibility that I..." he took in a breath of toxic air and coughed, as if his very surroundings threatened to suffocate him if he spoke those grim words aloud.
"Many times I've tried to meditate upon that day. The day my...well, their deaths." He kept his voice to pin-drop levels of quiet as he darted a few glances towards any curious onlookers. "Something blocks me. A wall. When I try to touch or phase through the wall, I feel like a hand of knives is clutching my heart--and squeezing. That immense pain...it always prevents me from proceeding. But," he wiped his brow of sweat not altogether caused by the weather, "the other day, when you delved into my mind--I am sure I witnessed it all. How it happened. But when I awoke, I could not remember. If...if it is at all possible, I would like to return there. I need to know..." he hesitated, swallowing a clump of dried-up spittle and the taste of blood, "if I killed my parents."
His eyes widened and his steps faltered. The weight of the tent about toppled him forward, into that uninviting brown muck. He caught himself in time, but the near-fall deadened him to a halt.
"This is me reaching out to you...to make up for who I was too afraid to reach. You may choose to walk away if you wish." The most pitiful of smiles ghosted upon his face with a grisly memory from long ago. He had been in such a position before. Reaching out. Asking for help.
Please, Chara...I don't know what else to do. I can't concentrate. I can't breathe and I fear that I'm losing...losing my mind. Losing faith...
You're smart. You'll figure it out.
"It's no less than what I deserve, at any rate."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And the truth could put him over the edge. But, eventually, so would ambiguity. If this was what he needed, and if she could help...
Well, damnit all. She'd made a promise to Chara, and one to him, in turn. Lilica was left without a choice.
"First: do not doubt the extent to which others will listen to and understand you," she began, rather reluctantly moved by his confession that he hadn't wanted Elespeth to leave. "You don't know that she wouldn't bat an eyelash at what you have to tell her. Do not alienate your friends... It invites darkness to fill the void, there they would otherwise stand." She was both figurative and literal in that statement: for hadn't she just taken up the place beside him where, a moment before, he swordwielder had stood? "Like it or not, you need to keep connected with people. They will ground you, even when darkness threatens to pull you off your feet."
He knew that, though. He knew, or else he would not have turned to her with such a raw plea. To think, someone was actually desperate for her help... Lilica wondered if she should be flattered, or concerned for the caster's judgement. Ultimately, however, she was his only other source for the chthonic.
"Don't be so absurd," she all but snapped, her cheeks colouring ever so slightly. "I already told you I would help; I wouldn't bother to talk to you if I didn't have reasons to be interested in your well being." Whether or not he knew, by now, that this pact was largely tied to her deal with Chara, she didn't know. But that was irrelevant; he needed the help, and she would help him. She needed an out, or at least protection from Messino's blackmail, and Chara had agreed to help her--or at least, incite the help of someone more capable.
Coming to a halt when the Rigas caster fought to maintain his balance, Lilica furrowed her brow in seizing a moment to think. "It sounds as though it is not that you cannot venture into that part of your mind," she observed at last. "It is that you will not. Something--I will assume it is fear--is so intent on holding you back that it threatens you with pain, whenever you make the attempt. You can continue to fight it on your own, I suppose, but given what you have told me of you lack of success thus far... It might not hurt to have an extra force to pull you through that wormhole."
"Hey, move it, will you?" A handful of casters pushed past the two, whose paces had slowed considerably in their conversation. Lilica ignored them, waiting until they passed before lowering her voice and continuing.
"So here is what I propose: we will open up that part of your mind again, and I will enter this wormhole with you--I will push you through, if need be... The pain isn't real. It is a manifestation of your own fear." A pain to which she might also be subject; this venture would be far more tedious than the last, even if he resisted walking through that door to her own subconscious mind. "We will face it together. I will stand as another pair of eyes, but realize, Alster, that you must have yourself under control. Try your best to be a passive observer, or else your emotions will manipulate what we see into metaphors and allegories that we frankly do not have time to dissect and interpret. Look on as if this is not your story at all, but someone else's, the way you... you observed my tragedies."
To say she wasn't still angry about that, even by a fraction, would be a lie. Yet part of her was simultaneously relieved that Alster had defied her and saw what he had in the recesses of memories she no longer wanted to face. It had taken weight off of her shoulders, having someone else in on her darker secrets... But this time, it wouldn't be about her. They couldn't afford to get distracted, not if they wanted to glimpse at the real picture.
Not if they wanted to discover the truth behind Alster's parents, and their untimely demise.
"And... Alster." Lilica bit down on her lower lip, hesitant to refer back to herself on related thoughts that she would rather keep to the back of her mind. "You already know what I did; you saw the bodies and the blood. I will not pretend that I don't deal with remorse every day of my life, even if, in part, I had acted out of self defense. But, what I mean is... what I am trying to tell you... Regardless of what we see, it is done. It cannot be changed, only accepted. Do you understand?" The dark mage put a hand on his arm to ascertain she had his full attention. "If we do this, then you must promise me you will make an effort not to dwell on the truth. Guilt is your enemy, and if you continue to give it such free reign... It will consume you. And it will consume anyone and everyone for whom you care." Elespeth, Chara... Even if he kept them at arm's length, his darkness, his guilt, might eventually find them.
And then he would be forced to shoulder the heavy burden of taking them down with him, in his descent into darkness.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Despite the surge of hope from her confirmation of help, doubts continued to bloom alongside that road like nasty weeds beset with thorns and spines. "How will I know that she'll remain my friend once I tell her whatever truth I discover? I see the way she looks at you. I saw the way she reacted to my chthonic influences. It's...too much. She cannot ground me if I unground her. Perhaps I'm not applying enough faith in her strength, but..." trailing away, he shook his head. "I don't want to drag her down with me." Perhaps it was too late for her; whether he pushed her away or not, what would end up dragging her down was, ultimately, the darkness. Be that as it may, he didn't want to take any unnecessary chances.
"Thank you, by the way," he added, noticing the huffiness in her snap response and wishing to placate her. "I expect you don't hear those words very often, but--I appreciate your aid. It cannot be easy for you. ...I understand that fear is what consistently drives me from reconnecting to my past," he continued in response to her assessment, "but even with all my awareness and wherewithal set in place, I'm still ejected...by that pain."
Realizing that he and Lilica had paused to engage in their involved conversation while becoming obstructions themselves (and therefore noticed by all), he spurred himself forward, reengaging his languid trudge. "I will not open your door, this time," he vowed whilst trying to choke down the guilt bubbling to the surface in conjunction with his words--a reminder of his dismissal towards her specific request. "I'll try to remain impartial. And I promise to redouble my efforts...however difficult." However impossible, he had wanted to say. But thinking on levels of impossibility would not serve him. This time...he would try to have faith in himself. In fortitude...in assessment of what he had done. To prevent a catastrophe in the making, he would attempt any tentative solution--however much he suffered. "I will not be consumed...and I will not consume others." Closing his hands into fists, he glanced over at Lilica. "I can't afford such sloppiness."
The march to the new campsite pattered to a halt around late-afternoon--a good five hours' march under the bake of the sun. Nestled in the hills and flanking a small stream, the area provided a measure of protection against the elements and against enemy interlopers. The valley acted like an amphitheatre, locking the sound within the confines of camp--a useful trick of discretion considering their more centralized location...in the thick of Tadasuni territory.
Haraldur had followed alongside the convoys, grateful for the shadows that stretched across him with patches of their ephemeral relief. Often, he traded with other soldiers who had wished a reprieve from the weight of the ever-stretching day.
When they arrived at camp, he jumped on board the convoy once the horses had slowed to a halt. The officer in command, too exhausted to care, focused his attentions on staying upright on his horse before directing orders to setting up the site.
Within short order, the level ranks of Messino's army devolved into chaos as the ripple effect traveled the expanse of the army. Swaths of men roved around the site, surveying the land and recreating the contours and interiors of the previous arrangement.
General order restored itself, in time, as everyone spilled into a formative routine once tasks were doled out and assigned. As Haraldur hammered down the pegs into the grommets that would soon hold the supply tent upright, he noticed a woman soldier who appeared out of sorts, meandering through the area with an unfocused gait to and from the closest convoy.
In concern, Haraldur dropped the mallet and wandered over to where she had paused; she appeared overtaken with a paralyzing rush of thoughts. An uneasy sway on her feet prepared him to take action.
"Are you all right?" he said, clutching her shoulder as a point of contact and for stability, in case she keeled over from heat exhaustion. "Do you need water?" Without waiting for a response, he unclipped a canteen of water from his belt and handed it to her. "I'll have this tent poled up in a few minutes--if you want a rest inside for a while."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Nonetheless, necessary tasks kept her mind from reading too much into the the cold shoulder that the Rigas mage had turned to her. She had taken to unloading weapons from one of the convoys, carrying armfuls of steel (mainly swords) towards the newly pitched weapons tent, and leaving them for someone else to sort through and organize. But with every trip to and from, the weapons began to feel heavier, and the distance between the tent and the convoy felt as though it was increasing.
The muscles in her arms began to tremble with fatigue as she ventured to carry yet another load a swords, but a overtired misstep very nearly sent her and the weapons flying. Fortunately, someone anticipated the disaster before it could take place.
"Thank you," she told the stranger, and knelt to place the swords on the ground before her tired arms could give out and drop them on her foot. The last thing she needed was a broken toe after a day of hard and heavy labour. "I sure I'm... well, I suppose some water wouldn't hurt."
Moving her long braid over her shoulder, Elespeth took the proffered canteen. As soon as the water hit her tongue, she was apt to drain the vessel dry of the precious liquid, having not spared a prior thought to just hoe dehydrated she was, on top of the physical and heat exhaustion. Reluctantly taking it from her lips before she could drink it clean, she handed it back to the kind man who had offered it. Despite the cramped quarters in which Messino kept his soldiers, there were too many faces to get to know everyone personally. She wasn't even convinced she had laid eyes upon his face before.
"I'll be all right. Honestly." The ex-knight offered a convincing smile and brushed some stray tresses of hair from her face. Some stuck like glue from perspiration; she couldn't remember the last time that ever inch of the fabric on her body had been stuck to her skin from hours of exhausting work. "Just tired... really, really tired. But I'm sure you're in the same boat. My name is Tam, by the--"
Just as she began to offer her hand in greeting, the Atvanian fugitive realized that the skin of her palm had cracked and begun to bleed, stained and sticky with old and new blood. Heat crept into her cheeks, and she hastily returned her arm to her side. "Huh... Lots of rough lugging will eventually get the best of you, after a while, I suppose... nonetheless, thank you for your help, ah... I don't believe I caught your name."
She was about to say something more, likely inquiring into his identity, but an intense dizzy spell stopped Elespeth short. And before she knew it, exhaustion caught up to her, stole the strength from her legs, and then her consciousness.
----
Meanwhile, Lilica watched in the distance as her tent was pitched and refurnished. For all her presence was merely due to blackmail, she was rather impressed that they only really expected her to lift a finger when it came to battle. All the same, she was picky about the arrangement of furniture; he cot had to be placed facing the sunrise, or some mornings, she had trouble waking up. And it couldn't be too crowded, with only the bare necessities of items. Too much clutter was distracting, and her tent was only a place for rest and meditation. A quiet place to escape.
She noticed, in the distance but not too far away, that the Rigas's tents were well on their way to being pitched and ready to be slept in. The dark mage hadn't seen Alster since they'd arrived, as he'd been called on to help his Rigas brethren; naturally, she chose to stay out of the line of fire, knowing deep down that both he and Chara didn't want to make a habit of being seen with her. So she had simply left him with the offer to stop by later that evening, when everyone was settled in.
'Later' came sooner than expected, of course. The entire camp was exhausted from the move; many of the weapons wielders that had shouldered the burden of loading and unloading were in bed before the sun set, skipping their evening meal in favour of sleeping for at least a good twelve hours, if not more. Hell, she had witnessed people fainting left, right and center in the dire heat of the day--Alster's battle partner included, if her eyes didn't deceive her. She wondered if the Rigas mage knew; not that it was her business. And it wasn't her responsibility to tell him what he was missing while he wallowed in his pit of guilt and fear.
When the sun finally went down, and the camp began to quiet after the day-long move, was when he finally showed up, looking this way and that to see that he wasn't noticed. Lilica rolled her eyes. "Everyone is too tired to care how scandalous it looks coming to my tend at night. Come on." Only a couple candles were lit on the inside, and this time, there was no rug to buffer the feel of the cold ground. But perhaps that was to their advantage; to be connected to the earth physically could keep Alster's wild imagination from flaring up with too many metaphors. "I know you're tired, but that is actually optimal. It means that inner sanctum of your mind might be more tranquil and won't twist your memories into something less comprehensible."
Kneeling on the cool grass, Lilica forewent the preamble and found the Rigas mage's pulse with her fingers. He knew how it would go down, "And, Alster?" Arching a brow, she leveled him with her dark gaze. "Leave my inner sanctum out of it, this time. It won't do either of us any favours; I won't ask you again."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Strength will fail you, will fail everyone here, if you don't pace yourself," he said. He looked at her bloody hand and reacted little. What had flustered her so? Blood had graced the hands of many a warrior since the long day had begun. "And you are not all right. Honestly. Here, I'll take you to the medics. They should have pitched their tent early o--"
At that point, Tam had buckled and sagged into his waiting, expectant arms. The light blinked from her eyes, as many had before her, into the realm of unconsciousness. Within moments, he had lifted her up, and within minutes, he carried her into the newly-pitched medical tent.
On arrival to their new campsite, Alster hadn't said a word as Danos and Tivia bossed him into pitching the tent and arranging the furniture, as well as raising Chara's tent. She had protested, much preferring to enlist the aid of an able warrior or two, but Alster silenced her with a glare and bent to his work. All throughout the process, he caught Chara in his periphery, her face a shroud of fear and wracked with guilt. Well that makes two of us.
When he completed her tent, she stepped inside, but not without grazing him with a look, wide and uncertain and bubbling: I'm sorry.
Later, when aiding in a convoy about which certain casters cared enough to unload (food and rations), he encountered the earth mage, whose bloated squirrel cheeks inflated with the knowledge he had hoarded inside of them.
"Hey, Rigas! Did you hear? Your little lady fighter fell under a heat spell. She's out of commission. Doesn't that make you want to swoon? The two of you can lay side by side in the medical tent!"
Alster set his jaw, said nothing, and resumed unpacking the convoy.
That evening, before meeting with Lilica, he wandered over to the medical tent and peeked his head inside the flaps. He saw her there in the fade of night, stone-still but for the steady rise and fall of her chest. After scanning the small space for medics on the move, and detecting none, he sneaked inside and stood, for a brief moment, at her side.
"This is partially my fault," he said to her in a whisper. "I never meant...forgive me. And forgive me in advance." His eyes glistened with tears. "For I don't know what will become of me. Or what I will do."
He departed, then, and reached Lilica's tent with the same covert sneaking he had exercised when visiting upon his previous destination. With a wearied nod, he listened to her snark and entered her little sanctuary. He seated himself upon the earth and watched the candles flicker to their own erratic heartbeats.
"I know what needs to happen," he said in a hollowed-out drone of a voice as he reached for her pulse. "Your inner sanctum is safe."
It didn't take him long to reach a meditative state. Between the grounding earth, the rhythmic breathing, and the pulsing flashes of candle-fire, Alster found himself standing in the oft visited cypress forest of his dreams--where it all began.
He tried to move, to wander the environment and observe the scene of the crime before the crime occurred, but stillness crept over his muscles, and they felt stiff and wooden and petrified. His feet jammed themselves so far into the ground that no amount of wiggling could set them free. It was then that he realized: he was a tree.
Before long, they materialized. Debine and Valente--and himself. No. Not me. I am a tree. He is Alster.
The three of them relaxed in the shade of the cypresses, enjoying the breezes that lolled up from the nearby ocean. Debine was in a better humor. She smiled and hummed a little tune and a bushel of bluebells waggled their heads, thinking themselves actual bells. Valente unrolled a crisp of parchment, bridging distances and consulting routes upon a map of his own creation.
And Alster--he trailed behind the two, a placid face of contentment. Then--a turn. Those blue eyes grew dark. Acidic. Slitted, like those of a serpent.
A horrible pain shivered through the tree. Hacking motions. Splinters flew. He felt for his roots, holding on for dear life. The chopping stripped at his bark, left deep gouges throughout his hardened body. The images--of Debine, of Valente, of Alster--they shimmered into more pronounced blurs, devolving into mere colors, splatters of paint upon canvas...
No! he wailed. The tree shuddered. I will not lose myself! The tree twisted itself into knots, squeezing him into ribbons. Bring it back! I must know! I have to know!
Now!
A clap and the tree returned to normal. Debine, Valente, and Alster reconstituted themselves, from the abstract into concentrated images. The tree watched as Alster, eyes full of confusion and hate and fear, lifted both hands outward. He grit his teeth. Bit down on his tongue until it gushed blood. Fingers crackled in protest against the energy that spurted forth like a gush of oil from the ground. That same oily matter flumed from his hands, forming grotesque shapes: engorged, warped, contorted. A head appeared. Fangs. A slithering tongue. The figure stretched and coiled and split off into yet another coiling, stretching figure. Twin serpents. They struck with the speed of a diving falcon, and snatched them--Debine and Valente. Snatched them both. The darkness constricted and constricted until their victims bled from every orifice, and nearly rent in two. They injected a poison that bubbled the skin until it ate away and left sinew that roped and roped around until that, too, boiled into nothing.
The snakes disappeared.
A pile of gore was all that remained.
And the tree, it drooped and withered and rotted inside, deteriorating with every mortal scream of terror that rattled through Alster who, on his hands and knees, waded in a puddle of blood.
The tree crashed, into Alster, and they became as one. At once, thoughts assailed him like a squall of ice shards.
I killed them. I killed them. They're dead because of me. Because...I am a Serpent.
The world shattered like glass, and he shattered with it.
He woke up wheezing, with tears streaming down his face.
"I-I..." he tried to speak, but instead he bowled over on the ground and started to dry heave.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Alster?" she murmured, when the scene began to manifest. Two people--a man and a woman, and Alster, himself. But as soon as she spoke, she realized it wasn't Alster at all, but a shade of who he used to be--of his past.
And, for a moment, all the dark mage could do was look on in envy. Two parents, and their child, sharing a placid moment--none like she had ever known when she was young. Had her mother ever looked on at her with such fondness? Had her father ever looked at her at all? Alster had what she'd wished she had experience, but what had never been an option, for her.
For a moment, Lilica selfishly wanted to lose herself in Alster's memory. She wanted to sit down with the people of his past, be part of it. Experience the warmth that felt just beyond her reach, as if she were watching through a pane of glass. She wanted to forget her objective and become one with the environment, and she wanted it so badly, she was almost oblivious to the sudden change in atmosphere that accompanied the look in young-Alster's eyes.
That was when everything went dark. And what unfolded felt akin to what she had done to her own parents. That twin-headed, serpentine shadow, the screams, the blood... No, she had seen this all before, time and again. Not in quite the same manner, or with the same people, but she was no stranger to any of it. Blood was still blood, and death was still death... tragedy was tragedy. As her dark eyes took in the pile of gore that had, moments ago, been Alster's parents, she could just as easily picture her own mother and father, lifeless corpses by her own hands.
The difference was, she'd had well over a century to come to terms with her travesty. Alster, on the other hand...
She was forced from the memory with a start, coming to with tear stains on her cheeks. To witness something so beautiful, be destroyed so quickly...
But there wasn't time to ponder the tender moment prior to the death of the Rigas caster's parents, or to feel sorry for herself for the fact she'd never experienced an inkling of the memory. Anyway, as to how much of it was illusion or metaphor was unknown. She recalled vividly that Alster had said his mother was ruthless and relentless in her criticisms of him... Which, she reasoned, had likely been the source of the anger and the hatred that had summoned the the serpentine darkness that had taken his parents' lives.
"Alster..." Wiping the stray tears from her cheeks, she turned to the Rigas caster, and fear gripped her heard. No no no... If what he'd seen had broken him, if dragging him in to the recesses of his mind to face his deepest fears had shattered what little barrier between his sanity and utter, overwhelming despair had shattered, then Chara would never forgive her. Worse, Chara might very well blame her, and hope of escaping this war alive would completely dissipate.
Biting her lower lip, the dark mage put a hand on his back, feeling his body tense with every empty heave, until he practically exhausted himself and fell back on his knees. "Alster--you listen to me, understand?" Moving in front of him, she took his exhausted and distraught face in her hands. Lilica's expression was as severe and sharp as a knife. "Let go. It's over. Let go--do you understand me, Alster? Absorb it, but don't hold onto it. It will only hurt you. It will consume you. Calm down, and let it go."
Consolation was not her strong point, but this catalyst wouldn't have occurred, had it not been for her interference. So she waited out Alster's tidal wave of shock with all the patience she could muster, until he was too exhausted to think, and she was nearly too exhausted to think anymore. There was no point in dragging him back to his own tent at that point, and she wasn't even sure that she could haul his unconscious body halfway across the new camp with her scrawny arms. Ultimately, she got him settled on her cot and stood outside to catch her breath after that ordeal. No sooner did the sun peak over the horizon that she headed to Chara's tent.
Under any other circumstances, she would have known better but to wake the celestial mage from any form of slumber, lest she be on the receiving end of her wrath. But Chara would find out about the catalyst that had just occurred sooner than later, and if she had to hear it at all, then Lilica preferred to be the first source. "Chara--you need to wake up. It's Alster. He... we..." She bit her lower lip, meeting the Rigas mage's sleep-addled gaze with a mixture of concern and guilt. "He saw something. And I'm not sure when--or if--he's going to recover from it..."
---
Elespeth didn't wade from unconsciousness until late the next morning, when the camp was slowly falling back into its typical patterns. Confusion was the first thing to dawn on her as she surveyed the tent, where several other exhausted soldiers lay, out of commission and some wearing bandages. The medical tent... but what am I doing--
It came back to her in a rush. The heat and exhaustion of the previous day, that had pushed her body to its limit. And that stranger who had offered her water, concerned for her well being, before...
Is that how she'd ended up here? Of all the embarrassing things to happen...
Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, the ex-knight stood, unsteadily at first, but managed to get her bearings quickly enough. She was awake, now, and there was no point in taking up a bed in the medical tent that someone else could very well use. There was still work to be done... And gratitude to express. That is, if she could find the one who had helped her...
Squinting against the sunlight as she pushed past the flaps of the tent, it must have been sheer luck that she took notice of the familiar face near the weapons tent. The tent that she had bee restocking the other day, before the world had gone black. "Hey!" She called, waving to catch his attention. When their eyes met, she hurried over. "I believe I owe you thanks... and, maybe, an apology." Lifting her shoulder in a shrug, she offered a half-hearted smile. "I hope you weren't made to pick up my brunt of the work after I... fainted, yesterday." Truth be told, she was not quite yet feeling a hundred percent recovered, but the only way Elespeth Tameris would agree to bed rest for more than an evening would be if she were tied there. Especially after being put up from her injured ankle, beforehand...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He long-since separated his mind from its interactions with his body. They were two entities connected only by a frayed string. One tap and the string would rot in twain.
From a distance as far as one end of a gorge to another, he heard a voice, echoing from the rift in time and space.
Let go.
How?
Calm down, and let it go.
Simple enough words--but they meant nothing. Hollow as the inside of the tree he once inhabited.
He remembered more than their murder. It flooded back to him upon awaking. The emotions that overtook, roosting in the darkest crevices of his soul, awaiting the opportunity to crawl out of the cracks...
You were never around when I needed you most, Father...
Gone. Always gone.
You waited too long.
One of his earliest childhood memories--the back of his father's broad shoulders. The sound of his footfalls receding into the immensity of their home.
Why didn't you love me sooner?!
By then, only the smell of his cologne lingered in the air where once he roamed--eyes trained forward and never behind.
Why was I never good enough for you, Mother?
The old masters, his teachers, had praised him. But she always looked off in the distance, disinterested.
You never looked at me as your son. Only as a problem...
Everywhere he went, anything he did, he always felt her judging eyes boring into his conscience.
I awakened the Serpent...for you.
A flash of yellow-orange slits blackened his memories into a charred ruin.
Now it's peaceful, the voice hissed, but it cooed in equal measure. Soothing. Reassuring. As forked as the tongue that uttered it, he was willing to listen. Listen to the silence...and sink.
He sank. Into night. Into the slumber of oblivion.
Chara lay among her innumerable pillows and felt little comfort. The soft, silken rustle of her sheets seemed to chafe at her skin. The cooling breeze that billowed through her tent stabbed like side-swiping rain. The ceiling of stars that her magic had conjured spelled ominous messages before the stars themselves flickered and disappeared. The entire wing-tip of the constellation Aerione vanished like words from a spilled inkwell--and with it, the star of Alster.
Gasping, she sat up in her cot, only to discover Lilica hovering in her periphery.
"What are--" she began to sputter indignations at her bed intruder, flustered still from her waking nightmare, when she heard the dark mage's news and felt all the warmth drain from her blood. Frost slushed in her veins, slowing her heart to slow, imperceptible beats. Not a nightmare. It was worse--reality.
"What...what did he see? Did he--I knew I shouldn't have spoken a word to him!" She gripped handfuls of her pillows, a comfort she now desired. "I fear that this is my doing. I am the catalyst." Inviting Lilica to sit beside her on the cot, she sighed and dispersed the sky full of stars. Though they returned to normalcy--including Aerione--she shuddered to look upon them and their mercurial disposition.
"I had...suspicions. Alster had relayed his version of events to me, and I knew...something was amiss. When he accepted your aid to hone his chthonic abilities, I...began to doubt this path for him--and I tried to divert him. Discourage him. I told him my perspective--that I thought that he, that his magic..." she trailed away. "My fears...were they true? Did chthonic magic kill his parents?" She tore at the fine fabric in her hands, gripping fistfuls of her frustration--and guilt. "I should have known he would have taken such extreme initiative to uncover the truth, but all I wanted...I just wanted him back before any of this had ever started occurring!" Her fingers relaxed as her mouth hung agape. Did she voice--to the dark mage, no less--such a private thought? Nonetheless, she could not stopper her tongue. "My selfishness...did this to him. I have to...I have to see him. He'll stay here in my tent. He will recover," she said, but with a lack of confidence to back her words. "He will. ...He will."
Work kept on puttering along from the day Messino's army reached new camp. While the brunt of the labor had been more or less completed, little details escaped the grasp of many. Haraldur could not fault any soldier for the oversight, when the scramble to recreate camp took as great a toll on the army as any battle with Tadasun might engender.
At least, they had survived. Worse for wear, but they breathed and they moved and he didn't need to bury anyone. Yet.
To help his fellow man, Haraldur continued work on those small, fleeting details. The weapons' tent was left in disarray. Every conceivable blade and pole-arm lay scattered all over the floor of the tent, nothing arranged or cleared of obstruction. A tripping hazard and a goring hazard ready to happen. Taking as many spears that his large, callused hands could hold, he began slotting them into their wooden racks.
He paused when he felt another presence behind him.
The woman warrior from the other day--should she be up and about this early on in her convalescence?
"Hello." He turned to greet her, freeing his arms after positioning the last spear in place. "Tam, was it? How are you faring?" He gave a quick sweep of her appearance, from head to toe, ascertaining her well-being--in case she required an escort back to the medical tent.
"No apologies are necessary. You were not the first to faint, nor the last, and there is no shame in your body's need for rest. The camp is up and running. Just working on a few finishing touches." He grabbed a bouquet of daggers and hopped over a small obstacle of fallen axes en route to a shelf. "My name is Haraldur, by the way." He sorted through the daggers and stacked them accordingly. "Just another sellsword." After wading through another entanglement of weapons, he reached her and thrust out a hand. "We'll try this again." He smiled.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Condolence and reassurance were not Lilica D'Or's strong points. Spending a wakeful and stress-filled evening with Alster, just to ascertain he wasn't about to claw his skin off or cease to draw breath had taken a large enough toll on the dark mage. She was hardly able to help herself--how in the world could she be expected to pick up the pieces of the chthonic-adept Rigas mage andhelp his celestial cousin hold herself together? Who had been there to hold her together when she had attempted to take her own life?
But it was the very answer to that question, she soon realized, that kept her feet firmly planted in Chara's tent. Lilica had had no one, not even by some illusion, to help her navigate the dismal abyss that was her magical potential. She'd had no one to pick her back up every time she fell, no one to stop her before she'd hurt someone in hopes that bearing witness to their pain would make her feel better about her own pathetic existence.
What would have happened, had that all played out differently? Could she have been saved? Gone through life, slightly less scarred?
There was no way of knowing, but she wanted to believe it. Because if it were true, then Alster was far from a lost cause, despite what he might have thought or felt at the given moment. If it was true, the Chara needn't live another hundred years with nothing but guilt and a sharp tongue to show for it. Nobody had made a difference for her; she would make a different them.
So long as she was forced to remain within this encampment, she would, for once, be the difference between hope and despair. If she could help it.
Taking a tentative step forward, the dark-haired mage took a seat upon the various and sundry cushions surrounding and beneath Chara's agitated form. Funny, how someone who seemed to have everything could yet so quickly decide that it wasn't enough--that it didn't matter, if the people in their life were suffering. "You are not the catalyst. There is no way of knowing whether or not Alster would have looked into this himself, in years to come. Or that it might not have unveiled itself to him in some dire moment. I realize this seems contrary to the logic of here and now, but it is for the better that he knows. He's become acquainted with the pain of the truth, and let me tell you, that is more important than you can imagine."
Folding her hands in her lap, Lilica pressed a sigh from her lungs before continuing. "I felt nothing for almost twenty years, after I killed my parents in a fit of hatred. I felt nothing but hatred; it is a buffer for everything. Pain, sorrow, discomfort... but also happiness. And humanity." With a shake of her head, she lifted on hand to rake it through her hair. "It wasn't until I was able to stand back and to feel that pain that I began to reclaim myself. It hurt; it hurt enough that I wanted to die, but I didn't. And now I'm here, and now I can see that hope lurks in cracks and crevices where you would never think it could fit...
"But the difference between Alster and I is that there was nobody there for me. I saw no other option but death to expel that monster inside of me. But Alster... he has three contacts of support, from what I can see. He has me, via our agreement to help. He has his battle partner, who has exhibited such a genuine concern for his happiness and well-being that you'd think the fool had feelings for him that extended beyond this war. And he has you." She put a hand on Chara's shoulder. "He will recover, and not in spite of you, but because of you. You've set the wheels in motion for him to recover. The truth is out; all that is left is the future."
The dark mage even went to far as to offer an awkward smile, one that was wholly unpracticed and didn't look comfortable. Lilica did not make a habit of smiling. "I am the selfish one in my desire to envy him. That he has three people watching his back and picking him up again when he falls... And I had none. Or, if I did, then I could not see through the shades of red that blurred my vision. Maybe it was my own fault, maybe not, but I was alone. So I... I guess I dreamed of people who cared. I should have realized all a long that the stuff of dreams are what they are only because they cannot be a reality."
No, Alster was not doomed. In her endeavour to reassure Chara, she was further reassuring herself. Alster Rigas had far too much going for him to turn to dust. As soon as he learned to stop being his own worst enemy, perhaps he would realize this. "Give him his space, for now. He is asleep back in my tent, for the moment; if he prefers it to himself to pick up the pieces, then he is welcome to it. Between the two of us and, no doubt, his fighter partner, his needs will not go unmet. But... Chara..." She tugged on her lower lip with her teeth as she contemplated her words. Tact was, also, not Lilica's strong suit. "You told me not to live a dream, but to build a different dream within this reality. Alster... Alster is going to be all right. But it is not fair to either of you to hold out for a version of him that may no longer exist. He has changed--he will change more, I can guarantee, from the man you knew. But that goes without saying for everyone, regardless of the nature of their demons."
Giving her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, Lilica stood, returning to the Rigas mage's her personal space. "As hypocritical as it sounds coming from me... be kind to yourself. Help him, but don't become caught in your own web of despair and insurmountable guilt. We have both seen where that leads..."
---
"Yes--Tam. A pleasure to meet you, Haraldur." This time, when she shook his hand, Elespeth was not compelled to fall to her knees, driven as she had been by exhaustion. It was reassuring to stand as strong as she liked to think she sounded. "A sellsword, you say? Huh. I never did consider the word... although I suppose you could say the same for me."
Bending, she picked up a handful of heavy spears, waiting to be sorted and properly mounted. Her arms screamed with the strain she'd endured the day before, but she would be damned if she dropped a single one of them, this time. Over fourteen hours of sleep (or so she'd guessed) meant that she was at least six hours behind the work that was expected of her, and she was not about to delegate her responsibilities to someone else who worked just as hard. "Are you native to Andalari?" She asked her new acquaintance, out of curiosity. "Your name is not one I've become familiar with in this region. I am--or, was--a traveler, myself." A necessary confession; if her accent did not betray her alien presence, then her name (even her alias) certainly did.
"I'd also ask what persuaded you to fight for someone like Messino, in all of his... unconventional military tactics," she went on, careful not to insult the Prince, in case Haraldur truly did believe in the man. "Then again... that is also something I find myself wondering, day after day."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"What I fear," she said, a quiet strain pulling on her words as she waited for a gap in Lilica's discourse to speak, "is that the pain will shut him down. You have already stated the length of time it took for you to open your mind to your emotions. What if....support is not enough?" She looked down at her shuffling feet. "I don't wish to discount Alster's own inner strength, but I know he is susceptible to his moods. He retreats, and often. More often than before the start of this war. What if his hurt destroys him? I do not know what I will--" she paused upon noticing the hand that Lilica had placed over her shoulder. The gesture, along with a statement of confidence seemingly summoned out of Chara's mouth and into a far different receptacle, placated her rattling thoughts. The dark mage was not one to bloviate or create fanciful lies, and for her to spout such a message of hope warmed the freeze in her veins. Unbidden, a smile of her own appeared, a reflection of the awkwardness alight on Lilica's face.
"I want you to be correct. I've beaten that self-pity out of him before, when he returned to the Rigas estate two years ago. I'm able to beat him up a second time. As for his battle partner," she frowned, not quite enjoying the idea of a nobody non magic-user like Tam as a bastion for support, "I suppose she will have to do. In the meantime...I'll wait for Alster to awaken. Whether he wants me or not, I will remain nearby. I know that my reality doesn't align with my desires, but," her shoulders slumped under Lilica's touch, "I am rather fond of the imbecile and I...I don't want him to transform into a whole other breed of imbecile." That was the closest she would admit to...loving him. Lowering her head to hide a blush in the dark, she fiddled with the fingers that had transitioned upon her lap.
When Lilica passed on her last bit of advice and rose to stand, Chara stood in unison, staring at her feet as a different kind of blush roosted in her cheeks. "This is difficult for me to express. I...thank you. This may sound presumptuous of me to say, considering we are benefiting from your aid, but I believe you are well on you way to finding that new dream of yours."
When he and Tam locked hands, he first offered a wary pump in case of an adverse reaction, but regained the confidence to follow-through with the physical exchange. Dropping his hand, he repositioned it to scoop another set of daggers from the ground. "Sellsword, mercenary, freelancer, soldier of fortune--I've used every term possible. When you make a career out of fighting others' battles, you find there are a dozen different ways to describe your vocation. Whores of the battlefield--that's another one." Haraldur followed Tam to where she brought herself to task, keeping an eye out for her but speaking no word against the proffered aid.
"I am not native to this area, no." He crouched in order to sort through a particularly messy pile of battle axes and short swords. "I am from the Wilds. I suppose that's what this region refers to the hulking stretch of land West of the Vassair Mountains." In the years following his birth, the Vassair Mountain range designated the border between East and West. The East utilized those grand peaks as a symbol of cutting all ties with those grand nations that once dominated the West. Civil and political unrest spread like a conflagration from Vassair all the way to the Western coast--bringing with it an unrelenting drought of twenty years ongoing. Lack of food and stability turned nations into anarchist hideaways, littered so with bandits and crime and warring tribes vying for wasted territory. The last stronghold of the West, St. Thorne, was besieged just five years prior and left to crumble.
"My homeland hails west of Mollengard, up north. Mollengard has accepted us into their country as refugees--though the Kingdom of Astrador ceased to be some time ago." With a shrug, he resumed collecting the axes. "Like you, I've been a traveler. Still am. I happened to be in Andalari when word of war spread from tavern to tavern. I have no loyalties to any one nation--a necessity borne from losing your birthplace so many different times. I fight to fight. There is no deep, entrenching reason for my participation. And I've fought under the banners of loonier men, before. However," he ceased his work to glance upwards at Tam, "you seem to be voicing doubts. I don't blame you. Between the Mad Prince and the legion of complaining casters, it's not the tidiest of war campaigns. You know that first-hand, right? I believe you are with the Compound Unit." He declined to mention the rumors of her defection from weapons wielder to caster disciple. Every war camp loved their gossip, he thought with the shake of his head.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Times like this, Lilica D'Or wondered if she was still dreaming.
"I'm not really on the market for a dream," she said quietly, lifting her shoulder in a shrug. "Just... some peace. The dream will come after that, I hope." Moving towards the tent flaps, she spared one more look over her shoulder. Even newly awoken, with her golden hair twisting every which way from the throes of sleep, and her eyes half-lidded with fatigue, the celestial caster still managed to look the epitome of lovely. It was both infuriating and, curiously, charming. "Don't worry about Alster; I'll keep an eye on him for a few more hours. Return to your rest for a little while... No sense in wasting precious time. Even if you are older than a century, and time has less meaning."
With one more unpracticed smile, the dark mage nodded, leaving the Rigas caster to her thoughts, space, and sleep.
---
Haraldur's tale of 'home', or what he had made his home, was intriguing to Elespeth. Even as a traveler, hearing tales such as his made her realize just how small the world really was. All she had walked away from, truly, was her name; Atvany didn't feel like home anymore, hadn't for a long time, and she'd happily indulged in various and sundry sobriquets as her identity varied from place to place. But her nomadic lifestyle was purely out of necessity, a means to stay alive (as in, avoid execution by her own homeland). Not a result of tensions and economic instability between the East and the West.
For all of her misfortune, the ex-knight was never at a loss for reasons why she considered herself lucky.
"Well, I feel as though you are in the right by swearing no loyalties," she commented; naturally, she was a little bit biased. "It feels as though nothing and no place is stable enough anymore to warrant loyalty. In fact, I'd never have known that Andalari and Tadasun were at war, had I not happened upon the chance to participate in it--purely for monetary purposes, no so unlike yourself." Of course, that was only a half truth. Her motivation had changed significantly after meeting Alster, and learning of his cause...
Even if the Rigas caster no longer wanted her help. It did not change her conviction.
Arranging a broadsword among a plethora of other blades, the Atvanian fugitive paused at her comrade's sharp observation of her suspicions surrounding Messino. "After how awry the last battle turned out, I have lost all faith in our primary commanding officer," she admitted, her tone a tad quieter."The casters weren't provided with armor, and there was no strategy. But yes, I am--was... As far as I know, I am part of the compound units. Unless our Prince decides otherwise; not like he can make good use of his own tactic, anyway..."
Just as her thoughts drifted to Alster, and how miserable he had looked when she'd seen him the other day, who should pass by the weapons tent but his haughty, blonde-haired fiancée. An opportunity hit Elespeth like a stone to the forehead, and she immediately made for the flaps of the tends. "Don't think I'm bailing on the job," she told Haraldur, tossing him a smile over her shoulder. "I'll be right back, I promise!"
Without further words or warning, she slipped out, sprinting to catch up to Chara Rigas.
"Chara!" She called, hoping to catch the Rigas caster's attention. When she caught up, she was--perhaps unsurprisingly--met with the blonde's trademark look of disgruntled irritation. Elespeth knew better than to take it personally, considering it likely had less to do with the magic user's mood, and more about the comfortable resting expression of her face, in general. "I'm not sure if you remember me--I'm Tam. Alster's partner in combat. The last battle, you made it possible for me to get back to camp on an injured leg... And I'm long overdue for offering my thanks, at that."
But that had not been the only reason why she'd been so keen on catching up to the Rigas Caster; far from it, in fact. For the sake of not wasting her time--or Chara's, for that matter--Elespeth was quick to cut to the chase. "I realize you're probably busy, and I promise I won't keep you, but... I was just wondering... Is Alster all right?" Before the proud Rigas caster could brush her off, or dismiss the conversation with a trite 'He's fine, now move along', she clarified, "I tried to speak with him the other day, and he looked... for lack of a better word, unwell. I wasn't sure if something was perhaps bothering him, or if his health has of late taken a poor turn, but... If there was any way that the meager likes of myself might be of help... Could you let me know?" Offering a hesitant smile, she added, "Being part of a compound unit, I don't feel as though looking out for the well-being of my partner in combat should be limited to the battlefield."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Did he ever know of stability in his life? To him, it seemed more of a concept that, in a desperate bid to upkeep the illusion, garnered more war, more unrest, and more strife. It triggered an infinite loop that favored war and human suffering.
And he perpetuated that suffering.
"You had faith, all along?" he said, clearing his throat of thoughts that only agitated his ability to work uninterrupted. "As a sellsword, it's pointless, at this rate, to expect a competent or humanistic leader. Is this your first war as one?" An innocent enough question, but he suspected her answer was marred by complexities and secrets, so he waved it off with the flick of a hand, which found its way into another pyramid of blades.
When he looked up from his task, he watched her dart away from him and out of the tent. Did he ask something that revealing? He then noticed that she reached for the attention of a Rigas caster flashing by the gaps in the tent flaps.
"Take your time," he said with the brush of a smile.
Chara carted a jug of water from the stream at the edge of camp toward Lilica's tent. They decided, last night, that Alster should remain there, at least for now, in case moving him disturbed his slumber. Fully, she planned on relocating him to the coziness of her quarters--if his state lasted more than a day or two. She worried on her lip in consideration of such a possibility. What if he would not awaken?
No. She needed to busy herself with the expectation that he would awaken. In the meantime...well, he would not drink water without her aid.
Just as she crossed near the boundaries of the weapons' tent, a cry for her name whirled her around on her heels. The jug of water lapped out of its containment from the sudden jerking movements, and splashed along her arms. When at last she recognized the voice and the person who popped out of the tent to surprise her so, her glare deepened. Tam.
"Yes, I am well-aware of your existence. I am not daft." She raised an eyebrow at her, and tapped on her foot as an indication to hurry it up. She hadn't the time to listen to whatever drivel pattered along in the woman fighter's mouth. "Is that all, then? Well, you're welcome. Now--" she pivoted towards her intended destination--until the blasted woman mentioned a subject that she could not neglect to discuss.
"He is unwell," she said with a confirming nod, moving the jug from one hand to the other. "I am not in liberty to divulge what he may wish to keep in secret. Furthermore, there is nothing of significance you can do to help him." Could she even help him? Early that morning, she sat by his cot and spoke his name, conversed with him, however one-sided, and spouted curses at him. No response. Her meager use of magic could not even penetrate the morass of his mind, such as Lilica's ability to do the same. In the end, she was just as useless as the oblivious sword wielder.
She was about to leave her pittance of an explanation at that, but her movements to escape the scene had faltered. This wasn't about her or about who she despised or thought unworthy to accept. This was about Alster, and his recovery. Lilica spoke an unfortunate truth. He required support, and Tam, unfortunately, embodied that support.
With a blistering sigh, she gripped Tam's arm and wrenched her forward. "Come with me. I'll take you to him."
A few meandering turns and a roundabout route led them both to the back-side of Lilica's tent. Even in the throes of crisis, Chara needed to exercise the utmost discretion. Not only was she a frequenter of the dark mage's vicinity, but she dragged around the very warrior about which rumors of her caster-related liaisons persisted. Not so much a rumor now, Chara thought with a grimace.
After clearing the area of any onlookers, Chara pulled back the flaps and invited Tam inside. She didn't know whether Lilica would be there or not; just in case, she voiced a warning in regards to the warrior's presence.
"He is here," she pointed to the cot where Alster lay, his brow furrowed in knots and slicked with perspiration. Even in the dim tent, his face reflected a pallor brighter than clouds in midday. A few of Chara's silken sheets draped over him, up to his neck. Despite the warmth of the day, she shivered. It looked like a funeral shroud. If not for the slow breathing and the occasional shifts on his face, she would believe him dead.
"He suffered a breakdown of sorts and has been this way since yesterday," she said, into the stillness. "He may yet snap out of it, but as of now, we expect he may be asleep for a while."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Chara was actually taking her to Alster. She was letting her see him. Well, if that wasn't a sign of respect, however mild (and she knew better than to confront the Rigas mage about it; let Chara keep thinking she held no one in regard), then nothing was.
When she found herself at the front flaps of the dark mage's tent, Elespeth spared Chara a confused look, that the Rigas mage apparently chose not to acknowledge. "A breakdown, you say? Does this have anything to do with the work he's been doing with the dark mage?" She couldn't help but ask. The suspicion that Lilica was the reason for the turn in Alster's health hadn't subsided, and finding him now in her tent, those suspicions were not diminished. "Sorry... I know you said you weren't at liberty to talk about it. And it probably isn't any of my business. But I'd noticed Alster acting differently ever since he began seeing Lilica to get his magic under control... But I should know better than to assume the worst."
Looking over her shoulder at Chara, she asked, "Is it all right if I talk to him for a moment? I doubt it will pull him out of his fugue, but... on the off chance that he might still hear me."
When Chara stepped outside, El knelt next to Alster's cot, not unlike what he had done for her, just the other day, when she had been rendered unconscious from heat exhaustion. He looked so pale, she'd have thought him stricken with plague, had the celestial caster not clarified that it had been a breakdown. "Doesn't seem like you can catch a break, does it?" She asked quietly, not expecting to be answered. Just heard; or not. But she needed to say the words, even if they were carried on and dissolved into the wind.
"I know you probably had your reasons for not wanting to talk to me... You didn't think I could help. And maybe you're right. I spent all my life wanting to be at the service of others, and when it comes down to it, I'm kind of useless, in that respect... Ironic for an ex-knight, huh?" She smiled in spite of herself, but there was no humour in it. "I'm not all that special. And I have no reason to think otherwise... Or to think I could actually be of help to you, in any way. So I promise I'll keep my distance, from now on. I don't want to complicate your life any further, not when there are people who actually can help."
She thought of Lilica, who was helping him through matters that no one else could touch. And of Chara who, in spite of her cold exterior, still seemed to care for him on a significant level. Then there was her; the sword-wielder who couldn't even keep to the compound unit to which she had committed in the first place. Who cramped her partner's style, and likely had thrown him off his game during the last battle.
What an irony, that she was only a hindrance when she wanted to be a help.
"You have family that cares, whether you see it or not. And that... that is significant. Then again, maybe I am just biased, since my own kin were prepared and willing to see me hand." It was so easy to make light of dire travesty, when speaking to someone who you knew would not respond. Made it seem more like a sick joke, the type that appall you, until you hear it over and over again to the point where it loses its original meaning. "I know you can pull through this, Alster. I wouldn't have pestered you so much, if I didn't believe in you." Lowering her voice, Elespeth added. "I still believe in your...and your cause. That won't change. You secrets are still safe with me. Just... do us all a favour, and come out of this. There are people who are counting on you. And I still want to see your success."
Tucking stray tresses of hair behind her ear, she gave the unconscious mage's shoulder a gentle squeeze, before making it to her feet and exiting the tent. She ran into Chara, outside and clearly impatient. "Sorry--didn't mean to take quite that long," the Atvanian fugitive apologized, with only a half-smile to offer to make up for it. "But if there's anything he need--or, for that matter, that you need--then let me know. Even if I can't help directly, should there be anything that I can do that will indirectly facilitate things... Then I'd like to do what I can."
Leaving Chara to return to Alster and her duties (not that the two were mutually exclusive, at this point on time), Elespeth hurried back to the weapons tent, her footfalls feeling heavier than before. "Sorry about that... I just needed to look in to something," she apologized to Haraldur almost immediately, before returning her hands to the steel that still needed to be sorted. There was nothing like rote tasks, such as putting away weapons, to take your mind off of a heavy heart. "To answer your question... this is my first war. As a mercenary, a fighter, and a person, in general. And I can only hope that Messino doesn't see to it, in all of his negligence, that it is my last."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"What is happening to me?" She grumbled aloud, holding her head as if teetering from the skewed perspectives she was gaining, as of late. Before she could further analyze or bemoan the disturbances in her values, Tam reemerged from the tent and reinvigorated the sneer on Chara's face.
"We'll keep in touch," she said, placing a forceful hand against her back and pushing her into motion. "Though I do not believe we will require your services anytime soon. Be that as it may, you are more than welcome to remain on stand-by until that unlikely day arrives."
When the annoying warrior departed, she shook the relief from her waddling head and returned to the tent with the jug of water in hand. Oh good riddance.
"I do not understand why you value her company, Alster," she told his prone form as she placed the jug on a nearby table. "She is dreadfully insufferable."
"Did you find what you needed?" Haraldur took a casual glance from his sorting to greet Tam, who seemed a mite more distraught than from a few moments prior. "Bad news?" He rose to his feet with the last remaining spears that littered the floor. "You needn't answer that. ...I imagine it's difficult to fight under a banner that you don't believe in. Your previous scrapes appeared to have a purpose to you--a purpose that comes with national pride. Breaking ties with your country, for whatever reason, weighs heavily on the mind--influences you and your beliefs more than what you find comfortable. The transition is a jarring one, but you'll find your way." A mysterious smile crossed his face. "Already, you have found yourself some powerful allies, if my observations serve me right. They won't let you die."
The blackness stirred across Alster's inner sanctum, an airtight deterrent against any leakages from Outside. He floated, in a mist, a peaceful reprieve from all that meant him harm. No thoughts, or worries, or expectations. No guilt. No fear. ...No happiness, either. Or love. Alas, nothing is achieved without sacrifices. In the black, safety reigned. Control. Stability. He required little else.
Still, something was amiss. And missing. A ping against the place where his heart once pumped. A stretching sensation that crinkled him in one direction or the other. A rift in the black, a light shining down--a reminder of another world. The world called to him on occasion, popping holes in that airtight seal, and muttering in a multitude of voices.
It will consume you. Calm down, and let it go.
You withering swine! You'd better wake up or so help me...
There are people who are counting on you. And I still want to see your success.
I still believe in you.
Those last words--they echoed across wall-less hallways, into the streams of his dreamscape, writing into his memory, into the veins of his lifeblood. There, he heard a pump he thought gone. Badump. Badump.
His heart.
Cracks bore through the comforting night. An unearthly roar shook his little corner to smithereens.
You fool! Why would you destroy this for yourself? Outside, there is nothing but the reminder of your sins.
I don't know. He told the roar. I don't know. But I need to be there.
The light tore through the shroud. Blinding, pulsating--alive.
Alster opened his eyes.
And with it, the pain swept back into his being like a renewed blow to the head.
"Well, well, look who's late to the procession!" The earth mage tittered at seeing Alster's languid approach to where a number of casters had gathered.
"We're...preparing for battle?" Alster clutched his head and took a slow sweep of the area, caring not to make any sudden jerking motions. His headache intensified with every craning of his neck. Upon waking from his sleep just a few hours ago, he heard the collective clatter and clamor of a thousand or so people milling about camp just outside his--no, Chara's--tent. He stumbled around the relative sanctuary of his confines for a while, guzzling water and some food set aside for him, and made several attempts to mingle with the outside. The intensifying light of the sun stymied, near paralyzed him with its radiating burst of activity. It glared and set him aback, with a look that corroded like acid.
"I'm not ready," he muttered, flipping the tent flaps into place. "I'm not ready." He fell again, upon the cot. "But I have to go...or I never will."
With a tremulous hand, he pushed himself through the threshold, and welcomed the burn of life.
The mage raised an eyebrow at his inquiry. "It's obvious, isn't it? What were you, asleep this whole time?"
"...Yes." Alster squinted against the light, still sensitive to the sunbursts in his eyes. "At least, I think so."
"That sounds like typical Rigas behavior right there. Sleeping while we all toil and sweat and train our fingers off!"
Alster shook his head at the earth mage's inane ramblings and turned to retreat. He hadn't the patience to bump heads with a man whose only purpose was to provoke him.
"Your little lady fighter didn't wait long for your return. Such a whore--she found herself another beau. A filthy warrior, just like herself."
Alster paused.
"Hah--I thought that would pique your attention! Aren't you a hopeless cause?"
Alster twisted around to face the earth mage, ignoring the throb of his blossoming headache--and shot a tendril of chthonic magic like a whip with a speed that crackled like lightning. It grappled the earth mage's wrist and blackened the skin, spreading, like ink in the water, towards his fingers.
"One flick and your hand will fall off."
The heights of panic prevented the earth mage from defending against the attack. Instead, he stuttered, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "I-I'll t-tell. I'll tell Messino."
"Go ahead." He dissolved the spell, and the mage's wrist returned to its normal color. "I don't care."
Again he turned away, this time without any resistance--and searched for Chara or Lilica. Or...Elespeth. Without them, his surroundings felt...surreal. Empty.
Was he actually conscious? Had he stumbled into another reality? Or had he, at last, reached his final destination--the chthonic reaches of hell?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
In Messino's defense, however, this had not been his idea. Scouts had reported that the Tadasuni were marching, prepared to lay siege to the camp if Andalari was unprepared. This crisis incited a very quick assemblage of the more ready and able-bodied, as well as some fast planning and tactics on the part of the commanding officers. Needless to say, this worried Elespeth to no end. The last battle had been sloppy enough, and that had been with ample time to plan and ready the troops. It had yielded far too many casualties and unnecessary injuries, and in her opinion, could hardly be considered a success, even if the enemy had retreated for fear of complete and utter defeat.
The compound units, this time, were to be scattered--So that the enemy is always left to guess whether he is up against one or two, they had been told--with the remainder of casters and soldiers to look out for themselves.
Perhaps that was all for the better; Elespeth's compound unit had fallen apart, the last time they'd fought. And she wasn't convinced that it was what Alster wanted anymore, even if he were awake. With any luck, she'd be more efficient as a fighter without looking over her shoulder at every moment to ascertain her partner was still standing.
"At least the prince saw fit to equip the casters with armor, this time," she said to Haraldur, as the troops were assembling, preparing to march and meet the Tadasuni head on. "He cannot expect them to be their own offense as well as our defense, or for the soldiers to keep them in their peripheral vision to ascertain they are not being attacked. Still... I feel uneasy about this." Lowering her voice, the ex-knight leaned in speak quietly near the mercenary's ear. "Messino seems too confident that we have some kind of advantage, even while we've nearly been taken off guard with the approaching enemy. Either he is as mad as he seems, or there is something he is not telling us... Although what that might be, I cannot imagine. The real key to our victory last time was the dark mage, Lilica. And unless he has changed his mind, I do not believe he prepares to have her march with us at all, this time."
Elespeth's predictions were, as it turned out, spot on. Messino had no intention to bring Lilica into this pending battle, not since the Tadasuni were now aware of her as the potential ace up Andalari's sleeve. Sending her out again would be too predictable, and Tadasun had more than likely prepared a contingency plan, should she pull her same tricks, or else they wouldn't be so confident as to already be marching toward their enemy. The prince assured her that this was, of course, 'all for her own good', and that the tactics he wished to employ in the upcoming battle only excluded her 'for her safety'.
A couple of weeks ago, Lilica would have been thrilled at this news. But that was until her interference alone had chased off the Tadasuni during the last battle, before she had witnessed with her own eyes the vulnerability of the other soldiers, casters and fighters alike.
And now that the only chance of an escape from this war remained vulnerable, the possible bringer of her redemption along with the potential to actually pave a pathway towards a better and more fulfilling life--maybe one void of the darkness that cloyed at the fabric of her very soul--just apt to die as anyone else...
She couldn't allow that. Chara could look out for herself, but sometimes, that wasn't enough when enemies were coming at you from all angles--she had seen it with her own eyes, during the last battle. And were anything to happen to her, she knew that Alster would never be able to pick up the pieces of himself to recover, let alone be of any help to her. Sometimes securing a better future for yourself meant paying it forward.
The celestial mage stood among her brethren, struggling to adjust the armor she was given, when Lilica approached her--relatively incognito, wearing slacks and a tunic, as opposed to the violet dress tied around the middle with its black leather belt. At first glance, anyone would have simply mistaken her for a small, female weapons-wielder; no one so much as turned a head when she placed a had on Chara's shoulder.
"I'm not supposed to be marching today. But I am more apprehensive to stay behind, given the outcome of the last battle... especially if Alster is still out of commission," she whispered to the blonde Rigas caster. "Don't say anything. I'll be keeping an eye on how things progress, and won't take action unless a crisis dictates that I must. Look out for yourself; the mad prince certainly does not have your back."
Before Chara could respond, the dark mage took off to blend in among the gathering crowd. The celesial mage knew just as well as she that Alster was just as effective a wild card as she was, but in the absence of both of them, she was not confident that victory could be secured. So she would stand by, just in case, and at this point, nothing could change her mind.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"From what I know of Tadasun," Haraldur said to Elespeth, folding a hand over his bastard sword, "the last battle humiliated them--and humiliation burns deep in this land. They will fight with everything they have in order to conquer their shame. They no longer wait for us; now they come for us. For all of his confidence," he sighed into the stagnant air, "I hope this mad prince does have some sort of plan."
I know that the mad prince does not have my back. Chara's jaw clenched at Lilica's last words before she had receded--somewhere--behind the heights of their army. If it were up to him, he'd gladly eliminate every single Rigas caster and make it look like some blasted accident. From her angle, she could only discern a shimmer where the Tadasun army approached, their footfalls roaring like a tidal wave--and the curly-topped head of Messino atop his bay horse. He sat there, visible, obvious, glaring with as much sunlit harshness as the enemy. She needed only aim a ball of etheria at his vulnerable form and end his reign. One shot...
And the entire army would also sunder.
However useless and horrible, he is still our figurehead. Without him, who will they follow? Both armies made contact. The call to fight clapped across the skies by all sides. Certainly not the Rigases. Not yet. She ran alongside Tivia and Danos, her hands sparking with an igniting flare.
Not yet.
Alster, donned in dusty garments and a clunky breastplate, had blended with the crowd of dispersed warriors and casters. He hadn't spotted them, not Elespeth or Lilica or even Chara. His battle partner hadn't arrived at the compound unit--and why would she? For all he knew, he was dead to her--in more ways than one.
Maybe I am dead.
The compound unit had scattered, and he along with them. Without the second half of his unit, he operated all on his own, left to his chthonic-using devices.
A clatter of steel against steel had sounded across the battlefield. The unofficial gongs of battle.
It had begun.
He rushed between the spaces of the human stampede, refusing to be trampled before he even tested out his abilities. The headache never dissipated throughout the day and in fact, worsened with each running step and twisting of his neck. Pinpoints pricked at his eyes. He ignored it all and concentrated on the energy whirring inside him, yearning for release.
That itching release arrived sooner rather than later. Tadasuni soldiers bled through the rush of Andalarian troops, scampering about in some battle-enhanced frenzy. They spun and ducked with expert accuracy and swiftness, sneaking behind soldiers and stabbing from behind.
Alster felt their death, saw it kick into the air like dust. He latched on to that intense energy, conceived of a form, a purpose--and struck.
Twin serpents, one in each hand, shot forward, constricting the Tadasuni assailants like pulp--grinding and grinding until their bones liquefied.
More death enveloped the air. Alster took it all in like a perpetual motion machine, like a waterwheel full of power, and attacked. He attacked until it rendered him almost blind. Attacked and killed, feeling the stab of each life taken...
Each life.
Like his parents. Constricted by twin serpents. Done in the same style that he used in battle, over and over again...with no regard for its history, and how it all started.
Dammit! No. Reel it in! He threw both hands at the kill-happy serpents, which leeched from target to target in a meandering line of death.
Stop! No. Come back! Retreat! His hands sucked in the offending energy. The serpents writhed and hissed soundlessly in the air as they succumbed to their host's demands. On their way inside their containment, the serpents wriggled up and down his arms before dissipating into black smoke.
Alster sucked in a sharp inhale of breath as an immense pain sliced him open. When he regained awareness and emerged from his tunnel vision, he glanced at his arms. From shoulder to fingertip, blood dripped from lacerations that shredded both clothing and skin with such thoroughness that he couldn't tell the difference between the two.
It's done. His breath came out of him in shudders. I can't...what's the point of going on? He burrowed his feet into the ground. Dropped his arms. An easy, stationary target.
Everyone is gone. It's just me. If this is hell, kill me and drag me to another hell.
He heard a pattering of feet close in on him. Sanguinary blades danced in his periphery. He closed his eyes tight against his skull, and awaited a different kind of release.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Tadasun, with its pride still wounded from the last battle, held nothing back this time around, and it was difficult to tell from the very start whether Messino really had the edge that he thought he had. Despite that their numbers had fallen since the two nations had last fought, they hardly looked to be a single man shorter than before.
While their enemy's last attack had been careful, almost tentative, their methodology had, just as Messino had predicted, changed up along with the change in their pride. At the sacrifice of careful calculations and considerations, they were ruthless, cutting down Andalari soldiers in blind hatred. Fortunately, Messino's troops were prepared, at least as best as they could be, and retaliated with their own brand of ferocity.
Even Elespeth had changed her game, this time. Of course, it as primarily borne of necessity, and not necessarily by choice. Without the other half of her compound unit (as far as she was aware, Alster was still unconscious; Chara, at least, had not told her otherwise). In Alster's absence, the former knight had followed Haraldur's lead, heeding his advice and learning a thing or two about the way he fought--more like a mercenary and less like a knight. It had been upon that realization that the Atvanian refugee had decided it was time to change up her game.
There was no point, after all, in fighting like a knight when her veins no longer ran with honour. And when it came to war, it was adapt, or die.
Her clothes and armor were far bloodier than the last battle, a fact that might have bothered her had she continued to cling fast to the morals that she thought had defined her. But without a partner to worry about, Elespeth's mind was only focused on one thing, and one thing alone: survival. She moved like lightning, employing a combination of the methods she was used to, along with those she had learned with Haraldur, and the results were incredibly effective. No one touched her, no blade so much as grazed her skin; some enemies even ran from her, as they watched their comrades fall to her blade.
Her performance only stuttered to a halt when her green eyes fell upon a still figure in the midst of battle, which nearly made her heart stop.
"Gods... Alster!"
Sprinting to her partner's defense, the ex-knight cut down the wielder of an axe, his blade inches from the Rigas caster's neck. The Tadasuni soldier fell, hard and dead, at Alster's feet, but he was not Alster's only threat. Before she had a chance to catch her breath, Elespeth ended the lives of two more sword wielders, and a that of a tall, burly Tadasuni who gripped a morningstar in his two massive hands. Only then was she able to pull the caster aside, and out of the line of fire of the ongoing assault.
"Alster... are you all right? What in all hell were you thinking!" Elespeth gripped his shoulders so hard that her fingers could have left bruises. But her arms weren't steady; they shook, not with the strain of wielding her sword, but at the shock that just seconds ago, her battle partner could have died in front of her. "When did you wake up? If you decided against the compound unit, then I can accept that, but why were you not even willing to defend yourself? What is wrong with you...!" It wasn't anger mirrored in her eyes when she searched his face; it was fear. Fear of what could have happened, what could still happen, mixed with the pain of the realization that the Rigas caster would rather die than fight by her side.
Meanwhile, Lilica had hidden herself within the crowd, keeping to the back so as to remain out of the immediate line of fire. An inkling of regret had lodged itself in her gut at her decision; this battle was bloodier, fiercer than the last, and she couldn't use her magic lest she give away her position, at the expense of likely experiencing Messino's wrath later on. I shouldn't have come; I'm getting in the way. She'd been a fool to doubt the fighting prowess of the soldiers and the casters; nobody needed her. She was nobody's saviour, no one's hero, just...
And that was when she saw it, purely by chance at a small break in the throng of bodies, both alive and dead: it was the female soldier, Elespeth. And near her--with her--was Alster. "Gods..." She breathed, her fingertips suddenly surging with energy at her own will. They were distracted, the both of them in danger as enemies advanced on them. What the hell were they thinking? While it was fine and well that the Rigas caster was finally awake, now was no time to catch him up on everything he'd missed.
Knowing full well that it would hurt her later, in more ways than one, the dark mage gathered the chill in her bones and the underpinnings of hate that accompanied it, struggling against her own penchant for destruction as she directed her magic with the will to save the soldier and the caster. The men surrounding the pair, a half dozen brutes, suddenly combusted in black and violet flames; the same trademark move that had won Andalari the last battle. And it worked, yet again; the men fell to their knees, while others fled in fright, struggling to pinpoint the source. It left Lilica weak in the head and the knees, but she had bought them time, and that was what mattered.
It was a wake-up call for Elespeth and Alster, snapping to attention as men around them burst into flames. They'd been careless; and war did not reward the careless. "Alster," she hissed, still gripping his shoulders. "You either need to fight, or you need to run. Whichever you choose, I'll accommodate, but I will not see you cut down. Not while I am still standing. Do you understand?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Pain. His injuries throbbed and threw a slimy warmth all over him.
Noise. He heard the collective clash and whir and scream flood his ears.
Acknowledgement. Elespeth, standing before him, yelling realizations at him with a battle-frenzied fervor.
This was not hell. This was reality. Just reality. How could he have thought otherwise?!
You're an idiot, Alster. What the hell, indeed.
As she pulled him to a quieter alcove, he looked behind him and saw who he had branded with his magic. A serpentine path of fallen bodies, blood trailing from every orifice, their faces heavenward and mouths open in contorted swan songs they hadn't the clarity of mind to deliver. There were countless bodies. Their clawing energy clambered for him in the kicked up dirt and mud...resonating in his bones.
For what he did, he hoped that reality hadn't yet found him, and it was still just a dream.
"Today." At first he didn't trust his voice, all quaking and abrasive against his throat. After the lingering shivers that danced upon his ravaged arms had receded, he tried again. "I woke up today. I looked for you. I--"
Awareness returned to him, but too little too late. In midst of their distracting reunion, a group of men had circled them like wolves on the hunt, and they--frozen stiff like deer--allowed them an opening. Dammit. My little stunt put us both at risk. He raised a twisted hand, summoning the death that activated his magic, but it churned with a re-energizing languor, and he cursed in the air. Perhaps he really would die--just as he wanted.
At least he wouldn't die alone.
One blink and a wall of violet flames razed about them in a circle, stirring a conflagration of death and terror manifest. The fire ate away at whatever unlucky soul stuck around for the performance and so they writhed and burned--kindling for an appetite that was never sated.
"Lilica," he said, and searched the fracas for the dark mage. He spied a women wearing nondescript clothes before she vanished into the ever-wavering maelstrom of the battle.
"After that spell, she'll need help!" He side-turned to Elespeth and about offered a bloody hand in support--until he looked at the condition of his arms. How much longer could he, too, keep standing, without suffering from blood loss?
Flailing fingers formulated a hurried spell over his lacerations to help stopper the flow. It wouldn't last. He didn't care--as long as it held enough to make up for his dire mistakes.
"Keep your distance from me," he told Elespeth as he weaved through warriors in thrall with each other, en route to where he last saw Lilica. "Its unpredictable."
With a preparatory intake of breath, Alster restarted the flow of the cththonic water-wheel that fed on death. To his chagrin, the shape of the serpents returned, but he only faltered--for a moment.
Now I've seen what I am. A man unhinged enough to murder his own parents...this is child's play. And I have nothing left to lose--when I already had nothing at all.
The twin serpents returned, terrorizing their enemies in spurts of oily matter. In turn, they tapped every victim and reveled in the gushers of their rust-colored oil. And how they bled. And screamed. And ran.
He half-hoped Elespeth was in proximity to his wanton destructiveness. For she will know that I am a monster.
I am a serpent.
Little by little, the battle thinned out, in both intensity and in numbers. However, Andalari's forces bit and roared and cut through Tadasun's ranks with some sort of reserve power and near-invincibility. Haraldur noticed, when darting from soldier to soldier, the lack of many Andalarian bodies pooling the ground. Even more bizarre: he stepped over a half-mangled swordsman, dead and almost bled dry, only to watch him rise and, with his gaping head injury, resume fighting as if he were able-bodied and in perfect health.
The battle persisted in a traditional Tadasuni refusal to retreat or to surrender--their last battle notwithstanding. By the end, it had grown tedious. Haraldur roamed about, stabbing men who had long lost the resolve to keep on fighting and only hobbled on wavering feet, waiting for the honor that death in wartime would bring to their families. Granting death wishes instead of meeting a man equally on the field meant that, as far as he was concerned, the battle had ended. Victory for Andalari, he supposed--though he hadn't liked the feel of such victory as it slid down his parched throat.
As he wandered around, immobilizing any stray Tadasuni resistance, he came across Tam and who he assumed was her caster partner, whose arms trickled with red rivulets all over and whose eyes looked like empty pools, dredged of everything but the color of bloodshot. He rounded on the duo, positioning himself in time to catch the sway of the caster as he collapsed onto him.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
No wonder he had told her to leave during their march towards the new encampment. How could she possibly compare as an ideal partner to him, when she couldn't even measure up to his capabilities? She hadn't even been there for him when he'd awoken, when he'd been searching for her...
Maybe this partnership just wasn't meant to be. Maybe she was holding him back. He deserved room to grow.
When naught but the dying and the dead finally surrounded them, Elespeth laid down her sword at last, her arms and back aching from the exertion of this lively fight. That Alster had endured for as long as he had, with those substantial injuries to his arms, was nothing short of a miracle. But miracles were not eternal, and she watched as the Rigas caster began to sway, near collapsing to the Earth. And he would have, had Haraldur not caught him at that moment.
"Alster!" The ex-knight gasped, scrambling over to him, already tearing the fabric at her sleeves to use the strips of cloth to staunch the Rigas caster's flesh wounds. "All hell! He just woke up today, and already, we've lost him again... Haraldur, thank you. I wouldn't have been quick enough to catch him. Though I imagine you must be growing tired of catching fainting people." The mercenary's armor and sword were just as bloodied as hers, though neither of them appeared to have sustained any extensive injuries. It was all the lifeblood of the enemies; not even enemies, but the men and women who they were paid to kill.
About as far from a knight's honour as you could get. Perhaps it really was high time that the Atvanian fugitive relinquish her moral high ground. No one applauded her for it, and it was by no means sustainable if she wanted to survive this war.
As soon as his wounds were, for the moment, secured, resulting in an utter lack of sleeves for the ex-knight's tunic, Elespeth turned her eyes to Haraldur. "Here--let me help get him back to camp." Taking one of Alster's arms, she slung it across her neck, and between the two of them, they began to half-carry, half-drag the unconscious Rigas caster through the bloodied battlegrounds. Although her mood was somber enough to warrant silence, something she though she'd noticed during Andalari's bloody assault plagued her mind. She wondered if her mercenary comrade had witnessed something similar, or if she'd simply seen too much blood to have processed what she was witnessing clearly.
"Haraldur... I saw so many of our men fall. Not as many as last time, but an archer--one of our archers--drew his last breath at my feet, his throat slit." Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, she pressed her lips together, wondering if it were possible to express what she'd seen without coming across as insane. One lunatic among an army was enough, and Messino filled those shoes well. "But I saw him... I saw him die. And then, I saw him... stand, again. Perhaps I'm overtired, but I daresay, I don't have the imagination to dream that up, asleep or awake..."
Meanwhile, it had been a matter of damage control for the dark mage, as soon as she saw that Alster and his battle partner were safe. With the exception of a few close calls to a couple of casters (Chara being one of them, though it was not noteworthy enough to keep in mind to mention later on), Lilica spent the majority of the battle simply staying out of the way and staying alive. This included fighting off the weakness in her knees and the lightness in her head, and ignore the bruises that blossomed on her arms and legs every time she slipped.
She witnessed the fighting decline man by man, fallen by fallen, until it was safe enough to stand up, stand out, and search for one of the three people whose lives actually mattered to her--for selfish reasons, of course. Through the heat and haze of the day, she noted the woman soldier along with another ally appeared to have a hold on Alster, who appeared to be down for the count. Given the lack of panic on Elespeth's face, along with the other solider who accompanied her, Lilica at least assumed he wasn't dead.
Good. At least I can do something right...
Now, she needed to find Chara. The celestial mage couldn't have been aware that Alster had awoken; she'd never have permitted him to fight in this battle, had she known, not in a newly awakened condition.
The haughty Rigas caster was not difficult to spot, with her shock of blonde hair and ever disgusted expression. Through sheer willpower alone, the dark mage managed to catch up, seizing the sleeve of Chara's long tunic.
"Your cousin... he's awake." Doubling over, she rested her bruised hands on her bruised knees, struggling to catch her breath. "I saw him among the fighters, with the soldier he calls his battle partner. I sensed his magic among my own... The woman soldier and another comrade are helping him back to camp. He appeared unconscious, but otherwise, all right..." Looking up, she squinted against the hot afternoon sunlight to meet the celestial caster's azure eyes. "What about you...? Are you all right?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Woke up? He was unconscious prior to this battle?" He shrugged off his curiosities, wondering if the caster partook in some magical meditative mumbo-jumbo beforehand, in which case he'd be far in understanding the specifics of such a perplexing art. "Well," he changed the subject, inspecting the caster's wrapped arms, "Alster, was it? It looks as though he'll be fine. A touch of exhaustion mixed with minor blood loss. Bedrest will do him plenty of good."
As they dragged their charge back to camp, Tam began muttering what, to other people, sounded like crazy talk. But to him, he gripped the pommel of his sword with his free hand and remembered the soldier with the head wound. "Maybe we're both overtired," he said, dipping the volume in his voice. "For I saw something similar. A man I knew to be dead rose from the ground and started fighting with all the fervor that I had lost hours ago. At first I chalked it up to as a misfiring of my senses, but you saw it, too. Is there," he glanced behind him, at Alster, "some kind of magic afoot?"
For Chara, the battle lingered for longer than the sum of her magical output, and she had lost all juice well before the end. As much as she rationed her abilities and reserved high energy spells for only the most dire of situations, she felt a soaking up of her celestial spark, a sputter, and then nothing. Gobs of fire in her hands transformed to smoke, an embarrassment she hid well from the likes of Danos and Tivia--who would only respect her if she commanded power with effortless grace and stamina.
An inner panic glazed over her during the throes of battle. With no more magic, how could she pretend that she still fought with a full arsenal? Finding an opening within the ranks, Chara "lost" herself in the crowd, separating from her team and from their critical eyes. However distracted they were from fighting for their lives, she dared not take a chance, opting for a shameful, cowardly alternative. She fled her family and retreated from the nucleus of the fray, watching from afar--and hiding.
Luckily, she discovered a ditch carved out by an overturned rock, and in there, she crouched and stewed for hours, chewing her fingernails down to nothing as she cursed her infinitesimal speck of magical inheritance. Powerless...defeated...alone. Some example I turned out to be! I should have been out there--dying for the cause! she thought, and bided her time until the dwindling roar of her surroundings encouraged her to emerge.
The first person she encountered was Lilica. A yank on her sleeve alerted her to several possible persons, which led to fear and the seizing up of all her limbs. But when she turned, she regarded the dark mage, suffering again at the hands of her punishing magic. Before she could inquire about Lilica's condition, news of the alarming kind had gripped at her soul and about punched her lungs into breathlessness. "Alster!? He was here? Fighting!? How did he...of course the little snot chose to awaken during muster. At least...at least he's alive," she sighed. Lilica's shift from Alster's well-being to her own stymied her into silence a moment, but she narrowed her eyes and inflated her chest in order to spout her famed braggadocio. "Oh, I am stunning, as usual. Not a scratch. Mowing down our adversaries with the simple flick of a finger. I've a wonderful team. You, on the other hand," she dropped her act and inclined her head at Lilica's physical state, "will you need some assistance?"
When Alster opened his eyes, yet another varying environment welcomed him into the world--only now he had the awareness to tell the difference between reality and a dream. What aided in his thought process was the presence of Chara, who stalked over him like a cat pouncing on its prey.
"Oh, you are in big trouble, Alster Rigas."
Basic background shapes returned to his vision. He lay upon a cot, one among many, in the medical tent. It bustled with activity, with the wails of the dying, with assured whispers and restless turns of the injured. He gazed over at his arms, cleaned and dressed and festooned with bandages. A thorough mummification--moreso than when Elespeth wrapped the welts on his hands, during a time that felt so long ago.
He stared at his hands, stiff and petrified--slashed up inside. He bent each finger, testing their functionality, a physical examination of his own to allay his concerns. He was not yet finished here. The fingers waggled their approval at him. No. Not yet.
"How long was I out?" he said in a sleepy drone.
"The first time...that was three days. The second time--you had the decency to sleep for just a day. Thank you for your consideration." She huffed, leaning back from Alster's face to cross her arms against her chest.
"How is--"
"Everyone is doing well enough," she interjected. "Awake and alive--including your little lady love."
Elespeth. He recalled the battle. How he stood there, waiting for death. How she charged forth and saved him, snapped him to his senses. The rest...the rest remained a blur of serpents and smoke and twisted bodies on the ground.
Even if he frightened her with his macabre display of magic, she needed an explanation. He would tell her...what he had done.
"Am I allowed to leave? ...I want...I want to see her."
"Oh no." She snorted, glaring at him until her eyes sharpened into slits. "I'm not allowing you to pull another sleepwalking stunt as you did before. You go on and convalesce. I will bring her to you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lithe though he was in build, Alster was by no means easy to lug in his unconscious state. Between that and the exertion of battle, both the ex-knight and Haraldur were beyond exhausted by the time they got the Rigas mage settled in the medical tent. After--and only after, with fewer ears out of hearing range--did they continue their discussion of what they had witnessed on the battle field.
"Alster... his magic is not exactly orthodox to Rigas expectations," she confided in her mercenary friend, and only because she was confident that Haraldur could be trusted with the burden of silence in the wake of secrets. She would never betray the crux of Alster's insecurities to anyone even marginally less trustworthy. "But I watched him fight this entire time. So if there is some sort of magic about that bespelled our fallen to continue fighting... I do not believe it was his. There is the dark mage, Lilica, but this does not resemble any capabilities that I have seen from her, either. And she had been instructed to sit this battle out..."
Lilica's trademark tactic was that of a mysterious dark fire, that sought its target from several yards away. Alster's was... well, she wasn't quite sure, but she knew what it wasn't. And it wasn't this.
What was amidst resembled necromancy. And while it certainly had appeared to play in their favour, she wasn't sure any caster among Messino's army was adept with that specific skill.
"You don't think that there might be something about this war that Messino isn't telling us, do you?" She murmured, her voice thick with suspicion. But before Haraldur had a chance to respond, Elespeth noticed the familiar form of a certain celestial made making her way towards them, walking with purpose. Not that anyone should expect anything less of Chara Rigas.
"Oh--Chara!" She greeted her, after offering the mercenary a look that suggested they continue their conversation later. "Is Alster..."
He was awake; the celestial mage told her so before she could finish her question. She also told Elespeth that he had asked after her, and wanted to see her--which left her uncertain.
"Are you sure? Is he sure? After today, he should be resting..." She was assured, however, that he would rest as soon as his request was granted. And, to be honest, Elespeth wanted to talk to him, as well. If he was unwell, or having second thoughts about fighting by her side, then these were things that they needed to discuss before the next battle.
Had they had a plan... Had she known he'd been looking for her, she never would have allowed such extensive injury to befall him.
Bidding Haraldur farewell until later on, she followed Chara back to the medical tent, where her battle partner lay, bound from shoulder to arm in bandages, but otherwise all right. She approached with a tentative gait, surprised at her sudden loss of words. The ex-knight was never at a loss for words or questions, particularly not when it came to those for whom she cared.
"Your fiancée told me you were awake... how are you feeling?" A stupid question, she realized, as soon as it was out of her mouth. She knew how it felt to be on bed rest, wrapped in bandages. It was not pleasant. "Haraldur and I brought you back here as soon as it was safe. We won, again, against the Tadasuni... though you've probably already gathered that, by now."
---
"Do you feel it?" Lilica lowered the basket of herbs she was gathering, straightening her spine and her skirts as she stood slowly. There was no wind, no sound; just stillness in the woodland where she gathered her supplies. "Something feels... I don't know. Amiss. Like I'm missing something."
"Then you've probably forgotten a thing or two that you came for." The red-headed young woman a few feet away remained crouched near a bush, reaching for the petals of a cerulean flower, and plucking them one by one from the bush.
Lilica shook her head. "No, that isn't it. Siah, is there something else I'm forgetting? I just feel like..." She pressed her fingers to her forehead and frowned. "It's so calm here. But I've got this feeling of unrest... like things should not be so calm."
"We are in the middle of the woods behind your home, with no civilization for an hour's worth of walking," her companion chuckled. "And on a clear day, at that. Why wouldn't things be calm? What else would you expect, Lili?"
"I don't... know." Tucking tresses of dark hair behind her ear that had escaped her braid, Lilica scanned the forest. "It is like a fear that I can't quite place. LIke I should be thinking about something, but I don't know... Oh! Are you all right?"
Dropping her basket, she dashed over to her friend, who cradled her hand in her opposite palm. Several puncture wounds, as if from the assault of thorns, leaked blood onto her fair skin. "Hold still a moment," Lilica advised. "I have bandages in--"
"Don't bother." Siah's expression suddenly went cold as she met Lilica's dark eyes. "There's no point."
"What do you mean? You'll get blood on your clothes."
"What I mean, is," she went on, this time, with a hint of sadness, "is that it is time you grounded yourself in reality... I'm sorry."
The dark mage woke up with a start, forehead sticky with perspiration. Not again... why am I dreaming again. Reality came rushing back to her in a matter of seconds. How Chara had helped her return from the battlefield, and back to her tent where she could rest. How much time had passed...? Either daylight had yet to fade, or she had been unconscious for over twenty-four hours. Based on how fresh her bruises, and the fact she was still clad as a soldier, still looked she assumed the former.
"Excuse me, Miss." An official that Lilica recognized as working directly for Messino intruded upon her tent without calling beforehand. Thank goodness she wasn't indecent. "His Highness Prince Messino wishes to see you in his tent, immediately."
"Of course he does..." The dark mage murmured. She should have known better; dark magic stood out like a sore thumb on the battle field. Even incognito, there was no masking her presence.
"While I know little of the machinations behind magic, it does appear that there is some sort of...well, necromancy," he frowned at the word, "occurring, and on the sly. I believe our Royal Commander is playing a dangerous hand. But we can't hope to know much else unless we understand the source behind this magic. Do you think your partner may know a bit about necromancy?"
As if on cue, the other Rigas caster emerged through the tent-created alleyway, pinpointing their location like a homing pigeon returning to her roost. She asked for Tam. Rather, Alster had asked for Tam. Her closed off stance, with arms crossed over her chest, suggested that any protests to the contrary of her wishes would not stand. When at last she caught Tam's cooperation, the Rigas woman regarded him for a fleeting second, her head perched high and her eyes dissecting him as if he were a lowly ant on the ground by her feet. Then, she tossed her head and left the area with Tam.
"Magic-users," Haraldur said under his breath with a sigh. "Never get involved with magic-users."
Alster watched the rustle of the tent flaps and a gloaming light stretch through the enclosure--along with Elespeth. The ex-knight shuffled over to his bedside, gaping at him with an awkward silence that, in turn, caused him to shift around his cot with a self-conscious shrug.
"I...well--I've been better," he told her, a stupid answer to her introductory question. He lowered his head and tucked his arms far into himself, as if hiding his injuries would strengthen his resolve: for what he revealed would, for certain, chase her from the tent and out of his life.
"Yes...I have. Another victory." He shuddered at the thought, for it brought little solace, only a reminder of the twisting death wrought by the serpents of his own creation. "Thank you, by the way. For saving my life. At the time," he hesitated, and sought the sting of his bandaged fingers for distraction, "I wanted to die. I thought I was already dead--and even if I had realized that I wasn't, I still would have wished it on myself. It's been...a rough few days." The tiniest of smiles crossed his face. "'Rough' is an egregious underestimation. But, I owe it to you to explain...what happened."
"The day we packed up camp," he began, and his memory crossed over a bridge into territory that spanned far and away, into the mist; it seemed like eons ago, "Chara took me aside and expressed her concerns for me...and some observations. Something that hadn't made sense to her for quite some time. In that, she implied that I did something...horrible." He carefully danced around the subject, using the vaguest of terms so as not to startle Elespeth before even reaching the crux of his retelling.
"It weighed on my mind all day. And I pushed you away...away because--you would hate me if you knew the truth. If I told you. I...I thought I was doing you a favor, but," he shook his head and remained with his eyes averted, convinced that he'd lose his footing if he glanced her way, "in the end, I was doing no favors, least of all to myself. I...consulted Lilica that day. Asked for her aid. I needed to know if Chara's suspicions were true. That evening, we meditated, to that day, to the day where...because I had forgotten the details. Everything had been fuzzy for years but I always thought...Well, she broke through the haze, and I saw. I saw it all--the way it happened. And," he squeezed his eyes shut, holding back the pressure that chipped away from behind, threatening to crack free, "I-killed-them. I killed my parents. The way I killed people on the battlefield today. That's how I did it. Squeezed them until they bled and fell apart. And...and..." Tears leaked through those cracks in his eyes. He threw up a hand to hide his face, to stopper the flow, but he broke something back there and he could not fix the leak. "I'm sorry, Tam." He spoke through the spaces between his fingers. "I'm sorry you got involved in all of this. But you can walk away. ...I am no brother-in-arms to you." He dropped his hand to his lap, no longer caring for the preservation of his dignity--and allowed the tears to freely flow. 'I'm only...a serpent."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And, contrary to what her battle partner believed, it didn't even occur to her once that he was at fault for anything. Not for pushing her away, or for seeking Lilica's help, or even for what he claimed to have done to his parents.
Five years ago, it might have been different. Smothered by the code of conduct and the honour by which she was supposed to live her life, the old Sir Elespeth Tameris might have been quick to pass judgement on Alster for his deeds. But honour meant nothing, when your loyalties were tied to a person, and not to a nation.
Regardless of what he said, Alster was very much her brother in arms. And, perhaps, she cared for him and had invested more faith in him than what was safe, for a fugitive on the run. Trust came at a high price... But of everyone in this damned, wayward army, he would not betray her. She didn't know how, but she was confident of it as a fact. And the ex-knight would be hard pressed to find another friend who would see and respect who she was, past the extensive bounty on her head.
"Alster," she spoke softly, gingerly taking a seat at the edge of his cot when he turned his face away. "Look at me. Please." With a gentle grip, mindful of the bandages and of his injuries, she moved his hand from his face. It always hurt to see the people for whom she cared shed tears; what hurt more was when they tried to hide them. "Look at me, and look around you. We're not stuck in this past. This is the here and now, and what happened before... no matter how horrible, it does not dictate what happens now. It does not mean that you cannot and will not make a difference." More quietly, she added, "It does not mean that you will not have the victory that you and your family are striving so hard to attain. Listen..."
Rolling her shoulders back, Elespeth leaned in to speak even more quietly, unsure of who might overhear. The majority of people admitted to the medical tent were either unconscious or too preoccupied with pain to seem to care, but that did not assuage her need for caution. "It's devastating, I know. Especially if you are only now remembering. And although it may not seem the same, what I did, back n Atvany, was worse than killing my parents. I plunged the entire Tameris name into shame--they would rather be dead. They told me so. Don't think for a moment that I still don't dream of them. That I don't wake up to nightmares at least once a week, fearing that I have been caught, and that I cannot be forgiven. If your perception of me is without those moments, like I am impervious to the sins of my own past, then it is wrong. There are some things for which I fear I will never forgive myself... we are not so unalike, Alster."
The disgraced can love each other...
"I don't hate you, or what you did," she went on. "What I hate is that you felt as though you could not tell me, and instead you went and got yourself hurt. Worse, you wanted to die, and nearly did. But Alster, if you cannot live for yourself, then is it at least possible for you to live for others? For Chara? For... me?" Elespeth knew the pull of death, that desire to swiftly and effectively escape pain and your problems, permanently. It had crossed her own mind, once, as well. But she had quickly realized that her worth as a human being. She could continue to make a difference, and perhaps find a new niche, someday... Which would not have been possible if she were dead.
If only she could convince Alster of the same mindset...
Exhaling heavily through her nose, Elespeth shook her head. "I am not going to walk away. Not unless you can tell me that you are better off without my interference in your life. Then, and only then, will I walk away from you without looking back." She had already been prepared to remove herself from his life. But now that she knew the truth, it was the last thing on her mind. "You're my battle partner until you tell me otherwise, so enough with the secrecy from now on, all right? Promise me."
Meanwhile, another caster approached the medical tent with armfuls of fresh bandages, nodding to Chara as she stood outside. "Looks like you'll be on the market again soon for a brand new best friend," he jabbed, grinning at the perplexed look that befell her face. "You didn't hear? Word has it that Messino's got it in for the dark mage for breach of direct orders. I wonder what the penalty is for breaching orders... Guess we'll all find out."
Lilica stalled for about as long as she could before she felt as though she was pushing her luck, and made her way, escorted, to Messino's tent. What, does he think I will run? Where will I go? Still in the haze of the dream from which she had awoken, she had yet to fully adjust to the bright orange rays of the day's dying light. It forced her to squint, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Siah's face, and the woodland again. Each and every time, it tore her heart a whole new wound.
"Miss D'Or; you will look at your Prince when he addresses you."
Startled, Lilica opened her eyes to Messino and his half-dozen commanders. She couldn't even risk blinking, lest she get caught up in her own reverie. It would do her no favours.
One of the men who was not Messino (she couldn't be bothered to memorize names) sighed and repeated himself. "Once again: did you, or did you not, follow the orders under which you were directed today?"
"Why are you asking me," she sighed, looking on with boredom from one meaningless face to the next, "when you have clearly already made up your mind as to what the answer is?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I don't...understand," he admitted, searching her eyes for some type of explanation. A defect in her brain. An impostor in his midst, existing to prey on his confessions. Any chink at all in her disguise that would allow him to uncover the truth behind her motives. Instead, he saw blind, unadulterated fellowship. "Your...your parents still live. You did not murder them as I did mine. You have not yet decimated your chances at redemption. And my perception of you...is of someone who has made a mistake--and not a wrong one in its entirety. We're all sinners...but don't insult yourself by placing your past alongside my own. Even if it's for the reason of lifting my guilt." His hand, now resting in his lap, flung non-verbal curses at him. Don't even dare push her away this time. You...need her.
I do.
"I don't understand," he repeated, "why you have such an unbiased view of me. But," he sighed, and nodded, feeling a refreshing waft on his face where his tears had streamed, "I will live. For Chara, and most of all," he could feel his palms sweat beneath his bandages, "for you." His voice dropped to a pin, almost inaudible. "Elespeth Tameris." It was the first time he spoke her true name aloud, and he darted glances around his vicinity in case anyone had heard. But if any sound had reached the ears of others, it was the hammering of his heartbeat. "I may never hope to live for myself. I never have. It's always belonged to other people. But living for a purpose other than revenge--that is something I can do."
When his heart stabilized, and he had the chance to breathe an ounce of courage to refuel his weighty reveals, he continued. "I come from a family where pride is more important than succor, however detrimental its refusal is to one's mental state. For posterity sake, I've exercised this unwritten doctrine of ours. But...not now." Without his knowledge, his hand traveled to rest on her lap. "So I will tell you...and what I tried to tell you on the day we moved camp: I want you to stay. However much I try to push you away, I...promise I'll be forthright." An actual smile tugged one corner of his mouth upwards. "...Thank you. For...for believing in me."
At that moment, he overheard a conversation outside the tent between Chara and another caster. Messino's tent...Dark mage...Breach of direct orders... He sat, stiff and upright, in his cot when Chara's purposeful footfalls faded, traveling to a predictable destination.
"What does she think she'll say to him?" he said aloud, pushing aside the sheets layered atop him. "She can't jeopardize our..."
He trailed into silence, in thought. He was more expendable. Already, his status as a Rigas was probationary at best, and one chthonic spell away from disentitlement. And Lilica--she had saved him and Elespeth in the throes of battle, which wouldn't have happened had he not waited for death in the first place. Responsibility rested on him--especially when much of the chthonic magic funneled from his fingers alone.
"I have to help her," he told Elespeth, throwing his feet from the cot to the ground and standing, albeit with shakes in his legs. "I'll return here to heal, I promise, but...please stop whoever tries to apprehend me."
He hobbled out of the tent, ignoring protests from the medics. Despite the shortness of his breath, he reached Chara before she flew into Messino's tent.
"Alster!" Her expression darkened. "What are you doing out of--"
"I'm going in," he said, obstructing her advance with a bandaged arm. "I can make this right and you know it. Your presence will only compromise our plans."
"No! Alster, if you go in there--"
"They're all going to find out, anyway, Chara!" he ground his teeth and rounded on the tent. "I can no longer hide my chthonic magic."
Messino sat behind his recently polished desk, twirling a gold coin about in his fingers. The dark mage stood before him, on display, like a butterfly pinned and mounted on a wall. Surrounding her, his "council," who all insisted on their attendance, for reasons of "advising His Highness." He knew the actual reason: the drama of the forthcoming interrogation excited them into a flurry--as if they didn't participate in a long and arduous battle just earlier.
"Lilica D'Or," he said, with less verve than his overzealous gaggle of commanders, "it's best that we receive your full and complete cooperation in this investigation. You do understand, the purpose of this entire meeting is for reasons of safety. We cannot have you traipsing about the battlefield on your own whims. Despite how it appears, I do exercise a modicum of planning and strategy with every battle." He slammed the coin on the table and leaned forward. "If you refuse to comply, I will have no choice but to take disciplinary action."
"You should be addressing your complaints to me." The Rigas brat, the one who had breathed down his neck until he placed the order for armor, blew into his tent, looking like a vagrant with his ratty clothes and bandaged arms. With a groan, Messino shot a glare through the break in the tent flaps in the hopes that his guards felt his disapproval radiate into their skulls. Useless bunch of Rigas-fearing idolaters.
"Pardon me, Rigas," Messino said, with a pleasant enough air to his voice, "but this is a private meeting. I know that means little to one of your prestige, but unless you have more pressing matters to discuss--"
"I do." The brat spoke in harsh, breathy sentences. He looked about to keel over from exhaustion at any moment. "That was my magic you saw on the battlefield. Not hers. She was here, at camp, the entire time."
"With all due respect, Rigas," he said with an incredulous smile, "I do believe I know the difference between celestial magic and chthonic magic."
Closing his eyes in concentration, the brat overturned his hands, palms up, and a smoky stream emanated from them, slithering and flicking forked tongues at Messino from between pinioned fangs. The serpents then erupted into a shock of violet flames, which dispersed in a flash, leaving behind their own smoky signature biting and hissing and swallowing in the air.
"If you really do know the difference," the Rigas brat said, with increasing difficulty, "You will agree that I just used chthonic magic."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth Tameris...
It had been a long time--a very long time--since anyone had called her by her name, the very name to which she had brought shame. In fact, the last person to utter it had been Atvany's old king, himself, just seconds prior to stripping her of knighthood and condemning her life. That said, it had been even longer than that since anyone had uttered it with even a hint of reverence. Like it was something to be cherished, despite that she was forced to hide it for the sake of survival.
Come to think of it, had anyone ever uttered her given name in such a tone? Enough to warm her from the inside out, and to make her reconsider the burden of shame of which she feared she would never be rid?
Contrary to the relief that accompanied Alster's promise to look out for his own life, to live despite his doubts, Elespeth felt her throat grow curiously tight. A pain in her chest almost made her wonder if her heart hadn't swelled and grown heavy... Am I ill? Could I have contracted infection from a wound I am not aware of? But her health was fine, and the Atvanian fugitive knew it.
This was not sickness, but a whole other kind of infection for which many claimed there was no cure. Although she was given little time to ponder that before Alster's gaze was drawn to the tent flaps.
Elespeth knew precisely what he had heard, for she'd heard it as well. But the Rigas mage didn't give her a chance to talk him out of it. "Alster, what are you doing? Let Chara deal with this, you're not well..." Of course, he did not hear her argument, and she was helpless but to talk him out of it. All she could do was follow at a swift pace, just a few feet behind, ready to catch him should he loose his footing or if his own legs gave out beneath him entirely. How he managed to make it all the way to Messino's tent at that pace was beyond her, and she had to hold back from following him in. She knew full well that her name did not ring with favour to the insane prince; accompanying Alster would do him no good, lest their primary commander be all the harder on him simply because she was present, daring to stir the pot once again...
It was almost with boredom that Lilica listened to Messino's oh-so-uplifting rant. In truth, she should have been more afraid than she was; he had the power to have her arrested, after all, on the basis of what could be perceived as a breach in this black-mailing contract. But she was still so tired, her limbs heavy and sluggish from using her magic against its own whims--to save lives instead of take them. Every time she blinked, she saw the images of her dream as though they were painted on the inside of her eyelids, and she just couldn't muster that adaptive fear response. Disciplinary action? And what do you think you can do to me, little man?
The answer was nothing. There was nothing that he could do that could so much as match anything else she had ever faced. Even incarceration paled in comparison to the nightmares of memories that still haunted her...
She opened her mouth to say something--something that would possibly lead to self-condemnation--, but no sooner did the thought occur to her that Alster Rigas burst through the tent flaps, barely able to hold himself upright.
You idiot! She wanted to hiss, and instead attempted to communicate her thoughts with a dire look. What the hell do you think you're doing... You'll do yourself no favours by taking the fall for this!
Not to mention, Messino would never believe him, as evidenced in snide comment about identifying celestial magic from that of chthonic. What she hadn't expected, however, was that the Rigas mage would make the prince believe him. Her dark eyes widened with both awe and fear at the feat occurring between his hands, the serpents that erupted into flame that was not so unlike her own. What are you doing... this is enough.
Grabbing one of Alster's hands, the parlor trick was extinguished with the contact. "Well, you have your answer," she said to Messino. There was no sense in going against Alster's claims; it would only make the prince more suspicious of the both of them. "Now if you don't mind, he obviously needs to get back to the medical tent. If you're still not convinced, then feel free to call me back later. Though I can guarantee it will be a fairly boring conversation, because I have nothing to hide."
Taking Alster by the shoulders, Lilica led him out of the tent before he could say anything more incriminating, and ppunge either or both of them any deeper into hot water. "You idiot," she hissed in his ear. "There is no taking back what you did just now... Next time you plan to act, make sure you are in your right mind. If you have one."
Once they were in the clear, the dark mage all but thrust Alster into Elespeth's waiting arms. The ex-knight caught the Rigas caster, an astonished look on her face as Lilica told her, "Get him back to the medical tent before he acts on his next stupid impulse."
"As much as I want to disagree, she has a point," The Atvanian fugitive murmured, a secure arm around Alster's shoulders as she led him back to the medical tent. "You need to stay as far from Messino's radar as possible, Alster! What you did was noble, but... it was also stupid. And right after you told me I needn't worry for you jeopardizing your life, again..." Though there was more concern in Elespeth's voice than there was reprimand. "There's no going back on what you did. But right now, you need rest, do you understand?"
Meanwhile, Lilica was just short of completely livid with concern and anxiety brought on by Alster's antics. "You shouldn't have let him do that," she told Chara, as they moved away from Messino's tent. "Now he will have roused suspicion. I could have taken the fall; Messino wouldn't have done anything too drastic. He needs me according to his tactics, or he never would have gone to such lengths to get me here in the first place. Now that he knows Alster is adept in chthonic magic... Who knows what that madman will have him do."
Pressing a hand to her temple, and looking more exhausted than ever, Lilica shook her head. "So what do you suggest we do or damage control? To be honest, he was less trouble when he was still unconscious from shock..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Well," Messino coughed into the static tension sparking streaks all about his canvas walls, "thank you for your honesty, Rigas. May I inquire as to why you felt the need to admit what seems like some dire secret you must keep at bay?"
"To better serve the war effort," the brat said, using all reserves to speak whilst leaning his weight against the support of the once-accused dark mage. "Why rid of one chthonic mage when you can have two?"
Messino rested his fingers beneath his chin, intrigued by the audacity of such a lowly Rigas servant. "And what do the Rigases gain from their sacrilege usages of such 'vile' magic?"
"Nothing." The smile that appeared on his wan face stretched a cold, dead space across his eyes. "They will not stand for chthonic interference. Once word travels to Stella D'Mare, they will have disowned me. Why should I align my loyalties to a family that would abandon me on such paper-thin principles? After all, they have done so once before."
"Once...before?"
"Forty-eight years ago. The Serpent. That was my doing. If you don't believe me, ask Adalfieri about the fate of Alster Rigas." Another smoke-serpent twisted in streams between his fingers. "For he is touched by the Serpent. And woe be unto anyone who crosses Serpent Bane."
As Lilica and Alster departed from his tent (by his dismissal, of course!), Messino slumped against his uncomfortable chair, its bony, wooden flanges digging into his back. A gurgle of laughter burst from his lips, erupting forth into uproarious chuckles. "We'll see about that... Serpent Bane."
Alster stumbled out of the tent, coughing in sputters as a consequence of dipping into his magic reserves. He about face-planted upon the grass when Lilica's shove, whether purposeful or not, yielded a more downward trajectory, but Elespeth caught him in time. "That's right." His voice croaked into a whisper as he swerved his head to address Lilica. "I'm out of my mind. Like Messino."
Once Lilica and Chara traveled out of earshot, no doubt to cluck like hens about his latest bout of shortcomings, he followed alongside Elespeth, commanding just enough of his consciousness before the pinpricks of his vision bloomed into the flowers of oblivion. "I pulled a you," he managed through the bracing grip that clasped his teeth together. "I suppose you're rubbing off on me. ...I've just given him the upper hand." Upon reaching the medical tent and before collapsing on the inviting cushions of his cot, he said, " And it will destroy him."
After Chara made certain that the warrior took Alster back to the medical tent, she followed Lilica away from the invisible eyes of Messino's headquarters, of which she could feel their probing influence worrying her into a retreat. As they walked far away from the veritable center of camp, Chara took the lead and directed them to her own tent, checking for signs all about her before lifting the flaps and inviting Lilica inside.
"The Rigas tents are spelled to discourage outside eavesdroppers," she whispered as she hunkered down in a sea of cushions. "Be that as it may, I am forever left cautious, and it's still best for us to keep our voices down--especially in light of what I am about to reveal." She folded her knees beneath her long tunic and waited for Lilica to reach some level of comfort before beginning her spree of Rigas secrets she was reticent to share, let alone to a user of the very magic she long considered evil. However, it was time to build alliances within camp, and while she worked on chipping away at the casters that carried their famed family legacies with them into battle, gaining Lilica would far trump their support. At least, by way of ruthless, searing pandemonium that would fry their enemies into dust.
"Alster only thinks that his presence here, in camp, is some sort of penance. If he does right, we will fully reinstate him into our fold. That's what Adalfieri told him. The truth--he wants Alster because, if you peel back the layers of his core personality, he's a firecracker: volatile. And willful. His experiences in exile have lent him a different mindset, dissimilar to the structure and rigidity of his fellow peers. Alster is playing this game--exactly how Adalfieri intended. Because," she hesitated, trickling fingertips up and down her arms in a seated version of pacing, "we are planning a coup. And it starts here--with Messino--during this war."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lilica had to repeat it to herself aloud in processing the burden of this sudden information. So all of this pomp and circumstance, making a show of how important the Rigases were to Messino's army in what they could contribute, and they only planned to bring him down the entire time...? How did it help them to take out his enemies on the battle field? Or for Alster to lay bare his adeptness to chthonic magic?
The Rigases were not stupid people; quite the opposite, from her own dealings with them, at the very least. And perhaps it was just for her lack of insight into the details... But she was not convinced they quite knew what they were doing. Although she hoped they did.
Tucking her hair behind her ears, the dark mage pressed her fingers to her temples. "And just when were you planning to inform me of this, exactly? Before or after your chthonic Rigas mage was secure in the multitude of his abilities? Because he is clearly not yet secure in them--not only that, but now he will be on Messino's peripheral vision at all times. And if I am to continue working with him, then he has put the both of us in danger, for that very reason."
She was angry. No, not quite angry; something similar, but not the same. Hurt. She was hurt that she was only finding this out now. Maybe it was irrational of her to have expected Chara--or Alster, for that matter--to have let her in on such a delicate secret so soon. After all, what reason had she given them to trust her?
None. Because clearly they don't. Or didn't... or both.
Lilica exhaled slowly before she could go on the defensive. So she was only learning some crucial facts now; what will be, will be. And it was all better late than never. "So when you said you had a means to find me an out from this battle... Did it have anything to do with this coup? Or had you really intended to help me at all?" Trust was a two-way street, after all, and did not come easily to the dark mage. Perhaps it was because of her difficulty in investing in it that made her come across as untrustworthy, like a vicious cycle that would serve no one but its own existence.
But then she recalled that day when she had divulged to Chara what she had never divulged to anyone else; the tale about the life she had lived in her dreams. And how the Rigas caster had promised her that she would not turn a cold shoulder.
Perhaps the blonde was merely a very convincing liar. Regardless, Lilica wanted to trust her. If for no other reason than because she wanted to believe in something--in someone--again. "Nevermind," she sighed, turning that hurt accusation to the wind. "We all need to be on our guard, now. For if you truly intend to overthrow Messino, he will have his eyes on Alster, now. His battle partner alone has already gotten on the mad prince's nerves... Whether or not your chthonically-adept cousin also has her in on what you are plotting, he had now placed them doubly in the spotlight. Of us all, you seem to be the safest."
Rubbing a blossoming bruise along her wrist, the dark mage averted her gaze to her pale arms. Had Messino noticed the injuries borne of her use of the magic in her veins? Would he call her back, and call her on her lies, when it was obvious that there was only one way her arms could have become so speckled with black and blue?
Having that man out of the picture wouldn't merely benefit the Rigases. Without Messino, there would be no one to lead the men who would arrest her on her first act of insubordination...
"So," she went on, looking up at Chara again. "What is it that you plan, specifically, in ending the mad prince's reign? And how can I be of help to make it happen?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I didn't realize it was a requirement that I inform anyone at all," she said, cold anger coursing through her body. "Those who are playing understand their roles. I'm not going to hand out pamphlets to any and all interested parties. That said," her jaw popped from the clamping between her words, "I am only informing you because you have been swept into our politics by virtue of association. It is a horrid mess," she sighed, dispersing the fire that lit her tongue so lividly, "but do we sincerely believe that not a soul in camp would have been left ignorant to Alster's chthonic abilities? The entirety of the compound unit already knows! Since the very first day!" Her hands spread across the cooling comfort of her pillows. "He made that sacrifice, fully aware of the consequences. We're all aware, in fact...that any who follow us will, more or less, find themselves in danger. I...apologize," she gulped the word down her throat. "We are selfish. Rather...I am. He stood up for you, Lilica--however inane his reasons. If you still feel the need to hem and haw about your exclusion, think about the people who wish to help you!"
Chara bunched a pillow and leaned her chin against its soft down. It acted somewhat as a shield, for she felt like the color of burgundy and buried her face into that very shade. Why had she implied that she, the prideful Chara Rigas, desired to help Lilica--in more ways than what they arranged? "I have not forgotten my promise to you." Now, it was her turn to notice the sting of hurt wringing at her chest.
Had you really intended to help me at all?
Intended--yes. But intentions seldom ended on a proactive note. In fact, they often ended badly. She could not even support her own team when they needed her on the battlefield, despite her intentions to fight and lead the charge. Instead, she turned tail and fled. Had she really the power or influence to help anyone at all?
She bit the inside of her cheek as a mental slap to herself. Keep it together, Chara! "I am to send a correspondence to Adalfieri and together, we shall conceive of a method in removing you from this war. If your absence will hurt Messino's chances, we wish to see this come into fruition. However, Messino appears to have less need of you, lately. Our undisputed victory did not arise solely from the hands of Alster, after all--but from some other power source." She frowned and scratched the corner of the pillow against an itch above her eye. "Fortunately, Messino hasn't many options in dealing with Alster. He is still a Rigas. As Rigases, we have never sworn fealty to Di Andalari. In the meantime, Messino can only watch, and plan. And in the meantime, we shall do the same."
After hearing Lilica's change of disposition, in that she expressed interest in fighting for a cause she didn't understand in full, Chara leaned back against nothing. "You want to contribute, even when I do end up finding you a route out of this war?" Messino must bring out the regicidal in us all, she thought with a frown.
"Have you heard of the Battle of Rintare?" she said, a tentative start to Lilica's inquiry, answered with an attempt to explain the specifics of their coup. "Messino was a different man those ten years ago. A competent commander, with his head screwed on tightly. But his men--many had turned against him. The King of the Fallow Islands promised them riches and women beyond their dreams if they destroyed Andalari's invasion. They followed through, and Messino, in retaliation, drove them all into a patch of sinkholes. He ignored the screams of the living as they drowned within the tide pools deep down below. That battle transformed him into the man he is today. He trusts not a soul--and hates the armies he commands, for sins they have not yet committed."
"Therefore, we are to turn his army against him," she concluded, leaning arms over her pillow. "Though he is making short work of that, already."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was so easy to make a promise to someone, knowing full well that you'd never have to keep it, provided they'd be caught in your line of fire. Lilica would know, as she herself had been guilty of such a ploy. But she was not so dim as to miss that similar look of hurt and disappointment that flickered in Chara's flair features for a second. So they'd both been guilty of undermining trust in one another... Perhaps, if the Rigases could truly be an ally to the dark mage, it was time to place these doubts aside and focus on the here and now.
After all, with Alster's antics, the here and now had suddenly become that much more crucial. Because there couldn't be a moment's worth of letting their guard down, with Messino's heightened suspicions.
But Chara did bring up a good point; and that was that Messino didn't seem to have as much use for his primary dark mage than she had initially intended. What would he have done, had Alster not spoken up? Would it really have been as benign as a slap on the wrist, or would he have used the excuse to have her arrested then and there, so as to mitigate any future potential in her being a wild card? "Well, aren't I already contributing, by training one of your own to control his chthonic magic instead of becoming consumed by it?" Lilica raised an eyebrow and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Of course I still want out of this war. But... not as much as I want Messino to pay for dragging me into it in the first place. So you can consider my contribution continual."
Lilica's determined expression sobered to something far less certain as Chara began to explain the theory behind Messino's madness. As someone who was not truly a citizen of Andalar (and who had lardly been unconscious for well over half a decade)i, she had not been familiar with the prince before this war, nor had she heard tell of such a battle. Horrific though it was, however, it explained a good deal. It was not quite so simple as the military leader having lost his mind. Rather, he was very much a victim of his own desire to succeed, at the expense of anyone and everyone he thought necessary. Fueled by hatred for a mutiny that had occurred what felt like so long ago...
A sickening feeling churned her stomach. Perhaps she and Messino had more in common than she'd like to admit. For no one was a better expert on hatred than someone whose magic fed off of it.
"You Rigases then, essentially, mean to bring about his worst nightmare," she observed, following a quiet moment of contemplation."But if hatred is his tool... Then, perhaps, it is not so farfetched to fight fire with fire. In which case, I think I can be of help. Beyond working with Alster, that is. And if you will allow it." Shrugging, she folded her hands in her lap. "As opposed to finding me way out of this war--at this point, I feel such an endeavour would be too dangerous--perhaps, when this all comes to and end, you could instead guarantee me protection within this kingdom, should you and yours assume control of it."
Wouldn't that just be grand? A safe place--truly safe--where she could stop moving long enough to try and reestablish herself in reality. It had only been just over five years since she had woken up. And ever since, she hadn't had a moment to herself, not without worrying about who might next be on her heels. There were too many who sought the 'witches' of dark magic to put an end to them, and too many more--Messino included--who wanted nothing more than to have their abilities for their own benefit.
She couldn't help but wonder, however, if she would know what to do with peace, were it offered to her on a silver platter.
"I've been running for a very long time," she explained. "From before I fell into that extended sleep, to the moment I woke up again. To have a chance to reestablish myself... Figure out how I will conduct the rest of my life, that is what I need. If I do not survive this war to ever make it to that point, then as far as I am concerned, it was not meant to be. So..."
Foregoing further musing or persiflage, the dark caster up from her lap, and sought Chara's gaze. "What do you think? Would that be a possibility, or am I simply deluding myself? I don't understand the politics of your caster family, or even what you intend to do, should your coup be successful. All I know is that when we are all through with this violence, I want the opportunity never to have to take part in it again."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
...But her reasoning could not explain Alster's cold-blooded murder of his parents.
"Yes, you are contributing, as per our agreement." A fluster came into her voice, distracted by thoughts of Alster's disturbing revelation about which hadn't made much sense to her. "Are you certain you wish to alter your end of the arrangement? If so, I cannot guarantee your safety. If this is because you think I cannot remove you from this war..." Trailing off, she caught the flash of obstinacy alight in the dark mage's eyes. From her experiences with Alster, who seldom changed his mind once his eyes glinted with such intensify, there was no swaying or dissuading Lilica from her final decision.
"Very well," Chara said with a nod. "Should we succeed in our coup, and retake Stella D'Mare, you will have a place in our revived city-state. Even if I must compromise my position within the Rigas ranks, I shall find you sanctuary." She crossed her hand across her chest, a promise sans the tendrils of magic to spark it alive. Confidence was difficult to fake when all vestiges of her magic had retreated into hibernation, but she hoped the gesture alone was enough to establish the requisite sincerity in her words. "What is your proposal?" Rising to her feet, she prepared to guide Lilica to the mouth of her tent--back into that unfortunate world where Messino ruled with impunity. "I would love to hear what you have in mind for that ink-stain on humanity."
The weapons' tent sat in a disarray comparable to the heap Haraldur had sorted a few days' prior, when Messino's army first established the new camp. While a day had elapsed since their decimating victory against Tadasun, not a soul had made a motion to clear the clutter inside the tent. If a fighter had roved through the area, it was to pluck a spear from the ground or to throw another sword atop the ever-growing pile. With a sigh, Haraldur trudged against blades of grass--in a somewhat literal sense--and bent to the task that, by default, had become his responsibility.
Halfway into the sorting process, Commander Philon entered the tent. With arms crossed over his chest, his mouth crossed similarly, into a twisted grimace.
"Have you been given clearance for this duty, soldier?" The Commander barked at Haraldur, who turned to his attention with arms juggling a pile of daggers.
"Sir?" Haraldur set down the blades and approached Philon with a tentative swirl around the haystacks--nay, needlestacks--of discarded steel. "I saw an untended mess and decided to tidy it. I did not realize the specialization behind this task, nor did I know that it was assigned to anyone in particular."
"Damn lazy slobs," the Commander muttered under his breath, his hands tightening into bludgeoning weapons all their own. "The task has been assigned to a few men, and then promptly abandoned by them. Thanks for picking up the slack, soldier. I'll let you get back to it while I chase down those pigeon-brains we call 'logistics officers.' What a load of bull!" With a derisive chuckle, the Commander bent down and plucked a longsword out of a pile, an otherwise nondescript design save for a small red gem embedded in the pommel. "We've orders to arrange all the ruby-marked weapons and stick 'em on a rack in the corner somewhere. They're higher grade or some sort. Donated by a rich bastard back when St. Thorne was in one piece, so we're keeping 'em together." He handed the longsword to Haraldur. "I don't know about you, but these weapons don't seem much different in quality than their peon counterparts. I guess a little speck of a ruby goes a long way for these rich types. Ah, well," he looked at Haraldur and waggled his hand for him to resume duties, "carry on."
When the Commander brushed the tent flaps aside and exited, Haraldur appraised the blade with a questioning look. The steel, as Philon observed, wasn't of a more superior grade than the non-marked weapons. In fact, the only noticeable difference rested upon the blood-red stones floating to the surface.
As Haraldur completed the sorting process in a few hours' time, he pocketed a small marked dagger and, at the Commander's go-ahead, took his leave.
He found Tam outside the mess-tent. Waiting until she finished eating, he pulled her aside. "I need to show you something."
Scouring his surroundings, he spotted an empty supply tent and, when certain of no onlookers, entered through the flaps, beckoning Tam to follow.
"Well, this seems forward of me," Haraldur said, granting her an apologetic smile. "But I only wanted to show you this." He withdrew the dagger from one of his larger pouches and presented it to her. "Each of these weapons is beset with a ruby, to differentiate between the rest. They are also sorted in their own special location within the tent--under the pretense that they are of higher grade and hence more expensive. One and only one longbow that I handled had this little embedded stone in it." He twisted the dagger in his hands, allowing the ruby to catch the dim light of their enclosure. "Did your dead archer use a longbow? If so...is it possible that these weapons may hold an enchantment?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
In truth, she hadn't imagined that Chara would be so quick to agree. Lilica had witnessed this Rigas pride first hand, one where there was hardly room for chtonic magic among their own. What place could their ideal world, wrenched from the hands of Messino, have for someone like her? Someone who couldn't even balance the darkness in her veins with celestial magic, like one such as Alster?
It was only then that she realized the extent to which this haughty Rigas mage was willing to extend beyond her family's protocol and general expectations, simply for making good on a promise to someone she had no reason to trust.
I would have found you an escape from this war. A week ago, Lilica would have been happy to have that escape, never looking back on the Rigases or bringing them to mind again. She could have lived on with clarity of mind and heart, not once wondering if they'd lived or died, or what had become of that war.
Funny, how priorities could change so quickly. And how quickly the people you thought you'd had figured out sudden began to cast very different shadows than before.
Chara's questing hung in the air as the dark mage followed her to the mouth of the tent, contemplating if now was as good a time as ever to divulge the hasty plan (at this point, it was more like a consideration) that had sparked like a flame in the otherwise dismal darkness of her mind. There was no telling how (or if) it could be used to their advantage, but given what she had found out about Messino's turning point... There was suddenly potential where, moments before, there had been none.
"I just wonder... if perhaps steering clear of Messino is not what will win this war or keep us out of danger," she began, brows furrowed in contemplation. "My magic, it... From what I can gather, hate is what fuels it; I have more in common with the mad prince than I'd perhaps like to admit. When I struggle to summon it from a place inside of me that truly wishes to help and not hurt, this is the result." As an example, she held out her arm, indicating the new plethora of bruises. all shapes and sizes. "It punishes me, and is not nearly as reliable; you must understand, it wantsto come from hate, to be fueled by it. But, up until just now... I did not consider that it needn't, perhaps, be my hatred..."
Her voice drifted off as a handful of people passed by just outside the tent. It wasn't safe to talk, not right now. "I need to think on it more," the dark mage concluded, returning her attention to the blonde Rigas mage. "But if Messino is as mad with his own abhorrence for the very people fighting for him... It may very well be to our advantage, in more ways than one."
---
Finding a spare moment to so much as grab a bite to eat was a rare occurrence in Messino's encampment, even when it was something to which his soldiers were entitled--after all, there was little else to go on in this army so void of morale, aside from basic sustenance. Elespeth had wasted most of her morning both training and checking up on Alster, who looked far better than he had that day on the battlefield. He had struggled to assure her that he was well and should be on his feet again soon, and that she should grab some lunch before everyone claimed seconds and there was no food left. He had been right; another half hour and she would have been forced to conduct her day on an empty stomach.
No sooner had she exited the tent, with what meager leftovers there had been now sitting comfortably in her stomach, before Haraldur approached her, his expression a mask of seriousness. "Haraldur..." The ex-knight's brows furrowed in concern. "Is everything all right? What is it that I need to see?"
Whatever it was, Haraldur--from what little Elespeth knew of him--did not seem the type to make heavy of a situation that could otherwise be perceived as light. Following the mercenary to the empty tent, she brushed off his concern of appearing too forward. "Not at all! You needn't worry, I trust your intentions," she all but laughed, before her eyes fell upon the dagger. Taking it by the hilt, she examined it with a critical eye. It was pretty, that was for sure, and looked new, like it had never seen the blood and gore of battle. As for being of a higher quality, however...
"This is not what I would consider a high-grade weapon," she told her comrade, holding out the blade for him to inspect. "This dagger isn't balanced; the hilt is far heavier than the steel, and even that looks as though it was rushed as they crafted it. Look at how our reflections in it are distorted, not smooth... If Messino thinks he has made a good investment in these pretty weapons, then I believe he has been duped..."
She trailed off when asked about the archer and his longbow. That was a memory with details that she would never forget. "Yes. I can recall... there was a ruby on that bow, I can recall how it glinted in the daylight... But you're not suggesting that..."
Enchanted weapons. Soldiers who couldn't be stopped, no matter how poor or inexperienced they were in battle, not even by death... Colour gradually drained from the Atvanian fugitive's face. "Necromancy," she hissed, handing the dagger back to Haraldur so quickly it was as if she feared to touch it for too long, lest it force her to rise from her grave, whenever that time would come. "These weapons... do you really think they could have been enchanted by necromantic ability? That is beyond sick and cruel to the fallen. Although now I can see why Messino made this investment in such poorly crafted weapons, to the naked eye... The man might be mad, but he is not stupid."
Peering out the flaps of the tent to ascertain that they were not heard, she turned back to Haraldur and placed a hand on his shoulder. "The casters could tell us, could they not? Magic is their domain, not ours... Perhaps we should take this to the Rigases, or the dark mage Lilica. Someone familiar with necromantic ability. Let me talk to them--Alster, at the very least... I promise you, he can be trusted. He'd not betray what we know to Messino."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
I will never walk away from those who need me.
Then why had she retreated from her team in the heat of battle? Skittered away like a common rat and burrowed under the dirt, fearing detection and death and clinging to the rock, wishing she could meld into its surface? Praying that she would survive?
Perhaps, in the end, she was a mere vessel from which pretty promises and idealisms spouted. She, a sham, a pretender, knew how to craft fanciful illusions and yet did naught to legitimize them. Hollow, Helpless, Hypocritical--were those the words that would describe Chara Rigas's own legacy?
But by all the stars in the sky, she vowed to see herself down this path she had chosen. If she accomplished little else, she wanted to help them--Alster and Lilica--to bushwhack themselves free from the infinite loops of fate. ...And to survive.
Refocusing her attentions to the renewed subject matter, her hand fluttered away from the tent flaps at Lilica's mention of a plan. Rather, the stirrings of a plan--but an intriguing one, nonetheless. Her attention piqued, she stepped further inside the muted hub of her sanctum and nodded, chewing the idea in her mouth to ascertain its palpability.
"You wish to turn his hatred against him? My, that is poetic. A most fitting end. But how are you to implicate such a maneuver? Should he provide an ample, remote resource for your magic, how will this affect him adversely--aside from siphoning that specific energy from him to yourself? Will hatred beget more hatred in his black soul?!" Before she lost any sort of composure in favor of an unprofessional bout of giddiness with the very thought of Messino's demise, she cleared her throat and approached the mouth of her tent with gathered collectiveness. "We shall discuss this further. It is best that we allow our discussion to percolate in our minds until we come to a solution. For now," concern softened the rigidity that she structured her face to adopt, "take care, Lilica. Use this time to recover from the bruises you suffer so."
Haraldur watched Tam grip the dagger from his hands and nodded at her assessment of its quality. In the relative quiet of their surroundings, the weapon seemed to hum as if a hive of bees nested beneath the surface. "I thought as much," he said at the conclusion of her appraisal, running his fingers over the improperly tempered steel. "I wonder how the prince convinces his men to utilize weapons of this ilk. Any seasoned warrior can determine the poorer quality of these ruby-encrusted blades. Unless," he paused when Tam about threw the cursed blade into his waiting hands, "our Chief Commander is employing certain tactics in his mission to see these weapons into battle. Some incentive plan, perhaps. Or maybe he is being forthright about their enchanted qualities--but lying about the type of enchantment they possess." The ruby gem winked at him, a sinister little nod as if confirming his words to speak truth.
"It is very possible that Messino is telling his men that such weapons will improve their performances in battle. Not quite a falsehood, but he has left very important details from surfacing. Only conjecture on my part, of course." With hesitation, he placed both hands from hilt to blade-tip upon the dagger, creating a circuit with his body. "Necromancy?" The weapon about toppled from his hands. "That would explain what we saw on the battlefield. How could these weapons even carry the power to raise the dead? I..." shaking his head of the heavy images giving rise to plague-infested thoughts of the mind, he sighed and stared outward, between the cracks that the tent flaps could not hide of the outside world. "It is cruel, yet not an unlikely tactic in our mad prince's arsenal. He seems in want to win--at all costs."
Roving his attention back to Tam and her hand, its grip as tight as his own against the dagger, he frowned at her words. "I do hope you have placed your trust with the right people. Magic and those associated with the practice are a doomed lot in their own right. I would watch out for your battle partner." He raised the weapon of contention and offered it to Tam for the second time. "You might want to show them this, then--and quick. I will have to take it back before anyone notices that it is missing."
To clear space for the wounded in critical condition, Alster and those who suffered only flesh wounds were discharged from the medical tent, under the condition that they continue on bedrest in their own quarters. Under Chara's insistence, his convalescence would take place in her tent. For "reasons of safety."
"Won't Tivia and Danos suspect unfair treatment if I stay in your tent?" he asked while she fluffed up pillows for him in the corner across from her own cot.
"Oh, let them talk. Besides, they have long resigned themselves to the fact that you are in constant need of assistance." When he presented her with a sour expression, she threw him a grating smile. "Well, you can't say they aren't correct." She pointed to his cot. "Think of this as jail-time. You are not to go wandering outside this tent without me, you understand? Only the Universe knows what further horrors you may go about uncovering if left to your own devices."
Sitting atop the cot, Alster gave her a compliant nod, one so devoid of pep and protest that she about bit the inside of her cheek in worry. "Well, you go on and rest. I will bring us some food. Whatever paltry crumbs are left to salvage, anyway." As she exited the tent to the outside, she flounced back inside but moments later. "Your knight in shining armor has located you." She narrowed her eyes when Alster visibly brightened, like a star freeing itself from a prison of clouds. "I suppose I shall direct her here, then."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It wasn't Alster. It went against his best interests (and that of the other Rigases), and anyway, hadn't he been out of commission just before Messino had introduced this weaponry?
That did not mean, however, that he didn't have answers for them. The only person who could say a thing or two about dark magic was a dark magic user, themself. That gave them two options, and there was no way she was going to approach the eerie likes of Lilica D'Or. Perhaps it was an unfair appraisal, but that girl looked as though she could set a curse with a mere glance. Not to mention, Alster was about the only caster in the entire encampment who didn't seem to have some strange, egotistical problem with her, simply for the fact she had been passionate about being part of a compound unit.
Pressing her lips together, she gripped the dagger's hilt in her calloused palm and met Haraldur's eyes. "Contrary to popular belief, perhaps, I do choose my allies and confidantes very, very carefully," she assured the mercenary with a cheeky smile. "I know nothing about magic, but I know enough people who do--and I have an idea of one who might be able to provide some answers. I'll be quick, and I'll be sure to tell you what--if anything--I find out on my return. If anyone does ask, blame me for incompetence in sorting weapons improperly. Or for my stereotypically feminine attraction to the pretty red jewel, or some other similar poppycock to buy time."
Tucking the dagger into her belt, the Atvanian fugitive made her way to the medical tent, asking for Alster when she didn't find him. The attending healers informed her that he had been released to continue his bedrest in the comfort of Chara Rigas's tent, which immediately deflated just a tiny bit of the hope she'd harboured. Not that she had anything against the haughty blonde Rigas, aside from the fact that the haughty blonde Rigas appeared to have some problem with her, which--like the resentment among the others--she was sure stemmed from her partnership with Alster.
Well, Chara could think whatever she wanted. But it was in her best interest to cooperate, and surely she had the sense to realize that.
"Is Alster here?" She asked the blonde mage in question, after making her way over to her tent. "The medics informed me that he'd been discharged to convalesce here... I hope I'm not intruding, but it's rather important, and I don't have a lot of time."
To her great relief, Chara did not put up a fight, and parted the curtain to allow her access. Despite still being bedridden, Alster looked better, with more colour in his face and a certain brightness in his eyes that made her smile. "I wish I was here to bring tidings of some good news... But I actually seek your input on something that I am almost certain is anything but good news. Mind taking a look at this?"
Removing the dagger from her belt, Elespeth handed the gleaming piece of weaponry to her battle partner, lowering her voice despite that they were alone, save for Chara who stood at the front of the tent. "During the last battle, both Haraldur and I saw... we bore witness to something very unsettling. Fallen soldiers--dead soldiers--rising again and wielding their weapons anew. These weapons, in particular, all marks by encrusted rubies. There is a vast collection of them, from daggers to broadswords to axes and bows. We wondered... well, if there is the potential that they have been enchanted with necromantic properties. I realize you're no necromancer, but given the dual-nature of your magic... I figured you might be able to provide some answers."
Biting down on her lower lip, the ex-knight leaned forward. "I'm sorry to bother you while you're clearly still healing, and need rest, but... well... Just between you and me, and with all due respect to the only other chthonic mage within the premises of this encampment, you couldn't pay me enough to ask her a favour." A guilty yet conspiratorial grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, but it faded almost as soon as it was there. "If Messino is planning something as sinister as raising his own dead, without letting anyone in the know... then I fear for the safety of us all. His plain disregard for life no longer comes across as so unusual."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He did not endure it alone.
Throughout the morning, Elespeth routinely checked in with him, regaling him with little quips and anecdotes about her day and asking after his health. She, a sunny presence, shined rays through the storm clouds gathering around his foggy brain, and while he never thought it possible, her light had reached him like a flutter in his heart. However, when she departed, she took with her that which he so craved, and darkness corralled itself within, dripping a chilling rain that penetrated the skin and left him frozen.
Therefore, with Elespeth's return, an instantaneous thaw sparked around him, stirring circulation and pumping blood back into his veins. Unbidden, a small smile touched his face. As much as it infuriated Chara, who rolled her eyes at his reaction, it inspired him to smile more.
"Back so soon?" he teased. Realizing he leaned forward in his cot with the anticipation of a child awaiting yuletide gifts, he adopted a more neutral pose while fighting not to overheat, as his cheeks felt quite prepared to fill with hot air and lift him from the ground. She was quick to ground him, however, when she expressed the purpose of her visit. He accepted the dagger into his bandaged hands, listening to her retelling of events with a furrowed brow and increasing bemusement.
"And you two are certain that you witnessed these soldiers rising from the dead?" As he examined the hilt, he brought the ruby close to his eyes, peering into a faceted world all its own, tinted with crimson secrets and a swirling energy that bit at the tips of his fingers--reacting to his magic. Unraveling at the source.
"It certainly is imbued with necromantic energy." He rested the dagger against the crooks in his fingers. "A cloaking spell has been placed on this weapon, perhaps to shield its intentions from more knowledgeable eyes. In fact, I might not have been able to see through the spell, were it not for the properties of my own chthonic magic trying to siphon this energy for its own. The magic contained in this dagger, however, seems well-embedded as it is also dormant and needs a catalyst to take form--like the death of whomever wields this blade. ...As you've seen occur," he added, pausing only to look up at Elespeth and at Chara, who slowly crept closer to them once she discovered the subject matter at hand. "Perhaps we know now the initial reason as to why Messino has recruited Lilica. Not so much for her ability to mow down vast numbers at a time--though that certainly helps--but to tap into the residual energy that her magic leaves behind. And our first battle...it more than provided for Messino and what he needed in order to energize his enchanted weaponry."
With eyes widening in realization, he set aside the dagger and looked upon his hands, humming tools that harbored an obvious solution from within.
"I have anti-necromantic magic. That means I am able to take energy that manifests as dying, death, and decay, and convert it for my own uses. In other words," he lowered his voice, as a precaution, "I may be able to leech the energy of the undead...and effectively disband this puppet army."
"Sounds like another plan in which you fancy yourself dead," Chara grumbled as she crossed her arms. "I shouldn't even allow you anywhere, much less the battlefield. A lemming has more self-preservation than you."
"To me, it sounds as though you're intrigued by yet another of my idiotic plans," Alster said with an ingratiating smile, one which deepened the lines behind Chara's semi-permanent glare.
"...Your idiocy goes beyond the sum of your plans," she said under her breath, but seemed to concede, as she turned to Elespeth, tapping impatient fingertips upon her crossed arms. "Since you are too spineless to do so, I will inform Lilica about this discussion."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She'd have agreed with Chara regardless of the blonde mage's unruly countenance, although it certainly didn't hurt to play in her favour. Elespeth knew full well that her presence annoyed the haughty Rigas mage, and not long ago, her glare would have been enough to keep her away from Alster until he was well enough (let alone permitted) to seek her out, himself. But nearly losing him in the last battle had struck a nerve, drawing her attention once again to the fragility of human life, regardless of whether you were nearly a hundred years old and magically adept.
The truth of having come so close to almost losing her partner--and not only her partner, but her friend--had hit far too hard for her to care about Chara Rigas's petty peeves.
In any case, in light of all her berating, she thought he could use a kind word or two, a yin to simply contrast Chara's yang. Recovery was impossible without at least a little kindness and compassion...
About to leave Alster to resting and to return the dagger to Haraldur, the ex-knight was surprisingly taken aback by the blonde Rigas's words, enough that it brought a tinge of colour to her cheeks. Without a second thought, she pivoted on her heel and thrust the dagger towards Chara, hilt first, in a quick gesture that could have been considered aggressive--were it not for the ironic smile that she wore. "Be my guest; let her have a look at it, too," she suggested, referring to the dagger. "But be sure it's returned soon after. We can't risk its absence being noticed."
Watching with amusement as Alster's cousin left in a huff, Elespeth couldn't help but chuckle. "For whatever reason, I am convinced your... fiancée has it out for me." The word felt so strange with regard to Alster and Chara. She had never witnessed such a disharmonious couple in all of her life; but their life was really none of her business. "But I suppose that is all beside the point. Do you..." Pausing as voices passed the tent outside, the ex-knight leaned closer to Alster and lowered her voice. "Do you really think you can undo this army of soulless husks? Without it being to your detriment? I've seen the misfortune of what results from Lilica's use of her magic... if you think that it will compromise your life in any way, then please--please don't. We will find another way. There will be another way."
Lilica could be found, as usual, in the solitude of her tent, but sitting on the ground with her head bowed and her hands folded in her lap. It wasn't unusual for her tendency to be a recluse to intensify following a battle that left her so drained; not only did it allow for rest, but also, escape. Temporary, but necessary.
She always returned to visit, even if there was no one left in the world that wasn't real. The world in which she lived that impossible life, where she'd never known what it meant to be so unhappy. The sun still shone down on streets that she'd come to recognize what felt like so long ago. And, most importantly, no one could touch her there; no one had any power of her when she retreated to deep into her own reveries. There, she was alone.
And it was just as much a curse, at this point, as it was a blessing. For after living a harmonious (nevermind how fallacious) life surrounded by good company, readjusting to a solitary lifestyle was proving more difficult than she'd imagined...
Nonetheless, it was a reprieve. And it helped the bruises heal, and if for no other reason than nostalgia's sake, it was always worth it to return...
Mere moments after she'd convinced herself to relax enough to reach temporarily leave the world behind, she was brought right back to it by the rustling of her tent flaps. Eyes snapping open, she noted the familiar robe and blonde hair of a certain Rigas mage, and was on her feet in seconds. "Sorry, I didn't mean to... I didn't expect you to come by..." Lilica trailed off, the glint of steel tucked carefully up Chara's sleeve glinting in a single beam of sunlight that had found its way into her tent. Dark brows knitted together. "I take it from the fact you're carrying a weapon that something is amiss?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Chara bit her lip at his bold statement and his show of magic that, even in its current guise, disrespected by many in the inherent caster community, outclassed her celestial magic at full capacity. Healing, in any form, was a highly specialized art, one that took long years of study and an understanding of anatomy, both internal and external. The most successful healers hailed from St. Thorne, the former healing capital of the West. With that great nation defunct, and its healers scattered to the winds or dead, the demand for it was at a premium. Even healing at its most rudimentary had its price. While it only extended to his own body, the fact that Alster could heal, especially after the loss of his celestial magic, baffled her into the silence of jealousy.
His magic would forever be far superior to her own.
With heady thoughts sitting on her mind, the insolent actions of Alster's sword-wielding pet took her off guard, and she unwittingly retreated a few steps backwards, almost prepared for an onslaught were it not for the positioning of the weapon in her gnarled, rough hands. Her glare deepening, she swiped the dagger from that ape of a woman. "Gladly," she seethed through her teeth. "I shall return." Like a cold breeze, she shifted from the tent and to outside, en route to Lilica's tent. The flaps from her egress kicked up and fluttered in the wake of her mini windstorm.
Alster watched after Chara's departure with a reflection of Elespeth's own humor manifesting on his upturned lips. "She does. Chara primarily expresses herself through anger, besides. She's in constant need to seek out that which peeves her the most. You are her newest point of rage." He dispelled the subject with a shrug when, after the flaps resettled into their positions and the outsiders' footfalls faded, Elespeth voiced her concerns about his newest crazy endeavor. "I believe that I can. But nothing is finite," he told her with a sigh. "Magic can and will come with a price. However, I may be able to escape from this virtually unscathed if I can keep my head about me." He glanced sidelong at her, his healed hand hovering over her arm, yearning to touch it as a comfort, but he shied from the audacity of his desires and returned the hand to his lap. "Otherwise, this is war. All our lives are compromised. But I told you that I will live--as long as it is in my ability to do so. You," his face reddened, and he lowered his head, "you must promise me the same. ...Live."
Chara slipped into Lilica's tent with a refined quiet befitting of her stature. As much as that bedraggled eyesore had infuriated her (and her magic) into a twitter, she exercised the dignity, at least, in not ferrying her ire from one locale to another. Upon seeing Lilica meditating on the ground, she about departed so as to grant her the privacy required to continue her session, but by then, the dark mage had awakened, springing to her feet at once. Her recovery time between meditation and full wakefulness was impeccable; she nary missed a beat.
"Yes," she began, sliding the aforementioned dagger into her waiting palm and holding it out for viewing purposes. "The sword-wielding swine uncovered an array of enchanted weapons that have raised soldiers from the dead. Alster believes," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "the expelling of your magic so energized these weapons and activated their power, and it is for this very reason that Messino has recruited you." She offered the blade to Lilica. "Do you concur? Can you feel the essence of your magic?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But there was no mistaking what she had felt on the battlefield. That repugnant presence of a darkness that belonged to neither her nor to Alster, that very much resembled the feeling of the atmosphere emanating from the ruby-encrusted dagger that Chara held.
With the prolonged hesitation of someone who knew very well what they were getting into, and the dire repercussions of such, the dark mage extended her hand to take the dagger by its bejeweled hilt.
The magic hit her like a stone to the gut.
The sensation of deadness--of nothingness-surged up her arm, bringing with it the sickening scent of decay that only she could smell, the chill of lifelessness that called to her blood, the taste of ash in her mouth. She had only felt this once before, and it had not been in the residue of Alster's anti-necromantic abilities. Her fingers loosened on the hilt, and the dagger fell to the ground between their feet.
"There is nothing but death about what lies within that weapon," she hissed, rubbing her hand as if she'd been holding red-hot iron, and not a cool hilt. "And it's powerful. It is as if... as if it calls to the vessel that hold its, and it seizes it, such that even if a man were to fall. dead.. he will still fight. So long as the weapon remains intact, and provided there is... provided the right kind of magic is present to trigger it." Lilica felt blood rush to her cheeks. Alster was right; Messino had no only secured her as a secret weapon for dire, long-range attack. He needed her as a catalyst, to project her energy onto magic--and it would not have been the first time she had been used for such an end.
That bastard... She had hated him, before, but it was not difficult to hate Messino. Now, she wanted his blood spilled and his reign ended perhaps more than the Rigases. How dare he use her as an amplifier for his own foul parlor tricks...
Pressing her lips together, she covered her hand with the sleeve of her tunic and picked up the dagger. "I believe Alster's theory is reality," she said, her words slow, as if it were difficult to admit. "And this interferes a good deal with what I had in mind. If Messino is leeching off of my power with these weapons, it explains why I return from battle so exhausted and ridden with bruises. This... we will need to take this into consideration. I may end up being of more use to you while absent from battle." Use to you. It wasn't until the words leapt off her tongue that the dark mage realized just how devoted she had become to the Rigas's cause, and she could hardly deign to understand why: why she had turned down her initial deal with the blonde Rigas mage in favour of being a greater help. Why she had put her life on the line by partaking in that last battle, effectively shielding Alster from the demons of his own self-defeat. Why the sharp azure of Chara Rigas's eyes, the curve of her cheekbones and that everpresent frown on her full lips brought such a curious sense of peace and... well, camaraderie.
"Chara..." A fleeting thought came to mind and settled, but only for a handful of seconds. Now was not the time to be thinking of herself and dragging others into the dark pit of her self-inflicted pain. Thee were more important things to discuss. "...nevermind. Let's go find Alster. And I have a feeling that this horrid piece of steel should be returned to where it came from before any of us is caught with it in our possession."
Elespeth had, meanwhile, taken a seat next to Alster's low-slung cot, seizing the opportunity (however brief) to settle on talk that wasn't so dire or off-putting. His comment on Chara, and the nee target for her insatiable ire, actually made her laugh. "Really, now? Well if I am currently the bane of Chara Rigas's existence, then I daresay she lives a very privileged life." What she had done to earn the blonde mage's scorn was far beyond her, but that didn't matter. Alster was her partner in battle; Chara would just have to learn to deal with their working relationship, and the fact that she might see the Atvanian fugitive more than she cared to.
Although, that did bring about another point of concern. "If she were... If Chara knew my name, or learned of my history... She wouldn't... I mean..." She needn't articulate, for Alster knew what she was getting at. Chara Rigas struck her as haughty and vindictive, but not toxic; and not a danger. Or else Alster wouldn't have put himself into her care. "I think I'm being too paranoid," she admitted with a chuckle, absently pulling her chestnut locks over her shoulder, nimble fingers weaving it into a braid. "I'm new to this game of trust. But... it's nice to be back in the game." A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth as she turned her head to face Alster. The sudden realization of their proximity struck her, but not enough to make her shift her position or move further from the cot.
"How about this: I will trust you to go above and beyond your abilities while maintaining your heartbeat and keeping your blood in your veins, if you can trust me to do the same. Because you cantrust me--and I will. I..."
The ex-knight trailed off, words leaving her before they could be articulated. In a matter of seconds, she was reduced to a victim of the moment, of the quiet in the tent save for the breath from her lungs and Alster's, the only two occupying the safe, tranquil space.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
When the dagger slipped from Lilica's fingers, the strange hypnotic hold on Chara had also slipped. Blinking back into reality, she stared at the ground, at the winking stone that had, briefly, glared into her soul--and captivated it. Her hands flew to clutch her chest, to see if it still pumped. To see if she still lived. Relief brought a pulsing warmth throughout her body, burning the cold and ceasing the creaking possession of her legs. "What was--" the sudden shorting of her breath suffocated her words. She spent the next few moments regaining control over herself. This is me. I am me. No one, nothing, controls me.
"I...I believe you," she said with a shudder, after Lilica's explanation returned the freeze inside of her. "It...to me--it--" In abhorrence, she rubbed the heel of her hand against the one that had held the dagger, scrubbing with a ferocity she hoped would expunge the weapon's essence from her skin. "We must find a way to destroy these weapons," she managed, through spaces between breaths. "I fear that the more they are used, the more influence they will have on one's mind. And weaker minds will...does that mean that I-" Her mouth paused, frozen in mid-scream, as Lilica plucked the dagger from the ground. She awaited another reaction, another rise in pressure, another reflexive twitching of her muscles that ached to respond and to follow...but nothing happened. Pressing her palms together in a vicegrip, squeezing out the remains of her previous compulsion, she sighed aloud, though it sounded more like an audible tremble that she could not stifle in lieu of her detached professionalism. "What of--what of Alster's magic? If he is present in battle while you are not, could the weapons take from his residual energy? This is," her words rang amok before she could rein them in, "...all of this is...it's becoming quite...Whatever use I might have, it is coming to a swift end."
Too shamed to look at Lilica, even when the dark mage called her name, she merely turned her head in response to the intonation that she carried in her voice. It was soft, vulerable, even, and Chara almost responded to the summons. By then, the moment had fled, and she found herself marching with Lilica back to her own tent, in silence.
Inside of Chara's tent, Alster welcomed a proxmity he otherwise would shy from in the not-so-distant past. It still churned the pumping of his heart into a flurry and beaded moisture all along his hands, but it soothed him, all the same. It was confirmation that he could still feel, that he still cared. That he bled, for it meant that he lived. "Even amongst the privileged, there are those the privileged still denigrate. Chara was one such person. She didn't lead an easy life within Rigas judgment. She's risen ranks, come a long way--enough to focus on you as a...well...a threat, I suppose." He ran a hand through his hair, rearranging the strands that stuck to his forehead in the heat of the neverending stretch of summer and drought. "But I would not worry. She understands, begrudgingly, that you are now, by association, part of our cause. You might not be an ideal candidate to her, but I've made that call, and she will respect it."
He met her gaze, then, a soft, liquid green, and it, coupled with her words of trust, stymied him into a bundle of nerves. His heart palipitations heightened, his breathing slowed, and he forced himself to stare at the ground. Why had she looked at him with such...fondness? Those eyes, like ghosts, followed his gaze to its new trajectory, and haunted him with a sudden yearning. A yearning to look up, and lock himself within her presence. With difficulty, he raised his head to meet with her, and his breath hitched when their eyes met. "I trust you," he managed to say, and his hand made its way to cup her own--his desire revisited, and made a reality. But if you die, I don't know what I'll...I haven't much left. The grip of his hand tightened into a firm squeeze.
...Which about sucked the life out of Elespeth when Chara parted the tent flaps, with Lilica in tow...and a look that could boil water.
"Are you two cozy? I'm glad." Alster's hand skittered away from Elespeth like a spider fleeing the underside of one's boot. Taking the dagger from Lilica's hands, Chara thrust the weapon, hilt first, mere inches from Elespeth's face--a similar gesture from earlier, but with the roles reversed. "Take back your weapon, warrior."
"Chara--"
"Shut it, Alster!" She waggled the dagger in front of Elespeth's nose. "Go on, soldier. Be a good dog."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Glancing at the young woman sidelong, she shattered the silence between them with words that she had no real reason to voice, other than the fact that she simply wanted to. "You were likely susceptible o the magic of the dagger due to the nature of your own magic," she offered--not with certainty, but it was at least an educated guess. "Any human being is in and of themselves susceptible, but that fact that your abilities are celestial in nature perhaps attracts object and intensifies its draw. Like a magnetic attraction. I'm only guessing, based on personal experience... But if you're concerned for having a weak mind, I hardly think that is the case."
Why am I telling her this? Lilica D'Or was about the last person anyone would seek for consolation, and certainly would be the last to offer it. But that troubled look on the Rigas mage's face, and the silence into which she had fallen, resonated with her. It had no reason to--but it did. "You are a Rigas, are you not? I know little of your bloodline, but from how I have come to know both you and Alster... You are anything but weak, Chara."
As to whether or not the blonde registered her words would remain a mystery, however. She finished speaking just as soon as Chara parted the curtains of the tent--only to reveal Alster and the swordswoman who was his battle partner locked by the hands, something quiet but powerful passing between their shared gaze. They weren't quick enough to return their appendages to their own forms or to put distance between themselves; the blonde Rigas had already seen all that she needed to see, and didn't hesitate to tear into the moment on which they had intruded.
Elespeth, understandably, couldn't get to her feet fast enough. Blood rushed to her face as though she'd been caught in some scandalous act. But... had she, really? "Chara," she parroted Alster, "Whatever you're thinking, we were only talk--" The sudden presence of the dagger's hilt in front of her face broke her sentence in half before she could finish it. The blonde Rigas's dire insult didn't even really register with her; she'd been called far worse. And, anyway, why shouldn't she be upset? Alster was her kin. And the Atvanian fugitive was invading her space. "...whatever I've done to upset you, of course, I apologize. And you're right; the dagger should be returned forthwith, in any case."
Lilica watched carefully as Elespeth took the dagger by its hilt, searching for any of the signs of being drawn to the object. But the swordswoman handled it like any weapon, with no apparent draw to its power, before hastily stepping out of the tent. It didn't affect her... And here Lilica would have pegged her to be far weaker in the mind that Chara. Perhaps she was right, and it hadn't anything to do with the mind, at all. But that was something that they would have to investigate later.
"Chara told me of your theories; and I think you could be right." The dark mage addressed Alster, unfazed by what had transpired in the prior moment. She would leave Chara to bask in that ire. "If Messino wants me for my magic to fuel these weapons, then you, with your chthonic ability, are just as vulnerable. To be very honest, I am uncertain as to whether or not our presence on the battlefield will be of any use to your cause. Furthermore..." She glanced at Chara briefly before returning her gaze to Alster. "Chara has also observed that these weapons might have the potential to psychically adhere to the wielder. The more Messino has his soldiers using them, the more likely their minds might be enslaved."
Lilica could feel the tension between Chara and Alster; the air was practically charged with it. Perhaps it was for the fact that she didn't wish to be part of their lovers' quarrel, or because time was of the essence, but she was not afraid to show her impatience. "If you can both stand one another's presence for the time being," she arched a dark eyebrow, "then I suggest we think very hard about figuring out what can be done during the next battle, with those weapons employed."
As if trying to tun from her own humiliation, the ex-knight, meanwhile, hurried back to Haraldur, out of breath by the time she reached him. "It was... it is just as we suspected," she confirmed, holding the dagger out for him to take. "These weapons are imbued with necromantic power. And, worse, the Rigases--one of them, at least--believes that Messino might have recruited the dark mage specifically for this purpose. To fuel these weapons with her dark energy, allowing them the ability to raise the deal who fall with them in their hands." Biting down on her lower lip, her eyes darted to the tent flaps, to ascertain no one was standing by. "Haraldur, we need to destroy these weapons, or else see to it that no one wields them. Messino has crossed the line from insanity to downright immorality. This cannot endure."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Only talking?" She barked a laugh, an explosion of sound with none of the firepower, in Elespeth's face--though she could easily remedy the lack of combustion. "I know you express a certain attraction to each other. Need I remind you that he is my fiancee and relationships between a Rigas and an outsider are expressly forbidden."
"N-now you're being ridiculous," Alster stuttered in protest, his cheeks as red as ripened apples. "Since when am I disallowed contact, a mere closing of hands, between myself and a friend?!"
"Since you've taken refuge in my tent!" By then, Elespeth had retreated, as well she should, and she turned her full fury to Alster, who had since risen to his feet in opposition to her demands. He swayed, a bit unsteady, but she paid no heed, not when she could taste the fury on her tongue and feel the power of her magic return in waves, surging through her with its invigorating ripple, and oh how she wanted to ride it through to the end, regardless of the repercussions...
"That was under your insistence!" Alster's healed hand closed into a tight fist. "I am more than happy to recuperate elsewhere! In fact, I will--" The levelheadedness of Lilica who, despite their quarrel, rerouted their attention to more pressing subject matter provided the distraction necessary to segue from Chara to the more reasonable dark mage. With closed eyes and a cooling exhale of air, he faced Lilica, opened his eyes, and absorbed her information while Chara seethed in the background. "I apologize, Lilica," he said, adopting, as well as he could, a more composed state of mind. "You are right, of course. I may have a solution. The magic will activate at the wielder's demise, and reanimate their bodies--so long as they hold the weapons, I suspect."
"It can happen remotely," Chara muttered, "as long as the wielder has made contact with the weapon for a certain period of time."
Alster listened to Chara's input, but did not acknowledge that he heard, and continued to brief Lilica on the details of his plan. "You once told me that I am a necromancer's worst nightmare. Let's put it to good use. I can siphon the active energies from these weapons--and reduce the waking dead, once again, into corpses. This may also result in rendering the weapon's enchantment ineffective. As good as destroying it at this juncture."
"You will NOT." Chara rounded on Alster, a few strands of her hair standing on end from the static that her rage had manifested into being. "I will not see you again on the battlefield. That is an order from your supervisor."
"Why!?" His facade of calm had toppled, leaving only its remains on display. "Why are you so adamantly against that which we've come here to accomplish? Do you think me so incompetent, so in need of protection, so confident of my failure!?"
"It's because I love you!" She blurted, tears now brimming along the rims of her eyes, which had grown wide and afraid. Her magic shimmered in undulations, as if it too had been weeping along with her. "I always have." Her voice hushed into a strained whisper, her anger abating into mere wisps of their former selves.
"...What?" Alster's sway had intensified. He met with the cot behind him and clutched his head between his hands, trying to make sense of such unexpected news. Love? Impossible. He could not be loved. She could not love him. "That's a mockery. You're mocking me. You are...aren't you?" When he looked up, however, she had gone, having ejected herself from the tent. Instead, he found Lilica, an unfortunate survivor surveying the aftermath of their battle. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to...how to...please see that she is all right? I will only make it worse for her."
Haraldur sat on one of the crates positioned in the corner farthest from the tent's entrance. To while away the time, he etched shapes into the wood of his makeshift seat with a dagger that, to his knowledge, was not enchanted in any capacity. He abandoned the activity, however, when Elespeth barreled into the tent. Rising to his feet, he strode towards her, preparing to support her by the shoulders in case she collapsed from overexertion. When she revealed their suspicions to be true, his brow furrowed, narrowing his eyes into slits. "It is unlikely we are able to destroy every weapon before we are apprehended. Only the casters," he shook his head, rejecting the very notion. "This army will not listen to our prattle. We are simple soldiers with no backing--and they will silence us. We may be able to steal away the daggers, but as for swords and spears...such a feat may only be conceivable under the cover and chaos of a battle. And even then...engaging two armies while carting dangerous weapons about is an impossibility sure to fail. Your caster friends," he sighed, admitting defeat, "are our greatest asset."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
...I love you! I always have.
This was not her place, and not her area to interfere. For what did the dark mage know about love? It might have had a presence in that world faraway, the one that had never existed, but not here. Here, all she knew was disappointment. Hatred. Impassiveness, and a fluctuating sense of survival. A strange, impelling sense of camaraderie, perhaps, but not love. And at the stricken quality of Chara Rigas's voice, for a moment, she could only feel relieved that she was not ensnared in the tendrils of such a tumultuous feeling such as love.
And yet, the scene that unfolded before her dark eyes was no easier to watch.
Lilica stood, wide-eyed and rather helpless as Chara tore from the tent, leaving her and Alster both perplexed and at a loss. She had guessed that their relationship was a tumultuous one, but...This was completely unexpected. And she could hardly find words when Alster made a request of her.
"Me? This isn't my problem, what would you have me do?" She demanded, her face sour for a bitterness that she did not understand. "I agreed to help you win, and to help you understand your chthonic adeptness... Not to mend the dregs of your dysfunctional relationship. If you have eyes for that soldier of yours, then it's up to you to figure it out and make a decision."
Turning on her heel, Lilica left the injured Rigas mage to stew in his thoughts and feelings, with the intention to stalk back to her tent and withdraw from Rigas drama. But instead, she found herself actively searching for Chara, and when the telltale golden shine of her locks in the midday sun caught her eye, she was helpless but to approach her. And what now? she asked herself in silent incredulity. Not unlike Chara, consolation was not her forte, by any means. Yet she had sought out the blonde Rigas for a reason, it seemed, and if nothing else, it was imperative that she try.
"Be careful where you cry... Some who witness it will look down on your strength." Along with the concerned yet mild words, the dark mage reached into the pocket of her plain tunic and handed Chara a handkerchief. "He... asked me to make sure you were all right, but to be very honest with you, I don't know what to say. I don't know love; I've never had the opportunity to try and understand it. But..." Lilica trailed off, pressing her lips together as she searched tirelessly for the words. "I know pain, very well. And I'm sorry to see you experiencing it."
She then lapsed into an awkward silence, unsure of what else to do or say. Ultimately, the best she could think of was to ask. "Don't think for a moment I'm making a comparison, but of you are anything like me, then I imagine right now... you'd just like to be alone," she ventured, slow and quiet. "But, on the chance that you do not want to be, you know where you can find me. I can't offer any advice, but I'm capable of listening."
Chara was not the only one to welcome a bout of sadness as a companion. Elespeth spent the remainder of the day working alongside Haraldur, in part to keep herself occupied, as well as to diminish the looming feeling of being alone. And the thought that she might not be able to look any Rigas mage in the eye, anytime soon. But as the hours drew on, and night gathered, and the work ultimately ran out, the ex-knight finally found herself void of excuses.
"Eh! The both-a you." An older, broad-shoulder solider approached the two as they finished up sorting and cleaning the weapons. "The hell you still up workin' for? Listen, some of the lackeys were kind enough to deliver us some nice, Andalarian ale in their latest shipment of, heh, 'necessities'." His grin grew almost as broad as his shoulders. "We're waitin' 'til tomorrow night to crack into it, when Messino and his scouters depart to oversee future battlegrounds. If you're not there, don't go whinin' that ya missed your chance!"
"Huh... To be very honest, I've never partaken in ale or spirits of any kind," the Atvanian fugitive confessed to her companion when the other solider left. "And I don't think I've ever had the inclination to... until I joined Messino's army." With a half grin, she shrugged. "What do you think? I'm strongly considering that break."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She didn't know where to go, or where she could go. Her legs pumped forth with a purpose, and she surrendered to their confident strides. She dared not stop for a moment. Stop and she would devolve into unsightly blubbering. As a Rigas, she must always show poise in public, to exhibit no flaw on her polished, marble-smooth surface--no matter how much she cracked on the inside. Despite all her practiced perfection, the tears beneath her lids bubbled to the surface, and it took all her power to position her head in that upward, tilting fashion, aloof to the world. If only they knew that she held her head so skyward so that the tears would not roll down her face, and streak it with defeat. To wear weakness was to invite her own doom.
A familiar voice launched her from thoughts that she failed to unionize and culminate into order. Over her shoulder, she spotted Lilica, who...she did not expect to see. With difficulty, her runaway legs ceased their pathway into nowhere, and pointed towards the dark mage--keeping her face well-hidden by allowing her blonde locks to fall over her eyes. No matter. Lilica noticed the tears.
"Of course he did," she said with a bite, gripping on to what little anger would maintain her society-crafted artifice. "But he would not come for me, himself. And he won't believe me, because he believes no one could love him. That's why he won't..." she shook her head, trying and failing to keep herself together. "I lost him so many times--and I almost lost him for good, on that battlefield. Why can I not make him understand!? I..." Trailing away, she received Lilica's proffered handkerchief, and blotted her eyes as covertly as possible before returning it to her.
"My apologies. I realize this does not concern you, but I am...well, thankful, nonetheless, for your candor. Perhaps," she hesitated, casting concerned glances in her vicinity, "I may take you on your offer. I might require...such a retreat."
"Chara!" She froze when Tivia sidled over to them. The other Rigas glared at Lilica before addressing Chara exclusively. "There is to be a revelry of sorts tomorrow eve. A most vulgar presentation, I admit, but one cannot help but find a morbid curiosity in the whole sordid affair."
As Tivia departed, Chara clicked her tongue against her cheek, in deliberation. "Or...I may also require a drink. Many of them."
Lights from innumerable bonfires illuminated the camp like the spirals of a galaxy, brightest at the center and scattering from the nucleus to the farthest reaches. The festivities began early, when the sun nary touched the horizon. In fact, by the time Alster emerged from his tent (he had moved back with Tivia and Danos), much of Messino's demoralized army had since made the transition from sober to quite inebriated. Ribald laughter and ebullient hollers provided much of the camp's entertainment, but as he followed those fires further inward, he detected the strained notes of strings in harmony and the accompanying beat of drumming.
Alster had planned on staying inside that evening, having no desire to partake in a mood he did not reflect. Then again, seldom were the revelers a cheery sort when not out-of-sorts, so he supposed (nay, hoped), that his mood might very well change after a few drinks.
Normally, he avoided the drink; he abhorred the loss of cognitive functions, as they represented his control, of mastery of magic, of the ability to access his thoughts at their optimum ability. However...they had not been optimal, not for a while--and he feared he never would regain the quality he had enjoyed in the past, so lost was his mind. And with recent developments being as they were (none of which he cared to dredge), perhaps some swill would improve his overall welfare. At this rate, he wished to forget, if for an evening, the ceaseless evisceration of reality.
Trying not to pick at the scars of his arms, recently unbandaged and healed, Alster stepped into the fray of music and derangement, of chaos and mindlessness--of a battlefield dressed in different colors.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was no mystery or secret that the other Rigases (not to mention a good majority of the other casters) did not look upon her kindly, and that Chara, of all people, valued the appearance she kept up among her kin. Then again, the Chara Rigas that Lilica had thought she'd known--the one who had gotten under her skin on her very first day as part of Messino's army--was not the Chara Rigas who stood in front of her now, eyes wet with tears, holding a damp handkerchief and conveying the potential need for company... This caster was altogether different.
Then again, Lilica herself was also feeling herself affected by the winds of change. Whether it was for the better or not remained to be seen. But she did not find herself opposed to a little less awareness of her troubles, with the help of alcohol. It would be the first indulgence in a very long time (her last stein of ale had been years prior to the lasting sleep to which she'd succumbed), and she recalled that the beverage had made her feel more dead than alive, at the time. But perhaps it would be different in a social context...
If a social context was, of course, an option for her. "If you do decide to attend this 'revelry' tomorrow... Perhaps I will see you there."
---
And, as it turned out, she did see Chara there the next evening--but not alone. The blonde caster was in the company of the other Rigases, with the exception of Alster, whose presence was lost to her in the crowd. Immediately, whatever confidence the dark mage thought she had brought to this event dissipated, and she began to second guess herself. Of course Chara would be among her own; it was where she was most comfortable, and where she felt she belonged.
With all of their recent exchanges and interactions, Lilica had forgotten about that fact. And she was reminded of her own alien nature, as soon as she realized how truly alien she felt, among the revelers.
"Hey--yeah, you. You gonna have some of this, or did you just show up to stand around and look uncomfortable?" One of the soldiers in charge of distributing the amber ale that slowed in the firelight of everyone's goblet was quick to thrust one of the pewter mugs into Lilica's unsuspecting hands. It was far heavier than it looked. "Mind you take it slow, though. You don't look to me like someone who can hold their weight in spirits."
She could have shot back a remark in contempt, but she didn't. And not for lack of a good comeback, but for the mere fact that it wasn't worth it. Of all the assumptions and accusations that people ad made of her over the years, this one was by far one of the most mild. And, in truth, the soldier was probably right; over seventy years without a drop of alcohol in her blood had likely done a good deal on her tolerance. "Doesn't mean I need to 'take it slow'..." She muttered to herself, the familiar bitterness spreading over tongue as she ventured a sip--and grimaced. "Then again... I know the stories that warn of too much of a good thing."
Lilica wasn't the only one who felt a stranger to the boisterous world of drinking and revelry. Unlike her, Elespeth had absolutely no idea what she was getting herself into when she showed up later that evening, to join the casters and soldiers in their merriment of celebration. The excuse was supposedly in having chased the Tadasuni away twice in battle, a winning streak that seemed to give them confidence that the ex-knight was not entirely sure would weigh in their favour. Hubris was a dangerous thing, and on top of her recent discovery of Messino's more sordid plans that he kept under wraps, well, this was not a victory that she had come to partake n celebrating but--not unlike some of her close comrades--a chance to temporarily forget about everything that weighed on her mind.
"You've got some catching up to do, missy!" Someone laughed, clapping her on the shoulder as she held her stein cautiously with both hands. "Everyone else here is already feeling warm in their veins--better get drinking!"
"Ah... right, of course. Thank you." Brushing off the completely unfamiliar stranger, Elespeth moved temporarily out of reach of grabbing hands and clumsy bodies, taking a long, thoughtful swig of the bitter tasting swill. She could hardly swallow it; the stuff reminded her of contaminated water. But the second sip went down far more easily, and by the time her stein was nearly drained, she didn't care about the taste anymore.
It was around that time that she happened to bump into Alster, in her attempt to push past the throng of people.
"Oh--Alster!" Rosy-cheeked, she brought a hand to her lips. "Sorry, I... I didn't see you. And I didn't think I would see you, not here. Are you sure you're well enough for this?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Tivia and Danos, uninspired company when sober, were equally as dull after a few sips of their ale, which wrinkled their noses with the unspoken complaint of its dismal quality. Normally, she would agree, but after downing two cups of the malty brew, she hadn't cared for anything other than what it promised to deliver.
"My, why isn't this grand!?" She shouted sidelong to Tivia and Danos, who shrugged in unison and continued to cast dubious glances at their drink, as if they possessed the alchemical magic to alter their substance into something more pleasing. "Tell me you do not feel that pleasant weight overtake your body!" With a flourish, she rose from their spot on the ground, not quite detained enough to have lost her proper balance. "I believe I will procure some more ale. Would you like any?"
"We do not wish to imbibe any further," Danos said, swishing his goblet with a disgusted frown. "This will suffice."
"Suit yourself." Shrugging, Chara half walked, half danced to the watering hole: a veritable tower of barrels, flowing free with more of that sludge, into each waiting goblet. She weaved through the crowd so as to locate a breach from which she could squeeze and reach the front of the line with more ease. What she found, instead, was Lilica, who had accepted a goblet of ale and who stood, who actually stood, in the middle of a social event. Chara rubbed her eyes to ascertain the validity of such a sighting. The image did not falter. With a cheeky grin, she rerouted her course, sneaking up from behind Lilica to clasp a hand upon her shoulder.
"Well there you are, my adversary! What a surprise! Your first drink, I take it?" She laughed while waving around her empty goblet. "I'm on to find my third. Will you aid me in my most valiant quest?"
Alster did not linger very far into the thick of the celebrations before meeting resistance in the form of a rogue soldier careening rather brusquely into him. In protest, he prepared to affix the reveler with an annoyed glare, when he noticed that his assailant was none other than Elespeth herself!
"El-Tam!" he exclaimed. Despite not yet partaking, he felt the effects of alcohol rising up to color his cheeks, as if he absorbed it all through permeation. "It's...you're fine." He didn't forgot their rather intimate moment from the other day, or of the ensuing backlash from Chara followed by her overwhelming confessions. Such thoughts caused a tumble in his mouth as he attempted to speak. "And I am fine, as well. ...Well, better in the physical sense, anyway. My..ah...my bandages are off." He lifted his arms, a tangible sign of his recovery. "Nice...party. Have you been--oh yes, I see that you have a drink. Where can I--"
He was interrupted by a tall figure that loomed behind Elespeth, watching the two of them converse. "There you are," the figure told Elespeth, and emerged from the shadows, into the judgment of the nearby fire. Although difficult to distinguish, the man had handsome features upon a well-toned body. "Oh." He noticed Alster and nodded in acknowledgement. "You are Alster Rigas, I believe? We met on the battlefield--though you were unconscious at the time. My apologies," he dipped his head in supplication, and offered him a tankard of ale that he'd been carting. "My name is Haraldur."
"Yes...I have heard of you," Alster said, a wary strain in his voice as he reluctantly accepted the warrior's beverage offer into his hands. "Tam has mentioned you before. Thank you, by the way, for dragging me back to camp."
"Not a problem." A small smile turned the corners of his mouth. "I suggest we move elsewhere, lest we end up shoved into one of these fires and used as kindling. None would be the wiser. They're all too drunk to know the difference."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Chara?" The chthonic mage's eyes widened. Just moments ago, the blonde Rigas mage had been cajoling with her own Rigas brethren, oblivious to and ignoring anyone else who was not a part of her privileged bloodline.
And now, all of a sudden, she had a hand on Lilica's shoulder, like a magnet attraction, the positive to the negative. The light to the dark.
Why did the dark mage suddenly feel so much warmer in the celestial mage's presence?
"Are you sure it is wise to be seen with... well, to be seen together?" She had to put the question out there, as she was uncertain how such an open camaraderie might compromise their plans. "Shouldn't you be with..."
Third drink... Well, that certainly explained a lot. Lilica raised an eyebrow at her blonde companion, who carted her off to the vast barrels of butter tasting amber ale. She had yet to finish her first drink, but the effects had already begun to hit her hard. At least, hard enough to go along with Chara's fanciful mood. "You should take care to watch how much you consume," she cautioned, though without any great deal of worry in her cadence. "You never know what sort of buffoons might try to take advantage... Oh, wait, I don't need more yet..." Her sentence and thoughts were cut off as someone topped up the ale in her mug. With a sigh, she relented and took a sip.
"I'm... reassured to see that you appear to be feeling better than you were yesterday." 'Reassured' might not have been the right word, but it was about all she was willing to articulate. Still, seeing a smile on the blonde Rigas's face did incite a strange sense of peace. Just as much as her pain had caused a curious emotional disturbance deep in Lilica's gut. "Chara! Take it easy, now. There will be plenty of time for refills." With a free hand, she took the celestial mage's wrist and slowly lowered the goblet from her lips. Chara certainly seemed to be in a hurry to forget herself. "Come on. If we stand here, someone is apt to bump into us. And I don't think you'd relish in scrubbing stains out of your clothes."
As soon as El saw Alster, the slightly tipsy ex-knight forgot about everyone else in the boisterous crowd. To see her Rigas partner out of bed and attempting to mingle... Well, he might not have been succeeding, but the effort lit up a glimmer of hope in her eyes. The memory of their previous encounter muted by the alcohol, she offered a smile and looked him over. "Your arms--they look much better. There's hardly any scarring at all, you are very lucky!" She even went as far as to take his wrists in her hands, relieved to see the torn flesh mended. "And you're on your feet... I've been thinking about you recently. And I'm glad to see you've--"
Whatever heartfelt message she'd meant to convey was quickly cut off by the arrival of yet another trusted comrade. Elespeth's grin widened as she turned to see Haraldur. "Ah! So you thought it fit to join us. It's good that someone here can sufficiently hold their liquor, because it would appear that I certainly cannot." With a shrug, the Atvanian fugitive drained what was left in her stein, feeling pleasantly light-headed and giddy. "Oh, right--Alster, you haven't met Haraldur yet, have you? Well, I wouldn't have been able to drag you off the battlefield all by myself. Not to mention he also spared me a concussion by being around when I succumbed to heat exhaustion during the move to the new encampment. I find myself beyond lucky to be in such good company!"
Slightly unsteady on her feet, Elespeth took the liberty of using the mercenary to steady herself, placing a firm hand on his arm as the three of them moved beyond the line of fire and out of the raucous crowd of tall, burly bodies. But not before she accepted a refill of the amber beverage that no longer tasted so unappealing on her tongue. "Is Chara here? She won't run me off for being seen with you, will she?" But the grin on her freckled face suggested she didn't much care about what Chara thought, regardless if they were seen. Turning to Haraldur, she mentioned, "Some of the Rigas mages are a tad touchy to see one another fraternizing outside of their group. Luckily enough, Alster is the exception to the rule."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Have you seen this blasted camp?" She pointed her chin at the wobbling masses dragging their feet and voices from one ale-laden bonfire to the other. Among them, she weaved through the shrill and the oblivious, the languorous and the hyper, until she wheedled her way to the front of refilling station. "They are scarcely keeping track of their own drinks, let alone their memory. And if they do notice, I will say that you are in pursuit of me and it is through my fathomless generosity that I have allowed you to tag along. After all, it is an eve of celebrating, and even a Rigas can bestow kindness unto their most appalling of villains." Her conclusive statement ended in a wink. She then turned towards the tap of the barrel, leaning her goblet forward so as to encourage the burly man to fill her vessel to the brim with its amber potion. Whether potion or poison, for the two glistened the same and both tasted bitter and bilious, she accepted the offering with a gracious smile. "Thank you, serving man. You work your tap rather well." She about purred, and spun on her heels before the bewildered man could summon a retort.
"So you see, Lilica," she adopted a conversational lilt as they fled the epicenter of the revelry, "as I have demonstrated to that atrocious man back there, if anyone is to be taking advantage tonight, it is I. Not them." Pausing her footfalls to consider her drink, she shrugged and brought the goblet to her lips, proceeding to gulp down its contents until the dark mage caught her arm and extricated the vessel from her mouth's grasp. "I say, I worked hard to obtain this refill. I shall work hard to drink it!" Her protests dwindled to a mutter, however, when she caught some foolhardy ruffians pushing each other into the crowd as if it were some depraved game to knock the intoxicated into the mud. Balking at the sight, she nodded and leaned closer to the dark mage. "By all means, then," she gave Lilica a waggish smile, "lead me elsewhere."
If Alster's face hadn't reddened from the sight of Elespeth, it certainly did when she had taken his hands in her own, and the contact sent a flurry of chills all the way up to his shoulder-blades. When she remarked upon his arms and the lack of scarring on the flesh, a shy smile upturned one corner of his mouth. Throughout the day, and with the primary goal of distracting himself, he toiled on healing every fresh injury on his body with as many repetitions as the spell-form would allow--until the scars all but disappeared. In a way, he wished for Elespeth to notice, so that she would not see him as incapable of recovery. Even if said recovery was only surface deep and could nary penetrate the perpetual wounds that constantly bled his soul dry, he wanted to prove to her, in her eyes, that he was making a concentrated effort.
...For her sake.
Before he could further react to her comments of praise, the focus shifted towards Haraldur as the man in question made his presence known--and his heart sank as Elespeth railed off similar praise in favor of her acquaintance. Don't take it seriously, Alster! She is clearly intoxicated. He knew his mind spoke sense. But evenso...
Trailing away heady thoughts before they could accumulate into doubt and self-pity, he followed the two warriors out of the crowd as he began to drink from his offered tankard. The ale stunk on his tongue, a sweaty combination of musk and grass, but he sipped the drink whilst juggling the walk to an airier space and the conversation at hand.
"A few good years of practice," Haraldur answered Elespeth with a chuckle as he held aloft a canteen of his own. "Not something to brag about, as it takes me far longer to reach a satisfactory state than it does for you."
"I'm certain I'll be at your wished-for state by the time I finish this tankard here," Alster said as he ventured another taste. "Then one of you will have to catch me--yet again." He forced a laugh and glanced over at the massive shoulders of Elespeth's friend. He took a swig. "I don't doubt that Chara is here," he answered Elespeth's inquiry with a shrug, but the shrug rattled his arms with more anxiety than he cared to show. "She...I'm not sure how she'll react. I haven't spoken to her since that day when she..." No! He shook his head with a shivering fervor. Banish the thought. He silenced his words with sips that desperation transformed into thirsty gulps.
As if sensing Alster's sudden touch of malaise, Haraldur gave him a polite once-over--or was it a look of pity? "That is a relief. And here I thought most casters were the same," Haraldur said, and smiled at Alster.
And, considering the remainder of her Rigas brethren failed at looking out for her in a state that rendered her relatively vulnerable, it really left the dark mage no choice.
"So I can see," Lilica responded, in light of Chara's remark about precisely whom would be taking advantage of who. "So with your newfound brazenness, you intend to flirt your way around this place to get what you want? You know you are going to regret it when you're sober--come on."
Taking the overly inebriated Rigas mage by the arm, Lilica led her away from the more rowdy niches of the rambunctious crowd. Frankly, she was surprised the young woman was at all able to maintain her balance. Though she might not have been so fortunate were a good fraction of her weight not leaning against the chthonic mage.
As soon as they were clear of falling into the mud, she placed firm hands upon Chara's shoulders, and expelled a long sigh. She was not nearly drunk enough to be at ease among this many people. "And just what has you drinking to this degree?" She asked. The celestial mage's hair was windswept, strangely untidy for her usually well kept appearance. Without thinking, she reached out and brushed a blonde tress away from the Rigas mage's face. "This doesn't have something to do with what occurred between you and Alster, does it? Because let me assure you, nobody is worth your over-indulgence in alcohol if they cannot see your worth."
The sincerity in those words startled even the dark mage, but what confused her even more was that she meant them. "What I mean to say, is," she stammered, dropping her hands to her sides, only to realize she had no idea what she meant. "Nevermind. To hell with it." Without bothering to ask, she took the mug from Chara's hands and tipped it to her lips, furrowing her brow at the bitter tang of ale on her tongue. "If you can find an excuse to over-indulge, then there is no reason I cannot."
Elespeth only realized her mistake the second that it passed her lips--and then it was too late to take it all back. Eyes wide with the magnitude of that grave error, she brought a hand to her mouth, before realizing she needed it uncovered for a crucial apology. "Oh, I... Alster, I'm sorry. Our partnership seems to truly have taken its toll on you and Chara, a-and if you didn't want to continue with it..."
What was she saying? The Atvanian fugitive valued her ties with the Rigas mage and supported his endeavour. But just how much longer would it remain possible if the blonde Rigas mage reacted so poorly to their chaste gestures of companionship and camaraderie? There was no cure for jealolusy; and for that, the former knight felt helpless.
"But, ah... regardless, I am glad you are well. I worried for your condition after that last battle..." For the sake of sparing Haraldur embarrassment on behalf of the both of them, Elespeth saw fit to change the subject, and eased her nerves with another long swig of ale. The more she drank of the swill, the less adverse it became. "Now if only we could count on winning the next one without Messino's little... modification to our tactics. Believe me when I say Alster's skills will be paramount to our interference." She spoke to Haraldur then, playing up her battle partner to the point where it could almost come across as bragging. But it was the least that she felt she could do, considering how her mere existence had grossly complicated the details of the Rigas mage's life.
That was a discussion they perhaps needed to continue later on--for closure, if no other purpose. "Huh. Gone already." Peering into her empty mug, Elespeth flashed a sheepish smile to her two male companions. "Well, better grab a refill before it's gone--I already suspect I'm going to regret this indulgence, come morning, so why not enjoy it while it lasts?" Winking, she sashayed (somewhat unsteadily) towards the bulk of the crowd, where the ale was being distributed in streams from its oaken barrels.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"It was not obvious? I am drinking because it is available to me, during a time when I need it most. It is for my doomed, shattered heart!" She blew on the hand that affixed her hair, teasingly trying to push the strands from the dark mage's reach. "He has not yet seen my wrath. Because I will step on his heart, too. It will splash and spatter like this mud here" She repeated the trudging motions of her feet upon the ground until Lilica's words tilted her head in curiosity.
"Did I hear you correctly? Was that a compliment? Why, Lilica, you shouldn't have. I do appreciate your reminder of my greatness. So," a coy smile broadened her face, raising her cheekbones, plumping them like ripened strawberries, "do you see my worth? ...Then why can't he!?" Her outburst startled the goblet out of her hands. No--that was Lilica, swiping her precious beverage and downing it for herself! "You give that back!" She flailed arms at the dark mage, but they missed their mark and encountered air. "Fine!" In a feat she did not think able to accomplish in her current state, she wrenched Lilica's own mug from her and downed it with all the thirstiness of one condemned to always search for water in an endless desert. "Hah! We're even. Now," she said, swaying amongst the throng of people traveling in schools upstream, "let's go find that halfwit and break him open!"
Alster watched Elespeth's sudden facial turn from where he stood behind her and Haraldur. Trailing behind because there lacked the space for them to travel three abreast, he followed from the rear, sneaking a gulp or two of his ale until a strange, weighty sensation in his head impelled him to stop--and he didn't think it was from the alcohol.
"No!" He blushed, surprised at his sudden, loud objection to Elespeth's suggestion of their separation. Haraldur looked over, curiosity furrowing his brow. " I mean...there's no reason for you to apologize. Chara--she's always been volatile. Ever since we were children. Do not let her disposition rule your head." As if in sync, Alster finished his tankard at the same time as Elespeth, preferring to sicken himself with drink than bask in the discomfiture of her concern. Not to say he didn't enjoy her tenderness towards his well-being; on the contrary, he welcomed it, for such gestures were foreign to him. But he didn't know how to react without devolving into another series of verbal blubbering.
No matter; his mouth felt lined with fluff when Elespeth mentioned his skillset, and he only wished he hadn't downed his drink so quickly. "Yes," Alster said, when Haraldur's probing expression egged him to respond to Elespeth's glowing praise. "I have a plan. A plan and it's...well, I hope it's effective, but that's why they're called plans. I...I suppose." His words, while trite and utterly inane, did not shame him as they would in any other situation. In fact, he almost felt calm. That he could say anything and his mind would not punish him for his glaring ineptitudes.
"Let me accompany you," he called after Elespeth, flashing his empty tankard in the air. "I also need a refill. As you've said...well, why not?" He returned her smile with one of his own: broad and...mischievous. Haraldur, who followed them to the barrel streams took Alster's old place in their walking arrangement--the rear.
As they waited on the queue, Alster's heels rocked back and forth, either in anticipation for more of the ale that worked on lacerating his inner doubt, or from its quick-acting effects. Whatever the case, his fingers itched in the air, impatient--and in wanting.
"I can make this crowd disperse," he told Elespeth in a daring tone. Before she could question his cryptic statement or stop him, his fingers drew a spell-form: a wave of air rippled through the queue, knocking the revelers off their feet as if struck by invisible assailants. Without waiting for them to catch their second wind, he hurried through the space he'd wrenched open, reaching the barrel tap and the perplexed men standing guard within moments, rather than minutes. "Sorry about that," Alster said, a contrite grin across his face. "But my friend and I would like some ale."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Though she should really be one to talk...
It might have been the ale that painted a flush upon her face; regardless of the cause, it was impossible to hide. "It was an observation, not a compliment," she argued, nevermind that there wasn't any difference between the two, given the context. "I don't associate with the unworthy--and neither do you, for that matter, and don't pretend otherwise." Nothing more than an assumption, of course, but a guess that she felt was educated, nonetheless.
"I simply see your value as a person. But Alster... obviously, he sees value elsewhere. Regardless if it makes him a buffoon, that reality won't change things." The harshness of that reality didn't occur to her until she reached for a mug of ale a tall, laughing man was pouring for someone else; too bad the sad sap's reflexes were slow, in comparison to hers. "Chara... don't let this ruin your head or your body. There are far more trying and dangerous life happenstances than rejection, and frankly, you are stronger than that..."
But before Lilica could finish, Chara had her by the arm, and in search of Alster. "So you drink to forget him, only to be impelled to find him again?" The dark mage murmured, with an undertone of disappointment that even she did not quite understand. But for whatever reason or causation, it bothered her that the celestial mage would rather seek out and exact revenge on someone who had hurt her, than acknowledge the company of someone who respected her.
In light of the fear that their partnership had effectively come to and end the other day, when Chara Rigas had openly expressed her disdain for it, Elespeth was relieved at Alster's dissent of her suggestion. Mentally, she had fully prepared to walk away and refill her mug until there was enough ale in her bloodstream to make her forget the awkwardness of that last encounter with the celestial mage. But when she did walk away, it wasn't alone. "Well," she said as Alster joined her at her side, "I have a feeling that there will be no shortage of refills for either of us, tonight. Did you see the quantity of barrels they brought in? As if liquor and spirits are more important an asset to this army than weaponry and armor."
Yet despite the obvious abundance of alcohol, the lines of men and women with empty mugs were none the shorter. Evidently, the more grog available, the more and faster everyone drank, so as to continually acquire more and more before it ran out. "Huh. By the time it's our turn, I think we'll all be sober," the ex-knight joked to Alster and Haraldur, who'd followed a few paces behind. Had she known that such a harmless comment might spur a scene, she'd have thought better of it.
Before Elespeth could blink, Alster declared a solution to their trying situation. And just like that, soldiers were swept off their feet, as though by some invisible wind, until they suddenly found themselves the only ones standing at the front of the line.
"I... ah... wow." The Atvanian fugitive cast a worried glance in Haraldur's direction, not yet too drunk to consider the repercussions of the scene her Rigas companion had caused. "Was that... entirely necessary? Ah, well..." Unless or until someone got hurt, there was no point in failing to take advantage of Alster's antics. Clapping her war partner appreciatvely on the shoulder, she held out her mug for a refill.
Unfortunately, those antics did not surpass the attention of someone who was already out for his blood. "What in that..." Lilica stopped Chara short, as an entire line of revelers fell flat on their face--only to reveal a certain, suspicious Rigas mage standing expectantly behind them. And it certainly wasn't the Rigas mage who was in her company. "Well... it appears as though we've found the target of both your hatred and undying affections," she commented, shaking her head. "And he's drawn attention to himself. If you ask me, he deserves the black eye that he might get for being the obstacle between muscle men and their grog."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"This goes beyond rejection. I am who I am because of him. Because he worked tirelessly with me in the past to hone my useless magic!" A hand crept up to her face, a horror that countless drinks could not deaden. The truth spoken aloud--at last. Useless magic. With a glare at the crowd ahead of her, which gathered by the barrel as if its honeyed waters could deliver salvation, she forced herself ahead--and ignored her faux pas that Lilica no doubt heard. "Do you honestly believe I can allow him to escape my grasp so damn easily?! I owe him everything--even if that means wrenching him open and tearing apart his insides. I owe him that, too."
At that time, a cold wind tore through a swath of drunken revelers, knocking them into the slurry of mud at their feet. A collective groan pocked the air as the instigator--and his accomplice--sliced through the crowd to reach the ale barrels uninhibited. Alster. It was him. Drunk, obviously; otherwise, he wouldn't dare perform a trick of that capacity. And that woman that followed him...Tam. Of course. How predictable that he should find himself in her unworthy company! "No," she told Lilica, her hand tightening against her empty goblet. "He does not deserve it from them. If anyone is going to hurt him, it is I."
Whether the drink server was afraid of disobeying Alster's directive or simply did not care, he filled the drinks of the caster and his friend to the brim without protest. "That good enough for you?" He asked the Rigas aggressor, who nodded and accepted the refills.
"Well, that was invigorating." Alster handed a mug to Elespeth as they departed the scene of his transgression. "Definitely unnecessary, you're right, but they're more or less unharmed. Just muddy. And," he stared at the liquid of his forcefully acquired beverage, which vibrated from his footfalls, "now that I know the truth about myself, there's no point in exercising control...right?" He glanced sidelong at Elespeth, as if seeking validation. "Otherwise, I'm just deceiving myself. I'm the bastard who killed my parents--there's no going up from that point." Despite his morose comments, he smiled and held up his tankard. "I'll toast to that. To rock bottom, and," he hesitated, "to the people who foolishly believe they love me."
Before he could enjoy his pilfered beverage, however, a few grumbling men, less drunk and significantly more irate than the other victims, groveled to their feet and grappled his arm. "Rigas scum--think you can run us into the mud, as well!?"
A second man knocked the drink out of his hands. "Not happy unless we're all below you, huh!? Well, I don't need status to make that happen for you." He crunched his hand into a tight fist, preparing to lob it into a satisfying crunch against the Rigas caster's face. Meanwhile the shadows beneath Alster's assailants danced, but not from the nearby fire. Before Alster could utilize the siphoning ability of his chthonic magic, a fizz of blue light dashed and exploded into the eyes of the two men, dazzling them into temporary blindness.
"Dammit!" They wailed in unison, flailing punches that didn't hit their mark--for their mark had escaped from their grip and proximity.
"Unhand him!" Chara spoke from where she stood beside Lilica, her fingers sparking with the same blue discharge that had attacked the two brutes. "Get out, now, Alster!"
"I didn't need your help!" he shouted at her once he relocated, standing now before Chara's drunken sway. If he wasn't so unprepared to deal with her sudden appearance, he'd have remarked upon the impressive use of her magic despite her drink-induced impairments.
"Really? It looks as though you did. If possible, that ale has made you even stupider!" Instead of an admonishment, however, Chara delivered it with a chuckle in her voice, which erupted into a full-blown laugh. "Ah...why do I love such an idiot?"
"Look," he sighed, feeling vestiges of his default uneasiness and doubt rising to the surface, "you're mistaken. I'm not--no one--"
He cut off his speech when he saw the two men regain their ability to see, their disorientation fading with every purposeful step closer to their quarry. Without delay, Chara shot another flash of light into their faces. "Come on!" She yelled at Alster. "Let's go before they start chasing us. Take your pet with you, too. I will allow it. I need something to make me laugh tonight."
"No need to worry about drinks or anything, either," Haraldur called out to them in the dark, hefting a small barrel of ale that he had swiped from the servers in the ensuing chaos. "That is to say," he narrowed his eyes at the fleeing casters, "if I too am allowed."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Chara--watch yourself!" She hissed, as the blonde woman surged forward, letting go of her arm in some newfound ability to reorient herself and maintain her balance. But as soon as the words passed her lips, Lilica realized the fallacy of her beliefs. The truth was, Chara Rigas was in no danger of the ruffians who threatened Alster and the she-soldier. She was a pillar that could not be felled; not even when she could hardly walk a straight line, under the heavy influence of draught.
Taking a step back, she allowed the two the space that they seemed to need, feeling irrationally irritated by the utter nonsense that was Chara and Alster Rigas's mess of feelings, or lack thereof. The dark mage tipped her mug to her lips, in hopes of drowning her foul-growing mood in the bitter beverage, only to realize not a drop was left. Am I so out of my element that I've been sipping on this without even realizing? she wondered, the curve of her pert mouth twisting downward in a frown.
Fortunately, refills were not far off. The somewhat unfamiliar voice of another soldier (an acquaintance of Tam, no doubt) declared a barrel of ale in his possession. But at this point, introductions and small talk were far beyond her, and therefore not a word was spoken between them as she sauntered up to Haraldur, at the same moment that Chara and Alster sauntered out. "You look capable of hefting their sorry, drunken hides over your shoulder and depositing them back in their tents, should they black out of their own antics." Tilting the nozzle on the barrel towards her mug, she filled it to the brim once again with the amber liquid that she could no longer taste. "So come on. I can't be the only one expected to keep an eye on this firestorm before it gets out of hand."
With two and a half mugs full of ale in her, Elespeth almost had half a mind to challenge Chara Rigas in her uncharitable 'pet' comment. But for Alster's sake (and for the fact that the two had begun to run ahead, with some angry soldiers in pursuit), the thought was quickly lost on her as she took off behind them, calling over her shoulder to Haraldur and Lilica, "If you're not going to run, do us a favour and trip 'em up!"
But the fact of the matter was, by this time of evening, everyone--their pursuers included--were far too inebriated to maintain the chase for long. Before Elespeth knew it, they had all stopped, away from the din of the drinking tent, to a more secluded area of the camp. The air was cool on her face, now that she was no longer surrounded by over a hundred burly, perspiring bodies, and frankly, she no longer cared what Chara had called her. And instead of turning on the blonde Rigas mage with her own blazing opinion, a laugh tore from her lungs. "Stitching a wound on the battlefield, and blinding a bunch of drunk hoodlums with your witchlight... You really do think quickly on your feet! No offense, Alster, but I'm starting to wish I'd been paired with Chara."
Over her shoulder, the Atvanian fugitive winked playfully at her battle partner, to convey the jest in her words--which had been intended to placate the fiery celestial mage. Truthfully, she cringed at the idea of having to fight alongside someone like Chara Rigas--powerful though she was--who would critique her every move, and for whom nothing would ever be good enough.
But she was good enough for Alster. Or, at least, she was tolerable, and deemed worthy of his trust and friendship. And for someone who hadn't been able to trust a single soul in about half a decade, it meant more to her than she could properly express.
"Haraldur! Over here!" The ex-knight called to her mercenary friend, who followed the dark mage, carting a large (and stolen) barrel of ale in his arms. Grinning at Alster, and glancing at Chara, she tilted her head towards the tallest and strongest of the lot. "Look at how heavy that barrel is. And your mugs are empty, as is mine. Let's go lighten his load, shall we?"
"I am not a psychic. But I foresee regret in all of your near futures, if you endeavour to drink this barrell dry," Lilica commented, in complete hypocrisy to her own, newly filled mug, and her own, mildly zig-zagging gait. "But if we're all done with cutting in lines and blinding should-be comrades, maybe we can partake in this hedonistic indulgence properly."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
However, she was human, and her reliance on the ale he carted lifted his apprehension--somewhat.
"That sounds like a request worthy of payment. What will you give me in exchange for designated guardian duty and my gracious donation to your drunken cause?" He quipped alongside her, a halfmoon smile diluting the weight in his words--that would otherwise demand gold for his troubles.
Once certain of their relative safety, Alster, who kept hold of Chara's arm in case she stumbled, slowed into a more agreeable pace. After releasing a few huffs from the exertion, he checked on Chara, surprised that she stayed upright--and was breathing regularly. "Well, I'm out of shape," he muttered aloud as he loosened his grip on her arm. As they reached a small clearing, afforded by a few tents hugging each other as if to stay warm, Chara collapsed upon a sparse patch of yellowed grass--almost taking Alster down with her.
"Do not presume to believe that I am finished for the evening!" She glared up at Alster and Elespeth as she moved her knees in a more favorable position. "And Tam?" That glare transformed into twin suns with all intents to sear and blind her victims--as she had done mere moments ago. "I do not find your placating commentary endearing or disarming in the least. Please desist, or I will no longer find your company amusing."
"Do you still wish for Chara as your partner?" Alster nudged Elespeth, his voice coated over with the same conspiratorial tone adopted by the ex-knight. "With her on your side, many of your wounds would come from friendly fire."
"Oh, please, Alster. I am not that petty," she huffed at him from her retired spot on the ground. "...You'd be cross with me if she came to bodily harm, besides. I must keep your favorite toy in functioning form, after all, lest you succumb to one of your moods--and it will be no small matter piecing you back together."
"What--" His eyes widened in conjunction with a blush that burnished his cheeks. "What are you insinuating!?"
"You know well what! Now," she threw her arms in the air, grasping for blurred images in the distance, "Lilica and the walking barrel have located us. In recompense for my allowance of your continued partnership with your dog, you will fetch me more ale."
"She's drunk," Alster told Elespeth as they approached Haraldur and Lilica, equipped as such with the tools to properly extricate the excess weight from the barrel. "She doesn't realize what she's...I don't think of you as a t-t...as so impersonally and...Dammit, I thought drinking was supposed to alleviate me of this...feeling!" He cut his frustrations into the air as he grabbed the tap of Haraldur's proffered barrel and filled his mug to brimming, guzzling its contents until he remembered to claim Chara's portion of the spoils.
"Oh, come now, Lilica," Chara laughed at the dark mage's ominous proclamation as she motioned at her lounging feet. "I have fallen. Even if I should imbibe any further, it is doubtful I will cause much damage in my current, immobilized state. Though I am most accomplished at mind games." She motioned her head at Alster, for emphasis, who near drank himself dry in one gulp. "You seem most willing to tread down this forbidden path, yourself."
"Take your drink or I'll pour it over your head," Alster said with a grumble, holding it out for Chara to take, which she did with as much grace as two uncoordinated hands could manage.
"What have I gotten myself into?" Haraldur mumbled to himself as he set down the barrel and pondered, nay, second-guessed, his options for the evening.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
At least, that was how it began, until Chara chose to escalate her cruelty to something that was beyond degrading, for both her and Alster. The alcohol hadn't dulled her cognitive functions enough to interfere with her interpretation of the vile insinuations of the former's words.
If she didn't say something now, then it was unlikely that she ever would, to the end of this war--whatever the end might be.
"It's fine, Alster," she declared, brushing off the blonde caster's behaviour like it were nothing. "You don't have to explain yourself for her words. Drunk or not, Chara's just reacting like anyone would in the face of jealousy."
And that was that: Elespeth had started the fire. And she fully intended to watch it burn until there was nothing left, with everything off of her chest and turned to ashes. "Chara Rigas," the ex-knight turned to address her verbal assailant, after taking a long swig from her mug for her own reassurance. Closing the distance between them, she addressed the haughty celestial mage from where she stood--looking down at her, for once, literally and figuratively. "You are a skilled caster, in name and in magic. If your age parallel's Alster's, then I can only imagine you've had a very long time to become as competent as you are. And that competence, that prowess, is not missed by anyone. So then what is it about me, a simple sword-wielder, that rattles your confidence, so? Where does someone with your reputation and indisputable talent come to suffer such insecurity?"
"What did she just say?" Only a mildly innocent bystander, Lilica all but choked on her beverage, shooting a dark-eyed glance at Haraldur. But the hulking figure looked just as lost as she was, and just as surprised at the swordswoman's sudden development of so firm a backbone. "Clearly, Chara is not the only one who is letting alcohol speak for her..."
But the Atvanian fugitive was not done yet. Rebellious brown hair having all but come loose of its braid hours ago in the humidity of the evening, she tossed it over her shoulder and rested her free hand on her hip. "I completely understand; you're bothered by my association and friendship with Alster. And I won't take it personally, because I have a feeling that you would take an identical position against anyone in my situation. But why don't we deconstruct this just a little bit more, for the sake of your own clarification. For one," she began to count on her fingers, "Yes, if you're wondering, I do care for Alster. He's my fighting partner, so I trust and respect him, and I am sorry to say that no diatribe from you is going to change that. Furthermore, are you certain it is not he whom you have made a toy of? Considering that you treat him like he can do nothing right, when in fact he is just as invaluable as the sullen dark mage, over there."
"Kindly keep me out of your vituperation, sword-wielder," came Lilica's reply, nothing less of venomous, despite her inebriation. But a passive, bitter retort was all she was able to muster, in light of this unlikely confrontation.
Fortunately, her presence was lost on Elespeth before the dark mage even finished speaking. Her words were for Chara alone, and she wanted them out, spoken and understood before she lost her nerve. "Believe it or not, I am not here to interfere with whatever complex sort of relationship you Rigases share. But neither will I continue to be bullied, intimidated or brought down by you, simply to make yourself feel better for whatever personal lacks or criticisms you must be suffering, nor will I cease to look out for Alster and return his friendship. And finally..." Pausing to finish her drink in a single mouthful, the swordswoman spread her arms in an almost helpless gesture. "Regardless of what you might think, I am not your enemy. In fact, I needn't remind you that we share a common enemy, and that I have chosen to expend my efforts towards helping you, Alster and your cause..."
Averting her gaze to glance briefly at Alster, who was no doubt just as dumbfounded by her outburst as she was, the ex-knight could only muster a shake of her head. "Confidence only has virtue, and pride only has merit when you needn't make others feel inferior to maintain that confidence and pride. And since I won't be brought down by you, I implore that you find your inner sense of security, lest one day the people who treat as inferior surpass you, leaving you to contemplate how you measure your self worth..." And that was that. Elespeth sighed, feeling a weight had been lifted from her chest, before her grey eyes wandered to her mug in a look of confusion. "...was my mug not full, just a moment ago?"
"You know... this 'forbidden path' suddenly doesn't seem so unappealing," Lilica chimed in, already refilling her mug with the barrel in front of Haraldur. Lifting an eyebrow at him, she added, "Believe me, every single one of us will become more tolerable when you're too drunk to even realize who you're talking to."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Jealous?" She sputtered when the insolent girl rattled on about matters she would never hope to understand. Chara, an accomplished Rigas, jealous of a dirty nobody who carted around a rusty sword in her callused hands? Jealous of a person whose vocation made little sense for her gender? Jealous of a woman who unequivocally commanded Alster's attention, and respect? Before she could silence the sword-wielder, either by words or by something a little extra, the fool railed on some more--until she reached the crux of her tirade.
"Do not presume to understand the complexities of my relationship with my kin, you outsider. It is only by the request of your battle partner that I keep you informed of our plans. Already, I see that you are taking advantage of Alster's inane generosities," she waggled her head at Haraldur, who, like Lilica, stood along on the sidelines and tilted a few sips of ale into his eager gullet, "by inviting your ilk to attend our personal affairs."
"If you wish for me to depart," Haraldur chimed in, moving to heft the barrel of ale, "I shall take this elsewhere."
"No," Chara waved a hand at him to stop. "You have, unfortunately, become privy to our secrets and for that I cannot release you. Yet another casualty," she groaned into the air. She ignored the look of hostility that radiated from Haraldur when Elespeth's continued yammerings snapped something delicate from inside Chara. Her, using Alster as a toy? She did not treat him so discourteously! Why, she was simply of a higher rank than he! What drivel, what hogwash, what...
"How...dare you!" Unbidden, her hand raised and flashed a starry blue mass, which about escaped her grasp in route to Tam's face--but another hand grappled her wrist and ceased the flow of her magic.
"Chara," Alster said, keeping hold of her wrist, "let her finish."
"I see. It's a conspiracy between the two of you!" She huffed as she tried to worm her way out of Alster's grip, but he was unyielding and clung to her until the bitter end of the swordswoman's speech. She opened her mouth, in preparation to lay the woman bare, but Alster squeezed Chara's wrist and she silenced herself as he released her and stood to full height.
"Now it's my turn." He played with the now-empty mug in his free hand as he sighed and looked sidelong at Elespeth, whose presence helped him gather the courage to face Chara unabated. Although--he was certain the lowered inhibitions of the drink aided his words to find voice. "Chara, I know we're affianced. Until further notice, that is the truth we face. And you...well, you harbor feelings for me," he looked down at his feet, "and I may actually understand why. I...I am grateful for all that you've done. Helping me adjust when I returned to the Rigas estate--abandoning your own morals so that Lilica may teach me chthonic magic...I know you're trying to protect me--and to make up for lost time. But lashing out at whosoever decides to associate with me of their own accord--I can't accept that sort of treatment. And this is why--among other reasons--I can't return your feelings." He made to drink the empty contents of his mug, giving him a ready distraction in case Chara reacted in a manner of which he was unprepared to face. To be honest, Chara, he thought as he dared look away from his drink, you remind me too much...of Debine.
Chara, meanwhile, stared down at her hands for the duration of Alster's confession, half-anticipating his forlorn conclusion. "I see," she said, her voice choking in tandem with the shake of her shoulders. "It makes sense. You want to be babied, Alster. If so, Tam is the perfect candidate for your undying affections."
"I didn't say tha--"
"It doesn't matter!" She found him, standing above and looking down at her with a concern she abhorred. Chara Rigas would not be pitied! "We're to be married, regardless, so I'll allow you this, this--fling!"
"As much as you believe you are in control of me--you're not. Whether you allow it or not, I'm making my own decisions. I..." he turned from her before his resolve gave way too much, for he spotted tears pricking the corners of her blue eyes, "I hope we remember this conversation when we are sober."
Returning to Elespeth's side, Alster gave the woman warrior an uncertain smile. "If you wish to leave...I don't blame you. For your own safety, it is wise. ...And take me with you," he muttered, looking over at Chara with growing apprehension.
"Lilica," Chara said, her voice barely controlled and fitted into a shaky whisper, "I need another drink. Can you--?"
"You are being summoned," Haraldur told Lilica, himself having started on his second mug of ale since he arrived at the menagerie, driven to partake by all the hooting and hollering of his...kinsmen. "However," he fused a hand over the barrel tap, "I do not believe this woman has earned the right to another drink."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Hard to believe, that two people who had known each other for so long, had been so closed to one another.
"Your imagination is running away with your own insecurities, Chara," Elespeth sighed, her mind off of her empty mug in light of the gravity of this situation. "There isn't a fling; there never has been one, in fact. Just a friendship that is perhaps more genuine than anything you could hope to achieve, treating Alster the way that you do."
And just like that, she realized her mistake--and it was too late to take it back. But in the end, it didn't matter, for the Rigas mage with chthonic capabilities was the one to hammer the final nail into the coffin that was this conversation. Happy though she was that he'd finally found it in himself to say it--Whether you allow it or not, I'm making my own decisions--, the ex-knight was by no means oblivious to the hurt that lingered behind the angry mask that Chara Rigas wore. She pitied her, knowing full well that the stubborn blonde resisted the pity, and had she been sober, she might have endeavored to make amends.
There was no cleaning up this mess, though. Not when there was not a single person in this group of five who was sober enough to be the real voice of reason.
"Come on, then," Elespeth put a hand on Alster's shoulder, and began leading him away from the scene. "She's probably too drunk to know what she's saying, anyway... It looks as though Lilica will look out for her for now." The Atvanian fugitive had not missed the way that the dark mage never deigned to remove herself too far from Chara's side, how she might have stood beyond arm's reach, but not so far that she could not be of assistance to Alster's fiancée. Though she couldn't venture a guess as to why Chara Rigas, of all people, would inspire Lilica D'Or to such altruism.
When the two were far enough away that privacy could be considered, Elespeth's hand slipped from the Rigas made's shoulder. "Listen... I am sorry. For the discord I have incited between you and Chara," she told him, lifting and dropping her shoulders in a shrug. "In fact, I'll probably feel all the more sorry when I'm sober, but... I have such respect for the way you held your own tonight. I do believe she Chara cares for you, but I... I don't believe she quite knows how to care for you, in the right way. Because she doesn't seem to realize her own value and potential; if she knew you realized yours... imagine how low she would feel. What you said back there... you did the right thing."
Flashing a broad smile, Elespeth put her hands on his shoulders. "And I might be drunk, but I guarantee I'd be telling you the exact same thing if I weren't. You're... you really do inspire me."
A shame that the same could not be true of Lilica, where it came to Chara. The dark mage considered her celestial counterpart's plea, feeling an uncomfortable weight in her chest at that tremor in her typically loud and confident voice. But Haraldur was not wrong; not only was Chara far from entitled to another drink, but Lilica should have taken the mug out of her hands long before she had been so bold as to confront Alster and the she-soldier. And, knowing what she did of the blonde Caster, Chara already lived with enough regret. The last thing she needed on her troubled mind was knowing that her inebriated words dug her further into the hole in which she had found herself.
"Of course. Come on." Instead of taking the empty mug from Chara's hand, the dark mage took her by the arms and--with no shortage of determination and struggle--pulled her to her feet, supporting her back with one arm. Given that the celestial mage had several inches on her own meager height, it was nothing less of a challenge. "I know just what to get you, but it's not here."
Offering a knowing nod to Haraldur, and recognizing his own desire to retreat from this mess in which he did not belong, she merely said, "Breathe a word of any of this to anyone--and I don't care how petty the details might be--then I will personally see to it that not amount of muscle on your part will save your life. And that is a friendly word of caution."
Lilica steered Chara further from the rowdy bustle of the drinking tent, all the way back to her own little home away from home, piled with its plush pillows and drapery. She helped the celestial mage onto the buffer of the cushions, reassuring her that she would go and retrieve a drink, but only on the condition that she stay seated, and not wander off, potentially putting herself in danger. The both of them were as good as their words, as moments later, the dark caster returned, with Chara's mug filled to the brim--with water.
"This is the drink you need right now," Lilica informed her, ignoring the scowl it brought to Chara's already pouting lips. "You don't have to thank me now or later, for that matter, and I can't make you feel any better. But I can at least hope to keep you from feeling any worse."
What does she expect me to do? Or say? The chthonic mage could not empathize with Chara's plight. Matters of love were so far beyond her that they felt like nothing more than a distant, passing fancy. And yet, here sat Chara Rigas, strong and steadfast master of celestial magic, drunk and crumpled in a heap of pain borne of rejection. Lilica could have sworn she hurt, just looking at her. It made her want to change it.
"You don't have to take my advice... particularly not while I'm at least half as inebriated as you," she began, standing in front of Chara's cushions with her arms at her sides, "but it might be best if you move on mentally and emotionally from Alster Rigas. He will not feel any differently about you when he wakes up tomorrow, sober, and you'll only continue to hurt yourself by hurting him. Are you really so hell-bent on clinging to a futile future, that you'd rather discredit his feelings and desires, simply to be the one who is right? You're better than that."
Dark locks spilled over her shoulders in a stringy cascade as she raked her fingers across her scalp, wishing that words would come more easily. Wasn't alcohol supposed to be a social lubricant? Why was it, then, that she found herself so unsure of what she wanted to say to the blonde Rigas caster? "I'm not trying to be patronizing. I mean it; you're better than your pride. And you deserve better than to be treated like a secondary acquaintance by someone you care for. How many times must you hear that before you will believe it?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Never before did he consider how others treated him. He always viewed their behavior as punishment for his unpardonable actions in the past. The validation behind the thoughts and feelings of the condemned never factored into his way of life. And aside from his father, only Chara ever treated him with even an iota of humanity towards his ongoing plight. For someone, an outsider no less, to express his value as a person...it made him feel less of a monster.
When Elespeth took hold of his shoulder and led him from the clearing, he stretched his neck from behind to regard Chara, broken and crumpled up as she was--and silent. Discarded, strewn against the ground...abandoned. He alone had reduced her to such despair. Perhaps, then...he wasn't unfounded in calling himself a monster.
"You're right," he said in response to Elespeth's observation, catching a glimpse of Lilica before turning his head in the direction of his dear friend. "That allays my doubts, at the very least. I'm sorry about leaving your friend behind." Admittedly, he didn't feel too sorry, for he was selfish in wanting to spend time with Elespeth, somewhat free from the burdens of sobriety.
"Don't worry about it, El." He tried the appellation on his lips and cracked a smile. "You should not feel guilted by Chara's behavior. We've fought before, plenty of times. She'll come back around." He rubbed a thumb under his chin, in calculation. "Eventually. Besides--" he paused, when the ex-knight reestablished contact with him by the shoulders. Coupled with her earnest statement, his heart detached from his body and bounced around his ribcage. No matter of drink could lessen the reaction that her words painted all across his face.
"Perhaps you're...more drunk than you've been led to believe," he said with a disarming laugh to rattle away the unease burning up in his system. "But while we're singing each other's praises, I...wanted to thank you. For...for seeing my worth. I never realized how accustomed I've become to the varied abuses I've suffered. I thought it normal, for the longest time. But maybe...I do have...some...value. To...you, at the very least." His hand slid up to meet with her right arm as he gripped it with a physical manifestation of his appreciation. "Now, before I explode," he said with a self-deprecating smile, "I think I will have another drink--if you'd like to join me. ...I promise I won't kick any more people into the mud."
Back in the clearing, Haraldur watched as Lilica hauled the haughty celestial mage against her tiny frame and dragged her past the spacing of one of the tents. He would have volunteered to help, but seeing the determination beset in her dark eyes warded him from interfering. Of the little he knew about Lilica, she didn't seem the type to appreciate his meddling.
Her ominous last words solidied his stance in the manner. Standing to collect the half-filled barrel of ale, he swept around in the opposite direction. "One of these days, your magic will fail you. All of you," he muttered, and disappeared into the fires of the evening.
Chara remembered little of her transition from the dry, grassy ground, to the comfort of her own tent: only that Lilica was present for every moment. With the exception of a span of time where the dark mage had vanished, Chara didn't question her whereabouts for long before she returned to the tent, and sat by her cushions with an offering of water.
"I should have predicted your scheme to sober me clean," she said with a rough growl of her voice, stretched raw from her impassioned yelling just moments ago. "There is no reason to stop. I've already scraped the bottom of this evening with my teeth. In fact, I am shocked," she said with a smile more characteristic to the likes of Alster than the once proud Chara Rigas, "that you have chosen to stay."
She tried to rise from her cocoon of cushions, but Lilica guarded the vicinity, watching over her like a ghostly sentry. With a sigh of defeat, she launched herself back onto her bed and stared at the vaulted ceiling of her tent. "A sane person might realize such a loss and move onward. If he were any other person...He has dominated so much of my life. It's funny," she tittered, and it was as weak as the water she clutched in her unenthusiastic hand, "how I won the right to his hand in a sea of those who were much more eligible than myself. After all, I am a bad year. No bad years have ever achieved more than servant status--cleaning up after those in power. I worked hard to reach his level--or as close as my limits would allow me." She attempted to sit up a second time, succumbing to the temptation of water as a poor proxy for the ale she so desired. "I can't let go of all I have achieved. What was it for?!" Shakily, her hand placed the mug of water to the floor as she found Lilica's sleeve and buried her face into her thin shoulder.
"I'm sorry," she said, in between sobs that rattled her body into a slurry. Her stomach roiled from the disruption. She backed away from the dark mage, scrambling to one corner of her tent to locate the bucket she kept hidden in the shadows.
After retching for a good minute or two, she raised her head from the relative privacy of the bucket. "I suppose there is no use in upholding my pride, now. Least of all to you. This," she wiped the back of her mouth of any offending spittle, "the length and breadth of Chara Rigas, stripped to her core components. If you do not want me to vomit on you, either by words or tears or otherwise, then leave. But...thank you, Lilica. I keep underestimating you, but..." she stared at the floor, uncertain of her incoming words, "you never cease to surprise me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Perhaps it was no mystery anymore--at least not then and there--that the ex-knight cherished this coveted time alone with Alster Rigas just as much as her battle partner did. She was not a mage; he was not a swordsman. And yet, the two of them shared in the loneliness and self-doubt that accompanied years and years lacking respect. The difference was, Alster had very much lived the majority of his life under the toxic blanket of such a sentiment. It had only been in the past handful of years that she had been dealt similar treatment.
But that did not mean that she could not relate. And the trust and camaraderie that she found in Alster... well, there was no other measure to which she could compare it. And that made it the definition of invaluable.
The brief altercation that had occurred between Alster and the rowdy crowd of the drinking tent seemed to have been long forgotten in the wake of even deeper inebriation, and the merriment and obliviousness that accompanied it. Some of the men and women had even donned their instruments, to add music to the din of laughter and talking amongst the soldiers. A few onlookers had, as a result, taken to twirling and kicking up their legs in what Elespeth could only assume was a very drunken interpretation of dance. A few had even been so reluctant to part with their mugs that the beverage holders actually served as their dance partners, ale sloshing sloppily over the side with ever clumsy misstep.
It was enough to take typically-introverted Elespeth Tameris aback for a solid moment. When that moment passed, however, she couldn't hold back laughter. "And every single one of them, I guarantee, thinks they are the penultimate lord of the dance," she told Alster with a nudge, as he stepped in line to refill his own mug. Mouth quirking into a cheeky grin, she added,"Careful, my friend. One more mug of this swill and you might end up like the rest of them. I can stick up for you in front of Chara, but I cannot save you from your own tomfoolery!"
It appeared as though Chara Rigas, on the other hand, could not be saved from even herself that evening. While Lilica had contemplated leaving an hour ago, forcing the celestial mage to fend for her own sorry, drunken skin as a result, she could not be more relieved that she had chosen otherwise. There was no possible way that Chara would have been safe, let alone able to get up and find her way back on her own. She'd have passed out long before, face down in the mud, an easy target (or easily missed obstacle) for heavy boots to trample upon.
And then, where would the dark mage be, without her ticket to redemption?
"I choose to stay because I don't want to imagine what would become of you, unsupervised," the chthonic mage sighed, as she strode slowly to where the inebriated Rigas was kneeling over a bucket. So as to spare the woman's pale tresses from being sullied with sick, Lilica's skilled fingers pulled them back and wove them into a braid, the end of which she fastened with the slender ribbon from her own hair. Her dark locks fell free as a result, spilling around her shoulders in onyx waves. "And... because I would want someone to be here for me, were I to reach this level of low. Heavens know, I have come close."
Chara's words of praise and kindness came as nothing short of a surprise. Chara Rigas did not offer praise, because nobody was quite so worthy of praise as she. And to hear her utter words that suggested her underestimation of the chthonic mage had been wrong, words that suggested Lilica D'Or, of all people, was worthy of something...
The dark mage had to rapidly blink herself back to reality, in case her tired mind had lapsed into yet another impossible dream. It would not be the first time that Chara Rigas had subconsciously dominated her thoughts, for better or for worse, but she was certainly not creative enough to dream up something that was so drastically out of character for the blonde Rigas.
Ultimately, she could think of nothing to do but nod, and accept the compliment.
"You did not walk away from me when I begged your help," she pointed out quietly, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "I will not leave you at such a time that you should not be alone. And you do realize you are not alone, right? Just because Alster Rigas is too foolishly enamored of a sword-wielder does not diminish any of your worth or accomplishments, and certainly does not render you undone. Now here." Pushing the mug of lukewarm water back into Chara's hands, she rested her fingers on one of the celestial caster's shoulders. "Hydrate yourself, and let's get you to bed. Even if it means you need to cry yourself to sleep... you need the rest."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Whilst waiting in line, he watched the drunken dancers attempt to follow the frenzied steps of the hurried little jaunt that instruments pieced together in composition. Their efforts, while laughable, pulled a smile of admiration from his lips, as well as a ready foot that tapped the beat in time, wishing to launch itself into the makeshift dance circle. What was he thinking!?
"Ahem!"
He shot his head to the server, who had been trying to summon his attention for quite some time. With a murmur of apology, he took the refilled mug from the disgruntled man and followed Elespeth to observe the shenanigans of the not-so fleet of foot.
"It may already be too late," Alster said with a mischievous tone as he took a few swigs of his ale...and then took Elespeth's hand. "Come on, partner. I'm dragging you down with me." With a wink, he pulled her into the circle, where wayward bodies attempting to keep rhythm clipped and pushed at their arms and shoulders. "I am quite decent at dancing--so I've been told. And no one is sober enough to judge us."
After he discarded the mug, which he had since finished, he closed Elespeth by the waist and followed the rhythm of the song, an up-tempo jig where legs flailed and jumped and leaped in tandem with the high-energy of the beat. Alster followed through with the dance, kicking his legs into a skip that vaulted him and his partner into the air. He took the lead, helping Elespeth to whirl around the square of space they occupied and holding their connections taut and tight, their bodies locked together in an embrace. The plucking of strings yammered with the tune, along with the drumming trill and the clanking of spoons in a musician's hand. Their breaths, too--her breath, his breath, syncopated as one, linked with their fluttering heartbeats and the spinning of the crowd and them--only them...
His foot took a misstep. They stumbled and landed in the mud, and fell under the clumsy stomp of a dozen uncoordinated drunks.
"I'm sorry," Alster said with a laugh as he pulled himself upright and offered his hand to Elespeth before they found themselves trampled. "I had promised you that I wouldn't go kicking anyone into the mud. Little did I know it would be you. Perhaps I'm not much of a dancer, after all." His laughs turned into chuckles as they traveled outside the circle. "Definitely different than ballroom dancing, that much is certain ...I think we'd better stick to battle coordination."
In midst of the unseemly vomiting spectacle, Lilica, in place of retreating, had moved closer to Chara's side, not only holding back her hair, but binding it into a braid. After the sickness had cleared from her insides, she roved a hand over her new hairstyle, a coy smile settling over her face. "Not my preferred look, but it will have to do." She lowered her arm to her lap, waiting for the thrumming of her heartbeat to subside before managing the long journey back to her bed.
"Well, consider it a promise," she said with a weepy laugh as she attempted to clear the other side of the tent on her own. "Next time we partake in this heinous event, it will be my turn to drag you to your tent and hold your hair as you spill both your literal and emotional guts. This I promise you." By the end of her discourse, Chara had succumbed to weakened panting from the exertion of traveling to the safety of her pillows, even with the dark mage's guiding hand. To allay Lilica's worries, she guzzled half a mug's worth of her water before reclining against the downy spread of her blankets.
"I believe," she began, twirling the fingers of her hand over her head in the ensuing silence, "I have cried enough this evening. I will not continue to give Alster such satisfaction." She closed her fingers over the mug, desiring more water, yet too weakened in her position to move. She anchored them there, just in case she developed the ability to drink without shifting a muscle. "You are correct, of course. I...I am not alone. Not now, anyhow. Tomorrow," she paused, gazing up at Lilica from her vantage point level to the ground, "I shall avail myself of these broken pieces and regain my dignity. But for tonight, I wish...to stay this way a mite longer. To forget...my strength. And," she stretched beckoning fingers to the other woman who lingered at her side, "can you--until I fall asleep--stay? ...Stay with me?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was no use, for she found herself amongst the writhing and bumbling, uncoordinated bodies of the other dancers before she could finish speaking. "I mean it, you might not live to regret it!`` She cautioned once more, as Alster drew her into an upbeat jig. It was a relief that at least one of them could claim they knew what they were doing. It wasn't until the Rigas caster's arm was around her waist that the Atvanian fugitive realized for the first time that he must have been inches shorter than she was. Could that, she wondered, have something to do with the reason why he was so concerned with appearing as weak or incompetent around her?
If that truly were the case, he certainly was in no way self-conscious of his perceived lacks with alcohol's grip on him.
Even when the two of them came toppling to the ground, Elespeth was delighted to see Alster simply laugh it off. It appeared that his small, rebellious act of putting Chara in her place had allowed him a sense of confidence that he had never risked before now. But the floodgates were open, and he seemed determined to have it all venture uphill from hereon in--or, at least, until he found himself passed out somewhere, and waking up with a splitting headache and terrible taste in his moth from a hangover.
"We're hardly coordinated in battle!" She laughed, putting a hand on his arm, the cool nighttime air hitting her face once again. "What in the world made you think we were cut out as dancers? You might have been better off with a partner that doesn't have two left feet."
As inebriation gave way to silly laughter and banter that turned sleepy, Elespeth at least had enough cognitive capacity left to steer Alster back to his tent, as the Rigas mage was tripping over his own two feet worse than he had been on the dance floor. "Come on, don't pass out and make me have to carry you," she teased, guiding him back towards his otherwise empty barracks, only to fall into a heap at the foot of his cot, herself. "Alster, I just want to say... I mean, what I am trying to say is..." The swordswoman fought through the fog in her brain and closed her eyes to enhance concentration--but to no avail. Finally, all she could come up with was with a sleep, "You're not really as bad at dancing as I thought."
But by the time the words had come to her, Alster was already fast asleep on the cot. And Elespeth didn't much feel inclined to make the trek back to her own tent...
Lilica was not the only one who stayed the night to keep a companion company--though that in and of itself is another story. Something about the pitiful lilt to Chara Rigas's otherwise confident voice left hooks in the dark mage's conscience that she could not shake, and against her better judgement of her own character, she found herself unable to leave the celestial mage, even long after she had gone still with sleep.
What Lilica failed to realize, however, was how her eyelids began to grow heavier and heavier, or the point at which she actually ended up succumbing to slumber in the haughty Rigas mage's quarters.
She could remember sitting back against the the comfortable cushioning of Chara's various and sundry pillows. They were comfortable, and the atmosphere of the small tent was warm, but not stifling. The next thing she knew, on opening her eyes, the sun was cresting the horizon beyond the tent flaps--and her head ached. No, her head pounded. Had she really been so drunk...?
"This is what I get? For being considerate, for once in this miserable life..." Rubbing her temples with one hand, she pulled a round cushion away from the face of the sleeping blonde, who seemed to have thrashed about in her slumber. "Don't go suffocating yourself, now. Alster Rigas isn't worth that," she murmured quietly to the form that she still assumed to be fast asleep.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
By the time they reached his tent, Alster had quietened in lieu of concentrating his efforts to walk to his cot without succumbing to a dizzy fit. With Elespeth's help, he landed on the cot with an oof and a weak laugh in response. "What are you doing all the way down there?" He peered over the cot to where Elespeth had settled on the ground. "Come on up! There's enough space for you, too. I'm small enough for us both." However, he did not see the results of his cot offering, for he keeled over into his pillow and fell into a comfortable slumber.
The inevitable transition into consciousness was not as comfortable--or comforting.
"Alster!" A screech into the air sent a cacophony of all things grating through his head: gonging bells and a vicegrip against his temples, a splitting of his skull and a scritch-scratching pressure behind his eyes.
He opened his eyes too quickly and the flooding of a light so intense about pierced him to ribbons. With a frustrated groan, he moved his hand in front of his face to blot himself back into the dark.
But the source of the brutal wake-up call lingered in his proximity and refused to disappear. "What do you want?" He told the persistent presence in a grumble that did not sound all that human.
"What is the meaning of this vulgar display, Alster!?" The unmistakable voice of Danos throbbed into his moaning ears. With a sigh, Alster flicked an eye open...
...Only to see Elespeth's chest rise and fall right next to his head.
She and him...sharing a cot, enmeshed so tightly, tangled in sheets...
What happened last night?
By then, he sprung from the cot as if it were on fire, ignoring the bite of his head from invisible jaws with all intents to crush him into pulp.
"We didn't...we're clothed. We simply...a misunderstanding. Last night--drinks. Drinking. Nothing more, Danos!" The fire he tried to escape found refuge in his head, burning his insides and outsides to a temperature that no amount of mouth flubbing or frenzied pacing could eradicate. In worry, he kept looking over at Elespeth on...his cot...hoping she would not awaken to his display of almost-hysterics.
"Be that as it may," Danos juxtaposed Alster's nervous energy with a chilling calm, "it is unbecoming, nay, disgusting, to witness your treacherous liaisons with this," he spat, "warrior. This tent is not reserved expressly for your debase pleasures. You are betrothed--have you forgotten?"
"No!" He about exploded in sound, finding it impossible to adopt a level tone when his heart fluttered in a pace that exceeded the wingbeats of a hummingbird. "Just an innocent...we had too much to drink, that is all!"
"I am certain Chara would love to know of your newest infraction," Danos said with a gleeful lilt to his voice. A smile crept up in his puffy cheeks.
At mention of Chara, fragments of last night crept up in Alster's memory. Somehow, those memories mollified him. His pacing lessened to a full-stop. "Go ahead. Tell her. ...She deserves to know."
Soft muttering in the dark opened Chara's eyes to the light of day--despite the quality of her company whose very existence bespoke of night and shadows. Lilica. Why had she stayed all night? Why had she stayed at all?!
In the sensitivity of her vision, she detected the blur that no doubt belonged to Lilica--along with a pillow she apparently had rescued from her face. Hearing her words established the final link between the subconscious world and the reality she left behind and had only now started to remember. The following headache served to solidify the fact that she had returned--however much she spurned the welcome.
"You...have it wrong," she began, a meek voice drowning in the painful grogginess of her awakening. "I will use that cushion to suffocate him." She tried to rise, but the splintering of her head stilled all attempts to function in an upright position.
"It looks as though I am bound here until further notice. I shall have to delay my appointment with Alster and the cushion. It is for the best, as I have more pressing matters to consider. Such matters involve you. I," she paused, staring at the tented ceiling for inspiration, "wondered--why did you stay? Not that I am unappreciative, of course. Even Rigases feel beholden to those outside of the family. But...you are not bound to my word. You are free to do as you will. Yet...you stayed. May I ask for your preposterous reasons?"
"Chara!?" A muffled sound emerged from behind the tent flaps, to outside. "Chara!? It is I, Danos. I must speak with you."
"Ugh," she groaned aloud, feeling her eyes roll upward into her skull. "What does the little cretin want at this hour? He will most certainly have a fit when he sees you." The worry lines on her face disappeared in favor of smile lines as her lips turned upward. "He will eventually discover our partnership, anyhow. I say we let him in. Enter, Danos!" She said as loud as the strain in her throat would allow, and watched the pucker-faced Rigas shuffle through the tent flaps--who proceeded to freeze in place at the sight of Lilica.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Then again... how could she ever have dreamed herself into a position like that in which she found herself now?
Groggy, the ex-knight's eyelids struggled to lift, until her ears registered the conflicting voices of both Alster and someone else; someone she only vaguely recognized, and whose tone did not incite any feelings of warmth. Sitting up, she rubbed the sleep and fog from her vision, brushed her tangled hair over her shoulder, and registered the form of Danos Rigas--one of Alster's kin, and not one with whom she was particularly familiar. But the look of accusatory shock on his face was enough to make her check herself... and, more specifically, her positioning.
Right next to Alster, in his bed.
"...wait, hold on, now," she ventured, her throat feeling like sandpaper as she struggled to refute his accusations on Alster. "He speaks the truth. The two of us simply had too much to drink last night..." But... what had happened after that? Elespeth couldn't remember, in all honesty; not beyond the ill-fated dance they'd had. She couldn't even remember how she came to be here, in Alster's tent. Yet the two of them were still clad in the clothes they'd worn the night before; wrinkled and rumpled, but it wasn't as though they lay in a pile at the foot of his caught... "You can't possibly think that anything happened between us." She told Danos, but the haughty Rigas mage (why was Alster the only one with a hint of humility?) was already strutting out of the tent, chest puffed out like he had somehow emerged victorious in catching the two of them together.
Alster, of course, acted like he didn't care. But she knew better than to accept his nonchalance as great truth.
"I'm sorry," she said to her partner in battle, as she stood up from his cot on shaky legs. "This is my fault. I know nothing happened... between us... and I believe your Rigas brethren believes that as well." But did it matter? The damage was done, and if Chara didn't already wish death on her, then she would as soon as she received this news. Fortunately for her, Chara Rigas's opinion did not mean much. Though the same likely could not be said for Alster... "Listen, if there is any way that I could somehow... make this up to you..."
By doing what? What brilliant idea do you have, Elespeth Tameris? Haven't you already complicated his life enough? Pulling her hair into a hasty weave, she pressed her lips together and shook her head. "I wish I knew how to articulate how sorry I am for this," she said at last. "But I hardly think any apology would suffice."
Lilica, on the other hand, sought neither an apology nor gratitude from Chara Rigas, with whom she had stayed the entire night. In part it was for the fact that she hardly expected gratitude from the likes of someone so full of pride as Chara, but also because she had not been asked to stay throughout the run of the night. Just until I fall asleep... That was what Chara had asked of her. And yet she had gone above and beyond a favour that she never would have thought herself capable of seeing through... All for reasons that were just as lost to her as they were to the groggy blonde.
Feeling suddenly put on the spot, the chthonic mage folded her arms and turned her face away from her questioning Rigas counterpart. "Do you have even the slightest idea as to how drunk you were?" She asked, her voice dripping with defense. "I couldn't risk you being sick in your sleep. That is not the sort of miserable death that I feel the great Chara Rigas would want to be remembered for." Turning her head, she arched an eyebrow in Chara's general direction, as if to say, I dare you to tell me I'm wrong. She knew she wasn't. "And, anyway... it was obvious that you could... I don't know. You needed someone, and that someone apparently wasn't going to be your dearly betrothed."
As if on cue, news of Alster Rigas once again made itself known to destroy whatever essence of camaraderie had been brewing between the blonde and brunette mages. Unapologetic and unabashed, Lilica stared Danos down, daring him to make a comment or demand the reason for her presence in Chara's tent. She could tell by the look of shock on his face that he craved answers, but perhaps for fear of her wrath, he cut right to the chase.
Really, though, it was not much news to her, considering how close Elespeth and Alster had appeared to become. But the same might not be said for Chara.
"I don't believe it is news to either of us that Alster Rigas has taken to poor tastes, lately," she offered with a shrug, one that was hopefully nonchalant enough to dissipate the situation's potential to weigh on Chara. "Did you really barge into this tent just to let this be known?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I know that nothing happened," he muttered, to himself, as he stared at the tent flaps, stirring still from Danos's hurried egress. "But it doesn't matter." He cleared his throat and redirected his speech to Elespeth, but not his head, which remained locked forward and away from her gaze. Although he was convinced that they had simply lain together, without any of the implications that "lain"would suggest to one who fancied euphemisms, the embarrassment of the entire enterprise had painted a permanent hue on his face. Looking upon his battle partner would only cause the color to spread. "Danos enjoys drama, especially if it is to implicate me in some matter or another. Then again," he hiked up his shoulders in an exaggerative shrug, "I've become quite the court jester in Rigas high society. Poking fun at Alster Rigas is a popular pastime." A dismissive smile formed on his mouth, but he dropped it when the sear of his headache branded against his skull.
If there is any way that I could somehow...make this up to you.
Elespeth's words caused another surge to well up in his already overexerted body, exciting it with his inappropriate reading between the lines. The shock of his brutal awakening had wrung all decency out of his mind and he had to bite his tongue and shift around in an uncomfortable silence before he felt it fit to speak again. "You're right. An apology won't suffice--because you don't need to give one. And if you are at fault, then I am equally to blame. In which case...I'm sorry." He kept his eyes trained to the ground. "I am notorious for attracting trouble. And pulling people into it."
With a large inhale of confidence, Alster whirled around and plastered on a smile. "Nonetheless, there is something you can do for me." Dammit, Alster, could your suggestive tone sound any more misleading!? "Join me for some water and, if we can stomach it, a meal at the mess tent?" He worried at his palms, like a perpetually fidgeting squirrel. "I am not at all opposed to a quick retreat--before we suffer any further haranguing from Danos or, worse yet, the wrath of Chara. Call me a coward," he eased into a laugh, "but I'm not staying for the aftermath."
As they crept out of the tent and away from the general Rigas-populated vicinity, Alster recognized a few of the scouts from Messino's reconnaissance party crowding around one of the officer tents. As he and Elespeth passed them, he overheard a snippet of their conversation--and his blood ran cold.
"We're in trouble--Tadasun and Atvany? It's an alliance from hell."
Before Chara could respond to Lilica's explanation, Danos all but barged in to rail off his news. Secretly, she was relieved for the interruption, as she felt rather unprepared to react to the admittances of the dark mage.
You needed someone.
She clutched at her head, pretending that the sharp pains assailing her face resulted from the alcohol and not from a more emotional cause. Instead, she watched Danos and his gaping mouth attempt to deliver his oh-so-urgent report.
"Chara," he said with a conclusive flair after his information had succeeded in lolling her head, and the top half of her body, upright, "are you to allow Alster the leeway to continually run our good name into the ground?"
"Oh, he has made it quite clear that he is to do as he wishes." She waggled her fingertips at Danos, in a gesture of dismissal. "I will handle the insurrections of my betrothed, as he is my sole responsibility. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Continue to keep me informed. In addition," she jerked her head towards Lilica, "Lilica here is our consultant. She is our ally and I expect you to regard her as such. There is dark magic afoot in this camp and we require her services. You will see her more often."
Danos balked at Chara's declaration. The scowl on his face made seething noises, but he redirected them to the canvas wall beside him, perhaps out of fear of directly antagonizing the likes of Lilica.
"I understand your apprehension, but we are at war. Survival is paramount. We do not have the luxury to be fussy. Furthermore, Alster, no matter his transgressions, is a Rigas. Do not forget: we are all on the same side. Treat him thusly."
When Danos left in a huff, Chara fell back upon her pillows, releasing a long, forlorn sigh. "Admittedly, Alster has more in common with that filthy warrior than he does his family. I understand why he gravitates toward her so. She...respects him. I despise that he fancies her, but...I will allow it. After the harsh truths he learned of his parents, he needs...a little comfort. Before I change my mind on my most selfless of decrees," she waved her arms in Lilica's direction, "I may need a boost to my feet. Afterwards, I see no reason for you to stay. That...well, that is entirely up to you." Unbeknownst to her, a small smile bubbled up on her face, and it radiated a fondness she seldom showed to anyone.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Running her fingers through her wild hair to tame the strands, the ex-knight pulled it into a quick braid, left loose at the ends. Sometime during the night, she must have lost the small scrap of fabric that she used to bind her locks. "A meal sounds rather dubious at this point..." The Atvanian fugitive admitted; on standing, the world spun a little, and she was left with no choice but to steady herself with her hand on his arm. "But some water does sound like a good idea, at the very least... Is it always that alcohol leaves such a poor taste in your mouth?"
Leaving with her partner in battle, the cool, morning air felt refreshing on Elespeth's skin, still damp from the humidity of Alster's tent. That is, until she went altogether cold, and suddenly fully alert at the same snippet of conversation that her Rigas companion had appeared to have heard.
"We're in trouble--Tadasun and Atvany? It's an alliance from hell."
"Any alliance with Tadasun is an Alliance from hell, but... damnit, that they forged it with a kingdom willing to chip in its own Royal Guard? We're bloody doomed!"
"Nay, Atvany does not deal in magics. We have the casters as our trump cards."
"Well unless those 'trump cards' can take on twice the manpower, I'd say this godforsaken battle is still lost..."
Elespeth's hand had been resting lightly upon Alster's forearm as they'd left his tent; now, it gripped his arm, white-knuckled and shaking as she hurriedly led him away from the scene. She'd heard about all of the conversation that she could personally handle.
"Did you hear...? Tell me you heard that, as well, or I am otherwise delusional." The ex-knight was pale as she turned to her trusted companion, looking, perhaps for the first time, devoid of the confidence that characterized her. "Alster, if I am found by Atvany..."
She didn't finish, as the panicked look on her face said it all.
Lilica could feel colour creep into her otherwise pale cheeks. She had thought, truly, that Chara would find a clever way to dismiss her presence. Some excuse that Danos would have no choice but to believe, for the simple fact that she was Chara Rigas, and that to question her would be a suicide in status. And she did, in fact, offer an explanation, but brief though it was, it had nothing to do with her dismissal--and everything to do with her inclusion.
Astounded by the haughty, blonde Rigas mage's sudden display of tact, the dark mage was all but speechless by the time Danos left, with a look of scorn that she was convinced was directed at her. Not that it mattered in the least; Chara's opinion trumped all. "Is it that you despise that he seems to have found some comfort and happiness in all of this darkness, or that he has found it without you?" She found herself asking, only to furiously scramble at backpedaling the comment. "But it doesn't matter. The same goes for you, as well; whatever promises were made between the two of you earlier on, neither of you need adhere to them for fulfillment."
Where were these words coming from? And why was she so apt to provide Chara with solace when she was clearly creating her own discomforts through her attachment to Alster? Shaking the thoughts from her mind, the young woman closed the distance between herself and the Rigas mage and took her by the arms to help her to her feet. "If I can be frank: I see no reason for either of us to stay. You look in desperate need of water, and I need the fresh air. Come on."
Hauling a somewhat reluctant blonde to her feet, Lilia ascertained that she was steady before guiding her out of the tent and into the morning light--which she almost instantly regretted. "Let's just... proceed slowly, and with caution," she sighed, using one hand to shield her eyes, and another to help Chara remain upright. In the near distance, she thought she recognized a couple of figures who she had hoped to rid from her mind, let alone her sight, for the time being. "Correct me if I am wrong... but your wayward betrothed and his even more wayward warrior appear to be in some sort of distress."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He could only imagine how Elespeth felt.
Allowing her the comfort of his arm as an anchor or however she saw fit to use it, he raised his eyes to meet her own. Like two drowning pools, they lost their distinction. That sharp, colored-in completion, which oft shined like beacons even in adversity, had blurred and overflowed. In the end, they appeared so empty, much like he expected himself to look on the best of days.
It broke his own resolve to see her in such a state. Perhaps he didn't want to realize--how much he had leaned on her for support. And now--it was his turn. Unprepared as he were, he swallowed his own doubts, and clasped a firm hand upon her shoulder.
"I heard. And I...won't let that happen." He gave his hand a firm squeeze. "Look at me." He only hoped his face reflected peace and self-assuredness. "We'll find a way. I'll see you out myself if I must. To...where you'll be safe."
An amused little simper stretched across Chara's face when she witnessed Lilica's cheeks turn into a wine color. So, the dark mage was more than just a walking, talking, picture of monochrome. In fact, she appeared flattered, for shock would just paint her a more ghastly shade of white. Of course, she hadn't time to properly probe at Lilica's overall mien when the subject of the lowly maggot trying so desperately to wriggle out of her service came to the forefront.
"Oh, nonsense. Of course I do not wish to see Alster enmeshed in his own web of darkness and despair. I pine for his happiness...but I have worked so diligently to achieve that for him. Meanwhile, she," she hissed the word, "waltzes into his life, having no previous history with him, and..." she punctuated her unspoken words with the closing of her fist. "It is unfair. Be that as it may, I intend to keep my promises. You needn't worry, either." She glanced heavenwards at Lilica, who, with a bit of strain, lugged her to her feet. "I will fulfill my promise to you, as well."
Shakily, she followed Lilica outside of the tent, wondering why she even permitted the dark mage to take the lead and dictate the details of their outing. The searing sun elicited a grumble from her mouth as her eyes fought to keep from combusting. While they remained in tact, she was convinced of feeling the pain of incineration in her aching head.
At Lilica's announcement, she whipped her head in the direction of the discovery--and promptly cursed her sudden jerking movements. Alster...and her. With his arm...and her arm...Of course.
"Let us see what distresses them so," she said to her companion. In a few swift steps, she insinuated herself into their private conversation, but she only caught the very end of Alster's pronouncement:
To...where you'll be safe.
"Planning a secret rendezvous?" Chara barked. Alster, freezing in place, dropped his hand and whirled around to regard Chara. With the clearing of his throat, he wiped his face of any emotion and regarded Chara with a cool, albeit icy, detachment. Why are you here!? the pierce of his blue eyes seemed to read.
"We've just discovered that Atvany has allied with Tadasun," he said, and his eyes beckoned, nay, almost pleaded, that she leave them alone. As if...he were hiding some big secret from view; and it was definitely not the status of his and Tam's not-so-secret liaisons. They were anything but subtle!
"Well," Chara mused aloud, then whispered as she neared his ear, "doesn't that play well in our favor? Besides...we've known about Tadasun's 'secret' alliance for quite a while. We simply did not know the who in this alliance. ...Now we do. What?" The volume in her voice doubled as she gazed over at the fish-gaping, cold-blooded pallor of Tam standing beside them. "Did your beloved Alster Rigas not inform you?" She waved a dismissive hand into the air. "Bah. Why should the details of their alliance bother us, anyhow?" Why, indeed. A twinkle shone in Chara's eyes as she dissected the woman warrior anew.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster's face was a careful and purposeful study in calm, a calm that the Atvanian fugitive was certain he did not feel deep in his bones. It was a facade that he was putting on for her sake, because in that tense and uncertain moment, she was no longer the confident, unshakable pillar of astute adaptation and quick problem-solving that she had been on her first meeting with the wayward Rigas mage. What was worse, it was no trite situation or circumstances that could render her so. Only one thing, and one thing along could rattle Elespeth's assured nature. And her magical partner in battle was the only person who knew what that one thing was.
All the same, she had made a promise to him which she had no intention to break, no matter the end game.
"No--that is not what I was implying." The former knight pressed her lips together and lowered her voice, searching Alster's eyes for understanding. "I... cannot be found by Atvany, but that does not mean I must leave. I can hide; I can keep a lower profile, dress myself in a better guise, cut my hair off and scar my own face for that matter. But if you think... if you think that walking away from you, your family and your cause is something that I can do, out of mere cowardice for a fate I wish to avoid..." She shook her head without looking away. "I want to see an end to this war, as much as you do. And I made a promise to you that I would not for the life of me break."
And what good are you to him, the liability that you are? a voice at the back of her mind sneered. You are not adept in magic. How do you think you can use your sword to save both him and yourself? It was not a voice with which Elespeth had grown up, but rather one manifest of the guilt and fear that had sprouted from a tiny seed in her gut the day she had run from her home. But now that it rang in her ears, there was no way to block it out, save for the sheer power of her stubborn will. "Besides..." she added, after a heartbeat. "Should you lose this war... then I would only be biding myself a little more time before meeting the same fate. Atvany will find me, someday, sooner or later. The only question is when..."
And that was when their brief discussion came to an abrupt and premature halt.
Ever the center of attention, Alster's bitter, blonde betrothed forced herself into their private conversation, void though it was to her of context. Without liquor to fuel the boldness she had exhibited the night before, however, Elespeth, still too shocked of the news of an alliance between Atvany and Tadasun, was at a loss but to let her get her snide and nosy remarks off her chest. At this point, there was little more that anyone could do--Chara included--to render her own mood any darker. "No, I was not aware of an alliance," came her cool reply, meeting the celestial mage's chilly stare with just as much steady resolve. "But that is no fault of Alster's; I've only my lack of prowess in stealth and eavesdropping to blame. I..."
Why should the details of their alliance bother us, anyhow? But it wasn't Chara's words that made the former knight's mouth run dry; it was that knowing stare, and the apprehension that she may have to divulge more than what she was comfortable letting out in the open, even simply as far as the celestial mage--and her dark companion, it would seem.
Alster had said that she could trust Chara insomuch that if his betrothed had wanted her gone, she could have easily seen to it already. But just because she might not condemn the Atvanian fugitive did not necessarily connote any desire to protect her...
It was best, it seemed, to remain vague. "Atvany... was my home," she ventured, slowly and with blatant uncertainty, unable to look either Chara or Lilica in the eyes. "It isn't, anymore, and for good reason."
"You're running." The dark mage, silent until just then, surmised. Her eyes narrowed to slits as she took in the tall form of the warrior, like she attempted to see through her skin and into her soul. "And what better place to run and hide but amid the chaos of war? Where you are no more than a number among many, with no name, no face... that is, until the enemy recognizes that face." Lilica quirked a brow. "And what have you done to Atvany to come to fear the utterance of its name, she-warrior? Whose blood is on your hands?"
"It doesn't matter." It took every ounce of Elespeth's resolve not to snap, although she did reply in a hiss. "Because, regardless of this alliance, I have already informed Alster that I am in no way intending to abandon him... or, I suppose, you, for that matter." Her gaze fell on Chara. Whether the celestial mage liked it or not, if she and Alster still shared the same side of this war, then so did she and the former knight. None among the small quartet present were enemies, much though she was sure Chara preferred to think otherwise.
And so she found herself at a silent standstill with the haughty, blonde Rigas caster, until Lilica spoke up again.
"How very heartfelt." Her eye-roll was intentional, and intentionally exaggerated. "But, might I point out, the longer we stand here commiserating over this turn of events, and your past secrets, miss soldier, the more likely we are all to succumb to harsh reprimand for treason. So--"
"So you can then be on your way." The words were out before she could think better of them, and surprised Elespeth almost as much as it did her three comrades. Surely, traces of alcohol must have continued to dilute the blood in her veins... "Unless you see fit to be of help, as opposed to a source of criticism. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I have more important ways to spend the moments of my life, particularly in this war, than that of playing the role of some fictional nemesis you have painted me in your mind." She looked directly at Chara once again. "I have vowed to help Alster, having heard his story... and, vicariously, you." Elespeth's shoulders sagged under the weight of a final, exasperated plea. "I am not asking either of you to like or befriend me. All I am asking is your mutual cooperation, and acceptance that I do not plan to go anywhere, anytime soon."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
His mouth, whether parched from dehydration or from her words had run bone dry in the aftermath of her steeled determination. Even in the face of adversity, in the quaking of the stability that she so carefully built so as not to tumble over from every little tremor, she planned on standing her ground instead of running for safety.
Alarm danced in his eyes. Why? Why would she risk her own identity and her life over a silly promise? Why...had he mattered so much to her?
"You also promised me that you would live," he said, a disquiet humming in the whispers of his voice. "There is nothing for you here but your own downfall. Please. If you died, I...I--"
By then, Chara had commandeered the conversation and Alster quickly reinforced the barrier between himself and his cousin, forging it with a dead, chilly disdain.
Now, Lilica had joined in with the verbal assault of Elespeth Tameris.
Chara listened to the back-and forth between the detestable warrior and Lilica, her expression unreadable but her thoughts giddy with delight. Tam: a woman with a grim secret locked away from the light of day. A jagged, unsightly scar marring the surface of one who appeared too perfect, too selfless, to possibly exist. The truth revealed that she, too, was reprehensible scum. And the thought tasted wonderful.
With a harrumph to showcase the expectations of her character, despite her desire to crack a wicked grin, Chara rounded on Alster and pointed a finger at his face. "You. How long have you known?"
"That's an irrelevant question," Alster said with a snap, twin flames appearing in the ice behind his eyes.
"You've known all along, haven't you? You are so easy to read!" She tittered like a squirrel who had uncovered a secret cache of nuts. "And, even if it were to aid our cause, you would continue to keep her identity a secret, out of a sense of solidarity." Her eyes narrowed into slits. "...Even if you betray us all in the process."
"Tam has professed her service to our cause." Alster returned her glare with a fury that would surely burn free from the cold prisms of its containment if not for the public nature of their venue. "Would you cast aside an ally for the sake of your pride? Denying the help we need--is that too not betraying our cause?"
With a dismissive hand wave at Alster, she sidled up to Tam, leaning in for a whisper. "I'm willing to bet that is not your full name, huh, warrior?" She straightened her posture and idly checked her nails. "The fact of the matter is this. You're more good to us as a bargaining chip than an ally. Atvany suffers no criminals. And you, so obviously on the run from their unerring law, would make a wonderful peace offering for our allies-by-association."
Like the clap of thunder on a clear, blue day, Alster's magic had struck. A cold hand closed over Chara's arm, a shadow of tendrils that, on contact, sent a shiver in her soul--as if Death had come to pluck the light from her eyes. The sensation probed and puttied the very core of her being. It felt similar to the influence of the dagger--and just as debilitating.
A cruel sneer jagged across Alster's face. "Then you will have to contend with me." He released the hold of his chthonic magic, and she gasped for air as if she had been holding her breath the entire time.
She grabbed at her throat. At her chest. All had returned to normal, save for the change in Alster's demeanor. Even in the light of day, he looked like a blight, a blemish in the air. A sliver of oblivion. As a reflex, she hugged her arms and backed away from his presence.
"Al...Alster," she said, terror bleaching the pigment from her skin. She did not finish her sentence as she gripped Lilica's arm and rushed away from the scene, stumbling upon feet that had shriveled and curled against her legs.
"Lilica," she uttered once they were far from the vicinity of the 'attack', "was that...normal? Perhaps...you should continue to train him. The last time I saw him in that way...he awakened the Serpent."
Once Chara and Lilica had vacated, Alster's chthonic energy had dispersed, spiraling into the ground whence it came. Realization of what he had done dawned on him, though it took him a while to deconstruct himself into an unperturbed calm. Whilst he recovered, he fused his hands against the sides of his head, feeling himself ripping apart--in more than the physical sense.
"El," he said, quietly, struggling to control an even tone in his trembling voice, "you can't stay. Save yourself. Live, even if it's for one day more." A pitiful smile replaced his sneer from moments ago. "I'm not fit to survive long, either."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The last word tasted bitter on her tongue, particularly when Alster had gone so far as to reassure her that his jealous fiancée would not speak against her, despite the magnitude of her personal feelings. Perhaps she was only bluffing, basking in the chance to have one up on the Atvanian fugitive; or perhaps Alster didn't know her as well as he thought. "I can help you. And I can help Alster. If you'd just see past your own shades of green long enough to realize this--"
Elespeth felt the chill in her trusted comrade before she saw it take Chara Rigas by the throat.
It wasn't so much a physical sensation, as it was something about the way his eyes grew cold as he regarded his betrothed; that paired with a strange suspicion that made her certain he'd react to Chara's brash cruelty. He wasn't the same meek, unassuming and self-deprecating caster that she had met during Messino's very first briefing; at least, not entirely. She had thought the edge he'd exhibited the night before could only be attributed to the heavy pull of alcohol; she'd been wrong.
"Alster! Stop... stop it." Without a moment's hesitation (the look on Chara's face was enough to suggest he meant business), Elespeth grabbed Alster by the shoulders, fingers digging into his arms. "She's not worth it... do not burden yourself with more regret."
Fortunately, the former knight was not the only one, quick to react. Lilica's eyes were trained on Chara from the moment she sauntered over to Elespeth to gloat, and had already been poised for some sort of retort or retaliation, beyond the she-warrior's harmless words. She watched the blonde Rigas mage as her eyes widened with fear and disbelief, watched as she clutched at her throat--at which point she sprang to Chara's side, one arm around her shoulders just in time for Alster to release his hold on her. The air surrounding her reeked of chthonic essence.
She did not protest as Chara hurried away, barely able to remain upon her own feet. Being a pillar of support (physical or otherwise) for someone taller than her was an ordeal in more ways than one, but she made no complaint. "Are you all right? Look at me." Permission did not cross her mind as she took the frantic blonde woman's face in her hands and searched her eyes. The shadow of chthonic threat still lingered in the fear behind those depthless blues, tendrils of magic which still clung to the very fibres of Chara's being, but no damage appeared to have been done, otherwise. She'd been lucky; magic and curses of the chthonic sort could, at times, be irreversible. Especially if performed in the throes of passionate anger.
She would know.
"I do not believe he knew what he was doing... or, at least, he did not entirely think it through," the dark caster pressed air from her lungs in a long sigh. "You hit a nerve in him. And that can be enough to incite powers with which I am sure Alster would rather not be acquainted. I'll... I promise I will do what I can. But for the meantime, you should... take care not to rile up intense emotions in him. Or, otherwise, keep your distance." "Neither which she suspected would be easy for the haughty Rigas caster, but it was all the advice she could offer. "I'm sorry. I wish... I could be of more immediate help. But, as you can plainly see, I can hardly help even myself." The smile tugging at the corner of her mouth was wry, and void of humour--and hope.
Reluctant to leave his side, Elespeth's hands did not drop from Alster's shoulders until she was certain he had returned to himself--a threshold he passed as soon as his face twisted into a shadow of remorse. "I do not make false promises," came her gentle reply, hyper aware as she was at how torn up he was inside. "I do plan to survive. Even if, at this point, I have little else left to live for; at least a promise is something."
Forcing a smile, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "But hear me out, Alster... I may not be the catalyst that sees your victory come to fruition. But learning what I have of Messino, and the wrongful hands that have claimed this land... Remaining here means more to me than continuing to run away. I've been running for a very, very long time. And I think..." Elespeth's smile faded around the edges. "Try though I will to survive, I am still a knight, at heart. And I would rather perish on the battlefield than run and live in fear of perishing without a fighting chance. I hope you can understand..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
All of the faces that bobbed into her view had faded upon their passing. Whether they judged her questionable company, she did not care, nor could she summon any reasons to care. Not when...not when the shadow of the one she cherished most left footprints on her heart. She, a promoter for his happiness, was a saboteur to his happiness...and for that, she deserved the chthonic attack, and the vestiges that roosted within.
"I am fine," Chara said, her words out of breath. Before she even sounded out the last of her affirmation, the dark mage planted her cold hands against her cheeks and forced their eye contact. In retaliation, she squeezed her eyes shut. A childish maneuver on her part, but she wanted at least to preserve some of her dignity. Her eyes would tell the entire story and reveal a fractured version of events: twisted, graceless, tarnished, and anything but precise.
"I am one horrible hypocrite." She laughed without humor as she tested her feet on the well-trodden ground. The traipsed up mud, no doubt created from last night's spilled drinks and clumsy clopping, glued her feet in place, stabilizing her stance. She nodded to Lilica, a silent request for release. "I charged in on a situation that I accepted inasmuch as allowing him the comfort of her presence. And, fully knowing that he is in recovery, that his emotions are in flux, I cruelly yanked away his stability because...she--I have no intention on informing on her--I...simply yearned to see her suffer. I am no better than the Serpent." She seethed between her teeth. The mud splayed against her shoes, like chthonic splotches grafting to her tarnished soul. "I, too, cannot help myself," she said under her breath, her eyes trained to the ground. "However," she cleared her throat, attempting to revive her forgotten professionalism, "...I do not keep you around because you are an unhelpful, flouncing louse. That is a waste of my resources and my time. Now be helpful...and find us water."
The press of Elespeth's hands on his shoulders encouraged the pressure to stabilize in Alster's head. At least, he believed that her touch had returned him to some semblance of normalcy--although the splintering sensation continued to prick and tear and bite at every one of his senses.
After she released him, he elected to do the same, and dropped his hands away from his head. It did not burst open, as he half-anticipated, although the thought sounded almost...comforting. An end to all his problems. With a shuddering sigh, he turned his attention to Elespeth.
"I...do understand," he said, staring down at his hands and tracing the spiderweb of scars that pocked his flesh, glinting an almost-white in the sun. "You no longer wish to run. I no longer wish to hide. And we both wish for a purpose greater than this infernal war. Otherwise, life...what is it for? I can't accept that I'm only meant to destroy." He thought of Chara, how he had attacked her with dangerous magic--although he knew her words were out of jest--and his hands closed into shaking fists. "And you've expressed your own reasons for choosing this path for yourself. So...if this is what you want, I can't stop you--as much as I am adamantly against this decision of yours."
Suddenly, an idea bloomed in his head (which his head did not appreciate). He opened his hands, feeling the residual wisps of magical energy. "But...I can facilitate the extension of your life." He clutched at his belt and unsheathed the dagger he carried on his hip. He tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb. A dewdrop of blood appeared on his finger. "Ah...I should explain. This is blood magic. It is very effective in binding and bonding. If we were to...well," his face reddened, "make a blood-pact, through the spell that I cast from it, I will always know where to find you, however far. And I would be able to tell if you were in any mortal danger. However," his face flushed even redder, "any pact by blood summons very powerful binding magic. It ties us together, in more ways than the specifics of my spell, and I cannot foresee all possibilities stemming from the aftermath of something so..." he whispered, "intimate. So...if you are...if you wish for us to...I mean, it's your decision..." he handed her the dagger and then extended his right palm out to her. "You cut me and I cut you. We shake and...I'll cast the spell. But only if you...I understand that this is perhaps too...excessive."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"So... this 'blood magic'... it will bind us?" Fear was in no way mirrored in her voice or in her face, but rather confusion, and perhaps a hint of curiosity. "I will not begin to pretend that I know the first thing about any magic, Alster, or what benefit it could have for the likes of someone like me. But..." Taking her bottom lip between her teeth, the Atvanian fugitive looked at the proffered knife, and then her own hand. "We are already bound by partnership, by camaraderie, and by friendship. You know my secrets, and I know yours... is there really anything more intimate than being so exposed to one another?"
He could have turned her in; he'd known from the moment he'd met her that her demeanor was not devoid of farce. Chara wasn't wrong in the fact that the ex-knight would have served as a fantastic bargaining chip, for the benefit of their cause. But Alster Rigas had chosen to work with her instead of against her, to confide in her instead of keep secrets, to be a friend and not yet another enemy, among many.
Blood magic or not, they were already bound by their own pattern of decisions.
Elespeth smiled, and this time, it was not tight or with any uncertainty. "Anyway... I did make a promise to you. And if this is a way that you can ensure I keep it, then I'd be most obliged. You might not trust yourself nearly enough... but I trust you. Give me your hand."
The most difficult part to swallow was not the blood pact in and of itself, but the conscious decision to take that dagger and deliberately press and drag the tip across Alster's palm, noting how he tried to hide his wince. When blood welled to the surface, she wordlessly handed the dagger back to him, and held out her own hand, palm-up. Her palms were already laden with cuts, blisters and scars, in any case... what was one more?
It was none of her business, the sentiments that occurred between the Rigas mages. It was not as though she was part of their inner circle, despite her pact with Chara and the guidance she offered Alster. But the dark caster could not shake how angry it had made her, seeing the blonde Rigas mage crumble before her betrothed's dark power. Although she didn't hold quite the same resentment for the she-warrior as Chara did, she could understand the sour taste of jealousy. After all, Chara had known Alster all her life... And then this Tam simply walked in and did for him what she had never been able to do, and in doing so, had touched his heart.
And he had no idea the extent to which he'd hurt her. Perhaps nobody knew; no one but Lilica.
But it wasn't the chthonic mage's wish to smother Chara, so beyond assisting in nursing the celestial mage's hangover, she deigned to keep her distance until she was otherwise needed. It shouldn't have been a big deal; Chara had her own agenda, as did Lilica, in the long run. But what she found in keeping to herself was a sense of restlessness that alerted her to just how much her relations with the blonde Rigas woman kept her mind and body too preoccupied to introspect to any great degree.
Which meant, at the end of the day, she was faced with the decision to keep confined to her own tent and with her own thoughts, or to find something else to do with her time.
There was, of course, no real decision to be made, ultimately.
Though she should have seen it coming, given the recent turn of events, the chthonic caster ran into the she-warrior, not far from the weapon's tent. Realistically, rationally, she had no reason to frown when the former offered a shaky, albeit genuine smile. In that moment, though, she could understand Chara's point of view from that very morning: happiness was not what she wanted to see on Tam's face.
The apology that the swordswoman hurtled into only intensified that irrational resentment. "Listen... before you say anything--"
"I wasn't about to say anything," replied the sullen dark mage, arms folded across her chest. "I was hoping to walk past you without a word."
"Duly noted. But if you'll allow me a moment..."
"Why should I allow you anything, when you just stood there and allowed that little Rigas pest to tear down his very own cousin, and with ice in his eyes?"
That was that. That floodgates were open, and there was no taking back her heated (albeit brief) diatribe as soon as the words passed her lips. Lilica's cheeks burned with the confession she had never intended to make. Perhaps her devotion to Chara and he cause was already just as palpable as was Tam's to Alster's; but it case it wasn't, it was none of anyone's business, and she was not inclined to make it so.
Whether or not Tam had already gathered as much, she did not let on. "If I could have stopped him, I would have," she said, propping her hand upon the hilt of her sword. Lilica noticed with a hint of curiosity and suspicion that it was lightly bandaged. "I'm sorry... And if you happen to see Chara again today, tell her I am sorry, as well. The last thing I want is some sort of petty feud to transpire when we are all on the same side, fighting the same thing--the same person."
"You can tell her yourself," the dark mage scoffed, her cheeks still blazing red and hot as she hurried away from the warrior, and made for Chara's tent. If Alster was not at his tent, and was not with Tam, then there was only one other place she could think to find him. And she needed to find him; if she was ever to ascertain he did not let his emotions run away with him again, if she was ever to ascertain that he not hurt Chara in such a way again, then they were long overdue for another little session.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Due to the vagaries of a practice that depended on power rather than skill, Alster, by virtue of possessing a strong inheritance, needed to exercise utmost caution. While much of his adeptness stemmed from celestial magic that had shuttered itself into dormancy, great streams of energy pumped fervently through his every vein, artery, and breath. He had to release just the rightamount of power, and in doing so partition away the memory of the last time he had summoned its specific usages: when he had awakened the Serpent.
"It will," he said with a confidence borne from experience, albeit an experience he'd rather forget. "You don't have to worry, either. I'm casting the spell on myself. If it backfires, it will harm only me. If successful...well, you might be able to feel that it is." The cryptic message waggled not so subtly from his tongue. "It benefits to have you alive. And if I have to sacrifice...exposure," his breath rattled, "for the insurance that you are safe, I'll...I'll do it."
Exchanging a slight, reassuring smile with Elespeth, he waited for the cut upon his palm that would initiate their ritual. His hand, already ravaged with the stories of failed casting written all across the marred surface, sank into the blade with ease, the scarlet color marking its territory...as her own. With a determined nod, he took the dagger with his uninjured hand and repeated the process against skin that appeared so similar to his own: rough-hewn, slashed, poked, prodded. Perhaps scars told stories other than their inception; perhaps, they told stories that reflected upon the soul. And the soul reflected unto them, in the form of slivers. Hurt. Pain. Abandonment. Betrayal. Suddenly, a clarity of mind plucked the pins from his skull, clearing space for his epiphany. He know how he would cast the spell in a way that would guarantee success.
Empathy. He would tie them together by empathy.
After he cut into her palm, he pressed his hand against her own, feeling the slippery stickiness of their blood congeal and adhere in place. He weaved his fingers through her fingers, ignoring the temptation of his heart to take control over his brain. No...the heart does serve a place in this spell he thought...and allowed the two to merge as one.
He closed his eyes, concentrating not within, but without. He sought the soft, thrumming pulse of Elespeth, like little pattering feet against his skin. They led him to where her soul resided. He traveled there, standing in the nucleus of her being, and unlike his invasion upon Lilica's private sanctum, he felt a welcoming warmth envelop him with the breath of Summer. Life at the height of creation. The dominion of the Sun, chasing the shadows across the horizon. Those orange-yellow rays of Noon, of Zenith, billowed like ribbons and tied him, tied her, into pure, unyielding light.
Alster opened his eyes, and it was like looking into a new dawn. If but temporarily, his soul had shed the burdens that had it cocooned so implicitly inside its diamond-hard shell. He could move, unencumbered, and breathe without choking.
And for one fleeting second, he felt the pull of his celestial magic.
He found Elespeth where he left her, directly across from him, their hands as taut as their souls. A smile touched him as he met her eyes, a smile that sang something...
Something radiant. Something precious.
Something fragile, that would die with Summer's end.
Chara half-expected Alster to visit her tent that evening. As long as those chthonic threads didn't fundamentally rework his entire system in half a days' time, she predicted the logic behind his next decision.
With the exception of her and Lilica's foray into the mess tent for water, an idea that every groggy reveler shared in that morning, she spent the rest of her day in careful isolation. It was careful inasmuch as she maintained contact with Danos and Tivia, who reported to her tent the rumors and hearsay flitting about camp (including Atvany's alliance with Tadasun), but she did not leave the safe confines of her bed. Throughout the day, her chest pricked something awful, though she could not differentiate the pain between Alster's chthonic penetration or an ailment that shared no counterpart with medical or magical diagnoses.
As she scrunched her face against a cushion, staring, as in a trance, at the tent flaps, Alster brushed through them uninvited--as he was wont to do. There was a sheen about him that seldom found residence, and it pervaded his aura, his gait. And his eyes...they did not crackle in hatred. Rather, they sat upon his face like two placid pools, until they averted themselves from the weight of compunction. She followed his gaze--and noticed his bandaged right hand swaying at his side. Not an atypical accessory on him, but regardless, she wondered what manner of spell-casting he had performed that day--aside from the obvious.
"Chara," he ventured, taking a few hesitant steps in her direction. She remained seated, pursed her lips, and said nothing. Let him stew in my discontent, she thought.
"Chara," he repeated, but with an added dash of courage, "I'm...for earlier...It is an act that surely you can't forgive, but I take full responsibility for my...behavior. To allow my magic to snag on my emotions and," he paused, "attack you like that, I... I'm sorry." He dipped his head even lower to the ground.
She scrambled over to her feet and bounded toward him. Though he did not move or flinch, he steeled himself for whatever attack he believed was forthcoming. "That's your problem, Alster! You always wish to take full responsibility, even when it is not your responsibility to bear." He raised his eyes at her, in apparent confusion. "You will not hear me say this often--so listen to me." Stopping just shy of his feet, she clasped a hand upon his shoulder, inviting him to look square into her face. "I, too, am to blame. I pushed you...too far. I suppose I am no better than the majority of our family who...treated you the same. Who continuously treat you the same. I foolishly thought I was the exception: the one who viewed you as my equal. The...only one who would ever favor you in such a light. Obviously, that is no longer true." She huffed a sigh to prevent herself from spitting in disgust at mention of that wretched warrior. "I will...try to accept her. But I make no promises. Be that as it may, I...I apologize. For my uncouth, unprofessional conduct."
Throughout her entire discourse, Alster scrutinized her in silence. Suspicion creaked at his limbs, which moved of their own accord, out of her reach. Finally, his mouth gaped and his eyes grew wide as if realizing that her words were not in farce.
"I was not expecting... You're being sincere?" An uncertain smile lined his mouth. "I'm just not prepared for...it's not an everyday occurrence when--"
"--Shut up, Alster." She snorted at him. "Please do not trample upon my magnanimous gift to you and your conscience."
Now, it was her turn to gape at Alster. He laughed. With humor. With intent. It did not ring false or sinister. Rather, it was genuine and...infectious. Her own lips twitched from the overt display of mirth.
"Thank you, Chara." Her heart pounded at his blatant praise of her, his coy smile, a hand that reached out for an affectionate brush of her arm...
They both froze in place when they heard a soft susurrus play at the flaps of her tent. It was not the wind, but shadows taking human form.
"Oh, Lilica!" Chara greeted from between the flaps. "I did not think you to call at this hour." Or to interrupt me she thought as she had careened, rather brusquely, out of her moment with Alster.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Perhaps because it had been. How many people could claim that the best years of their life had been spent in stasis, stuck in a beautiful, perfect dream?
The trouble with a dream so beautiful was how it reflected upon harsh reality--and the dark caster had never thought a life without those feelings that had once been hers would be so difficult to endure. That rising every morning from the safety of her cot and putting one foot in front of another would be an ordeal.
She had never thought that witnessing a tender exchange between acquaintances, people privy to feelings that she no longer deserved to experience, would wrench such a sore deep in her gut. Harsh as reality was, it never seemed to cease its climb in wretchedness, or to surprise her with something worse, every day.
"I apologize for interrupting." Alster's hand had been on Chara's arm. The looks that they exchanged were ones of forgiveness, of redemption, of rekindled trust. It made her throat feel tight, and her face go cold, as if the temperature in Chara's luxurious tent had just dropped. "I thought to seek out Alster, after this morning's unfortunate turn of events. Although I am pleased to see that the two of you appear to be putting it behind you, so soon."
Probably the biggest lie she had told in quite some time, because truth be told, it was jealousy and hurt that governed Lilica's mood, now. While Chara's affliction earlier had struck her with fear, and resentment towards Alster, it had also ignited an ember of hope. Of... well, perhaps, benefit in the falling out of these two betrothed.
Why had it not occurred to her that the fool would sink to his knees and beg for forgiveness, before the haughty, blonde mage? And... why did it effect her, so mercilessly?
She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, conveying a nonchalance that she did not actually feel. "If you're interested, Alster, I thought we could delve more into your power before the next battle occurs. Make the best of what it can offer... without any more unnecessary casualties." Glancing down at the tips of her boots, it required some courage to look Chara in her fierce, blue eyes. "Good to see that you are feeling better." Well enough not to need me. But you know where to find me when you find yourself in crisis, again, was what she wanted to add, but ultimately, did not, and probably for the best.
Of course, Alster did not refuse further guidance for his chthonic abilities, particularly in light of the fact he had harmed his own kin, earlier. But Lilica was far from pleased to be of help, and throughout the solid hour they spent in the candlelight of his tent, her mind was far too burdened with distractions to be of much help. At last, she gave up.
"I can't... I'm having trouble concentrating," she commented, pressing her fingers to her temples, as if coming down with a migraine. "Perhaps we should continue this another time, and simply get some rest tonight."
Without so much as a brief farewell, the dark caster rose from her kneeling position and left Alster's tent for the dark and calm of night, still plagued by the moment she had witnessed between him and his betrothed hours earlier.
What must I do? Why can't that happiness be mine?
...but it can. Just not here. Not among them. Not with your eyes open.
That whisper, ever present, pushed at the back of her mind. To say that she hadn't been tempted by the call to return to sleep, return to a world that did not exist, would be a grave falsehood. The possibility was always there, and it was only one spell and some drops of blood away.
But it was not a solution. And it was only the heaviness of that realization that kept her grounded (or as grounded as someone of her sorts could be).
And then, she saw her turn a corner. That she-warrior, with her braid and a small blade at her side, exiting the weapons tent and pulling the flaps shut. Likely taking inventory of those nefarious, bejeweled artifacts that she and that other tall brute had discovered. Minding her business, not a care in the world...
The point at which Lilica began to see red was indistinguishable. Her dark eyes, glued to the swordswoman, could not help but contemplate possibilities, and she suddenly understood Chara's deep resentment from earlier. What right did this ruffian have to be happy, and to steal someone else's happiness? But, then again... perhaps her happiness could be put to use. She an Alster clearly shared a bond, and although Chara struggled to accept it, her reluctance to give up on her fiancé would prevent her broken heart from even truly mending.
Not to mention, it would prevent her from realizing the dark mage's true value in the grand scehem of things. Although she would never openly admit it, Lilica did not want to be needed; she needed to be needed.
And that need coursed through her veins, starting at her heart and filling her with the resolve to go through with the dark plot on her mind.
"Oh... Lilica? I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." Tam all but jumped when she turned to see the small, dark figure but yards away, hands clutched into fists at her side. "Are you... is everything all right? Can I help you with something?"
The tiniest of smiles curled at the edge of Lilica's mouth. And it was anything but friendly. "Yes, Tam. You can help me; you, specifically. Listen..." One step at a time, she advanced on the swordswoman. "Don't think I hold some vendetta against you; nothing is personal, and you had nothing to do with what your wayward Rigas caster did earlier. But you seem to be complicating things, in that Rigas circle, and I..." Pressing her lips together, she reached out and touched Tam's arm. "I need that to keep happening."
It had been a long time--decades, in fact--since Lilica had let her darkness loose in such a fashion. She watched as the swordswoman all but crumbled under her touch, as chthonic energy stole the heat from her skin and her blood, draining it slowly of its healthy tan. There was only one way that this would end: Alster would come running to this wretched woman's rescue as she lay barely alive (but not dead--that was not Lilica's intent, and it would ruin everything) on the ground. And if Chara did not bear witness to it, she would at the very least hear about it later on. She would see that Tam and Alster were inseparable, that there would never come a time that one would not be there for the other, in their time of need.
And then, perhaps... perhaps the entitled, blonde Rigas mage would finally come to realize just who she could depend on in her time of need. And that person was not Alster.
"Li...Lilica, what're you..." Tam choked, struggling to wrench herself free of the dark caster's merciless vice grip. "Please... stop this..."
Lilica pressed her lips together, and leaned in to murmur. "I'm sorry, but this is not about you," she informed the warrior. "But it will be."
Such a release... It felt so good, so refreshing to unleash her magic through hatred and not help, that the chthonic mage did not notice the cold burn of steel until she saw the blood on her shoe. Eyes wide with surprise, she looked on at Tam who, in her struggles, had managed to unsheathe the dagger at her hip and embed it in Lilica's side. She had no choice, then, but to release her hold on the gasping warrior, and leave her lying in the dirt as she counted to five, and wrenched the blade out with a desperate groan. Lifeblood leaked freely between her fingers, but she could not approach the medics. Not if it meant explaining what had happened, and being held accountable for purposely injuring a comrade. This was something she would have to deal with on her own.
Clutching her injured side, the dark caster hurried from the vicinity before anyone could see her, and Tam remained, shivering and gasping at the pain coursing through her limbs, with a bloodied knife no longer within her reach.
Just as she made preparations to retire for the evening, her tent flap fluttered to allow Alster entrance inside. She tried to silence the reflexive skip of her heart when she saw him for the second time that evening. The earlier serenity that surrounded his normally chaotic aura had lessened, but she still saw its influence brighten his eyes and straighten the uncertainty in his gait.
"That was a quick lesson!" she remarked from her side of the tent. She dropped the globe of etheria that acted as her centerpiece of the tent, keeping it aglow for however long he meant to stay. An uncharacteristic giddiness pulled her lips into a silly smile. "I realize that you are a polymath of magic, but a mere hour of study seems unachievable, even for you!"
"Lilica wasn't feeling well. She discontinued the lesson until further notice," he said, stepping into the circle of her ethereal light-source. A frown furrowed his brow, a look she recognized. Something did not sit right with him, and the thought that plied at his brain dominated his concentration.
"What is the matter?"
"I don't...I just sense that..."
His eyes bulged large and wide. His legs buckled from an unknown tremor rippling through his body. She caught him in her arms before he collapsed upon the carpeting at their feet.
"Alster!"
The breath expelled from his mouth in labored gasps. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. As she slowly lowered him to the ground, she yelped when his bandaged hand flew up and constricted her arm in a death grip.
"I...have to go," he said through pained shivers, his eyes pricking with tears.
"No!" She almost dropped him, head-first, to express just how much she meant no. "I do not know what's happening but in this condition, I will not--"
"E...El...T-Tam. She's d-dying," he sputtered, his knuckles turning white from the strain of refusing her aid. He pushed against her, fighting to break free.
I will respond to this in a reasonable matter, Chara repeated to herself, though she much wanted to beat her betrothed unconscious. "How do you even know!? I'm certain she's f--" She caught a glimpse of the ragged tuft of the bandage on his hand--and a terrifying thought manifested as large lumps in her throat that she could not swallow. "Did you...forge a blood pact with her!?"
"My spell...too strong," his eyes wavered in guilt as he somehow wriggled out of Chara's supporting hold and wobbled to his feet.
"Well then what happens to you if she dies!? You are the most asinine, lovelorn..." she growled in frustration, clawing at her temples with hands that burned with rage. "Go. Go save her. I'll be right behind you."
Alster stumbled into the night, his legs wading as if through molasses. Any pace that his overwhelmed body could manage sent rattles up his spine.
No. He grit his teeth so tightly he heard them abrade against his fracturing skull. I will not let you die!
Every nerve inside him screamed as he broke into a run, bumping against tents and tripping through the mud in following his inner compass that led to Elespeth.
He found her crumpled on the ground besides the weapons' tent, barely alive, gasping for the same air that his lungs had so demanded of him.
"Tam! El!" he called to her as he knelt at her side, checking for her condition. Her skin was cold to the touch. A chill bit at his fingers as if he had touched a layer of ice beneath which churned a frozen river. Her entire bloodstream flowed in a languorous beat. And lingering in the heart of her condition, like a dark, heatless star, was a knot of chthonic magic, tied with intricate intent in the form of a curse.
Chara, not far behind, scrambled over to where Alster had settled, peering at Elespeth and her poorly status with a surprise sucking of breath.
"Chthonic magic," Alster said aloud, forcing concentration on his hands and not on his rapidly disintegrating mind.
"Chthonic magic?" Chara's first thoughts carried over to that morning, when Alster had invited the abyss inside himself to pull her into darkness. She clutched her chest, a slow, burgeoning terror working itself from within. What if the spell he cast in tandem with the blood pact coursed itself with the deadly aftermath of his power, and affected Tam?
"Not me," he hissed, as if reading her mind. "...Lilica. It's Lilica's magic. I recognize it."
"What? Why--" The terror hardened itself around her heart. Lilica had no reasons to attack Tam. What did she hope to gain by causing harm to an enemy more reviled to her than--she hated to admit--Messino? It was not her enemy to slay.
She caught the glint of a knife in the dim lantern-light of camp. As she bent over to examine it, she noticed the blood--still wet--clinging to the blade and a sloppy trail of blood as dark as ink blots peppering away from the scene of the attack.
Chara rose to her feet. "I have reason to believe your beloved warrior marked our attacker for us. I will investigate this further." She looked over her shoulder at Alster, at a face intermixed with determination, fury, and unspeakable sadness. A burning sensation pressed itself against the backs of her eyes."Please stay safe. And alive."
She wanted to believe a more feasible, sensible explanation for the assault. An act of defense. A scuffle initiated by Tam. A third party involvement. No. The more she thought of the possibilities, the less sense it made. Unless...
She had placed her trust in the wrong person, all along.
The very thought that she had erred in her judgement almost shuddered her to a stop.
Before she could dwell further on the implication that she was the blithering idiot, she spotted a concentrated puddle of blood at the end of the trail she'd been following. Another droplet added to the puddle. She looked up and...
Lilica. Brushing against the side of a tent in a slow advance. To where? To any destination that put distance between her and her deed.
"Lilica!" Venom filled her mouth, eating away her feelings of confusion and betrayal. A tower of flame, white-hot and dancing like a vengeful ghost, plumed in her upturned palm. "You have five seconds to run, to explain yourself, or to die. Take your pick!"
Every labored breath, rise of her chest, or proof of consciousness helped to assay some of Alster's dread, however bottomless. The intense pain within himself had abated; whether it was through will alone or through self-accommodation, he did not care to know. With hands that repositioned themselves upon Elespeth's arm, where he assessed the spell's point of contact, he offered a small, comforting squeeze to her in assurance.
"There's a chthonic curse inside of you," he said in a hushed, gentle whisper, summoning the resolve not to crack into pieces. "I'm going to unravel the curse, and pull it out of you. Just...hang on for a little longer."
He closed his eyes and felt for the knot. Its chthonic resonance hummed with his own, attracted to its essence as it reached, with slithering arms, towards his soul.
Good. Perhaps I can siphon the curse. He worked at the knot, tugging at the loose ends, undoing the edges, unthreading the entire structure. No longer with an anchor on which to cling, the stray threads slurped away and away, like a vacuum, from Elespeth and into the undeniable pull of death.
Alster opened his eyes and wrenched free from Elespeth. In his hands, the energy writhed around like spider legs, like scribbles on paper. Before he could give the chance for the curse to reconstitute inside himself, he slammed his palms into the ground. Bleed away bleed away. Beneath the surface! He commanded at the energy, forced it into a spiral, into the Earth, down down down, and the grass that surrounded them blackened and crumbled into dust.
The curse was gone. It would no longer drain the color and lifeblood from Elespeth...but it would not recover what it had taken. He needed to warm the chill in her body, and quick. Before...before...
Alster looked up and saw the face of a warrior, watching the two of them from a distance. With a squint, he discerned the man's features and found them familiar.
"Haraldur!" he cried, in little more than a wheeze. "Help me...help me carry her."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Mercifully, she couldn't seem to feel anything at all. And it was wonderful.
Lilica!
That voice... it was one that she knew well. One that invaded her thoughts more than she cared to admit. But even at the venom that accented the Rigas mage's words, even at the livid expression on her face when she turned to face Chara, even at the white hot fireball of etherea that sat in her upturned palm, it didn't quite register with Lilica that her anger was directed towards her, or that she could--and would--follow through with her threats.
Chara Rigas had been a true threat, once upon a time. But it seemed like ages since Lilica had last thought of her in those terms.
In response to the hate-filled words, she lifted one shoulder in a brief shrug. "She was in my line of fire." There was no point in denying what she had done; Alster had apparently been too quick, and she, evidently, had not been quick enough. "So she got burned. But it isn't as though she didn't get her own digs in--see?" Taking her crimson hand from her hip, she held it up; as though it were not already obvious, from the blood trickling down her leg. "I must give her credit, she is quick with a blade. Gives me pause to wonder if all of that has something to do with this secret past to which only Alster seems to be privy..."
There was no other way to describe this high that lit up the dark mage's eyes other than the look of someone who had finally lifted a heavy burden from their shoulders. In a matter of moments, she had carried the weight of the world, and now... Now, she felt light, in the head, in the limbs, in spirit. She could hardly recall the last time she had felt free of... well, everything. But namely, emotion and accountability.
The speckled lights in her vision complimented Chara's face in a curious way as Lilica looked on, in no way inclined to run. It made her appear almost as though she sparkled, as if the tiny fires in her sapphire eyes had spread and afflicted her whole body with their gleam. Beautiful was the word that came to mind, but although her mind formed it, her lips did not. Something was wrong; this was not what she had anticipated--not what she had planned--as an outcome of her spontaneous deed. The haughty, blonde Rigas mage was... unhappy. More than unhappy, she was enraged. Enraged at what she had done to Tam.
Suddenly, the sharp ache in her bleeding side began to return.
"What's the matter...? What do you care, what happens to the she-warrior?" Lilica's brows knit together in genuine confusion. "Did she not take Alster from you? Were you not so keen, just this morning, to see her suffer? You said you wanted her to suffer, Chara; you told me so." And now that she suffered, she wished to take it all back? After one simple conversation with Alster... Had she known this would be the result, she might have thought twice before her unprovoked assault. But it was too late for that, now.
Lilica looked on at the ball of fire in Chara's hand, and as the celestial mage's rage slowly brought her back down to earth, and back down to herself (the self that she wanted to be, that she struggled each and every waking moment to be), the sharp burn in her side intensified. She began to feel sick, and wondered if she should let that fire ignite and burn her up. "...I'd be lying to say I don't understand why Alster did what he did, this morning," she mentioned, more quietly than before. "It's a... using this magic... Using it the way it wants to be used, it's such a release, such a source of relief." And I don't feel relief by any other means, she wanted to add, but it seemed she had already dug her grave deep enough. All that was left was for Chara to bury her, and leave her to choke on the dust.
"But he... he hurt you, this morning. He hurt you because of her. And I thought..." Her leg was too warm, too sticky with her own blood, and she felt nauseated; Lilica returned her hand to cover the wound. "I thought this was what you wanted, Chara. I'm sorry I was wrong, but I haven't much more to offer than regret..."
Which, admittedly, was nothing new.
The dark and cold were Elespeth's only companions as her heart struggled to maintain its rhythm, and her lungs fought to draw breath. Everything hurt, and with every pulse, with ever inhale, her chest, her limbs... everything felt heavier. Colder. As if something was forcing the machine that was her human body to give up, one vital organ at a time, starting with her heart.
There was the sensation of hands on her, but to whom they belonged was anyone's guess. Any semblance of linear thought had left Elespeth the moment her wracked body had hit the ground, and now, she only knew pain, cold, and the keen desire for an end--whatever an end to these feelings meant. The ex-knight had never known pain to such an extreme, and it was all too easy to understand why death could be more merciful.
And suddenly, there was a feeling of... she couldn't put her finger on it. Something invasive, but not in such a way that she wished it gone; on the contrary, the pain and weight upon her chest began to diminish, one thread at a time, as if its tapestry was coming apart at the seams.
The cold was the last thing that she remembered until her consciousness winked out from the waking world completely.
She was surrounded by a blizzard, knee-deep in snow, and with no destination in sight; only dark, starless skies, and the haunting whistle of heavy winds. "Hello!" Elespeth called, but her voice was carried away on the sharp gales that whipped her braid around her face. The Atvanian fugitive hugged her arms for warmth, startled and confused that she was not dressed for the weather, but simply donned her military garb. But wait... hadn't winter come and gone, already? She couldn't recall weather so treacherous as this...
"Hello! Anyone... is anyone there?" The answer was no. No matter how far she walked, where she turned, or where she looked, she was alone in the freezing cold and dark. And with every passing second, her fingers, toes, and other appendages grew increasingly more numb...
And then, she turned, and he was there.
"A...Alster? What're you..." She stumbled over her words, as overjoyed as she was confused to see her dear companion. Without a moment's hesitation, she rushed toward the Rigas mage, and gathered him in a tight embrace. "What are we doing here? What's going on... damnit, it's so cold, Alster..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The pinpricks in her chest cowered before the chthonic mage and impelled Chara to take action: to lob spell after spell until she sizzled out of existence or fled the camp in fear of returning. To yell and scream, alerting the officers and Messino of her treacherous behavior. Or...to walk away. To turn her back on the vile woman, disassociate from her in full, and expunge her from her life.
She did none of these things. She could not reason why.
"As much as I would love to see her suffer, I have no choice but to care! We do not live in a vacuum, Lilica. Our actions affect others. By hurting her, you hurt him!" Chara repositioned her flame, outstretching her arm as if to attack. She refused to allow Lilica the satisfaction that her words had penetrated her defenses, wrenching her anger into a slow burn. "They're bound by blood now. Did you not see their hands? Not only are you harming him emotionally, but physically, as well! Do you not remember why I sought you in the first place? It was to help him!" The fire spell slipped in intensity, changing shades to a sickly blue. "A promise in exchange for a promise. You did not uphold your end of our deal, and for that, I see no need to do the same."
She paused to let her words sink some sense into the dark mage. Indeed, a transformation of sorts had occurred in Lilica. A return to the farce that she presented for the sake and sanity of others. And while the disquiet of her demeanor no longer plagued Chara with unease, her words certainly struck her like Tam's blade that gushed forth tears of blood.
I thought this was what you wanted.
Never had any instance twisted her with more fear than those simple words. Her entire spell collapsed into white smoke. Her hand dropped, limp and useless, to her side. All of her furious head-scratching in figuring out Lilica's reasoning had amounted to an act of wish-fulfillment? For her sake? Why would she--? It was the most disturbing, the most eye-opening confession to spill from the dark mage's mouth. Because...it painted Chara as both villain and victim to her own dark desires.
Every instinct told her to run. Run now. Run far.
"You did it for yourself, Lilica. I do not care for your excuses. You are in sole control over your magic." She began to move away. Steady. A soft squelch in the mud. "He hurt me because I hurt him first. And in the end, he took responsibility for his actions. Do you understand now?"
Without warning, tears spilled from her eyes, lining her cheeks in streams of defeat.
"Go away, Lilica. I'm letting you go. Tend to your wound and...leave me alone."
Together, Haraldur and Alster hauled Elespeth to her feet, minding the speed at which they moved, for any tiny breeze could agitate the chill on her icy skin.
"We'll take her to my tent," Haraldur said, directing the way to the back-side of the weapons' tent and towards the west end of camp. "It's closer."
True to his word, they had reached Haraldur's tent in several minutes' time. Once inside the tiny one-person unit, they set her gently upon the cot. The mercenary grabbed a blanket while Alster worked on undoing her boots, her belt, and clothes, attempting to stay as unruffled as possible, despite stripping her unconscious body naked.
Haraldur slid the blanket over her before full-body exposure dipped her temperature to even lower digits. He brushed the thick cloth over her arms, her torso, and her legs, warming her by friction, while Alster, with the last of his strength, cast twin fire spells, one in each hand, and concentrated the heat to hover over key areas of her body.
After what seemed like hours, Haraldur prodded Alster when his flames sputtered and he almost collapsed over Elespeth in exhaustion. "Go to sleep. From what you told me, her condition affects you, as well?"
Alster blinked back the weight of sleep in his eyes. "Only the pain. I...I'm fine." The fire spell dissolved, and before he could fight the sensation, sleep crept up on him like a thief in the night, and knocked him unconscious.
He was surrounded by an entire landscape of white, blinding even in the darkness. Huge snowdrifts swirled and blew past him with an urgency that almost bowled him over in the process. He righted himself in time to see, through the whip of the wind and his hair against his eyes, Elespeth. A relieved smile overtook him. At her embrace, he returned the greeting with a grateful tug against her back.
"I'm glad to see you're still alive." His grip tightened around her until he lowered his arms and pulled away to observe the sky, the ground, the strange warping effect on his fingers...and the fact that he did not feel cold.
"Is this--?" To confirm his half-spoken suspicions, he raised an arm and successfully shot a blast of etherea into the stormy sky. "A dream. We're in a dream. Rather, I'm in your dream. You're cold because--do you remember what happened?" He took her arms in his hands. A shield encircled them and rose high over their heads, sealing away the wind and snow. A blue fire that shimmered like the cosmos melted the snow at their feet, but did not burn or cause them harm.
"This is your dream. You can change the landscape. Maybe to something less cold?" He quirked a smile as the flames licked tongues of warmth around the barrier. "Don't focus on the cold. Focus on the fire. On...on me. ...Don't let this place be your tomb."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Can't I be the catalyst for anything other than chaos...?
In the characteristic fashion of Chara Rigas, it wasn't only Lilica's words that cut deep like a knife, and as the blonde, celestial caster formed them, the dark mage could feel her heart shrink: You did not uphold your end of our deal, and for that, I see no need to do the same.
And she couldn't blame her, for in all of her shenanigans, it hadn't once occurred to Lilica that her foolish attempt to draw Chara nearer would hurt Alster--both directly and indirectly. And now, on the contrary, she had unwittingly gone back on her word, and had effectively dissolved the trust of perhaps the only person she cared a wink for in this entire encampment...
In this new, wretched lifetime.
And Chara was right; she had done it for herself, and only herself, all for her own, selfish motivations. Her mistake had not been in assuming Chara wouldn't care; it was that she had acted at all. And there was no way to take any of it back.
"I understand." Her reply was so soft it was barely audible over the wind as her throat grew tight. The cycle of hatred and violence... Hadn't this been precisely what she was running from? Hadn't this been the reason that she'd been asleep for almost an entire century, living some fictional life in a dream, a world that didn't exist? Wasn't this precisely why she only channeled her magic to be of help to others, and not to harm them?
And then, the final blow: Go away, Lilica. I'm letting you go. Both in the sense that she was letting her live, letting her run away... and giving up on her. There were tears in her eyes, streaking her cheeks with their tiny rivers, and the chthonic mage could hardly comprehend them. Were they borne of sadness? Of hatred? Of fear? Or all or any mixture of the three?
She didn't have a chance to convince Chara otherwise, to change her mind, to give her another chance, as the Rigas mage was quick to turn her shoulder and flee in the other direction. Even if she hadn't run, Lilica would have been at a loss as to what to say.
She was a hypocrite, in every sense of the word, standing there as she was, bleeding from the she from a wound that she deserved, and bleeding from the heart from a wound she wished she didn't so deserve.
A dream. We're in a dream.
Despite how happy she was to have found him, there was a split second when Elespeth thought the Rigas caster had lost his mind. What sort of dream struck icicles into her very core, the way this weather did? Even as her companion shielded their vulnerable forms with a dome, one dancing with mild blue fire, the numbness wouldn't leave her fingertips. "What are you talking about? What should I remember?"
And that was when it came rushing back to her. Lilica, the curse, the excruciating pain of feeling her blood practically freeze in her veins... So if I'm dreaming... that means I'm still alive.
Taking his advice, the ex-knight struggled to turn her mind to warmer temperatures and less trying times. And, sure enough, the storm began to abate, the frost began to melt, and her skin began to warm underneath Alster's gentle grasp. A nervous laugh escaped her throat; to think, it was working, and all because she willed it so! It was perhaps the closest thing she would ever come to magic, herself. "I'm alive... I'm dreaming... but I want to wake up. I want to wake up, now..."
And so she did--many, many hours later, just before the sun set on the following evening. The first thing she became aware of was the dull ache in her head and the stiffness of her limbs, before opening her eyes. This tent... it was not hers, not Alster's. The blankets felt unfamiliar, and the sensation of the coarse wool against her skin brought her to the realization that she wasn't wearing her clothes.
It wasn't until she sat up (with some difficulty) that she noticed a familiar face, and her mouth stretched into a broad smile of relief.
"How was it that I saw you in my dream...?" Clutching the blankets to her chest with one hand, the Atvanian fugitive beckoned with her other for Alster to come over. The Rigas caster looked tired, but awake; she had a feeling she knew just what to attribute to that fatigue. "I'm alive because of you, aren't I? Whatever Lilica did... you undid it." The flesh of her forearm bore a strange scar, however, in the shape of a perfect, four-pointed scar. Curses always left their mark, one way or another, even in their death or extraction. "Alster, I... I owe you more than I can even fathom."
In the days that passed, there was no one at Lilica's bedside, however, and her recovery was entirely up to her. Having struggled to get back to her tent the night she'd been wounded, the dark mage had barely had the strength to staunch the bloodflow of her wound with gauze, before lapsing into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. Awakening hours later from the pain, the herbalist in her managed to scrounge the energy, motivation and stored ingredients to mash together a salve with a mortar and pestle that took the edge off the pain, and helped to further slow the bleeding; but by then, her clothes and the sheets of her cot were already stained beyond repair.
When she laid down again, she did not rise for another three days.
But she did dream. Some taunted her, with images of everything she touched perishing beneath her fingers, and blood staining the world, everywhere she turned. Others were more merciful and soothed her; fleeting feelings of a warm embrace, something she hadn't experienced in... Well, physically, not ever. Serene landscapes, void of anyone who could hurt her, and anyone she could hurt. Laughter; that of others, and her own... or, at least, what she imagined it would sound like if she ever found it in herself to learn how.
Unfortunately, the good ones were fewer and further between than the bad, and unlike Elespeth, Lilica had no one to pull her out of her nightmares.
It was one such nightmare that finally awoke her for good, one where he woke up, cold with sweat and with a heavy heart. Can't you see that you destroy everything you touch? Those words echoed over and over in her mind, echoes from the nightmare, until she registered the here and now, and remembered what had rendered her in such a terrible state.
Her actions had effectively alienated her from the Rigases and their allies. For all intents and purposes, Lilica D'Or was once again as alone as she'd ever been.
What does it matter if Chara won't help me...? I can get out of here myself. I'll find a way.
Replacing the bandages on her wound, she was astounded by how well the haphazard salve had taken effect to dull the pain, and relieved the the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Forcing water down her parched throat and into her sick stomach. She hadn't felt well in the gut since her encounter with Chara, something that had yet to abate, but she managed to fight off dehydration with sheer willpower alone.
And as soon as she felt that the majority of her strength had returned, Lilica dressed in new clothes, summoned new resolve, and endured the sunlight that hurt her eyes when she left her tent for the first time in days.
With or without Chara's help (or that of anyone, for that matter), she would find a way to her own safety. She only wished that the thought of leaving Chara behind, with such bitter feelings towards her, did not bother her to such a degree.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She had composed herself long enough to wander the rest of her way through camp in numbed silence. On her way back to her tent, she passed the scene of Tam's assault, the scene where...I thought this was what you wanted...
She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, from reacting to those skewed words, the truth behind them, and what they revealed...about herself.
Do I push people to commit terrible acts?
A memory played in her head, one that had always found residence beneath all the layers of her bravado and affected self-confidence. Her young self stared at a pair of blue eyes that emitted little joy or passion. But they glimmered with hope. At her. She opened her mouth to speak and her biting tongue had shuttered the light of hope and invited the dark to plant roots of bitterness and betrayal in the soil where decayed his spirit.
It was her last conversation with Alster before he awakened the Serpent.
And now, with Lilica...
Chara opened her eyes and found Tam's previous resting place empty. Alster must have succeeded in expelling the curse, or, at least moved her to a warm, safe enclosure. A bitterness of her own threatened to take root. Alster would not return that evening, no. Not until Tam recuperated from the curse in full. And she, with Lilica adrift and gone from her life, would be alone.
How had she been so foolish? Alster would never love her. And Lilica, she...
...She would miss her.
One last smile radiated from Alster as he watched the landscape melt and clear into a sun-dappled meadow. "I can feel my body fading back into consciousness. But," he slid his arms from her reach as he dissolved into the day that she created, "I'll be here when you wake up..."
Alster awoke, shivering.
"It...worked," he said aloud, coughing through the chattering of his teeth. To prove his theory, he hauled himself upright, leaned against Elespeth's cot, and pressed two frozen fingers to her pulse. Sure enough, the surface of her skin and the pumping of blood from beneath churned with a salubrious rhythm. She was well on her way to an expedited recovery.
With a sigh of relief, he sank to the ground and huddled against himself for warmth.
Haraldur, who had watched over Elespeth's condition throughout the evening, peered down at Alster from his spot atop the cot where he had provided an additional source of heat. "Have you contracted her affliction? You're awfully pale." He reached for another blanket and threw it over to the caster, who accepted it with a wearied nod of gratitude.
"N-no," he stammered through the freeze in his veins. "My ce-celestial ma-magic. In the d-dream. I'm able to u-use it. Wa-warmed her with it. And it w-worked."
While Haraldur did not understand the specifics and complexities of magic, he nodded, clucking his tongue in a favorable sound of approval. "Well, she is looking better. Now it's time to see after yourself." He pushed himself off the cot and wandered to the tent flap. "I'll go grab you some hot water. In the meantime, sleep."
By the time he awoke again, from dreams that did not feature Elespeth, he saw her stirring from her long slumber. Before he edged closer to the foot of her cot, he checked for his temperature. A mite cold, but otherwise stabilized. He could speak and move without his body erupting into spasms. As long as she did not touch him, she might not notice that he shared in, nay, took, some of her chill.
From the edges in the tent flaps, he could make out the dark contours that signified night. A full day had passed. He did not see Haraldur inside, but an empty tin of water indicated that he had returned at least once more since Alster fell into slumber.
Elespeth had opened her eyes, then, and found him with little difficulty, sitting at her side. He returned her smile, and it carried away all of his worry, fear, and guilt. But it did not eradicate the anger that he kept lodged deep in the annals of his mind, far from his partner's reach.
"How are you feeling?" At her request, he moved closer, bringing himself upon her cot, mindful of any gaps in her blanket that would reveal to him her naked skin. "My apologies. We had to strip you of your clothes to...keep you warm. I-I looked as little as possible. I promise." His face heated, but his reaction, at least, contributed to melting away some of the ice in his bones.
Ah, so she remembered their dream. With a nod of confirmation, his tone transferred to a more somber retelling of events, for it was preferable to the inner wound that flared by mention of Lilica's name. "My spell...our blood pact." He stared down at the bandage still bound around his hand. "Remember when I told you there might be additional...possibilities as a result of the spell? Well," he forced his attention away from Elespeth, not knowing how favorably she'd react to his news, "it appears we can share dreams. And pain...among other things. That's how I knew you were in danger. I felt what the curse was doing to you and when I found you, I...pulled it out." He gazed over at the branding of the curse upon her flesh, forever a grim reminder that he almost lost her, and he flinched. "I'm so sorry, Elespeth. I don't know why this happened...but I hope you'll forgive me again, because you might feel a little pain, when," his voice choked with revulsion, with a loathing that stabbed splinters into his words, "when I find out why it did."
Three days after the "incident," Alster, who more or less recovered from his second-hand infirmity, bided his time waiting for Lilica to emerge from her cave of a tent.
When he met back up with Chara just the day before, and she informed him that she released Lilica, he affixed her with a look that Chara typically reserved for him. The you-must-be-an-idiot glare.
Hurriedly, she tried to explain her reasoning, but only ended up painting a perspective. One peppered with excuses.
"Dark magic. You have felt the pull, have you not?" Chara touched his arm as they sat outside her tent, watching the day-to-day minutiae of the camp in motion. "It enveloped her mind--as it has done for you. She attacked Tam, yet she is remorseful. That is why I let her go."
"No. I understand." Alster flexed each digit of his right hand. A faded, diagonal scar, in a sea of many, no longer hid its secrets beneath a bandage. "I'm well-acquainted with the all-consuming nature of hatred, and the horrors it is able to manifest. I've suffered for it--continuously. I still do. So, while I may empathize with her plight, I can't keep allowing others to torment me because I'm too guilt-ridden to stand up for myself and for those who I--"
"--Love?"
Alster, stymied into silence, averted his eyes and kept them positioned at his feet.
Until he saw the familiar brush and swish of the dark mage's dress. "Stay here, Chara." Within half a moment, he was on his feet, and on Lilica's trail.
Once he fell in step with her gait, he sped forward and grabbed at her shoulder to stop her motions. His grip was clawed, heavy, but it did not carry any hints of chthonic magic in activation. "Care to spar, Lilica?" He whispered into her ear, and his voice crackled with calculated malice. "...I think it's nigh time I demonstrate what you've taught me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The ex-knight quieted as he ventured to explain precisely what had happened, filling in the holes in her memory of the horrid event, as well as the consequences of the blood pact that they had made. "You mean you... oh, gods, Alster! You felt that? All of it...?" Elespeth's face grew long with despondence, concern, and guilt. "I am... A-Alster, I am so sorry. I never would have thought..." Her teeth bit on her lower lip to prevent it from trembling. So he would hurt if she did; and that cast the both of them into a real mess. What would result in battle, then, if one of them were to fall?
There was only one solution, and that was the necessity of keeping one another safe. No matter what.
"Alster, listen to me." The Atvanian fugitive moved her hand to his arm. "Listen, please... whatever happened, I... it doesn't matter anymore. It's over. Whatever spurred Lilica to want to attack me..." Her eyes widened at the memory: Lilica. It had been Lilica... but why? What had she done to earn the dangerous scorn of so many damned casters... "Alster." Lowering her voice, she leaned in to meet his eyes. "Whatever you might be thinking, you know that revenge... retaliation is not the answer. Remember what happened to Chara." He had regretted harming the arrogant, blonde caster so fervently. Surely, it was a mistake that would stay with him for a while.
But it was high time to change the subject, before they delved too deep into darkness. "But, anyway," she continued, her mouth twisting into a nervous grin. "Would you mind retrieving my clothes? It's easier to have a conversation when you don't have to hide under a blanket."
Unfortunately, however Elespeth's words resonated with Alster, his anger and resentment still rang louder, and confrontation was inevitable.
And, perhaps the worst part was the timing. Lilica was well enough, after three full days of nothing but sleep, but she was far from fully recovered. Her wound still ached, as did her heart, from what had occurred three days ago--more specifically, what she had incited.
It was not so much that the dark caster was fragile in her recovery. Rather, she was vulnerable, to anything and everything. The sun was too bright, her clothes felt scratchy and coarse against her skin, the air was too heavy, and she was by no means inclined to commence or hold a conversation.
What Alster encountered, therefore, was little more than a wounded animal, on the defensive and primed to attack. Perhaps the rawest and most vulnerable that he had ever seen her.
The chthonic caster spun around and put distance between herself and the fool who thought he could challenge her, fixing him with a dark glare. "You idiot," she murmured, and a growl reverberated beneath the words. Her hands, unbidden, curled into fists. "You dare incite me? Instigate violence when you... You, of all people, should realize that I no longer have anything to lose in refusing to help you? To show you guidance, tolerance, and control?"
Perhaps it was not obvious through the venom in her voice, but well beneath the surface, her words stung with hurt. Nothing to lose... Chara had turned her back on her. Alster, as a result of her actions, painted her as an enemy. And Elespeth... well, what she thought was of no consequence, although the dark mage suspected that the warrior had no noble sentiments left for her. There was nothing for her in this ridiculous war save for the fear of pain and death.
And if you did not fear either of those...
"I was willing to walk away forever," she informed the foolish Rigas caster before her. "From you, from Chara, from anything to do with any of you. And instead, you wish to start a war of you own? Teach me not to mess with the bitch who has seized your heart, because avenging her is all that matters? So be it. But do not blame me, this time, for the consequences."
And light a wounded animal, cornered and threatened, Lilica lashed out, igniting the earth in a circle of dark and deadly fire. This is your choice, and you will not run from it. As soon as the battlefield was defined, the black flames licking feet into the air, she raised a hand, closed it into a fist, and began to melt the earth beneath Alster's feet, simulating noxious quicksand.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You're one to talk." He recovered his resolve when her caustic words reignited the flare in his gut. Some sick, demented part of him reveled in seeing her crumpled up before him, like a cat arching its back in defense to appear larger than its diminutive size. I must have looked that pathetic to so many. Yet, they kicked me until I bled. "I'm instigating violence? You needn't look far in your own memory to see the same." He knew well that she was a victim of her circumstances, of her magic, but he could not reach beyond her barrier of hatred, for she would not allow him entrance. And now, he no longer exercised the patience or compassion to continue trying. He would never forgive her violent deed. It hit him in the worst, most vulnerable place and threatened to agitate the wounds of loss that, if reopened, would surely bleed forever.
"Walking away does not absolve you of your crime, Lilica. You will not admit to the wrong you've done, so you run, instead of accepting responsibility," he snapped back at her, his hands clenching and unclenching from the strain of balancing rage and reason. "And no, you have it wrong. You've stood against my family. Tam never raised a hand in opposition to you. Chara viewed you as a companion, and you've hurt her deeply. What matters, is that their suffering will not have been in vain." As he watched the walls of black flame draw the boundary lines for their grim duel, a fleeting sadness tugged at his mouth. And before her magic collapsed the earth at his feet, he spoke one last sentiment...but if she heard it, he assumed that she would not care to listen.
"I wanted to help you, Lilica--as you have helped me. ...I'm sorry."
The magic struck its intended target. He invited the strike to weaken the foundation upon which he stood. Before it gave way to the rise of bilious quicksand and its offending fumes, he clawed his hands--and began to draw upon the earth.
I was able to siphon Lilica's curse out of Elespeth. It's possible that I can absorb her magic.
Like pulling roots from a tree, Alster yanked and strained to leech Lilica's energy from the ground. He thought of it as tapping for black gold. Dig. Twist. Press into the soil. Release. Let it rise. Into my fingers. Into my hold--my control.
His entire body trembled from the feat, overwhelmed by the sheer force of her chthonic ability. It far outclassed his own. He had trapped it into a funnel, gathered some of it in his hands, but it threatened to dissolve his fingers, his arms, his very being, into slush.
She may outclass me, but my magic can consume her magic--and take it as my own.
With one final wrench, he succeeded on uprooting the curse, the blight upon the earth. The ground had stabilized. The fumes subsided. Circular disks swirled and spun in his outstretched hands. He wielded her magic. The hatred. How it burned holes in his senses, deconstructing his morals, casting a pall over everything sacred and precious in his life. And what a wretched life it is, a voice from the ether hissed. No. Not from the ether. From the heartbeat of the magic. The vibrations in his outstretched palms.
This isn't my hatred. It isn't mine to consume. Send it back.
With a grunt of effort, Alster threw the disks at Lilica, imagining them into serpents. Their torpid bodies slithered coils around her arms, her legs, entrapping her in place, fusing her solid. They constricted with each turn of their amorphous bodies, threatening to break her bones, to twist and wring and rip her in twain...
Do it another voiced hissed, and it was his own. His hatred. Kill her. Kill her now.
The ebony flames denoting the barrier had since dwindled and died. Or did he siphon that, as well?
The serpents unhinged their jaws, and their fangs were made of the black fire. They reared their shadowy heads at Lilica, about to strike, about to sink those pinioned flames into her throat...
A white beacon of light flashed, point blank, into Alster's face.
"That is quite enough!" Chara, her eyes a quiet fury, stormed in between Alster and Lilica. "Alster! You've proven your point. Release her. Otherwise, you'll hate yourself forever and you already are profoundly insufferable the way you are now!"
Alster blinked through the tears and the black, blooming spots that her spell had rendered to his visibility. But it had worked. Realizing what his anger, his hatred, had wrought, he dissolved the spell. The serpents broke away and returned to the holdfast of Lilica's stored power. The rest of it sank back into the ground whence it came. Alster gazed upon the slumped, prone form of Lilica, his eyes wide in terror. In guilt. In self-loathing.
"Is she--?"
"We shall find out," Chara said, ignoring the stupefied looks of the onlookers caught in the midst of the caster brawl as she propelled herself towards the dark mage's limp body and assessed the damage.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Through the sharp ringing of her own hatred in her ears, she thought she heard those words. But she couldn't have; because any fool with a sense of perception, with acquaintance with magic, would realize too soon in her company that the chthonic mage Lilica D'Or was beyond help. She had been doomed, in fact, since the day she was born, and first drew breath.
This was something that some part of her had come to accept. Sometimes, another part of her very being fought it--the part of herself that she had found in Chara's company. The part of herself that she could no longer feel, and hence, all that was left was hatred and desperate destruction.
She watched as the earth melted and rose around Alster Rigas's feet, the flames surrounding them licking high and hot, practically shielding them from the mass of onlookers that had begun to gather to witness this impromptu 'spar'. You brought this on yourself, she thought bitterly, her heart already burdened with far too much pain and guilt to make room for current remorse. What, exactly, had he thought to gain by challenging someone who so clearly outclassed him in magic that he hardly understood? Lilica understood blind rage, but even she, in her most chaotic of moments, had the sense to consider whether or not she was capable of the revenge that she sought. And Alster's confidence was, unfortunately, disproportionate to his steadfast resolve.
At least, that was what she thought, until she realized how his hands in the earth began to dissolve the curse she had cast.
"What're you..." Lilica's brows knitted together in a marriage of confusion and dread. She took a single step back, feeling the heat of her own flames hot on her next from proximity. "How are you doing this? Your magic... it siphons the necromantic..." And, apparently, any other form of chthonic energy that poisoned the earth--or another person. My curse... he must have managed to remove my curse from the warrior's skin. It hadn't been a touch of death; the spell was designed to fade, eventually, but not without wreaking irreparable havoc on the body. She wondered if, as a result, Tam had recovered to fighting fit.
Th dark mage was not long to contemplate what she had overlooked. In her dumbfounded thought, she watched with wide eyes as Alster took the very energy she had cast into the earth--her own, throbbing, noxious hatred--and turned it into something more characteristic of his own magic. Serpents...
But he was not quick. It would have required little effort to defend, deflect the vicious snakes, on her part. After all, the Rigas caster hardly knew how to properly wield his own magic, his own dark energy, let alone hers.
And yet, when the moment came, when she saw the black, slithering bodies come for her, she herself reacted too slowly--and instead of deflecting them, Lilica let her own magic seize her and squeeze the life from her lungs and limbs.
I don't want to do this anymore.
Her mind rang with the defeat that she had accepted long before the battle had ever occurred, while her body resonated with the unbearable pain of her own hatred. As the snakes constricted her each and every limb, she felt her skin bruise beneath their strong bodies, felt her ribs give with the compression. Breathing wasn't an option, nor was protecting the wound on her side, which--only newly healed--reopened under the extreme pressure, staining crimson her previously clean tunic. She hurt; every fibre of her being screamed at the excruciating agony that was a manifestation of her own hatred. But she was not afraid.
It's going to be okay.
A voice, faint in the back of her mind, reached out to her with palpable reassurance that somehow managed to calm her body, even in the wake of this attack. She noticed with spotted vision when the the serpents reared their heads and unhinged their massive jaws, revealing teeth as black and as sharp as jagged obsidian...
Lilica closed her eyes, accepting the very end she had invited.
She was hardly aware when that end didn't come. Suddenly, she was no longer standing, her body sprawled on the ground with an impact that she hadn't felt. The wound at her side still bled freely, and her lungs still struggled to draw breath, instead wracking her body with violent coughs. Feebly, she brought a hand to her mouth, and looked on with impassive observation as blood came away on the palm of her hand. She dared to draw another breath, and the same thing happened.
It's going to be all right.
Lying limp on her side, there was nothing in Lilica's clouded frame of view but an intensely blue sky, accented with plush, white clouds. The air around her felt so calm. Why have I never noticed this before...?
That was the last thing on her mind before her body was wracked with another cough, and she closed her eyes, lost to the waking world.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
So I really am the new monster, he thought as he knelt on the opposite side of Chara and checked for the dark mage's condition.
"She's still alive," Chara said, sitting back on her heels. Alster raised his head in time to see the lines in her brow furrow--in worry. Despite his determination to fight against the current source of suffering, in the end, he perpetuated more suffering--and ignored the one who suffered all her life. And now she lay, maimed and unconscious, on the ground.
Together, they lifted Lilica with care and carried her over to the medic's tent. They arrived just as Lilica's side wound gushed and spurted with blood. The medics received her with quick attentiveness and began immediate treatment of her injuries.
"How did this happen?!" demanded the head surgeon, dissecting the two Rigas casters with a probing eye.
"It was m--"
"Oh, it was just a row!" Chara nudged Alster in the ribs, silencing his confession. "A sparring session between two mages. A few miscalculations in the crossfire, but it was not of malicious intent."
When the medics shooed them out of the tent, Alster, with the last of his inner-fire, glared at Chara.
"I know that you feel responsible and guilty, but admitting your hand will not do us any favors," she explained with the verbal equivalent of a glare that was accompanied by a glare. "We can't have you arousing even more suspicion among the camp and among Messino and his men. Lucky for you, Lilica made the first move; they will suspect her to be the instigator and will exonerate you for reasons of self-defense."
"And what will happen with Lilica?"
Chara played idly with the mussed up portions of her shoulder-length hair. "You do undermine my influence. Since she attacked you, this is a Rigas matter. ...She is at my mercy."
After their brief discussion, Alster excused himself before Chara forced him to seek treatment for the mild burns on his feet and shins, where Lilica's earth-melting spell made contact with the skin and shredded the soles of his boots, and for the slices that the handling of her magic wrought on his hands.
"I need to go...for a walk. Don't wait up for me," he told Chara as he shuffled away, ignoring the pain of his feet and hands as he drifted through camp, aimless in his wanderings, his thoughts a tumult too busy to notice the stares he received on his path to nowhere. But the whispers--he heard them. They spoke their wonder. A chthonic Rigas mage. Their denial. He can't be a Rigas. They wouldn't keep him alive, otherwise. Their fear. Serpent. He's an agent of the Serpent. He used them in battle! They fought for him!
A Serpent...
He did not realize that his path led him to Elespeth until he nearly crashed into her. Through bleary eyes, he watched her stance open to him, to offer him undeserving condolences. Her concern was almost palatable. He tasted it on his tongue. And he wanted to sink into her arms, to drown in her gentle waves of compassion and to forget, if only for a moment, the corruption in his soul.
No. He retreated from Elespeth, however much it pained him to reject her desire to help. It was wasted on him.
"I'm sorry," he said, training his eyes to the ground. He couldn't find it in himself to look at her. "I promise to heal so you'll no longer hurt. But...I need to be alone right now."
He turned in the other direction and continued on his way. True to his word, he used a healing spell to soothe his burns and knit the tears in his skin. By then, an inexplicable weariness tugged at him, and carted him off to sleep.
He was a child. No more than the equivalent of six years old. A group of other children his age played with a ball of etherea in the vast courtyard of the Rigas estate. The ball floated over to him and he lifted it with magic, spinning the small celestial body around his finger like the rotation of a planet upon its axis.
"Can I play?" The other children exchanged uneasy looks, at both his question and his flippant show of skill.
One boy, the defacto leader of the group, scrunched his nose in disapproval. "No, Alster, we can't do that. It wouldn't be fair. You have too much magic; you'd always win."
"Oh." Alster dropped the ball. "Maybe next time?"
The boy snatched the ball in his hands and laughed. It cut and sliced and burned with jealousy. "That's not going to happen."
Alster threw up his hands. Chthonic magic bled through his fingertips, molding into twin serpents. They snatched the boys and constricted their bodies until they liquefied. Blood and skin oozed and cascaded into puddles at his feet. The ball of etherea faded and then vanished into star dust.
Alster grew in age. Now he was practicing a complex series of spells with Debine in the training grounds. While juggling whips of etheria over his head, one tendril snapped out of the line-up and dissolved in his hands.
"Alster!" His entire spell vanished at her admonition. "How many times have we practiced this form? Do you want to stay here all night, again!?"
"I'm hungry," he said, panting from the exertion of casting the spell several dozen repetitions in a row, without a break. "Can I at least have..."
"No. As far as I'm concerned, I won't give you a crumb unless you can perfect this spell."
"But--"
"That's my final word! Don't make me repeat myself. Now, again!"
He practiced until he fainted. Woke up in the morning, and practiced until his fingers cramped and he could no longer move them.
"I can't--"
"Well isn't that a convenient excuse!?" She seized his hand and observed the damage. "I see you have learned nothing, you miserable child. If you had been casting correctly, your hands wouldn't have cramped like this!"
"But I've been following everything you've taught me, Mother," Alster glanced at her with imploring eyes. "I promise."
"You dare question my teaching methods?!" Her grip tightened around his wrist. He flinched and tried not to cry from the pressure, from the deadly turn in her expression, and from the punishment that was nigh impending.
"N-no. I'm not." Blind panic shuddered out of his throat. "Please, I'm sorry. Just don't take me to--"
"It's a little too late for that." She dragged him to their apartments and unlocked the door to a small chamber in the far corner. Despite his pleas, she shoved him inside the dark, windowless room and secured the door tight. "You'll spend the rest of the day in isolation. That should give more than enough time for your fingers to recover."
The door flew open. Those same serpents ran themselves through Debine, spearing her with their serrated fangs, wringing her neck again and again and again. Her eyes bulged wide. Her skin turned white. She struggled to fight but her arms fell limp at her sides. Her neck snapped. Detached. And rolled with a dead thud to the floor. A new ball for the children.
The serpents ran rampant. They slithered through the estate, mutilating the bodies of every Rigas they encountered. Adalfieri sat upon his throne, a pile of gore and shattered bones. Valente's blood had painted the walls. Chara lay strewn about the hallway in pieces, her face contorted in hurt and betrayal. Meanwhile, those twin serpents had merged, had grown, had transformed, into the Serpent. It whipped its ponderous head toward Alster, who had grown to his current age, and it hissed a series of staccatoed laughs.
"Thank you, Alster Rigas," it sang as its black tongue flickered. "You have discovered your destiny. Your purpose. I am you. And I am yours to command."
Alster wielded the might of the Serpent, and sent the beast to find its next target. It trampled past the littered bodies of the Rigas estate, spilled into the streets of Stella D'Mare...
And found Elespeth standing there.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"There is still no telling when the next battle is to occur," the ex-knight was musing as she stood before the weapons tent with the tall mercenary. Those wretched weapons, bejeweled with gems the colour of the very blood upon which they drew to wield power, still occupied space where Elespeth was convinced they should be hidden from human eyes and hands, forever. "If we hide these too soon, suspicion will be roused... I daresay too much has already occurred, so far, to rouse suspicion."
While since recovered from Lilica's attack, the memory still lingered in Elespeth's mind, ringing in her ears like a song that she wished she could altogether forget. Though the actions taken by her comrades, out of their own, genuine concern... They would never leave her memory with a hole where they had once been.
"Thank you, by the way. Again." Turning, she flashed a smile in Haraldur's direction. "I hope it does not become a habit of necessity to pick me up, unconscious, from the ground... I suppose I'd do well to look out for mys--"
It was sheer irony, the pain that suddenly singed her feet and legs, like they were being burned. Fortunately, it was far more startling than debilitating, and the Atvanian fugitive merely sank to her knees in confusion. "My feet.... what in the world is going on?" Naturally, her first thought was to scan her surroundings, in search of caster (or at the very least, one particular caster, of the dark sort), convinced that her body was wracked with yet another spell.
Well, she wasn't entirely wrong. But this time, it was no fault of Lilica's. There wasn't even another caster to be seen, in an area predominantly reserved for the warriors.
"Gods..." She breathed, with the sudden realization upon removing one of her boots that her skin was in no way burned or marred. "Alster. Haraldur, I'm sorry... we'll reconvene later, but I fear something terrible is happening to Alster. I need to go find him."
Pulling her boot back onto her foot with a swift tug, the ex-knight took off, sprinting blindly through the encampment in search of her potentially wounded ally. Alster... what have you gotten into? Regardless of reasons, she owed it to him to be there, just as he had been there for her, in her dire time of need. And it could hardly spark her imagination as to just what could be burning him at his feet... Or, at least, she didn't want to ponder the considerations.
As usual, tracking the Rigas mage down was no easy feat. While conversing with the other Rigases, she didn't hesitate to interrupt the casual exchanges of Tivia and Danos, upon seeing them. "I need to find Alster. Do you know where he is?"
Of course, she should have expected that her request would be met with a snide countenance of haughty disgust, before the two returned to whatever it was they were discussing, ignoring her as if her voice were no more relevant than the wind in the trees.
So Elespeth decided to make her presence palpable and significant, and drew her sword, plunging it into the earth between the two Rigas mages. "I said, where is Alster?"
Tivia blanched, and Danos muttered something about having seen him head west of the encampment with Chara. It was about as good as the Atvanian fugitive would get, from those two. "Thank you." Without another word, she drew her blade from the rich yet infertile dirt, and hurried away, clenching her teeth against the phantom burn in her feet and hands.
When at last she found her battered companion, it was too late; at least, in that she was helpless to intervene in the battle that had already taken place and come to a close. Judging by the superficial wounds that the Rigas mage bore, she could only assume he had been th victor... So, then, who had lost? "Gods, Alster," Elespeth's breath escaped her in a rush of heavy relief. "What happened? I felt it... all of it." Taking him by the shoulders, she lowered the cadence of her voice. "Please, talk to me... Let me help."
But he wanted to be alone, and all the ex-knight could do was respect his request. She watched as he trudged off, looking exhausted and remorseful, and the young warrior couldn't help but wonder at the nature of that guilt. Lilica... did he...?
She didn't want to assume anything; Alster, despite his occasional impulse, was gentle. Whatever had struck him to be involved in an unnecessary battle would have had to be intense, unyielding...
Like revenge, fueled by a bond too deep to fully comprehend.
He was on her mind, that evening, when after much tossing and turning, she fell into a deep slumber...
...and found herself standing in a place that she did not recognize. Dark streets and tall, stone buildings, a handful of people dresse in equally unfamiliar garb. "Hello?" she cleared her throat. "Can anyone... possibly tell me where I am?"
But it was as though they could not hear her; as though they did not exist. And, moments later, it didn't matter, when they laid dead, bleeding, dismembered and mauled on the ground before her.
The giant serpent was merciless, taking out everyone in its path, bloodthirsty with rage. Elespeth felt helpless, watching the bodies fall, just seconds apart, paralyzed with fear as she was. What isis this monstrosity? Where did it come from, and what does it want with all of this spilled blood...?
And then it dawned on her.
"Alster..." Shaky but determined, the swordswoman's hand went for the blade at her side, without so much as looking away from the Serpent for a half-second. Her feet took two cautious steps backwards. "So you're the one who plagues him." She spoke to the Serpent, regardless of whether or not it could understand. "You drive him mad with guilt and past mistakes... There is no place in this world for the likes of you.
"Alster!" Blade firmly in hand, an poised to attack or defend, Elespeth called to her dear companion. "If you're here, I'm going to help you! I'll help you fell this beast, once and for all..."
But she wasn't confident that she could do it alone, with mere steel and skill.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But the great monster faltered. Not by her words, but by Alster's approach. He emerged from the wrought-iron Rigas Gate, since discarded into junk metal by the shadowy creature that now swerved and rocked to a rhythmical trance...in waiting. Alster's decaying eyes spotted Elespeth. He walked, slow and deliberate, towards her, gouts of blood drenching his forehead, arms, fingertips, and legs.
"Beast?" His voice trailed behind him like the remains of his victims: dismembered, drained, and dead. "I see no beast. This is me. Didn't you see what I've done? ...I am the Serpent."
The Serpent reared its impossibly long neck miles into the sky and its jaw opened, rending a tear into the heavens. Glass shards rained down in biting torrents, shattering on contact with the ground.
"Goodbye, Elespeth," he said, and the Serpent, with a galaxy lingering within its massive maw, careened towards earth--and swallowed her whole.
Darkness reigned absolute. Weightlessness traveled through a void that stretched to infinity. Time deconstructed and warped into something untraceable, illusory. Oblivion permeated without voice, without form, without light. Until--a small lone star flickered itself into being through the eternal fog of night.
"Hello?" The star trickled closer to Elespeth. "Is somebody there?" The star thrummed a warm, inviting light at Elespeth's side. Upon closer inspection, it was a ball of etherea, held in the hands of a child.
"I thought I was the only one locked inside this room." The child offered the ball to Elespeth. "Will you play? None of the kids want to, and Mother says I'm too special to dirty my hands."
When Elespeth accepted the ball, the child, with the light filtering a gentle glow between them and their locked hands, smiled. "My name is Alster Rigas. Thank you, Elespeth," his body evaporated, back into the ether, "...for being my friend."
The ball remained, and it pulsed variegated shades in her grasp. The light, in blues, greens, and purples, enveloped her with radiating wings. With a span that traversed eternity, the wings conveyed her through the void, through obliteration--and out of the Serpent's bottomless dungeon.
She returned to the incarnadine streets of Stella D'Mare, to where Alster conducted his symphony of carnage. In midst of the continued attacks, the Serpent writhed in panic as it coiled its tail over a gaping hole punctured through its vast trunk.
Alster watched the Serpent cease its operations before snapping his gaze to Elespeth. "How did you--?"
He took note of the ball of etherea she possessed. Confusion, much like the ceaseless blood, stained his face.
"Why do you have that?" With a flick, he wrenched it out of her hands and into his own. The magic used to create the ball was crafted with an inexperienced eye and as such, was lumpy and misshapen. Yet, it was made in earnest, by a child. By...him. It never found use and ended up in a mist of disseminated magic. But she...she uncovered it, and played with it--alongside a lonely, dejected child who only wanted...acceptance. Wanted it enough to unleash a Serpent. For, the only place where he thought he would ever belong was inside of a monster.
Streaks of hot water washed the blood off his cheeks. "Elespeth." He closed the distance between them, the ball rolling from his fingertips, to the ground. "I don't want to be a monster anymore." More tears glistened, burned at his eyes. The falling glass shards turned into rain, and washed away the blood, in small rivulets, from his body. He threw his arms around her waist and pulled her close, buying his head into her shoulder. "But that will never be." He trembled against her, his chest wracking in pained spasms. "We can't kill the Serpent. All we can do...is send it home."
The Serpent resumed its frenzied movements, thrashing at buildings as it roved about the city. Alster broke away from Elespeth and wiped the tears from his eyes, from the sky, and the rain stopped.
"We'll send it back," he repeated, straightening his shoulders with resigned composure. "Together." He glanced upwards at the torn fabric of their world and the Serpent that preyed beneath it, engulfing houses and people, desolating the mountain chunk by chunk, and quaking the earth into an apocalyptic slush.
He slid his hand over her own, over the hilt of her sword, and concentrated. He thought about the flow of his magic from inception to invocation, the formation of stars, the origin of the universe. He thought of different realms in the madness of creation and where, amongst the infinite, this creature belonged. He thought of his own origins, of the Rigas legacy, of his birth, the star of his namesake and that a part of him, too, floated weightlessly in the abyss of space.
Then he thought of the earth. Of himself. I. Me. Alster Rigas. And...Elespeth, at his side. Always at his side.
He opened his eyes and the power of the universe raged through him, entered her sword, and expanded, in a straight path, towards the Serpent.
"It's up to you, now!" He yelled, struggling to control the soul-rending intensity that coursed through him like a maelstrom the size of the Sun. "Shoot the energy from your sword at the Serpent. If successful, the beast will be sucked into the void above us!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
At one moment, she was somewhere; and, the next thing she knew, she was nowhere.
The darkness was palpable yet without texture, smothering despite that nothing touched her and she found no difficulty breathing. Sword still drawn, the former knight called out, hoping for an answer--from anyone, futile though it was in that somber, obsidian abyss.
That is, until a low star blinked into existence... accompanied by a voice.
"Hello?" She called back, sword still in hand as she approached the star... or, rather, the source of the light. "You're not alone. I'm here, too... well, at least, wherever here is... Do you know the way ou-"
The swordswoman's voice and breath caught in her throat as the face of a child approached her, a glowing ball of etherea in his hands--something she recognized from both Chara and Alster.
Not so strange, it seemed... considering the young, sorrowful face upon which she looked was Alster. A young Alster Rigas, meek and alone. The Alster she had never known, but about which she had learned from a much older, much more damaged Alster.
"I..." Elespeth cleared her throat, which felt very suddenly tight. "Of course. I'll play." With an outstretched hand, she caught the ball of etherea. The pulsing, vibrant energy felt warm and weightless in her hand. As did the hand that found her own... smaller, yet so familiar. "I know." She whispered, watching with a pang of sadness as he began to fade. "I know who you are, Alster... you know I will be here whenever you are in need."
The light from the etherea grew stronger, warmer, until it swallowed the light just as the dark had swallowed her. Elespeth was forced to close her eyes against its intense brilliance, and when they opened again, she was back where she had begun; before the Serpent, and the dear friend whose mind it had enslaved. Among the carnage, ankle-deep with blood, and raining glass from the sky. Try though she might to shield her face from the aerial assault, the former knight's face and limbs suffered tiny nicks and more severe lacerations. Only with her sword-arm was she able to shield her eyes, which beheld a startled and confused Alster... one much different from what she had just seen. "I got it..." She began, watching as he snatched it from her possession. "From you... you gave it to me, Alster."
And then she watched her friend transform. Hate melted from his face like wax in the hot sun, replaced with a look not dissimilar from that of his childlike counterpart. Tears from his very own heart cleansed his face of blood. I don't want to be a monster anymore...
"But you're not," she countered, not taking her eyes off of him for a second. "You never were..."
Arms outstretched, Elespeth welcomed her friend into her embrace, holding him close as his tears washed his face of incriminating blood. She didn't want to let him go. "I'm here, Alster. Whatever the adversary... you are not alone. Let's end this together."
His hand over her own felt warm, and warmer still as he concentrated energy into her weapon. Not so unlike what he had done before, in the early days of their training as a compound unit, only this was more than a show of strength or a rather fancy sleight of hand. Everything that Alster Rigas had, everything that he was, as a caster, a person, and the dearest of companions, was channeled into her weapon. All that was left was for her to reciprocate. "Not up to me," she corrected him. "Up to us."
The Serpent's attention was trained on the duo, its movements quick to react--but not quick enough. Elespeth steered her blade, point first, at the abomination's throat, just in time for it to come upon them, seeking to swallow whole the duo that so dared to oppose it.
And then, it exploded into shards of light... as if it had never been a corporeal being, to begin with, but merely essence of some malevolent energy. "Alster..." The Atvanian breathed, still warmed by the pressure of his hand. "I think we--"
That was when she opened her eyes.
Elespeth's brow was damp with beads of perspiration when she sat upright in her tent, breathing heavily, and feeling as though she had been running for her life as opposed to sleeping... It was late in the morning, and most of her comrade in the barracks were up and about, shooting her odd glances at her uncharacteristic tardiness to rise.
"Who'd have thought the overachieving mage-lover would be the last to rise?" Someone's snide remark stirred some laughter among the men, but fell completely deaf on her ears. No sooner did she realize she was awake, that the swordswoman kicked off her blankets and sprung out of her cot and out of the tent, as if running from whatever it was she had dreamt.
Or, rather... running towards it.
She didn't stop running, not even for food or water, until she found what--or, rather, who--she was looking for. Alster stood outside of his tent, similarly bleary-eyed, like the night's sleep had not allowed him the rest that he deserved. Elespeth paused a moment, long enough for their eyes to meet, before closing the distance between them, and pulling him into a tight embrace. "Alster..." She sighed, heedless of onlookers, their jeers, and whatever rumours might result from the scene. None of that mattered, and this moment belonged to them, alone. "I... everything... I'm so, so sorry." That child, with his wide, innocent eyes and sincere smile when she'd accepted his game, had branded himself in her memory, lending her a better understanding of the caster in front of her, who had already branded himself in her heart. "And I know that it isn't enough. But know that, no matter what, I'll be here when you need me; so let me be damned if ever I am not."
Late morning, in the medical tent, also greeted the open eyes of a particular dark mage. It was the first time that Lilica had lingered in the land of the conscious since Alster Rigas had struck her down, and frankly, she was surprised to find herself alive.
Surprise, but not exactly relieved.
As soon as she sat up, she realized it was too soon. The wound at her side screamed (and so did her voice), and her fingers found the texture of thread tying the gaping hole in her flesh shut. Bruises encircled her limbs like morbid jewelry, a reminder of the small serpents that had nearly taken her life by squeezing it out of her, and her torn clothing stuck to her skin in some places, adhered by dried blood.
Attendants of the tent realized she was awake. They were not oblivious to her brief scream of pain on sitting up, and yet, offered no explanation, no consolation, not ever any tonic for the pain. They want nothing to do with me. Frankly, it came as a surprise that they had chosen to help, at all.
Only moments into wakefulness, and already she was losing her patience.
"If you insist on ignoring me," she murmured, slinging her legs over the side of the cot, "then I will return to my tent and tend to my own pain."
Standing only shot pain through her body anew. Lilica gripped her throbbing side, and slowly made her way to the front of the tent, one careful step at a time.
Consequences of yesterday's actions nowhere near touching the front of her mind, the chthonic caster--whether or not it was advisable to be on her feet--took what was left of her well-being (if you could call it that) into her own hands, and set foot into the bright morning sunlight. Like yesterday, its brilliance hurt her eyes, more than she felt it should.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster opened his eyes and sprung from his cot, clutching the pounding persistence of his chest as his breathing tried to keep the pace. His insides flared and twisted, as if they had played host to a great cosmic force within himself. His stomach flipped and his tongue tasted of bile. The bile soon evacuated from him, puddling into his waste bucket. In the late morning light of day, it appeared blood-red in color. The color of a massacre...
Before he heaved another visceral reaction into the bucket, Alster stumbled from his tent, into the hum of the encampment at the height of activity. He stared forward, without seeing, but the shadows in his sight skulked from view, in case he too should target them with the madness of chthonic magic.
That's right. He lowered his eyes to the ground, wondering if the dirt, too, would feel threatened by his attention. They all fear me now. I don't blame them. I fear me...
He imagined the entirety of the camp as a victim of his wrath should it slip from his control. The tents smeared crimson, limbs hacked and innards splayed, the ground not soaked in alcohol, but with the blood of all his victims, and all those sightless eyes honed on him, only him, forever watching him fail and fall and lose himself...to himself.
He gripped his shoulders, hugging himself to combat the frost that had replaced the warmth of his lifestream, as if he were afflicted by Lilica's curse for the rest of his life.
Then, he felt a familiar presence place a hand of comfort upon his soul. He looked up and saw Elespeth, standing in wait, ready for him to notice--that he was not alone. That he never needed to be alone, so long as she was around, so long as their bond tied them close together, sharing their hearts. He stumbled closer, his chill abating, as she swept him into her arms, and cradled him tightly. Then, he remembered, and the memory impaled him like a spear to the gut: she featured in his horrible nightmare. In the dream, she made him realize...that he wasn't yet lost. That he could look into himself and see that bright ball of etherea, misshapen but shining with the light of a star, even amidst the fathomless abyss. That she would always fight with him, no matter the impossibilities, however bleak the battle, and stay at his side. Magic and sword united.
He closed his eyes to hide the mist that filtered over his vision, and enfolded his arms around her back. "No, I'm sorry...that you had to see my darkness. That I pulled you into such bleak, destructive energy. And I'm afraid...that it is who I will become. With Lilica, yesterday," he ventured, stiffening in her arms, "I felt justified in what I did--because she hurt you. But...not in the way I...not how I ended up using...there was only hatred. And I liked it. I would have killed her. I know I would have, if not for Chara." With great hesitation, he drifted away from Elespeth's embrace, and opened eyes that still misted. "I'm a liability. And I'm also selfish, because, despite everything that I am, I...want you here. You have more than enough reason to be afraid of me, and I won't fault you if you want to leave. But you...no matter what you end up doing," the smallest of smiles appeared on a face that glowed the color of dying embers, "you have my heart."
Chara lounged, as well as she could, on a chair with more hard angles cut into its surface than the inside of an iron maiden. Above her, an officer paced, his hands clasped behind his back in a position that feigned authority more than commanded it. The man simply tried too hard to convince Chara that he carried any clout or might with his unimpressive, likely ceremonial title.
"Your account does clash with that of other eye witnesses," the officer said, after his dramatic pause had spurred him into a fit of pacing. "According to them, these two mages fought with the intention to kill, or at the very least, seriously maim each other. Which, as we are both aware, has already occurred."
In turn, Chara shrugged. This officer was no magic-user. Time to take advantage of his ignorance. "Chthonic users lack subtlety. Every attack in their hands looks like a death threat." She waved a disinterested hand in the air. "I can vouch for the state of both casters at the time of the incident. And, should anything of the sort happen in the near future, you may hold me personally responsible. After all, chthonic magic in the hands of a Rigas caster is an uncommon development and we Rigases are overseeing his progress with the proper care it so deserves." She planted both feet on the ground, ready to rise from the eyesore (among other sores) of the offending chair. "As for the dark mage, Lilica, we absolve her of guilt. While she struck first, our Rigas mage was clearly the victor. Her ultimate failure in the face of our perfection is punishment enough and our pride will not allow any further action in this case." With one last look at the inexperienced officer, she bounded across the tent, placing a hand on the flap. "Should you have additional questions, you know where to find me. I shall dismiss myself."
As she departed, she opted for the longer route to her tent, for reasons that planted a soft sigh on her lips. Lilica. She didn't much understand, herself, but she found it her obligation to track the dark mage's progress, despite, or perhaps because of, recent developments.
When she came upon the medical tent, her sigh transformed into an annoyed groan. Of course the damnable chthonic caster would flee the scene, even with a gaping wound at her side! Without thought for her current regard for Lilica, she bounded to the entrance of the tent, her legs pumping with a fury that her eyes reflected.
"You!!" She pointed an accusatory finger at Lilica. "Back in the tent! I will not have you wandering this encampment as if yesterday never happened! I've invested in your life. So do right by this second, no, third chance and go inside. Right now!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth held tightly her caster companion, and shook her head against his self-doubt. She had never agreed with his own self-perceptions, but now... now, she understood why it bothered him, so. The foundations were all clear, and whether or not she believed him--that he would have killed Lilica, had Chara not intervened--did not matter. What mattered was that he himself believed it, and it was up to her to convince him otherwise.
Alster Rigas was no monster. Monsters could not show remorse. Monsters could not cry.
"If wanting to keep your comrades as safe as possible makes you selfish, then I am far worse than you are." Pulling away just enough to hold the Rigas mage gently by the shoulders, the culpability in his eyes bruising her rapidly beating heart. "Alster... I know that what you did, you only did out of concern or respect for me. It might not make make it right, but it is far different from Lilica's unsolicited assault. That was unprovoked, unjustified, and without remorse... I think we can both agree on what a real monster looks like."
It was nothing personal against Lilica--well, not entirely--and yet the accusation on the part of the dark mage (or, at least, an assumption as to what had inspired her intentions) left a bitter taste on the tip of the Atvanian fugitive's tongue. Was it really within her rights to call Lilica a monster? Certainly, her actions were not to be excused, and yet... yet she had seemed so off, that evening. Not entirely herself, but as if her mind (and intentions) had been somewhere else, entirely...
But did that make her a monster? After everything she had already done to help Alster? No more than Chara was a monster, perhaps, by that definition.
Pushing all thoughts of the dark mage aside, Elespeth shook her head, as if in an attempt to dispel the experience of that awful encounter. "Alster, I have said it before and I will say it again." Leaning in, she pressed her forehead to his. "I am not leaving, and I am not afraid of you. And I don't know what sort of fool I would be to walk away from... from arguably the most genuine person I have met in my lifetime." Grinning, she added, "You have my loyalty and my dedication, Alster Rigas." And maybe more... "Indefinitely."
Interestingly, Lilica appeared to harbour a similar sort of loyalty, but it was not towards Alster. And it took even her by surprise.
The sudden presence of Chara Rigas, followed by her commandeering outburst, very nearly put the dark mage into cardiac arrest--at least, that was how it felt, when she was forced to stagger back, clutching at her injured side and forcing measured breaths into her lungs. For a moment, she felt tempted to retaliate, give the haughty blonde a piece of her sharp, albeit exhausted mind... until she realized she hadn't the energy, nor the strength for that. And, in addition, she just wasn't up for another fight. Not so soon. And not with Chara.
Lilica held up the hand that wasn't clutching her side. "I'm only going as far as my own tent..." She ventured to explain, her voice oddly calm and even in the face of Chara's fury. "I need something for the pain... all of my supplies are with my belongings. If you're so concerned, you can walk me there."
But that wasn't going to be enough; not for steadfast Chara Rigas, and all her dire conviction. She needed to level with her on an entirely different playing field. "When you were drunk out of your mind, I ensured your pride by removing you from the curious eyes of the rest of this camp... Now, I need to ask you to do the same, for me."
In truth, the dark mage hadn't expected it to work, especially not after her last encounter with the celestial Rigas caster. How was she to appeal to her sentiments on a deeper level when Chara no longer trusted her (and for damn good reasons)? And yet, somehow... somehow, she managed to convince her to step to the side, and to let her pass. Not without following at the pace of a single step behind, but that was just fine... considering she was not convinced that she could make it all the way back to her tent without stumbling. It wouldn't take much significant jarring to tear open that wound at her side a third time.
Ultimately, the dark-haired caster managed to remain on her own two feet without incident, and crossed the threshold of her dreary, private tent. But as soon as she saw the opportunity to sit on her cot, she took it, relieved not to be standing. "That jar... the brown one. Please pass it, here." It shouldn't have surprised her that the celestial Rigas mage followed her inside. For whatever reason, good or bad, she appeared not to trust to take her eyes off of her for the time being. "It's a salve I concocted to speed healing and dull pain... I'm fine, I just need some relief. Though why you have chosen to invest in a life such as my own evades me... you know that I have nothing to offer you, or yours."
Taking the jar from Chara with a murmured 'thank you', Lilica applied a generous amount of salve to her wound, the skin held together only by thread, and carefully eased the rest of her body onto her cot, mindful of the already-receding pain. It was strange, how she had done little more than sleep for four days straight, and yet felt as though she could nod off again if she closed her eyes. The chthonic mage was paler than usual, with a gauntness to her bone structure from having eaten nothing in over half a week, but otherwise there was nothing to suggest she wouldn't make a full recovery. As soon as the dregs of her own dark magic turned against her finally dissipated.
"...are you staying because you're waiting for me to apologize?" Noticing Chara had yet to leave, she turned her head to the side on her pillow. "Because I can't think of anything else to say, other than I have regrets... that hasn't changed." If only she knew that she had let Alster's final attack take effect, that she could have stepped out of the way at the last second... but that she had chosen not to, for the guilt that still resonated under her skin.
Would that have changed Chara's opinion? Or would she merely think her an even bigger fool?
It was then that the dark mage made yet another split second decision.
Moving her arm, she offered her hand, palm up. "If you're not leaving, then let me show you something." Either way, her eyes were tempted to close, and she didn't wait for the blonde Rigas's decision before she felt herself drifting... to a place that she tried to hard to avoid. A truly futile effort, on her part.
When she opened her eyes again, she was no in her cold and dismal tent, but somewhere far warmer, with sun and the scent of flora, not mud and sweat, in the air.
And, sure enough, Chara was there with her, they the only two people around in what appeared to be a quiet village disturbed by nothing, not even the elements. Shops of stone and wood bordered streets inlaid with stone, wild flowers growing between the cracks. At the heart of the market square was a still fountain, pollen floating upon the water. On a nearby hill, not too far away, appeared to consist predominantly of private residences, big and small and sporadically spaced. A place that had never seen war... and certainly not the darkness that Lilica carried in the very essence of her being.
Seeing it again, she wanted to smile. But she couldn't. "This is where I spent decades and decades of my life," she explained, moving freely down the road, unhindered by injury. "I worked as an herbalist. I never saw war, massacre... I didn't have to hide. I didn't have magic." Stepping to the side of the fountain, she looked at her reflection in the calm waters. "There's no one here now; my 'life'--if that's what you want to call it--ended, here, and everyone in it also appeared to vanish. But it's still a brand on my memory. I come here when I need to get away. It's lonely now, but... quiet. Warm. Nothing can hurt me, and I can't hurt anything. What else could I ask for in a more perfect existence?"
Lilica straightened, then, turning away from her solitary reflection to face Chara. "I'm... not really sure why I am showing this to you. No one's ever seen it, before. No one else knows." She searched the Rigas mage's face, as if it held the answers she sought. "I don't know if I wanted another pair of eyes here to confirm it was--is--real, or to shatter it forever as the illusion that it is. Because that's all it really ever was; an illusion. A beautiful dream. But I had to wake up; we all do, don't we?"
Curling her hands into fists, she forced herself to smile. It was almost painful. "I guess I just want you to decide for me. If I should keep retreating, or put this behind me forever, and accept my reality. I need you to... to help me. Just one, last time, and I will never bother you again. Chara..." With a bold step forward, she grasped the celestial caster by the arms. "I need you to shatter this. You have the boldness, the abrasion... If you don't, then I fear I will forever continue to retreat to this place, and I'll never accept my place in reality. So shatter me, Chara Rigas; shatter me and all of this, just as you could shatter anyone else. I'm not asking you for kindness, now..." In which case, it shouldn't be difficult.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She said not a word as she practically stepped on Lilica's heels en route to her tent. Once inside, she gripped the jar at the chthonic mage's request and about threw it onto her waiting hands. "I am overseeing this operation of yours, oh blighted one," she sputtered in explanation, leaning an elbow against the chair where Lilica worked on the rupture at her side. "As far as I am concerned, every little move that you make will fall under suspicion. I cannot afford to take my eyes from you...especially now." The statement fell under hushed lips, but carried their intent over to the only other soul in the tent with the ears to listen. "Do not mistake my preservation of your integrity and your life as a selfless act of generosity. It is for the honor of the Rigas name that I spoke on your behalf. I invest because I must, not because I see you as someone worth saving." Vitriol consumed her speech, but it, like much of Chara's personality in the eyes of the public, felt affected. Nothing but hollow theatrics to sate the crowd--and herself.
With crossed arms, she resumed her feigned disinterest as she watched the dark mage apply her concoction in thick, gooey layers over her injury. May it bleed forever, the vitriol spat. May it heal well, the bleeding-heart wished.
"Yes, I do want you to apologize! To them!" Her arms bulged from the tensing of her muscles wrung across her chest. "Just because you can think of nothing to say does not mean you should disregard your connection to common human decency. It is what separates you from vile scum. From monsters. Though," she dropped her arms in order to alleviate the strain, "I must admit, there is a certain poetic justice in witnessing your own magic, your own hatred, used against you, and for that, I must commend Alster, however much he's beaten himself senseless over what he has done." She glowered down at Lilica, who, in her seat, appeared as a harmless, groveling insect. "So, how am I to reason that the 'regret' you feel is legitimate? That it is not a tool in the arsenal of your dark manipulation?"
As if in response to her interrogation, the dark mage upturned her hand and beckoned her closer. "This had better not be a trick." With a mollifying intake of breath, she reached over and touched Lilica's hand.
Instantly, the tent, their entire environment, sloughed away like a serpent's skin to reveal a verdant idyll dwelling beneath its surface. Everything, from the cobbles in the streets to the bounce of the flowers in the breeze screamed a perfection too real to exist. In fact, it jarred her how the hamlet, so untouched by hardship, stood before her like pictures in a book: flat, lifeless, and imaginary. Surely, if she touched the quaint shop-front beside her, it would crumble like paper in her hands.
"What did I tell you about manipulation?!" She demanded as she turned her heels on Lilica in time to see a wave of sentimentality wash her face into a sickening sheen. "Where have you taken me?"
All had revealed itself to Chara. So, this was where the mage had skittered from reality for the span of a lifetime? With a frown that bordered on disgust, she followed Lilica down the polished stone road to linger beside the fountain that glittered an impossible blue, highlighted by the bask of a sun that appeared never to have blazed an oppressive wave of heat a day in its creation.
"This is where you spent your days?" Chara swiveled her hand through the water in the fountain, watching the ripples dispose of and engulf the slimy top-layer of pollen. "Please. You are sounding just as saccharine as Alster. This hovel is like a painting on a mausoleum. This is where one goes to die. Not to live."
Then, Lilica revealed her true intentions, her plans for the fate of the village, and Chara spun around to regard her, disbelief working her jaw ajar. "You wish me to destroy this pitiful illusion?" As much as the entire environment branded itself an eyesore in her perceptions, she hesitated in the deed. Was she fit, or even qualified, to annihilate the dreams of another? But when the mage grappled her by the arms, and those eyes, brimming with a desperation, with guilt, met with her own, she knew what needed to happen.
"You insult me." She tore away from Lilica's hold. "You imply that I am some masterful destroyer of dreams." As if to confirm, thoughts of how she had shattered Alster's hope so long ago, and watched those eyes flicker into darkness, tugged at the tender center of her soul. A long, resigned sigh expelled from her lungs.
"Gladly," she said, after a minute pause. "If this wanton act will connect you to our reality and to the responsibilities that you owe to our world, then I shall slay this paper playground of yours. Besides, I look forward to leveling this atrocious place," she cracked her knuckles and grinned, "with great relish."
Paper. It was all paper. And paper is simple to ignite. Too simple.
With a snap of her fingers, her entire hand burst into hungry flames. She thrust it at the stem of the fountain, which began to gush fire. Like a red-orange-yellow geyser, the variegated stream spiraled towards the sun and traced the sky. Holes burned above them, inviting images of what lay beyond the thin filter upon which they were inked: the tent they had left behind.
She continued with the assault. With a frenzied stomp, she tore the ground into shreds. The willowy grasses, the lazy flowers that had nodded to their own tune, lacerated themselves to pieces. The fire above them had burned out the sun, eradicated the azure sky into a dull, muddy gray, and raged across the hilltops. Each lick carved out the wood and stone houses as if they were sand, and left behind ash and soot, which scattered into the village. A gale whipped through the main thoroughfare, reaching the fountain square, crackling the illusion into a wrinkle, a lightning-shaped tear, a fissure with the shallow depths of home. Of reality.
Finally, the fire blazed through the village, decimating each building with the ease of kindling, unleashing itself to the streets, eating, feasting, leaving no leftovers of its dinner.
The fountain, the last holdfast of illusory peace, surrendered to the breaking of the world...and collapsed.
They, Chara and Lilica, collapsed with it...
And found themselves back inside the tent, in the ugly, muddy, sun-baking war-torn misery of their reality. And Chara couldn't be happier to return. It was imperfect, and frequently unbearable, but it was her home. Their home.
Chara squeezed an inviting pressure against Lilica's hand, to ascertain their connection, to assure that they didn't escape into a doppelganger version of the encampment. But the ground was stable, and she did not feel flattened against a page of a book of fanciful creations.
With a side-turn, she ventured to look at Lilica, and though she first denied it, concern dominated every emotion in her head. Try as she might, she could not banish the pesky feeling to whence it came.
Instead, she released it--outward. Towards Lilica.
"Did I...overdo it? Will you...will you be well?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lilica D'Or watched with attentive and remorseful eyes as the only world to which she had ever felt she'd belonged burned up in front of her, like dead leaves amid a forest fire.
This had been her life, once; those streets, the shops, the glens, the fountain, the houses and flowers... all of it. At one point, there, she'd had a purpose. At one point, she had loved, and had been loved. At one point, she had been a herbalist, part of something bigger, and contributing to a wider body of people. A community...a home.
This had been her life for over seventy long years. And all of a sudden, it was burning up, destroyed as though it were made of paper.
I never could have done this myself... Never. She had needed Chara to do this, as painful as it was to witness.
The small spot on the market where she had concocted salves and tinctures to alleviate symptoms disintegrated in seconds. Strange, how the wood and stone that had held it up had once seemed so sturdy, so impenetrable. This entire landscape had once been impenetrable, by every meaning of the word, for while the Rigas caster had claimed it was little more than a mausoleum, it had been nothing less of a peaceful sanctuary for Lilica. A place where she had learned what it felt like to laugh, and why laughter was important. Why kindness was necessity. She had even felt like she had been cherished, and not by one, but many, fiends and lovers alike. Here, she had been whole. Even if that version of whole was little more than an illusion.
Her world, her safe haven, her sanctuary gradually turned to ash at her feet. No... please, stop it..., she wanted to cry out, but refrained and allowed Chara to finish the job, setting everything alight with her well-earned fury.
She should have said goodbye to this place long ago, when she'd awoken once again to reality. This, from the evasion of this goodbye and the pain that would ensue, had been long overdue. But now, it was time, and the result was permanent.
The dark mage opened her eyes with a start.
Consumed by a spell of vertigo, she fell forward and caught herself with one arm on the bed, dark hair free of its brain and hanging around her face like a curtain. Nausea threatened to take advantage of her weakened state, but the feeling mercifully passed moments later. Only when she was sure she would not find the room spinning around her like a top did she dare look up, and into Chara's face, which betrayed concern. A curious contrast for someone who, with gusto, had just destroyed... just destroyed...
"I don't... I can't remember." Lilica's dark eyes stared without seeing at the dreary tent wall, as her mind scrambled to comprehend what had just come to pass. "I mean... I know what happened, what you just did, but... Everything is so... dark. Shapeless, blurry... I know I've forgotten something. I just don't know what it is I've forgotten."
She struggled to recount memories, anything from her time during those seventy-something years that she had not walked among the living and awake. It was not lost on her that all those years of her miserable life had been sacrificed to some ridiculous and unattainable dream. But the details, the images... everything about it was just gone, as if her memories of the place had burnt up with the very fabric of its fragile existence.
And, in the wake of this cognitive purge of sorts, Lilica was left with a feeling of... well, for lack of a better word, emptiness. The feeling of a weight lifting, something that used to be there, but that resided no longer. Connections, feelings, that no longer made any sense, as the memory of the source of their existence had been removed, severed from the rest of her neural pathways. As if there had been paved a place for frivolous sentiments, such as love and joy, but those spaces were void and shapeless, and she couldn't recall what it meant to feel anything that they had once contained.
In a matter of moments, her dream had become a dream, in and of itself. And in its ashes, it left behind a nothingness that clung to her skin like a damp cold.
Brushing her hair from her eyes, she was startled to find that she was, in fact, cold to the touch. "This... this was necessary. I thought my closure was when that imaginary life came to an end... the truth is, I never did have that closure. Just a... a longing, I guess. For what I don't feel anymore. I don't even know what it was I felt..." As the back of her hand grazed her face, something wet came away on her knuckles. For fear it was blood, she examined her fingers, only to find them stained with water.
No, not with water. With tears.
"I know you must find me deplorable, remorseless. But know this: I do understand the source of Alster's pain and uncertainty." Brushing away what remaining tears wet her face, the chthonic caster finally turned her attention to Chara. "It is difficult, knowing not only that you do not belong, but why you do not belong, and that you cannot do anything about it. In my unique case... I suppose I simply endeavoured to create that space for myself. A shame that it was never real... It probably wasn't even worth the memories." The years and years' worth of memories that she had once thought she cherished, now nothing but blurry, fleeting images that left imprints she could hardly discern.
But it was all for the better--wasn't it? "It's strange... I feel as though I've done nothing but sleep for the past four days, prior to and after Alster turned my own magic on me," she mused aloud. "But.... I think I should rest, some more. I won't keep you any longer with visits into planes of my mind that don't concern anyone but myself. Just... close the flaps at the front, when you leave. It's gotten cold in here." Though it always had been; she simply minded it all the more, now.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Operating without the permission of her greater cognizance, she pulled out a water flask strapped to her belt and offered it to the mage. "Here," she grumbled, shoving the tin container in her face, "drink." Once the distraught mage stabilized enough to voice her opinions on the obliteration of her dream, Chara hunkered on the cot beside Lilica, feeling a pang of something knocking at the inside of her chest. Reservations, second thoughts...guilt. Perhaps it was not the most sound idea, to blindly agree to conspire against and rally for the destruction of Lilica's inner sanctum--however much her thirst to harm the mage had guzzled up the entire scenario like a fine wine. False or not, if the eradication of Lilica's "previous life" engendered memory loss and emotional confusion, then Chara may have, without truly realizing it, caused irrevocable damage.
And it was impossible to rebuild the same sand castle when it had already dissolved into the water. All that one could do was build a sturdier version in the space beyond dreams. In the present. In the now.
"I'm not going to pretend I know the extent of which you lost," she stared at her feet, clicking together her heels to avoid an eye contact she was not yet ready to face, "but I do know that you cannot live two lives at once. One will always conquer the other. And the life that you chose, that you so desperately clung to in that impossibly perfect village...it has already ended. You were chasing not just a dream, but the ghost of a dream. In other words, your actions were absolutely pathetic. Alas," she sighed, and established eye contact with those morose voids that threatened to instill their emptiness inside of her, "a pathetic being cannot be a remorseless one; otherwise, she would not elicit sympathy."
As she rose from the cot, batting the tent flaps to a close, she turned back around, her feet as quiet as the hushed darkness that had swallowed the two whole. "Go and rest, Lilica." She settled down on the chair, crossing her legs in an attempt to reach her desired level of comfort. "And I will stay until you fall asleep--as you have done for me, once."
"Well, well. You have certainly made a mess of my camp, as of late."
Messino, surrounded by four of his elite guard, two of which harnessed magic of their own, sat behind his desk. With hands clasped neatly in place, he regarded the Rigas caster before him with a practiced, albeit thin, veneer of politesse--though he could not hide his sneer.
"Alster Rigas. The entire camp knows now of your dire chthonic casting capabilities. And here I thought I was doing you a service by keeping your confessions to secrecy. I was hoping to use this information as leverage should you or your family fall out of line. Well," he shrugged, rolling his shoulders until they popped, "no matter. For, I found an alternate method through which I will demand your cooperation.."
"Are you looking to blackmail me?" The glass in Alster's voice would cut a lesser man bloody with its lashing menace. Messino bounced away the stabbing question with the simple wave of his hand.
"If that is how you wish to interpret my generous offer, though I see it as an incentive. A reason for you to fight. If I may explain the situation in full," he leaned forward in his chair. "Atvany threatens our armies. There is no question that Tadasun will employ their forces in this upcoming battle. It would be troublesome," he lowered his voice to a meaningful whisper, "if they happened to uncover a certain Atvanian fugitive amongst our ranks." Messino smiled when the Rigas brat clamped his jaw in a bid to tamp down the unmitigated fury that painted his aura black. "Tell your beloved partner to keep away from my weapons and we shan't have a problem."
"Is that all?" The caster spoke through his teeth, all grinding and little vocalization.
"Of course not. This part involves you and another companion of yours." Messino raised his eyes to the guard stationed by the inside flaps of the tent. "You may bring her forth."
Alster's glare intensified when two guards from outside ushered Lilica to stand beside him--an additional sacrifice to Messino's twisted vision.
"Ah." Messino clucked his tongue in approval at Lilica's arrival. "My two chthonic casters in one place. I understand that you are at odds with each other, but for this battle, I need you to work together--to devastate Atvanian troops. You, Rigas," he pointed to the dark mage, "follow her lead. I am certain we can level a vast army if we add a little fuel to their kindling. I expect flames and your shadow puppets of death. And of course," he gestured to the soldiers present in the cluttered tent-space, "you will not be without guidance. Think of the men in here as your advance guard. They will keep you safe." A toothy smile punctuated his words. "...and on task."
At their dismissal, Alster's footfalls sounded like iron upon the ground. His entire vision spotted in red. Red, like droplets of blood, like the split in Lilica's side when he reopened her injury several days ago. Like the split he could have rent in Messino's body, from skull to spine. Just a flick of the hand, and he would conduct the earth to writhe with him, and to kill with him...
He glanced sidelong at the dark mage, narrowing his focus, commanding his baser urges to redirect their energies to reason, not rage. And somehow, he found that source of calm within Lilica. Within those sockets of emptiness lay a vacuum where nothingness presided...
He took a regenerative breath, rerouting his priorities, and lessened the strain of his fingers that carved half-moon shapes into his palms.
"I know what he's doing," he said to Lilica in a shaky whisper as they gained distance from the oppressive tent. "By placing us together, he wants us to tear each other apart. We're too dangerous and unreliable for his long-term plans. He wants our power, but he also wants us dead without having to lift a finger to do it himself...and without inciting the anger of the Rigases." He paused in order to direct a covert look over his shoulder. As expected, the guards had followed them since their departure from Messino's tent, trailing from a distance. "I'll work with you, Lilica. I don't, nor will I ever forgive you, but if it's to prevent a disastrous outcome, I need for us to cooperate."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
On the contrary, the laceration had ceased to bleed, and sure enough, the thick, grey salve that she applied and reapplied day after had had sped the process of recovery such that it had already begun to form a scar. And while it still made her cringe, days layer, to lift her arm above her head, feeling the sutures tug the healing flesh in painful directions that it protested, it was nothing compared to the throbbing ache of a new emptiness at the pit of the dark mage's core. A place where something--something precious, something cherished--had once been, but that now no longer resided. No longer existed.
She could no longer remember what it was, or what significance it had held, but she felt its absence. And it throbbed like a brand new bruise.
Although she had not taken the small act of kindness lightly, and had in fact been surprised at Chara's insistence at remaining at her side until she fell asleep that day, Lilica had not sought out the celestial mage since. Neither had she sought out any of the other Rigas casters, or any certain soldiers who may or may not have had relations with the former. The chthonic mage instead kept to herself, kept out of trouble, and attempted to focus on healing, inside and out.
A feat which proved to be no easy task, when the only safe haven she had ever known was gone forever, without even a trace of memory. Whenever she reached for remnants, she was greeted only with blackness and confusion. What was it she was missing? Why did she know so much about herbs and their medicinal properties? Why did she long to take a seat beside a decorative fountain, when she couldn't ever recall having actually come across one in her life?
She didn't know--and at this point, she probably never would. All that was left was to ignore the empty void inside of her, like a starving man would ignore the sharp pangs of desperate hunger. Because every time she reached for answers, she was met only with the swirling darkness of her own confusion, and dwelling on that only made the skies seem more somber.
It, perhaps, did not help matters that on a day when she was overburdened with regret for the request that she had turned in Chara Rigas's direction, a pair of commanding officers approached her tent, and flushed her out into the blinding sunlight. "His Highness would like an audience with you," one towering man informed her. He was rewarded with an obsidian look of annoyance that made him want to recoil.
"Well," Lilica murmured, standing from her cot, "he certainly has a rude way of going about it." But she knew better than to draw attention to herself through defiance, and reluctantly left, resisting the urge to turn her own flesh to acid and burn off the hands of the men who took her by her forearms, as if they expected her to run.
This couldn't be good.
The chthonic caster was convinced this must have been about the skirmish between herself and Alster Rigas, the moment she saw her magical counterpart standing before Messino with his own accompaniment of guards. It came as something of a surprise, therefore, when the topic never arose--and instead the Mad Prince suggested the ludicrous idea that she and Alster work together. Perhaps that in and of itself was its own punishment, and Messino was simply being crafty in its deliverance...
Regardless of his intentions, neither she nor the Rigas mage was allowed a moment to comment, before they were dismissed. Frankly, Lilica was too tired to care to unleash her own vitriol or opposition, and had no inclination to stand next to Alster for longer than she was required. She had already turned her back, dark hair gliding behind her in a curtain, when the Rigas caster demanded her attention.
Spinning on her heel, she turned a critical eye to the speaker. "First of all, little Rigas, I know dark powers far more intimately than you. Do not think for a second that Messino's ill intentions haven't crossed my mind... Neither of us has made it into his favour. But he won't be rid of us without taking advantage of what we have to offer. And secondly... secondly..."
The vitriol that she'd thought she hadn't the energy to fuel suddenly bubbled to the surface, accompanied by an upsurge of boldness. "Do not for one moment attempt to frame your so-called 'cooperation' as a favour to me." An accusing finger jutted forward and prodded Alster square in the chest.
"I don't care about your forgiveness, or lack thereof, because I despise you. Yes, I have killed, and killed terribly, but so have you. I have darkness--I live darkness, but so do you. I have wronged, horribly, unforgivably, but so have you. We are not so unalike, Alster Rigas, not in the slightest, and yet you... you still belong. To your blasted family, to your betrothed whom you hardly deserve, and to that wench of a warrior who follows you like your shadow. You belong somewhere, to someone. You are forgiven again and again, you are cared for unconditionally!" The last word was enunciated with vigor and passion that lined her pale face. "And I... I am always the malice. I always will be, and as such, I am undeserving of unlimited forgiveness and unconditional camaraderie. Because no matter what atrocities you might commit, we will never be comparable in the eyes of others."
The thoughts that demanded to be voiced came out in a rush, before she could think it through, before she could muster the reason to stop them. The bombardment brought a tinge of colour to her cheeks, heated as they were with jealousy for Alster Rigas and everything he had, and only the astonishment on his face was enough to give her pause to step back. "And for all of that, I shouldn't care a hint for whatever outcome any of this might have. I've got nothing to lose, and your losses should mean nothing to me. And yet... and yet I do care, and so be it. You will have my cooperation in this. This, but nothing more." Unconsciously, she clutched at her injured side. It still hurt; just not as much as the emptiness inside of her, and the bewilderment that sought to fill the void.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Never. They would never find satisfaction. Because their protests came not through reason, but through hatred. And with the catalyst to Lilica's magic full on display, Alster almost wanted to siphon the feeling that made him lose his control the last time he took from her, so to experience that black energy at the height of its manifestation. I want your hatred. So that I may know how to combat it, and not accept it. Always, always, always, I accept, but I never fight.
Instead, he absorbed a different feeling, weaker than hatred yet borne inside his own life-blood, that burned at his throat and twitched at his mouth. Whether as a result of their audience with Messino, Lilica's vocal contempt, or both, Alster did not indulge in his benign, bootlicking disposition.
"Despise me?" His eyes narrowed into slits of ice and fire. "Believe me, you're not the first person to tell me so. That's one more thing we have in common. Despised by many. But not by all." He snatched her finger and twisted it away from his chest. "You don't belong because you feel undeserving of belonging. You said it, yourself. So," the tension in his muscles returned, "do not paint me as the obstacle standing in your way to acceptance when you were the one to walk away from it. Chara...," he lingered on the name, "she has never accepted an outsider the way she has accepted you. And, this may not mean much, but I accepted you. Little did I know, I didn't belong in your headspace because--why? Two people view me with a touch of self-worth when two people were already extending that same feeling to you!?"
He worked his feet from the ground, closing their distance with a small step that trembled as he slid it forward. "I am deplorable. Reprehensible. Disgraced. I don't deserve forgiveness, love, or acceptance. But I'm starting to realize that it's not my choice whether people decide to love and care about me. All I can do in return is respect their faith in me and ask them for forgiveness. ...Do you?"
With the dip of his head, he tried to shake away the remnants of the ire that lingered like cinders on his body. He had more urgent matters to address than that of a heated response to envy.
"I'll contact you later. I have a pressing matter to see to, but," a reluctant sigh hummed from his throat, "thank you for your aid, Lilica."
As he drifted from the dark mage's view, Alster quickened his pace. He meandered through a small crowd and traveled in an upstream route, taking tent-made alleys and squeezing through narrow spaces so as to gain a head start from the eyes assigned to watch him. The more his legs pumped, the faster his heart thrummed against his chest, and with it, that enduring anger revitalized itself as a hammer blow to his rib cage.
Messino. He had anticipated their every move and planned a counterattack in each corner. Boxed. They were boxed and Alster sat in the middle of that box, stretched in two opposite directions. On one end: Elespeth. By cooperating with Messino, he claimed her safety--however dubious the claim. On the other end, the Rigas family. Chara. By destroying the enchantment on the reanimated weapons in battle, he would deliver a guaranteed blow to Messino and his army. He already had exposed his fears about the discovery of his precious weapons' collection--and they could not ignore that vital piece of information.
Whatever the case, he needed to reach Elespeth. To convince her to leave. To devise a scheme, any scheme, to remove her from the war so that he would not have the burden of choice. So that he would not have the burden of losing her...for good.
Thoughts of that morning, the morning after his awful nightmare, unfolded in his mind. When he thought of the way her forehead pressed them together, the way her breath stirred a warm breeze against his face, the way he yearned to connect their lips in that moment when she whispered "Indefinitely" and the world dropped into his stomach, he knew that he was bound to her, blood oath or not. Losing her...would kill him.
He found her near the weapons' tent, and relief stopped his breath short. They had not yet apprehended her, or chained her in a tent for safe-keeping. She wandered free to the naked eye, but he could not deny the extended chains that linked her back to Messino.
He hurried to her side, grabbed her arm, and dragged her into an abandoned barracks tent.
"He...knows." His words floated, between pants, between breaths that failed to hold him together. "He knows who you are. He plans to arrest you. Guards...following me. We need to find you a way out. You need to leave, now! Or..."
Or...
That's right, Lilica. If you are so undeserving of forgiveness...then so am I. I live darkness...like you.
A small eruption churned from the earth and gushed a black substance into his waiting hands. "Or I'll kill you, myself. I'm an expert at killing loved ones. It's only a matter of time before I do." The oily substance slithered around his arms, forming ugly heads with slime dripping like venom from their pinioned fangs. "...Why wait?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"All of them returned... how is this?" The swordswoman's heart dropped to her stomach as her eyes fell upon the walls and walls of bejeweled blades and arrows, all which she had thought had been meticulously hidden just the night before. They had been scattered beyond the perimeter of the encampment, buried, tossed away, hidden out of sight. It had taken her nearly all of the night, and the dark half-moons under her eyes were a badge of her hard work, along with the deep-seated exhaustion that reached her very bones. There was no plausible way each and every one of the blasted things could have been found and retrieved unless...
Unless she had been followed. Unless Messino had finally caught onto her ploy.
She had to warn Haraldur. If this was the case, then he was likely as vulnerable as she, and the gods only knew what the Mad Prince had in mind to eradicate their interference.
As soon as Elespeth turned around, she found her dreaded suspicions confirmed... and then some.
"Alster..." He knows. Those words sent a shudder down her spine that she failed to conceal. This was her own fault. She had not been cautious enough, had been so foolish as to continue to use her blade with Atvany's telltale master craft... She had even shared her name. Alster never would have shared it, of that much she was fully convinced. But if there had been ears and eyes to witness her crime against Messino's army in stealing away and hiding his weaponry... who knew what else he had gathered from strategically-placed spies?
"Alster... Alster, calm down." Worried more for the frenzied state of her companion than for her own safety, Elespeth closed the distance between them. "You know I will not abandon you. Running away is not the answer. We can--"
The Atvanian fugitive was forced to stop in her tracks when the Rigas cater before her summoned noxious darkness into the palms of his hands. I'll kill you myself. He wasn't thinking straight... he wouldn't do this. He wouldn't, especially not if their blood bond would take him down as well in her demise. "...no. Alster, you are wrong." Taking a gamble (for she truly was not certain of the current state of Alster's sanity), she moved forward, slowly raising her hands until she lay them upon his shoulders. She could feel the chill of the darkness so close to her skin, but she did not pull away. "No... There are many things of which I am not certain, Alster Rigas, and I am no diviner. But one thing I know for certain, regardless of your past, regardless of what you believe... you are, perhaps, the only person in this world who would not hurt me, directly or indirectly. There is a way out of this, we will... We will find it."
She wasn't sure what came over her then, seeing the pain and desperation in the mage's eyes. So afraid was he of losing her that he was willing to die with her... When had she ever been so valued?
Before she could think better of it, the former knight leaned forward, their lips inches, centimeters, millimeters apart...
"He might not kill you. But I will."
Elespeth broke apart from Alster when another voice found a place in their conversation. Lilica stood at the front of the tent, the sun haloing her small, dark frame from behind, painting her like a true angel of death. Her face, as always, was unreadable. "You are a liability to all of us, now, and are better off gone--one way or another. So consider your choices, Tam." Eyes narrowed, the chthonic mage stepped closer. "Leave now. Flee, live, and find new meaning in your life. Or die--and take your beloved Rigas mage down with you. I can and will personally see to the latter, if that is your decision."
"Lilica..." Elespeth all but choked the name. "Please... you--"
"You idiot. Do not make it seem as though I have anything to lose." She snorted. "Messino already wants me dead, as well. Chara and the Rigases despise my very existence. I will never be forgiven, and I will never have a place. Your demise will weigh nothing on my shoulders, and if it helps me to survive this bloody war, then I will welcome it. So." Folding her arms, her gaze never deviated from the swordswoman, not for a second. "What is your decision? Make it now, for I run on little patience."
And that was what broke her.
Elespeth knew--just knew--that Alster could never bring himself to harm her, not even in his darkest moments. The threat had not registered, has passed over her like oil on water. But Lilica... The mage who had already sought to kill her once, who had no incentive to let her live, especially if she was now a liability to them all... Lilica was not bluffing. She'd strike her dead in a single heartbeat...
The Atvanian fugitive could not do that to Alster.
Swallowing her pain, Elespeth pressed her lips together and expelled a long breath through her nose. So this was it... She should have known it was all too good to be true. "Very well. I... can respect your wishes." Bowing her head, she fought against the nausea that stirred in her gut, as a result of thinking ahead of her life without ever seeing Alster again, or Haraldur, even Chara... She'd thought she had found a place among them. Maybe she had; but it was all over now. "I'll be gone tonight. I... I wish you all well."
Without another word, the former knight stole away from the tent, putting one foot in front of the other with more willpower than she truly possessed. Lilica watched her leave... with far more remorse than she had thought she was capable of. Turning to Alster, and reading that pained look in the lines of his face, she pressed a sigh from her lungs. "I'm sorry," she told him in a soft tone. "And you're welcome."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Why, Elespeth? I don't deserve your unwavering loyalty. Not now. Especially not now. Now when I...
He forced a serpent tendril to track Elespeth's movements, determined to prove that if necessary, he would harm her, damning the consequences, damning the guilt, the betrayal, the genuine relationship they had built entirely from scratch in such little time.
The serpent reared up to attack, intending to inject her with the slime of its fangs, to pierce the insides of her body with the feeling of intense, paralyzing hopelessness...
The gentle touch of her hands shivered against his magic, which radiated such a foreboding cold that he seldom noticed it anymore. Was he always this cold? Or was she always so warm?
Against his will, he opened his eyes, and saw into her own. I believe in you. I respect you. You inspire me. They swarmed with such devotion, such unerring regard for the world that sought to destroy her, in favor of...
Him.
His spell dissolved and shrank back into the earth.
And he found his mouth moving of its own accord, wanting to unite with her, to sate the wildfire within his soul, to lock lips and tie himself even tighter to their destinies...
A harsh voice threw him from Elespeth's embrace. He whirled around and directed a spell, only to choke it back into his waiting palms at the sight of Lilica. She had...followed him?
At first, he anticipated a repeat of that dreaded evening and shielded himself in front of Elespeth, his fists streaming with chthonic smoke. He lowered them, reluctantly, when he caught hold of her strategy--and watched it unfold.
Lilica had broken through the layers of the warrior's stubborn mind, and had succeeded in wrenching out her resignation from the war. Little relief, however, bubbled through him, especially when she turned on downtrodden heels and hooded her surroundings, aligning her feelings with the ground.
"El." A hand that no longer grasped the darkness reached to cup her wrist, turning it so that her palm, and the blood oath scar, was face up and visible. At the very least, he wanted their farewell to end not with the rising of his hand to harm, but to deliver solace. And a promise. "This isn't goodbye. We're still linked--and I will always know where to find you. Remember that."
It took all of his willpower to slide his hand from her, to sever their contact, and to watch her trudge from their tent--disappearing into the light of day.
To distract himself from mental collapse, from succumbing to despair, from losing all composure and control of breathing and his motor abilities, he glanced at Lilica and invited the emptiness to take fold over the festering pus that oozed without cease from the inside.
With a nod of appreciation at the dark mage, Alster choked back the bile burning at his throat, and looked without seeing, beyond the tent, beyond the encampment, beyond himself--into the nothing. It hurt less, to stare into the abyss. "Let's find Chara," he said, his voice a disembodied entity, floating in space. "We'll discuss our strategy with her."
They had anticipated Elespeth's exodus from the encampment.
By Messino's orders, guards were stationed in a scattered formation all along the perimeter. They were hand-picked for the task. Accomplished trackers and casters with prime specialization in retrieval. They rounded on the fugitive, like a pack of wolves on the hunt, having gathered from their stations through a strategic series of communication via flame beacons.
But they didn't pounce until she traveled a goodly distance from camp. Allow the quarry to think she has the upper hand. Separate her from her resources, from alliances. Cut off her route from camp, but open her escape to the expansive, dangerous wilderness of rocks and sand. There were precious few holes or nooks in which to hide, and should she overturn a stone or two, they were confident in rolling her back to the surface.
They chased her for two days, playing with their prey, tiring her sore, pushing her to the brink of exhaustion. Then, as a collective, they attacked. Taking care not to harm her as per Messino's request, they cast binding spells, spinning threads of magic like the spindle from a spider, weaving and weaving until she could no longer move. They added chains and shackles to reinforce the magic, confiscated all her weapons, and forced her to walk, at sword-point, further into the unforgiving landscape.
"We're keeping you right as you are until His Highness calls for our return," one soldier spat as he prodded the sword against the nape of Elespeth's neck. "All your little friends can't reach you here. Speaking of, we apprehended your mercenary accomplice, too...and your Rigas lover isn't far off, either." He squinted, into the boiling sun. "And I do hope your Atvanian executioners like you extra crispy."
"This is tentative at best," Alster said, "but this is what I've formulated. Feel free to input your own suggestions."
He sat atop a pile of cushions, opposite Chara and Lilica, in a tent that resembled a pleasure palace more than a strategy gathering in a war camp. It was the evening of Elespeth's escape, and Alster assessed that she was outside of the camp's boundaries, unharmed, and fleeing North.
...Though he doubted she would make it far--not under Messino's hyper-vigilant command.
He partitioned away his grim thoughts and focused on the mission at hand. It was all else he could do--to abide by his duty. To follow-through with a plan and a war he wanted to abandon, moreso now than ever before.
"Messino will have Lilica and I stationed at a high vantage point. Because we are exposed, our 'Highness' has so kindly offered up a unit of warrior casters to protect us from attack. If they see anything go awry on our end, they have been given permission to take over the operation however they see fit." He paused, to clear his throat. "Now, we can kill them, but I'm certain Messino will have archers trained on our spot as further incentive to keep us in line. What I'm proposing is that we trick them. Let them see what they want to see--and chthonic magic is the master of illusion." He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a low, quiet hum. "When it's time for us to ignite the battlefield on the Atvanian troops, Lilica and I will collect our magic together--and throw the field into a thick pall of those 'shadow puppets' Messino desires so much from us. Shadows in the form of flame. In the cover of our black mist, we'll escape into the battlefield and that is when I'll direct my attacks to those enchanted weapons. Lilica, you'll meet with Chara at the rendezvous point--"
"Looks like you're under my protection again, chthonic scum." Chara glared at Lilica, though entirely without malice.
"And we'll see the battle until the end--without incurring casualties on either side unless necessary. We'll still want support from Andalarians at this camp once they uncover the details of our traitorous turn."
"You know what will most likely await you at the end," Chara said. "Right, Alster?"
Alster ripped a stray blade of grass that protruded from beneath Chara's ornate carpeting. "I know...They'll find her and..." With the shake of his head, he dropped the fragile yellow thing to the ground. "This takes precedence. For our family. Our cause."
But his words were difficult to utter, and they left a bloody taste in his mouth.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Approximately four days following Elespeth's arrest (unbeknownst as it was to the magic users), Tadasun was upon Andalari yet again--and this time they were not alone in their assault.
The battlefield, miles from Messino's encampment, was speckled with the noteworthy green and gold of Atvanian uniforms, their expertly crafted blades glinting in the brilliant sunlight. The increase in enemy numbers was significant, but not overwhelming; the allied kingdom did not seem so invested as to pit their full numbers again again mutual enemy.
At least, not yet... Although the surrendering of a certain criminal fugitive might be a satisfactory mean of persuasion.
Lilica's cooperation with the Rigases was reluctant, at best, for a number of reasons. Not only was she uncertain of her standing with Chara, and the status of their deal, but it had been quite some time since she had used her magic against its malicious preferences, drawing from a desire to help instead of harm. She did not, as a result, look forward to the spells of weakness that would follow, the blooming bruises on her skin and overall fragility. Vulnerability had clung to her like a second skin during her days and days of bed rest as her would healed... She was more than eager to let it go for good.
"I'd say we're outnumbered by a quarter of men, at the very least," the chthonic caster said to her Rigas counterpart, from atop the hill at which they had been stationed. It was difficult to speak openly and remain clandestine in their intentions, unfortunately, surrounded as they were by Messino's guards, but the details of their plan had fortunately been hashed out well enough beforehand that little else need be discussed. "Not ideal, but that's what we're here for, I suppose..."
She glanced sidelong at Alster, noting the darkness in his eyes, the concern and regret that creased between his eyebrows... "If you don't take your mind off of her, you will not have the concentration to execute this task," she warned in a low voice. "You made a choice, Alster Rigas. Forget about what you cannot control, and focus on making the difference that you seek."
Before long, the troops were exchanging war cries, and the battle began in full swing.
Swordsmen and heavy-arm warriors rushed at one another, while Messino's casters kept their distances and focused their energies on long-range assault. The trouble with recurring spats with any given enemy, however, was the potential for tactics to be learned such that they would incite adaptation. And Tadasun was already well aware of Lilica as a devastating wild-card; and this time, they had come prepared.
"Archers..." The dark mage spotted the threat almost right away, taking note of the handful of soldiers, in patches, that were not advancing. Neither Tadasun nor Atvany was known for magic users; there was only one option left for long-range.
Frantic, she reached for Alster's arm. "Our 'bodyguards' won't be able to hold of an assault of arrows for long. We need to act fast... lend me your power." At his hesitation, she went on to clarify: "I know chthonic magic more intimately than you do. I can do what needs to be done, without needlessly harming anyone... believe it or not. But if we're to do this, then you need to open up your magic to me now."
Alster might have been a fool, but he was not entirely stupid, and the gravity of the situation was not a measurement that he took lightly. As soon as Lilica closed her eyes, she found herself suddenly with the Rigas caster's potential at her disposal. It was like opening a cupboard, only to find that the space equated the entire span of a whole other room. Though not as familiar as the essence that lurked in her own, dark crevices, it was compatible with what she had in mind.
And now was not the ideal time to tell him that drawing on the magic of another was not something she had ever before attempted. With any luck, it wouldn't leave either of them with irreparable scaring of any sort.
The sound of an arrow sliced the air just inches from Lilica's ear by the time she'd mustered the form and calibre of power that she desired, and before long, black flames, tiny at first, began to crop up along the battlefield. None burned higher than perhaps a few inches, at best, but it was the smog they produced--not the heat--that was the end goal. The smoke, dark violet, black and swirling, climbed and climbed and did not abate, weaving obsidian spiderwebs in the air... Until the strands of the webs came together, and the jaws of soldiers all over the battlefield drop as skull-faced reapers with elongated canines and snakes for arms swarmed the baffled armies.
It wasn't long before the air, from the bottle of the hill to far atop, was black and blue with fear, borne of these illusions of evil.
Which is just what they were--illusions, that fed off of the very fear of the soldiers who ran from them, further fueling the chase. Tadasun, Atvany and even Andalari alike were caught up in the midst of their own chaos, which even the other casters, unfamiliar as they were with dark magic, might not have been able to discern as some very talent sleight of hand. "It will only last for as long as they remain afraid," Lilica hissed in Alster's ear, drawing his attention away from the captivating terror that she had painted on the horizon. "I am going to find Chara. Do what you must to put those godforsaken weapons out of commission, and before we lost any more allies. This is what Messino wanted, wasn't it? Unadulterated chaos, darkness." A hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "He cannot say we did not deliver."
Finding Chara amidst a petrified army, however, was far easier said than done. It was difficult enough to see past the miasma of fire, smoke and ghouls, let alone attempting to squeeze past enemies and allies alike, unseen. At least the celestial mage was dependable, if not the warmest of souls; Chara had known the diversion when she'd seen it, and had made for the rendez-vous point on time. Lilica recognized her though the dark fog from her caster uniform and blonde hair. "Let us hope this mob is out of their mind in their own fear long enough for your fiancé to do what needs to be done," she murmured, between short, quick breaths. The trick had been a far bigger drain on her than she had anticipated, and felt as though she'd just been running for her life for an entire day. "The illusion should extinguish on its own... I hope. In the meantime, we should find safer ground on this battlefield, if such a thing is even possible."
Alster would have to find them when he had seen his task through... And they would have to believe that he would.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
I can't think that way. He banished the doubt, the plague of his own inner fears more effective than any illusory manifestation, and the lingering thoughts of...her.
With success, he sneaked past the terrified guards and darted down the hill. At the base, he waded through the thick of the miasma, which scattered at his touch.
If there's one thing he was confident enough in, it was his ability to cast magic. It was all that he was born and bred to do.
Mother...let's see if your disgrace of a son can succeed.
No longer with any cover, he needed to operate quickly, before the miasma dispersed. Positioning himself at the approximated center of the field, he raised his own smoke-filled array from the ground, which shielded and obscured his vulnerable body. Beyond the shield, a pulse pumped outward, sending a signal far and wide in search for that specific death energy that lingered not in the ground, but collected in dense pockets about the battlefield. He traced the erratic twitches and jerks that denoted a human being on his feet and fighting, which betrayed the more common, languid motions of death on the move. Activated weapons. He detected four, no five...
With a preparatory inhale, he reached for the closest energy pocket in his mind's eye, willing its power to attach itself to him. It crooned and sang its song of magnetism, catching the strands that operated the deceased like an unwitting puppet--and slurping the attractive force into a ball that pooled an inky mass in his hand.
Before he could resume the process of ebb and flow, push and pull, the miasma that coated him from view had lifted, exposing him to Tadasuni and Atvanian soldiers both, whose recovery from the realm of madness heightened their rage to berserker levels of ferocity. They spotted him, targeted him, made for him. He threw the ball of death energy to the ground and erupted it into an oil slick that lapped at their feet, slowing their advance and eating at their flesh inside their armor. The attack fazed them little, and they approached with swords and spears at the ready.
He turned. The miasma thinned behind him to reveal more enemy soldiers, and no opening to escape. Alster raised more shadows from the ground, arranging them into the serpents that his guilt-powered magic had favored. Shit. I allowed myself to get surrounded. I can't afford...
A grandiose flash of etherea sailed from the air and engulfed the soldiers on all sides into flames. Their screams melded with their skin and petered away to the smoke of their souls leaving their bodies. He grabbed that energy before it floated too far.
Tivia and Danos appeared to his left and right, hands ignited with their etherea of destruction.
"We're your cover!" Danos shot another stream at a rushing spearman. "Just focus on your task!"
Alster almost lost his footing, his magic threatening to spill back to the earth. Danos and Tivia had never offered to help him, much preferring to spurn his existence or send him to perform menial tasks. They would never fight alongside him, unless ordered by Chara. Whether ordered or not, their quick rise to defend made him feel like an actual asset to his family. As though he was valued...if only for a moment.
With a determined nod, Alster reconnected to the tapestry of death and picked away at the undead soldiers. Two. Three. Four. The ball of energy expanded into a pustulating bubble between his fingers. Five, six, seven, eight. He ground his teeth as all the siphoned power, engorged and deformed, threatened to burst. Nine, ten, eleven. The bubble grew arms, flaccid little stumps that wriggled like kelp succumbed by an ocean wave. Eleven arms--plus the ten that Danos and Tivia had incinerated. The strain buckled his legs, compromised his form, and shot a paralyzing shiver down his entire body. His fingertips blackened from the rot threatening to blight his hands and arms.
Release it. In waves. Careful. All at once and it may destroy the surrounding area.
With intense restraint, Alster pulsed the energy from his grasp, one wave at a time, concentrating on the sensation he desired, equating it to the phenomenon of the sun, of the cosmic chaos radiating invisible rays that permeated the atmosphere like a sieve. He reasoned that death energy acted similarly when in its purest state. It would not harm or infect the living; just scatter to the earth and sky.
Wave after wave he threw, focusing special attention on the non-activated weapons on the field. Passive magic, dormant--needing death as the catalyst. He sent death to them, to where he felt the faint heat signature within their vessels of steel, and teased the energy to the surface. It bled from the blades and, with nowhere to go, returned to the earth, or followed him back to his fold.
So it became a back and forth, a volley between released energy and received energy. On and on and on...until he confirmed the destruction of the last blade, and discarded the last of his magic. Upon release, the rot in his fingers abated, but the rest of him crumpled into a heap on the ground.
Through sheer force of will, Chara remained relatively unshaken by the recurrence of images borne from the dark seeds of the imagination. Reality was frightening enough; she'd rather focus on a more tangible adversary than one of nightmares and delusions.
That's right. It was all paper in Lilica's mind. The concept now is the same; it's all smoke.
She reached the rendezvous point minutes after the monstrous smoke signal was tended by the two chthonic casters. Storming through the ranks of the three armies, she met with Lilica at the south-end base of the hill with little resistance.
"If I did not know so, myself, I'd say we really are in the chthonic reaches of hell," she said with a snort. "In any case, you make a valid argument. Let's see ourselves to safety."
Minding whatever bruises Lilica incurred during her expulsion of magic, she led the dark mage to the edge of the battlefield and carved out a ditch behind a boulder with a blast of etherea.
Tivia and Danos, with a half-conscious Alster in tow, found their hiding spot by means of well-timed signal beacons, and huddled into the ditch, where they stayed for the remainder of the battle.
"Alster," Chara held him against her lap. "Are you all right?" He managed a weak bob of his head.
"It's...done." And he closed his eyes.
Despite the disorienting effect of the miasma, the battle was quick to take a turn in Tadasun's favor. Whether by the expanded numbers, the dogged tenacity of the Atvanian troops, or the elimination of the enchanted weapons, Andalari had pulled back their forces in retreat.
Chara stepped out of the ditch to breathe the haze that clung to the field like a death shroud. She could not differentiate it between dust or the remnants of the miasma. "Well...we have succeeded. Now, we prepare for the backlash." She turned to her unit, operating, for once, in full and utilizing, for the first time, Lilica's incredible power. "Come, let's return to the battlefield before they suspect anything. If asked," she looked at Lilica, "your magic was incompatible with Alster, triggered the miasma, and drained you both of your lifeblood. As for side-effects...well," she shrugged, "it is possible that such a display of power destroyed the weapons in the process."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The trio bided their time as the battle raged, and Messino's men, slowly but surely, dwindled in number. Far too many were lost to the hands of death, in Lilica's opinion, before the Mad Prince called for a retreat.
"Can you walk?" She asked Alster, who had only regained consciousness moments before she spoke. He was pale, but otherwise appeared unharmed and unaffected by side-effects. "Here." Offering him a hand, between herself and Chara, they managed to get the dual-talented Rigas caster to his feet, albeit shakily. When she let go, Lilica withdrew with a hiss, and turned her attention to her hand. From her palm to the back of her thumb, a deep, purple bruise bloomed, precisely where she had gripped Alster's forearm.
So she had not been safe from the side-effects of her own magic...
Well, so be it. There was nothing that could be done, and they needed to return to the battlefield. Regardless of the fragility of blood vessels beneath her skin, Lilica took one of Alster's arms, and Chara the other, helping him retreat among their comrades as they returned to the encampment. Two victories, and finally, a loss... What did this mean for Andalari?
Immediately leaving to retrieve water for a dehydrated and weakened Alster, Lilica couldn't help but glance over her shoulder, bearing witness to the concern on Chara's face. Even through all of their quarrels, they still cared for one another on such a sacred, untouchable level... Weeks ago, I would have bothered her beyond her ability to ignore it. But now... Now, she merely accepted the emptiness that it instilled.
Who would look at me that way? Would anyone care if I bled...? Glancing down at the bruises on her arms and hands, she already knew the cold and sordid answer to that question.
And this time, she had no peaceful sanctuary to which she could retreat... just reality. And reality was unforgiving, and unkind.
Returning with a flask of water, the dark mage pressed it into Alster's hands, and briefly checked his arms for bruises. Nothing beyond the usual scrapes and superficial injuries that accompanied battle. Despite that their energies had temporarily merged, the consequences of her magic affected only her. "Messino will call on us for what went wrong," she informed him, crouching on the ground. Standing, in this aftermath, felt like such a chore. "I trust Chara has explained what our story will be."
Glancing at the blonde, celestial mage for perhaps the first time since their return to the encampment, she offered as close to what could be interpreted as a respectful nod as what could be expected from Lilica D'Or. "He should be all right. Find him a blanket and take him to rest... chthonic magic chills you to the bone." She wasn't entirely sure she'd ever really known what it felt like to be warm.
With nothing left among them to discuss, Lilica forced herself to stand again, and made for her tent at the other side of the encampment. Weaving among the immobile forms of the wounded, she did not get very far before a shocking sight froze her in her tracks--but only for a handful of seconds, before she mustered what little energy she had left, and hurried back to where she had left the two Rigas casters. They needed to be warned... or, at the very least, Chara did.
The moment she was upon them, the chthonic mage took Chara by the arm and steered her off to the side. "Get him out of here, now," she whispered, her voice harsh and urgent. "Take him to your tent, somewhere far and out of sight, and out of hearing range. He's in no condition to see..."
It was too late.
With no less than two of Messino's men on either side of her, and a small parade behind her, Tam was all but dragged before the fatigued soldiers in the middle of the camp. It was impossible to miss her, pale and drawn beneath a sunburn that had settled on her nose and cheeks. She looked as though she had not eaten in quite some time, and had slept little, if the hollowness of her eyes was any indication. Lilica wasn't even convinced that the swordswoman--now unarmed--was standing on her own, so much as she was being held up by the men on either side of her. Her wrists were bound tightly before her, in chains that bit into her skin, and even from the distance of her vantage point, the dark mage could practically smell the magic that had been used on her.
How long had it been since she had been apprehended? And what did Messino plan to do with her now?
Given the smug grin on the Mad Prince's face, as he came up behind the small party escorting the captive, they--and all of the rest of the Andalarian army--were about to find out.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Regaining consciousness did not regain his cognitive ability to interact with the world beyond his head. He simply nodded at Lilica's questions, worked himself into a standing position, and followed her and Chara's lead back to camp.
By the time they reached the first line of tents that signified the borders of the encampment, Alster had opened his senses to his surroundings and started to function as more than a half-dead lump. When Lilica had offered him water, he tried for a smile and tried to speak words of appreciation, but Chara silenced him by leaning the bulk of his weight against her shoulder.
"Just rest for now," she told him with a soft coo. "We'll visit her later."
But that later arrived much sooner when Lilica returned and forcibly separated her from Alster. "What is the meaning of--" She traced the dark mage's eyesight and turned to see Tam, bound and in the custody of a small guard, helmed by...Messino, atop his horse. Her eyes sharpened to knife-points as she rushed back over to Alster...
But he had seen it all.
And that fuzzy, almost comfortable state between waking and sleep transformed to the harsh, jagged sting of reality. How had he ignored her progress for so long, much less not know that she arrived back in camp!? How could he be so negligent, so invested in his own affairs, that he did not feel her pain of bondage, of her throbbing wrists, the burns on her face, the exhaustion...
The exhaustion...
He stumbled as he wrenched himself forward. Before he collapsed into the mud, Chara grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.
"What a mess," she said under her breath, but directed her words towards Lilica, who had stayed close. "What does this bastard think he's doing, parading her around like this immediately after battle?"
As if to answer her question, Messino halted his procession with the pull of his horse's reins. Once he had commanded the attention of the majority of the army, he projected his voice so to infiltrate every crevice of camp. "You may all be asking yourselves why I am choosing to celebrate the arrest of this otherwise unremarkable female warrior. Come, everyone! I offer you good news in light of our unforeseeable loss."
His gaze caught on Chara, and her cheeks heated with fury. He definitely knows--!
"Ah!" The Mad Prince waved a beckoning hand at her. "You have saved me the trouble of searching for you myself. Step forward, my Rigas brethren!"
She first checked on Alster, held in place by her grappling hand. He was silent, and still, but his eyes, they seemed to flutter and flicker and spiral with a slow-churning madness. She pursed her lips, but nonetheless helped him to the center of camp, where Messino sat perched on his horse.
Messino rounded the procession so that the guard, and Elespeth, faced them, eye-to-eye. What audacity, to dangle her before them, so! Then, she realized, with dread, why the Mad Prince chose to host his macabre parade at such an inconvenient moment. They were too tired, too powerless to stop him.
Alster trained his eyes to his feet. She could feel his arm heave and swell beneath her touch.
"I have to thank the most esteemed Rigas family for aiding me in the discovery of this criminal in our midst. If not for their unwavering efforts, we would have been left ignorant to the true identity of this traitorous creature: former Sir Elespeth Tameris, of Atvany!"
That mongrel! Pining the deed on them!
Alster's breathing transitioned into hurried gasps and cold sweat poured from his brow.
"So it is with great pleasure that I announce, that in return for our deliverance of their runaway knight, Atvany has agreed to a ceasefire until further notice!"
Amidst the applause, the hoots and hollers of the Andalarians that knew no better, Chara wanted to scream. Atvany was their ally by proxy. Messino had given them what they wanted, yet at the same time, bound them to cooperation with Andalari. They could not fight his directive. It was against their best interests.
Alster clawed at his chest as his gasps increased in pace. His eyes bulged and flooded with tears.
Alster. Please get a hold of yourself.
"Thank you, your Highness." Chara mustered those words with as much veneration as she could stomach. "We were more than happy to bring this accursed criminal to the justice she so deserves. But if you'll excuse us," she clamped another arm around Alster's shoulder, "I must attend to my kin. He has had a long battle and must rest."
Do something! Why can't I do something? Why does everything hurt? Why can't I...My chest. Is this the end? Alster resisted as Chara pulled him from the scene, from his proximity to Elespeth, from everything that currently mattered, and he wished his chest would burst already so that it would be all over.
Do something! Lift the shadows! Free her!
His hand swayed in circles. But nothing happened. Nothing would happen.
Their distance expanded. He couldn't move. Every breath choked on the air. His vision faded, but he forced himself through the blackness, to see her one last time.
Their eyes met.
I'm sorry, Elespeth. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm...
The blackness enveloped him whole, with no light to guide him through the abyss.
With Lilica's help, Chara carried an unconscious Alster to her tent. She laid him over the innumerable cushions that comprised her bed and mopped his forehead with a cloth she kept draped over a small end table.
"This is bad. This entire blasted situation!" Her teeth scraped against each other. "I can't...I don't know what..." Fingers curled over her face and scratched at her eyelids.
"Lilica...I need your help."
That evening, a small assemblage from Atvany took custody of Elespeth. They undid her bindings and replaced them with shackles that did not bite so mercilessly into her skin. With care, they hoisted her upon a horse and secured her against the saddle. A tugging of the stirrups and the pull of extra weight indicated another person had joined her on the steed. From behind the Atvanian fugitive, the man nickered at the horse and flicked the reins into a gentle canter.
"A shame, what they did to you." His voice rang into the night, a complement to the arid breezes that rushed against their ears. "Ready to go home, Eles?"
If only it were just a nightmare. If only...
Elespeth was hardly more cognizant than poor, exhausted Alster, when Messino and the small guard accompanying her. The Mad Prince had endeavoured to keep her weak for days, ordering little food and water to be available. And, as for sleep, well... That never came. Occasionally she would doze, for minutes at a time, bit she did not rest--they made sure of it.
Messino's audacious gloating all but fell deaf on her ears. She was barely awake, barely aware...
Until she saw his face.
Alster's grim expression stood out in the crowd like a beacon of hope. A small surge of adrenaline drew her chin up, and the tiniest of smiles touched the corner of her mouth at the sight of her beloved companion alive and well. As far as her luck went, it was about the best possible outcome that she could ask for. You're all right... everything is going to be okay. For a brief moment, she forgot about the hunger pangs in her gut, the burn of sun damage on her skin, the cloying ache of thirst, the pain in her tired legs, and the stinging friction of the chains against the raw skin of her wrist...
And then Chara's voice cut through the din, and the former knight's heart sank a little.
So this was why Alster had encouraged her to flee; they had needed her gone, needed her to be apprehended to regain Messino's favour before they took him unawares. And, somehow... somehow, that did not change how she felt about Alster and his family. Better to die for a cause you believe in, for people you care for and believe in, than for an old crime that you did not regret.
She met Chara's eyes once, just briefly, and their green depths communicated understanding, before she was led away, and out of sight. Thank you for your friendship. I wont forget any of you...
"Alster..." Her parched throat allowed for no voice, but she mouthed the words when their eyes met for the last time. "Win this."
It came as something of a surprise that Elespeth found herself better handled in the custody of Atvany, later that evening, than that of Andalari. They replaced her chains with shackles, and had even offered her a good meal prior to departure--the first she had seen since she'd fled Messino's encampment. But although she graciously accepted, after twenty minutes of simply staring at the bread, meat and cheese, she realized that she hadn't the motivation to eat, not even with the sharp zings that shot through her gut. Every time she thought of bringing a bite of food to her lips, the fact that she had seen Alster for the last time. She thought of all of the things she wished she could have said to him, wished she could have thanked him more thoroughly for all of his kindness...
Her appetite was gone before she had ever realized it had been there at all, and with the party's patience dwindling, they at last hoisted her onto a steed to set off for Atvany. She thought nothing of the presence behind her... until she heard the voice.
It can't be...
"...Farrin?" The vibration of her vocal cords against her parched throat formed her words in little more than a whisper. The former knight craned her neck to glance over her shoulder, but could not see far enough. She didn't need to; she'd remember that voice from anywhere.
It was a voice that she had heard in her days growing up in Atvany. A voice with whom she had laughed, had consoled her as a young child when she cried, had helped to shape and train her as the knight that she had been. And now, it was the voice she would always remember as that which had taken her to her doom.
Had she any water in her body left for tears, she might have shed one. "They sent you for me... why not someone else?" No, she didn't want this to be how she remembered one of her dearest brothers. She wanted to remember laughing with him, feeling a part of something with him... not someone in his captivity.
After a brief moment, she added, even more quietly, "Atvany stopped being my home a long time ago..."
Just as he had stopped being her brother, the day he--along with the rest of her family--had chosen not to speak out when the crown had sentenced her to death for her crime in negligence.
After struggling to aid Chara in her task of dragging an unconscious Alster back to her tent, Lilica all but collapsed, herself, for exerting energy that she did not have. She watched with passive interest in the celestial mage paced the room and vented her frustrations, before finally crumbling with a plea that the dark caster had not been expecting. "My help?" She arched a dark eyebrow in surprise. "I do not know what help you think I can be, in this situation..."
Her eyes trailed to Alster's unconscious form. To think, that shock and emotional agony had done that to him... All because he had lost someone for whom he cared. "I wonder what it must be like..." She mused, from her seat on the ground. "To care for somebody, to such an extent that it hurts you... or to be cared about, to that extent." To be looked upon with love and not resentment... Lilica couldn't even envision such a phenomenon. Maybe once, in a faraway dream, but all of that had been effectively wiped from her mind.
Alster, on the other hand, would not so easily be faced with the option to simply forget; he wouldn't forget. And that put them in a rather tense position... If Chara's dual-talented betrothed was rendered a useless, blathering mess in the wake of Elespeth's arrest, how ever were the Rigases to see their plan to fruition? Furthermore, what did that mean for Lilica, if their deal was still on?
As much as she hated to admit it, and as much as Chara might not want to hear it, there was only one option, and it was by no means ideal. "Nothing is going to work out for you until you get him back." She indicated Alster with a nod of the head in the unconscious caster's direction. "An, though it pains me to say it... You will not get him back, not fully, unless you can get her back." Meeting Chara's gaze, she lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug. "Don't try to tell me for even a second that you don't believe he will attempt at something stupid, without his beloved warrior. It's not too late... And this is not something you can so easily reach into his mind and destroy."
Imaginary memories were one thing; real, tangible people, with real feelings and real relationships, were quite another.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
When word spread in camp about the incarceration of Elespeth Tameris, Farrin knew that the fates had granted him another chance to restore the Tameris name in full--as much as it pained him to play the role of jailer to a woman he once called his sister. Alas, he hadn't a choice; if he reneged on the opportunity to deliver her to the chopping block, his peers would not view him as trustworthy nor one deserving of second chances, and brand him as a traitor sympathizer. To bring Elespeth to justice was the ultimate honor, and the ultimate way to restore the honor that he and his family had so brutally lost.
But he wasn't certain that he was strong enough to foray into the past with someone who had once shared his home, his life, and had represented everything that he worked to protect.
"Yes," he answered Elespeth's inquiry as he steered the horse over rocky terrain, in route to Atvany's encampment beyond the hill. "I am no longer Sir Farrin, either--so that's something we both have in common."
He concentrated on flattening his tone like the ground at his steed's clattering hooves. To show emotion of any sort towards his prisoner would effectively betray his country, by favoring her and their history over the specifics of his duty--however grisly the duty.
"Why would I squander the opportunity to reinstate the family name? I volunteered to take you back to Atvany." The night glittered a multitude of stars, and he recalled Andalari's obsession with them, appropriated as so by their acquisition of Stella D'Mare. One glittered with a cold-blue brightness that dominated the sky, and winked with a foreboding that twisted his gut into knots.
"Where then do you consider home? Andalari? They betrayed you to us without a moment's thought. Where else but Atvany will you find the deliverance you so deserve?"
The star watched them for their duration of their ride to the encampment, and he was glad for the torches that burned out the sky at their arrival. He settled off his horse and helped her to the ground. "We'll spend the night here. At first light, we'll ride for Atvany."
Chara sat on her knees beside Alster, and her hands found their way from her face to his wrist. His pulse was so weak, so frigid, that she withdrew her touch, as if she had thrust her hand into a freezing river. "Remember what I told you, a short while ago?" The confidence blinked in and out of her discourse with an inconsistency that her mind was too tired to control. "I do not associate with those who are of no value. Your actions are questionable, and you are troublesome, but so is he." She nodded towards Alster's prone body. "And I haven't yet given up on him."
With a sigh, she reached over and brushed the hair that clung, in mired clumps, to his forehead. "It's unbearable." Her response to Lilica's musings shook and broke like the branches of a tree in a windstorm. "It throws weakness at you, tries at your fortitude, shatters all barriers, all defenses, and leaves you utterly stripped bare, to your bones. But...you are able to see through the pain, because...in the end, that weakness, that bone-stripping agony, is your strength."
She found a weight return to the drifting of her mind at Lilica's suggestion of such a ludicrous scheme. Her expression soured as she shot her head at the dark mage. "I've pulled him from the threshold once before, when he first arrived at the Rigas estate after his parents' deaths! And that blood bond of theirs? Pah." She wrenched a laugh from her lungs. "I am not worried. His magical stamina can easily sever their ties once she dies." But if she was his strength, would he even desire to snap the thread that bound them so tight?
The weight dared to lift a second time as she cleared her throat and tried to stay grounded. "We'll...all we can do for now is wait for him to awaken. If...if he will."
Alster awakened faster than Chara had at first surmised. She wandered into her tent the following afternoon to see him where she had placed him, but with his eyes opened wide and shining with lucidity despite their bloodshot appearance.
"Alster." She approached him with a tentative gait, in case she startled him in his newfound consciousness.
He sluggishly moved his right hand to hover above his face and traced the blood-oath scar on his palm with his thumb. "I won't let that spell go to waste," he muttered, a muffle that his palm captured and absorbed into his skin.
"Do not," she loomed over his lateral form, arms crossed, "...you are not suggesting such a foolhardy p--"
"--Chara." The name rumbled in his throat, an admonition that reminded her of a landslide about to descend. "I'm not asking for your permission. I have the ability." He curled the fingers over his palm, one by one. "I'm going to find her." His brow furrowed with such intensity that she half-expected the shadows of his magic to overtake the entirety of the tent. "And I will save her."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I claim no home," she replied to his monotonous inquiry. "I accept that as a result of my decision... and with that, I am content. Through grave mistakes, I have learned the danger of submitting to any given place, such that I would call it home."
But her allegiance to Atvany had not been the most difficult tear in the fabric of her former life; and those very threads were now what created a rift between her and her brother. And what had driven him to sacrifice her at Atvany's merciless alter...
Elespeth's legs trembled when Farrin helped her off the horse, and she was quick to sit down while he led the steed off to be fed and watered. A handful of his comrades began to build a fire in his absence, and the roaring flames warmed her pale face by the time he returned.
The former knight said nothing for the duration of the party's late meal, not until the small crowd dwindled, leaving only herself and Farrin left to watch the embers burn. "I know that you find your commitment to Atvany admirable," she ventured, her soft voice carrying over the still air. "You were raised to embrace honour--we all were, myself included. But I... in recent years, Farrin, I've learned something about honour." The flicker of the embers shone in her green eyes, as she watched the fire's last lick of flame. "Real honour is not in blind allegiance to a crown, or to a name... It is in the difference you can make in the lives of others. Those you care for, those who deserve it..."
He wouldn't look at her, but she studied the familiar outline of his face, the set of his mouth and shoulders... He had not changed much, in current years. "Atvany does not hold deliverance for me, Farrin. It has nothing to offer me... and I've nothing left to offer it." She paused to chew on her lower lip. "For what it is worth, though... I never stopped thinking of you; of any of you... but I do not regret the decision that I made. I never will."
Not while it was abundantly clear that Atvany--and her own family, it would seem--was more concerned for the order of their own definition of 'honour' than for the real value of a person's life.
Lilica had no powers over the mind, could not divine the future, and could not read into other peoples' thoughts. Nonetheless, she needn't be psychic to guess at what might be the nature of Chara and Alster's first conversation when the wayward chthonic-celestial mage finally came to.
She hadn't spoken with Chara since that evening, just following Elespeth's more formal arrest. Having taken on some damage, herself, in the aftermath of combining her strength with Alster's, she had retreated to her tent to rest, once again, for what seemed like the umpteenth time. But this time, there was nowhere to escape from the pain, and only when exhaustion took her did she finally close her eyes. The day had already long-since begun when she regained consciousness, and, not so unusually, the first thing to come to mind were the two Rigas casters whom she had aided on the battlefield just the day before. Had Alster woken up at all?
Eager to find out the status of Chara's betrothed, Lilica was on her feet (a little unsteadily, at first) and made her way through the encampment to the blonde Rigas mage's tent on the other side--and arrived just in time to catch the tail-end closure of their conversation: "I will save her."
"If you are going to retrieve your criminal warrior from the clutches of Atvany, then I suggest you act now, for a number of reasons." She saw no issue in interrupting, given that there was room to do so. They looked as though they had nothing left to exchange but blows, if it came to that. "For one, the sooner you are your fully-functioning self again--which I assume won't happen until the former Atvanian knight is back in the hands of safety--the sooner you will be of some use to your family and your cause. And, for another, I do not doubt that Atvany will not hesitate in their sentencing. I have traveled through that kingdom before... They are merciless on their criminals. So you will want to act now."
Helping herself to a seat on one of the cushions, to take the pressure and pain off of her tired legs, Lilica looked from Chara to Alster. "You can reach Atvany by horseback in approximately two days of riding, with little sleep. Alternatively, crossing the sea and heading due north will bring you there in a day. But for that, you will need a boat. Regardless... we will need to consider a good reason for your absence from this war. Perhaps some excuse pertaining to your own family disgrace, Alster. Who'd have thought your reputation would someday benefit you?"
Alster's face was not, however, without lines of uncertainty and fear. Next to outright destroying his parents, this would be the second greatest act of rebellion in his entire life. "As for myself... I will do what I can. Chara, your Rigas brethren and I can ascertain that your absence does not interrupt your plans for reclaiming what is yours, and getting rid of Messino, forever. Even if it means creating another diversion. Just..." Lifting her head, she exhaled a sigh. "Just work in haste. I already have a headache thinking of the excuses we will have to feed to Messino."
This was, of course, not what Chara wanted to hear; the celestial caster had made that abundantly clear, the night before. Unfortunately, it was what she needed to hear, and needed to accept. Alster had made up his mind, and blood-bonds or not, there was no talking him out of his desire to find and rescue his companion. Perhaps when Chara could come to accept that, then she might, herself, find some room to heal.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Setting aside his tray, he leaned forward to stoke the flames with the end of his sheathed sword. How pathetic of him, having to lower himself to petty distractions so that he would not have to acknowledge the body beside him, which inhabited the spirit of Elespeth. It spoke like her, carried her convictions, her own warped sense of nobility, and her unfaltering naivete. He gripped his sword as she railed off about honor as if she were privy to his life and to the family that she abandoned. As if he didn't know a lick about honor and she had to patiently educate him on the error of his ways.
"Admirable?" The fire crackled, but from a different source. "You think me so singular as to commit to Atvany simply out of approval?" He pushed a hunk of wood into the dying flames and felt the explosion of heat against his cheeks--unless the heat, too, came from a different source. "You speak of 'real honor.' Do you agree, then, that saving one's family does not equate to 'real honor'? That I am not trying to make a difference in the quality of their lives? In the lives of those I care for, those who deserve it? That my honor is apocryphal because you value yourself as worth morethan them!?" For the first time since they had set off from the Andalarian camp together, Farrin felt himself shake with anger. "You do not even know...how they have suffered since your treacherous flight. It is easy to fantasize about honor when you abandoned your duties to your kin...isn't it?"
With a jerk, he extricated his blade from the fire when the handle started to warm in his hands. Inane. All inane. Her hypocritical twaddle. Preaching to him of the honor of betraying her kin in nearly the same breath as claiming their hold on her memory.
"You're wrong." His hazel eyes flicked from the smoky remains and settled on her. "You do have something to offer Atvany." His gaze hardened. "...Your life. If we still mean something to you as your memory so professes, then you will accept your death...with honor."
Alster's eyes roved to the opening of the tent, where Lilica's arrival, ironically, bathed the interior in beams of daylight. He squinted, both at the sunburst and at the dark mage's pronouncement, before he propelled himself to a sitting position. As expected, he'd developed a profound headache and clutched at his temples with a flinch. I'm responding to pain. That's good. I'm not...I'm not completely lost.
Despite the plea in Chara's eyes, Alster engaged the chthonic mage with a frown of consideration. Fully-functioning. He doubted that he ever functioned in full, but she seemed to believe that he possessed qualities that she regarded as useful. "Harbana, in Tadasun, is the closest port to here. By foot, it's about a two days' trek--unless I steal a horse." He rested his forefinger and thumb beneath his chin, drawing from his memory every detail he had memorized during his fourty-five year long wanderings. "I know a little of Atvanian procedure. They won't..." he stumbled on the word, "execute her immediately. Execution is a public ceremony. They'll need to make the proper preparations before they follow through with the act...but that will only buy me an extra two or three days. Evenso," he dropped his hand when the bleak truth chewed away at his resolve, "I can't afford to go by conjecture alone."
"You can't afford to do this at all!" Chara slammed her knees on the ground and grabbed his arm. "Forsaking your family--"
"--I'm not forsaking anyone!" He wrenched away her grip, which fell like a leaden weight on her lap. "Not you, and not her. I'll still fight for our cause, whether she's...alive or not. But to return, here...that will ensure my death." As in apology, he gave a comforting squeeze to her discarded hand. "Whatever excuse you bring to Messino, mine and Elespeth's inexplicable return won't be well-received, no matter how much we try to alter our appearances."
"So where are you expecting to go!?"
"There are...a few options. We 'defect' to Tadasun. But that's risky; they still hold an alliance with Atvany. Or," he glanced at the sigil of their house, emblazoned in gold thread upon Chara's tunic, "we go to Stella D'Mare. Facilitate the next step of our plan. And arrive with reinforcements."
She looked at him, then scoffed, her incredulity peppering the air. "With your reputation, do you honestly believe they will follow you?"
"With your blessing...it's possible."
Chara searched his eyes. While they swarmed with unmitigated anguish and the frozen remains of his soul on cruel display, she glimpsed the wink of something immense, something powerful. It was like looking into the very heart of his celestial magic, and it purred with a determination that tingled her skin, raising all hairs on end. As long as he carried that spark of verve and vitality, she had no choice but to believe in his strength. After all, they faced war. Who was she to remain partial to the asinine antics of her subordinates?
Let him go, Chara. You must let him go.
She lowered her eyes and nodded, as she slowly withdrew from the firm touch of his hand."Just...do not mess up our delicate ties with Atvany." She brushed her face, to attack the offending beads of moisture welling beneath her lids, but pretended to fix the stray strands of her hair. "We'll keep your little Atvanian mission a secret from Adalfieri, so I need not tell you to remain unseen. But," she barked, "first thing's first. How do you propose to sneak out of camp?"
The shadow of a mischievous smile appeared on his lips. "The two of you have said it, yourselves: I have a bad reputation. I'm not without a few tricks."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Like Alster and the Rigases, she was of more worth and value to her family dead than alive. Which meant, down to the core of her being, her death held more meaning than her life.
She was worthless. Her life was worthless...
They rose early the next morning to make for Atvany, riding in silence, as there was no more to be said. No words could undo what had been done, the rift between her and her family... for whom she still cared, despite it all. Despite that they had betrayed her, just as she had--albeit unwillingly--betrayed them.
The tall gates of Gallei, Atvany's teeming capitol, were the first sign of her imprisonment when the sun began to set that evening, and Farrin and his party arrived at their destination with their captive in tow. Street vendors, artisans and merchants paused in the closing of their booths as the horses passed to witness the return of the traitor who had turned a good name bad. The former Atvanian knight didn't dare look up, for fear of the hatred that she would find in their eyes.
Was it really such a rebellious act, to value one's own life? To make a difficult decision without regrets?
And then she saw them, and the crack in her broken heart widened.
They were all there, looking on with judgmental creases between their brows, and some, with a deflated sort of sadness behind their hardened eyes. Her mother, her father. Her brothers and sister; Kierel, Drevon, Priya, and young Lyriq. He couldn't be more than sixteen years of age, by now...
They did not speak to her. Her parents' faces could have been made of stone. Her second eldest brother looked on with rage; Priya's eyes welled with tears, and she turned her back, unable to look on at all. And Lyriq...
Maybe she was wrong; perhaps wishful thinking clouded her judgment and perceptions, but she could have sworn there was something else in her younger brother's eyes. Sadness, longing, and... respect.
But no. That couldn't be true... Who in their right mind would respect a traitor?
"Am I truly worth more to you, dead than alive?" She voiced the question to Farrin, speaking to him for the first time in a day. "Farrin... I am sorry that what I did left such lasting scars on our family. That was never my intent. But..." She trailed off, afraid to voice the words. Though she did anyway. "If you think that my death will be a catalyst for such significant change... then I fear you could be wrong."
And her death would, in the end, be in vain. Truly, it was not enough to restore honour to the house of Tameris.
There was, after all, no resurrection from the magnitude of shame that Elespeth had brought upon her family.
As it turned out, Alster Rigas was not the only master of illusion with tricks up his sleeve; something that the dark mage Lilica D'Or had already proven, in their last battle. And if Alster was going to go through with this ultimate rebellion and be successful, then he couldn't do it alone.
They waited for darkness to fall before the Rigas caster made his move. With the nightly guard armed with the very weapons that he had sought to magically disarm when he and the chthonic caster had last worked together, it wasn't a far stretch for him to detect the watch that overlooked the encampment, while everyone else slept. He knew to avoid these places, knew where and when to hide. And, as an added ploy for concealment, Lilica put her own magic into play.
It wasn't easy, particularly when she had no hatred upon which to call, when she summoned the thick fog that blanketed the entire premises prior to Alster's departure. After discussing the plan in thorough detail, they determined it was safest for him to leave only after general vision was obscured enough for him to tread the ground with stealth, and only when the fog had spread far enough that his escape would not be noticed, at least not immediately.
"Quiet; I'm trying to bloody concentrate," the dark caster hissed in response to a snarky response on Chara's part about how long it was taking to summon and spread the thick, grey fog. She had already been at it for an hour, and sensed that her spell had nearly spread far enough, blossoming like a bloodstain from an open wound on white fabric. There were no ghouls this time; such an embellishment would rouse too much suspicion and give the spell away as the ruse that it was. Should that be required, however, she was not beyond employing the tactic, and absorbing the blame by using the excuse of residual effects from her last performance, should she be called into question.
Hopefully, it would not come to that, and only when the entire encampment appeared to be immersed in the heavy fog (as far as any glance out of Chara's tent would lend, at least), did she finally release her hold on the surrounding energies upon which she had drawn. It felt like exhaling after holding your breath for so long that death should result. "You need to go. Now," Lilica emphasized, from her seat on one of the celestial mage's cushions. Her dark eyes were dire as they fixed on Alster. "It won't last long, but I can't keep the spell going. It should linger for long enough for you to find yourself safely away, and at a distance... I wish you good luck on your quest."
The heartfelt yet tense farewells between he and Chara fell deaf on her ears as the dark mage struggled against the weakness that tore through her limbs and delivered a wave of vertigo. She closed her eyes, leaned forward, and forced herself to take measured breaths. When the feeling passed, and she opened her eyes, she was alone in the tent with Chara. She didn't even have the capacity to wonder if it might be the last time she saw Alster. "Tell me... what is it like to cast a spell without fear of blowback?" She asked, and turned her head to cough into her sleeve. Tiny speckles of blood peppered the worn fabric. "I don't even know why I am helping you... or him. It isn't as though there is anything you lot can do for me, Rigas or not... There is no place for someone like me. Not anywhere."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Their strenuous journey to Atvany was characterized by uneasy silence. While he preferred the lack of communication, as it eased concentration that he channeled into encouraging his horse through the border nations, the tension piled upon his shoulders, as if he were the horse carrying the burden home.
The midnight procession that followed them through the streets, haunting their shadows with each step, blew an unseasonable chill against his back. The sensation wasn't altogether false; he was personally escorting Elespeth to her doom. And something about wrangling her life in the same manner as livestock that had exhausted all usefulness...sickened him.
Then, he saw them. His family. Her family, once. Years had passed, years he could not track, since he viewed their faces. Though he kept in communication with them through regular letters, they seldom wrote back to him. And while he reasoned their sour stares were exclusive to Elespeth, he could not help but feel the disdain bounced in his direction. No matter their hatred and betrayal, they would always remember Farrin as the one who had delivered Elespeth, their sister, their daughter, to justice. The Tameris name might find salvation, but would he, in their eyes? After all, the populace could never separate the executioner from his deed, however much they desired retribution. It mattered not if the criminal deserved death; the executioner was a means to an end, and not seen as a person.
At the ominous double-doors of The Keep, where all criminals found temporary reprieve, Farrin disembarked and led Elespeth through the dank cellars of the fortress, acknowledging his family with only a grim nod. With soldiers backing and fronting them, they followed the torch-light down into the deepest recesses of the facility. Stopping just shy of her cell, the prison guards opened the door with a clank and shoved her inside, as if touching her for any longer than several seconds would infect their hands with her treachery. Once they bolted the door shut, Farrin peeked his head through her barred windows, tired hazel eyes looking upon the caged animal with a pang of...regret.
"Your execution date is set for two days from now, at dawn. They...they want me to," he trailed away, gripping the pommel of his sword for courage. "I will conduct the ceremony. I'm...sorry, Elespeth, but it is not up to me to decide your fate. But I promise you that it will be quick--and merciful."
On the outside, Alster embodied a calm presence. He stood, poised by the tent flaps, dressed with all the gear that he required for the trip and his eyes faraway, locked in the details of a spell.
"The officers are carting about those enchanted weapons," Alster had explained to Chara earlier. "With a spell, I'm able to detect their whereabouts and avoid where they're lurking."
On the inside, however, every possibility for disaster threatened to wrench focus from the spell. He fused one hand against his arm, an anchor to hold him in place, lest he fell to pieces on the floor.
Chara, spotting the tremble of a jaw that otherwise had clenched in a line of determination, sidled away from Lilica's sluggish spell-casting and repositioned herself at his shoulder.
"I...I never told you," Alster began, in quiet, "...when you said that you," his cheeks flushed, "l-loved me, I needed to hear that. It helped to open my eyes. That it doesn't matter if I'm worthy of love or not. There are those who will offer it to me regardless of my own misgivings. And," he stared at his hands, "...it was a welcome distraction from dwelling on what I did...to them."
In response, Chara clamped her hand over his shoulder, her nostrils flaring and her face reddening--but not from anger. "You decide to tell me this now? Gods, Alster. Just," she spun him around and planted a quick kiss on his mouth "...just come back safe."
Flustered at her unexpected reaction, he cupped a hand over his mouth. With widened eyes, he frantically reconstituted the scattering bits of his spell. "D-dammit, Chara. I'm trying to concentrate!"
"Then don't say such distracting nonsense!" She crossed her arms and stormed over to Lilica's vicinity. By then, the dark mage had, at last, completed her fog spell, and the dreaded moment of truth was at hand.
"Thank you, Lilica," Alster nodded his appreciation at her as he pulled back the tent flaps. "For all of your help. Please--find some rest."
He crossed the threshold, into the night, and disappeared through the fog.
When Lilica came to, Chara sat on a cushion at her side, and handed her a water tin. On the verge of her own vertigo, she refreshed her lungs and her head with a few relaxing breaths, though she was far from relaxed, nor would be until she could confirm Alster's safety.
"Every spell has its blowback, in some form or another," she said after a few minutes of silence had elapsed. "Every action does, as well. I don't undermine your pain. Rather, in some small way, I relate to the feeling of offering a selfless hand and in return, receiving only agony."
With a sigh, she reached for a cloth and laid it across the dark mage's lap, in case she coughed another glob of blood. "Where else can you go? Perhaps that is why you are helping: there is no other place for you but here."
As Alster crouched into the mist, coating himself in the coverage that Lilica provided, he alerted his senses to the weapons' energy, which waddled around in the care of their wielders, and altered his trajectory as he assessed his projected route. Luckily, he had memorized the camp layout by muscle memory alone, and needn't see in order to know how to reach the camp's boundaries. And, with Elespeth's heart as the compass, he always found due North.
After careful maneuvering, close calls, and fake-outs, Alster emptied out of the west side of the encampment just as the fog began to roll away and disperse. He scrambled up the nearby hill and out of sight before the mist winked out of existence. But, even though he had succeeded in fleeing camp, he needed to exercise the utmost caution as he traversed the dark, unforgiving landscape, and keep an eye for any guards on the move.
It would be one long night--but he refused to rest until Elespeth was safe.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Her biggest mistake, however, was meeting her brother's eyes. Those kind eyes... not the eyes of an executioner. Why ever would they put that task upon him? Elespeth knew that Farrin would follow through... but she also knew, with one hundred percent conviction, that he did not want to. Even if he denied it in his very heart, until the day he died, with honour and of natural physical decline... "Farrin." She breathed his name, memorizing his face, how it had changed ever so slightly since she had last seen him. This was the face she wanted to remember, and silently vowed not to look upon him when he brought her into the open arms of death. "You are... you have always been in my heart. You will always be my brother." To the very end.
She was alone for hours--maybe a day, but the former Atvanian knight wouldn't know, as her dank cell had no window, and her concept of time was severely obscured by the delirium of malnutrition and sleeplessness. But at some point (night or day, she did not know), she became aware of footsteps in the stone corridor beyond. They were light and hurried, not the usual heavy footfalls of the Keep's sentries, and more to her surprise, the clanging sound of keys turning the tumblers in a lock nearby awoke her from her semi-conscious stupor, where she sat with her head against the chilly, hard wall. She wanted to open her eyes... but decided she didn't really care to do so. Not until she heard the voice.
"Gods... Elespeth."
"...Lyriq." The Atvanian fugitive cracked her eyelids open just int time to be pulled into a tight embrace, her youngest brother's body and arms warming her chilled skin. "You can't... what are you..."
"Keep it down. I'm not supposed to be here." The youngest of the Tameris offspring released her and sat back on his heels, bright eyes shining with tears that he must have been struggling to hold back. The longer he looked her over, the sadder they became. "I knew it. I knew you were alive. I was going to find you, one day..." Trembling hands gripped her by the shoulders, albeit gently. "I have been saving my wages to buy a horse. To leave Atvany forever..."
"Lyriq." Elespeth's voice felt tight her throat parched and aching, from emotion as much as it was from thirst. "I have... I've wronged you. All of you. It was never my intent, but I hope you can accept my apology... just as I accept this fate. All actions must have a consequence." The touch of a sad smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. "If my death can restore your honour and standing in this kingdom... then I will accept it. For you."
He still believed in her. After all of this time, after all she had done, he did not despise her like the rest. Although it confused her, it was the most comfort she had had in a very long time, and willingly leaned into her younger brother's embrace, for what could very well be the last time. "Will you live for me, Lyriq? Do you promise to find fulfillment in your life, regardless of anyone else's expectations? Promise me... please."
His cheeks were wet; there was no holding back the outpouring of emotions that Lyric had concealed deep inside of him for nearly half a decade. The young man of sixteen years pressed his forehead against his eldest sister's shoulder, worried for the sharpness of her collarbone against his cheek. When had she last eaten? Would starvation take her before her own execution? "I promise... I promise that..." When he pulled away, the sadness in his eyes had transformed into something far more powerful. "I promise that I can't let this happen to you."
When he left in haste, for fear of being found and called on by one of the sentries, he made for the outdoors, squinting his green eyes--eyes just like Elespeth's--against the early morning sun. And there, standing alongside his steed alone on the edge of Gallei's main road to the market square, was Farrin.
And it infuriated him. That his brother--who would also be his sister's killer--could stand so casually, and with such pride and self-righteousness under the sun, the very day before Elespeth would become no more than a memory.
"You can't do it." Lyriq had never confronted his older siblings before; it was considered dishonourable. Their mother would have taken a leather belt to his hide, were she to witness it. But it needed to be said, and there was no time left.
He waited until Farrin turned to face him, unperturbed by the surprise in his hazel eyes. "Do you realize what we will all lose if you go through with this? We will lose our sister, Farrin. Regardless of what she did, she is still one of us, still the same person we have always known..." His voice softened, lest it break under the weight of his words. "She's the person who cared for me and for Priya as young children, when mother was too afflicted with that bout of constant despondency that made her lose interest in being a mother at all. She's the person who sacrificed an entire night's worth of sleep to give me water and ascertain I was still breathing when I was stricken with influenza, just a few years before she was knighted. She is still that gentle, selfless woman that we all knew... and yet, we've thrown her in a cell, leaving her weak and malnourished. And you will end her, all in the name of some twisted sense of honour."
His nails dug into the soft flesh of his palms as he clenched them at his side. "No one in this wretched family deserves honour more than Elespeth--don't pretend like you yourself don't know that. If you go through with this... then this horrible mistake will haunt you for the rest of your life."
Although he had not been caught, word of Alster's disappearance spread quickly enough by the next morning. And Lilica was one of the first to pick up on it, as Chara's words to her had kept her up all of the night such that she eluded sleep: "Perhaps that is why you are helping: there is no other place for you but here."
Was that really the case? Did she stay because this ridiculous scandal was the closest thing to 'belonging' that she had ever experienced? If that was the case, then all she could do was make the best of it and see their plan through; and if she was to do that, then she needed to warn Chara Rigas of the inevitable questioning that was soon to come, and ascertain that their versions of the story were on par, without the slightest detail deviating from their versions.
The chthonic mage hurried to the celestial caster's tent, finding her still fast asleep upon her cushions, beneath a bright and exquisite looking quilt. Her face was peaceful, and it was with a strange sense of regret that she knelt to gently shake her awake by the shoulder. There was no time for rest when Messino could summon either of them at any moment. "Wake up. Messino is not far from learning of Alster's flight, if he has not already found out." Her face remained placid in light of the annoyed sneer that Chara shot. Slowly, she was learning not to take things so personally with the haughty blonde Rigas. "Your smooth talking got me out of a lot of trouble for sparring with your cousin; let us hope that you can spare us the Mad Prince's wrath yet again. I will help as you see fit." After a pause, she added, "I might as well... if there is nowhere else I might belong."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Farrin left the Keep with those words like swords stabbing his back. He supposed it was appropriate: the traitor wounding the traitor of a different sort. A traitor who stepped on hearts. A traitor, who, to save his family, discarded family. Who, to restore honor, needed to reject honor.
On his way to the inn that Atvany had provided him, for he felt unwelcome at home, he slept little, if at all, and paced around in his small quarters. He imagined the floorboards were the mounds of dirt of many different lands that he, as a knight and a soldier, traversed. Simpler times lay at his feet. Times where he needn't worry about little else other than staying alive. But the dirt of his fantasies kicked into the air by the synchronized footwork of Elespeth and himself in the throes of swordcraft. They sparred frequently. He even remembered his lessons. He taught her how to hold a blade and how it extended as part of the body and soul. He tied the art of the sword with an etiquette of pride and honor. Country, Duty, Family. Did he really express the code of knighthood in that particular order? Wasn't family more important? After all, without the weight of his country and the unforgivable duties they asked of him, family, his entire family, would be spared from shame, and be made whole once more.
He closed his eyes and slammed the memory into the ground with the stamp of his boot.
He could not pick and choose which rules he decided to follow. Life was not like that.
That morning, as he arrived at the Keep for his shift as sentry outside Elespeth's cell, he heard a voice, which he first mistook as his conscience. He turned and saw Lyriq, and his brow furrowed with suspicion.
"Are you returning from the Keep? Lyriq, you're not--"
His youngest sibling then proceeded to lambaste him with the specifics of Elespeth's altruistic nature, as if his awareness of her good deeds would outweigh the bad, and alter her fate. His opinions did not matter, for, he hadn't a say in challenging the unshakable policies of Atvanian law. A knight, a soldier, followed orders, and he existed only to see that the orders were carried to completion.
"I know," he told Lyriq, his voice low, and penitent. "I don't want her to die, either. But we mustn't forget the crimes she has committed. A study of her character will not acquit her of her deeds." He led his horse through the market, en route to the Keep. "This is the law of the land, Lyriq. We must obey. We cannot remain partial to the whims of our hearts. Furthermore," he clasped his brother's shoulder to angle a whisper into his ear, "should she make another escape, they will pursue her with more fervor than a pack of wolves on the hunt. I doubt she will survive a second trial as a fugitive."
He released Lyriq and resumed his trek to the front gate. "Now, please, go home before you are caught."
After relieving the guards of their shift, Farrin arranged himself beside Elespeth's door, but he did not feel confident in peeking through the slats inside of her cell. Instead, he knocked, to alert her of a presence from outside.
"Elespeth." His armor creaked as he peered down the hallway, apprehensive of any eavesdropping guards in the vicinity. "What...what happened with the Duke, all those years ago? I cannot believe it was all due to simple negligence. What were your reasons?"
The answer, he feared, would only reflect the truth spoken from Lyriq's heated appeals. That she was gentle, selfless, and honorable. The same person we have always known...
True to Lilica's warnings, Messino had called upon them for an audience that morning. Chara had demanded that Lilica disappear through the back end of her living space and wait for the call in the safety of her own tent, in case the guards that retrieved them suspected foul play in seeing them bunched together in one place.
They met again, at the entrance to Messino's quarters. With a grunt and a nod, their gruff escorts parted the tent flaps and allowed them passage inside.
"Your Highness," Chara said with a curt bow. As she shifted beside Lilica, she opted to adopt a more appropriate guise befitting of the situation, and one she could perform well: barely contained fury. "No doubt you have heard of my traitorous cousin's most shameful of retreats." A hiss rattled through her as she writhed her hands into knots.
"Last night, yes." Messino tapped a finger against his weather-worn table, but his expression and posture remained calm, otherwise--and oddly expectant of the news. "Made a mockery of my men with that silly fog trick. Care to share your thoughts on the matter?"
"We were fools to offer him a second chance." She twisted at the ends of her tunic. "He is now and forever Serpent Bane and we disavow him. There is no place for one so vile as to besmirch our vaunted reputation with such violent intentions. No longer is he a Rigas, and I condone any immediate action required for his arrest. You have my cooperation." She paused to lick her lips, dry from the air and from her wrath, which evaporated her spittle to the point where she could map the terrain of her inner mouth with her tongue. "I take full responsibility for his rogue behavior, for he was under my command and I did not foresee, in time, the extent of his madness, before he took flight. It is shameful. Utterly shameful."
"So," an additional finger joined the tapping, "you are ignorant of his role upon the battlefield? You were seen, with the dark mage, carrying him back to the encampment."
"All I know was that he was tasked to destroy Atvanian troops and fled the scene after his and Lilica's joint magic efforts had failed. She ran to locate him, and eventually we did, but he was unconscious and we know nothing else of his antics in the interim."
Noted." Messino flattened his erratic hand. "Then, we shall send our best trackers to ascertain his whereabouts and deliver him here, so that he may suffer for his indignities placed upon our war effort." He redirected his attention to the other spell-caster in the tent. "And you, dark mage. Can you vouch for the validity of this story?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And then she saw him.
"Alster...?" Surrounded by nothing but darkness, she knew not where she was, and frankly, hadn't the capacity to care, that moment. She wanted to run, but her legs could scarcely move one foot in front of the other. Her dear companion's back was turned, but she recognized the curl of that hair, and the anxious rigidness of that posture anywhere.
Elespeth wanted to embrace him. Wanted to take him into her arms, and let fall all the tears that she had been holding back... but she was still so tired. Too tired to execute any more but place her hands upon his shoulders, warm beneath her palms, and dip her head to his ear. "I miss you." She murmured, astonished by the cutting pain in her chest that those words evoked. "I won't forget you."
And that was when she was awakened, by the clang of armor, and the sound of her name.
Of course... just a dream. Too good to be real. She hadn't seen Alster, but had merely dreamed him to fulfill a wish of her broken heart. Still, her sentiments towards the Rigas mage continued to confuse her; he had sacrificed her for his family's honour--just as Farrin would do. And yet no grudge, no hatred, no resentment burned her stomach in the aftermath. Only sadness, longing... and a loss of hope.
Perhaps that was what it meant to love unconditionally... Reciprocity of the feeling was not mandatory.
Farrin's question triggered memories that the former Atvanian knight would sooner wish to forget. But if this was the peace of mind that her eldest brother needed to help him through the rest of his life with her blood on his hands... then so be it. "Herizon..." Elespeth breathed the name like a curse. "When I was assigned to his aid, he took... an unhealthy interest in me. I ignored it, until he began to confront me multiple times in hopes of leading me into... into entirely inappropriate scenarios." Her throat began to burn; so she was still capable of anger and resentment. "I rejected him every time, first with patience but soon with... well, vehemence. And he then informed me that if I continued to resist yielding to him, or if I spoke of this confrontations with my surperiors... he would personally see that the Tameris name would forever be remembered with shame, and not with honour."
That was her explanation; but not, she realized as the words left her mouth, her excuse. Elespeth's shoulders sank. "When I was tried for negligence, I had truly thought that I had been lax in my efforts to protect the Duke during that ambush out of distraction; acting too late, blaming my reflexes... but I... Now that I am remembering, I suppose, my negligence was not entirely without intent." She pressed her lips together, squeezing her eyes shut, as if it would shut her off from the terrible memory. "If he lived, his insidious tyranny towards me and our family would have continued, and I... When that crucial moment occurred... A part of me must have decided that this could not continue.
"Country, Duty, Family." The former knight repeated, with regret, the hierarchy that should have guided her actions as an ordained knight. "The Crown was not wrong to try me. I effectively forsook my duty for my family... and for myself. A decidedly selfish act." When she opened her eyes, the green irises could not look away from the filthy stone floor. "I realize you might not believe me, but what I did... it was not without consideration for you, for Mother and Father, for Kieriel, for Drevon, for Pirya, and for Lyriq. I was not lying when I said I have never forgotten any of you. But I..."
It was as if the former knight's resolve left her with every exhale, and she found her place in that dungeon, in those shackles. You deserve this for what you have done.
Farrin was right; she did have one thing left to offer Atvany. To offer her family. "I am a traitor and a criminal. I understand the consequences, and I... I accept my fate. With what little honour I might have left. If in my death, the Tameris name will be restored..." Elespeth paused, meditating on the words a moment, before she continued. "Then consider this my final act of love, for all of you."
Back in Andalari, Lilica repeated, practically verbatim, what Chara had disclosed pertaining to Alster's escape. That he was a traitor, excommunicated from the Rigas family, and that their magic had been incompatible, resulting in their loss to Tadasun and Atvany. Messino seemed to buy it, and had little else to say, before dismissing the two of them. When the two mages wandered far beyond any range of hearing, the chthonic caster leaned close to Chara to murmur: "So our story has unfolded, according to plan. If our next step is in contacting Stella D'Mare for aid, then that task is entirely up to you." Her nervous hands wove her long, dark hair into a braid. Something to focus on, other than her own apprehension and doubt. "Although, if you intend to include me in this plan any further... then I would suggest you not reveal the nature of my magic. At least, not for now."
Would they even make it as far as Stella D'Mare? Would there even be any point, if Alster did not make it that far?
A lot seemed to be riding on the shoulders of someone so powerful, yet so lacking in his own confidence...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And it made it difficult for him to even speak.
Instead, he pressed the back of his head against the thick stone wall that separated them, with physical barriers and emotional ones--and his eyes moistened.
"You thought first of your family," he whispered through the bars, trickling his words inside her filthy cell. "That, I believe. It is not conjecture for me to say I would have done the same, in your situation. After all...you learned a little from me. I, too, am responsible, for some of your upbringing, because..." he trailed away. "Family...I will always choose Family." He swallowed, a heavy lump in his throat. "But not this time. At least, not for you. I hope you will forgive me, Elespeth--for, salvation has come too late for you. And I curse the gods for allowing this tragedy to befall us. You," he muffled the sentiment, afraid it would linger and cling to the walls of the dungeon and brand him, too, as a traitor, "you don't deserve it, Elespeth. But, I'll forever remember your sacrifice. And I'll forever carry it on my shoulders as penance. For, what I will do is much worse than any act of negligence exacted upon a morally corrupt Duke."
He closed his eyes, inviting the blackness that his soul would be forced to cart about for the rest of his life. "Know this. You are my sister. You always will be. I'm sorry if I led you astray thinking otherwise."
Meanwhile, at the encampment, Messino listened to the dark mage's regurgitation of the Rigas woman's words. So, they had been practicing. He hid his snort as he waggled his hand at the two of them. "Very well. You are dismissed."
At their departure, Messino invited the hard backing of his chair to massage his tense shoulders. It seemed that Alster Rigas had spoken truth, after all, about his complications with his family name, and his unflattering title as Serpent Bane. However, it all seemed too polished. Too neat. It smelled, no, reeked, of a ploy.
Messino had wanted Alster out of his camp. Even if he did not anticipate the Rigas lead's hurried explanation, he would have welcomed the Serpent Bane to waltz out of camp, were the brat feeling so fleet of foot. For, it gave him reason to hunt down the cretin who destroyed the enchantment in half of his weapons--and kill him.
And Chara Rigas had given him permission to take the necessary action.
Once Chara and Lilica had reached the safety of her tent without meeting any officers or sentries along the way, she finally acknowledged the dark mage's commentary, and inputted that of her own. "Yes. I will contact Adalfieri, and tell him to expect a delegate of mine--and we shall initiate the next step. And rest assured," she fixed Lilica with an intense glare, "I will need you."
Alster felt her, in his dream, but could not move to engage her touch, or respond to the break in her voice that he yearned to mend.
I miss you. I won't forget you...
He awoke to the list of the boat that he had boarded just the day before. He rose to the gust of a bitter wind blowing in his face, and he pulled his dusty cloak further around himself lest he be reduced to a mass of shivers.
When he had arrived at Harbana after traveling by foot all night and hitching a ride on a merchant's cart the rest of the way to Tadasun's port town, he wasted no time in bribing, with his extensive coffers, any sailor who claimed the fastest boat to offer him passage to Atvany--immediately. Having lived many of his years in Stella D'Mare, one of the largest port cities in the South, he was fortunate in his knowledge of waterborne vessels, and could discern, despite the captains' boasts of their craft as the superior choice, the best boat for the task.
In the end, he chose one suited for the short voyage over the shaky seas, at a sacrifice to comfort, as it was open to the bite of the elements and provided little cover in exchange for a streamlined form that glided over the water with ease. And, whenever afforded the opportunity, Alster cast wind spells in secret, to expedite the journey.
They anchored at the port of Atvany late the following evening, a vast improvement from the estimated morning arrival. After paying the captain and the boatswain their share of the promised coinage, the Rigas caster half-ran, half walked to the heart of Gallei, where he felt Elespeth's pulse beat the strongest.
You're still alive. Please, hold out a little longer, Elespeth. I'm almost there...
When he reached the sleepy streets of Gallei's main square, the wobble of his legs almost gave out beneath him. How long had it been since he slept, or eaten? Despite the cry of his body to satisfy his base needs, he pushed himself towards an intimidating structure, a dark splotch against the night sky. Elespeth was inside, of that he was certain. But, as he neared the vast prison, and noted the heavily fortified and guarded gates, his mind worked furiously with ideas on how to infiltrate the place.
He turned to his right--and saw a slight figure standing nearby, as if also contemplating the logistics of entering without being seen. Considering the fact that no one else aside from the guards seemed awake at such an hour, this seemed strange. Suspicious, even.
With a careful gait, Alster stepped closer to the obscured form and confirmed, by shape and stature, that he was a young male. Also...
His blood oath scar throbbed, at the sight of him, and his heart fluttered in excitement in thinking that he had succeeded in locating...
No, this isn't Elespeth. Why is my...
Kin. Short of his magic malfunctioning, the only other explanation was that he had encountered someone of Elespeth's blood.
Then, the boy looked in his direction--and Alster confirmed all suspicions.
The same eyes. The same shape of the face, down to the chin, the same ferocity of life that embedded itself in his aura...
This is a risk. But I have to know...
He took a bold step forward, closer to the firelight that flickered from a tavern that was still in full operation for the evening. "Excuse me, but...are you a Tameris? Do you have a sister named Elespeth?" He lowered his voice, knowing that letting his guard down so easily to a stranger could have undue consequences. But he couldn't afford to squander the opportunity. "If you know of a way...let me see her."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Those words lingered and haunted Elespeth for the remainder of that day, but she did not--could not--blame Farrin in his decision to follow the law instead of his heart. That took both courage and strength... both which she must not have, or else, she'd have embraced her fate far earlier. She'd never have fled... in hindsight, she should have told her family about Duke Herizon's untoward advances, though she feared that the only answer would have been to lose the knighthood which she had just gained.
In the end, it didn't matter. She'd been stripped of that very knighthood, as well as the right to life... And Farrin would let it happen. He would let her fall, just as she had left him and the rest of her family in shame nearly half a decade ago.
But he was still her brother. And she was still his sister. In life, or in death, that would never change.
Elespeth spent the day drifting in and out of sleep, until later that evening, when she was permitted yet another unexpected visitor. The current sentry at her prison door turned the key and allowed the entry of a young woman with auburn hair, carefully braided away from her face. She carried over her arm clean articles of clothing--the green and gold of Atvany's colours--and a bucket of water in the crook of her arm. Her eyes remained on the floor as the former knight took in the image of her younger sister with fondness and sadness. "Priya... you've grown so beautiful," she murmured, her back slumped against the cold wall. "Your face favours Mother's."
Priya Tameris did not respond right away. Setting the bucket down, she put the clothes carefully aside and rolled up her sleeves. "Word has traveled to the crown that you put up no fight in your arrest, and that you accept your fate with honour." She spoke the words as if they were lines rehearsed from a play; Elespeth never recalled Priya ever speaking in such a manor. "Therefore, you have been permitted to face your execution with dignity... and not looking like some filthy peasant."
Dignity... as if that mattered, anymore. This was not about her dignity; it was not about her at all. She knew it had been her parents who must have persuaded the crown to allow her to dress like a Tameris; as someone with honourable standing.
After all, how would it reflect on the Tameris name, were she to die with filthy hair and filthy clothes? They were not executing her as a non-person; they would take her life as a Tameris, so that her family might renew the monarchy's favour. After all, what else spelled loyalty than sacrificing one's own kin in the name of an empire?
Elespeth didn't want this--any of this--but knew better than to argue. So she said nothing as Priya temporarily relieved her sore wrists of the shackles and helped her out of the filthy, torn clothes she'd donned when she'd fled Messino's camp. The younger woman washed her hair, cleaned her skin, and helped her dress in the green and gold tunic and leggings with more care than the former knight thought she would receive. When she felt her sisters hands in her hair, weaving it into a braid more intricate than she was ever capable of, her throat tightened to stifle a sob. These were the last moments that she would ever spend with her younger sister, filled with gentleness, and a respect that was unspoken, but sensed.
It might have been easier if she'd told Elespeth that she hated her, and had stormed out. It would have been easier to say goodbye.
"Priya... why are you here?" She ventured the question just as the younger woman gathered the old, filthy clothes, and the now murky bucket of warm water. "It needn't have been you to help me clean and to change..."
At first, she didn't think that Priya would answer her. She focused on her task of balancing the bucket on the crook of her arm, and didn't speak up again until she approached the door. "I won't be attending the...event, tomorrow," she informed her elder sister. "And I... I want to remember you like this; clean, and with dignity. Not like the filthy traitor that you are."
Elespeth did not believe that Priya meant her words--not all of them. Had she truly thought her a 'filthy traitor', she wouldn't have handled her with such gentility, and wouldn't have any reservations about attending her execution when the sun rose.
Farrin, Priya, Lyriq... they all still care. Just not enough to want to help me. Not enough to forsake Atvany's code of justice.
At least she could die knowing that, although she had for all intents and purposes been excommunicated as an honourable citizen of Atvany, a knight, and someone worthy of life, she had not been evicted from their hearts. Not entirely, at least.
But Elespeth's appraisal was not entirely correct in her intuition. Even after his confrontation with Farrin, Lyriq refused to give up on the sister who was locked away in the Keep, resigned to her own death. Elespeth had always been a woman of such conviction... and that she had accepted this fate, had yielded to the pressures and strength and Atvany because she was too exhausted to fight back, struck such a chord in him that he knew he would not--could not--rest until he had investigated every possibility that might lead to her rescue.
So he spent a good part of the day studying the keep, watching the shifts of guards and the time that they took to trade places. He observed where they came and left, every door and window, nook and cranny. He had already managed to sneak in once; that was not the difficulty that faced him. What caused him to lack the leverage that he needed was the mere fact that he was acting alone. A mere boy, sixteen years of age... What exactly did he think he could do, all by himself? Did he truly believe that conviction of the heart alone would be enough for him to overpower Atvany's law?
And then he saw him--or, rather, he heard him, first. Heard his sister's name on a stranger's lips that very evening, just as he felt he should give up on his ridiculous incentive...
Already sleep-deprived and on edge, Lyriq was quick to come to act on the defense.
"Who are you?" Voice low but dire, he stalked up to the stranger with brazen strides and fire in his eyes. Eyes just like Elespeth's. "And what do you know of my sister and her name?"
The stranger must have been prepared for this less that satisfactory greeting. He did not dress like any Atvanian that Lyriq had ever seen, and moved with a purpose that made him uneasy. He was here for a reason... one that pertained to his doomed sister.
This Alster Rigas, as the man so introduced himself, apparently already knew his sister. The youngest Tameris was inclined to believe it when he paraphrased just how he had met Elespeth, and what had led to the events that had brought her here, not only because it seemed feasible, but because he described his sister in the very way that he knew her: as the strong, albeit gentle and altruistic soul that had left impressions on his heart as a young child.
And, furthermore, this Rigas man insisted that he was on her side; and so, their goals were mutual, it seemed.
"Come with me. We can't talk here." Taking Alster by the sleeve, Lyriq led him to the inn nearby, empty in its dining area save for two men, passed out at the base of their mugs of ale. He took the precaution of finding a seat in a far corner before he began to fill this stranger in on what was to come. Perhaps it was naive; for all he knew, Alster Rigas could be part of an elaborate ploy to test his loyalty to the kingdom of Atvany. But Elespeth had always insisted that he listen to his gut feelings, and desperation aside, Lyriq's gut told him he could trust his foreigner. "She is being held in the Keep--the dark shadow of an edifice directly across from here. They have scheduled her execution for tomorrow morning, and I... I don't know what to do."
Lyriq wrung his hands and bit down hard on his bottom lip to fight off tears. "Elespeth does not deserve an early death, regardless of what she has done. If you know her as well as you claim, then you would already know that. But unless you are capable of miracles..." He turned his hands, palms up on the table. They were as empty as his reservoir of ideas to put towards saving his eldest sister. "There is just no time left. I can get into the Keep, but I cannot get her out, not without being seen and securing both of our deaths. A shame that Atvany is not a kingdom of magic, where the impossible can occur just when you need it..."
Raising his eyes from the wood grain in the chipped table, he fixed them on Alster's face, just as drawn and tired as his own. So he had come all the way from Andalari, with like intentions... but why? "What really brings you here?" He ventured to ask at last; it was not as though he had anything to lose. "You've scarcely known my sister for one cycle of the moon... What drives you to such a conviction as to save her?" What could Elespeth possibly mean to him, that he would risk his own life, riding on the faintest glimmer of hope that he might be the former knight's salvation?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Tomorrow morning? That's no time at all." He played with the rim of his mug of ale, for one relieved beyond belief that he had infiltrated the country that evening instead of his projected next day arrival. He would not have reached Elespeth before the crown beheaded her, and what then? All reserves of hope and determination, he feared, would slough away from his person, for good. And there was still the possibility that their hearts would silence themselves together, in death.
He was fighting, not only for her, but for himself, as well.
"If you can get us into the Keep, I'll provide the rest. You said that it's a shame there is no magic?" After checking the area for the innkeep or any other voyeurs on the move, he, with hesitation, placed his hand on the table. There wasn't any indication that he could trust Elespeth's youngest brother, especially when, according to her retellings, he and his family had deserted her all for the sake of a misplaced sense of honor. As far as he was aware, Lyriq was a spy for the crown, and revealing too much about his name and magical proficiency could endanger the Rigas cause. It was feasible that a trap awaited him inside the Keep, and that he was blindly traipsing into his own doom.
Your magic can kill him with ease. The rogue thought placated him--as much as it terrified him.
With an exhalation, the shadows surrounding his hand activated, and stacked themselves upon the table like another appendage, which grabbed for and moved the mug several inches forward. A silly cantrip, at best, but he assumed a demonstration was the only method by which to convince Lyriq of his upcoming words. "I hail from a kingdom of magic. And I have plenty of it." His eyes reflected the same intensity of his unlikely partner as he dispersed the spell with a flick. "In fact, your sister has befriended a very powerful ally." Oh, wouldn't Chara be impressed by his glaring display of clout, waving his Rigas name like a banner of pride?
However, his false bravado petered away in the face of Lyriq's question. Perhaps, then, honesty of another sort might win the young Tameris's favor. "Why would I risk it all? Because," his eyes lowered to the table, and then to the floor, "She has saved me, many times over. And...I love her."
By Lyriq's lead, they headed toward's a breech in the Keep's front-end security. The breech only lasted a short period, but after painstakingly reviewing the overlay of the ponderous citadel, they were as prepared as the limited circumstances would allow them.
"I'll cover you," Alster had told the youngest brother as they had planned their strategy in surreptitious whispers at the inn, just an hour prior. "If there's any close calls, I'll be able to temporary disarm the guards before they see us. When we make it inside, we'll grab the keys. I only need access to her cell. We're not rescuing her," he frowned and anticipated Lyriq to respond with protest, but he stewed in silence as Alster resumed his explanation. "No, not yet. There's too many factors, even if we do succeed in freeing her from the Keep. Once they realize she's missing, they'll conduct a search. Your entire family, including you, will be suspect. We would have to flee the country, and quickly, but if the crown is as adamant about searching for her as they are in executing her, they'll doggedly pursue her for the rest of her life."
As he paused to touch his chest, feeling the black torpor of his chthonic magic, his death specific energies, infect his lifeblood, the idea had dawned on him.
This is where I lose my support.
"What I propose...is that we kill her."
He had detailed, as well as he could, the procedure of his magic and, somehow, convinced Lyriq of his plan's validity. They hadn't many options at this point, and if his death scenario was the most optimistic of them all, then they were operating out of sheer, unadulterated desperation.
When the Keep's breech had widened enough for the two would-be rescuers to proceed, they took advantage of the blind-spot to scale the wall that, from weather and erosion, had deteriorated enough to leave behind ample footholds and handholds, for ease of climbing. Once over the wall, they weaved through the maze of guards and, while they did not carry necromantic weapons, Alster could detect their faint auras enough to warn Lyriq on where to avoid.
They advanced with care, until they found the crack in the wall that was large enough for them to tunnel inside.
On their way to the lowest levels, they skirted the most well-trodden paths, stuck to the edges of the walls, and crept under low-hanging ceilings. To increase their stealth, Alster had surrounded the two in shadows and they succeeded in bypassing a few guards right in front of their faces.
At last, they reached the lowest level. With a spell (and after instructing Lyriq to cover his nose), Alster released a toxin from the earth to knock out the two guards on duty. They stole the keys--and made it to outside of Elespeth's cell.
His palms sweat profusely as he looked upon the door inside of which Elespeth waited--and his entire body froze in place. He couldn't fall apart, not when he traveled so far and risked so much just so he could turn the key...and reunite with her.
But it was not a full reunion, and if he faltered in his magic, or invited doubt to roost in his soul, it would be their last.
Do not lose your way. Remain strong. For her.
With an energizing intake of breath, he unlocked the chain and opened the door.
She was...clean. So clean. And well-dressed. Like a sacrifice about to be fed to the pyre. But she was alive, and unharmed. And he couldn't help himself. Tears welled in his eyes."El...Elespeth." He raised his hand, the hand with the scar, and a small, sad smile appeared on his lips. "I found you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Perhaps he was, but the sorcerer from another kingdom was quick to explain himself, and the details of the plan that he had in mind. It was not one without risks, not by far, and had any other option presented itself, he would have jumped on it.
But that was the problem; there was no other feasible plan, and they were running out of time. All that was left was to invest his blind faith in this Alster Rigas, to work with him, and to hope for the best. After all, any hope for his sister, however fragile, was worth the investment.
"So, if you've never done this before... then there is a chance that she will die, anyway." Lyriq twisted his mouth into a thoughtful grimace, knowing full well that if they didn't try at all, death would not just be a possibility for Elespeth; it would be a certainty. "There is a chance that they will still make a spectacle of her; they'll burn her body at the center of the city, for everyone to see. We would need something... or someone else, in her place." Flicking his eyes--Elespeth's eyes--from the table, he settled them on the mage. "I have two questions for you. First, do you have any talent in illusions? Making something look different from its natural appearance? And second..." He raised an eyebrow. "Does the idea of grave robbery and fresh corpses make you squeamish, Alster Rigas?"
The two worked out the details of their plan in haste, and only two hours before dawn, they were upon the Keep and on their way to Atvany's infamous prisoner. Thanks to the magic of Lyriq's unlikely comrade, moving silently and unseen was astonishingly easy, once he explained the layout of the keep to Alster, as well as the positions and rotations of the guards. Exactly one hour before the sun rose, the two of them made it to Elespeth's cell, a solitary room at the end of a short corridor, no other doors or windows to be seen; just stone cold walls and silence.
The worst kind of loneliness...
"You must hurry," Lyriq urged when Alster's hands hesitated on the chain that secured the heavy lock. There was no telling how much time they had before they'd be found, or when the guards would awaken from the toxin that Alster had released.
The young man could not, however, blame him for the tears that welled in his eyes. As his gaze fell upon his eldest sister, slumped over in a corner, Lyriq felt his throat tighten. She looked... perfect, every inch the personification of Atvanian pride and honour, from the intricate weave of her long hair, to the flattering tunic adorned with Atvany's colours. Were it not for her thinness, the shadows beneath her eyes and the pallor of her face, she might have looked nearly identical to the way she had looked they day she'd been knighted.
At the sound of the heavy door creaking open, Elespeth raised her head, gaze roaming over the two figures who she recognized, yet refused to believe were standing before her. In her semi-conscious delirium, encouraged by thirst and starvation, there was no telling how her eyes might deceive her.
"Alster? Ly...no. I'm dreaming." The prisoner pressed a tired sigh from her lungs and shook her head. "You can't be real... I can't be seeing you."
"It's real, Elle. We're here." Lyriq's words sounded strangled, his eyes hot with the pressure of threatening tears that had yet to fall. He took one step toward his sister, then another, as if afraid she would vanish or flee like a scared animal should he move too quickly--even though she had nowhere else to go. "We're here to help."
Elespeth didn't believe it, not for another long moment. She stared, her green eyes alternating their focus between her brother and her beloved companion, widening at last with startling realization. The confusion that lined her pale, tired face soon yielded to a look of utter horror. "No... no no no, you can't be here. You must leave, immediately!" Panic flew into motion in a matter of seconds. Her heart raced, and her breaths increased in number, but dwindled in depth. "They'll kill you... they won't tolerate any interference. Please, please, you both must leave... this isn't worth it. I am not worth it...!"
"Shhhh, Elle," Lyriq knelt before her, and placed his steady hands on her shoulders. "Please, listen. Alster and I... we have a plan. It is not flawless, but it is the strongest seed of hope that we have. There is no time to explain right now, so I need you to trust us... especially, Alster." The young man glanced over his shoulder at the mage, offering a curt nod, before returning his attention to his sister. "Can you do that? Can you give us your trust, just one more time?"
The former knight and current prisoner looked positively stricken. It tore apart Lyriq's heart to see her this way... and even more that he could not inform her of the details, and not just due to lack of time and safety concerns. After some back and forth deliberation with Alster, the two had finally decided that given time constraints, it was best that Elespeth not know what they had in mind. That she did not become privy to the fact they planned to dig up the grave of a woman around Elespeth's age who had only a day ago succumbed to pneumonia, and replace the former knight's body with hers, while Alster used his magic to superimpose Elespeth's image on the corpse.
And, most importantly, that she did not become privy to the dark spell with which the mage intended to infect her--one that would, for all intents and purposes, render her in a limbo between life and death, where she would remain in that terrifying, delicate balance until they were on route to safety.
It was not out of malice that they withheld this information; it was that they could not risk her refusal. There simply was no time to convince her.
The Atvanian prisoner looked down at her shackled hands, then back up at her brother. For someone so young, he looked as though he had aged years beyond his time among the living... "You know I trust you." The words passed her lips in a whisper. "Both of you... always. But I... my death is more valuable to you, more beneficial, than my life. To both the Rigas name, and Tameris."
"Don't be ridiculous. You... you're irreplaceable," Lyriq informed her quietly. "And Atvany does not deserve you... nor does this family." Standing, he turned and made his way over to Alster. "Do what you must... but please, please take care with her." It was not a demand so much as a heartfelt plea. "I'll see to... the other part of this plan."
When Alster closed the gap between them, Elespeth couldn't help but smile; tired, but genuine. His very presence felt like a warm blanket on a cold day, and even in the darkness of her cell, she could make out the soft smile that he returned. "You were right... it wasn't goodbye." Raising her shackled wrists, the prisoner gently copped the sides of his face, despite that her hands trembled from the weight of the iron. "I'm glad. I wanted to see you again... and you need to promise me that you will win this. Dethrone Messino, and take back what is rightfully yours... Can you promise?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The strongest seed of hope... But was that seed strong enough? Trust us...especially Alster. Could she? Could they, when he could not even trust in himself?
He opened his eyes, and caught the wild, almost feral look in the eyes of the condemned, which about corroded all the gumption he had swallowed down into his viscera for safekeeping. Atvany had locked her down into the earth, away from the final rays of sunlight, refused her proper care aside from dressing and cleansing her to fit the agenda of the crown's purported edicts of honor and purity, and left her to wallow in shame during her last days. At least, if she were to die now, he would deliver it, by his hand, just as he had threatened to do not so long ago. If he couldn't save her, at the very least, he'd grant her a mercy killing. And one more deserving than what Atvany believed her sacrifice would serve for the country.
He stepped forward and met Lyriq's plea as they exchanged places in the cell. "I will," he said to the youngest Tameris, and it was the only promise he could grant him, grant her...grant himself. Kneeling before Elespeth, he forced an untroubled mien despite the caresses of his hands against his cheeks and the smile that she reserved for him. "Your life is what is most valuable to me." He lowered his hands to rest against her upper arms, and pulled her close, feeling her heartbeat against his own. A heartbeat, which he would snuff. "So much so, that I tied it to mine." The flow of chthonic magic oozed from the ground and surrounded them. A prison provided plenty of death energy for him to siphon. "I promise. Now I need you to promise me---to rest, now." He did not know if it would be goodbye, so he leaned forward--and kissed her lips. Their collective heartbeats throbbed in his ears as the magic gathered in his hands, descended into Elespeth's body, and criss-crossed through her bloodstream--hardening it into a frozen stasis. The pulse that had once pumped in tandem with his own had slowed, languished...and stopped.
As he released Elespeth, she slumped forward, against the cold dirt floor of her cell, completely coated in a thick cocoon of death borrowed from the criminals of old. She was not dead--he would have felt the pull to join her, otherwise. Rather, she was petrified, beneath a literal death shroud. But it would only be a matter of time before the death energy merged with her sleeping lifeforce and leeched it for its own uses.
Before the shock of his deed could reduce him into a state of catatonia not dissimilar to his treatment of Elespeth, he wobbled to his feet, his short, pained breaths a combination between magical exhaustion and emotional exhaustion.
"Let's go," he told Lyriq, his voice flat, breathy, but frigid. "The guards won't stay asleep for long, and we need to make it to the graveyard."
They rechained the door, replaced the keys, and broke free from the Keep without issue, and reached the front gates of the cemetery just moments before dawn. As they located the gravemarker and dug, with their hands and some magical assistance, for they hadn't the time to locate a shovel, Alster's mind bloomed with the sting of death, a specific death, ruminating from beneath the earth.
"I'm sorry." He spoke to the corpse as they excavated her from the dirt and the casket. "I know you are still attached to your body, but we need it to help save the life of another." The death spiraled from the casket and whispered around his arms, a soft tickle like a feather stroking an enticing invitation to sink...into the tomb, into eternal oblivion. Safe. You're safe, here. You'll finally be able to rest... He leaned towards the grave of his own accord, hypnotized...
Thoughts of Elespeth blinked into his consciousness, severing the trance, the fixation, on death. With a gasp, he gripped his forehead and gave Lyriq an apologetic glance.
"That spell. I think it's affecting me, too. We'll have to hurry." Clasping his hands against the shoulders of the exhumed corpse, ignoring the touch that seemed to sap his own living hue, he encouraged the shadows to extract Elespeth's last appearance from his memory: crumpled on the floor, eyes closed to the world, her hair an elaborate weave not unlike the regalia that completed her doll-like stillness. He saw the vivid colors, the highlights in her chestnut hair, felt the plush press of her lips...
When he opened his eyes, he stared straight at the woman he had left behind, in her death throes. A near-exact replica lay in silent repose, an admirable effigy straight down to the curves in her muscles and the recent scar on her right hand.
Clutching his mouth, he scrambled from the sight in time to retch the last of the food that weighed on his stomach.
He returned, wiping the back of his mouth before summoning the last of his strength to address Lyriq. "Now, to find a bag. We conceal her until the time comes to switch the bodies. Take me to the ceremonial grounds. We'll hide there until then."
Dawn trickled in a light sprinkle of rain, which seared like frozen pellets at Farrin's neck. Bedecked in black armor, the traditional color for execution, he entered the Keep, and his hackles rose with more persistence the deeper he ventured into the underworld where awaited his undesirable destiny.
As he rounded the corner to his sister's cell, the guards on duty greeted him with a wash of panic buffing their faces into a shiny sheen.
"What is it?" Farrin tightened the hold on his sword, for assurance. "Did she escape again?!"
"No!" The guard's hand trembled to the sound of jangling as he entered the key to her cell, and opened the door. "I think she's dead, Sir."
He barreled past the guards and stormed into the cell. At his feet, Elespeth lay sprawled in a contorted pose, arms splayed and her eyes shuttered to a close. Lowering to his knees, he checked for a pulse at her neck, at her wrist, at her chest. All results yielded the same. No pulse. Her skin, though still warm, prickled with the interference of the cold that would soon transform her into a complete corpse.
"We think she died of a broken heart, Sir," one guard said, his head bowed in supplication. "There's no physical indication that she took her life. No blood, no marks--she just went quietly into the night."
"Call in the physician!" Farrin ordered with a cry. "We need to confirm. And the Knight-Commander," he grimaced, "he must be made aware. I am certain they will still want a ceremony. Most likely, he will burn her at the pyre."
When the guards scurried down the hallway, Farrin cradled Elespeth's body...and wept.
"This is just like you, Eles; dying so that I would not have to live in torment knowing that your blood was on my hands. I only wish...I could have given you a proper goodbye."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The doctor checked Elespeth's body thoroughly for vital signs and possible trauma, but just as the guards had suspected, there was nothing to indicate that she had been harmed in any way, or by any means that she'd taken her own life. But there was no breath, no heartbeat... all signs pointed to the answer that she was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
"There is no such thing as dying of a 'broken heart'," the Knight-Commander spat, his aged face scrunched into a scowl. "Do not feed me that poppycock; I want a better opinion than that."
"She is dehydrated, and moderately malnourished," the physician replied with unwavering patience. "If you want my professional opinion, Sir, then I can only come to the conclusion that her heart became weakened for lack of care. And with the mental and emotional stress she was under..." Standing slowly, he shook his head. "It was too much. Grief does kill, in its own, insidious way."
"Ridiculous... Positively ridiculous!" The tall Knight-Commander spat. "Her execution was crucial to make a point to any future traitors... And to restore honour to a certain family name." He turned on his heel to face Farrin, and his eyelids lowered in a glare. "You were responsible for delivering her to death... Do not think your failure to do so will reflect well on the Tameris name. But it is what it is." Folding his arms, he turned to leave the dank cell. "Her body will burn on the pyre. The crown expects a spectacle, regardless."
Within an hour, plans had changed, and the scene at the middle of the market square prepared to watch the already deceased Atvanian traitor burn, for all the kingdom to see... But Farrin was not the only one to mourn her.
"Let me see her... She is my sister, by the gods! Let me see her!"
Priya pushed through the mass of guards, disregarding their refusals to grant her an audience with the deceased, until her hysterics finally wore down their resolve. The youngest Tameris daughter hovered over the still form of her sister upon the wooden table, silent and unmoving... Finally, the tears that she had kept so well concealed fell, promptly soaking her pink cheeks.
"How dare you... How dare you leave us alone!" Her tears fell upon Elespeth's regal clothes. "I should have asked you... to sing me that song. Just once more... I should have asked. But I was too proud." Pressing her lips together, Priya knelt and clasped Elespeth's cold hands, while she hummed a quiet tune; a soothing lullaby that her elder sister had taught her so long ago. She sang her to rest, just as Elespeth had done many a time to coax her to sleep. "I don't care that you fled," she whispered, her lower lip trembling. "But why did you have to come back... just to die?"
"Enough of this," the Knight-Commander bellowed, his face an impatient shade of pink. "Get her away. We've a ceremony within the hour."
"Keep your hands off of me. I'm leaving." Priya hissed and bristled like an angry cat as some of the guards made to remove her; they were quick to back off.
But she did not vacate the premises immediately. Not before she turned to Farrin, grabbed the front of his garb and pressed her forehead against his chest. "She did this on purpose... somehow, I know it. She willed her own life away... so that you would not have to be a murderer."
Lyriq and Alster worked as quickly as they could, endeavoring to move the body of the young woman who now resembled his sister so uncannily, down to the most minute detail.
Alster knew her better, more intimately, than he possibly knew. Perhaps that accompanied the blood bond in which the two of them had willingly engaged.
"Word has it they are to burn Elespeth at the pyre within the hour," Lyriq informed the mage from their hiding spot behind the morgue. "She will be inside, at this moment... but I am certain she will be guarded. This is the only chance we have to switch her body, so I hope you have an ace up your sleeve to deal with any interferences. Come on."
Inhaling a long and calming breath, Alster carried the corpse by the shoulders, and Lyriq took her by the legs. From the entrance to the basement outside, they took care to carry their load downward, into the morgue, and then up the stairs. "Get ready," Lyriq whispered over his shoulder. "If we run into any trouble, drop the body and do what you need to do... if you're capable of it." The mage from afar hadn't looked well since he'd cast the spell upon the woman he so claimed to love. It was enough to make the young man fear magic; who knew how much it could (and would) draw from the human soul, in exchange for its miracles?
Magic aside, Lyriq's hackles rose when, at the moratorium's atrium, they encountered a black-clad figure, armed with a blade at his side. Every muscle in his body tensed, until the obsidian-clad figure turned around... and he faced his eldest brother.
"Farrin..." Lyriq breathed, his face a contorted mixture of fear and relief. The eldest Tameris son looked with confusion from the body on the table, to the identical one his younger brother and some stranger carried between the two of them. Lyriq ventured to answer his question before he could voice it. "Who we have here is not Elespeth... but that is." He nodded to the still form on the table before them, then returned his focus to his brother's eyes. "Please... Farrin, we can save her if you trust us. Please do the right thing."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You shall still have your spectacle," he announced to the gathering crowd while en transit between the Keep and the morgue, where they moved Elespeth's body for further dressing and preparation. "Elespeth Tameris shall burn for her crimes against Atvany--and I will light the flame. Deceased or no, the fire does not discriminate. They will lick away her sins. And," with a sigh, he added, regurgitating a popular opinion from the impatient masses, "she will light the same. Traitors make for great kindling!"
He already felt like the traitor that should burn at the stake. In constant flux between pleasing the crown and placating the slow unthreading of his own honor, ironically suffering the more he obeyed Atvany's strict decrees, he started to lose all faith in his country...and in himself.
And Priya's final words to him before she fled the morgue solidified his wavering stance, as she repeated his own interpretations for Elespeth's premature demise.
When the guards escorted Priya from the premises, and the Knight-Commander departed to check on the fluctuating moods of the thickening crowd, Farrin pressed a hand against Elespeth's cold forehead. "Did you?" He brushed the loose tendrils of hair from her face. "Did you die...so that I did not have to kill you?"
"That was my doing." Taking advantage of the brief transfer of the guards to outside, Alster and Lyriq acted quick on ushering Elespeth's replacement body inside. "She 'died' so that we can save her."
"Lyriq!" Farrin turned at his voice and at the unfamiliar retort from his brother's companion. "Who are you?" But then his eyes darted to the corpse they carried--her corpse--and he wondered if he actually did die and, for his sins, lived his eternity down in the hell of all his regrets.
Alster guided Lyriq to the table, bypassing a bewildered Farrin too shocked to protest. They hauled the illusory Elespeth beside the actual Elespeth. Laid side by side, they were practically mirror images. "We're back," he whispered to the real Elespeth as he hefted her to rest upon his shoulders, and the reaction of her concealed heart against his deadening one kicked him with a renewed burst of energy.
"It's a spell," he explained to Farrin. "A trick. I don't need you to trust me, but trust your brother. Please distract the guards while we escape."
"I...have little else to lose. I've no more honor, or dignity, nor much family left to salvage. " Farrin conceded with a sigh, and the sigh lightened his shoulders. Alive. She did not die for him, and he would not have her die for Atvany any longer. "The Knight-Commander--the people--they don't deserve a spectacle with her life as the prize. If that really is Eles, and she lives..." he looked ahead of him, at the door, "make certain she stays alive. Tell her that I wish her well. And to forgive me. You, as well, Lyriq. I hope that you, too, can forgive me." With little more than a contrite dip of his head, Farrin advanced to the morgue's entrance, and loudly ordered the guards to oversee the security of the boisterous mob.
Tentatively at first, and with his hand wrapped in a disc of magic in case the eldest Tameris had betrayed them to the crown, Alster and Lyriq crept from the atrium to the stairs, and emerged, with care, to the outside. Sure enough, the guards had busied themselves with redirecting the people, while Farrin positioned himself beside the door to the morgue, his back turned.
"The only way out is through the town square," Farrin whispered to them, anxious eyes surveying the chaotic landscape ahead. "But if you need a place to hide, go to the mausoleum on the hill. There is a guard tower from which you can see the proceedings in the square. From that vantage point, you will know when it's safest to move. Wait there until then."
Together, Alster and Lyriq scrambled up the hill, struggling under the weight of Elespeth with their small, thin frames. After assuring they were not followed, or watched, they, after some maneuvering, opened the thick, iron-wrought door to the mausoleum and slipped themselves in the cover of the tombal darkness.
The interior of the mausoleum consisted of a stone slab, the memorial marker of the deceased, and spiral stairs circling up to the aforementioned guard tower, where they could hear the muffled protests and screams of the mob below.
They set Elespeth upon the slab. "Keep watch up on the tower. Let me know what transpires," Alster said as he stood beside the crown of Elespeth's head, and prepared his hands for a moment that would either revive her, or destroy her--for good. And everything until then would have been for naught. "It's time for her to awaken."
Whether from fatigue, or the comforting press of his surroundings lulling him into a meditative calm, Alster fretted little as he closed his eyes and imagined pulling the frayed ends of his death spell, just like he had done when ridding her of Lilica's curse. He saw the death, multi-layered tapestries compounded upon Elespeth's silent soul with the weight of stone tablets. He unraveled the thread, watched it pool from Elespeth into his waiting embrace, and reeled in each barbed tip as they bit into his palms. He invited the pain as it ravaged him from the inside and dragged bloody scars across the surface of his skin. Perhaps, this was his form of blowback: punishment for tampering too much with death, and playing with the fragile light of a soul as he dangled it in the precarious balance of two extremes.
Despite the immensity, the splitting of his skull, of his senses, of his own want for the spectral hand of Elespeth's spell to close him into a gentle slumber, he managed to yank the last snag of the spell free. And, like a string tied to a marionette, her chest rose in tandem with the final thread of chthonic energy, which dispersed into the air, into the ground...
And through him en route to both avenues.
Before he could double-check Elespeth's condition and ascertain the extent to which he kneaded her back to life, he slid against the slab and slumped to the floor. His blood disappeared into the abyss that had opened at his feet, and hid him from view.
He was hardly aware that the hollers from the square had increased in volume, and in vigor.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Except that it wasn't a dream, wasn't a nightmare... it was nothingness. A great expanse of soundless, tasteless, all-encompassing darkness, and Elespeth was stuck in the middle of it. It was as close to ceasing to exist as a person could get without actually succumbing to the greedy hands of death. As the world continued to move around her at its vigorous pace, the former knight remained oblivious to I all, completely numb in body and in mind. It could have been a minute, an hour, a day, a year... time was meaningless when you had no awareness of it.
She never would have guest how much it would hurt to return to that brutal awareness...
Her chest rose once, twice, before the former prisoner sat up with a start, gasping as she struggled to reclaim the rhythm of breathing like a living human being. Her chest ached as her previously still heart raced back to live, and the blood that flowed once again in her veins felt like acid.
It was excruciating, but thankfully, she was not alone.
Lyriq was at her side in seconds, hands on her shoulders with calm pressure as the final dregs of Alster's dark spell receded. "Elespeth," he breathed her name in relief. "Thank the gods... thank the gods it worked."
"But... what..." Her throat felt as though it were being assaulted by razors, the words of her own confusion cutting her like a knife. Lyriq... Lyriq was here, with her--as was Alster, slumped though he was against the wall, though she did not see him.
But... where was 'here'? How did she get there? And why did it feel as though she had been fast asleep on a bed of ice?
Then slowly, one by one, the memories returned.
Her flight, her capture, her brother, who had delivered her to a cell... to await execution. And yet, she wasn't dead, for it wouldn't make sense for her youngest brother to have joined her in it. No, despite Farrin's reluctant betrayal and her death sentence for her crime all those years ago, the end had not unfolded as it should. She was very much alive... after all, there was no pain in death.
"Sssshhh. Just relax," Lyriq coaxed, noting how her body trembled. Without a word, he shrugged his coat from his shoulders and put it around hers. "We're safe, for now... I told you, you can trust us."
Squinting against the orange rays of dawn, Elespeth peered out from the window in the mausoleum's guard tower... A ceremony was taking place, by the look of the crowd. Or... perhaps it was more of a funeral. A body burned upon a pyre, the flames licking high in the air, though that was not what bothered her the most. I was the gallows, behind the pyre, around which the boisterous crowd began to gather.
This was not only a funeral, but an execution. Someone was about to be hanged.
"Lyriq... what is going on?" Her tired face was lined with palpable concern, as she looked between her two comrades. "Atvany... wanted my life. But if I am here, then who is burning on that pyre? And..." Her voice faltered a moment. "Whose life are they then taking...?"
Lyriq appeared not to have an answer, so the former knight, on unstable legs, stood and ascended the spiraling staircase as fast as she could, despite her younger brother's cries of dismay.
Though she was soon to find out she wished she'd hadn't moved, looked, nor so much as considered the question...
She recognized him though sibling's intuition, knowing too well his gait, his movement, the colour of his hair...
It was Farrin who was being escorted to the gallows, hands bound behind his back as they adjusted the rope. Farrin... they were going to execute Farrin, in her place.
That noose was meant for her... not for him. She couldn't lose him, not like this.
"Farrin... they've got Farrin," the young woman breathed in a panic, green eyes pleading as she turned to Lyriq, who--understandably--had followed her. "We need to go... we have to help him!"
Horror crossed Lyriq's face at his sister's proclamation. He hurried to the window, only to find Elespeth's fears confirmed. That was, indeed, their older brother, about to die at the gallows... The guilt that hit him sank in his gut like a stone. Had there been anything in his stomach, he would have retched. "Farrin..." So the eldest Tameris had redeemed himself, had come through for them... Only to seal his own fate, by trading it for what was supposed to have been his sister's. The threat of tears pressed, hot against the back of his eyes. "Thank you... we won't ever forget this," he whispered on the wind. "Or you."
"Lyriq! Are you listening? We need to go, we have to save him!" The shock had worn off and evolved into near hysterics as the panic in Elespeth swelled. "Please! You must--"
"Elle... there is nothing we can do," her brother replied, his voice thick with remorse. "But I know he has no regrets... He is where he is because he saw the same value in your life as we do. He wishes you well and... he's sorry." Lyriq bit down on his lower lip. "And I think... I think this is what he would prefer. He couldn't have gone on to live a fulfilling life, knowing he had your blood on his hands."
"No. I won't accept this. I won't! I can't..." But what could she do? Stuck in this tower, with legs that could barely hold her up, there was no way she could make it to Farrin in time, even if she had a plan.
Farrin was doomed. And it was her fault.
"Don't look," her younger brother begged, tugging gently on her arm to pull her away from the window, but to no avail. "Please, Elespeth, don't look. Don't watch."
The former knight knew that she shouldn't watch. She knew that if she witnessed the death of her brother, even from a distance, that it would haunt her dreams and her soul for the rest of her life, however long or short it might be. But like an animal petrified by the sight of a hunter, one that knew it should flee before a death blow while simultaneously finding itself wholly unable, her eyes were glued to the scene before her.
"Farrin..." Her cheeks felt hot with the onslaught of tears, and her fingers dug into the stone frame of the open window. She watched, paralyzed, as the rope was adjusted around her eldest brother's neck, and although she was not the one about to tie, a lifetime of memories sped through her mind's eye.
Farrin, taking her small hand as a young child so that she would not be lost in the among the market crowds, when both Drevon and Kiriel had been too proud to pay her any heed.
Farrin, who had never talked down to her or discouraged her ambition to become a knight, despite how unorthodox it might be, given her gender.
Farrin, who had been the proudest, and the first to congratulate her the day she had been knighted.
And she was about to lose him forever. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice carried on the early morning breeze. It was already such a beautiful day; warm, lush, not a cloud in the sky... a beautiful day, about to be marred with such unnecessary death. "I never meant for this to happen... You were always in my heart. You always will be."
For a moment, she could have sworn that, from that distance, their eyes locked. That he knew she awake, alive, and reaching out to him.
It was only at the last second, just before the platform beneath him fell away, that she decided to close her eyes. Elespeth wanted to remember her brother for the person he was, for the life in his eyes, for the strong pillar he had been in her life, up to the very end; not at a corpse, hanging from the end of a noose.
She knew he was gone when she heard the shouts of the crowd, the Knight-Commander verbalizing some boisterous and pompous speech about the result of treason in the kingdom of Atvany. Then, she heard nothing at all, as she turned her back to the window, pulled her knees to her chest, buried her face and shut herself off from the world around her.
Lyriq Tameris spent the next few hours attempting to console his elder sister, speaking reassurances and consolations to her. And when at last he ran out of reassurances and consolations, he put forth urgency. She needed to get up, lift her feet and leave with Alster, before it was too late; before the novelty of the gruesome ceremony wore off, and Atvany returned to its normal rhythms. It was imperative that they get away, while they were unlikely to be seen... but still, the former Atvanian knight would not budge.
Finally, out of sheer desperation, Lyriq resorted to anger. "Enough, Elespeth," the younger Tameris seethed, clenching his hands into fists. "What is done cannot be undone, and you need to reserve you grief for a safer time and place. Please, get up. If I don't see you and Alster to safety, then I'll never forgive myself. I have already lost a brother, today... do not have me lose a sister, as well."
"Alster...?" The name of her dear companion was finally what seized Elespeth's attention, and she looked up, face pale and eyes bloodshot from her tears. "Alster is here? But where...?"
"Damnit," Lyriq cursed at his oversight. How could he have forgotten about Alster? And why hadn't the magical foreigner come up after them?
Elespeth was on her feet almost immediately, clinging to the railing as she descended the staircase, followed so closely by Lyriq in case she were to fall that he practically could have been her own shadow. Whatever magic that had concealed him had since dissipated, and it was a sigh of relief that both Tameris siblings saw that he was awake an well, albeit tired.
"Alster," the former knight murmured. The last she had laid eyes upon him had been just prior to her scheduled death... After which point, her mind was a blank, and she remembered only waking up in this cold, stone structure. "Alster, was... was it you, who--"
"You can both discuss it later," Lyriq interrupted, helping Alster to his feet. "You said you took a boat to Atvany? Then I will escort you back to the docks, but we must make haste. And Elespeth, keep my coat, at least until we arrive... you are a glaring target in that regaled attire."
He was right; their opportunity to flee was now or never, and tragic though Farrin's death had been, neither Elespeth nor Lyriq would allow it to be in vain. Unfortunately, Al was still too exhausted from stretching his magic so thin in order to rescue the former knight that it was not possible to cloak them all in an invisible veil, but he was at least able to carry himself on his own two feet. With some careful maneuvering, the three took a detour to the docks, where, sure enough, the ship that Alster had arrived in was anchored in port.
After the death of her brother, Elespeth had truly thought that there would be nothing left of her heart to break--until she was faced with parting with yet another brother. "You're not going to come with us?" The former knight had spoken very little, as they all had, on their tenuous trek from the mausoleum. But that moment warranted words, or else she would never forgive herself for not asking.
"And go where, Elle? Atvany is my home... and someone needs to be here. For Priya, Mother and Father...wretched though they might be for not stepping up for you, I don't believe any of them were prepared to lose Farrin." Though his voice was firm yet gentle, young Lyriq was at a loss but to fight off the tears that gathered in the corners of his eyes. "You need to leave, now... and you can't ever come back here. For all Atvany knows, you are dead to it. But I... one day, I'll find you again. I promise."
And with that brief, albeit meaningful farewell, Elespeth embraced her youngest brother, before she and Alster, weak and weary, boarded the ship to their safety... leaving Atvany in their shadow, forever.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Farrin stood back as the guards attached the corpse to the large wooden stake, watching as the deceased's head lolled to the side--which actively upset the citizens of Atvany. However much he and the Knight-Commander offered their explanations, that Elespeth was still a sacrifice despite her departure from the living, the people did not approve, and wailed their protests that lasted from the second Farrin had lit the pyre with his torch, and had not ceased until the Knight-Commander silenced them with outstretched hands.
"Honored citizens of Atvany! First, I would like to thank you for attendance this morning, and for your most-esteemed cooperation during this unprecedented circumstance. You have been most patient in light of the disappointment that burns before our eyes!" He gestured to the figure swaying on the stake, her skin a-bubble and the malodorous smell permeating throughout the town square. "Not only was dear Elespeth Tameris a disappointment in her living years, but she insisted to disappoint us by the method in which she chose to die. She did not want to share her death, which belongs to the crown, and instead, willed her life away as a final act of defiance against kin and country! She is a traitor until the end!"
The crowd chattered their disdain through booing, hissing, and frenzied shouts of How dare she! and Tameris must pay! Farrin tightened the hold on his torch until he felt his hands splinter.
"Now, now, my wonderful subjects!" The mob quieted. I am not like our most famous traitor, who melts before you now. I shall not disappoint you. For, I've come to offer you a generous consolation."
The Knight-Commander alighted a hand over Farrin's shoulder. With a nod of resignation, he handed the torch to his superior officer and waited for the announcement. He was unperturbed, expectant of the events shifting in such an extreme direction--but he was not bitter.
If my country wishes to see me dead, then who am I to disrespect their requests?
"Farrin Tameris, who, after this task, might I add, was to be reinstated as a Knight this afternoon, has neglected his directive to see his traitorous sister alive until her execution. This act of negligence must run in the family." He chuckled, and the masses parroted his sentiments. "If it is an offense worthy of death, then we simply cannot renege on doling out the same punishment to the the weak wills of Farrin Tameris." He cupped a hand to his ear and invited the crowd's participation. "What do you think, dear citizens? Should he die for his offenses?"
A unanimous roar rippled through the mob. Farrin paled, just slightly. They do not understand why they rally. Their minds are filled with bloodlust and I am but a cheap alternative to their satisfaction.
Despite the repetitions of Die, Farrin Tameris, sputtering and tumbling through the air, the object of scorn eased into a smile and closed his eyes. I harbor no resentment. This is justice that the Creator has seen to bestow upon me, for I had strayed...and must pay for my transgressions with my life. To Elespeth, who I had betrayed. To Atvany, whose edicts I could not fulfill. And...to myself, who could not achieve balance. Who failed Country, Duty, and Family...
"Thank you," Farrin said, opening his eyes to face the jeers, sneers...and the tears from his family. "I will respect what my comrades so desire."
The honor guards grabbed at his wrists, tying them taut behind his back with rope. They turned him to the gallows, sitting high upon its own podium. As he climbed the stairs to his death, he looked upon his country from the new vantage point, realizing that from a distance, they all blended as one. That the cries of the people were the cries of a country, and, simply put, he was worth more to them dead than alive. How fitting, then, that his words to Elespeth should turn themselves around, and rest, like the noose, upon his own neck.
As he glanced heavenward, he spotted the mausoleum on the hill. And while he might have hallucinated the image, he saw his sister there, alive and well, alongside Lyriq. A smile broadened on his face. At least...they would remember that he tried to make amends before too late.
He smiled up until the guards pulled the platform beneath his feet. He died to the cheers of his countrymen, and to the guardian on the hill.
She was six years old, while he was fifteen. He caught her swinging a stick, which ricocheted from her hands and near poked her in the eye. He deflected it in time, with his own sword.
"Knights know their way with a blade," he said with pride as she gaped, in wonder, at his little trick that had sawed the stick in two.
"Then...I wanna be a Knight, someday, too!" he heard her say, the enthusiasm dancing in her luminous eyes.
"I'm getting there, first!" He huffed and pointed at his chest. "I'm already a squire!"
"Well," she puffed her cheeks, "I'll meet you there!"
She certainly had. And had far exceeded him in every knightly endeavor. For that, he was proud. The Tameris name will live on...
Alster opened his feverish eyes to Lyriq helping him to his feet and to...Elespeth. Alive. He had managed to extract the death from her in full, with no apparent side-effects. "I'm glad," he said with a breathy sigh as he lifted his arms, caked with blood from clotted wounds. So, he had shouldered the side-effects, instead.
"Wait," he rasped at Lyriq before they set forth from the mausoleum. "Let me...take a breath." At this rate, they would drag him along like an actual corpse.
Corpse...
He shivered at the word that weighed too heavily upon his chest and instead focused on assessing the amount of blood he lost, and how long before the wounds opened to spill yet more upon the earth, leaving behind sloppy trails, easily tracked and marked...
With strength he hadn't possessed, he drew a quick healing spell over his injuries, a temporary holdover until they reached the docks. He refused to have ensured Elespeth's life only for Atvany to discover her not-dead presence over something as ridiculous as following blood spots.
The healing spell taxed him, as he expected, and spent the bulk of his travels light-headed and bow-legged, even when sandwiched between the aid of Lyriq and Elespeth.
As they hurriedly crossed the town square, still emptying of its rowdy citizens, he noticed a fresh body swinging from a noose alongside the pyre, which had since dwindled into ash and smoke. Though hardly familiar with the man whose acquaintance he met earlier that day, he recognized Elespeth's older brother by the shape of his face and the same chestnut-colored hair. Perhaps he had deceived himself, but the expression on the dead warrior's face wore the perfect death mask of serenity and calm.
Alster regained enough of his energy to stand on his own by the time they arrived at the docks. Thankful that the captain he had commissioned did not yet depart for Tadasun, he arranged matters of business, enticing the skipper with more coin in exchange for passage to Stella D'Mare. When they smoothed over their agreement, Alster excused himself to join the two siblings in their bittersweet farewell.
"If you ever see yourself in Stella D'Mare," he proffered a hand for Lyriq to shake, "perhaps I'll see you there. Until then...may you and your family find some measure of peace."
The boat lifted anchor and, within moments, was sailing through the blue mirror of the ocean. Every ripple that expanded further from the shoreline of Atvany lifted more and more strain from his shoulders. They had escaped. Elespeth, against all odds, survived the ordeal and he was on a functional level of consciousness. Alive. They were both alive, and together again, and free.
And yet, he felt horrible.
"El," he said into the ensuing silence, afraid to look at her, for he wasn't certain if she harbored any bitterness towards him for choosing to employ a plan that inadvertently endangered her brother. "I...I don't know where to...what to--all I can offer is an ear, and whatever else you may need from me. I'm not very useful aside from my magic, but," he placed a tentative hand over her arm, "I'll try to be. Don't hold back, either. Gods know I never have." A sad chuckle gurgled from his throat.
"We'll have some time to rest, at least. We're heading to Stella D'Mare. You're welcome to live in my apartments in the meantime--until you're ready." He lifted his eyes and took in all her pain and the familiar pang of guilt that swam in her gaze. "He died in peace. That much I can promise you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
You cannot ever come back here... If she ever saw him again, it would not be in Atvany. And for all the misery it had caused her, demanding that her blood be spilled, she knew that she would miss the place she had called her home for so many years. A place, and people whom she never thought she could miss, to such a grave extent... Funny, how the heart often did not know its own boundaries.
Unsteady on her legs, Elespeth took a seat upon the cool deck of the ship, her pale face a mask of exhaustion and quiet sadness as she watched the sun set on unfamiliar and unpredictable new horizons. There she remained, silent and unmoving, until at some point, a crew member brought her a blanket, though she hadn't realized how cold she'd been, until the thick wool was draped around her shoulders. Even then, she barely uttered an audible 'thank you' in gratitude.
It wasn't out of anger or spite that she hadn't looked for Alster since they'd boarded. She knew he was aboard, and probably just as exhausted; and frankly, she hadn't the mental or emotion strength to seek him out and initiate conversation.
That said, she welcomed his company when at last the Rigas mage sat down next to her, later that evening, and even mustered a smile. Oh, that he was encouraging her to smile, after such a bout of tragedy and heartbreak... The former knight truly owed him more than she could ever express, or ever repay. "Life... and death... never unfold as we think they will," she murmured, offering part of the blanket for him to share. Pausing long enough for him to settle down beside her, she searched for the right words... But there was no right in wrong in utterances that followed such violent death. All she could do was her best. "I am grateful that Farrin... that he did not harbour hatred or resentment for me, in his last moments. He..." but, alas, her voice broke, and she cleared her throat to mask it. "He is the reason I pursued knighthood. It is because of him that I am who I am, today... and, I thank you, for not resenting him or my family. They... they are bound to Atvany, and all of its justice... and injustice. There, nothing exists between black and white..."
"Hey. You two won't make it to your destination without pneumonia, if you stay out here all night." The first mate, a middle-aged man with long, graying hair, pointed towards the stairs. "There are bunks, below deck. Much warmer in there, and you won't be in the way of the night shift."
In no mood to argue, Elespeth nodded and stood on stiff legs, and with the help of the first mate, she and Alster made it down the ladder to the small set of bunks. It was a tiny ship (comparatively) with only a skeleton crew, none of whom currently slept, leaving the small, compact beds vacant for the two weary travelers. Boots and all, Elespeth claimed a lower bunk across from Alster, relieved at the feeling of a pillow beneath her head and cushioning beneath her body, however flat or lumpy they might have been.
"Alster, listen..." The former prisoner broke the quiet of the darkness a moment after they had both settled in. She could see the outline of Alster's face from what little moonlight streamed through the portholes. "Whatever guilt you think you must shoulder for what happened... don't." Suppressing a shiver, she pulled the scratchy blanket up to her chin, welcoming its weight and the warmth that it insulated. "I do mourn Farrin's death, but I'm... I am nonetheless thankful that you, too, are alive and safe. And this is not the first time you saved my life."
Unconsciously, her thumb caressed the scar on her palm, and the strangest flicker of a memory illuminated in her mind.
Darkness. Fear, trepidation. Alster, proximity, the feeling of his hands on her arms, the sound of his murmured reassurances, and his lips... "Alster..." Elespeth fought off sleep's hasty arrival to finish her question, before she forgot to ask. "Back in my cell... did you kiss me?"
She was fast asleep before she could hear his answer.
Morning was quick to arrive, and when at last the former knight (reluctantly) awoke, it was to the sound of footsteps busily thumping and scattering overhead, accompanied by authoritative commands and boisterous responseds. She overheard someone shout something about an anchor, and it was then that she realized they must have docked. What time of day was it? How long had she been asleep...?
Her companion across from her continued to sleep like a log in spite of the racket abovedecks, however, and she felt guilty for shaking him awake by the shoulder; no one was more deserving of rest than he was, in her opinion. "Alster... I believe we've docked," she announced. Her eye-catching tunic with its gold embroidery had become rumpled from her fitful sleep, but the intricate weave in which Priya had styled her hair remained relatively intact, with only a few strands loose around the frame of her face.
A face which appeared more worried than relieved. "I need to ask you... Well, since I am not a Rigas, nor am I in any way adept with magic... are you certain that I will be received well in Stella D'Mare, without issue?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
As if reading his thoughts that pertained to his never-ending swarm of guilt, Alster shuffled in his sheets and opened his eyes to her soothing voice in the dark.
"Despite the unforeseen events, I am still in some way responsible for your brother's demise. ...But, by that same vein, you musn't feel guilty, either. The fault lies within something deeper, more systematic, in the shape and state of Atvany, and--"
His words whispered from his body and evaporated into silence when he heard her say: Did you kiss me?
He was thankful for the darkness of the enclosed cabin; not only did his face heat, but blood pulsed so aggressively through his veins that it threatened to break the skin of his newly healed arm wounds.
"Y-yes, but only so I could d-distract you. To cast the spell, y'see. I needed you close and and...I-"
She fell asleep then, leaving him behind to stew in the pool of his own inadequacies, and of his prime reason for locking their lips together. The feeling did not last; almost immediately, he sank into a rock-steady slumber from which nothing and no one, except for Elespeth, could disturb him.
Indeed, Elespeth had awakened him the following morning. With immense difficulty, Alster rose from the sheets, rubbing his eyes and sliding from his bunk with all the grace and speed of a slug writhing in salt.
The sun, too, and the scenery helped to clear his mind from the residual grogginess that had clung to him like a fog. When they stepped onto the deck, the brilliant warmth, intermixed with the refreshing spray of brine, soaked into his already tanned skin. Before them lay Stella D'Mare, the famed city about which Elespeth swore her fealty to restore but never herself experienced the particular grandeur of the sweeping locale. The narrow stretch of beach and docks gave way to mountain cliffs rising high and bedecked with hunched, jewel-colored houses and businesses nestled close and terraced, one atop the other, as if they were all in a race to see which would reach the summit. Interspersed between the gaps of the buildings, citrus trees and a sundry of flowers exploded from private and public gardens that dominated any walking path like an epidemic of bouquets. And this ostentatious march to the top was not without reason. Spanning the width and apex of the mountain, an enormous estate caught the rays of morning light and beamed a opalescent corona over much of the city.
In spite of himself, of the living nightmare from which they escaped, and the grim memories dredged up from the very sight of the painting-perfect city, he smiled. "Welcome to Stella D'Mare. People here are...very garish, as you can see." At noticing Elespeth's understandable reservations towards a city only discussed, and in not-so-favorable tones, his smile transitioned into a nervous little simper. "I...I will warn you of a few things, before we proceed."
He paid the captain and the boatswain an extra coin for their efficiency and kindness, before wishing them well and stepping onto the boardwalk with Elespeth. "It's very...magic dependent, for one. Even if a task does not require, or is complicated by, magic, casters will utilize a spell or two out of the satisfaction in knowing that they can. Soldiers of any sort are seen as Andalarian loyalists, though we do have our fair share of warrior-casters here in Old Town. You should blend in without worry. Though," he looked at her and frowned, "I would suggest concealing your regalia. Stella D'Mare is a well-learned city, and they may trace the patterns on your clothes to Atvany. We--well, you--will want to remain anonymous. I, on the other hand," he trailed away to consider the people on the boardwalk. Everyone, from sideshow artists, to dock workers, to travelers going about their day, turned their attention to him, eyes wide for a multitude of reasons: profit, renown, agitation, wonder.
"We Rigases are recognized on sight," he muttered as he ignored the stalking creep of the crowd that closed nearer and nearer.
"I won't lie when I say that my family will not take kindly to your presence." His footfalls clunked against the planks. "They don't even take kindly to mine, so that actually puts you at a level lower than me." He laughed without humor. Never did he consider that, at Elespeth's expense, the Rigases would favor him more--not that he would allow them to treat his dear companion with any iota of hostility. "For all intents and purposes, you are my bodyguard. If Chara's message reached the city, Adalfieri should be expecting us." A dissatisfied sound clucked from his tongue. "Not enough to send us transport, I see."
The second he enunciated transport, a collective of interested parties within earshot had appeared at his side.
"You need a carriage, Sir Rigas?" A man excitedly chattered in his ear. "I happen to have the most luxurious ride in town! Barring your own, of course."
"Don't listen to him!" A taller man blocked him from view. "My carriage may be smaller, but it is faster without sacrificing comfort!"
A normal Rigas response would align along the lines of, "I shall not dirty my hands with peasants of your ilk." He did not want to stir unnecessary attention to himself or to Elespeth by dropping the elitist speech patterns befitting of a Rigas, but he did not want to feel beholden to Adalfieri should he deign to actually send their coach to port.
"Very well," Alster turned to the first man, his voice a practiced combination of bored and indulgent. "You shall take us to the Rigas estate. If your carriage does not live up to your glowing standards, I will see to it that you never service another passenger in your miserable existence."
"I'm sorry," he whispered to Elespeth as they followed the man who, in a fit of sweating, gestured them to his carriage. "We act like pompous blowhards in the public view...and in general. Acting in kindness only confuses them--and brings yet more unneeded attention our way."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
As Alster squared away all that he owed the captain and crew that had successfully seen to their safety, she took in the mountain-side vista, with its vibrant array of colours that cast a rainbow of its reflection upon the water. It reminded her of a painting, a place in the mind of the artist alone, too beautiful and too perfect to exist in such an imperfect world. A small microcosm of a utopia, where nobody was for want, for the wanting could not survive the lifestyle of garish Stella D'Mare. It could so easily be a paradise...
Beautiful though it was, however, Elespeth knew better than to be deceived at first glance. There were more aspects to this place than its painting-like quality... nothing so lovely could ever be without its flaws.
"When you said you came from wealth... well, I never imagined just how wealthy you meant," she confessed as Alster finished up his business with the seamen. "It's beyond anything my mind has the capacity to imagine."
As she lent an ear to his plan--that of passing her off as his body-guard--a strange feeling twisted her insides. Particularly at his suggestion that she change out of her Atvanian regalia so as not to stand out and elicit undue attention. Would the green and gold of her home kingdom, and the Tameris sigil embroidered on the breast of her tunic, truly be the catalyst between blending in with the crowd and standing out? "Well, if I am to be your bodyguard... Then what better bodyguard to have than someone clearly from Atvany?" She raised and eyebrow and offered a smile that was, perhaps, a tad too enthusiastic. "After all, my home is renowned for its proficiency in swordsmanship and in crafting infallible weapons. And I am a sellsword. You, for all anyone knows, could be paying me far more than I would make fighting in this war. Let's leave it at that."
Perhaps there was no hiding the fact that the former knight was not yet ready to put another layer of distance between herself and her home... even if it was only in articles of clothing.
Priya had brought her that attire... her sister, who she would never see again. But she was not ready to talk about it, and promptly changed the subject.
"And as for your family... well, if Chara, Tivia and Danos are representative, then I have no trouble believing that I'll be frowned upon in every way possible." But, truly, no one could be worse than Chara... Or was she a tame kitten, compared to other Rigases? The very thought that the haughty, blonde-haired Rigas could be the best of the worst made her want to shudder. "Rest assured, I plan to keep on the down low. I won't even speak unless it is required of me, and you know better than I the ways of this place, so... I will leave the talking to you."
She knew nothing of what Alster had planned in his return to Stella D'Mare, beyond that they were safe... but whatever it was, she had invested her trust in him, and planned to see it through.
Alster Rigas was more competent than he thought himself to be.
It made her wonder, though, what sort of peoples had settled Stella D'Mare, that magic ran so rampant. Especially compared to a place such as Atvany, which was so entirely void of anything remotely magical, it might as well be all fable and fairy tale. Strange, how the world was so connected, and yet, so completely different, one day's worth of sailing across the ocean... "My fam--well... the Tameris name in Atvany is, perhaps, similar to that of Rigas in Stella D'Mare," she observed, as he went on to explain the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the Rigas name. It was difficult to refer to the house of Tameris as f it was one to which she did not belong... but for all intents and purposes, she was dead to them. And she might as well get used to it. "Perhaps not to the same extent, and not since the name became... tarnished, but... well, let me assure you that Atvany has its fair share of families in power, and who know they have power." She wondered if, with her sacrifice and that of Farrin's, if the Tameris name would once again regain the power it had lost...
And then she quickly stopped wondering, because what was done, was done, and she needed to stay focused.
The argument between the men and their carriages solidified precisely what Alster meant, and came as little surprise to Elespeth... until he responded in such a way that she could have sworn she'd heard it in Chara's tone of voice. Had he not warned her of the fact such an attitude was expected from a Rigas, she'd have wondered if Stella D'Mare brought out another side of him with which she was not yet familiar... Fortunately, his apology assuaged any suspicion that Alster was even the slightest bit similar to Chara. "Unnecessary attention or not... I am glad for this carriage," she confessed after they climbed in, and they took seats across from one another. "I feel nothing less than dead on my feet... and it's only mid-morning, by the looks of it."
Pulling her knees up to her chest, she rested her chin atop them as she observed the high-energy of gilded Stella D'Mare from the safety of the carriage window. "For whatever it is worth... your home is beautiful," she commented quietly, struggling to immerse herself in the novelty of a shining new place in order to sway her own homesickness.
She wasn't aware at what point she fell asleep, during the smooth ride over pebble-less terrain in the luxurious carriage. One moment, Alster was talking to her about Stella D'Mare's architecture, and why it had been built on a hillside peninsula, and the next moment, she was opening her eyes to a still carriage, with her companion leaning over to shake her awake by the shoulders. "Oh... I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to nod off," the Atvanian was quick to apologize, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I didn't think I was so tired as to..."
Elespeth's words trailed off as, through the carriage window, her eyes fell upon what had to be the Rigas estate. Alster's home.
"This... this is where you live?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
However, they hadn't the luxury to indulge in her need for security. At least, not in public.
As they stepped onto the carriage, a gilded interior inlaid with gold and lined with plush red velvet seats (though he admitted the Rigas coach was far more opulent), he turned to his companion and, once their driver started the horses outside, voiced his concerns aloud. "Elespeth," he whispered, leaning forward with the intensity of his proximity and the levelness of his speech, "while I appreciate your unshakable loyalty to your country, Andalari is still at war with Atvany. They're only at a temporary ceasefire. We are close to the Andalarian royal family here, as well, and no doubt Messino has spies stationed all over the city. You are a walking target. As am I. Together, we are glaringly noticeable. We simply can't afford to get wrapped up in sentiments. Please, just...I," he sighed and withdrew his earnest look in favor of distracting his vision to the window, " I don't want to lose you so soon after I got you back."
After his heavy warnings, he opted to focus on more pleasant conversation topics, though in his apprehension for scolding Elespeth, he rattled off a ceaseless stream of dialogue about Stella D'Mare history and architecture, and sure enough, the Atvanian exile lolled her head against the window and began to doze. He tried not to take it personally--although he did.
When they reached the stately gates of the Rigas estate, he stirred Elespeth awake. As the driver helped them down the carriage steps, Alster gave him a terse nod of approval and slipped him two pieces of gold, which about fused to the man's hands, so happy was he for the payment that he refused to open his fist in fear that they would drop.
They were at the summit of the mountain, more of a glorified hill than anything denoting a high elevation, but the view, nonetheless was the best in town. Below them, Stella D'Mare bowed, in all their variegated winking colors, and the sapphire sea receded, echoing the same amount of reverence. Behind them, the estate towered, a collection of marble-white vistas linked together by pillars wrapped in vines and purple bell flowers, to help offset the petrified stone-gaze the estate at times exuded.
At the gate, a gold and iron wrapped monstrosity towering several stories high, Alster received a glowing reception by the two Rigas guards on duty. And by glowing, he meant glowering.
"Alster." They hissed his name like a curse. "What business do you have here? And who," the guard to the right sniffed with disdain at Elespeth, "is she?"
"You can't deny me entrance, Arrakis," Alster said with a cold snap. "My arrival here is expected. As is the woman you refer to as 'she.' This is my bodyguard." He elected out of revealing her full name. "Tam. Check with Adalfieri if you must, but I report under Chara with express orders to return here posthaste."
After some deliberation, and continuous back and forth between Alster and the guards, they relented, but their agitation never abated. Even as they pressed their hands against the gate, opening the intimidating mechanism with an unnecessary burst of etherea, which caused the doors to wrench instead of glide open, their perturbed, downturned mouths never straightened.
"Adalfieri is not here, as of now." Arrakis gestured him to enter the grounds. "You will have to wait for him at your quarters. We'll send for you once he returns. But she," a triumphant smile broke through his sourness, "will have to stay behind."
"She will not." Darkness crept in his aura. "Orders from Chara."
"Chara would never allow--"
"As acting consul in Adalfieri's absence, I implore that you let the warrior forward." The guards turned in surprise to see a man with white hair and a patchy beard appear from the well-manicured grounds. "Sorry. I could not help but overhear. She is expected, and Adalfieri will see to it that she is looked after in the meantime. Send them to their quarters."
With a soundless grumble, Arrakis beckoned them to follow his lead. As they passed the man who spoke on their behalf, Alster nodded a silent bow in respect for Canopus, an old teacher of his who he actually tolerated and, he daresay, liked.
They traveled beyond the main house, cutting through the pillared walkways and up a few stairs cut into rock until they reached a villa nestled against a cliff-face, overlooking town. "Do notcause any more trouble, Serpent Bane," Arrakis hissed as he took a dramatic heel turn and marched back to his station at the gate.
"That actually went smoother than I'd expected." Alster clutched his forehead and the headache that blossomed as he opened the front door of the villa. "Well," the door creaked from disuse, "this is my home, I suppose. My parents' home," he hesitated as he tried to keep the lines from creasing in his brow. "...but I inherited it."
Inside, the villa spanned a few large, comfortable rooms, all with pristine white walls and marble-tiled floors. The two bedrooms each featured a canopy bed the size of Chara's tent--and she never traveled with compactness in mind--and white paneled walls with friezes depicting Rigas and Stella D'Mare conquests from history.
As he passed the rooms, instinctively avoiding a suspicious area in the wall concealed by a curtain, he took Elespeth to the terrace, a wide marble slab surrounded by pillars with a comforting breeze stirring from the ocean.
"This can be your home, too. For as long as you need it." He offered her a gentle smile as the wind played with his dirty-blond hair. "It will never replace Atvany, and the surrounding company is the absolute worst, but I hope you will find some small amount of peace. You can stay in my parents' room. I would offer you my bedroom, but I don't..." he lowered his head to the ground, "I don't think I..." He left his last sentence hanging, as he struggled to maintain a serene, undisturbed sheen on his face.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And that hers, by comparison, would be even more poorly received.
Perhaps the saddest fact was in that her own welcome here was far warmer than that which she had received back in Atvany... her home. To be reviled by a stranger was one thing, but to be delivered to death (very nearly so) by the hands of her own family...
No. There is no time to think about that.
Saved by the word of another, older man, Elespeth's shoulders relaxed a little, and she nodded her thanks to him before following Alster and Arrakis up several staircases, all the way to a villa on the hillside that dwarfed her own prestigious family home. Pillars supported ornate balconies, some choked with ivy and flowers that climbed to the very top. The surrounding gardens were so perfectly arranged, everything appearing so untouched, that she could hardly imagine just how many serving staff the Rigases had working for them...
And then, of course, there was always magic. And magic, she was willing to bet, was monetarily cheaper than hired help.
So this villa was where Alster spent his time, when he wasn't on the front lines of fighting some ridiculous war...
"Alster? Really? So you do have the gall to set foot back on Rigas property..."
The voice was unfamiliar, and on reflex, Elespeth spun on her heel to face the lithe form of a tall woman with copper hair highlighted with gold, pulled back from her chiseled face, high cheek bones and a light smattering of freckles over her nose. There was no mistaking that she was beautiful, but in the exact same way that Chara was: pampered, entitled, wanting for nothing, and accepting of nothing below her high, unrealistic expectations. In other words, she looked exactly like a Rigas.
Though Elespeth could have figured that out by her penchant for rudeness. "And what in the name of all that is good did you drag back with you?" The woman--whose name, unbeknownst to Elespeth, was Selestyn, scrutinized the warrior before her with a sneer. "She is no Rigas... and she looks foreign. After all you've done, you'd so much as dare to sully this estate with the likes of some filthy commoner? She has the sunken pallor of a starving peasant."
Elespeth felt her cheeks grow warm at such an appraisal, but still, said nothing. Arrakis, without turning around, called to her that Chara had condoned the presence of this warrior 'bodyguard', which all but made Selestyn's jaw drop. "Chara condoned this? Has the twit gone completely mad? Perhaps she has spent far too much time around the likes of you. It almost makes me feel pity for your unprecedented company." Except that the sneer and jeering lilt to her voice informed Elespeth that pity was far from the first sentiment that came to this woman's mind when she looked at her. "Whatever. This filth is your responsibility. If anything at all should go amiss, know that you and your "security" will be held accountable."
Elespeth couldn't leave the other Rigases behind the closed door of Alster's villa fast enough.
"That is what you consider smooth?" The Atvanian expelled a long, pent-up breath from her lungs and pressed her back against the door, rolling the tension out of her shoulders and relaxing her fingers, which had curled into fists. "I think I prefer Chara's company. She is all bravado; but that woman... forgive me for speaking out against another Rigas, Alster, but she comes across as just plain vile..." She didn't actually look like a starving peasant... did she?
Endeavoring to leave her frustration behind, the former knight took in the expanse of Alster's home, from the spotless marble floors to the tall windows of every room that flooded the area with rich, yellow sunlight. Hesitant at first, she proceeded past the closed front door, and peered into the two enormous bedrooms, both with beds that looked as though they could easily sleep six full-grown individuals. Beyond those, the villa opened up to a terrace, which overlooked the down that bordered the ocean. Even the view was perfect, and she found it difficult to imagine that a home that inspired such comfort and happiness was also guilty of dark shadows that better went undiscussed.
Then again, one person's paradise was another person's nightmare. It was all relative to the individual.
"Alster, you know I'd never ask you to surrender the comfort of your own bedroom to the likes of me," she assured her companion with a small smile. "I'm happy to sleep wherever you will have me. Believe me when I say it is more than adequate."
This can be your home, too. For as long as you need it. Something hard settled in the pit of Elespeth's stomach, something that felt like a stone, and that ached like an injury. All for those kind, innocent words...
She was quick to ignore the feeling. "I don't want another Atvany." Moving forward on the terrace, she rested her hands on the white, marbled railing, green eyes taking in the vista of village of sea. Like a painting... "Atvany is built upon cruelty and lies. A place where you can't even trust your own family not to demand your spilled blood." Her fingers tightened on the cold marble. "You are entirely right, you know. It was foolish of me to suggest that I keep this attire... If I stand out, then it will only endanger the both of us. And you have already endangered yourself enough for my sake, not to mention have risked further alienation from the other Rigases, due to my presence."
Taking a single step back, Elespeth reached behind her and pulled her braid over her shoulder, unfastening the ribbon at the very bottom. Priya briefly came to mind, the soothing feeling of her fingers as she had constructed that weave, the gentleness she showed, when she had no reason to...
Without another thought, or room to pause, or room for regret, the former knight ran her fingers through the weave, effectively teasing the clean tresses of chestnut hair apart, until it fell in soft waves over her shoulders and back. "I'll rid myself of this heinous garb as soon as you can find me something else to wear."
It was time to put Atvany, the Tameris name, and everything it entailed behind her. There was no other way to recover from her trauma than with a clean break from that poisoned identity, and to start anew here, in Stella D'Mare, with a dear friend who did have her back. To whom she owed her life, many times over.
Stepping away from the outdoors, she forced a smile that felt genuine enough to show. "And, while I promise to keep my mouth shut for the time being... let me know if and when I have leave to give these people causing you grief a piece of my mind. I feel as though it is long overdue, with all I have held back from my interactions with Chara."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You do not have sole authority to do anything about the alleged filth that enters this estate. It is almost endearing that you believe yourself as self-important as Chara and that your opinions actually matter. Well," a condescending smile burned into his features before he whirled away, "have fun with your groundskeeping duties. Why, in any other locality, they would call that peasantwork."
Thoughts of that earlier confrontation with Selestyn, and of any other inevitable, future Rigas encounters pulled his attention from his parents as he focused his concerns to Elespeth, who stood in the line of their fire.
"You know, you're probably right." He leaned his arms against the railing and surveyed the quiet corner of the estate, appreciating the relative seclusion of his villa--but knowing that it was an illusion to put him in a false peace of mind. And the peace would not last. "This is no home to you. The Rigases would never allow you to settle here comfortably. I am an idealistic fool to think otherwise, for this place, as picturesque as it appears...is built on very similar principles." He paused as he watched Elespeth part her braid, and something about her undoing of the knots seemed symbolic of her unraveling the ties to her country. A certain wistfulness came over him, at the sight. "At any rate," he said, distracting himself with words, "as long as we are under Adalfieri's protection, we are safe here. So rest while you can. And don't worry about what the Rigases say to me. It's so commonplace that it doesn't bother me anymore. It's not as if their insults aren't justified, anyway." With a supporting hand in case she was still wobbly from the aftereffects of his spell, and of other factors that could not so easily explain her state of mind, he guided her back inside the palatial quarters. "Perhaps we'll call it a day. I think we both need to catch up on some well-needed sleep."
That evening, he hardly slept. Although exhaustion plied at his eyes and affected him with its dizzying insistence, too much had occurred in so little time to warrant sleeping with ease. Combined with the fact that he had returned to the villa, to the estate, with the full knowledge of how his parents had died, he feared that he would never shut away the endless commentary and swarm of images that plagued his mind with the anathema of his sins.
Somehow, he drifted, but what awaited him in his unconsciousness did not reflect on his own anxiety. He appeared at the gallows in Atvany. Saw the crowd cheer as Elespeth's brother fell through the platform and hanged by the neck. Those mirthful faces that took so much pleasure in the destruction of their countrymen transitioned, their smiles curling up to their ears, eyes flashing yellow, their voices distorting into a babble of incomprehensible hatred. The sky above, in bruised purples and reds roiled a foreboding storm, which gathered above the Keep.
Lightning flashed, igniting the gallows. And everything burned. Everyone burned. The city destroyed in a day--but for the charred remains of the noose swaying in the rain of ash that collected upon the ruins of Gallei.
Alster jolted awake.
In silent footfalls, he crept through the villa and peered inside of Elespeth's room. Through the crack in the door and the light from the moon diffusing the darkness, he saw her curled in the bed, a tight ball collapsed into herself. She looked so small, the smallest he had seen her, and he yearned to sit by her side and guide her into better dreams--if possible.
"Elespeth..." he whispered into the night. With a forlorn sigh, he turned away from the door and spent the remaining hours outside, on the terrace, enslaving himself to his thoughts until the bitter rise of morning seared them into ash.
Before Elespeth awoke, Alster rifled through his mother's wardrobe, scouring for clothes that were sensible and not befitting of the excessive fashion sense that many Rigases, with their bottomless egos, infused into their outfits. Finding a billowy white dress with blue trim at the shoulders and waist, elegant but comfortable, especially in the oft-humid weather of Stella D'Mare, he nodded its approval. It would have to do.
After sneaking back inside her room to drape the dress on the chair beside her bed, he heard a soft but urgent knock on the door.
Arrakis stood on the other side of the door, his blue eyes crackling with indignation and his arms crossed against his chest, as if to prevent his hands from throwing a ball of etherea at him.
"I have been granted the undue honor," his jaw clenched in derision, "to see you and your, ah, guest to the main house. Adalfieri has returned and he eagerly awaits your audience. Do not keep him waiting."
Alster dipped back inside to awaken and prepare Elespeth, though it pained him to stir her conscious when she appeared to have settled into a deep, dreamless slumber. Their preparations had taken longer than Arrakis's patience, for, by the time they returned to the front door, his nostrils were flaring and his temples bulged with veins.
He grumbled the rest of his way through the pillared walkways, down the stairs and over to the main house, the largest structure on the property that complemented the whitewash of the smaller villas, all of which were arranged in a pattern that, if connected, would draw out a particular spell-form. Protection from Outside. Alster was confident that, should Elespeth come to harm, it would not occur from any being living beyond the gate. However, that did not factor in the Rigases and their legendary hostility towards outsiders.
At the main house, they traveled through the grand wood-carved and gold-leaf double doors, down a few expansive hallways, to another set of double doors carved in a pattern similar to out front. After shooting a stream of etherea through the doors, a beacon signal to warn the prominent figure dwelling inside, Arrakis opened them and marched into the chambers with Alster and Elespeth in tow.
"Oh esteemed Adalfieri," he announced to a figure sitting in a high-backed chair, an intricate design that served more use as an art piece than for anything practical, like sitting. Nonetheless, the head of the household sat poised on the uncomfortable thing, hands folded neatly upon his lap. His white hair fell in a cascade over his shoulders, a similar reflection in the white curtains cordoning off the light from the bay windows that lined the ponderous chambers. Despite the atrophying of his muscles, which he hid with loose-fitting clothes, he held himself upright, his head lifted to the ceiling and his gray eyes sharp and calculated, defying the aging of his body.
He had positioned his chair not at his desk, but at a painting in the far corner of the room. Curiously, it was a painting depicting the Serpent and the family founder, Rigel, in the throes of a violent showdown.
"Yes, show them in!" His voice reverberated against the walls of the mostly empty room. Arrakis half-guided, half-pushed Alster and Elespeth inside before shutting the doors to a booming slam.
"Come! Come closer." When he approached the corner where Adalfieri situated, Alster's blood ran cold upon staring at the painting. "Well, this is certainly an unorthodox visitor that you brought, Alster." Adalfieri dipped his head to the level at which he could properly scrutinize Elespeth. "May I ask about your companion? Chara reported that you might arrive with a bodyguard, since Messino's men were no doubt trailing you and you needed extra protection. Is your magic faring any better?"
Alster, who had kept his eyes lowered out of respect, felt the sticky substance of his chthonic energy pooling around his lifestream, but chose to answer: "No. My celestial magic has not returned, and I have little else that's accessible to me. You will understand why I required a bodyguard."
His appraisal never left Elespeth. "Ah. Debine's dress. You certainly wear it well, though in light of that, I daresay I cannot view you as a conventional bodyguard worthy of protecting our own. But," he squinted, "Alster has left quite the mark on you, brimming as you are with all that residual chthonic magic. You must be capable enough if he has invested much energy in keeping you unharmed. Though I do wonder," he tilted an inquisitive head to the side, "who is protecting whom, in this situation?"
Alster snapped to attention in time before his entire body froze in fear.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Farrin..." He couldn't have heard her murmur his name, not through the din of the jeering, leering and bloodthirsty crowd. And yet, his head tilted her way, as a brand new executioner readied to pull the rope that would release the platform beneath the eldest Tameris's feet... and end his life, as anyone knew it.
And Atvany was letting it happen. Her parents, Drevon, Kiriel, Priya, even Lyriq were nowhere to be found, nowhere to be seen to come to the defense of their own kin. Farrin was alone... and Elespeth was alone to be the sole Tameris witness to his end. "No... no, stop!" The former knight pushed through the crowd with her shoulders and arms, caring not for what bruises she inflicted upon those who stood in her way. Nothing would come between her and her brother; not when this early death should belong to her, alone. "It should be me! Take me instead--I am the one whom you all loathe! I am the traitor, the one who neglected her duties as a knight... I deserve to be in his place!"
At the front of the crowd, her words reached the pinnacle of what volume her lungs would allow... and yet, no one would hear. She spread her arms, opened herself up to the view and scorn of people who should have been her kin, and not her enemies, but she might as well have been invisible, or altogether not existed. The one that they really wanted, but no one would see her, and she might as well have been pleading into an abyss.
Painfully at a loss, she turned her attention to Farrin, the only one whose eyes seemed to detect her existence. They met her own, so genuine, yet so sad. "Farrin, hold tight," she whispered, endeavoring to scramble up to the gallows and wrench the rope from the executioner's hand.
But she was seconds too late. Farrin hanged. The crowd cheered, and tears, hot and angry and devastated, burned her cheeks like acid. "It shouldn't have been you..." She wept, curling her hands into fists. "It shouldn't have been anyone. Atvany...." Turning on her heel, Elespeth faced the people to whom she thought she belonged--and who she couldn't have been happier to deny any relation, beyond a name. "It is all of you who deserves to bleed... Atvany deserves to burn like the simmering hell-pit that it is!"
And burn it did, the city of Gallei, and Elespeth along with it, devoured by the flames of her fury, her pain, and her loss.
She awoke to Alster gently shaking her awake, explaining that their audience with this Adalfieri was nigh. Although she had fully expected this moment to arrive, the former knight would have liked for nothing more than to reschedule, close her eyes and return to sleep for another handful of hours. Only the strength of that rational mindset upon which she had always relied, along with her companion's frantic urging, motivated her to climb out of the enormous bed and rid herself of her Atvanian attire--which took more time than it should have, for a number of reasons. For one, the thought of parting with the very last piece of her home sent shocks of physical pain straight through her beating heart. And for another...
A dress.
There was no time for arguing or negotiating, and Alster only meant well with providing her with what he could, but the Atvanian woman honestly couldn't recall the last time she had donned a gown that was not designed for sleeping. Having trained her whole life to be a knight, like her brother, had made the nature of such garb impractical very early on, and she couldn't help but feel marginally infantalized in the white and blue dress, with her long hair loose and cascading down her back in soft waves. She hadn't it in her to weave it into a braid.
Following Arrakis to the exquisite outdoors, she caught a glimpse of the Rigas who had taken to such a vile and unprecedented opinion of her the night before. She was kneeling next to flowers, tending to their care... and that was when Elespeth recalled Alster's comment he had thrown this woman's way, something about groundskeeping. So the Rigases are not above everyday human work... Had she the gall to throw a comment at Selesytn, she would have, but ultimately, it was better that the snide, copper-haired Rigas continue to be oblivious to their presence as they passed.
It was difficult for the Atvanian to comprehend the pomp and circumstance, as well as the hierarchy that existed within Alster's family. Aside from Stella D'Mare itself, which demanded and exuded exquisite lifestyles, the Rigas family was almost its own microcosm of its own, a small monarchy ready to take power back. And seeing the way Arrakis addressed this Adalfieri... well, they might as well have been in the presence of royalty.
She didn't understand; but she was willing to roll with the punches.
Even if those punches entailed putting her directly on the spot.
Elespeth did not share in Alster's fear, when Adalfieri inquired about her dress, about the magic he apparently saw residually crawling on her skin. It was difficult to feel anything, while emotional exhaustion left her so numb, from the inside out. "Sir," she address Adalfieri, with a nod of her head. "My name is Tam. Alster and I are comrades who met in the midst of Messino's army. I stand here before you, and beside him, because he saved my life." She lifted her arm, with the four-point star that Lilica's deadly curse had left. "I nearly died of a chthonic curse, which Alster was able to reverse just in time. I owe him my life, and I insisted that I repay this debt. When my comrade was convinced of my loyalty, he explained his situation to me... and now, here I stand."
Spreading her arms, she looked down at the soft, white gown that fell to the tips of her toes. "I... apologize if I pose an affront. I am no Rigas, and I have no right to be clad in something that belonged to such a renowned woman. I wear it so as to blend in; my former attire would have stood out in Stella D'Mare, and I am aware that Messino must have spies in every corner. I..." She paused, and bowed her head reverently, chestnut waves falling in gentle cascades around her face. "I hope that you can both forgive and accept my intrusion, as someone in a place where they clearly do not belong. But I am indebted to Alster Rigas, and with all due respect, Sir, I steadfastly refuse to leave his side until he sees his victory."
It was none of it a lie, but rather, a large fraction of the truth. There was no need for Adalfieri to know of her previous identity as an Atvanian knight, and an Atvanian traitor. He need not know of her name, given or surname, and she would follow Alster's advice and keep it that way. Although, it wouldn't have hurt to have taken a weapon... She looked more a flimsy, carefree maiden in Alster's mother's gown than the warrior that she claimed to be. Really, did no woman from Stella D'Mare ever consider the flexibility of trousers and tunics?
posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 6:22 pm
"Alster." The one in question thawed himself enough to respond with a croaked affirmation. Adalfieri continued. "Your father thought he was clever, as well. He believed that, if he traveled often, spending his time outside the estate, no Rigas would discover the chthonic magic he desperately tried to shield from view. He also thought he was protecting us, by withdrawing himself, and by extension, his hidden sinister nature. But," he raised his upturned nose into the air, similar in appearance to Alster's own, "chthonic magic exudes a certain type of smell. Like dirt. Like rot. I knew, for a long while, of his secret--and yours, as well. I never pursued or wrenched the truth from you both. Sometimes, peace of mind is far greater than shattering the illusion of safety."
A reflex shiver in Alster prompted him to launch forward and lean closer to Adalfieri's seat, his eyes wild and hands quaking. "Why?! Why didn't you tell me sooner?! If you knew, back then, you could have prevented what I did, what I..." He grabbed the arms of the chair, for support. "I ki...murde--"
Adalfieri raised his hand for silence. "I see only what my magic allows me to see, Alster. Besides, to discriminate you based on a magic that is no fault of your own, despite its associations with the Serpent, is foolish as it is unwise. It is the actions of a person, not of their magic, that I judge. Your father was well-respected, even with his chthonic blood. And then," his brow creased, just a tad, "there is you. You awakened the Serpent. You killed your parents. The former was a premeditated act, but the latter..." he pointed to the painting. "Are you certain that your blood bond with the Serpent was not, in some vein, responsible for the sudden insurgence of your chthonic magic?"
Alster, his skin blanching from the shock of Adalfieri's perceptive observations, stumbled from the Rigas Head's chair and, but for the sound of his frenzied breathing, dissolved into eerie silence. He too, turned to the right and looked, transfixed, at the yellow, slitted eyes of the monstrous beast and the small, demure man who dared to defy it.
Adalfieri reconnected his hands together in time to present his unruffled pose to Tam. "He values you greatly, Atvanian knight, and thinks your life equal to his own--a concept foreign to a Rigas." He smiled, the humor lines wrinkling at his mature, yet unmarred face. "That blood bond that passes between you--he must have anticipated this encounter. A Rigas cannot lay a hand to harm you for it too will harm our own--as much as making this information public might encourage more vengeful members of our family to reach out and attack. But," his muscles shifted in the prison of his sharp-edged seat, "due to this unique turn in events...you must pledge your loyalty to me, to Stella D'Mare, to a country from which you are unfamiliar. Are you able to do so, former Atvanian knight?"
By then, Alster had drifted back into the small, dark corner around which the three had gathered, his expression a mosaic that did not fit right together: all broken pieces, all arranged wrongly. "Is it enough that she pledges to me?" His voice was a quiet, drowned whisper, on the verge of despair and desperation.
"Only if you do not take any more risky detours to Atvany." Alster, as if physically stung, flinched and responded with a weary bob of a nod.
"Then I shall place my trust in 'Serpent Bane' --as a favor to your father, and to your betrothed." He emphasized the word as he dissected Tam's appearance for the third time. "We will deploy an elite task force to send over the mountains, meeting Messino's army to the north. Tadasun will flank to the south. Our force will comprise of Rigases and of some of the Arcanum's finest. Our army and Tadasun's own will attack in unison, sandwiching Messino's troops in the middle. When they are at the brink of defeat, we retreat. We want to lure them towards Stella D'Mare." He snapped his head to Alster, who startled himself to attention. "Alster, you will work alongside Canopus. He will be the Commander for this mission. Chara, Tivia, Danos, and whatever allies we've accrued at the encampment, will join our force in the ensuing chaos of our joint attack with Tadasun. And 'Tam,'" he waved a hand in an arc between the former knight and Alster. "Protect him. We need him alive."
The Rigas Head raised his arms into the air, humming in satisfaction when his cat-like stretch popped the muscles in his aching body. "I believe that is all. You will depart from Stella D'Mare in four days' time. Until then, relax, and prepare accordingly. Oh, and Alster?" He called to the 'Serpent Bane' in question as he bowed and made to leave, "about your parents. You already know the truth, deep down, about what happened. Please, take care. You as well, Tam."
When Arrakis met them outside the doors and guided them back to the villa, Alster, half-conscious from the asphyxiating knowledge of Adalfieri's counsel, didn't notice that they had returned inside the relative comforts of his home until the two were sitting upon cushioned chairs in the grand living space. An impressive spread had been arranged for them upon the table: sliced oranges and lemons, bread dipped in olive oil, a wheel of goat cheese, bunches of grapes, red and white, honey cakes, and a tankard filled to the brim with a crystalline, glittering wine. Realizing he hadn't eaten anything substantial in days, nor had Elespeth, he returned to some semblance of cognizance to encourage his companion to partake in the feast laid out for them.
"We have to stay strong and fighting fit." He popped a few grapes in his mouth and chewed, though the emptiness in the pit of his stomach did not sate itself, or even feel the glide of the food as it slid down his parched throat. "I'm sorry, Elespeth. I hadn't intended to drag you with me to the front lines again, so soon after...your ordeal," he chose his words carefully. "Perhaps I can speak again with Adalfieri and arrange for you to stay here." His eyes connected to the stitching on the dress that Elespeth wore; her dress. Debine's dress. Dead. Dead and murdered. Or...
Adalfieri's words echoed in his head. You already know the truth deep down...
"Either way, I..." he rolled around a stray grape on his plate, "...I'll definitely get you some proper clothes. Armor, too. And weapons, at that. Even if you're staying behind, you need to have ample protection. For what it's worth, though," a blush stained his cheeks, like the grape he squished under his finger, "the dress, you...it looks quite nice on you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But then her thumb caressed the scar on her palm, and it all made sense: Adalfieri was a Rigas. He had a connection to Alster... as did she. Perhaps she was not such a closed book, then, by virtue of their blood bond.
All things considered, that should have been what disconcerted her the most. That she could hide nothing from this wizened Rigas, that he seemed to know all of the details of her life and existence that she'd much rather keep to the shadows. Yet what struck a shock of terror down her spine, and stirred nausea deep in her empty stomach, was Adalfieri's demand for loyalty.
Loyalty... to a person, a place, that she hardly knew. When it had been such a mistake to pledge loyalty so blidnly to Atvany, a place... a place that she had thought she had known. A place that had forced her to serve an undeserving nobleman who had, ultimately, been the heart of her undoing...
She would not make the same mistake again. "Sir... I mean no disrespect, but please, hear me," she requested, struggling to maintain the even cadence of her tone. "I made the mistake, once, of pledging my loyalty and allegiance to a place... and I will never err in such a way again. However..." Glancing sidelong at Alster, she met his frantic eyes with the most minute of smiles. "Like I already said, I owe Alster my life, my friendship, and maybe more. I trust him, with no exception. To him, I pledge my undying loyalty, and if he ties himself to Stella D'Mare... then I suppose, vicariously, so do I. I can only hope, Sir, that that will be enough... and that you will believe me when I swear on my family's name to watch out for him and keep him safe."
The former knight's shoulders visibly relaxed, her breath passing her lips in a heavy sigh of relief when Adalfieri confirmed that her loyalty to Alster would be enough. The two were dismissed with well wishes, and as enigmatic as the elder Rigas was, she could not help but feel convinced at the genuine sentiment behind his words. Though, perhaps that was only wishful thinking. "Would he have so readily accepted my presence here in Stella D'Mare--and in your company, at that--were it not for the blood bond between us?" She ventured to ask, when they were once again in the privacy of his villa. Lowering her self onto a seat across from her companion, she couldn't shake how Adalfieri had looked at her, following his reiteration that Alster was betrothed...
What, exactly, had he thought of her, dressed as she was in a gown that had belonged to Alster's mother? With her hair down her back, over her shoulders, like some frivolous and carefree young woman... What transpires between Chara and Alster is none of my business. Nonetheless, the thought of their marriage did not rouse pleasant feelings. It only made her damaged heart ache more, with every laboured beat.
The meal that had been set out for them was possibly one of the most appetizing that she had seen in a very long time; before her arrest, before her time at Messino's camp... before she had left Atvany for the first time, several years ago. The mere sight of it should have jump-started her lost appetite, and Alster was right; they would need to regain their strength in the coming days, for yet another battle, only this time, fighting on the other side. Yet it was nothing more than the mere knowledge that her stomach had been empty for days, and that she needed to eat, lest her health take a turn for the worst, that motivated her to push a few grapes and a few small pieces of bread onto her plate.
After all, she had no plans to stay behind. "I have no intention of leaving you to fight alone, Alster," Elespeth assured him, looking up from the barely touched food on her plate. "Particularly not after I just swore to your Adalfieri that I would protect you. What more do I have, but to see to your safety?"
She hadn't meant to think aloud. But if she had been helpless but to protect the life of her own brother, then she would rather be damned and dead than willingly have her dearest friend face danger, while she stayed behind and wallowed in silence and loneliness.
It was no mere exaggeration of her traumatized state of mind that Elespeth Tameris hadn't much else--or, really, anyone else--going for her, than Alster Rigas.
The Atvanian cleared her throat as she attempted to move on from her dreary train of thought. "You know, I did wonder if Stella D'Mare, with denizens who adept in magic, was even equipped with conventional weapons," she confided, after a few more bites of bread. Every morsel of food seemed to hit the bottom of her stomach like stones, and the more she ate, the more she realized just how void she was of any illusion of appetite. "I could do with another short sword; it's been too long since I've felt the reassuring weight of a weapon at my hip." Not that a dress was anywhere near the appropriate sort of attire to wield a blade or any weapon, for that matter, that wasn't in and of itself the pure essence of magic.
"I... well, thank you. For what it's worth." The pink that tinted Alster's cheeks drew her lips into a soft grin. It suited him, to have colour in his face. "I can't honestly remember the last time I donned a gown that was not designed for sleep. I was very young... prior to my training as a knight. Even before Farrin became..." Abruptly leaving it at that, she chose not to finish the thought, and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Listen, Alster. I didn't mean to make it seem as though I would not like to call Stella D'Mare a home, even temporarily. I seem to think you had the impression of such, just yesterday... and I want tor reassure you that, in spite of some of the company you keep, I am very happy, and infinitely grateful, to be here."
The luxury of the Rigas estate, the warm temperatures coming off of the peninsula, the view from the mountains... It was a recipe for convalescence, something that the both of them desperately needed. Even Adalfieri had mentioned such.
She could relax, get some food in her stomach, and a few nights worth of rest... and then she would return to herself, the self that she had been prior to her arrest just days from Messino's camp. While it was impossible to change what had happened, she had moderate control over the future, over her health.
Perhaps it was all a matter of telling herself that she was all right, that she was whole, that she was fine, until she believed it.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He diverted himself from the subject by cutting a small slice from the wheel of cheese, although it sat untouched, an additional accessory on his mostly untouched plate. Then, she uttered a statement that dropped him back to his seat, so charged was it with both hope and despair. What more do I have, but to see to your safety? Needed. She needed him. But was it because she had little else? That he was the last and final reserve in a life that otherwise was worth living without him had events turned differently? Or...was it a plea? A subtle cry for help that he could either choose to ignore or address?
He swallowed another grape--unless it was the lump that had appeared in his throat. Alive. He needed to stay alive. No matter how greatly death pulled him into the earth, he could not succumb to the temptation and leave her behind, no. ...Not when she needed him the most. He reached across the table to press a hand, the one with the scar, over her own scarred hand. The proximity of their intertwined fingers throbbed a warm heartbeat between the two. "Then...we'll reunite as a compound unit. You protect me, and I'll protect you. Fight with me...but do not die for me. Please." He tightened his hold, inviting the sensation of when he cast the binding spell for the first time. The lilting breeze that tickled his arms, the shine of the unburdened sun, radiant but not oppressive, that knitted life back into his bones, the green of Elespeth's eyes that he saw, even when he succumbed to the darkness behind closed lids...
He hoped that she felt something, too, as he pulled away and returned to the dish by his seat, releasing a sigh that he transitioned into a pleasant sound, one that would focus on less forlorn topics that did not hinge on their ominous destinies. "How about this? Tomorrow, I'll take you to a weapons shop. They do exist in Stella D'Mare, contrary to popular opinion." He quirked a grin. "There's more in New Town than in Old Town, but as long as we keep clear of the Castle Di Andalari, we'll be fine. That way, you'll see more of Stella D'Mare, as well. Not that I ask you to connect on an emotional level to a place that has never served you, but if it helps to immerse yourself in the details of the cause I've selfishly dragged you into, I'll show you around."
That's right. He was selfish. Revealing her dark secrets upon their first meeting simply because he wanted to have power over someone at his mercy--selfish. Casting a blood oath spell when he had the option to utilize a smaller but just as effective alternative--selfish. Detailing the specifics of their cause because he wanted a friend to stay by his side, damning the consequences of her safety--selfish. Everything he had done, he thought little of Elespeth's opinion. And now...he had consumed her so completely that there wasn't much else to do but trudge on through the fire--together.
Was the murder of his parents, too, done by selfish hands? What else had happened, that day, that disturbed Adalfieri so little when Alster had sputtered forth the truth of his guilty hand?
After force-feeding himself in silence, he rose to his feet and rearranged his face to another comfortable resting expression. "I think I need a little time to...meditate on what Adalfieri told me." He looked uneasily at the curtained wall in the following room. "Feel free to finish up and wander around the premises if you'd like--just be careful. Avoid any Rigases. And should you need me," he pointed to the aforementioned curtain as he struggled to maintain an even pitch in his voice, "I'll be in there."
He excused himself. With a shaky touch, he parted the curtain to reveal a plain-looking door, embedded into and almost flush with the wall. He fed a tendril of magic through the door. It clicked and swung inward, inviting him into the blackness in which he spent many of his days as a child.
It was a small interior room, with no windows. The chambers of his punishment oft exacted by Debine. Hours, even days, trapped in solitude. In the asylum of his mind. In the dungeon of his madness. Many a time he plotted revenge in his small, suffocating sanctum of hell. The Serpent bred sin into his bruised thoughts, and those thoughts spun into ideas, which formulated into actions.
In this very space, he planned ways in which to destroy his family.
It was only appropriate, apt, even, that he sought the room's oppressive energy to think upon similar concepts. Only now, his musings wandered to why he had killed his parents, and not how.
It makes no sense. He sank into one corner of the room and crossed his legs. Felt the weight of the air squeeze him from his body, propelling him into space, the cosmos, into Fear Itself.
Why would I kill them? What were my motives?
The gruesome scene materialized from the ether. That same saccharine day. The same bobbing cypress trees. The same hills, grass, flowers. And them. A rare portrait of cooperation between Debine and Valente, who seldom spoke to one another. They shared a few sentences as they peered over a map of the area, held taut in Valente's hands. Why would this bother him? Why would he retaliate against such a peaceful reverie made into reality?
Then, something nagged at his brain. A familiar darkness, one he oft encountered in that hidden space between rooms.
Help. ...Home. Want...home.
Who are you!? His mind insisted. It attacked the voice that sang in his skull.
Home. Need...need...you....help.
Only they were not words. Feelings. Sensations. Screams. They prickled at his skin and sickened him to a stop, as his mind roared and retaliated against the ceaseless possession that had snagged him so fervently.
Go away!
The intruder in his brain constricted tight. Help...
NO! Let go of me!
Tighter. It slithered through his veins. Need...you...
He severed the connection. With a blast. A foreign blast. It dislodged the slithering intruder, but when he looked up and back into the world, he saw only blood. Only shadow serpents, feasting on the corpses of his parents. They projected from his hands, stark lines emphasized by the mid-afternoon light. And Valente, Debine...their lives had converted to death wisps in the ground. In the air. But gone from him...forever.
Alster jerked back into consciousness. Shivering, sweating, his hair plastered to his head and his heart plastered to his rib cage, he clutched his stomach, which threatened to empty the meager contents of his breakfast.
The Serpent. The Serpent had infiltrated his mind, and the great beast, with its magnetic pull, wrenched the chthonic magic from dormancy. He lost control. He could not...could not...
He constricted himself until he stiffened. Need. Need. Elespeth may have needed him, but he needed Elespeth.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I... that sounds like a good idea." Her voice mirrored her baffled thought at the concept of 'shopping'. Beyond replacing a broken blade or two, or purchasing clothes to replace threadbare rags, it was a luxury that had never been afforded to the likes of her. Not even during her days of knighthood: armor, weapons, casual garb... it had all be chosen for her by some superior who had never invited her input or opinion. The privilege of picking out something shiny and new belonged only to the very elite.
Of course, it was high time that she remembered she was among those very elite, there at the Rigas estate. "I'd like to see more of your home," she added, after a thoughtful pause. "Stella D'Mare is beautiful... I feel as though the scenery alone is well worth the visit."
A shadowed weariness had settled in Alster, she'd noticed, since their tense audience with Adalfieri. From the unease swimming in the depths of his eyes, to the rigid set of his shoulders, there was no mistake that he was bothered by what the elder Rigas had had to say about the long-ago deed that still haunted her dear friend.
She could relate to that, on more levels than she cared to admit. "You do whatever you need, to take care of yourself," the former knight assured Alster with conviction, rising from her seat in time with him. "I can pass my own time seeing more of this estate. I wish I was artistically inclined; so many of these vistas demand to be painted."
Awkwardly arranging the skirt of her borrowed gown, Elespeth watched with intrigue as Alster disappeared behind a door hidden by a tapestry. His shoulders looked so heavy with his own burdens, so tormented by his own demons... There was no sense in adding to the load with her own, more recent troubles. She needed to process this alone, and put it behind her.
And she would. It would just take a little time... and a lot of distractions.
Giving up on the food for now (her stomach needed time to remember what it was like not to be empty), Elespeth decided to partake in some sunlight, and left Alster's exquisite villa to wander and explore the grounds of the Rigas estate. It was impossible to avoid others entirely; the grounds above and below were busy with Stella D'Mare's high-class population, some which she recognized as Rigases from their sneers, and others who wore the sigils of other families on the sleeves and breasts of their garb. Below, towards the centre of what looked to be 'Old Town', judging by the age of its architecture as compared to some of the newer buildings to the east (she'd spied them from the terrace of Alster's villa), children shrieked with laughter, jumping in and out of an ornamental fountain, their clothes soaked up to the waist with crystalline water, and it drew her lips into a smile.
That, alone, was a key reminder that there would always be reasons to laugh and to smile. And one day... one day, she would feel as carefree as those children, again. War did not last forever, and grief was a transient state.
This hurt would not be forever.
Warmed by the sunlight and soothed by the relative peace of the vast gardens that surrounded the Rigas estate, Elespeth wandered for the good part of an hour. The dress that hung from her thin form began to feel less foreign, the longer she spent in it, to the point where it actually grew comfortable. Adalfieri was right... we need only time to rest and care for ourselves so as to be prepared for the coming battle. She had never been awarded such a luxury, before, but now with little else to do than wait, she saw no reasonable alternative.
Almost as soon as she was graced with the optimistic glow of serenity, however, it was just as quickly shattered.
"That dress; it belonged to Debine. I would know it to see it." The cutting voice of that Rigas from before--the groundskeeper woman who had taken such repulsion to Elespeth, and for no good reason--obliterated the former knight's fragile moment of peace like a stone to glass. "Who do you think you are, exactly? What gives you the right to wear it?"
"Pardon my affront," Elespeth breathed out her ire before it could ignite a fire at her core. "This was what was provided for me to wear. I'm led to believe it is temporary, until something more suitable is found."
"You have no right, regardless." Selestyn huffed, covering distance between herself and the intruder. The flush to her cheeks suggested she'd been in the sun for some time, likely tending to the gardens surrounding the Rigas estate. Elespeth wondered, incredulous, if she had taken a pause from her work simply to berate her. "I don't care that you are here by Alster's will. You are no Rigas," she hissed. "It is an insult to this entire estate that you might dress like one."
This feeling, like a boiling in her heart that spread up her neck, was foreign to the former knight. It was not like her to react in the face of insults or vitriol; hadn't she survived Chara's blatant disapproval, her jeers, her hateful words thrown at leisure? For as long as she could remember, they had slid off her back like oil on a duck's feathers. But Selestyn's words... they burned, hot as wrought iron through her skin, and gradually, the ever-patient young warrior lost her patience.
Sometimes, fire could only be fought with fire.
Pressing her lips together, Elespeth looked the Rigas woman up and down. Her mind wondered just how someone who spent their days groundskeeping managed to look as though they had just walked out of a boutique; ultimately, she chalked it up to magic, and did what was perhaps one of the most uncharacteristic things anyone who knew her could think of.
The Atvanian fired the Rigas woman's shots right back at her. "What is an insult to this estate," she ventured, her gaze hard as she met Selestyn's, "is that it is overrun with filth like you, who have nothing better to do than to belittle others as a means to combat your own feelings of inadequacy and place yourself on a much higher pedestal than you actually occupy. You're a damned groundskeeper; do yourself and everyone else a favour and come to terms with it."
There was a second's worth of satisfying shock mirrored in Selestyn's eyes--one whole second of a delicious victory, validating Elespeth's throwback in the righteousness that replaced the acidic ire in her veins.
But that one second's victory soon resulted in lingering pain, when the Rigas woman's hand--and fingernails--met the side of the former knight's face.
"You little whore," Selestyn hissed, pale with fury; Elespeth had hit a nerve. Not that it was difficult, for the nerve of every Rigas she had met (with Alster as the only exception) resided in their pride. "How dare you. How dare you situate yourself in a place where you don't belong, and find the gall to insult those who do! Don't think yourself so special because you happen to be a guest of Alster." The smile that curled her lips was blatantly cruel. "Don't think yourself such an enigma. I recognized the clothes you came in; they stunk of Atvany. You are an enemy of Stella D'Mare by association, and I think the higher ups would be very interested in learning this."
"Really? Well, I've got news for you." Drawing her hand into a fist, the acid in Elespeth's veins boiled over, until everything felt hot, from the tips of her hair to the tip of the gown, which felt as though it should catch fire. "I've seen Adalfieri, and he knows who I am. He knows that I am here for Alster, and that it is crucial that I am here for him. You can't touch me. But, if you can't quell the urge..." She felt the bite of her fingernails in the soft flesh of her palm. "Then I dare you."
Without another word of warning, the former Atvanian knight threw a punch that would leave a good quarter of the Rigas woman's cheek bruised. Selestyn reeled, and unleashed an almost feral growl from her lungs, and came at Elespeth with more force and accuracy than the Atvanian had anticipated, from the looks of that groundskeeper.
And it all went down just in time for Alster to come upon the scene, and the warrior who he'd thought he knew so well.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The light dissolved the sensation, and left him, once again, bare, exposed, fodder for the world, and vulnerable to their influences.
Instead of braving the outside, he crossed the hallway and entered his parents' room, his footfalls a mere tiptoe, in case he disturbed their spirits, should their residual energies linger.
He knew they did not.
"If you were actually here, Mother, I know you'd cluck and flutter at Elespeth for wearing your dress, and sleeping in your bed," he said aloud, mustering enough humor for a grin, which he shared with the wardrobe.
He sat at the edge of the vast bed and his eyes searched the room. The gaudy wall mirror, no doubt Debine's inclusion, reflected a crumpled up creature that hunched over himself, a defeated shade that cast a filter over his normally keen vision. Blurry. Everything was blurry. He wiped at the moisture that collected at the rims of his eyes, and turned his back from the mirror. He didn't need confirmation of his pathetic nature thrown into his face, a heckling reminder that he could never wear the pride and confidence of his Rigas brethren.
"If either of you can hear me," he whispered, clutching his hands tightly together, "...I'm sorry. I wasn't strong enough to deflect...Its power. I succumbed to it." He dipped his head. "But, at least...at least..."
I did not kill them out of hatred. Out of spite. It's still my fault. It will forever be my fault. But this weight...I can live better in knowing...that I am not so much a monster as I thought. Just...weak.
He shook out of his depression at the word. Weak. If I am weak, then the Serpent...It may yet attack me again. Especially at this proximity...
Idyllic Stella D'Mare, the city of plenty, the bastion of magic in the East, was, in fact, a well-dressed prison. For, what lurked beneath the quaint houses and latticed alleyways flowering with all the colors of magic, was the Serpent: sealed into the Earth for thousands of years, its Seal the very foundations of the city. Its chthonic energy bled in great gouts, from the ground, staining the deceptive peace of Andalari's appropriated capital. And now that the dark side of his magic was in full activation, he felt the squirming underfoot, the subtle rattle of the mountain upon which the city was founded--upon why the city was founded.
He had awakened it, over forty years ago, and it showed no signs of ceasing the torpor of its movements. In fact, the brittle layer between the surface and underground, he felt it crumble by the day, by the hour.
How soon would the mighty Beast break the Seal, and shatter, submerge the city into the cavern of its hell?
Alster shivered and pushed away from the bed.
"Maybe it's time I get some sun."
After some deliberation, Alster forced himself through the doors of his villa and explored the radiance of the humid, but breezy afternoon day. He roamed the grounds, weaving in and around the gardens he recalled loving as a youth. A small gazebo, balanced on a jutting outcrop of rocks, was his favorite structure. He saw it now, a lonely white thing, situated far from the greenery, from the vegetation, from the conventional beauty of his controlled surroundings. A mere earthquake would topple the gazebo off the side of the cliff, and yet, it held, clinging, somehow, working in tandem with the very rocks that one day might lend a hand in its inevitable destruction.
He didn't even reach the pathway that snaked to the outcrop before a sharp pain scratched at his cheek, like fingernails raking against his flesh. His eyes widened.
"Elespeth..."
At once, he half jogged, half ran, to where the blood bond directed him to go. Thankfully, she was not far: at the edge of the garden. He took a shortcut through a line of cypress hedges and climbed over a low-stone wall, arriving to the scene in time to see his companion--and Selestyne--embroiled in a bout of fists and claws.
If he had witnessed Selestyne fighting with any other person, he would understand--and even cheer on the aggressor brave enough to pit oneself against Stella D'Mare's elite. Rigas behavior brought out the worst in outsiders who harbored little patience for bull. But seeing Elespeth, a woman who, many times over, had every motive to assault Chara and it would not have been undeserving, condone the tussle with the Rigas gardener--it was a surprising sight, which left him temporarily unable to act.
He didn't watch for long before lifting his hand and drawing a wind spell to knock them to the ground. When that didn't work, and they resorted to wrestling each other into submission, he ran into the fray and used his body as a buffer between the two. He refused to use his chthonic magic, especially so close to the Serpent's lair, and in its place endured whatever blows he received from the crossfire.
"Are you two finished, yet!?" They seemed to have listened, for the small brawl had petered into a low simmer, held aloft by his outstretched arms. For his interference, he received a a few scratches to the arms imbued with etherea, and a fist to his cheek.
"What happened? Explain. Though, I can hazard a guess." He leveled a glare at Selestyne. "If you insist on antagonizing an ally, I hope you have a good reason aside from the standard elitist crap that every Rigas swears on spouting like they're reading it from a damn book!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
No more. Never again...
Elespeth landed a hard elbow to Selestyn's ribs, only to receive a like blow between her shoulder and neck. Her muscles screamed, but adrenaline fueled her fury, and every time her fist connected with the Rigas woman's face or gut, a shock of sweet satisfaction dulled the pain of her accumulating bruises and scrapes.
And then, completely out of the blue of the otherwise calm afternoon, an enormous gust of wind so intense it might have belonged to a hurricane blew the two women apart, and off their feet.
It might have been enough to give the Atvanian time to pause and reconsider what was going on, what she was doing and that maybe she should stop, had Selestyn not taken the opportunity to catch her by surprise and connect her fist with the corner of Elespeth's jaw.
Blind with anger and raw adrenaline, the two fought, kicked, punched, clawed and tore at one another's clothes and hair, until another body inserted itself into the brawl: Are you two finished, yet?
The former Atvanian knight immediately ceased her onslaught of violence, upon the horror of realizing she had just landed a blow not to Selestyn's shoulder, but to Alster's.
As stricken and shocked by his sudden appearance as she was by the incredulity of her own reckless actions, Elespeth scrambled to her feet, followed by Selestyn, whose visage was still constructed of hatred and fury. "You would truly allow this little bitch to don Debine's attire?" She demanded of Alster, her mouth twisted into a grimace as she wiped blood from her nose. The perfect weave of her copper hair had become unsettled, with tresses loose all over, as if she had been stuck amidst the eye of a hurricane. "It's not enough that you drag an Atvanian--an enemy into our safe haven--but you have her dress like a Rigas? That is an affront to the family... your mother would never, ever forgive you if she became privy to this."
Elespeth could have defended herself--and, perhaps, she should have. It was not as though she was the only one in the wrong, or that Selestyn's problem with her was spurred by nothing but ridiculous Rigas pride and entitlement. Not to mention Alster was clearly on her side, knew that she couldn't possibly be completely at fault, and yet... And yet, she had risen to Selestyn's provocations, and instigated the violence. A number of eyes were on them now, onlookers murmuring comments about the foreigner who had dared to strike a Rigas, and she knew that regardless of what Alster said, she would--as a foreigner, an Atvanian, a perceived enemy of Stella D'Mare--be held accountable.
She had made a terrible, inexcusable mistake. She had lost herself, and she knew that one way or another, it would come back to bite her.
Not that she deserved any less.
Pale but for the flush of her cheeks, the Atvanian looked down at herself, noting the scratches on her arms, the blood on her split knuckles and staining Debine's gown. The side of fer face where Selestyn's nails had clawed her skin stung like she'd been assaulted by bees, and a tentative touch of her fingertips to her lip confirmed that it had split, red and swollen and slightly bloody from the injury. "I..." Her voice sounded broken, felt broken, and hurt along with the rest of her. But she deserved to hurt. "I... I'm sorry."
Elespeth turned on her heel and ran, ran from Selestyn and Alster, ran from the curious eyes hungry to spread this succulent piece of gossip, ran from the guilt that clung to her heels, and did not look back.
She passed through the Rigas estate venturing downhill, between pillars and cut through gardens, flowers that Selestyn had likely tended. Her frantic feet took her far away from the scene, down through the town square and the busy marketplace, where she pushed through crowds, heedless of who might be on the receiving end of an accidental elbow to their ribs. She ran until her throat ached, her mouth was dry, and her lungs screamed for air, at which point she stopped, at the beach along Stella D'Mare's scenic peninsula.
What would Farrin have thought of such reckless behaviour....? I really am a disgrace to my name...
Elespeth meandered along the beach for a good amount of time, the chill of the wind coming off the water soothing her aches and pains to a small extent. Though she thought she might cry, she had no tears, her emotions too tightly wound in a tangle of unease to properly sort through them and deal with them individually. Grief fed into anger, which whetted an appetite for violence when the moment suggested it... but she couldn't be sure where one sentiment began and another ended. And, at the end of a long handful of hours where she struggled to dissect the knots in her own mind, the former knight was ultimately left with nothing but exhaustion, and emotional numbness.
The sun was just beginning to set when at last she decided to return to the Rigas estate, knowing full well she would have to face Alster sooner than later. The trek back up the steep hillside of the winding cliffs was tiring, but not nearly as stressful, as the crowds had died down significantly, and fewer people paid any heed to the foreigner in ripped and stained Rigas attire, scabs forming on her cheek and lip, bruises blossoming blue and violet on her neck and shoulders and arms.
At least she now looked on the outside precisely how she felt on the inside.
She found Alster as soon as she returned to his villa, standing seemingly in wait for her arrival. Try though she might, she could not bring herself to look at him, and directed her gaze instead to the state of Debine's dress, and her bloodstained knuckles as she folded her arms across her chest. As if the gesture could protect her from the backlash of her own, sickening guilt.
"I'm... Alster, I'm so sorry." With her voice hardly above a whisper, he might not have heard her apology, were the villa not dead quiet with tension. "I don't... know what else to say. But I hold myself accountable for what I did, and gracefully accept your disappointment and scorn." He had saved her life, brought her to safety in his own home... and in return, she had lost her temper with his family. Wretched though he, too, proclaimed them to be, there was no excuse for the way in which she had soured her already fragile welcome in Stella D'Mare. "I know apology is not enough, but... do know that I mean it. Every word of it..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Is Debine your mother, Selestyn? Are you in charge of her wardrobe?!" He stayed between the two bruised and bleeding women, in case they optioned to fight around him. "I would have gladly donated that dress to you if you had fancied it so much!" The smile he enacted for her was a derisive one, void of amusement or benevolence. "And somehow, somehow, I doubt that lending a dress is the least of Debine's grievances with me. Take it up with her ghost and let me know the answer!"
His fingers itched to finish the fight. Oh had he wanted to mark her face with a little something less cosmetic than a swollen lip and black eye. But before his magic or his words could continue what Elespeth had started, the "enemy" in question sputtered an apology and he turned in time to see the manifestation of her guilt stretch her eyes and mouth into such a helpless, dispirited reflection...of himself.
"El." His voice grew gentle as he sidled closer to her. "Let's just get you--"
Elespeth kicked up a wind of her own creation as she sped away, fleeing at a pace impossible for him to pursue. He watched her bow her head and dart past the garden without seeing, just moving, needing to move in order to escape the guilt...
You can't outrun it, El.
She disappeared over the crest of a nearby hill, and he was aware that she had found a route into town and spun, down down down, towards the sea.
Every instinct in him screamed to give chase, not because he didn't respect her desire to be alone, but he wondered if she had actually wanted solitude--and if such a luxury was even a safe choice for her at this juncture, considering their situation.
But he would, at least, sense if she faced another slew of dangers, instigated or otherwise, and his knowledge of the town's shortcuts served to reach her in quick order.
Maybe...I just have to let her go.
Without another word to Selestyn, he traveled in the direction opposite Elespeth's flight, and returned to the gazebo on the outcrop. His feet scuffing against the meandering stone path, he brushed against one of four of the ivy-wrapped pillars that held aloft the roof of the open-air structure. From his vantage point high on the hill, he surveyed the sea far below him, wishing that Elespeth would find something worth calming her fears at the shore.
As for him...
He looked at the solid supports of the gazebo and the platform beneath him, fused so to the boulders that comprised the lee side of the hill. Just one tremor...and down I go. Positioning himself at the edge, standing on what amounted to a fancy launching site for jumping, he pondered the sensation of temporary groundlessness. Would it, before impact, strip him free of every dreadful moment belonging to his ruthless destiny? Would he actually feel weightless, his chest unburdened, finally able to breathe without pain?
He must have stood there for hours, perched as if to jump, hearing the wind in his ears encouraging him to release himself to death. The chthonic energies in him opened like a flower to the suggestion. Death wanted to reunite with death. And his magic--wanted to eat his death. Oh, what terrible fuel it would provide, for his demise wouldn't be without a proliferation of immense energy releasing itself back into the atmosphere.
But he couldn't die. Not when the responsibility of another life depended on his heartbeat--in more than the physical sense.
Blinking out of his dark introspection, he sensed that Elespeth was on the move, and heading back to the estate. The least he could do was meet her and be there for her, even when he didn't know how to hold her upright as the pillar of stability that she needed. Not when his soul rested on a precarious set of rocks, waiting to drop into the sea.
Elespeth returned to the villa not long after he did. He awaited her arrival, near the front door. Understandably, she was a complete wreck, and daren't even raise his eyes to meet him--like a dog who had done wrong by its master. Working his tongue--dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth--he listened to her words and smoothed them over with a smile as he slowly closed the space between them.
"It's just a dress, El. Magic will remove the stains. And," his smile broadened, as he touched her shoulder, encouraging her to make eye contact, "if you didn't attack Selestyn, I know that I would have. I don't fault you for giving that little princess a harsh knock of reality. And she certainly wasn't acting defenseless, either. I'll deal with the repercussions, of which there'll be little; you needn't worry. But," a sigh blew the smile from his face, "I know that you will." Without thinking, he took her into his arms and pulled her tightly into his embrace. "You don't have to deal with this alone, Elespeth. I've been down that path. I live that path. If we're both going in the same direction...why not walk together?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Well... perhaps I should leave you to confront your own family, from now on," she suggested, reassured by his hand on her shoulder. "Nonetheless... please, please just accept my apology."
And he did, it would seem. A split second of surprise assaulted Elespeth's executive functioning when she found herself folded in Alster's arms, his comforting form so warm against her own...
Soon enough, that split second passed, and the former knight, exhausted beyond belief, wrapped her arms around his middle. There was something so solidly comforting about physical contact; it grounded her, brought her back to the reality that she needed to face... and that she still, on some deep, impenetrable level, resisted.
"I'll be fine. This was... a mistake that I will not make again, tho say the very least" Elespeth murmured, gently resting her chin on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry to have worried you... but I can assure you, I'm feeling more like myself, again." Or as much of herself as was left, in the wake of everything she had seen, everything she had endured, and everything to come.
Excusing herself, the Atvanian left her companion temporarily to clean herself and inspect her injuries. The water supplied in the wash basin of his parents' bedroom was stained pink by the time she had rid her skin of dried blood, and her lower lip and cheek were bruised or mildly swollen, on top of the plethora of scabs that had formed on her knuckles or the bruises on her arms. But with her hair combed and her skin gently cleansed, she didn't look nearly as bad as she had thought. Just very tired, and... not entirely whole. Like something was missing from her eyes, her smile, the way she moved. But she could not guess for the life of her what it was.
Alster was seated on an ornate window seat surrounded by crystalline glass that ran to the ceiling by the time she was finished, staring at something far away on the horizon. Though he wore the sort of thoughtful look on his face that suggested he was looking without actually seeing... a state of mind with which she could empathize, especially of late.
"So... does anyone here happen to be adept in magic that can conceal scrapes and bruises? Or am I doomed to the necessity to explain myself when I shamefully show my face in public tomorrow?" The former knight ventured a smile, but it was entirely without humour. Taking a seat next to Alster, she pressed her back against the window, a chill running up her spine as the cool glass met her skin. "I apologize again for the state of your mother's dress... I promise to don something more suiting as soon as I find it. Perhaps it can be part of our excursion tomorrow to find some weapons."
Shopping, meandering the marketplace of affluent Stella D'Mare... it all seemed so trivial, something too mundane for the tumult that was her given life. But it was, in all probability, precisely what the two of them needed, then and there: a taste of everyday life that isn't caught up in war or turmoil. She looked forward to it. "Alster... I know it probably goes without saying that I appreciate everything you have done and are doing for me. And I..." Turning to face him, her eyes took in the shape of his face, the crease of concern between his eyebrows, the fall of his bangs across his forehead, and the shape of his lips...
And then, her heart succumbed to a flight of panic, and she hastily looked away. "I'm sorry. I think I'll turn in early... I didn't sleep so well, last night. It's making me ramble..."
Rising to her feet, she did not leave without her fingers brushing the back of Alster's hand. "Tomorrow will be a better day." She smiled, warm and hopeful as she caught his gaze. "For the both of us. Let us ascertain that it is."
But the night continues its unforgiving onslaught on her psyche.
That night, as she slept, she could have sworn she felt the warm pressure of Farrin's arms cradling her body, his cheek pressed against her forehead, and tears staining her ceremonial Atvanian garb as he wept. He murmured heart-wrenching words of apology and good-byes that he wished he hadn't had to voice, that she didn't want to hear... and she was helpless to respond. Her eyes were frozen shut, her muscles without any strength, her lips unmoving and her voice entirely lost...
All the same, she felt so comforted. When was the last time she'd felt her older brother's arms around her? Or had heard her sister him, low and sweet, a lullaby that she had taught her when Priya was just a child?
When was the last time she had felt this intimate a connection with her otherwise cutthroat family?
I love you both, she wanted to say, wishing that her arms would allow her to reach up and return their tight embraces. Why do you shed tears? Don't cry. I'm all right... and we're here together. It isn't goodbye.
But gradually, Priya's humming subsided, and Farrin's hands which smoothed her hair withdrew. Everything grew cold, hollow... and then her eyes shot open.
The entire world was a weave of darkness. By the time Elespeth regained control of her body and her voice, she was alone, surrounded by nothingness. Nowhere, and with no one in sight.
Alone.
"Farrin! Priya! Wait!" Frantically looking from side to side, she sought out her brother and her sister, reaching out with her arms in case she bumped into them. But it was as if they had never been there. "Where are you? Please, come back! I don't want..." Her voice trembled, and then broke. "I am not ready to tell you goodbye... I'm not ready! Please...! I'm here!"
Elespeth awoke in her bed at the Rigas villa, a subtle sheen of perspiration having settled upon her skin in the night, and the blankets kicked to the very foot of the bed, leaving her exposed to the evening chill. Sitting upright, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and stared blankly at the silhouette of a chair in the darkness. A dream... it had just been another dream, and yet... and yet, it felt like more than that. Like a memory that she could not quite place. It all came across as far too real. She could still feel her brother's hand smoothing her hair away from her face, could the minor key intervals of Priya's song...
Her stomach somersaulted, and she shot out of bed, sure that she was going to be sick.
Stumbling forward, the former knight hurried out of the bedroom and out onto the terrace, taking slow, deep breaths until the nausea subsided. That had been no dream; those were memories. Memories that reminded her she had never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her family, aside from Lyriq.
But Priya, and... Farrin...
"...oh! Alster..." Turning away from the dark, outstretch of horizon far below and beyond the terrace, she hadn't expected to see her companion just as wide awake as she. "Did I wake you? I apologize... I'll try to keep it down. I just..." Clutching her elbows, she turned towards the water once again, and to the town that slept below. "I needed some air."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Each wave that rumbled on the shoreline brought forth another thought in his already loaded brain. Onslaught after onslaught crashed against his mind, with everything around him foaming and bubbling, churning and collecting. Keeping calm inside was like asking the tides to stop following the capricious whim of the moon.
Elespeth's arrival abated some of the ceaseless tumble, but the sea brine still lingered on his tongue, a solemn reminder that she too gave rise to many of the troubling questions he could not help but dredge. What would become of her, in the end? Could he keep strong, even when every aspect of his life unraveled at his feet, at the same time? The Serpent's aura prodded black spots in his eyes, his chthonic magic embraced death, too readily, and so did he, news of his parents affected him thrice over, his return to the Rigas estate, anxiety for the future, the war, Messino, and Elespeth's ultimate fate... it was too much. More than ever, he needed the compassion of his partner, the pull of her support, and her encouragements, both silent and spoken. But he knew she had sunken deep into the mire, and the task fell on him to help free her from the mud. It was his turn to console, to offer strength--to prove himself as capable of more than his chronic weakness and failure.
Despite the screaming of his soul, he displayed a smile for Elespeth as she approached and sat beside him at the window. "Rigases aren't known for healing capabilities. I was one of few, but that ability has since departed along with my celestial magic. But you look fine, really. A little bruised--as a warrior ought to, right? Not saying that your vocation requires that you always bleed and hurt, but...but, you know what I mean, I hope." Rambling again. He berated himself for allowing the awkwardness to control his conversational lilt, but it was accustomed to interfering, especially when he desired it least. "I don't know if this will improve upon your clothing situation, but tomorrow, before we go to the market, I can find you some of Chara's things to wear. Temporary, of course." But that statement hung in the air where he uttered it, when he listened to her heartfelt appreciations and noted how she drifted close to him, staring at his lips, floating ever nearer, and he found himself wanting to connect, like he had done in the dungeons, but with a mutual togetherness...
Then she scrambled away as if he burned her and threw all his warmth to her in the process, for when she touched his hand, he shivered, but it wasn't an unpleasant reaction, and oh how he wanted her to stay...
"Wait," he breathed, but he saw how utterly exhausted she appeared, and he could not find it in his selfish heart to ask for her to stay. "...It will be." He gave her a weary smile. "Good night, Elespeth."
The night was anything but good.
He dreamt that he was a cliff overlooking the tempestuous ocean. Each battering wave chipped pieces of him into the abyssal depths. Only, he realized, that it was not water lapping beneath him, but all the world's chthonic magic, a viscous soup that added to its ink by taking from him until he was a gouge in the mountain. An earthquake of awesome magnitude dislodged him from the cliff and he melted into the sea, into the death...
The Serpent awaited him there, in the nothing, but he felt its unmistakable presence, hairy and electric and otherworldly and heavy, so heavy, that he thought his bones would crush to grist from the pressure.
Sealed here. For long. Too too too long. You will join me? The monster did not speak, did not use words, but Alster sensed a certain cadence in the air that translated into something like words. Something like...understanding.
Join. Down here. We crack free. Crack. Bring it all down. All. Down.
"Like my parents?" Alster hissed into the dark. "You brought them down. No...you cracked me, and I brought them down! Never again. Never will I let you into my mind!"
Never...
Never...
The blackness bled away, then, and the pressure lifted from the sudden change in atmosphere. Another environment. Another world away. Another thought process. He saw flashes, memories, of people he only knew in passing and in a few exchanged words, but they allied themselves with Elespeth. And she screamed for them until her voice grew hoarse, even when everything shuddered into that all-too familiar blackness.
He heard the echo of her voice reverberate in his head as he snapped awake. Like death, it lingered, and it chilled him. He scrambled out of bed, out of the sheets that did naught to protect him from the cold or from bad dreams.
Elespeth was awake. He sensed that she had moved from the bedroom and to the terrace. He stepped outside to meet her, inviting the cool marble on his already petrified feet as she exclaimed at his presence.
"Sorry if I startled you." A contrite simper appeared on his face. "I also needed some air. Mind if I join?" He didn't wait for the answer as he stepped forward to rest his hands against the railing. "I know what ails you, El. I was there. In your dream. In Atvany. You don't have to pretend that nothing is amiss." His soft whisper carried over the wind. "Use this time well, before war swallows up your ability to grieve. Lay your strength aside, for now. I'll hold on to it, all right?" He pressed his shoulder close against her, a friendly nudge and an invitation to seek her touch. "At the very least, though...I'm always here if you need me. Please don't forget..." I don't want to be alone. The unspoken words trailed over the silence, the gap he left open in his dialogue. He half-closed his eyes and bowed his head, at the ocean, and he repeated the sentiment, in earnest, as the waves lapped over the shore.
Don't leave me alone...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth studied the Rigas mage's face in the raw moonlight: innocent, exhausted, and tortured by things far beyond her control. He was not the only one who had bore witness to the workings of a vastly troubled subconscious mind... "I saw it, too. Your dream. The darkness, the serpent... Alster, listen. Please." Turning to face him, she rested both hands atop his shoulders, craving the reassurance of touch just as much as she suspected he might be. She wanted to close the distance between them, so badly... "I know what you're doing. You want to share in my pain, take part of the load from my shoulders, but Alster... Your arms are already full with the weight of your own demons."
It wasn't fair, what was happening. What her grief was doing to him, when it should have ailed and belonged to her alone. This was not the result that she wished from their partnership or their blood bond. She wanted to help him, to be of use to him and his family... not become an extra load of feelings to get in the way of his victories, his successes. She wanted... she wanted...
"I'm here for you, too. Always, in whatever way I might be of help. You know that, don't you?" A soft smile turned her lips upward. "We are together, we are alive. And I know, that in time, we will both be all right again. So please... please, Alster, don't concern yourself with what ails me. Like I have already said, I will get through this. Before long, I promise, I'll be myself again. Just..." Her voice quaked for a second, and she gazed upward to meet his eyes. "Just believe in me. Like I have always believed in you. I..."
And there it was again, that draw to bring him closer, that desire to take a step that could very well result in a nasty fall. But he looked so tired, as longing for company and understanding as she was, and something in his eyes told her... told her that he was afraid to be left alone with his demons.
She would never let that come to pass.
Her body moved before her mind could think better of it. Elespeth drew her companion closer until there was nothing between their bodies, and their lips met in a soft and tentative kiss. Her heart hammered against her rib cage and her arms trembled with trepidation, but she wouldn't be seized by panic this time. The brush of their lips was so soft, it was nearly negligible, as she minded the corner of her mouth where Selestyn had effectively split her lip, but the moment lingered nonetheless. She basked in the warmth of his proximity, the plush press of his mouth against hers, in the way he shifted his body to meet her advance welcomingly...
And then, as intrusive as ever, Chara's face flashed in her mind's eye, and Elespeth faltered and pulled away, her face a study in shame and horror.
"I'm so... Alster, I shouldn't have... I-I didn't mean to... I just..." She couldn't find the words through the sea of guilt that flooded her heart and mind. Putting a hint of distance between herself and her Rigas companion, the former knight shifted to press her back to the window once again. Flames burned behind her cheeks, though it was likely difficult to tell in the dark of night. What in all hells had gotten into her? What could have possibly persuaded her that such a course of action was all right?!
"I am so sorry. That was untoward of me." She folded her arms around her middle, as if striving to maintain the warmth that she had felt between them. But not amount of self-soothing could replace the proximity of another person. "Chara would... I mean, I understand that the grounds between the two of you have become rocky, but that gives me no right..." Chara Rigas was far from her favourite person, but knowing what had just occurred between Alster and someone to whom he was not betrothed would have shattered her already wildly insecure heart. And Elespeth--although she might have been a lot of things--was not one to toy with another person's feelings.
Raking a hand through her hair, she pressed a heavy sigh from her lungs. "You are betrothed, and I knew this... I knew this, and disregarded it. Chara would be keener to destroy me than Lilica was, should she ever find out how I just stepped completely out of line." She didn't know, at this point, whether or not she was speaking to Alster, or simply narrating her innermost anxieties, the sound of her own voice preferable to the awkward silence that she was sure would have been the only alternative. Not that it mattered; he needed to know how sorry she was. "I just... I have this memory--or maybe it was only a dream--that you... I was still locked away in the dungeons of Gallei, and you came to me, and..."
Slowly but surely, her voice broke, forcing the Atvanian woman to clear her throat and collect herself. "I wanted to remember... to know what it felt like... to make myself feel better. Selfishly. And that does not make it right. I had no right to do that to you... Can you... do you think you will be able to forgive me, Alster?"
Like before, when she had returned to his villa that evening in a bout of shame, Elespeth could not look up to meet her dear companion's eyes, let she find shock, disgust, or unease in their kind depths. He was all she had left--literally as well as figuratively. And that self-serving advance could very well dissolve the rapport that they had built, let alone any future rapports with another Rigas (not that that was a goal that she so sought). So much for keeping good on her welcome to Stella D'Mare...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But neither should she.
"Why not share in the pain? We already do, by virtue of our blood bond. It's something we can't ignore just as we can't ignore the stab of our flesh wounds. And I'm," he slid his hand against her arm, "...I'm fine with it. Why not help you, as you've helped me? Hiding your pain will only hurt you more. And you're not protecting me by suppressing it, when your subconscious strips the truth bare." His fingers played at the loose sleeve of her white silk nightwear, another loan from Debine's wardrobe. "That's even more painful, El. That you insist on snuffing it away even when I still see it. Just..." he gazed at her and at the moon, the glow of which crowned her head like a halo, "continue to believe in me, as I'll believe in you. I can handle it. And you..." Don't promise something so silly. You'll never return to what you were. All you can do is move forward, he wanted to say, but seeing the little hope reflect the moon in her eyes silenced his all too grounding words of harsh realism. She needed that comfort, that delusion, in knowing that she may one day achieve wholeness, just as he believed that he might forgive himself for all of his wrongs...somehow.
But his morose thoughts sloughed from his tense shoulders at Elespeth's approach. Their arm to shoulder link melded together, and soon, so did their lips. At first, his mouth hung against hers, in surprise and denial. This can't be happening. It must be a dream. Even if it was a fanciful illusion triggered by the madness of the moon, he welcomed it all the same. His arms curled around her waist as he pressed himself in earnest against her waiting mouth, tasting the salt on her tongue, feeling the glide of their lips, their hearts beating in complementary tones. The world sighed as their bodies sighed.
Perfect. This was too perfect to be a dream.
And as such, the 'dream' ended, with Elespeth breaking the connection. He shivered from the aftermath despite the heat-bearing light that colored his entire face, and his body protested the leaving of his guiding fire, who flickered with trepidation before him. "What's wrong?" It didn't take long for her to string a frenzied, guilt-ridden explanation, and her mention of Chara almost stymied his heart. Almost--but he could not quash the song that thrummed especially for Elespeth and only wanted her accompaniment. No one else's.
"Chara," he breathed, in frustration, as he brushed back the bangs that sagged over his eyes. "She knows, El. She knows how I...how we..." he lowered his eyes, losing the conviction to voice the extent at which he fancied her. "It's not important, what she thinks. That's not something we have to worry about, right now." He dared to return Elespeth's gaze, but noticed that she had drifted from his view, purposely hiding away, out of shame. Was her decision to kiss him that badly ridden with regret? "Yes, I'm betrothed. It's not by choice. I...I'm making my choice, and I'm making it here."
With a surge of courage, he reached for her hand and with a gentle tug, urged her close. "It wasn't a dream, El. In the dungeons, I," he felt like he had chugged an entire bottle of wine, the way his cheeks heated and never returned to their temperature, "I kissed you." Threading his fingers through her own, he hesitated in his continuation. "The spell I cast over you was incredibly risky; I coated you in a cocoon of chthonic energy to have it appear that you were dead. It concealed your heart. To the world, you were dead. And...in case you never would come back alive, I wanted...to show you how I...how much I..." His palms sweat from under their hold as he bit down on his lip--still tasting the leftovers of Elespeth's flavor.
"I'm not going to forgive you, because forgiving you means I'm acknowledging that you made a mistake. That this is a mistake. And...I'm sorry, but..." he leaned forward, their foreheads touching, "I don't see it that way. Do you?"
Then, he returned her kiss in kind, linking themselves to more than entwined fingers. He closed his eyes and forgot, if for a little while, the troubles that cast a pox on his infected mind. The expedited pumping of his blood from his heart drowned out the pain, refilling it with an ichor, ethereal and celestial and...not dead.
Death did not seek him, nor did he seek death, in Elespeth's embrace.
At last, he pulled away. A shy, embarrassed smile squiggled at his lips. "That was not too forceful? I didn't know if...you wanted this to continue." An unprovoked laugh bellowed from his throat, and he clamped on his teeth to stifle the outpouring of his nervousness. "Now it's my turn to be spouting apologies. I'm sorry, El. Should I...should I leave you alone?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Given the circumstances of her strict upbringing and past profession as a knight, living up to all that was considered honourable and pure (as according to Atvany), Elespeth had never dared allow herself to feel the way she felt with Alster. The flood of excitement, of fear, and of longing, all mixed up in her veins and flowing straight to her heart made her feel unsteady in body and in mind. She hardly knew how to deal with the onslaught of unfamiliar sentiments, let alone reconcile the fact that Alster was betrothed to another... But, risky though I likely was, it was not a mistake. In fact, so thorough and persistent were those feelings and the electricity between the two of them, that this moment made her feel whole in a way that she had never before experienced, nor thought possible.
Lacing her fingers through Alster's, she welcomed the kiss that he returned, and all uncertainty--about Chara, about the war, and about the fact she was likely engaging in something illegal according to Rigas tradition--faded like the dregs of a distant and insignificant dream. And she wanted it to last; she wanted to find a nook in the universe with Alster, one where no one and nothing else existed but the two of them... just for a little while.
Just long enough to understand what it meant to be loved.
The flush that had crept into Alster's cheeks was so endearing that it nearly evoked a smile from her sore lips, but his last inquiry forbode that joy to show.
"No," she breathed the word with a worried crease between her brows, lips slightly parted, as if they wanted to speak, but couldn't find the right words. For a moment, only her eyes spoke to Alster, meeting his own with a glimmer of sadness. "No, you're not too forceful. And I... please, I..." Elespeth paused and swallowed the lump in her throat. "I've been alone for so long... please, even just for right now... don't leave me alone."
This time, completely unabashed, the former knight leaned forward and captured his lips with hers once more, craving that electricity one more time. While shunned by her own family, she found acceptance in the way his mouth moved against hers, in the pressure of his arms around her waist, the hammering of his heart against his rib cage which she felt against her own breast bone...
Pure, unadulterated connection; that was the name of their electricity. And it went far beyond the mutual scars on the palms of their hands.
Only when her lungs burned with need for air, and the cut on her lip ached did she reluctantly withdraw, only far enough to rest her forehead against Alster's. Stars danced behind her closed eyelids from neglecting the intake of oxygen, and she was already exhausted from her restless nightmare... Any desire to move from that seat at the window, from Alster, had long since dissipated--if it had ever existed at all. "Will you stay here?" Her gentle breath tickled the hairs on his neck as she rested her head on his shoulder. "Just for now... just for tonight..."
Settled comfortably in Alster's welcome arms, the former Atvanian knight fell into an easy sleep at the window seat that evening, a pleasant and dreamless slumber that lasted the remainder of the night, and then some. When at last she awoke, the sun was warm against her back, and Alster's hand was gently shaking her shoulder. Eyelids fluttering open, she took in the kind smile on his face, and was immediately reassured. "Oh... did I oversleep? How long have you been awake?"
Sitting up, she pulled at the silk sleeve that had fallen off her shoulder and stood, taking in the meal spread out at the table that the help had seemingly brought in for breakfast. For the first time in over a week, the sight of food actually sparked an appetite. "You know, perhaps you were on to something when you suggested I don some of Chara's clothes," she mentioned, when the aggravating sleeve slipped off of her shoulder again. "Your mother must have been a size bigger than I am... currently, at least." With lack of proper nourishment and her more recent aversion to food, her body had shrunk inward, her skin clinging closer to her bones. Alster was right, as was Adalfieri; she needed to take this time to regain her strength and take care of herself, where she had spent what felt like so long neglecting her own basic needs... and all because she felt worthless, and like she deserved to die.
But that belief had perished, the moment she saw the gentle care in in Alster's eyes, and felt the palpable meaning of his words and confessions through his kisses.
Placing some bread and fruit on her plate, she then averted her attention to her Rigas companion again, a sleepy look of reassurance and affection on her face. "Alster... I know it wasn't you," she ventured, her tone soft, reminiscent. "You and your brethren did not deliver me to Messino; I knew... I knew the moment I saw your face in the crowd. And I don't believe for a second that it was Chara, either... She is entitled and vindictive, but not that cruel, and would not have done so in knowing how it might hurt you. So I hope..." Reaching across the table, she covered his hand with her own. "I hope you harbour no guilt for what happened to me. It was my own poor choices that condemned me... promise me that you won't let it plague you anymore."
She couldn't--wouldn't--allow him the burden of that pain. Pain that belonged to her, and to no one else. No, regardless of his plea, that was a step that she could not take... and it only further motivated her to find a way to intercept the grief of her traumas. If I hurt, he hurts... I will not hurt him, anymore.
"So... that aside," she took a thoughtful bite of bread, and instantly remembered how much she enjoyed the taste. "What are the chances that I'll live to tell the tale, should Chara find out I've been wearing her clothes?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Never in his ninety-seven years of life did he experience love outside of the familial, and even that love was complicated. His father never seemed to care about the antics of his wayward son. Only after Alster achieved the unforgivable did he then love with unconditional fervor as if to make up for all those lost childhood years in relative absence. His mother--he still doubted that she ever loved him and, if she did, she dared not notice or understand it herself. And Chara...
Perhaps...perhaps he did love her once. Before...
Before she turned and walked away.
But the phenomenon that locked into his embrace opened the voids of the inner chambers of his heart that staunchly believed no soul could ever look upon him with anything other than disgust and hatred. That he was not worthy of adoration. That he was an ugly, sinful, wretch of a being no more capable of love than he was at receiving it. Disgraced and a disgrace.
The disgraced can love each other... And it all made sense.
They belonged with each other because where else did they fit in a world that spurned their existence?
He kissed her and she kissed him and they stood there in the frozen span of time until their bodies reminded them that they were not immortal, and needed to breathe. Then, she requested that he stay by her side all night, and the patters in his chest beat in double-time, to compensate for the rules of the universe which he had flagrantly ignored. But he didn't care, because every moment of that evening featured Elespeth's pliant lips, her natural scent, the firm sculpt of her muscles that huddled against him on the window seat. And as she slept, he watched the moon rise and fall and her chest rise and fall. He scooped her into his lap, hugged her close, and found himself blessedly asleep, the first night in many moons where his foray into the unconscious realm refreshed him rather than drained him.
Awaking to the burst of sun on the window and the dozing form of Elespeth snuggled up against his chest filled him with intense peace and relief: it had all been real. He only wished he could stay curled up at her side for the entire day. And subsequent days. And never return to the world outside of the villa.
Alas, life did not accommodate the likes of him so easily.
With a willpower he did not think he possessed, Alster broke away from her warm touch and set out into the day to run errands. Run he did, for spending even a minute alone impelled him to return to Elespeth as soon as possible.
An hour later, he stepped back into the villa to notice the newest spread of food festooned upon the table, but he ignored the feast in favor of Elespeth, and smiled to himself when she hadn't moved from where he left her on the window seat.
"Good morning," he said after he roused her from slumber, his smile in a bid to rival the radiance of the sun, and with cheeks as burnished as the sun. "You didn't sleep long. I've only been awake about two hours."
Together, they relocated from the terrace to the dining room for breakfast. The food selection was similar to yesterday, but it appeared more appealing, and his mouth about watered from the rich delicacies that he did not remember ever missing when he left the Rigas estate.
"So, I did anticipate your request for some of Chara's things." He pointed to the bundle of clothes he had set upon one of the chairs. "She has a more sensible style, believe it or not, and there aren't any dresses in that pile for you to worry about donning. Also," he turned from his plate filled to the brim with olives and bread and cake to rifle through the pouch at his belt, "maybe this will help with your scrapes and bruises." He fetched out a small pot filled with a lime green substance that smelled of mint and various crushed herbs, sliding it across the table for Elespeth to take. "It's not magic per se, but some Rigases are quite gifted in the concocting of salves and tinctures. Let me know if it's of any use to you."
While he wanted to gaze upon her sun-kissed face and the tousle of her hair, he tore his eyes from Elespeth to focus on eating his breakfast, though he sneaked a few glances in her direction. The tinge on his cheeks brightened when he lingered on the heart shape of her pink, plush lips.
However, his not-so-covert staring ceased its roaming when Elespeth brought up a more sobering topic of discussion. Messino...The memory of all their encounters lit a fire behind his eyes.
"Messino is at fault." He lowered his voice into the glass of water he held to his mouth, to mask the splinter of anger that stabbed through his vocals. "He condemned you. Though the role that I did play complicated matters for you. And so I take full responsibility for my actions. For that I apologize. For...for trying to--" he stared at the embroidered patterns on the white, white, tablecloth, too ashamed to be drinking up Elespeth's appearance like some lovesick idiot. "I wasn't thinking straight when I...pointed my magic at you and...I could have gotten you out of camp without capture. I just know that I could have. But I didn't...and because of that, you suffered so much, and lost your brother." His hand slid from the glass, a dead weight that thudded on the table. "So I'm sorry, but I can't promise you that. My poor choices...they hurt you."
In silence, he chewed on his bread, tasting but not registering the flavorful bite. "But...at any rate," he offered a shaky smile at the subject change, "Chara never has to know. We'll go to New Town today and swap out her clothes for a new set before she even has the time to plan out your murder, should word of your borrowed wardrobe reach her ears."
New Town was, as its name suggested, an annex of Stella D'Mare proper. It sat on the same shoreline, on an adjoining mountain, and comprised both sides as the layout of the city traveled further and further inland. And, sitting atop the mountain of New Town, as if posing a challenge to the glittering opulence of the Rigas estate, was the Castello di Andalari, a robust stone structure that clashed with the clay brick rooftops and cream-coated walls of the seaside city. Far below, the streets weaved in similar patterns to Old Town, with a terraced geography accessible by many sets of stairs that littered the city.
Alster and Elespeth arrived by carriage in New Town's main square, where a boxy fountain depicting the effigy of late King Cassius I, the emissary of peace who 'as an act of charity aided his weary neighbors,' stood as a large marble reminder of what faction, in actuality, controlled Stella D'Mare.
"As you can see, there's a little juxtaposition at play here between the two sections of the city," Alster explained as they stepped off the carriage and into the fray of the marketplace at the height of its busiest hour. "Since you're wearing Rigas clothes, you're less suspect under the scrutiny of Messino's spies. But I would still be careful. Now," his shoulder accidentally brushed against her and propelled his heart into his throat, where he choked on his words. He coughed and presented Elespeth with an unruffled smile--though he very much wanted to hold and kiss her again. But in the privacy of his own villa. "Where would you like to go? This is the main shopping district, so everything you need is on this strip. And I'll pay for whatever you want, so no need to worry about the cost."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With her free hand, the former knight reached across the table and covered Alster's hand with her own. "I don't regret it. Had I not made that decision, I never would have come to know you."
Even if it had resulted in her arrest and detainment, and the turmoil of her family... Even if it had meant watching her eldest brother be hanged, before her very eyes...
She decided to perish the thought before it went too far.
"Well, let's see if I can do justice to such blessed garb which belongs to one Chara Rigas." Standing, she flashed a smile as she sifted through the small pile of clothes, and chose an ornate white tunic with fitted black trousers. White Alster was right--it was more sensible than Debine's luxurious blue gown--it did not lack the sort of flare that drew attention and alluded to importance. Of course, Chara would never wear anything that might diminish her presence. "Just a moment, I won't be long."
Disappearing into his parents' bedroom--her bedroom--Elespeth changed out of the white shift and pulled on the trousers and tunic, running her fingers through her hair to calm some of the tangles resulting from a decent night's sleep. For half a moment, she contemplated pulling the long tresses back in a braid to keep them from swaying about her face in the breeze... but as soon as her hands had gathered them, she remembered Priya's hands, and how they had expertly woven the chestnut strands into a masterpiece of a braid.
Immediately, she dropped her hair against the back of her shoulders, and instead focused on applying the salve to her cuts and bruises. Its smell was soothing, and the tingle on her skin eased the ache and sting, but the marks of her tiff with Selestyn were by no means concealed. But she was okay with that.
"Alright," the Atvanian woman returned with a grin, looking somewhat livelier than she had the day before--which, perhaps, was not saying much, considering she had spent the majority of yesterday stuck in a pit of misery and self-loathing. "Show me around, and let's find something to replace these clothes before word travels that I donned something that belongs to Chara. It doesn't strike me that she would take very long to plot a murder."
What little of Stella D'Mare that Elespeth had already taken in had astounded her. From her unprecedented trek to the scenic shoreline, to the view from the terrace of Alster's regal villa, it was honestly beyond anything that she could possibly dream up. As she watched Old Town gradually bleed into New Town from her view in the carriage, she was no less astounded, but there was something unsettling about the newer composition of edifices and structures, all the same. Perhaps it was that she could practically see Messino's influence in every corner of every street...
Alster was right: if he caught her--either of them--then she was as good as dead. And soon might be Alster.
But she left that to the back of her mind. Hadn't she promised Alster that today would be one void of darkness and morose thoughts? He needed a reprieve from that habit... And she needed to see him have that reprieve, if ever she wound find a means of forgiving herself for being a partial cause of his pain.
"Clothes. Before too many people see me wearing something that belongs to Chara. I'm not sure who I fear more: Messino's spies, or Chara's friends." Elespeth grinned at her companion. "But... if Rigas attire is something that will make me less conspicuous here in Stella D'Mare, then I'll need your help in picking out something that a Rigas would exclusively wear."
For all she knew, the esteemed family had their own tailors that made their clothes in a particular fashion unlike any other denizens of Stella D'Mare. But one thing was for certain, and that was that no one in this vast city dressed like a peasant, or anything less than regal. Perhaps that would be just enough.
Finding new clothing took a good deal longer than she had anticipated, but in the end, it made perfect sense. Rigases were picky, seeking only the best, and as such, Alster's more attuned eye suggested what would work and what would not. The hem of that vest was slightly askew, the green trousers were a shade too dull, that tunic was not embellished with enough sequins, and when she found one that was, the sequins along the sleeves and collar were sewn too loose or otherwise not adhered well enough to the fabric. On one hand, it was maddening, and the former knight wanted nothing more than something to keep her warm and decent. But in Stella D'Mare, image mattered, and although a crooked hem or lack of embellishments did not bother her personally, she would have to act as if they did.
At last, after over an hour of shopping around, picking up articles of clothing and then putting them down again, her Rigas companion finally gave his own 'esteemed approval of a long green tunic with a boat neck, a shade that complemented her eyes, and trousers that were the colour of gold without its shine, but embroidered with glittering thread in delicate patterns on the sides, that matched the tiny patterns along the hem and the neck of her tunic. Reasonable, but no less exquisite, even if in a more muted way than what other Rigases would prefer. It was comfortable and allowed for movement, which was all Elespeth cared about, so they secured the deal with Alster's seemingly endless supply of coins and were on their way, as soon as the Atvanian woman changed out of Chara's clothes and into those that were exclusively hers.
"Is this honestly how you shop?" She asked Alster, already looking exhausted from their foray among the textile shops and booths. "I've never been given so much leave to choose among... well, anything. Everything was so regimented as a knight, and then I could only take what I could get when I left my home. And I can't honestly say whether I find it liberating or... aggravating. But," she smile and nudged her companion's shoulder on purpose, to have his full attention. "If I am your body guard, then I need a weapon. A sword. Now it's your turn to witness the one and only time I am ever picky and particular about something."
After all, Atvany was known for crafting some of the best blades around. And she would not be satisfied until she found something at least comparable to what she was used to.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
They were too similar to each other. Even their ideals on forgiveness and mercy hinged on whether they themselves deserved forgiveness and mercy. She took responsibility for her actions; in turn, he blamed himself for every turn of events. Their collective logic and morals brought them to an impasse, and the thought of never alleviating Elespeth's self-culpability nibbled at the back of his mind for the duration of their carriage ride.
But her final words spread a soothing salve, much like the one he gifted her, upon his soul. Had I not made that decision, I never would have come to know you.
And had you not made that decision, I doubt I would even be alive...
He was alive, and, standing as he did beside Elespeth in the crowd of the marketplace, did not feel ashamed, unworthy, or...drawn to the idea of silencing his heartbeat and fading into the void, where he'd be unable to harm anyone else. He did harm Elespeth, yes, but...
But...
I saved her, too. Never forget that. Never forget...that I'm actually capable...of saving a life.
Their excursion to the market in search for a decent outfit traced for a long hour or so, as far as he could track the burning sun across the sky. But the company he kept warmed him to the tedious chore of shopping for clothes. As a Rigas, he often dressed down, seeing little need for the glitz and glamour of his family's flaunting of wealth in an excess far above many of the affluent citizens of Stella D'Mare. He wore a crushed blue tunic with silver trim at the sleeves and collar, a simple design stitched across the openings which he had cinched closed with a cloth belt. Plain black trousers and leather, traveler-friendly boots reminded him, in the figurative sense, to remain grounded.
With his knowledge of Rigas fashion and of his partner's practical state of dress, he was able to aid in choosing a complementary ensemble: a compromise between flashy and functional, as far as a Rigas-style garment would allow. He smiled in approval at how the tunic conformed to the lithe contours of her body and provided a flattering flare to her waist and overall form.
The blush threatened to bleed all across his cheeks again.
"Oh, no," Alster flung an exaggerated hand into the humid market air as they strolled down the opposite end of the avenue. "Many Rigases do not deign to leave the estate. They personally request for the tailors to arrive posthaste, and all garments are personalized to their tastes. I seldom enjoyed it, but my mother would always insist. Most of the time," he scratched at his nose, a little sheepish, "she would choose my outfits for me. Chara, too. So, ah," he kicked a stray pebble to the ground, "I hope I've done a decent enough job in having you look presentable. I mean--not that you aren't!" He sputtered hurriedly. "But to their standards. Now," he mused as he found their first weapons shop, a squat building at the corner of the market, "let's check out this place. I can't imagine weapons shopping is any more banal than choosing clothes to wear."
He was wrong.
Four shops. They had walked into four shops, scoured the shelves for decent weaponry, spoke at length to every blacksmith in inquiry about a particular make of blade, the grade of the steel, the technique used to temper the weapon, the origins of the craft...and Alster swore he heard Elespeth asking about the man's family and origins. He supposed the renown of a blacksmith, much like the clout and worth of a caster, depended on history, experience, and whereabouts. Or, he theorized, Elespeth longed to find a maker of Atvanian steel somewhere in the depths of Stella D'Mare proper.
They came close.
At the fourth shop, the blacksmith remarked that he had studied at length in Gallei, with some of the masters of Atvanian craftsmanship. He had combined a few more techniques with his work, as well as the requisite embellishments for the aesthetically-obsessed denizens of Stella D'Mare. He demonstrated the use of a particularly handsome short-sword, its pommel decorated with an emerald, its handle bound in thick cloth weaved in a criss-crossed design. The blade itself was light, balanced, and swished against the air like a lash of wind in a storm. The sheath followed a similar motif: a rippling cloth intermixed with an elaborate pattern etched into the exposed steel of the sword case.
At last, Elespeth had approved of the weapon. They bought the sword and a few accompanying daggers to complete the arsenal.
When they left the shop, the sun had dipped behind the mountain of New Town, shrouding the streets in shadow. "You weren't joking at all! That took much longer than sorting through piles of fabrics!" Despite the accusatory tone in his voice, he laughed and clamped her back, guiding her through the thinning throng of people to where their carriage awaited. "And now they've started to dress the swords up in little costumes. It looks just as dapper as you do!"
As they climbed back into the carriage, Alster informed the driver not to return to the Rigas estate but rather offered a different locale. When the coach lurched the horses forward, he gazed out the window but gave Elespeth no indication as to where they were headed next. After a twenty minute ride at which they crossed back into the borders of Old Town, the carriage slowed to a stop. They swung through the open door, down the steps, and onto the stone-dappled pavement of a narrow street that meandered around a corner, nestling itself into obscurity.
"We have a little time before nightfall, so I figured I'd show you one of my favorite spots," Alster said with a coy smile as he linked his arm with Elespeth and led her around the corner.
The street grew to an even narrower point as residences towered over their heads. At two abreast, they almost brushed against the colorfully painted front doors. Overhead, a wooden trellis spanned the length of the walk, held together by notches in the roofs, and covered in a flood of purple flowers. A tapestry of blossoms, of curling branches, of ivy and spiraling vines blanketed the sky with clouds of violet and lavender and periwinkle. And as they strolled, a small rainstorm of petals filtered down from above, tickling at their faces and arms en route to join their fallen comrades on the stone pavement. Within the nucleus of each, little lights danced, a flash of tiny stars ensconced in tiny blossoms that twinkled an ethereal glow in the fading light of the sun.
A small break between the houses allowed a view of the sea, which lapped against the shoreline with its mottled patterns of deep azure and aquamarine. But Alster did not pay attention to the beauty of his surroundings. He looked at Elespeh the entire time.
"Elespeth," he breathed, taking in the aroma of sea-wash combined with the natural perfume of their floral procession, "you're about the only decision in my life that I don't regret." He glanced into her eyes, the green of her tunic intensifying the radiance that pooled in her irises. He shuffled closer, moving his arm so that it draped across her back to rest on her far shoulder. "And I never thought I'd experience joy again. But...just having you near, I'm--so grateful to you. Thank you." He detached himself, briefly, from Elespeth and faced her. Leaning forward, he planted her another kiss, beneath the canopy of falling flowers.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
That she ultimately found a blacksmith who was not only familiar with the make of Atvanian blades, but who had conducted studies in Gallei, was nothing less of a miracle. The former Atvanian knight listened as he explained what parts of Atvanian craft he had maintained in his work, and what other elements that he had picked up in his studies and travels characterized his blades. He was clearly well-learned, and it was all that she could do not to ask him specifics about Gallei, such as who he had studied under, what he had thought of the city, and whether he thought he might ever return, should Atvany cease its involvement in the war.
She wondered, even if just for a moment, if in his return (should he so choose) whether or not he might pass on a message to Lyriq, something cryptic that might inform him that she was still alive, and well...
Ultimately, she felt it best to leave before she ask too many questions, divulge too much, or otherwise make all the same mistakes that she had back at Messino's camp.
With a new shortsword at her hip, along with a couple of new daggers she had effectively hidden in her boots (she didn't want to flaunt too many blades at once, lest she draw the attention of any of Messino's potential spies), she couldn't help but apologize to Alster for having dragged him through such an arduous task of looking for a blade to appease her taste and needs. Especially when he was the one who had handed over the gold for it. "I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to fully repay you for... well, for everything," she sighed, resting a hand on his shoulder as he hailed a carriage for them. "But I believe that already goes without saying. Nonetheless, you know that I am going to try."
Sitting back in the carriage, the young woman reveled in the feeling of comfort that accompanied new clothes that actually belonged to her, as well as the familiar pressure of her shortsword at her hip. It made her feel more like herself, again; the warrior that she was.
And the knight which, at heart, she would always be.
"So where are we off to, now?" Rolling her shoulders back, Elespeth caught the mischievous glint in Alster's eyes, and grinned. "What, you're not going to tell me? Should I be worried?"
Had he told her of the terrace and its flowers, raining pink and white with petals, she'd never have been able to picture it. It was more than a dream... more like some grand illusion that she nearly felt she did not deserve to see with her human eyes. Stella D'mare was really a small paradise off the coast of the sea, with some beautiful secrets.
"Alster..." She had no words for what she saw. Walking abreast her companion, the former knight relished the quiet hush of the small promenade. As if no one dared disturb the peace of such a tranquil and delicate scene. "This is like... this is the sort of peace I wish I could feel in my heart, again." When she turned, so did Alster, and she gladly returned his kiss. The urgent yet sincere press of his lips sped her heart, but calmed the burning unease in her veins, and she pressed her body to his, craving every bit of warmth and reassurance he had to offer.
And she felt his heartbeat against her breast bone, a curiously synchronized beat that thrummed hand in hand with her own. "Gratitude should belong to me alone," Elespeth murmured against his lips. "Alster... from the beginning, you have been the guardian angel that I do not deserve... thank you."
Alster likely had no idea how true that statement rang...
That night, Elespeth's mind returned once again to Atvany--and to her brother.
Sitting up in her bed back at her parents' estate, she looked around in bewilderment. Had she been dreaming, this entire time? Did that mean...
Did that mean...
Springing out of bed, she left her room and tore down the stairs, nearly knocking Priya over in the process. "Clumsy! Watch where you are going!" Her younger sister huffed, but her words fell flat on Elespeth's ears. She passed her brothers' bedrooms, her father's study, and made her way down to the kitchen, where her heart skipped a beat. "It wasn't real... you're here."
Farrin looked up from his mug of dark coffee, brows furrowed, perplexed. Without another word, Elespeth threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close, reveling in the heat of his body. His live body, his feeling body, with a heartbeat. "I dreamed you were dead," she murmured, her voice breaking under the weight of her emotions. "That I was in exile, that you were... you were supposed to kill me, but..."
But it didn't matter. None of it had happened, she was here now, at home, part of something. Part of her own family.
Farrin laughed and uttered teasing reassurances about the absurdity of such a dream, but she could not shake that feeling of dread, as if he would fade away should she let him go. "Farrin," she whispered, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. "No matter what happens in this life... I love you. And I always will. There are parts of that dream that I wish were real..." Her mind temporarily drifted to Alster, and heat crept into her cheeks. "But I'm beyond glad to have you here. I'm sorry; I know I am being foolish, but I... I just needed you to know what you mean to me."
Farrin didn't answer. After a beat, the Atvanian woman pulled away, brows furrowed in confusion. "Are you angry? I'm sorry if--"
No sooner did her hands drop to her side that her brother crumbled; literally fell apart into tiny pieces, like sand. Like he had never been there at all...
"This I all your fault, you know." Elespeth turned around upon hearing the accusation, only to find herself facing her entire family: brothers, sisters, and both parents. It was Priya who spoke. "He died because of you and your foolish decisions. You are selfish, Elespeth. The life lost should have been your own... you should be in his place, right now."
"No." Elespeth paled, her stomach doing somersaults. "I'm sorry. I didn't want him to die, either. You must believe me..."
"What you wanted doesn't matter," Lyriq chimed in. There was no warmth for her in his words or expression. "The fact remains that you are a traitor. And it is you who should have suffered the pain of death... not Farrin. He was the most noble and honourable of us all."
"Worthless," her mother hissed. There were tears streaking her cheeks. "You stupid, worthless girl... how dare you take my son from me! My first born..."
"This is your fault." Priya breathed the final words with hatred. "It will forever be your fault. You will never again be a part of us, you treacherous scum."
Stop... please, stop! She wanted to say, but could not voice the words, as her throat seized up with fear the second she turned away from the disappointed faces of her family, only to come into view of another face--and an image that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
"Elespeth." Farrin--or what was left of Farrin, charred as he was right to the bone--stood before her, and she could have sworn his expression, through the grimace of his fire-mangled face, was sad. "Elespeth... why did I have to die for you?"
The former knight woke up screaming.
Sitting upright, heart racing, nothing could expel that image, those words--all of those words--from her mind. "Farrin... I'm sorry. I'm sorry..." Bringing her knees to her chest, Elespeth bent her head and sobbed. It felt as though her heart had broken open and was bleeding profusely, a hemorrhage that had no hope of ceasing. "It should have been me... it should have been me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
You have been the guardian angel that I do not deserve.
He almost sputtered away from her waiting lips as those words threw themselves against the image he saw of himself: utterly demonic, foul, and steeped in the destruction of his actions. And yet, she thought...and he thought...
He smiled against her lips. "You took my line," he breathed, with a wry clip to his whispery voice. "I'm supposed to be the one spouting poetry. You're stealing my thunder, El." He chuckled then, and closed their lips together once more.
That evening he lay in his bed, reliving the dreamscape of their twilight stroll. And as he dozed off, he fell into a nightmare.
Alster was privy to the goings-on of Elespeth's dream, but like before, was a mere spectator with no corporeal form by which to communicate or interfere with a scene that he feared would not remain so placid and carefree. Elespeth--communicating with her family as if nothing were amiss. How many times had dreams associated with his parents and the Rigases started the same? You were just dreaming. You never awakened the Serpent. You never killed your parents. We're right here...
That was when, as always, the dream would turn sour.
It did. Her beloved brother diminished to ashes and her family, with accusatory glares, took turns in breaking Elespeth to the same pieces as her brother upon the floor. Then, he reconstituted, a grotesque mosaic with a barely-formed face...
The screams jolted him awake, and the plaintive cries followed him into reality.
"Elespeth!" He threw off the covers and made a mad dash for her room, reaching the doorway in time to hear her heartbreaking sentiments. Even in the blotting darkness, he could see her on the bed, rocking herself back and forth between the shivers that racked her body into pained sobs. He...he had never witnessed her reduced to such a state, and the sight took him completely off guard. Yes, he had wanted her to release the pain, to purge the grief through a cathartic outpouring of the proper emotions, but had he really wanted his dear companion to suffer so fiercely while he stood, helpless to stop the torrent?
No. He wouldn't stop the torrent. She needed this--as much as he yearned to numb her hurt, to make her forget, to silence the cry of his own heart that wished her safe. And happy. Away from the guilt.
But...the guilt would eat her alive were she not careful, and he needed to make certain that she returned. Returned...to herself. And to him.
With tentative steps at first, he approached her bedside, calling out her name so that she might hear him above the sound of her tears. But he used a gentle timbre tended by a gentle touch upon her shoulder. He did not want to startle her into the sudden awareness of his presence. When she reacted neither to his voice nor his hand, he grabbed at his hair, at a temporary loss for how to console her, how to guide her from the brink of despair...how to do anything else other than magic. That's my only purpose...but I refuse to let that be my only purpose.
Taking a determined breath, Alster climbed on the bed and settled himself behind Elespeth's trembling form. Closing the distance between them, he hugged her from the back, encouraging her body to rest comfortably against him. He nestled his head between the crook of her neck and shoulder, and whispered into her ear.
"It's not your fault, Elespeth. You're not to blame. You deserve to live. Stay. Stay here." He tightened his embrace. "Stay here with me. Can you do that? L-listen. Listen..." he shuddered a sigh, "to my voice."
Then, he began to sing, a soft tenor reciting the lyrics to a lullaby in the old language of Stella D'Mare. He rolled his tongue, an onomatopoeic interpretation of the ocean waves slipping into shore . He continued his song, singing every verse and repeating the tune, on loop, vibrating the melody into her ear, taking care that his voice did not break from losing his resolve. Eventually, she slowed the stream of her tears and fell limp, against him, having exhausted herself back to sleep.
He silenced his song. "...You won't have any nightmares this go-around. I promise you, Elespeth..."
With concentration, he meditated on a peaceful scenario. A field of flowers. A mountainside not afflicted by war or by the pollution of the wealthy. A beach, with crystalline waves that distorted the small schools of fish swimming beneath the surface. An impossibly blue sky. Gulls laughing overhead. Seastars of oranges and purples gluing themselves to the barnacle-encrusted rocks. A breeze that ruffled the rows of chrysanthemums that bobbed far behind the breakwater and up the mountainside, urging the peonies and the blue bells to do the same. The image branded, in vivid detail, in his mind, Alster moved his right hand so that it attached itself to Elespeth's own, and he projected the idyll landscape into her subconscious, coaxing her with caution into a better place. Even if temporary, no shades of her past would follow her to this scene. He would make certain of it.
He stayed up all night upkeeping the image, daring not to move even to scratch a bothersome itch behind his ears. Sitting there, he maintained the protective barrier of her dreams until sun-up, when the morning rays drifted into the grandiose bay window of Elespeth's room. As he severed the hand-to-hand contact, the peaceful image faded, encouraging her back into a conscious state. Back into the sun. Back to him.
At seeing signs of stirring, he sighed with relief, but stayed still and quiet, out of respect for the condition of her wakefulness. Once she appeared conscious, and stabilized, he nuzzled her neck, where his head still rested. "El," his voice still sounded in susurration. "...Do, d-do you need water? I'm sorry if I..." His arms loosened around her and he twisted his head from her shoulder. At a loss for words, he bit his tongue into silence and waited for her reaction in case she wished to speak...or to return to sleep without his irritating body in her way.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Curling in on herself as if in an attempt to hide from the emotional assault, the former knight spilled her guilt and sentiments through the tears that streamed down her face. "Farrin... Farrin, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She sobbed the mantra, over and over, hoping that enough apology would provide a means of draining the guilt, the pain, from her bleeding heart. "I'm sorry... it should have been me. It should have been me..."
She thought she heard a voice through the fog of her misery, felt a gentle pressure at her back, but couldn't be sure. There was a voice in her ear, soft and reassuring, but she could not understand the words through her own hysterical sobs. Stay here with me... The words resonated in her head, in her heart, invading the space occupied by guilt. And for a moment--just one brief moment--she remembered why she had to live, why she could not brush off her existence among the living like it didn't matter. That reason... it was a name.
And that name was Alster Rigas.
Through the darkness infecting her heart and mind, through the hot tears that continued to spill and dampen her brand new night gown, there was a song. It was unfamiliar, and she could not understand the words, but it soothed the burn in her chest and quieted her mind. She listened, following the strange melody, and her tears slowed along with her frantic hyperventilating. Her body still shook from how violently upset she had been, but a warm body supported her from behind, holding her upright when she could hardly find the strength.
And it was to the sound of that beautiful voice, that beautiful song, that the former knight's eyes closed again, and she drifted back into the arms of slumber.
This time, though, sleep's embrace was gentle, soothing, placid. Elespeth found herself surrounded by flowers, the breeze warm and soft like a silk blanket on her skin. There were mountains far behind her, and the crystalline waters of the azure sea.
She didn't know where she was, but it didn't matter. Elespeth couldn't remember having been upset, having wept, having felt guilty, having lost her brother to a horrible fate. All of that was temporarily washed away by the beauty of the world around her.
She smiled. She laughed. And for the duration of that perfect, unconscious hallucination, she was herself again, in her entirety. The self that Alster had witnessed that day that they had spent shopping, enjoying one another's company.
That Elespeth--carefree and full of joy--was not lost. She had simply been buried under layers and layers of guilt and pain.
When she opened her eyes again, sunlight was spilling through the window of her extravagant bedroom, golden and bright with the coming of late morning. Her body ached and her head pounded, as if she had just come from another fight... but another body held her tenderly, reassuringly, and she remembered that she was not alone.
"Alster..." Elespeth licked her lips, tasting the salt of her dried tears on them. "Have you... were you here, with me, all this time...?" Although her voice was hoarse and fractured with the strain of all of her sobbing, the gratitude in it, which was also reflected in the green of her sleepy eyes, could not be missed. "I'm sorry... if I kept you up, I didn't mean... I just..."
And there the tears threatened again. The Atvanian woman swallowed and exhaled slowly to ward them off. Now, in her conscious state, she could remember the cause for her distress that night, the tears she had spilled and the crippling emotional pain that had rendered her incapacitated and practically incomprehensible. Farrin... Would that name ever bring her joy again? Would it ever hearken to the times they had shared laughter and companionship, or would she be cursed to remember that charred likeness of Farrin that had woken her up, screaming? "I wish... I wish I had another chance. Just... one more moment with Farrin. So that I could say goodbye..."
Alas, there was no keeping her eyes dry. Gripping Alster's arm, Elespeth leaned her head against his shoulder and wept softly, the pain blossoming anew in her chest. She did not interrupt them with words, but instead basked in the comfort and reassurance of her companion's presence next to her. A reminder that not everyone she loved was dead, or forever beyond her reach.
When at last the flood came to an end (which was no time soon), she lay quietly, thoughtfully, and only spoke when she was confident that her words would not be punctuated with further weeping. "I remember... I thought it was just a dream, but when... after you used magic on me, and he thought me dead, he held me, the way he use to when I had gotten hurt as a child. And he... he wept. Because he thought he hadn't gotten the chance to say goodbye..." Eyes bright with the remnants of tears, she met Alster's patient gaze. "I... I wish I had that chance now. To tell him goodbye. That I'm sorry... and that I know he had no choice but to do what he did. And that I'm sorry I... I couldn't save him, like he saved me."
Shifting so that she lay on her back, Elespeth stared at the ceiling without really seeing, green eyes absently tracing the swirling designs high above. "It was easier, having left and never returned... That way, I did not know the state of my family. They all could have been dead; or, they all could have been alive, well, and happy. And that possibility... just the mere possibility that they were alive and well, it was enough to placate me. But I... now that I know they are not. I don't know if they will ever be well again..." She pressed a sigh from her lungs and shook her head. "Drevon and Kiriel are ignorant and care for no one but themselves. But Priya will not be the same, not without Farrin. And Lyriq... he has taken far too much upon his shoulders, so young. And yet, I can never return to Atvany to see if they ever make it through their grief... not if they all, but one, think me dead. There... to them, I have ceased to exist."
It was what it was, and there was nothing to be done about it. Perhaps that was the hardest stone to swallow, the reality that the lives of those who she loved was out of her hands completely. Well, save for one person.
"I'm so sorry, Alster. You don't deserve to hear all of this. It isn't your burden to bear. But..." Rolling onto her side, she laid a hand upon his arm and smiled through her grief. "Thank you, for being here. For listening. If... if you are all that I have left in life... then there is still reason for hope, and room for healing." And to accentuate her gratitude, she pressed her lips against his, a gesture that was becoming more and more natural to the feel--and one that diminished the ache in her heart, replacing it with warmth, and hope for tomorrow.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Her tears freshened back into her eyes. In his newfound spot in front of the former knight, he invited her into his open arms, where she nestled against him and confided her woes to him. And he understood them. Perfectly. If only...if only he could see his parents one more time, and apologize for what his weak and unprepared mind had wrought upon their bodies and their lives. If only they were made aware of how and when death would collect their souls, maybe then they would exchange proper goodbyes. Perhaps then, the pain wouldn't sting so great. Unfortunately, life was not so kind, and his wish, her wish--they would go on unanswered.
Unless...
Banishing the thought, he tightened his grip on Elespeth as she buried her head and wept into his arms. The only sound to squeeze between his lips was a coo-like hush throughout the duration of her recovering tears.
When she withdrew from his hold to rest upon the downy pillows and sheets that were practically unruffled from disuse, Alster scuttled closer to the head of the bed, where he rested his tired back against the ornately carved headboard and remained close-by, in case Elespeth needed some part of him for comfort. He didn't mind the disposability of his body to the whims of his companion's despair. Rather, he welcomed his role, assured in the knowledge that she had opened up the sky to allow the rain of her troubles to wash down and away, and sought his hand as that same rain threatened to throw her off her feet. That she trusted him, the emotionally unstable louse that he was, with the intricacies of her pain. But did she actually trust him with such weighty information, or was it because she had little choice? After all...if he really was all she had left, who else could she contact? Who else would empathize and coach her through the blackness? The very implications, that he was this person, the sole person, dizzied him, and he rested his head on the board for further support.
"I have a feeling...that in his own way, he did get to say his goodbyes," he ventured, between her words and the lull in the moisture of her guilt-stricken eyes--almost too painful for him to glimpse. "He lived his final moments knowing that you were alive, and knowing that he helped you live another day--to make up for the precious life he almost took away." He reached out a hand and smoothed the stray tresses of chestnut hair that had stuck to the moisture of her cheeks. "And so, you really did save him--as much as you could at the time--because he realized that you were more important than his duty. Otherwise, he would have stopped me and Lyriq from taking your body. Besides, Elespeth," he lowered his hand to his lap, "you were gone from this world, unable to move. Practically dead... I take responsibility for the backlash of what my spell caused. Not that...Atvany would have been as compromising to his position had you fled through more conventional means. But...maybe, if not for my idea--" he knotted the edge of the eiderdown comforter, looking away in shame, "he might still be alive. After all...every action has its consequence. All the same," he sighed, "I understand the feeling...the feeling of a lost goodbye. But you are saying goodbye to Farrin. You are, right now. It may not be the same as looking him in the face, but," his hand traveled to rest on her shoulder, "you are telling him."
His mind wandered to his stray thoughts from earlier. It stood to reason that the death energy that he commanded contained a spirit. On occasion, he heard their voices, unformed and incomprehensible, but nonetheless present as they tickled through his fingers, his life-blood, his soul. And when his chthonic magic first blossomed, he stupidly tried to search for the spirits of Debine and Valente--all to no avail. But it would be silly of him, to think he could call on their specific energies when he had buried them far from Stella D'Mare, to the south. However, if he could learn to contact Spirit remotely, by way of the close connectivity that dreams provided--by that logic, he might locate his parents, and by extension, Farrin.
Knowing that he was operating on conjecture, he kept his unfounded ideas to himself so as not to cause Elespeth further upset, or instill a false hope within her. But maybe, if he could just figure out the technique...
He shook his head. No. Not now. Elespeth's health took precedence, and his focus needed to be with her, in all respects.
"When this is all over," he nodded at the window, indicating Stella D'Mare, "I could at least invite Lyriq here to the city. He is not far from your reach--or mine. As for the rest of your family...maybe they're singing your praises at this moment. So you can take comfort in...well, not knowing, right?" He decided to lay beside her, pressing his body against her own with the hope that she would disregard his last bit of awkward advice. But he didn't have time to dwell on his words or rescind his statement, for Elespeth's latest words confirmed the truth aloud to him: you are all that I have left in life... With a sad smile, Alster wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed her forehead.
"This is definitely my burden, too, Elespeth. Never forget that. With this blood bond, hell, even without it...our problems are shared, as much as I wish you'd never again have to deal with my innumerable troubles. But," he swallowed, "I'd rather you tell me what ails you, because not knowing...having you suffer in silence--that about killed me. Please don't discount my help, El. We're a team, right? So," he returned her kiss and whispered between their grazing lips, "let's help each other."
Afterwards, they lay there for a while, in silence, basking in the solace of each other's company, watching the sun trace patterns and dust motes across the window as it sailed overhead and into the full swing of day. For a moment, Alster excused himself from Elespeth's company--though he wanted to linger at her side forever--to grab her a glass of water and a plate of grapes.
"Oh, my mother would turn absolutely livid if she knew that we ate food on her bed." A small crack of a mischievous grin lit the corners of his lips. "Let's do it." He plucked a few of the grapes off the vine and popped them into his mouth. "Also," he said, with a more sobering air once the fruit slid down his throat, "we have nothing planned for today. Stay in bed if you'd like. Relax. I'll be here--or on the grounds, if I need to run errands. And you know I won't go far...because," his eyes drifted to the ground, "you're about all I have left, too. Never think that you're better off dead. Because if you died, and even if I survived the pull of our bond, I..." he smiled pitifully, "I don't think I could make it, to be honest. You keep me alive, Elespeth. And for that...I'm forever in your debt."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
If she hurt, he hurt. And if she wanted to stop hurting, and to stop hurting him vicariously... then she needed his help.
The silence that followed was welcome, soothing, allowing the former knight to both sort out her thoughts and bask in her feelings, good and bad. She dozed a bit, not finding sleep, but at the very least, rest, lulled by the gentle sound of Alster's breathing. Somehow, in his presence, the world did not seem quite so hopeless, and the future, not as bleak. And in that silence, in his presence, she was able to finally cease her tears, and come to accept--for now--the inevitable, the unchangeable. That Farrin was dead, and that she was still alive... Still alive for Alster. Her saviour, her guardian, her friend... and more.
Elespeth opened her eyes when the weight on the other side of the bed lifted, and Alster disappeared, she found herself resisting the urge to reach out to him, keep him by her side. Don't leave me alone, she wanted to beg, but before she could lift her tired body from the bed, he returned with water and a plate of grapes. "Well, she is not hear to scold us," she chuckled at his affirmation that Debine would be furious at their chosen place of dining. "And if she were here... I think she would be beyond proud of what you have done for me. While she might simultaneously wish my death upon me, no doubt."
While she wasn't much for an appetite at the time, the sweet thought that Alster had put into a light breakfast in bed was enough to entice her to pop a few grapes into her mouth. "Alster... you need to understand, there is no debt between us," she said after a moment, catching his gaze. "Not after all you have done for me. If anything, I am in your debt, but I know you will have none of that. So let us stand as equal, and even." With a steady hand, she brushed her fingers against his cheek. "And... thank you. For the lullaby."
After a few more handfuls of grapes, and a stronger grip on her composure, the Atvanian woman pushed off the covers and stood. "I'm going to be fine. I'll take today to try and wean myself back into more pressing matters... I did, after all, promise Aladfieri that I would have your back in this upcoming battle. I won't let him--or you--down in that promise."
Leaning across the mattress, she planted a lingering kiss on his temple. "Thank you for... for listening. For being here."
Her nightmare having left her coated in cold sweat, Elespeth managed to catch one of the Rigas help as they collected the remainder of untouched breakfast, and put in an inquiry for a bath. The young man neither smiled nor provided her with an answer, leaving her uncertain as to whether or not her request would be honoured or not. But when she passed by the villa's marble bathing chambers moments later, she found the porcelain, claw-footed tub filled almost to the brim with steaming water. Magic or not, she was grateful, but the young help was nowhere to be found to express gratitude.
That aside, Elespeth didn't waste any time shedding her nightgown and stepping into the soothing water. In moments it relaxed her tense muscles, and in moments more, aided her in clearing her mind. Of her dream, her guilt, Atvany, her family... gone. For a blissful half of an hour, nothing occupied the former knight's mind save for her moments spent with Alster the day before. The flower petals, the brush of his lips against hers, the feeling of his arms tightly around her waist....
The temperature of the water, by some form of enchantment, never chilled, and thus the passage of time was nearly lost on Elespeth. Only when she realized the pads of her fingertips had begun to wrinkle did she shatter her reverie and open her eyes, and reluctantly stepped out of the bath, into a towel set off to the side. Much though she wished she could relish those calm recesses of her mind, there was a battle on the horizon, and she had new armor and a foreign blade to master. The goods they had purchased the day before, heavy as they were, had been set aside to be delivered to the Rigas estate to save Elespeth and Alster from lugging around heavy steel, however, so as to their whereabouts in his villa remained unknown to her...
Stepping out of the bath and into the far less humid air of the rest of the villas, it hadn't occurred to her that Alster might still be around--and right in front of her.
"I... ah, Alster..." Clutching the towel at her neck, colour flooded into Elespeth's cheeks. "I'm so... I mean, I didn't think you were... A-and my clothes and armor weren't..." The oversight was her own fault... and now Alster was forced to suffer this awkward encounter. "I apologize... I-I'll just..." Biting her lower lip, she ducked her head in embarrassment and made for her chambers where, sure enough, her clothing, armor and weapons were ready and waiting for her.
Ugh. How foolish...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With a nervous snort, he plopped the offending grape onto the plate. I suppose I'm still not willful enough to stand against her. Even if she is...dead. But the inner sigh of his thoughts extricated from him in a great heave when Elespeth remarked, with both voice and hands, upon his lullaby from last night. A red rash spread from his cheeks to his entire face. "Oh. That. I-I...I don't usually s-sing...in front of...other people. That was--I couldn't think of what else to...I hope it wasn't too awful." Even if his voice abraded against her ears, in her condition, he doubted that the quality of his singing was foremost on her mind.
"But," he cleared his throat and stood in time with his companion, "yes. I'll leave you to attend to your needs. I'm sure I'll still be here in the villa if you need me for anything else." And, despite the bleary state in his eyes and strong concerns for her well-being, he couldn't help but smile at the kiss upon his temple, and for her continued affections that blossomed so soon after...
So soon after...
The smile faded from his lips, but he returned her kiss, nonetheless; a quick peck on the mouth. Then he pardoned himself from the room to allow her time to wash-up and dress-up, and the closing of the doors reverberated a harsh truth that gonged at his heart.
If events at Atvany did not unwind as they did in such a spectacular fashion, would their relationship have escalated to the point where their collective interest took a turn for the romantic?
Selfish. As always, I'm selfish. Thinking about my needs. How I benefit. And not thinking about how she feels. What she wants...
That bitter revelation built a nest of bramble and barbs and roosted there for the rest of the morning, which he spent dressing into a similar blue tunic and attempting to offer his body some much-needed sustenance. He was always quite skinny, and short, but the last few weeks had taken a particularly nasty toll on his health insofar as he could feel the sharp jut of his shoulders and the slow concave of his body into something smaller, wan, and even shorter.
After he managed to consume a slice of bread, some honey cake, and a few nibbles of cheese, a young Rigas man whose acquaintance he barely knew arrived to clear the table and, later, draw a bath for Elespeth. He greeted the man, but, as was typical in Rigas society, the other Rigas returned the friendly hello with a thinly-veiled glare of hostility. With the defeated bob of his head, Alster rose from the table to enter his parents' room in Elespeth's absence.
I'm used to such reactions. Why is it only now bothering me?
He pattered over to Debine's armoire, opening doors and drawers and inlaid wood boxes spilling over with gold baubles encrusted with diamonds, sapphire necklaces, and ornamentations of rings, in varying levels of gaudiness. In midst of the search, the answer to his question glittered like a gem in the dark.
Maybe it's because it's only now that I'm starting to see...that I have worth. At least to someone, I do.
At last, he discovered the piece that he had suspected was pooled somewhere in the bottom of one of Debine's near bottomless jewel collections. It was a forgotten thing, a necklace she wore only once out of obligation to Valente, who gifted it to her. But it lacked the pizzazz of her more sculpted display of wealth and riches, and before long, she allocated it to the farthest reaches of her collection, abandoned to time.
But Alster remembered the one time that she wore that flashing red garnet, ensconced in a filigree of gold and diamonds shaped to resemble a star. A small pendant on a gold chain, but the very sight of that blood-red stone had strengthened the grip of his feet against the ground, calmed the tumult of his raging soul, and instilled the hope of love into the loneliness that comprised much of his childhood. Even now, when he clutched it, he sensed those same energies that attracted him to the necklace from the very beginning, imbued as such with magic. Valente's magic. A charm, for the woman he loved--once upon a time.
He scooped the delicate chain and accompanying pendant into his hand and left the room, strolling down the hallway, paying attention to little else...
Like nearly crashing into Elespeth wearing nothing but a towel.
"Elespeth! Oh...I..." He turned as red as the garnet fisted tightly into his hand and out of view. Desperate eyes searched for an escape route, or at least a place where he could look up, or down, or beyond--anywhere but at her...at any part of her that might risk exposure. Wet. Her hair. Dripping. The thin cloth clung to her, soaking her skin and...and... "No...I wasn't paying attention. I. It's...I mean--"
By then, Elespeth had fled from him and skittered away to the safety of her room. He didn't blame her, considering how hard he tried not to gape.
To shake off the embarrassment, he waited much longer than necessary before he knocked on her door. "El," his voice wavered, uncertain as to whether or not she was angry with him for his unfortunate timing. "Are you dec--I mean, can I come in?"
After confirming with her that she did, indeed, say yes, he entered with care, keeping his head down just in case, and only raising his eyes when his periphery indicated that she was, in fact, clothed. Still, he hadn't wanted to make full eye contact with her, afraid that she'd be cross, or he'd react in a less than composed manner...
"I'm sorry about earlier. I just wanted...to," he opened his hand to reveal the necklace. As he approached, he dangled the garnet from his fingers at an angle more advantageous for her to see. "It was Debine's...but she never wore it. Not her style. And I know that jewelry won't serve you well on the battlefield, but...the stone has healing properties, and my father--he knew how to entice those properties to the surface with a little bit of magic. So..." he held out his arm with the necklace, to compensate for the distance he placed between them, "it's for you. It deals well with nightmares and emotional distress. A calming force. Keeps you grounded and passiona--" He bit his tongue on the word as the red tide threatened to wash across his cheeks. "H-here." He pressed it into her palm. "That was all I...I can leave you alone, if you'd like."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Please, let me apologize..." She spoke simultaneously with her bashful companion, a flush upon her cheeks that very near matched the colour of the exquisite piece of jewelry that he presented before she could finish her stammered apology. "I... what is this? Why are you showing me this...?"
A gift. He was presenting her with a gift--the first piece of jewelry she had ever received in her entire life, in fact. And, of course, it happened to have belonged to his mother. Naturally, her first instinct was to refuse.
"Oh, Alster... I just, I couldn't." She murmured quietly, taking her lower lip between her teeth. "It was Debine's... it belonged to your mother. What would everyone think? What would Chara think? It is too exquisite... too precious. Especially for the likes of me."
Alster Rigas was not the only one who, throughout his life and its unique circumstances and upbringing, had long-since learned to downplay his worth. Even during the days of her esteemed knighthood, she had always sought to keep up with Farrin, who had always been her idol on a golden pedestal. Everything that she could do, he could do better, and yet it had never been a rivalry between them. He had sought to help her, to bring her further along in her accomplishments... but she should have known that she would never be all that her eldest brother was.
In the end, she couldn't even save his life... And his had to come to an abrupt and unnecessary end, all because her's had not.
Elespeth swallowed a lump rising in her throat. She did not deserve to wear jewels around her neck. She deserved the noose that her brother had taken in her stead.
Before she had a chance to fully articulate her refusal, however, the precious piece of jewelry was pressed into her palm. It was surprisingly light... a firm contrast to the guilt that still weighted her heart. But it occurred to her that refusing it would do more damage to his own fragile heart than would it should the stone sit upon her her undeserving chest...
Closing her fingers around it, she offered a smile. "Keeps away nightmares, does it? Well..." Tucking her hair behind her ears, she fumbled with the tiny golden clasp of the chain. "Then I would much rather not continue to keep you up countless nights with my tears. Could you give me a hand?"
Lifting her hair with one hand, she passed the necklace back to Alster, feeling the subtle weight of the crimson stone between her collarbones as he fastened the chain at the back of her neck. It was difficult to tell if the precious stone relieved her of the heaviness in her heart while in the presence of her companion, while his love alone could temporarily lift the persistent storm cloud from her field of vision. "Thank you." Placing her hands on his shoulders, the former knight captured his lips with her own, slow, lingering and meaningful. Barely parting from his mouth, she added, "All I have to offer you in return is my promise to protect you. To be your shadow in battle, and in... whatever other areas of your life that I can possibly be of any help, or any use."
Finally, she was at a loss for words to best express her gratitude, and so she did the last gesture that she could think of to convey her feelings, and pulled Alster into a tight embrace. "Thank you," she repeated, her words a whisper in his ear. "But... you don't ever need to give me anything other than your companionship. Please know this. You mean more to me than anything else this material world could possibly offer."
She meant every word of it, but for fear of coming across as too needy in her already fragile emotional state, Elespeth left Alster to his own devices for most of the day. She donned her new armor and practiced outside of the Rigas grounds with her new blade, at one point catching a glimpse of Selestyn as she tended to the gardens. "You know... when I first arrived in Stella D'Mare, I wondered how these grounds were kept looking so lovely as they are." Her words and smile to the groundskeeper were a peace offering, whether Selestyn would accept them or not. "I had assumed it was by some means of magic..."
"Because you are completely ignorant of the properties of magic," the Rigas woman snorted, hardly paying her any heed. "It is a supplement for life, you fool. Not a replacement for hard work. You cannot get the same results with laziness."
The former knight shook her head. "So like a Rigas... just learn to take a compliment... and an apology."
Afraid that the encounter had the potential to turn into yet another senseless brawl, given Selestyn's fiery and explosive temperament, Elespeth left it at that and went on her way. That evening, she dined with Alster once again, the two of them picking at their food as nerves aggravated their appetites. He had grown somewhat thinner, by her own judgement; the two of them were a couple of scrawny, emotionally wrought shells of what potential they had. All due to family turmoil and a war in which neither of them any wanted real part, including the upcoming battle for which they should have been preparing. Instead, they spent their time making small talk, struggling to look on the bright side and see the forest through the trees, focusing on the possibility that there could be a good outcome to the end of this mayhem.
Neither of them commented on the fact that they would return to battle, effectively putting their lives on the line once again, and thereby putting themselves at risk of losing one another. But both of them were thinking of it, all evening and into the night. And, ultimately, Elespeth could not happily close her eyes until the fear was off her chest.
It was late, beyond the middle of the night. The Atvanian woman rapped lightly upon Alster's chamber door, both afraid to wake him and yet craving his wakeful attention. Her breath left her lungs in a rush of relief when he answered the door, his eyes appearing as sleepless as her own in the filtered moonlight. "Can I come in?" Elespeth gnawed on her lower lip, wondering if she was beginning to come across as a nuisance. Touching the stone that hung at her collar bones, she ventured a helpless smile. "I am not sure if your stone works, juts yet... I haven't been able to fall asleep."
And neither had he, so the former knight was pleased and relieved to find that he was not opposed to her company, once again. The third night in a row that she couldn't stand the thought of being alone... What would become of her if there ever came a day when, for one reason or another, she and Alster were forced to part ways?
She didn't want to think about it. Yet she couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Going back into battle is not what frightens me," she confided after a few moments of lying next to him in silence. Turning on her side, she faced him, searching the lines of his weary face for understanding. "What I fear is... is that, I am not sure what will become of me if only one of us lives to tell the tale." Her hand cradled the back of his neck, her thumb at his jaw. "I've lost... so much, in so little time. My gonour, my home, my family, in more ways than one... even my existence, as far as Atvany is concerned. If I lose you, too..."
What reason would I have left to go on? She swallowed her tears before they could surface. "I do not know what to expect, and that is what frightens me. I don't... I don't want this to be these to be the last moments that I spend with you, without a sword in my hand and armor on my chest. Promise... can you please promise me that these will not be our last peaceful moments together?"
She didn't realize she was crying until she kissed him, and tasted the salt on her own tongue. No magical gemstone could ever suffice in the absence of Alster's kind, grounding and reassuring presence... Unless he was alive, the necklace would only be yet another reminder of what she had lost.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He swallowed the apprehension that pooled an excess of saliva in his mouth and concentrated on the clasp. After about the fifth try, he succeeded in fastening the necklace into a complete loop, which hung over her chest--a sculpted star upon the breast of his own guiding star. With a pleased smile, the nerves in him sloughed away, and he did not know if it was from the gem's effects, or from Elespeth's sweet kiss, and the embrace that followed.
Much of his afternoon was spent outside of the villa, contacting the Rigases that would join under Canopus's command in the march to intercept Messino's troops. The roster of high-level casters did naught to surprise him; Adalfieri, had, indeed, hand-picked a well-rounded set of twenty strong, some of which even trained him when he was younger. Therefore, they did not appreciate his participation in the ambush as they hid their contempt behind a veneer of chilling, hesitant compliance.
"And what, praytell, will you contribute?" Mizar rolled her tongue as if she tasted something foul in her mouth. "You made a mockery of our teachings, and now you expect to stand alongside us as an equal with naught but cantrips?"
He opted out of informing her of his chthonic magic. If Adalfieri hadn't yet revealed to the troops that he possessed chthonic capabilities, he was content in pretending that it didn't exist--for now.
As if catching wind of his decision, the offended darkness beat a disturbing pressure behind his eyes, which oozed a black filter over his vision, temporarily fooling him into thinking that death had pulled him underground. Gooseflesh assailed his arms with sharp prickles, reminding him to breathe. No. He was still alive. Still...here.
That evening, after a pleasant enough dinner with Elespeth, even if the conversation plagued them with thoughts of their battle's continuation, he retired to bed early. As he lay like a slab upon his boat-sized bed, shadows slithered across the walls, forged to life by the cruel glare of the moon. They unhinged their jaws, revealing jagged blades for fangs as they raced across to skewer him, to impale his mind, to remove all sentience from his body by slurping his soul through the proboscis of their forked tongues...
A knock upon his door lifted the heaviness that sat on his chest like mounds of burial dirt. The shadows retreated, and the moon withdrew behind a sheer layer of clouds. Alster slid out of bed and opened the door. Despite the waking nightmare that his magic wrought, a compulsive smile stretched across his face at the sight of Elespeth.
"Maybe I can help to reenergize that stone." The unintentional innuendo blotted his cheeks, but he welcomed the redistribution of heat, a tangible reminder that he still lived. He opened his door wide to allow her passage inside. "Come on in."
After settling together on the bed, their shoulders touching in want to keep near, and fused, to each other, Alster glimpsed often at the window and the moon, which threatened to cast another wall of shadows to complete the deed it had started.
"Elespeth," he wrapped his arm and pulled her close, concentrating on her presence, on the dread of loss in her eyes--and he, too, almost lost himself to her drained plea for his safety. He closed his eyes, for a moment, and redirected them to the sagging canopy overhead, dark, dark--too dark to infiltrate his mind. "I...this is hard for me to admit, but I fear...that I...that my--"
But his words vanished as she pressed her lips to his mouth, and the sting of her tears threatened to coax out those of his own. He returned her kiss in earnest, almost crushing her against him, as he immersed himself in her light which chased away the shadows, and lifted his weight from the inevitability of death.
As he released her, he buried his head against her chest, feeling the cool metal of her pendant and her heartbeat pattering with soft, but insistent whirs. His eyes moistened. "I...I promise you, El." Somehow...somehow...I'll survive. For you...
For you.
The morning brought forth a chill from the ocean, an unseasonable portent for the march ahead. Alster, who had managed to fall asleep in Elespeth's arms, woke to the peek of the sun that bruised the sky with the blood of the fallen. He shifted from the comforting press of her body against his own, and just in time as a knock rapped against his front door.
"El," he whispered into her ear, a gentle stir of breath against her lobe, "I think this is our wake-up call." Quickly, he threw on some clothes over his night things and skittered down the hall to answer the door. Who awaited him on the other side did not, by itself, take Alster by surprise: it was how the man at the door was dressed that confused him.
"Lysander," he said, looking not at the crinkle of blue eyes that mirrored Chara's own or the blond sweep of his hair tied up into a ribbon, but at the light leather armor that covered his shoulders, wrists, and torso. "You're...you're coming along, as well?"
The man at the door brushed invisible dust off his shoulder pad in a way he believed to be discreet, but it intensified the mismatch of his appearance beneath the layers of the unfamiliar garb. "An army cannot operate alone without the inclusion of a few--well, in Chess, you would call them pawns--but I see my role as much more valuable." He shrugged, and the loose pads slid from their position atop his shoulders. "Someone needs to act as envoy...' his voice dropped to a mutter, "as well as tend to other miscellaneous matters in and about our temporary camp."
Of all the Rigases that belonged to the household aside from himself, Lysander was among the most lowly of the bunch--and even family pride could not save him from his defeatist outlook on life. "Then why am I only hearing about it now?" Alster wanted to fix those lopsided pads, but his hands kept stationed at his sides, however much they itched.
"Adalfieri is always making last-minute adjustments to his plans," Lysander said with an unconvincing candor. He was also a horrid liar. "Is your companion ready?" He stressed the syllables as his eyes took on a hard edge. "I'm to take you to our rendezvous point. We're spending the evening at the base of the mountain and marching out tomorrow morning."
Alster excused himself to prepare Elespeth for their departure from the cozy villa, a place he now regretted leaving. For all the bad memories associated with the dungeon of his youth, the memories he built with Elespeth in such a short time supplemented the pain with something...happier. Hopeful. ...Loving.
Within twenty minutes, they had washed up, dressed, and grabbed a fast bite or two of breakfast before gathering at the door where Lysander waited, leaning against a pillar and flicking wisps of etherea into the air for entertainment.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." Alster hefted the pack that had been prepared for him the night before. "We're ready to go. Oh, and," he waved an introductory hand at Elespeth, "this is Tam. She is a mercenary sworn to fight for our cause. I'm sure Adalfieri has briefed you about this arrangement. And Tam," he forced an emotionless sheen to coat his voice, despite the rise of nerves that threatened to bubble at his introduction of..."this is Lysander. Chara's father." He continued, a babble of awkward tension spurting from his throat from the very presence of his soon-to-be-father-in-law. "He's going to take us down to our encampment, where we'll meet with the Rigases and others from the Arcanum families. We're only staying the night."
"Well, come along then," Lysander said, ignoring Elespeth as he turned and led them through the grounds, to the other side of the mountain, where a secret stairway snaked them down down down, to the base of the mountain.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She had always known she would return to the war, even before Adalfieri had confirmed it to the both of them. But that did not make the expectation any easier to face.
The possibility that she could so soon lose her single most important and loved companion in the world was not any easier to face.
"Oh..." Rubbing the back of her hand across her tired eyes, the former knight sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed, just in time for Alster to leave the room and answer the front door. Her limbs popped as she stretched and changed out of her nightgown, donning her new clothes and, soon, after, her armor. It was strange to be wearing armor again with a purpose, particularly well-fitted and therefore, well-suited for battle. She had been a knight of Atvany, the last time she had donned such high-grade battle wear.
And she couldn't help but wonder just how different it would feel, finally fighting for a cause--or, at the very least, for a person--who she truly believed in. Even if she was not keen on returning to the battlefield so soon.
She faced a claw-footed, golden mirror next to Alster's wardrobe and, for the first time since the night she had fled Messino's camp, tried her hand at weaving her long, chestnut locks into a simple braid. The harder she struggled not to remember Priya's fingers in her hair doing the same thing for her just days ago, the more present her younger sister stood out in her mind... So instead of pushing the thought away, she embraced it, let the handful of tears dampen her face, and moved on to her next task.
Fortunately, her eyes and face had dried, by the time Alster returned to join her for a light breakfast. He appeared somewhat unsettled (more than usual, that is), but the Atvanian woman would not have guessed it had to do with the nature of the company at the door, as opposed to the general and understandable reluctance to prepare for a battle that the both of them likely wished they could avoid. "Not the most pleasant of Rigases at the door, I assume?" When her companion came forth with a nervous smile, but did not offer very many details, it was enough pause to give her reason to worry. She understood why when they left the villa, and she found herself faced with a man with blonde hair, and a very familiar scowl, when he turned to face her. This is Lysander. Chara's father.
Of all the people Adalfieri could have sent to come and collect them... She wondered if he had chosen Lysander on purpose, either as some sort of exceptionally cruel joke, or as a means to remind her of her place, so to speak.
Chara was, after all, still betrothed to Aster. And if the Rigases were as guided by and steadfast to their own traditions as it all seemed... Well, what future did that leave for the two of them? A Rigas and an Atvanian outlaw...
I have dwelled on my worries for far too long. Elespeth nodded her respect to Lysander, keeping a professional demeanor while this elder Rigas would not. "A pleasure to meet you," she offered, only to be met with silence. He paid her no heed; frankly, that was preferable to the acid that Chara had a tendency to throw in her direction. "Lead the way, sir."
Descending a stairwell that would have otherwise gone completely missed from her own observance, the former knight, now mercenary, walked abreast her companion and behind Lysander, surrounded by nothing but underground. Naturally, she had questions; for how long did this passageway continue? Where was their encampment located, that it was beyond the watchful eye of Messino's spies? None of her queries were voiced or answered, not if it would make her come across as ignorant in Lysander's eyes (at the very least, he was tolerating her presence), or aggravating to Alster, who already seemed tense and on edge, and they weren't yet even headed for battle.
With the comforting weight of the pendant against her breast, beneath her light yet sturdy armor, she resigned to hold her tongue unless spoken to, or until the next moment she could find alone with Alster.
---
Lilica had heard naught of Elespeth's fate, nor of Alster's, since the evening she had aided in the latter's escape to go in desperate search of the former. And she was not convinced that Chara had, either.
The haughty blonde Rigas mage had been curiously... well, present, since that risky knight. She never in a million years would have guessed that Alster's absence would lead her to searching out company aside from family... particularly after their brief falling out, when she had so foolishly attacked Elespeth. Having Alster out of the picture did not augment her importance to the Rigases or to anyone else, by any means.
Then again... she was confident that no one with such extensive pride as Chara would dare divulge to the other Rigases that she had personally let Alster go, off on a quest that was of little importance to their original cause. And it was possible that the dark mage was her only other alternative to utter solitude.
Well, perhaps it was something of a comfort to know that her miserable company was preferable to total isolation...
"How much longer until you expect to hear from Stella D'Mare?" It had been over a week since Alster had left, and like many nights, Lilica found herself in Chara's tent while the rest of Messino's encampment slept. It was not so much that the celestial mage requested her presence, but rather, tended to put up something of a rude front whenever she asked if she'd prefer if she left. This typically resulted in talks--both trite and serious--that went late into the evening, until Chara's eyelids grew too heavy to remain open, and the rhythmic sound of her sleep breathing cued her exeunt.
No one wants to be alone with their worries... I know that better than anyone.
She sat at the farmost end of Chara's abundance of cushions, knees pulled rather awkwardly to her chest. Leaving Alster's name out of such an inquiry was no simple task, but with or without him, Stella D'Mare still planned its revolt. As far as she was aware, anyway. "It is only hearsay, but with Atvany temporarily placated by the warrior's arrest, Messino plans to be prepared, the next time he faces battle. He is plotting, taking his time... I have a bad feeling, overall. Especially if your extended family has not yet heard tell of any of this." Lilica glanced at Chara's rigid form just feet away, every crease of worry in her face accentuated by the yellow glow of candles. So much on her mind... and so much of it pertaining to Alster, no doubt. "Listen. If the need arises... if you feel that we have been waiting too long..." What am I doing...? "Then I will take the message myself, as an envoy, to give them forewarning. It is safer for Messino to brand me a traitor than another Rigas; he would be more likely to believe it, too." Especially given that both she and Alster were the only casters in his army that wielded chthonic magic.
"Of course... this is all only if you see fit." What was one last favor to a better cause, when death no longer appeared so daunting, of late?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Release me. ....Release me...
A gasp rattled from his throat. Unbidden to him, he had searched for Elespeth's hand and wrapped his vising fingers tightly around it, desperate for her silent reassurance to keep him standing, and from succumbing to the sudden need to fold into the darkness. To sleep. To invite the swirl, the worsening vertigo, the wobble of his legs that wanted to sit, to meld into the wall. To fade...
"A familiar road to you, no doubt," Lysander's voice peppered into the silence, save for the erratic heaves of Alster's harried breathing. "This is the path he took to disturb the Serpent's slumber," he told Elespeth, without twisting his head to acknowledge the warrior. "A most vile deed. Don't you agree? Unless," he turned the corner, into even narrower, darker confines, "he never informed you of the details." He brushed his free hand over the walls, slick and slippery and dripping, like the ooze of saliva from a great beast, "Alas, he is still of use to us, to the family, and to my daug---to Chara." The clearing of his throat arrived at the same time as the clearing of the mountain cave. A pinprick of light radiated from the distance. When they reached the end, and ascended a rock-strewn path from the ditch that comprised the mouth of the tunnel, Lysander checked on Alster's condition. He lifted his eyebrows in surprise to see that, while drained of color and slumped over Elespeth for support, his eyes remained sharp and his breathing began to regulate itself to some semblance of normalcy.
"That little foray should have rendered him catatonic. Maybe Adalfieri was not mistaken in having you along," he mused to Elespeth, though seemed displeased by the ultimate result. After giving Alster some time to recuperate, he guided them to a cleft in the mountainside, a small valley where the camp rested, a modest gathering of tents and people near-hidden from view. They followed the dip into the hollow, and he passed the two companions over to Canopus, who was overseeing the operations from outside of his tent.
"Good. It appears you have made it in one piece." Canopus threw an arm over Alster, who, though more or less sound in mind, had been lulled into a quiet, introspective lassitude. "My apologies. It was necessary for you to take that path. Messino's spies have been on the increase today, and had you taken a more conventional route, it's possible they would have spotted you." He nodded to Elespeth, an unspoken gesture of thanks for holding him upright for the duration of their short but harrowing trip. "Here. We'll set up both of your tents, and then you may rest awhile. Oh, and Lysander?" He called over his shoulder to their guide, who rested his weight on one leg, in wait for further instructions, "you may prepare for your trip to Messino's camp. Make use of that 'special' talent of yours." Then, as an aside, "don't frustrate Chara too much. She is in no way anticipating your arrival."
If Adalfieri or any other magic-user blessed with the powers of clairvoyance told her that she would seek the constant company of a chthonic user outside of her family, she would scoff in that person's face.
Nonetheless, she had done just that: cavorting with the enemy for longer than was healthy, especially after said enemy's tasteless, petty try at assaulting that foolhardy Atvanian knight...
Curse her thoughts for treading down that path! For lingering on past events that she refused to dwell on until she saw clear, tangible results arising from her questionable decision to...to let Alster go.
Bah! He would have gone, anyway! And she needed an envoy to deliver her reports to Stella D'Mare. That is...if he ever reached Stella D'Mare...
Lilica, therefore, was a welcome distraction. Adequate, even, as a conversationalist, and more involved in the vicissitudes of her risky plays than the likes of her own Rigas brethren. Of those who remained, anyhow. It was not so against her will that she allowed the dark mage to frequent her tent until the wee hours of the night, and sometimes, were she feeling bold, granted her permission to stay until morning.
It was one such particular evening when their mostly tolerable discourse shifted into something more relevant--something she could not resign to the back of her mind, much as she wanted to ignore the inevitable. With a sigh, she tapped her fingers over her knee as she sat in a cross-legged position.
"If my calculations serve me well, it should be in a day or two. Then again, I do give my own too much prestige, when he is less of a Rigas and more of a louse." She took to calling Alster, he or [/i]him[/i], electing not to refer to the little cretin by name. "I may have to send Tivia or Danos in his stea--"
Then, came the stirrings of Lilica's idea, and Chara, without really understanding why, felt her chest pound in panic. "No. Absolutely not!" she hissed. "Messino is already aware that we Rigases are traitors. He is simply waiting for us to act, so he will have his probable cause to rally his troops to turn their weapons on us. If he attacks too prematurely, then he may receive backlash from Andalarians more sympathetic to Stella D'Mare and Old Town. If we are the aggressors, then he will gain more support in eradicating our existence. But we can no longer play this long game--and he knows it. Therefore, it is pointless for you, in place of one of us, to act as envoy, and I will hear nothing else on the matter." She crossed her arms over her chest, and stayed firm in her position, both in the physical sense and in the emotional sense--until a suspicious movement from the flap of her tent shattered the (physical) rigidity of her stance.
"Who is there!?"
And as if her words melted off the disguise, a man materialized inside of her tent. And he...
Oh gods. No. No!
"Lysander." She scrambled to her feet and clutched her head, preparing for the ache that signified his entrance. "Lysander! You are our envoy!?"
"See?" He presented a satisfied smile as he fixed the crooked pads on his shoulders. "Your father isn't so worthless that he cannot sneak into this camp undetected. ...How are you doing, Chara? And..." he frowned when he spotted Lilica, "Who--"
"She has my authorization. Just tell me what you have come here to say!"
"Very well." He deflated, just a tad. "Alster arrived at Stella D'Mare several days ago with his 'bodyguard'. They have joined our elite force, camped currently at the base of Mount Latemar. We are in coordination with Tadasun to attack Messino's army, on both sides at, as of now, an undisclosed time. Prepare your allies. The switch will have to be timed just right, to lessen suspicion for when we finally make our attack."
So much relief washed over her overstrung body that she almost--almost appreciated Lysander for doing little else but delivering a burst of good news.
Alster had succeeded! He was alive, and well...
But so was she.
Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 6:55 pm
What would she do to him? She was but a ghost. She could inflict no harm on him; at least, nothing through which he took back with him to his consciousness. And even if she were alive, he knew she would not hurt him. Because he wouldn't let her--not with Elespeth standing to his right and Valente's hands straightening his shoulders, ensuring that he stand tall. As tall as possible, given the slight stature that he inherited from his equally as short father.
With a determined nod, he gained the step that he lost. And another. And another. He walked right up to Debine, while she, her eyes growing wide, retreated from his advance. Suddenly, reasons for her behavior, her regard for him, made sense. She was afraid. Afraid of his power. Afraid he would break free from his conditioning, from the belief that he mattered so little to her, that he constantly needed to prove his worth. Not that her fear wasn't unfounded; he had awakened the Serpent and he had killed her. But the fact that she still feared, even when dead--there was something more intrinsic about that fear. Something that had developed during decades and decades of her relentless training techniques that hinged on putting him down, so she could rise above him.
He stopped just shy of her feet and probed her flinching eyes with his own. "This entire time...you thought I was a monster...didn't you? But for the first time," he looked askance at Elespeth, "...I feel less of one, and it's not because of you." He reached out and grabbed Debine's hand, and his grip was stronger than her weak tugs that wished to pull free. "I know that somewhere deep down inside of yourself, you care about me, but you're too proud, too cowardly, too conflicted to admit that you do. But I," the tears bubbled forth, beneath his lids, "never stopped loving you. You're still my mother. And I forgive you...for everything. I hope one day you can forgive me, but if not, I...I don't need it. Because," a small smile tugged at his mouth, "perhaps I have found forgiveness...in her. Another chance...to make things right. And I will. I will."
He released his hand and returned to where Elespeth and Daphni waited. As he passed Valente, his father brushed his arm and smirked. "Until next time, hmm?"
"Yes--it's not goodbye for good. But," he glanced over his shoulder at his mother, whose eyes glistened with a moisture he had never seen appear before in her eyes, "it might be, for her...Goodbye, Debine."
He nodded once more at his father and aligned himself between Elespeth and the Sybaian healer. "Let's go. I'll be fine now."
I'll be fine...
As they departed the sun-bathed, tree-lined gravesite and traveled again through the void, he noticed the star in the black, once faded, now returned to a splendor that cut gradations out of the darkness and hummed, through his ears, his chest, his soul...
He awoke with a gasp, into the muted shade of the healer's tent. "We're...we're back." His fingers twitched against a warm and firm grip. Intertwined hands. An electric touch. Eyes rose upward, to meet the green pools of the woman he loved so dearly. Without warning, he launched forward and grabbed her into a tight, desperate hug.
During his dual engagements with healing the dark mage's burns and dealing with the pretensions of the Rigas caster, Elias heard snippets of the Sybaian's self-important twaddle. He rolled his eyes for the duration of the woman's speech, but said nothing more, to any party, whilst he concentrated on his task. After chafing away the scar tissue, the Clematis healer had massaged a pulsing energy with a gradual trickle from fingertip to arm, leveling the blisters and the torn skin into a uniform appearance. However, some scarring still remained. He bandaged the entire area, threw off his gloves, and washed his hands again in the basin.
"You will have to return, later today, so that I may finish the final touches of your healing. The numbing effects will wear off within the hour. Until then, do not go dousing your hands in celestial flame, for my technique is incredibly superficial and may not be able to withstand a secondary session without having you journey into the innermost reaches of your soul so that your hands may feel better about themselves. Encouragement, naturally, is all that one needs in order to mend broken flesh and burns." His sardonic tongue cut sharper than glass, but was spoken with such a deadpan flatness that Chara, at first, thought his words serious.
As they exited the medical tent, Chara snorted her displeasure at the silliness bred inside that den of deranged healers. "I do not like either of them. Are you serious about consulting the Sybaia? The way they make it sound, healing from the inside out is just as 'effective' as slapping a bandage on injuries and calling it done." She glared at Lilica's offending bandages in question, to prove a point. "Empathetic healing--it is a grave risk. If the patient is not prepared for the procedure, the entire process may scar them irrevocably, on the inside, or expedite that which plagues them so. It is a healing process as much as it is a psychic attack! And it has..." she paused, and her feet paused with her, "it has been known to kill," she whispered, looking at the caked blood smeared across her healed hands.
With the violent shake of her head, she banished the thought. Instead, she preoccupied herself with fixing the stray strands of blonde hair that she had stirred out of place. "However, before I do forget, I..." her shoulders hunched, "you did not have to...why did you--it was merely a tantrum and I always recover from them, so your interference, it was unnecessary, and..." she trailed away, pressing her hands, those twin aggressors, together, as in punishment, "thank you. And forgive me. That...my conduct was entirely unprofessional."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She couldn't recall how long she had yearned to hear those words. Elespeth thought back to the moment she had met Alster, at the gathering at Messino's tent, and the standoffish resistance that had met her extended hand of camaraderie. How he hadn't had the faith in himself to be so much as a good battle partner to her, let alone of any use in this battle. There had been so much doubt in his eyes, a darkness that no amount of sleep would vanquish, something holding him back, something that held happiness just out of reach...
But when she opened her eyes again, and found herself sitting next to Alster and across from the Sybaian healer, there was something distinctly different about her dear companion. His green-blue eyes, once shadowed with his own guilt, now glittered like bright stars. And the pain in her chest... it was no more. And her heart beat returned to a steady pace, albeit that light fluttering that kicked up when the Rigas caster without warning pulled her into his arms. A smile broke out on her face as she wrapped her arms around his middle in turn. "You did it. Alster, after so long... so many years worth of the layers of guilt you had built up, you've done it. You've risen above it, and you... you're free from it. You look so..." The former knight pulled away just enough to look upon his face, no longer pale and drawn, but with light in his eyes and colour in his cheeks. And her heart sped up. "alive..."
Daphni was slower to resurface to the world of the living, her body and mind still reeling with the layers and layers of someone else's subconscious mind that she had empathetically penetrated. When at last her vision cleared enough to make out the Rigas caster and his companion, the way that they embraced and the new, teeming brightness of his aura, her unpracticed lips tugged into a smile. So it was a success...
Making no attempt to get up, she assumed control of her breathing once more, inhaling and exhaling sluggishly until the racing of her heart slowed to a jog, and the room stopped spinning. "Alster Rigas," she articulated one phoneme at a time, relieved to find she had not lost her voice during this particular procedure (though that was still not the worst that could occur). "Your aura is bright and clear. And I have no doubt..." A wave of dizziness halted her words, but thankfully passed. "No doubt that you should find yourself reconnected with the celestial magic that once again flows freely through your veins."
"Thank you." Elespeth turned to Daphni, and nodded her respect. "Thank you, for what you have done for him... are you all right?"
The Sybaian healer brought the back of her hand to her brow, which came away damp with perspiration. A fever... of course. Not an uncommon physiological repercussion to delving into the poisons that plagued another's subconscious mind, the toxins that tainted their soul and held them back. All of those emotions, the anger, fear, guilt, regret, anguish, sadness, and then some... They filtered through her, leaving residue on her heart and mind and insides, and her body knew no better way to purge itself of those psychic toxins than to fast-track a physical healing process, and burn away that residue the way it would burn away infection. This is why you are so wrong, Elias. The mind, body and soul are linked by a much stronger harmony than your small mind could ever imagine. "I will be fine." Knowing better than to get to her feet, Daphni lowered her trembling body until she was lying horizontal on the thin blanket that formed a barrier between her and the cool, soothing ground. "I expected this. Empathetic healing... always comes with repercussions."
"But you're... no well. Should I..." Feeling helpless, Elespeth exchanged a glance with Alster, helping him climb to his feet. "Is there anything we can..."
"Just... notify the Sybaia," Daphni breathed, wishing to do nothing less than talk at that given moment. "Tell them I have recently finished a procedure. My sisters will... they can check up on me. I should be fine. And if not... then I am in good hands with my clan." And with her clan, alone--though she hadn't the breath to emphasize she desired no interference from Clematis. Hopefully it was well enough implied.
The former knight nodded, her fingers laced through Alster's without even realizing it. "Of course. Of course we will, right away," she promised the Sybaian healer. "Thank you, again. If we can ever repay you in any way... do not hesitate to ask." Exiting Daphni's small tent with Alster in tow, they were mere moments too late to run into Chara and Lilica as they had exited one of the healer's tents, and on taking note of the white and blue robes of another Sybaian healer standing just outside, wasted no time in getting her attention. "Excuse me--pardon my intrusion, ma'am. We were told to inform you... well, Daphni just finished helping my companion, and she seems unwell..."
"Daphni? Who gave her leave to exercise her practice?" The older woman frowned more deeply, a crease forming between her brows. "She has been elected to fight in the upcoming battle... and the young fool thought she could remain fighting-fit, being the healer and the reaper." Shaking her head, she massaged her temples with her fingertips. "Thank you. I may check on her later if I happen to have time."
And she said she would be in good hands...? Elespeth questioned Daphni's faith in the camaraderie of her own clan, but ultimately, it was not hers to judge. But she seemed strong; without a doubt, whatever repercussions that were ailing her would not be her downfall. "Thank you," was all she said, before turning away with Alster. "So... what does it feel like?" She asked her companion, refocusing her attention on his newly vibrant face. "To have that closure? To see your parents again, after all this time... though I am sorry for your mother's stubbornness. Perhaps... perhaps it is not truly goodbye for her, either." Looking ahead of her, at the denizens of Stella D'Mare as they sharpened weapons and donned armor to make adjustments, her mind returned to a decidedly melancholy place, unbidden. "Do you think..." She trailed off, uncertain if now was the time to ask such a question, but ultimately, went on. "If I were ever to see Farrin again... if he would have kind words for me? Or would he hate me? Blame me, like in my dreams?"
Perhaps I'll never know. But... that was okay. She could--she would--learn to leave the past behind. And to hold out hope for the future... with Alster.
Nodding her thanks to Elias, Lilica departed the tent with Chara, a myriad of questions running over and over in her mind following that small consultation with the Sybaian healer. Naturally, the Rigas caster's skepticism did not come as any surprise, but... Without disrespecting Chara's concerns, it was still a chance that she was willing to take. That she was now convinced she had to take. "Chara, do you remember ever... were you ever happy? Truly happy? Was there ever a night when you could look up at the stars, and trust where they would guide you, the next day?" The chthonic mage looked down at her heavily bandaged hands and arms, feeling useless beyond words. She couldn't even scratch the itch behind her shoulder. "I have never felt that way. I have no memories of ever feeling at peace with the world, with myself, with what lies ahead of me. And have no... no place that... nowhere to run from it. No reprieve. Nothing. Just the company of my past actions, and all of the regret they carry. And I... I just don't know how to cope. Or how I have ever managed to cope."
Returning to the Rigas mage's tent, a place where they could both sit down and take a moment to breathe, she turned her attention to the mahogany chair, its arms broken, standing on only three legs, its splinters littering the floor. What were the chances it could ever be reassembled? What were the chances that she could be put back together, when she had never felt whole to begin with. "I know it might be a risk. But I... If there is a chance that I can know what it is like to be at peace, for the first time in my life, then I want that. I want that chance... Maybe the Sybaia are my chance."
Taking a seat away from the splinters, Lilica folded her hands in her lap, and looked up at the undecided face of her blonde comrade. "I know anger. I know rage. I know what it is to lose yourself to it... and I didn't want you to. The circuit needed to be interrupted before you destroyed this entire tent, and ended up carrying the regret on your shoulders." A small grin touched the corners of her mouth. "To be honest, it might be kind of nice to not feel anything for a little while. A small reprieve from a much bigger issue. But I... I am sorry, if you feel that I have interfered where I should not have." The smile faded, and her dark eyes flickered to the ground. "I only wish someone had stopped me before my reckless actions destroyed lives, so long ago..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But then she spoke, and he blinked back to her, to a realm where he'd rather remain, in her arms and enthralled by her lips, her body, his body, entangled together in more than just mind and spirit. But he remembered their company, and kept his interactions with Elespeth on a verbal level as he pulled back from her embrace.
"I'm not free from it," he said, but could not help but return her contagious smile, feeling it in the muscles in his mouth. "But I'm...I can handle it better, I'm certain. I still have a long way to go, but this day will herald the start of when I...well, when I woke up," the color in his already colored cheeks deepened, "to you."
He hadn't the time to elaborate, or the privacy to demonstrate, but he left his words hanging in the air and turned to see the healer awaken from the plague of his mind--shaken, but otherwise unharmed. The tension in his shoulders eased, though he really wondered on the implications, the consequences, of the enormous feat she had just achieved. "Thank you," he said, echoing Elespeth's sentiments. "Your aid will not go unrewarded. We will fetch you whatever you need in order to help you along to recovery."
At Daphni's request, they informed a Sybaia of her comrade's condition, which hadn't appeared to disturb her inasmuch as frustrate her due to some breach in protocol. He frowned at the exchange between Elespeth and the other woman, feeling a touch responsible, a touch guilty--but it was out of their hands.
They stepped out of the tent after the delivery of their message, their hands still interlocked, and he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze as they crossed through the camp, en route to...his tent, he supposed. "It...I never thought I would ever receive that opportunity. To see them again," he admitted, pausing in his speech to glare at a few curious passersby who took note of their hands and balked. "Perhaps I had always had it in me to see them, but thought that I didn't deserve that closure. I deserved to suffer, and suffer forever, but having that mindset only gave my chthonic magic more fuel to rule and manipulate me. I hope I'll get to see Debine again. But," he did not finish the thought as he leeched a black tendril from the ground. "It's still here, El. My chthonic magic. It hasn't receded yet. I don't know if it will. I don't even know the state of my celestial magic." He returned the spiral of energy to the ground. "It's possible I might be able to do for Farrin what I've done with my parents. You deserve that closure, too."
Pushing through the flaps of his tent whereupon the twin cots still sat side by side, he led her to one and sat down, feeling the depression in the worn, yet comfortable cushions. "This is, well...as good a chance as any to see if my celestial magic works. I know that it won't arrive all at once. It will take time--same as my healing." Upturning one hand, palm up, he concentrated on a simple form. A star, eight-pointed, shining cobalt blue and framed in a soft, purple light. It was sharp, what erupted from his hand. It glinted like knives reflecting off the harsh, noon-day sun, but it wasa star shape. It was colored in blue and purple. And it was celestial magic, however demure and unpracticed in appearance. With a flick, the small bit of magic disappeared, and a relieved smile crossed his face "I...have a confession to make," he said into the transitional silence. "This was all just a ploy. What I really want to do is..." he raised his head to stare into his companion's eyes, so desirable and so full of desire. Did she also think on the same level as he?
Only one way to know for sure.
Before his better senses stopped him, he fell onto her lips and propelled her onto the bed.
Lilica's inquiries on the concept of happiness impelled her head to shake once more, side-to-side. She refused to play the game of pity. What would that prove, aside from defining the contentedness of her life by the absence of another's? Healing did not arise by making half-baked comparisons. "That is irrelevant. Happiness is an overblown ideal. However, I understand the want for security. For stability." As they entered her tent, she passed the chair, the victim of her overblown anger. She ignored the broken piece, aiming for the cushioned corner far far from that sad, crumbled pile of splinters. "So you are looking for a cure? A cure for what? What are you hoping to heal? The culmination of your being? So in other words, you wish to spin into a chrysalis and emerge a butterfly. How quaint." With a groan, she bit her tongue. Keep it civil, Chara.
"Give me something specific. What do you want out of this arrangement? What do you want healed? Because one cannot eradicate the very concept of human suffering. And let us say you do want something that sounds achievable. If so, then," she bunched a cushion in her dirtied hands, a better alternative to destroying a chair, "let me tell you a story. A true story." A reflexive shiver assailed her arms with gooseflesh, but she shook away the chill and dredged up a tale she'd rather forget.
"A Rigas woman wished to heal. She faced a terrible condition, a magic too wild and raw and concentrated for her to control properly. That celestial magic had turned inwards, attacking her body, blackening her constitution, eating her skin and her mind, twisting her into this creature that I..." she coughed, "that was unrecognizable. Adalfieri called in a favor from a Sybaia woman, as a last act of desperation. As the Rigas woman writhed on the bed that had become her life, the Sybaian engaged her in a healing session, to soothe the very magic that intended on destroying her. That woman's screams," she closed her eyes in memory, "they could pierce the skin. She died in agony. An acidic blood had poured from her ears, eyes, mouth. It had bubbled, corroding, searing her identity until nothing human remained." Her eyes squeezed tight against her skull. "Gone. She was gone."
"Now, it is my turn to interfere." She opened her eyes, which reflected the fury she carried with her, always, since that day. The day her mother had died by the people who had professed to help her recover. "Consider what you are suggesting, lest your quest for an idealized fantasy destroy you. And I will not see another person die in such a way." She pointed an accusatory finger at the dark mage. "Healing starts now, Lilica. With you. Not under the hands of some stranger who knows nothing of your pain and who seems reluctant to even help you at all!"
While he pretended to busy himself with cleaning his medical tools, Elias heard what had occurred between Daphni and his two patients as the latter two entered the tent, looking for help. Elias had watched the Rigas in question who had sought this particular form of healing and saw that he appeared more salubrious in color, stature, and overall mien. A curious development. Perhaps there was some merit to this technique, after all, but he would not reach any conclusions at all unless he investigated the matter, himself.
A few moments later, he excused himself from the medical tent and located Daphni's sleeping quarters. Without announcing his arrival, he stepped through the flaps and stopped his advance at the foot of the Sybaia's blanket, where she rested in a cold sweat, troubled breaths rattling through her nose and mouth."I see that your brethren have not arrived to tend to their own so I have elected to lend my healing expertise in their place. You should feel so honored, for I am a capable novice, well-versed in the mundane." He rounded her blanket and crouched beside where she lay her head, feeling her forehead and the fever heat that had radiated beneath his fingers. "My, you have quite the fever, but I am certain that can be healed with another soul quest of sorts. Unless you so deem me worthy to help, but I will not hold my breath." He affixed his flower broach, for emphasis. "What did you even do to that Rigas caster?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He had waited so long for the peace that accompanied his closure, had perhaps thought time and again of what he would say to his parents. But she... With hardly more than two weeks since she had seen her brother's face for the last time, and the way she had been propelled back into battle without enough time to process and digest what had happened, she wasn't sure she would be ready to see him again, even if it were possible. Elespeth wanted to; oh, how she wanted to touch him again, to see the face that had sacrificed his life for her. She missed him... she wanted him back. But she was not ready for that one, potential last encounter. Maybe soon; maybe not. But not yet.
"As much as I appreciate the offer... and as much as I would love to oblige it, I think the last thing that either of us needs to see for a while, at least, is the dead." Parting the flaps of his tent, so much more exquisite than what he had been assigned back at Messino's camp, the former knight followed him in and sat next to him on the cot. "Let's just focus on you for now. I saw your celestial magic, once, in a dream... but I'd like to see it for real."
But that was the extent of her commentary, so as not to make him feel too pressured. Elespeth waited patiently as a flicker of sharp, cobalt light began to materialize above the palm of his hand. It glimmered like a gem, but flickered like a star, growing millimeters by the second. It brought a smile to her face, and she wanted to reach out and touch it, but knew better than to put her fingers anywhere near raw, celestial energy. "Alster... it's beautiful," she breathed, and was slightly taken aback when it vanished abruptly, and a curious look had befallen Alster's vibrant face. It very nearly worried her, until the Rigas caster opened his mouth to speak, and as an open-ended confession fell from his lips.
His lips were doing something very different just seconds later, when they moved with fervor against her own.
Elespeth fell back onto the cot, the flat pillow cushioning her head as she clung to Alster in an embrace that very nearly felt desperate. No, desperate wasn't the word... Desire had shone in his multi-hued eyes, triggering a warm feeling at the pit of her stomach and lower abdomen. Her own desire, perhaps, but she had always known that it had been there. What she had not known was the extent to which it had built, only now finding release--and all at once, in a mad rush of passion of which she had never known she might be capable of feeling.
Her mouth moved against his, slow at first, but growing gradually more frantic. She wanted more than just his taste. His breath on her neck, the warmth of his skin, the feeling of his hands on her eager body...
Loosening their grip on his shoulders, Elespeth's hands skimmed his collar bones and slid into the open neckline of his tunic. The tips of her fingers pressed against the taut muscle of his chest, gingerly brushed over the new scar, still pink and raised from Elias's hasty yet effective healing tactics from earlier that morning. But I want more... And, with a simple tug of the bleached cotton ribbon that threaded it together at the front, the neckline of the Rigas caster's tunic expanded and slipped off of his shoulders completely, all the way down to his elbows.
There wasn't any room in her mind to second guess her intentions or actions, no space to consider Chara or whether what they were doing was right or wrong. Because love was never wrong, and if she loved Alster... then this was but an intimate expansion of what she already felt. What they already felt.
For a short while, Lilica had thought that Chara's attitude around her had changed. That there was a chance that same woman who had extended her hand and asked her to follow her would endure, and continue to show her the understanding and kindness that she so desperately craved. And, as a result, she chose to confide: that she was hurting, that she was suffering, that she wanted it to stop and would do whatever it took. That she didn't know how to make it stop on her own, and wanted the help that she had denied herself for what felt like eons. But the Chara Rigas who she had come to know was too quick to return, and instead of feeling validated and relieved, the dark mage only felt... ashamed. "Yes," she replied in an honest and steady voice, trying not to take offense to Chara's chrysalis analogy. "I do, in a sense. I want to be purged of everything that is keeping me from moving on from every terrible deed I've committed. I want... I want to feel renewed. But I don't know how..."
That was when Chara launched into a viscerally graphic anecdote of a family member who had suffered her own magic such that it had deteriorated her body--a concept which was nothing new to the chthonic caster. To say it didn't strike a shock of fear into her heart would have been a lie; Lilica did not want to die in agony. She did not want to die at all, but on the contrary, wanted to live and learn to smile without it hurting. Least of all... she did not want to be on the receiving end of Chara Rigas's scorn. Not anymore. And perhaps that was what was hardest of all.
"I am truly sorry for what happened to your family member." And she meant it, for anyone who had to carry such a memory with them for the remainder of their life would be understandably instilled with a sense of skepticism and anger; she had no doubt that she would have felt the same. Had she ever cared about her family enough to mourn their deaths. But there was a difference between mourning and simply regretting a course of action. "But the Sybaia... they might be what I need, before there are too many injured layers of me to heal..."
It was futile. Chara's mind had been made up for a very long time, and arguing might well get her kicked out of the tent, and out of the marginal comfort of her presence. For whatever reason... Lilica valued that--her mere company--far too much to jeopardize it. "But you... are right. Their methods do sound too good to be true. I shouldn't be so foolish as to put my blind faith in any of them... and I won't."
But what am I supposed to do? How do I heal on my own? Who, then, do I go to for help? All of these questions, at the tip of Lilica's tongue, were never voiced. Nor was the slow wilt of her spark of hope that had ignited with the prospect that she might feel whole, at last, and free of the person who she had once been.
Daphni didn't realize that she was no longer alone in her tent under the dim glow of lanterns in the evening, until she heard a familiar voice that belonged to none of her sisters... And she didn't have to open her eyes to identify the unwelcome presence. "The Sybaia cannot tend to one another if they are too preoccupied tending to their patients. It is against our code of conduct." The words felt thick and slow on her parched tongue, and she was still lucid enough to realize that there was no use expending energy in arguing with the Clematis healer. The feeling of his fingers on her forehead made her shudder. "And don't be absurd... it's a small fever. Trivial. Your hands are simply freezing."
Furrowing her brow, she pressed heavy air from her lungs and proceeded to sit up on her elbows, but didn't get far. The world tilted, too fast, and she had hardly established a semi-sitting position before she gave up, and shifted to lay on her side. The neckline and back of her white and blue cassock was damp with perspiration, and frankly she couldn't tell if she was too hot, or too cold. "Better you to be well-versed in the mundane than me," she quipped, furrowing her brow and pursing her lips into a pout. "Not that it is your business, and frankly, I value and respect the privacy of my patients... But part the Rigas caster's magic was entirely paralyzed from unresolved internal turmoil that demanded closure. I ventured into his subconscious mind, found the block, and assisted him in untying that knot in the only way that it demanded. He is not yet healed... but I have cut the festering wound open, and it will drain and continue to heal, of its own accord."
Cracking her feverbright eyes open, she leveled her Clematis colleague with a look that was far from amused. "I don't deal in soul quests. I have no interest in helping people 'find themselves' or proceed to solve their problems for them. I deal in sickness and health just as you do, but on a deeper, more fundamental level. I open the mind, soul and body up to the correct avenues to heal itself... and it is not without noteworthy risks, some that might not even be worth the effort that I make." The corner of her mouth curled into a weak grin. "And that is where you come in, stitching superficial wounds. Sometimes, in the even that an individual is too far beyond repair, that is all that can be done. Don't get me wrong, Clematis; I value and respect your noble, albeit smaller efforts. There is a time and a place for everything."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He trailed his hands down from her shoulders to the collar of her own tunic, the one he helped her choose on that market day, a time that seemed so carefree, if even for a fleeting moment. Running a teasing finger down the narrow strip that exposed her skin, he hooked it behind a loose wrinkle of cloth and slid the front flap to the side, exposing one of her breasts, cream-colored and pillowed as it rested beneath the scar that streaked atop its surface like a red comet. He traced that scar, identical to the one that trailed over his own heart, and traveled downwards, over the mound of flesh to circle the button of her pink nipple. As he massaged the tender area with care, he slid his other hand beneath her tunic in search for the belt, which deft, dexterous fingers unbuckled with ease. At the same time as Elespeth, working so diligently on what so inhibited them, he freed her from the bundle of clothes and tossed the thin layer, the only layer, onto the floor, where his own dark blue fabric found new residence.
He watched the rise and fall of her chest, fluttering like the beat of a hummingbird's wings, a shiver running through her body, which he felt, like a jolt, paralyze him into a temporary stasis. A shiver of excitement. As his adventurous hand resumed its undressing by working on the buttons of Elespeth's trousers, Alster brushed his lips away from the well of her mouth, nuzzling at the crook of her elegant neck and sucking at the delicate layers of her warm, alabaster skin. Her breath had increased, stirring stray hairs from over his forehead. He invited the heat, never uncomfortable, never too hot, but it burned like a fire, and he wanted it to consume him whole.
With success, he had yanked her trousers down to her ankles and that roving hand touched the firm muscles of her thigh, guiding it apart and away from the other as he nestled himself in the space between. Working now on his own trousers, he ceased the suckling of her neck to nose along over the contours of her jawline and up to her ear, and a voice whispered to her, soft and breathless.
"Is this...what you want?"
Chara had recalled the details of that fated day all too vividly. She was but a child, a young thing with no aspirations and a magic that exhibited similar symptoms to that of the woman she barely knew, who was too sick, too delirious to ever know her by name or by association. Despite her father's protests, she refused to leave, keeping to the side of the Rigas healer she, on occasion, assisted. She daren't look away, close her eyes, or flee the room. Even if she wanted to, she was too frozen, too terrified, too intrigued to wander from the very voice of suffering. It wailed and shredded and tore apart her insides. It tore tears from Lysander's eyes. It tore her heart to a place that only had space enough to carry resentment for the long years that followed. Not only did the Sybaia fail to help her mother, but she failed to help anyone else in that room. A curse, she had planted. One that embedded, with barbs, and could only find extraction if it plucked out the soul.
"It was my mother," she confessed, after listening to Lilica's condolences and her own inner conflicts that she gave a voice to in the tense, bruised air. "What chance do you stand, Lilica, if my own mother could not survive?!" She buried her head in a cushion, to stave off the tears that threatened to spill over her eyes. When she was certain that she pressed down the sensation, she removed the shroud, but her face still felt heavy, haggard, pulled down by the cheeks and exposing every line that she could no longer hide.
"I shall help you in any way that I can. I promise you, Lilica. But do not...please, do not..." I do not want you to die. I have no one left. No one who cares, and no one who I care for...
Elias listened to the rantings of the Sybaian healer, rocking his heels in time to the cadence of her amusing little tirade of sorts. He remained quiet, attentive, nodding in all the correct places, and bided his time until the very end. Faux interest faded in favor of the commentary that hummed on his lips. "You know, if my inferior analysis means a lick to you, I daresay that your frenzied, ceaseless dialogue, a high fever--and I assure you, I am a very warm person, and so are my fingers--and your moderate touch of vertigo...I do believe you are in need of some superficial care. And, as I am not a busy man, considering the likes of Stella D'Mare are agog over the incidental effects of your abilities," he slipped on a pair of gloves he had stashed in his pocket, "you have me all to yourself."
He hovered hands inches above Daphni's head and allowed a faint healing pulse to circulate from her crown all the way down to the energy centers of her body.
"So, in other words," he said with a conversational lilt, as he worked, "you led the Rigas into a guided meditation, a technique that anyone who is magically adept or otherwise can accomplish. Is that correct?" His hands worked their way down her feverish form, deliberate and precise, feeling the knots of her ails and untying the twists in her blocked energy. "But since your clan has the undue honor of a solid, respectful reputation, your adoring audience mistakes something so simple for something so profound, so inventive. In actuality, you are charlatans who reap the benefits of your implied help, when you are just an encouraging figure that, through the power of suggestion, convinces the world that you are a superior form of healing, and that bleeding does not matter." A shade of agitation rimmed his hazel eyes.
"That method of thinking endangers us 'superficial' healers. You preach so about the restorative properties of healing 'from the inside out,' the inane masses believe your hollow promises, and that undermines our work, our tireless efforts to ensure that the patient is alive, is healthy, is standing, if possible." A snap whipped around in his normally impassive voice. "That is no small effort. The patient must not die. Inner healing comes later, when they open their eyes to the world and realize that they will survive...and what surviving entails." His hands closed into fists after he had reached the final energy point, but they shook with an unprofessional display of something greater than the cool salve of practiced apathy. "I invite you to read up on the siege of St. Thorne, if you are amused by the 'smaller' efforts of 'superficial' healers."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She hadn't anticipated the way her breath caught when his fingertips titillated the sensitive nerve endings of her breast, or the soft moan that escaped her lips when her rose-coloured nipple grew taut under his sensual ministrations. Even in the absence of clothes, with naught but the cool evening air and Alster's body in contact with her pale skin, a hot flush spread from her cheeks and across her chest, and that warm excitement spread from the pit of her gut and ventured lower, even lower when her trousers fell into the same pile that comprised Alster's, along with both of their tunics.
She hadn't anticipated just had badly she wanted what she wanted until she felt the warm pressure of his lips on her neck, and the distinct composition of his body between her thighs, not so much as a thread of clothing between them. Not even secrets.
The warmth of his breath in her ear enticed a shudder down her spin, and her skin tightened enough to reveal gooseflesh faintly on her arms. Her hands were on his shoulders, his body so close, yet still too far. Not close enough, nowhere near... In response to his question, she bent a knee and brushed the smooth muscle of her calf along his hips, and her ankle teasingly, playfully, against his backside. From his faintly sunkissed skin and hair to the sparkle of his eyes, she knew what she wanted. She had known from the night that they had shared their very first kiss.
"Yes," she breathed in response, her voice low, sultry, and full of need. "Yes, I want this... I want you. I want all of you, Alster..."
Guided meditation...? In her delirium, Daphni very nearly laughed aloud at such a ludicrous accusation. It merely demonstrated how little he knew... and how terribly misunderstood was the practice of her clan. "You are clearly an educated man, Elias. Do you honestly think that a mere guided meditation would put colour back into the face of that ever-lost Rigas mage? Do you think a guided meditation would have rendered me so dizzy and feverish as I am now? Don't be foolish." She began to shake her head, but thought better of it when the room spun, and the motion prompted double-images of the Clematis healer. "It was a forced venture into the very essence of his soul... I had nothing to do with the nightmare quality that it took on. It all belonged to Alster alone, and in fact, I said very little the whole time, so this so-called power of suggestion that you assert was a non-variable."
Charlatans... He was lucky she was too delirious to take seriously much of what he said, or else she might have been keen to sic the fury of the Sybaia on him. The fact was, she understood more than she cared to let on about St. Thorne and the Order of Clematis. That they were as reputable as the Sybaia, comparatively, perhaps, but far greater in number as it was not quite so sensitive to genetic inheritances or a person's sex. But to belong to the Sybaia required a certain level of entitlement, due to the strong empathetic prowess with which they were born. But to explain it all to a non-believer... well, frankly, that was not her job.
Though, she did see it as a challenge.
"You are sorely mistaken, I'm afraid," she sighed, somewhat dramatically as a touch of the vertigo began to lift, and the subtle trembling of her limbs came to a halt. "The nature of what we do is qualitatively different from your practice. Hence why you often see us among summoned among other healers, such as yourself and your Order. Allow me to provide an example." Whether he liked it or not, in his decision to stay, he had no choice but to hear her out, just as she patiently absorbed and processed his ire.
"I was fifteen years old, and had only recently been christened as a holistic Sybaian healer, just days before. My clan and I had been summoned to the site of a near massacre, a small village near the kingdom of Eyraille, ravaged by the greed of an unstable monarchy. There was more death than wounded, but as we specialize in treating warriors specifically, I was assigned to a village defender twice my age. He had lost an arm, and so much blood that his soul hastened to retreat the world of the living. He was unconscious, and still, I could feel his pain--all of it, and the desire to escape it, to give up and let it all go. So I pried my way into the planes of his soul, and I held fast; and he struggled, and fought me for the right to die, but I held on. And, when at last he opened his eyes... three hours had passed. Three hours, two of which he had awaited the aid of a healer not so unlike yourself, and one in the time that it took the other healer to close off the wound. But three hours is three hours, and the amount of blood that he had lost should have left him dead, ten minutes following my arrival. Needless to say, most of the physicians were at a loss as to how my involvement had bought him the time he needed, and why the process had rendered me physically incapacitated for days afterwards. Or why the rest of the defender's more superficial injuries had healed on their own in those three hours, with no other interference." She had been young, then, and inexperienced. Should the situation ever replicate itself, she knew that she'd be yet far more capable, and yield even better results. But that was neither here nor there.
Without warning, Daphni sat up and grabbed one of his trembling, gloved fists, meeting his agitated hazel eyes with her impassive, yet unnervingly sharp blues. Fortunately, the room didn't spin all too much, this time. "Bleeding matters; it always matters. But if you still think me a Charlatan, then indulge me, just a few minutes. And put your ire away; it is singeing the corona of your aura." The Sybaian healer loosened the grip on his fist, but did not fully let go. "Let me show you something simple; nothing invasive, but you've made it clear that there is something I must prove. Don't worry, you'll be in no danger. Simply dwell on a memory... anything, but don't tell me what it is. Let it play through your mind as if you are seeing it anew."
Closing her eyes, Daphni concentrated on the subtle changes in his aura, and the density of its fluctuating energy. A small smile touched the corners of the straight-line that was her mouth. "Carefree bliss. Warmth, excitement... am I correct?" But all of a sudden, the tables turned, and the bliss disappeared. Her smile faded as her senses were assaulted with fear and panic, anguish, pain, helplessness...
The Sybaian healer let go of his hand as if it were iron-hot and drew in on herself, resting her forehead in the palm of her hand. "You did that on purpose," she muttered without meeting his eyes. "Not funny. Our abilities stem from heightened empathy, the ability to heal the parts of living existence that your tools and magic cannot touch... and I can't handle more of that. Not right now, not after what I went through to be of help to the Rigas. Because there are repercussions for what we do. And it is not uncommon to lose a small percentage of us every year, should another person's psychic damage overwhelm us." With a dull ache in her temples from that tiny assault on her senses, Daphni met Elias's eyes again. "I do not resent you and yours for your magic; I do not claim it ineffective. What is not fair, Elias, is that Clematis needn't prove their worth. And the Sybaia never go a day in their lives without attempting to appease the demands of some form of proof or another from the patients whose lives they save... but I will not be one of those people. And I will respect your practice, if you will take it upon yourself to respect mine."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But that was the clincher. It was well and truly a puzzle, what he observed between her legs. And even as he grappled her waist, the surge of her hip bones swelling as they awaited the deed, awaited the thrust, a niggling thought worried its way into the back of his mind.
Where do I put it?
He looked over at the woman of his bottomless desires, the trust and love that intensified the green in her eyes, the heaving of her chest, the pound that reverberated in his ears, playing that same, needful rhythm inside of him--and he breathed in the courage that alleviated his doubts. He slid himself forth, and inside, and through, in a fluid motion that surprised him. It was as if their parts were made for each other. With newfound confidence, he pumped his pelvis in an undulating wave, ebbing and flowing, in and out and in and out, and the tides of the ocean inside of him reached the flood. All at once, a rush of every sensation imaginable sieved through his body. A landslide, an earthquake, a tidal wave clearing the breakers and rolling, rolling onward. A fire, roaring through the forest, a storm, lightning and a wind that lashed trees to the ground and screamed through the valley, ever raging on. He surrendered himself to the world, to Elespeth, for they both meant the same, and he rode the streams of the universe, all light and energy and oneness, wholeness, everything and nothing, until he could no longer move. Until he fell beside her, gasping through the enormity of the deed, blinking through the black...
And realizing that the lanterns in the tent had burst open, all fire fizzled out, leaving them in the darkness of their arousal's aftermath.
Elias invited the proud healer's defense to permeate the air between them, clamping down the urge to condescendingly inform her that in order to heal, herself, it would behoove her to cease her prattle, for it surely exacerbated her fever-induced shivers and dizziness. Instead, he listened, a feat that, as one underdeveloped in the art of compassion and patience, he excelled in practicing. At least, ostensibly so.
"A noble effort. I commend you. A proud day for a newly-christened Sybaian healer." The words tumbled in his mouth, lazy and actively sharp all at once. He was not above petty insults and she, in a bid to defend her methods, walked into his exaggerated disregard for them, despite his real feelings on the matter, which differed from what he shared aloud. Were she to know of his unfiltered opinions, however, he wondered if she would deign to speak another word to him ever again.
He unraveled his hands, relaxing the tightness in his muscles. No sooner did he relax than she gripped at one of his hands, and his glower returned with silent protest. He needn't question what she planned to do with the connectivity between arm and hand, and he welcomed the demonstration, for he was forever the curious sort. But he did not appreciate the unsolicited touch, abhorred it, even, and he so much as said so without opening his mouth to speak. In retaliation, he planned a particular set of memories, a juxtaposition of warm to absolutely horrid. Let us see how empathetic she really is...
It began on the grounds of the manor where he enjoyed an unruffled childhood--for the most part. He sat beneath a stately oak, reading under the shade, while his older brothers sparred with wooden swords in the well-trodden grass, leaving him, for once, to the relative peace of the day, without interruption or the pressuring insistence that he pick up a stick and fight.
Take up arms and fight...
He had arrived too late to save them. They hadn't died fighting. They died starving. From disease. Royal guardsmen, all accounted for, boyish petulance fading from faces that had aged beyond the years they had accrued. White tongues lolled out of mouths pocked with blisters. Sunken cheekbones, sightless eyes, limbs as black as the charred stains on the sides of the walled city. The fires climbed, high high above their heads. The marauders had intended to smoke them out, to burn them until they screamed mercy, but they would make for weak kindling.
St. Thorne was a kingdom of walking skeletons. Until they decided to lay down their arms, and become sleeping skeletons.
Elias opened his eyes when he received the desired reaction from Daphni. She threw his hand aside, which he was relieved to have back in his possession. He rubbed his fingers along the surface where she made contact as she hissed and writhed in disapproval of his defiant act. "That I did. If you did not want a 'bad' memory, then you should have specified," he said, but he hadn't felt proud, not at all, because that memory...it would cling to him for the rest of the day, like blood that no amount of water would clean. "It appears that you do have a gift for the empathetic--and thus brings about my utmost concern for you and your people. I worry for the effectiveness of repeat performances. If an armless defender leaves you out of commission, even for the duration in which you find yourself now, then you have rid the world of one more capable healer. In a siege or on a battlefield, with hundreds of thousands in need of immediate attention, your entire clan would founder within the hour, rendered helpless by the strain of your empathetic efforts. It is simply not a viable method in a mob situation, ineffectual as the numbers increase. Suitable for skirmishes, but in war?" He shook his head, reeling under the impracticality of it all. "How will you all survive?"
After performing another small wave of healing energy, to make up for the little 'prank' he had pulled, Elias clapped his hands together and rose to his feet. "Well, that should do it. I believe I have heard--and seen--enough for today. I will give you this, though, Daphni." Sliding off his gloves, he furrowed his brow at the Sybaian, but it was thoughtful, almost compromising. "Do not call my efforts small, and I will not call your efforts false. How is that for respect?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
tature, and maybe... just maybe, she had disappointed Alster. Maybe she truly was not the sort of woman that appealed to him--physically, at least. Maybe...
Her doubts dissolved the moment he finally entered her and their bodies merged as one.
Elespeth sucked in a breath and expelled a shaky sigh, arching her back in response to the pleasure, the fire, the heavenly abyss that threatened to swallow her whole smoldered and began to expand. It was almost overwhelming, from the very start; none of this virgin pain that adults preached to their daughters to keep them chaste. Alster belonged with her, belonged inside of her, as part of her, and the former knight surrendered herself, body, mind and soul, to her lover and to the moment.
Biting her lower lip did not halt the soft moans that escaped her throat with Alster's every thrust, but she was not ashamed for the vocal manifestations of her pleasure, and frankly, couldn't care less about what others might think beyond the thin walls of the tent. Elespeth gripped the Rigas mage's shoulders, dull fingernails unintentionally digging into his skin as the pressure inside of her built, more and more and more, until it all released in a single, powerful rush. The muscles around her hips and thighs tightened as those inside of her contracted with release, and her hands fell away from his shoulders and limp upon the bed.
Enveloped in silence and darkness, with only the sound of their breathing for company, the Atvanian woman turned her head to the side, an watched the smoke rise from the lanterns which, she'd thought, had been lit when they'd entered the tent. Glancing, then, at Alster, watching the rise and fall of his exhausted chest, she couldn't help but smile--for a number of reasons. "The lamps," she pointed out, an amused twinkle in her green eyes. "Did you--did we do that?" She didn't want to laugh--no lest it damage the Rigas mage's confidence or put a bitter damper on the end of what had been such a breath-taking intimate experience. But the thought that their beautiful, mutual engagement in something so carnal and yet so sacred had gone so deep as to trigger his magic... That their light overpowered and put out the meager lantern light in their small tent was more than just symbolic. It was a reassurance to her, a reminder that, for the first time in her life, she knew she was finally on the right path.
And in the company of just the right person.
"Did I hear correctly? That you are concerned for the health of my clan? Surely, you must be looking for another word, Elias; for concern implies that you care." There was no malicious or accusatory tone to Daphni's voice, however, and the corner of her mouth even turned upward in a faint grin. She was teasing him; it seemed they shared in that genre of humour, and were capable of little else aside from it. "What happened with that village defender occurred while I was still very young and new at my practice. Undertaking such a feat today would not render me nearly so incapacitated, at least not for so long. And, typically, any Sybaia tends to walk away from their work fatigued and moderately ill at ease, but... not often even to this extent." Pressing a sigh form her lungs with less effort than what it would have taken an hour ago, she wiped her damp bangs from her forehead. "The responsible way to go about our type of healing is in multiple sessions over a period of time, not all at once. But the Rigas caster... he needed results, and fast. And, admittedly, I was not prepared for the magnitude of what I encountered."
It wasn't through delirium that she so openly admitted her grave mistake to someone who was for all intents and purposes like an oppositional rival, but rather, in hopes of garnering some understanding in the Clematis healer. You could only be called a phoney so much before you could no longer pretend that it didn't bother you. "But, to be honest, your concern is valid. It is not uncommon to lose a Sybaian healer to the hands of death when they struggle to keep up with the demand of the wounded... but, then again, it is for this reason that they are often called upon in the company of other healers. We so often forget that those who care for the wounded are always in need of care, themselves.
"And, on that note... I thank you for your services." No sarcasm, no hidden undertones--nothing. Daphni's gratitude was genuine, or else she never would have bothered to offer it up. "Thanks to your efforts, I should likely be well and back on my feet no later than morning. Even if it only meant dealing with the simple, trivial discomforts of a fever." Now, that sardonic lilt returned, but not without a small grin. Teasing again. "And you have a deal. I will cease and desist in proclaiming your efforts small in comparison to my own. And, Elias..."
The Sybaian healer hesitated, studying his eyes and the planes of his face, and the movement of his aura's corona that was likely beyond his frame of vision. "I have read what occurred at St. Thorne, but I can only imagine that witnessing it is far more profound than learning secondhand. And if ever you wish for that memory to sit less heavily upon your shoulders... you know where to find me."
Without a proper tent having been prepared for the likes of a mere dark mage, Lilica spent the evening on a cot pulled into Chara's tent, staring up at the ceiling in lieu of finding sleep. Over and over, she weighed her options, wondering of the risks and consequences of seeking the Sybaia to help, and how they might weigh against the potential benefits. The possibility of ridding her past of its power over her, shedding her skin and emerging a new, better, more capable person. Were the Sybaia really such miracle workers that they could erase each and every scar on her soul? Help her forgive herself for her trespasses, for her mistakes and poor decisions... for so much as being born?
Without a moment of shut-eye under her belt, the chthonic caster left early the next morning, quietly so as to wake up the sleeping blonde at the other side of the tent. The camp was quiet, only a handful of sentries around just prior to the early buzz of a new day, and the cool air felt refreshing on her skin. For a short time, she was convinced that no one else had risen to witness the birth of a new day, with the sun climbing slowly over the horizon, until she turned a corner, only to encounter a familiar face to whom she had not spoken in many weeks.
"Alster?" It was the Rigas caster, there was no doubt. And yet... "You look... something about you seems different." How had he managed to change in just a handful of weeks? His spine was straighter as his posture conveyed more confidence, the dull shade of his eyes now sparkled with something unspoken, and his face glowed with colour. Like he had broken out of a dull shell, and--as Chara so eloquently had put it--emerged a butterfly. A thousand times the person that he had been when she had last seen him, the night he'd decided to go and find the imprisoned warrior.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He looked upon the patchwork of his hands, deeply etched with every failure that followed him in life. Save for one. That hand, with the blood oath scar, sought hers in the tumble of their bodies, and held it tightly.
Completion. They had achieved the ultimate act, one in which combined their mind, soul, and body. He could think of no one better with whom to share in such an intimate moment. The needs that, on occasion, throbbed through him over the course of several long decades, about purred with satisfaction. Well worth the wait.
"I...might have done that, yes," Alster admitted, a little sheepish. Pale smoke trails danced in the dark, and the glass that had shattered from the lanterns he would have to clean in the morning, before anyone suspected anything amiss--though he hadn't much cared about the opinions of his peers, at this point. A small chuckle escaped his lips. "Even the most practiced caster can lose control under...special circumstances." He shifted his head so that it nestled over her chest, over her heartbeat and the accompanying scar. "Was it...did you---li-like," his face heated under the flush that had colored his entire body. "because I...My magic reacted to it. Well, that's obvious by the destruction. What I mean is that...you're, we're..." the sputter of his words eased as did his brow when he summed up the words he struggled to convey. "You, me, everything about it...It was magic."
Then, he closed his eyes and fell into an untroubled slumber, a smile on his face as he pressed against Elespeth, wishing that the enchanted moment would stretch on for an eternity.
Elias, arms crossed, hovering over the prone and weakened, yet talkative Sybaian healer, betrayed nothing of his position or even so much as a facial twitch, but his tone hummed on the same wavelength, spoke the same language that relied on dry, acrid inflections. "Excuse me, my tongue must have slipped. A healer has no place in tending to the well-being of anyone. I am only in this vocation because I enjoy the agonizing screams of my patients. Thank you for reminding me that I am indeed a cold-hearted bastard. But do take--what is that word--care of yourself in the meantime, if you and your clan are this susceptible to the demands of your clientele. Especially this clientele. Magic-users bring about their own complications...this Rigas caster in particular." He frowned, in recollection. "Trouble follows him, that one."
As he bounded over to the front flaps of Daphni's tent, he picked up on a blatant show of thankfulness, so raw in its delivery that he was genuinely surprised--considering the source. "Do mine ears deceive me? A Sybaian has offered me her gratitude." He harrumphed aloud, shaking his head with faux wonderment as his words continued to drip. "Now I know that you are delirious. You won't remember this conversation in the morning. But," with a soundless sigh, he parted the flaps, "I need that memory, that weight. It's a reminder of why I am still a healer, even when much of my Order has disbanded and defected."
It serves as another reminder, as well.
The moment he exited the tent and, after checking for any passersby in the vicinity, he clutched his chest. An underwater tightness. A congested swim, pricked in a pain that constricted his throat. It itched, inhibited the passage of air through his nostrils, his mouth. He hurried to his quarters before anyone within range could hear what the rattling in his body yearned to do.
Not again. Not this soon...
He reached the safety of his tent in the nick of time. Throwing a rag against his mouth, he let loose the fluids trapped in his lungs, in his chest--everywhere. Coughs turned into hacks, which turned into fits that the muffle of his cloth had masked--poorly. He bowled over from the pain, from the ceaseless lacerations of his throat--until he spit a gob into the cloth. A red red stain on the white.
Wiping away the rest of the blood that formed on his lips, he checked his desk drawers for a flask. Medicine. He needed the medicine. More. He knew he had more.
The last pull in the bottom-most slot revealed a small tin canteen, which, with trembling hands he uncapped and pulled to his shredded throat, drinking until the sensation drifted back and away, receding...but for how long this time, he wondered, with a touch of dread.
Alster opened his eyes to the sound of rhythmic breathing at his side. He twisted his head over his shoulder, and watched as his dear companion slumbered, mouth agape, the buzz of a snore in the air. Charmed by the innocence of her sleeping form, he leaned over to brush a lock of chestnut hair from her face and kissed her forehead.
It was morning. The morning after their blissful night spent together. The morning after the pieces of his soul, which he considered irrevocably broken, started collecting together into a mosaic--broken yet whole. The morning after his magic returned, even if it throbbed a weak heartbeat over the strong, healthful pump of his own. The morning after he saw his parents again, and heard forgiveness, and found courage, and all of these things accumulated made him question: when will it all go wrong again?
Don't think that way. Not this soon. Not when I finally found some peace in all of this hell.
Alas, his slight vacation had come to a close, and he needed to attend to the responsibilities of his family. Canopus would want to hear the progress of his session with Daphni, and what better way to report than to demonstrate?
Taking care not to awaken Elespeth, Alster tiptoed over to his clothes, piled messily on the ground, threw them on, fixed his hair, and tested out a surge of celestial magic on the glass that had littered the entrance to the tent. A brush of his fingers and the shards gathered in a small pile, which he moved to the far corner, for now.
As he wandered into the filter of the dim morning light, he saw a familiar figure approach him from his periphery. He stopped and turned to regard Lilica, who, aside from seeing her briefly on the battlefield just days ago, hadn't spoken to her since the evening he fled Messino's camp. She looked much the same, ashen and faded, almost deteriorating in the discerning glow of the sun.
"Lilica," he greeted her with the bob of his head and a small smile. "I see Chara has convinced you to fight for 'the cause'. Are you both well?" Speaking of well..."Different?" A blotch of red bloomed on his cheeks as he recalled last night with Elespeth. "Ah, well...I did have a breakthrough, yesterday." He lifted his hand and cast a small ball of etherea in his palm. "It's returning, my celestial magic. I sat down with a Sybaian healer, and she was able to wring out the afflictions which inhibited my magic--among other things. Speaking of, I'll have to see how she's doing today." He dispersed the etherea and tilted his head to one side, in thought. "Have you considered seeking a consultation with the Sybaia? If they can help me, it's possible they can help you, too."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And she, on the other hand... when had she ever been well? Alas, she was at a loss but to answer his question.
"Chara is managing," she said at last, though even those words were laden with uncertainty. "And so am I. Though you appear beyond merely well."
And then he explained himself. The miraculous return of his celestial magic, all made possible by the help of a Sybaian healer. And that was no small news, for Lilica understood the enormity of such a feat. She had, after all, witnessed the inner workings of Alsters subconscious, and he had glimpsed at hers. The magnitude of the doubt and shame that had hindered his mastery of even his chthonic magic was severe. And yet... a Sybaian healer had been able to cut through every single one of those layers, and help him find hope in the darkness...
And at his thoughtful suggestion that she seek the help of the Sybaia as well, she felt her heart grow even heavier, and sink further into its self-perpetuated abyss.
"No. Well, yes, but..." The dark mage tucked her hair behind her ears and found a focal point at the toes of her worn boots. "I made... a promise, to someone. A promise not t seek the help of the Sybaia. The risks of the treatment, they don't by any means measure up to the benefits. After all, what of the fate of Chara's mother?" The story Chara had recounted, so visceral and horrific, had left an imprint on her mind. Not to mention, the look on the Rigas caster's face before the memory had left her face wet with tears... she couldn't go back on her word. Not when it meant so much to one of the only people who had ever shown genuine concern for her. "If an accomplished caster such as Chara's own mother could not survive Sybaian help, what chance do I stand?"
Lilica looked up from her boots and squinted against the vermillion sunlight that framed Alster's face like a halo. "I was... I was wrong, you know. We are not the same. Not at all... you are of light just as much as you are of darkness. But... darkness is all that I have, this toxic magic that has defined my existence. I cannot go to the Sybaia for help. I think... I think that, without this darkness, there would be nothing left of me. I would dissolve, along with my magic."
The chthonic mage took in the new demeanor of the Rigas caster before her. It was as though something inside of him had illuminated, and every fiber of his being had been renewed. And she wondered... what would she look like with colour in her cheeks and vibrancy in her eyes? With a smile on her face, and straight, confident shoulders? Averting her gaze, she glanced downward at herself once more, at her thin legs and thin arms, a frame that no clothes properly fit... nothing. She was nothing, and had nothing to her. No substance, nothing.
But... did it really have to be that way?
"Do you think..." Faltering in her courage, she very nearly dropped the question, silly as it felt. Especially considering Chara had already expressed her thoughts on the matter, but... she wanted a second opinion. "Do you think it's foolish to... hope for happiness, when there has never been any prospect of it? Is it so unrealistic of me to hope for such drastic change? I just... I wonder what is left for me, otherwise..."
Elespeth slept the night through without a single dream or nightmare, warm and safe in Alster's arms. And it was with a pang of disappointment that he was not there when she opened her eyes. But she was quick to remember that they were continually preparing for war, and there was little time to waste on leisure--surely he had recalled that fact, as well. It was probably in her best interests to follow suit.
Begrudgingly, the warrior slid from the warmth and comfort of Alster's cot and donned the clothing that she had so hastily discarded the night before during intense throes of genuine passion. Albeit a little groggy, the former knight could not recall a time when she had felt more... well, alive. Those moments spent with the man she loved had opened a whole new chamber of her heart that she hadn't thought existed. One that had secretly harbored dreams of romance, of feeling more like the woman that she was and less like the knight that she had been, of kisses and gentle caresses, and of confidence in herself as a person, and not simply as a warrior.
Slipping back into her boots, Elespeth raised her arms as she prepared to weave her long, chestnut hair into a braid, but stopped herself short when she noticed the small yet obvious red mark on her neck, precisely where Alster's lips had been... Needless to say, she was quick in her decision to keep her straight locks as they were, cascading down her back and over her shoulders, and effectively hiding any evidence that might incriminate her to what she and Alster had shared. Not that it was anyone's business in particular, or that she was at all ashamed or remorseful for giving herself over over, physically, emotionally and completely to the object of her heart's desire, but it never helped to encourage questions or second glances. Especially not with rumours already afloat, and the fact that technically--legally--he was still betrothed to Chara.
Strangely enough, the latter had not so much as crossed her mind in well over a day. Not once the night prior, as Alster's body moved fluidly against her own, had her conscience suffered guilt for the fact that neither she nor the Rigas caster were married, or that Alster was, in fact, promised to someone else. And even now, as the thought occurred to her while she stepped out into the mid-morning sunlight, she could not bring herself to feel bad. Not when she loved Alster so completely, without a shadow of a doubt.
Perhaps not the most appropriate thought to have, moments before bumping into that very person.
"Chara!" Taking a step back in surprise, Elespeth gave the Rigas caster space to emerge from her tent, appearing... weary. Though perhaps that was not the word. "I... I'm glad to see you emerged from the last battle seemingly unscathed." It wasn't a lie, and although their last encounter had not been particularly civil, she'd been curious as to whether or not Chara had made it out with minimal injuries.
And that was when the guilt began to set in. Not over her romp in the sheets with Alster, not at all, but for the fact that she had awoken, glowing with the morning sun, and Chara... something was off with her. Her fierce, blue eyes seemed duller, and her shoulders did not carry the confidence that Elespeth was used to seeing. Despite that she had been at odds with the Rigas caster for quite some time... this change in appearance was worrisome.
Perhaps it was time to extend an olive branch.
"I was about to find some water to boil for tea, if you'd like to join me." Such a strange and mundane offer, but... it was better than nothing. And Chara looked as though she could benefit from some form of company...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With a sobering look to reflect the mood, he nodded at Lilica's assessment. "That's good, at least. Canopus told me that he removed her from command of her unit. I suspect she hasn't been taking the news too well."
His suggestion, which he assumed might intrigue or even brighten some of the shadows in her aura instead caused a further deflation in her already skeletal frame. It didn't take long afterwards to understand why she had reacted as if someone had dangled hope within her reach and crushed it into pulp, before her eyes. "Chara made you promise." A sigh, as his hands reached up to rest over the back of his neck. "I won't say that there aren't any risks. I nearly thought I was done for, myself. But Mariana---her case was an extreme one. Magic manifested inside her in the form of an incurable disease. She was born with too much magic and not enough endurance to withstand the onslaught that frequently attacked her mind." He shifted his feet, a nervous shuffle as he recalled that grim moment in Rigas history--his own Serpent-related disaster notwithstanding. "It had roosted and rotted there for many years, before anyone thought to seek outside aid. By then, she was already on her deathbed. Regardless of that Sybaian's interference, the magic would have killed her, either way. It was pride that killed her, ultimately."
"But you," he said, venturing to look into the void of her eyes, where both darkness and creation found inception, "your magic has not yet paralyzed you. You still stand. You still function. You still wish to better your life, even if you think your imaginings impossible." He closed his eyes. "Darkness and light reside in all of us. Quite literally, with me," he frowned and wondered what wouldbecome of the two magics that vied for dominance inside of him. "If you were only comprised of darkness, you wouldn't exist. You'd be a shadow. I wouldn't see you right now. Light gives you hue and color. Darkness gives you definition and form. They're meant to coalesce. That's what I've been told, and what I now realize." He opened his eyes, catching a glimpse of the newborn sheen of Lilica's pink hands, as if they had been scrubbed of all the old and dead skin to make way for a rebirth. "It's not foolish to hope, Lilica. I'd be long dead, if I didn't believe that there was a reason for all of this suffering." And that reason, it was Elespeth, but he chose to omit that part.
"I have to see Daphni, anyway. Why don't you come along?" That smile from earlier tugged along his face. "You don't have to commit to anything, but she can answer whatever questions you wish to ask. Don't worry about Chara, either. I'll shoulder the blame and suffer her bottomless wrath for getting you involved." He started walking in the direction of the medical tent, checking to see if Lilica decided to follow. "No promises broken on your part at all."
A wretched evening bled into a wretched day. Chara slept little during those hours, and when she did, she awoke to find herself in a cold sweat, gripping her fingers against the shivers that trickled down her arms and penetrated through her veins. Were she feeling petty, she would blame the cold on Lilica, who she invited to stay as her tent-mate of sorts until further options were made available. Surely, the darkness that defined her could leech out all warmth and comfort in any enclosed space. But no. This was no measurable chill, not something calculated or tangible or explainable. Besides, Lilica's company brought her a relief that she could not--and would not--properly express.
It all resided in her head, in the empty vessel where a fire always burned and blazed its message of dominance, of power, straight through to the surface, warming her bones and warning any who dared cross her path. The fire had sputtered into smoke, carried off by a hollow wind that whispered, in the ugliest of tones, all that she knew to be true of herself.
You have no control. You have never had any control. You will end up like your mother--consumed by chaos. Consumed by failure...
At last, she rose from her bed when she could no longer stand the inner commentary or the outer light trickling through every crack and crevice of her far-from-impregnable tent. She half-considered asking Lilica if she was able to paint the surfaces with impenetrable shadow, but the pile of cushions, where the dark mage had slept, harbored no burden of her light, demure body.
With a sigh that echoed in her head long after its utterance, she washed up and dressed in clothes that had wrinkled and bunched in all the areas that bothered her, but she could scrounge no reason to care. Tying the knot of her hair back behind her head, too arsed to fix it, she waltzed out of the tent, and squinted.
But not from the sun, no. From her. That blasted warrior. How could she appear so cheerful, so satisfied with life, when she and Alster had almost perished just a few days prior? The accursed, shamed knight, standing in the bask of the sun and with the flecks of gold in her trousers catching the light, she looked like a herald of the gods. She wanted to wander away from the insufferable grate of her gracious tone, so eager to please and do good and complicate every aspect of the life she had planned for herself...
But she didn't. Instead, she crossed her arms. Kept away, and far. And glowered, reflecting back the sun that the warrior tried to shine at her, without relent.
"I heard that Alster almost killed you. Fortunate, that we had the aid of such capable healers. How," she hesitated, "how is he faring?"
Tea?! The peon thought herself immune from every bit of grief that her mere existence had caused, that she felt entitled, even emboldened, to ask her along on such a commonplace errand?
"That sounds utterly trite. But I am headed in the same direction." It was the closest she would admit to saying 'yes, I will join you.' "But do not condescend to me, warrior. I take it you are extending a kindness to me as a senseless act of charity. You insult me...and do me a disservice. I want nor have any need of your false camaraderie."
They traveled together through camp, Chara at a distance of a few paces, repulsed by the idea of a closer proximity. She noticed a red blotch once the wind had pushed those chestnut strands from the base of Elespeth's neck. "That is an interesting mark you have there," she mused, her eyebrow raising with the intrigue of discovering something scandalous. All the more reason for her to raise hell. "If it is a rash, you should seek a healer." And with all of the innocence she could muster: "Did something happen last night?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But that was neither here nor there. What was done was done, and all that was left was to more forward... if only she knew how. But perhaps Alster had a point.
"So you don't think... what became of Chara's mother will become of me?" She thought about the bruises on her body following any endeavor that contradicted the preferred flow of her magic, coming from a place of care as opposed to hatred. Of the blood that filled her lungs and the strength stolen from her limbs when she saved countless lives, of the perpetual chill embedded directly in her heart. Was she really safe from her own magic, when it already wreaked such havoc on her body and health?
Maybe not... but maybe. And, like Alster said, a consultation would not go so far as to break her promise to Chara.
"Alright," the chthonic caster was reassured by the Rigas's bright smile. After all the wrong that she had done to him, the fact that he still found reason to be a comrade to her spoke volumes. "I will consult with the Sybaian healer, but please, do not breathe a word of it to Chara. I think you can agree it is far more beneficial to be in her favor than to have her turn against you."
Daphni hadn't quite been awake for an hour when the Rigas caster, along with that toxic dark mage arrived. Elias's help had granted her the slumber that she needed to recover, and after a good twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep, she was feeling entirely herself again.
Only to be faced with the possibility that she would very soon be rendered, once again, incapacitated...
"I don't imagine you are here due to being unsatisfied with the results of my treatment," she commented, eyeing Alster before turning her attention to Lilica. "I knew it was only a matter of time before she would care to seek out the Sybaia."
A little on the defensive side, Lilica furrowed her eyebrows. "One of your own suggested I consult with you." She informed Daphni. "And that is all I wish for: a consultation. I want to know if it is possible to..." Possible to what? What was the ultimate key to her happiness? "Is there... would there be anything left of me if this darkness were to be vanquished?" It almost stung to put that question into words, for fear of the answer. "I've suffered it for so long... I am tired of it being the definition of my being. And I merely want to know if you might be able to help."
"I am not one to lie to leave risks undisclosed, so if you want honesty, then here it is." Tucking her hair behind her ears, she folded her hands in front of her, where they hung below her abdomen. "I won't know for sure what possibilities or potential you have to heal until I see the nature of the open wound. It can be dangerous, not just for you, but for the Sybaian, as well. And you... I can tell from your aura, that what you suffer is no trite blockage of energy, in your case." Inhaling slowly, she expelled a sigh. Of course it would come to this. And should the mage ask her for her help... Then it was against her code of conduct to refuse her. "But, if you can open yourself up to full disclosure of your past and the condition of your psyche, and you already endeavor for a change... then it is not impossible that my practice could improve the quality of your emotional and mental health, and perhaps, diminish the toxic effects that your power has on you."
So, Lilica had her answer, and it was 'maybe'. Maybe it would help her; maybe it would harm her. And she would not know until she made her decision.
But this was not a decision that she wished to make without input. Turning back to Alster, she sought his gaze, and his honesty, since Daphni had confided hers. "How important is hope," she asked him, barely above a whisper, "that I should take this risk...?"
"Alster is well," Elespeth reported to Chara with the addition of a smile. "He was lucky for the aid of the healers who tended him. You should go see for yourself, if you happen to spot him." Purposely, she omitted the fact that he had risen before she had that morning, and thus the warrior hadn't a clue as to where he was. The last thing that would take this conversation in a light direction was a blatant reminder that she was sharing a tent with Chara' betrothed; if the haughty celestial mage had any idea at all that that had been established.
And, of course, she had one-hundred-percent expected Chara to refuse or split in half the olive branch that she had extended. That was only character, for her, and the Atvanian had long since decided not to take such an affront personally--even if it was a little personal. "Don't flatter yourself, Chara. You honestly think I have nothing better to do than condescend you by being in my company?" She arched an eyebrow and shook her head. "Believe me, if war actually allowed me the leisure to do much more than worry for the future, I would not be spending it making your life a living hell. And if you can agree, I would like to put an eternal end to this balderdash and have the mutual camaraderie that she should have had all along. It's the only way we're going to survive."
Relatively unfamiliar with the camp, Elespeth could only following the sound of gentle flowing water to a clear stream that ran along the bottom of the mountain, and Chara was no help in offering directions. Quite the opposite--she wanted to start a fire.
"Hm?" Damnit, she could feel heat creep into her face at the accusation, turning her cheeks pink. All the more reason to keep her back to the explosive Rigas caster. "I didn't notice. Maybe I'll have a healer look at it later. Though, really, it isn't like you to show concern for the marks on my body."
Kneeling at the bank of the calm water, Elespeth removed her flask from her hip and allowed the clear liquid to trickle in. "If you count the fact that I slept soundly, and without pain, for the first time in what feels like eons... then yes, something did happen last night." She couldn't do it; not to Chara. She simply could not admit her intimate encounter with Alster. For one, it was none of her business, and secondly... she wasn't sure as though it would get her in trouble. "What about you, Chara? Have you considered that benefit in ceasing to suspect me and using that time and energy to care for yourself? Look." She redirected her attention to the waters, where her reflection wavered alongside Chara's, a study in day and night, happiness and misery. "I know you won't tell me, beyond your anger that Alster does not hate me the way you do, but you aren't well. You're keeping yourself suffering by poisoning yourself with jealousy and hatred. I won't offer to help, because I know you will find it condescending, but... confide in someone. If not me, then maybe Alster. Or ever Lilica." It had been long since she had so much as thought about the dark mage... but something was suddenly obvious to her. "Haven't you noticed how she has been looking out for you? Watching your back in battle, and seeing to your whims on any other occasion? Stop looking at what you do no have, and try and consider what is present in your life... because you may only begin to notice, if and when it is gone, from lack of recognition."
Feeling verbally and mentally deflated by her semi-compassionate rant, Elespeth stood up (shifting her shoulder so as to allow her hair to cover that incriminating mark), and faced the Rigas mage. "Now, I'm going to go boil this water and partake in my own self-care, because I can't remember the last time I was properly hydrated. And you're welcome to take part, because if my eyes were darkened by the same shadows that yours are... I would like for someone to so much as offer me company and a cup of tea."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
When they entered the medical tent, and he did not see Daphni amongst her Sybaian sisters, he led Lilica over to her private quarters, instead, and announced his arrival before they pushed through the flaps, at Daphni's word of permission. He knelt down near her, just shy of the blanket upon which he and Elespeth had last encountered her, yesterday. Had it only been a day since those healing hands pressed out the pus in his infected soul?
"I am more than satisfied." He gave his head a long, thankful bob. "I just wanted to thank you again, in full, and to see how you are faring today. What you saw in there...it could not have been easy, especially in such a short span of time, so I wanted to express as much, in person. And," he raised his head and nodded at Lilica, who pleaded her case to the Sybaian, who wasted no time in evaluating the layers of ambiguity that her dark energies presented. He sat in quiet contemplation of Lilica's specific malady. It had festered inside her for a long time, much longer than his healing blockage, which had only taken form about three years ago, triggered so by the death of his parents. But she...she had been afflicted all of her life, born into a toxic environment, suckling on poison which pumped her veins with an acid that corroded her insides, leaving behind shredded, gaping holes. This was no single-purposed foray, as was his personal experience. And evenso, the intensity of his inner darkness drained Daphni as it had almost propelled him into a deep, wailing despair. It was dumb luck and love that saw him through the end of that bleak oblivion.
But what of Lilica? There was more of her to heal, and she hadn't the proper lines of support and care to help her along the dark avenues of her soul. While he noticed how close she and Chara were becoming, would their companionship be enough to direct her path to one of healing?
When the dark mage turned to consult him, in turn, for a decision that was, admittedly, an enormous undertaking, the creases in his brow bunched as he turned his eyes to the ground and considered what counsel he could offer in such a complex case. "It's more than hope, what you pursue. You're planning a better future for yourself, and this is the first step forward." He raised his head, meeting her eyes. "This might very well destroy you. But if you pass this opportunity, you may live on regretting it--and that will invite more bitterness into your soul. Though, this is not a decision to walk into blindly. Give it some thought, if you need more time. And," he turned his attention to Daphni, "we can seek another Sybaia if you're still recovering from yesterday. I understand that it's too much to ask you delve into one's psyche so soon after you suffered through my own troubles."
For the entirety of the walk, Chara kept her arms crossed and her eyes focused on a pebble that she kicked, moodily, at her feet. "You do not have to try to complicate my life. Your mere presence does that quite splendidly." Every bone in her body vibrated with the desire to wring this warrior dry, to step on her until she bled and bled and bled. But she would not bleed, and it was futile for her to expect the results she craved. Oh, how she thirsted for power, power over the will of a person, power to crush, to enrage, to destroy. She possessed none of these attributes, now that her last mainstay, her exalted position of influence, had been torn from her fingers. She simply needed to tear at this woman, no matter how fruitless it was to expend the energy required to lash away with the swing of her tongue. But she wanted it--wanted her misery to serve a purpose.
"It eludes me why you insist on foisting this 'camaraderie' agenda upon me. Can we simply not follow-through with this hollow offer of comradeship? Is that possible for you, or do you wish to befriend Messino, as well?" She frowned at her statement, not finding it as satisfactory, as cathartic, as she wanted. Nonetheless, she continued. "I will be frank with you, warrior. I do not like you. You are an eyesore to behold and, were things different, I would love to see you vanish from my sight and never return. However," she sighed, her eyes roving from the pebble to the bubbling stream they had approached, "I do not hate you. Alster is alive because you exist. He is doing well, and he is standing, and fighting, because you care for him. And that," she hesitated, crouching by the waterside and dipping her hands into the muddy yet cool flow of water, "that I appreciate."
What had happened to her plan to sear this warrior's flesh until she burned like the sun she had tried so hard to emulate? With an annoyed grunt, she splashed at the water, and by extension, her reflection, which rippled away from her, downstream and to a place where it would find warmth in the sun, and not abuse by her hand. "So please cease your second-rate prattle, for you are starting to sound like a blasted Sybaian, but without the benefit of intelligence. I know that Lilica is looking out for me. She saved my life. She," sleeps in my tent, and I enjoy her company, unlike yours,," she nearly said. But she choked away the rest of the sentence in favor of rising to her feet and scraping the mud off her boots by help of a small bounder. "I am not daft."
After failing to scratch away any of the sediment that clung to her boots with such determination, she whirled back around to face Elespeth, glaring at the pot of water she had carried. "You want me to confide in someone? Fine. I will confide in you. That mark on your neck--it is from him, is it not? That love he has for you--it has now crossed into something more...sensual. And," she twisted at her fingers, her breathing becoming shallow and ragged, "I am fine with it. That is his decision. I lost him long ago, and I can...think of...no better person for him to have," she sputtered, her eyes widening with the shock of her confession. Quickly, she summoned a stream of nonsense to mask her faux pas. "Except, you are not a Rigas and your relationship is a shameful one, indeed. It is an embarrassment, and it is lewd and...on second thought, I will come along and drink your putrid tea."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I want this. I want to take a chance. Now." Her newly healed hands felt tight and sore as she squeezed them into fists on her lap, and turned her attention to Daphni. "You helped Alster... and if you can help me, too, even marginally, then I... I'll be indebted to you. Or whoever else you can point me in the direction of, if you don't feel you are able."
"Do not feel as though seeking help is taking on debt." The Sybaian healer shook her head. "The Sybaia were summoned to help, and I would be going against my clan's code of conduct to refuse you. So long as you are aware of the risks--Lilica, is it?" She looked to Alster, then returned her attention to the dark mage. "Alster is right. This could well destroy you, if you are not adequately prepared. No magic is without its risks or its flaws."
"I'm prepared--I want this. Please, I..." She felt her throat begin to close up with emotion, and cleared it before her voice could leave her. "I have... gaps in my memory. From things that I believe I willed away, but also, from things that I think I have forgotten. I've promised to fight for this cause... but how effective can I be if I'm so broken? I need this, and I need it now, but I..." Swallowing, the chthonic caster turned to Alster, a plea in her dark eyes. "I don't... I'm afraid to do this alone. And if it goes wrong... if something happens, I need... Chara cannot know. Alster, I realize I have no right to ask this of you, but I... I don't know who else to turn to."
The conversation resolved with Elespeth's lips tugging into a small smile, for this was the best outcome that she could reasonably hope for. A bitter, albeit reasonable Chara, too distressed by the conflict between her own bitterness and reason that she had little else to do but concede defeat this one time, and accept the flimsy olive branch that the warrior extended. "Good," she replied neutrally, and stood, waiting for the Rigas mage to walk with her. "I think you could do with a little warmth in your bones to ward off that biting chill."
She walked in silence with haughty Chara for a beat, holding the blonde in her peripheral vision. Her slumped shoulders and ashen complexion tugged at a string in her heart that she had never thought could be moved for the Rigas caster. Through all of her own ails that had befallen her these past few weeks, she had altogether failed to notice that Chara was not void of her own demons or suffering. And now... now, it seemed manifest as a cloth of defeat that weighed her shoulders and slumped her posture. She was hurting, whether or not she cared to admit it. And, ironically, it had opened a window for potential understanding.
"I'm not asking you to like me, Chara; and, I can assure you, your feelings towards me are mutual." With a sigh, Elespeth lifted her shoulders and scratched the back of her neck. "Do not think I am harbouring some fantasy where we can all get along. I simply see more benefit in being your comrade than your enemy. You helped me once on the battlefield, and I have not, and will not forget that. Simply, I would like for us to have an eye out for one another, as opposed to have it out for one another. You know very well that this war needs your expertise, and by virtue, so do I, and so does Alster."
Alster... Truly, he was the catalyst of this failed dynamic between herself and Chara. Not that the celestial mage couldn't find fault with her had she zero relations with her betrothed, for the fact would remain that she was naught but a 'filthy warrior', but Elespeth was certain that her animosity would be more of a token of her personality, than a direct affront to the warrior's failed attempts to make amends. Perhaps she had been going about it all wrong; she could not make Chara like her. It was impossible, and likewise, she could not pretend to hold the haughty Rigas mage in high regard. But that did not nullify their potential for a more healthy camaraderie; and that was obvious by Chara's reluctant, albeit genuine, demi-compliment that had accidentally fallen from her lips.
"You're right, and I see no reason to lie to you." Watching her measured steps, Elespeth focused her attention on the ground, feeling for the first time a thin layer of guilt that coated the meaningful evening that she had spent with Alster. "The mark is from him. I... I am in love with him. Not a conscious decision on my part, just something that evolved out of our friendship. Perhaps because it had been so... so long since I have had someone that I can trust to that extent." She pressed her lips together, knowing how foolishly she had first invested her trust in him. So desperate for a friend... but not for a lover. That had all come of its own accord, and there was no going back on it now. "He... without sounding overdramatic, Alster is really all I have left in this world to keep me anchored. To keep me from giving up."
Finding the fire pit that sat stagnant outside of the tent she shared with Alster, Elespeth removed the lid from the untouched pot that sat atop the dry wood and coals, pouring the entire contents of her flask into the cast iron. "Mind lending a hand? You're the esteemed magic user, after all." With a half-smile, she gestured to the unlit fire, knowing full well that Chara's celestial magic knew few bounds. Pleased to see the mage oblige, she took a seat before the soon roaring fire, and waited for the water to boil. "You know, when Messino apprehended me, I truly thought that I had officially reached the end of my lifeline. But it wasn't... it wasn't until I found out my brother was to be my executioner, in Atvany, that I actually came to accept it." There was no way that Chara would value such sensitive information that she was putting forth... a topic that could well bring her to tears. But if ever she could hope for the stubborn Rigas mage to understand her situation, then she, likewise, needed to confide. "It's a terrible feeling, to realize the only family you have ever known has turned on you. And en even worse feeling to know that there were a chosen few who had not given up on me... and who either died for it, or were left believing in my demise."
Farrin... Would his memory ever conjure a smile instead of tears? She couldn't even dare to hope. "Alster... my life was worth so much to him that he ventured all the way to Atvany to save it. I never thought my life would be worth half as much to anyone. He helped me fake my death, and now, knowing that I can never, ever return to Atvany... he has become like family, to me. And that... well, it gives me hope that one day I might actually be able to move on from blaming myself for my brother's death." And the fact I may never see Lyriq and Priya again...
"I guess, what I'm trying to say is... I realize you're not happy with this turn out. And I wish I could change your mind, but even realizing that I can't... I just want to thank you." As the water came to a boil, Elespeth removed the pot from the fire, and poured it into two mugs, tea leaves and all. "Not for choosing to like me. But... accepting me. The thought of wandering alone, without purpose or a place... it is more frightening than death."
And it was likely not the first time that Chara had heard words laden with similar meaning.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Then, Lilica had turned to him, and those eyes which were accustomed to the abyss had sparked, as fleeting as a shooting star, against the black and gray backdrop of her soul. Hope. What little she harbored had flitted out to him with a cry for assistance, for a hand to hold through the thunder and the lightning and the rain that needled through skin and bone and spirit.
He could have said no. He had every right to say no. There was no telling what havoc might latch and cling upon him, should he travel along into the fissures of her broken being. If something dire happened with her, it was possible that he would suffer collateral damage--and how would that affect Elespeth?
However, his mind had already reached its conclusion. He knew how much it hurt for someone to walk away from his bleeding pleas and he would never do that to another person who needed his support--no matter how much she had wronged. For, he had wronged, as well.
He nodded, connecting his hand with the pink, silken press of her own. "You won't be alone. I'm right next to you."
Chara allowed her unprecedented confession to stew in her head as they walked in silence. Why did I say such things? Why am I suddenly abetting in this impetuous woman's happiness? She puzzled on it, on the contradictory behavior towards the warrior, and theorized that she simply played a different game of power. After all, respect did not come about by consistently bossing around and insulting one's subordinates. Not that Elespeth served under her, nor did anyone, for that matter, but if Chara expected loyalty, perhaps extending a hand of tolerance and understanding served in her favor--once in a while. Canopus may have realized her need to learn compassion and humility were she to be an effective leader, and demoted her for that reason. Or, she thought too much on the whole dreaded endeavor, and Canopus thought she was a horrid commander.
She played with the ribbon tied haphazardly in her hair as they crossed through camp in search of the nearest fire pit, which, incidentally, happened to be near Alster's tent. And when the subject of their modified relationship reached her ears, she could not even fake a surprised expression, so predictable was the news. Instead of angering at what she could not change, she resigned herself to the proof that stood before her: Alster and Elespeth were truly inseparable. There was no longer any space in between them for her to squeeze through and wrench them apart. Intertwined and enmeshed, they loved too strongly. And she...she had no place, nor was she ever a contender to winning Alster's heart.
"Your unsolicited flattery continues to irk me. Cease it, or I shall ram this gob of fire down your throat." She obliged, however, and aimed that aforementioned fireball at the pit, which flickered to wakefulness in its new containment. It fought and wiggled in fury at the pot, licking the cast iron sides with every intention to melt it molten. Much like herself, the fire exaggerated its self-worth.
"I came to know Alster--as I do now--when I was about your human equivalent of six years old," Chara recalled, crouching beside the fire pit as she stared at the flames. If the warrior wished to share anecdotal evidence to support her undying love for Alster, then she, too, would offer a counter. Not to prove that she was superior, or had staked a larger claim of Alster and therefore deserved him more, but to...commiserate, in a way. Although she despised the warrior, they at least shared one thing in common. "It was soon after," she hesitated, "my mother died. I was angry. Angry at magic. Angry that it had taken her from me. Angry that I possessed such little of it and yet, was still unable to control it. So, I sought out the source of my frustrations. I sought out Alster. I screamed at him. 'It is because of you that I have nothing!' I told him. 'I am a bad year because you came before me and took all the magic, and I received the scraps. I have nothing, and you have everything!'" She propped her hands over her knees and watched the water froth and bubble over the pot.
"He looked at me--and he said, 'How is that my fault?' I did not have an answer for him--but he had an answer for me. Although I had yelled and yelled at him, he extended his hand at me to help. And," she swallowed a heavy lump in her throat, "he did help. Although he was still learning, himself, he taught me how to control my magic, to utilize it to its fullest potential. To thicken it, and hide the faults, the parts where it thinned out and sputtered. We became friends. I believe I was his only friend, and he was my only friend, for a while."
She accepted the mug of tea that Elespeth presented, and blew at the hot water, the steam pirouetting in the air. "Then, I became cocky. I wished to ascend. To climb. To propel myself out of my lowly ranking in the family. And I did. I pushed myself free. But in doing so, I left him behind. Hadn't the time for him. Even when I won the rites to his hand in marriage, as he was a highly desirable candidate, I focused only on the prize that I had received, and not the boy behind it. And," she took a hurried sip of her tea, not minding that it scalded her waggling tongue, "one day, he reached out to me, in desperation. Wanted help. He was having a crisis and did not know what to do. I told him I was busy, and walked away. And," she averted her eyes, "you know the rest."
"That was the day I lost him--and when I realized that I loved him. For a while, I knew...that I lost my opportunity to help him as he had helped me." She looked up at Elespeth, and gave her a rueful smile. "I suppose...this is my punishment. And my penance. He may blame himself for awakening the Serpent, but I was his catalyst. If only I had reached out--every outcome would be different. He," she lowered her voice into her mug, "is yours, now. You did what I could not: you saved him. He saved you. You saved each other, and I...I cannot compete, nor can I live in denial a day longer." She gripped her fingers against the mug, focusing on the strain of her hands and not the moisture that threatened to sting her eyes. "This is me...accepting defeat. I am certain this is a well-desired outcome for you, to see the great Chara Rigas fall to pieces. As much as you spout that false camaraderie, I know you must find enjoyment in my suffering." That smile returned on her lips, lost and bitter and conquered. "I do not blame you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Shock seized the chthonic mage when she felt a pressure on her newly healed hand, and looked up from her lap to meet the determined and empathetic eyes of the caster who she had gone out of her way to hurt. "You will... do this for me?" Lilica's compromised heart swelled with gratitude, and the sliver of hope that she had been so carefully protecting overwhelmed all fear and uncertainty. "Thank you... I am in your debt, Alster."
"Give me your hands, then." Ironically, it was Daphni who harboured the most doubt about this pending foray into a concerningly damaged psyche. She feared not only for how the chthonic mage might fare, but for her own potential to make a difference, given her own recent recovery. And she would have refused, were it not for Alster's committed support, and the bright flicker of hope that flared in Lilica's dark aura, like a shooting star in the darkness of night. "Close your eyes, and listen to my voice. And, dark one, you need to allow the space to let me in; let me through the curtain of your defenses... or else, this could end in disaster."
Through her coaching and guided words, moments later, the three opened their eyes to a dark, barren landscape in the chill of night. Dreary, yet seemingly harmless... Though Daphni was not so convinced. "Something isn't... it's just..." The Sybaian healer looked this way and that, as if anticipating danger. "Lilica," she turned to the dark mage with a start, her face ashen with panic. "Take control--you need to let me in."
"What... do you mean?" Exchanging a perplexed look with Alster, the chthonic mage furrowed her brow in concern. "You're already here."
"No, this is barely scraping the surface. Quick." Daphni grabbed Lilica's hands and squeezed tight. "Trust me--trust me being here, trust this procedure, or--"
And that was when Daphni disappeared, and the ground opened up and swallowed Lilica and Alster whole.
It was as if the breath had been forced from her lungs. Coughing and sputtering, Lilica opened her eyes and climbed shakily to their feet, both relieved and afraid to find that she was not alone... and yet, that her company had dwindled. "What happened? What's going on?" It was freezing, the wind pushing frigid air down her throat and burning her eyes. The ground was slippery and slick, frozen solid in a sheet of ice, and she nearly fell against Alster in her attempt to turn to him. "Where is the Sybaian healer? Is this... did this happen to you? Is this normal? Is..."
A pale moon cast just enough light on the ground to give it colour--a red colour, brown in some areas, but primarily scarlet as... as...
Lilica didn't even realize she had screamed until the sound reached her ears, on realizing that what served as their ground was a layer of ice, beneath which hundreds of lifeless bodies and forms had long since bled out, horror frozen on their faces, stretching on for what seemed like miles. There was no escaping it, no outrunning it... "I can't... I don't want to do this...!" She took her head furiously, latching onto Alster's arm. "I can't do this, I can't! W-we need to get out of here!"
Elespeth could not help but wonder at the fragile state of Chara Rigas's heart, given how thoroughly the haughty, proud caster confided it her. Listening actively without words or judgement, the blonde mage's insecurities became all the more transparent... and, without pride or condescention, the warrior felt for her. "You were only a child... it was within your every right to be angry. But that is not something that you need to carry with you now. Chara..."
Putting down her tea, she watched the fall of limp blonde hair tumble over the defeated woman's shoulders. "I do not know why you are so adamant in convincing yourself that I want to see you suffer. Nor do I understand why you are so convinced that you have 'lost' at something. Listen..." Taking a steadying breath, she allowed her shoulders to rise and roll back. "Alster still cares about you. How could he not, given the history you have? I can guarantee that he will continue to be there for you... you have lost nothing. But you have gained an ally, like it or not."
Picking up the pot with care, Elespeth refilled Chara's mug when the leaves at the bottom became visible. "Chara Rigas, you are not defeated. I have seen you withstand greater enemies than self-doubt, and I am convinced that you can rise above this rut you find yourself in. And I should hope so, because this war needs you. Alster needs you, and all of your strength. Lilica..." She paused, thinking of the dark mage, about whom she knew so little, yet perceived so much. "She could not be strong without you. If you cannot, for any other means, think of a reason to rise above this temporarily, self-imposed obstacle, Chara... then think on all of the hurdles that the dark mage has risked and endured just to be here with you--with us. Part of something that needn't concern her, for any other purpose than to be part of something, at all."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He opened his eyes to darkness, familiar in its completeness. It all started for him, in the same manner. A broad expanse, deep and draining and...sinister.
Before he could remark upon the same disturbance that crossed over his face, he looked ahead, only to see that Daphni vanished from their view.
"What..."
A bottomless weight grabbed hold and pushed him and Lilica into the gaping maw, sliding them into the belly of an icy wasteland. He landed, skimming the slippery surface which invited dead chill into his every contact point with the ground, sapping his colors and the very concept of warmth. With difficulty, he shivered to his feet, the unrelenting wind threatening to freeze his eyes shut. He bowed against the gale, reaching for Lilica so that their combined support might provide a buffer to the elements, and to the surface that refused to hold them upright. "I don't know!" He shouted over the shriek that battered his ears. Every part of his body felt ready to fall off, into frigid pieces, to join the...
The layer of carnage that hibernated beneath their feet.
It was similar, all too similar to the images that often etched bloody carvings into his the backs of his eyes, forever displayed in stark relief whenever he closed them. Streets that guttered with the outpouring of sanguinary rivulets, a sacrifice for that resting beast, which writhed and writhed beneath the mountain, thrashing in its confines...
The Serpent will destroy the city. It already has struck, killed a hundred souls. Because of you...
He snapped the crust of his frosted lashes open and forced Lilica along the skid of stained ice, his breath puffing white smoke into the air, hurrying away and far, far over the nothing ahead and beyond and above them.
He tightened his grip on Lilica's hand, trying to remain calm despite her frenetic cries and the inexplicable disappearance of their healer. He understood her need to run, for he too wanted to do the same, lest the ground open up and encase them in ice--fresh new corpses for the collection. But as they wandered downwind, in that far-flung hope of an escape or a haven, blood gurgled free from the ice, melting the fragile layer upon which they tread, creating hairline fractures onto the surface and in every direction his eyes could track. The cracks multiplied in dendritic patterns, sundering their only protection against the untold dead that slumbered beneath them.
Don't panic. This is a dream. A very intense dream. With consequences. But a dream, at its core.
With a free hand, he weaved threads of light between himself and Lilica, building the etherea outwards, concentrating on the sensation of buoyancy, of weightlessness...
Bright wings shot out from their backs, carrying them upwards from the crackling ice right before a crimson ocean lapped over the spot where they stood. But they only hovered scant inches above the waves, which rippled into bloody hands that punctured the viscous liquid and reached for their ankles, determined to drag them into the mire. He cocooned himself and Lilica in an egg-shaped screen of etherea, which deflected the assault of hands and claw-tipped, raking fingers...and disintegrated all that touched it, back into pure, dark energy.
Celestial energy...it could shatter the illusion, keep the dark at bay--for a little while.
He blasted a stream of etherea into the air, fierce and blinding and white-hot, a beacon signal for Daphni in case she was still present and could ascertain their whereabouts. Then, he turned his focus back on restructuring his barrier and on the wings that kept them aloft. All the while...
He glanced over at Lilica.
"There is hope; I know it exists for you! What gives you hope? Think." He intensified the color of his magic, warding off the waves, the hands, that pounded against his shield. "Light shines here! In the moon--right now, in my hands! Your darkness is not absolute. It's not!"
Who was he to advise? Just yesterday, he almost submitted to that debilitating regret, enfolded forever in its arms. But he fought free, with help from Elespeth and Daphni...and himself. Lilica could escape...somehow. He had no choice but to shoulder faith on Lilica and the Sybaian healer--wherever she may be.
After revealing a wealth of undesirable information aloud, Chara wanted to hide her head--preferably in the fire pit. When she claimed she would confide in the warrior, she did not mean detail every aspect of her life story! A deep exhalation dimpled the hot water inside the mug that her hands guarded. Her palms sweat, and she could not determine if it was from holding the clay cup or from surrendering her dignity and privacy to someone she abhorred.
"Now I understand the reason why Alster fell so deeply in love with you," she remarked, a derisive smile jagging across her face. "You say the words you believe one wishes to hear. Alster, for certain, eats up petty encouragements and motivating sentiments. But I do not. In fact, I shall dispute some of your hope and cheer and your sickeningly dulcet undertones." She sipped at her tea, rather loudly. "How can you say I lost nothing, when I lost love? And gain?" A laugh snorted out of her. "You give yourself too much prestige, warrior."
She could have elaborated, could have proceeded to string along a detailed array of insults and jabs without hesitation. But now--she elected to contain them, and to try, for once, a bit of diplomacy. Grace, even when in the face of a most reviled individual. Therefore, she accepted the next helping of tea, without protest or without some biting remark, and held the mug again, to her breast. "I hardly think the war needs me. I am disposable. A bad year with a pittance of magical inheritance. And Alster has you, so he does not need me. But I shall not contest your point that Lilica may need me, and that, at least, aside from family honor," she lowered her eyes, reluctant to continue, "is worth fighting for."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Every thread of the chthonic mage's doubt was another attack on the shield of etherea that Alster had summoned for their protection. Alster... She had endangered him, in some silly pursuit of a hope that could not exist. The Sybaian healer couldn't even withstand what surrounded them, the dark one's subconscious having effectively purged her from this potential plane for healing.
But it was no longer that--a wound to be drained, healing to be promoted. It was a graveyard, a place where hope, dreams, and people came to die, to submit to the chill and close their eyes and forget that they ever had to suffer. To succumb to the nothingness of this void, to a rest without care or awareness, to become the victim of a magic that had its own rules and which had such a hold on its user that it inflicted dire consequences when it was not executed by its preferred means. This was, for all intents and purposes, the reality that Lilica endured, the substance of her dreams, and the source of her conflict and indecision between pursuing help, and giving into her darkness altogether, once again becoming the creature responsible for the corpses beneath their feet. It is so much easier, not to feel...
And then, as if the breath had been forced from her lungs, Lilica doubled over, alongside Alster, gasping for breath and clutching at her stomach. But when she opened her eyes, she saw only the muted colours of Daphni's tent. Alster was there, as well, his face drawn and pale and aquamarine eyes filled with just as much confusion as her own... But nothing compared to the face of the Sybaian healer. It was as though all of the colour had been leeched from her face, her lips, her skin, and her blue eyes were glassy and unfocused. One hand clutched at her breast, where just beneath her layers of skin and bone, her heart had slowed, and dangerously so. "I told you... to let me in." Her hiss was directed at Lilica, although she could not muster the anger behind the accusation. "You were not open. You pushed me out, and too soon... the both of you could have died, were it not for the Rigas mage's signal."
"I... I..." Throat parched and aching, Lilica struggled to find her voice, let alone the words to say. She was a failure: a failure to the healer, to Alster, and most significantly... a failure to herself. I cannot heal... I can't even allow for healing. Or for help. "I'm sorry... I thought... I thought I was..."
"You are not ready." The Sybaian all but snapped. "Your psychic corruption runs deep. Too many layers... and you don't trust anyone. You didn't trust me, so you threw me out. And you did no trust Alster... not enough. Not enough, by a long shot." Daphni pitied her. She pitied her and hated her and wanted to reach out to her and wanted to push her away, forever out of her reach. The conflict of emotions churning inside of her from the assault on her own body and mind sped her heart and slowed it, and sped it up again. She was convinced that sooner or later, she was going to faint... and hopefully not sooner. "You doubt too much. And no one--not the Sybaia or anyone else, will be able to help you. Not until you can learn what it means to truly trust, and that trust... it [i]has to start with you." Wiping perspiration from her forehead, she heaved a shaky sigh. "Healing and recovery will not happen if you cannot offer a window of hope for it. Now leave, both of you. And..." Though it pained her to ask this, she felt she had no choice. "If you see the Clematis healer, Elias... tell him I require his assistance." And soon... Fevers and chills, she was accustomed to. But the poison of Lilica's dark subconscious had cut deeper through the Sybaian healer, and beyond the cold sweat and her trembling limbs, she found it difficult to breathe... and feared for the uneven, staggering rhythm of her heart.
"Alster..." Lilica couldn't even bring herself to look at him, outside of the tent. The both of them stood pale and drawn, and noticed with a start that not only was her hand spotted with bruises, but so was the Rigas mage's. "I'm... so sorry. I should have known... It was foolish of me to attempt that. It could have gotten us both killed, and I... I am not worth that risk. I won't ask you for forgiveness... but know that I am truly sorry."
Chara was impossible. Elespeth should have predicted as much, but with the push and pull of the Rigas caster's comments and beliefs, it was difficult not to walk away as much as it was to bring this encounter to a close. "Chara, I have no good reason to cajole you in what you want to hear; you've been nothing but wretched to me since we have met, and I know that Alster would understand if I chose to resent you as much as you resent me." Perhaps a little harsh, but if pure, unadulterated honesty was what she wanted, then the warrior was happy to oblige. She took a sip of hot tea in-between her thoughts, just to let the words sink in. "So no, I am not simply spouting what you want to hear. What I am trying to clarify is that you are not so bad off as you think. No, perhaps your relationship with Alster will take a different turn, than what you expected, but he still cares about you. He always will; it is just the kind of person that he is. You of all people should be aware of that, given how long you have known him."
Prestige was not something that she ever considered when she looked upon herself now, but in a way, Chara might have been right. After all, the haughty blonde's loss had been her gain... though she had never intended for anyone to lose out on anything. "I know why you hate me. And while I do not intend to change my disposition for looking for the silver linings in rain clouds, I do hope that one day, you might come to understand why that is so necessary to my sanity." Shaking her head, she put down her tea and rubbed at her palm, suddenly sore. The cup must have been too hot. "You are only as disposable as you believe yourself to be. But what I see is a strong leader to the Rigas family who has been too hard on herself, for too long... and, if you ask me, you and Lilica can draw strength from one another." Just as she drew strength from Alster.
Wait. Alster...
One glance at her palm had her on her feet. Those bruises had not been there moments ago... But, so as not to alert Chara to a potential crisis, she tried to pass her demeanor off as casual. "I won't take up any more of your time. But don't give up on yourself so easily. Don't you frown upon those who succumb to such feelings?" Flashing a brief smile, she left the clearing before her tent, in search of another Rigas mage, one who was confusingly and curiously hurt, if the purple and blue blooms on her palm meant anything.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
No other option was left open to him, but to try.
"It doesn't have to be!" He yelled, flooding more light into a fading spell, which guttered and succumbed to the dark. "Darkness can't exist by itself! Why then, do you exist? Please, Lilica, see into yourself. There's something else here!"
The shield shattered. Shards of dead light twinkled and dwindled into nothing. The wings, the last hope keeping them adrift from their demise, blinked themselves gone. And they dropped. They fell. Into...
He opened his eyes to the canvassed walls of Daphni's tent, gasping for breath. He gripped the earth with his free hand, just to ascertain that they had truly returned to the world of the living. Lilica looked a mess, more ashen than he had ever seen her, even after her various run-ins with their assailants on the battlefield. But at least, she was alive. And Daphni...
He cringed. No better than the very corpses that tried to drag them beneath the blood-filled surface of their premature grave.
What had he done? If not for his suggestion, his blind, stupid hope, neither of them would be in such a condition.
And Elespeth...
He looked at his hand, at the black-purple bruises that bloomed all over the skin, coloring it a new, ghastly shade. Soon, she would search for him, and how then, would he explain his reckless behavior?
You can't save everyone, Alster--not if you wish for Elespeth to live. This path...will kill you. And her, along with it.
With a forlorn sigh, he rose to his feet. Together, he and Lilica exited the tent, into a day that appeared muted, foggier, than he remembered when he woke at first light.
I knew it wouldn't last...
He cradled his damaged hand with the other and stared to the horizon, at the small lumps of mountains that denoted the location of Stella D'Mare. "I, too, should apologize." His voice was small, tinny, dissonant. He had to remind himself to blink, to allow the world inside, to ground him back to reality. "It was my suggestion. I pushed you to seek help, thinking your outcome would reflect my own." He paused, for a beat. "The healer isn't wrong. You must hope and trust yourself--but that's impossible if there's no one at your side to help you to see trust and hope. So," he dared himself to look at Lilica, at what their foray into the blackest parts of her mind had wrought on her body, "I forgive you. For...for everything. In fact, I never told you...if not for your attack on Elespeth, I would not have realized that chthonic magic can be used to heal. To save." A smile, though haggard and worn, twitched at his mouth. "Yours does, as well. It saved Chara. It saved my life, too. Please don't forget...that you are capable of healing--because I've seen your light."
At that moment, he saw Elias emerge from his quarters, carrying an assortment of instruments across camp, en route to the medical tent.
"Elias!" The Clematis healer turned his head, witnessed Alster and Lilica in front of Daphni's tent, and his perpetual frown deepened with suspicion.
However, he heeded the call, and sauntered over to Alster, raising an eyebrow at his and Lilica's weary-worn expressions.
"Yes? Do the two of you require assistance? Healing?" He scowled at the bruises on Lilica's newly tended hand. "Heavens...do you mages enjoy battering yourselves to all hell?"
"We'll be fine, but Daphni," Alster jerked his head at the tent flaps, "she...she asked specifically for you."
"Of course she did." Without another word, he waved them away, and stepped inside the flaps, into a dark den that prickled and oozed with a dark, malicious energy. By contrast, the Sybaian, the veritable centerpiece of the macabre ritual, exhibited a pallor that rivaled the surface of the moon. Immediately, he dropped to his knees before her, discarded his tools, and grabbed her hand, absolutely frigid in his warm, trained fingers, and her pulse...
"You twit," he about growled, dropping her hand, which fell at a dead-weight on her lap. "Lie down. Now" Once she complied, he pulled on a pair of gloves, a habit he employed out of fear that his disease, while prevented from becoming contagious, would spread were he not careful about proper hygiene.
"Are you endeavoring to heal two troubled mages at once, now? Is that what you decided when you woke up this morning after having healed from one troubled mage?" He scooted over to where her heart rattled feebly in her rib cage. Pressing a hand over her chest, he prepared to send his healing pulse over the brunt of the damaged area. "Was it worth it? They look worse than when I last saw them, and one's hands were burned while the other had a gaping chest wound."
Chara rather enjoyed the warrior's brief departure from her unbearably supportive lectures. It painted her as an actual person, someone who thought more than in shades of hope and love and all things harmonious. She spoke in a language she knew well, and she was more apt to listen--but unfortunately, she devolved back into her pseudo-advisements. Even when Elespeth explained the why behind her jarring optimism, she could not help but roll her eyes at the sentiment. She and Alster really were meant for each other. But why could she tolerate Alster better, when his philosophies to life paralleled that of his warrior lover? How could she enjoy his company, while despising hers?
Before she could think to explore the similarities and differences between Alster and Elespeth, the warrior in question almost bolted to her feet, and the surprise of her sudden movement nearly caused Chara to spill her tea over her lap. "What is the meaning of this!?" she barked in demand, setting aside her mug to rise on her feet. "Is something the matter with Alster? You can feel his pain, correct? So then, why," her eyes narrowed, "do you insist on withholding this information from me, if you care so much about my relationship with him?" She crossed her arms over her chest and closed in on the warrior, close enough to walk on her heels. "I am coming along."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
A mixture of remorse and fear exacerbated her irregular heart rate. The Sybaian code of professional conduct forbade refusal to help, in almost any situation, but... both Alster and Lilica had offered her an out that she could have accepted. The dark mage had not been adequately prepared for the foray into a part of her mind that she hardly understood, and had she taken the time to assess Lilica's current mental state prior to delving into her subconscious mind on hope alone, she might have realized this. And should the Sybaia--or even other Clematis, for that matter--find out that she had gone about a risky practice so negligently, having knowingly cut corners, the not only could it reflect all the more poorly on the Sybaia, but it could well compromise her position among them. Not all born to the Sybaia are fit to be healers... And she was helpless but to trust that Elias would comply and keep his mouth shut.
"The dark mage... sought me out. I shouldn't have endeavored to heal her. I knew better, but I... must have overestimated my own ability. And underestimated the severity of how deep her pain runs." Shivering from the warmth that the procedure had stolen from her body, Elias's warm hand on her chest offered a mild sense of some reassurance. "The Rigas boy insisted on going through the motions with her... but she was not prepared. I had to end the procedure too abruptly, lest they remain lost in the hell that was her subconscious mind forever. It took its toll on them... and on me." Though she would rather suffer the consequences of her errors through her own health than wind up with her patients in comas.
Staring blearily up at the Clematis healer's sullen face as he prepared to even out the erratic palpitations of her heart, she was better able to make out the colour and state of his aura. One that was bright and confident, though (understandably) spiraled with swirls of past traumas, and... its corona, the flame-like edges that flickered in and out... something wasn't right. "Are you ill?" The words slipped past her lips without any forethought, for she hadn't the mental capacity for tact at that given time. "Your aura... the edges are damaged. Like torn paper, subjected to flame..." Daphni reached up as if to touch his face, but her fingers instead trailed through the otherwise invisible tendrils of Elias's life essence. When they touched the damaged edges, she withdrew abruptly, her heart skipping a beat as if she'd been burned. "Elias..." She searched his face, a study in irritation and confidence and shock, all mirrored in his hazel eyes. "What afflicts you...?"
Of course, there was no fooling Chara, whose suspicions ran too deep to let anything out of her range of notice. Additionally, there was no sense in lying to her, when she had a point: Alster was still very much a part of her life, and keeping information regarding his health from her was not conducive to anything useful. "You have a strong tendency to overreact to unpleasant news," she explained without a beat. If honesty what was Chara wanted, what would make her come to respect her, then Elespeth was more than obliged to employ it as a tactic. "So I encourage you to take a breath and think before you speak, because I don't know what is amiss... but we will find out. Come on."
Alster's words of encouragement sent a current of sadness through the dark mage. He was so sure that she was enough like him that she might heal, that there was another side to her other than the darkness that controlled her life... She did not deserve him as an ally or as a friend. Not after she had so senselessly endangered his life, asking him to venture with her down to the dark, toxic depths of what lay inside of her, parts of her psyche that she wished never to visit again. "Alster Rigas... I do believe this world need more people like you," she murmured, hugging her elbows in an attempt to ward off the bitter cold that wracked her body. "And fewer people like me. I don't know if what you say is true, but know that... I will continue to fight for you, and for Chara, regardless of the repercussions of my magic. It is the least I can do, after everything that I have destroyed, and everyone I have wronged... thank you."
She knew Elespeth would feel his pain; the Atvanian warrior would find him in moments. And for fear that Chara might not be far behind, that was where Lilica took her leave, wandering blindly away in search of a lit fire, or a pit where she might conjure one to ward off the cold. But, as per her prediction, Alster was not alone for long. Elespeth spotted him, pale and distraught, several yards away, and was quick to rush to his side, taking her shoulders in his hands. "Gods... Alster, what has happened? You're so cold..." Green eyes scanned his body for any further injuries, but beyond the pallor and cold and the mysterious, purple bruise blossoming on the palm of his hand, she could find no source of wounds or sickness.
"What did you do?" Elespeth struggled to maintain an even tone, as frustration and anger crept into her cheeks, tinting them pink. "Were you making yet another vain attempt to help someone? Don't you understand that putting yourself at risk means compromising the hope of this entire mission? Don't look at your feet--look at me." And there it was, the remorse in those aquamarine eyes that cut through her heart like a hot knife through butter. He knew he had done wrong, and he was sorry, without needing to articulate it. That alone as enough to bring her anger to a simmer, and she dropped her hands from his shoulders to his wrists. "Alster... I don't know what you did, or how, or why. But you cannot save everyone. I came to accept that hard reality when I knew that I could not save Farrin..." Her voice cracked in articulating her brother's name, and her eyes once again fell to the Rigas mage's palm. Bruised as if someone had been clutching his hand too hard...
The ex-knight immediately averted her attention to Chara who, up until then, had been fairly good at keeping her biting ire at bay. "Maybe I'm mistaken, but does this..." She indicated Alster's hand. "Does this not resemble the bruises acquired by the dark mage? Whenever she uses her magic...?"
And that was when it became clear to her: Alster had somehow, by some means, attempted to help Lilica. He needn't even voice the confession to convince her.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm and rocked back on his heels, for a moment. "I already told you that the Rigas caster attracts trouble. You had every right to refuse service or refer them to many of your other capable sisters if you doubted the procedure. Not to mention, you are still on the path of convalescence from yesterday." He waved a hand to indicate the Sybaian's well-being. "This is how healers die, Daphni, and I've seen it often, too often. It baffles me how many bleeding heart idiots decide to take the cloth at my Order, only to throw their lives away because they believe their constitution superior simply because they possess the ability to heal. They lose all practicality, and forsake their own health, thinking it a non-issue. And they burn out, and fade away, and there are less able-bodied healers in this world." He stood again on his knees and spread his palms forward, ready for the next round. "Do not be a victim. I will keep your secret only if you do not make this a habit."
He started, again, at the chest, pulling free the loose knots and sending a massaging light down the chills that assailed her body. The process was slow, methodical, careful, and deliberate. So deep in concentration was he, that he almost didn't hear her probing question, and in fact, didn't register any of her words until she reached out for him. He dipped his head away, determined not to sever his connection, his pulse, but she made the entire process difficult as she weaved her fingers at the place above his head.
And her inquiry tensed every muscle in his body.
Bugger all! Of course the likes of a Sybaian healer would soon determine the specifics of his affliction, however well he hid the symptoms and doused the disease with medicine. If information of his ailment became public, the Order would excommunicate him under the grounds that he operated his practices, fully aware that he had taken ill, and yet did not step down, did not seek help.
How could he? The blasted disease was incurable, yet contained, controlled, and he refused to quit until he made strides on that blight that roosted in his lungs.
Elias cleared his throat and took on a measured calm, grateful to his discipline that his magic did not sputter with surprise, and that he reacted little, at least facially, to her revelations.
"A touch of something quite common," he said, a flippant curl to his voice. A lie on his lips, well-practiced, well-spoken. "A cough I've had all my life. Nothing contagious or debilitating, but it is something I do not like to discuss with my peers. They will conflate it with something much worse, and will be sure to oust me from my duties. You needn't concern yourself; it will not harm you or any one in this camp."
Alster's eyes grew wide, and his cheeks managed to find color in all of its pallid chill. I do believe this world needs more people like you... Never would anyone in his family think to utter such sentiments. In fact, they were quick to sneer and remark upon the exact opposite. Serpent Bane did not save. He only caused untold destruction. The little he did now--he was not sure it was enough to make up for all the harm he caused in the past. Nonetheless, hearing confirmation that he was trying to do good...his mouth parted with a grateful smile. "Thank you, but...if there were less people like you, it's possible that I and Elespeth and Chara would be dead. Please take care, Lilica. There are those who care for you...even if you feel like you don't deserve it."
Just when he and Lilica parted ways, Alster saw Elespeth emerge from behind a tent, and following her was...Chara. He dug his feet into the ground, borrowing support from the earth, for he anticipated a rather heated interrogation from his betrothed.
Instead, he received the full brunt from Elespeth, herself, her hands clamped over his shoulders, digging into his skin. No, she's right. Why did I throw myself into a such a perilous situation, fully knowing the consequences should we fail? He let her down, endangered her life yet again, dragged her though the mud while he ran, with blind stupidity, thinking he possessed the ability to help when he, too, was so weak, so uncertain, so plagued by the sins of his own past...
"I'm sorry, El," he voiced, though he knew she came to realize that, on her own. Nonetheless, he wanted to express it, himself. "I just...I just thought...I have no right to happiness if others close to me are still suffering. But you're suffering, now...and you weren't before. And I..." he trailed away, and lowered his eyes back to the ground. So much for steeling himself against their ire, however well-intentioned...
"It is." Chara, who, at first glimpse of Alster, noticed the bruising on his hand, and lost whatever ferocity she had determined to build up and unleash--if only to peeve the warrior who insisted she behave. "Alster...what happened?"
He raised his eyes, finding it easier, for once, to face Chara and her unwavering air of authority--regardless of her demotion. "I tried to help Lilica," he said, which was no lie, but he chose to omit the part where they sought the aid of the Sybaian healer. "It didn't...go so well."
"I see." Chara tapped her foot, looking at the guilt drowning in Alster's blue-green eyes, to the tent he wandered so near to, and her mouth turned down into a sour grimace. "Warrior," she announced, "tend to your lover." She threaded her hands together, cracking her wrists just as her expression cracked into something deadly. "I will find Lilica."
"Don't--go easy on her, at least?" But Alster's final words waved like a banner behind her, for she was already on the move, and it didn't take her long to find the dark mage, crouched as she was at the very fire pit where she and Elespeth had shared in tea and an insufferable bout of conversation.
"I am glad that you are enjoying my fire." She loomed over Lilica, creating a small flame in her raised palm. "I can create more, if you would like. Where do you want it? In the pit?" She shot a stream inside, reinvigorating the dying fire with a ring of white-hot intensity. She was not so petty as to threaten the mage with her fire, no. Not after what she had done to her hands, just the other day. "What happened? Alster is not telling me the full story, and I am not so daft as to piece together where exactly the two of you went. So do not even think about lying to me." Her eyes glittered dangerously. "I will know."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Do not patronize me," she murmured between episodes of shooting pain, her occasional, strangled breaths and sighs the only indicator that she was experiencing discomfort. "I do not think myself invincible... but I will not make this mistake again. And I promise this is the last time that I will... call on you for assistance."
When he repositioned his hands, the arrhythmic beat of her heart had subsided to a small, fast pace, like a panicked rabbit, but at the very least its pattern remained consistent. "A cough," she repeated pensively, bleary, blue eyes surveying the careful microexpressions of his face. "I believe you. You've no reason to lie about that. Except..." Before he could anticipate it, Daphni's curious hand covered his own, which hovered inches above her body, and immediately, her face fell with concern. "Speaking of it renders you fearful..."
He would not confide in her; Elias was a very private man, and was determined to keep to himself and fight his own battles. But that did not necessarily mean he was capable of winning every battle that he chose to face alone. "You needn't confide details... and in any case, I know you won't," the Sybaian mentioned, her voice and eyes still half-dazed with afflicted delirium. "But I owe you for your service and your silence. And should you ever require assistance, without exposure to your Order or anyone else... know that I would lend a hand without hesitation, provided I am well enough to do so."
Angry though Elespeth was, the sentiment could not endure in the Atvanian ex-knight. Not when it came to the sad, genuine gleam in Alster's eyes, full of remorse when he really shouldn't be--and when she should not have pushed him so far as to feel so bad. As soon as Chara took off in search of Lilica (and Elespeth truly worried for her fate, at the hands of an angry Chara), her hands dropped from Alster's arms to his fingers, afraid to clutch that bruised hand. "You're freezing cold..." She breathed, her voice catching on a note of worry. "Come on."
Without waiting for a response, she gently took the Rigas caster by the wrist and led him back to the tent. In the not so far distance, she could make out Chara's intimidating form looming over Lilica, who sat at the fire she had abandoned, but drew no attention to herself, or to Alster. Tend yo you lover... Well, the proud, platinum-blonde Rigas mage had given her permission. And she would.
With the flaps closed and secure, Elespeth turned to her shivering companion and, much to his probable surprise, immediately went about unfastening the buttons of her tunic. "You feel as though you are frost-bitten," she explained, not missing a beat. "We need to raise your core temperature, and since I'm not equipped with magic, the fastest way to do so is direct contact... Alster, for the love of your own health, do not choose right now to be insecure." Especially not after last night...
Her clothes were in a pile at her feet by the time the Rigas mage was no more than half-undressed, and so the former knight took it upon herself to help Alster complete the task, before taking his chilled body into her arms and pulling him down onto the cot, beneath the blankets. "Gods," she hissed without meaning to, as she pressed the warmth of her chest against the chilled-marble firmness of his own, "you're so cold... hold tight to me, for a while."
Tucking her chin atop his shoulder, the reassuring rhythm of his heartbeat and the breaths he drew into his lungs mitigated Elespeth's panic, until her head was clear enough to revisit her overreaction upon seeing him in such a state. And, truth be told, she felt awful for it. "I am not angry that you might have endangered me," she clarified after a beat of silence, murmuring into his ear. "I only fear that your disregard for your own life might... well... overshadow the value of my feelings for you."
The warmth of the dying fire was hardly enough to thaw the chill in Lilica's bones, but it was better than nothing, and did manage to take the very edge off of the misery to which she had all but succumbed. The Sybaia could not help her... not even with the supporting and reassuring presence of Alster, who had refused to see her go alone into the terrifying depths of her own mind. So then, where did that leave her? What hope did she have of transforming into something--someone--who she could stand? Who she could forgive, and be proud of? It's not fair... it's not fair. She wished there was a place to which she could escape, to leave all of the pain and uncertainty and poisonous magic behind her; she wished she could dream instead of wake up in damp, cold sweats from nightmares.
But dreams were for the innocent and the naive... neither of which she happened to be. And all that stood before her was everything that she had always known. She could count on her magic to work against her. She could count on bruises and pain. She could count on the enduring chill in her bones, the sleepless nights, and black patches in her memory.
And, in addition, she could count on Chara... and count on the fact that she would never be able to hide from the celestial caster what she had just endeavored. And she was right.
She leaned closer to the newly rekindled fire pit, every inch of her body trembling with impenetrable cold, and dared to offer the Rigas mage a weak smile. But there was no joy behind it, and every feature of her pale face spelled out her defeat. "Your fire is a godsent, right now," Lilica admitted, holding her frigid, bruised hands closer to the flame. "Thank you."
The chthonic caster was not, however, so daft as to assume Chara's helpfulness did not come without a price. Of course she had suspected something; it was a small encampment, and even were it not, the haughty blonde was far too sharp to miss a single trick. Lilica had only hoped that chance and fate would permit her more time before she had to fess up. Looking back to the fire, her tired face fell. "I asked... the Sybaia for help." Lying to Chara Rigas was the last thing she wished to do, knowing that it would only serve to alienate a very powerful ally. "And I asked Alster to come with me because I... I was afraid to go alone. But it was all for nothing. The Sybaia, it turns out, cannot help me. It's... I'm beyond help. I am what I am, and that will never change..." Alster seemed to think that she was wrong, that her heavy baggage could be lightened. But she couldn't believe him; he was just too irrationally optimistic. And she was too done.
"I'm sorry I broke my promise to you. You were, of course, right... and I was an idiot, to think I ever had a chance to be free of... well, of myself." Curling her cold fingers into fists, Lilica drew into herself, a small, shivering shadow before a fire on an otherwise warm day. "I think... I need to go away. From the camp, even just for a day or two, if we do not expect to be besieged in the next couple of days. I need... I just need to see something else. Something that is not war and pain and defeat, lest I forget that it is not all that exists in the world. Chara..."
The dark mage, looking smaller from the weight of lost hope upon her shoulders, turned to the Rigas caster, eyes moist with tears that refused to fall, and offered her a trembling, bruised hand. "I will still follow you, anywhere. But... will you come with me? Even just for a little while." The encampment suddenly felt like a grave site, and Lilica suffered the sickening feeling that she was going to die, here, or not far from the grounds. If there was one more opportunity to see the world as anything but wretched... then it was now.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Her timing was impeccable, for right as he suctioned the last of the healer's chill (of the chill that he was able to tackle), she reached for his hand, and clamped a cold and clammy one over it, which he felt through the thin fabric of his gloves. If he hadn't finished, surely her gesture and accompanying words would have encouraged him to throw aside his pride in favor of walking out, leaving her to suffer the last of her ails, which were practically self-inflicted.
"I did not ask for a consultation," he said, coldly. He rose to his feet, but not before grabbing the medical instruments he had tossed aside. "Your professional opinion is unsolicited. Preserve it for your clientele. Now, if that is all," he whirled on his heels and marched to the tent flaps, "rest, and by rest, I do not mean the exact opposite of rest. So, no juggling casters around. I know these situations arise in threes." He placed a hand to his chest. "Take this for concern if you will, but I see this as practical advice. Do not be an idiot."
He hurried out of the tent in time to barrel into his own, and grabbed for his flask before the incoming coughing fit had time to bloom out of his throat, and into red flowers in his hands.
I am using too much magic. Too much at once. At this rate, I...
He thought against finishing the thought.
After they arrived at his tent, Alster clamped on the shiver of his teeth as he sat upon the cot and gripped his arms for warmth. He didn't have long to dwell on the extent of his chill before Elespeth stood before him and stripped off her tunic. At viewing her, naked from the waist up, his heart rate sped up and a warmth did spread throughout his body--and she hadn't even touched him, yet! "I can assure you, El, insecurity is not the problem I'm having right now," he muttered, and his cheeks gave rise to even more heat.
After the initial surprise died down, in his heart and in his loins, he, with the help of Elespeth, shrugged out of his clothes and joined her on the bed. Together, they huddled, and he had absolutely no qualms in squeezing himself tighter against her limber, hard-cased body, coursed through with such radiating comfort. While he could have mentioned a faster way to regulating his body temperature via magic and their blood bond, he kept his knowledge silent, for faster did not always mean better. And he just wanted to stay there, in the fire of her arms, for the rest of the day and well into the evening. That could be arranged, he thought, slyly. I can keep pretending that I'm cold...
Or not. He saw, through the veiled panic in her eyes, that she was immensely worried for his safety, for his life. He would not delay his recovery, all for a drawn out embrace that he did not deserve nor earn. On the contrary, he did her much wrong, and he closed his eyes in anticipation for whatever condemning words might bubble out of her mouth.
What he received, instead, was her unconditional love.
"I felt like I had no choice," he said, burying his head into the crook of her shoulder. "She asked for my help. I couldn't say no, no matter how bleak the outcome. I thought about saying no, but I..." he shook his head, rubbing his nose against her collarbone. "There is worth to my life, because you're attached to it. And I keep forgetting that. But at the same time...I need to be useful. They need me to be useful." He shifted, a reflexive shiver traveling down his body despite the human cocoon that Elespeth provided. "Why else do the Rigases continue to tolerate me? Want my celestial magic back so badly?" He opened his eyes and gazed into ones that glimmered like a sun-dappled forest. "How can I be who everyone wants me to be, if I don't take the risks for those who have need of me?"
"You know that I love you," he continued, averting from her gaze. "And I will fight continuously in order to keep you alive, to keep me alive. But I also have responsibilities. Debts to repay. A duty to uphold. And...I don't know if I'm able to manage everyone's expectations. Or my own."
Chara should have been furious, should have cursed and reeled and made her displeasure known to the entirety of the encampment. Lilica going behind her back to seek the Sybaian, despite her promise to stay away--why, it was downright insubordinate behavior! And risking Alster's safety in the process...by all accounts, Chara would feel justified in expressing the very apex of her geyser-shooting rage.
But, she did not. The anger still boiled inside of her, yes, but she would not unleash it on Lilica. Trumping even ire, she felt...beyond relieved that the healing process did not eat her alive. Although it sounded like it reached terrifyingly close, Lilica and Alster--and the Sybaian healer, she supposed--opened their eyes to another day. Alive. Worse for wear, but nonetheless alive.
She sat down beside Lilica. Noticing that the kettle still contained some water, and her fire had tipped it to a boil, she offered the dark mage the mug from which she had been drinking, filling it with tea leaves and the hot water. "Here," she said, a little too brusquely, but not angry. "Drink up. You're cold."
After summoning a surge of civility, of that diplomacy that she was determined to employ, she turned to Lilica, a sigh on her lips. "I...I suppose the prospect of that too-good-to-be-true healing process was too tantalizing for you to ignore," she admitted, though it took a few bile-filled swallows in order to utter the words without spitting venom. "But that does not mean you are beyond help, Lilica. It means that there is no quick and easy cure for you. And why would there be, when you've stewed in your own darkness for so very long?"
She bit the inside of her cheek. Spouting encouragements was not her forte, not at all. But what else was she to do? Lilica--she appeared absolutely distraught. Like a stone, with no life inside of her, waiting for her body to erode away with the elements. A new darkness, not vile or sinister, but steeped in unmitigated sorrow and gloom. And hopelessness.
The chill shook at her arms, and she would have grabbed them to create a stronghold of warmth, but the dark mage's words froze her anew, from the crown of her head down to her toes.
"I...I have a responsibility here." No you do not. Canopus relinquished you from your duties. You are a mere underling now. "And I do not think I will be given leave, but, but...if I can," she couldn't believe she was contemplating such things, "I will take you to Stella D'Mare. To my villa. I think it is doable. I wish to give Adalfieri a report, anyhow. And you need to see what you are fighting to liberate." At the unraveling of Lilica's bruised hand, Chara stared at it, suddenly feeling a discomfort in her spine, which caused her to shift in order to alleviate the pain. But in shifting, a rogue action crossed her mind, and she found her arms swinging over Lilica's shoulders, connecting with the small of her back, and pulling her icy body towards her fiery disposition.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Regardless of words and their users, however, it was apparent to her that Elias was ruffled and upset from her unsolicited appraisal. No longer burdened by chill or the irregularity of an afflicted heart, the Sybaian healer propped herself up on her elbows as the Clematis healer gathered his tools in haste. He could not wait to be out of her tent and rid of her presence. "Rest assured, I will be heeding your practical advice," she told him despite that he had rather rudely turned his back to her. Some claimed that the Sybaia were, in fact, so empathetic than they were constantly too overwhelmed with emotion to practice a satisfactory bedside manner. So, too, did she believe those reasons valid for Elias. There was a lot that he refused to admit to the world, and one could only go so long with secrets before the unspoken words began to eat away at their insides, until there was nothing left but the agony of their existence.
But if he was not ready to confide or to seek help, himself, then there was little to be done. After all, Daphni had just witnessed first hand the ill effects of her interference with clients who were simply not adequately prepared, or fully willing, to be healed by her methods.
"You may take this bit of advice as part of my repayment to you," she added, just as he was about to leave. "That being, should you decide to get the deeper aspects of your secret off of your shoulders, then you have a safe space to confide. After all... you agreed to keep secret my blunder from my sisters." He was gone by the time she raised her shoulders in a shrug and sighed. "I suppose I owe you as much... proud imbecile that you are."
Of course... Alster had not blindly thrown himself into the path of danger out of some suicidal disregard for his life. He had, on the contrary, been responding to a desperate plea for help. And Elespeth, who had been raised on the grid of honour, altruism and sacrifice, would be damned were she to claim that had she been faced with a similar situation, she would not do the same. Perhaps that was the reason for her fizzling and diffused anger in the face of Alster's risky choice; she would, most likely, have done the same.
"Lilica is.... she seems very lost, for lack of a better word," she commented, as she ran her hands up and down his naked arms to ease the chill from his skin. "I imagine that... to ask for help at all, from anyone, would have been a very trying feat for her. And to think what it would do to her grasp on hope if she were to be turned down..." The Atvanian woman sighed, her breath tickling the hairs on his neck. "Neither would I have said no. You are at no fault for providing her with assistance that she was not likely to find from anyone else, particularly if you have experience with chthonic magics."
Slipping her arms around his waist, and drawing him tighter against her warm body, Elespeth kissed his mouth, her lips moving slowly, in what was truly a passionate apology. "I was in the wrong for overreacting, for I find myself often faced with the same dilemma... what is to be done when you cannot save everyone you care for? An how.... how do you live with yourself, should you realize you have failed someone, and it costs them their life?"
And what if the person you have failed is the very flesh and blood of your own kin? What kind of monster does that make you...?
Elespeth did not realize tears had gathered in her eyes until she blinked, and felt them running down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she murmured, as Farrin's face surfaced, unsolicited, in her mind. "I need to stop perseverating on this. What I am trying to say is... the only expectations that matter are your own. And I... hope you can forgive me for my selfishness." What she wanted of him did not, and could not matter, when all of Stella D'Mare was counting on his success.
She had been expecting a barrage of insults and reprimands from the celestial caster, for Chara Rigas was never at a shortage of them, particularly not where they were warranted. Lilica had broken a promise, one that Chara had begged of her with tears in her eyes... She had shattered that promise like cheap glass, and the celestial mage had every right not only to be angry, but to turn her back on her completely. And yet...
And yet... she was empathizing? Defending her terrible decision to seek the help of the Sybaia, knowing full well it could cost her her life?
Lilica hesitated before taking the cup of boiling tea in her shaking hands, the warmth warding off the chill that cut straight through to her bones. "Nonetheless... I never should have involved Alster." Chara hadn't said anything, but she knew she had been thinking it, by the twist and flicker of emotions on the tall blonde's face. Had she actually held back her ire, her anger? But why? Out of concern for further upsetting someone who had already all but entirely given up on hope? "I was afraid to be alone... when I faced parts of myself that I would rather forget. And he tried to help me, too; he tried so hard, but it was all for naught. And he ended up suffering for it... I never should have asked."
Just as she had no right to ask, now, for Chara's support. It was with a deflated heart that she reached out to the Rigas mage, putting down the hot mug of tea that she had hardly touched. I don't want to be alone. Such a primitive, yet crucial need, but if she was to spend whatever was left of her for this cause--Stella D'Mare's cause, Chara's cause--then she wanted to see what life could have been. What it might look like, were she not so irreparably broken...
And that was when Chara ignored her hand, and instead through her arms over her small shoulders, drawing her into an embrace. The warm security of the celestial caster's body, an unmoving pillar of determination and power, lured Lilica out of her initial shock. Somewhat unsteadily, she wrapped her own arms around Chara's waist, and pressed her forehead against her shoulder.
"I'd like that," she murmured, as her body slowly relaxed in the safety of Chara's embrace. "To see Stella D'Mare. If... if, and only if, it does not impede on your responsibilities." Though even if it did, Lilica was loathe to let go, and leave the temporary reassurance of the Rigas mage's arms.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
No! He blinked away the drifting of his mind that drew itself to that place, to that vivid memory. He shivered anew, and tensed his muscles as a brace against the cold. Even with Elespeth nearly melting into him, that supernatural chill stemmed from the chthonic forces within him, and would not so easily vanquish itself from his body. "I had owed her," he repeated, focusing on Elespeth, on the soft press of her skin, of her hot breath percolating through him, of her words, gentle and calm and reassuring. "She aided me in the use of my chthonic magic. And even though she," he paused, "had cursed you, I think I better understand that it was a lapse, a desperate assault, impulsive and brash, and so very much like what I would do. And she had suffered already for the repercussions. It's...forgiveness that will help her heal. So I," he glanced upwards, at where the lanterns, now shattered at their feet, once hung, "forgave her. Even if she doesn't see forgiveness now, or understands it, one day, she might." At least, I hope.
But he didn't dwell long on the long-term implications of Lilica's bruised psyche as Elespeth plucked his lips with her own, which he accepted readily, and proceeded to share her opinion on his current conundrum. And his eyes shaded over in sympathy. It had only been about two weeks ago, and much had occurred during that time frame, too much, thereby interfering with Elespeth's bereavement. Himself, he sat on the opposite end of the spectrum, and was given too much time to grieve the deaths of his parents. Three years. One of which he spent alone, and the remaining two he bided at the Rigas estate, where he had returned in defeat after having lost his will to live a life of his own. Control it. This life. I don't want it anymore. And that reasoning stuck with him--until he met Elespeth. She was his source of healing, a feat he would be unable to perform on his own and, he was certain, would result in his ultimate doom--adrift in an ocean of corpses within a bleeding void.
He had only hoped that he, too, provided some consolation to the brokenness in her soul caused by the loss of a loved one, and the guilt of believing that she could not save him.
"Elespeth," he moved his mouth, from her lips to her cheeks, where the spring of her tears drained from her eyes. He kissed that cheek, tasting the salt and the sting and the pain. "It won't stop--not this soon. Don't try to make it stop. Grieve; it's healthy. But," he traced her tears with his mouth, brushing them over her lips again, "don't go where I've gone. Don't let it tear you apart and almost kill you. Please." Then, he kissed her, all verve and vivacity and whatever the both of them lacked, in that moment. He made up for it by stoking the fire to blazing. Even though he still shivered in her arms. Even when he felt about to collapse.
Lilica was cold to the touch, like a sculpture made entirely of ice. Still, Chara persisted in the embrace, wondering if the intensity of her inner flame may cause the dark mage to melt. Into a tepid puddle, bright and gleaming and reflecting the entire world on its rippled surface. Would this woman ever see light dance, as it did on water? The magic, her magic--frankly, it terrified her. Not the nature of the magic itself, though she still struggled to glean anything positive from that slimy, hairy energy, but how it treated her with such blatant disregard for her life. How it manipulated, ate her from the inside, from the outside, scarred her, bled her dry, wounded her so irreparably...
She choked back the tears that threatened to spill and kept hold of her, regardless of who in camp witnessed the coming together of light and dark, in a hug.
"Do not blame this on yourself," she whispered, resting her chin atop Lilica's head. "That imbecile would have helped, regardless. And I am glad that he did. He looked out for you in my absence, for I cannot stalk you at all times, even if it is to ensure you made well on that promise. But," she dispelled the rising anger by pressing Lilica tighter to her body, "that is a thing of the past. We must look forward, Lilica. You and I, both. I shall plan for Stella D'Mare. But first, to ask the permission of Canopus."
"What of Canopus? Are you planning to shirk your duties?"
Chara balked openly when that jarring voice floated in the air, followed by the slow materialization of Lysander, who stood with arms crossed and foot pointed forward, tapping against the tamped down grass. She released Lilica with a start and jolted to her feet, that ire she had so admirably kept at bay exploding to the fore, and directed at her father.
"Lysander! I shall not hesitate to report you for voyeurism!"
"Ah, but it is my business to know of the goings-on in camp." Lysander transferred the tapping to upon his temple. "I am the eyes and the ears, working in Adalfieri's absence. It has its uses, too. Did you know," a conspiratorial grin hooked in his mouth, "that last night, your betrothed and that warrior of his engaged in coitus?"
Chara's cheeks grew pale and red at the same time. Sputters sparked from her like fireworks, pops and bangs and sound without words. "You. Are. Not. Helping!" she managed through her teeth, the fire that crackled in the pit turning a dangerous shade of red.
"But I am helping! Just listen!" He threw frantic hands into the air, positioned in surrender, pleading for her mercy. "You wish to go to Stella D'Mare? I am heading there, myself. Messino's spies are everywhere. The two of you," he glanced sidelong at Lilica, his expression unreadable, "need ample cover and stealth, and I am able to see you there undetected."
"No," she seethed, turning her back to him with a flourish she didn't believe she possessed, having relinquished all finesse in favor of that raw, smoldering rage. "We shall make it there, ourselves. Now leave, Lysander."
"I'd bet that your help and forgiveness is sacred to her," the former knight assured him, smiling through the streams of tears that stained her cheeks. "I know what it is like to want... to crave forgiveness. She is lucky that it was feasible for her to obtain..." Could Farrin ever forgive me for what I have done...? Her dreams, those horrid nightmares that left her wide awake at night and screaming, suggested the answer was no. But she would never know for sure... never.
But is there really time to grieve? Alster might have thought so, but when Elespeth looked at the big picture, her dear companion included and everything that he was going through... her loss seemed so minimal, in comparison. She couldn't afford to go there--particularly not on Alster's behalf. "I won't," she assured him, holding his chilled body closer to her own such that she could feel his heartbeat through her rib cage. "I can't. Not for as long as... you still need me." And not if it would render her brother's selfless sacrifice in vain, for that would be the ultimate dishonour to his life and legacy.
If she hadn't felt so empty, she might have felt shocked. Chara Rigas, the one person who she would have pegged to happily call out any and all of her short-comings, was defending her. Not only that but, furthermore, she was forgiving her. No praise or reassurance from the highest entity could have compared to that extent of validation, for the proud Rigas caster had no reason (let alone inclination) to pour out praises and reassurances. Particularly not when she had been responsible for harming the Atvanian traitor. along with engaging with Alster in a spar that could have killed her.
She did not deserve help; she did not deserve forgiveness. But she received it nonetheless, and while still convinced she was undeserving, she was no less grateful.
"Were it... had it been my choice, I'd have no magic, and nothing to do with it." She confided, murmuring into the celestial mage's shoulder, wishing she could shed tears, but there was nothing left inside her to expel. She was half-convinced that were she to be impaled, cut, nicked, there wouldn't even be blood left to leave her body. "It's all too toxic... it hurts everyone it touches, and I wish I had no part in it. Alster attempted to convince me that there was some good that could come of it, another side aside from darkness, but... I don't know if, realistically, that is true in my case. And even if it is... like you said, it has just been far too long. Some scars run too deep for even time to erase."
But how long? The gap in the chthonic caster's memory was wide and unknown, as if the darkness that resided within her had swallowed up a good portion for her life. She could remember the moment that she had opened her eyes that day, cold and confused and alone, not to mention in a time that felt almost unfamiliar... but she could not recall when her lids had shut, or anything that had happened in-between. Just how much of her life had she wasted under some enchantment? Chara would know. And not a day when by when she did not consider asking the Rigas caster to fill her in on what she had begged her to forget... but she was already too attached to aspects of her past. And if she had asked for help in forgetting, well, then there must have been a reason, and she was not sure she was ready to face it. At least, not right now.
Chara, however, was right: all that either of them could do was move forward. Wherever that would take them. "I don't know if I can say, in good confidence, that I have hope for recovery. Not at this point in my life," Lilica admitted with a quiet sigh. "But change... maybe. Maybe, something in me can still change. Or, at the very least, maybe I can make a change."
So quickly and stealthily did Lysander creep up on them that the dark mage nearly toppled over backwards, untangling herself from Chara's arms in haste. Swearing under her breath in surprise, she folded her arms out of self-conscious guilt. Just how long had the buffoon been standing there, eavesdropping on their conversation? How much had he heard? And what sort of berating reprimand was she to expect, knowing full well that this man, who bore such an uncanny resemblance to his daughter, was opposed in so many ways to her camaraderie with Chara?
Fortunately, she did not appear to be the object of his utmost attention, then and there, as he went on to argue his relevance and place within the encampment, wholeheartedly ignoring her in order to divulge a very juicy slice of gossip that seemed to raise Chara's core temperature to a point where it went through the roof. Lilica could practically feel the heat emanating from the celestial caster's cheeks, despite that she was no longer locked in her embrace, and she knew without needing to read her expression that her anger was just barely being kept at bay, just millimeters from erupting like the heat of a volcano. What in all hells was going through Lysander's mind that he would think for one second that it might be a good idea to tell Chara anything along those lines?! Was he looking for her rebuke?
And yet, the oaf had a point, she realized, as he went on. Invisibility, anonymity from Messino's spies... That was something that she had not considered, when she had jumped on Chara's suggestion that they pursue a short venture into Stella D'Mare. And, insufferable though his presence was... Lilica had to admit that perhaps the ridiculous man's presence and help would not be such a bad idea.
But she knew Chara, and knew that it was only a short matter of time before the celestial caster completely lost her head over her father's unhelpful comment... and, admittedly, his more helpful one. "Forget him," she murmured to the seething woman beside her, just loud enough for her to hear. "His word means nothing... Go to Canopus, inquire into the feasibility of taking a short leave."
As soon as Chara regained her cool (albeit rather deadly) composure, turning on her heel and leaving her father in her dust, the chthonic caster turned to Lysander, arms wrapped around themselves to ward off the cold that had settled so deep in her bones, she wondered if any fire could successfully thaw it. "If you wish to work yourself back into your daughter's life, then you are going about it all the wrong way," she mentioned, meeting the man's challenging gaze. "Keep your knowledge of Alster and the warrior to yourself; she already has her insecurities about the two of the. However..." Pressing her lips together, she took a moment to think long and hard, knowing that what she was about to suggest could very well compromise her growing rapport with Chara. "I will see if I can get her to agree to your aid in Stella D'Mare. We could use a little invisibiility, with Messino's goons running rampant."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was not that she refuted the information he had given her. Rather, it was the nature of how he dispensed it, from his tireless mouth to her unprepared ears. Alster and...her. And the warrior hadn't even bothered to mention that little detail!?
You have a strong tendency to overact to unpleasant news. Elespeth's words from earlier clawed into her head. She did not overreact. She reacted just fine, considering the sheer enormity of the news she'd been forced to swallow, as of late. Overreacting would have been to burn the entire camp down. Or the bearers of grim news. Messengers were rarely at fault for delivering unfortunate reports and did not deserve rebuke or punishment, but in this case, she'd gladly smite Lysander into a smudge of ash on the ground, were she able.
Chara walked into Canopus's tent, giving the guards posted at the entrance little warning to the man inside. "I am requesting a short leave," she said, almost forgetting to show her reverence and respect with a bow.
Canopus looked up from perusing a stack of papers at his desk, unperturbed, at least in face, to the flurry of her arrival. "This is rather sudden, Chara. Is this in response to your temporary reassignment?"
"Yes and no." She sighed, wringing out her hands as if they were soaked through and could only dry by squeezing every bit of moisture out of them. "I have done everything you have asked of me, what Adalfieri has asked of me, without complaint." Not to their faces, anyhow. "I have much to inform him of my time at Messino's camp, and while we are at a lull, I thought it best to travel to Stella D'Mare and give my report to him, in person. Furthermore, I would like to take the dark mage, Lilica, along with me, for she requests an audience with our great leader, as well," she lied. "I have one last request," she added, and the anger threatened to drench her into a boil, once again. "I absolutely do not wish to travel with Lysander. He is a disruption to this camp and deserves a violation for his unprofessional conduct. I will not see him as my escort."
Just before dawn, Chara and Lilica, with small packs over their shoulders, prepared to leave for Stella D'Mare...with Lysander in tow. Despite her protests, Canopus, who chose to overlook the suddenness of her unorthodox requests with magnanimity, stipulated that, in return for his leniency, she and Lilica were required to travel with Lysander, for "extra reassurance." In other words, he did not trust her! Yet, he was so willing to stand by Lysander, who, just days ago did not matter to the Rigas cause and, as far as she knew, was still a shameful excuse for a human, let alone a Rigas. So how did he garner Adalfieri's trust, Canopus's trust, so easily, when she had to work long, hard years just to have Adalfieri cough in her direction!?
She ground her teeth as Lysander spread a glittering blanket of etherea over their heads, all stars and swirls and whorls more majestic than the night sky that dimmed and dwindled to light.
"I am only able to cast this spell for short jolts at a time, so we must not tarry," Lysander informed them, triangulating their small formation by taking the lead, up front. Where she should have been standing!
"Do what you must, Lysander," Chara said with disinterest as she lined herself up next to Lilica. "Just know that, as per arrangement, you are not to talk to me about anything that in no way relates to the specifics of this mission. Is that clear?"
"Yes," he said, a wilt in his voice, like a flower that drooped and dropped until it touched the ground. He gave one last wistful look over his shoulder, at her, and trudged forward, towards the eastern horizon. "It will take us two days by foot to reach Stella D'Mare," he said, speaking to Lilica, who stood behind him, closer than where Chara dared to tread. "We may have to take a detour around the mountain, for I do not know how you will fare inside of the Serpent's den."
Elias woke to the sound of crying.
He rose from his cot, rubbing eyes which were dry save for the gunk that often collected after a night's rest.
The crying continued.
With a yawn, Elias planted his feet on the hard-pack of dirt and threw on a white undershirt, his jerkin, and a pair of boots.
The crying intensified.
Grabbing a small bundle, wrapped in a handkerchief, from atop his desk, Elias rounded to the flaps of his tent and drifted outside, into the hazy morning air.
Below him, a wretched little ball of matted black fur with four stubby legs turned a pair of weepy golden eyes up at him, and cried.
He crouched beside the mangy thing, who, by the sudden movement of the healer, recoiled in a relapse of fear, ready to bolt, but Elias unwrapped the bundle in his hand. Fatty pieces of roasted lamb shank that he had snuck out of the mess tent the night before rested on the cloth. Upon seeing the food, the cat retraced its lithe, yet shivering steps, and sat at the base of Elias's feet, mewing a low, mournful tone.
"No need to whine," Elias said, though his tone did not carry any of its requisite derision or snappishness. In fact, it sounded quite pleasant. Unburdened. He set the bundle beside the miserable creature, a tiny, lonely mess with its ribs exposed under the ripple of mangy fur, where large swatches, probably from a dog attack by the ones that roamed camp, exposed naked skin. The cat lifted its one good ear, the other shredded into ruin, and gratefully gobbled up the fat and grease and whatever other leftovers Elias was able to scrounge from that evening's dinner.
As the cat ate its meal, Elias slowly drifted his hand towards the top of its head, and patted it, gently, with small, circular strokes. "Well, third day is a charm, isn't it?" A small smile broke through the solemnity that encompassed the harsh veneer of his face on most days. "You trust me enough to pet you now. We are making some fine progress."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Come to think of it... she had never considered anyone to be a companion to her, until now.
It came as no surprise, the next morning, when Lysander appeared to not only be present for their small journey, but leading them to Stella D'Mare. Of course, this set Chara off on the wrong foot, and at that point, she was frankly surprised that this turn of events hadn't changed the celestial caster's mind. Counting it as a small blessing, she didn't dare question it. In fact, Lilica didn't utter a single word, up until the point where she was being addressed. Pausing to ascertain that Lysander was, in fact, speaking to her, the dark mage furrowed her brow at his unsolicited concern. "Do not think to assume what I can and cannot handle, when it comes to chthonic energies," she told him, lifting her chin ever so slightly--a habit that she was subconsciously picking up from Chara. After all, she had survived herself for long enough... and that was saying something, given how her magic, by nature, worked against her in the most detrimental of ways. "Two days of travel is too long; there is too much that could happen in that time. This Serpent is Alster's demon, not my own, and if it would mean a shortcut, then I beseech you reconsider."
Of course, she was not alone on this journey. Not about to exclude the one person who was making this happen, allowing her passage into a place that would otherwise see her excluded, Lilica turned to Chara for an opinion that mattered to her. "Unless, of course, you agree with your father's appraisal... I merely do not wish to waste too much of your time." Or, what she feared all the more, overstaying her welcome.
When she awoke the next morning, Daphni's body felt as though it had been under attack; beaten and run over and aching, like a giant bruise. It was a good moment before she could sit up, let alone stand, hardly trusting her vertebrae to properly align and hold her upright. Fortunately, her limbs remained assembled when she leaned, standing, against a table for support, and taking a step forward was not so frightening as she thought. Luck truly must have been on her side, for no sooner did she straighten the wrinkles in her garb, and smooth the sleep tangles from her hair, that one of her clan sisters--an older woman, the one who had directed Lilica toward Sybaian help, parted the flaps of her tent, unannounced. "Cedra..." She barely manage to disguise the surprise in her voice as she turned to acknowledge her superior with a respectful nod. "Good morning."
"Several days since you have become aware that you have been directed to fight with Stella D'Mare in the next battle... and not once, have I witnessed you pick up your weapon in practice or training." The elder Sybaian's voice was flat and accusatory, and before Daphni could respond, she seized her wrist, and her weathered brow furrowed in tandem with her frown. "No sickness... but you are weak. If you prove unfit to take an offensive position against Messino's army, then you can stand aside and I will see that you are replaced."
Daphn's arm dropped to her side, and her formerly afflicted heart accelerated. "I am fit and willing to take on this fight," she assured the older woman, managing to maintain that unflappable Sybaian calm. "I have, of late, endured late nights, but I am keen on putting an end to that. In fact, I have plans to train today. Rest assured, I will not let the Sybaia or Stella D'Mare down."
"See that you do not." Cedra's words were a warning, and not one missed upon Daphni's ears. Sybaian standards were high... It was one thing to deem someone--such as Lilica--unfit for their help. It was quite another to fail due to negligence in precautions. And, more often than not, the consequence was unpardoned exile from the Sybaian clan. They had gone for too long, building upon their name and prestige for centuries, to have their general outlook sullied by one foolhardy healer... And Daphni knew full well that her clan would jump at any opportunity to excommunicate her; she needed to tread carefully, and to watch her back. "Though," Cedra went on, "I would not advise you pick up your scythe wearing your cassock."
The elder Sybaia left without another word, and Daphni was quick to shed her robes in favor of a more fitted attire, the same blue and white that signified the Sybaia, but with leggings and tight sleeves. Flexible enough to encourage mobility and flexibility, but no less gleaming with the pride of her clan.
And, speaking of noteworthy colours...
She spotted him on the way to the weapons tent, but doubted her instincts until she moved closer. The aura haloing the crimson-clad healer glowed softly in a shade between peace and happiness... So unusual for him, and the encampment in general. It drew her towards him, towards that warmth that she almost wished she could touch, until she wandered too close, and her cover was blown. Daphni responded to Elias's confusion and mild annoyance with a smile. "Ah. So your secret is out," she couldn't help but tease him, kneeling to gently scratch the skittish cat behind the ears. "This is a side of you I never would have predicted, Elias. A fondness for animals... the peace it brings you sheds a pleasant light on your aura. Don't spoil it with that frown. Do the rest of your kin know that you've adopted the resident feral cat as your own?"
Distracted as the mangy cat was by the food that Elias had placed in front of it, Daphni was able to kneel and gently scratch it behind the ears. It was seldom that an animal feared any of the Sybaia, though the reasons as to why that was remained unknown. Some theorized that they could connect with anyone else able to connect on the primal level of existence; auras, life essence, and the way it changed and interacted with the energies that surrounded them. "Before you say anything, ignore the garb; I'm not over-exerting myself physically today. Just making it look as though I'm going to, to keep prying eyes off my back." Rising to her feet, the Sybaian healer dusted her knees off. "I wanted to thank you. You ran off too quickly yesterday for the sake of your pride."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I only mention the alternate route because Alster took ill after we led him through the passage," he said, disguising the annoyance and...the fear that tangled in his throat. "I will not reject the possibility that he reacted to the beast's chthonic energies--even if it was merely a reaction of the mind for him. But," he sighed, and raised his hands to reinforce the barrier, "discuss your course of action. I am but an envoy, after all. Chara is still in charge of this foray."
How thoughtful of you, Lysander, Chara seethed in her head, all the more infuriated that he play-acted her importance, a condescending ploy that reminded her of the one time, the only time, he engaged her in a game of pretend. "Command me, oh great and powerful leader, he had said, bowing under her prepubescent scrutiny as he lay, prostrate, at her feet.
But she was no longer a child, and her nose wrinkled at his words. She said nothing to them, however, refusing to deign to Lysander's meddling expectations. He wanted a rise out of her, probably assuming that negative attention was still attention, and she would not fall to his bait, and play his childish game of pretend. He was delusional to believe that he could salvage any relationship between them. Nothing. There was nothing...
She turned to Lilica, granting her the fervor of her undivided attention. "Alster is highly susceptible to the Serpent's influence, but that is due in part to his blood bond with the hellish creature. And the Serpent cannot escape its bindings. It should not be able to touch you. After all, I am certain our city harbors a few dark mages of some renown, and they have not reported anything amiss. Though," she sucked on the inside of her cheek, "they are a secretive lot. For good reason, I suppose. Most citizens of Stella D'Mare do not even believe the Serpent is a threat at all. Merely a sleeping volcano, active yet dormant."
Yet, something did disturb her. Not long after Alster awakened the Serpent and departed Stella D'Mare in shame, with his parents in tow, Adalfieri had announced that the Serpent slumbered once more, but that it was a light sleep, and his spell would take some time to culminate in that deep trance of hibernation that the city enjoyed prior to Alster's disturbance. And while she originally chalked it up to paranoia and trauma, she recalled one of Alster's chilling remarks upon his return to Stella D'Mare, two years ago. It's still awake. The Serpent...I feel it moving.
She shivered in the early morning air and wrapped the ends of her traveling cloak tighter against her arms. "We shall make an attempt to travel through the passage. If it is not feasible, then we shall elect for the long route around the mountain."
They set off east, towards the humps in the distance, among them their destination. The going was quiet, mostly strained, but Lysander encouraged a surreptitious gait and a silent mouth, for the territory surrounding their camp could be littered with Messino's men, and while Chara gathered intelligence on every single caster in his unit, down to their skill-set, it was possible that a few among his ranks could sense their presence, and peel away the protective layer of Lysander's magic.
Therefore, they crept along and skirted past the rises and ditches in their arid, uneven landscape, keeping a furtive eye out for any aberrations in their view. Only when they confirmed an all clear did Lysander, after crouching behind a rock, drop his shield. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and directed his breathing, in out in out, so that they would not suspect how much the spell had taxed him. It had been many years since he utilized his magic in full. And, like a muscle, it needed to be stretched, maintained, strengthened. Supporting three people instead of just himself had, predictably, bled him nearly dry.
He slumped against the rock and looked up at Chara and Lilica. "Be on your guard. The shield is down. We will rest here, for a bit. Just until I recharge."
"Useless," Chara muttered, and roved her eyes to the wavering scorch of the land that threw its inexorable heat in every direction.
Elias did not feel nor sense the eyes quick enough, and almost jumped up in alarm when he saw Daphni there in his periphery, the drone of her voice rolling over her tongue with that dry wit that he, too, favored. To make matters worse, the cat, who he predicted would skitter away after Daphni's unwarranted interruption, stayed behind, leaning into her ear rub with half-closed eyes and a purr. A perturbed glimmer shone in his eyes, as his brow furrowed. It took him three days to build the cat's trust. Meanwhile, it had taken her a mere minute?
His irritation only heightened when she assessed his mental state, but his agitation intermixed with something else, as well. It tingled at his cheeks, threatening to show off its rosy sheen before he could snuff away the flitting of his undesired reaction. Had he the option to choose a jab to the arm with his medical instrument or her continuous, insufferable comments on his emotional well-being, he'd take the former, for an open, bleeding wound was less probing, less vulnerable. Less painful.
"Guilty," he said, the austerity of his complexion returning, in full force, in rebellion against her light admonition. "Take me to the chopping block, for this infraction is unforgivable. Yes," he cleared his throat, redirecting his attention to the cat, who ate merrily and enjoyed the attention with just as much enthusiasm. "I enjoy animals. There is a simplicity to them. They do not force their way into your mind in order to manipulate your emotions," he jeered, shooting a glare at Daphni. "I have not adopted him, nor does my Order know. He is scrawny. Unwell. I do not even know how he came to be here, at this camp. Perhaps he rode on a supply wagon from Stella D'Mare. This landscape is too harsh for him to survive on his own."
Realizing he expressed too much interest in the welfare of the cat, he looked away, feeling some measure of discomfiture, and was relieved when she had changed the subject. He brought his attention back to her, scrutinizing her outfit, at the form-fitting fabric, and how it accentuated the contours of muscles that aligned her body in all the right places. Stop. Do not ogle. She will know! He turned down his eyes, back to the cat, who chewed on its last piece of lamb. He busied himself by pulling the wrinkles out of the handkerchief that served as the cat's serving platter. "Good." He pulled at another wrinkle. "Make sure it stays that way. But do not speak to me of pride. Your nosy clan practically oozes it out of your pores. Nonetheless, I'll take your thank you. You're welcome."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was true, that darkness could call to darkness... but she was no Summoner of demons. Born of loathing and curses, she was practically a demon, herself.
The chthonic caster found herself holding her breath, at times, as they ventured onward in silence. She did not know the extent of his stealth abilities, and wondered if despite that they were not seen, if they could still be heard. Her footfalls were light and purposeful as she walked abreast Chara, and with every step, it felt curiously as though they were getting nowhere. There are so few landmarks on this arid, deserted plane... Does he even know where he is going? She had invested blind faith in Chara, but did that really have to generalize to the celestial mage's father, particularly if she did not seem keen on his presence?
It was a rhetorical question that went unanswered, and by the time Lilica had pried herself out of her own mind, they were stopping, Lysander panting and sweating and slouching against a rock like he had run a marathon. She understood that sort of fatigue; it left you exhausted for days, just as she had been following the night that Alster had fled Messino's encampment in pursuit of his warrior lover. "Are you well?" The words were out of her mouth before she could think better of it. It was not so much that she was concerned, rather than she felt it necessary to acknowledge his help... however aggravating the man might be. "We can all use some rest; we've traveled all day. Take the time you need to recover."
That was a far cry from Chara's appraisal of his supposed failure, but she could not blame her for the way he so colloquially brought up the intimate relations between the warrior and her betrothed. He would have to learn that brutal honesty was no way back into Chara's life; she had trouble digesting and processing anything that she would consider "bad news", and he, of all people, should have known not to touch the topic of Alster's controversial affair. Sometimes, father's just didn't understand that--
"What?" Lilica's jaw dropped, her eyes widened, and her thoughts came to a halt as soon as she averted her gaze to the horizon. No... impossible. He's... I thought I... But so many years have passed... She was seeing things; perhaps she was going mad. Anything was a more feasible explanation than witnessing her father--or rather, her mother's husband--standing just yards away. And exactly the same way that he had looked the very last time that she saw him... before he was covered from head to toe in his own blood. "No. No, y-you're..."
"Just stay outside for a while, so that your mother might tidy up our home." His voice was soft, cajoling, as if he was speaking to a child. In fact... those very words, in that tone, struck her as familiar. "We won't be long. You're a good girl, aren't you, Lilica? Surely you can amuse yourself in the snow. Don't come in until we come for you."
Yet they never came...
Panicked, the dark mage turned her body and attention towards Chara... only to find her celestial companion looking at her with confusion and concern. "Chara," she breathed, about to ask her how it was possible, how could a dead man from a century ago be standing before her in--
He was gone.
Lilica felt cold sweat trickle down the back of her neck, and suddenly felt chilled to the bone--moreso than what she was used to. I didn't just see him. I'm overtired, overworked. I'm... "...never mind. I thought... I saw someone." She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, conveying a nonchalance that she didn't really feel. "I was wrong. Must be the heat of the afternoon, getting to me."
She made him uneasy; not something that, in all honesty, any of the Sybaia could claim they had not grown accustomed to over years of their practice. Though she was far from admitting it, Daphni's formerly besieged heart sank a fraction as the peace on the Clematis healer's face hardened, until naught remained by that stony expression that seemed to guide his demeanor. Army encampments were particularly hard on the souls and minds of empathic healers, with all of the anger and despair, the trauma and pain, and pining for better, gentler, happier times... Encountering a rare moment of heartfelt clarity, an almost spiritual peace, was akin to a cooling balm on a burn. It made her regret opening her mouth at all, having wished she could have vicariously basked in Elias's peace for just a little longer...
"Elias. You treat me as though I am adept in masterfully manipulating those around me to feel what I want them to feel." Daphni heaved a heavy sigh from her heavy chest and stood, leaving the cat to finish its meal. "I cannot read your mind; I can only read your aura, and feel your state of mind. Whatever it may be... The change in your state of heart and mind is entirely up to you. The Sybaia merely serve as vessels to ease the path of bottled-up sentiments and untie the knots of feelings you might not even have realized you had, at all. After all," she lifted her shoulders in a shrug, cedar-coloured hair falling behind her shoulders. "If I could influence how you felt, then I would be inclined to wipe that frown off of your face and smooth the lines in your brow immediately. I'd much rather be in the presence of peace... which is seldom attainable, in an encampment for war."
She needn't deal with such blatant animosity; Elias made it more than clear that he preferred to keep yards and yards of distance between the two of them. When he turned his attention to her, for that brief moment, she was almost inclined to think otherwise. As opposed to cold disinterest mirrored in those hazel eyes, he seemed... well, she might have mistaken it for interest, of some sort. But the moderate change in his aura flickered in and out too quickly for her to be certain. "Do you see me denying that my clan is guilty of the vice of pride?" Daphni raised an eyebrow, and her lips twitched into a tight, defensive line. "Of course we are proud. We have endured centuries of grueling practice as well as ridicule and have earned our pride. Call us proud, but do not deign to claim we are nosy. You really have no idea, do you?"
Of course he didn't; nobody beyond the Sybaia clan, or more specifically, the Sybaian women themselves, understood. And yet, she wanted to make him understand. "Can you imagine, just for a second, finding yourself unable to look at a person without knowing their state of mine? Or not being able to touch someone, however lightly, without feeling pain of which they might not even be aware?" Or fearing to form friendships, romances, lest you end up all the more hurt by human error and betrayal? Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss. And it often left her to wonder how different a person she would have been, had she, like the rest of the world's sentient beings, simply been able to take everything from face value. Nothing beneath the surface of skin...
It must be nice. "Believe me, many of us would prefer to shut ourselves away from the world. There is too much pain, too much darkness, and not enough good. So take solace in the fact that, contrary to your appraisal, we don't want to know the business of your heart and mind. But we are helpless but to see it, to hear it, and to feel it." The Sybaian healer felt heat creep into her cheeks, and she looked away in embarrassment. Why did she feel the need to explain herself to him? What did his opinion of her matter anymore than anyone else's?
It didn't. And she had nothing to prove.
Rolling her shoulders back, Daphni took a step to the side, so as not to startle the mangy cat as it finished its much needed meal, and looked ahead towards the weapons tent. "Regardless of your ignorance... my gratitude stands. Though if you are open to receiving some constructive criticism... you might see a difference in your own practice if you adapted the manner in which you treat that cat to your bedside manner with your patients." Not that she was one to talk, but if he was going to throw stones, then she was always of half a mind to throw them right back.
Can't even hold a smile long enough to maintain a moment... But most of all, perhaps, she was bitter (and disappointed) that he spoiled his own moment of peace, that she vicariously experienced in his presence. And all because he couldn't stand the sight of her.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
So he fell. He fell from up high, down to the earth, and while there, he plucked a young maiden, a servant girl, from the tree of desire, and drank her juices dry. They made love and he had impregnated her, poor unsuspecting Mariana, a troubled soul even before he met her. And while it was not a result he had planned, he used that pregnancy, used her, in order to evade responsibility by entangling himself in a different responsibility. They married, out of necessity, and she gave birth to a useless lump of little magical renown. Chara, the ill-made result of his and Mariana's twisted union. The culmination of their "love." And it was not love. Just an empty vessel, devoid of the magic that love oft churned into being. Chara: the vessel of wasted potential.
But she did not waste, and her potential overflowed, and could not be contained. She wanted what he, so long ago, had possessed and ultimately rejected. And now, she was a pawn--what she wanted. And he would follow her, even if it compromised his own values, by treading down that same path. They could use him until he had nothing left to give. So long as Chara...so long as she found the joy she so sought to obtain. The joy that he had failed to give, aside from her name.
"I am fine," he told Lilica, after a few more controlled breaths. But he watched a change come over Chara's disquieting companion. She shivered like a distant image in the bake of the sun. He almost thought she would disappear. And her face: rigid, wan, and wide. The rictus of terror trembling at her mouth. "But are you well?"
"Lilica," Chara touched her shoulder, peering into her line of vision, trying to break the illusion that captivated her so profoundly. "What is it? What do you see?"
It seemed to break apart, whatever she thought she saw in the distance, but Chara did not release her shoulder, nor was comforted by the dismissal that guttered in Lilica's strained voice. "Here," she handed the dark mage a waterskin, "drink. Sit down. Rest. This heat is bound to unseat anyone's state of mind." Though she did not sound convinced. What had Lilica seen? What--
"Get down!" Lysander ordered. In reflex, Chara grabbed Lilica and threw them both to the bumpy, rock-strewn ground, ignoring the jutting points that jabbed at her arms and chin. She only saw a flicker of etherea, white and ghostly and undulating, like a colorless wisp that on occasion rippled in the night sky--usually in greens and purples. No sound, no explosion. Just silence--save for a pained cry that sounded just yards away from them.
Lysander, who had jumped to his feet, turned to them, his face wan and wet with sweat, his legs swaying as if he had just stepped off a rickety ship and did not adjust them to the land. His breath was husky, rattled, wheezy. Behind him, two men lay on the ground, no visible injuries, no sign of a struggle--but she was certain they were both dead.
"Thank you, Lilica," he managed through teeth that shivered, despite the relentless heat and humidity of the day. "You inadvertently alerted me to those men. But we should move. Move away. This area...too dangerous--"
His legs gave out from under him, and he collapsed.
"Fa--Lysander!" Chara scrambled to his side and propped him against the rock, feeling for the pulse at his throat. A slow churn, like ice sheets breaking on the river after a long winter freeze, but nonetheless, his heart was beating. She swallowed a lump of relief--though she would never admit it. "Dammit. We will have to stay here until he recovers. If he is awake by nightfall, we shall continue to move forward." She looked pitifully at Lilica. "Some vacation, huh? But--did you really see those men out there? Or...something else?"
Elias suppressed the urge to sigh, a long, low, groan of intent, for he anticipated the makings of a rant hanging from Daphni's lips. They parted, and he allowed her the opportunity, though he much wanted to walk away and enjoy the remains of his interrupted morning in the peace and quiet from which it had begun. She rather reminded him of his housemate back at the tiny barracks in Stella D'Mare which housed the refugees from St. Thorne: a loud, incessant talker who spoke out of the love of oration and seldom shared anything of importance. Daphni was alike in many ways, only her wordy discourse was lined with an underlying intent, so determined was she to prove herself worthy that she didn't realize she was sputtering insecurities, peppering the air with them, in fact. They tickled his nose so, that he wanted to sneeze in response.
"Unbenownst to you, you are able to manipulate emotions, simply by observing what you see in one's aura, and reporting those findings out loud. Do you really believe that one will not react to your unsolicited approach at conversation? In my experience, not many people wish to know their emotions, especially from the mouth of a third-party. Unless I ask you, or unless I am your patient, please refrain from telling me how I am doing. That is for me to tell you, however wrong the answer." After the cat had finished its meal, Elias folded up the handkerchief in hurried squares.
"This differs from physical healing. Usually, patients want a gaping flesh wound no more than I would like to see them with one. Emotions, as I'm sure you are aware, are a more complicated, gray area. I needn't tell you twice to tread carefully. And," he rose to his feet, to stand at her level, her height, "do not rely on my alleged happiness and then blame me when I dare to feel an emotion that does not meet your approval. And while I may not feel to your extent, I have seen my share of pain, despair, horror, hatred, ultimate betrayal." He almost spit those last words into fruition. "Most citizens who survived the siege of St. Thorne never again want to feel. And your existence...it just reinforces the pain." By then, the cat had fled, as if sensing the negative energies generated by the two healers. "How is that for empathy? Do I share in your concerns?"
Whether from the strain of raising his usually soft-spoken and calm voice or from another matter entirely, his chest throbbed like a black and purple bruise, sending dull aches throughout his body. His lungs constricted, shuttering his source of breathing as they filled with an ocean of viscous mucous, ready to expel from his mouth until his insides shredded to bits, until he gasped and struggled and contemplated puncturing his throat, so that he could breathe.
"Go," he managed with a raspy strain, and fled through the flaps of his tent. Grabbing a clean handkerchief at his desk, he coughed, struggling to muffle the sound, to buffer his condition until it whispered like a harmless flutter in the wind. But his throat growled, it gurgled. The sound slashed and bubbled. It bowled him over, and he folded into himself, clutching the desk for support with one hand, and throwing every hack and sibilation into his handkerchief. He coughed and coughed, blood soaking the cloth. He coughed himself dizzy, feeling the equilibrium leave his ears. He coughed while his heart cried, and tears pricked his eyes, and bile drew in his raw, bleeding throat.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I... I'm sorry..." Snapping out of the fugue that the hallucination had drawn over her eyes, the chthonic caster turned to Lysander, at the very moment that the once-proud Rigas mage collapsed... Following Chara's lead, she rushed over to his fallen form, and was relieved to find that he seemed all right, albeit beyond exhausted. Exerting all of that energy and magic to safely see them this far, on top of saving their lives because she had been too foolish to duck and cover. Useless... if anyone here is useless, it is me. And she was the entire reason why this venture was being made in the first place; she had begged Chara to come, and Lysander... well, he had wanted to come as well. But for his daughter's sake, and not that of an untrustworthy dark mage.
Why was it that she seemed to draw anyone and everyone who cared, who tried to help her, into her abysmal void of no hope? "Don't be angry with him. It's my fault. I thought... I don't know what I thought I saw, on the horizon." It was entirely possible that Chara would call her on her lie, but that was a risk that she was willing to take, for the alternative of owning up to the fact she thought she had seen her dead stepfather was decidedly less appealing. And did not bode well for her sanity. "I'm tired, I got distracted... and now that we're safe, I think some rest would do us all good."
Taking a seat against a rock, feeling its jagged spires jutting into her back, Lilica wiped the cold sweat from her brow, and ventured a glance at Lysander; unconscious and pale, but otherwise, all right. "As foolhardy as he may be... he saved our lives, you know. And that is far beyond anything that my own father would have done." When the celestial mage took a seat next to her, she inadvertently shifted her body such that her shoulder pressed against Chara's. "When I was four years old, I recall spending time outside in the dead of winter, on a snowy day. I was cold, but when I asked to come inside, my father... well, stepfather, told me to stay outside for just a little longer, while my mother tidied up the house. I can't recall what happened in-between, but night fell, and it grew colder... and if not for the concern of a neighbour who had noticed I was alone and in the cold, who banged on the door until my parents answered, I might not have made it. And yet..." She trailed off, the memory tightening her voice. A memory that she hated to revisit, yet which suddenly stared her in the face. "It wasn't until some years later that I realized he--they--had tried to kill me, that night. Hoped to kill me. But even the pneumonia with which I had become afflicted could not burn out the dark flame that kept me going."
Once again, her eyes fell on Lysander, even as it was Chara who she addressed. "Your father has obviously made some mistakes--perhaps a lot of mistakes. But in his own sordid way, and on his own twisted terms... I do think he cares for you, Chara. I could be wrong; I don't know what that feels like. But it does seem that way." And if I deserve another chance... then he certainly does.She did not say as much, not when Chara had her own, long-established opinions on the man and the matter, but it was implied. "Not to mention... he did just save our lives."
Hurt. That was the closest that Daphni could come to describe what she felt in that moment--how she felt, not he. And, perhaps, a twinge of anger. Anger towards his vitriol which, somehow, had managed to find a way past her carefully constructed shields, that all but impenetrable wall that protected her from her very own feelings. After all, it was far too taxing, mentally, emotionally and physically, to endure the onslaught of sentiments and feelings surrounding her, as well as her own emotional responses. It was common among the Sybaia, and often, necessary for survival, given the very nature of their practice and profession, to the point where 'burn out' held an entirely different, and far more dire meaning. Daphni was, fortunately, among the better practiced at the art of maintaining a thick skin.
That was, at least, what she had thought. Until this Clematis healer's harsh opinions and palpable disdain for her very existence sliced through the layers of calluses that she had built over the years like a brand new blade through fragile skin.
But she was not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing his words had made an impact. The Sybaian healer's face remained composed and stoic, not so much as a twitch of a microexpression betraying the fact that Elias's words had hit their mark. And with nothing more to say to him, she prepared to walk past and leave him in cold silence. It was times like these that she wished people such as himself could feel what she felt, and know the consequence of inflicting emotional harm.
One foot in front of the other, Daphni walked away from him... and only made approximately six paces before she heard Elias dash into his tent, followed by a violent, wet hacking that stalled her movement immediately. Don't do it, her reason cautioned her. His illness was his own business, and not a business that he wished to have known to others, not to mention she had been pushing herself far too hard for the past handful of days. The bloke could well deal with it on his own.
He could... couldn't he?
Daphni's feet moved of their own accord as she hurried back towards the terrible, gut-wrenching sound, and she found Elias doubled over, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to his mouth. A cough, he had said... It had not been a lie, she would give him that inch. But only an inch, for she was not about to leave him to suffer this attack on his own.
Without a word of preamble, the Sybaian healer took a hold of his shoulders from behind, steadying his body against her own. The shock of raw suffering that cut through to her bones. "Let me in," she breathed into his ear, staggering backwards one step when his body threatened to collapse."Let me in, Elias, or you will regret that you didn't."
The Clematis healer complied, and before Daphni knew it, she was spiraling through an abyss of fear and doubt and helplessness. Like thorns on her skin, it prickled and pinched in all of the most painful places, but she endured, and continued to follow the spiral, all the way to its source. Chronic sickness. Deadly, unrelenting... These attacks were commonplace, but she could feel the hammering of his heart through the back of his rib cage, and knew he was not long for the world of the waking if she did not act now. He was too fragile for her to venture too deep, to the very core of his illness in an attempt to dispel it forever, but she could end this episode. She could buy him time.
"Let go of it. The fear." Daphni prompted him gently, breaking his fall with her own body when he sank to his knees. "Let go and give it to me. Let me deal with it... trust me."
She waited, she endured.. and finally, she felt it. That knot in his psyche that maintained this state of panicked, hopeless terror. She took a hold of that knot, untangled it, and the energy rushed through her body in waves of white hot pain. It receded as his panic began to drain, like pus from a wound, until all that was left was mutual exhaustion in the wake of the coughing fit, which had passed. The episode was over.
"The Clematis," Daphni breathed, dazed and shaking from the effort that she should not have exerted. "They would have you excommunicated, if they knew... so you keep quiet, deal with it on your own. But, Elias..." She stared sightlessly ahead, over his shoulder, her chest still pressed against his back as his body had yet to pull away from her support. "You cannot. Not forever.... and you know this."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He was under a typical caster fugue, overtaxed after expelling too much energy all at once. Recovery was a sure thing for him. And yet...she backtracked on the memory of just moments before, when Lysander, despite his exhaustion, threw himself to the balls of his feet and cast a complex spell, just so that noise and light would not alert any other enemy forces with the gleaming beacon of etherea. Chara--her magic was not so subtle, or sophisticated. Far from it. Were it just her and Lilica, as she had originally planned, there was a possibility that they could have sustained grave injuries. Or worse yet, succumbed to death.
She bit her lip when Lilica, who slotted in between herself and Lysander, her withered shoulder grazing her own, recounted a grim tale of her stepfather. Somehow--and she couldn't explain how she knew--she had some inkling that what Lilica saw on the horizon...was him. A haunting, an apparition, sizzling to life in this deathly wasteland.
"How dare he," she rumbled under her breath, her jaw tightening, causing her teeth to scrape against each other. "And this man called himself your stepfather? I--that is positively horrendous! A mere child. What--" She culled the rising of her anger by looking again at Lysander, at his brow knitting together in troubled, twisted discomfort. She pressed a hand against the sheen of sweat that beaded his forehead, and sighed. "Lysander, he--" she paused, feeling shame that her grievances with her father seemed, in comparison to Lilica, so slight, so inconsequential. "I do not believe he ever loved me, as a child. He tolerated me, but he never let me forget that my very existence was a useless one. And that my magical inheritance would never serve me. I would not amount to anything. And, after my mother died, he was adamant in keeping me forever at the bottom. 'You're safe down here,' he told me. 'You'll only end up like your mother if you exhaust your magic too much. It is not meant to be trifled with.' Never supportive. Just...shackling. Oppressive. Unyielding."
A twitch of an embarrassed smile crossed her face. "I suppose that is a non-issue, in comparison to your childhood. Nonetheless, I still cannot say I'm quite ready to...forge a relationship with him. All my insecurities, all my doubts--they stem from him. Yet, all my successes--they never would have happened if I hadn't been so hellbent on proving him wrong." She tore away from him and pressed herself against Lilica, redirecting her vision to the horizon, which wavered and distorted their view of Stella D'Mare. "One day, perhaps. For now...let us just concentrate on reaching Stella D'Mare without further incident."
That evening, Lysander had awakened. A groggy moan ruptured through him as he sat up and clutched his head, nursing a massive headache. "How long--"
"It has been eight hours." Chara about threw a waterskin at him as she rose to her feet. "I shall give you a little bit of time to gain your bearings, and then we will again be on our way."
He took the waterskin and drank greedily from it. All the while, Chara looked at him, a frown of thought and concentration lining the austerity of her mouth.
"Oh, and Lysander?" A blush threatened to stain her cheeks. "Perhaps you are not so useless, after all." Quickly, her head swerved away, snapping from his line-of-sight before she could gauge his reaction.
She heard a grateful smile in his voice. "And you never were."
The flask. Where was the flask? The hand which steadied Elias searched blindly on the desk for the elixir that would put an end to the spasms that tore him in two with such merciless abandon. His eyes fused closed, the sting of tears adhering to his eyelids. Still, he groped for the medicine, strained for it, while his lungs demanded more than what his purging cough could handle. The sawing motions of his throat, the layers of friction burning off, burning deeper, the kneading of his heart, like dough in a breadmaker's hands, pounding, pounding against the table...
Would he survive this bout? Was there an end?
Then, he felt a supportive hand clutching his shoulders. Panic set in, wrenched his coughs out of him in a throaty roar, and he feared that every heave took him one step closer to forever losing the ability to speak.
Even now, he could say nothing, could not tell her (for he knew it was Daphni), to find his medicine flask and, with dread, only saw for himself two options: he waited out the episode, or he allowed her to help.
Let me in.
I don't want you anywhere near me!
You will regret that you didn't.
Regret? Pah! So I regret. It won't be the first time!
Despite his obstinance, his resistance to the insistent probe of her invasive energies, he began to lose his fight. And, with a shiver of surrender, he opened his mind to her, and let her inside.
The memory returned.
St. Thorne.
He buried them, his brothers, fully knowing the risk. Disease latched to their pallid, stiffened bodies like a second skin. They smelled of sour milk, of something sweet and rotting, like the day old fruit sold at market when the flies began to buzz. Already, flies alighted on their closed eyelids. A bilious fluid filled his mouth, but despite the unease, he carried them, one by one, into a mass grave. So many had perished, no longer was there space to bury them with dignity, under etched markers in the vast gardens of the Palace of Eternity. He dumped them, like common criminals, in burlap sacks tied at the head and feet. Their bodies slurped and squelched as they fell, down, down, into hell. And as they made their final descent, they cursed him. Take our ails...and die with them.
But some soothing light, in the shape of a clematis flower, drifted down from on high, from where the sun had illuminated its variegated petals. It blocked his vision of the ill, the infirm, the dead, dying, and the unfortunate few who lived. He reached out, and slid a finger against a silken petal.
He opened his eyes, to the shade and silence of his tent.
The episode had cleared. No more coughing, no more spitting, no more blood or heaving or unbearable compression in his chest.
And he became aware, acutely aware, of Daphni holding him upright, from behind.
"Daph--ni," he rasped, able to speak, but it felt like knives stabbing at the blisters of a burn. He clutched at his throat, noticing that his hand, as well as his arms, and the entirety of his body, was trapped in a mass of trembles. He felt feverish and hot, bleary, weary, about ready to fade from the world--for just a little while.
"Next time," he said, and pointed to the flask that sat on the counter, which he could now see through the thin film of water in his eyes, "just give me...that. No magic...I will not heal this with magic. Magic...worsens it. Even yours. Either way," he closed his eyes, and a bitter smile tilted his blood-stained lips, "I am on borrowed time."
He made it to his feet, brushing off Daphni's help, and, after taking a sip from his medicine flask, grabbed for a tin of water at his bedside. He swayed as he drank it down, even when the prospect of swallowing made him want to banish the thought of ever swallowing again. "You did not...have to help. But you are...a healer. I understand." He set aside his bloody handkerchief and, with disgust, planted his hands in a water basin he also kept at his bedside. "But magic can't cure disease. However...I suppose...thank you," he admitted, still keeping his back turned from her, as if ashamed to meet her eyes. "And tell no one. A secret in exchange for a secret."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But forgiveness could not be forced, or else it was not forgiveness at all. And second chances... well, even forgiveness, however genuine, did not guarantee those. Chara's family business was not her business, and in any case, it was not her place to tell her what to do. This was, as the celestial caster had said, something that would come in time (and all Rigases seemed to have was time; if it was not on their side, then surely, it favoured no one. "Comparing my upbringing--if you can even call it that--to yours is as futile as comparing day and night," was all she offered, cluing in that Chara was eager to conclude the conversation. "But if... if you truly believe that the likes of me deserves a second chance, then even a buffoon like your father can't be held hostage forever by his shortcomings. I am willing to bet he already feels remorse for them."
They waited a good, eight hours at that stagnant rock. Night had fallen by the time Lysander came to, and his hot-headed daughter was loathe to show forgiveness or appreciation either way. Their conversation was brief, from what Lilica overheard, but by the smile the elder Rigas wore on his face when his daughter walked away, it could not all have been stones thrown back and forth. After Chara took her distance to cool her heels, the chthonic mage took the opportunity to kneel before the exhausted Rigas, eyes downcast. "I nearly got us caught... had it been only Chara and I, we might have been killed. On an excursion that is largely being made for my sake. Because... I asked Chara to come with me. So that, for once in my pathetic excuse for a life, I don't have to be alone."
With an inhale, followed by a long exhale, she raised her field of vision to encompass Lysander as she got to her feet, offering the Rigas caster a hand. Chara was already fidgeting an pacing, as eager to get to Stella D'Mare as Lilica was. "So listen now, because you may never hear it from me again, but... thank you. For saving our lives. Chara might not express it, but I know that she is grateful, as well."
Mere moments later, they were on their feet again, treading through the darkness and the chill of night, onward towards Stella D'Mare. Ever alert, even in spite of his exhaustion, Lysander had no trouble in guiding them to the underground shortcut up to the regal city. The closer they came to that entrance at the bottom of a mountain, the colder the air seemed to become... for Lilica, at least. Even before Lysander turned around to warn her that they were about to enter the lair where the Serpent slept and was contained, she knew that something about the place seemed terribly off. And for the first time since they set off, she wondered if she had made the wrong choice, risking the effect of the Serpent's lair in favour of a shorter journey.
Lysander did not need to know she felt afflicted by the plethora of dark energy. And, for a short while, she kept quiet to Chara as well. She spoke not a word, until the voices of her long dead parents, along with their apparitions soon after, began to follow her. Their hollow faces and eyes stalked her from every angle, in front, behind, and in her peripheral vision, accusing and angry and hateful. They're not here. They're not real. The Serpent's magic... it is making them seem real.
But... what if, there was more to it than magic and apparitions...?
They were an hour into the dark underground cavern, lit only by the light provided by the celestial mages, when at last Lilica sought Chara's hand and shut her eyes, blindly moving one foot in front of the other. "Keep me grounded," she whispered, the images of her parents still dancing behind her eyelids, images burned into her psyche that she could never forget. "Keep me here. If I seem to be drifting... pull me back in. Please."
The firm pressure of Chara's palm against her own did not completely dispel her demons. But it muted their voices, dulled their vision, and made it easier, over all, to maintain her presence in the here and now--in reality, not in a mirage. Help me stay in there here and now... not in the past.
"We are all on borrowed time, Elias. It is no mere melodrama that people proclaim we are dying from the day that we are born." And didn't she know this... perhaps better than most. But now was not the time to confide. Not on Daphni's part, at least. Clutching at her elbows, still trembling in the aftermath of channeling that dreadful episode from the Clematis healer's core through the conduit of his emotions and memories, she stood carefully, and drew a clean handkerchief from within one of the folds of her fitted training uniform. "But what do you mean, magic worsens it? Is this affliction of yours a curse, or do you merely hold strong opinions regarding healing magic? Which, I must say, seems rather hypocritical, given your expertise."
Dabbing the middle of her handkerchief with the flask of water at her hip, she handed it to him to wipe the blood from his lips. Against the stark white of his face, in the aftermath of his attack, he looked positively ghastly. How long have you suffered this?, the Sybaian healer was nearly inclined to ask, but figured even if he chose to answer, it was none of her business. "I am already indebted to you twofold, for your assistance these past couple of days. My debt is is, therefore, halfway to being repaid in full. But, what do you mean, exactly? That magic cannot cure disease, and that it only worsens your current affliction? Your secrets are safe with me, but... I am curious as to what spurs this hypothesis, of yours."
Replacing the water at her hip, she faced his back, reluctant ton leave despite that he was likely reluctant to talk. She couldn't blame him; that coughing had sounded painful, and his voice was hoarse as a result. "Your secret is not mine to tell, even if I had not asked the same of you," she assured him quietly, albeit sincerely. "Though... when you are feeling better, maybe you can indulge me on these concerns you have for magic and the shortcomings that you perceive it to have in healing. It leaves me curious as to how and why you ended up in the Order of Clematis."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
They had reached the gouge in the earth that descended into the Serpent's Den by dawn, having made excellent time (at Chara's insistence that they move without stopping for little more than water and a snack). The last time he stood here, he and that warrior had to practically carry Alster out of the den, so on the verge was he from losing all sense of self and his motor abilities. He looked over his shoulder at Chara, then at Lilica, who already appeared a little haggard in a face that seldom harbored a mien other than exhaustion, contempt, or something altogether inscrutable. Could he actually tell how she fared?
"This is the last call to turn back, and go the long way," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on them whilst he hovered over the first of the rock-carved stairs, like its loyal guardian who would smite any wayward travelers at the hint of a wrong answer.
Chara cast one worried look at Lilica, but at the dark mage's go-ahead, she sighed and only bobbed a nod, slight and unsure, at the gaping maw before them. "We are already here. Let us..." she swallowed a measure of conviction, "let us continue."
They descended the uneven set of stairs, Lysander in the lead, and Chara closing in beside Lilica. So far, the trek had appeared uneventful, but she began asking after Lilica's well-being when the wan light shining in her own hands betrayed the shadows of fear that followed her companion on every cavernous wall.
And then, a hand around her tightened. In turn, she squeezed those cold, cadaverous fingers and kept pulling Lilica through the passageway--as meandering as the trail oft taken by a serpent in the sand. "Focus on my hand. On the light I hold. On me. We are nearly out, Lilica. Just a little further..."
"You know," Lysander barked into the dark, and the suddenness of his voice, which sounded as if he were musing aloud the benefits of a merry jaunt, startled her into a reflexive jolt, "this cave was not built by Rigas architects, oh no. We celestial users are quite inept at earth-based magic, though I heard-tell that Rigel, in order to build Stella D'Mare from the ground up, hauled one massive crater into the ground. I do wonder if he also possessed a good deal of chthonic magic in order to perform any of his earth-based feats. That would explain the supposed 'anomalies' of Valente and Alster, that much is certain."
At first, Chara wanted to bellow at Lysander to shut his flubbing mouth, but then she realized his strategy. He was trying to distract Lilica, to "ground" her--to jar her into reality.
"You do bring up an interesting argument," Chara contributed, her exuberance echoing across the walls of their dank enclosure. "But as chthonic magic was, and still is, a much maligned magical discipline, it makes sense why our great and powerful founder should hide his dual talent. ...If our inane conjectures ring any truth, anyhow. An interesting subject, though--do you agree, Lilica?"
They carried on this way, bantering back and forth, until an additional light-source pierced through the dark and alerted them to the exit. Dispersing their etherea lamps in unison, Lysander and Chara helped Lilica out of the tunnel, and up onto the outskirts of the Rigas estate.
"We have arrived," Chara said with relief, and threw Lilica into a side-hug--a physical reassurance that her companion had made it; she had survived. Lysander, his expression mixed at seeing Chara's very unusual show of affection, approached Lilica, his head cocked to one side.
"Are you feeling any better?"
With a hunch of resignation, Elias allowed Daphni to dab his lips with the handkerchief, however much it put him ill at ease to face her after what she had seen of him, inside and out. He still did not meet her eyes, but he straightened his back and faced her with as much poise as the dregs of his illness would afford him--which wasn't much. He was very much vulnerable, which he abhorred, which any healer worth a shred of dignity could attest. But what made matters worse was that it was in front of her, a Sybaian healer. An empath.
"I drew my conclusions after I had accepted the cloth of my Order," he said, the strain in his throat croaking out the words in a soft, pain-addled whisper. He spoke slow, careful. "I don't expect you to believe me, but magic and illness share a link. At first, I had simply wondered why magic could not eradicate terminal disease, or even the symptoms of the common cold. It can only soothe, but not eradicate." He retreated a few steps from Daphni after she had completed the cleaning of his lips, and sat upon his cot, and all his tiresome limbs threw themselves in stiffened disarray as if they were made of straw. "Then, I started to notice that any attempt made on curing illness only agitated the symptoms. Coughs worsened, tumors grew, hair fell out, teeth rotted, the blight spread. And these were not just observed in a few isolated cases." He paused, then, and took another stinging swig of the water. "I should stop there. As if I'm not already in danger of discovery by my Order. These are the ramblings of a heretic, of a madman. They'll surely oust me, or execute me--though frankly, that would be a relief." A throaty gurgle tumbled from him. "If you wish to know more," he hesitated, then relaxed with a shrug; what else had he to lose? "meet me here, tonight, after all have gone to bed. My throat should be better, by then."
Before she had the chance to take her leave, he added, "oh, and be careful; don't stand too close." Realizing that sounded bizarre, he sighed and pointed to his mouth, where her fingers had lingered just moments ago. "I've contained the communicability of this disease. It should not spread. It dies with me. But just in case--keep a bit of distance."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You're a murderer," came the hiss of her mother's voice, right next to her ear. The chthonic caster dared not turn her head, knowing that she would only see the sunken hollows of eyes that belonged to a woman who had never cared for her, never wanted her. Not a mother, but merely a biological donor, a vessel for her own, miserable existence. "You cannot change. You will not change."
"You were born into darkness. You damned your mother's womb," replied her step-father, in her other ear. Lilica clenched her jaw tightly and bit down on her tongue, afraid that she would scream profanities at the voices of two ghouls that only she could see and hear. And then there would surely be no case against her potential madness. "You damned me, you damned yourself. You would do best to submit to the shadows that brought you into this world. You are one of them... no more than a night crawler in the skin of a human being."
Their voices went on, the accusations, the hatred so vehement that she was almost convinced she could feel the spittle from their tongues on her cheek, and her hand, clasped so tightly to Chara's, began to tremble. That was when Lysander piped up, spewing some nonsense about the formation of this damnable cavern, the possibilities that stemmed from chthonic magic married to celestial, such as was the case of Alster. Frankly, she did not care a lick for any of it; what concerned the dual-talented Rigas caster, the over-privileged brat that had broken Chara's heart... it did not concern her, and his ancestors were of little interest to her. And the less she knew about this dark, dank portal through hell itself, the better. But... the conversation, that back and forth between Chara and her father, drowned out the voices of her parents. She focused on the words but not their meaning, focused on their voices, on Chara's hand, on Lysander's form, held high and confident, as he led them onward... I'm here. I'm here with them. The dead cannot take me away from that... not now.
All of a sudden, the voices stopped--and there was light. Lilica was astonished to look up from her feet and squint against daylight, so bright that she was forced to turn her face into Chara's shoulder as it burned in the dilated pupils of her eyes. Typical... I can handle light no more than I can handle dark. "This is... we're here?" It was a while before she felt able to safely turn her eyes to the horizon. She stood before a series of villas that climbed a mountainside, all exquisite and, admittedly, a touch gaudy in their exterior decor. A copper-haired woman in the gardens stood up from a bed of flowers (a groundskeeper, judging by her gloves) took one look at Lilica, flashed her a glare, and returned to her work. Only moments in, and already, she was despised.
"I'm feeling fine," she told Lysander, only a partial lie. Further from the Serpent's den, the voices and visions no longer had a hold on her, but what they had taken out of her was evident by the weariness in her eyes. "Tired, but fine... we've been walking for an entire day. It is to be expected. Thank you... for your help." The dark mage then turned to Chara, realizing she was still leaning heavily against her, and straightened her posture. "It doesn't need to be a vacation. You have business to which you wish to attend. And I... just needed to get away." She couldn't run forever; but a few days' reprieve felt crucial, after that devastating mishap with the botched Sybaian healing attempt.
Quite the contrary, Daphni was convinced Elias was far from mad, and knew that there was credence to his claims. Not because she, herself, had witnessed the deterioration of health due to the interference of magic, but because it was not the first time that it had been recounted in the history of her own clan. Sometimes healings did not take to the patient, and not due to any negligence or malpractice, necessarily. She had always believed that it had to do with the person, and that some psyches were too fragile, leading to a deterioration of health from the inside out. Unfortunately, you never knew one of those psyches until you happened to encounter them... and then, it was too late.
"The Sybaia have a history of tending to warriors and responding in times when peace is compromised," she mentioned, though he was already well aware. "And I will admit that in my own experience, I have have halted more deaths, broken more comas and overall purged bodies, minds and souls of sicknesses that have no name, for they are as personal and unique as the patient. But physical illnesses... chronic, congenital, terminal, they are not my area of expertise. I do not dispute that your theories could have some credence. And I... would not be opposed to gaining more insight into this. I am not one to forsake an open mind for pride."
But for now, he required rest... as did she, despite that it had not expended any good deal of energy to put an end to his episode. Frankly, it was nothing compared to what she had gone through with the dark mage. "So yes, I will see you tonight, if you are well enough." Turning, her hand outstretched to part his tent flaps, Elias's final comment stopped her in her tracks... and something dampened the curiosity that had stemmed from this conversation. But whether it was a reflection of some sentiment emanating from his aura, or something more internal, remained uncertain. "Elias, there is no illness that you could possibly pass on to me that would be more painful than some of the minds and hearts I have been exposed to," she reassured him, pressing her lips together thoughtfully. "And keeping those who might help at arm's length will do you no good, either. Rest well, and I will hear more from you tonight."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She resumed walking with Lysander and Lilica, stirred into a temporary silence as she glanced at the pillared walkways, the marble slabs glimmering in the newborn sun with flecks of mica. In fact, all of the structures on Rigas property carried flickers of that ore, for, at day's zenith, when the property bathed in sun-glow, every ivory surface gleamed and sparkled like thousands of stars--a resplendent sight to behold. Still, she could not react to the opulence of her beautiful home. But she did, at least, find her voice.
"There is a vast garden on the property, Lilica," she said, looking sidelong at her distressed companion. Would she ever catch one of those stars? Or were they too embedded, too encased in cold, hard stone, to reach her own buried light? "We grow fruits and vegetables, flowers, and plenty of herbs--if you are interested." But her tone was flat, unenthused. She was a horrid hostess! Where was her pride? Her excitement for showing off her grandiose home? What remained was a numbness that tried to cover an ache--that she tried to cover with a smile once they reached her villa. It, like most of the high-end villas reserved for those of influence, hugged the cliffs and afforded a picturesque view of the ocean. She led Lilica to the oak-paneled doors, and regarded Lysander, who stopped by the stairs.
"Well, I shall let you two rest. I have matters to attend. I shall let Adalfieri know that you have arrived, and he will send for you shortly, I am sure. He will also want to meet you, as well, Lilica." He bobbed his chin in her direction. "It is his nature to know of our allies and adversaries alike. And he will know where you stand." He ended on an ominous, cryptic note as he turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction, back towards the main-house. "I will see the both of you later. Take care."
Chara watched Lysander leave, and a surge of emotion pumped beneath that ache disguised as nothing--but she could not identity that emotion. Shaking away the gloom (perhaps the Serpent also affected her mood), she opened the doors and guided Lilica inside.
It was a similar layout to Alster's villa: an expansive dining room, an open terrace with a view of town and the ocean, two bedrooms with sumptuous decor, a living area, and the bathing quarters. She gave a half-hearted tour of the area, and ended it back where they started, at the foyer. "Well, I invite you to rest, and rest well. If you need me for anything, or if you wish to talk about what happened--about down there," she said in an almost-whisper, "I am here."
Alster had stayed, wrapped in Elespeth's arms for longer than necessary. Though he pondered on the meaning of necessary, in this case. It was no longer necessary insofar as his core temperature had risen, and stabilized. But it was still necessary to him because he wanted it to be necessary. Or perhaps he was just confusing his wants and his needs, and wrapping them both in a cozy bundle that hummed and purred around him and to the beat of her heart, of his heart, and it wasn't long before he sank into sleep.
When he awoke, it was nightfall, which he could see through the slats of the tent. As he lay there, curled into Elespeth, who also slumbered, he thought, with a touch of fear, if anyone had come looking for him, if they had walked inside the tent, if they had seen...
He twitched a little against his dear companion just thinking of the possibilities, then paused in his movements, not wanting to rouse her. In her involuntary, unconscious shifts of slumber, she had freed him of his cocoon, and he used the opportunity to slide out of her arms, though he much rather wanted (he finally made the differentiation) to stay. Alas, he could no longer prolong his responsibilities, and perhaps it was not too late to check up on Canopus and finally report the resurgence of his celestial magic.
He dressed rather hurriedly, but was pleased to discover that his skin had taken on a healthful sheen, and was warm to the touch. Some methods were better than magic. Longer, yes...but far superior to any silly cantrip he could conjure.
As he wandered towards the tent flaps, he noticed something dark shuffling around--near his feet. A shadow of something. Was it his chthonic magic, playing its recurring game of hallucinations, determined to break him in twain yet again?
He spun a ball of etherea in his palm, basking the tent in a faint glow. He searched the small space, keeping his eyes averted, to the ground. If it truly were shadows of his mind, he would have dispelled it with the blinking of his light.
But it was still there.
At his feet.
And it meowed at him.
His eyes widened. He shuffled away from the creature, slow, slow...creeping with such care that he carelessly bumped into the cot where Elespeth dozed.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It... all felt familiar, somehow. Like she had laid eyes upon strikingly similar scenery, before. But from where or when, she could not for the life of her recall.
"I have no knowledge of tending fruits and vegetables, but should your groundskeeper require any assistance with the herbs..." She thought about the way the woman had cast a scowl in her direction; it was unlikely, and probably best not to get her hopes up. Nonetheless, Chara's offer was considerate, and it drew the faintest of smiles onto her face... until Lysander had to open his damnable mouth, and draw her into a comment that involved this Adalferi. The dark mage said nothing, not until Chara's father had left, and they were inside the grandiose expanse of her villa, with the safety of closed doors behind her. That was when she turned to Chara. "With all respect to your Adalfieri... I am not inclined to face yet another person who comments and confirms on where I 'stand'," she confided, her small chest deflating with a sigh. "Not after the Sybaian healer. Tell him what you will of me, but this... this is why I need to be away. From everything."
The cthonic caster followed her kind hostess around the villa, both relieved and curious at these new surroundings, and the odd sense of comfort it all brought. When they at last returned to the foyer, Lilica could not help but wander to the outdoor terrace, overlooking Oldtown and all of its ancient beauty. From her vantage point, she could make out a stone fountain amid greenery on the side of a cliff surrounded by a decorative, wrought-iron bannister for safety, around which a couple of children played, splashing their hands and feet in the water. Something, a foreign feeling, touched her heart, and made it hard to look away. "I have never been here before. But it... this place sees familiar. Or bears resemblance to some place I thought I knew..."
Without looking away, her mind reached for those memories of times that no longer existed, that had never happened, and that had long since been purged from her long-term archives. And the more that she struggled to recall the calm waters of that fountain, in that small town where she had dreamed an entire fulfilling lifetime, the more distress began to build in her core, until at last she turned her back to the horizon, and weariness returned to the shadows beneath her eyes. "Nevermind. I am tired... I cannot think straight. Perhaps I will go see your garden after I rest."
Bowing her head in supplication, Lilica found it in herself to offer her celestial companion a smile. "Thank you, Chara. For this... and for everything. I am indebted to you." And that was the last she saw of the Rigas caster for the next handful of hours, for as soon as Lilica's head hit the down-filled pillow of her assigned bedroom, she was instantly asleep.
It hadn't been her intention to fall asleep. Elespeth much preferred to spend her stolen moments with Alster while fully conscious, enjoying his company, or providing a means of help in some way, were his mood to take a downward swing. Well, this particular helping behaviour had ultimately rendered the both of them unconscious... an unintentional side-effect of human proximity of this nature. With her arms wrapped around him, the former knight had listened to his breathing even out as he plunged into a restful sleep, and was lulled by the gentle thrumming of his heartbeat, succumbing to the call of sleep.
She hadn't even realized she'd dozed, however, until she was opening her eyes to a darkened room, an unbalanced Alster who fell backwards onto the cot, and... was that an animal, meowing only feet away from the seemingly startled Rigas mage?
"Alster..." Rubbing her eyes and clearing her throat, she peered through the darkness (how long had she been asleep...?) at the mewling shape, before turning her attention to the caster who had practically fallen into her lap... literally. "Are you... did that cat... why do you look so terrified? Here." Reaching over the side of the cot, long hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves as she blindly searched the ground for her clothing, Elespeth grabbed a hold of her tunic and pulled the garment over her head. It fell to her thighs, just past her hips as she threw her legs over the side and stood, her movement causing the animal to recoil. "Go on, shoo--a war encampment is no place for a cat. Out, out, out."
Making frantic waving motions with her hands eventually did the trick, and sent the skittish creature running into the evening. For a brief moment following, all was as calm and serene as before, when the two had continued to sleep... that is, until the warrior unleashed a peal of laughter that shook her shoulders. "A cat. Alster, did a cat, of all things, actually just knock you off your balance? Are you prone to allergies around them?" She did not mean to laugh at him, and in fact, her humour was directed at the situation in and of itself. A residual smile playing on her lips, she turned back to the cot, and offered her startled companion a hand up. "I don't think I've laughed so hard since we were drunk and dancing at Messino's camp," she commented, planting a brief kiss on his lips. "So for that small release of positive energy, I thank you. How are you feeling?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But she kept quiet on the politics behind their alliances, and while that person of strategic importance looked out over the terrace, Chara threw open the doors of the guest room and tidied the area. An empty chore, really, for this extra space existed only for the symmetry, and she never used it for anything practical. The ochre sheets were folded over with care, wrinkle-free and lined with a precision that hearkened her back to the days when she tended to the beds, making certain that every edge submitted to the rule of order and nothing strayed out of the bounds of regulation. Even now, she fussed at the ever-so-slight disarray of the pillows, lumped and sagging as they were. She picked them up and fluffed them anew. Then, realizing her pretensions over something so banal, something she no longer needed to do, she set them down upon the bed. But in the neatest way possible. She supposed that old habits, when given the opportunity to arise, never truly faded into obscurity. And now that she had been demoted, what stopped the council from reducing her, again, into the role of a common bed steward?
With a sigh, she drifted out of the room, in time for Lilica to announce her retirement for the day. "Yes, you go and rest. It has been a long day traveling. I, too, might do the same. Enjoy your room." Her hand lingered on the door, and paused before she closed it shut. "The dream, Lilica. The dream I destroyed. Stella D'Mare reminds you of it." She said no more, and the door closed with a soft click.
She awakened in the early afternoon to a knock on her door. Lysander had returned, looking no better than when he had collapsed from the overexertion of his magic, just yesterday. Black shadows rimmed his eyes, accentuating the wrinkles that spidered across his brow. Had he even found the time to rest?
"Adalfieri wants to see you both," he said, in a long, tired drawl.
"Lilica does not wish to be disturbed...nor do I find it wise to disturb her."
Lysander shrugged in such a way to express sympathy, but also futility. "It is imperative that Adalfieri see her."
"Right now?"
"Especially now."
In defeat, Chara fluttered over to Lilica's door and drifted into her room. At first, she could not locate the dark mage, so massive was the bed in proportion to its sleeper's diminutive size. After poking at the sheets, she discovered a lump that did not deflate, and shook it, gently.
"Lilica," she whispered, and only chanced an explanation once she was certain of her wakefulness. "Adalfieri wants to speak with you. I know this is against your wishes, but one cannot say no to him, you understand?" She fiddled her fingers until they tied together in knots. "He must know of your affiliations. It is protocol. Otherwise, you cannot stay here, and he will see you as an enemy, and I will have to stand in opposition to you. No need to worry," she added in a mollifying cadence. "I shall be there, the entire time."
That black shape kept stationary save for the swishing of its long tail. Still startled from the unexpectedness of the encounter, Alster did not dare move, even when his haphazard crash landed him half-sitting on Elespeth's lap--which, predictably, had stirred her awake. He stared at that creature's luminous, unblinking eyes, eyes that probed and searched him in a penetrative stab. And it was only when Elespeth stirred to motion that he answered her inquiries. "Cat. It's...why isn't it leaving?" His voice only scratched the surface of the dark, too preoccupied with watching the cat's strange mannerisms to try and devise a strategy to rid of it. "I thought these things were shy."
It looked at him again.
This stare-off did not last long, however, for Elespeth had risen to her feet and drove the brazen animal out of the tent. The cat slunk away, like a shadow with legs, its little tail bobbing upright as if in triumph.
When Elespeth returned to the cot, a deep flush overtook his entire face, for shame of allowing a harmless little thing unseat him so much. He attributed his jumpy reaction to having just awakened, and his reeling mind still recovering from his sojourn into Lilica's hellish dreamscape--as well as his own. But he also knew that, try as he might to generate excuses, he was, simply put, not fond of animals.
Then, she laughed, a whip of laughter that lashed his cheeks into an even redder rash. "It just took me by surprise," he muttered, moodily. "And cats, they...if there is an animal I dislike other than snakes, it's cats. And it's as if this cat knew I didn't want it around, and came with the express purpose to taunt me." Realizing how ridiculous he sounded, he smiled, and then that smile parted to allow a self-deprecating chuckle. "Well, as long as you were cheered by the encounter. At my expense, of course." He gave her a mock glare as he took her hand and returned to his feet.
"I'm fine. A little shaken--no thanks to that hellbeast--but I suppose I've gone through worse scrapes. But just barely." He quirked another smile as he leaned over to return her kiss. "I'm going to pay a visit to Canopus, but before that, would you like to take a walk with me? The stars should be unhindered tonight, and I haven't gazed in a while."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
That dream... Yes, Lilica could recall, not the dream but the moment she had awoken from Chara's interference. She had asked her to destroy it, something sacred in her mind, something that so resembled Stella D'Mare. But now... now, she wondered if she had made a mistake. Could she ever recollect those memories that left a seventy-year gap in her mind? And, moreover... did she want to remember?
It wasn't real, that place to which she had escaped for so long. And as the chthonic caster closed her eyes, she struggled to recall just why she had asked such a drastic favour of Chara. To destroy years and years worth of memories, of a place that, for all it was fabricated, continued to give her warm feelings whenever she encountered a reminder. Like Stella D'Mare, and all of its beauty... it brought her a strange, foreign sense of peace, and drew her thoughts to calm waters and stunning sunrises. And, best of all... it was real. She was here, and this was not a dream. These memories were true, and they were permanent.
For as long as she was alive, at least.
Lilica drifted off with those thoughts into a deep and undisturbed slumber, swallowed by the plush mattress and quilt on a bed that must have been the size of Chara's tent. It wasn't just that it was perhaps the most comfortable thing upon which she had possibly ever rested her weary body, but it felt... safe. In Stella D'Mare, she felt safe. In Chara's villa, with the celestial mage slumbering in the room across from her, she felt especially safe, and that was as close to peace as she had ever been. Take it while you can get it. Peace does not last forever...
She felt as though she could have slept forever. But sure enough, some hours later, a hand upon her shoulder was gently shaking her awake. Chara's voice cut through the fog of her weariness, but it was the name on her tongue that struck her awake: Adalfieri. "But I can't..." she pleaded in a quiet voice, pushing herself into a sitting position. "I am not ready." He must know of your affiliations... Otherwise, you cannot stay here, and he will see you as an enemy, and I will have to stand in opposition to you. So it wasn't even a request; this was an ultimatum. Face the Rigas leader, or lose Stella D'Mare, Chara and her camaraderie forever. But if she could not hide who she was... then what conclusions would Adalfieri draw from her 'affiliations'? "Chara, you know he will see my darkness. The toxic blood in my veins that feeds my power. And what will he glean from that?"
Despite the celestial mage's reassurances, Lilica had deep-seated doubts about this audience. Yet there seemed to be no avoiding it... and if there was a chance that she could remain in Stella D'Mare, then it was worth the risk. "Well... come what may, I suppose. Just... give a moment. I'll be out."
Her clothes were filthy and ragged from battle, but there was nothing to be done about that. Instead, she walked to the mirror and wash basin and cleaned her face and her hands, still pink and tender from her only recently healed burns. Her hair, she combed with her fingers until the obsidian locks were free of tangles and fell in waves behind her shoulders. None of it made much of a difference; she still looked the faded, tired mage that she was, tormented by her own magic. Nothing would get rid of the shadows behind her eyes, or add colour to her ashen face. But appearance meant little when facing someone who could see right through your skin to the very core of who and what you were.
She met Chara and Lysander by the door, acknowledging both with a nod before the three of them wordlessly departed. With Lysander in the lead, Lilica walked abreast Chara once again, perhaps closer than what was necessary. Proximity reassured her, dulled her apprehension, and as she passed various and sundry faces that looked upon her with a scowl that said 'foreigner', she knew that none would dare challenge her in the presence of a Rigas. "Chara... I want to know about that dream." When she spoke up, it was in hushed tones, reserved for only the two of them. "I know I asked you to destroy it--I remember that. I just... don't remember anything else. Was it a beautiful dream? Why am I feeling such an odd sense of nostalgia for a place that never existed?" And why was it, that she clung so firmly to something from the past? Was her hope for the future really so bleak that an imaginary world was the only place where she could hope to find some good in this lifetime?
"Nevermind. Maybe you shouldn't tell me," she countered before Chara could reply, eyes focused on the gold-flecked marble walkways as they moved. "It is... probably best that I don't know. I already cling too much to the past and what it has done to me... letting go of the make believe is maybe my first step towards becoming someone else. Something else, defined by my standards... and not from past afflictions."
By the time she was able to look up again, they stood before the tall doors of what had the appearance of a place of importance. No doubt Adalfieri was behind those doors. If I want to run, I need to do it now... there are no more chances. And she wanted to. Just as badly as she wanted to recall the dream that she had impelled Chara to make her forget. But either of those decisions would be a step in the right direction...
When the doors opened, it was with a fretful glance in Chara's direction that she stepped through them, her heart in her throat, though her carefully stone-chiseled countenance did not betray it.
"And what did cats ever do to you that you should fear them so?" The warrior's laughter gradually died down to the point where she coherently form a sentence, and she reached out to playfully muss Alster's blonde hair. "Cats do what they want. They are independent and resourceful and couldn't care less as to whether or not you want them around... not unlike Chara, I suppose."
Comparing his betrothed to a feline nearly brought about a new bout of giggles, but for fear that any further teasing would be detrimental to her companion's still-fragile self-worth, she held back. "Look at it this way: I am not laughing at you, per se, so much as I am laughing at your reaction." Fortunately, he was able to discern her light-hearted chuckle as spontaneous and not cruel. Which was more than she would have expected from him a month ago. The resurgence of his celestial magic had opened up more than his potential to contribute to this war; it was restoring him, to the best of himself that he could possibly be. And Elespeth couldn't be happier but to bear witness to it.
"A walk under the stars, hm?" Bending to pick up her trousers and belt, the former knight finished dressing and pulled on her boots in the dark, a smile playing on her features. "You really are an unapologetic romantic, Alster... it's sweet."
The two stepped into the cool evening air, Elespeth's arm casually wrapped around the Rigas mage's waist, a smattering of stars gleaming silver against the indigo horizon. They sparkled and twinkled, and rivaled the light of a waxing moon overhead, granting more visibility than what they had had back in the tent, in the glow of Alster's etherea. "When I was very young, I was afraid of the dark, for years," the Atvanian confided, unsolicited, as her green eyes fixed on the sky overhead. "So Farrin used to show me the stars and remind me that there was always light, even when I could not see it. He would teach me the constellations, and on nights when I felt afraid, I'd look out the window and find my own constellations... Later on, they would help me find my way back home, at night."
As thoughts of Farrin tended to induce, Elespeth's smile faded, and wistful remorse moistened her eyes. She was quick to look away from the sky. "I'm sorry. Now isn't the time to be thinking about the past." Offering an apologetic smile, she pulled Alster against her hip in a tight side-hug. "It's strange, when you miss someone so strongly, you suddenly see them in everything. When I was captured and incarcerated in Atvany, alone and devoid of hope, my thoughts could have turned to anyone, yet..." She turned to him, nothing but sincerity and affection in her eyes. "That person was you. And that was when I realized that I loved you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
To focus on a matter other than the inevitable, Chara leaned into her companion's hushed words and about confessed the depth of all that she knew of the dream, but Lilica hurriedly contradicted herself. Chara breathed those half-formed words to the air, dispelling them, and prepared a different response. "I do not know much; only what I have seen and heard from you. But I shall tell you whenever you so desire to hear. It haunts you still, because you never came to terms with your loss--particularly because you do not remember your loss. Perhaps," she said, in a low, regretful voice, "I should not have set fire to that which I had no right to destroy."
But she couldn't dwell for long on the implications of her decision, for they had already reached the imposing double doors wherein waited Adalfieri. The doors opened, on their own, with no physical aid to wrench them from their bolts, and the grandiose room shared its secrets to the trio that waded on the border between the hallway and the being who lingered within. Lysander waved them forward and, with a nod of encouragement to her companion, Chara stepped into Adalfieri's chamber.
It was scarcely furnished, and every step they tread scuffed echos against the cathedral-high walls. All the curtains in the many-windowed room were drawn, save for one, at the far end, opened just wide enough to allow a thin stream of light to plunge through the shadow, illuminating a gnarled driftwood chair, and the one who sat upon it.
His back, and the chair, was positioned away from the two who pattered down the flower-patterned floor, but when they approached, a shift bent the air, like a wave of heat, and in a blink, both the chair and the man appeared to face them. The doors slammed shut behind them.
Adalfieri looked upon Chara and the visitor, his eyes a mirror which only shifted with the passing of light and shadow, and not through any facial twitch that manipulated them to form an expression. Little to no wrinkles covered his taut, unmarred face, but nonetheless, a tight-lipped smile appeared on his thin lips. "Chara! How good to see you!" She advanced and gave him a kiss on either cheek. Before she could introduce Lilica, he blinked his attention to the dark mage. "Forgive me for not rising to meet you. My legs cannot support me very well. Lilica, is it? It is a pleasure." He dipped his head in greeting. "You mustn't fear me, chthonic mage. I have known of you for quite some time. Surely, you would not be standing before me today if you were not meant to contribute to our cause--even if your reasons are singular." His sight flashed to Chara, then back to Lilica. "Contribute you shall. But will your contributions benefit us, or deter us? Your bloody history implies the latter." He paused, and his pause felt like the entire world falling into a timeless hush. "Tell me. Have you changed, dearling?" An ominous light wavered in his reflective, silver eyes. "Or is it a ploy to trick the darkness you so fear?"
Alster, with another mock glare that looked almost feline, raised a hand to brush through the hair Elespeth just threw into disarray. "Not that this improves my credibility, but when I was young, I was quite the runaway. And as I wandered down a few alleyway shortcuts, making my fourth or fifth grand escape of the month, those stray cats--they certainly didn't want me around. They attacked. And it stung--all over. Not as much as Chara's insults, that much is true." A chuckle shook at his shoulders. His still ran a hand through his hair, idly, as his other hand, with the etherea aglow over his palm, turned a shade of red, as if expressing the crux of his emotions when she remarked upon his tendencies towards the romantic. But the red did not necessarily represent ardor. Again, he was blushing.
When they left the tent, the gentle breeze on the night currents ruffled his hair to the same state of dishevelment from when Elespeth teased it. With a good-natured groan of futility, he dropped his hand and instead repositioned it around her shoulder.
They lingered around the outskirts of camp, the darkest quadrant that had already dimmed the lantern light in favor of an early night's sleep. Cresting the small hill that denoted the farthest boundaries they were able to tread without suspicion, he looked up at the stars, really looked at them, for the first time since his parents had died. "No, this is the most opportune time to talk about the past," he reassured her with a wistful smile. "When we look at stars, we're already seeing millions of years into their pasts, or for however much longer it takes for their light to reach our eyes. Some of them might already be long gone, swallowed into the primordial void, but their memory and legacy lingers on. They keep shining, a reminder that nothing is truly lost. Farrin is not lost. Neither are Valente and Debine. I know that now." He pointed low on the horizon, to a blinking yellow star only visible by the consistency of its flickers, "you see that yellow, twinkling star? That is Valente, part of the constellation Kissa, the Jay. Our family, we are named after stars, and all of our constellations are in the appearance of birds. I suppose living elongated human lives wasn't enough for the ever-esteemed Rigas name." He laughed. "We wanted to overtake the sky, too."
His finger trailed upwards, to a cluster of stars closer to the moon. "That white one, to the left of the moon, is Debine, part of Kormoranos, the Cormorant. And that oblong shape above the moon? The one that keeps blinking aggressively? Chara, of Fasianos, the Pheasant. She...she is none too happy about that one." With hesitation, he directed her to the the one directly above their heads, far from the multitude that scattered across the eastern horizon. It shined a spectral blue and sported a four-pointed cross-tail. A never-wavering fixture in the sky. "That star. That's Alster, of Aerione, the Heron. It is among one of the brightest. My mother's idea," he muttered, as an addendum.
"So," he ventured, glad that the darkness concealed the color in his cheeks, but not the waver in his voice; he was far from ever emulating the enduring stillness of his namesake, "if ever I am gone, or we are away from each other, look to that star. Let it remind you of me. Because as long as that star is there, I will live several thousand lifetimes. You, as well. Now that our hearts are intertwined, that star is yours as well as mine." A hand crept up to rub at the back of his neck, losing the conviction in his words when a silly little simper severed the saccharine notes of his discourse. "You're right. I am an unapologetic romantic." Then, figuring he needed to prove that statement even further, he leaned forward and kissed her tenderly, under the congregation of the stars.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It came as a nice surprise that her voice did not betray her trepidation when at last she spoke. "If you already know me as well as you claim, Sir, then your question is rhetorical, and the answer should already be clear." What are you doing! a voice at the back of her head cautioned. Perhaps it was the voice of reason that she so chose to ignore at such a critical moment. Placate the old man, grovel, beg that he believe you are not married to the darkness in your veins!
But what if that wasn't true? And would it be worse to chance a lie before a man who was uncannily in touch with energies and people he had never experienced or met?
"But I realize I am an intruder here until I can convince you otherwise, so I will play your game." Pressing her lips together, the dark mage exhaled through her nose, warding off the trembling that threatened her limbs. Apathy was beginning to fade in light of fear, after all. "So, yes, you can consider me as a contributor for your cause.Though I am disappointed that you would consider my reasoning and motivation 'singular', considering that it encompasses ensuring the health and safety of one of your most valuable assets to this war." Lilica's obsidian eyes flicked to Chara for a split second, before returning to Adalfieri. Much though she might have preferred, she could not look away from the man for too long, lest he seek out the scent of her fear, find that tiny tear in her conviction. "Chara and I formed an alliance on the basis of mutual promises: on my part, I had promised her to help Alster in the understanding and harnessing of his chthonic abilities, in return for freedom. At the time, I had thought all that I desired was freedom from any involvement in this war whatsoever, but... I can now see that what I need is deeper than just that. And that part of that freedom is hinged on lending this celestial caster my help in any way that I possibly can."
Perspiration dampened the back of her neck and her dark hair. The more she spoke, the more she feared the words spilling from her lips. This was more than she had ever confided of her disposition and motivations, even to Chara, who had been perhaps unaware until just how how much her safety and health meant to her, and the lengths that the chthonic caster was willing to go to ensure it. But it was as if these words were being torn from her throat, unbidden, and like foamy ale overflowing from the top of a stein, she was helpless but to stop them. "You want me to convince you that I am worth your trust. That much is clear," she went on, afraid to steal another glance at Chara, lest the proud Rigas mage be staring, mouth agape, at the incredulity of Lilica's oration towards her trusted leader. "But, frankly, I don't know if I can, and I will not bend my words or reality in order to try. It is up to you... and I am confident that you already know enough about me that you have made your decision, before I even arrived. Though if I must spell it out..."
Rein it in, you fool! Show more respect! that voice at the back of her mind continued to shout. But respect was not the deciding factor. Respect would not sway Adalfieri; the truth would. "I can't wash the blood off of my hands, because I cannot undo what I have done. Nor have I found a way to harness my magic such that I decide how and for what reasons it is used. But I can assure you with all honesty that I am through with leaving a trail of blood in my wake." Holding out her arms, her sleeves slid to her elbows, revealing the unsightly bruises that had resulted from the Sybaian healer's unsuccessful efforts to help. "I have made my mistakes, grave mistakes, even since meeting Chara. I own those mistakes. But I have intentionally decided that bruises and blowback from my magic, since I refuse to let it feed on hatred, is still worth the struggle and the suffering. I am here for Chara, now; to help her, to protect her, as well as those she values. And if this war itself does not kill me... then I am confident that my magic will. And I have come to terms with that." After all, how many more blows could she buffer, enemies could she set alight with her hellfire, all out of care and concern for Chara and her comrades as opposed to blind hatred? Lilica's body was not strong; not physically. It was only a matter of time before the blowback from her hostile magic resulted in more than just bruises and chills.
She had come to accept that. Especially if it meant that Chara would live, and win this war.
"I have not changed, Sir; I am still dark and made of darkness. The power in my veins is, and forever will be poison. What has changed are my intentions, and my allegiances. Not long ago, I felt loyalty for no one but myself. And that is not the case anymore... far from it." The dark caster dropped her arms to her side like dead weights, and pressed the remaining air from her tired lungs. "So, the decision is yours, and I implore that you make it. I am tired; dismiss me now so that I might return to resting, or send me away and I will take my leave of Stella D'Mare and your army immediately, forever, with the promise that you won't see me again." Though I would miss you, Chara.
Alster never failed to draw smiles even from the most somber pit of Elespeth's being. His optimism and relation to the stars was as interesting as it was endearing, and she was almost reassured. "You are partially right," she commented, gazing at the twinkling lights hat he addressed. "Your star... it shines so brightly, it cannot be missed. There will never be a clear night that I do not see it. But... Elespeth is not a star. Nor is Farrin." Her smile turned sad, as she lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. "We were named after aunts and uncles and other relatives that made history and held honour in the name of Tameris. 'Elespeth' was inspired by my great-great aunt, Elisabeth, wife of one of Atvany's most renouned war generals in history. I was named after a wife; an accessory to some man who means nothing to me."
The former knight snorted; the meaning behind her name sounded even worse when spoken aloud. It was no wonder she had never amounted to anything but a traitor and inadvertent murderer to her family... Elisabeth Tameris had been a nobody, with no accomplishments save for the children she bore. And, if she recalled correctly, the woman had died giving birth to her third child. Where was the honour in that name? "That star is yours, Alster, and yours alone. And I will cherish it, as I cherish you, but I do not need it to know that you are near." Elespeth invited the kiss and rested her arms on his shoulders, pressing their bodies one against the other. Why must they be trapped in some war encampment, surrounded by judgemental stares and glares? All she wanted was to be done with it all; to be completely alone in the universe with only Alster, to savour his taste and his company, to make love unashamed and without the potential to be frowned upon for it. She did not need a star; what she needed was him, and the proximity of his heartbeat.
"Good," she sighed, her lips moving against his as they formed the words. "And see that you never apologize, Alster Rigas. Not for who you are, not for what you choose... nothing. For you have nothing for which you must apologize, and nothing to prove to anyone but yourself. Do you understand?" Stealing a final kiss from Alster's inviting lips, the Atvanian warrior finally mustered the necessity to put distance between them. "Go to Canopus. Tell him of the retrieval of your celestial magic... You can find me back at the tent, when you're done." With a grin, she added. "I won't fall asleep without you. Tell me how it went."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I've not much else to say to you, Lilica," he conceded, realigning his head in symmetry with his neck. "You are correct in that I have already reached my own conclusions about you, and my words up until now have been a pretense. A courtesy, if you will, to pretend to engage in a conversation about which I already know the answer. Nonetheless, I needed to hear of your convictions through your own mouth, to give them voice and color the air with your intent. Oftentimes one does not know what lies in their hearts until they speak it, or, barring that, they do not realize that what they carry with them may affect others until they share it aloud." He flicked his eyes over to Chara, who had still struggled to maintain a stolid, unshakable dignity.
"You are not the first soul to express your loyalty towards another Rigas in my chambers. And I will tell her what I have told you. I shall place my trust in Chara, and as an extension, to you. Stella D'Mare was founded by darkness. It will find itself again--through darkness."
He ended his address to Lilica on that portentous note, and turned in his seat, without moving, to Chara. "I believe you have a report to give me, Chara."
Chara, still in a bout of discomfiture, loudly blurted out the details of her report, overcompensating for her nerves with volume and bombast. Eventually, her exuberance began to lessen, and she regained both a handhold and a foothold into her proceedings with the Rigas head. Adalfieri, who nodded along to the predictability of her words, waited with a patient glaze in his eyes until her conclusion.
"Thank you, Chara," he said, once he regained the floor. "And I do apologize about your demotion. Nonetheless, it is at Canopus's discretion, and I trust the man, so I cannot, at this time, reinstate you to your former position. However, you may yet find yourself in quite a different, but no less honorable, position, very soon." He cleared his throat and began a report of his own.
"Since we have retaliated against Messino's troops, we have officially undergone our first step of rebellion. It is only a matter of time before Di Andalari, and New Town, storms Old Town and throws it under siege. Of course, they will offer us grounds to surrender, and we might be able to delay the inevitable, for a time, but they will lock us into our own homes, cut off all our supplies and exit routes, and proceed to massacre our troops out in the field in whatever dastardly ways that are possible. It is longer safe out there, on the field, for you both. We need you here, to fight on the domestic front, for we require as many able-bodied casters as possible to fend off New Town's troops. As for our troops on the field--they will rejoin us once they accomplish their objective, which, I am ashamed to say, is purely as a diversion. Our real fight is here, in the city. Do not leave the grounds unless you are with ample protection. Chara, you look after your charge, familiarize her with our facilities. I shall call for you again, when the time is nigh. As of now, you are on stand-by." That soft, lilting voice that Adalfieri favored had hardened, scraped in his throat, an edge with a sharpened point like steel, and Chara stiffened, all fidgeting frozen to a halt by its stab. "You are both dismissed."
"Begging your pardon, Esteemed One," Chara chanced, with a waver of hesitation, "but what of Alster and--"
"--He will join us when it is feasible," he said, no longer sounding indulgent. "Now that he has regained his celestial magic, he is most useful on the field. Messino is distracted by his presence. He, for now, is the perfect bait. He remains. Now," he insisted, "you may go."
Once Chara and Lilica had exited his chambers by the doors he had opened, then slammed shut, with a burst of etherea, Adalfieri slumped his shoulders against the sharp contours of his chair, rubbing his temples and finally lowering his tired eyes to a close. "Lilica," he tested the name on his tongue, "the Serpent has plans for you. And I have plans for the Serpent."
Chara's legs felt boneless, just skin and sinew that somehow held the rest of her upright. Lysander met them at the entryway, frowning at her pallid cheeks and the occasional twitches that wracked the otherwise rigor stiffness of her body. With silence, he led them back to her villa, occasionally looking over his shoulder, but keeping his mouth in a firm line.
"Lilica," she whispered, after a few uneasy minutes slipped by, "did you mean...every single word that you told Adalfieri?"
Alster parted from Elespeth's lips, mulling over what she had said about her family history, and her namesake. He responded with the shake of his head. "And I was named after a star, something that I will never touch. That has never breathed. That is too far for me to ever see, as it is intended to be seen. Perhaps you do not give your great-great aunt much credence. She was a mother, she lived, once, and she inspired your name. A name that I am more than happy to utter." He looked again at the vast expanse surrounding them. They basked under the glory of the tiniest sliver of eternity, which, in comparison, dwarfed them until they appeared as nothing more than dust. In that light, petty accomplishments meant nothing to that sliver, and the sliver meant nothing to the grand expansion of the universe. It didn't matter. They didn't matter. It granted him intense relief. His sins, his regrets--dust to the heavens. Just...dust. Minute. Inconsequential. Smaller than even the most distant of stars. And that thought had freed him from the chains which so bound him to earth. But only for a moment, as fleeting as a shooting star.
"There are billions upon billions of stars out there, Elespeth. More than enough for everyone who has walked this planet. I'm certain, that somewhere, even if it's beyond our eyes to find, there is a star, and it belongs to Farrin. And I don't mind sharing mine, until you can find your own."
He invited the melding of her bodies, the warmth of her kiss. He smoothed his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, until he clasped her hand. That jolt of electricity sparked him with a shiver of excitement, and it was with great reluctance that he released himself from her embrace. "I won't be long. And," he added, with a wink, "if you're having trouble, I know what will help you fall asleep."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
While it was the first time that she had ever met the man, Lilica sensed something unsettling in his tones, both soft and solid, as he spoke to her, and then Chara in turn. Certainly, she could understand his distrustful disposition towards her, and did not blame him for it. A dark mage, oozing with chthonic energies in a town full of regal users of the celestial, showing up unannounced on his domain, claiming alliance with Stella D'Mare's most powerful family... well, needless to say, Lilica herself wouldn't have been inclined to believe such a story, had their roles been reversed. Her past was soaked in blood, and her future still sought it, and how, really, was she to convince him that she had changed when she had a hard enough time convincing herself?
But it was more than there mere, predictable air of distrust that choked the atmosphere of the sparse yet ornate chamber, and Lilica's vague suspicions only grew as Adalfieri went on to articulate his plan to the both of them--a plan to which, up until now, even Chara had not been privy. There was no question that the pinnacle of this war would find itself behind the walls of Stella D'Mare, at the very heart of both parties' struggles. That came as no surprise. What did itch her center of caution, however, was the Rigas leader's dismissal of Alster's current absence, and his unclear explanation as to when the dual celestial-chthonic mage would find himself back in Stella D'Mare. Somehow, a diversion, a distraction, seemed far too menial and risky for someone of sch importance to the Rigas name, and the fate of Stella D'Mare.
Wrong... it just felt wrong, as did the man's quick dismissal of their exchange of words, declaring that he had little else to say to her following the conclusion of her introduction. But she could not quite put her finger on why it felt wrong, or that she was suddenly filled with such a sense of foreboding, and before she could think to question the plan, Chara had beat her to it... only to be cut off, and tersely dismissed by her esteemed leader. Stepping out of Adalfieri's chamber, the doors slammed shut behind their turned backs so quickly, and with such force that Lilica could feel the impact in the floor.
"Chara..." Her fears of reprimand from questioning the tactics of her companion's beloved leader fizzled into nothing when she caught a sidelong glance at her face: pale, drawn, and etched with new shadows... almost, eerily, like looking at a reflection of herself. "What are your thoughts on this? On his insistence that Alster and the others remain at the encampment as a 'distraction'? Does... Alster know about any of this? Would it not endanger him to continue on in ignorance to what Adalfieri has planned for him? I just..." Lilica trailed off and bit her lip, wondering if she was delving too deep into matters that did not concern her. "I can't explain it, but I have a bad feeling in my gut. Perhaps it is mere paranoia of what the end game of this will resemble, but it does not feel... quite so simple or unfounded, as that."
The celestial mage, lost in her own thoughts, must not have heard her, for they continued the remainder of the way back to her villa in relative silence. She did not take it personally, but rather, read into it that she was not alone in her concerns. And it unsettled her all the more that Chara Rigas might harbour even a modicum of doubt for the plans of her trusted leader.
When at last the celestial caster chose to speak up, they had made their way back to her villa, and the door closed behind them. But instead of the answers to her questions, Lilica found herself faced with a query that she had not been prepared to answer: did you mean...every single word that you told Adalfieri?
A faint shade of crimson stained the chthonic mage's cheeks as she sank into an armchair, her diminutive form almost too small for its expanse. Her shoulders fell forward in what felt like the weight of defeat. "Of course I meant every word. Do you honestly think me fool enough to lie to a man who can read people like a book? Anything that I did did not tell him, he'd have gleaned anyway, and I'd have been called on my omissions. So no, nothing was fabricated or left out... everything was raw."
Her dark gaze had taken interest in the patterns upon the marble floor, but out of some bout of courage, managed to look up to meet the vivid blue of Chara's eyes, before she went on. "I promised you, Chara Rigas; I will follow you, wherever you go, for as long as you need me. You are of more worth than I think you or your family realizes, and your safety and survival is of the utmost importance..." Her voice faded to just a decibel above a whisper, as she pressed the remaining air from her lungs. "I will follow you until your feet tread ground that mine cannot... until I cannot follow you anymore."
The remainder of the day dragged on for the Sybaian healer, as she rested under the pretense of 'training'. That rest, however, comprised of very little sleep, and a whole lot of thinking. Elias's comments pertaining to his theory had stuck with her, leading her to consider her past patients while she rested quietly upon her cot, staring at the backs of her eyelids. Although not as frequently as the wounded, Daphni had tended to the sick and afflicted. And like any other aliment or affliction, she treated it from the inside out, balancing the positive energies of the body while creating a siphon for the negative energy to drain, thereby rendering the body in the best state possible to promote healing. Those patients always left feeling better than they had when they had approached her, and held a positive outlook for their recovery... but it was not part of Sybaian practice to follow up with clients. This was, in part, due to the nomadic nature of the clan, which tended to people and to cities in times of great need, then leaving as quietly as they had arrived.
That said... she had no real way of knowing if those she had helped had gone on to live better, longer, healthier lives, or if they had ended up succumbing to their afflictions faster than they would have, had she not interfered. This hindsight planted a seed of sickening unease in Daphni's gut, especially considering that... well, it had never been considered, at least not among the Sybaia, and for perhaps the first time since she had been sworn a true Sybaian healer, she both questioned and doubted her abilities, as well as the practice of her sacred clan.
Night could not fall fast enough, with these thoughts swimming through her mind. And as soon as the last lantern went out in the encampment, save for those of the night guard, the empath made her way back to Elias's tent, quietly on the balls of her feet. Parting the flaps of his temporary living enclosure slowly, so as to alert him to her presence, she presented a steel tin of steaming liquid, which she placed in the middle of the floor, along with a glass mug. "An herbal tea remedy to soothe sore throats," she offered nonchalantly as she took a seat, tucking her calves under her knees. "Just in case you thought the Sybaia were entirely opposed to more 'conventional' methods of healing. If it doesn't work, than I can at least assure you the taste is appealing. You look better, at any rate."
But that was all she could muster for small-talk preamble, for the question weighing on her tongue was too heavy to swallow back, and as soon as she had his attention, her voice lowered to an even deeper hush. "I am more specialized at healing the wounded, as are most Sybaia. But while we primarily treat soldiers and warriors, we do not do so exclusively, and I have had my share of patients who suffer physical afflictions. From something as physiological as irregularities of the heart, to sickness, not so unlike your own. But the Sybaia are not a stationary clan, and seldom do we see our patients and clients again. So... I need to know." Pressing her lips into a thin line, she forced herself to meet his own serious expression. Serious, but surprisingly, not judgmental. "Have I, in your opinion, condemned them? Hastened them to death? Because if that is the case, then I, among my sisters, have failed. And if we have failed... we need to know."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster, too, had said the same of Adalfieri, but did not fight his decrees. "I know he's using me, he confided to her, shortly after they had arrived at Messino's camp. "Since the day I was born, I've been a tool, a weapon. That has always been my destiny. And as penance for trying to flee that destiny, in the worst possible way, I'll allow him to use me however he sees fit. Even if he wishes for me to die."
She understood that Adalfieri's questionable decisions condemned plenty of people, the innocent and guilty alike, and that he needed to disassociate from their humanity so as not to lose his mind in despair. In order to succeed in war, a leader would use whomever and whatever lay at his disposal, damning their individuality. She knew this, as well. Hadn't she used Lilica to her own ends? Rolled her up in between her fingers and plied her into a shape that pleased her most?
Then why had she cared so much for this dark mage? If she truly thought in such a strategical mindset, her heart wouldn't have thumped against her chest with wild abandon when, sitting across from each other in the parlor, Lilica had confessed and confirmed her revelations. I will follow you until your feet tread ground that mine cannot...
She no longer felt the press of her skin against the cushioning on which she sat. It was as if she were afloat in space, with only the image and voice of Lilica to keep her grounded. What did this all mean? There was devotion in her words, that much was true, and it would not stymie her so much if that was all she gathered from Lilica's candor. But...there was an underlying ardor, so subtle, so subliminal, that she'd have missed it if she hadn't raised her head to gaze into the abyss of her eyes. A darkness usually so absolute, so dead, but now, a flicker shined a lantern light in that dead-space, and she prayed for that light to remain, but it had snuffed into blue smoke, and fogged her irises into their typical smoky opacity.
She reached for Lilica's hand, then, that pink baby flesh with a nascent sheen that glowed like dying embers in a fire, and stroked her knuckles with a tenderness that surprised even her. "As long as you are with me, you are able to follow. I will...I will not leave you behind, Lilica." A sincere smile graced her features, one that accentuated a softness not typically found on one so shaken by anger and rage. But it did not last long, and she withdrew her hand before her cheeks glowed the same color as Lilica's skin.
"Ah, well," she said, suddenly finding the ceiling a very interesting sight to behold, "to answer your questions from earlier, I am certain Alster knows of his role, though I do not know if his opinions have changed from last we spoke of this matter, since he's now gained a reason to live. But I trust Adalfieri enough in that he is able to foresee Alster's safety, for it is necessary that he remain alive. There are doubts that I carry with me, as well, Lilica, but I must follow Adalfieri's orders, however ominous. But," she tried to lighten the mood by smoothing her features, once again, "mayhaps we shall use this lull to explore the premises? We shan't squander your chance for a modicum of relaxation." A smile, a different one from before, raised her lips. "Where would you like to go?"
Elias had whiled away his time by pretending, as always, that nothing were amiss with his health. He spent the day in the medical tent, which, since the last battle was several days' past, did not see much in the way of injury or emergencies. On occasion, they'd see to casters or warriors who had several "training" accidents, but otherwise, nothing too grave had commanded his attention. Unfortunate, really, for the vagaries of life did not offset the weight on his preoccupied mind, and time trailed by like a slug in the sky until his appointed time with the Sybaian healer at his tent.
He sat on his cot, reading a book with a battered leather binding by the faint glow of his lantern light, when he raised his head to catch Daphni's entrance into his tent. He set the book aside, invited her to take a seat on the chair at his desk, and accepted her mug, along with the tea, and poured the steaming liquid until near brimming to the surface. He did not admit to her that he was rather fond of tea, but he did mutter a thank you and took a tentative sip, enjoying the taste most when it scalded his tongue and singed the roof of his mouth.
"I'll not waste any of your time," he said, his voice no longer at a scratchy rasp. He warmed his hands by clutching the mug, allowing the steam to swirl up his nostrils. "Though I do have to explore a bit of backstory on my end in order to frame my findings in a more clarifying light." He took a breath, prepared to delve into his lengthy explanation. "I did not start off my healing path with magic in mind. Rather, my foundation began as an apprentice to an apothecary, mixing up tinctures and potions, herbal remedies and medicines. Not a lucrative business, when the populace often sought the aid of the Clematis. So, I endeavored to join the Order, determined to mix magic and medicine, for even then I knew that magic was not infallible. My first window into that truth was when I, a mere acolyte at the time, assisted my brothers in a ward full of patients who had contracted a fairly isolated case of the flu. We had approached our process in a similar vein to how we heal wounds of the flesh, and knitted together the cracks and the imperfections carried by those symptoms. As they appear in our minds, the ailment in question follows similar patterns to that of physical injury. But we had noticed, shortly after exposure to our magic, the patients had worsened. Their coughs grew in intensity, their necks swelled, rashes spread across their faces, and in extreme cases, they had died. We were familiar with that strand of the flu, knew it to be relatively benign, and could only conclude that this flu had mutated, had masqueraded as something familiar when it, in actuality, was far more severe. And for a while, I had believed that to be the case."
"Then, as I began to hone my practice and tended to many patients who took ill, I noticed that they all, every one, found themselves more sickly than when they had arrived. And it was not that I possessed faulty magic, either. I often observed my brothers deal with sick patients, and when I followed up on their progress, their symptoms had intensified. Many of the Order believe this period of heightened symptoms to be a common pattern in the healing process. They believed it would slough off, like a snake skin after they 'burned off' their affliction, so to speak. Not that we were ever able to cure disease, but we were at least convinced that our interference contributed to an expedited recovery. And they had healed, eventually. Some had died, but that is the nature of the practice. However, another curiosity that I had noticed: every patient that had been healed of an illness had always returned, within a reasonable time-frame, having contracted something worse. Always something worse."
"I still do not understand why there is such a reaction to patients with disease, when magic is able to cure flesh-wounds without any purported incident, but I at least can conclude that the healing of flesh wounds takes a less concentrated amount of magic. The healing, or at least the soothing, of disease is a more complicated technique, and expels more energy, which hinders more than it helps. I cannot say I know the nature of your magic enough to make my own conclusions based on where it stands on the spectrum, but I daresay the correlation exists on all magic-related disciplines. Because all magic radiates. Penetrates the skin. Embeds. And in cases where the afflicted are magic-users themselves, especially those with significant power," he paused, to take a well-needed sip of his tea, "it is typically more severe, with longer recovery times. And a far more acute version of whatever ailment they possess." He grew silent, then, in order to allow time for Daphni to react upon and comment on his findings.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Chara's words burrowed deep and resonated with the dark mage, splitting the ice that encased her damaged heart and filling it with warmth. She could see it in the Rigas caster's eyes that this had little to do with the battle, with Alster, with Adalfieri. This, that gleam in those blue eyes, the warmth of her fingers softly against the smaller woman's cold knuckles... that came from somewhere else. Somewhere deep and unspoken, but no less articulated. She mattered; only to one person, but that person's opinion, support, camaraderie... It was all that she needed. And, in that fragile moment, all that she wanted.
But with that surge of warmth came the accompaniment of a dull sadness, the sort that was knitted into every reality, hidden behind words. As long as you are with me, you are able to follow.But for how long that could endure... she just wasn't sure.
That feeling, that roiling unease in the pit of her stomach that had been planted when they traveled through the Serpent's den, that had only intensified during her audience with Adalfieri, reminded her of the reason she had traveled to Stella D'Mare in the first place. Everything that I told him was true, Chara... every word. Lilica's eyes traveled to her hands, pink and shiny with new skin, yet still dotted up the arms with bruises from her failed session with the Sybaian healer. If she did not fall in this war, then one day--and it would be soon, she could feel it like a festering disease--her magic would kill her. Just as it had taken Chara's mother. Sometimes, the powers and the person simply were not compatible... And only resulted in a fatal internal battle, the body against the magic, until the two burned themselves out completely.
That was why she could not find her path, could not foresee a future for herself. Because she had no future... only an end.
But Lilica was not ready to meet that end. Not yet... not until she had the chance to experience what happiness meant, what it felt like. Just for a little while, she wanted to be happy, and worthy, and not alone. And she wanted to spend that precious time with the one person to whom she mattered.
I promise I will follow you, Chara... until I cannot follow you anymore.
Chara's smile warmed her as much as her soft hand. It coaxed the chthonic caster's features to relax, as well, and her lips curled ever so slightly to reflect her companion's optimism. "Stella D'Mare must truly be a spectacular place, if it calls to memories that no longer exist in my mind," she commented, though this time, did not sound concerned or despondent for the imagnary haven that she had implored Chara to burn to the ground. "With the exception of the Serpent's den... it makes me feel at ease. Like I can fall asleep and not be haunted by nightmares. Foolish of me, I suppose, given that Messino has spies everywhere, but..."
Standing from the chair, Lilica wandered back to the terrace, overlooking Old Town and the most picturesque nooks, crannies and general overview of the city. Her dark eyes wandered back to the fountain in the middle of a public courtyard, now void of mischievous children, but no less beautiful. Serene. Calling to a time that she could not remember, that had never existed, but that had no less left permanent marks on her soul, an imprint that would not disappear. She did not need the imaginary, and she did not need the memories; not when everything she wanted was right there, before her, in the present and in reality. The past, for once, had no bearing.
"Somewhere peaceful," the dark mage replied at last, looking over her shoulder at her generous hostess. "Somewhere that inspires solace. Maybe... a place that brought you comfort as a child." She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, as if to acknowledge the oddity of her request as she turned her back on the terrace. "I have no recollection of happiness, as a child or adult... but I can experience it, second-hand, through the sacred places of those who do. The memories that you destroyed... they were fake. They do not matter." Then, through some miracle of intrinsic motivation, she smiled. "Help me replace them with ones that do. With something real; something I can call on when I am surrounded by my own darkness."
Something that I can cherish, she thought, but left unsaid, and that I can take with me, when this abyss swallows me whole.
Daphni had always believed that there was more truth to anecdote and experience than there was to practiced principles... and perhaps that was why Elias's account of his history and observations in his own practice struck her as so frightening. Frightening because it was plausible, and because he was far too intelligent not to speak reason. Yet... why? How was it that magic, particularly of the healing sort, would act such a way? Backfire and destroy the afflicted instead of helping them? That was often the trouble with it; you could not deign to understand magic. Not the same way that you could understand that blood ran through veins, that tears resulted from pain, or that wound would grow septic and infected if left to the open air. Magic was elusive, at times unpredictable, but perhaps its most dangerous quality was that, many a time, it could have a mind of its own.
She thought, then, of the dark mage, Lilica. Of what she had seen (despite how short a time it had been) of the caster's subconscious mind, of the bruises on her skin and the chill that she could not shake. All because she was a tool of her own powers, and not the other way around; not a master of them, but rather, a vessel for them. Magic can harm... and its users are no safer than its targets.
"I... apologize, then," the Sybaian bent her head guiltily, and stared into her cup of untouched tea. "For interfering, earlier. I had no idea that I might be doing you more harm than good... but you were exhausted, and on the verge of collapsing. I had no choice but to act."
As if his anecdote was not enough to make her ponder the effects of her magic on her patients, the residual qualities of its so-called benefit, she couldn't help but consider her own abilities, and those of the Sybaia. And the more she thought, the fewer grounds she found to disagree with him. Magic is a force, no matter where it comes from. A force moves or changes something at will... meaning that, in one way or another, it is destructive.
Ill at ease from her own deductions, she put down her cup of tea. "We were always taught that stable magic was all about balance. That sickness and health had to do with balances and imbalances from the psyche throughout the body, and that we, the Sybaia, are essentially vessels to restore that balance. That is our practice, and I daresay, I do not know enough about your Order to know how your philosophy differs. But... I do know this."
Looking up from the ground for the first time since he finished speaking, Daphni tucking her hair behind her ear and met his eyes. "Magic is destructive. For good or ill, it manipulates and changes states of being. And if that say anything about balance, well... then it is, really, inherently imbalanced. And not without its consequences. I believe your observations, therefore, hold credence of their own. I cannot say how or why, for the logic still eludes me... but now I understand why you hold steadfastly to practical physiology when it comes to healing. And I only hope that my interference earlier did not--and does not--cause you more grief than what you suffer."
Standing from the chair, she gathered her untouched mug of tea, though left the remainder of the pot for him to drink as he may. Where was this sudden sense of apprehension coming from? It was so easy to mistake the emotions of others for her own, but this worry--this fear of the unknown yet plausible--was not coming from the Clematis healer. Of that much, she was certain. "You probably desire rest; I won't keep you any longer. But know that this--all of this... I will keep safely to myself. Like I said, your secrets, as well as your suspicions, are not mine to tell."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"This place exists outside the grounds, and I do not want to disobey Adalfieri's directive, so," heaving a regretful sigh, she called out on the steps, "Lysander!"
As she expected, the man of exclamatory request materialized several feet to her left, leaning against one of the many decorative pillars that lined the front entrance of her villa.
"Gods," she cursed, hating how her hunches regarding his proximity proved correct. "Do you ever sleep unless knocked unconscious?"
"Not when Adalfieri has personally assigned me to watch over the two of you," he said, his arms open in a disarming gesture, as if expecting a backlash to whip from Chara's throat. An admonition. A fierce dismissal. Any sign of displeasure.
In its place, he received a nod Just...a nod. "Good. We need an escort. And a shroud. Come with us, but say nothing. Muffle your ears, as well."
Along with the escort she begrudgingly accepted as a necessary accessory, Chara and Lilica slipped out of the Rigas estate through the guardhouse, not wanting to attract needless attention by swinging open those conspicuous iron and gold gates. Once outside, Lysander cast a shrouding spell, as he did when they traversed the small strand of wastes between camp and Stella D'Mare, and stood at a distance.
"I apologize," she told Lilica once they cleared the estate and reached a narrow pathway between two buildings. "We must take precautions whenever we wander off the premises. I am not any happier about it than you are, but at least the man knows how to be surreptitious when the situation calls for discretion." ...For the most part. She descended a steep set of stairs within that pathway, taking them to the second highest tier on the mountain--and the location of the fountain.
They turned the corner, walked in silence for a few more blocks, and finally reached their destination: the fountain that had so captured Lilica's eye.
The small courtyard around which the fountain took its residency was festooned with palm fronds and those signature purple flowers, the official emblem of the city: Bougainvillea. The fountain, a marble centerpiece four levels high, spurted clear gouts of water, clear but for that slight aquamarine tint that the city also carried in abundance. The water swiveled down each individual pool until it reached the bottom, where an intricate mosaic beamed yellows and vermilions at them in abstract designs. Chara took a seat on the lip of the fountain, inviting Lilica to join.
"So, I am not very creative in choosing an excursion, of that I will fully admit. But, I saw you looking at this spot, and I thought it an apt overlap between that dream-life and now." She ran her hand through the cool splash of water. "When you asked me to destroy your dream, you brought me to a fountain that appeared much like this one right here." Her hand swirled ripples in the water. "I still do question if I provided you a service or a disservice, especially with how violently I went about tearing your world to pieces. This," she pressed on the stone with her other hand, "is the last of what I had incinerated. May this fountain--this real fountain--mark the first of something new. Something solid. Something that does not lie. And--hopefully," she smiled in spite of the sonorous subject, "built to last from hapless casters lighting the blasted thing ablaze."
Dedicating the lull in conversation to the tea, which had already cooled significantly in his hands, Elias watched Daphni from over the rim of his mug. Though she did not show it outright, he saw how she emulated the guise of a statue on her seat: stiffened shoulders, tense hands, a set jaw, which accentuated the line of her cheekbones. And her eyes. They stared at a spot from faraway. She was in deep thought, in contemplation, allowing his words to sink instead of ejecting them as soon as they reached her ears. She did not discount his observations, or discredit them by blaming his bothersome hallucinations on his illness. So many others would dismiss his theories as hearsay and heresy, and it did not further legitimize him when the only other person who put credence in his silent research had succumbed to madness, and betrayed his Order. Perhaps they did not believe, or they did not wish to believe what they feared might hold truth. Theirs was not a religion of truth. It was a religion of faith. Magic--their healing magic--was an extension of the Eight-Colored God. Any opposition to the magic was an affront to their gift, to the One. It spat in the face of divinity.
"I do not begrudge you," he said, lowering the mug to his lap. "Perhaps it is the only action of yours towards which I bear little grudge. Save for the tea," he muttered, and helped himself to a refill.
"In my experience, I have learned that it is not the magic that must achieve stability. It is the vessel which contains it. Our bodies are keepers of the flame. But the flame is wild, and it will strike at its master, strike at its surroundings, if we keep increasing the temperature and the intensity of that flame. That is why magic-users suffer all the more for their craft. In sickness, in compromised recovery, in bodily harm to themselves. Fire does not discriminate, and it is fire to which I compare the raw light of magic, for, yes, I agree with your assessment: it is inherently unstable, and can never be controlled. But I reserve judgement for your clan's healing practices." He swished the liquid in his mug. "I have never been granted the opportunity to sit in and observe the flow of your energies in midst of a session. Until that time comes," a sardonic smile hardened already stern features, "I will keep you updated on my constitution, for I have now, unwittingly, become your patient. What an unfortunate turn of events."
He rose from his cot and handed her back the near-empty tin of tea as he accompanied her to the flaps of the tent. "This is far from some blithe conversation about where to find the best mushroom-picking spots, and I am not one to engage in something so banal at this moment, so as I've nothing else to say, see yourself to bed. Give the topic some thought. And if you think me mad in the morning, and wish to tell me so, to my face, I will give you no counter-argument. All the same, however," he sighed, and scratched at the corner of his nose, hesitant, "thank you for listening."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I suppose your leader's orders do limit our range to an extent," she confessed, staring at the tips of her worn toes of her leather boots. "It's fine. Wherever you see fit that will not have you at risk of going against orders..."
And that was when Lysander stepped out of the shadows, casually leaning his body against a stone pillar. The chthonic caster felt blood rush into her cheeks, overtaken by a sense of incredulous frustration, which Chara ultimately put to words. Not only did he have the nerve to follow, but Adalfieri's trust in them was stretched so thin that he actually saw fit to send the nosey, bothersome father of her friend to trail their every step. Perhaps he suspects we are wary... Of course he would have fail-safes and contingencies in place. "If your esteemed leader has such little faith in some of the key players of his game, then perhaps he needs to reconsider his team," she said in retort to Lysander's laissez-faire demeanor, but when Chara deemed that he could, in fact, be of use to them, there was really nothing left to say.
"I will oblige whatever you see as necessary," she assured her companion as they resumed their face, under Lysander's cover. "However unsavoury these necessities might be." That last comment was spoken loud enough that she hoped Lysander would hear, out of spite if nothing else.
They walked the vibrantly coloured stones of pathways through the mountain, spanned on either side by flora and brush. It was only a walk; a simple stroll, nothing more or less than what was required of anyone day to day in order to navigate their world daily. Yet even the mere meandering through the pathways of Stella D'Mare, side-by-side with Chara, in silence and under the sun... There was an unmistakable sense of peace that even Lysander's presence could not hinder. It was as if, for that short period of time, everything was all right: no war, no darkness... just peace. Peace, and a companionship that was invaluable, irreplaceable.
And then they rounded the corner to that tiny court yard, the center piece of which was an enormous fountain, and Lilica's heart skipped a beat. "This place..." She began, but Chara finished her thought for her. This was the place that reminded her of the world she had lost, the world that she had dreamed and yet could no longer remember. Tears pressed at the back of her eyes, threatening to fall, except... there was nothing to cry about. Not immersed in this readily available serenity as she was.
"I asked you to destroy that dream," she said to Chara, circling the fountain. She lowered the tips of her fingers into the crystalline water: cold It was cold. It was real. "I can't remember why, but I know I asked you to do it, of my own volition. And my guess is... I suppose, a part of me was tired of the lie. I must have thought I was finally ready to become one with reality. But I... I did not realize, at that time, that my only means of peace, of coping, was through retreating to that place. Nor was I aware that without it, and without the memories, I would come to feel so... fractured."
Withdrawing her fingers from the rippling waters, the chthonic caster came full circle to take a seat next to Chara on the wide lip of the fountain. "You cannot feel remorse for what you did. Had I not truly believed it would do me some good, I would not have let you into such a sacred place. It is my own fault for not realizing that simply ridding myself of my only solace was not the answer to my problems. Just as I was foolish enough to think that the Sybaia could untangle me from the darkness that I am practically made of... the catalyst, here, appears to be my own naiveté." Then, much to her own surprise, her lips curled into a smile. "But that doesn't matter, because you are right. This is solid, this is truth... I am actually here. Seeing this, feeling the marble, hearing the water and smelling the flora. Chara..." In relaxing her posture, their shoulders touched, just seconds before her hand found Chara's and rested atop her knuckles. "You have made this real for me. And in my mind... in the life that I have led, that is achieving the impossible."
Without thinking it through, the tired mage rested her head atop her companion's shoulder, her own caution forgotten as easily as it was to forget that Lysander was still present, somewhere currently out of sight. "I think Adalfieri was wrong," she murmured after a moment of savouring the sound of the flow of water. "Stella D'Mare might have been built upon darkness, but here... there is none. Not even with me, present."
Tethered though she was to Alster, Elespeth was well aware that his magic did not concern her, and thus took it upon herself to return to their shared tent as he went to meet with Canopus. Though not yet weary, she changed into her nightshift and retrieved her sorely neglected sword from the corner, where it had sat, untouched, since the last, unfortunate battle, from which the both of them truly were still recovering. The steel was tarnished and the blade itself in desperate need of a sharpening, so she took it upon herself to polish away the rust with a rag while she waited for the Rigas caster to return.
Thanks to the extended rest that she had acquired throughout the expanse of the day, she was still wide awake when Alster pushed past the flaps of the dimly lit tent and stepped inside. As bright as that star in the sky, after which he was named. "I was about to ask how it went, but judging by the look on your face, I'm guessing it went well." The former knight grinned and wrapped her sword back in its protective cloth, before lowering it gently to the ground. "Of course, I'd be surprised if it hadn't. Canopus wanted your celestial magic to return; he got what he wanted."
Reaching out, Elespeth took his hands as he sat down next to her. "I suppose this means that we--particularly you--no longer have an excuse to bide time peacefully. Everyone will want to see your potential. But... that can wait for tomorrow. No one else is awake at this time of night; just us. Come here."
A sly grin played on the warrior's lips as she pulled him closer and closed the distance between them with a kiss, passionate and all-encompassing, as she moved his hands to rest upon her hips, just inches above where the plain cotton shift ended midway to her firm thigh muscles. "I kept you warm all day," she murmured, kissing her way down his jaw, to his neck. Unabashed, unapologetic, unashamed. "Why don't you return the favour?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He shook his head, saddened. War-time provided the perfect cover, both for Chara and for Alster. In times of peace, emotional betrayal to the family begat immediate consequence, and swift judgement. Of this, Lysander was well-aware, for he had forfeited the status he had schemed to lose by impregnating one beneath his station, out of wedlock, when he himself had been arranged to marry the beautiful yet cruel and warmongering Mizar. But his insurrection and insolence remained within the family, and within expected gender roles. He at first thought Alster's interest in a magic-less warrior was an egregious mistake, but Chara, in her involvement with a woman who happened to possess chthonic magic of which there was ample discrimination and fear...it did not speak well for Chara's ultimate fate. Oh, how war did attract strange bedfellows.
He tried to reassure himself that they were friends, close friends, but he sensed something in the air between them, in the way that they looked at each other, how they touched their hands with the tenderness of one lover to another, how, as they perched upon the fountain, the dark mage nestled her head between the crook of Chara's neck and scooted closer. Did they yet realize their affections? And could he keep the rumors at bay? Adalfieri could not read the future, only see the past and the mind at present, but his intuition bordered on future-sight, and Lysander feared that the Rigas head already knew of this most worrying result.
Chara continued submerging her hand, watching it fracture into a mosaic of its own through the warped lens of dimples and ruffles, until a bougainvillea flitted from a vine curled around an archway above their heads and alighted over the water, sailing in between her outstretched fingers. "This is a far superior fountain, of course," she said with false, exaggerated bravado, still conflicted on how best to approach conversation on a delicate holdover from their past. "Not apt to crumble like paper. Structurally sound. Earthquake resistant."
She spun the flower, which pirouetted in graceful loops around her hand. "Nonetheless, I find some fault in my demeanor," she said, her voice a strain in her admittance. "Though it was not unfounded. I wanted to see you suffer. I had felt betrayed, and angry, and wanted no better than to see you come undone at my feet. You had granted me exactly what I desired. Had your request occurred earlier, or later, I do not think I would have done something so cruel, so unabashedly terrible." She plucked the flower from the water and twirled it, herself, in her lap. "But...that chastens me. However, to make up for what I have done, I shall go about reconstructing yet more features of your dream with real landmarks, real colors, real flavors. There are flowered walkways that replace the sky with storms of petals, beaches where the ocean rolls warm suds over your feet, various shops with the most delicious lemon and orange drinks with a tang that puckers your lips and sweetens the tongue. I shall show it all to you, while I can."
When Lilica had pressed her head atop her shoulder, she inadvertently leaned closer, like a flower in the sun. And with that flower, that purple with an intensity that seemed to vibrate in her hands, she took a strand of the blue-green iridescence of Lilica's fine curtain of raven hair, silken and soft. It rustled as she weaved the bougainvillea in a section just above her ear, allowing the petals to flare outwards in its small, ostentatious display. "There. You are now officially a Stella D'Mare citizen. Many women adorn this flower in their hair. It is one of vitality. A symbol of national pride. And, if given from one hand to another, of," she paled, "love."
Alster's meeting with Canopus went about as expected. He knew his former teacher to suffer from bouts of insomnia, and on this particular evening, he restlessly bounded in his tent, pacing with scuffing steps that Alster could hear from outside. He called out to him, which ceased the shuffling from inside, and Canopus popped his head out of the tent, brow creased in confusion.
"My apologies for the late hour. This won't take long." He flicked his hand and a star-shape quivered on his palm, four-pointed, pale-blue and cold. A more wavering version of the one from overhead whose name he bore, but it delighted Canopus to see, all the same, and a smile drew over the lines of his tired face.
"It's still a work in progress," he said, dispersing the star, "and I can't say what this means for my chthonic magic, but...it's back."
When Alster returned to the tent, he nodded and drew forth a smile of victory for Elespeth. "He seemed pleased, which I think he needed. He looks to be in a bad way. But I hope he doesn't grow too optimistic about my potential," he tittered nervously as he joined Elespeth on the cot. "I haven't access to my celestial magic, in full, for three years. I am woefully out of practice. But," before he could even touch on the innuendo that he was to say along the lines of but speaking of practice (which was a remark he was glad to keep to himself, not wanting to advertise his inexperience), she drew him close and tight until they almost overlapped each other. "Hmm...it appears that my romantic seduction from earlier has worked its charms on you," he cooed, before her lips gained on him, and they kissed, hard but soft, loving but lustful, all desire, all carnal and all warmth and heat and flame. He burrowed his hands beneath her shift, tracing the sharp curves of her warrior's hips, feeling their rhythm undulating against him.
"Gladly," he breathed, and he kicked off his boots, and he climbed over her as he worked that shift from where it billowed, in its strategic fittings and concealments, until the lower half of her body was exposed to him in the wan light of the tent. He peppered his kisses, from her lips, to her shoulder, down to her abdomen, until he reached the well between her legs.
And he drank from her well.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And now... completely unsolicited, Chara wanted to repair. To reconstruct memories, places, that she had incinerated and torn from the dark mage's mind.
"You think it possible?" Lilica dared ask, while Chara's deft fingers wove the beautiful flower into her hair, with such care. As if she was something worth adorning... something that could be made beautiful, despite her monochromatic colouration. The flower did add a shock of vibrancy to fair features, its soft, violet undertones almost coaxing a pink into her cheeks. "To rebuild what I asked you to destroy, only in the image of Stella D'Mare? Because I need... I need something to hold onto. When it's too dark to find light." And, often, it was.
But Stella D'Mare had captivated her from the moment she had emerged from the Serpent's den, and in spite of that dull ache of foreboding, part of her couldn't help but believe that maybe, just maybe, she could find happiness in the time she spent there. In spite of war... in spite of it all. Stella D'Mare was in and of itself a dreamscape... and far more pleasant than anything she saw upon falling asleep, of late.
Fingers reaching up to touch the flower in her hair, a faint flush of colour brightened the dark caster's cheeks to a hue that was just above faded and grey. Almost healthy looking. "I would love to see it. All of it." Straightening her spine, she cleared her throat and faced Chara who, in comparison, looked as though she had paled. A symbol of national pride. And, if given from one hand to another, of love... "If you... if it befits you to take me. Do not think you are obligated to fix this, Chara. Or... me, for that matter. The manner in which you tore down that dream might have been violent, but I asked you to do it. You are not at fault. And it is enough that you..." She glanced down at their hands, still one resting atop the other, and dared to weave her pale, slender fingers between the Rigas caster's. "That you are my friend."
A faint rustle in the nearby brush snapped Lilica back to reality, enough that she remembered the lurking form of Lysander was no doubt nearby, and eavesdropping (for what better did he have to do?) She couldn't really take it upon herself to care what he heard, but she was more than well aware that it would irk Chara. "Are you quite entertained?" She posed the question flatly to the blonde woman's father, pursing her lips in annoyance. "Looking out for someone and eavesdropping on them are two different things. This personal conversation is not for your entertainment."
The Atvanian warrior leaned into her lover's embrace with a purr, running her fingers through his blonde locks as he climbed over her eager form, the feel of his hands on her bare skin beneath her shift sending a thrill through her body. She was more than happy to be rid of the thin piece of fabric that draped over her subtle curves and firm contours of muscle, and leaned into Alster's kiss hungrily and with reckless abandon. Every brush of his lips on her skin was electric, from her lips to her breasts to her heaving abdomen and...
Gods...!
Alster had become bold with his resurgence of celestial magic, but Elespeth hadn't anticipated the extent to which the Rigas caster was willing to take initiative in such a feisty manner. An intense zing of pleasure stole her breath from her lungs as his lips and tongue teased that sensitive area between her legs, an area that had been so often forgotten and neglected before. Had she known... had she realized the existence of that tiny spot, so carefully hidden from sight and from mind...
She had no choice but to surrender to the pleasure, and as an unbidden moan escaped her lips, she was forced to bite down on her knuckles so as to stifle her passion. It was bad enough that she was, essentially, breaking some serious rules with Alster (surely they would do worse than simply excommunicate her should the Rigases catch wind of her torrid affair with the betrothed caster), but should her vocalizations alert the camp to their antics, she certainly would never be able to live it down. But the feeling...
"Oh... A-Alster..." His name escaped her lungs in a rush, as a shudder of pleasure assaulted her body, and her fingers dug into the sheets on the cot. It felt so good... So good, too good, and, and...
She hadn't yet finished with him. She wanted more--and she was betting that he did, too.
"Alster... stop." With only a twinge of reluctance (for she could have happily left him in control of her pleasure until she fell over the edge of passion), Elespeth sat up and only caught a brief glimpse of his befuddled expression before taking him firmly by the shoulders. And, with a rare display of her physical strength, flipped the caster onto the mattress where, just seconds before, her own writhing form had been helplessly sprawled. The former knight hovered over him, nimble hands working at his belt and trousers as she straddled his hips. They came off with ease and eagerness. "Let me take care of you," she purred in his ear, tugging gently, playfully at his ear lobe, as she fought a mild insecurity pertaining to her skills. Do I even know what I am doing?
When she lowered herself onto him, carefully and with precision, reveling in the feeling of their bodies so perfectly connecting, it appeared that she did.
Grateful for her lower body strength, she moved on top of him, her hips undulating back and forth, up and down, in a steady and satisfying rhythm. That feeling returned, those waves of pure bliss, and were intensified by the mutual look of being lost in passion playing on Alster's features. Elespeth's hair spilled over her shoulders and breasts as she rocked on top of him, brow furrowed in concentration and excitement, moving closer and closer to the peak of game, that irresistible finale. Closer and closer, her hand finding Alster's, and their scars meeting as their fingers wove through one another's...
Elespeth tumbled over the edge with a gasp, gripping Alster's hand tightly as the two of them fell together from the peak of that mountain they had mutually built. Light-headed and beyond satisfied, the warrior carefully eased her body off of her lover's, falling next to him on the cot. Their skin, despite the cool evening air, was dotted with small beads of perspiration. "I think..." she brreathed a puff of air, a grin gracing her satisfied and sleepy face, "I might actually be able to sleep now."
by Widdershins
With her small task complete, she let drop the small section of braided and festooned hair, watching the onyx weave sway in small, pendulous motions. No longer with a preoccupation, Chara's hand retreated back to the stone lip upon which they sat, and it sought Lilica's hand, and not so subtly reunited with it. Have I gone daft? Cease this tomfoolery, Chara. No good will come of it!But still, she did not budge from her position. She only sat, and listened to the soft gurgle of the fountain that accompanied the lilt of Lilica's voice. Had it always sounded so mellifluous, so tuneful, a complement to the ocean breeze on a hot, summer day?
"Even if it is not possible, I shall make it possible," Chara harrumphed, again trying to conceal the more vulnerable patches of herself that she had insisted on exposing. "There is no lack of beauty here. In fact, we should take utmost advantage of our unspoiled surroundings, for when the war arrives on these streets," her eyes drooped just thinking of that inevitable consequence, "much of what we see now will be gone. I suppose that is another reason why I led you to this fountain. Flowers can be trampled and crushed, but this structure cannot easily be toppled, nor does it hold much significance to our would-be marauders. Even when the water stops flowing, and dries away, it will not budge or bow so easily to its aggressors. An admirable thing, this fountain," she concluded with an offhanded tilt of her head, but in that tilt, she glanced at Lilica, and a warmth toppled from her cheeks and spread all over her face.
"Do not be preposterous, Lilica. I want to show you what I can. It, too, will help me to see this place in a new light, something I cannot do by myself, or among my own kin. But first," she gave Lilica a wrinkled look of scrutiny, "It is it nigh time we find you better clothes. A simple change of wardrobe does wonders for the soul." A flood of excitement, of the prospect of utilizing Lilica as a human-sized doll, rippled in the twin lakes of her eyes. "I must dress you." The hunger in those eyes distorted those lakes as they dammed and overflowed. "Myself, as well. I must update my ratty things. But you--oh this is an opportunity I cannot turn up!" Her smile turned absolutely diabolical, but it faded when Lilica had snapped her attention to the rustle from behind them that belonged to Lysander. Before she knew what she was doing, Chara pressed a hand against Lilica's shoulder, gentle, but firm.
"If it is Adalfieri's directive, then he has little choice but to eavesdrop. Gods know how many times he has done so already," she said, then puckered her lips in bemusement. Did Lilica's presence mollify her so much, to the extent at which she defended her cretin of a father? That could not be true. It was due to Adalfieri's influence, she reminded herself. I must remain in his good graces--even if it is kowtowing to this infuriating man.
Lysander materialized, his face a mirror, reflecting his daughter's confusion. But it darkened into shadow as he snapped his attention to Lilica. "Do not forget, you are a guest, Lilica. I am only here to look after your well-being, and I must stay close enough to shield the two of you from view. Yes, this means that I may overhear snatches of conversation, but it is not through malicious intent. In war, we do not have the luxury of privacy. Adalfieri values the lives of you both. He wants you safe, and unharmed." His withering glare faded, and he spread his hands, contrite. "So I do apologize, but these are precautions that I must see to fruition."
Alster's tongue tasted the sugar and salt of her as he stroked it along the button that, when pushed, extolled a ring of her pleasure into the air. It was her voice of approval, it seemed, though he was not certain. He had only heard-tell of this technique, embarrassingly enough, from his father, but he feared he would not be able to locate the correct spot. If he had difficulty finding her insertion point just yesterday, within her intricately layered folds, how then, would he know where to look, especially in the dark? No, Alster, you will not shine a light in there, he chastised to himself as he began to lick, and his tongue touched a small, fleshy knot, and he knew it to be correct because she moaned and it encouraged him to continue, basking in her ecstasy, until...
Alster...stop.
He paused and raised his head to her, his tongue lolling half out of his mouth. "Do you...not like it? I...I did not mean--" Curses! And here, he thought he had succeeded in pleasing her, thought he had mustered the confidence to try, but confidence meant nothing next to experience, of which he had precious little. I am such a fool, he thought with a sinking feeling in his pit.
But then she had grabbed him, and spun him, and before he had time to dwell on his misgivings, she crushed him into the mattress and lorded over him, her hair a curtain that enveloped him inside the shroud wherein flashed her eyes and lips. And oh how those tantalizing lips huffed into his ear words that caused a shiver in his spine and an ache in his loins. She...dominated him. In strength, in her eyes, when he saw nothing but her pure seduction overtaking all of his senses. She paralyzed him in the cradle of her control. And oh how he liked it! He wanted her to burn him alive until there was nothing left of him. He wanted her destruction, her consumptive force, her everything.
"Yes," he said, panting in anticipation. "Take me. Take it all. Elespeth..."
He clawed at her back when she began, feeling every thrust, and he met her halfway, two waves crashing over a spit of land until that sandy beach had dissipated, submerged beneath flumes of salt and spray and pure power. He ran his hands to grip at her hair, a groan on his lips. Pound pound pound. He felt it all. His heart crashed against his ears.
She recovered his hand in the midst of the attack, and he about crushed it tight as their collective outcries and splay of legs had mounted the top of the world. And then, all the world crashed down on him, in helpless surrender, and it flattened him to that bed, where he stayed, shuddering and gasping as if he just emerged from the womb, from the void, and into creation.
"I'm glad," he said huskily, turning his head to watch the heaving of her chest. "Heavens forbid what would have happened...if I had said no." A mischievous grin lit his features. "And denied you this sleep remedy. What would you have done?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lying next to the Rigas caster, without a thread of clothing between their bodies, the Atvanian warrior could feel her heartbeat in her throat, the heat of her body radiating into the cool night air. She could have slept, now, exhausted from the exertion of their combined passion, of the intensity of that thrill. She could have drifted off in his arms, to the soft thrum of his heaartbeat and the hypnotic pace of his breathing. But the sultry tone to his voice, a spice that twinkled in his blue eyes, kept her awake, and stirred that near predatory, feline instinct that had taken over during their lovemaking, and she took her kiss-swollen lower lip between her teeth in thought.
"Now, Alster... you should know me better than to think I would do anything but respect your wishes," she purred, arching a brow as she turned on her side to face him, one hand resting on the swell of her hip. "I understand that no means no. Although... I couldn't guarantee that I not try to change your mind."
Shifting her body closer, the former knight repositioned her leg such that her knee gently yet tantalizingly pressed against that sensitive area of his own between Alster's legs, a sly grin playing on her lips, eyes half-lidded and sultry. "I think... I might have been able to persuade you not to say no. You wouldn't have me spend a night, sleepless and restless, would you? And, anyway..." Bringing her lips to his neck, Elespeth kissed her way all the way up his neck and along his jaw, until they brushed his lips and whispered, "Could you really say no to me, Alster? If I asked so nicely?"
Relaxing her leg so that it no longer tantalized his netherregions, she rolled off of the helpless Rigas caster with a laugh. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't let the power get to my head. Though... you're equipped with more power than you think." A pink flush tinted her pink cheeks, and quickly spread down her neck. "How did you... where did you learn to..." There was no reason for her to be embarrassed, and embarrassment was, perhaps, not the right name for the feeling. Perhaps it was something more akin to bafflement; surprise. "I wasn't aware my body could... feel like that. That any one could make my body feel like that. You are... Alster," she puffed air from her lungs. "You amaze me. I don't ever want to let you go."
And she never would. Not if she could help it.
The idea of new clothes had occurred to Lilica more than once, since their journey from Messino's camp to Stella D'Mare's encampment. She had gone from her worn and filthy tunic and leggings to several shifts provided by the healers while she recovered, and back again to her original outfit. It was torn and ragged, by now, and stained with blood which had faded with washings, but would never really come out. But like the rest of her past remnants, she was eager and willing to be rid of it completely. And for reasons beyond the fact it was, at this point, little more than a rag. If Chara desired her as a living doll, then frankly, she was more than happy to oblige.
"I suppose it will take more than a flower in my hair to look like a citizen of Stella D'Mare," The chthonic caster commented, chastened by her choice words to Lysander. It truly wasn't his fault, at the end of the day, that he was their escort. He was just as much tied by his loyalty to Adalfieri as was Chara, and it might have seemed suspicious on his part had he refused. And in the way he explained himself... Well, she had been expecting sass or some overly-embellished display of the dramatic. What she had gotten instead was sound reason, and... unmistakable honesty.
She couldn't be angry with him. Especially not if Chara had seen fit to defend him.
Nodding her head, she tucked the braid that Chara had woven behind her ear. "I apologize," she told her companion's sneaky father, not meeting his eyes. "I understand that you have no choice. And I am sorry that you have been assigned such a mundane task. Just..." She paused and bit her lower lip. "See that you do keep us unseen, to the best of your ability."
Standing up from the fountain when Chara did, she noticed that their hands still remained connected... and she made no move to break that connection. "I'd like to come back here tomorrow... and often enough that I can memorize everyone stone in this fountain." She took one last, long look at the beautiful structure, partially hypnotized by the ripples in the water. So the world really can be beautiful... "But for now, I will indulge you in making me more presentable in your home. Why don't you lead the way to the most acceptable place where I might find some new attire."
The idea seemed harmless, and at first, Lilica found it rather amusing to try on stunning new tunics and gowns to which she never would have had access. Until, that is, she realized just how particular Chara was in seeing her look a certain way. There was no compromising... it was perfect, in her eyes, or it was out of the question. And it wasn't long before the dark mage was beginning to altogeher regret the decision of visiting these boutiques with her generous hostess--and with Lysander in tow.
"Chara... do you think that, perhaps, I am just not meant to dress like a denizen of Stella D'Mare?" She had lost track of how many things she had put on and taken off her body, refusing the help of the tailors and seamstresses every time, too ashamed to show that ugly, red scar at her side. Currently, she fussed with a long, fitted tunic that brought out the undertones of blue and green in her hair. "Perhaps we should just accept what looks the least terrible and call it a day. You must understand... I cannot wear what you wear." With a sigh, she fussed with the wide, silver-lined collar. Chara had breasts and hips and a waist that narrowed and flared at just the right proportions, graceful and alluring and utterly flattering in V-shaped necklines...
Feeling blood rush to her face, Lilica cleared her throat and stepped out from behind the privacy curtain for the umpteenth time in a couple of hours. The merchants must have been beginning to wonder if they truly meant to purchase anything at all. "I truly appreciate the effort that you are putting into trying to make me look the part of one of this city's regal citizens," she said, eyes downcast, not wanting to meet yet another look of disapproval. "But even if you dip a rotten apple in gold... it is still a rotten apple. And you will fool nobody."
Lifting her shoulder in a shrug, her fingertips reached upward to brush the flower in her hair. "Perhaps we must rely merely on the grace if your Rigas presence to make me look good, here." The corner of her mouth curled into a smile.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You," he said, in a barely contained whisper, as she clambered for his throat with her lips, "are truly wicked, using your temptress ways to lure me into your lurid trap." A smile, half pained with pleasure and half aching with desire, met her lips. "You already have me. You don't have to try. I'm already powerless to you. Always." He moved to kiss her, but by then she spun from him, and the throb that assailed him sounded and felt like frenzied knocks on a door. Clap. Thump. Rap rap rap. But she surprised him further by mentioning his little trick, the trick he thought was an utter failure, and he felt his entire body turn newborn red. Wasn't sex supposed to alleviate his cravings, not expose them in the most debilitating ways?
"I...I knew about that region for quite some time," he said, in a bashful whisper. "It was something I had always wanted to try," he admitted, even quieter. But before all his excess energy puttered into useless smoke by the antithesis of passion, (which was a satisfied placation), he stoked the embers from within and rounded on her, drawing his lips over her ear and nipping at the outer rim, his breath sending spumes of the smoke of reignition inside of her with the fumes of his suggestion.
"Mmm. Care to have another go?" His whisper crooned, became desperate. "Make me powerless again..."
They went for each other one more time, a glorious convergence, until they fell into a heap, breathless, sweating, and utterly spent. He slept in her arms, a smile on his serene face.
Please let this last forever...
He woke to a clanging. Shouts in the distance. A roiling gargle and the shuffling of feet, frenetic and clomping, with too much weight bearing on the ground to suggest a steady gait. This was not the sound of a camp going about the daily vagaries of its fast-paced life. This was the sound of a scuffle. Trouble rippled in the air.
Rising up from the cot, minding Elespeth sleeping soundly beside him, Alster slipped out of bed, hastily threw on his clothes, and chose to investigate. Perhaps it was nothing. Just a row. Friendly fire. Nothing to suggest alarm.
He sneaked his way outside, and all hopes dashed like crooked arrows that always launched into the ground. Movement. Rushed and suspicious. Bodies flitted in the darkness, weaving in and out of tents, hushed yet still at a low clamor. A sneak attack? Messino's men?
He stepped forward, palms at the ready, aiming to intercept one of these men. Shadows gripped at his form. Something inside of him desired to use chthonic magic, to sneak just as these half-quiet aggressors. But just when he was about to cast a binding spell, a creeping sensation bloomed from behind him, in the narrow space between himself and the tent from where he emerged. He whirled around, in surprise, but by then the figure overtook him with a club, and cracked him on the head.
"I got you." It was all that Alster could hear in the fracturing of his senses. Spots bled before his eyes, and those blooms turned inky and coated his vision into impenetrable black soup.
Before he slid away from the world, he heard the same voice, but from farther away, and he did not know if he was departing, or his assailant.
"We're done here. Take him to Messino. And then, unleash the puppet army onto this god-forsaken camp."
Chara was not one to surrender a project, however daunting. She sensed a challenge in Lilica, and it flared the problem-solver in her to life. Not that her companion was hideous. Far from it! Everything, from the pout of her lips, to the allure of her dark eyes, to how her thin frame graced her with slender hips and a gentle curve that would guarantee a flattering figure in a form-fitting garment, painted her as a natural beauty. Nothing harsh, nothing jarring. No outfit would do her justice. But that did not mean Chara would not try. And she would succeed.
They did not have to walk far to reach the closest boutique. As it primarily served the Rigas clientele, it was situated just a staircase away from the gates of the estate, nestled at the mouth of the alleyway that led them to its white-walled, red tile-roofed facade. A squat, oval-shaped door graced the outside of the business, a quirk that many other shops had adopted. Lysander, out of obligation, followed them, accepting enough of the locale for its proximity to home and therefore in no objection to the excursion--though he had opted to wait outside for them. Before entering, he had lifted the shroud from their shoulders. "They will have to see you in order to dress you," he remarked, with a one-shouldered shrug and a lopsided smile to match.
Chara wasted little time. Once inside, she marched up to the clerk, introduced Lilica, and listed a whole bevy of styles to fish out for her companion. Boat necks, V-necks, square necks. Flared waist, tight leggings, flexible and breathable, free-flowing sleeves, no sleeves, frills, no frills. Lace and silk with smooth, rippled folds. Magenta, violet. fuchsia, sash belts, studded belts, dresses, cloaks, and shoes, ankle-high boots, knee-high boots...Chara drilled the clerks with these demands and honed a critical eye on the outfits under trial, cinched as they were on Lilica's body. She did not hide her distaste, and openly scoffed at what she detested.
"Oh, do not think you can wriggle out of this appointment by denigrating yourself, so cease your gloomy dismissals and take heed when I say this." She paused and tilted her head at the new ensemble that Lilica displayed with the self-consciousness to rival that of Alster. "That tunic is a start."
Honing down the designs and the patterns in similar form to what Lilica had last sported, Chara had managed to find three outfits that received her glowing nods of approval--though she doubted the dark mage had thought the same. One was a dress, formalwear, a long, slinky gown cinched at the waist and trimmed with black lace. The second was a casual tunic for on-the-town jaunts, snug in all the correct places and billowing out to a flare, accompanied by a cloth belt, leggings, and cute but capable walking boots. The third outfit was for war, and was thus a more practical version of her casual tunic. Plain, and faded, of a light twill weave and a geometric design on the collar. It, like its two predecessors, was fashionable, even in its simplicity.
Before Lilica could protest, Chara purchased the outfits and lifted the package into which, minus the casual outfit she forced her companion to wear, they were delicately wrapped. She took the bundle by the string and handed it to Lilica. "Even if you do not believe me, you do stand out, on your own. You are..." her eyes darted away, "quite stunning. And believe me, I am the last to compliment a woman for her appearances," she mumbled, feeling her face heat. "Now," she cleared her throat and half-bellowed the abrupt change of subject as they left the shop, meeting back with Lysander, "it is time we return to my villa. It is already dark--and we have not yet eaten dinner."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She was happy to be lost with him just one more time. Lost in the sound of their breathing, of their moans, of their muffled cries of pleasure. Lost in a microcosm of a universe that belonged solely to them, where the influence of family and war and magic had no bearing. Just the magic that existed between the two of them, that they created together.
That evening, as they lay, tangled in one another's arms, their hair and skin damp with perspiration from their passions, the former knight could almost believe herself as part of Alster's star. Though they existed as separate identities, separate people from completely separate times, there was nothing between them, no degree of separation, after a union so intimate and soul-bearing. They were as one, and had been meant to be long before they had sealed their lives and themselves to one another through blood.
Somewhere, in the deepest depths of her hopeful mind, Elespeth was convinced that they would forever remain as one. And her confusion was palpable, visceral, the moment she woke up cold and alone upon the cot, with her beloved companion nowhere in sight. "Alster?" She breathed his name despite knowing full well that he was not there... And that it perhaps had something to do with the commotion that was occurring beyond the tent. Panicked, she was quick to dress and to grab the sword that she had discarded upon the ground hours before, in favour of making love to the one with whom she was so deeply in love.
As soon as she parted the tent flaps, standing in the damp chill of the night, a sinking feeling told her that she was already too late. "Alster!" She called, looking this way and that in a frantic effort to find him among the bodies--living and undead, she noted with a twinge of horror--that took up arms. Messino... that dirty bastard has sought to take us unawares! Biting down on her lower lip so hard that she tasted blood, something hot and reckless overtook the Atvanian warrior from the inside-out; rage, it must have been. For mere seconds later, without even a lick of armor to protect her, Elespeth was cutting her way through Stella D'Mare's encampment, cutting down Messino's goons and shouldering aside her own allies in her desperate search for Alster, and staining her new clothes with blood in moments. Please be here, please still be here... and please be alright! He wasn't dead, of that much she was certain, for she would have felt it. But what left her worrying was not what she felt, but rather, what she did not feel.
Nothing. She felt nothing... and had no indication as to where Alster might be.
Turning on her heel too quickly, the frenzied young woman came close to losing her balance when she all but collided with a tall man; living, and not one of Messino's soldiers, by the looks of it, but she didn't allow much time for assessment. Not when Alster's whereabouts were not known to her, and his life was on the line. "Out of my way!" She demanded, and sought to rush past him, until a hand circled her forearm, preventing her escape. Elespeth was wild. "Unhand me!" She growled, turning her rage on this man and his daring gall. "You have no idea what... Haraldur?!"
Sure enough, though in tattered clothing and looking as though he and his health had seen better days, it was her former ally to whom--she thought with sudden shame--the former knight had not given many thoughts since the last time she had seen him. Before she had fled, been apprehended... before Farrin's death. Had it really been that long...? Has all of that come to pass in that amount of time?
Elespeth lowered her hackles, and her expression drowned in apology. "Haraldur... thank the gods, you are alive," she breathed, and clutched his hand. "And you must tell me how it is you have come to be here, but not right now. So much has happened, my friend, but... but Alster... Haraldur, I fear something terrible is going to happen to him, if it has not happened already. I cannot find him anywhere." That frantic gleam of determination returned to her green eyes, then, as she was quick to recollect her task at hand. "I-I need to find him. Do you know anything of this attack?" Surely, he was not part of it, not any longer, for the clothes on his back were nothing that would have been issued by the Mad Prince. She could trust him--damnit, she had to believe she could trust him. "I will chase that bastard Messino and his goons to the end of the world. Alster is... he has done too much for me. I owe this to him, I won't come back until Stella D'Mare has their trump card returned to them!"
She must have heard wrong, for 'stunning' could not be the appropriate adjective to describe Lilica D'Or. She was too pale, her eyes too shadowed, her form too thin to come across as more than a gloomy waif (and at least the Rigas caster had gotten that descriptor correct). But... stunning? "Stunning is that fountain, with vines and flowers climbing its structure," she corrected her companion gently. "Or the view from your villa, or a sunset. I am... merely, I am passable, if that. But I accept and appreciate your compliment."
Despite that their day had been a busy one, and tiring in many ways, the thought of food hadn't once crossed the chthonic caster's mind, and dinner certainly hadn't been a priority. But Chara was right; it had grown dark, and the two were probably more exhausted than they realized. She was happy to oblige. "Of course," she agreed, and nodded to Lysander on exiting the shop. "Won't you see us back safe and sound, Lysander? I am sure you could use the rest as much as we can."
Rest was more of a luxury to her than the marble floors, or fine clothing or the meal that a woman who Lilica did not recognize had begun to set on on the table, as the two stepped through the doors of Chara's villa. To rest her head upon real pillows on that real bed felt almost as much a fantasy as visiting the fountain. In truth, she could have gone straight to bed without a bite to eat, but her hostess had done so much for her today, the least she could do was keep her company for a meal beforehand. "Allow me to clean up, first, if that is not an outstanding request," she besought, as plates were set out. "I fear I cannot do these clothes justice on a good day, let alone feeling the wear and debris of the day on my skin. I promise I won't be long."
Sure enough, the woman setting up the meal was happy to fill the Rigas caster's claw-footed tub with hot water in just a matter of moments, and with Chara's approval, she excused herself to bask in those waters. The strong scent of flora assaulted her senses the moment she stepped into the bathing chambers and shut the door, and at closer inspection, Lilica realized, on undressing and lowering herself into the tub, that it was the smell of the water. "Why am I not surprised..." She found herself murmuring with a faint smile on her lips. But of course, this was probably how Chara preferred her baths: literally to come out smelling like a rose. A good thing she appreciated the smell of flowers just as much.
Although she had promised not to take long, Lilica could have remained submerged in that hot water for hours. It soothed her aching muscles and left her skin and hair feeling soft and hydrated, and the warmth alone was enough to lull her into a peaceful sleep. But Chara was waiting for her, as was a perfectly good meal, so with a twinge of reluctance, she hauled herself out of the fragrant waters moments later and dried her skin and hair on a plush towel, before pulling on her brand new tunic. Clean and damp, her ebony hair hung in waves down her back, and the warmth of the water had drawn colour into her skin. Her only regret was that she could not do justice with tucking the bougainvillea into her tresses with the same expert finesse that Chara had; but she tried, nonetheless.
"Does it always smell like a fresh garden in Springtime, in there?" The dark mage asked when at last she joined her hostess, for what was--in her own experience--the best meal she had ever seen. "Not that I mind. I find flora and greenery strangely appealing... soothing, in a way. Something else to which I assume I must attribute to that dream that has long since vanished from my mind. Though I do apologize for keeping you waiting... this looks exquisite." Taking a seat in a cushioned chair, she contemplated what to try first, though often found herself distracted by the expansiveness of Chara's lovely villa. So much space and so much luxury... was it really all for one person? "So... do you inhabit this villa all on your own?" She couldn't help but ask, to sate her curiosity. "When, of course, you are not being called to war. It is just hard for me to imagine that anyone might find comfort all by themselves, surrounded by such expansive space."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Since his escape from Andalarian shackles (which, from his past experiences that often brushed on the wrong side of the law, had been simple), Haraldur, instead of fleeing the war altogether, traveled to Tadasun's war camp, and surrendered. From one prison to another. New shackles adorned his wrists. New captors leered over him. But they did not leer long, when he offered them a compromise. In exchange for releasing him, and allowing him to fight for their army, he would provide invaluable information on what he had gleaned during his tenure as an Andalarian soldier. They had acquiesced, and in turn, Haraldur told them what he knew about Messino's undead army, the ruby-encrusted weapons, how many were in existence, and other such logistics: Messino's strategies, or lack thereof; the approximate number of men, the break-down of his units, how many casters he commanded, and the details of the Atvanian fugitive they had apprehended. In time, Haraldur had earned their trust--or their cooperation, at least.
After securing him a place in the war effort, Tadasun had sent him along with several others on frequent reconnaissance missions to Messino's encampment. On one such mission, he and his team had overheard two sentries discuss a sneak-attack that they planned to execute that evening--and had already agreed on a time.
Hearing enough, Haraldur and the team drifted back to Tadasun, and then skittered to Stella D'Mare's camp to warn them of the impending attack. But once they reached the knoll that signified the borders of Stella D'Mare's small force, it had already been infiltrated by black-clad soldiers and a wave of the undead. Messino's two sentries had played them by loudly proclaiming the wrong time in order to thwart any would-be spies with misinformation. It was a classic ploy. And they had fallen for it.
Haraldur rose to his feet, rustling through the curtain of grasses that parted at his step.
"Where are you going?" Karthik hissed from behind the brush.
"To help," he said, touching the sword sheathed at his hip. "If we can do little else, we might as well fight."
He rushed down the hill, unaware if his companions followed him or stayed behind. Drawing his sword, he met Andalarian resistance, and disposed of the living while avoiding the animated dead--until he saw a familiar figure whirling a sword over her head in an army so reliant on magic for weapons. And her form, the way she held her blade, the way she moved--distinctly Atvanian. Distinctly--her. The woman once known as Tam, revealed to Messino as Elespeth Tameris. The woman he thought to be dead, long ago executed by her own people.
He met her in a few strides, and grabbed for her arm when she almost collided into him. Rage shivered under the pulse of her body, wriggling in her skin like serpents of flame that threatened to burst from her and lash out at him, but he stood his ground and kept a firm grip until her rage lessened--just a little--when her eyes blinked in recognition.
"So it is you," he exclaimed, releasing his hold on her. "I thought you were dead! You escaped?"
As she informed him on the disappearance of her companion, he led her out of the main avenues of camp, down to a dark corner free of the clanging of swords and the shooting of magic. It hugged the slope of a hill, relatively hidden and relatively quiet.
"If he is the trump card that you say he is--I fear I may know the reason for this attack." He kept alert, always moving, always looking beyond and behind him in case of ambush. "I escaped Messino's camp and defected to Tadasun. I've done reconnaissance for them, overheard many conversations from Andalarian soldiers." The sword fluttered in his hands, whirring with anticipation. "Your friend has crossed Messino, has driven him to rage. The Mad Prince is determined to annihilate him by any means necessary. We knew about this ambush and ran to warn you, but Messino, he predicted our interference and fed us misinformation. We couldn't make it in time. And," he hesitated, concerned that his grim news would throw her into a berserker bloodlust, "I believe this attack is a diversion--so they can capture him amidst the cover of chaos. But," he hurried, and grabbed her arm, in case her impulses overtook her logic and broke her into a blind run, an easy target, "you can't just give chase. They're expecting that. You'll run right into their trap."
"Pah!" Chara spat, as she and Lilica, followed by Lysander, climbed the stairs that meandered back up to the Rigas gates on the high terrace. "Are you accusing me of lying? I have no reason to lie, Lilica. I said stunning, and I meant stunning."
"You do look rather nice, Lilica," Lysander offered, trailing a few paces behind where the two strolled.
You are one ingratiating knave, oh father of mine, Chara thought with a huff, but there was something genuine in the tone of his words that she could not ignore.
They entered through the guardhouse into the grounds of the estate. The entire place was illuminated by balls of etherea which floated in mid-air like will of the wisps guiding weary travelers not to their doom, but to home. They followed a string of those heavenly lights, arriving at her villa in time for dinner.
"You are dismissed, Lysander," she told him, and the cross of her arms suggested that this decision was non-negotiable. She was not yet ready to break bread with him--quite literally.
"Very well," he said without protest. "You two ladies have a lovely evening." He retreated, and Chara noticed, apart from his eye-rolling bout of well-wishing, the stumble in his gait, uneven and crooked.
When they entered the villa, the smell of warm bread, the soak of olive oil, fresh garden vegetables, thick cream and sugared fruits, and of almond-scented candles, wafted into the air. She didn't realize the state of her hunger until she walked inside and the scents assailed her nostrils. Therefore, it was with reluctance that Chara allowed Lilica's dismissal--and instantly regretted it when she had to contend with staring down the delectable spread that festooned the table with all manner of edible delights.
At last, Lilica emerged from the bath, which she could tell from afar: the potent odor of roses was unmistakable. "My word, Lilica, any longer and I would have thought you had drowned in there!" she exclaimed, but not out of anger. Impatience, yes, but once the dark mage joined her at the table, her slight exasperation sloughed away altogether, and she feasted on pita bread and chickpeas, olives and white figs and salads crumbled with goat cheese, rice wrapped in grape-leaves, which she washed down with red wine, and finished with slices of dried, sugared oranges.
Once sated, she used the opportunity to scrutinize her companion. With her added scent of floral explosion, the wet curtain of her hair that was parted with care, glistening like volcanic glass, and the cut of her tunic, which her damp body encouraged into a tighter cling to the skin, Chara's face lit into an impish smile. "Now may I say that you look stunning? You must agree to someextent, since you had cared enough to gussy yourself up a bit."
She sat back into her wicker chair, a bowl-shape that carried one large and fluffy cushion in its cradle. The wine glass perched, at a slight tilt, in her raised hand. At Lilica's question, she looked around, at the darkness reflected back into the imposing bay windows, at the high-vaulted ceilings that seemed to spiral to the sky, and the marble floors, so pale and so empty. Frozen echos. She forced a little gargle of a laugh and took a sip of her wine. "Yes, this is mine. Only mine. Before my induction into the higher ranks, I lived with Lysander in the apartments occupied by the serving staff. This used to be his villa. He was once of high rank," she added as a quick explanation. "He is a cook now. Or was. He is all over the place; I can no longer keep track." She took another sip. "I did not believe I would live alone for long. After the war, Alster and I were to be married," she said, and that concept suddenly felt foreign to her. Alster and I...married? How preposterous. I am already referring to us in the past tense. "But I prefer my own space, and I only use this villa to eat, to sleep, and to bathe. So, it suits me." She gave a shrug, an exaggerated display to offset the fact that it bothered her, that she oft stayed with Alster in his villa over the past two years, and that she even, on rare occasions, considered inviting Lysander to live with her in the villa--simply because she did not want to be alone.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But there was no room for self-doubt. And she was no less happy to see that a fellow comrade and friend had made it out alive. "You might have come too late, but you are truly a god-sent to us, with the information that you have," she assured him, her eyes constantly scanning the area, more on edge than she had ever been. Her body practically buzzed with agitated energy, fueled by her need to find Alster, safe and sound. "I knew that Messino had it in him to play dirty, but I was... none of us were expecting a surprise attack so soon. Or that... that it would all be for the sake of taking Alster."
She should have anticipated that the Mad Prince would hit them where it hurt the most. His spies in Stella D'Mare must have gleaned Alster's importance to their cause... We should have been more careful. What if my presence had been what got him seen? Got him caught... Her carelessness, coming to Stella D'Mare while knowing full well that the both of them would be at risk, might not have been entirely to blame. But it had contributed; and that was all he flame she needed to light a fire of guilt deep in the core of her being.
Not to discredit Haraldur's warning, for the former knight could well see reason in her friend's words. It was entirely possibly (probable, in fact) that any attempt to reclaim Alster and see him to safety would be foiled by some dark, premeditated plan on Messino's part. Such a foolish attempt to take matters into one's own hands could easily end not only with their own death, but also, might compromise the safety of the rest of Stella D'Mare's encampment, depending on the details of the plan to which they would fall victim.
Unfortunately, reason could not measure up to rage, or the strong conviction of one heart so desperately tied to another. Elespeth, therefore, was not acting within reason, but rather, with passion.
"You're right. I know you're right, and yet... Haraldur, I cannot stand by when I could make a difference." Elespeth's gaze was distant as she looked on at the carnage accumulating within the encampment, and her legs itched to run. "Trap or not, Alster already risked his life saving me from Atvany. I owe him just as much, and it is far safer to act now, before they have anything in place, than later, when it might be impossible to get him back... alive or otherwise."
Gripping the hilt of her sword, muscles tensed, Elespeth inched out from their temporary hiding spot, waiting for the opportune moment to sprint.
"I did not take that long," Lilica rolled her eyes as shed took a seat across from Chara, and grabbed a handful of grapes to put upon her plate, in hopes that an appetite might be stimulated from the taste of this exquisite meal. "Though if I had, I might have succumbed to unconsciousness from the smell of flowers coming from that water. You really do not go about anything lightly, do you, Chara?" It was not an accusation, but a mere observation; and by the warm tone that crept into Lilica's voice, it gave the impression that she found her hostess's personality quirks endearing. "And... if it pleases you, then yes, I will accept your compliment. Though I would argue that I was merely maintaining my cleanliness out of respect, not in an attempt to look better." At least, not entirely to look better, and gain the approval that she apparently already had from her generous companion.
Almost as soon as the dark mage had posed the question pertaining to Chara's not so humble abode, the celestial caster's response made her immediately regret having asked at all, out of mere curiosity. I did not believe that I would live alone for long. Idiot... of course Chara had not believed that! How recently had it been that she had reconsidered her place with Alster, if for no other reason than the mere fact that he was reconsidering his place with her, all because of that warrior? It was likely that she had never planned to stay here for long after they were married. But at this point... were the two even destined for marriage, loveless and tumultuous as it would be?
And why did the thought twist Lilica's insides all the way around her rapidly beating heart...?
"Does it really suit you, Chara? Or do you only say so in hopes to convince yourself that it suits you?" Perhaps it was not wise to ask... but she couldn't help it. Lilica picked at the food on her plate apprehensively, suddenly too ashamed to look her hostess in the eye. "Because I did... I still do, to some extent. When you feel as though there is nothing ahead of you but a solitary lifestyle, you can begin to lean into that believe, and it... it can twist you up, from the inside out. Twist your thoughts and your intentions, all in a desperate effort to protect yourself from the fact that you might be wrong." Tugging on her lower lip with her teeth, the chthonic caster grabbed the glass of dark wine that had gone as of yet untouched near her plate, and drank just enough of the dry substance to clear her mind. It burned her throat and warmed her limbs, loosening her tongue perhaps more than she had intended. "All that I mean to say is, do not mistake the need to justify your situation as a need for space. Because you don't have to be alone; you don't deserve to be alone. And Alster... well, he doesn't have to have anything to do with that, either way."
Had she had the clarity of mind to realize what she was suggesting, the dark mage's face might have turned the colour of the strong wine, almost gone from the goblet in her hand. But the drink had fogged her thoughts enough that even Lilica did not make the connection with her own words... or, the raw sentiment behind them.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He fell back in line with his responsibilities when his unhinged companion disregarded his warning, as expected, and voiced her every intention on running headlong into danger with no conceivable plan, no backup, and without the slightest idea on what to expect once she tread on open land. On the slightest chance that she did overtake Alster's captors, and caught them in time, she was still outnumbered, and ambushes were much easier to set up in the shroud of night.
But he knew she would not listen to reason, not when riled into such a frenzied state. It did neither of them any good to argue about the pros and cons of her impromptu chase that hinged only on hope, and little else. She had already made her decision.
She turned her back on him, then, in preparation to sprint from camp and, in all likelihood, perish from the actions of her impulsive nobility. But, by turning her back to him, she had left him with one other option. In a well-practiced thrust, swift and accurate, Haraldur thrashed Elespeth against her temple with the pommel of his sword. The force and suddenness of the attack knocked her out instantaneously, and, in another practiced motion, especially considering the company he kept, he caught her before her unconscious body crumpled to the ground.
"I'm sorry," he apologized for her prone form as he dragged her into the nearest abandoned tent, hauling her upon a cot and covering her with sheets. "You're not well enough to be making any sort of judgment calls."
He considered rushing back outside to help defend against Messino's invaders, but he feared leaving her alone, in case the enemy located her defenseless form, or she awakened prematurely from her knock-induced slumber. And so he sat there, at the foot of her cot, and listened as the screams, the blasts, the clanging of swords and the racing of feet, dwindled into a dull, unfocused roar.
"Our precious little star has finally peaked out from behind the clouds."
Alster moaned as he flicked one eye open, then the other. A nettling pain prickled and throbbed and bit on his head immediately after providing his pain with a visual, and he shuddered his eyes to a close until he found them fit to try again. All the while, he listened to that familiar voice, tumbled it over in his head. It taunted, it purred, it resonated with an unmistakable menace--and the wobbly events from when he could last trace his memory ignited with a blaze.
His eyes flew open and he regarded Messino hovering just scant inches from his face, his wide smile a cut of glass, jagged and reflective, his ash-colored eyes half-moon shapes if the moon were a grotesque mirror image of itself: dark and with the black-hole promise of annihilation. His brown curls were still wild, frazzled and frayed, seeming to unravel the more that he did. Behind him was someone he hadn't met before, and appeared as a mere blur as Messino dominated the space.
He felt for his arms, his legs. They did not budge, lashed down by thick leather straps looped around the cot upon which he lay. A pillow rested beneath his head.
"We wanted to make sure you were comfortable," Messino said, reading his thoughts. "Comfort is paramount for your upcoming journey. But," he wrinkled his nose, "the straps are a precaution. And do not even consider using your magic." He waved to the blurred man in the background. "My colleague over here has you lashed in more ways than with mere leather straps. I am certain he would like to introduce himself to you."
By most accounts, Chara had led a lonely life. As a bad year, no Rigas considered her an asset beyond her ability to clean after those of a more exalted rank. It was how she had come to know Alster, for she often entered his villa to fluff up the pillows and change the sheets. A silent sentinel. Presentable yet not present.
Instead of following such cockamamie rules, she had yelled at Alster. And it was through that assertion, that blatant disregard for rank, that she herself has risen to enjoy what she before had merely served. Life was no longer lonely--outside of closed doors, anyway. At her age, she should have been married and with child. She should have spent her evenings with someone at her side, even if that someone was not always around. In spirit, that someone belonged to her, and that symbolism, that union, was enough for her to waltz into an empty room in an empty house and call herself content, in good company.
But now...she had company in this cold stone and all facade of a house, perhaps for the first time in years. Someone to entertain. Someone to sit at her table. Someone to drink the wine, to wade in her baths, to tease and eat and offer camaraderie--and empathy.
Chara swished around the sliver of wine remaining in her glass, looking at Lilica through the reflection. Ghost-like. Not there. Like most of her life, it was seen through a glass. She blinked, and redirected her gaze to the flesh and the blood beyond the shimmer in the wine. She, Lilica, had navigated her way through the frost she had so carefully encased herself in for much of her life. Somehow. ...Why else would she be sitting at her dinner table, when admirers in her family had always dreamed of sharing a meal with one of the only bad years in Rigas history to turn her fate into fame?
"I suppose, in any direction, in any extreme, one finds loneliness and isolation," she said, with care, still hesitant to voice her personal opinion to her contribution. "Among the ostracized, loneliness. In the elated and the praised, loneliness. Sometimes...one cannot help but encounter it, and live in it, even when they much crave the opposite. That is a fate to which I had grown accustomed. Many do say that it is lonely at the top. And we, the Rigases, are both literally and figuratively at the top. We look down at the town, we look up to the sky, but we never look at each other." With a sigh, she downed the rest of her wine and pushed it against the table, watching the dainty white tablecloth bunch into wrinkles as she did so. "I suppose it is appropriate that two lonely souls, from two opposite sides of the spectrum, should find themselves in this very room." She slid to the edge of her seat and reached for the wine bottle. She topped off Lilica's glass and then her own. "Now then," she raised her glass, "shall we toast to loneliness? Or to the extermination of it?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Well, at least there was money involved.
"So this is the... threat that you would have me deal with?" Vitali allowed Messino his short, self-indulgent victory speech before stepping forward, one hand behind his back and the other thoughtfully touching his chin. "Doesn't look like much. Of course, looks can be deceiving... Aslter, is it?" A grin tugged at his full lips as he peered down at the helpless and confused young man. "His Highness, here, tells me you have been a very nagging thorn in his side. So, he has hired me to remove that thorn. I promise you, it is nothing personal. There just happens to be a good sum of money involved, for my services."
The Rigas caster's aura was practically jumping with panic and swirling with fear. But Vitali did not miss that small, albeit bright glimmer of hope at the core of it all. And that was all that he would need. "Believe it or not, Alster, I'm going to do you a favour: I am going to give you everything that you could never have. Just think about it. What you dream of, what you might find in an ideal world..." Vitali paced closer, hands clasped elegantly behind his back. "And I am giving it to you, on your part, completely for free. Many people would be of the mind that you have truly caught a break. So, what do you say?" Leaning over Alster's prone form, he hovered his hand just inches from the Rigas caster's face. His palm, though clean, had been etched with strange, intricate runes, cut shallowly into his skin. "You don't have to fight anymore."
No sooner did he close his hand into a fist, did Alster's eyes closed, plunging him far and deep into a dream that only his mind could conjure.
The necromancer straightened and flexed his fingers, a frown touching the edges of his amused lips. "Well, there you have it," he said to Messino, arching a brow. "Deep asleep and not to awaken. The few who are acquainted with this spell hardly know how to properly cast it, let alone reverse its effects. He is as good as gone. So, now, about your end of the bargain." Rolling his shoulders back, he delicately traced the runes that he had cut into his own flesh. "I assume that you are a man of your word, and will come good on payment. Though, in addition, I'd like to see one of your healers to remove these incisions... let that spell leech out of me on accident, towards unsuspecting and undeserving bystanders." Whether or not the Mad Prince caught wind of that subtle threat was irrelevant, for Vitali was already certain, that for lack of any real force (albeit what had been implied) in acquiring his services, Messino Di Andalari knew better than to cross a man with a reputation such as his own. Because betrayals never, ever ended well.
It struck Lilica as interesting, perhaps a little ironic, that when it came down to the raw existence of their camaraderie, so much of it had been inspired by their mutual loneliness. A dark mage, friendless and without family or allies her entire life, struggling to find meaning and solace in places where it did not exist. Darkness. Shadows. Emptiness... she had become accustomed to it. And a high-ranking celestial caster, adored, revered and acknowledged by family, friends and strangers alike, whose accomplishments surpassed what everyone had expected. She had attention at all angles and could have basked in it, but instead found herself lost and alone in a crowd, and the only person to which she was drawn had turned his shoulder in favour of someone else. Loneliness was, indeed, the catalyst, or else why ever would they have sought one another? Particularly when their initial introductions had been fueled with abhorrence and hatred?
Nodding her appreciation to her hostess as she refilled her wine glass, the chthonic caster took another sip, enjoying the warmth that spread through her body. It was so seldom that she could actually claim to feel warmth through the perpetual chill of her magic. "I had no idea, you know. Of your life... of what was occurring in the backdrop." Casting her eyes downward, Lilica recalled their initial meeting with palpable shame. "I looked upon you with hatred and resentment for everything that I thought you had. For the same reason that I... that I so stupidly targeted Alster. After all, why should everyone else feel the warmth of the sun when I cannot?"
Her smile was rueful when she saw fit to avert her gaze from her lap, looking upon the stunning face of her hostess. "You have your own share of darkness, and I was too stupid to see that. And my... my approach and demeanor have changed drastically, in case you are wondering. I have no reason or right to resent you or Alster or any other caster, for my own fate. I was jealous. Stupid. And I... I am grateful that despite all of my despicable acts, you still saw fit to give me another chance. To see past it. Which is more than I can say that anyone has ever done for me."
Raising her wine glass, she clinked it against Chara's, and the crystal rang clear in the otherwise empty villa. "To the expulsion of loneliness. Because it is our choice to let it linger, or to defeat it altogether." And what was this feeling in her core? This warmth which, despite her lingering suspicions of her future, inspired hope? Every time she looked at Chara, at the cascade of blonde hair that fell over her shoulders, the purse of her pink lips and her radiant blue eyes, Lilica desperately wanted to believe that there was hope. For her, for Chara, for Alster and Stella D'Mare... Chara gave her hope. And whether or not that was a favourable turn of feelings and events remained to be seen.
But... she would bask in it, while it lasted. "You are not alone, Chara. Not now, not later." Lilica ventured slowly, as they lowered their glasses. "I am not capable of predicting the future. But you shine too brightly to bask in isolation forever. I knew that from the moment I saw you... and I daresay, it was what triggered my ridiculous jealousy. I hope you can come to forgive me for that."
Daylight leaked through the flaps of an unfamiliar tent when Elespeth opened her eyes at last. A groan, unbidden, escaped her throat as she attempted to sit up, and she brought a hand to her temple. Sharp pain immediately shot through her skull, inciting a violent wince, as her hands came away with crusty pieces of dried, russet blood. "What... but how... Haraldur?" Squinting against the sunlight, which triggered a wave of nausea that only passed when she closed her eyes, the former knight turned to her comrade, a hand still pressed to her temple. "What happened? I... Alster. Oh no."
Eyes snapping open, she foolishly attempted to spring to her feet, only to be brought to her knees by a wave of vertigo. One accompanied by a sad and sickening realization. "Alster... they took him. He's long gone now. I need to... I was going to get him back. But..." She looked at Haraldur, and struggled between leaning on anger and sadness. Ultimately, her heart only gave way to hopeless defeat. "Why, Haraldur...?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth...
Hatred gave way to anger. Fear. Wide-eyed desperation. He struggled in his bindings, tried to summon his magic, any magic, but to no avail. Messino was right; apart from the leather bindings, something else bound his magic. Any attempt at it recoiled, and whatever invisible threads that tied him taut sliced further into his skin with burning finality. No, it wouldn't end this way! Not when he toiled and struggled for so long, and for what? This bitterly ironic end? Receiving all that he ever wanted in life when all that he wanted was to live? To stay awake? Remain at Elespeth's side, in the reality that they knew?
Not above pleading at this point, Alster's eyes flashed to this man who, in so many ways, reminded him of Lilica. "I'll give you an entire vault full of money, if that's what you want! Just don't--"
"Oh, tsk tsk. How unsightly of the proud and noble Rigas to beg for his life." Messino's grin never washed off his face. "But here is something to take with you in the seconds prior to your arrival in your new home." Messino checked his fingers, feigning boredom at the exchange. "I know that your Atvanian warrior survives. And she---she'll be dead. As we speak, my men are searching for her. And you," he laughed, giddy with the knowledge, "cannot do a thing about it."
Tears of rage and agony welled beneath Alster's blazing eyes, threatening to boil into steam. When he spoke, his voice was the serrated edge of darkness. "I curse you. For the rest of your days I curse you, Prince Messino di Andalari." A purple-black chill erupted in his aura. It almost, almost fizzled those magical threads into harmless split ends. But before he could utter another word, his eyes flipped close, and his harried breathing had slowed into the even pushing and pulling of sleep. Vitali's spell had succeeded, and Alster Rigas was no longer of this world.
"What a dramatic brat," Messino said, hiding away the slight shiver in his throat by laughing it to the fore, as if he were clearing a cough. "And you are certain this dream state will kill him? Not immediately, of course; for I certainly wish to play around with those Rigas hacks. Rest assured, you will receive what is promised to you. But, and call me cautious, but, only when he is dead will I pay you in full. You've nothing to worry about if your spell is true." He would not be unseated by a threat (and it peeved him that the Rigas brat actually gave him pause with that silly curse-speak), and so he paid it little heed. Not that Vitali wasn't capable of following through with his threat, but Messino refused to satisfy him with any iota of apprehension or weakness. By no means would he indicate any wavering that would expose his humanity and so, he remained unruffled. "Consider this," he snatched a small coin purse off the nearby desk and plopped it into his outstretched hand, "a down-payment. Now," he said, cordially, the business-like tone whittling away to a faux sense of comradeship, "let me show you the way to those healers."
That morning, an eerie calm rolled into the camp like fog from the mountainside. Haraldur kept himself posted at his self-imposed station, watching over Elespeth as he lingered near the flaps of the tent. On occasion, he peered through the gaps that had unleashed small slices of the sun, as sharp and glaring as from the blade of a sword. Half of the camp was aflame, many tents slumped into half cinders or spilled out onto the body-strewn, blood-stained ground. On that ground lingered dead casters and Andalari soldiers, both. And, curiously, severed limbs, legs and arms and hands, that twitched and moved of their own accord, sinewy stumps that flopped and waggled and dug their appendages, or whatever remained, into the dirt for purchase.
He turned from that macabre collection, feeling, for the first time since he was a child, sickened by carnage. He thought he had seen the very worst of war: lopped off heads, eyes dangling from wiry twists, the bubbling of blistered flesh as he watched a man burned alive. He witnessed tramplings, evisceration, implosions of guts and blood and the bilious, sour stench that accompanied them. Once, he was buried, mistaken for dead, under a sea of corpses, and the putrid rot and stickiness of blood, excrement, urine, pus, and vomit nearly caused him to squirm out of that pile in surrender, preferring the forfeit of his life to another minute in their company.
But that, the moving of limbs independent of the body, limbs that still wished to fight and blindly searched for targets, creeping along like worms--it almost turned his stomach.
He double-backed inside the tent, and saw that Elespeth had stirred from her slumber. It was a conversation he much wished to avoid, and were it not for the battle raging around their heads, or that he was beholden to her safety out of responsibility, he would have departed hours ago, hiking it back to Tadasun. He tried to remain impenetrable to that look of hurt and betrayal displayed on her twisted countenance, feral eyes still aglimmer, but subdued. They were the eyes of a caged animal, broken in spirit to its resignation.
"You would have been killed," he said, electing to show a smattering of emotion. Of sympathy. Understanding. He lost enough comrades in life to know an inkling of the despair that she felt. "You are only one person, rushing headlong in the dead of night giving chase to assailants you cannot see, nor do you know of their location. And with half of your reason gone, Messino's men would have clipped you down with ease. No. It's downright foolish and suicidal to go this on your own, without a plan, without backup. Determination, rage, and hope--they alone will not save your friend." He rose to full height, crossed his arms, and returned her green gaze with eyes just as green. "I apologize for harming you. But I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done."
Chara lifted her glass, listened to the melodic plink of their glasses meeting in the middle, and guzzled a generous stream of the unctuous liquid. "An eloquent toast, I do say." She withdrew the glass, her smile glowing with the very color of the wine she had imbibed. Already, she was feeling the effects of the little that she drank, but alas, it had been a while! And it would not take her long at all to reach her desired state, a state that was all the more relaxing with good company in tow. She did not drink alone that night, and it eased her into a buzz based in joviality rather than its usual boredom.
"I suppose we each learned something of life, then," she mused. "Everyone suffers. No exceptions. It is simply the intensity of the suffering that we must measure. And what I have learned," she clinked her fingernails against the glass, "it falls along the same spectrum. I disregarded suffering, yours and Alster's, in favor of my own. And perhaps, I still do. Similar to your own opinion, I have thought, why does one find love--no--why does he find love when I cannot? It is silly," she gave a weak laugh. "We may stay angry and resentful and jealous all we want, but that does not change the outcome--and only hurts us all the more."
She stood from her seat, which took her a few good heaves in order to escape from the bowl-shape that sucked her to its contours. A little wobbly, she moved her chair and positioned it on the other side of the table, beside Lilica. "You are not alone, either." She seated herself, and turned her knees so that they faced in Lilica's direction. "And I forgive you. And Lilica," her knees shifted again, so that they made contact with her companion's leg, "there is a shine to you, as well. It may be caked up with dirt and grime, but that does not make what lurks beneath any less radiant, once it is buffed and cleaned. ...With a little rose scent, for good measure," she added, with a wink.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Indeed, Haraldur was right, but the fact that he had helped her evade death, did not placate the Atvanian warrior. Because it had resulted in Alster ending up in the hands of one of the most dangerous and impulsive men that Elespeth had ever had the displeasure of knowing. And she was helpless but to do anything about it... especially now, hours and hours after Messino's retreat, in the wake of Stella D'Mare's tragic carnage. Who knew if he was even still alive? Her only indication was instinct, whatever psychic bond that their blood tie had created. In her heart, she was convinced he was alive...
Unfortunately, she was no longer certain of the extent to which she could trust her own heart.
"What now?" Helpless and deflated, her shoulders slumped forward as she turned to Haraldur. As if he had some contingency plan, something in lieu of letting her run straight into danger. "Messino has Alster. And if he is not yet dead, then no doubt the Mad Prince will hold him for a ransom. Or, more likely, a declaration of surrender on Stella D'Mare's part. We... we have lost." Clutching her head, she was defenseless as tears streaked her pale face. "Without Alster, we have already lost. I... I don't know what to do."
The city itself was, in addition, not the only one that lost. For the ex-knight had never in her life felt so lost, without the person who had essentially become her other half.
The siege on the encampment had taken everyone by surprise, including both the sects of healers that Stella D'Mare had recruited for this very purpose. What few Sybaia who had been prepared to fight had taken up arms as soon as they heard the war cries and shrieks of pain, and Daphni Adela had been among them. She had a promise to keep, despite how exhausted her body had remained since her ventures into other peoples' psyche and souls; ventures that she knew she should not have made. Armed with her scythe--tall, surprisingly lightweight, yet deadly--she had taken on the living and the undead alike, aiming to injure and incapacitate with regard to the former. But her control over both her blade and her body diminished more quickly than she would have preferred; she fought, she fought, and finally, completely against her will, she fell. The moment her body hit the ground was completely lost on her: one moment, the world was filled with darkness, the air rich with the iron scent of spilled blood and tarnished steel.
And then, she was opening her eyes to daylight; a grey, overcast sky, accompanied by an eerie stillness that had swept through the entire encampment. There was blood on her clothes, and pain shot through her side when she tried to move. Her prone form, it looked, has been dragged out of the way and into a nearby tent, which now housed the wounded and the unconscious... and she was among them. Not a healer, but a near casualty. And by the glances cast by her Sybaian sisters, who tried their best not to make eye contact, she had a sickening feeling that her going down on the battlefield had resonated as more than an inconvenience.
"Kala," she asked a young woman nearby, clad in red. Younger than her, and yet... and yet, suddenly, standing with more authority. As if she somehow surpassed her in seniority, despite that she had only come into the full practice of Sybaian healers not even a year ago. "What... came of this battle?"
"Nothing but severe loss," replied the younger Sybaia, with an air of reluctance that bordered on frigidness. "Devastation... Stella D'Mare has lost numbers, as well as important people. Alster Rigas being one of them." She paused, as though considering whether or not to continue with a thought that was clearly weighing on her mind. Daphni could see the indecision in the woman's aura. "Sedra wants to see you, as soon as you are well."
Of course she does, the older Sybaian thought with soft sigh of defeat. And she could guess as to the nature of the meeting.
Without another thought, Daphni painstakingly rose from the cot, one arm wrapped around her middle.
"What are you doing? Where are you going?" Kala demanded, taken by surprise that Daphni was able to get to her feet. "I said that she will see you when you are well."
"Let us be honest, Kala." Though it hurt her neck (she could hardly guess as to the extent of her injuries), she flashed a rueful smile at her sister. "Since when have any of the Sybaia cared about my well-being?" The answer was, of course, none since the passing of her mother. Nerine had always been the only one who had cared for her heartbeat, for her existence. Daphni had not known that kind of unconditional love for a very long time.
Without further explanation, she exited the tent, pain cursing through her body with every breath she took. Broken ribs, torn muscles... She kept track of the warning signs that her body screamed, in an attempt to know what she was dealing with after she met with the elder of her clan. She knew what Sedra was going to say, and the sooner she heard the words, the sooner she could process them, accept them... and hopefully, stop caring, altogther.
The first thought that occurred to Lilica as she watched her hostess attempt to rise from her seat was one of concern. How much wine had Chara consumed? And was it even safe for her to stand? Of course, at taking in her empty wine glass in her peripheral vision, she quickly realized she wasn't one to talk; she had lost track of refills the moment h had sat down.
But any and all thoughts of concern or guilt were extinguished the moment the celestial caster closed the distance between them, such that they were sitting knee to knee. Close enough that Lilica could see the natural, caramel-coloured lowlights that streaked her hair...
"I daresay you have had too much wine, to refer to any aspect of me as 'radiant'," she joked, but the unmistakable blush on her face was only half-inspired by the red wine. It deepened at Chara's words, at her proximity, and encouraged her heart to speed up. "Perhaps... it is something that you bring out in me. After all, sticking close to a celestial caster, I suppose even the darkest, dirtiest aspects of me are bound to shine a little... if you are around to mirror them."
Panic. No, nerves. Apprehension... Lilica could not put a finger on the proper word to describe the feeling that suddenly came over her, sitting so close to Chara that she could count the hairs on her head. It was enticing as much as it was frightening... but none of that stopped the chthonic mage from taking a chance, a foolish marriage of courage and stupidity, and resting a hand gently upon her companion's knee. "Maybe... maybe that is why I have felt so inclined to follow you, since I met you," she breathed, a confession that made her voice tremble. "That I have finally found---and recognized--someone who is able to bring out the better in me. Whatever 'better' there happens to be, little though it is..."
Could this woman truly be my path into the light?, she wondered daring to hope, just for a second. Just for a moment... just for as long as she held the proud Rigas caster's crystalline gaze.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He rapped his boot against the ground, watching the oscillations from up to down, in pulsating rhythms. Given his general detachments to the war and the people therein, with the exception of Elespeth, he could approach this grim scenario with a level head. Yet, he doubted he had any sort of promising revelations to offer the distraught warrior.
"From what I've observed," he said, his voice soft, "Stella D'Mare won't surrender. Their honor and pride is on the line; they have invested too much in this outcome and will see it through to the end. And, however much he sells his bargain as true, Messino will not keep Alster alive. The only way to save him is, unfortunately, through the same means by which Andalari has acquired him." He fished through his pouch and offered Elespeth a handkerchief, to wipe away the blood, dirt, and tear stains from her face.
"We'll have to take him back. But this can't be a two-man operation. We need full cooperation from Stella D'Mare, from Tadasun--from anyone who wishes to help. Because we alone can't succeed in infiltrating a camp several times the size of this one, with soldiers on full alert, and with no idea as to where they are keeping him. We need stealth. Invisibility. Diversions. My reconnaissance team can, at least, offer a layout of camp and the general rotations of soldiers on duty." He proferred a hand out to Elespeth and helped her up to her feet. "Our first step is to inform the commander of this encampment as soon as possible. We'll take it from there." His grip on her was steady, warm, reassuring, as was the cadence of his words. "We'll figure this out, all right?"
Always, Elias prepared for a siege. In his head, the siege never ended. It was ongoing, only partitioned by brief spaces where nothing happened. All the same, he could not breathe during that interim. Breathing implied all was well. Already, his lungs had succumbed to the defeat that he'd never again breathe with ease. And so, peace would never arise.
At the first signs of a struggle, Elias shot out of bed, grabbing for the box of medical instruments in one hand and his boar spear in the other. He rushed into the dark, deflecting assailants with his spear, hooking away shields, defending, and jabbing outward when necessary. It didn't take long for his breaths to rasp out of him in wearied huffs.
In the middle of his transfer, he searched for his brothers, but the shimmer of something wicked and curved flashed in the night and gave him pause. A scythe. He knew it was the Sybaian weapon of choice, but it lay disposed on the ground and, not far away, the unconscious woman who had wielded it. As he ran closer to inspect her condition, he knew, and confirmed, that it was Daphni, pooled into a heap at his feet.
Cursing aloud, he dropped his box and his spear and dragged her by the shoulders to the nearest tent, tucking her safely inside just before a new round of assailants could spot them.
And so began his back-and-forth, retrieving the unconscious and wounded from outside and dragging them to the tent where the healers had all gathered, working with speed and diligence. He didn't bother with those who were already dead.
Then, he worked through the night and well into morning. A constant stream of healing energy, of sewing up sutures, of ceasing the intensity of blood-flow... On occasion he needed to excuse himself, downing his medicine that was quickly reaching its depletion.
At last, he was able to take a small break, and decided to catch some fresh air just outside of the tent. The extent of their patients had reached stabilization and some of the other healers, Clematis and Sybaian both, were scouring the encampment for any other wounded, peering into tents and checking the ground, confirming what he already knew. Dead. So many dead.
But it was the living that burst through a tent meant to house those too weak to walk. And she was a healer, yes, but at this juncture, she was first a patient. Daphni. Again. He swung his arm in front of her, blocking her advance, and whirled around to confront her, his perpetual grimace souring at the edges.
"You should not be up and standing. Have your sisters even treated you, yet?" His arm, which still fanned in front of her, kept a firm blockade on her attempts to skirt him. "Where are you going?!"
A laugh tingled out of Chara's throat, a refined lilt that she would never admit was affected. One of the many refinements she oft-practiced in front of a mirror until she was pleased with the reflection that she saw and the echo that she heard. "And I shall have even more wine! It does not change my perspective. It simply unearths that perspective." She finished the last of her wine and slid the glass upon the table. With her hands now free, she snaked one over to Lilica's red, red cheeks, smiling slyly as she cupped her face and felt the warmth whirring beneath the surface. "You see? You are radiating right this second. Red. And you are not cold. Not here, anyway. Not where I am touching you."
She brushed the fine hairs of her cheek, tickling them, as she brought her fingers down and around her soft, wine-stained lips. She stared at them, pressed against them, felt them rise back to their shape when she withdrew her touch.
So muddled was she by the drink, she did not seem aware of how close she hovered to Lilica. She leaned forward, her breath hot, taking in the smell of roses, which suited the dark mage. A heady aroma, a flower bundled in on itself, thorny, capable of causing harm, but nonetheless fragrant. A dark, velvety beauty. Red like wine. Unbidden, she had licked her lips while appraising the ones that floated in her swirling vision.
"You should not waste good wine, Lilica," she admonished with faux anger. "But I--I do not. And will not." She closed the space between them...and ran her tongue over the surface of Lilica's rose lips--hoping for them to bloom.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You're right. I know you're right," the Atvanian warrior conceded, pressing her fingers tenderly to her injured temple. It required concentration to ascertain that the world did not spin every time her green eyes attempted to focus on Haraldur's face. "We cannot do this alone. Stella D'Mare will never concede defeat. But... Alster's life is in jeopardy every moment we spend not searching for him. For all we know, he could... he could already be dead. He..."
No. She needed to cease entertaining that dread when she knew it not to be true; when the scar on her hand pulsed gently not only with her own life... but with Alster's. And if she could feel the confirmation that he did, indeed, continue to draw breath.... could she not use that same connection to find him? The same way that he had found her in Atvany?
If it was a possibility, then she had to pursue it, even if it was a long shot. She just had to...
"We need to see Canopus--the man at the head of this mission." Attempting to stand, albeit shakily, Elespeth turned back to her sturdy companion. "I... I think I know how we can find Alster. And, simultaneously, we can garner Stella D'Mare's help and approval on this rescue mission. Come on." Taking a step to the side, she placed a hand on his steadying arm--in knowing that he would offer, but also to make a point, still a touch sour for having put her completely out of commission. "He will be more inclined to listen to someone who knows the guts of Messino's league... and I am not confident I won't lose my balance on the way."
Taking it a step at a time, the warrior and the mercenary passed the carnage that the Mad Prince's goons had left in their wake, the pale faces of the healers, overworked and overwhelmed, and the even paler faces of the wounded, stricken with pain and some, barely clinging to life. It was simply easier not to look, and as soon as she set her sights on Canopus's tent, she wasted no time.
"Alster has been taken. You are probably already aware." The former knight did not so much as spare a moment for Canopus to register her presence, let alone get a word in. "This is Haraldur; he has been an ally since my time as part of Messino's army, and he has been allied with Tadasun since... since before the Mad Prince had me arrested, and sent to die on my homeland. But I will not waste your time."
Carefully lowering herself to sit on her knees, for fear that her balance could not be maintained, she looked the man in question in the eye. "We need to get Alster back. And I think... I think I might know how." Her gaze traveled temporarily to her exposed palm, at the pink scar strewn across it. "But I cannot do this alone. Haraldur can attempt to entice Tadasun's cooperation... but we need that of Stella D'Mare's, as well. We cannot lose Alster--you know we cannot... and I know that there is still hope. Wherever Messino is keeping him, he is still alive."
It was only a few yards from Canopus's tent that Daphni found her path intercepted by an arm, accompanied by a familiar, chastising tone. A ghost of a smile touched her lips; Elias looked well, albeit tired. But it came as a strange relief to know that he was alive. Perhaps given that, despite their differences, he was the closest thing for a friend that she had in this encampment. "My sisters... are otherwise occupied with those who require... more immediate treatment." The Sybaian's breathy words were staggered, for every breath she took, lungs expanding against broken ribs was excruciating. "But I have been.. summoned. By our elder. Elias, let me go... save your efforts for lives that will continue to contribute to this war."
Her emotions well contained, and demeanor shockingly steady, Daphni lowered her voice, a calm lull of acceptance. "I am going to be excommunicated from the clan of the Sybaia. There is no other reason they would have called an audience with me so soon after a siege." Pausing to catch her breath, she found that she could not look directly at him, but rather, it was easier to look past Elias. To avoid the judgment in his cool gaze. "I... fell, on the battlefield. Was rendered useless as both a fighter and as a healer, and it... it was my own fault. For not being adequately prepared... for not allowing myself the rest that I required to be effective."
No one to blame but yourself. That was what they had told her mother, when she had fallen helplessly in love with her father, a mere soldier from another kingdom. There had been no solace for her those nights that she had lay, heartbroken and missing the father of her child. And there would be no solace for her child now.
Closing her eyes, she placed a hand on Elias's arm. "But it is what it is... and I will accept my mistake and its consequences with reason and grace. So please... let me pass while I have the strength to face this. And go expend your efforts on those who require your assistance... or, better yet, get some rest, yourself."
Every hair on the back of Lilica's neck stood on end at the proximity of the celestial caster across from her. Everything, from Chara's piercing laugh, to that rare glimmer of delight in her eyes, to the way the tips of her fingers felt against her cheek, her lips...
She was holding her breath without realizing it, a thought that did not occur to her until the warmth of Chara's tongue moistened her full lips. What is... Is this really happening?
She didn't think: there was no room for thought in her wine-fogged mind, not with Chara's breath hot on her lips, her body so close that she could feel the warmth emanating from her skin. You could regret this, an inner voice cautioned as she leaned closer, parting her red lips. But I have nothing left to lose, anymore, another voice countered, just seconds before she closed the distance between her lips and Chara's. The celestial caster's mouth was as soft and satiny as it looked, her hair as silken as its shine, Lilica noticed, when one of her hands moved to bury itself in the blonde tresses at the back of Chara's neck. She was perfect; no wonder she had ever been jealous of this woman, or that that very jealousy so soon turned to... to intense admiration. A need to be around her, drunk on wine and that rare sense of calm that was being in this Rigas Caster's presence. So intoxicating that she felt she could almost forget the hopelessness that had taken her to Stella D'Mare in the first place.
So that was it: Chara made it easy to forget, her presence so all-encompassing, a presence that demanded attention, that Lilica could hardly pay attention to anything other than the plush press of her lips and the silken tresses of her hair through her fingers. Even Lysander's spying couldn't have been enough at that moment to make her want to stop.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
They found Canopus in the center of camp, directing casters to collect the dead, dispell the fires, and sweep up any detritus they found, moving or otherwise. He turned to Elespeth and Haraldur when they approached, his eyes drooping in a melt that looked to slide right off his face at any moment. Though busy with his operation, he foisted the role on a nearby officer and took them inside his tent, which remained intact, to hear their report.
"Yes, this loss falls greatly on my shoulders, for he only just shared his wonderful news to me hours before the attack." His voice dragged across Haraldur's ears like a wounded animal, bloodied and in pain. "It is no question on if we get him back; it is when. So, if both of you have a plan, tell me." He appraised Elespeth with those weary-worn, bloodshot rims. "I have come to understand that you and Alster share a blood bond. If so, you should be able to pinpoint his location, and report on his physical condition. Your demeanor tells me he is still alive, so we do have a chance."
"Sir," Haraldur contributed in the space between words, his grip slacking when Elespeth dipped to the ground, "I'm with Tadasun's reconnaissance team. We've been scouting Messino's camp for some weeks, now. If it's Tadasun's desire to cooperate with you, we can share the information we know and send out another team posthaste, to survey the camp and gain more intelligence."
"Send Tadasun's commander my request for his aid," Canopus said, his head bowing in a humble thank you. "We cannot tarry. As you have said, Tam. We must act even before we hear word from Messino on the status of Alster."
As if on cue, a Rigas arrived at the entrance to the tent with a dirtied, disheveled looking man with sunburns lined across his face like rashes. "Pardon my intrusion, sir, but we have an envoy from Andalari who wishes to convey a message."
Canopus waved the unkempt man forward. He did not dismiss Elespeth, Haraldur, or even the Rigas guard. He only waited for the messenger to speak.
"I'm to tell you," the envoy began, wasting no time once given the go-ahead, "that His Highness has Alster Rigas in his custody. He is still alive, and unharmed, and will remain so until negotiations are drawn and made. He is also suggesting a ceasefire in the meantime. His conditions remain thus: for the return of Alster Rigas, he requests your unconditional surrender. If you do not accept, he will not live to see another day."
"And how do we know that His Highness is good on his word?" Canopus said, expressionless and even-toned, for he had anticipated this very turn of events.
"He only says that you haven't many choices. If this Alster Rigas is so precious to you, it will behoove you all to follow through with his generous offer. He will overlook your treacherous behavior if you submit to him now. Decline, and he will make no qualms on taking the next step. He will decimate Old Town, and the entire Rigas legacy along with it. This negotiation window is only open for three days, at which point he will execute Alster Rigas and resume his advance on your army, and on Stella D'Mare."
When the envoy departed, and a brisk, chilly silence filled the air, Haraldur spoke, an idea blooming in his head. "Envoys travel to and from enemy camps with ease. Their very purpose grants them immunity. If we send a caster to Messino under the guise of an envoy, this envoy can signal those of us who scout the premises and lie in wait. At the signal, we infiltrate the camp, and we will know exactly where to go in order to grab Alster. And, if we gain Tadasun's cooperation, they might create a diversion by waging war on Andalari, drawing them out on the field. In the midst of a battle, Messino's camp will be severely unprotected. But," he thumbed a finger under his chin, "this takes deliberate timing--and utmost cooperation. Messino might view Tadasun's attack as Stella D'Mare's answer to his conditions and kill Alster instantly. We must have an eye on Messino and on Alster at all times, if possible."
Despite Daphni's protests, Elias did not budge. He countered her obstinacy with his own, locking horns with horns, and drew his brow down into a surly glare.
"Do you think it noble to be humble? As a healer, your life has import. Human lives are measured by their contributions to the world. Their usefulness to others. We cannot lose healers." And there was something earnest that caught in his voice. An almost desperation in how he worded that statement. "So, you fell on the battlefield. This is far from uncommon. Do you find it sensible to further tax yourself by strolling about so casually when you should be resting? You will only delay your recovery time. How does that help anyone, least of all yourself? You want to make up for the inane reasoning you have given yourself for collapsing during battle? You spend it by healing, not by punishing your body and rendering yourself even more useless than before. Overexerting yourself--that is what caused you to fall into this predicament in the first place. So, I will not say this again." He jutted a finger to the direction of the tent. "Go. Back. Inside. Punishing yourself does not expedite recovery or save lives."
He took his free hand and pushed away her arm, the one that tried to move him aside. "Honestly," he exclaimed, his annoyance apparent by the huffing of breath that streamed out of his nostrils. "If the Sybaia wish to excommunicate you for collapsing, then that is a piss-poor reason. But whatever they decide on what to do with you, I somehow doubt they want you out and about so soon after waking." He raised both arms then, and grabbed her shoulders, urging her to turn back to the tent. "I found you on the battlefield. I dragged you here. I am responsible for your recovery--for the third time. And there is little that I detest more than an unruly patient." With a sigh, he expelled some of his frustration and spoke again, a little softer, his hard edges worn quickly away by his exhaustion. "Come on. I will tend to you. Then you can go on and speak to your leader with a more level head and with actual strength to stand."
Chara's gentle licks across the surface of Lilica's lips found passage inside the opening of the rose. She invited herself inside, pressing against Lilica's face for ease of leverage, anchoring herself into an embrace. She enfolded her arms around her neck, weaving into the damp strands of her fine blue-black hair. Twisting a piece around her finger, she pulled, gently, encouraging Lilica to tilt her head further back.
Since she had begun, Chara had climbed out of her chair and landed atop her companion, practically sitting on her lap with her legs splayed outwards. This woman was so vulnerable, so lost. She feared she was taking advantage, forcing herself upon someone who would not raise an alarm or protest. Lilica had professed her loyalty, her promise to follow, and it stood to reason that she only indulged in Chara's fantasies under the belief that it was what she alone had wanted, without any reciprocity involved. Though she enjoyed the touch of their lips and the enclosure of their arms, the syncopation of their tongues and the velvety taste of wine in their mouths, furthering the intoxication of the kiss, she pulled away, releasing her arms and withdrawing from her lap, her face a picture of guilt.
"I...I really must be drunk," she tittered, self-consciously wringing her hands together as she returned to her own seat, her entire face glowing red. "I did not mean to just...attack you like that. It is not fair to take advantage of you in such a manner. I did not even ask if you...I did not seek permission. It is so obtrusive of me. I...forgive me. I suppose I am...even lonelier than I had imagined."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I say we do it." She declared, her eyes still fixed on where the envoy had departed, rage simmering beneath her skin like liquid fire. "He could very well predict this deception, for mad though Messino is, he is far from stupid. But it could be our best chance. Meanwhile, I will need a cover if I am to locate Alster through our blood bond. Haraldur will make as more than sufficient support, but if you can spare any casters who might also be able to cloak our presences, then that would be to our advantage. Stella D'Mare and Tadasun can take care of the infiltration, but..." Looking away from the tent flaps, she redirected her attention to Canopus and his officers. "I will spearhead finding and rescuing Alster. He is still alive, I would know if he is not. And he is not in pain... and, frankly, I do not know if that concerns me more. That I simply cannot feel... anything."
Rising slowly to her feet, the Atvanian warrior pressed her fingers to her sore temple, vertigo still threatening to take over and bring her back to the ground. "I do not think Messino knows that Alster and I are bonded by blood, or what that might mean... but it is also imperative that he not find out. Or else, I guarantee, he will use that information against us. More specifically... he will use it against me."
Daphni, albeit frustrated that the Clematis healer insisted on creating a blockade between her and her clan with his own body, could not help but admire his resolve. They were not so different, the two of them, in their passion and conviction for what they did. Somehow, his scowl brought a smile to her face, through the shooting pain. "I... admire you, in your steadfast dedication to your practice and your passion," the Sybaian healer conceded, grimacing with every intake of breath, her lungs expanding feebly against her broken rib cage. "You are a far better healer than I gave you credit for."
She could have argued, pleaded her case with more intensity, but she hadn't the energy, and Elias himself seemed so weary... Conceding defeat, she let him lead her back into the tent from which she had come, and lowered her body, painstakingly, back onto the cot. The Sybaian sister who she had been talking to had since left, and the remainder of the soldiers and casters with fractured and broken limbs had been soothed to sleep, to speed their recovery. "The Sybaia are too proud to be humble," she informed Elias as a belated response to his question. "So much so that we... do not necessarily exist harmoniously. Some of us are tolerated, for the fact that we are all simply born into our clan and our positions as healers. And it does not take much to earn scorn..."
Taking slow, measured breaths to control the excruciating pain in her chest, Daphni stared up at the roof of the tent without seeing. "My mother... they turned their back on her the moment they realized she was pregnant out of wedlock. She managed to hide it--hide me--for a very long time. Up until just a couple months before I was born. But secrets between Sybaia do not last long. And a baby could not remain a secret forever." It hurt to talk; and she did not know why she felt the need to divulge such vulnerable knowledge to someone who hardly respected her. But relaying it to someone, anyone... it was a weight off of her already injured chest.
"She would tell me that they had treated her differently before, though I hadn't been in existence to see it, but I have never known any differently to how they treat me." It was a relief that only the two of them were awake and aware in the tent, for this was not information she ever could have risked to unintended ears. "I am the result of an unsanctioned union, because my mother was foolish enough to fall in love and let it consume her. Though I myself have not known love since she passed away... They resent me for the circumstances of my birth, for how I have excelled in my practice. And they have been looking for a reason to excommunicate me since I was born. But up until now, I have played it safe, and not given them one. You must understand..." Pressing a gentle sigh from her lungs, her eyes traveled to Elias's face. "You can interpret falling in battle in different ways; as a sacrifice, or as foolishness, endangering the lives of others who might seek to save yours. People like you. Elias..."
The empath paused, both in searching for the right words and to give her voice and lungs a brief reprieve. "Back when you expressed concern, in your own way, for how our practice renders us... I refrained from saying so then, out of pride. But... you were right to be concerned. You must understand..." Slowly, carefully, she raised one of her arms to emphasize what she ventured to explain. "Our bodies become a conduit through which pain... injury, festering emotions are all expelled. It is taxing, and to be honest, our mortal bodies cannot endure it for long. We are like flames; we burn bright, and hot, for a short period of time. But then... we burn out.
"And that is why I told you, and I tell you... you should expend your energy on someone who can make a difference in this battle. Not someone who burns out like fire in the rain. My mother..." She paused again, and bit her lower lip against an upsurge of emotion that she never allowed herself to entertain. "She was twenty-eight years old when she perished, trying to save the life of another."
It was not wine that ad Lilica drunk; not by a long shot. Put simply, she was drunk on Chara, paralyzed by the demand of her kisses, the heady taste of wine on her tongue, the weight of the other woman's body on her lap. Warm... That was what it, what the celestial caster, made her feel. Warm and secured and... and wanted. Desired. In a way that she had never imagined possible for someone who was practically made of the very threads of darkness which ran through her veins. She basked in it, pressing her body closer to her companion's, hanging on Chara's every heartbeat, until...
Until the Rigas caster withdrew, self-conscious and apologetic. Still buzzing with all of the intimate attention she had just received, it took her a moment to properly comprehend why she had stopped, and that was when the realization hit her: "I suppose I am... even lonelier than I had imagined." Chara was heartbroken. Everything that she had dreamed of that involved Alster had come crashing down and crumbling to dust. She felt inadequate and insecure, and needed, needed someone to acknowledge her otherwise. Which was, perhaps, why she had chosen not only to tolerate the chthonic caster's presence, but why she had invited her as company in her own home.
And, strangely enough... Lilica was all right with that.
"You know... I haven't known much more than pain, the duration of my life. And being hurt," she ventured quietly, pulling at her lower kiss-swollen lip with her teeth. "Enough that I have come to despise being touched, for the most part. I... I don't trust hands or the people to whom they belong, I cannot trust that their intentions might be good. That said... if I did not want you to touch me, in any way... then I simply would not let you." A hint of a smile touched her lips, and she leaned forward in her seat ever so slightly, as if in hopes that she could magnetically attract Chara's body closer to her own, again. "You need not apologize, and I, for one, am not drunk enough for my words to be false... I think."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Anticipating our call to action, Messino might move Alster around with him. I wouldn't be surprised if he locked him away in a box and carted him off to battle," Haraldur had observed with a frown.
Their second foray to camp would be the intended operation. They would send forth their envoy as a diversion, preferably a capable caster who could isolate Messino from the rest of his men and attack him, if necessary. At the envoy's signal, the reconnaissance term, which, ideally, included both Haraldur and Elespeth, would sneak into camp, at which time Tadasun forces, in hiding, would make themselves known to Andalari. In the scramble to make battle preparations, the team would take advantage of the anonymity that chaos provided to locate Alster with little resistance. The plan hinged more on this small scouting team, if everything else unraveled. It was very possible, considering the leader they dared to oppose.
"This is very time sensitive and bound to go awry," Haraldur admitted, "but we'll have to make allowances and adjust our strategies if necessary. Messino is unpredictable and we have to leave some wiggle room for on-the-spot changes. As is, this is an extremely rushed endeavor, and aside from actually surrendering, which doesn't guarantee Alster's safety, this is really our only option."
With an extended arm, Haraldur helped Elespeth out of the tent, slowing his gait when she hobbled pretty severely, looking like a drunk trying to balance on a spinning top. "We won't be heading off to Messino's camp until tomorrow, and I'll have to leave shortly in order to return to Tadasun and convince them of this plan," he said, encouraging her down a little avenue where he saw the bulk of the small army congregate, assuming that the medical tent lingered close-by. "Until then, you must rest, if you can. See to a healer for your head wound. I'll take you there. After all," a tiny, apologetic smile tugged at his face, "while I did catch you unconscious for the umpteenth time, it was all my doing."
Elias wanted to harrumph at the Sybaian healer's burst of praise for his obduration, but he hadn't been in a particularly indulging mood, operating much on the reserves of energy that, before long, would reach their depletion. While he was still able to keep upright and alert, he herded Daphni back into the tent before she changed her mind, and glared at her until she returned to lie on her bed. He sorted his medical instruments, pulled up a chair in position at her bedside, and cleaned his hands. He sat down and prepared to appraise her injuries, but then she began to talk...and Elias could not help but groan low in his throat. When this woman opened her mouth to speak--she would carry on until moss grew all over her. And with injured ribs and gravity working against her horizontal resting position, this lengthy retelling would only exacerbate her injuries. But she seemed intent on recounting this Sybaian history of hers and Elias could not lie when he admitted that what she told him was intriguing--and confirmed yet more about the added dangers of healers.
"If you are quite done," he could not help but say, "cease your yammering. You are only doing more harm to yourself and to your ribs." He laid a gentle hand upon her chest and traced down, feeling for her rib-cage and discerning which ribs had broken. "Take off your tunic," he said, unperturbed by the suggestiveness of his command. "Or if not, I will."
He had done so, too impatient to wait for her to comply to his request, and did not react when his removal of her top layer revealed the shape of her breasts fanning outwards, into his view. As he proceeded to soothe her with a gentle wave of magic, he considered what she had said, and the chewing over in his head finally spilled its mashed up contents out of his mouth.
"It is intense magic, what you use," he postulated, running his hands down the length of her body. "If you burn out so young. Though I cannot yet determine if it's the qualities of your magic or the result of repetitive instances of emotional fatigue and stress. Or both. For all your clan's rigid choosiness and high mortality rate, I for one am surprised that the Sybaia are still in existence, especially when the chances of birthing a boy are equally as high." He returned his hands back to her chest, allowing them to hover there for a time, radiating a low-level pulse that promoted ease of breathing and dulled the pain. "I for one am all about tradition and values. After all, I hail from a religious order that has operated in more or less the same way for over a thousand years. Coming from that perspective, I can still admit that your lifestyle is unsustainable. A successful society is a flexible one. Your clan will snap if they insist on this grossly disproportional exclusivity." He huffed out a breath, feeling long-winded. Great, he thought. [/i]She is inspiring me to garrulousness, just like her.[/i]
"And I for one do not agree that falling in battle is the height of shame. Why do they undervalue the lives of their own healers? Of healers, themselves? For, you are mistaken, Daphni." He pressed his fingers, yet again, upon the bruised flesh above her rib-cage. "How can one make a difference if they are dead? How can you make any difference if you are dead? Don't discount your own life. We have too many self-sacrificing healers out there, thinking themselves disposable, bleeding out their hearts all over the place. This is how we lose more lives: at the moment when we think a life is unimportant. Even if it is our own. For, you see," he quirked a derisive smile, "if you had taken better care of yourself, or if your sisters shared in the responsibility, I would not have to hold a constant vigil over you."
Since Chara ceased her pawing and her unwarranted bout of kissing, she refilled her wine glass to the top with such haste that some of the liquid sloshed out of the sides, staining the powder white of the silk and laced tablecloth with the splash of blood-hue. She gulped rather than sipped, desiring the muddled, spin-happy world experienced through the inebriated perception. Surely, she made Lilica uncomfortable, which made her uncomfortable, and awkward, and in her exposed vulnerability, did not know how to correct her wrong, a wrong that she blamed on drinking. Yet she drank more, to forget that she had drunk. What hypocritical hogwash!
Yes, it must be the wine. It has to be the wine! she thought, half frantic. Why would I kiss Lilica, otherwise? I do not fancy women! At least, I never thought that I did. But she...she...stirred something in me. That feeling...it cannot be mistaken. What do I really feel? Loneliness? Or something greater? When I look at her...I do not know. But I do know that she elicits a reaction in me. And that is not nothing.
Halfway into her glass, Lilica spoke, and what she said had stymied her. The attraction--it was mutual? She enjoyed having their lips unite and their hands entangled in each others' hair?
Setting the glass against the edge of the table, she appraised Lilica, as if trying to find any twitch or furrow of the brow that betrayed her words. But she appeared...serene. Joyful, even--which was the last word anyone would use to describe the disposition of the dark mage. Then, she leaned forward and Chara shivered, reflexively. Not from the chill that usually clung to Lilica's bones, to her aura, but to something more intrinsic inside of her. The reaction...it was real.
"Then," she breathed, picking at the corners of her nails, "you would not mind if I, if we...resume? I must admit that it was quite, ah...cathartic." She did not wait for an answer before she was upon Lilica again, their lips smacked together and her hands gripping her neck and the world swirling around her in dazed colors.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The former knight took a risk and glanced sidelong at the mercenary. He had never been obligated to help her; not then, and certainly, not now. But his friendship and camaraderie had nonetheless endured, through incarceration, through separation, and into the midst of battle, where she had not been in her right mind. The illogical part of her, mad with love for Alster, still seethed that he had held her back when she could have pursued her kidnapped companion, the rational framework of her mind, developed over years of training for battle as a knight, could not well endure in an anger that did not make sense.
She owed him thanks, not retribution. If not for his quick thinking--a blow to the head which was annoying, at best, but nowhere near serious--she could have been dead. And who knew what that could have meant for Alster...
"I will rest, and seek the medical help that I need. But we cannot delay any later than tomorrow," she insisted, her face drawn and white with worry for the unknown. "I will rely on your expertise in spearheading this mission... and, from now on, I promise that I will heed your advice, and not rush head first into danger. Forgive me my wayward decisions... I was not thinking with my head." Not when her heart had assumed all control. A passionate heart, with no room for any thoughts that did not concern Alster Rigas. "Find me before dawn. I will be awake long before then."
She almost protested, merely out of the expectations of her clan, which had long since been ingrained in her mind. There were several reasons for which the Sybaia typically tended to one another's injuries, instead of delegating such tasks to healers and physicians of different practices. One such reason related to the unwavering conservative ideals of the matriarchal clan, which frowned upon the reveal of a woman's body--particularly a Sybaian's body--to a man, even in the event of healing. Especially if and when there were alternatives available...
If she had the blood to spare, it might have rushed to her cheeks. Self-consciousness for someone who also dealt in the well-being of the human body was hypocritical and unbecoming, but it was there, nonetheless. And it was of no use drawing attention to it.
"We would both be reprimanded... if it were to be known that you are tending me, now," she couldn't help but comment, her tone flat when he nary gave her a handful of seconds to comply to his request. "And it... isn't my place to question Sybaian values and where they lead. Our clan is strict... even if we are few, and far between. But we are strict for a reason." Though the reasons were seldom in her favour, it seemed. Or, as he had observed, of any benefit to the Sybaia. "Enough of us are married, have daughters... we are not yet in danger of extinction. Not enough to refrain from turning a cold shoulder to our own..."
The subtle pulse from his hands, emanating gentle energy to ease her pain, was inviting enough to forget the fact she was half-exposed to a man, and that it could earn her further scorn from the Sybaia, if they caught wind of her current caretaker. It was not a lot, but enough to take the sharp pains from excruciating to almost tolerable, with every laboured breath. "Do not chastise me," she murmured with a furrowed brow. "I know my mistakes... I am paying for them, am I not? And... besides..."
His fingers upon her bruised flesh, less gentle than the pulse they had been emanating, made her flinch, and her breath caught in her throat. "Your bedside manner... still has something to be desired," she rasped, as her hand shot out to grasp his wrist, a tiny smile tugging at the very corners of her mouth.
It only lingered but a second, before pain assaulted her again, this time more piercing, just beneath his fingers. Daphni barely turned her head to the side quickly enough to succumb to a cough, one that endured, left her breathless... and hurt. The pain in her ribs blossomed to a new level of intolerable, and the coughing intensified, but with all of the oxygen she expelled, she could hardly draw a breath to replenish it. What is happening... am I... Painstakingly bringing a hand to her mouth, she saw, through increasingly blurring vision, that it came away, wet with blood. Not unlike what she had witnessed with the Clematis healer not long ago, when his illness had finally made itself apparent to her. Could it have been that... had she contracted what the Clematis healer suffered?
No... it's not. It's not the same. Even during his painful episode, Daphni recalled that he had, albeit with some difficulty, been able to take in breath. Small breaths, and too quick, but she recalled feeling his chest expand with each intake of air. She, on the other hand...
There was no breath, no oxygen, and even if there were, the pain in her chest, her lungs, was so incapacitating that her body failed to so much as willfully draw breath, let alone organically. She knew what was wrong; knew that a broken rib had successfully punctured a lung, that the blood she coughed into her hand was only a symptom of something far more dangerous. She had to tell Elias, had to articulate it to him...
But she was out cold before the words were concrete in her mind.
She was going to say it was a mistake. Make excuses, turn away and drown out the past few moments from her memory with wine. At least, that was what Lilica had expected, the moment her lovely hostess pulled away, shock and embarrassment written all over her attractive face. Even at her reassurance, the dark mage was all too aware that she was, perhaps, just a convenient opportunity for the broken-hearted and confused celestial caster.
Needless to say, it came as a pleasant surprise that Chara Rigas chose to resume--even if her reasoning for it was laughable.
"Cathartic?" A touch of a smile pulled at the corners of Lilica's mouth, and perhaps it was a trick of the dim light of the Rigas caster's villa, but it looked as though the glimmer in her dark eyes had turned sly. "Chara... there is no one here, but us. Even your nosy father could not be so sly as to eavesdrop right now. You do not have to make excuses..." Happily accepting the Rigas caster's warm weight back in her lap, the firmness and softness of her torso pressing against her own, she slipped her arms around her waist. "And I won't tell."
Chara was like a drug, a forbidden and rare herb that only the most cunning could cultivate, both intoxicating and addictive. And the longer she kissed her, the longer their lips and tongues met and danced in an unspoken yet sacred and fragile unity, the more she wanted to kiss her. The longer she wanted to spend with her, breathless and flushes and unaware of anything else in the world but the proud, blonde Rigas. Lilica ran her hands through her silky hair and indulged in the warmth of her body, riding the high that was the result of alcohol and attention. Even if it was only now, only for tonight, and the Rigas caster would wake up the next morning and disavow all knowledge of it, this would be a memory to replace one of those precious ones she had lost. And this was better; this was real. It had happened, and no one could ever convince her otherwise.
The fountain, the kiss, the flower that was still woven into her damp, dark locks... this had begun to fill the empty spaces those faux memories had left following their incineration. And in all truth, Lilica D'Or had never felt more alive.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I had loved, once. Fiercely. In all the years of my dispassionate life, I found someone who unfolded the layers of my crumpled up heart and smoothed out the wrinkles. But I didn't save her," he said vaguely, staring at the top of Elespeth's head rather than meet her gaze. "And there is not a day that I regret it. I understand your position, what he means to you. And I will do whatever it takes to help you reunite with him. You have my word."
As promised, Haraldur arrived several hours before dawn, along with the the team of men who he had accompanied on the evening of Andalari's attack. He had notified Canopus, acting as envoy to Tadasun's decision. They were in agreement to the plan, open-minded to whatever task would facilitate the embarrassment and ultimate annihilation of their most reviled adversary. They would coordinate with Stella D'Mare's casters, and asked for Canopus to send several to their site, for ease of communication by use of beacon signals. Timing was key, and the punctuality that the Tadasuni so valued was in proportion to their pride. Any delay, however incremental, spelled out their failure.
Haraldur approached one of the healers, asked for Elespeth, and traveled to her own tent, where they had sent her to rest after tending to her head injury. Not surprisingly, she was awake and in an anxious state, roving around the parameters of her tent like a caged animal.
"It's time," he told her as he entered the small space, waiting for her to collect whatever belongings and weapons she wished to take on their journey. "We have three casters accompanying us. All told, we are a small collective of nine. Remember, this is only a scouting mission. Do not take any premature action. Much as you want to, it may end up jeopardizing us all, including yourself and Alster."
Elias half-listened, half-ignored Daphni's rasping discourse, figuring that one way to discourage her damaging talk was to avoid responding altogether. In addition, there was something that caught his attention on feeling the trail of bruises that revealed where her ribs had fractured: something dire that had pushed itself through in the haste of her arising, and in the incessant jabber that agitated her condition. Before he gave voice to the appraisal, her chest wracked and she coughed up spots of blood onto her hand, which, irrationally, stirred a fear in him, though he knew it to be false: had he transmitted his illness?
No, you idiot, he berated himself. There is no expansion and contraction. A loss of pressure, deflation. She is losing air. Pulmonary laceration.
By then, Daphni had lost consciousness.
He sprung to his feet, threw himself upon the desk where rested his medical instruments, and loudly called for any healer in his vicinity for back-up. One of his own sidled up, assisting as Elias grabbed for a scalpel, a probe, and a hollow tube. He made an incision right beneath Daphni's armpit, large enough to insert his probe in order to reach and locate the laceration. A rib jutted into the walls of her left lung. Together, Elias and his assistant used avenues of magic, and a little bit of rearrangement from his probe, to remove the fractured bone from Daphni's lung. As the other healer stitched her ribs back in place with magic, Elias inserted the hollow tube into her lung, encouraging the inflow of air and the outflow of any blood that pooled from the inside. With the tube still jutting out of her, he sewed her injury closed and attached a gauze bandage over her incision, where it would remain for the duration required to revitalize the collapse. It was a methodical process, precise and mechanical and not at all an infrequent encounter. Since that day, they had treated three other people with punctured lungs. But in his exhaustion, the distraction that her presence always engendered, did Elias really not see the extent of Daphni's internal injuries until seconds before she fainted?
When they confirmed that she was breathing, they lapped up the blood, sterilized their work station, generated another numbing wave of magic, and reclothed her--for modesty purposes. After his assistant wandered off to tend to another patient in need, Elias wiped the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief, hoping that batting away his perspiration would cull the wave of nausea that spun circles around his chest and the backs of his eyes. "You," he spoke to her, taking a seat before vertigo claimed yet another victim that day, "are the most troublesome healer I have ever encountered--hardly worth your illustrious title. Needier than many of my patients. Grossly unprepared for the tasks presented to you. Unprofessional and more deserving of amateur status than any healer in this camp. I see no future for you, or for your clan." A weak chuckle, sounding more like a cough, touched upon his lips. "I may yet outlive you."
No matter Chara's excuses, be it an outlet for her loneliness, a surrogate in place of Alster, a purging of her sexual frustrations, or the impulses that inebriation inspired to the fore, she could admit, with every added graze of their lips and weave of their tongues, that she ultimately enjoyed their union, and the unlikelihood of its culmination. What would her family say if they ever discovered their tryst? How could she even explain what she did, if she was unable to define the phenomenon, herself?
But her inhibitions dulled into a blank space behind her ears in favor of a primal desire that guided her hands, her mouth, the slinking of her body against the object of her passion. She was unable to track time in a linear fashion, for one moment they locked lips at the dinner table, and in a blink, they appeared in Chara's opulent room, laying beside one another under the silken canopy of her bed, which simulated the sloping canvas sides of the tents that frequented the landscape of their war-torn lives. But the similarity of their surroundings gave off a feeling of empowerment. They took what had oppressed and tortured them in the months of their conscription and formed it into the model of safety, of comfort, and of something akin to love. If not love, it dwelled in the realm of soft rustling, the rubbing of skin against skin, the whisper of breath and the entwining of souls.
And then time shifted again, and invited her into a smooth, inviting darkness that carted her to a peaceful slumber.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth stewed over that fact for the rest of the day, while the healers tended her head wound and made her drink something with a foul, bitter taste to help restore her center of gravity and balance. Though, into the night, her thoughts lent themselves to Alster... and on awaking, hours before dawn, a startling and sickening realization came to her: I did not dream... I did not see him.
So what did that mean? That she could not determine if he felt any pain, that she could not access his mind through the psychic pathway of dreams and subconscious visions?
Alster Rigas, so help me... if you are not still alive... But there was no threat that came to mind, save for the fact that she was convinced she would never be a whole person again. Not without her other half.
She was up and about long before Haraldur came for her, armed with her blade and custom armor that Alster had personally seen fitted for her. Furthermore, she had pulled her hair back into a tight braid, something that she had not been able to do since leaving behind Atvany and everything that she had once known. Priya had always been better at a weave than she... It brought on sickening nostalgia. But she was more powerful than nostalgia, right now. More driven, more determined, and even a lack of restful sleep could not stop her conviction early that morning, before the sunrise.
"Then let's be off," she said to Haraldur as she exited her tent. "And... you have my word. That I will not be reckless." At least, as good as her judgement towards that could be.
They set out without a moment's rest that day, the three casters cloaking and concealing the rest of the party, muffling their footsteps and redirecting the daylight so that it did not reveal their approaching forms as they quietly infiltrated Messino's encampment. Understandably, it had moved since she had been arrested, yet the same amount of tents remained, the same amount of soldiers... He is not only recruiting the dead; he is gathering more support. It does not look to the rest of the world that Stella D'Mare has a chance, given his recent victories.
But in all truth, Elespeth cared less for that than she did the whereabouts of the man she loved. As it turned out, Alster was being held in a tent all his own, surrounded front and back by two sentinels each. It stood to reason that the Mad Prince would keep his most valuable hostage under wraps, although his condition still remained a mystery to the Atvanian warrior and her party.
The important thing was that he was still alive.
And, in addition, another caster reported on his findings as they safely retreated, having gathered all of the information that they could without compromising their safety. "There is dark magic about," he declared, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "The bastard has dark magic on his side."
"Without Lilica, what you must be sensing is Alster," another caster--a particulaly low-ranking Rigas--piped up. "Or the enchanted weapons that resurrect the dead."
But the first caster shook his head. "Not Alster. It is... strong. Thick. Pungent. So far above Alster's chthonic capabilities and those chintzy enchanted weapons of Messino's.This is... I don't know. I cannot explain it. But something tells me we must take good precaution in this rescue attempt."
"I will not be fazed by the danger." Elespeth scoffed, her mouth turned down in a deep frown. "Chthonic magic or not, we cannot be deterred. We know where Alster is; now it is up to us to determine exactly how we will get away with this rescue. And I," she placed a hand upon her sword, and in the daylight, her eyes glinted as sharp as the steel of her blade, "will do anything, and go to any lengths, to get him back."
When the world faded, another world appeared, one with blurry edges and bright skies. But it was not the landscape that concerned the Sybaian healer, but rather, the person sitting amidst its green grass and flowers, bronze hair blowing in the gentle breeze. Nerine Adela had been beautiful; Daphni had not forgotten that, but in the years since her mother's passing, she had forgotten just how beautiful. It brought a smile to her face.
"Mother," she breathed taking a step forward, but not too far, and not too quickly, lest the image fade. "It's been so long... I've missed you. Every day." Nerine did not reply, nor did she acknowledge that her daughter--her daughter, her own age, strange though it was--was speaking at all. That did not deter Daphni from going on. "I've tried hard to make you proud. I've saved countless lives, freed countless souls from their own distress... my greatest accomplishment of late involved restoring the magic of a very important caster. I do not regret the repercussions of such."
Still, Nerine said nothing, and the first twinge of concern gripped at Daphni's heart. Quietly, tentatively, she moved closer, until she was sitting next to the idle form of her mother, who absently ran her slender fingers through the long blades of grass. "It has been... difficult, among the other Sybaia," she went on. "They treat me much as they treated you. With little respect and little concern. In fact, I owe my well-being recently to a Clematis healer. He... I am sure he should be relieved that I am silent, at last. Mother..." With a pause and a slow exhale, she drew her knees to her chest and rested her head upon the other woman's shoulder. A woman who could almost have been her twin, were in not for her fuller lips and wider eyes, and the beautiful, uniform wave in her hair. "Not a day goes by that I do not sorely miss your support. I have not known what it means to be valued--to be loved--since you departed. And I have done my part for the Sybaia. So, perhaps..." Daphni swallowed her words, swallowed her emotions, and breathed to compose herself. "Perhaps the time has come that we can reunite. Point me in the direction of your footsteps, and I will gladly follow."
There was nothing but silence, the gentle sway of the grass in the wind. Daphni wondered if Nerine would respond at all, until finally, the gentle, undulating voice of her mother broke the silence. "It is not about the ideals of the Sybaia, Daphni. Nor their acceptance. It never was." She tucked her hair behind her ears before meeting her daughter's eyes for the first time in so long. "It is about you. Your own conviction, your decisions, which, very recently, have struck as needlessly reckless. And that is not how you might earn my approval."
Shocked by her mother's words, Daphni's blue eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. This was not the nurturing woman who she remembered. "Then what would earn your approval? What am I supposed to do? Mother, I am lost... and I am so, so tired of wandering. I have paid my dues, and I want to rest."
"If your concept of life encompasses the pursuit of death, thinking it is something you must earn, then you have gone more wayward than I feared." Nerine's pert lips turned downward, and her brow furrowed. "Find your own path, Daphni. With or without the Sybaia. They do not care for you, any more than they cared for me... which is why I am where I am, today." Then, to Daphni's surprise, her mother clasped her hand so tightly it hurt. "It was not that they could not save me, daughter. It was that they did not try. They resented my love for your father and had the satisfaction of seeing me die. And I refuse... I refuse for them to have the same satisfaction in your demise."
"I... but mother..."
"Open your eyes, Daphni." Nerine's shoulders slumped, and her blue eyes turned wistful. "It is not your time."
And she did open her eyes, to a dimly lit tent and a sharp ache underneath her left arm. Disoriented and confused, the Sybaian healer's heart accelerated, and she sat upright, with a cry of pain that resonated through her ribs. Right... they are... or were? broken... But her intake of breath, though not without its own sharp ache, was no longer inhibited. With one hand underneath her left arm, feeling the jagged lines of an incision beneath the loose shift in which she had been dressed, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that she turned her head to find Elias, tidying up and organizing supplies in the tent. "You... it was you." She breathed, astonished and grateful, her voice hardly above a whisper. "But you... why? If you think... me a lost cause..." Why was it that he continued to help? And why, deep in her heart, from that place that forced tears to spring to her eyes, was she conflicted as to how she felt about still being among the living?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
When they returned to Stella D'Mare's camp, Haraldur leaned over to Elespeth en route to Canopus's tent; they were to deliver their report immediately upon returning. "Messino must have been expecting some resistance after his midnight siege and subsequent message. This reconnaissance mission of ours--it puts me ill at ease. Nothing went awry. Call me superstitious, but I find this ill-omened. We best be on our guard, at all times."
At Canopus's tent, after each member of the team shared in their findings, the Rigas commander stroked his haggard beard, untrimmed and far from maintained, those melting eyes sliding even further down his drawn cheeks. "They possess another dark mage, you say? With power that is comparable to Lilica?" His frown deepened, looking like a deep slit across his face rather than a mouth. "If I hadn't sent her and Lysander to the city, perhaps we would have a greater chance at victory. But there is no time to fetch them. We will keep according to our plan. Exercise extreme caution around this dark mage. Do not let him spot you, if it is at all feasible." He clasped his gnarled hands before himself.
"We will make our move in two day's time, at that appointed time, in broad daylight. We will not have the cover of darkness through which to move if we want to paint this illusion of surrender. I doubt that Messino will think it true, but I find that he will humor us, at the very least, and allow our envoy into the camp. While he is distracted with the envoy, Tadasun will make the move to attack, and the nine of you will sneak into camp and reclaim Alster. Be prepared for all manner of tricks, of traps, of complex magic, sudden resistance, and remember our contingency plans. If all else fails and it appears that we will lose lives, many lives," he hesitated, and looked expressly at Elespeth, "we must abandon the mission."
On that last, morose note, the small party was dismissed, unleashed again into the camp, which slowly showed signs of normalcy. The supply tents managed to avoid the brunt of the attack, and extra tents sprung up in place of the ones that burnt to the ground. Much of the space was clear of bodies, the dead laid upon a great bonfire the night before, and the wounded displayed the tell-tale signs of recovery. As far as a functioning army went, however, Haraldur knew they were too devastated to participate in any battle without proper backup. There really were no other choices for them but to retreat to Stella D'Mare, to surrender...or to die fighting.
"That really is a possibility," he told Elespeth, hooking his fingers behind his belt as they walked around camp. "What will you do if we have to abandon the mission, and leave Alster behind, to die? If there is a guarantee that you, too, will die..." he trailed away, thinking on his own loss, his many losses in life, and how he had coped in that detached, almost careless, demeanor of a seasoned soldier too accustomed to death to respond with grief. There was simply not enough of it to go around, when more men died than given the capacity to grieve each one properly. One would lose their sanity if focused too much on soldiers as more than just a collective of living weapons. Many did break apart--not from a sword to the chest, but from their own rusting heartbeat. But Arina--he felt her death, felt her grief, several thousand times over. It was as if the past caught up to him, and he did grieve those decimated lives, all at once. Elespeth, however--she had the opportunity to reach Alster before or during his demise, and if it meant dying with the one she loved...
"You're going to die with him, aren't you?"
After keeping watch over the high-maintenance Sybaian healer, and, once deemed safe to remove the tube from her chest, he did so, with care, cleaning the thing of blood in the wash basin and going through the quotidian routine of sterilizing it--and all of his instruments. Second or third or fourth time be damned.
She was breathing without much difficulty, a relief to behold. Always a relief when a patient displayed any hint of recovery. It meant that he had done his job, that he responded with immediacy and caught the problem in time. It meant that the patient would live. That she would live.
He thought of healing the wound shut, but in case he needed to perform another emergency operation on one who already had a history of self-inflicted worst case scenarios, he kept the wound open but stitched closed. In his fevered musings before he at last took to bed for a few hours, he considered informing the Sybaia about the state of one of their healers. It was not his place to judge their negligible practices, but oh how he burned to lambaste them on the levels of their hypocrisy. A true healer saved lives, bias-free. Perhaps one might prioritize the order in which they healed, but they were not choosy about who received treatment and they did not discriminate--especially among their own people. It made no sense that they would actively attack the ranks of their clan out of some incongruous sense of propriety that spanned decades. Wasn't self-preservation more important? The tenets that enforced their entire mission statement? They were servants to the people, for the betterment of human lives. Silly squabbles did naught to further the purpose of their presence in a war camp. Otherwise, they were a waste of space and did not belong in a place already filled with the clutter of bodies. And a medical tent was the last venue where one ventured for the preservation of pride.
As he traveled to his tent, to his cot, he saw a Sybaia in his field of vision, also retiring for the day, and he could not hold his tongue. "Take better care of your sister. We've enough to handle without also tending to your responsibilities," he muttered, with the dangerous, albeit weary-lined narrowing of his hazel eyes.
He did not await a response (but he felt the woman's hostility boring into his back) and he retreated to his tent, whereupon he enjoyed a coughing fit of the grandiose variety, took a swig of his medicine, and, before shuddering into an uneasy sleep, realized that he was running out of the herbs needed to cull his cough...and quickly.
Elias reappeared at the medical tent that evening, having gained several fitful hours of rest. He changed into another red jerkin, one less blood-stained than what he sported earlier, and made his rounds checking on the patients he had seen to healing. His inevitable rounds led him to Daphni, whose eyes had fluttered open just as he had arrived. She must have been well, for she wasted her recovering breaths to spout more nonsense at him. At least she had the decency to abridge her inane commentary, which he accepted with an exaggerated eye roll.
"Yes. It was 'me'. What does that mean? Am I so reprehensible that you think me incapable of saving your life? You may see it as disposable, but I do not." He took a seat at the chair that still remained at her bedside, and, with a probe, lifted the flap of her shift that had concealed her stitched up incision. "Do you forget? I am a healer. This is my job. I am not so petty as to refuse anyone my services. That is against the moral code of the Clematis." He pried at the edges of her bandage, lifting one corner to ensure that it was free from infection and from the leaking of blood. "If you wish to die, that is not my problem. You should have been more thorough about it. That would certainly save me the trouble of having to patch you up all the time. Now," he pressed his hand against her chest, "breathe, as deep as you are able. Especially if it hurts. If you can talk, you can breathe."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
If only she felt she deserved such careful attention...
"Reprehensible... no." She murmured, barely above a whisper. "I just... I did not realize..." She had hoped to die. While the thought had never consciously occurred to her, it was clear now that her recklessness hadn't been born of negligence. Her every effort, to heal, to save lives, to cleanse souls, had not been a result of her Sybaian altruism, but also a selfish need to finally be free of her clan's confines and negative energies. So she had bottled up those desires so tightly that she hadn't even realized they were there... until she saw her mother again. And then it became so painfully obvious that she was torn as to whether she should feel ashamed or disappointed.
Wiping her damp eyes with the back of her hand, Daphni simply opted to shake her head. It was not worth explaining to someone who would only offer scorn. It was a story only fit for the ears of someone who could exhibit understanding, and Elias was not of a mind to have the patience for that. Not that she could blame him, of course... Were the roles reversed, it would be a lie to claim she might not have been just as exasperated.
The Sybaian healer winced as he peeled off the bandage underneath the plain white shift. She hadn't realized there was a stitched wound there... And it was only after a moment of clarity, through the haze of her waking condition, that she noticed it was, in fact, an incision. Carefully stitched and drawn with precision. "Only once... have I ever requested your help, specifically." She felt the need to remind him, but talking was almost as exhausting and breathing. When he instructed her to draw a deep breath, her capacity for air did not quite reach its fullest before she winced and coughed into her hand, which only incited more cringing and wincing. No blood came away on her palm this time, fortunately... but it still hurt like a knife in her chest. The difference was, this time, she could draw short breaths without struggling for air. Her lung might not have fully recovered from its trauma, but it was well on its way.
"Elias... I saw something." Maybe it had been a dream; or maybe she was losing her mind, at last. But that encounter with Nerine... it had felt real. "I think... my mother... her death might have been avoidable." What sort of support she thought she might have garnered from the surly Clematis healer, she did not know. But she needed to confide, in someone. And it certainly would not be to one of her sisters. "The Sybaia didn't help... on purpose. Just like they..." She bit her lip as her blue gaze trailed to her lap. "Just like they didn't... help me."
The truth hurt almost as much as her punctured lung, as the stitched incision at her side. Not only was her clan indifferent, but they wanted her gone. For something that was not her fault. For something that had never been a fault to begin with. "I am sorry for... being a burden," she sighed. "Until now I... I did not realize I was... actually trying to comply to their wishes."
If all else fails, we must abandon the mission. Canopus needn't have looked directly at Elespeth for the former knight to know that such an announcement was first and foremost for her ears. Her expression, fortunately, remained stoic in the face of that possibility. She said nothing, nodded, and left the tent along with the others, but even if she had managed to fool Canopus, she could no deceive everyone. Not when the extent to which she cared for Alster Rigas was far from a secret, at this point.
One hand on the hilt of her sword, the Atvanian warrior looked steadily ahead into the dim lanterns that lit the encampment, past the rows of now-empty tents, where not long ago, the dead had been the living, and the living had slept. Thrived. Like Haraldur, Elespeth was no stranger to turning a blind eye to the lost, knowing better than to become too immersed in the gravity of death, and how easily its cold hands could deprive of life. But there was one particular loss that she could not bear--that she refused to bear. With or without the blessings of the Rigases or Stellla D'Mare.
"What is left of this army might well abandon the rescue mission; that is their prerogative, and I understand well that they are expected to follow orders." Her fingers gripped the hilt of her sword, still stained with blood from Messino's siege. She refused to clean it yet, as if leaving it as a gentle reminder that she could, and would, take lives for the very sake and safety of one other life. Resolve that went against any and all rudimentary military logic, but then, personal convictions were just that--personal. And she was beyond the point where she felt it necessary to justify what she wanted. "But I cannot... won't give up on Alster. Even if it means rising my life. What, after all, do I really have to lose, Haraldur?"
Looking to her companion at last, she was relieved to find understanding, empathy, etched into the wartorn lines of his face. Someone who wanted answers, but had no real judgment prepared in return. "I... lost my family, long ago. My brother is dead, and all of my remaining relatives believe me dead, as well. I can never return to Atvany, never see any of them again. But Alster..." Thinking of the wayward Rigas caster, his kind eyes, his smile, drew her features into a peaceful look of contentment. "He made a place for me, here, with him. He gave me the purpose that I never thought I would regain. He reminded me that I did not need a brotherhood of knights to be a part of something, that I did not need to prove anything to anyone in order to have worth. And, he brings out the best in me..."
She traced the scar across the palm of her right hand with her thumb, dug her fingernail into the raised, pink flesh, and wondered if Alster, wherever he was, could feel the mutual pain. "We are linked by blood magic. Our lives are more intimately entwined than a marriage. If Alster dies... then I imagine that, ultimately, I will also die. And if that is to be my--our fate, then I accept it. But even if we were to surrender... you know as well as I that Messino will not let Alster live." Her expression turned severe, then, beyond the stoicism of a soldier. It was a vengeful and determined look, one that made her fierce, with or without a ready blade at her side.
"So it is not of question of if I rescue Alster; it is a matter of when, and how. And what better person to perform the operation, after all looks lost, that someone who has no name in this region, no family, and nothing left to lose?" Turning a corner, she caught sight of her tent--of Alster's tent--and pressed a defeated sigh from her lungs. "But what about you...? I think you are my only friend here now, Haraldur, and while I do not wish you to choose between duty and friendship... I would only ask that you not let them stop me, in what I must do. If I cannot save Alster, then I must die trying." With a sad smile, the former knight held out her hand for them to shake in agreement. "No interferences... Can you promise me that?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And that is exactly what she began relaying to him. He listened, this revelation about the Sybaia neither surprising or opinion-boosting. Nonetheless, it soured his already puckering mood, and he released his hand from her chest before she sensed the tension clamming up his tightening fingers. "And you learned all this from your near-death experience?" He covered up the rising of frustration with the dry humor that he favored. But it did not last. His brow bunched up and he could feel a twitching sensation in his overtired muscles.
"I can certainly raise a complaint to your entire bothersome clan. I am a first-hand account, a witness to this disgusting negligence of theirs." He offered Daphni a clean rag for coughing, relieved that her hacks upon the white surface did not reveal the spots of blood that he was so accustomed to seeing appear before his own hands. "They do not seem to understand that their actions affect us. Other healers. Other patients, and their lives. It certainly does not speak well of their reputation." He shifted in his chair and glared at it--as if its entire existence was meant to inconvenience him. That the particular way he sat upon it was the object's own fault--for accommodating his needs so poorly. "So...what will you do with whatever information that you have gleaned? For, if you mean to bring this up to the Sybaia, I am not opposed to giving my own testimony. I cannot work in concord with their choosiness if it continues to compromise our alliance and our practice. It is beyond unacceptable; it is exclusionary, elitist behavior. This is why I relinquished my title of nobility. But I suppose the Sybaia can't be rid of this predilection."
He huffed in conclusion and, to give himself something to do other than linger on the indignities to which he felt entitled, he offered Daphni water from a tin cup and helped her rise into an upright position, fluffing the pillows at her back for support. "Your lung is faring better. But you need ample bed-rest. Don't go traipsing about until I say," he emphasized. "I'll give you another treatment later today. And," he sighed, wondering if he should even mention what tumbled around in his mind, "I've retained much from my time as an apothecary's apprentice. I carry poison. Lethal poison. Sometimes our patients, they are in too much pain, and rather than elongate their suffering for a life that will only be half-lived, I offer them this choice. If you find that your pain is too unbearable," an uncharacteristic bout of gentleness smoothed out the edge in his voice, "let me know. But," a vengeful, conspiratorial smirk refiled that edge, like a sword to a whetstone, "I wouldn't give those Sybaian twats the satisfaction, were I you."
What do I really have to lose? It was a statement that Haraldur often muttered to himself, one that always lodged a protruding splinter of futility in his mind. And why pull out that splinter, much as it was a niggling, annoying little thing, when it provided him with a reaction? A reaction to press on and a reaction to fight, even in the face of abject hopelessness. He had lost his reasons long ago. Like Elespeth, he had no family, no country, no friends--nothing at all. So what do I have to lose?
Instead, he hinged his life on those who needed his abilities--often bowing to the highest bidder, or to a cause about which he felt strongly. He had failed when he unthinkingly joined Messino's army, but he could make amends, and return to the true reason for why he continued to fight: for people like Elespeth, who had lost it all. For those refugees from long ago, which he had conveyed to a home where they could avoid the tyranny of Mollingard and its inhumane laws. And for himself, who had nothing left, but had the means to prevent others from losing everything dear.
Elespeth would not become like him.
"Such heavy losses--it must be contagious," he said, a humorless smile trailing over his features. He started fiddling with a silver chain around his neck, twisting the delicate threading between his fingers. "I lost my family as a child. My sister...who died before she could really live, in a country overrun with poverty and famine and no identity. Astrador lost its rights as a country long ago. And I lost my right as a human when Mollingard took me at age eight--and I've been a weapon ever since." He pulled out the chain, which revealed a silver pendant of a tree, its bare, outstretched branches formulating a circle. Pressing his hand against the cool, circular charm, he looked up at the darkening sky, then over at Elespeth. "Arina did that for me, as well, even if it didn't last. She was the home I never had." They stopped, before her tent, and Haraldur swallowed a hard, dry lump in his throat, just to feel the scratching ache inside of him.
"Like you, I have nothing left. And war is the only life I've ever known. I don't know how else to live. But at least, I can offer this life for a cause that's meaningful. You have someone who's waiting for you--let me cover you. I'll get you to him, even if it's too late." He extended his hand and weaved it through her fingers. Together, they shook, his face like the patient sorrow of a tree which has withstood hundreds of years of strife without movement, without complaint--without saying a word.
"You just get to Alster. Let me worry about namelessness. The lack of roots. For you have your home in him. And those roots--they're in each other. You're not lost. Not yet."
The appointed day had arrived for their ragtag number of nine souls plus the envoy that Canopus had chosen for the task--Mizar. A powerful caster in her own right, she was a capable choice and had the gumption to prove herself the leader of this operation, ready to take control if necessary. Shortly after dawn, she, the Rigas casters under her command, Tadasun's scouting unit, Elespeth, and Haraldur, set out to return to Messino's camp, and Haraldur brainstormed every possible way that this operation could go horribly wrong.
They arrived at Messino's camp, again, without any incident. Was the Mad Prince so haughty to believe that he could dispatch them with ease in his territory rather than clip them down out in the rolling fields where sunlight and the openness of the land exposed them to elements and to eyes? Even with the magic of the casters in place, Canopus warned them all that only Lysander had perfected the spell of complete vanishing. Sudden movements would shatter the illusion of their stealthy, semi-impermeable cloak and so travel slowed to a waddle.
This had given the time for Mizar to travel on ahead, with her white flag of surrender in tow. It was merely for appearances, but they all banked on that appearance as being enough of a distraction to sneak successfully to camp and successfully into camp without anyone seeing and informing on them.
And now, they all hunched beneath the blanket of magic, huddling in the shadow of a hill that shrank the closer that midday had approached its zenith in the boiling sky. As they watched, from their vantage point, Mizar arriving with her flag, Haraldur turned to Elespeth and whispered. "Are they keeping him in the same area? Have they moved him?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He was truly an ally that she could not afford to lose. And, perhaps it was merely born of her own wishful thinking, but something about him, about his unwavering support... he reminded her mildly of Farrin.
"I have a valuable ally and friend in you, Harraldur," the Atvanian warrior said quietly, a soft smile on her face before the mercenary took his leave from outside of her tent. "Alster... he must be my priority. But know that I will look out for you, as well. And by no means... by no means do I expect you to compromise your own life for my goals."
The evening came and went in haste, and Elespeth was convinced she hadn't had a moment of restful sleep before she was awakened by her comrades in arms. They were to march to Messino's camp, with stealth, led by a powerful caster named Mizar who carried a white flag, under the guise of declaring surrender. The former knight watched as she marched ahead, with ease into the Mad Prince's encampment, with no sign of threat or resistance in sight. It was almost too easy... as if Andalari's troops were lying in wait of their arrival. There was no chill in the air, yet something about the atmosphere sent a chill down the Atvanian warrior's spine...
"They're keeping him carefully guarded," she replied to Haraldur's question in a hushed tone, eyes trained on Mizar's back, several paces ahead. "I do not think that they have relocated him... perhaps they really are willing to buy into our 'surrender'. Enough that they do not think we will actually endeavor to rescue him. But..." But that possibility seemed too farfetched. Messino was not so daft to underestimate the value of Alster to Stella D'Mare. Nor was he stupid enough to buy that they would admit defeat so quickly, so easily...
Her suspicions were confirmed when the arrow sailed through the air and impaled Mizar square in the chest.
The assailants emerged from their hiding places then, some having been concealed by casters under orders of the Mad Prince, others having stood out of sight. Some laughed and stepped on the back of Stella D'Mare's fallen caster, wrenching the white flag from her listless hands. Whether or not she was dead or just mortally wounded was impossible to determine from that distance. "Look how much they love him. A whole bloody city surrendering to save the ass of some wayward magic man."
"Don't be so sure that they were. I'm willing to bet they've got backup around here, somewhere," another commented, blade ready in his burly hands. "What do you say we hunt some sons of bitches, huh? You know they've gotta be around here!"
"Why waste time giving chase to what you cannot see?" The final commentator was not a man that either Elespeth or Haraldur would have recognized. He was not dressed like either a caster or a soldier, but rather, someone of nobility, clad in royal blues and purples. He strode past Mizar's fallen form, and--to Elespeth's fear and dismay--looked directly at the small party, in the general direction of their hiding spot. He can see us. This is it... If we stand outnumbered, then we have already lost.
But then, the most astounding turn of events occurred: the man looked away, as if he hadn't seen them at all, and raked his hands through his raven-black hair. "I'll bet this envoy was a sacrifice. A means of seeing whether or not we would shoot first and ask questions later. Well, they'll know, when she does not return to their quaint little camp." Clapping his hands together once, turned away from the terrified party's nook of concealment, and strode past the barracks that were all too familiar to Elespeth and Haraldur. "Let's go and inform his Majesty about this occurrence. And send for someone to clean up this mess." He nodded to the immobile caster on the ground.
The small party of now eight held their breaths and their places, the casters sweating from the effort expended to keep them all concealed until the goons were out of sight. The simultaneous rush of air from everyone's lungs was like a gust of wind when they at last expelled breath. "Mizar...!" One of the casters hissed, sweating with distress and trepidation. "We have to help her--we need to get back to camp!"
"That man... that magic. The poisoned dark that I felt before." The mage from the other day had locked his gaze on the horizon, where the strange, violet-clad man and Messino's goons had retreated. "It was him. He reeks of it, like a stench that you cannot purge from your nostrils. Messino seems to have hired some powerful new help, in Lilica and Alster's absence... let us hope we do not cross him again."
While everyone was busy with their commisserating to no useful end, Elespeth shot a determined look Haraldur's way, before leaving the security of their hiding place and the casters' magical cloaking. Hurrying light-footed over to the fallen caster, she carefully turned Mizar's body over. The arrow protruded from the middle of her sternum, but while she was unconscious, her chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths. Though it pained her to think in such terms, it would have granted a better situation had the caster simply died.
"She's still alive.Tend to her, bring her back to camp if you must," she announced on returning to her seven comrades, who looked on with relief and incredulity, but she was unfazed. "I will carry out this mission even if the lot of you decide otherwise. But... Haraldur," biting her lip, she looked up at the tall mercenary, and her gaze was raw with pleading. "I need your help, at least... I do not think I can rescue Alster alone."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But his alert wandered from Mizar to the ostentatiously dressed man in blue and purple, who meandered to the scene--and glanced in their direction. Haraldur froze, adopting the method of deer who ceased all movement in the forest, relying on motionlessness to evade a predator undetected. But they had been spotted, of that he could sense. What intrigued him, however, was that the strange man had turned away, and Haraldur thawed his movements to tighten his hand on the hilt of his sword. So that was Messino's newest acquisition. Another dark mage...What was this man's agenda?
He could not puzzle over it for long when he began to notice that much of camp appeared strangely...bare. Like he was looking at a scale model, replicated for the strategy boards many a commander lorded over in their late night ruminations. Not that it was a decoy, or even some well-replicated magical illusion. The camp was real, but the army, at least half of the army...
Was gone.
They had advanced ahead of time, to ambush Tadasun's ambush.
Cursing under his breath, he slunk along the low hill that had failed to shield them from the penetrating eyes of the dark mage, and waited for Elespeth's return. After she investigated Mizar's condition, Haraldur gathered everyone close and whispered fiercely into their waiting ears.
"The army has gone to intercept Tadasun. We no longer have the cover of surprise on our side. In fact, we have nothing now. Enough men have stayed behind at camp--more than enough to dispatch us. They've lured us into this trap. If any of you turn back--I doubt you will make it out alive. One of you can pull Mizar out of harm's way and watch her until we formulate a strategy to escape, but we need everyone to do their part." He gave a pointed look at Elespeth. "Two warriors alone cannot possibly achieve anything. We need a compound unit. Use Messino's own strategy against him. Casters, stay close. Maintain our cloak. We move to Alster's tent now--and we face whatever stands in our way. We retreat now--and we fail."
That seemed to bolster the morale of the casters. Tadasun's soldiers had already maintained their support with stony-faced agreement, and those wavering Rigas casters, before Tadasun's judgmental dark eyes, flared with renewed pride and courage.
Together, they entered the camp, their movements careful. The warriors had their weapons drawn. The casters flung out their hands, holding their barriers aloft. They spread out and surrounded the perimeter of Alster's tent, guarded by those same sentinels. Two on either side. Again, all was quiet. Nothing stirred out of place.
It was then that the flaps shifted in front of them, and out stepped Messino, an indulgent smile plastered on his smug face. He glanced in their direction, and his smile widened, appearing more as a grimace on a jackal than anything indicating mirth or humanness.
"Oh!" he said, feigning surprise, placing a hand to his chest. "I was not expecting you all. I take it you are here to see Alster?" As he eyed every one of them, the casters dropped their shields, finding it feckless to waste energy on something so ineffectual. "That's better!" he clucked. "Alas, my guest is so weary, and a bore, to boot. All he wants to do is sleep. But," he thumbed a finger under his chin, "I will allow one of you inside at a time." He spread his hands magnanimously. "After all, it is a little too cluttered for all of you at once. What say you," he leered at Elespeth, "my little Atvanian runaway?" He opened the flap wide for her to enter. "Come in and see your lover."
Haraldur clutched Elespeth's arm in alarm. This is an obvious trap, his eyes read, and he conveyed as much to her. Don't go inside, as much as you want to.
As if reading the conversation in their eyes, Messino snapped his fingers and a ring of soldiers, half of them previously cloaked by magic, half of them emerging from nearby tents, surrounded their small group, swords drawn and pointed inward. The sentinels lining the tent took heed, and barred entry inside with their crossed halberds.
"I'm sorry," he gurgled a laugh. "This is no request. It's an order."
Despite Haraldur's protests, Elespeth had entered the tent with Messino. The flaps drew closed behind them.
The tent was, as advertised, small and cramped. No other furnishings decorated the inside save for a cot in the middle, whereupon slumbered Alster, his face a mask of serenity, bound to the bedding in thick leather straps. Crouched at his cot were four undead soldiers, all pointing short swords at fatal regions of his body: his temple, his throat, his chest, his viscera.
"Before I kill him, I wanted you to see, my dear fallen knight, that even if you manage to peel him from my clutches," he snapped his hands together for emphasis, "he will never awaken again. And if you so much as shift to one leg, or raise your hand to scratch an itch, I will make certain that they eviscerate him."
Outside, the sounds of a struggle persisted.
"Ah. That will be your friends. Dying. Well," he yawned and waved at the undead soldiers. They primed their weapons in practiced synchronicity. Each blade pressed upon Alster's unprotected flesh. Blooms of blood welled from the pricking of steel. "Say goodbye."
It was at that moment when a small, black ball rolled into the tent and leaked out heavy curtains of gray smoke. In seconds, the smoke inundated the tiny space. Haraldur crashed inside, blood trickling down his arms. He threw another ball, and the smoke thickened into a heavy pall.
Coughing all the while, Messino yelled at his men to tear at the flaps for ventilation, but by then, Haraldur was already feeling for the obstructed cot. Hand covering his mouth, other hand gripping his sword, he went about sawing off the leather bonds that contained Alster.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
And, even worse, Elespeth was certain that Messino knew just who that person was.
"So we have lost before it has begun," she sighed, turning to Haraldur in a look a desperation as two other allies moved Mizar's fallen body from where it lay in plain sight, a deep, scarlet stain to mark its place. "This is... my fault. I have put all of us at risk and walked right into a trap. I hope you can all forgive me. But..." The look that she exchanged with Haraldur said more than words could. It was dangerous, and possibly futile, but she would never forgive herself if she fled to Stella D'Mare without Alster. Only two options stood before her: rescue the man she loved and bring him back, or die trying. But she would not return to the luxurious city empty handed.
The former knight could not muster the words to convince her comrades not to retreat, to take up arms with her... But Haraldur could. And he did.
With nothing more to offer than a soft smile of gratitude, the party paired up, caster to warrior, in the fashion that Messino had originally concocted, and made for Alster's tent. "You really remind me of him," she mentioned softly to Haraldur, voicing thoughts that she hadn't intended to put into words, yet out they slipped. "My brother. Farrin. He would never have left a comrade behind, he had the words to encourage the soldiers who answered to him..." It was almost like he was alive again, and manifest in Haraldur But that was ridiculous, and insensitive to a man who was unique and worthy in his own right. "I'm sorry. Now isn't the time..."
Regardless, her moment of clarity was interrupted the moment they were about to enter Alster's tent.
Elespeth went rigid, and her blood ran cold when Messino made his dramatic entrance, and all but turned to ice when he made mention of Alster, alluding vaguely to her captured companion's current condition. Her jaw clenched down on itself with such force that her teeth ached. "What the hell have you done with him," she hissed, only to discover that she was soon to find out, anyway.
With little other choice, lest she and her comrades fall dead then and there, the Atvanian warrior followed Messino into the tent--and with one look at Alster, unconscious, tied down and with several blades threatening his vulnerable body, she wished she hadn't.
"What have you done to him..." She demanded, eyes wide. It sickened her to give the Mad Prince the satisfaction of her reaction, but she was helpless to conceal her horror and dismay. "What have you done! Alster..." But she couldn't move, and was in no position to call Messino's threat a bluff, especially when she knew it wasn't. If a man was willing to sacrifice his own soldiers, knowingly able to bring them all back from the dead to do his bidding, then there was no doubt in her mind that he would have Alster killed in a heartbeat. Even if only to see the look on her face, and then resume war with Stella D'Mare the very next day.
And that was when the sounds of struggle beyond the tent tipped the scales out of her favour, in any case. Sparing a glance over her shoulder, sweat beaded on the former knight's brow. No... Haraldur... she thought, suddenly panicked that she would lose not one, but two people very close to her in a matter of seconds, a suspicion that was confirmed when Messino shrugged and gave the order to his undead goons to kill Alster. I'll be alone. Without Farrin, without Alster, without Haraldur, I'll have no one. Nothing to fight for, my life and my brother's death will be in vain...
I will not live like that.
Something black and noxious burst through the tent flaps before the blades could penetrate Alster's prone form. A ball, of some sort, that filled the tent with a smoke that made her eyes tear up. But not enough to fail to recognize the person behind the devices. "Haraldur..." She almost wept his name in relief as he surged past her, and immediately made for Alster, where he worked at freeing the unconscious caster from his binds. They could do this. Maybe Alster would be all right; they would take him back to Stella D'Mare, have the best and most capable healers, Clematis, Sybaian and otherwise tend to him and find a way to awaken him from whatever horror Messino had inflicted. He'd be all right. She had to believe he'd be all right...
But she could not say the same for Prince Messino di Andilari.
"You... you deplorable bastard." Her blade was unsheathed with such ease it was as though it weighed nothing in the grip of her white knuckles. The Mad Prince was struggling to find the tent flaps and break free of the smoke, but he was not fast enough. Clever, deceitful, but not fast. She could outmove him any day, and did so, then and there, when her blade met his chest, halfway to the hilt. Due to her obscured vision, she did not know if her positioning had been lethal, but it felt satisfying, nonetheless. Elespeth Tameris had never in her long life of regret and guilt been so happy to hurt someone. "You are a waste of the air that you breathe. May you die choking on it."
She withdrew and sheathed her blade just in time to turn to find Haraldur two paces behind her, with Alster slung over his shoulder like a rag doll. It had gone silent beyond the tent, and a creeping sense of dread crawled down the former knight's spine seconds before she exited the enclosed canvas.
They were all fallen, enemy and ally alike. Some were already dead, but others, so mortally wounded that they would not make it back to camp. Those casters, those warriors... they had saved their lives, saved Alster's life. And they had sacrificed their own lives to make an escape possible. "We have to go." She breathed, not allowing the tears welling in her eyes to fall, because there was no time. "Hurry, Haraldur. There is... there is nothing that we can do, but ascertain that their bravery and sacrifices are not in vain."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
In his giddy delight, he let down his guard. He chose reckless gloating over calculated efficiency. Instead of killing Alster the second his army shot down the Rigas envoy, he had insisted upon tormenting the woman he hated just as much as the bound-up brat that lay supine and as good as dead. All carefully crafted plans, no matter how watertight, always carried the possibility to founder under the waves.
And he had been bested by two containers of smoke.
Coughing from the thick screen, forced to close his eyes and cover his face, he backed away until his heels encountered the wave of one canvas side. He felt for the makeshift wall and bunched it in his hands, intending to tear the dreaded thing from its pegs. The intruder with the bombs had covered the entrance. His men sliced at the tent sides, extirpating the pall of smoke--but not quickly enough. Under the din, he heard the sheering of leather against the scraping edge of a knife.
No!
He rushed forward to intercept the intruder who rent apart his prisoner's bounds and his upper-hand, drawing his sword to advance.
Instead, he advanced into a sword that embedded itself deep into his chest.
In the drifting smoke, he saw that Atvanian bitch, her features hidden in contour but her voice a sufficient surrogate for the hate-filled glare that he imagined in her eyes. He tried to pull away, to lift his own sword arm in response, but as she slid the blade out of his chest, he collapsed to the ground, left with a pain that required both hands to clasp. His sword dropped, spun away from him.
As the two usurpers made away with Alster, Messino managed a sputter to the four undead men, who no longer had the mind to think for themselves without requiring his input. "One of you--get me a healer," he rasped, crawling through a blood puddle of his own creation. "The rest...give chase."
He gazed upon the empty bed, its straps uselessly limping and drooping in surrender. Then he thought of the last words communicated to him by that Rigas pariah: I curse you, Prince Messino di Andalari.
If only he believed in curses...
With Alster free from his binds and hauled now over his shoulder, Haraldur and Elespeth burst from the tent flaps--and into the carnage that they needed to skirt with care, lest they trip over friend and foe alike.
"That caster," he nodded toward the smallest of the Rigases, a mere adolescent, his entire front-side spattered with blood, "helped me inside the tent, gave me the fire I needed for those smoke balls." It was the only tribute he allowed himself to utter, but he never ceased his movements, and he cleared the pile of corpses after a few deft movements. One arm threaded between Alster's legs to meet with the dead weight of the arm he had looped around his neck. The rest of the load bore down on his shoulder, but the Rigas caster didn't provide him much trouble, his short, thin frame not nearly as cumbersome as some of the other men he had hauled over long distances to safety. With his free hand, he clutched his sword, and together they fled the camp.
They met with plenty of resistance within the camp and just outside its boundaries, and at their pace it was hard to differentiate between the undead ranks and those still among the living. He hacked at the men who clambered too close, but his mobility was severely limited, leaving him only able to perform a kick or two and simple swings of his bastard sword. And, considering the significance of who he carried, he was a glaring target that needed the protection of Elespeth, who seemed to be growing weary from the non-stop assault that halted whatever head-start they had gained.
After temporarily incapacitating a small group that had hunted at their heels like a pack of wild dogs, Haraldur and Elespeth used the opportunity to break into another run, mindful of bouncing Alster around too violently, which inhibited their speed. As he panted from the effort and exertion, he looked over his shoulder at their pursuers, a good twenty men about ten yards behind them, half of whom he predicted to be undead.
"We can't...we need another strategy!" He shouted in bursts of puffy air. "Magic...we need..." He glanced over his shoulder again, but this time, he honed in on Alster's unconscious form that lolled over him and slapped against his back. "If the two of you are linked by blood, is it possible you can use his magic!?" Otherwise...if we can't reach Stella D'Mare's camp in time for backup...we're dead.
More of the undead were on them as soon as they made to flee the camp. With Haraldur bearing the burden of the unconscious Rigas caster on his shoulders, the Atvanian warrior could not in good conscience expect him to fight to his full potential. For not only would it endanger Alster, but enough lives had already been lost. She would not lose another friend to Messino's guerrilla madness.
Elespeth was all but covered in blood, some her own but most belonging to the previously fallen. The young woman who had grown up training to fight and to kill with honour was merciless, holding nothing back as she severed limbs and impaled bodies on her dripping crimson blade. They were already dead, and should never have risen again, in the first place. She was, therefore, not vanquishing souls; she was demobilizing husks.
Though try as she might, there were still too many of them, too fast, too soon. And she and Haraldur were rapidly running out of steam.
While she could understand the desperation of Haraldur's suggestion, grasping at any possible thread of hope that might be dangling in sight, he wanted to cry and curse at the absurdity of the suggestion. "I am not a mage, Haraldur--I am linked to Alster through his emotions, through his pain, his dreams... It is not as though I can draw on his greatest strengths and use them for my own." But something had to be done. Even if it meant that the both of them would not make it back alive, or fully in tact.
"Go." Pausing her in her stride, she faced Haraldur, sadness written in the lines of her face. "Get Alster back to the encampment. I'll take care of these goons as best I can."
She would never know what triggered the feeling that came over her, at the thought of never seeing Alster awake (or otherwise) ever again. A mixture of overwhelming sadness, hot anger and steel determination that sent her facing their assailants, sword clutched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles ached. "If I never see you again, Alster," she murmured, tears blurring her vision. "then I hope you know that I tried. Please... please know that I tried."
Elespeth didn't know what to think when her arms suddenly grew hot, as if on fire, and her heart sped up tenfold. Perhaps it was exhaustion, her body beginning to give up... But when she swung her sword at the undead, expected to cut off an arm or cut down a leg, a flash of white fire erupted from the blade, blinding and hot. When she opened her eyes, every last one of Messino's undead soldiers lay helpless and defeated in a heap on the ground. What... what just happened?
Was Haraldur right? Could she have, by some means, called on Alster's magic and channeled it through her sword, just like he used to when they had been part of a compound unit?
Whatever the reason, she was not about to question her luck. Not if it meant she would see the man she loved again, even if he never awoke.
The former knight caught up with Haraldur moments after he had arrived at the encampment. Like her companion, she was exhausted and sweating, and her whole body ached as though she had been crushed by a boulder twenty times her own weight. "How is he?" She rasped, clutching Haraldur's arm. "We need... we need him to awaken. We need a healer."
It was just out of chance that her eyes happened to have fallen upon Elias, who approached the crowd that was rapidly collecting around the tent where the unconscious Rigas caster had been taken. She was on the healer in seconds. "He's alive... he's alive, but he's unconscious, I think it's a spell... you have to help him. Please, you..."
A cold sweat suddenly wracked her body with a shiver, and before she knew what was happening, Elespeth had fallen to her knees and vomited the near negligible contents of her stomach onto the dry earth. Her hands burned like fire, her body shook, and her heart continued to race. "What..." she choked, struggling to sit up. "...is going on..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I'll get you help!" He cried, twisting his body towards camp. "Until then, don't die!"
Then, he ran. He ran as fast as his passenger would allow him, despite the shuddering of his breath, the black spots that blighted his vision, the sweat that poured into his eyes and his mouth. Every instinct burned for him to look back, to check if the horde had reached him, to confirm if Elespeth had...
But he kept on running, the canvas spires of camp slowly becoming visible over the sun-blasted horizon. I'm abandoning someone again, he thought, his legs screeching forward. It's always for the 'greater good.' Sacrifice one, save a hundred. Sacrifice Elespeth, save Stella D'Mare. Will there ever an instance when most everyone could be saved?
At that moment, Alster's arm, the one that he clutched, radiated a curious warmth, like coals on a fire. A pale glow surrounded it; he could tell from the corner of his eye. Then--he heard a grand sizzle in the air not far behind him. A pop, a crack, a purr of thunder. Pained yells, thudding, a strange quiet.
"Did she..." he heard himself saying aloud, then glanced again at Alster's arm, which had returned to its normal temperature and tint, "did you...?"
Whatever had occurred behind him, it contributed to his successful entrance into Stella D'Mare's camp. As he made haste over the boundaries, he called attention to the sentries that guarded the front end of camp. "We have a swarm of Messino's men approaching! One of our own--go! Assist!"
At first they gave him curious looks, but upon seeing Alster fused to his back, they darted out of camp and onto the field, blasting long-range spells at the assailants that remained, that scrambled up the hills with revived intensity. And a little ways ahead, Haraldur could see--Elespeth!
"She made it," he said to Alster with a long, relieved heave of a sigh. As expected, the Rigas caster didn't respond, but he thought he felt another hum of heat waver through his body, unless it was another activated spell--or a trick of the sun.
When Elespeth approached him in camp, Haraldur clamped a hand over her shoulder and squeezed it in an appreciatory gesture. "You...you didn't die." A tired smile formed on his lips.
After their reunion, they went right for the medical tent, their unlikely success (insofar as they reclaimed Alster, Haraldur thought) attracting most of camp, who followed them like an entourage. Elias appeared at the entrance, glowering at the crowd, arms like weapons sheathed but at the ready over his chest.
"Resume your gawking elsewhere," he barked. "This is not a free show." He ushered Haraldur and Elespeth inside, and tied the flaps of the tent as he had many times tied together the lips of raised, jagged flesh.
He led them to a corner with a few empty beds, at which point Elespeth bowled over and began to vomit. Elias ran and grabbed a pan for her, waited until she finished, and set her upon the nearest cot, placing a tin of water into her hands. Haraldur gently laid Alster upon the cot directly beside her and, at the healer's insistence, took residence upon the third cot.
"I've no doubt the two of you are suffering from heat exhaustion," the Clematis healer exclaimed, his arms traveling at half-sheath as they perched akimbo on his hips. Other healers came around to assist in peeling off his and Elespeth's armor, washing down their blood and grime with cool cloths dipped in water, and setting them gently upon the pillows. Meanwhile, Elias stood between Elespeth and Alster's cot, as he did about a week ago when they suffered twin injuries of the heart. He examined them simultaneously, dipping back and forth between the warrior and the caster.
"First," he said, looking down at the warrior, who refused to obey the contours of her bedding as she kept trying to stir from it, "tell me what happened with you."
He listened to her story, how in their escape she was able to summon white flames and clip down the enemy undead. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows--a sign of his intense concentration. Never before had he heard of a feat such as the transference of magic between two bonded individuals, one of whom harbored no ability of her own. It was intriguing. It excited him.
"It sounds as if your body is reacting adversely to the effects of magic in your system," he concluded, his arms now at unsheath as they dangled at his sides. "You have never before wielded magic. It has been done to you, yes, but it has never flowed through you. You have no resistance, no endurance to what some users refer to as 'blowback.' This is akin to poisoning, of the sort, but it is not fatal. We'll have to monitor you, see how you end up healing, but you will probably experience flu-like symptoms. That is, in my opinion, how the blowback is choosing to manifest for you. As for Alster Rigas," he clicked his tongue, looking back at the patient in question, "it is a curse. A chthonic curse. It causes the recipient to enter a coma-like state, in the form of a peaceful slumber...until," he hesitated, "the recipient dies. However, he is showing no signs of decay. It is as if he is in perfect stasis. Unfortunately...it is not so easy to wake him. But," he turned from the warrior and her gluey eyes, "I will find you a second opinion. Excuse me for a moment."
He wandered to the opposite end of the tent, where Daphni, as per his order, remained on bed rest. Through multiple healing sessions, her lung was in much better shape, almost to full functionality, but he would not release her until her condition satisfied him--and it had not yet done so. Or, perhaps, he wanted to resume punishing her.
She was awake when he stood over her bedside. With all the hullabaloo going on outside and inside, no one was able to sleep--save for Alster. "Your expertise is required," he said, hoping he would not regret this decision of his. "But let me make this clear. I do not make a habit of allowing my patients to wander about to form their own prognoses and such, so you are only analyzing the condition of Alster Rigas. Nothing more. Not yet. So," he waved her along, "if you are ready, come with me. If not...I will have to ask another Sybaia." Which I do not want to do, he thought. I abhor them all, but I abhor you less.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elias complied, to her great relief, and returned to Alster's side. And although she was aware that no possible news could be gleaned of his condition, she was not prepared to hear the news. Whatever it may be. "A coma?" She breathed, resisting the urge to jump off the cot and rush to Alster's side. "But if... if he is showing no signs of dying, he can awaken, can he not? There is a way to reverse this curse, isn't there? There has to be..."
Even if it was only to placate her and assuage her concerns, the Atvanian warrior breathed a sigh of relief at the healer's effort to find the truth of what had happened, and the possibility of breaking the curse that kept a barrier of consciousness between her and the man she loved. Elespeth cared little for the effects of Alster's magic using her body as a conduit, and cared even less for her strange ability to have accessed it at all. Alster was the only concern in her tired frame of reference, and as soon as Elias left to speak with a familiar figure at the front of the tent--Daphni, she realized, with mild surprise and confusion--she left her cot to return to Alster's side, and clutched his hand. He's warm... he's not dying. He's not dying...
Daphni heard only snippets of the conversation taking place at the cots furthers from her's, but as the four had rushed in, with an unconscious Rigas caster and a very sick warrior, it was not difficult to glean that the situation was far from ideal. She did not expect, however, the proud and surly Clematis healer to approach her for consultation, and it took a moment for her to process his request, in case she might have misheard. "Like I have been telling you for days, I am fine," she muttered, her lips turned down in a frown. "Albeit a victim of your insistence in keeping me stationary. Not that is really matters, at this point." Shifting her body, she threw her legs over the side of the cot and stood, happy to stretch her tense bones and muscles. Then, as almost an afterthought, she added quietly, "If you desire the opinion of a Sybaia, then I suggest you go and find a Sybaia. In the meantime, I will tell you what I can."
With that cryptic message conveyed, she made her way over to Alster's cot, where Elespeth knelt and Haraldur gazed, exhausted yet attentive. "You already know it is a curse, and the nature of the curse; his aura practically reeks of it. What I can tell you is the possibility of the Rigas caster ridding himself of the curse--for if it is the curse that I think it is, it can only be reversed by the victim, which is what makes it so deadly. If you'll allow me a glimpse into his psyche..."
"Yes. Please, Daphni, do what you can," Elespeth begged, her hand trembling. "I need to know. We need to find out how to awaken him."
Arching an eyebrow at Elias as if to say, any permission is good permission,, she placed her fingertips on Alster's forehead and closed her eyes...
Layers and layers of blackness. This curse knew how to deter psychic interference, for it was like wading through viscous ink, as Daphni attempted to locate Alster in his own mind. "Alster. Can you hear me, Alster? We are looking for you..." There was no response in the blackness. It was as though he were completely absent in his own psyche, which was, of course, impossible. He was there--just hidden. Beneath the layers, folded into an alcove that hadn't before existed, that the curse had created within him...
Then she stopped. A sound reached her ears, a voice, and when she reached her hand out, the atmosphere felt warm. "Alster? It is Daphni. Are you near?" Laughter--the sound was laughter. Alster's laughter, delighted and light and real. The Rigas caster, she realized all of a sudden, was not suffering, not trapped in some inescapable hell of his own past demons. It was worse... so much worse than that.
When Daphni opened her eyes, she let out a long sigh and stifled a cough with her hand, pressing her back to the wall. The foray hadn't exhausted her, but the chtonic magic was noxious, and one as susceptible to energies as she could not withstand it for long.
"What did you see?" Scurrying to Daphni's side, Elespeth helped her up, one hand gripping her arm. "How do we awaken him? Did you reach him?"
But all the empath could offer was a small shake of her head. "This spell is an insidious and dastardly one. Your lover... he does not suffer. Quite the opposite, in fact." It was with sadness that she met Elespeth's eyes, but the warrior deserved to know the truth. "He does not want to be found... and does not want to awaken."
"No. No, no, I will not accept that. It isn't good enough." The Atvanian warrior shook her head violently and returned to Alster's side, gripping his shoulders tight. "Do you hear, Alster Rigas? I will not accept this--you need to come back to me! Wake up! Wake up, or I will never forgive you, you privileged brat! --let go of me! Let go of me now!"
Daphni did the only thing she could think and grabbed a hold of Elespeth's arm when the former knight, emotionally exhausted and spent, descended into tearful hysterics. The healer was surprised at her struggle and how strong she was, despite being drained from heat and over-exertion and, apparently, magic. Daphni locked eyes with Elias again, conveying an incredulous look that articulated don't you mind lending me a hand, here? If the warrior couldn't calm herself, then she was not above sedating her again, but she couldn't perform the feat alone.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Move aside. Back in your cots," he commanded, forcing his way through the limited space to make room for the former Sybaia's approach. Her assessment was a grave one, but not spurious or inaccurate. It confirmed what he was able to glean. The misfortune of the situation compelled him to grab a cloth doused with a sweet-smelling liquid; he covertly slid it into the folds of his jerkin--just in case he needed to use it, and quick.
Elias stared on with little amusement at Daphni's matter-of-fact expression and impatiently waved her on. Don't look at me. Just do it. It was not as if they had much choice, now. The warrior seemed able to pinch Daphni's skin loose if she did not comply.
The waves shined like liquid gems, sapphire and lapis and turquoise and blue zircon, all tumbled together in a melting pool that lapped at Alster's feet. He leaned over the ridges he created with sand, admiring his hastily-constructed lagoon, and entered the warm, rippling water until it reached his calves. He stood there, enjoying the beat of the sun and the salt spray on his face and the floral, brine-soaked breeze, only retreating from the ocean view when he heard his name.
He turned--and at first saw no one. Perhaps he mistook the call for the chattering of the gulls that glided overhead. Then, he saw them appear over a sand dune. Debine, Valente, Chara...and Elespeth. All were bedecked in their tunics, where blazed the glimmer-threaded stitches of the Rigas sigil, a burnished glint in the apex of the day. Alster wrinkled his nose at that, and splashed out of the shallow ocean pool in order to greet them--and to inquire about the improper attire.
"You're going to get sand all over those nice clothes," he warned, but didn't linger long on this aberration when Debine lifted a wicker basket into his view. A cloth strategically covered the contents of the basket, concealing all manner of delicious foods--no doubt his favorites--and his hands urged to take that basket from her.I'm helping, see!? he'd insist. But everyone would know that he wanted first selection of the goodies, so he curbed his appetite (and the greediness of his hands), and stuffed them, instead, into his pockets.
"Quite a story," Debine said, searching the stretch of beach for a desirable location to settle down. "You know Selestyn has been a little under the weather these past few days, so I have been helping her with a few tasks here and there. I elected to wash all our clothes. It is always a bothersome chore, and I did not wish for Selestyn to agitate her cough by splashing around in the cold river, so I rinsed them all and hung them out to dry. But when I checked on them this morning, they were all missing! Just poof. Gone." But she laughed at this retelling, and modeled her outfit in a graceful spin, the wind catching on the flare of the fabric, making her look like a flower about to bloom. "I am certain they will show up quite soon. You know how our neighbors are a mite forgetful sometimes. Bless their hearts--they probably thought the clothes belonged to them."
Alster couldn't help but contribute to Debine's contagious bout of laughter. He chuckled. "Ah, what can you do?" Together, they all unfurled the cloth over a flat stretch of sand and Debine began to collect the assortment of foods from the basket. They were all of his favorites.
He heard his name again, from the sky, but didn't look up to investigate. Again, it was only the keening of seagulls.
Haraldur did not return to his cot as the healer had ordered, but rather, stood close to Elespeth, his hand outstretched as if to catch her, as he was so accustomed--or to comfort her, which he was not. The woman named Daphni relayed the grim news: He does not want to be found...and does not want to awaken. And Elespeth...she unraveled.
She about threw herself onto Alster's sleeping form, gripping his shoulders, her voice a pitch of hysteria, her mind breaking, untethered, from her surroundings...from them. He called to her but she hadn't the ears to hear, nor would she listen when the man she loved could not and would not do the same. Gone. He was gone.
And she, he feared, would follow.
"We'll find the man responsible, Elespeth!" He tried to reach her again. Failing that, he rounded on the fitful warrior and aided Daphni in restraining her. Although overexerted and spent from his non-stop fight and flight from earlier, he was physically stronger than Elespeth and far more capable than Daphni in the undertaking. "We know he's in Messino's camp. We'll convince him to undo the spell. He'll awaken!" Haraldur bear-hugged her from behind, pinning her arms to the sides and pulling her towards Elias, who introduced her face to a damp cloth with a sharp, almost burning odor. The healer pressed it close. "Alster will awaken," he promised, before Elespeth's eyes rolled into her head and fluttered shut. Her entire body went limp in his arms.
He carried her to her cot, draping her over the sheets and tucking a pillow under her head. Without another word, and before any healer could stop him, he grabbed his sword and his things, sawed off the ties that sealed the front entrance, and made his exodus. He went through camp--and out of camp.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Moving to allow Haraldur the room that he required to carry his unconscious charge back to her cot, where she slept, her brows pinched and her mouth tight and uneasy. It made Daphni's heart heavy to know that the woman would not awake to what she wanted to see and hear, certainly not anytime soon. They needed time to find Alster through the fog of the curse that he bore, and there was no doubt in her mind as she watched Haraldur leave with long and determined strides, he would attempt to expedite this process, if it was the last thing he did. Friendship of that kind did not come often in a wartorn world where pain was the dominant sentiment, perhaps Sir Elespeth Tameris did not know how lucky she really was... with or without Alster Rigas.
Averting her gaze to the sleeping Rigas mage, Daphni shook her head at her own defeated thoughts. These people, this war... it was all s futile. And she could not foresee any victory being worth the lives that it cost. But then, such was the nature of war and all its warriors. "You need not worry for the status of your practice, on account of my reckless meanderings," she said to Elias, as he hastily put aside the cloth with its strong, sweet-smelling substance. "Because I am hereby withdrawing from your care, as of today."
Returning to her cot, the former Sybaia healer picked up her clothes, which had been carefully folded and kept to the side. "Two evenings ago, when you left for the night, I sought to speak with my clan... but on my own terms. I was not excommunicated, you see. Perhaps I might have been, if I had not opted to desert them, first. I beat them to it." The cloth of her cassock, one that had clothed her body for so many years, felt soft against her fingers. It would be quite an adjustment to never wear it again, but she could not deny that it would be the very least of necessary adjustments for her life, to come.
"As a result... there is no longer a place for me here, in this war, or in Stella D'Mare. I will leave the grounds of this encampment no later than tomorrow evening and make for... make for somewhere else." She did not know where; her tired mind, for all of the rest she'd had, could not as of yet wrap around her drastic decision to part with the only solid aspect of her identity that she had ever known. It sickened her more than excited her. "Your duty here, with the Clematis, is to tend to those involved in this war. The stakeholders. I am... as of now, I am not of the Sybaia, and no longer involved. You will no doubt find your work much lighter, here, without my penchant for succumbing to the costs of my own magic."
Tucking her cassock under her arm, Daphni's face was a stony mask of stoicism as she turned to the Clematis healer one last time. "Thank you for your help," she said, offering a nod of gratitude. "I do wish you and all of Stella D'Mare the victory that you seek in this war, and I will pray that you suffer far fewer casualties."
With nothing more to say, she moved towards the mouth of the tent, and her eyes stung in the dry air of early evening. But not as much as the saltwater of tears that filled her eyes, and then remained there, refusing to fall in the wake of her iron will to keep them maintained.
She did not know what time of day it might have been when at first she awoke, refusing to open her eyes, but Lilica did not care. The song of the wine she had consumed still sang in her ears, urging her to keep sleeping, that there was nothing worthy to tend to in the waking world. It did not help that, every time she stirred awake, the enchanting scent of Chara sleeping next to her was reason enough not to move. The warmth of the other woman's body, the soft sound of her breathing and the reassuring pattern of her heartbeat brought the chthonic caster to a place that she never could have dreamed up. A place of security of warmth, of reassurance and calm, of connection and care. What reason could she have to want to leave that state of mind, drunk on a happiness that she never thought it possible to know?
Not until she opened her eyes, just a crack, and realized she was alone in the oversized bed. But not her bed; no, it could not have been an alcohol-induced dream, because this was Chara's bedroom. But how long had the celestial caster been awake, been gone? And was she having... Did she regret their spontaneous engagements of the prior night?
Lilica licked her lips and could still taste Chara's kisses. She was by no stretch of the truth wallowing in regret; not even close. But she had to find out...
She found Chara taking in some late morning sunlight on her terrace, her expression pensive but placid, sitting upon a decorative wrought-iron chair. The celestial mage did not appear to be plagued with hindsight... "I hope you... I mean, I was just wondering..." She could not find the right words, because there were no right words. So she did her best articulating her jumbled thoughts, which only scattered in more variable directions in taking in the sight of the blonde-haired Rigas mage. "Last night, I mean... I only wish to know if I... must owe you an apology for what happened. Because if I do, then I guarantee, you have it. But if not..."
Her words trailed along with her dark gaze, which had dropped all the way to Chara's feet, where they rested upon the stone terrace. In that moment, she felt prepared for just about anything, rejection or otherwise. Because, regardless of how this conversation ended, she still the memory of the moment, of the passion, of that rare and sacred feeling of belonging, of being wanted. And even Chara Rigas, in all of her destructive anger and penchant for hurtful vitriol, could not change that. Could not take that away.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But Daphni, and her retirement from the Sybaian clan, did not hinge on something so vital to the city's ultimate success. That, however, did not mean she could walk away from a struggling war camp under some pretense that she served no purpose, no use, even though her worth was in her ability, not in her associations. And because she hadn't a pressing task to see to fruition (though he wondered of the futility behind the mercenary's actions), he found it more than reasonable to follow her as she weaved through the tent, to her bed, and towards the exit.
"Since when does a loss of belonging impede your skills as a healer?" He queried, ignoring her protracted goodbye and taking her lead into the alpenglow of dusk, disallowing her the unearned right to a graceful egress. The ground, still hot, slowly evaporated into the stuffy sky in invisible waves. He pulled out a clean handkerchief to wipe at his perspiring forehead, but seeing the welling of tears in the former Sybaian's eyes, handed it to her, instead. "What is most important right now is not your propriety, Daphni. If you are still able to help, even without your clan's support--what little they offered you, anyway--then by all means help," he emphasized, not in his usual bite of exasperation, but with an earnest, straightforward cadence.
"Your services are needed here; you are a fool to think otherwise. Who else will monitor Alster Rigas? You are the only one in this camp who has delved into his mind, who has seen what plagues him on the inside. Leaving now, when you have a patient who is in need of you, even if the case is hopeless..." He paused, for a moment, in realization. Perhaps she really was central to the city's success, after all. Or close enough to the circle than he at first surmised. "How is your negligence any better than the general negligence that your clan has bestowed upon you? On your mother? Why cower from your clan in defeat and walk away? You leave, and you have given them satisfaction. They have rid of you." He cocked his head to one side, and a derisive smile found residence, somehow, on a face that trembled, like his hands that desired to shake her shoulders until she concussed. "If you are no longer Sybaia, they cannot refuse you service should you fall again in battle. They would be obligated to care for you...would they not? Perhaps you are not a vengeful person, but I am, and were I you, I'd gladly play the role of cockroach. Be the pest they cannot kill, that steadfastly refuses to die or to disappear."
He crossed his arms, to curb the prickling need to slap sense into this woman who had done nothing but agitate the tar out of him since their first meeting. "This concludes my care. My 'bedside manner,' if you will. And since you are no longer my patient," his voice took a turn for the deadly, "if you leave this camp, and I happen to see you again, I will fain squash you like the mere insect that you are, you disappointing louse." Twisting from her view, he half marched, half pounded to the tent, refusing to look back at the frivolous woman to whom he invested so much time, and...trust. All to no avail.
You were a disappointment...just like him.
Sunlight danced upon Chara's closed eyelids, the light wavering like a reflection off the water. She eased her shoulders into her chair, welcoming the ocean breeze to tease at the corners of a blue dress that cut just below the knees, exposing a generous portion of her sleek, muscular legs, which she had positioned outwards, as if to sacrifice them as an offering to the Sun God. They shivered from the light, so fluttery and free from the series of leggings and trousers she needed to don as appropriate attire for war. But she was not at a war camp, not engaged in battle, and when not preoccupied with such matters, she enjoyed the drape of dresses: the gentle pull of the v-neck, the lightweight fabric, the allowance of her legs to feel less encumbered, able to experience the lick of the warm weather on her skin...it was a great comfort to her.
There, too, was an ulterior motive on her choice of dress that morning. She had awoken, her head still muddled from the wine; otherwise, she suffered little ache and remembered, in full, the events from the previous night. As if to confirm, she descried the huddled up lump in the covers beside her, black hair splayed across the pillows like a giant, perching spider. But the look did not intimidate her, and Lilica's presence in the bed did not give her pause to second-guess her bold, wine-fueled decisions that resulted in their close quarters. The wine did not control Chara, or force her into a regretful situation; rather, it complemented the desires that already collected inside of her and that, for longer than she realized, yearned to take a physical form. Still, a twinge of denial tugged and tugged at her like an insistent child that she could not ignore, less the child tug harder for attention. Have I fallen for her? This...this cannot be.
And for the first time since she had tried her luck once with Alster, she decided to take extra care of her appearance that morning. She soaked in a bath for a luxuriant hour, powdered her cheeks and stained her lips, fluffed her eyelashes and teased her hair until it perched on her head like a raised curtain. She rouged her eyelids and applied kohl around the rims, and perfumed herself with the smell of roses that Lilica seemed to enjoy. Then, she slid on a pair of dangling gold earrings that were her favorites, and relaxed on the terrace with the faux-humble attitude of one who wanted the world to believe that she woke up looking this way. No primping necessary.
Lilica found her on the terrace, not long afterward. Her hair was still a tangle of spiders' legs, and she still carried that aroma of roses in full bloom. Together, their collective scents induced the image of an entire garden full of reds, yellows, and pinks, all bobbing in harmony with the wind. She offered the dark mage a seat beside her, pulled up to conveniently mirror the one that she occupied.
"There is no apology necessary," she said rather flippantly, with a smile to accentuate her white teeth betwixt her red lips. "Last night happened...because I wanted it to happen. The wine was merely a conduit. But I..." even she felt enough bashfulness to dart her eyes to the ground, the chimes of her earrings twinkling as she did so, "enjoyed...your company...in that way. And I am not certain what this...what this means...for us." She raised her eyes to her companion, blinking her long lashes a few times. "What do you think it means, Lilica?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With a reluctant sigh, she took the proffered handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. "I am not defeated, contrary to your opinion. I walked away from a situation and... from people who are toxic to my own well-being. Here I thought you would be happy that I have chosen to step away from a clan that you so abhor." Yet, quite the opposite, he seemed disappointed in her... and she could not glean why, given that he had never openly approved of her in the first place. He detested her, just as much as he detested all other Sybaia... so why did he shoot a look of such deep resentment in her direction, for her choice to leave the encampment, and the war altogether?
"Elias," she called out, heedless that he did not look back, "none of this is for you to decide."
But... that did not mean that he was wrong. Because walking away when Stella D'Mare most needed all the help that they could get was not negligence; it was worse. It was desertion.
"...wait." Still, he did not turn back, and with all of the volume her still injured lungs could muster, she yelled, "I said wait, you hypocritical, self-righteous, sorry excuse for a human being!"
Naturally, an outburst such as that from someone such as Daphni, someone typically so controlled, stopped the Clematis healer in his tracks, long enough for her to close the distance between them. "Fine. You think my decision is so repulsive, then I will stay, and practice apart from the Sybaia. I will maintain Alster Rigas as a patient, but if no progress is made, then you will not blame me, particularly not for negligence, on my part. There are some things that the Sybaia cannot heal; there are some things that nothing can heal." His ire was contagious, and the longer she spent around the disgruntled Clematis healer, the more irritated she knew she would become. What Daphni needed was something that she could not attain at a war encampment, and that was an atmosphere of peace. "We'll have it your way. I don't imagine that there is much left of me to expend, especially not in this war... but I might as well give what is left of me to a worthy cause. I suppose that is something we have in common, you and I: that, ultimately, we will both be fool enough to heal others until it spells our own end. Don't even try to deny it."
She was beautiful. Well, she was always beautiful, always had been, but Lilica was no fool, and it did not escape her attention that Chara had put some effort into her appearance that morning. Her pale hair fell softly about her shoulders, her blue eyes practically glowed in comparison to the kohl that lined them, and her lips were so red they might have been beestung. And that dress, one that accentuated every flattering curve of her body, allowing a liberal glimpse of her muscular legs...
The chthonic caster felt her face grow warm at the realization that she had been staring without a word for almost a solid minute. Dropping her dark gaze back to the ground, she struggled to find the words to explain her strange behaviour. "You look lovely," she offered, but was just as quickly concerned that it could be taken the wrong way. "Not that that is an exception from the usual... just... in a different way. Not surrounded by war, but by peace. It... suits you." The downside was just self-conscious Lilica suddenly became in comparison. While Chara looked like she belonged in a painting, her own, dark locks fell, tussled and array from sleep, and her garb--what she had worn yesterday--was wrinkled and creased in some places. She looked spent, in comparison to her Rigas host, and yet... not exhausted. Not cold. There was a certain peace that accompanied the nonchalant nature of her unkempt morning look, though there was no avoiding the fact that she felt painfully pain in Chara's shadow.
Taking a seat across from her hostess, Lilica closed her eyes as the sun bathed her in its warm glow, and for just a second, she felt as though she had reclaimed something. Something lost, perhaps a memory that had ever actually existed. "It... I do not think that I am in the right to answer that question," she replied, taking a beat to bask in the moment. That moment of peace. Another moment that she could store in her repertoire of rare, fond memories, during her the darker times in her life--whatever was left of it. "I already know what it means for me. It means I have a moment... no, an entire night that I can call on in the recesses of my memories, when times are dark. I have... light, now. Light to combat my darkness when it threatens to overwhelm me."
Lilica opened her eyes at last and beheld the perfect image of the woman across from her. Warmth... now, she knew where the warmth was coming from. It was coming from Chara; the celestial caster's mere image, reflected in the dark pools of her obsidian eyes, was enough to draw warmth to the surface of her skin, her face, her neck, her arms. Chara was her solution, her cure. Even if it was only transient. "Even if I die tomorrow, I will have know what it feels like to be... to be accepted. Wanted. To be... to be kissed, and held as though I were something with meaning, someone of worth. Until now, I've never known that, and I... I never thought that it might ever be possible. Chara..."
Sitting up, the dark mage leaned forward in her chair, ebony hair spilling over her small shoulders. "When I told you I needed to be away, and when I asked you to come with me... it was because I didn't want to be alone. And I wanted to spend this time, however much time we have, with someone I respect. Someone who I feel safe reaching out to. Someone I... that I cared about." Her smile was soft, sad when it tugged at her lips, but it was genuine as it could be. "I do not want to think of the future, for I am afraid I will only be disappointed if there turns out not to be a future, for me. But for now... what we have, I want to hold onto it. Because to me, this means the life that I never thought I would experience. And, for that it is worth..." Leaning closer, she took advantage of a brazen moment of hope, and covered Chara's soft had with her own. "...I wanted it to happen, too. Perhaps more than I even care to admit, to myself."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elias stopped. Had turned around. Had raised his head, and looked directly at Daphni's tear-strewn eyes, which were in direct conflict with her fury-stained cheeks and the strained, yet resonant notes of her admonition. Well, well...her lungs were healing rather nicely.
He lingered in the threshold of the tent, half bathed in lantern light, half open to the death of the sun upon its pyre. And he presented her with a tight-lipped smile. More of a smirk, really. An you really are unable to stay away smile. Much as she piled the credit of her about-face onto his shoulders (as well as the blame), he had a suspicion that she never really wanted to leave, and all it took was for someone to tell her she was needed, that she had value...and that she was a lowly creature incapable of doing much else if she did walk from the camp.
"Excellent choice," he said with a buoyancy not typically found in his vicinity, let alone on his person. "You have every right to stay here at camp, the Sybaia be damned. If they give you any trouble, I am certain the Rigases will stand in your favor." As will I, he wanted to add, but thought against a statement that bordered on sentimentality. And why would he stand with her? Because she knew too much about him? Because he invested so much energy in keeping her alive and felt entitled to her well-being by way of that investment? Because he somehow empathized with her?
"If you do not yet wish to crush my cockroach shell, I do believe I owe you some tea." He jerked his head over to his tent that was just across the way from their gathering spot. "In there, we can discuss our self-destructive acts and the inevitability of our short, pathetic lives. It is much a conversation for alcohol--but tea will have to do. We must take advantage of any lull that we can, after all."
The same patterns confronted Haraldur on his hunt for the dark mage: he met little to no resistance. A few staggering men who were easy to dispatch. The skittering of severed, fleshy bits from the dismembered undead. Disjointed fingers buried into the dirt as if hiding away from the drop in the evening's temperature, but their nub nails only scraped away at the top layer of soil. Scratch scratch scratch. He wanted to burn the offensive thing, to stomp on the abomination until it stopped moving. Until it stopped that persistent scratch scratch scratch. Instead, he gripped his sword and continued wandering stealthily through the human and non-human wreckage.
After leaving Stella D'Mare's camp, he found shelter on the lee side of a hill, where he dug through the contents of his belongings, fished out water and a roll of bandages, and cleaned and wrapped his own wounds that had scraped his arms. As was typical of his fate, he escaped with minor surface injuries, while everyone else perished. No, he reminded himself. Elespeth and Alster...this is why I'm here. I'm here for the living...and I'm here for the dead.
He sat against that hillside until dark. Having had his share of water, he began his prowl, searching the ground for tracks, human and animal, and snaking his way to Messino's camp. En route, he noticed a great deal of carnage. Andalarian soldiers, a mangled mess that formed its own macabre trail that linked the two camps. Had he and Elespeth done this much damage? Or...?
Then, he found the one he sought. Just outside camp. Even in the dark, he could discern the rich tailoring of his fine clothes. He was sprawled on the ground, and at first Haraldur thought the man was dead. But upon closer inspection, and in seeing his chest rise and fall, and in seeing where his attention had anchored, heavenwards, he was alive...and stargazing? It was almost as if...he was waiting for someone to arrive. ...Someone like him.
Bemusement guided his silent, careful strides. Sword at his side, he rounded on this alleged dark mage, and jutted the weapon to his throat. The man did not bother to stir. With such a direct, dangerous approach on his part, Haraldur anticipated every possible end for himself. I fell for it, didn't I? But he didn't know that, yet. And perhaps...he could reason with this man. Everyone had their price. "Come with me," he said, his cold steel hovering over the thin layer of flesh at his neck, "and we'll talk."
Lilica's compliment lighted her cheeks with a burst of fresh color. It was not as if she was unaware of her own beauty (otherwise she would not have bothered to gussy herself up), but acknowledgement of it validated her efforts. "I like to feel like someone other than a war rat from time to time, yes," she said, omitting the fact that painting her face was not a typical endeavor, and its purpose was for a singular goal. "But thank you, Lilica," she about purred, and leaned close to the other woman once she found a seat on the opposing chair. Now that she was near, she stretched her arms, and needled her fingers through Lilica's hair, smoothing out the snags and transforming bramble to brushed, in just a few strokes. Though, something about how Lilica wore her bed-head engendered another smile from Chara. So innocent, so harmless. Nothing in her exuded that soupy, grim darkness. Not now, anyway.
"Oh come, Lilica," she laughed, "this cannot possibly be the highlight of your life. You give me too much prestige." But she knew that this happiness-starved woman spoke the truth. And there was no sense in reasoning with her perceptions of herself when they were so embedded beneath the fissures of her abysmal soul. Talking did not change perceptions. Actions did.
Cupping Lilica's cheeks, she brought the mage forward and connected their lips together. She dragged over the plush compliance of Lilica's open mouth, making certain to bleed her red paint all over her partner. She pulled away then, and winked. "As you know, Lilica, I am an overachiever. I refuse for you to hold last night as the pinnacle of happy memories, the only one you believe to ever receive. This is preposterous and I will not have you wallow in something so sub-standard. Especially where I am concerned. So," she flitted her hands to Lilica's shoulders, massaging them teasingly, "I shall remedy that night of drunken kissing--with even better kissing. Then," she thumbed behind her, to the house, "I would love to paint your face. And play with your hair. Then, we shall walk in the garden. Lysander has returned to the front this morning. Not a planned foray, but there are suspicions creeping up that Adalfieri wants him to investigate. This means we are, unfortunately, locked inside of the estate for the time being...unless Adalfieri assigns us a new bodyguard." She heaved a sigh, still angered by the childish treatment--but understanding the why behind the Rigas head's actions. "But I am getting ahead of myself." She walked her fingers around Lilica's shoulder, to her neck, and snagged it, urging her head forward once more. "If our time together is fleeting and not meant to last, Lilica...then in these moments, I shall make it last. And for you, I shall delay the future...for just a little longer." And their lips met for a second time.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I do not know what you think you can achieve by painting my lips red and my cheeks pink," she confessed, though reached up and touched her lips with her fingertips, her pale flesh coming away tinted rouge. "I told you, I am not like you. I don't... my appearance is not... you are beautiful." The chthonic caster sighed the word longingly, dark eyes roving the length of Chara's body, from her face to her attractively toned legs. "Do not think that your face paint can make me even remotely comparable. But I will not, for the life of me, refuse your attention."
After another brief soak in Chara's fragrant tub, Lilica came away smelling of fresh, spring roses once again, her skin soft as a child's. And, for the second time in just a couple days, she indulged the Rigas mage in being her own personal doll, tolerating the smear of red on her lips and the stain on her eyes, lined top and bottom with black. But when Chara ran her fingers through her hair to gentle smooth the tangles, and brushed it from root to tip until it was soft, Lilica was half inclined to fall asleep, comforted and soothed by her hostess's careful ministrations. This would be another memory that she would cherish, that she would protect and revisit when reality dealt her further terrible hands.
Chara was right: no job, no endeavor on her part, was half-hearted. And when the celestial mage turned her attention to a hand mirror, her feelings towards the woman reflected back at her were mixed and conflicting.
"I'm not... I do not recognize who I am looking at." Lilica reached up and touched her face, no longer pale, but glowing with colour. "I daresay I underestimated your abilities. I shouldn't have, but I do stand by being correct in some sense; I am still by no means comparable to you..."
Taking Chara by the hand, she accompanied her to the gardens, the sunlight warming her skin in a way it never had before. From the inside out... Like her hostess acted as a conduit for a fire that she had never known could be kindled. "I don't want to know the future," she confided, looking ahead at the foliage and flora at either side of the cobblestone path through the immense gardens. "I don't care about it. All that I care about is now... I want to make it meaningful. I want to carry it with me to the end, whatever it might bring. Chara..."
Pausing in her step, the chthonic mage waiting until her taller companion turned, to stand on her toes and place a kiss upon her red lips, slow and gentle. "I want to carry your image with me. I don't need to be rid of my darkness; I can't be. I just want reassurance that there is happiness and... peace, beyond it. And you..." Her red lips curled into a soft smile, as she brazenly wrapped her arms around the Rigas caster's neck and pulled their forms close, without a care at who might witness their intimate exchanges. "You have shown me this. I owe you the world and more for it."
Haraldur should have known that Vitali had wanted to be found.
Wanted by more people than he could count, and despised by even more, it went without saying that he was just as skilled (of not moreso) at keeping a low profile and invisible footprints as Stella D'Mare's master of stealth, Lysander Rigas. But, frankly, while the party that had set out to rescue Alster had been brazen, courageous and capable, they were not experts in tracking down those who wished to be unseen. Hence his position, wide out in the open, beneath the stars, where he just knew that one of them would happen upon them.
He had, in fact, predicted that the she-warrior would have been his first official contact with the small party. He remembered the ferocity in her green eyes, a determination that would not allow her to leave Messino's encampment without that Rigas mage, even if it meant risking and sacrificing her own life. She had a connection to the sleeping caster, one that surpassed mere camaraderie; love, perhaps, and nothing (if past observations predicted correctly) came in the way of love.
Yet it was not the former knight who came upon him that evening, pointing a sword at his vulnerable neck, but the man, yet another of Messino's deserters. Needless to say, this immediately brought a myriad of questions to his clever mind, but curious as he was, now was not the optimal time to make queries. Not when he had purposely put himself in the path of danger. "I must warn you, I am not much of a conversationalist, but I'll do my best to try." Putting up his hands, he waited for the steel to withdraw to some extent before he sat up, a lazy grin on his face. "The stars are out, the air is warm... I think it's quite nice for an evening stroll. So, what did you have on your mind to discuss? The good weather? Or... something more pressing?"
Climbing gracefully to his feet, he brushed the soil and grass from his coattails and nodded his head in greeting. "As fine as your weapons looks, I prefer to shake hands than swords. But if you won't have any of that... then you can just call me Vitali."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Oh pish posh!" She playfully swapped Lilica on the shoulder, once she found herself able to withdraw from the weight of the dark mage's presence. "None of that! You have a face that inspirespainting. You cannot possibly see yourself the way that I do. While understandable, your assessment is wrong. ...Save for the part where you find me beautiful," she said, and an almost coy smile replaced the pomp and bombast of her usual mien. As she rose from her chair, she flicked Lilica's nose--and laughed.
After Lilica climbed out of the bath and donned another silken shift, Chara's eager fingers pressed her on a chair. Immediately, she set herself to the task, accentuating the natural contours of her companion's face with rouge and red stain, lining kohl on both the upper and lower lids to encourage the obsidian shine of her irises to appear even glassier. Then, she took her hair and weaved it into an elaborate design, half braided around her head like a crown, half swaying down and over her shoulders in a black ripple. She attached clip-on earrings, silver filigree beset with pearls and diamonds, and found a matching necklace, a small chandelier on her neckline. It followed the same v-shaped plummet of the tunic--the new one from yesterday--that she chose in order to complement the look. When she finished, she excitedly handed Lilica the mirror and rocked on her heels in anticipation for her reaction. It was, as expected, full of shock and uncertainty, as if she could not believe that she ever exuded beauty. That it was ever hers at all.
"I did not paint over your face, Lilica," she said with a huff. "I painted with your face. I brought out your greatest features. Your natural beauty. I shall say it again, as many times as it takes. You have beauty." She smoothed a little smudge on her cheek, blending it until it was uniform with the rest of her face. "You are beauty."
Later, they strolled around the immensity of the Rigas main garden, only one of five that encompassed the whole of the grounds. This garden was by far the largest and most diverse, a small microcosm of all the world's flora. They ambled under trellises brimming with vines and wisteria blossoms, rounded a small fountain where lily pads bobbed in the water, iridescent dragonflies alighting on the white flower in the center. They traversed a rose garden, contributing their fragrances to the heady aroma that painted the air with color. Then, they crossed a courtyard with a star-shape patterned out of the low-cut hedges--and entered the herb garden.
The smells of peppermint, parsley, thyme, sage, lavender, rosemary--all soaked in Chara's nostrils. She found a bench for them, which hugged the back side of a tall hedge. A place of privacy--for Chara did not wish to disappoint Lilica by refusing her little embrace when she knew full well that eyes were upon her. But Lysander was not present, nor was any other soul, aside from them. She threw her arms around the dark mage's waist. "Perhaps I will ask for the world in recompense, one of these days--but that is in the future. And the future...it does not exist." She dabbed at her red, red lips with her own.
Haraldur remained unmoved by the strange cordiality of this man, and even spared a slight raise of an eyebrow in response. He spoke as if they were at some dinner event for the high and wealthy, and not outside of a war-camp, standing in a field festooned with bodies. It made sense that the madness of Messino attracted others of like-mind. The mercenary, with gathered gumption, prepared himself for the dealings of a man who may very well emulate a similar kind of unhinged squeakiness.
He withdrew his sword and returned it to his side, not only from the man's request, but to allow his wrist some reprieve. The ache of his injured tendon bothered him something fierce. It was an old, tired injury, a persistent, chronic holdover from a bloodier time. A colder time. That the dark mage, by his existence, caused it to throb so painfully churned an instinctual, animalistic reaction out of Haraldur. This man radiates power. Run away. Run far.
Instead, he stood aside and watched as this cheery mage rolled to his feet. "Out here, among the dead? Seems a strange place to contemplate nature." He did not raise a hand to shake, mainly to conceal its weakening grip and quaking fingers by wrapping it around the leather-wrapped press of his sword's hilt. Also, because he did not fancy adopting any sort of friendliness to the likes of this ill-omened man, however affected. He revealed only tolerance. Patience. Neutrality.
"Haraldur," he said, somewhat hesitant. He no longer needed to hide that name, he kept telling himself. The name he kept without utterance for so long, like a secret he needed to hide in case they found it, forced it from his hands, and speared it through until it was dead and bloody at his feet. Another lost identity--one that was not even his own. He did not even recall his real name. The one assigned him at birth. It died...because he revealed it to them, stupidly thinking it would be safe.
"Let's move away from camp. In good faith, you will come away. It's obvious you were waiting for one of us to show." Once they broadened their distance from the sparking lights over the hill, Haraldur, sword still in his hand, always to Vitali's side, never behind or ahead, stopped--and half-turned to regard him and his almost ridiculous foppishness. "You saw through our magical barrier, but chose to ignore us and to misdirect the soldiers. For what purpose?" He tilted his head, in scrutiny. "Your performance today--it speaks of your character. You seem the type whose loyalty can be bought. So let me ask you," his green eyes directed themselves at him, like spears of concentrated light, "did you cast that spell on Alster Rigas? And will you undo it--for a price?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Those words resonated in Lilica's core, warming her body with every beat of her heart. Her hands--even her hands, those everfrigid appendages, pulsed with health and with life. Chara's presence, her words, injected life into Lilica's otherwise corpselike body, her faded existence. She followed the celestial caster like she was an extension of her, reveling at the smell of the herb garden, strangely familiar despite that she could not consciously identify every sight and smell. Another artefact from her incinerated memories, she supposed, but did not care.
Folded in Chara's arms upon that bench, the chthonic mage all but melted against her, heart racing in her chest, crashing so hard against her rib cage that an absent worry floating around in her foggy mind feared her bones might fracture. This felt like a dream---better than a dream, because it was real because Chara was here, with her, of her own volition Because she was kissing her and calling her beautiful, and treating her as if she was worthy of it all. Treating her as though she had worth.
Perhaps that was why it felt like a dream. Because there was no chance that reality would allow any of this to be sustainable.
Parting reluctantly from her companion's lips, Lilica struggled to catch her breath, herr lungs nowhere near accustomed to holding it for so long. "But we... we cannot really stop the future, can we?" Linking her fingers through Chara's, she gripped her hands with a firmness that suggested she feared her hostess would slip away from her, like sand or water. "This... this cannot be real, can it? Because it cannot last..."
Breathing in the heady scent of herbs, the dark caster committed it to another cherished memory, one that would remind her that, in the very least, it had happened. And that would, ultimately, be all she would have left of this reprieve from her life and her fate. "You will have to return to war--so will I. And even if neither of us perishes, you... you have a legacy to uphold. Expectations related to your family and stature. And I... I will have..." What would there be left for her? She had come to Stella D'Mare as a last reprieve from her own miserable existence, knowing full well that she would never escape the darkness in her veins. It was there forever... whatever forever would be.
But she knew, deep in that lingering unease that plagued her gut, that she could not be part of Chara's forever. And Chara had better things to do than to be part of hers.
"You are just like a dream," she commented, taking one hand to trace the contours of Chara's face with her pink fingertips. "Perfect and enticing and... and unattainable. This will come to an end. And neither of us will ever be able to look back. But, Chara..." Peering into those eyes, so blue and clear and sparkling beneath a fan of lashes, her heart sank at the thought that one day, they would be but part of a memory. A beautiful and irreplaceable memory, but ultimately, what were memories aside from pictures held teasingly at arm's length? "I think... I don't want to live that future. One that is void of you. I would rather die knowing that it was the the single most meaningful time that I have ever been alive."
Running her fingers through the silken gold of her companion's hair, she smiled at the Rigas caster's angelic image. An image that she could not keep, but those eyes, those lips, were hers for the time being. Just for now. "Whatever might become of this, of us, of everything... promise me that you will find happiness. Whatever happiness might mean to you. I'll offer you the world, but in exchange, that is my only request."
"Haraldur. A foreigner, I take it?" The regally dressed man raised his eyebrows in contemplation. "That's not a name common to Andalari or Tadasun. And you certainly do not bear the appearance of a citizen of Stella D'Mare... Well, that is something we have in common. You could also say I come from away. Let's walk."
Only when his keen eyes followed the path of the warrior's sword back into its leather scabbard did the stranger called Vitali gesture with his hand for Haraldur to lead the way from the body-strewn, death-scented scene. "You are correct in your predilections; I did expect you to find me. Well, one of you, at least and you were not who I anticipated seeing." He studied the taller man with a sidelong glance, taking in his worn and battered appearance. "What has become of the she-warrior? There is little other conviction that can compare to that of love, and I will be damned if it was not love that brought your little party to undergo that rescue mission. Do correct me if I'm wrong."
The battered warrior's skills of observation were not to be underestimated either, however. At his query,Vitali's mouth stretched into a long grin. He had wondered if the party had seen through him, just as he had seen through their half-assed glamour. "I decide to whom I am loyal, and for how long. Messino hired me quite some time ago to deal with a small 'pest' issue, as he so put it. I can only assume he was referring to Alster Rigas, as that was the one who he instructed me to send to sleep... but you already know as much, or we would not be talking right now." He lifted his shoulders in a lackadaisical shrug. "But Messino is in far deeper with regards to this war than I think he realizes. In dealing with the undead, for example. That magic is not sustainable, and it can take on a life of its own. To make a long story short... I do not trust His Highness to come good on the rest of what he owes me. And his cause, if you can call it that, is a whole other matter.
"So, to provide a more direct answer, yes: I am the cause of Alster's current condition." Vitali all but bowed, sounding as though he was proud of the accomplishment. Which was probably not a far stretch from the truth. "And I would be a liar to claim that I cannot be bought. But as the honest man that I am, I suppose my question is... what is it you are willing to offer? Just what does this mage's life mean to you? Or perhaps it is not he, but the she-warrior who you value. Whose heart you cannot bear to see broken by the barrier that now keeps her apart from the man she loves. In which case--Haraldur, is it?" He raised an eyebrow and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I am not certain which word would, then, best describe you: altruistic or downright foolhardy. Not that the terms are mutually exclusive."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lilica was, in a frightening way, becoming more important to her than the world. And that was dangerous. So very, very dangerous.
"I thought you did not wish to speak of the future," she teased after they had broke from the kiss, but Lilica's concern continued on, and sobered up Chara's upward twitching lips. "No, we cannot stop the future. And no, nothing ever lasts. But yes, this is real, and you should never discount the fact that this happened, that this is happening, right now." She traced a finger over Lilica's exposed collarbone, and prodded at the hanging ornamentation that illuminated her porcelain neck. "The unfortunate truth is that we are ephemeral creatures living in an ephemeral world. This time will leave us. The war will continue on. And--to be frank--I do not know what the Rigases will do with us after hearing of our tryst. I am engaged," she sighed, and for the first time since her entire failed engagement had began, she felt a sort of resigned fear to the fact that she and Alster, both in love with different people, would be unhappily wed. That is, if they survived the inevitability that huffed a foul wind at their gates with such rapidity of force that it would surely wrench them open.
"I shall not lie to you, Lilica. This is a difficult situation, and I do not have the answers, though I wish I did." She brushed a stray lock of hair that curled around Lilica's neck and had snagged itself in the raised snatches of neck-piece. "That is why I must raise ranks, should I see the end of this war. If I ascend to a position of influence, I may better serve you. Then, you can live comfortably, here, in Stella D'Mare. Around me--with me--perhaps even with me. But for now, we mustn't hurt our heads on the logistics of our situation. We've only this precious time to appreciate. Let us not squander it--for, I am reality, Lilica." Her hand traveled to cup the side of her face, a light, two-fingered stroke. "I do not fade. I shall not disseminate into little pieces upon awakening. And I am attainable, because even if you never have me again, you have me now."
Kissing at her neck, leaving little carmine blotches over the skin, she huffed a whisper into Lilica's waiting ear. "I shall promise, only if you too promise me the same. That you will find happiness. Against all odds. Keep the world; this is all I wish from you."
"Yes, a foreigner," Haraldur said, and would have ended the inquiry there if not for the continued probing of this Vitali character. He was not one to share much about his birthplace or previous whereabouts. Elespeth was one of few exceptions; he could read in her some flurry of understanding. They were both without a country, and if one knew where to look on the face which mapped the sojourns of one's life, it was easy to locate that demarcation. It lingered in the lines between loneliness and restlessness. Of wandering without a purpose. "Up North," he elaborated, pointing his finger in that direction. "Near Central Mollengard. A very cold place."
Thankfully, the conversation shifted to the situation at hand, though Vitali made a show of probing for yet more information that did not serve him--aside from scratching a curiosity that seemed not so innocent. The faux camaraderie of this man impelled Haraldur to adopt a reticence more severe than his usual quiet-mouthed demeanor, especially if Vitali was a double agent, and hungered for any morsel of information, for it glinted and clacked the same as coin in a change-purse. "As you say, it's out of love, and if you know anything of love, those who are under its suggestion don't make the most proper or level-headed of decisions. I come in her stead. Whether my presence is more level-headed than hers remains to be seen."
He thumbed along the ragged leather of his wrapped hilt, a little overwhelmed by this loquacious man, whose voice disturbed the somber night with its chipper tone. Vitali seemed to revel in this very predictable circumstance. He wanted it, this arrangement. He could tell by the eagerness that had animated his every motion and his every turn of phrase. "What do you know of the undead?" Vitali's curiosity was apparently contagious, for now he wanted answers out of this mysterious, sinister dark man. "How is the magic unsustainable? I have heard that the reason Messino wanted Alster Rigas gone was for his ability to render the undead ineffectual. Is that what you mean? That they are easy to defeat if one knows the tactic?" But he did not linger long on this slight digression, and his guard flew up again when an implied singular question from Vitali sprung heads and multiplied. A furrow appeared on his brow.
"Are my answers to your questions part of the price you seek?" He looked behind Vitali then, out towards the direction of Stella D'Mare and the Rigas camp. "Think of me as an envoy. I have nothing to offer you, but the Rigases--they do. If you allow me to take you to their camp--and, in good faith, hands bound and my sword to your neck, and no magic, so I know we are in agreement--you can negotiate payment with them. My personal stake on this matter means nothing to you, and you can make whatever assumptions you'd like about my integrity." His hackles almost rose when Vitali uttered the name. His name, he amended. "All I know is that the Rigases want Alster awakened, you are the source of this spell, and...you want to come along." He smiled, knowingly. "Because it excites you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lilica and Chara were, at least for now, a deep secret at the heart of a fragrant garden, all kisses and caresses and hearts wide open, vulnerable and sacred. Nobody could have hurt the dark caster more in that moment than her celestial companion, while, not for the first time, she invited her into a forbidden part of her soul. Only this time, Chara set nothing ablaze.
"I never expected you to serve me, Chara. Not before and not now," she commented, the quirk of a smile on her red lips. It was so clear to her now that it almost came across as amusing. How she had thought she hated this Rigas caster from the very beginning, only to realize that what she had felt was not by any means hatred. She had envied the celestial mage her cushy life and sense of belonging, she had wanted what she had. Until she came to realize that all she had truly wanted, all along, was Chara. To be recognized by her, to be near her, to be with her. To have her. "You have a vision and obligations. Expectations, people who look up to you. And I... fear I have interfered with that. Which is why I can... well, I will, eventually, come to accept this as transient. And that only makes right now, these fleeting moments... it gives them so much more meaning."
Wrapping her arms around her companion's neck and tangling her fingers in her silky, blonde tresses. Her heart, never before having retained these feelings of passion and longing, raced faster as she pulled their bodies close, her knee resting upon Chara's lap, their bare calves contrasting in two different shades of fair. "I have already found happiness," Lilica's soft murmur tickled the hairs on the celestial mage's neck. "In the here and now. I promised that I would follow you until I cannot anymore... but I will carry this with me. Every second, every glance, every kiss... everything. This memory, Chara... I will never let it burn to ashes. Because... because love in itself, I am learning, is a flame. And it will not burn out; not until every other living part of me does, and even then... even then, it might still endure."
Her lips connected with Chara's for the umpteenth time, and Lilica's damaged and petrified heart bloomed with a healing warmth that she felt all the way to her fingertips. "Can we fit a lifetime into these moments?" Came her breathless request moments later, lips kiss-swollen and eyes bright. "And pretend that this is forever? Until we cannot pretend anymore..."
Until your own darkness consumes you, a sharp voice at the back of her mind forced its way to the forefront of her thoughts. Until you burn it all up with your poison. Do not forget that you destroy everything you touch. There is no place for you in the light.
But she ignored that voice, as best she could, and basked in Chara's essence, as if it could save her. And knowing full well that it could not.
"Ah. Of course," Vitali nodded, as if he knew the first thing about love. "She was, come to think of it, wild with passionate conviction in her assault on Messino's camp. And yet you followed, and yet still, you are here, in her stead. That much suggests to me that, on some level, you share in her madness. Maybe even believe in it. After all," raising his dark eyebrows, the ominous stranger smiled, almost kindly. And that was what lent such a disturbing air... "You have chosen to cavort with me. A decision that not many level-headed people choose. Only the desperate, the power hungry and the mildly insane. Which causes me to wonder... which, my friend, are you?"
The truth was, he didn't actually care for the answer. But Haraldur was without a doubt well aware that Vitali derived his amusement not from discovery, but implications and reactions.
And, frankly, the warriors questions amused the dark one far more than his own inquiries. "The extent of what I know of the dead, good sir, would take a millenia to explain. Maybe more." Vitali rolled his shoulders back, as if to accentuate the thoughtful sigh that slipped out of his lungs. "But to make a long story short, I simply cannot be rid of the dead. Their voices and presence carries everywhere. It is enough to drive a person mad, but let's just say, for the sake of simplicity, that I have learned to use my post-mortem sensitivities to my advantage. So rest assured, Haraldur, I am not one to frolic in the land of murder. I much prefer the other side."
On the note of that not-so-subtle implication--that killing was not Vitali's passion--the conversation segued quite seamlessly back to Alster Rigas and the state he was in. The dark-haired stranger, one who bore a slight yet unmistakable resemblance to yet another chthonic mage within Haraldur's frame of reference, grinned ear to ear in response to the mercenary's claim on his character. "Observant, are you? And how am I to applaud your keen sense of observation and intuition, dear Haraldur, if my hands are bound? Now, since you have stated you terms, allow me to articulate my own. And I apologize in advance that you will find therein a bit of conflict.
"For one, I've quite sensitive wrists, and an not enamored of being bound in any sense of the word. So here is my offer of good faith: we enter your encampment, side by side, as friends. Allies, however transient it might be. Otherwise, I will not set foot onto your soil at all." He folded his hands behind his back, as if out of reassurance that he would, in fact, keep them (and his magic) to himself. "And, second... I seek protection under the toxic umbrella of this war--in Stella D'Mare. After all, I have just betrayed a very crazy and powerful man to sate my 'amusement', as you so put it, in favor of helping your comrades. That very much comes across as treachery, as choosing sides, does it not?"
The suspicious man basked in the moment of tense silence that settled between himself and the warrior, satisfied by the discomfort that he so effortlessly brought forth. "So what is your decision, Haraldur? All I ask, in exchange for my aid, is free hands and protection. I am not so fool as to lose my head in a city founded by casters, after all. There, I am outnumbered. And I have no doubt that I will be very closely watched, in any case. It would be suicide to make an ill-intended move among people who could very well be more powerful than me.
"So..." His attention was on Haraldur in full as he paused in step, coming to an abrupt halt; a indication that the conversation would end, there and then, unless this 'envoy' agreed to his terms. "What is your decision? Rest assured, as intriguing as Stella D'Mare's situation is, I am at no deficit for opportunities that amuse and excite me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Aren't we all servants of the sort?" she said, half in defense, for even she could not fully admit that she so audaciously dared to tie her aspirations with that of an outsider. "I answer to Adalfieri. He in turn answers to us, his family. A ruler serves and is served, and oftentimes, hasn't the choice on the whom. But I," she jabbed at her chest, for added emphasis, "choose to serve you, as you do for me. This does not mean I am shirking my current responsibilities to my family and to myself; do not misread my intentions. I shall simply make this work, Lilica. Even if it is a spectacular failure, I shall find a way to make good on my agreements with my family, and to you." During her impassioned utterances, Chara had buried her nose into Lilica's dark tresses, taking in the sweet, floral scent of her.
"Yes, you may have your happiness now, but I want you to promise that you shall continue to find happiness--even if I am no longer in your life." She disentangled herself from Lilica's tapestry of tresses and sought her eyes and that twin luster of volcanic glass. "After all, if you mean to demand your own compulsions onto me, I am more than entitled to do the same." While her characteristic haughtiness tinged the color around them into a swollen hue, she had smiled, a self-indulgent little smirk bespeaking of a woman who always achieved what she wanted. And she wanted this. "Do not disappoint me, and in turn, I shall not do the same. In fact," she offered her hand, palm up, "I am not quite done with the task of reforging new memories for you. Come. I shall show you the rest of the gardens. And then, perhaps," she winked, "I shall again show you my bed. With any luck, we might be able to manipulate time in the sheets--and stretch it to the very pinnacle of forever."
Debine found Alster on the terrace, lounging upon a chair and glancing out into the vast oceanic nothingness, an ink that bled into the sky, coating both extremes in a uniform, harmonious darkness. Even the lights in the city below were snuffed out, save for a few red lanterns winking their suggestiveness outside of gilt-curtained windows.
"Trouble sleeping, again?" she asked, as gentle as the roll of sea-foam against the sand.
Alster looked up, invited her to sit beside him, and continued surveying his stretch of nothing.
"It's always so realistic, those nightmares," he said after a beat. "And so thorough. In them," he drew circles against the wicker armrest, "Mariana is dead. I am engaged to Chara. Elespeth is not a Rigas. And," he hesitated, "I possess chthonic magic. I awaken some serpentine-monster that slumbers beneath this city. And I," his grip tightened over the armrest; he turned away from Debine, "I kill you. And Father." He chose to omit the details of her dream-world counterpart, so different from her kind and gentle nature. A dreaded doppelganger inhabiting Debine's body, but exhibiting nothing, aside from appearances, in her image. And what frightened him the more, was the fear that in some other world, this version of Debine rang truth. That she existed. That such a sordid reality transpired in a place across the vast expanse of stars and depthless skies.
Alster blinked back into himself when a light pressure curled over his clawed hand. He squinted in the dark and made out the shape of a consoling smile. Even in its obfuscation, those upturned lips radiated love.
"They are but dreams stemming from a very overactive imagination." She took his head, and overturned it as if to read his palm. "You will always wake back up to the people who love and cherish you, no matter how dark your sleeping hours. Those nightmares--they cannot haunt you now. They cannot harm your reality. Just know that you are safe. Always, you are safe."
"I," his forehead creased, as if sensing something wrong. Entirely wrong. "I know. Thank you, Mother." His forehead smoothed, and he relaxed in his chair. Yet, even when Debine cooed and relayed to him an amusing anecdote about their neighbors in order to placate him, that projected world a universe away felt so much closer. Looming over him. Ready to suffocate him, at any moment's notice.
In retaliation, he retreated further and further into Debine's story, and immersed himself in every line. And he laughed at the dark, at that world. You cannot take me. You will not take me back there...
He wants to know if I am mad? I am not mad. Haraldur, in annoyance, soured his mouth and turned from Vitali's scrutiny. Yes, he had been fighting in battles, wars, and skirmishes since he was a child, drunk for years on a frenzy he did not rightly own. Yes, he was passed along to commanders who took advantage of his youth, his inexperience, and implanted in him their own claims to his lessening mind. Yes, he had...and it drove him to...and it nearly killed him, but he refused to associate with the word. He was mad, once. Twice. Three times, perhaps. But he was no longer mad. He wanted merely to die with a name, and to die with the reminder, however singular, that someone would remember him for a deed well-done. A deed worth recounting.
He did not like Vitali, his penchant for nosy, unnecessary explorations of human nature and motivations, but unfortunately, the flamboyantly-dressed mage knew all too well of the desperation fueling those who were intimately involved in the reawakening of Alster Rigas. To stave off the truth behind his answer (for it provided Vitali with too much leverage), and to play at this childish man's game for reasons of that 'good faith' he chose to invoke, Haraldur sighed and faced the man in all his pseudo-cordiality.
"I've nothing left to lose," he admitted, standing tall, with legs spread wide to offset the humbling meaning of his piteous words. "So I am none of the three--unless you consider the defeat of my life a certain kind of madness. Is that a satisfactory answer?"
He continued to walk, listening to the unnerving man rant about terms until he suddenly stopped, both in voice and in step, and looked expectantly at him--as if Haraldur had any authority at all to make the decision that Vitali had sought from him.
"As I've said," he began, giving the unsavory magic-user the side-eye, "I'm merely an envoy. I don't speak for the Rigases and I can't promise you anything beyond my accompaniment to their camp, if you choose to come with me. The only compromise I'm able to make for you is this: for the duration of our walk, I keep my sword at your back, and you keep your hands clasped behind your back. I won't tie them. Once we arrive, I'll withdraw my weapon and will walk alongside you as an ally and personally escort you to the Rigas commander." He cracked his neck, a jerk of a reaction meant to ease the tension in his stiff shoulders. "As I've told you, I have little to do with the Rigases. My actions are merely for my own self-preservation, no matter your stance on murder." He crossed his arms over his chest, emitting a stony stubbornness that mirrored Vitali's own stalwart immobility. "I'm sure you can agree to my extra precautions. After all, you lose little; you can always say no to the Rigas commander. However, I can't speak for the consequences, or the practicality of making an enemy out of Messino and the Rigases both, which you have already done," he shrugged. "But whatever you choose to do is your own prerogative." He began walking again, looking over his shoulder at the dark mage. "Do we have an understanding?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Unfortunately, there was no way to tell, not yet. All they had was the here and now, and one another. And Lilica would be damned if she wasted these sweet, precious moments on concerns that she could not control.
"You have impeccable taste in all things beautiful," the dark mage commented, rising from the bench when Chara offered her a hand up. "The fountain, this garden... I look forward to seeing whatever else you can show me. Fill my memories with beautiful things, Chara Rigas. I believe in you and your ability to delay the future, forever..."
Clasping her hand, the chthonic mage stood before her companion and stood on her toes so as to caress Chara's lips with her own. "Lead on," she murmured. "I will follow."
She could feel and smell the essence of an ocean breeze. The trouble was, she could not see it-or him.
"Alster," Daphni called, as she had been calling, over and over, for at least an hour. "We're here. We are waiting... whatever you feel, you see, it isn't real. Come back to us..." Her pleas felt about as effective as convincing a fish that it was not meant to swim. The mind was a fragile and puzzling thing, and if Alster did not want to be found, did not want to hear her voice, then his subconscious was designed to protect what he did not wish to experience. The former Sybaian healer did not know the details of the enchantment that had been cast upon the Rigas mage, but given that she could not breach the protective barrier of his deeply sleeping state, she suspected that he was not suffering--quite the opposite, in fact.
"Please, Alster. I know you're here." Following the sound and scent of the ocean, Daphni stopped her wading through the darkness when a light flickered up ahead. She watched as it grew, morphed, and finally, like looking through a window to a whole other world, his face came into focus. And he looked right at her. "Alster...!"
Daphni opened her eyes with a start, her heart racing in the aftermath of yet another failed attempt to awaken Alster Rigas. This made the sixth, since separating from her clan, and was about the best progress that she had made.
But it was nowhere near enough. Nothing short of seeing the caster open his eyes would be, and the more that she tried and failed, the more despondency weighted her already heavy heart. The worst part was, she had seen him--and he had seen her. Which was exactly the reason his mind had rejected her presence and pushed her out, not unlike the dark mage, Lilica's, had some time before. "You stubborn fool," she murmured, brushing her perspiration-damp hair back from her face. "You won't find happiness--true happiness--where you are trapped..."
It was not long after that she found Elias in his tent. After failing to note his presence in any of the encampment's medical tents, she sought him out in his tent. For one, after six attempts at pulling Alster out of his magically-induced sleep, she was not confident that she should be far from another healing professional; and, in addition, she always appreciated a little company. "I've tried. Six times, and nothing. I said I would remain for Alster, but he cannot be reached... and I am spent." Without asking, she took a seat upon his cot, since he currently occupied the chair at his desk. While she did not show and devastating signs of deterioration, since she had been sifting through his mind and not filtering emotions or journeys through the psyche, the former Sybaian healer was clearly exhausted and disheartened. "They've decided to take him back to Stella D'Mare, for fear that he is far too vulnerable in the encampment. I know that I said I would remain here for his sake, but... I am no longer part of the Sybaia. I am not confident that I would be welcome in Stella D'Mare."
She shook her head and rested her elbows upon her knees. Now clad in a simple tunic, a shade between green and grey, she looked as ordinary as any peasant, as if with the loss of her former attire, she had lost a fraction of her own confidence. "The trouble is, he is not suffering. He is avoiding suffering... which is precisely why his own mind works against the potential to awaken him." Tired and at a loss, she turned to meet the Clematis healer's eyes. "This--breaking spells... it is not my area of expertise. I cannot help him heal if I cannot get in. If you have any suggestions, then I am open to them."
Late that evening, following Alster's expedition to Stella D'Mare and Daphni's near defeat, word circulated around camp that Haraldur had returned--and he was not alone.
With every entrance and exit heavily guarded, the two were, unsurprisingly, swarmed by the sentries, both casters and warriors alike. One man might have been a confirmed ally, but the other was a stranger. And seeing the tip of Haraldur's sword pressed to the smaller man's back did not inspire confidence. "What a quaint welcome," Vitali mused, as Haraldur--as per his promise--lowered his sword and took his side. "But, be that as it may, this man has promised me safe escort to speak with your Rigas leader. Trust me," he stretched his lips into a grin. "the pleasure might be all mine, but the benefit--it is yours."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
His racing thoughts were interrupted by Daphni's entry into his tent. "You could do to announce your arrival before waltzing on inside," he almost snapped, clutching his forehead with both hands and peering through the spaces of his fingers, at that ant-hill of a pile, growing ever so smaller, and smaller...
Instead of fretting, especially under the scrutiny of his sudden company, he leaned back in his seat and looked across at her from her seat on the cot, releasing a long moan of a sigh--until she mentioned Stella D'Mare. He sat upright in his chair, his problem automatically solved. "We're going. You and I. We're going to Stella D'Mare. You have nothing to fear from that city, besides. The Sybaian don't own it, and the Rigases are in your debt. The trick is convincing them to have me along."
He tapped his fingers on the desk, watching little grains of crushed turmeric slide from the top of the ant-hill pile. However unwelcome his presence on the trek to Stella D'Mare, he would somehow insinuate himself inside the party. But for now--he looked again at Daphni, her drawn, drooping features, a flower about to wilt. "They will want you to keep trying. Even if it's hopeless, you currently feature as the only hope this caster possesses. Unfortunately," he crushed at the stray grains of turmeric, the powdery substance staining his fingers orange, "I am not so well-versed in struggles of the mind. Only physical, 'superficial' procedures. On the outside, he is a picture of health. Again, his body is in some sort of hibernation. Rather, more that time has stopped for him, and any manner of growing has ceased to be. In this state, he will not die unless killed...and I can't even say that killing him would be a mercy at this point, for he is quite content where he is now." He stood from his chair and paced the small area between the desk and the cot. "Let's see if they need any assistance preparing Alster Rigas's body. And if they've awakened that hysterical warrior."
Lysander had indeed awakened the hysterical warrior. Several hours after the retrieval of Alster from Messino's camp, Lysander had arrived from Stella D'Mare on special orders from Adalfieri. Originally, he was meant to stay in the city, focusing his expertise on the surveying of New Town and the Castello di Andalari. But Adalfieri suspected that something dire was occurring on the front--and off he hurried to the small tent town two days' trek from the Rigas estate.
He had seen the damage: the felled tents, the loss of men and women, the remains of undead offal squirming out of small refuse piles yet to be burned, and the general air of tension that threw dead weights onto the shoulders of all who walked the camp. And if he did not yet piece the story through the torn pages of its tragic end, Canopus had informed him of the grim truth. Messino had ambushed the camp, had taken Alster, that a small team had rescued him (of which only two had lived, and Mizar had been among the casualties; Lysander bit his lip, clamping down any outburst that floated in the back of his throat), but that Alster was...'indisposed.' Cursed by a chthonic mage to sleep, to dream, and to never awaken.
"Take him back with you," Canopus told him. "As soon as you're able. We're expecting swift retaliation from Messino and we cannot have Alster here when this occurs. He is in the medical tent. Take the warrior with you, as well. As unstable as she is as of present, she will not allow any danger to befall him."
A potent chemical had carted the warrior to sleep, but luckily, the effects had lessened in the hour since he waited for her to open her eyes. He knew she would sustain a severe headache from the side-effects, but they could no longer wait to act. In the cover of night, the best time to depart was now. And he knew that she would understand the urgency.
When she shifted into consciousness, he leaned over her and lightly slapped at her cheek. "This may be too sudden for you, but we all must leave for Stella D'Mare immediately. The healers are preparing Alster's body. We are taking you and him to safety. Come. Come now."
Just after midnight, they were on their way: Lysander, who hadn't slept in over two days half limping and half walking whilst his shield shimmered above everyone's heads, Daphni and Elias, the healers who had watched over Alster's condition since he had arrived under their care, two burly Rigas casters who carried a makeshift stretcher for the slumbering Alster, and Elespeth, looking...a touch mad, half between frenzy and exhaustion, her body operating both extremes at the same time, not quite knowing which to feel.
"Once we reach the Rigas estate," Lysander said, a reassuring lilt to his voice, "we can relax. We shall relax in a safe environment. He will receive the best attention from the most notable of casters and healers alike. Rest assured," if only such a word existed in his vocabulary, "...this is not permanent."
True to his word, Haraldur tucked his sword back inside his sheath, and as they entered camp, walked alongside Vitali, feeling ridiculous enough by the sentiment that holding the chthonic mage's hand would not have made any difference to the already unlikely collusion of their strange alliance. He held up his hands to the belligerent guards, and prodded Vitali to do the same with his foot. "We are here to see Canopus. This man can undo the spell cast upon Alster Rigas. If you feel threatened by his presence, come with us, but do not harm him or me until we have spoken with the commander."
The four guards had indeed accompanied them to Canopus's quarters, dashing inside the tent to alert him of the audience that waited for him beside the flaps. The commander ushered them in, posthaste: all the guards, Haraldur, and their unwelcome guest. It was crowded inside the dimly lit enclosure, and Canopus seemed to have cultivated and grown a new field of wrinkles across his forehead. The man looked ready for a burial, but he stood in perfect, straight-backed posture, his hands clasped forward, eyes guarded, but not unyielding. He turned to face Haraldur and Vitali.
"Who ordered you to bring this man here, warrior?"
Haraldur stepped forward, his posture just the same. "As you are well aware, Sir, I am allied with Tadasun. I do not take my orders from you. I merely saw an opportunity, and brought that opportunity to you." He waved Vitali forward, in introduction. "This is Vitali. He is responsible for casting the spell that forced Alster into dream. He's defected from Andalari, and is prepared to strike a deal in exchange for lifting the spell."
"Then," Canopus swiveled his head owlishly to Vitali, "what are your terms? And how are we to trust what you promise?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Elespeth stood amid a field of tall, green grass, healthy from ample rain and sunlight; not a place she recognized, nor could she remember why she was there, or how she had gotten there. Wasn't she caught in the middle of a war? With people dying and bleeding and who needed her? People like...
People like Alster--Alster Rigas who, for some reason that the warrior could not recall, she thought she had lost. Relief embraced her like a warm blanket as she witnessed the sunlight glint off of his golden locks, too brilliant not to be real. Whatever she had feared must have amounted to little more than paranoid suspicion, because, here he was. Here they were, together and under the sun...
"I... I don't know why, but..." Closing the distance between them, the former Atvanian knight wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder. The familiar scent of his skin soothed and calmed her racing heart. "I thought.. for some reason, I thought I lost you. I've never felt so afraid, so... empty. I don't want to think of life without you." Her lips curled into a faint smile against his neck. "I'm glad I don't have to... I love you, Alster. Even if, by your family governing, I am not allowed to."
Her first hint that something was wrong was when the Rigas mage did not return her embrace. While her arms were entwined around his middle, his rested at his side in a decidedly disinterested way. But the next, and most important cue, was in his words... Words that Elespeth would not forget anytime soon.
For the first time since she had known him, the Rigas caster's voice was cutting, chafing when he spoke. Almost as though he were not the same person she thought she had known. "Why are you here, Elespeth?" The young woman looked away just in time to notice the downturned scowl on Alster's face. "This place... it is not for you. Nor am I. Just... go away.
It was then, just as her heart felt as though it had plummeted from its cosy cavity in her chest all the way down to her feet, that she was hauled, head throbbing and stomach sick, from that awful pseudo-reality, to one that was much less palatable. Lysander's words only resonated in fragments; something about Stella D'Mare, about Alster, about having to move as soon as possible. Well, moving was not an option for her, just yet. For a half hour after she'd awoken, the former knight was plagued with retching and dry heaves, all a result of the throbbing pain in her skull. Only after a healer agreed to ease that pain with a cool pulse of magic at her temples did she agree to walk, and by then, it was a very last-minute decision.
She said little during the silent, somber walk in the darkness. Alster trailed behind her, carried by two strong men, followed by the two casters responsible for rendering her unconscious, with Lysander at the front, leading them all. She had nothing to say to any of them, and so kept to herself, just another shadow moving against a darkened landscape. On any other occasion, Lysander's attempt to reassure her might have taken, but her heart was damaged and filled with bitterness. And she would hear none of this from someone who simply did not understand.
"Do not make reassurances of which you, yourself, can hardly be convinced," Elespeth muttered, moving one foot in front of the other, arms wrapped around herself to ward off a chill that plagued her from the inside out. Now she knew how Lilica must have felt, all the time... it was an awful state of being. "You have no idea how he will fare--and if you did not care a lick for him before, then you have no right to start now. So kindly keep your supplications to yourself, I've not interest in any of it."
Not when the message in her dream was so clear: that however sacred her bond with Alster Rigas was (or had been), it could not compare to the environment of wherever it was his restless soul not resided. She was not enough... not to wake him. Not to make him happy.
Daphni, meanwhile, had watched the two out of the corner of her eye as she walked alongside Elias. And the longer she watched, the warier she grew in her train of thought. "Her aura," she whispered, placing a hand on Elias's arm to get his attention. "It has been fluctuating all night, changing colours and consistencies at the blink of an eye. It isn't a good sign." Pulling at her lower lip with her teeth, she could not overlook the slump of Elespeth's shoulders, the way her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. "We should keep an eye on her, at least from a distance... I have a feeling she is the key to reaching Alster, once she is in her right mind, again. Should anything happen to her, we might lose the only chance we've got."
Vitali allowed Haraldur the time to explain himself, absently inspecting his cuticles as though the preamble bored him. Which it did, for it was always the same, down to the very questions that came his way: What's in it for you? How can we trust you? People were so predictable, it was little wonder that he jumped on the opportunity to bask in their discomforts. At least he knew how to play the game, down to a fine art.
"Allow me to be frank in saying that I never really intended to be Messino's pawn, even when he hired me. The role does not suit me," the dark mage ventured, flicking his dark eyes to Canopus. "But that does not imply that I do not take some interest in this war. Your stolen city, Stella D'Mare, has quite a history, does it not? A very intriguing heritage with which I would like to get more acquainted. So my terms, as you put them, are quite simple."
Rolling his shoulders back, he dared to take a single step forward. "I request safe passage to Stella D'Mare, and protection while I am there. Rest assured, I'd only like to learn more about this place for which you are determined to fight to the bitter end. And, in return, I will see to the condition of your Alster Rigas. But as for your final question..." Vitali lifted his slender shoulders in a shrug. "It is your call, really, as to whether or not you trust to believe my intentions genuine. I will not try to convince you either way; that is not why I am here. Rather, I believed that I am here because you, sir, need me. Of course, you are welcome to pit your mages against the curse this particular caster is under, but I can tell you right now, you will not be successful. And if Alster by some miracle of the fading potency of magic ever does wake up on his own, well... the lot of you will be long dead before that day arrives."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Alster, what is it? What's wrong?" A voice piped up beside him. He turned to his side, and into the concerned embrace of Elespeth, her chestnut locks fanning out around her head as she took his shoulder and massaged it gently. Elespeth Rigas. Not Elespeth Tameris. This was who he loved. Not the woman who appeared in his recurring dreams...
Or in the dream before, that suddenly found remembrance in his head.
"Nothing," he said with a reassuring smile. He leaned into her warm, real arms, parted the curtain of her hair, and kissed her open mouth. "I was just getting rid of an impostor."
Go away. You are not real. Not real. Not real...
The beleaguered caster, entrenched in the neverending tasks placed before him, an arduous hike up a steep hill with a boulder weighing against his shivering arms as he pushed, wanted very much to release that boulder that was Elespeth and let her roll down the hill, far away from him and their family. Let her crash into the brush, into a raging river. She might have aided Alster, was the reason he was alive and in their custody, but it was at the expense of ruining his and Chara's marriage. And now, she was rendered near-catatonic, and in such a bad way that he almost left her behind in the tent despite Canopus's order to bring her along. She did not seem as invested in her lover, as if she had given up ever recovering him in full. Without that ardor to see him well, awake, and reunited in her arms, what use did they, the Rigases, have for her? Just another bauble, a decoration. An ugly one. It hurt his eyes to even look at her, and so, after her violent outburst, he ventured away from her blight, rubbing his eyelids from the strain.
"As you were, then. I have heard that sulking works wonderfully as a strategy for aiding the lost," he snapped, no longer possessing any patience or empathy for this difficult woman and her struggles when they all had suffered--and would continue to suffer. He, too, had lost someone dear. Mizar was dead. Mizar--his original betrothed. A woman he still pined for, still loved--and the love cut itself deeper after Mariana's death. But she was married, and had snubbed his advances, but always with a humored look on her austere features. She enjoyed his pursuit, that he still found her desirable even in her overripe age. But now...
Never again.
Without another word, he swept past Elespeth and took his place at the front of their small convey, his hands forming into claws.
Elias observed the exchange, hearing their pointed words as well as Daphni's commentary. As he had found his reason to tag along with the group by way of insisting that Alster and Elespeth were still his patients, the warrior's health, physical and otherwise, was his responsibility. Even when he was deteriorating by the minute, his medicine all but depleted and the strenuous pacing heavy on his lungs, he hadn't any choice but to continue servicing the battered warrior. "If something happens with me while I am tending to her," he told Daphni, albeit with hesitation, as they were well aware of what that 'something' entailed, "you have my permission to use your healing on me. Thorough. Buy me time. Even if it expedites the arrival of a far worse episode down the road."
That morning, when Lysander had allowed a lengthy break for a meal under the shade of a rock outcropping, Elias sidled beside Elespeth, offering her an herbal tea remedy he prepared in a mug over the fire. This was where he failed: consultations. Conversation. Speaking to the patient as a person, not as a test subject, or as something to fix. How could he communicate with her in a way that would allow him a window into her well-being?
Instead, he focused on what he could address, and started from there. "You had a bad reaction upon waking. How are you faring now? Do you need another healing pulse? Here." He did not wait for her answer as he rolled up his sleeves and placed his hand on either side of her head, sending an infinitesimal spark of energy into her ailing body. "Your body cannot heal properly from its encounter with Alster's magic because you haven't any time to rest. Normally, I would not have even sanctioned this excursion for one of my patients. It's far too taxing." He released his hands once he administered the magic. "I will do what I can for you now, until we can get you to safer ground. Until then...drink the tea. It will help." And you damn well better drink that tea before I shove it down your throat, he almost added, and those unsaid words appeared in his feverish eyes. For, he had given her the last of his herbs, and the last of his medicine. Oh, wouldn't Daphni be proud of his reckless abandon?
Canopus was, admittedly, intrigued by the offer. This man did not wish for money, jewels, or even a position as an honorary Rigas. He could have asked for anything, but the chthonic mage only wished for safe passage, and protection?
He tried sniffing the air for any ulterior motive. There had to be, considering the nature of the well-groomed defector who wheedled his way into favorability with the Rigases. But if there was a motive, would it matter when comparing it to the prospect of lifting Alster's sleeping curse? Much, too much, was riding on the recovery of this young prodigy. It was obvious, the glaring weakness of the high and mighty Rigas. Serpent Bane--a very important pawn who could not yet fall. Not this early.
It was not his call to make; that decision rested on Adalfieri. But did they have time to consult the proper avenues, when he was certain that Adalfieri would agree to Vitali's terms? Already, he had accepted another dark mage into his fold, a woman who appeared eerily familiar to this dirt clod who dressed himself as a royal dirt clod. And they always did have the option of dealing with this mage, should the worst case scenario come to fruition.
"Only for when you are in the city do you have Rigas protection," Canopus conceded with a sigh.
"And you offer what you know about Messino's undead, including how to defeat them," Haraldur added, ignoring Canopus's perturbed glare. It was no secret that the mercenary did not play well with authority.
"And, of course, you must awaken Alster from your curse. If anything at all is amiss--if you cast another curse, or deviate from your magic in any capacity aside from what you have promised us--then our deal dissolves, and your life is forfeit. Is this clear?" Canopus ran a tired hand through his hair, in disbelief over the chaotic shifting of events that placed salvation in the hands of a slimy, mistrustful dark mage and his infuriating smugness. "We'll assemble some casters and you will leave with them in the morning, en route to Stella D'Mare. A small collective left just earlier with Alster, so you will meet with them once inside the Rigas gates. Our family will make certain you keep to task."
"So will I." Haraldur remained behind Vitali, but the strength of his voice sounded as if he were standing right before Canopus. "I brought him to camp, and I'll bring him all the way to Stella D'Mare." His eyes narrowed. "This you can't deny me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
So when Elias approached her with a hot, bitter smelling cup of tea, it took a moment for her to register that his voice was meant for her ears. He didn't give her a choice but to place the cup in her hands, but she made no effort to drink the hot beverage, nor did she have time to answer that she was feeling marginally better. Not that it mattered; she couldn't even discern the effects of the gentle pulse that the Clematis healer administered into her temples. She felt the same as she had since retrieving Alster: empty, broken, lost. Not so unlike Lilica, her face even bearing that grey, ashen sheen that was so characteristic of the dark mage. "You have not acquired the right to call me your patient, just because you rendered me unconscious with noxious chemicals," Elespeth told him, though there was no bite to her voice. She hadn't the energy or the motivation.
"I don't need your help. Alster does; if you want to focus your energy on someone, then help him. He is the valuable asset that Stella D'Mare needs." Turning her face in the direction of the sleeping Rigas mage, her shoulders slumped even more, pulling her posture forward. "I'll be fine. It doesn't feel any worse than a bout of influenza. Here."
Before Elias could protest, she placed the cup of tea back in his hands and rose to her feet. "I think you need this more than I do," was all that she said before removing herself from the fireside, and taking a place at Alster's side, instead. The Rigas caster looked so at peace in his sleeping state, his brow smooth and his skin warm--a reassuring sign that his health was not, in fact, deteriorating. "I know you can't hear me. Maybe you just don't want to," she whispered, ting one of his hands in his, her thumb gently tracing the scar across his palm. There was no response, no flicker of connection, as there had always been before. "You don't want to come back to me. I understand. But if you won't return for me... then return for them. Chara, Canopus, Adalfieri, Lysander... even Lilica. Help them win this war..."
Having overheard their brief exchange, Daphni took a seat next to Elias by the fire, knowing full well that his mood would be foul. "So she knows," she observed, having dissected Elespeth's comment to him in seconds. "I wouldn't worry about her telling anyone. She doesn't have the motive to do so." Even just side-eyeing the Clematis healer, his tired, ashen sheen told her enough about his current state of health. "Drink the tea. I'd rather not have to use my magic on you, if it is not necessary. Know that I will not forgive you if you neglect your own health for the well-being of another; just as you will not have any of my own self-sacrificing behaviour. It works both ways. And anyway..."
Sighing, she tucked her hair behind her ears and stared into the fire, as if it could answer all of her questions. "I cannot do this without you--if I an in fact do anything at all." He was the last and only person within the encampment who believed she had worth and could make a difference.
Canopus's compliance with his terms came as to surprise to Vitali Kristeva. They required his assistance, and he was, frankly, the only one who could help them. He had even contemplated requesting a higher compensation, with lavish accommodations to match his lavish attire. But the man was not entirely unreasonable, and lucky for these people, he took a special interest in the rich, seaside city. "Now, I never agreed to factor Messino's undead into the deal," he mentioned, as if hesitating on his offer, after all. But it was all for show. "However, for extended protection beyond the city, I would be more than happy to tell you what I know about working with--and defeating--the dead. Let me tell you that I know first hand, Messino is a poor master of necromancy."
His grin widened as Canopus conceded with a sigh, and the dark caster could not help but take a dramatic bow to conclude ths finale. "You have my word, I will use my magic only to aid you and yours, in whatever way I can. I am confident that you will find I have very little interest in curses, myself. They're far too passive-aggressive, melodramatic, even. If I wish to bring an enemy to their knees, well..." With that, he offered a shrug. "I have other means. None which your precious kin will experience, you have my word."
The agreement was, realistically, settled before Vitali has openly agreed. And when they departed at last for Stella D'Mare, Haraldur at the dark caster's side as promised; an ally and protector to someone hew hardly knew. Predictably, this intrigued the barely trustworthy stranger. "So, my friend from Mollengard," Vitali drawled, taking long strides so as to keep up with the much larger man. "You are neither of Tadasun nor of Stella D'Mare, and you oppose Andalari... so pray tell, what is in this for you?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But before he could speculate further and offer her more shades of his professional opinion, since Alster, and the subject of him, was the key to the improvement or to the destruction of her health, the warrior had placed the steaming mug of tea in his hand and proceeded to comment on his well-being. He ground his jaw, concealing his reaction and suppressing the need to raise his voice to her as she stood up and took her leave.
He did not stew in the leftovers of Elespeth's statement for long, as Daphni arrived and joined him at his side. He kept his attention to the fire, watching the whorls and loops of the celestial-white flame arc and connect with each other in their own random synchronization. "Who else knows, do you think? If this half-distraught warrior can glean my condition with ease, the Rigases are not far in knowing--if they are not already aware." Raising the tea to his lips, he took a few hurried sips, not needing to be told twice to swallow its beneficial contents. "I am not neglecting my own health," he said, touching his tongue to the ceramic surface. "I simply do not possess the resources to monitor my condition. This tea does not have the proper mix of ingredients and will do me next to no good." Another sip, a mechanical procedure. Normally, he would savor his time with the hot beverage in his hands, but this small comfort brought him nothing but weight in his hands and sloshing in his mouth.
"There is another task I can offer you," he muttered into his tea. "You are the only one who might know what to find, and how to harvest those findings. When we arrive at Stella D'Mare, and if I...I am not well, and too delirious, then I need you to go to the Rigas's extensive herb garden, find these ingredients, and prepare them into a medicine." He slipped a piece of parchment into her hands, complete with a list of the required herbs and instructions for preparation. "But if I am too gone, and need immediate attention...do what must be done. If you really cannot do any of this without me, then," a hard smile punctuated his features, "I implore you to keep me alive."
In two days' time, a slower process due to increasing rest intervals from the exhausted party and the unforgiving stretch of oppressively hot weather, they had ventured through the Serpent's Den and arrived on the grounds of the Rigas estate. Upon making contact with the dew-sprinkled grass of the immaculate lawn, Lysander, his legs a severe wobble that could no longer support him, collapsed to the ground. Not long after, Elias, who had required Daphni for support during the final treks through the dark, damp-aired den that agitated his afflicted lungs, crumbled into a fit of wracking coughs, rocking and shivering and spitting blood into his cupped hands. In midst of the attack, he fished out his chemically-soaked cloth and smothered himself with it until he too had followed Lysander into unconsciousness.
The remaining two casters, alarmed by the suddenness of their team's depletion, set down Alster in his stretcher and ran off to recruit additional assistance. Moments later, a few high-ranked Rigases appeared, along with a few groundskeepers who handled the three immobile bodies--and Chara. Her blue eyes crackled like robin eggs, ready to hatch into a million broken pieces, and her cheeks were a red rash of sequestered fury. A red sun in the evening. She looked between her father and her betrothed--and then she found Elespeth. She loped herself forward until their foreheads practically touched. "What...happened?" Her voice was the battering of the ocean against rocks. "Tell me, warrior. I want to hear it from your mouth."
"By all means, then," Canopus waved a beseeching hand forward, waiting for their 'guest' to reveal his knowledge about their unkillable adversaries, "tell me how to defeat his undead army. They are coming for us, no doubt. I tire of the casualties. As you desire, you will have your protection within Rigas ranks. Now, protect us," he half-pleaded, hovering between supplication and frustration. "For we cannot help you if we are all dead."
That morning, about five hours after the hastily slapped-on agreement had reached its compromise, Haraldur, Vitali, and four Rigas casters departed from camp, en route to Stella D'Mare. The mercenary ignored the suspicious glances that extended to him by his mere association with the sleazy cththonic mage. Instead, he busied himself at Vitali's side, his hand practically attached to the hilt of his sword. He only wished he could ignore the man's words as he could ignore the pain that throbbed from his tired wrist, but the well-dressed deserter knew exactly how to rile him out of his practiced, unruffled calm. Whether he realized it or not, Vitalli had hit a nerve. It was as if he had reached out and applied added pressure to Haraldur's wrist, lacerating the tendon anew. He gripped the sword tighter, despite the ache.
"I am not from Mollengard. I will never be from Mollengard." He seethed the words into existence before he could cease the outpouring of pure hatred that Vitali was in all probability enjoying from his normally staid friend. "I have no affiliation with any country. My motivations are my own." I want remembrance. I want proof that I lived, and proof that I helped someone who needed it. I want to die knowing that someone is uttering my name with fondness. My name... But he dare not speak these sentiments out loud. Especially to the likes of this irreverential man and the joy he seemed to derive from the misfortune of others.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Her reaction was delayed when both Lysander and Elias fell. She didn't understand the gasps of the comrades in her party, or of the onslaught of casters from Stella D'Mare when at last they reached their destination, until she snapped out of her exhaustion-induced stupor and took note that the Clematis healer and Chara's father were on the ground, immobile and helpless. "Don't just stand there," hissed one of the burly casters who had carted Alster all that distance, muscles trembling and sweaty. "If you're not going to lift a damned finger to help, then go and find someone who will!"
But she didn't need to. Because no sooner did the former knight return to cognitive sense of self that she found herself face to face with not the most pleasant sight she'd hoped to encounter in Stella D'Mare. Chara's features were study in livid panic, at the sight of both her betrothed and her father down after their journey from the encampment. And she wanted to hear the story from her?
Elespeth didn't bother to ask why. Chara had just as much a right as anyone to know, and it was not as though the news would not spread like wildfire in seconds. "I'll tell you," she agreed, with little to no fight in her voice. She refused to be Chara's adversary right now. "But let us give them some room to help the fallen. Take me somewhere we can talk... I'll explain it all as best I can. And you won't like one word of it."
While Elespeth spoke with Chara in private, the unconscious charges were not without treatment and care. Alster, Lysander and Elias were all carted off on stretchers to a vast infirmary, with Daphni in tow. She had made a promise to Elias, and he was her patient just as much as she had been his. So when the casters swarmed his unconscious body, she was not without a voice.
"He has taken to exhaustion," she explained, never far from the Clematis healer's unconscious form. "He is my patient; take him where you will, but I will tend to him alone. That was his request."
No sooner did they settle the unconscious travelers on cots in the ivory-walled infirmary that the former Sybaia set to work on reviving her fallen comrade. Hands on either side of his face, she worked her way into the cracks in his aura, knitting together the threads that had come undone in the throes of his illness. It was all temporary; the core of his affliction, some black, noxious chasm, was not beyond her reach, but beyond her capacity to heal, at least all at once. It wasn't until she had left the Sybaia behind, it seemed, that she had really begun to realize the limitations of her own magic.
But the last thing she was about to do was concede defeat and let him die, when she needed him. He was her only excuse not to give up.
"About time," the words slipped through her lips in a sigh when Elias opened his eyes some hours lter. A cup of steaming liquid was waiting for him in her hands, but she placed a firm palm against his sternum when he attempted to sit up. "Not yet. Take it slow. Here." With one hand behind his pillow, helping him forward, she placed the lip of the mug carefully to his mouth. "You were out just long enough for me to find what you needed for your herbal concoction. I wouldn't let anyone else tend to you; as far as they know, you collapsed from exhaustion nd dehydration."
Daphni didn't look far from an unconscious state, herself. After restoring his lungs to a passable capacity, followed by a thorough scrounge through the herb gardens, the effort and exertion following such a long walk had stolen the colour from her face and the light from her eyes. But she didn't seem to notice. "We will figure this out, Elias," she said after a beat, tired, quiet, yet genuine. "You won't suffer this forever. Not if I have a part in stopping it."
Even Lysander, several beds away from both Alster and the Clematis healer, was not left to recover on his own. Having followed Chara after they caught wind of the news of Alster's arrival, it didn't take Lilica long to deduce what had happened... And that she needed to give her blonde hostess some space, in light of the news. Of course Chara would be devastated by Alster's state, and it was far beyond her to give the Rigas caster the time that she needed to digest what had come to pass. But meanwhile, it did not go unnoticed to her that another familiar figure was in need of medical attention, someone who appeared to be less of a priority for the healers. A fact that twisted her heart into a despondent shape, and impelled her to take a place at his side, when he was at last administered to the infirmary.
Lysander had awoken not long before Elias, and Lilica had been there for it, sitting at the foot of his bed. "Chara would be here--I'm sure she will be, soon. She is just occupied speaking with the Atvanian warrior, at present..." Feeling awkward and out of place, the chthonic caster fidgeted with the cuffs off her ornate tunic. There was still rouge on her lips and cheeks, and kohl around her eyes, from when Chara had done her up yet again that morning. "I figured I would come and check on you, to advise her of your condition. She cares, you know; it shook her to see that you had fallen... How are your legs?"
Vitali clucked his tongue at the tall warrior's reaction to what he had perceived as an innocent question; well, maybe not so innocent, as he had hoped to gauge a reaction from the man, but the dark mage hadn't anticipated such vehemence in response. "Of course. One is not the embodiment of the places they have lived," he drawled, raking his fingers through his dark tresses. "I, for one, am a nomad. I define myself by my movement, not my static commitments to soil or blood. You are a very interesting man, Haraldur; I have not seen determination like yours in a very long time."
Whether or not he meant it as a compliment or observation remained unknown, and the warrior would not know Vitali for long enough to ever find out. But one thing the warrior could count on was that, at the very least, he had earned the untrustworthy chthonic caster's respect. And that was by no means an easy feat.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She had been with Lilica in the dining area of her villa, enjoying an exquisite banquet of fruits and salads and various cheeses and breads, when she received the disruptive knock on her door informing that she make haste to the entrance of the Serpent Den. The ring of urgency gonged a portentous toll in his voice, and as she ran, with Lilica in tow, she expected the very worst-case scenario. What she regarded was, short of death itself, worse than where the limits of her imagination had stretched. Alster, on a stretcher, in some sort of sleeping death. Lysander, his face a cerise burn, his skin just as hot as the color implied, eyes rolled forward and his breathing barely of a register that her eyes could track. Elespeth, standing midst the chaos in a daze, her mind gone and not likely to return, at least in full. It all hit her at once, such that she could feel little else but rage. But toward whom? Toward what? Rage itself? The indignities lobbed at her head all at once? To Messino? To the whole blasted war effort!?
She was glad for Lilica agreeing to stay at her father's side. She promised to return for him later. As much as his very presence dredged in her numerous resentments that often lingered long after his departure, she...could not lose him as she did her mother. She could not lose him at all.
"Just make certain that the Sybaian does not so much as touch his bedside while I am away," she told Lilica, her voice a barely contained pit of fire and fury.
Chara took the distraught warrior to her villa. Sat her down beside the food-festooned table. Offered her wine, water, oranges, grapes. Demanded that she eat, or at least drink, before her tongue formed any word of her grim retelling of events from the past several days. Once she had recounted the entirety of the story, Chara reached for a bottle of wine, and took a swig straight from the source, not even bothering to pour the red elixir into her glass. No. This could not be. If only she were there. But what would you have done differently? You have no power. No power at all. She screamed into the bottle before clamping her mouth down on the opening, silencing herself. She dared not release her precious swill until she had sucked it nearly dry.
Then, chucking the bottle across the room, where it shattered into a spray of glass and crimson against the wood-paneled wall, she grabbed at Elespeth's shoulders, gripping them with an overzealous might, as if she wanted to haul the warrior into the wall and throw her, as well. It wouldn't take much effort to make her shatter.
Instead of violence, she focused. On words. Words. Say them. Dig for solutions. Do not sink into this mire with her. Think think think think...
"Come." She rose to her feet, a bit shaky. "You say that a chthonic curse was cast on Alster, one in which he sleeps peacefully and indulges in pleasant dreams. It is possible that Lilica may have some insight to share on this matter. She was once in a similar state." If she even remembers any details at all, she thought, biting down her doubt before it turned into panic.
Elias dreamed of him. The man who had simultaneously ruined his life and gave it a purpose. He stood before the parapets of the wall, watching the sky-refracted waters of Lake Basilla squiggle towards shore. An entire fleet of full-sailed schooners emptied into the undefended lake. St. Thorne's ingenious defenses, building a grand city upon an island in the middle of a lake, had become their undoing. They had marooned themselves, neatly boxed inside a prison surrounded on all sides by water.
The man turned from the scene of their approaching doom. Looked straight at Elias. He smiled.
And dropped himself over the wall, splashing into the stretch of water far, far below. He never rose to the surface.
Dusk approached. A rose-color spackled over the clouds. And in the reflection, the sky's mirror, a splotch of blood soaked over the spot where he dove. A saturation up above...or underneath the abyssal surface where no man ever returned alive.
Dead. Dead. He is not rising. He will never rise again...
Elias opened his eyes, and rose. At least, he tried to rise, but a gentle force sank him down, under the waves, where he wouldn't and couldn't breathe. He struggled up to the surface, his arms flailing to stay afloat...until he realized that the waves were sheets upon a bed, and the force was a hand. Daphni's hand. He half-gasped, half-wheezed, and pulled his head back, against the waiting pillow. Taking the proffered tea from her grasp, he sipped and sipped--and then began to gulp it down, reveling in the scald on his tongue that lessened the delirium that had followed him out of that vivid dream. That memory. The day where it had all ended...
"Tastes," he managed, his lungs reduced to a patchwork of scratchy pock-marks that blossomed into a garden of aches whenever he breathed, "like you made an effort. An elementary effort. I rate this concoction as the work of a very ambitious five year old." He drank some more, hiding his teasing smirk from behind the ceramic of the mug.
"I coughed blood all over the grass. I hardly believe you when you say they think I suffered from mere exhaustion," he snorted, freeing one hand from the mug in order to rub the ache that formed in his temples, a side-effect from the chemical he had doused himself with in order to sleep. "Did you--?" Invasive memories. Vivid dreams. The spill of unwanted emotions in an uncontrolled, unmonitored state. She had used her magic--just as he had asked of her. He gave her a resigned nod and took a noisy slurp of his tea.
"This disease will kill me." He shrugged, as if the statement didn't faze him. "I am just delaying it, and poorly. For now, your aid has been adequate. ...Thank you," he said, after a beat, averting his eyes before he could check her reaction. They were not words he said often. "Go and rest now. The Rigases will need you at your best. They hardly need me, especially as I am."
From out of the darkness, Lysander awakened to another darkness, one with eyes and a mouth. A sentient shadow, it crouched at his bedside, and watched him. He blinked the blurs out of his vision and saw the shadows coalesce into a solid state. Lilica. It confused him to see her take to his side, but he assumed that Chara had requested this of her. No matter what the dark mage had said in reassurance, Lysander doubted that his daughter harbored much interest in his health--although he did not make obvious, especially to Chara, the suffering of a degenerative atrophying of the legs. It was a slow process, and it did not yet hinder his usefulness to the Rigas cause, as he informed Adalfieri many times over, but it certainly weakened his constitution, and his mobility, at a faster clip now that he had kept himself so busy. So stressed. So...
Before he could dwell over the death of Mizar, he caught the last of Lilica's words to him, and tilted his head in her direction, frowning. So she had noticed? "They are fine," he said, giving his knees a light slap. They twitched and throbbed something awful, but he assumed it was from the strenuously paced round trip on which he had embarked, without pause, over the last several days. "I may be bed bound for some time, but..." he trailed off as he concentrated on walking his elbows on the bed until he was more in a sitting position. "Do not tell Chara. About my legs. She needn't know yet. You do not have to keep a vigil over me, either, if you wish to stay with her. See how she is faring. But before you go...could I trouble you for some water?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
All things considered, Chara absorbed the news with fat more poise and grace than she had thought would unfold. No doubt the bottle of fine red wine likely had something to do with placating her rage centers, but regardless of the reasons, Elespeth was grateful that she did not have to face the full extent of the woman's acid ire. "Chara..." She winced at the sound of glass shards hitting the floor, both startling and musical. "I'm sorry. I couldn't save him. I tried... but I wasn't in time. I wasn't useful enough."
She thought the celestial mage meant to attack her when Chara's hands landed heavily on her shoulders, and visibly winced in anticipation of the blow. But it never came. "Lilica... you really think she can help?" It was a long shot, and Chara's unprecedented trust in the chthonic caster did give Elespeth pause to wonder whether it as really the best plan of action. But it was the only plan of action that they had, apart from merely hoping Alster would awaken of his own accord.
But, as Daphni had observed, he did not want to awaken. And even if he did... she would no longer suffice as something, someone to live for.
"I've disrupted your lives. I've... complicated things. Chara," placing a hand on her arm, she met the blonde woman's eyes, determination and apology breaking through that numb exterior. "If this can be rectified, if Alster will open his eyes and continue to live his life... then I will take my leave. And the two of you, your family plans and whatnot... I will disrupt it no further."
"For what it is worth, the casters seemed far more concerned for Alster and the Rigas envoy than for your condition," Daphni offered as she trusted Elias's hands with the mug of hot tea. "And my five-year-old effort might have surpassed satisfactory, had I not been left to estimate the recipe ingredient by ingredient. You're welcome, by the way, you ungrateful grouch."
The comment was all in jest; she was not so naive as to miss the genuine sentiment behind the Clematis healer's thanks. "Do not downplay your importance, here. There is only so much I can do for the Rigases by myself, particularly Alster." Out of habit, she pressed the underside of her wrist to Elias's forehead, and was taken by surprise by the coolness of his skin, in comparison to the flushed heat of her own. He's right. I've been without rest for too long... I will only continue to deteriorate.. "And I have had just about enough of your defeatist attitude. You would not let me step down to follow my own sorrows, and I will likewise refuse to let you sit back and sip this tea in the interim of your own body working against you. I do not care what you might think; you are foolish. But you are not beyond hope."
It couldn't be... Lilica narrowed her eyes in confusion. Was Chara actually unaware of her own father's failing condition? It appeared so, but it was not due to her negligence on keeping in touch; he was actively hiding it from her. Because he did not want her to perceive him as any more useless than he already felt. "No. Not now; she isn't fit to process too much news of that nature," she agreed, nodding thoughtfully. "But she will find out, someday. And if that day happens to be the day that you are able to stand for the very last time... Then she will never forgive you, Lysander. She will hold a grudge all the way to your grave that you withheld that you were unwell. And then she will grieve for being unable to forgive you, because you will be gone."
Lilica's thoughtful assessment at how Chara's relationship with her father might unfold surprised even her, and the dark mage self-consciously turned her gaze to her lap. "At least, that is what I can foresee happening, knowing Chara the way that I do. But this is also coming from someone whose parents left her in the cold of winter in hopes that she would die and be out of their lives... I am no great expert on forgiveness. But I do know grudges."
Lysander Rigas looked so helpless and harmless, lying in that infirmary bed, the years having drawn new lines on his face that she hadn't noticed before. In many ways, he was a fool, more self-important than useful, but there was no questioning how he cared for his daughter. And in spite of her feelings for Chara, how she cared for her and wanted nothing more than to sit at that fountain with her until eternity, she could not deny the pang of jealousy that resulted from her observation of Lysander's care for her.
Lifting the pitcher of water from the end table next to the bed, Lilica poured a glass full of room-temperature water for the Rigas caster without a second thought. "Chara likely needs space, right now. I will see her and speak with her later, if that is what she wishes, but there is little point in returning to her now, when she likely is struggling to grasp this new turn in reality." She recalled the celestial mage's rage at her demotion; Lilica's hands and arms were still streaked with pink scars from suffering the burn of her magic. "Later, I will inform Chara that you are on bedrest for exhaustion, but I will leave it to you to inform her of the condition of your legs. That disclosure must come from father to daughter, so you can rest assured that I will not breathe a word of your business. But, in the interim..."
Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, the dark mage folded her hands on her lap. "I will hold vigil over you, for someone needs to. If I were in your situation... it is what I would want." After all, she had first hand experience that being left alone to recover--in any way--did not yield favourable or helpful results.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With a spin, a half pirouette on her heels that the alcohol hadn't yet compromised, she marched back into the dining area, crouched before the troubled warrior, reared back her hand, and slapped her clear across the face. The hand that delivered the blow buzzed with the force of her deed, already turning pink from the return sting. In that impulsive swipe, her nails had scraped a thin layer off the surface of the other woman's cheek, and a small welt of blood appeared beneath her eye. Good. Even if it is a tiny prick, I want her to bleed.
"Too late." Her voice clapped, a string of audible slaps that beat at the air the same as they would beat against a face. "It is too late for you to withdraw your involvement, and you know this," she hissed, her hand hovering in anticipation for a repeat performance. "You believe that you are being selfless, that you are saving us, when in actuality, you are only causing more harm. You are deeply entrenched in his life now. Does that mean nothing!?" She pointed to Elespeth's hand, with the blood oath scar. "If he awakens, and you leave, you damn him! Do you not understand this already, you idle-headed imbecile!? You have implanted yourself here, in him; the only favor you will be doing by leaving is to your fickle, faulty conscience!"
She grabbed the warrior's shoulders again, and this time, embedded her nails into her exposed skin. It was either that or slap her a second time, and she did not believe it would be as effective, or as alleviating, as its initial act.
"You cannot undo what you have done, Elespeth. So do not even try! You wanted Alster? He is yours, now, and all the drama that comes with him! You cannot flee once it becomes too difficult for you to bear. Don't we all have difficulties?!"
She tried to balance to her full height. The wine had already soaked its numbing salve inside of her head as she teetered, with some struggle, to the door. "Now--I am going to see what can be done to awaken him. Go on and stay here. Eat my food, drink my wine. Clean that mess I made, too," she said with faux cheer, a rumble in the back of her throat, as she swayed out the door. "Whatever will lessen your pitiful guilt."
A strategic sip of tea doused the bark of derision that almost rasped from Elias's tired throat. "Defeatist? No, Daphni. I am realistic." Finishing the last of his drink, he reached over the side of his cot and placed it on the ground in a stretch that tested out the condition of his muscles. As expected, his chest, stomach, and legs reported back with their customary pangs and dull throbbing. Complete with shivers. He clamped down on his mouth, to prevent from flinching, or from displaying the chatter of teeth, until he was ready to speak.
"There is a difference between 'sorrow' and disease. Melancholia is passive, behavioral. It affects the mind, but it can be managed. Disease is active. It affects the body, and if it is incurable, or at its latest stages, then there is not much that one can do but wait to die." He shrugged again, rubbing his shoulders against the pillows that propped him upright. "You know that I am doing whatever is possible to stave off this disease. I, unlike you, do not wish to die. But I, unlike you, do not dismiss the facts. At the rate in which I am going, with the exertion I am placing on my body and the magic that I use on a regular basis," he did silent calculations in his head, "two months. Maybe more, depending on my participation in this war. And if the Rigases are luring the war to these very city walls, then I find that I have little choice but to enlist my aid." He closed his eyes, recounting a bitter memory. It will be St. Thorne all over again. Do I even want to live through another siege?
Do I have a choice?
"I am not giving up, Daphni, and you are more than welcome to help me concoct a cure. But do not forget that we cannot slay this particular adversary with ease." He opened his eyes into slits, and looked over to her. "Now kindly get some sleep, or your weakening body might liken to my disease, and want it for its own."
A cold sweat appeared on Lysander's forehead. He hastily wiped it away with the back of his hand, before the dark mage lingered too much on his clenching reaction to the thought of losing Chara's forgiveness for the rest of his life. He had kept his injury a secret long before he even sought out a last-ditch connection with his daughter. If he told her then, it would be akin to emotional manipulation, forcing her to his side out of worry or pity. And he did not want Chara to pity him. He'd rather her angry or disappointed, for they were natural outbursts, as opposed to any customary reactions that would spring from his unfortunate revelations. He did not want special treatment, not did he desire to squeeze from her an obligatory need to care. Though, he suspected that, whether he told her about his condition or she found out on her own, her wrath would surely singe him--and anyone unlucky to stand in her surrounding area.
But he departed from his sweat-inducing visions of interacting with his estranged daughter and found himself transferring over to Lilica, and her very specific, very heartbreaking admission. He twisted his head to see her better, but she emoted little, as if this horrible truth had happened to another Lilica somewhere far away.
Now united with his requested glass of water, he distracted himself with the cool lapping against his tongue, draining the contents within seconds. "Well," he said, thrumming his fingers against the glass, "you do place quite a harsh perspective on this entire matter. But considering," he coughed, uncomfortably, "your...you are not exaggerating?" His impartiality towards this strange chthonic mage at last gave way to concern; a deep frown agitated the wrinkles on his weary face. "They had left you to die? That is...now, I have done wrong. Much wrong. But I never would even think to...that I..." He imagined Chara as a little girl, surrounded by tall snowbanks, her face blue with cold and the air too sharp for her to cry out to him. Pappa. Pappa. It's cold. It's so cold. Please. Please...
He had rested a hand upon Lilica's shoulder and gently guided her closer to his bedside. Under his hand, she felt chilled, as if she never recovered from that time in her life, and carried that frozen memory in her heart. "On second thought...perhaps I do need a guardian of the sort. Who else will bring me my water?" He tried for a crooked smile, but it came out more as a facial tic.
He never would have predicted, of all the people who elected to stay at his bedside, that the chthonic mage would have volunteered. She was not even family; yet, his own family did not seem to invest much interest in his health, regardless of his indispensable talents. Perhaps he really did overvalue his worth, after all. Worth or not, receiving company, even if it was so unorthodox and a mite unsettling, helped to combat some of the grief that rattled through his lungs and nostrils.
"She will know. I will tell her--but after this mess subsides, if it ever does. I am fool to believe that my ails are comparable to Alster. He is her priority, and I do not fault her for it. The two of them were closer than I ever was with her. But," he tilted his head towards Lilica, a scrutiny that worked at his brow, "she is incredibly close to you, now. And I..." do not know what this means. Or if I condone it at all... "...I'll be watching you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I can't recall much, to be honest," she admitted, brow furrowed in thought as her mind sought the details. "My father took me hunting--or so he said it would be. And it was a treat, because I was never allowed to hunt with him. We were in the deep woods at the dead of winter, and he told me he heard something. So he turned around, told me to be still, told me to be quiet as he went to see if we had come upon a deer. I watched him walk off... but he didn't come back." And that was where her memory blurred, fractured, and began to turn dark. The chthonic mage lifted her shoulders in a shrug, as if in response to the lacking details. "It was cold to begin with, but as night approached, it grew colder. But I didn't dare move, in case my father returned. I remember admiring the trees and how the snow coated them like frosting, and then the stars as they sparkled like crystals in the sky, to bide the time. Then I grew very tired... Then I woke up hours later, very sick with pneumonia. A neighbour had found me, just in time, one who happened to be a physician, I believe. She helped me to recover..."
But it didn't matter; none of that mattered, because it was in the past, and what was done, was done. She was damaged, perhaps irreparably, but maybe... maybe she could move past that. Continue to grow--with Chara's help. "In any case, he was not even my biological father. Of course he did not want me; my mother had been unfaithful. It's only logical." As if anyone could justify leaving a child to freeze to death, alone, in the woods. "But don't concern yourself with it. You are still alive, and Chara is still someone's daughter... she is still your daughter. Whatever moss has grown between you, it is not too late, if you remain honest and genuine with her."
To be someone's daughter, to be cared for... Did Chara truly not see the privilege in that? Though for only a split second, a micro-expression of melancholy settled across Lilica's pale features. The love of a parent was something she would never know; it made her wonder just what she had missed out on. "But I am doing you a favour, you old fool. So you can kindly keep your eyes to yourself, and your nose out of Chara's and my business, lest you further strike a chord of ire with her." Lilica's voice was firm, but not without a twitch of a smile in the corners of her mouth. "You should only be concerned with your daughter's happiness; not who she finds happiness with."
Chara's fury stung Elespeth's face with every measure of her wrath. It happened far too quickly for the former knight to register, and even in the aftermath, the sting was quick to submit to a slow, numb ache. She wanted to laugh; wanted to lap up whatever was left of the celestial mage's anger, because it didn't hurt, and it didn't matter. You explosive little princess... you can't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me anymore. I can't feel a thing! Fortunately, that laughter never bubbled to the surface, not even when the sharp tips of Chara's nails bit into her shoulders. The woman's words could do no harm, nor could the sticks and stones that she threw.
"I come to you with apology, and you respond with a psychotic outrage," the Atvanian warrior observed with a passive countenance. She didn't even bring a hand to her face as blood trickled down her cheek. "Go to Lilica. If she can help, then she has already been far more useful than I could be. And you, for that matter. I might be pitiful, but you are stumbling, drunk... And I don't take orders or advice from someone who is no more sound of mind than I am, in this state."
Pushing past the Rigas caster with such force she almost knocked her over, Elespeth left, and followed her tunnel vision all the way to the gardens far beyond the Rigas estate. She didn't even realize how, in the second that her hands came into contact with Chara's exposed arms as she shoved her aside, her fingers left searing burns, charged with power--magic that was not her own--about which she was totally unaware....
Alster's magic coursing through her veins was something that she had pushed to the back of her mind. For all she knew, she was not supposed to be there, but for all she cared--well, she didn't. The former knight, still oblivious to the nail indentations in her shoulders and the scratch underneath her eye, laid her tired body upon a bench. She needed space, time away from this predicament, and with the warm, morning sunlight as her blanket, she drifted off in a matter of seconds.
[i]"Farrin! Come this way." Guiding her hose to stop, Elespeth Tameris gestured for her brother in the distance to follow. "It is already mid-morning, Father expects both of us to be present for training."
But Farrin Tameris did not follow. Upon the hill on the horizon, Elespeth could see that he had dismounted, and was stroking his horse's muzzle. As if this were an opportunity for a leisurely ride through the countryside, and not a detour en route to train with their brothers in arms...
Something was wrong.
"Farrin?" Elespeth dismounted when her brother showed no signs of getting back on his own horse, and jogged to meet him atop the hill. He stood, stroking the steed's mane and muzzle reverently, meditative and pensive. His sister needn't ask to be aware that training was the last thing on his mind. "Are you all right? What's the matter?"
"Elespeth..." Farrin breathed her name like an elegy, soft and sad and final. The connotations of those cadences sent a worrisome chill down Elespeth's spine. "You need to go. You... really shouldn't be here."
Her intuition was correct; something was very wrong. "What are you talking about, Farrin? We are to train, the two of us, with our comrades. Father is expecting us... why should I not be here? Was it not you who encouraged me to pursue knighthood?" She faltered on her attempt at a lighthearted smile. "Do not tell me you have changed your mind about believing in your sister."
"That is not what I mean. Elespeth, you need to leave." Turning away from his horse, Farrin moved to rest a hand on his younger sister's shoulder. The sunlight, reflecting off of the "Get out of here, before what is left of you is destroyed... Open your eyes."
"But..." No, something wasn't right--but even beyond that, something was downright, dangerously wrong. "Farrin, I don't know what you mean. What do you think is going to destroy me?" Catching a glimpse of the sun's rays at just the wrong angle, the Atvanian she-knight squinted and shielded her eyes with her hands. "You don't need to worry about me so voraciously, you know. I realize I am your younger sister and underling, but you of all people know that I should be able to take care of my..."
She dropped her hand; he was gone.
As were both horses, not to mention her elevation, for Elespeth found herself not standing, but lying down in the grass, the sun hot and overbearing overhead. Confusion creased her brow as she pushed herself into a sitting position where, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Alster, sitting not too far away. "I'm dreaming about him again," she mentioned, her mind having no inclination to think twice on the strange shift in people and places; clearly, she had only been dreaming. "It's strange; I haven't dreamed of Farrin since... well, since you became such an integral part of my life."
But Alster did not return the soft smile she offered in his direction... and that was when this small lapse in her troubled reality began to dissipate. "Alster... you're really here, right? We're really here... this is real?" This is real, something at the back of her mind warned. This is real, and that is the problem. "I don't know why, I'm just... I'm afraid that something isn't right. That there is something I should be worried about. Maybe... it's just that I have yet to see past what happened to Farrin." Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Alster was looking at her as if he didn't know her... or didn't want her there.
Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 12:19 am
He shifted his thoughts to Lilica's sad tale, and whatever anger had churned his hand to act of its own accord loosened, making way for the pity he felt for this girl without a proper family. Without proper love. Still, he did not remove his hand. "No, that is not logical, Lilica. In a logical world, children are cared for, not so ruthlessly discarded. You are a life, not a carcass to be thrown for the vultures. I hope you do not think of me as comparable to this heinous man." He lowered his eyes to his legs, which twitched in unison, a twin jolt of sympathy pain. "I do not exonerate myself from the pain in which I have caused Chara, but she is all I have left now. I...need her to forgive me for all I have done wrong, and I do not know how much longer I can stand by and wait. But it is only fitting that I should be punished for my shortcomings as a father--if I can still call myself one. All the same," he raised his blue eyes, and looked upon her, "I am sorry, Lilica. No child deserves such cruelty from their guardians. No one."
Following his plaintive statement, Lysander dropped his hand, returning it to his lap, as the last of her words brought a firmness to his countenance, which before was so pliant in its shared sorrow. "As a father, an attempted one, anyhow," he muttered under his breath, "it is my business to know the affairs of my daughter. I cared so little when it mattered the most; you cannot tell me to neglect my involvement now. As much as I have come to accept you as some sort of fixture in Chara's life, I exercise the right to caution. You are dangerous, Lilica. As is Alster. The two of you fall under my scrutiny. I apologize," he cleared his throat, thereby clearing the space for an adopted air of conviction, "but that is my duty. To Adalfieri, and to my daughter."
Meanwhile, Lysander's daughter was drunk. She was drunk, and furious, and wanted this horrendous woman out of her life, indefinitely, much as it was not possible despite the warrior's claims to the contrary. She craned her neck at Elespeth's approach, waiting for the bull in human skin to charge at her. But still she did not yield. She straddled the doorway, blocking her egress, and idled. "My outrage, as you say, is towards your blundering idiocy. That you would abandon him, and consider this a courtesy! Then, you look expectantly to me as if I should laud you for this selfless act of yours. As if doing so will make things right, when all you are doing is deflecting responsibility. Well," she spread her hands, as if to cast a spell, "I give not the slightest shit about your apology. It does me no good. They are empty words spouted from an even emptier mind. At least, in my 'stumbling, drunk,' state, I am making myself useful!"
She did not know what she expected to do with her fingers fanned out to her sides, but she could not wonder for long, as Elespeth flung her aside with all the ease of throwing a door open. Before she could retaliate with a counterattack, a searing burn rippled up and down her arms. Flinching, she brought them forth, looking at the fingerprint marks where the warrior had grabbed her, and the bubbling of flesh that followed the contours of her brief contact. She bit at the skin of her lip to keep from crying out, while in her muddled mind, besieged with stupor and an animalistic fear, the palpitations of her chest had thrummed in double-time.
"Ce...celestial magic," she stuttered, through the pain. "She used..."
Chara half-scrambled, half stumbled to the infirmary, her flight mode fully activated.
He was in that dream again.
It was a nondescript, sun-baked field that bore little familiarity to him, though a niggling in the back of his head imbued him with a memory, a false memory, of a battlefield. In this strange timeline, it was here that he had first met the woman who bore the resemblance of Elespeth. She wore her face, adopted her cadence, stole her gait, but she was not Elespeth. She spoke nonsense. Of dreams and of her brother, who was very much alive, of reality...
Debine had told him not to worry when the vivid haunts of his dream world began their harsh pursuit of him, for all that he experienced in that faulty plane was a farce. And if it was only a dream, and he realized it so, then he had the power to change his dreams, and force shut the inexorable stream of his subconscious sludge.
I alone am able to end these nightmares. To rid of these demons who wear the faces of all that I hold dear. I will destroy the masks. I have to...
Alster approached the woman who masqueraded as Elespeth. She appeared so vivid to him, as if he could reach out and touch her skin and feel its inviting warmth. His right hand throbbed in response. He ignored the pulse, but found it odd that a dream should alert him to the tics of his incorporeal body.
"This is not real," he said, his tone flat. He looked beyond her, unable to stare into her fictitious eyes, lest she ensnare him into her dishonest, illusory world of which he wanted no part. "This is not my life. You are nothing. You are only a mask." He drew his hands toward her, palms flat, fingers spread wide. A spiral of etherea twisted and writhed in his hold. His hands trembled, betraying his stolid intentions. "Disappear forever."
Like a tidal wave, the blast of etherea overtook Elespeth, washing her into swirls of sickly blue and bruised purple, eradicating her from his existence, from his dream. From his life. The cyclonic force spun her until she lost form, became the ether, useless stardust in a sky where no stars ever existed. Black, depthless despair without a light to guide her home. She was gone.
But something in him had traveled with her to that lifeless universe, because when she vanished, he sank to his knees, tears glistening in his eyes.
"I'm sorry." He whispered to no one. To the memory of who he had destroyed. I don't know why...Why am I sorry? Why does this hurt so much?
The throbbing in his hand had ceased.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lysander was moved and disturbed by her tale because it hearkened back to his own failings as a father to his daughter. He could not help but parallel that happenstance, that nightmare event to the way Chara had suffered negligence of his own. It meant that he recognized Lilica as having been a child, just like Chara, as having been someone's daughter. As having been, once upon a time... innocent. Worthy. Because there had been a time when all of that had been true, even if the chthonic caster could hardly recall the details.
But that was then, and this was now. And she would not be so foolish as to misinterpret this man's pseudo-kind words as genuine. Because even if, at one point in her pathetic life, she had been worthy, that was not the case anymore.
And even Lysander was apt to admit that: You are dangerous, Lilica. Dangerous... once worthy, but now dangerous. And wholly undeserving of Chara's affections because of that. He was not wrong, and that was what chaffed Lilica D'Or's fragile hope the most.
"I understand. And I don't disagree with you." Her words fell from her lips slowly, one at a time, and she found she could not look the Rigas caster in the eye. "I am dangerous--I know that I am. But you... surely, you are sound of mind just enough to realize that this is only temporary. It cannot... it will not last. Chara knows this; I know this. So... please." When at last she raised those dark orbs to her soul to meet Lysander's blue gaze, there was nothing but a desperate plea in the way they glinted. No manipulation, no ill-intent; just desperation. "Do what you must, but let us be happy, while we can. Let... me be happy. Because these moments are all I will have to lean on for the rest of my life, however long it lasts. Chara... Chara has helped me feel whole, when I did not think it was possible." Her shoulders sank with a sigh that deflated her lungs. "And Chara is one of a kind. I will... I'll never find this again. Please, let me bask in it, while it lasts..."
Pathetic. There she was, asking--no, begging Chara's father for permission to love his daughter, like some foolish, hopeful suitor. Even though what she had with Chara, whatever was between them... it was not forever. And for all she knew, with Alster's return and a reawakening to the reality that was this war, it might already be over.
"I have never asked for a damned thing in this miserable world, this miserable life," she admitted, her throat tightening at the confession. "No doting and loving family and friends, no riches or affluence of any kind, I just... I want to be able to die knowing that, even for just a little while, I lived. Can't you understand that?" Lysander, for all of his misfortunes, was a Rigas. He had already lived, and there was still hope for his future. He could never understand the looming shadow that waited, just up ahead, for her to inevitably catch up to it. "Chara is the only person who has ever been there for me, despite... despite everything that I am. I know I can never be part of her future, so at least... just let me be part of her present. Just let me pretend, for a little bit longer, that sooner than later, all of this will not merely be a memory to help lull me to sleep at night when the sky is at its darkest. Allow me this much."
Lilica's face felt hot, and her eyes felt moist, and so as to not have Lysander see her tears, she stood and turned on her heel, leaving him behind in the infirmary. She was not ten paces away from the building before she encountered the haughty, blonde woman who had been the previous topic of conversation.
"Chara?" With a quick swipe of her sleeve, wiped the tears from her eyes, forgetting that they had been lined with kohl. "What's the matter? Are you..." The dark caster's shoulders slumped and she pressed a sigh from her chest a she caught a hold of Chara's arms. "You are drunk. And... wait, what are these? What happened?"
Lilica recognized those marks on her companion's arms. Not long ago, she had sought treatment for exactly the same affliction, though to a much greater extent. But who, in their right mind, would have attacked Chara Rigas with celestial magic? "The Clematis healer is weak and resting," she informed the inebriated and distraught Rigas caster. "Let us find the Sybaian. She can redirect us to someone else if you do not wish to have her treat you. In the meantime..."
Her eyes grew intense, protective, and fierce as she gripped Chara's arm tighter. "Who did this to you?"
Why was he looking at her like she was a threat?
Elespeth was at a loss at what to do... This wasn't supposed to be happening. Alster shouldn't be acting this way, on this peaceful, warm day, where they should have been in one another's arms. Not... not at arms. "Alster?" The Atvanian warrior breathed his name, searching that usually kind face for any trace of the affection that she had thought she'd known.
He didn't believe she was real. And he wanted he gone, by any means possible. "But I am real," she tried to tell him, wanting to reach out, touch him, embrace him. "I'm right here. Why... why are you doing this?"
She would never know, for no sooner did she voice her question that her body was engulfed by magic from his hands. It hurt... I burned, it seared, it stung. And when Elespeth opened her eyes in the waking world, she could still feel it.
Falling from the bench and onto her knees, she coughed violently, so violently that she vomited onto the dirt. But as opposed to stomach bile, it was blood that spilled from her lips and darkened the earth beneath her hands. And her left hand, once bearing a sacred scar, now bled freely, the wound having reopened, somehow, beyond her awareness.
It didn't take long for her wracked body to succumb to the pain and the damage it entailed, and moments later, her eyes closed for a second time, as her body collapsed upon the cool earth.
This time, she did not dream.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Those eyes of obsidian, the smoked glass of them, plumed a great cloud from within. Movement. Churning. A storm of a different intent. It did not develop to destroy, to feel power by subjugating the weak. It was a storm of crossed winds, tearing not the ground but itself in twain.
She was lost. Lost, in the dark, the sky a blanket of clouds, bereft of stars. And then, she saw one, breaking from the tapestry. It was dim. It blinked feebly, struggling to escape its imprisonment. Her guiding star, trying so hard to reach her, to see her home. That, too, was what he saw in her eyes. She had glimpsed the star and never wanted to lose sight of it again. And he, too, had his share in losses, was in the midst of such loss, himself. He understood the necessity of following that star. Mariana is gone. Mizar is gone. The clouds have thickened and I can no longer see them. No shine. Nothing for me. But, Chara is not gone. And Lilica...
Happiness.
A chance for happiness.
She abruptly rose to her feet and twisted away from his gaze. Then, he saw it. A glint. Another glint. Down her face, fresh tears. He bit the inside of his cheek, not knowing what to say, how to react, if he should invest further sympathy for this suspicious chthonic mage, this dangerous woman, who was so intimately involved with his daughter. Where did he stand? Did he know enough to bear an opinion?
He hadn't time to offer her a response when she breezed from his bedside and out the door. Just as well; he didn't know if he would be able to articulate what swarmed around in his thoughts, waiting for release--but he still did not yet know if he should condone any of this behavior at all. Still, he felt those words, and repeated them in his head.
Go, Lilica. Bask in it.
In her mad dash to the infirmary, Chara had fallen several times, skinning her knees into a crosshatch of dirt and blood. Her dress had torn around the hem and sleeves in several places, and unsightly brown streaks ran down the front of the breezy, light-blue gown. She had sweat profusely in the short time she traveled, the kohl blotting her face like chimney soot, her hair in messy clumps and fusing to her forehead. Her breath reeked of a sweet-sour fermentation. She tenderly cupped her arms, taking care not to agitate the area where the burn blisters popped and raised her skin like a relief map.
She saw Lilica appear from the infirmary doors, and limped over to her, almost teetering to the ground in her rush to reunite, but the dark mage had steadied her upright with the cool press of her hands. She wanted to relax there at Lilica's side, but her eyes blazed and her breath caught in her throat and she tried to concentrate on the words. The words. The words...
"El...Elespeth," she said, struggling to maintain an even pitch. "She grabbed me, and my arms burned. She used celestial magic. But how..." Alarm halted her discourse at mention of the Sybaian. "No! No. Not her. I would rather not seek treatment at all. But inside. Back inside. I have a feeling that the healers know. Know something...
Together, they walked back through the doors. They bypassed Lysander's bed; she was not yet ready to see him, especially in this state. She covertly covered her arms as they slunk by. He saw them, but did not say anything.
At the far end of the infirmary, close to where Alster's prone body had lay, Chara discovered the Clematis healer, in bed but awake, sipping a mug of cold tea. He glanced at the Rigas caster, then at her unsavory burns, a twitch of an expectant smile on his mouth.
"Well," he set down his tea, "it matters not that I am infirm. There is no rest for the wicked, and I must have done a great wrong."
"No, I do not require your healing," she dismissed with a bark. "A salve will do for now. But," she raised her arms, displaying the nature of the hand-shaped burn scars, "the warrior. With celestial magic...she...care to shed any light on this anomaly?"
"I think you know." He jerked his head toward the sleeping Alster.
Chara paled. "She can use his magic?! Even with a blood bond, how is that possible for one who does not possess any magical ability!?"
"Exactly what I want to investigate," he said, then, frowning, he squinted at a dark blotch that covered Alster's hand; it was not there before, when last he looked. It was blood, fresh blood. It streamed from an open wound, saturating his palm with its dark carmine glow. "Do me a favor, Rigas. Lift his hand, there. He has sustained a sudden injury."
Turning toward her unconscious betrothed, Chara started when she saw the blood pooling across his palm. She lifted his wrist, carefully, the wound emulating from a very specific scar that she had recalled, when it was first inflicted and wrapped in gauze. "That is his blood oath scar. Why is it...why is it bleeding!?"
Elias leaned far over his cot, pausing in contemplation. Then, with a resigned sigh, he kicked off his sheets and pushed himself to his feet. They creaked in protest, and shivered against his shins, but he ignored their ails. He could not say the same for the feverish headache he sustained, which wrenched and wrung him like a wet rag, shuddering a shaky breath from his rattling lungs. He reached for his medical kit and approached Alster's bedside.
"One of you, awaken Daphni." He dipped his hands in the nearby wash-basin, and dried them with a cloth. "Then, I need the two of you to go out and find the warrior. Bring her here, even if she does not wish to come. You should not have an issue, however." He cleaned and pressed at Alster's wound. "I am certain she is unconscious."
"How do you know?"
Elias peered at the scar from beneath all the blood. "There is something wrong with their blood bond. It seems to be rejecting itself. I do not know why. That is why I need Daphni. And here." He handed Chara a small tin. "For your burns. It will do for now."
Once they had roused Daphni and set off from the infirmary to locate Elespeth, Chara, who seemed to have sobered up in all ways but physically, leaned against Lilica's shoulder, her eyes wide and numb and too bewildered to express her requisite outrage. She bordered on sobs, and choked back the contractions that applied pressure to her eyes and nose and throat. "I do not know what is happening, Lilica. The warrior tells me that Alster is under a chthonic curse. That he is dreaming peaceful dreams. It sounds like the same curse that you placed on yourself. Is it possible...can you help him? Do you," rogue tears streamed down her face, "do you know how? Before it's too...do you think he is dying? If their blood bond is..." a sob caught in her throat, "are they dying!?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"It makes sense, I suppose," she conceded with a sigh, one hand still gently resting upon the uninjured flesh of Chara's arm. "Blood magic is strong, and rapt with consequences that affect everyone differently. They can seldom be predicted... but what right that woman thinks she has to use magic that isn't her own is beyond me."
The chthonic caster didn't realize just how true her observation was. Furrowing her brows at Elias's request to lift Alster's wrist, her eyes widened at the scarlet stream that trickled from his palm. "What do you mean, the blood bond had... rejected itself?" Unlike Chara, she asked moreso out of curiosity than panic. Alster Rigas meant far less to her than her blonde companion. "Blood ties such as that, they're... They're permanent. Irrevocable, from what I understand, to the very moment of death..."
Oh no.
"We'll find Daphni, and the warrior," Lilica assured Elias, before steering Chara out of the infirmary. They found Daphni (who looked about as weary as the Clematis healer) and woke her with ease, though she made no complaint, either way. Chara was sober, by then (at least it seemed such), though the dark caster was beginning to think that it might have been better--or, at least, easier--to keep her under the lull of alcohol. The Rigas mage's apprehension was literally palpable, radiating off of her skin in shivers and tensions, and no amount of touch or doting, on Lilica's part, would make it go away.
"Chara, we cannot jump to conclusions." She kept an arm around Chara's shoulders, keeping her close, despite the difficulty that the notable differences in their height introduced. "Something is amiss, and we will figure it out, that I can promise. And we aren't alone in it... as much as I know you loathe accepting the aid of the Sybaian healer, she is more capable than we are at solving this issue. And she has already worked successfully with Alster."
Lilica was not merely directing her words to placate her companion; she believed them, and believed that there was--or could be--hope. Until Chara divulged what Elespeth had told her, about Alster's affliction being that of a chthonic curse. And not just any curse, but the same that she had cast upon herself...
Suddenly, that star of hope did not shine so bright.
Not believing in false hope, herself, Lilica was not of the mind to bestow such falsehood on Chara, and was more than a little relieved when the Sybaian healer spoke up, breaking up the conversation at just the right moment. "For one, I can hear every word you're saying," Daphni sighed. "And for another, though this means little to you, I am no longer affiliated with the Sybaia. But that is not to say that I can't be of help. Now," turning her head, she glanced at Chara. "Where was the last place you saw the warrior?"
The trio traversed Rigas territory, in search of Elespeth on the grounds near Chara's villa, where the warrior had last been seen by the haughty blonde. It did not take them long to long to spot the commotion, as they neared the gardens behind the grand array of estates. A small crowd gathered and murmured anxiously, all looking at something--or someone--on the ground. "Move. Let us through." Pushing aside two Rigas casters (at least Daphni could only assume that they were, given the disgusted countenances their faces registered), the former Sybaian healer was not surprised to find Elespeth lying, unconscious, in the grass. What caused her concern was the blood that stained the herb, as well as her clothes. Something was very, very wrong...
"She isn't breathing." Biting her lower lip in frustration, she turned her attention to the useless onlookers. "She needs to be brought to the infirmary immediately. If I can do anything at all, then I have a feeling my window of opportunity is a small one."
When there was no response from the morbidly curious men in the gathering, Lilica raised her voice, one arm around Chara's waist, without even thinking what that might cause others to wonder. "Whether or not this woman lives or dies might very well effect the outcome of your war, you foolish imbeciles," she hissed, and only then did anyone bother to take action. One of the men hoisted Elespeth off the ground and hurriedly accompanied the trio back to the infirmary, where she was laid upon a cot next to Alster. Sure enough, her hand bled from its scar; the only difference was in the fact that Alster's chest rose and fell with breath. Elespeth's did not.
"She's dying," Daphni hurriedly explained to Elias, who--thankfully--had remained in bed to recuperate from his episode. "But I think there is still time. She's a warrior, and the Sybaia can tend to warriors better than any other walk of life. I need space, and for the love of everything good, I need patience."
"It will be all right," Lilica murmured to an anxious Chara, of whom she had not let go this whole time. "Look: the warrior but might not be breathing, but Alster still is... if their blood bond has somehow rejected itself, then they are likely not bonded anymore. Not enough to be a risk to one another's lives." The message was clear: although Alster still slept (perhaps eternally, for he showed no signs of deterioration), whatever the outcome of the warrior's life might not affect him, even if Daphni was unsuccessful.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She kept all her burdensome hostility, which served no place in their hunt and "rescue" of Elespeth, to herself, which also meant that she clamped her tongue--also to prevent a cry from escaping her lips. To stopper the tears before they had the chance to flow.
They found the pitiful warrior, and after the crowd had dispersed (and after she punctuated Lilica's command to the Rigas bystanders with an authoritative glare as if to say I endorse her words; move aside), they saw the vision of the warrior, in a pool of blood and red-colored vomit. Chara traced the messy trail with one eye open, differentiated the two substances and their consistencies, and saw that she too bore an open wound on her hand.
Together, they, and the man who carted her with care, returned to the infirmary. The Clematis healer, who had patched up Alster's injury in the interim, waited for them on his cot. He did not return to a horizontal position; rather, he sat upon the edge, feet positioned wide and apart, in case he needed to spring to attention at any moment. Upon seeing the warrior laid on the empty bed beside Alster, he did so, striding over to the bedside and ignoring the pointed look given to him by the former Sybaian healer. He felt for the warrior's vitals, checked her breathing, turned her over to clear her mouth of any residual blood and vomit, and nodded grimly to Daphni's assessment.
"She is," he said, and his frown intermixed with a twitch in his eyes that bespoke of something greater than withdrawn displeasure. He appeared worried. The mask had cracked, almost imperceptibly, but it had cracked nonetheless. Elias sidled closer to Daphni, lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are you prepared for this? I know there is little else we can do for her, but should you fall, I doubt I will have the strength to pick you up." He did not condone this hopeless foray, but Elespeth was, much as she resisted, his patient, and if to help her was to pass her along to a specialist capable of tending to her specific needs, then he needed to accept the course of fate--however treacherous that course.
He rested a hand on Daphni's shoulder, a gesture so foreign to him, for it suggested something akin to camaraderie, and support beyond the physical realm. With that hand, he gently pushed her aside. "Let me at least clean her. Prepare yourself. I should be done by the time you are ready."
While Elias wiped away the detritus of bodily fluids from the warrior's mouth and arms and hands, Chara had taken an involuntary seat on Alster's bed. She weaved her fingers through his bandaged hand, feeling such warmth radiate from him, even from beneath the bindings. He was alive, his aura so vibrant, his breathing healthful and steady. Perhaps eradicating himself from the blood bond had, in a way, liberated him--but she dismissed the idea as pure, fantastical folly. It was due to the curse. In his dream world, nothing disturbed him. She half wondered what chimerical fancy he had cooked for himself. Was it an idealized version of his own life, or a brand new slate? Was it Stella D'Mare, or a bucolic retreat like Lilica's village, an impossibility to behold in reality? Did...did she exist in there? And if she did...what was her role? What did she mean to him? And...no doubt a dream-world version of myself is some benign little yes-woman who speaks nothing but compliments and unerring support. ...No wonder why Alster did not wish to leave. If he could reside in a place where he experienced nothing but the best of his home, his life, and of the people he cherished, what then, awaited him in the waking world, with its half-formed, ugly specters that served as people and nothing but the belligerence of war?
No matter what, awaking him to the truth, to the nightmare from which he could never shake, would shatter him.
She looked over at Lilica, who joined her where she sat. Pulling her hand away from Alster, she set it back, like a dead weight, upon her lap. "I do not think it will be all right," she said, with difficulty. "Even if Alster does not die, if the warrior dies, then he is as good as dead. How else will he awaken? She represents the purest of memories for him. The one person who does not bring him so much pain. She is his happiness, and his hope. Tell me," her voice was almost inaudible as she fiddled with her fingers, ignoring the sting of her burns, "there really is nothing you can do for Alster, is there? This dream curse...it cannot be expelled...can it?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Lilica had cursed herself in hopes that she would die in peace, not live a perfect and undisturbed life for seventy years, only to wake up and realize that none of it had been real. But in her haste and desperation, all fueled by such a helpless self-loathing, she had failed to take note of the details of such an intricate and dangerous magical affliction. She had broken the curse by dying in her fictitious life... decades and decades later.
"I... don't know," she sighed, unable to meet Chara's desperate blue eyes. "The curse is supposed to kill. But I did something wrong... and I lived. The same seems to have happened to Alster, or else he would be dead by now. He is in a stasis, trapped by his own mind, and short of living out that life of his thathe dreams..." Lilica shook her head. "I do not think it is impossible it break the curse sooner, I just... I do not know how. Chara..." Her voice grew soft. "I'm sorry. I am useless to you."
That left Daphni to help, to work her expert magic and keep the warrior's soul from passing over. Which would be no easy task; not when she had seemed to have given up on life before she had fallen. It would be taxing, and even if she was successful, she would be completely out of commission for at least a day, with few who would know how to properly care for her, if Elias was too weak and her former sisters were not present. This will hurt me. And I don't know how I will recover...
But Alster Rigas had been her patient since she had helped to rekindle his celestial magic. She had no choice but to do what she could for him.
"I don't know," the former Sybaia confided in her Clematis comrade. There was no room or time for lies and deceptions. "I don't know how I will fare, but I need to do something. I think I can bring her back; her life is passing slowly. You cannot concern yourself with what happens to me. But... I do not think that this will be successful if I make this foray alone."
Daphni turned to Chara, who looked a wreck in Lilica's arms. This was a long shot, perhaps downright useless... but there was no one present who knew Elespeth as much as Chara. "Rigas caster," she addressed the explosive blonde with a calm countenance and a nod of respect. "I realize your terms with the warrior are not positive. But I alone cannot bring her back from the brink of death. What can is the transformation of animosity into kindness... So if you possess so much as a modicum of kindness for this fallen warrior, then I need your help. I need you to bring it forth, and help me bring her back."
It did not help that Chara's opinion of the Sybaia was vile and rapt with hatred and mistrust. But as this was already far from an ideal situation, they were forced to work with whatever they could, and to make the impossible, possible. "This will not harm you. A foray to the depth of someone else's soul is far from the treatment that your mother endured," she added, in a gentler cadence. "I alone will endure repercussions, as I will serve as the conduit. You will simply be present... to help coax Elespeth's soul back to the world of the living. If she is the key to waking Alster, then your help is imperative, Chara Rigas."
Holding out her hands, she offered them to the distraught woman, hope glistening in her eyes. "Take my hands, if you agree to this. We can prepare for the foray together."
"Farrin?" Elespeth breathed his name as her brother sat before her, in a grassy knoll surrounded by sun and flowers. Much like before, in that dream... that awful, awful dream... "Are you really here? Please, please tell me this is not a dream. I tire of dreams, and I... I need you. I'm tired, I am lost... I do not know what to do."
Heart aching with hope, she encircled her brother in an embrace, and felt the welcoming warmth of his arms around her in turn. "I'm so tired, Farrin... I'm alone. I want... I want to be where you are. I am so, so sorry..." Pressing her face into his shoulder, the former Atvanian knight squinted her eyes against threatening tears. "I hope you can forgive me for what happened. It should have been me. Not you. It should have been me..."
Daphni and Chara were present for the exchange, but said nothing, and kept out of sight, as per Daphni's orders. "We must tread very carefully, Chara. What you are seeing is the raw and pure manifestation of Elespeth's soul... one that has already endured much trauma." She was not wrong; Elespeth's body was riddled with bruises and lacerations, none of which the warrior seemed to be aware. "When we are born into this world, our souls are pure, untouched. But life takes its toll," she explained quietly, nodding to Elespeth. "What we say and do now can easily add to those wounds, so we must take care with everything we say and do. We have until the sun sets... and then her soul will pass."
Already, the sky had reached a late phase of afternoon; Elespeth had been dying for a while, already. But she had yet to take Farrin's hand and join him in the land of the dead.
It was not too late. But a single mistake... and it would be.
"Tell her why she must return to us," she instructed Chara, laying a hand upon her shoulder. "But be gentle. Go; time is of the essence."
"Chara?" Elespeth looked up upon the Rigas mage's approach... and she smiled. As if there had never been poison between them. "This is my older brother, Farrin. He helped me to become a knight... I owe him more than I can possibly articulate. We are going to watch the sunset..." Her tired, green eyes turned skyward, as it began to shift from afternoon to evening at an accelerated pace. "Apparently, it is beautiful, here..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But before she could succumb to the welter of tears that thrashed behind her eyes, churning for release, the healer who had claimed dissociation from the Sybaia clan approached her--and the muscles in her body had tensed. Every reflex wanted to weave her fingers against Daphni's throat and watch her struggle, helpless, with the throes of inevitable death. But this was no time to exact her revenge. She, therefore, forced away, best as she could, her misgivings with the former Sybaia and allowed the woman to convince her to...no! She wanted her to come along!?
"I am hardly the correct candidate for this excursion!" she babbled with the pointed underlay of outrage. "I hold no positive opinions for the warrior; I daresay I will expedite her passing! And you honestly feel that..." but her argument petered into dust, when she heard the deep, syncopated breathing of Alster beside her, adrift in a realm where only one person could ever hope to reach him: the warrior. I still love you, Alster. I do this for you. And only you.
"Very well," she said coldly as she brushed herself to her feet. She buried her anxiety under layers of bombast and smoldering poise."But if I should die," she thumbed over to Lilica, "she will most likely kill you. And my desiccated corpse will condone it."
She stepped over to Daphni, in the spot where Elias once inhabited. He looked upon them, but took one last, lingering glance at the healer, his tight-lipped expression hiding a reckless smirk wherein lingered a promise to himself: Daphni will live. He said nothing, only crossed his arms and nodded at the two intrepid explorers ready for their soul cleansing mission. Only, he could no longer belittle the procedure, or make light of it, having experienced its effectiveness, himself. He wished them well, but dared not voice his sentiments aloud.
Worry trembling at her fingertips, her heart trundling along at an unsteady gait, Chara slid towards the healer, not trusting her feet to pick themselves off the ground. She surged forward and practically threw her hands atop Daphni's. Her eyes closed tight against her skull, and she prepared for the worst.
Farrin seemed to have stepped out of the sun, itself. His silhouette shimmered in the orange and yellow rays that laid streaks across his armored shoulders, and brought out the red highlights of his chestnut-colored hair. He sat down, and his smile, while filled with sunny joy to see her, was also colored with the dying light of sadness.
"I am as 'here' as I'll ever be." He rested a hand over her arm, pressing a weight upon it that dreams, in all their flights and wistfulness, did not usually bear.
"Remember when I took you for a ride in the countryside, back when I was first knighted?" He looked to the sun, squinted against the light. "The crown had gifted me with my own horse, that feisty bay that no one wanted. Naturally, they passed the problem over to me. I thought I could handle her, and I thought that I did. That was the day I shamelessly brought you along. And how that horse bucked and kicked, threw us to the ground and galloped off with our saddlebags. With all that we possessed during that venture. But we still made the best of it. We built a fire, we caught some rabbits to cook, and we watched the most brilliant sunset on the bluffs. Much like this one." He traced the contours of that radiant celestial sphere with his free hand. "By the morning, the bay had returned. We spoke not a word of our misadventure to our parents. Our little secret, hmm?" He smiled again and bumped against her shoulder with his own.
"How then, could I ever have thought to condemn you? My own dear sister. My accomplice. Keeper of all my blunders and secrets. It was never your fault. I want you to know that. Whether we walk together in this sunset or we walk alone, know this: it never should have been you. It was always meant to be me. And I am happy. Because you were able to prolong your life and experience something great--even if it was just for a little while longer." He offered her his hand to take. "I forgive you, if you forgive me."
Chara, alongside Daphni, watched this heartfelt filial drama, feeling a sense of cloying dread ripple up her spine. How could she compete with this scene: the warrior beside her brother, swapping stories of their youth as they perched at the end of time, basking in the glory of the dying sun? What did Daphni expect of her, the culmination of all the hatred and resentment she had inflicted on the unwanted warrior? Kindness? Pah! Had she a kind word? Animosity covered her like scabs. But could she, even for Alster's sake, dredge up even a modicum of sympathy and understanding?
She saw how much life had flung the warrior around by way of her battle scars, deep and bloody and bruised; she saw the sky that quickly sped to its terminus; she saw the brother who wanted to cart his sister away, far, far into a place beyond reaching. And, with a startled blink, she realized that she could sympathize.
I have to.
Chara approached Elespeth just as the bottom half of the sun touched the horizon. She nodded at the brother in question. Murmured a hello. Farrin. The unfortunate casualty in Elespeth's rescue from her own execution.
The sun began its plummet. She flung her attention back to Elespeth, her jaw working, but no words arising. What do I say? How do I say it? How can I be delicate? This woman hurt me so much!? How do I...forgive?
"You...do not go yet, Elespeth," she said, working the sharp edges off her tongue. She crouched down at the warrior's level, and grasped her hands, directing them away from Farrin. "There is someone back home who needs you. If you go now, he will not be able to walk with you into the sunset, when his time comes. He will walk alone, without the one he loves most dear." Unbidden, tears sprung from her eyes. "He is in darkness, Elespeth. He suffers, even if it does not appear as suffering." The sun split itself in half; panic mounted on Chara's tear-streaked face. Her hands tightened over Elespeth's. "Alster. You need to find Alster. Your destiny is with the star, not the sun. Please, you have to help him. You have a reason to live. We all need you to live. He needs you to live. Because..." she closed her eyes, her entire body wracking with the spasms of holding back her grief, and the hard, bitter truth that hesitated at her lips, "you belong together! The two of you belong!" Only the dome of the sun, a mere sliver, remained, plunging them into an eerie gloaming. "Come back with me. Please. You have to, now! Or all will be lost! You will lose each other forever!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She was so tired. And his hand was so inviting, but just before she could fold her fingers against her brother's, Chara's frantic voice broke through her dreary fog. "Chara... why are toy crying?" The Atvanian murmured with concern. "It's a beautiful evening. There's no room for sadness..." And then she mentioned a name that resonated in the crevices and cracks of her broken heart. Alster... Alster needed her? But hadn't he cast her out and away, forever? "But, Chara..." What did she mean, that her destiny was with the star? Did she mean...
They belonged together.
It had never occurred to her as something real until the words came from Chara's mouth. Chara, who hated and condemned her, who would never forgive her for stealing Alster's heart when it had been promised to another. But what Chara did not realize was that the recent turn of events might have changed the status of to whom Alster's heart belonged... or, more specifically, where it belonged. "Alster does not need me anymore," she whispered with a pang of regret. A sliver cut across her cheek, as if by an invisible knife, leaking blood in a thin stream down her face. Another ding to her soul as a result of Alster's rejection. "He has found someone... some place better. Chara, I..." The warrior glanced between her brother and the Rigas caster, torn. Confused. "I am so... tired. Of fighting, of... everything." Closing her eyes, she leaned against Farrin's shoulder, and said, softly, "I want to go home." Home, to where Farrin was. To where family was.
The sky took a turn for dark, and that was when Chara snatched her hands away from Farrin and looked in her eyes, pleading and desperate and so, so sad. And what if she was right? What if Alster was doomed to walk alone, if he ever awoke from that toxic curse? What if she was passing up her last and only chance to help him, the man who had saved her life and tied his own life to hers? Would she be able to walk with Farrin into the warm sunset, unperturbed, uncaring and with a clear conscience? Would the Atvanian warrior truly be able to rest in peace?
She knew the answer to that question. And it twisted her heart like a wet rag.
Turning to Farrin, there were tears in her eyes, and longing drawn on her features. "I... want to go with you, Farrin," she breathed, small rivulets of water streaking her battered face. "But I fear I will never find a way to forgive myself if I do. Can you... will you forgive me? One last time?"
"Elespeth," Daphni, who had stood silent and observant, spoke up at last and extended her fair hand. "We must go, now, if you wish to help Alster."
The decision was not, understandably, an easy one. It meant turning away from a guaranteed sense of peace. It meant turning away from her brother, whose company she had longed for long before she had met Alster, and all the more in his death. It meant returning to a life of even deeper uncertainty, perhaps one condemned to loneliness and wandering. Just like the dark mage, Lilica, never really having a place... never really belonging. To anywhere, or to anyone.
But if it meant saving Alster...
"I'll walk with you, Farrin. One day," she whispered, tears mingling with the blood on her face. "Just... not right now. But one day."
The Atvanian warrior drew breath and opened her eyes all too quickly, plunging into a coughing fit as she sat upright in the cot onto which she had been placed. "Turn her on her side," someone ordered--the Sybaian healer?--at which point a pair of hands (the only useful pair in the room, at the moment) conducted the deed. Cold; they were Lilica's hands.
"She's breathing," the dark mage informed Daphni and Chara, both of whom looked beyond exhausted. "You did it... she's alive."
"Not my doing... Chara's." Daphni was pale, a sheen of sweat coating her face as she pressed her back against the wall and slid to the floor, fighting nausea and vertigo. "Thank you, Rigas caster... I do believe you have awarded Alster a greater chance at revival."
Lilica's altruism towards the warrior did not last, however. Her legs carried her over to Chara, closing the distance between them in a matter of seconds. While her blonde companion was nowhere near resembling the magnitude of exhaustion that the empathic healer expressed, her countenance looked torn, uncertain. As if she was not sure of what she had done was the right thing, or if it would at all make a difference. "You... you are a better person than I could ever hope to be," she murmured quietly, so that only Chara could hear, and longed to kiss her, then and there, to hell with the onlookers and to hell with what her father might think.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She bit her tongue at the tip, stifling herself, but her hands, which twisted and wrung against the warrior's already injured palms, did not silence their movements and had nearly risen to her shoulders, ready to shake her until she said the correct answer. As the sun disappeared, and night rolled out its carpet of stars, she just about did so, but then the former knight had spoken, and she was mystified. Her inane ramblings had worked? Chara loosened her grip and stood back, allowing Elespeth and her brother one final goodbye.
Farrin, in response, settled his hands into his lap, but not before drawing a finger against his sister's tear-filled eyes. While a little disappointed, there was, predominantly, a smile in his eyes that brimmed with hope and understanding. "I'm a patient soul. I am more than willing to wait until you have lived your life to the fullest possible extent. I want to see you live all those years I could not, especially if it is for so noble a cause as for love--something I never experienced, so shackled was I to my country. It is in your power to turn from death." He waggled his fingers toward Chara. "Go on. All is forgiven. And if ever you are lost...I'm still here, Elespeth. ...I'll be waiting, when you are ready..."
His voice faded, and the night faded, as Chara, Daphni, and Elespeth linked their hands together and parted that curtain of twilight, tethering themselves back to the world of the living.
She opened her eyes to the sound of the warrior coughing. She whipped her head around to see, then clutched it with a hiss of agony. The ache bellowed in her ear something fierce, and she almost lost her balance in the process of righting her equilibrium. Luckily, Lilica stood nearby, holding her upright. She pressed into her cool yet comforting embrace.
"Don't think this exonerates you or your clan," she said with a weak hiss towards Daphni, who at the time still kept to her feet "I am only allowing you a temporary pardon. Temporary..." she repeated, half-possessed by the dream state that had absorbed her moments ago. She blinked out of the trance, and discovered that her eyes were moist. Not just in that dream realm, but in reality, too, she had shed tears for this wretched warrior.
"I must look like such a wreck," she whispered to Lilica, but thought little of the implications when she saw Daphni drop to the floor, accompanied by the sounds of Elespeth hacking ugly chords into the air. Despite the ugliness, it was a melodic sound, for it meant that they had reached her in time. She was alive, and Chara, beyond all odds, had something to do with the warrior's recovery.
At once, the Clematis healer rushed through the high traffic area of Elespeth's bed and, after shifting her upright, made her sip an herbal tea that had grown cold from the pot that Daphni had brought for him earlier. Eventually, her cough had subsided enough for Elias to entrust her fully with the tea; in the interim, he checked her vital signs and appraised her with a careful eye and ear to her heart. "You will survive," he said, with a nod of approval. "It looks as though you had suffered a celestial magic attack. This is far from blowback, though I understand you have used some more of Alster's magic." He nodded his head at Chara and the burn blisters that had seared her arms.
He excused himself for a moment as he turned to Daphni, who had slumped to a heap on the floor. "It's my turn," he whispered into her ear as he carefully hoisted her to the nearest available cot, a strategic placement where he could monitor both Elespeth and the former Sybaian without having to breeze between the two spaces and tire his lungs as a result. Half turning to Elespeth, half attentive to Daphni (by way of a healing hand that prepared to pulse a soothing wave of magic over her temples), he cocked his head at the warrior in question.
"Are you well enough to tell us what has happened?"
Chara, having since shuffled from the red-clad whirlwind of the Clematis healer who was supposed to be infirm, lingered between Elespeth's bed and Alster's bed, with Lilica beside her. When she was sure that no attention focused on them, she leaned over and planted a quick kiss on the cththonic mage's mouth. "Later," she whispered, smoothing a gentle hand on her arm, "sleep at my side?"
She did not wait for Lilica's response as she half-hobbled over to Elespeth, her eyes bleary and red, makeup all a-splatter across her face and her arms a bubbled and charred collage. She leaned over the headboard, and looked down at the warrior--not quite knowing what to say...until she saw the supine form of Alster from the corner of her eye. Reaching over, she took his right arm and lifted it, turning his palm and the bloody bandage so that it was in the warrior's view.
"What happened...to your blood bond?" she inquired, an echo to Elias's own query. Her voice was gentle, free of verve and sting, as if about ready to extend an apology of sorts...but it did not yet vibrate from her lips. "But before that, I...well...thank you. For...for returning..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I..." What had happened? First she had been speaking with Chara. Then she had seen Alster... and her brother... What was real? What had been the woven fragments of a dream in her delirious mind? Elespeth was by no means certain her account would even make any sense, let alone convey a modicum of truth regarding what really happened. "I was speaking with Chara... and we were arguing, to the point where I left. I went to the gardens... fell asleep..." Whether it was from clearing her throat or the memory that was still too close to home to be a mere picture in her mind, the warrior winced as she swallowed, making an attempt to strengthen her voice. "And I dreamed... that I saw Alster. But that he... he didn't believe I was real. And so, he banished me. White light from his hands..."
A celestial magic attack... But was it possible? It had only been a dream, and there was no telling whether or not that what she had seem was even the real Alster. But, she hadn't suffered a celestial magic attack at Chara's hands... so what other explanation was there?
Elespeth rubbed her forehead and made a vain attempt to force that image from her mind--an image of Alster's face, cold, distrustful, before he raised his hand to her and she had awoken elsewhere. In a field, with her brother's warm, smiling face... Had that been a dream, as well? "When I opened my eyes again... I saw Farrin. My brother. He is deceased... but he seemed so very much alive. And then..." She raised her tired, green eyes to Chara, who looked like a ghastly image of her former, pristine self, kohl smeared down her face and burns on her arms... in the shape of the fingerprints that she had left when she had pushed the Rigas caster out of the way, during her exit. "You... told me to come back. Because Alster needed me, and now I'm..." Awake. Alive. Useless, exhausted, sore, but alive.
Was that what it felt like to almost die? Had Farrin been... had he been more than just another dream?
"I'm... sorry," she murmured to Chara, eyes locked on the finger-shaped burns with sadness and disbelief. "I didn't... if I am responsible for that, you must know I did not mean it..." And as if wounds and regret did not hurt enough, the Rigas caster turned her attention to her hand--bleeding, stinging, as if someone had torn open her scar with a knife. What was left of her heart sank, anew, at the thought that Daphni voiced from the cot next to her.
"It sounds as though... Alster has severed something in the bond," she mentioned, her voice thoughtful but quiet. "When he attacked you with celestial magic. Deeds such as that can transcend dreams, particularly if... if the individuals are connected."
It wasn't what Elespeth wanted to hear, though that went without saying. Staring at the wall ahead of her without really seeing it, she considered what had happened, the opportunity she had passed up, and whether or it had all been worth it. Farrin... she had seen Farrin. She had made peace with him and that side of her guilt, and, in the end, had had the chance to walk with him again. To be part of something, to be loved and valued unconditionally, once again. To feel as though she had family again, even if it all had to take place in a different world, where no one else could reach her...
Alternatively, she had come back to a wartorn world, with an unconscious mage who she might very well be beyond helping, and who wished to forget her--or whatever version of her he thought she had seen. A world where she belonged to no one, and to nowhere.
Had this really been the right decision?
"I... can please rest?" The request resonated as more of a whimper than a query, as she leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. "I'm sorry..."
Lilica, who had remained obediently silent up until then, interpreted the warrior's gestures as a valid enough cue to gently pull Chara aside. "You should rest, as well. Run yourself a bath and be off of your feet for a while," she suggested, wiping away some of the Rigas caster's smeared make-up with the tip of her sleeve. Everyone else was fortunately too preoccupied with Alster and Elespeth to take notice. "You needn't worry about tonight... you know I will be there. But," she lowered her voice to a whisper, meeting the azure gems that were Chara's eyes. "I can be here for you, now, if you need me..."
And with everyone speaking of rest, Daphni would not pass up the chance to have her own say. The former Sybaian healer grabbed Elias's wrist as he presented a healing pulse to her temples, eyeing him both wearily and with judgement. "You should, by no means, be doing this right now..." She whispered, her mouth turning downward in displeasure. "I'll be fine in a day. Do not overexert yourself, lest Alster or the warrior need your assistance."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
So it has all been for naught. She dropped Alster's arm, a bit brusquely, back to his side. The hand lolled over, that wicked injury turning outward, towards them. Despite the grim relation of events, a rueful smile loosened the strain in Chara's grinding jaws. Oh Alster. If you ever wake up, and find out what you have done to your precious knight...you will hate yourself for all eternity. That smile quickly transferred into a wobbly line wherein it tried to seal away that pressing need to cry. She swallowed her dry spittle, hardly enough to slide down her throat without causing an uvular thresh of pain in the back of her mouth.
Before she took her leave, to depart with Lilica and offer the warrior her much-needed rest, Chara dared to open that mouth she so ardently kept shut. She did not regret helping to restore this woman's life, even if it meant little in saving Alster from his apocryphal reality. Bond or no bond, they were still connected with invisible, almost imperceptible, threads. So long as they were both alive, there existed the possibility that the two would again reunite. Together. Alive and awake. In the realm that served as their home.
"Oh, I do think you meant it," Chara said in response to the warrior's apology. But she shrugged her shoulders, a dismissive gesture. She would not press the matter--for now, at least. "What I said to you in your dream, Elespeth," she paused, an uneasiness creeping over her cheeks, "I meant it. Alster does need you; he cannot see beyond his own garish desires and fantasies to escape this wonderland of his. I imagine it is much like wrenching you from that reunion with your brother. That, too, is what Alster faces; you represent the outside world with all its faults and tragedies--and he does not respond well to the tugging. He is not rejecting you. He is rejecting reality, because it is too painful for him to bear. Not when pitted beside something so impossibly idealistic and perfect." She checked on a blister. Flinched when she marked the surface with her fingertip. "This must be so very confusing for him. Please, forgive him--for placing you in this condition. For hacking away at the blood bond. But I do know that you must understand. Otherwise, you would not have returned."
She tugged at Lilica's sleeve. Together, they wandered out of the infirmary--taking the longer course to avoid her father. She would visit him. But not in her sorry state; it would upset him all the more.
They returned to her villa. She closed the door, reveling in the clicking sound of the mechanism as it locked shut. She breezed past the shattered glass and the wine dribbling from the walls. She headed towards the bath, but only made it halfway before she fell to her knees, clutched her hair in her hands, and rocked into a choking sob.
"Lilica," she cried, midst her tears. Threw a hand out for her to take. "I do not...I do not know...What do I do? How do I..." she twisted her hair with her occupied hand, yanking at the roots, "what am I supposed to do!?"
Back in the infirmary, Elias yanked his hand free from Daphni's iron hold, folded them behind his back, and floated over to Elespeth's bed with naught but a staid glare in the former Sybaia's direction. He fixed the warrior's bed, patched up her bleeding scar, turned her carefully under the sheets, filled another mug full of the bitter tea for her, and guided her into sleep with a gentle pulse of magic.
The second she closed her eyes, he whirled on Daphni and marched at once to her bed. "I have given them my assistance. My bed is beside theirs; they will have my watch. But in the meantime," he positioned his hand over her head, once more, allowing his magic to flow forth, "I must finish what I have started. I have done this so often for you. There is no challenge; no opportunity to overexert myself. Perhaps if you carried a brain in that head of yours," his lips smacked with that sarcastic, teasing flourish, "I would experience some form of exhaustion as a result." He raised a hand into a mock toast, holding an invisible goblet as he announced: "Blessed are the empty minds, for they shall never be filled."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Over here," The chthonic caster guided her distraught companion towards her bathing chamber, on the realization that Chara was just moving blindly, without purpose or interest. "I will fetch someone to run a--"
Chara collapsed like a fallen tree, shaking with sobs that stifled her words and turned them into incomprehensible sounds. "Chara... listen. Listen to me." Feeling helpless and beyond worried for her hostess--her friend--, Lilica knelt to her level and encircled her body with her arms, embracing her with whatever warmth she could muster... which wasn't much. She would be of little help... "What is happening is not within your control. It isn't within anyone's, not even the warrior's. You cannot put this upon yourself..."
Whether or not her words would get through to her, the dark caster felt as though she needed to say something, even if words would not suffice. Just then, as her eyes scanned the room as if for some solution to this impossible issue, she took notice of a housekeeper, hovering in the doorway, likely wondering whether it might be best just to come back and perform her duties later on.
Lilica was not about to let her get off that easily, even if Chara was a mess of tears and make-up, just a few feet from her own bathroom.
"Don't just stand there like a mute fool," the dark mage hissed, putting on an intimidating face-which was not by any means difficult. "Run her a hot bath immediately! Whatever other duties you typically perform can be suspended until later." While far from eligible to make that call to someone attending a Rigas, Chara's pitiful and alarming state must have struck a chord of urgency in the maid servant, who immediately rushed to obtain hot water to fill the claw-footed, porcelain tub in the extraordinarily decorated bathroom. Meanwhile, Lilica gently urged Chara to her feet, but it became apparent that gentle murmurings were not getting through to the hysterical celestial caster. It was with reluctance that the dark mage introduced a bite to her voice.
"Get up, Chara Rigas. Enough of this; you know you are stronger than that. Come on." Grabbing her from under the arms, it was a miracle that Lilica managed to haul her distraught hostess to her feet and lead her into the brightly lit bathing chamber, filled with windows that allowed for and reflected the day's natural sun rays. "You're not going to be able to think straight until you calm down. Get a hold of yourself, and get into that bath. I promise you'll feel better."
Lilica was not a particularly impatient person, but when her companion exhibited no effort or motivation to follow instructions and undress, she took the task upon herself without a second thought. Pressing her lips into a firm line, bashfulness was not even a passing thought in her mind when she unbuttoned the Rigas caster's tunic from the front, eased it over her shoulders and helped her to step out of her boots and trousers. With her mind set on the task and not directly the individual in question, she then led Chara into the warm water of the bath, grabbed a sponge and proceeded to drench her tense shoulders in the soothing heat of the water. "You can be insufferable sometimes, you know that?" She sighed, but there was little wind left in her irate state of mind. Chara might have been insufferable, but she was also suffering. "Think like the Chara Rigas that I know and love. Use your ability to reason. Not all is lost, not yet... You must have faith in that blasted warrior, or you would not have brought her back. You know this, whether you choose to believe it or not."
There was little else for Daphni to argue after Elias tended the warrior in the bed two cots down from her own. He had done his part, but he insisted on finishing his endeavor to help her recover. Such a stubborn, hypocritical fool... "You would rake me over hot coals if I made the effort to help someone when I was hardly done recovering myself," she murmured with a glare, too weak to raise her voice. But the frustration was there. "You should practice what you preach, Clematis. You yourself have expressed concern and defeat over your condition. I will be fine; you should make some of that tea for yourself and continue to rest your body, and if your head had any semblance of a brain, then that is exactly what you would be doing."
What was it about this strange tag-team type relationship that the two had developed? Why did it feel so natural to delegate tasks between one another, yet just as quickly, run to help the other, regardless of one's current condition? Daphni could not begin to divine where Elias's hypocrisy stemmed from, let alone her own penchant for helping when she herself might be in need of help. It came from more than duty, more than martyred altruism, and more than necessity. In the end, it might end up burning the both of them out completely like expired stars, and yet, they persisted.
This was something for which the Sybaia had never prepared her, this blind sense of dedication and commitment. One that rendered the both of them equally guilty for defying their own rules, ones for which they constantly condemned one another.
The world, it seemed, could not be divined through reading auras. "Though I suppose, if the both of us were not idiots," she went on with a slow grin, "we would be dead, by now."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
This small comfort shut down her greater awareness. Safe. She was safe with this woman, yet the rest of the world--she wanted nothing of it. She ignored it all, and focused only on that guiding force, following her through the fog and the pall, surrendering to her will and to her leadership. For once, she wanted someone to order her into some semblance of herself. Even more important, she wanted someone to take care of her. Lilica had done the deed, though Chara was still drifting between reality and a limbo state, where she felt like she had died instead of Elespeth. The two had traded lives in that place where the sun set, and she no longer owned a corporeal form. But somehow, Lilica could still see and interact with her spirit.
When at last she had blinked into full awareness, she was sitting in a hot bath. A sponge floated in the air before her, until she watched, through the reconstruction of her vision, a hand materialize, which had held that canary yellow object before her face. The sponge streamed with small rivulets of water. She heard the drip drip drop hit the tub and make grandiose ripples at chest-level. She smelled the perfume of roses waft into her nose and some stray petals float like little floral boats in the gentle flow of the current. But above all, she felt pain. An acidic, branding, feverish stab scampered up her arms, and she shuddered from the coursing wave of fire, which scalded in the water, which painted blooms in her eyes, which caused her to cry out, but for a different reason than her racking sobs from earlier.
She shot her head to her right. To Lilica. Lifting her arms out of range from the sponge, she viewed those finger-shaped burns anew, and grimaced.
"What a capital idea, Lilica. Wash my burning arms in piping hot water," she seethed, and tried to stand out of the tub, but the steam from the water weakened her body and she ended up wading back into the tub, clutching the ballooning sensation in her light-headed crown.
"Why are you even...how did I end up in this tub? No matter," she sighed, and nodded over to her bundle of clothes on the floor across the room. "Fetch me the salve that the Clematis healer gave me. It is in my tunic pocket." It was short-lived, that distraught dream-state, but whether from the agitation of her burns or from her own subconsciousness poking her in the brain, she woke up to realize that she still wanted to be in charge. And she still wanted control.
"After this, I am taking a long, well-deserved nap. You are...you are welcome to join me," she added, and she mustered a coy little smile in turn. "Whatever you ended up doing while I was incapacitated...I appreciate your efforts, even if they were a little misguided." She looked again to her pink and red mottled, blister-ridden arms.
"Oh yes," Elias said, lowering the imaginary goblet that his hand had clutched. "This toast is for me, as well. In addition to my own infirmity, I have contracted some abscess in the brain from continued exposure to you. Yes, I have abandoned many of my practices." He drew his healing hand from her head to her chest, soothing her palpitations, the uneven thumping of her pulse. "It is for this reason, Daphni: you are needed here. You have a specialization that is in great demand to the Rigases. It is therefore imperative that you remain in good health at all times. Not so for me." He snatched his hand back to his side after completing his process.
"I must aid you, but in so doing, my aid will only tax me further and contribute to the worsening of my illness. That is a fact. And it is unavoidable, considering our specific circumstances in this war. If I am not long for this world, and if I cannot find any remedies to stave off this accursed cough in time, then," he clasped his hands behind his back, hiding from Daphni the anxious fiddling of his fingers, "I will help you to succeed by becoming the biggest idiot possible."
He swept his empty mug from the floor, poured himself the last of the cold-tea remedy, and began to sip the bitter substance. "I suggest you rest. Rest whenever you can. Who knows what sordid drama awaits us next? Meanwhile, I will fetch myself more herbs for my tea," he said, tipping his mug off to her.
Once he left the infirmary, and the door shut tight behind him, he tore out his handkerchief and a monstrous cough, one that could not be slayed by the drinking of his tea, roared out of his throat, spitting large gobs of blood onto his already blood-stained cloth.
Later that day, when night fell across the Rigas estate and the rest of the city prepared themselves for slumber, Haraldur, accompanied by Vitali and the four caster entourage, appeared at the gilt and iron gates of that grand crown that lorded over the top of the mountain. Their route through the city, instead of a particular shortcut that the casters made mention to but chose not to detail as they looked, nervous, at the well-dressed chthonic mage, delayed their projected arrival. They reached their destination well into the evening instead of earlier that day, which played in their favor; the curtains of night better shielded them from would-be spies or from the curious-minded, who were more apt to make note of suspicious beings like this disturbingly cordial man who Haraldur suspected to be into the necromantic arts. He wore death like those tailored robes of his, and if the warrior himself could sense it, then no doubt the magically-gifted could detect this sinister being with ease.
Before their party was allowed through the gates, one of the Rigas envoys in the group engaged with the gatekeeper, handing him a letter that was written and signed by Canopus, himself. They had to wait for the gatekeeper to run off to inform their leader and ask permission for clearance, which took over an hour. In that time, Haraldur stood aside, cleaning his weapons and finding means to ignore whatever incessant chatter spilled from the insufferable man of purported necromancy. After that hour had elapsed, the gatekeeper returned, his expression of rigidity shielding, poorly, the lines of confusion that had twisted his eyebrows into question marks.
"Our esteemed Adalfieri has given you," he addressed Haraldur, "and your guest," he averted his eyes from Vitali, "permission to enter." The gates glided with a soundless, vibrating purr, opening wide enough for the small party to cross.
"He is allowing your guest," again, he addressed Haraldur, "to circumvent protocol. He does not yet require an audience. But he wishes for this," he paused, with unease, "chthonic mage to maintain his end of the bargain, and awaken Alster from the curse."
As they headed towards the infirmary, Rigases spilled onto the grounds, flooding from the villas, from the apartments, and from the main house, sleepy-eyed yet alert, their hands quivering as if to attack at the slightest provocation. Apparently the guardkeeper had also warned all denizens of the estate to prepare themselves, in case of violation of the agreement. Even in the dim, yet lighted walkways of their guarded procession, Haraldur could recognize that disagreeable, blonde-headed Rigas caster from the night of the party at Messino's camp, and also her dark mage companion, one who had appeared so similar to the man he regretfully accompanied...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Well, if it was enough to snap you out of that pitiful bout of hysteria, then it was worth it," the chthonic mage huffed, taking a towel that hung from the marble walls to gently pat dry the angry, red blisters that rose from Chara's otherwise porcelain skin. "Good to see that you have come back into yourself. You are of no use to anyone, including yourself, in such a state. Now sit down; don't insult your own intelligence by making an attempt to stand up when I practically had to drag you in here, all by myself."
Lilica's brazen streak had yet to diminish in the shadow of Chara's authority, particularly when her companion had yet to demonstrate that she was well enough to make sound decisions. She was still weak, still distraught, but there appeared to be adequate indication that her intellectual faculties were rapidly returning. Yet until the Rigas caster could stand on her own two feet without crumbling into a pile of pent-up emotions, with no way to see beyond them enough to stand up again. Which is exactly what the dark caster explained to her. "I had your maidservant run you a bath, and I helped you into it. Because you were a mess of hysterics over the Atvanian warrior and your precious fiance, and could not see the forest for the trees. I am glad to see you are coming around."
Heeding her request, Lilica retrieved the tincture from the pocket of Chara's discarded tunic on the floor, and took the salve onto her fingertips before gently massaging it into the blonde caster's damaged skin. "I hardly feel anything that can get you back to your wits is 'misguided'," she added after a beat, her face gradually, slowly, flaring up with rouge as she struggled to focus on her companion's arms, and not her shoulders, her legs, or anything submerged in the tinted, lavender-scented water. "But you are, nonetheless, quite welcome. Just... take a moment for repose. I'll fetch you a robe."
She was naked. Why this was only occurring to her just now, after she had taken the effort to undress Chara and help her into the bath, was far beyond Lilica's cognizant logic, but now that it as on her mind, it was all that she could think about. So focused had she been on the task of Chara's well-being that the aesthetic of her attractive form had not been within the focal point of her attention, perhaps, which in and of itself was a reassuring thought: so my actions are not so perverse and self-serving as I might sometimes think.
Leaving her hostess temporarily to retrieve a lengthy robe of white silk from Chara's bedchamber, she returned to find the Rigas caster standing at full height, and stepping out of the tub of her own accord. Her heart very nearly dropped to her feet.
"Careful! Are you even able to support your own weight?" Lilica was quick to make it to her side and take her by the arm, for fear she might slip and lose her balance.
And all it took was coming into direct contact with that arm--that slippery, naked arm--that she ironically felt herself go weak in the knees.
It was the first time she had laid eyes upon the exposed form of another, let alone someone for whom she cared, someone to whom she was hopelessly...attracted. And the dark caster's reaction, whether or not it showed, was far from mild. It was only for a beat that her eyes traveled the length of Chara's body, from her shoulders and all the way down to her toes, exposed and vulnerable yet infinitely confident. Proud. Beautiful...
Her throat felt tight. Her face, warm, in spite of the eternal chill that inhabited her skin. But she couldn't falter.
"Here," she offered, slipping the robe over her arms and shoulders. "You could most certainly do with some rest... And if you'd like company, I... I suppose I would be obliged." Far more than obliged. But even Lilica D'Or, for her low self-opinion, was not so lowly as to make evident how devastatingly enamored she was to this woman, who had allowed her the opportunity for an entirely different perspective on life. And on herself.
Of course, nap was precisely what Chara did shortly after drying off from her bath, and Lilica was foolish to have thought for even a second that lying next to the Rigas caster could have turned into something else that did not involve rest. She spent the next handful of hours rubbing circles on her companion's back, and reminding her of logical reassurances, until she, herself, succumbed to a peaceful and dreamless slumber. That was until there was a knock at Chara's door, some time later, loud and persistent enough that it awakened the both of them. "If you wish for me to answer that, I can. Do not exert yourself," she managed to offer, but the haughty blonde was already on her feet and making for the door. For support's sake (not to mention a touch of curiosity), she followed close behind, in case of further bad news that would bring Chara to her knees again.
The news that came to the door, as it turned out, was entirely open to interpretation. And in the end, it was not Chara who was in danger of falling to her knees.
"Miss Chara Rigas," the envoy announced, presenting Haraldur, and a man who Chara had never seen before, "your comrade, here, claims that this charge might very well be the key to awakening your betrothed. Adalfieri is not in a hurry to meet with him; I was thusly instructed to bring him here, and to have him tell you what he knows. He is safe under Rigas protection, but only on the condition that he upholds his end of the bargain."
Before Chara had a chance to react, or Vitali was awarded the opportunity to introduce himself, Lilica pushed into the doorway and jabbed a finger in the necromancer's direction. If looks could kill, he'd have dropped dead before her arm was fully extended. "No!" The chthonic caster hissed, and couldn't have possibly glared with more intensity. "No, this is not as it seems. Get this man out of here--far away from here! He is a cheat and an operator and is only out for his own whims and good! He cannot, by any means, be trusted!"
"Lilica...? My, oh my. It really is you." The surprise on Vitali's pristine face was interrupted by the dawn of intense amusement. For every inch of Lilica's face that suggested she loathed the man, the necromancer's reflected some sort of satisfaction derived from it all. "This is possibly one of the last places that I would have ever thought to find you... particularly in the company of another. But that is very much beside the point." Turning his eyes on Chara, he offered a shallow, yet extended bow in greeting. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Rigas. My name is Vitali Kristeva. And I do hope that I can be of some help with your current plight."
While he neglected to mention that he was, in fact, the reason that Alster had fallen victim to an enchantment in the first place, it was certain to come up in conversation sooner or later. And the looks that it would glean would be so much more satisfying, if he held off, just a little longer.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She needed to nap. All aspects of her well-being screamed for a break in consciousness, and if she wanted to maintain the level of competency she had regained (and not in full, either), it was imperative that she close her eyes and drift into a healthier alternative than what she had so shamelessly performed in front of Lilica and her unsuspecting maidservant. Yes, she needed this bit of convalescence. However, she wanted to stay awake. ...For Lilica.
She had seen the way that Lilica both appraised and admired her as she stepped out of the tub, and how she almost clambered, head over feet, to take her by the arm, to press so near to her naked breast, to turn as pink as her ravaged burns. And Chara, even in her recovering throes, could not help but flash an alluring, amused smirk throughout the entire robing process. Though she was well-capable of shrugging into her own clothes, she quite enjoyed Lilica's reactionary blushes and the far-from-subtle ogling that accompanied the entire affair.
And now, Lilica's steady breath tickled the hairs on her neck, she lay so close. How then, could Chara sleep, when her involuntary strip-show left her companion so...bothered? I have the power, here, she thought, with glee. She may think I am too far distressed to assume control...but I am not. Not when I see her stare at me so. It is...enlivening.
Before she could stop herself, Chara turned over, shifted forward, and rubbed her chest teasingly against the dark mage's shoulder. She folded her chin in the crook of her neck, half-purred into her ear, and had about clamped down on the tenderness of her earlobe with her teeth...
And, with an anticlimactic flourish, she closed her eyes, and collapsed atop Lilica, frozen into that very position.
A few short hours later, the dread of reality that existed outside her doors banged upon them, demanding entry inside her fortress, her haven. She moaned herself awake, reflexively kicked off her sheets, thrummed her feet against the cool marble floor, and groggily assured the dark mage of her ability to answer a door. She did not notice how entangled she and Lilica were, just moments ago.
As she padded over to the foyer, aware that Lilica followed at her heels, she opened the door to regard several Rigas envoys, a disheveled-looking warrior she vaguely recognized, and an odd, petulant man with a mien and a certain bearing that had caused her half-conscious state to snap wide open. Why, he looked just like--
Lilica snapped her staunch refusals into the air, punctuating them with her jabbing finger. It startled her into a shaky little jump. Hearing her companion speak with such a sibilant tongue, a manner in which she had not heard aloud for quite a while, crimped her brow with lines of immediate distrust for this man at her door, and all those in his association.
"And how are the two of you related?" she said without preamble, dispensing with the formalities, deigning not to share her name or any such trite nonsense. Already, even without Lilica's outburst, she disliked this mage, his ingratiating smile, his disarming falsities, and his claim to help Alster. She ignored his introduction and looked instead to the warrior at his side, who fiddled with the pommel of his sword. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Do I know you?"
"Yes and no," the warrior said, returning his busy hands to his sides. "You were pretty incapacitated with drink the first and only time we met--at Messino's camp. I won't bore you with the specifics of my shifting loyalties, but if you need proof of my good will, I was of the team that helped Elespeth rescue Alster from Messino and his goons."
"Oh." She scrunched her nose, her suspicion mounting as she flitted her eyes between him and the eyesore named Vitali. "And how is this," she indicated the shadow at her door, "an act of good will?"
"I'm not asking you to trust him." Heavens know I do not, he almost added. "On the contrary, he is responsible for Alster's current state, enticed by Messino's deep pockets. But he has pledged his cooperation, and there doesn't seem to be other options available to you."
"Do not condescend to me, warrior!" Her hiss took on complementary notes of Lilica's own hostility. "You speak of options as if you had any idea of the intricate underpinnings of magic! Are youthe one responsible for dragging this filth into our most venerable grounds!?"
Haraldur, stretching to his full, intimidating height, clasped his hands behind his back. Any signs of warmth and patience died in his damp, chilly green eyes. "...Yes."
"We must not forget, Chara," a Rigas envoy spoke within the tumultuous back-and-forth that volleyed between the doorway and the front portico, "that Canopus and Adalfieri sanction this decision."
"Because they have been led astray by the pure doggerel spouted by these two charlatans!" She spat in the Rigas envoy's face. He, rightly so, retreated a few steps. "Why would they enlist the help of a man who caused this mess in the first place!?"
No one answered her question, because it was obvious: they had no other choice. No other options. With a feline growl, she reeled on Lilica. "Tell me about this man. Tell me everything you know about him. No, not just me. Tell them all!" She pointed to the small audience at her doorstep. At once, her finger trembled. Her voice lowered. Her convictions were guttered by one stray thought: he can undo Alster's curse. It is...it is feasible, after all. Is it not? "Tell them why we should not trust this agreement, Lilica!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
The trouble with expelling and driving away Vitali Kristeva, unfortunately, is that it always resulted in his unwanted return, like a stray cat that would not leave. And when he returned, it was with more dangerous ammunition than that which he possessed initially.
But it did not seem as though he was interested in saving the ammunition, this time. At least, not all of it.
Straightening his lapels with a casual tug, the garish dark caster proceeded to answer Chara's question before she could stop him. "Related? By blood, actually. Lilica is my sister." Behind his deadpan countenance was, indisputably, a glimmer of amusement. It grew as Lilica's own face paled. "Isn't there some folksy saying? 'It is a small world', or something such? Though my curiosity is rather piqued..." He arched a dark eyebrow, bringing a finger thoughtfully to his chin as he looked at Chara like he could see through her. "What is your relation to my dear sister? She is not known to keep your type of company... Or any company, for that matter."
"Half. We are related by blood in half," Lilica hissed, as if that minuscule fact reduced the significance and impact of Vitali's words. "And raised apart. I will not vouch for this insidious trickster in the credibility of his claim that he can 'help'." Standing practically nose-to-nose with the necromancer who she so eerily resembled, she looked as though she would extend her hand and engulf him in her dark fire at the slightest tic. Yet he was completely unperturbed. "You would do well to banish him from Stella D'Mare immediately, if you do not wish to deal with the repercussions of the 'deals' that he makes. He cannot help Alster."
"And you can? No, of course you cannot. Or else you'd have pulled him out of that spell, already. One with which you are so very acquainted..."
Lilica hardly had time to react when her brother seized her wrist, turning her right hand palm-up to expose the faint, white lines of a familiar rune... One that was practically a mirror image of the fresh, pink outline on his own palm, mark for mark, stroke for stroke. "It must be difficult," he mused, relishing in her lack of eye-contact, "knowing a curse so well, yet rendered so helpless to break it..."
"Do not dare make this about me, you swine." Lilica snatched her hand away and recoiled like she'd been burned, colour creeping into her cheeks. "This is not about me or what I do or do not know. This is about you, and whether or not it is worth it, in the long run, to enlist your services for our cause... What is your price, necromancer? And how in all hell did you convince some of Stella D'Mare's more trusted figureheads to agree to your terms?"
The answer was, of course, obvious; and Vitali was more than happy to state them. "There was no convincing, on my part; I simply stated what these fine people already knew." Rolling his shoulders back, he folded his arms across his chest, the epitome of confidence. The power and the sway in this situation all belonged to him. "With my help, Alster Rigas can awaken. And there does not appear to be any time to seek alternatives... Or perhaps they had already given up on that when you proved to be useless to help. But that is neither here, nor there."
Offering a shrug, he nodded to Chara, who--despite that her interest and hope had been piqued--seemed to share in a natural dislike for him that came vicariously through his sister's sentiments. All the more amusing; just what kind of bond had these two formed? It was more than camaraderie, down to what their body language suggested... White the metamorphosis had taken place, in the Lilica D'Or that he had once thought he had known. "I am weary from my travels, and I suspect that the two of you are in good need of rest, as well. Shall we resume this riveting discussion on the morrow, perhaps? We shall see if anything can be done about your dear Alster Rigas and his impenetrable slumber."
He gave them no time to agree or disagree. With a last shallow bow, Vitali Kristeva left with his warrior escort not far behind, the heels of his boots clicking rhythmically on the marble foyer just beyond the open door.
Lilica all but slammed that door in response, her jaw as tight as her shoulders in the wake of this new turn of events. No, I won't let you ruin this, she thought with desperation, beads of perspiration beginning to form on her brow. You will not ruin it for me, or for Chara, or of Alster, or that pitiful warrior of his... I won't let you. "He cannot be trusted, Chara." When at last she spoke, the bite to the chthonic caster's voice was far less vital than she had hoped, and in her exhaustion, hardly reflected the extent of the urgency she felt behind her words. "Even if he can help Alster... you have to believe me, the price that he will demand would not be worth it. I do not think either Adalfieri or Canopus realizes what they have agreed to..."
But what if he was right? What if, in light of her ability to awaken the Rigas caster from his damnable slumber, they thought they had no choice but to trust someone such as her nefarious half-brother?
Holding onto hope, however risky it might be, was apparently preferable to giving up on it completely. And, for that, she really could not blame them.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Chara's brow arched high, not so in surprise but with intrigue. Lilica seldom spoke of her family, only of her dirt-bag parents who had tried to kill her and who she, in turn, had killed. Never of her siblings, or her other extensions--had she any beyond the immediate blood-line. It was for good reason, she posited; if this Vitali Kristeva represented the caliber of her ill-omened ilk, she did not anticipate any flashes of integrity borne in her other siblings, were they even alive.
"You are a guest here at the Rigas estate," she said, her eyes darkening at the nosy half brother's inquiry. "Do well to remember, by refraining from addressing me so familiarly, and from nosing around in my business. You have your task. Do not lose your focus, or you shall lose your nose."
Lilica may not have slammed the door, but Chara made certain of it, flinging that heavy oak paneling shut until it rang in the box that functioned as their only reprieve from the world that did not cease in throwing all manner of sundry delights at their faces. All offal and putrescence of the finest shades of decay.
She took Lilica by the shoulder and guided her to the dining area, pouring for her what remained of the wine. There existed one undamaged bottle, mostly drunk, but she shook the containment, pleased to hear a swishing response, and emptied its dregs for her guest. She pressed the glass into the dark mage's open palm, which grazed against that curious rune that was etched into her skin. Her finger slid down the stem of the proffered wine-glass to trace the scar's shape with the nub of her nail. "Is this from the dream curse you had cast on yourself?"
She sat on a chair and pulled the dark mage into the one opposite her, eyes wandering to the door, as if worried that Vitali and his menagerie still lingered at her front-step and would remain there until morning.
"I...you need not share in the details of why he disturbs you so. I realize that the subject of your 'family' is far from an amenable one. He is an utterly deplorable being He is responsible for Alster's curse, and we, the proud Rigas, must kowtow to the desires of a two-timing knave!? I wish to grind his bones into powder! Were it in my power, I would oust him from this land and cast every curse upon him and that infuriating grin of his! Alas," she sighed, scuffing her feet against the swirls in the milky marble tiling, rubbing that requisite anger into the ground, "I must adhere to Adalfieri's ruling. He must believe that this blight of a man will keep his promise and resurrect Alster. Yes, we cannot trust him, but perhaps that inane warrior is correct in what he says: we do not need to trust him. We only need for him to perform his deed. If he does not, I have no doubt he will suffer the repercussions by way of the Rigas collective churning him into pulp. Celestial magic is at its strongest here within the barriers of our estate. Even if he is strong--stronger than you, he cannot withstand our onslaught."
Looking up at Lilica caused a hitch in her throat, a hiccup in her voice. She bit her tongue and forced her gaze beyond, where the light of the dining area did not reach, where outside, the lights of the city blinked out like stars trapped behind a cloud, and beyond, the dark sea roiled and thrashed upon the land. "I am sorry, Lilica. But I must allow this Vitali to awaken Alster. If he is good as dead otherwise," her hand stroked upon the mage's meager arm, the only nonverbal comfort she could think to express, "we really do lose nothing. Whatever deal Canopus, and by extension, Adalfieri made with him, it must be within their reason to give, or they would not have compromised themselves in such a troublesome way."
Rising to her feet, she urged Lilica to do the same. "Come. Let us at least try to resume some semblance of a relaxing evening--while we are still able." They returned to her bedroom, sitting upon those silk-encased sheets and the sinking plush of its cocoon. She wrapped her arms around Lilica's shoulders, massaging the kinks and knots out of her pinching tensity. After receiving marginal success from her self-employed task, she pushed herself and her bed-mate against the pillows and snuggled up with her from behind. Her breasts pressed, for the second time, at her back, the nipples hard and protruding, as she hugged her living full-body pillow close, into tight togetherness. But it was all she was able to do for the harried mage that night. Not when so many consequences plagued her during those so-called relaxing moments that only they inhabited...
As soon as the morning sun began to melt the sea into a waxy-orange light, Rigas officials summoned for Vitali and his entourage, who were all housed in the guest quarters of the main house. "We do apologize for our haste," one official said unapologetically, "but we must see you to the infirmary, as per Adalfieri's command. He is not one to tarry when the time-dependent war is afoot; otherwise, he would offer you a longer respite and grander hospitality. Of which you shall receive, he ensures--should you perform your end of the bargain. He gives you all of today to prepare, but that preparation will take part in the infirmary, as is his directive."
The officials ushered Vitali and the entourage down the labyrinthine hallways, to the door where the infirmary was attached to the main house by one side, almost itself a separate building. Inside, Haraldur noticed the contentious Rigas woman from last night--Chara. The burns that had festooned her arms, the bumpy, blistery relief that he noticed even in the dark, were gone, the only indication of their existence evidenced in the sunburn pink that blotched her skin in hand-print shapes. She sat at the bedside of an older man, his head lolled against the pillow in slumber, and placed a damp rag upon his feverish forehead. She looked up when she saw them all pass and glared, but said nothing.
He came across the Clematis healer, who he had last seen in camp, carrying away a wash basin where pieces of charred, dead skin floated under the surface. The man was pallid, bleary-eyed, his brown curls plastered to his forehead, but he summoned the energy to inquire about the procession that all but marched inside a place of sanctity and quiet (he emphasized) rest.
The officials introduced the healer to Vitali once they had settled around Alster's bed. The Rigas caster looked the same from when Haraldur last saw him; undisturbed, unmarred, color on his cheeks, deep, smooth rises and falls of his chest, salubrious and shining...and one step from death.
Then, he noticed another body on the bed to Alster's right. Elespeth. Bedridden, weak, discolored in the skin, her eyes the shadows of disseminated light, her hair matted, knotted, mired down to the pillow--he had not immediately recognized her. It was as if she had died, or hovered close to the threshold, and her journey back to the light had taken everything from her but a heartbeat.
With a tentative step forward, he alighted by her headboard, any words of greeting, or reassurance, or far-flung hope failing him. He rested a hand on the board, and gripped it tight, as if for balance.
"Alster, he..." A whisper caught in his throat. "There is a chance that he will awaken."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She looked on as Elespeth's faded green eyes locked on Alster's sleeping form. Daphni knew that, had she the strength, she would have moved closer, but in her condition, was only capable of keeping him company with her longing gaze. "We will have to devise alternate ways to administer fluids if she continues to find herself unable to drink..."
The empath's train of thought was cut off the moment Vitali arrived, with Haraldur in tow. So this was the man responsible for the Rigas caster's condition... And the one who, reportedly, could lift it. Whether or not he would remain true to his word was yet to be revealed, but if the nauseating swirls of darkness in his aura were any indication, Daphni could not place much stock in trusting that he would truly extend help.
"So, you see, I actually did you all--and Alster--a favour." Hands clasped behind his back, the necromancer strode freely to the side of the sleeping Rigas's bed. "Ideally, a true rendition of this curse would slowly drain the life from your beloved caster's body. Yet as you can see, he is as good as the day he fell asleep, preserved like an insect in amber. Messino was not aware of this little 'flaw'... but I frankly did not like the way the man addressed me."
"Enough of your banter, and get to your promise." Lilica, who sat next to Chara as she tended to her father, looked about ready to sic her wrath on her brother. Her patience was not depleted; it simply had not existed to begin with. Not for him. "Wake Alster from this slumber."
"Wake him? Now, my dear kin, do not misunderstand: I never promised to do that." Vitali quirked a brow, as if it were obvious. "My promise was to help--and the means by which I do so are entirely up to me."
For a beat, the room went so silent that a pin drop could have been heard; but only for a beat.
Lilica stood so quickly from her spot next to Chara that she cleared the room in a blur, closing the distance between herself and her brother before anyone could so much as blink. "You filth!" She hissed, seizing him by the lapels. Her dark energies, and the urge to punish the necromancer by their means, burned beneath her chilled skin. "You liar and cheat, I knew your promise was too good to be true!''
"Oh, do save the melodramatics an unhand me, Lilica," the necromancer sighed, but made no move to retaliate. "It is not that I will not awaken your caster, but rather that I cannot. But that is not to say I cannot pave the means for the one who can..."
His eyes averted to the quiet and haggard warrior on the ct next to Alster, and everyone else's gaze followed, as a result. The hint of a smile tugged at Vitali's thin lips. "You are bonded to the sleeping, are you not?"
That was a question that Elespeth was loathe to answer. A good thing, then, that she did not have an answer at all. "It... is as if it is breaking," she explained, indicating her bandaged palm. "Alster... he is trying to break it.'
"Hm. Well... that simply will not do. If you please, Lilica?" Pulling away from his sister at last, he meandered casually over to the she-warrior, as if time was not at all of the essence. Without permission or preamble, he unwound the bandage to reveal the barely-healed open wound. For perhaps the first time since he set foot in Stella D'Mare, that cheeky grin drooped downwards towards a frown. "Huh... the Rigas caster is a bigger fool than I had anticipated. Not only did he attack this bond, but he nearly killed you. I daresay this does not lead to quite so promising a prognosis..."
"What is it you are implying, dark-wielder?" It was Daphni's turn to put forth her wary cynicism towards this untrustworthy creature. "Can or can you not help us? Because if you are having reservations, then I suggest you run far from Stella D'Mare immediately, as any protection your null promise might have ensured is now very much in jeopardy."
Yet Vitali was still relatively unperturbed by the threat, albeit perplexed by the circumstances. "Let me make it clear for you: I was never able to lift this curse on my own. It can not be broken by the hand of the wielder. I can, however, help you to help yourselves... if you are able and willing." There was no mistaking what he implied, when his gaze fastened on Elespeth's pale face. He still held her bleeding palm in his hand. "I cannot guarantee there will not be risks, but if there is any trace of this blood connection left with your beloved Alster, then you, warrior, are the one who can bring him back."
"She very nearly died when she last encountered him in his subconscious," Daphni cautioned, yet more and more, it began to dawn on her that the dark stranger was right. And it might be a matter of weighing Elespeth's safety against Alster's plausible return to the world of the living... "Should the same thing happen to her, again," she went on slowly, "then I do not think there will be a hope of bringing her back once more. Not before she crosses over."
The unwelcome guest shot her a secretive smile without fully turning away from Elespeth. "And that, my dear, is where you draw the line between an empath and a necromancer. So, warrior: what do you say?"
"I want... I want to try." Her voice was so small, a diminutive faction of the strong woman that she was. But there was still enough left of Elespeth to hold out hope, where there was some. "I want to bring him back..." And, with that, she looked to Haraldur; possibly her only real friend in that room. "Do you think... that I can?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He did not say as much to Daphni, but only nodded wearily at her assessment that complemented his own inner commentary. "It seems," he said with a low, throat-ragged susurration to the former-Sybaian, "in my not-so-professional opinion, that her survival now hinges on that of her Rigas companion. There is little we can do for her, now. If she has no drive to live, it looks as if your services will have been for naught, if she will die just the same."
He had excused himself in order to cure Chara Rigas of her day old burns, a small and highly curable reprieve from his nigh hopeless cause, and returned in time to witness the arrival of the very mage who had orchestrated the perpetual funeral dirge that enslaved the lives of so many--and had threatened to take them down to the grave, as well. He presented the man named Vitali with a death mask of an expression, all hardened clay and unmovable lines of austere impenetrability. By way of his illness, his life was already forfeit, but the foray into Stella D'Mare, and the rigmarole that followed, had done no favors for his condition. And now that he had a face to blame, he targeted it, and watched the proceedings from his vantage point at the basin. The drama had unfolded before him such that he felt like the chorus in a very real, very tragic stage play. It had even escalated to the point where choice words from the 'antagonist' (who probably thought himself so wily, so undeniably crafty) summoned Lilica from her seat with the simple bite of his goading irreverence.
Chara, who followed the dark mage to the center where all had gathered, touched her elbow, in case she really did retaliate by burning her insidious half-brother into soot. But she did not stop her companion, no. She found herself, rather, a facilitator to the carnage, in case the situation grew hairy, and her countenance said as much to Vitali. One misstep, necromancer, and every Rigas will strike you dead where you stand.
That was when all attention settled on Elespeth. Chara separated from Lilica and sidled closer to the half-dead warrior, who had appeared even worse than yesterday--when she was actually dying. She glanced at the unwound scar, a comet tail draining of its color, dull and dim and fading, in the sky of her palm.
"Bond or no bond," she said, looking between the sleeping Alster and the retiring Elespeth, "it is forged with more than blood and magic. The two of you were close from the start. I daresay you can still reach him, Elespeth, no matter how broken your connection. He must still care for you; I am even certain he is dreaming of you, right now. You mean so much to him that you feature in his paradise. That must mean something."
"Your bond was strong enough to produce his celestial magic out of your hands," commented Elias, from his spot beside Daphni. "Even when the bond is compromised, it must still possess a great deal of influence. That being said," he turned his stony eyes to Vitali, "how do you propose to pass Elespeth through all of Alster's barriers, into his subconscious core, if he has barred her access? You are not suggesting a similar curse be placed upon her?"
Haraldur, who listened to the entire exchange in silence, kept one eye on Vitali and the other on Elespeth, standing near or between the two at all times with his hand curled over a hidden knife in his sleeve. In case Vitali overstepped his boundaries, the warrior was confident enough in his reflexes to deal him a considerable amount of damage with one swipe of the knife. He idled there, narrowing his focus into this single-minded purpose, until Elespeth called for his attention--and his focused mind had broadened, to her. His hands slackened as he scryed into those desperate eyes, where that little light in the green had coruscated into a tiny star of hope.
"That's why I fetched this necromancer in the first place: to bring back Alster," he said. "Whether you can or you can't, the chance presents itself to you. Thinking that it might fail won't change your mind. But I have seen the two of you risk health and life for each other. If a bond like that is so powerful," he offered her a small, reassuring smile, "then I know your voice will reach him."
"Why do my patients love to risk their lives for near hopeless causes?" Elias muttered under his breath, shaking his head with disapproval. Ironically enough, the key to saving Elespeth from death was to throw her into a death most assured should she fail. Not like the battered warrior seemed to mind. It was a win-win for her, either way. Succeed and she reunites with her lost love. Fail, and she crosses over into the peaceful realm of the dead. Then there was also the necromancer and his abilities to consider. Revival of the dead. The raising of corpses fresh for the grave. Their existence was almost mythical. Mere bed-time stories within the walls of the pious St. Thorne. And yet, here was a self-proclaimed necromancer, in the flesh...
He looked sidelong at Vitali. The death mask cracked as he raised a curious brow, his interest piqued.
"I've a...hypothetical question for you."
"What is it?"
Hand in hand, Alster tugged Elespeth down the narrow strip of beach afforded to them by hide tide, their naked feet plunging into the tepid wash of sea foam and ultramarine. He stopped his trek through the hard-pack of white sand and pivoted towards the horizon, squinting against the afternoon light and beyond, as if he could see through a rift in the sky and into another world.
"What if I said there's another world out there? A world where everything has gone horribly awry for us? Where all possible fears and nightmares have come to pass?" His hand twisted tighter around her own, but he otherwise stood with rigid contemplation. "And let's say this world's version of me kept trying to reach you, kept trying to pull you into that world. What...what would you do?"
"Well," she thumbed under her chin, in thought, "it's still you, isn't it? Just another version of you. Am I assessing the grounds of your hypothetical situation correctly?"
Alster nodded.
"Well, I couldn't deny that visit from your other self. From any version of you. Even if you tried to pull me away from, well...you." She laughed away the absurdity of the conversation. "Why even ask such a bizarre question? Nothing is trying to pull us apart. Not even each other."
He wound her hand into a vise. His fingers whitened from the pressure. She flinched and looked to him in concern. At his eyes.
They were rimmed with tears.
"Wha---what's the matter, Alster?"
"...Nothing." He loosened his grip and forced a placid smile on his features. "I was just thinking about how immensely over-the-top that other world is. Nothing from there could ever be real. It's just a very active imagination!"
Only an active imagination...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Then someone else would have to do the job, to fill the shoes that she no longer could. But all that mattered was that he would recover, he would be happy again. Someday, by some means. And his happiness... with or without her, that was what mattered the most.
Meeting Vitali's anticipating gaze, the Atvanian warrior nodded her consent. "I will do this. But only on one condition. And that is... that if I die..." Her dull, green eyes roamed the room, meeting everyone else's in turn, before returning to Vitali's. "If I die, then let me pass. Whether or not Alster makes it back. If he awakens, I will not be the Elespeth that he dreams of... that he hopes for. And I cannot pretend to be. Besides..." The corners of her pale lips turned upward in a sad, faded smile. "I cannot be in two places at once, and... there is someone important, waiting for me on the other side..."
"Really.Well; that is a killjoy if ever I have experienced one." The necromancer pressed a long, dramatic sigh from his lungs, and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Though I cannot say that I blame you. Returning from death--real death, in full--does have lasting repercussions... Ah, well. Perhaps another time." Such was stated, almost as if it was to Elias's benefit, though if Vitali had taken note of the Clematis healer's subdued interest in his craft, he did not let on. "Very well, then. Hand me a sharp utensil, will you? I'll need to reopen these wounds, anew."
Extending his hand towards Elias, he waited patiently for the healer to permit him access to one of his tools. When, a pregnant moment later, a thin scalpel was pressed into his palm, he returned his attention to Elespeth and traced the previously bleeding scar with the tip of the blade. She didn't so much as flinch. "You will be plunged into Alster's subconscious mind. It is not the same as entering a dream; when this blood bond is restored, you will, in fact, share in this curse, and be a part of the world he now inhabits. And it is up to you to convince him to come away. Just as the Sybaian managed to convince your soul not to cross over, but to come back."
The former knight watched as Vitali drew Alster's wound opened anew, and then pressed their two palms together, scar to scar, blood to blood. "I do not know if I can contend with the world that Alster has created for himself," she said, her words soft, but hopeful. "But I will try, with all of my will."
"See that you do," the necromancer arched an eyebrow, before squeezing her palm against Alster's so tightly that her wound stung. He murmured something, words that she did not understand....
Elespeth opened her eyes to warmth. Surrounded by sand, sunlight and salty waters, the very peace of the landscape enticed her with the desire to lie down, to feel the sand on her skin and let the sun warm her, to forget about what was happening in...
No. There was a reason she was here. That reason was Alster.
And imagine the way her broken heart sank when she turned around to find the object of its desire, walking hand-in-hand with.... with her. Only it wasn't her; the woman she looked upon was too beautiful, too unmarred by life, too... impossible. And yet, that woman appeared to be Alster's everything.
"Alster." She did not yell; merely breathed his name, a whisper on the wind, but he turned around. He met her eyes, along with her doppelganger... and her mouth went dry. To see his eyes again, bright and blue and beautiful, and the healthy, pink glow of his cheeks made her throat bun with hope, and a joy that bordered on despair. He was so happy; and she was here to take him away from it.
"Please... please, do not banish me again." At that flicker of uncertainty on the Rigas mage's face, Elespeth put up her hands. "Not yet, not so soon, for I won't survive it. And if that is your wish, then I respect it, but please... before you do, hear what I have to say. It is important."
"Alster..." The alternate Elespeth's green eyes grew wide, confused. Her hand went to the hilt of her sword. "What is going on? Who is... why does she look like me?"
She sounded like her, spoke like her, mirrored her facial tics and expressions. Even the way she reached for her sword... This was more than a doppelganger. For all intents and purposes, this woman was Elespeth. Just an Elespeth of a different time, and different circumstances. "Well... it never occurred to me that I could look so beautiful," the warrior of the real world mused, smiling faintly at the woman dressed in silks, her hair styled in curls. Not a scar on her body. "It is difficult to hold a flame to you...even if you happen to be me."
"What sort of trickery do you sport?" The doppelganger demanded, on defense of herself and of Alster. So very much like Elespeth. "I will not allow you to harm us, if that is your intent."
"As I said, I am only here to talk. But... not to you." Returning her attention to Alster, it was enough to reassure her that the decision she had made to come here, to bring him home, had been the right one. "To think... to think, I almost gave up, and joined Farrin in the land of the dead. I am glad that I did not... Alster, there is no way to say this that is gentle or void of shock. But this is not real; this is... this utopia is a dream. A result of a curse that you suffer. And... we need you back home. In the world of the waking. Please..." She wanted to reach for him. Wanted to hold him--how long had it been since someone had held her? But she was afraid of the recoil. Especially when he had banished her twice before, not only for touching him, but for trying to persuade him that she was, in and of herself, real. "I know... I know I am not the image of perfection, as if this woman who looks like me. I am nowhere near who she is; I'm too damaged. And I cannot promise you that all is well. But I can promise that you... that we can get through it. And that you will not be alone."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster turned around, and as if he had cast a summoning spell himself, there stood...Elespeth. The Elespeth of the nether realm. The nightmare realm.
She had never before appeared to him outside of his dreams. It startled him, to one moment see no not a soul and the next, to have her occupy a space so near to him. He had even pinched the skin of his hand, to ensure that he was in no dream. This alter Elespeth was standing before him, doggedly resilient against all his attempts to banish her out of his mind.
As in reflex, he lifted his hand, in preparation to do as he had done before, though he wondered how banishing her outside of a dream would differ. Would she die? Could a shade like her, one who he thought not real, suffer and agonize and sing her swan song to death?
Before he could summon an iota of etherea into his waiting palm, a raw plea had reached his ears, and he pitted it against what Elespeth, the one who still clasped his other hand, had told him only moments ago. Just another version of you. Just another version of Elespeth. Could it be?
He dropped his hand and listened to her, but he did not yet speak. At least, not to the impostor. "That hypothetical question from before," he told the real Elespeth, "there might have been some truth behind why I asked it. She is from that other world. The world where everything...is wrong."
Another world. Was he admitting, so readily, that this homunculus was more than just a haunt? Had he a choice? She appeared to him on the physical plane, and she seemed so solid, not illusory or false. He was sure he could touch her and she would not fade or crumble to dust.
This is not real.
"All your talk is nothing to me but gibberish," he said, leaving the protection and grasp of Elespeth to step closer to the impostor who looked so tortured, so close to a spiritual death, that he harbored a sort of sympathy for her and her plight. "You can't tell me this isn't real when I can't even conceive if you are real." Tentatively, he drew a hand out to her. It was not a hand of harming, but a hand for holding. "Take my hand. If you are real, and not some complex illusion sent to unseat my sanity, then you have nothing to hide."
Their hands met, hers atop of his own. Impermeable. Firm. Not some golem made of clay and dirt, but human flesh, warm, distinct, composed of a natural perfume so notable to him, and of a sensation that tingled his fingertips in the same way that his Elespeth's touch had always felt to him.
He glanced down at their interlocking fingers until he discerned a very distinct scar that stretched the length of her palm. Frowning, he slid his hand from her to afford a better look. "What...why does that look so..."
As if shocked by electricity, he drew back from her, holding his hand as if wounded. He massaged the rapid pulse that pounded between his thumb and forefinger. "That...that nightmare realm. It's real, after all," he said, too overwhelmed to stare anywhere else but at the ripples of ocean-water that tickled his feet. "You're real. Elespeth. Elespeth Tameris?" he breathed, confusion and doubt ebbing and flowing over the eroding beach that had landscaped his mind. "If you hail from that realm, why do you seek me here? Is there not a version of me in that damaged place beyond the sky? Did I...I mean did that Alster...did he die? Are you looking for a replacement? Or an asylum from the pain?"
He looked over his shoulder at Elespeth Rigas, her face frozen in the same bemusement that he currently enjoyed. Then, his eyes traveled again to regard the intruder, appraising her with care and scrutiny and deep consideration.
"Do you want to stay here, Tameris?" He asked her with a detached air, but concern--and something else--still floated around him like plankton in the sea. Imperceptible to the naked eye, but it comprised him whole. "This place...it will treat you well. It might be strange for you at first, with..." he indicated his Elespeth with a head jerk and a squiggle of a shy smile, "...but if you're seeking refuge from that inhospitable place, I...I can't say no to that."
Another strange stir of the wind. He turned, in time to see an etherea comet head in the direction of alter-Elespeth. Acting quick, he pounced on her, sending them both to the ground just as the harmful blast of energy whirled over their heads and out to the watery horizon.
He shot upright, helping her to her feet. His fingers flailed hurriedly to cast a barrier spell, weaving the complex layers between him and Elespeth as he twisted towards the direction of the assailant.
"...Mother!?"
Sure enough, Debine stood from across the beach, both hands outstretched and smoking from the unprovoked attack. She floated nearer to them, her silver-blue dress billowing about her ankles, furthering the illusion of weightless walking. She did not make the motion to lower her stance.
"She is a figment of your imagination, Alster," she almost cooed, her voice entirely without malice--as if she didn't just attempt to maim another with an injurious spell. "You told me so, yourself. Your magic has manifested her to life, but she is nothing but a malignant tumor. She will harm you, my love. Banish her. If you will not," the etherea spun in her hold like a spiral galaxy, "then I shall do so."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster's hand was so warm, so soft against her palm. And he was so real... Everything about his utopia felt real. And, for a moment--a mere moment--she considered his offer. To sleep eternally along with him, to live in this world of peace and hope, alongside an identical double. Perhaps it wouldn't be so hard, living with herself; a better version of herself, at that. Perhaps this Elespeth could teach her a thing or two about what it means to live in peace, even if it meant watching this doppelganger assume the life with the man she loved, while she stood on the sidelines as a bystander... But she would still see Alster. Still watch him smile and witness him at his happiest... and, in the end, wasn't that enough?
A sad smile touched her lips as he dropped her hand, that precious, brief connection broken. But he made no move to harm her. "This place is... beautiful. It is everything that you would want. I can see why you wouldn't wish to leave it... who would?" When she sighed, it was as if she was expelling her very soul from her lungs. "Of course I would want to stay, Alster. Even if it meant seeing you with... with someone else, another version of me, it would be enough. Your happiness warms me, regardless of where you derive it. But..." Glancing at the gentle ocean, the silky sand and the afternoon sun overhead, Elespeth Tameris could have died all over again. "I cannot. Because I am needed elsewhere. As are you... In the waking world, you are asleep, Alster. Under a curse, and this curse has sent you here, away from us. But without your help, Stella D'Mare will fall, and everyone you care for... Chara, Adalfieri, Canopus, the healers, even Lilica, they could all die."
"Do you believe all of this, Alster?" The doppelganger Elespeth inquired, distress and interest intermingling in her expression. A strange marriage of hope out of curiosity, as well as despair out of the possibility of how much the truth could hurt.
"You of all people should know that I am not one to lie; we are one and the same." The Elespeth from the world of the waking even offered a smile to the woman--the mirror image--who had replaced her. "I fear I am too tired to conjure a lie so elaborate..."
Alster's new Elespeth went silent, and even took a step forward, eager to come into contact with her other self, when a blast of etherea startled her backwards, as Alster and the other Elespeth fell to the ground.
The warrior from the realm of the waking coughed, the breath knocked out of her as the Rigas caster fell atop her. "You... saved me...?" Her green eyes searched his own as the two scrambled to their feet, facing none other than his own mother. But if he had saved her.... if he saw fit to protect her, then there had to be some hope. Some vague indication that he had not yet given up.
She could not let this woman destroy that hope.
"You know she is lying, Alster... if I were a figment, then your Elespeth of this realm would not see me." She had no defense in this world, not against its keeper, who seemed t be his mother. A mother with a gentle voice and superficial love, but... it was still more from Debine than he had ever received while she was still alive. "I am here to bring you back. I..." Her eyes searched his face, in desperation that manifested in tears. "I cannot promise you all that you have here. In reality, people are hurt. There is war and suffering, and not all is well. But we are endeavoring to make it well, and we desperately need your help." Reaching for his hand again, she struggled to smile through her tears. "This is all a dream, this place, these people... and I know I am not the Elespeth that you wish I was. But I will try, Alster. If you come back with me, I--"
It all happened in a matter of seconds.
The blast of etherea lit up the day like a second sun, and Elespeth Tameris, on realizing what was happening, closed her eyes. She had tried... and if she had to die, at least Alster was the last person that she would ever see, and she would carry that image with her to the very end.
Nothing happened. Not to her, at least, and not to Alster, but when she opened her eyes and cast her attention downward...
The other Elespeth lay on the ground at their feet, struggling to breathe, blood staining her silken gown around the abdomen where it had hit. But why would Debine...?
No. Debine hadn't targeted that Elespeth. It had been Elespeth Rigas's choice to take the hit, for the Elespeth Tameris for whom it had been conjured.
The Elespeth from the waking realm fell to her knees before she knew what she was doing, taking the other woman's hand. "Why? She demanded, eyes wide and confused. "Why would you---"
"You are real." The other woman choked, blood on her lips. But her eyes were void of regret. "I know... I know because... I would act the same way... make the same plea... if your plight were mine." She struggled to smile, every breath causing her obvious pain. "If this... if I am not real... then take him home. Take..." He eyes averted to Alster, and that was where they stayed. "Take care... of him."
It was a strange feeling, to watch oneself die before their very eyes. Was it narcissistic of Elespeth Tameris to shed tears as Elespeth Rigas's fabricated life faded in her clear green eyes? She could not help but feel as though she had stolen a life, from this woman and from Alster. It felt...wrong. "I'm sorry..." She whispered, then turned to Alster. "Come home with me, Alster, please... I will take care of you. I will look out for you, and I will do everything in my power to make this world one where you can be happy. But you have to decide now..."
Debine would not give up, and Elespeth knew that that next blast would take her, or the both of them. But that was what she had anticipated; live and return with Alster to the world of the living, or die, fail, and return to the land of the dead, where Farrin waited patiently for the day when they would be reunited. It would be all right... one way or another, it would be all right. She had to believe that.
But... in the even that they might part ways, the former Atvanian knight pulled Alster closed, and embraced him for what might be the last time. His warmth, the thrumming of his heartbeat against his chest, brought her back to a place of happiness that she thought she might never revisit. "I love you," came her whispered, soft and warm in his ear. "Whatever you decide, know that I love you, and I always will, no matter what. Not even death will change that..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was hard to believe anything, when the truth was a farce and the farce was the truth. When he stood between two Elespeths, one professing residency in another world while the other one wished to close the gap between two disparate lives, to link hands and--to do what, then? Assimilate into one ultimate being? When Debine, his kind and gentle mother, suddenly instigated violence instead of using her calm rationale to lead her to a pacifistic conclusion.
I'm losing...my grip. What can I cling to? What can I hold?
A soft, squeezing pressure enveloped his hand. He looked over at Elespeth, the alter-Elespeth, searching her eyes for an answer, for an explanation that would please him most. This is all a dream was the last of what he wanted to hear. But as their hands linked, and he rediscovered the heartbeat that pulsed between them, a slow dawn of recollection started to shine its clarifying light on him.
Another light whizzed past his eyes, in its place.
Debine, mindful of Alster's shield, launched a second attack. He reinforced his barrier; there was no time to run and nowhere to go, except into the ocean. Foam-covered fingers teased his legs, trying and failing to grab them and drag him, hitherto, into the sea.
That new comet flashed from Debine's hands, larger than the first attempt. It hurt his eyes to glimpse, squinting against the sun-bright radiance. He ground his teeth and prepared for impact, knowing, with dread, that his mother's spell would overtake his shield, that it would splinter, shatter, rebound, and splatter them into the siren's call of the sea. He tightened his hold on Elespeth's hand, and waited for the release.
But the release never arrived. Instead, it had embedded itself in the abdomen of his Elespeth. She spluttered up blood and collapsed onto the beach, her noble red ichor staining the sand. The waves greedily reached for the puddle, lapping up the color and the hue and taking it far, far away. Did it travel to that other world? The nightmare realm?
"Elespeth!" He crouched at her side in a matter of seconds, closing a hand over her gaping wound and concentrated on sending a pulse of healing energy, to stitch the ravaged skin closed. But there was so much blood, leeching out of her at a rate he could not command back into her body. The ocean continued to steal it away in great gobs. "No, no no. Please, don't talk. I'll have you healed up. You'll be fighting fit in no time at all! Just---" It was too late. Her hand, limp, dropped from out of alter-Elespeth's hold. He heard the weight hit the sand; the vibrations unraveled the strings that tied his heart in place, and it plummeted. Down, down down--as the light left her eyes.
Disconsolate, he did not listen to alter-Elespeth's pleas. Instead, he rose to his full, diminutive height and spun to Debine, who watched the scene with apathetic detachment--until Alster met her eyes, and she bounced back a step.
"Alster, I did not mean to--it was not your beloved I sought."
"They are the same!" His cry was like that of an injured bear: a roar, a growl, a desperate keening of grief and fury, with the claws to match. "You would never act in this way. You are kind, and considerate. You abhor violence! Why then..." that slow dawn of clarity transfigured into a comet of etherea, of her etherea, and it blasted him into stillness. "You are acting just like the Debine from the nether realm!"
It was as if those words rent a mask that Debine had been sporting, for something cracked in that serene face of hers, showing the callous, uncompromising, miserable women he had known all his life. Fear blew a foul wind in the hollows where his heart once perched. She scowled at him, her lips contorting into an acerbic pucker.
"What a sad dream, boy." Her voice crunched like glass underfoot. "You constructed this world with me in mind. Me, foremost. Mother's love exists only in fantasy. Did you enjoy it, Alster? The pampering? The constant fussing? My singular good nature? My well-timed pats on the back, like burping an overgrown baby? Those convincing reassurances of 'I love you, I am so proud of you'?"
Hot, angry tears spilled from Alster's eyes. He retreated from her, not caring that he entered the water ankle deep, that the tide yanked him with a near supernatural force. "Stop...Mother...stop. Say no more."
"It no longer matters, Alster!" She said with a gleeful bark of a laugh. "You are still choosing to forsake this place. If you leave, you will never again feel that which you so crave from your mother. No, you cannot feel reciprocation from a corpse. Not from a body that you desecrated with your unholy magic!"
He would have kept retreating. He almost beckoned the waves to wash him from the beach until he was adrift, away, gone from the sight of that once loving woman twisted into a grotesque travesty. She has always been like this, Alster. You have deluded yourself. Nothing. Nothing is real. Not even...
He glanced again at Elespeth Rigas, the steadfast woman who was always, always, his shield...until the very end. Not real...not real.
Then, before he succumbed to a despairing collapse upon his feet, a stabilizing pressure held him upright, warmed him, carried him close to an inviting, salubrious heart. I love you.
I love you...
Alster pressed himself into the shoulder of that woman from another world. No, she wasn't from another world. They belonged to that same hellscape, but they belonged there...together. She loved him--unconditionally. Why should he think to seek that love elsewhere, in dusty corners where it never existed, when he already had it--right before his eyes?
"I love you," he whispered, in a muffled, half-drowned sigh. He raised his hand; it bore a scar. He folded that hand over its mirror image. Hand over hand. They were linked. Tied. Twisted. Threaded.
"Let's...let's go home. Elespeth."
He closed his eyes, banishing from sight that chimerical world that he had welcomed so dearly, that had meant so much to him---that still represented his happiness. His safety. Peace. A guiltless indulgence.
Guilt free.
And his consciousness faded from that world. From Debine, who stood aside and watched them leave without another word, her lips still contorted in disgust. Alster leaned against Elespeth...and walked through that tunnel from light into yawning, cavernous, hissing darkness...
His eyes snapped open.
The light. It hurt. He closed his eyes again, then, gradually, fluttered them open. He saw blurred shadows. They hovered over him, watching. He heard their breaths, their gasps of excitement, the horrifying thumping of their hearts. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. The smell all about him was acrid. His nostrils burned. Those shadows deepened, darkened. Flat, colorless, as if projected on a white-washed wall. Where, and why, and...
He groped the air for something. His hand weaved through the crowd that appeared so dead to him. Their collective voices crunched in his ears like dry, crenulated leaves on the wind. Lonely. So lonely. He was alone, and falling. Falling far. Everything spun, spiraled from his reach. Nothing he grasped would stop the descent. He thrashed around, fearing the cavern, the Serpent Den, the fissure in the ground that opened up and absorbed him. He tried to kick and scramble free, tearing at nothing, needing, needing, needing...
A hand to hold him still.
A familiar pressure. Something warm and wet and gluey against his palm. He turned his head. The pain was immense, but he saw through the shadow. Saw that his blood-slick hand had held another. Images reconstituted in the muted oblivion of his limbo state. He stopped falling when he saw her there. His rope. She had pulled him from the gray. Hand over hand.
"El...Elespeth." A mournful ring tolled from his throat, suffused with mounting panic. "Don't let me go...don't...or I'll fall forever. I'll fall. El..."
His eyes wavered. A forceful weight clamped over his chest. He gasped from the thinning of the air and tightened his hold on his only lifeline. "Don't want to...can't sleep. Can't. I won't...I won't..." He repeated that mantra until his frenetic gasps shorted out the words and converted them into long, pained wheezes.
A sharp, localized pain needled him in the arm and he drifted, drifted, like flotsam in the ocean. Calm and silent and...awake.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Alster... Alster!"
When Elespeth awakened, it was with a gasp and a breath drawn so deep that she thought she must have been holding air in her lungs this entire time. Hurriedly sitting up on her cot, the warrior turned just in time for her eyes to fall on the very nucleus of her cause, the reason she had risked what was left of the threads of her fragile life. Alster: there he was, the Rigas caster as good and healthy as the day that she had lost him, awake and alert and making pleas for her name, her attention, her help. "Alster... it's okay." Her tongue felt like bark, and her parched throat ached with every syllable enunciated. Not to mention every movement her body made felt as though her joints were filled with rust... and yet, she did not hesitate to reach out to the one she loved. The one she had so foolishly hoped she would see alive again. "It's all right... I'm here, I'm... what are you doing? Leave him alone!"
The former knight immediately went on the defense when the Clematis healer approached Alster's bedside, something that looked suspiciously like a syringe in hand. "Do not touch him! He is in distress... h-he needs me! I said, do not touch him!"
"Elespeth." Had Daphni not grabbed her just then, El would have leapt clean out of bed, and in to intervene before Elias could put any such drug in Alster's veins. "You need to stand down. Alster is back, yes, but he is distraught and unstable, and not even you will be able to bring him back down to earth. I know, deep down, that you understand this."
She was right--of course the empath was right. She could read auras like others could read books, and although Elespeth herself did not possess the former ability, the wide-rimmed whites of the Rigas caster's eyes was enough to communicate his mental and emotional state of mind. He was back, but Alster was far from well... and, truly, what else had she been expecting? With her own eyes, she had seen the world that he had walked, that he had convinced himself was his true home, with a woman who looked so much like her, only a perfected version of the person who she was... To return to a wartorn and imperfect world such as this, surrounded by suspicion and hatred and pain and suffering and uncertainty, anyone would succumb to panic and shock.
After all, she was no stranger to it... not when she had come so close to reuniting with the beloved brother she had lost.
"He's afraid. What I saw, what happened..." She stammered for excuses nonetheless, green eyes not once leaving her beloved's form, as it relaxed and eased back onto the mattress. Not asleep, but not fully there; in a state of in-between. Perhaps the only place where, right now, he would be able to find peace. "He still needs me. I can help--"
"You can help no one if you cannot first help yourself, warrior. Here." Daphni placed a steaming mug of tea into her shaking hands; a distinctly different concoction than that which she had crafted for her Clematis counterpart, but no less potent in its fragrance. It was not a full replacement, but at least, a minor substitute to provide her body with some of the nutrients it lacked in her fasting. "Rest and regain your strength. Your body, mind and soul has endured far too much in such a short period of time... I implore that you remain in the infirmary until the healing staff see fit to release you, and heed what I and Elias tell you. No more obstinacy, do you understand?"
Well, it wasn't as if Elespeth had much choice, and the former Sybaian was right. In her weakened state, one still plagued with the last time she ever witnessed Farrin's smile, she was of no use to Alster, and resigned instead to merely keep an eye on him as he dozed in and out of consciousness for hours.
Meanwhile, Lilica had a point to make, and cornered both Daphni and Vitali, who had yet to take his miserable leave. "You are by no means to erase Alster's memories of the place his mind inhabited," she hissed, and couldn't possibly put more emphasis on her point than with her body language. Tension ran through her body from her head to her toes, and although Alster was not a pillar in her life, he was still, in Chara's. And she owed him, for helping--or, at least, trying to help her. She could never wish upon him the suffering that she had experienced. "Even if it was only for a few days, the life he lived under that curse has implanted a lifetime's worth of memories in his head. Memories to which he will remain connected, and should you tear them away, you will leave gaping holes in his subconscious. He will year for places and people that no longer exist, and likely fall victim to emotional confusion for the rest of his life... Do you understand me, both of you?" Her dark eyes hardened, if that was even possible. "If you interfere with that place he thought to be real, you will wreck him. Even if he asks... even if he begs that you cleanse it from his psyche, do not. He does not realize what a mistake it would be..."
"Of course--you lived a similar life in that dream world, did you not?" Vitali knew full well the ramifications of Lilica's slumber, so similar to Alster's. But playing dumb warranted a rise out of his sister, nothing less than she deserved for thinking she had the right to give anyone directions. "I do wonder, what was it like? What did you dream of? Were you royalty, was there peace? Did you at all possess magic? Or--no, wait. You cannot tell me that, can you?" The sympathy in his voice was so heavy that there was no feasible way that it could be genuine. "I am so, so sorry, dear sister. Are those vacant holes in your psyche painful? Who is the monster who wrenched those memories from your mind?"
"I am. Because I asked for it to happen..."
He did not deserve this. He did not deserve to see her upset, to feel so fulfilled that he had hurt her... no. She would not give him that.
Without another word, she turned on her heel and fled the infirmary, past Elias and Chara and her father, without looking back. Because if Vitali did not deserve to see how she suffered that one, fateful mistake that changed the very fabric of what she felt inside, then neither did Chara. Not when she already had enough to grieve, and about which to worry.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
After his successful injection that the warrior had almost impeded by her hyper-protective burst of hysteria, Elias whirled on her, the syringe, still filled halfway with that oily substance, perched high in his ready and willing hand. He shot a cold, unyielding glare at her, one meant to shame and disparage until the troublesome patient shrank and withered back into their bed with promises to behave. "Had Daphni not contained you, you would have caused more harm to your beloved. If you had grabbed me, and my syringe sliced up and down his arm in the struggle, the blame would fall on you. Do not intercede in such delicate procedures. We are here to help, warrior. If you distract me again, I will not hesitate to use this on you." The syringe glinted cruelly in the wan, morning light that angled inside the infirmary windows. "Is this clear?"
When Elespeth nodded her assent, he withdrew the needle, his glare lifting--but his resting face did not differ much from his former countenance. His naturally narrow, cat-shaped eyes remained so, but he offset the intensity with a utilitarian smile, hard around the edges and more regimented than genuine. "Good. We shall check the progress of Alster once the drug loses its potency. You can help us then."
Haraldur, who kept a passive watch from far on the outskirts of the circle, hovered between making useful and staying out of the way. He chose, instead, to operate on the latter, aware that he was of limited use, considering the applications of magic and medicine and those of which he had limited to no expertise. All he could contribute was his relief to see that both Elespeth and Alster were awake and alive, (and a little bit of manpower to help Daphni contain the she-warrior). Battered, broken, and bruised they were, but as long as they breathed the same air together, he was confident that they would recover their functionality--eventually.
How long had it taken him?
No. I don't think I've ever truly recovered.
He drew his hand close to his chest and viewed the jagged scar on his wrist, a pale discoloration that did not lay flush with the surrounding skin. A puffy, thin line from end to end. A reminder of the knife, his own knife, his own hand, the deliberate sawing of flesh and sinew, the delirium...the failure.
The rescue.
Then--loneliness. Absolute. Consumptive. Mindful--in every twitching of muscle, every blink of the eye, every sensitive evaluation of his empty space. But they--Elespeth and Alster--had each other. While far from painful, it would be bearable for them.
He dropped his hand, let it swing to his side.
The two of you will bear it. I know you will.
Then, he slipped away from the crowd, and walked out of the infirmary.
It took Chara all of her willpower not to dart to Alster's side when his eyes fluttered open in wakefulness and he had gasped his first conscious breath. Still, in her eagerness, she almost knocked Vitali aside so that she could stand as close to the bed as the healers had dared her. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Hope, that preposterous denial of the truth, turned out as the truth. Awake. Alster was awake. He blinked and spoke and wrapped tightening fingers around Elespeth's hand. He had flailed, cried out in panic, begged and gripped the air as if trying to find a tangible hold on reality. She wanted to edge closer, smooth down his hair, kiss his forehead, soothe him into a steady, operable calm--but it would not suffice. She would not suffice. And Elespeth--she, too, could not penetrate the fog that held his baffled mind captive. And, with a resigned sigh, she accepted the Clematis healer's decision to sedate her delirious cousin.
"He is so accustomed to strife," she managed to say, almost under her breath, "but he always finds his way, Elespeth. He already has--back to you. He will do so again. But he must have this reprieve, lest the shock of returning here will be too great."
"Not to break up the circle of encouragements, here," said Elias, weaving past Chara with a damp cloth and fresh bandages, "but yes, I am here to break something." He pointed to the entwined, albeit bloody, hands that had glued themselves together unsanitarily. "I know it is adorable," he said with a flat tongue. "A sign of your unbreakable bonds, but prolonged exposure will cause your open wounds to become septic. Please do release each other. It won't be for long, I assure you."
Chara, the new obstruction in Elias's trajectory (which he confirmed with that dour, surly look of his), relocated near Lilica, Vitali and Daphni in time to hear the bulk of their conversation, which included her companion's vehement protestations against Alster losing the memories of his dream-world.
Who is the monster...?
Vitali's words chewed at her throbbing conscience. The monster...She asked me to destroy the dream. Against my better senses, I did. And I knew I had done wrong. But I did not realize...how wrong. How much she suffers, because I...
Her thoughts were interrupted by Lilica's purposeful footfalls echoing against the marble floor as she swept past everyone and exited the doors of the infirmary.
Before she gave chase, Chara bounded towards Vitali, her hands curled into claws. "I am that monster," she enunciated, her entire body shimmering with the desire to cause him harm, damning that promise of protection made by Canopus and Adalfieri! "You would do best not to provoke the monster."
She rushed past him, stormed through the infirmary doors, and caught up with Lilica a minute later, clamping a purposeful hand on her shoulder to cease her loping gait.
"Was all of that true? What you told him? Do you feel wrecked? Emotionally confused? Unable to feel any joy? Do you," she averted her eyes, the pressure of her hand loosening, "resent me? Do I...do I even make you...happy?"
In essence, a world that did not exist. A world whose demise had been necessary for the chthonic caster to move forward... but how could she possibly articulate that and have it come across as anything but implicitly negative?
Ultimately, that did not matter. All that did was that Chara deserved to know the truth, all of it, and how she wished to interpret the results of her interference was entirely up to her. But that was not to say that Lilica would do everything in her power to deflect and demolish guilt and fear before they had a chance to thrive.
And she did.
"Yes. It is true--all of it." There was no mistaking the distress that befell Chara's lovely face when those words fell from her lips. She wanted nothing more than to kiss away the tension, but distraction was not sufficient right now in the gravity of this revelation. "I do not feel wrecked, Chara; I am wrecked. I can feel it in my skin and bones and spirit. I feel it before I fall asleep at night, and the second I awaken every morning. My surroundings confuse me such that half of the time, I do not know what to feel: that fountain, the view from your villa, the fragrant herbs and flowers in the gardens... All of it tugs at something that no longer exists. Holes and caverns in my mind that leave these feelings wanting and nostalgic for something that I cannot remember. A loss that I cannot even properly mourn because I cannot recall what it is that I have lost. And..." Swallowing, she inhaled deeply. "I would be lying to you were I to say that I do not suffer. But what you must realize is that I, right now... I realize that my decision to ask you to destroy that fantasy in my mind was synonymous with my decision to suffer. My choice to surrender to the pain from which I have been running for my entire life..."
Reaching upward, Lilica gripped Chara's shoulders in turn, and met her frantic, blue gaze, despite how it hurt her to see her so full of remorse. "When you dissolved my dream world... much though it might seem contrary, you set me free. But freedom doesn't always mean peace. It can mean finally letting go of the rope and falling into the suffering that you have avoided for eons. And... and it is through that suffering that I am beginning to see what has happened as a blessing. After all... had none of this occurred, had I not come to terms with facing the real world, I'd never have extended my hand to you. Asked for your help, or... or have garnered the courage to do this." Standing on her toes, the dark mage wrapped her arms around Chara's neck and kissed her, slowly and with meaning. Her heart swelled with hope and excitement.
"I asked for this," she murmured as she pulled away, lowering herself back to her diminutive height. "And it still hurts, but now I know... it is because it takes time to heal. And you have set me on that path, whether you realize it or not. But what I requested of the healer and of my vile brother was in Alster's best interests. Because he is not in a state to make that decision on his own, to part from that which he has just been torn. Prematurely, I do believe that it could destroy him... which is why I said what I did, and with such vehemence so as to make a point." She pressed her lips together and looked down at the tips of her boots, suddenly shy in light of this small, yet simultaneously grandiose confession. "I do not resent you. Quite the opposite, you help me see joy through this pain. And... happiness. You and only you, Chara Rigas. Without you to help show me the places where light shines, I..." She paused, and her voice faltered. "I would still be lost in my own darkness."
"You would do well to work on your compassion."
When at last Elespeth had fallen into a restless slumber, her wound and Alster's cleaned and rebandaged, Daphni confronted the Clematis healer as he cleaned his instruments. For all she was willing to work with and alongside him, their camaraderie was not enough to assuage her critical nature; and the same could very well be said for Elias. "What do you gain from antagonizing your patients? I understand your need to be firm, particularly when some have a penchant for hysterics..." Her pale blue eyes wandered to the Atvanian warrior's form, thin and pale and with still a long way to recovery from what she had suffered prior to bringing Alster back to the world of the waking. "But to threaten and instill the fear of your authority in them will prolong their recovery time. I was able to prevent the warrior from acting out; do us both a favour and at least make an attempt to have some faith in me."
She was now, however, above taking her own advice. And it had not eluded her that her colleague was, himself, chronically unwell. Putting the former issue aside, she offered him a mug steaming with the familiar potency of his concoction. "Here; I modified the recipe to your liking. Do us all a favour and get some rest. I have a feeling we will both have our work cut out for us..."
That was no exaggeration. Between an exhausted warrior, who shared in emotional and mental turmoil as did her sedated Rigas companion, along with the man who was evidently Chara's father, whose legs struggled to maintain their strength and mobility, there was enough work for every skilled healer in Stella D'Mare. But, as specialists, the majority of the work had fallen upon her shoulders, and Elias's. Funny, how despite identifying apart from the Sybaia, she suddenly found herself faced with more work all at once than she had ever experienced before. "And... thank you, by the way. For your lack of hesitation in jumping to help me. Of course, I realize it is your job, though I do hope you realize that I am no longer your patient." An affirmation that she was, in fact, stubborn enough to defend.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She was about to apologize and turn away, to allow Lilica her much-needed space, but the life-weary mage began to speak. Chara listened, her face falling with every word that detailed the distress of which she played an active role in facilitating. But it was the truth she sought, and the truth she had received. Pressure on her shoulders had impelled Chara to look into those sad, albeit shining smoked-glass eyes. Then, Lilica had planted her a kiss, out in the open. Their lips connected like two broken pieces that fit snug against each other. She wanted to protest, to exclaim that the Rigases were on full guard today considering their unwanted guest that still lurked inside the infirmary, but she had not found the wherewithal, or the desire, to force those broken pieces apart so soon after they united.
As if aware of their forbidden predicament, Lilica kept their liaisons brief and flattened back onto her heels, the height difference tugging a small smile from Chara's still-puckered lips. "Between you and Alster, I feel like a giantess." That smile, however, melted into a frown, which a sigh had transitioned onto those same, receptive lips. "Anyway, I hope you are not lying to me. Spreading some falsehood so as to lessen my hand in the willful destruction of your fantasy. Because to tell me I am this bastion to your happiness when you still suffer the repercussions of your grandiose loss that I caused--that would be so cruel." She stroked her hands down the length of Lilica's shoulders, offering supplication to her biting, yet half-facetious words.
"So you are saying I am both your executioner and your savior? My, you do have a way with words. I suppose this confession will have to do--though I hope that one day, I will have taken from you that freedom of suffering, and chained you to my will, for, when you are my captive, you will no longer need worry about those bothersome concepts. If I so bring you joy, as your claim, I daresay imprisonment shall shackle you with pure giddiness for want of my company." She touched her nose with her own. "Let this not be a lie," she said again, but with a somber, almost desperate tone. "For I so desire to emulate that light for you. And though I am in full admittance of my monster status, for I know what Rigases say of me when they think I do not hear their gossiping prattle, I do not wish to be your monster."
As Elias washed his instruments with his thorough, deep-cleansing fervor, he harrumphed at the lecture he anticipated was forthcoming, for Daphni was not one to keep silent on her opinions, however unpopular. A derisive smirk, however, replaced whatever irritation he had harbored for the former Sybaian's admonishment. "This is your trouble? You think I lack faith in you? Because I spoke over your oh-so 'compassionate' bedside manner?" He towel-dried his scalpel, the one used by the necromancer to slice open the twin injuries on the palms of the half-deranged lovers. "There is no reasoning with hysterical patients, but they do react to fear. She did not want to harm her lover; she almost harmed her lover by acting out. Yes, I appreciate that you were able to talk her down. But I have my own vendettas. I will not allow a patient to interrupt my work. Hysterical or otherwise. She will know better, next time."
After organizing his table of instruments according to size and purpose, he grabbed a clean rag and walked over to Alster's bed, wiping the drool that dribbled from his slackened mouth as he continued to stare out at some invisible spot on the wall with slow, languid blinks. "Contrary to your belief, I do care." He adjusted the Rigas caster's pillows, hauling him further upright. "I just cannot sho..." he clamped his tongue, sighed, and turned back to Daphni, accepting the steaming mug without revealing that the potency was no longer enough, that he needed to experiment with different herbal combinations, but hadn't any time to himself. "You will understand this, empath: compassion is exhausting. And I haven't the stamina to employ it when saving lives is paramount. That is where I focus my energies." He took a sip of his mug, warming his chilled fingers along the ceramic surface.
"No, I suppose you are not my patient--if that is what you wish to hear. To that end, I am not your patient, either. But we must keep each other alive. Label that however you will." He took another, more generous sip, and puckered his lips at the bitterness of the concoction. "Better. ...And yes. I will take your advice to rest. But first, I need some air. Keep an eye on them while I am gone."
But as he exited the infirmary, out in the cool, late afternoon air, a curiosity from earlier scratched at his perpetually sore throat and painted shivers of goose-flesh up and down his spine. The necromancer. I must speak with him...
After putting in a formal request with Adalfieri via a Rigas envoy, Haraldur was allowed to leave the estate by the way he had arrived. While the envoy insisted that Adalfieri would fain permit an extended visit, he knew those words to be a courtesy. He saw how the Rigases grazed him with those whale-eyed glares of suspicion and distrust. While he brought for them the solution to Alster's awakening, he also had unleashed a dangerous threat to their security. And was Vitali's expertise even necessary, if the solution to wake the Rigas caster hinged on Elespeth the entire time? Did he, ultimately, condemn the Rigas family, by endorsing and advocating for the necromancer's dubious help?
It was why he needed to leave, and immediately. Those unruffled faces who watched him pass through the front gates that afternoon smiled with relief. One unwanted outsider, gone.
As he descended the multitude of stairs that would lead him to the base level of Stella D'Mare, and to the rock-strewn fields outside the city's jurisdiction, Haraldur thought on Elespeth, last seen in hysterics as she reached for the hand of her newly-conscious lover. He regretted that he could not say goodbye; even if he had, his words would not reach her, not when she was so entrenched in the condition of Alster Rigas--as well she should be. She fought for her life to secure that warm, reciprocal hand. May their souls intertwine, once more.
He no longer had a part, nor a place, in their lives.
You once said you thought of me as a brother, he thought, with a sad smile. I will never forget that, Elespeth...
He reached the borders of Tadasun's camp at dawn, two days later, after an uneventful trek through the wastes of dry, brittle fields of yellow straw and boulder-dotted hillocks that rippled the land like a terrestrial ocean. As he meandered closer to the encampment, attracting the attention of a few sentries who did not yet know his identity, he noticed the fluttering movements of what he first descried as tents, batting variegated flags against the wind. Upon closer inspection, he saw a great, heaving body, festooned with feathers, and ponderous, gripping talons grinding and tearing at the dirt below. The entire creature was barely concealed by a ring of tents, and was surrounded by awe-stricken soldiers both there to oversee the beast and to gawk at its size.
It was an enormous avian.
Haraldur's eyes widened.
Eyraille...?
He wanted to flee. To flee far. But by then, the sentries on duty had recognized him, were shocked to see him alive, probed him with questions about his whereabouts, and guided him into the camp.
His feet kept gripping the ground as if for purchase--just like the sharp, pinioned claws from that golden-eyed bird of which he was all too familiar.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was during one such encounter, though, that Elias managed to find the regally-dressed necromancer, while he exchanged words with a decidedly reluctant Lilica. "No need for such hostility; not towards your own family," he drawled, casually pursuing the dark mage through the gardens not far from the Rigas estate. "I only thought you would like to know where you went wrong. I am certain that you are curious as to how I replicated that very curse that you had hoped would bring you death. The error was very simple, and easily rectified."
"Once, I had a deathwish; I will not deny that. But I have no use for this knowledge now." Lilica's cheeks burned with crimson fury in her brother's presence. He clung like a barnacle to a ship, unshakable, and quite an eyesore. "So you can take your knowledge and be on your way. I have somewhere to be which does not involve your presence."
"Ah; you are on your way to that pretty Rigas caster's humble abode."
"And what the hell sort of business is that of yours?" Lilica's fury all but peaked.
And it only further fueled her brother's amusement. "Your bond is merely intriguing. Not only for the fact that she wields celestial magic--the exact opposite of your gifts--but... pardon me for saying, I never pegged you as one to possess a fond eye for the female form. Or for any form, for that matter."
"It has nothing to do with form, you imbecile," his sister hissed. "Chara has been a better friend and ally to me than I even deserve, and I owe her more than I can ever repay. But you... you would not understand that sort of bond. And I have no further interest in discussing it with you."
When she stalked off, Vitali, this time, did not pursue her any further. Much though he loved how his mere presence irked the chthonic mage, he knew her limits, and knew better than to exceed them. Not to mention, there were other matters to further sustain his interest and protect him from ennui. "Siblings. Sisters... they are as much a bane as a source of laughter," He mused, addressing the man who had approached him from behind. He needn't turn and look to know who it was. "Have you any, yourself, Clematis? Although, I suppose that talk of family is not what interests you at this moment, or why you came to find me."
Turning at last, Vitali clasped his hands behind his back and smiled knowingly at Elias, pale eyes glinting in the afternoon sun. "So. How might I be of service to you, healer?"
Vega Sorde had been wary of Tadasun from the very beginning.
A nation that prided itself in crafting explosives, in her eyes, surely could not be seeking camaraderie with another kingdom, or even peace, for that matter. And yet she could not deny the fact that the empire of explosive weaponry had freely offered aide to the struggling kingdom of Eyraille, one that once appeared to have thrived under tyrannical rule, and now that no longer knew what to do with itself. In part because of a certain, young king who, himself, did not know what to do with it, but that was another issue for another, more appropriate time.
"Are you the envoy from Eyraille?" A handful of sentries approached Vega and her enormous mount, a golden-eyed roc with a fierce demeanor towards strangers, such as those that approached. All the same, the fools should have known better than to greet their potential ally with such hostility.
"I am." Throwing her legs over the side of the roc, the Skyknight jumped down with all the grace of a feline, practiced and natural. With the wind no longer in her face, she removed her helmet, tucking it between her arm and her waist. "I must say, I had hoped that Eyraille would be greeted with a warmer welcome. I am unarmed; I beseech, therefore, that you lower your own weapons."
There was a pause between the Tadasuni sentries as they beheld the figure in front of them, covered in armor from ankles to knees, waist to neck, and wrist to shoulders. Their jaws all but dropped when the removal of the helped completely spoiled their expectations. "This is not some sort of joke, is it?" One of them snarked, though complied and lowered his spear. "What's Eyraille doing sending some woman as a messenger? We were expecting a Sir Sorde, of sorts..."
"And so you are speaking to her. I am Sir Vega Sorde, commander of Eyraille's Skyknights." She had heard it all before; the surprise, the sarcasm, the jokes, the disdain, the repulsion. But gender-centered criticism was not something that one grew used to so easily. Lips pursed, she tucked behind her ear the copper tresses that the helmet had pulled free from the weaved bun tightly pinned to the back of her head. "If you are quire finished with your gawking, then, I would prefer we discuss business; after all, I understand that time is of the essence in your war with Andalari."
Turning, the Skyknight of Eyraille stroked the neck feathers of her roc and murmured calming words to stay its aggressive nature, as was typical of their species. When the giant bird's feathers relaxed against its back, she left it be and returned her attention to the men. But now, there was an addition to their small cluster; another man, who did not sport the colours of Tadasun, and who appeared weary in the face from travel. Vega narrowed her eyes in thought, some flicker of familiarity triggering a light in the back of her mind. That man...
"You look familiar." Sparing the formalities, the roc commander approached Haraldur, azure eyes locked on his world-weary face. "I have no memory for faces, so when I do recall them in familiarity, then I cannot be wrong; we have met before... When did you last pay visit to Eyraille? And for what purpose?" She was not wrong; there was something about his face, something that her overburdened mind could not have forgotten... meaning their last encounter, whenever and wherever it had been, must have rung with some significance. But, until she knew, she was not about to extend a hand of friendship to this stranger.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Adalfieri, the 'esteemed' Rigas head, had visited the infirmary once, accompanied by a bevy of guards and two attendants who hefted him along in a small, yet lavish palanquin. Elias wondered if his legs had ceased to function, or if he was accustomed to the pampering of his subjects. The Esteemed stared out from his palanquin, at Alster's bed and his tranquil repose that was eerily similar to his cursed sleep. Adalfieri, however, seemed pleased with the progress as he asked the questions that Elias answered in full, including the frequency of the drug injection and details on the specific drug used. What surprised him, however, was the Rigas head's blatant, almost dismissive response in regards to the treatment of their so-called 'valuable asset.'
"If need be, regulate the use of this drug. Whatever will see him standing and functional, with the least amount of stress on his body. If eliminating stress means numbing his emotional core for a time, then do what must be done. With care, of course."
When Adalfieri and his retinue exited the infirmary, Elias, too, headed for the outside, informing Daphni of his absence before skirting off to the gardens. This haphazard handling of his patient, this jostling of his psyche with the hopes to jumpstart his mind to when last he functioned with full capacity, and as quick as possible--what they asked he could not provide. The young man was not a machine; turn a few cogs and he'd be in working order, ticking and whirring and gonging with precision. But the Rigases, they thought him to be one--and Elias, by extension, was his greaseman, the tinkerer. The provider. The enabler.
Pressing a handkerchief to his mouth, agitated by his impromptu audience with the Rigas head and fighting the urge to cough out his frustrations to the sky, he paused in that choking sensation of a release deferred when he spotted the necromancer a stone's throw from where he stood--accompanied by what he deduced to be his relative. His sister, perhaps. Why, wasn't this fortuitous? He had searched for the necromancer the past few days, but in vain. Funny how, once he canceled his search, he should come to find the garish, overindulgent man without trouble.
He pretended not to hear the tiff that passed between him and Lilica, in favor of appraising, curiously enough, a clematis bush that sat, squat, by his knees. They were royal purple, this variety, and only six-petaled, but he tugged at the clematis broach pinned to his collar self-consciously--as if the Eight-Colored God was present, and watching...and disapproving of the company he sought.
Elias stood, receptive to the approach of the man named Vitali once his sibling had stalked away from the garden. He played with his broach, pretending it was crooked, until he dropped his hand in order to conceal the handkerchief held by the other.
"Ah, siblings," he said with a distracted air, too impatient for small talk. Nonetheless, he answered the necromancer's inquiry. "Four older brothers. Quadruplets. Very close-knit. Kept to themselves, mainly. They're dead." And as if he uttered those last words on purpose to cajole a turn in the conversation, he proceeded. "Yes. I believe you may. I could not help but overhear what you told the warrior the other day, about your necromantic abilities. You spoke, too, of 'lasting repercussions' for those awakened from death. What are those repercussions? And what are the limits on who you can revive? I would like to know of your technique, and the specifics of your magic." He clasped his hands behind his back, both in a gesture of interest and concealment of his handkerchief, though he knew that he fooled no one, least of all this man. "From one professional to another."
Haraldur hadn't much choice but to follow the sentries, who had gripped him firm and eager over the shoulder as they chattered in excited tones about the envoy from Eyraille, about the size of the bird, the largest they had ever seen, about how it was a last-ditch effort from their commander to entice the kingdom of rocs and aeries to their behest, and how the envoy in question who arrived was none other than the captain of the skyknights, Sir Sorde.
"Seems that I have missed a lot while I was gone," Haraldur said, flattening the apprehension in his tone in exchange for polite, yet detached cordiality. "Speaking of the commander, I should see him and report on the happenings at Messino's camp--and of my Rigas-sanctioned trip to Stella D'Mare."
"Oh, come on!" goaded one of the sentries, swerving him in the direction of the giant bird. "That can be done later. Besides, the commander will be busy with Sir Sorde," he said with mock deference. "You can't tell me you don't want to have a closer look at this terrible brute and the brute who rides 'er!?"
"I'm afraid of birds," he lied.
"With a bird that big, even if you're not afraid, you're bound to be before long!" chuckled the second sentry as they squeezed within the circle that gathered around the new arrivals. "See those eyes? The way they contract and dilate like that? Those are killing eyes!"
When Sir Sorde stepped from the roc and removed his helmet, it was soon known among the gathered Tadasuni that Sir was an honorific, not an identifier of gender.
"Sir is a Ma'am?" chewed the first sentry, then affixed an accusatory stare at Haraldur. "You folks from the northern countries sure have strange customs. And Andalari, too." He wrinkled his nose at the name.
"But isn't your monarchy typically ruled by women?"
"Yes, but therein lies the difference. Our women rule, but they do not fight, or command armies, or call themselves Sir." The sentry shook his head at that, as if relaying Tadasuni policies to a toddler.
"Well, I have seen the bird," Haraldur said, slowly slipping out of view. "I'm going to--"
But she had spotted him. Sir Vega Sorde. He knew that name, knew that bird. Recognized her brazen hair, burnished and glossed like petrified fire. Those eyes, preserving the chill of those mountaintop aeries frosted with snow for much of the year. He could almost feel cold steam huff out of his mouth, could smell the highland juniper, could see the larkspur and the marigolds in the height of spring, wagging and rustling on that windswept mount...
And he saw death. Blood in the crunch of snow. Screams that chilled the frigid air. And him and them and nothing beyond, nothing no longer below...
He snapped to when her eyes, which never wavered from their target--him--seemed to glean with the familiarity of his presence. Of course she would find me familiar, he reasoned to himself. I am the only other Northerner here. It was evidenced by his skin tone, much lighter than the caramel browns and dark olives that the Tadasuni populace sported; by his towering height, an often coveted feature amongst Mollengardians and the surrounding area; by his green eyes, a shade more popular in upper latitudes; and, once he spoke, by his voice, rolling and slippery in places, broad and flat-tongued in others. All distinct. All a betrayal of his identity, but not necessarily of that identity: The Nameless One, the Refugee Warrior, a criminal, a fugitive, missing for five years...presumed dead.
He wished to keep it that way.
"Oh, I get that a lot. I'm from outside of Central Mollengard," he said, combating the skyknight's probing tongue with one that was glib, non-revelatory. "The lot of us look alike. I'm a wanderer, so yes, I have passed through Eyraille on my way down here. I don't even remember how long ago; I'm bad with time." That was partly true. He didn't even know his age, or his birthday--but other, more extenuating circumstances contributed to that specific ignorance, and not because he could not track the days.
"Haraldur!" The sentry that earlier accompanied him shouted from beyond the circle. "One of the officers would like to speak with you regarding the infiltration at Messino's camp."
"Well, if you'll excuse me," he bowed away from Sir Vega Sorde and followed the sentry to a nearby tent, gladdened both by the interruption and by the deliberate bark of his name. Well, I am no longer nameless. That might take her off my trail...for a bit. Then I might make my escape.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Gesturing for Elias to follow, the necromancer continued his casual promenade through the lush, veridian gardens of Stella D'Mare. To any bystander, the pair looked as though they were merely discussing the beautiful weather, and not the fine line between life and death, and beyond. "I would ask what sparks your sudden, keen interest in necromancy, but--and do correct me if I am wrong--I am impelled to believe it has something to do with your deteriorating state. Quite a nasty cough you've got there." The corners of his mouth turned upward ever so slightly. "Don't get me wrong, it is not as though I can determine the state of your aura as your beloved Sybaian healer can. What I can see are death's fingers reaching for you, time and again, but you are just out of reach. For now."
On that ominous note, he lifted his shoulders in a shrug, implying little importance to his previous assessment. "But as for these repercussions that interest you; there is no direct answer, for everyone is affected differently, depending on who they are, or rather, who they were, and their state of mind at the moment of death. Some present symptoms that resemble those of the Rigas mage's, frenetic and inconsolable, for a time. Others return in a state of catatonic trance, and it can take time for them to grasp the rhythm of the living world again." He ticked off each possibility on his fingers as he recalled what he knew of reanimation and resurrection. "Some exhibit violence, and others struggle to maintain a grasp on reality, with glimpses of the details surrounding their death invading their everyday thoughts and tasks. Really, the possibilities are endless."
Expelling a long sigh from his lungs, he considered the man's next question carefully. "The limits of my magic are not something that I can determine. As a reference point, the sooner I get to someone following their death, the more likely I am to revive them with minimal repercussions... Though if their soul has already crossed into the Thereafter, then any attempts that I make might bring back the body... but not the mind. And that is where the craft crosses into dangerous territory. Something that Messino has already seen fit to exploit, though he lacks significant understanding in what those enchanted weapons of his are really doing to his soldiers."
He did not, however, appear too concerned with regard to Messino's advantage in reusing fallen soldiers. But that was not something on which he wished to dwell, evidently. "But from one professional to another, as you say," he went on, "I would not dabble in what you cannot understand, Clematis, if that is your intent. I can only foresee it ending in chaos and tragedy. My craft belies an understanding that is innate to my nature, just as darkness is innate to my sister. And, even if you were to return to the land of the living following an untimely death, that affliction of yours would reanimate along with your body. Death and revival will not rid you of it, I'm afraid. Ultimately, you would only be buying yourself a limited amount of time before you perish all over again.
"I apologize if this conversation did not go as you had hoped or expected, Clematis," the necromancer acknowledged with feigned regret. "But this is not so easy as a mere spell. I believe you would be better for you focus on finding a means to rid yourself of this aliment, or live to the fullest until it takes you for good."
Little did Haraldur know that Sir Vega Sorde was not one to let a matter of familiarity drop so quickly, particularly not one that was dismissed simply as 'coincidence' or, even less credible, unimportant. The would-be queen of Eyraille witnessed too many faces that came and went from her ravaged kingdom for various purposes to pass this man off as just another nobody, and so, she thought on it. The issue lingered at the back of her mind for the remainder of that day, while she met with Tadasuni officials and was filled in on the details of their war with Andalari. Evidently, they appeared to know little of Stella D'Mare's unique involvement in all of this, and thus, it provided her an opportunity to once again speak with the man who had been so intensely eager to escape her presence.
It wasn't until she saw him again, however, that the origins of the familiarity dawned on her. Something about seeing the contours of his face in the light of the campfire, as rationed meals were handed out, triggered another memory from what seemed like so long ago. A man form Mollengard, his face weary in the firelight, on the evening that he had brought refugees from that kingdom over to Eyraille, which--given the desertion of many denizens since King Sorde's passing, years earlier--her empire had welcomed.
His name had not been Haraldur, back then; she could not recall what it used to be. But it was the face that mattered, and the will of the man behind the face.
Without a word seeking permission, the captain of Eyraille's skyknights took a seat next to him, on an otherwise unoccupied log. He appeared to be purposely sitting in solitude, and a twinge of guilt pinched her gut as a result, but it was not enough to damped her curiosity. "Some years ago, a man brought refugees from Mollengard to Eyraille, in hopes that they could begin again their lives in a safer place." Right away, she could tell he knew where she was going with this, from the tension in his shoulders. "I was a skyknight, at the time, but not a commander. Though I was no less a part of the party that safely shuttled the refugees from the very bottom of the mountains to our skyward kingdom up above, at the peak. I also happened to shuttle this man, this saviour, up into the mountains where he was able to regain his baring before he insisted on moving on. This, sir, is not the first time we have spoken."
Sir Vega Sorde looked very different without her head-to-toe armour, clad simply in garb suitable for traveling. In fact, she appeared much smaller, when not upon her roc. "I wondered why my roc did not react with hostility towards you, as she does with most strangers... it is because you have once before taken to the skies on her back. Seated behind me." She studied Haraldur's face, wondering at the world-weary nature of his features. "What is a saviour from Mollengard doing in a war between Tadasun and Andalari?" She could very well ask herself the same thing, but with Mollengard having provided Eyraille with ample weaponry and military aide, the better question would have been, what didn't Eyraille have to do with any of this?
"I apologize; I realize I am prying," she confessed, finally turning her attention to the fire, the light of which set the copper tone of her hair glowing, and her blue eyes glinting. "I am merely curious as to what happened to that man, who saved so many lives. And what exactly he is doing in a place like... well, here."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
No longer caring for the preservation of his undisturbed bearing, or of concealing an infirmary that required no further hiding, Elias brought forth his handkerchief and coughed out a gob of blood. His breathing hissed and sputtered, not so much from the exertion, but from the confirmation that he was, in fact, going to die...imminently. And there was nothing that could be done for him, short of finding a cure.
"How long?" He threaded his fingers through the blood-stained cloth, reading the splotches as one would read ink blots as an exploration into the psyche, or tea leaves to scry the future. "Are you able to detect the length of my failing mortality?" Two months, he had predicted. Two months to find a cure. Yes, there were methods by which he could prolong his life, but that meant withdrawing from the war and never again using his healing abilities. Now that the Rigas head had unofficially claimed him as Alster's caretaker, his roots in the involvement of Stella D'Mare and of the Rigas rebellion ran deep, and spread without any indications of slowing, or ceasing.
With a sigh, he packed away his handkerchief and clasped his hands, this time, in front of him. No more hiding. "When I die, and if you are near, I give you permission to revive me, should you find it in your interest to do so. Even if it is only for the sake of buying myself time, I refuse to die without first conceiving of a cure." With a curt bow, he excused himself from the necromancer's presence. "Thank you for your consultation. My curiosity is sated, now. If you do revive anyone in the future, let me know, for I wish to see your process in practice."
Disappointing. Disappointed. But he expected the dreary news, nonetheless. If a necromancer could stitch lives together as if they were flesh wounds, then it was only through flesh wounds that the necromancer could revive the dead in full. Just like a Clematis healer, or a Sybaian healer--as far as he knew. No one could cure the sick; it fit snug and certain into his theory about magic and disease--though what he sought was not the answer he wanted, nay, hoped, to hear.
He shuffled back inside the infirmary, too lost in thought to hear a low, mournful song pervade the length of the mostly patient-free room. Even Lysander Rigas had been discharged, limping, but nonetheless walking, to recover at his own leisure in his home. When Elias fought back the distractions of his ailing mind and ailing body, he regarded a curious scene unfolding before him.
Alster was awake, sitting upright, and the melody that echoed from wall to wall had stemmed from his mouth. He sang in a language foreign to him, but it was mellifluous, with rolling Rs and honeyed notes. It lent itself to the structure of the tune, an old folk song, from the sound of it. As he sang, the Rigas caster gently stroked Elespeth's arm, who, in slumber, slept with fitful shifts on the cot and a troubled look wrinkling her brow. But what Elias noticed, above all, was the awareness that glinted off Alster's blue-green eyes. There was a deliberateness to his actions. A lucidity. Tentatively, Elias approached.
Alster caught the Clematis healer in his periphery and inclined his head to him. His song slowed, then silenced. "I don't want her to have nightmares," he whispered, his expression just as mournful as the song he sang. "I remember doing this once...once before. But I don't know...where. In what place. I..." his eyebrows pinched together as he struggled to remember the details of what he lost.
Elias placed his hand out to him, a gesture to halt those unhealthy thoughts. "Do not fuss over what you cannot remember. Time will put together the missing pieces." Then, he added, as in consideration, "Keep singing, Alster. I do believe that it will help you sort through your memories."
Reporting the details of the small infiltration and of his embarkation to Stella D'Mare may have been a welcome distraction for Haraldur at the time, but it reminded him that he had played an active role in leading a small collective to camp, of which all but himself and Elespeth had perished. I am not equipped to lead, he thought, after his grim retelling. They were victorious insofar as they obtained Alster and seriously injured Messino--but only just. People die under my command. I must learn my place.
His meeting ended with the officer making conjectures on his continued role in Tadasun's army. They saw him as useful, in a dispensable sort of way--which was exactly what he wanted out of his arrangement with the southern country. And his abilities for reconnaissance and stealth proved an asset to a country that harnessed explosives and had allied with a nation renown for their flocks of giant, conspicuous birds. They were severely lacking in subtlety and surprise. ...He saw their point.
When the officer dismissed him, Haraldur was too exhausted to make plans to flee the camp in the dead of night. His journey had wearied him; a round trip of four days, with but a small reprieve in the middle. It did naught to refresh him, but he was well-accustomed to the feeling of unending weariness. It seeped into his bones, roosted in his heart, and overtook the shell of his body. He knew nothing of rest, nor did he want rest--not if it would unveil all of his reasons for running. Not if it would reveal that the past had caught up to him, and would no longer loosen its oppressive choke-hold on his parched and barren throat. But he had lost...and was found.
It was with this defeat in mind that he sat by the fire that night, picking at his food--and waited for Sir Vega Sorde's approach. Her arrival was prompt. She sat beside him, atop the log, their knees almost touching. He stared into the flame, acknowledging her with a mere bob of a nod, and with resignation, sank into her story. His story.
"It's not the first time we've spoken, no," he admitted, but still he did not meet her gaze. He stared at his tray, and flicked grains of rice into the fire. "And you are not mistaken in my role. I am who you say I am. But you are mistaken on one count." He raised his eyes, and found hers, flashing almost red in the fire. "I am no savior. It was mere happenstance which crafted that role for me. I could not escape it, once involved."
At once, his face went rigid, his eyes chilly. The fire bent away from his hunched form in a wide arc, too apprehensive to tread close. Haraldur pressed the scar tissue of his wrist close to himself, for warmth. "Have you heard of the First Regiment of Mollengard? Otherwise known as the Forbanne. The execrated and the cursed. They take boys as young as six and conscript them into their army. They'll even go as far as to take from other countries, or ones they have gained or absorbed through conquest. These boys are stripped of their identity, of their conscience, of all concept of morality. They only need to follow one order: kill on command. So we did. Hundreds upon hundreds. Indiscriminately. Innocent lives, not just casualties of war. I thought it to be a game. It was fun. Fulfilling." Setting aside his tray, he rose to his feet, his face a mask that still held to its impenetrable stolidness, despite all the hairline cracks that dressed its battered surface. "So you see, I am no savior, for I am Forbanne; the ones who cannot be saved, and who cannot save others. That's why I'm here. To fight. To kill. To die. Do not speak to me anymore of the past. I am a mercenary now. That is all."
He offered Vega his uneaten tray, nodded his leave, and turned from the welcoming fire that did not wish to welcome him. But one stray thought slipped his mind as he departed:
I wonder how they're faring. The refugees. Are they safe? Are they protected? Are they alive...and happy?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With a sigh and a shrug, he turned his full attention to the Clematis healer once more, pale eyes glinting icily in the sunlight. "If you want my advice, healer, then it is this: it is not more conducive to seek death than it is to avoid it. It is what it is, and when it happens... there are people, like me, who are happy to interfere." A sly smile dawned on his pale face. "And, rest assured, should I anticipate any use of my craft, you will be among the first to know. Especially if it happens to be you whom I am pulling up from the grave."
While Elespeth drifted in and out of dreamless sleep, waking occasionally to check on her Rigas lover, Lilica saw fit that another Rigas in need of help was not neglected in the effort put forth to help Alster recover. Chara, though not entirely negligent, still appeared to have trouble seeing through her pride to visit and check on her father as much as was probably necessary. Without mentioning a word of it, therefore, the chthonic mage took it upon herself to fill in the gaps and make her way to Lysander's villa now and then, when she was not spending coveted time with his haughty and beautiful daughter.
He had recovered somewhat, able to stand and get around his home, though the healers had not advised he venture forth as an envoy for the time being, until the deteriorating condition of his legs subsided enough for him to be of further use to Adalfieri. Lilica, therefore, did not coddle him, but took the time to perform menial tasks that provided her mind with some peace in the absence of deep thought. She spent one afternoon going through the herb garden, collecting various greens and flower petals which, once mixed and marinated in a bath, served to soothe and strengthen muscles and the immune system. Far from a cure for his condition, but a small luxury that certainly wouldn't hurt. And which would further conceal his decrepit sickness from his daughter.
"Up and about again? I thought you were advised to remain stationary until the healers see fit to tell you otherwise." Setting the basket of herbs on an end table, she frowned at the standing man with a critical eye. He certainly looked better, with more colour to his face and his hair carefully pulled back, not mussed with days of bed rest. "How are you, otherwise? I had nothing better to do in this wait to see if Alster Rigas will ever again be in fighting form... soaking with these in the bath should at least treat the pain, temporarily."
She did not want to make herself so at home as to take a seat; the dark mage should not be so presumptuous as to think that her presence was welcome, even in her endeavors to help the older Rigas caster. This was not her place, her task; it should have rightfully been Chara's. Lilica was no one's daughter, no one's family.
"How much longer until you plan to inform Chara of what ails you?" She had asked before, but the longer Lysander delayed in explanation, the more concerned she became. "She worries, you know. It is just that she does not speak of it, but I can tell. She is not so shallow as to disavow her connection to her own family..."
"The Forbanne... I am familiar with that history." Vega confided with a solemn nod, turning her face to the flames that licked the sky. "It is grim, but no moreso than the sins of past Eyraille, under the rule of a tyrannical king. Eyraille... it used to pride itself in conquest. In the amount of blood that it spilled in its needless efforts to display its strength and power over other kingdoms. Not only did it exploit its own people, but the hard work of the rocs that my ancestors spent generations on taming and training. I understand your plight--Haraldur, is it? I understand, and I empathize, but I do not believe it to be enough to warrant villifying who you are. Because you... you're more than that. For what you did for those people, for how it helped my homeland..."
But words alone were not enough to assuage the heaviness of the past that weighed upon the man's shoulders. Standing, he put down the ration of dried meat that he had barely touched, and made to leave.
Vega, however, was not satisfied with the way he sought to conclude their conversation, and stood along with him, like a shadow that clung to his heels. "They are well, you know. Doing very well for themselves." It was as if she could read his face to determine the thoughts in his mind, and knew just the right thing to say to stay his steps. "The refugees. They thrivr and help Eyraille to thrive with their various and sundry skills. The farmers and the smiths and the artisans, they have all lent something invaluable to the kingdom that is now their home. You have not only done them a great favor, but Eyraille, as well. Say what you will, but you are a savior."
The last thing that the deserter princess of Eyraille was entitled to do was critique the man on his sense of guilt. In her own experience, such a tactic did little more than exacerbate the feeling, for when it was challenged, it launched into a heated defense, and Haraldur was not far from it. Vega knew that the more she insisted he see differently, the more eager he would be to turn away. That, too, was a feeling with which she could empathize. "You are not defined or responsible for the consequences of your past," she mentioned, more quietly. "Particularly not by your wrong-doings... or, if so," she offered a melancholy, rueful smile, that he would have seen had he turned around, "I daresay I am more damned than you are."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
As he hobbled out the door, disguising his limp and naming it something different, less pressing, before Chara's discerning features, he said in a low voice, to her ear. "You do not have to pretend, Chara. Go. See him. I am fine, and I will only improve now that I am on my feet and moving about."
But she did not acquiesce, which shouldn't have surprised him, since it was pride and duty that saw her through the task--and not out of loyalty...or love.
She did not visit him once he was settled in his apartments, but curiously--Lilica had taken her place. He did not know if Chara had sent the dark mage as a proxy, or if she was trying to earn his favor by winning him over with her company and attention, but at this rate, he did not mind her presence. He would not admit it out loud, but he was terribly lonely, and just wanted a companion. Any companion. Since Mizar's death, he lost a a chunk of his joie de vivre, his purpose. Though he strove to rekindle his fallen relationship with Chara, and take on the tasks asked of him by Adalfieri, all of his actions from the point of her death until now seemed stilted, unfocused, numb...Defeated. If the degenerative disease in his legs were to spread, he would, in sure time, become like Adalfieri, who had suffered the same fate. It was hereditary amongst Rigases who closely shared in his bloodline--in Rigel's bloodline. A noble curse, so the Rigases pegged it. But for one whose only use was in his ability to stand and perform his espionage tactics, it was a terrible blow, and one he would stave and fend off for as long as Adalfieri needed him for their rebellion.
It was during this testing of his leg muscles that Lilica made another visit. Her arrivals were beginning to express a pattern, and he...looked forward to them. Looked forward to her.
"The more times you come through this way, the more the Rigases will talk," Lysander quipped as he planted his hand against the wall to steady himself and the wobble that jittered like an insect perched on a wind-beaten flower. But the sensations only lasted for short intervals, in waves. Confident that the wave had ended, he steadied himself upright, and gestured at a chair in the corner of his modest living conditions--nowhere near as opulent as the ocean-view villas that perched against the side of the cliff.
"Sit. Stay awhile. Since you have nothing better to do, and all." A sly smile tugged at his mouth. "My, those herbs smell foul. Are you certain they are for muscle pain, or for knocking me out in the bath? Either way, they sound like they will do the job. I cannot feel pain if I am unconscious, and perhaps the remedy will eliminate my snoring. I know that my neighbors complain about the noise. They say it's louder than the ocean banging against an iron gong. But a gong makes a pleasant sound, so I find they are being complimentary with their haranguing."
He did not realize that he spoke to Lilica with such familiarity and candidness, or that he railed on without cease. He was just glad enough for an ear, so he continued.
"Chara has other matters, other worries. She did help me to my apartments, you know, so she has not yet disowned me. The key word, of course, is 'yet.'" He forced a chuckle as he performed, with some difficulty, a few lunges with one leg splayed forward, tremulous from the applied pressure. "I had intended to tell her, once we arrived here, but her mind seemed elsewhere. I could tell she was distracted. From thoughts of Alster, of her role in the family..." he hesitated, then quirked his eyebrow as he looked at Lilica. "Of you, I have no doubt. Have you seen her today?"
Upon his departure, Haraldur hesitated. He knew that she would follow, would try to dissuade his reasoning--which she did do, and which did not stymie his movements. But what caused him pause in his strides was her report on the status of the refugees. They are well...
This news he could not ignore. As detached and dismissive as he determined to be, separating from a time that was about the happiest in his life but which ended so abruptly, and upended any good deed he'd accomplished, and any good he'd established for himself, he leaned into Vega's words, eager to hear more about that forgotten time, that forgotten place.
"I almost settled there," he said, having stopped in the middle of camp. He did not turn her way, in her direction. She, the representative of Eyraille, and he, too disgraced to face any reminder of the country that almost became his sovereign. "I had planned to settle down there, with my late wife, after a few more runs over the mountains. Your country felt like home to me--and I have never had a home. But," he sighed, and fiddled with the silver chain around his neck, "it was not meant to be. And it is not something I am fit to discuss."
He turned to her then, opening that closed, standoffish stance to her, but it was only the creak of a door, a mere sliver that hinted at the hallway beyond. It did not swing all the way, and allowed no passage inside. "Thank you. For telling me about the refugees. I would ask you for more details, but I do not wish to waste your time. Here," he extended a hand to her, palm receptive, but still guarded. "I am Haraldur. It's not my name, but I don't remember my name. I've adopted it shortly after I left Eyraille for the last time. Before then, folks called me Enginn. Nobody. No one. If caught by any Mollengardian border officials and interrogated to talk, one would smugly state, 'nobody helped me.'" In spite of himself, he smiled. It was a bittersweet memory, and it brought a wistful mist to his eyes, which he was glad the dark had concealed.
"I will not ask you for your wrongs. I am no judge, no executioner. Any leader in any capacity is responsible for the people who trust and follow them. You are a commander and a princess to your nation. So I understand...it is damning work. I ran from it once I failed." Are you running, as well? he almost said, but he kept quiet, and contemplated on if he should stay, basking in the shade and dust and long-ago sorrow that her company brought.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"Plug your nose then, old man," she told him flatly, frowning and crossing her arms across her chest. "It is up to you whether or not you choose to make use of something helpful. See if I will ever feel so inclined to think of others aside from myself again, if this is the thanks I get." Tired and groan-worthy though his joking was, though, Lilica couldn't help but snort her amusement. Albeit reluctantly. "And save your poor jokes for someone with a better sense of humour. Or else you will need to step up your efforts at being amusing a great deal, should you wish to get a smile out of me."
A sort of remorse dawned on the dark mage, then, when Lysander attempted to excuse or make light of Chara's lack of visitations. Of course the celestial mage's mind was occupied... and not just with Alster's recovery. Hadn't she been the primary reason for keeping Chara away? When she wasn't trying to distract her from her concern for her betrothed, she was seeking, basking in her company. Treating every moment spent with Chara as if it could be their last together, soaking up that coveted feeling of belonging, of feeling loved. I have been selfish... Perhaps it was that which spurred her frequent visits to Chara's father. It was the least she could do, for in part being the reason for Chara's preoccupation.
"I saw her this morning. She is well; preoccupied, as you anticipated." Her gaze traveled downward, as if in shame. "But not so preoccupied that she cannot come and see you. I think the two of you need to talk... especially with regards to your condition." Fidgeting with a tress of her dark hair, the chthonic caster managed to meet his eyes. "I can get her to come and see you. She need just be reminded that there is more in her world than her own, preoccupied thoughts. And anyway, having your own daughter come and see to your needs would look far better than some dark caster whose presence is hardly tolerated, here."
Suddenly feeling as though she had overstayed her welcome, Lilica stood, leaving the small basket of herbs on the table. "You might be a haughty fool... but you never attempted to harm your daughter. You only did your best to protect her..." Hand on the door handle, she hesitated before taking her leave. "You are not a horrible father. Just a misguided one."
The periods where both Elespeth and Alster found themselves awake at the same time were few and far between, so exhausted were they from the ordeals that they had endured. But the two of them, slowly but surely, were making headway towards proper recovery. There was no doubt, in Daphni's mind, that that was in part due to the positive effects they had on one another, reassured by the presence of the other. Reconnected.
"When do you think he will be able to be discharged from this place?" Elespeth asked the Sybaian healer, not once having left Alster's side. Keeping him close, even as he slept.
"When his appetite returns enough that he is able to consume at least two full meals a day, and take a walk without tiring. At least, that is the simple answer," Daphni replied. "The both of you have sustained psychic damage which, sooner than later, I would like to address. I speak for you more than him with regards to that issue, but that is a whole other discussion for a better time. For now," she nodded to the slumbering Rigas caster next to which the Atvanian warrior sat, "look out for him. Already, he is looking out for you."
"I believe it..." Elespeth murmured as the former Sybaian healer took her leave, and she and Alster were alone in the vast infirmary. Moments later, he stirred and blinked his eyes open. "I am beginning to grow jealous of sleep. It sees more of you than I do, these days," she teased him, plantng a kiss on his brow. "How are you feeling? If you think you might be well enough for a walk, I believe we might make it in time to catch the sunset."
Well, she must have said something right, if the guarded saviour of refugees saw fit to extend his hand and to share his name; or, rather, his new name. It said a great deal that he cared about the fates of the people whose lives he had changed for the better, and only furthered Vega's belief that he was a true hero. "You know, Eyraille would have welcomed you with open arms," she mentioned, as if that might be some source of consolation. "Though I am very sorry to hear that, for whatever reason, you felt as though it was not meant to be." But she had more couth than to inquire regarding the details of his wife--his late wife. It was no business of hers, and would only prompt him to walk away more quickly.
Though, as for her own wrongs... "Any Eyraillian would be more than happy to go into the details of what makes me guilty, and a relatively unpopular figure," she snorted, a humorless smile playing on her lips as she looked down at the toes of her boots. She found she was never able to meet someone's eyes when this confession came up. "You will no doubt catch wind of it eventually, so I would much rather you hear the truth from me than an embellished, second-hand version. But the truth is that I am a princess of Eyraille, and not a queen, because I abdicated and instead put my younger brother on the throne. Because I could not handle the responsibility of a broken kingdom."
Her mouth tasted bitter, as it always did, when she spoke of her betrayal to her own brother. She was older than Caris; she should have protected him from the pressures of their empire. Not thrown him into its flames, head first. "Being on the front lines as a Skyknight is the least that I can do for my kingdom, all that said. But it doesn't exactly relinquish my faults... The worst part is, were I to decide again, I would come to the same decision."
She tried to run from it; fly from it, actually, but her guilt clung to her heels like a shadow. And no matter how many foes she felled in the name of Eyraille, she would never be absolved of that guilt. "So, if you insist on diminishing your saviorship... then let us be allies in our guult." And with that, she offered a small, albeit friendly smile.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
At last, he chose to sit, hunkering on a hard-backed chair that he positioned close to the dark mage. He folded his hands over his lap, ignoring the pain of his resettling muscles, and of the doubt in Lilica's words that pricked his face and teased it into a frown. "Chara need not preoccupy herself with matters that do not further along the Rigas agenda. Since I am consigned to my home, she is no longer required to ally herself with me. It is enough that she has expressed interest in my well-being, and offered me some of her aid. It would be far stranger for the family to see her as a near-constant fixture by my side. They are aware of the complexities behind our relationship. But do enjoy her company in my stead," he added, once he saw Lilica stand to take her leave. He hid his disappointment in losing company so soon after he opened his arms to a presence he would never before define as warm. But she was, in an odd sort of reasoning, warm in her constancy, though her dedication nonetheless continued to confound him.
Instead of inquiring about her peculiar interests, in worry that questioning her motivations would chase her away for good, he nodded his assent as she made for the door at the far end of the hall. "You are," he hesitated, fidgeting with his folded hands, "you are welcome here any time, Lilica. If Chara trusts in you, then I shall do the same. Because you know exactly what to say to this withering, creaking old man."
Lilica found Chara sitting on the terrace of her villa, a glass of wine perched in her hand. Pink spots discolored the arm which leaned an elbow on the lounging chair, a holdover from the burn scars that were in midst of recovery. She looked over her shoulder when her companion appeared on the open balcony, and blushed as red as her drink--as if Lilica caught her in the middle of musing over some lurid daydream. The blush did not broaden or deepen, for she reasoned that the dark mage might chalk up the flush on her cheeks to the indulgence of wine, and not to...to...
She played with the stem of her crystal-cut glass. "I visited Alster today," she began, staring out over the horizon, a coruscating seascape of jewels melted together and rushing along the far shore. "He was asleep, when I came by. He looked so fragile and vulnerable. Like I could snap him in twain with just a touch of my fingers. Life, too, is that sickly. It is so swollen and puffy. Bedridden much of the time. And when finally it is well enough to walk, it is too exhausted to take advantage of that sudden good fortune of health and hue and color. So," she took a hurried sip of wine, averting her eyes, "what I am trying to say is that...I...believe we should take advantage of this health--before we are too bedridden to care about anything meaningful. And...so--" Without warning, she grabbed Lilica's arm and pulled her down to eye level, pressing insistent, lust-driven lips to her own.
From out of the dreamless void, Alster awakened to that unfamiliar realm. Always, he needed to ask himself: Where am I? His two realities had bled together, and there was no parsing them into separate portions of his mind. He saw nothing but this room, but the same roster of people who blurred with the backdrop, trapped behind a pane of warped glass and mist. The same voices floated in his ear, sapping away his equilibrium with sharp instruments, taking his ability to press a firm weight on the ground. A ground which he could not feel...
His hands groped the sides of his cot, panic tightening his throat. Was it tangible? Was he real? What he touched felt far away. He hardly registered the silk between his fingers. He balled the material tightly into his fist, willing himself to be present, to welcome the sensation. To feel it before all feeling vanished. Before...
An unsolicited voice snapped his head to the source. His head spun from the exertion, but it recalibrated into its new position. His vision cleared. Elespeth.
He released the cloth. Hugged his arms, instead. Pulled some skin between his thumb and forefinger. Pinched and twisted the flesh raw. Welcomed the pain, so sharp and exacting. So different from that world of dreams, of fantasy, that he was so convinced was real. But he never felt such sting in that sunny realm. It did not exist, there, even when he sustained injury. No ill effects. Just the calm of convalescence.
"You don't have to be...jealous," he said, with difficulty. The kiss tickled his forehead. He sensed it. Sensed her, better than anything that surrounded him. Better than any person, who only appeared to him as a colorful shadow. "I don't dream. I refuse to dream. If I could...I'd always stay awake, now."
At mention of a sunset, of walking, of leaving his sterile prison where nothing clarified the tumult of his scrambled senses, he nodded in agreement and sat up, slow and careful. With Elespeth's help, he rose to his feet. His legs, weakened from disuse, almost buckled a few times, but after leaning his weight against Elespeth's shoulder, he managed to take small, shuffling steps from his bed to the door. His breathing puffed against his chest in long, harried streams. Stopping by the door to rest, he looked over at Elespeth, and a small, sly smile rekindled on his drawn face.
"I haven't felt so useless since the time Achenar performed that one spell on me. You know, the one that was supposed to increase my stamina levels. But it backfired, and I ended up losing all feeling in my limbs for the rest of the day. You had to carry me back home. And you lay there in bed with me, and kept me company until my arms and legs were no longer numb." His smile faded when he noticed that Elespeth stared back at him with some confusion, and he lowered his self-conscious gaze to the floor in realization. "I'm sorry, El. I'm still trying to sort out...what is real and what is farcical. You may have to...help me." Then, remembering what the Clematis healer had told him, he began to sing a song under his breath. They stepped out into the dying, early autumnal light, the tune a gentle susurrus in the gloaming.
Haraldur was not well-attuned to rulership procedures in the monarchy. Mollengard was a martial state, with power falling amongst the military elite. Any citizen with enough clout and battle prowess could one day find themselves within the ranks of the governing class. There were no blood-lines or the divine right to rule. The most fit for the job took the job, and usually by force and by a bloated show of brutality. Because of constantly-shifting ideologies that varied with each new regime, politics often devolved into the singular struggle for power. Like alpha wolves in a pack, the old alpha was replaced, and often killed, by the younger, stronger wolf, at the very point when the leader displayed any signs of weakness. It was a messy ordeal, but Haraldur wasn't certain that a monarchy fared much better; as evidenced by Eyraille's tyrannical past, corruption ran rampant in any avenue where power stemmed.
"Were I in your situation, I would have done the same," he said, after listening to her guilt-ridden confession. "It takes a certain reasoning to believe that you are in any way capable of leadership. Perhaps your brother is more fit for this sort of rule. And you have not abandoned your country, either. You are still here, fighting for their interests. No matter which choice you made, your decision was a difficult one. You would have regretted the outcome, either way. At least," he shrugged, "that's how I see it. If one has a proclivity to guilt, it will follow them, no matter what they do to chase it off. And I will always have guilt, stoked by the very nature of my unavoidable destiny. So yes, in that vein, we are one. We are allies, because I am with Tadasun. But beyond that, I," he looked behind him, at the flickering lights of the camp, "can't extend my comradeship any further to you. It's not through any fault of your own. But I intend on leaving that part of my life where I buried it. I apologize...but all I want from this life is to die fighting. To die doing what I was built to do. The less people who are involved with me, the better."
What he revealed was not entirely true. Yes, he did want to die, but with dignity. He wanted someone to remember him. To utter the name that he chose for himself, for the very purpose of surrendering to the earth with a claim to himself. A claim that his allies could quantity and label. This was Haraldur. He died for us. He died fighting.
He wanted to be a martyr. Yet, the conflicted half of him did not wish to seek out deep, human bonds. Because innately, he knew, that they would be the ones to die before him. Always, it happened.
Always.
He came to terms with the fact that his death wish would not in its entirety end the way he wanted, and so he was content enough in forging shallow alliances, working relationships--and nothing more. It was the compromise that he made with himself. They would remember him--but only just. It would have to do. He did not think he had it in himself to foray down the path that Vega's offer had implied, even if it was for one last lap. Instead, he walked away from her. He was good at it. Walking. Running.
...Disappearing.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But that would not help the Rigas caster to regain himself, who he was before he had been cursed. Daphni had acknowledged that part of the healing would come about with acceptance, and reintegration with the present: not with the past, not with the future, and certainly not with shattered dreams.
She tried to smile, but it was impossible to conceal her sadness in this state, and in seeing Alster in the state he was. Without another word, she helped him up from the bed, and slung an arm around his waist to help him maintain his balance. The former knight was afraid she would break him, like his bones were glass and his skin, mere paper. Never had she witnessed him so fragile and helpless... It was her only hope that she could manage to protect him. "You know I will help you in every way that I can. And we will make new memories, Alster; even better memories. I promise you this. In fact, why don't we start right now?"
The Atvanian fugitive led him outside, into the bright orange rays of the setting sun. Even she had to blink against its brightness... He was not the only one who had been stuck inside for an extended period of time, deprived of such precious light. "Have you ever witnessed the beauty of a sunset? Really, truly witnessed it. To be honest..." She pulled him close, shoulder to shoulder, and pressed her cheek against his. "I never really noticed how beautiful they are, until my very first stay at your villa. When I was kept awake for hours, plagued with memories of Farrin... I could see nothing but darkness. And then, you sang to me. And everything was beautiful, all of a sudden, and the pain... my pain went away."
Pressing a sigh from her lungs, her hand squeezed Alster's shoulder as she fought of an onslaught of tears that the memory triggered. "It was the first time in my life that I ever felt like anyone, apart from my brothers, cared for me. Because I was weak, and I was broken, and you allowed it. There was no talk of 'toughening up' or getting over it'. You didn't force me to be strong; you accepted that I needed time to heal. And that..." Unbidden, a tear trickled its way down her cheek. "That is the single kindest thing anyone has ever done for me... thank you."
Lilica froze, momentarily stunned by Chara's sudden display of unquenchable lust. She had not expected this, at least not so suddenly. It was almost as if Chara had been contemplating this, which meant... which would mean that she had been on the celestial caster's mind. That someone had been thinking about her fondly, and not only fondly, but... but with...
It was almost automatic, the way her lips moved against Chara's as she practically fell onto her lap, tasting wine and lust on the blonde mage's tongue. She pressed her lithe body against her lover's full chest, feeling a fire grow in the pit of her stomach and downward, suddenly aware of every curve and contour of her body, and wanting every inch of it. Wanting it for herself, wanting, lusting...
"Chara..." Taking a moment to catch her breath, her lips kiss-swollen and her cheeks flushed, she forced her temptation aside for a moment and searched the Rigas caster's feverish eyes. "Are you sure that... do you really want..." Me? Do you really want me?, was what she wanted to ask, for what if it was merely the ill-effects of the wine that governed this desire? Guiltily, she realized that she did not care if that were the case, but she still... there remained the desire to know, to be certain. To put to rest her wonders and her worries.
Little did Haraldur realize who he was dealing with, what kind of woman Vega Sorde really was, or how seriously she would take his statement. A knight though she was, this was the pinnacle of difference between her and the other she-knight with whom Haraldur was acquainted; one Elespeth Tameris, who might have sorrowfully accepted such a dismal stance, albeit begrudgingly. Sir Sorde, however--and only known as Lady Vega by those who wished to incite her ire--took the mercenary's words in a very different direction, however. No less to heart, mind you, but certainly not what an ally or friend might have in mind to assuage such a defeatist attitude.
Then again, they were not friends, and barely allies. As so stated by him, at least.
Eventually, the inner-evening greeted Tadasun, and the encampment grew all the quieter, while the last person not assigned to sentry duty succumbed to the seductive allure of sleep. Haraldur had not seen Vega Sorde since he had turned and left her at the camp fire--and understandably so--but he had not had the last of conversations with the Eyraillian Skyknight commander.
As that sweet call of sleep eluded the nameless man once again, as it often did, the deserter queen had been correct in her assumptions that she might find Haraldur wandering the grounds in the dark, thinking, or trying not to think, as he strode past tents and trained his gaze skyward. So intently, as if he anticipated that the moonlight might bathe him in a healing glow and relieve him of the pain behind the dismal words that he had shared. If only life were quite that simple...
For vantage-point purposes, and less easy of access for its enemies, the encampment had since moved to a cliffside, with the land beneath it visible, and permitting it the means of a deadly fall if it could drive an Andalarian ambush over the edge. Beautiful horizons, perhaps, but just the sort of trap that Vega had hoped for to corner her difficult ally.
She was quiet, so quiet that even his trained ears did not pick up on her presence until, in conclusion to his nighttime stroll, he turned around, and there she was. Leather armor had allowed her the stealth that she required, but the menacing-looking lance that glinted in the moonlight made up for her lack of ferocity in its diamond-sharp tip. "You say you want to die fighting? With no ties and attachments?" There was no warmth in her voice, unlike from hours before, when she had spoke of him with reverence for what he had done for the refugees. "I call a lie. No one has so given up on life that they make that their wish; if it were true, you would already be dead. What you want is to be remembered, by a purpose, or a name. Or both. Tell me I am wrong. And, if I am..." Vega took one step forward, and placed both hands on the shaft of her lance. "Then the least I can do for your heroics is grant you your wish. If I am wrong, Haraldur, then fight me. Do not turn away, because I will pursue, and your death will not meet your wishes. Fear not, I won't walk away with extensive harm." There was a darkness that shadowed her otherwise pale eyes, that made the half-grin that tugged at the corner of her lips all the more sinister, "I don't lose. Ever,"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
With his guidance, they ended up on the other side of the garden just in time to see the round red ball of the sun sink behind the mounds of rolling hills opposite the ocean. The land, however, provided its own waves, windswept crests and a highly reflective surface. Every point of contact, from sky to terra, was bathed in multi-hued pastels of pink, vermilion, and diluted, rosy-flushed red.
They had settled near a gazebo. He took her inside the four-pillared structure, and sat on a cold, marble bench which faced the last scintilla of the evening. The song that he had muttered under his breath had broadened when Elespeth made vague mention of a memory he only half-recalled. But he remembered the melody--a lullaby of ancient Stella D'Mare. He sang it for her again, as loud as he dared, his voice painting an audible rendition of the sequestering light: mournful for the loss of the sun, hopeful for the rise of the moon. A breeze arrived to carry that tune away and beyond--but not forgotten.
He turned from the waning radiance of the alpenglow in favor of appraising Elespeth. She glistened and glimmered, too--but from the tears that caressed her face. He placed a hesitant, shaking hand against her cheek, as if afraid that she would vanish like the sleeping sun. His song ended, a sighed expiration from his lips. "Tell me...tell me more stories like that, Elespeth. Don't leave out any details. I want to remember all of the memories--good and painful." He smeared away her tears. "It's all so blurry, so dark. But when you speak, there's a spark. Of recollection. Of a throbbing in my hand. What am I missing, Elespeth?" He closed his eyes, trying to stopper his own tears from flowing past his lids. "Please help me find it. Help me find...us."
Chara allayed Lilica's worries, but not by speech. Her lips were too occupied and too greedy to release themselves, even for a shallow breath. Her teeth clamped upon her companion's bottom lip in protest and punishment for daring to act independent of her mute and non-verbal desires, biting until drawing blood. Biting until the insecure mage fell to her arms, to her sway, and to her insatiable lust.
She half-carried, half-dragged Lilica from the terrace, inside the villa, and to her bedroom, navigating with an innate sense of direction despite her preoccupation with her forthcoming conquest. Swinging open the door of her room, she scooped up the thin frame of the mage and about threw her onto the waiting bed. At the slamming of the door, she launched atop her quarry and pinned her down by the shoulders, nearly scooping her open mouth with her frisky tongue. While that tongue busied itself with one entrance, her fingers busied herself with another. Those prying hands worked on the belt of Lilica's tunic, sliding it apart with ease and brushing aside the flaps of her garment, exposing two small but perky breasts. She proceeded from there, pulling down the dark mage's trousers to reveal the well between her legs. With hungry intent, she slid her mouth down Lilica's neck and sucked at her nipples, licking and massaging and kneading, distracting her with the wet, sensuous feel of that tender, pink area.
And that was when her fingers gained entrance inside a mouth more swollen, more tender, and more pink than anywhere else on her pale, naked body.
Even with proximity to anything resembling sleeping quarters or a base of operations, Haraldur never ventured so much as outside his tent without his weapons: his bastard sword, short sword and an array of strategically hidden daggers; and his armor: his pauldrons, bracers, cuirass, tassets and grieves--all leather. As a wanderer, prepared to bolt at any moment's notice, he carried home with him. There was nothing so innocent, not even stargazing, that he did not consider a worst case scenario. An ambush. An unsolicited assault.
...A stalker.
He saw it in her eyes earlier that evening. The dilation and contraction, like those of her aggressive roc. The quashing of her prideful mien. He dislodged her consideration, that indulgent offer of friendship. Now affronted by his disrespect, he had no doubt that she would continue to target him, as a wolf would her prey.
His heightened perception pegged her arrival moments in advance, but not advanced enough that he could dip away and avoid her in time. After feigning ignorance for a short while longer, as he observed the cliff-side where he stood, scant feet from the edge, he caught the glint of the weapon she wielded--and pivoted towards the lance-wielding Sir Vega Sorde.
"Would you believe that I have impeccable luck?" He volleyed back her denouncements that objected to the specifics of his death wish. To prove his point, he lifted his right hand and twisted his wrist towards her. The scar was not visible in the dark or from the lip of his bracer, but he pointed to it, nonetheless. "I tried to hack off my own hand. As a death wish. I wanted it so that in the afterlife, I could not raise my killing hand in order to harm another. But I bled out and lost consciousness before I could reach far into the tendon. When I awoke, I was in a healer's home, my wrist bandaged up and tended to. My botched attempt occurred in the middle of a secluded wood. Unpeopled--as far as I thought. There are other instances, but this is by far the most notable." He lowered that hand and transferred it to sit on the hilt of his sword. "I have a survivor's instinct to live that cannot be quelled in any other way but in how I was created: on the battlefield. This will not suffice. I don't want, nor will I allow your mercy killing."
The keening of steel murmured low and muffled in the night as he surreptitiously slid the sword out of its sheath. He held it outwards, but horizontally, with the blunt side facing Vega--a defensive stance. "If I tell you that your postulations are correct, what then? What if I say I want to die remembered by many?"
"I advise you to stand down," he said after a pause, his eyes traveling to the tapered point of her lance. "Don't press me. You are needed here." Shades of the once remorseless soldier flickered in his half-dead eyes and his half-dead voice. The sword's position turned from defensive to offensive. "...And I always fight to kill."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"We are right here," the Atvanian warrior crooned, taking Alster's injured hand in her own. "So let's start here. There is nothing to find, because you have already found it, but I will do my best to help you rediscover your... our, roots. One memory at a time."
And so she started from the beginning, from Messino's army and the compound units, where the Rigas caster resisted her camaraderie and friendship for a particularly long time. She recounted the numerous times that he had saved her life, and that she had come to his aid. She recounted their blood bond, all of Chara's fury and Lilica's interference, and retraced their steps for him, from Andalari's encampment to Atvany, all the way to Stella D'Mare. She told him of the nightmares she'd frequently had about Farrin's death and how he had helped her recover from them, and even dared to remark on the magic of their private, intimate moments together, when everything felt right and as it should be.
What she neglected to tell him, however, was how close to death she had recently come. And how he had been the one to put her there. That was something that he did not need to know, and if she had her way, he never would.
"I must admit, my accounts are biased," she sighed at last, leaning her head against his warm shoulder. How good it felt to do that again... "For every moment I have spent with you has been, to me, a light in the darkness. But you have been my guiding star, Alster... your love has helped me to find a way, and to find meaning. And there is no other way that I can feel about who we are, without perceiving it as perfect."
Chara was ruthless. It was the only word that came to mind when the celestial mage's teeth drew blood from Lilica's swollen lower lip, causing her to wince and gasp at the sudden shock of sharp pain. It hurts..., she wanted to say, but her aggressive lover did not give her a shadow of a chance with her greedy, lustful kisses. Chara dominated her mouth until the rest of her body buckled and complied to her demands, sinking helplessly against the Rigas caster's frame, falling completely to her whims. And, more importantly to her control.
Mind reeling with the throbbing pain in her lip, alongside the throbbing fire far below her abdomen, it took the chthonic mage by surprise when Chara rose, taking her submissive body in her arms before unceremoniously depositing her onto the enormous mattress of her bed.
And that was when the panic bubbled up from her core. Wait, wait, she wanted to say, but her mouth was too occupied with the celestial caster's to murmur the words. Don't look... The scar on her side, her stick-thin form, the last remnant of bruises that lingered on her skin from when she had last used her dark magic... What if it all made Chara turn away? What if it made her realize that she did not want her the way she thought she did?
It didn't.
Chara released her mouth only to have her lips and tongue dominate and tantalize her nipples, drawing a shuddering gasp from Lilica's lungs. The warmth of her tongue and the tug of her teeth sent spasms of pain and pleasure through her exposed form, and she sucked in her lower lip, tasting the copper of her own blood on her tongue. More... please, more..., she almost begged, the words on her tongue before she could think about them, but all that passed her lips was a soft groan, as another sensation, a fire in her loins, wracked her body as Chara's fingers found their way to a forbidden place. "Chara..." She moaned her name, arching her back, handd seeking the Rigas caster's shoulders to grasp. "Chara... please..."
More, went unsaid, but not uncommunicated, as obvious as it was that Lilica had given her body fully and completely over to Chara's command. The flush of her cheeks, on her chest, the helpless furrow of her brow all conveyed her total submission to her lover's ministrations; and, along with it, total trust.
This must be what it feels like to be alive.
"I am not offering you a mercy killing, warrior." Vega Sorde did not stand down. She held firm to her stance, lance at the ready and gripped with both hands, meeting Haraldur's ferocity with ice in her eyes. "I am offering you what you really want, whatever it may be. If death in an honourable battle is what you wish for, to be a name in history that went down doing what he was created for, then I assure you I am an honourable adversary. And I fight to win, whether or not that victory requires killing. Or..."
Her expression softened just a fraction, eyes finding the noticeable scar on his wrist. "If you tell me that I am right, then I will lay down my weapon, and I will help you to find what you want. You think I haven't considered ending my own life? To absolve myself of pressure and of guilt? Because I have. But I am not here to talk about myself, Haraldur." The Skyknight relaxed her shoulders, less uptight, but not fully at ease. "You are not here to serve a predetermined purpose, but to make meaning for yourself. To find meaning in what is important to you, and to give yourself a chance to learn what is important of you. It is not always easy, but such is life. And there are better ways to be remembered. So if you are going to fight, then fight. But not with the intent to die. Or if that is truly, deeply your only living wish..."
Taking a step forward, Vega held her lance at the ready, her body as ready and as willing to fight as if her own life depended on it. "If that is what you want, and you see no other way than to go down fighting, then allow me the honour of granting that wish. Or to go down trying. I might be of use, here, but I am not the only Skyknight available to Tadasun. And, anyway," she flash a rueful smile. "It I not as though I am the Queen of Eyraille."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
But he left that question where it hung, and reasoned that his involuntary departure from the world of the living had strained and exacerbated the bond's influence. But the bond was not only weak; it had been tampered with; torn almost in twain. He could see the points of severance in the magical threads that surrounded their entwined hands. And why were the wounds made fresh? Something niggled for escape in the forbidden reaches of his thoughts, lurking, humming with a fuzziness that honed into barbed tips. Sharp, searing pinions that wished to rent at the fog and reveal a terrible, onerous truth...
He shook away what his sense of self-preservation wished to avoid, and absorbed, as much as possible, every detail of Elespeth's recounting of their history. It was full dark by the time she had caught him up on those past several months, which he had taken with intense concentration and rapt silence as he pieced together what he remembered with watertight lucidity, what glimmered like coins beneath a murky pool, and what altogether obscured itself from his scrutinizing view.
"Thank you," he said, inviting the warmth of her cheek upon his shoulder and wrapping an arm around her malnourished form. He flinched when he felt the bones protruding from her back. "It couldn't have been easy to recall, especially your brother's... I...remember that," he admitted, looking out into the firelight and etherea that festooned the estate in both natural and other-natural glows. "Some memories are hazy. Others...too vivid. But one such vivid memory that I've retained...at least, I think it is from our life here," he nodded to the stars, which were just becoming visible above their heads, "is when we walked under the night sky and I showed you that...we share the same guiding star." The tiniest of smiles lit a face shrouded in darkness. "...I don't think I'll ever be able to express...what you've done for me. I don't quite understand it, myself, but I know that you've risked your life to wake me from those...fantasies of mine," he uttered with difficulty. "And I know it's selfish of me to ask, but will you...continue to stay by my side...and guide me?" He locked lips with her then, a tentative and weak kiss, but it was tender, deliberate, and full of hope and love.
Lilica had opened to her like the bougainvillea that Chara had weaved into her hair on their first day at Stella D'Mare. Now, she had weaved her fingers inside another kind of flower--in peak bloom--while her other hand cradled the back of her overwhelmed lover's head and yanked at those blue-black tresses in tandem with the stride of her strokes down below. She did not want to give the dark mage a moment's rest, any chance to recover or breathe or realize that they were mistakenly engaging in something forbidden--on several counts. No. She wanted all of Lilica. To consume her like a greedy fire which no amount of water would douse. To make her scream and grovel and beg beg beg for more. Break apart, Lilica. She urged her fingers deeper. Guided them along the opening in search of that one, satisfying core that she, on her loneliest of nights, had found and kneaded with desperation and pleasure.
She allowed her fingers to play there. They fluttered, they throbbed, they hooked and pulsed and pried until Lilica wriggled like a worm drowned out of its borrow. Pressing, plying, insisting, she felt the power tug at her own groin, enjoying a second-hand reaction from the supplicant beneath her. A vicarious rebound. She grunted between her teeth as she pulled from Lilica's breast and poured all her concentration in making her come, in feeling the moisture on her fingers, in congratulating herself on the desired result when the dewdrops on that opened flower had pooled together--a culmination of her efforts.
Her breathing became frenzied. Her chest heaved. Her skin was aflush. Her nipples ached as if they had been teased, and the slot between her legs surged and pulsed with the demand to be touched. Once she released her hand from a job well done, she grabbed Lilica and flipped her over, positioning her on top. Once she shimmied out of her own clothes, she grappled the dark mage's wrist, spread her legs wide, and guided the hand to the space in between. "Do me now, Lilica," she whispered, and even the whisper hissed with authority. It was a request. A demand. But she panted in anticipation, nonetheless.
Chara was allowing Lilica the chance to lead.
"No." Haraldur's voice flattened, straining between battle-readiness and his usual placid vigilance. Despite the throbbing in his wrist, he held the sword steady in both hands, unwavering, practiced, and disciplined. "I do not want what you're offering me." He struggled to keep an even breath. His heart hammered, pumping adrenaline into his system, anticipating a fight. The pain in his wrist vanished. "You're putting yourself in a perilous situation. This is not a battlefield. You are not my adversary. You say this is not about you, yet you're giving yourself a death wish by approaching me in this way." He fought against every instinct in his body, conditioned for so many years to fight the target. Kill the target. She instigated their duel, yet she was far too ignorant to realize the position that forced his hand. He ground his teeth and concentrated on words. Words. Remove the S from 'Sword,' and it would be so easy to reverse his conflicted intentions.
"You're...right," he said beneath his breath, his sword wavering from the vacillations taking place in the tumult of his thoughts. "I want to die with a name. In a battle fighting for my life. Not in a spar, so far removed from my wishes--all for a misplaced act of charity. Do not make my choices for me. Do not try and influence my hand, for you do not know who you provoke."
He lost control over his blood-hungry sword--an extension of the baser desires within himself. Red assailed his vision. Before he was conscious of his strides, he was between Vega and her lance, wrenching it free from her grip with the slam of his sword upon her hand and of the momentum of his yank. He threw the lance behind him, over the edge of the cliff, pointed his blade-tip to her throat, and pushed her close to the edge of the precipice, where he once stood. He found his senses just before he plunged his sword-point through the thin flap of her neck, but he did not remove the blade, or his positioning.
"Go," he seethed, and withdrew the threat on her life. But he still gripped the sword and held it precariously close, in case she decided to test his self-control. "Go now. Go, and leave me be. I don't want your help. Do not approach me again."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She hoped that he would not smell the lie in the atmosphere, despite that it was entirely an untruth--just an amalgamation of an untruth and and a truth, woven together to create a feasible answer that would keep him from questioning. But be that as it was, the former knight was nevertheless eager to be off of the subject. "But I don't care about some magic bond, Alster. Nothing can compare to the way I feel about you, and I could not be happier that you are here... here, in the world of the living, and conscious again."
When he recounted that night that he had showed her the stars, and spoke of one star in particular that encompassed both of them, she could practically feel her frantic heart settle back into a comfortable place of touching relief. That had been the last night that they had spent together, before... before she had lost him, for a time. To a better place, better people, and better circumstances, albeit none of them real. Yet that he could recall it, unprompted... To hell with blood magic. There was nothing stronger than love itself to mend the gaps of a fractured memory. "I... never left, Alster. And I never will." She returned his kiss with tentative sweetness, afraid that passion or anything close to it might break him in his fragile, barely recovered form. So preoccupied was she with how he fared that she was hardly aware of the weight she had lost throughout this ordeal, or that it was even a problem. "I will be here for you, for as long as you want me. You have my word."
She was on fire. Agony, but in a form that she had never imagined was possible. In submitting her body entirely and completely to Chara, she had opened herself up for these consequences, this utter lack of control over her own senses--but she wanted it. All of it. Every stroke of the Rigas caster's fingers tantalizing her forbidden, inner core, every stroke of her warm tongue over her hypersensitive nipples, that sent shudders through her body. Wreck me, her reactions seemed to say; the writhing, the gasps, the way her hands gripped and released the sheets almost in convulsion. Tear me apart, piece by piece...
The pressure built, and the chthonic mage, for a moment, was certain that she was about to lose her mind, lose herself, and lose everything she thought she knew as a wave wracked her body. It was like heat and ice all at once, building in her core and then spilling out in the involuntary contractions of her inner muscles around Chara's skilled fingers. It left her winded and oddly relaxed, dizzy from the build up...
And then, she was suddenly on top of Chara as the celestial mage tore off her own clothes, exposing more of that fair skin than Lilica ever thought she would have the pleasure of seeing. The residual heat from her loins crept into her face, as the headstrong blonde grabbed her hand and guided it between her eager legs, to that forbidden place that was damp, soft, hot...
Her command was not a mere suggestion. And Lilica would sooner condemn her own soul than to deny her lover this moment.
Carefully stroking the folds between her legs, Lilica lowered her head to take one of Chara's nipples into her mouth, pert and begging for attention as they were. With slow uncertainty, at first, she ran her tongue over the erect, pink nub, just as her fingers took the opportunity to explore that forbidden and sacred part of her lover, finding entrance beyond those swollen folds and inside of her. Moving her mouth from her nipple to her ear, she murmured lustily, "show me what you like."
Vega had been prepared to fight, and to some extent, prepared to lose. But she had not anticipated that it would all happen so quickly.
Haraldur's tells were enough to alert her of his intention to move, but not enough to reveal how he meant to move, or how quickly. She dodged his first strike, pivoting to the side, which ultimately led to a very rapid loss. In a mere second, his sword had come down upon her hand, sending her lance flying out of her grasp, and over the cliffside, where she found herself cornered a mere second later, the point of a sword poised menacingly at her throat. For that extended second that followed, one in which the Skyknight remained very still, she found herself overtaken with deja vu, the situation ringing with painful familiarity. When last I stood so close to the edge of a cliff, I had looked forward to falling... Flying, for the first and last time without my roc, spreading my wings and inviting the impending nothingness.
But once again, that deliverance never came. The warrior withdrew with tense eyes and a harsh tone: Go. But she could not; not yet, and with his blade still so dangerously close to being a threat on her life, she dared to stay. "Haraldur," she said quietly, but not so as to patronize him. "I will not deny you the desire for a noble death. But a name... a name is nothing if death is all that it seeks. If there is no life behind it, and no intent to make a life. You do have a choice." She pursed her lips in thought and careful consideration of her words. "Die a nameless soldier, a faceless soldier that will never cross someone's mind in his death, or make a life, make people dear to you, and have a name. Have a face, and be remembered for the hero that I know you are. Or, at least, that you can be."
Raising her hands chest-level in surrender, Vega stepped aside at last, unarmed and defeated. "I'm sorry. I thought I saw a kindred spirit in you. Or, at least, someone who... understands. I will not bother you again." Turning away, the deserter queen of Eyraille took her leave, fading into the shadows of the quiet night as if she had never been there at all.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He swallowed away the apprehension, the light palpitations from his thrumming chest, the shallow breathing, and the cold sweat that pooled around his palms. With a nod, he smoothed out the wrinkles in his tense expression and loosened his grip on her hand. On their bond. He returned the hand to his lap, and stared into the star-strewn evening.
"You used my magic? I've never heard of such a thing!" Despite his concerns, the subject matter intrigued him with the possibilities, and curiosity won out over the quest for the truth. "How did it happen? How much did you end up using? It must have been a significant amount, if it damaged the bond. Did you experience blowback? I can't imagine you wouldn't; you're not well-equipped to handle such an intense stream of magic. You must have some innate ability, at least, for magic resistance. The blood bond can only channel so much. That is the only other way I can explain why you're not worse off, or dea--"
He clamped his tongue shut. Or dead. The wriggling intensified. Why did it seem...like that already happened?
He clutched his forehead, scratching at his temples in hopes to alleviate the itch in his brain, to no avail. "I-I'm confusing my memories again. Let's...let's head back." He retreated from her on the bench, in a surge of fear. Though he did not know to what to attribute that fear. His head throbbed something fierce, as if punishing him for exhausting it with blasts of thoughts and feelings. "It's getting a little chilly. And...I might need that drug to calm my...to calm me."
At once he began to sing, a desperate, dissonant mantra on his lips--drowning out the pressure that threatened to burst his overloaded mind. He was on his feet and walking, blindly, not even aware of Elespeth, if she was near or holding him upright. And as the pain cocooned him with a numbing otherworldliness, he was losing awareness...of himself.
Chara arched her back and grabbed hold of Lilica's shoulders, as if she were being lowered into a fire and her entire body resisted the plunge. In preparation for her turn, every sensitive location, from her earlobes and her lips and her nipples and the space between her legs, intensified. Like a cartographer mapping mountains by the strokes of the pen, Lilica found those peaks and swells, and drew them into existence with the press of her tongue, the flick of her fingers. She was elevated, and only soaring higher, so overstimulated that it was agony. I want to plunge. I want to fall off the peak. Weightless. Wind whistling. Down down down...
She managed to find her senses enough to fold Lilica's fingers into a hook. She twisted her eager wrist, and led the dark mage inside of her in just the right spot. "There," she said, breathless. "Right there. Do this." She puppeted Lilica's hand, reenacting the very way she liked it--but she released her grip, inviting a spontaneity to the deed. Offering her lover the opportunity to explore, to find new places where even she didn't think to go. She reacted accordingly whenever Lilica hit the right spot. Her legs spasmed. She gasped and fisted the sheets. She crooned like a wounded animal, rattled her tongue, and made noises that sounded a marriage between a hum and a cry. She vocalized every moment of her pleasure--and displeasure--until she found the spot. And Chara lost all control.
Her lower body convulsed from the twin sensations: from her nipples to the pink folds that engulfed those frisky fingers inside of her. She purred and fought against, fought with, the spiraling of her sanity. It was like a current that pulled her farther from shore. It thrashed against her vulnerable body, and she could only bow to that violent force of nature. Violent, but oh so powerful. Refreshing. Pumping her with vivacity. She leaned into those waves, and rode them, crest and trough, until she went, down down down...
She wailed from the invigorating plummet. Yelled from the pleasure of it all. She didn't care who heard. Her legs, so strained, so tight, flopped against the bed, useless and spent, as if she swam the entire day without rest. Then, with her recovering strength, she cupped Lilica's face, brought her close, and kissed her, long and longing. "Yes," she breathed a reply in between kisses. "Just...like...that."
I've already lived a life. But that name...it hasn't.
There was a boy who occupied a space next to him in the Regiment. He was younger than him by about two years, unless malnourishment had stunted his growth and his age. Ribs poked out of his patchy skin, which concaved, sank into itself as if shrinking into nothingness--returning to conception. The void. His eyes almost floated over his face. They were so detached. Blood-shot. Possessed. Gone.
"What's your name, boy!?" A shoulder jabbed him in the ribs with the hilt of his sword. The boy almost bowled over, his bow-legs scarcely supporting his weight.
Don't say it. Don't say it...
"H-Haraldur, sir," he wheezed.
The soldier's lips curled upward. He was a face with teeth. Only teeth.
"You don't deserve that name. That's the name of a warrior, and you're nothing but a dirt-crusted wad of cud that your dead mom shit out of herself!" He presented a switch to the boy, and lashed him until he screamed and pleaded and passed out on the ground.
I'll remember your name for you. And then one day, when this is all over, I'll tell you what it is.
I'll tell you...
Haraldur was always at his side. To his right. Every day. Until one day, he was not. The boy was too fragile. And he was too smart. He died early and saved himself from the horrors of depersonalization. Of melding his mind with that of a weapon: cold, sharp, unfeeling steel.
But he never forgot his name--even when he forgot most else. It had...saved him.
If I truly wished to die...why did I take that name for my own? I could have remained as Enginn. Nameless...
And why had he involved himself with Elespeth if not for want of recognition? For her company? For a purpose while he bided his time until death?
Like a brother...
But she no longer had need of him. That was why he left.
Because there was no room for me...
Was that his prime reason?
After Vega stalked away, leaving him alone as requested, Haraldur perched upon that cliff-side and stared at the lance at the bottom of the gulch that still somehow glittered in the night. A supernatural sheen, from so many yards beneath his feet. Emptiness clutched his chest with icy cold fingers. He had made his decision, voiced, aloud, his intentions to a relative stranger, heard them touch his ears...and somehow, he wanted to reject them. Did he want to be like that lance? Consigned to the bottom, yet sparking with the desire to shine on? Perhaps his need to die and his need to survive were not fighting in opposition to each other. Perhaps he mistook his need to die...with the need to live a life worth dying for.
Later that evening, he fetched the lance from the base of the cliff, asked for the residency of Sir Vega Sorde, and jammed the weapon, point first, into the ground before her tent. It was as close to an answer as he would provide her.
I'll fight on...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Flashing a rueful smile, the former knight from Atvany lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I did suffer blowback. Enough that it... apparently damaged our bond. With any luck, it will not happen again, if you are awake. And anyway..." Pulling him against her thin body, she planted a kiss on his forehead. "I do not need magic to know that we are connected. We have been, from the moment we met... it just took time to for us to realize it. Come."
It struck her that the news of their bond and its repercussions struck Alster with more stress than she had hoped and anticipated, and that the best thing might be for him to rest and process the information. He was still so frail, just in the first stages of healing from that ruthless assault on his mind... All the rest could wait.
Taking him by the shoulders, Elespeth led the distraught Rigas caster back to the infirmary, worried that in his humming, he had completely forgotten her presence as his pillar of support. "Too much of that drug will not be good for you," she cautioned, her voice soft and unthreatening as she helped him back into bed. "Just focus on your song. Or focus on me... I am here. I will help you."
Between his melody and the reassuring hand that stroked up and down his arm, Elespeth watched as Alster drifted off to sleep, saddened just as much as she was reassured to see him find peace in the world of slumber. "You will recover," she murmured, more for her own benefit than for his. "I will ensure that you come back into the person that you were... that you are. I promise you this, Alster Rigas.
It was as if Chara had crumbled to sand in her hands, malleable as the wet grains beneath your feet in the ocean, pooling and conforming to their shape. Truly a state in which she had never thought she would witness the celestial mage, always so controlling and in control, but now completely at the mercy of another...
She could not deny that she rather liked the feeling.
And not just the power of rendering her lover as lost to the throes of pleasure just as helplessly as she had been, mere moments ago. The taut give of Chara's muscles, warm flesh against her pale fingers, invigorated her with fire-like passion that only made her want more, wanted the Rigas mage to cry out louder. Lilica had never felt so full of life due to the presence of another person, and every squirm of her hips, every movement of her heaving chest, enlivened every cell in her body with her acute desire. "Louder," she whispered, her breath hot and sultry in her lover's ear as her fingers all but assaulted that sweet spot inside of her that made her squirm. "I want to hear you scream..."
And scream Chara did in her descent from the pleasure, writhing and holding nothing back, likely alerting the serving staff that wandered the perimeters of the Rigas estate. She reveled in the celestial caster's sated desire and returned her kisses with vigor, chest to chest until the two rolled to their sides, one facing the other on the oversized mattress. The blonde mage looked a mess, her face flushed and hair askew, as if she had just woken up from a long, pleasant dream. In such a raw state, naked and void of the finishing touches of primping... Chara was beautiful. Beautiful in a way that Lilica had never considered.
"You realize I could be condemned if your family found out..." The chthonic caster mentioned, though her lazy tone did not connote any real concern, despite the truth of the reality. "Even so... this was... is a risk worth taking. And living for."
Vega discovered the sword the next morning, when a tall, pole-like shadow spread across the expanse of her tent flaps. A lazy smile crossed her tired and defeated face when she recognized the ornate point of the weapon that she thought she had lost forever, but it was not its retrieval that brightened her morning along with the sun's early rays. It was what its presence signified, its return when there hadn't been any indication that she might see it again.
And here she thought her words had not resonated a single chord with the stubborn and traumatized warrior... She was happy to be wrong.
Despite the promise she had made Haraldur the night before, she was waiting for him around the campfire the next day, when breakfast was being served, hot and fresh, with boiling tea and tender meat on a spit. The Skyknight had arrived early enough to secure a heaping plate, one hearty enough for herself but another with a quantity of food to sate the likes of someone of Haraldur's stature. Her mouth quirked into a sheepish grin when he saw her, and the surprise registered on his face. "I realize I am breaking my promise to you... but I could think of no better way to repay you for returning my weapon, thank by ascertaining you got something good to eat before the portions grew thin. Here."
Vega handed him the plate, loose, copper locks rustling in the morning breeze before she tucked them behind her ears as she took a seat on a nearby log and dug into her own meal. For someone of a relatively small stature (as compared to Elespeth Tameris, at least), she could certainly eat like someone twice her size. "And... I owe you an apology, I believe. For forcing you into a situation that made you uncomfortable, that was, frankly, none of my business. But..."
Staring into the flames of the day's first fire, she lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "You just... reminded me of the way I used to be. And I wanted to help, so relentlessly, regardless of your wishes. Even if this is our last interaction, I do hope that you mind find forgiveness in your heart, someday--for my prying."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"I don't want to go back, El. There's nothing for me there, either. I won't wake up!" He pushed against her hand, which was planted firmly against his chest to prevent his uprisings, and he squirmed and wriggled and protested until his voice grew hoarse. Eventually, he tired of fighting and succumbed, though not without fevered mutterings, into an unwanted sleep.
He dreamed that night, for the first time since he had awoken from the curse.
He was in a sparse cypress forest dotted with purple, bobbing flowers which looked about to take flight in the sun-dappled light. It was a familiar place to him, but he did not yet know why. He only knew that he needed to run.
He was not quick enough to act, too curious to heed the ominous warnings that gonged in his head. His feet tread upon the naturally-tamped trail. Then, he stopped short, and averted his eyes to the needle-covered earth. A trickle of blood broadened into a creek, a stream, a river. He followed the river and found three bodies. Debine. Valente. Their eyes were carved out, their limbs splayed like dolls made out of hay, with all the stuffing loose and deflated. And between them, her skin bruised black, her hand the mouth of that broad, sanguine river where a deep gouge ran from fingertip to across her arm and chest, about splitting her in twain, was Elespeth. Surrounding all three were shadow serpents, flickering in the changing paths that the trees created when their tops rustled over the glare of the sun.
You killed them, the serpents spluttered in unison as they slithered over the carnage, feasting on the blood, which darkened and congealed into black, rotting clumps. Your mother. Your father. ...Your lover...
The deadened eyes of Elespeth opened with a snap and stared at him accusingly.
You murdered me, Alster. Her voice floated above her head and penetrated his every orifice. He tasted those words, acrid, rancorous poison. He gagged on them, choking, his throat closing. He coughed and hacked with purpose, to force out the power of that constricting, condemning tone, but to no avail. It clung and squeezed and wrenched. He fell to his knees, his vision blurring from the tears that formed from the strain. But before he lost all ability to see, he saw Elespeth's eyes melt down the sides of her face like tears of hot soot and grime. They emptied into the black river, which overflowed, lapped at his feet, engulfed him whole. Drowned him. He choked and coughed anew, fighting, fighting to stay alive. To find the surface and break free.
The words followed him into the depths.
Murderer. Why do you always kill the ones that you love? Why?
Why?
Alster shot out of bed, gasping. In his haste, he fell to the floor, but made no move to stand or return to his bed. Clawing at his throat, he huffed out shallow breaths, eyes widening in pure terror.
I can't breathe. I can't breathe!
He twisted the nubs of his nails into his neck, to puncture a hole from which to breathe. He scraped and scraped and drew blood, but he didn't succeed before a brusque force threw him to the bed and injected him with something that stung, but it made everything stop. It made him able to breathe. He blinked through the haze and saw Elespeth at his side, her eyes in tact, her chest rising and falling, her face pale yet flushed with hue and vivacity.
Alive...You're alive...
But you almost...weren't. And it's all...because of me.
From the aftereffects of her venture with Lilica, Chara giggled, all of her muscles in relaxed bliss, her sensitive areas tingling from their exposure to her lover's handiness...and her mouth. Her giggling transitioned to sound laughter as she gazed up at the ceiling, as if surprised to see it there and not the open sky, where she had once soared. After regaining some of her composure, she turned to Lilica, to her thin, shapely waist and her swollen nipples and lips. She reached a hand up to her raven-black hair, damp with perspiration at the temples. She smoothed it back and twisted a lock of it in between her fingers while she shifted her body to rest against her elbow. Reclined and content, none of her lover's concerns afflicted her. On the contrary, she seemed to find it quite humorous, and laughed again.
"You have support, Lilica. I support you. Alster, when he is well enough, may also vouch for you, and we all know that the Rigases seem willing enough to agree to his whims. And," she hesitated as she nibbled on the ends of Lilica's hair, "Lysander seems taken by you, as well. With three casters of note on your side--though I hardly consider Lysander of that vein, but I cannot deny he has become useful to Adalfieri," she added, with a frown, "they cannot condemn you so readily. I would not advertise our liaisons, but alas, it is not possible to withhold secrets of that nature so close to Adalfieri's notice. So when such a time arises," she smiled and brought her roving hand to circle around her rigid nipple, "I shall protect you."
"But let us not focus on such boorish subjects," she said, teasingly mounting the apex of her breast. "Let's make you feel alive again...shall we?"
Haraldur did not sleep at all that night. He spent the remaining hours before dawn sharpening his weapons to busy himself from stray thoughts--which, in the idleness of his mundane task, invited stray thoughts.
He knew he would encounter Vega again; that much was inevitable, considering her role as Skyknight Commander, nary a subdued vocation. But he did not think he would see her so soon, especially not after his knee-jerk assault. Were he not conscientious enough of his body's movements, he would have succeeded in taking her life. Wouldn't that have guaranteed a most punishing death by the Kingdom of Eyraille? At the very least, it would have guaranteed his death. What black irony, having previously aided Eyraille in its reconstruction only to commit the unforgivable act of regicide and complicate the country's problems anew. Everyone would remember him, of that he was certain. But...for all the wrong reasons.
He did not want to die as a Forbanne. A treacherous, frozen-hearted killer.
He saw her that morning as he waited in line for breakfast. Since he had skipped his dinner the night before, his stomach roiled so loudly, he wondered if other soldiers in his vicinity were able to hear that demanding call for sustenance.
As if she had heard those gargling sounds, Vega appeared at his side, offering him a steaming heap of the best cuts of the lamb meat the mess tent could provide--barring what was served to the officers, of course. Hesitant at first, he finally acquiesced with a nod and took from her the plate of food. Seeing as how she continued to address him, he followed her to the log, but did not sit. He remained quiet for a while as he bit into his leg of lamb, devouring the meal with about as much rapidity as Vega.
"I'm still not happy with how you handled a situation you had no part in instigating," he began, after sucking the grease off his fingers, "but I'm not happy with how I handled it, either. You did not know about my...propensity to attack when threatened. It's a reflex. A dangerous one, and I have been trying to cull it for years. For that, I apologize. For almost...well," he thought of a more delicate way to put it, but decided against it, "slicing your throat open. You would have had the last laugh, I suspect," he mulled aloud. "I'd return to Eyraille, but this time, in chains."
He picked at the remaining scraps of meat on his plate, the imperceptible bits of humor fading from his expression, which had hardened around his eyes and mouth when he considered the next subject that tapped on his tongue. "Don't help me," he said, bluntly, but did not look over to her. Instead, he watched the fire, and the soldiers that gathered and chattered beyond the festive tongues of flame that hopped around in the morning chill. "No good will come of it. If you promise me that, maybe then I will forgive you. And if welcoming your company is how I'll take my penance for nearly killing you, then," his features softened, as he looked at her with his warm green eyes, "I'll do so."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
He continued to fight, until his muscles went limp, and hers ached from overexertion. But she did not leave his side. "I'm here... I won't leave you alone to suffer."
And she didn't. Not when the healers called her away so as to check her own vital signs and the overall wellness of her physically and emotionally compromised form. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the worry in his brow, and stroked his golden locks away from his forehead. "Stay strong for me, Alster. You... we will see the end of this." Eventually.
But that promise was, as it seemed, far off. Just as Elespeth had begun to drift off at her lover's side, Alster awoke in petrified hysteria, all but leaping from his bed and throwing his body onto the floor. "Alster...!" The Atvanian knight gasped and knelt to take his writhing body in her arms. "Alster, look at me, listen to me--it's okay..." But it wasn't, not in whatever nightmare to which the Rigas mage's mind was being held captive. To Elespeth's dismay, he clawed at his throat, drawing blood and struggling to breathe, and there was nothing that she could do, nothing that she could say to bring him back...
I'm useless...
Fortunately, they were never far from help in the infirmary. Elias was on his feet with his wits about him in seconds, a familiar sharp instrument in hand that he was quick to stick into Alster's arm, injecting the helpless mage with something that made him go limp. And all she could do was look on, as the panic left her lover's frantic eyes, and he began to draw breath again, relaxing into an oblivious state where nothing existed for him--not even her. "Isn't there another way?" Standing, she wiped tears from her eyes as Elias and Daphni helped Alster back into bed. "Whatever you're giving him... it makes him lifeless. This cannot be forever..."
"It won't be. But for now... he needs something immediate. To reduce the suffering. Elespeth," Daphni put a hand on her arm and guided her back to her own bed, concerned for how thin she felt, having lost so much muscle mass through this ordeal. "You must have faith, but you must also continue to care for yourself. Your heart is weak from malnourishment... If you ever desire the life with the Rigas caster that you dream of, you must be alive for it. So rest, now, but I expect you to partake in a meal when you awaken. Do you understand?"
The former knight nodded sadly and did not resist when the former Sybaian healer helped her onto the pillows. More exhausted than she had thought, she was asleep in seconds.
Daphni expelled air from her lungs in a violent sigh. "She is still so unwell. Neither of them is recovering at the rate that they should be... I know it is taking its toll on you." She turned then to Elias, as he carefully replaced the syringe among the other tools that needed to be cleaned. "I extend my advice from her to you: you need to take care of yourself if you wish to take care of others. Yet you don't seem to see that..." The former Sybaian pressed her lips together thoughtfully, before coming to a split-second decision. "Come with me. There is something I want to show you."
"No--you are right. It was not my place to instigate something that was none of my business to begin with." Vega agreed, with an air of genuine regret. "But I do not expect you to apologize for the way you reacted. I came prepared to fall, if I could not get through to you, but I also... I also had a deep suspicion that you would not--could not kill me. Because I see something in you... Something that you must not see, if you were so confident you might kill me. You're a warrior, Haraldur; that might be true, but it does not make you a cold-blooded murderer."
She knew better than to go too deep with that revelation, however, because the mercenary was not yet ready to hear or to contemplate it. And, he did have a point. "I had no business in trying to help you, especially not by the means I took. And for that, I apologize wholeheartedly. I just... to be very honest, very blunt with you... I often wondered what had become of the saviour who brought the refugees to Eyraille. You disappeared one day, and you did not return... truly, I had thought you dead. Imagine the surprise when it turned out you were not."
Picking at her meal with little appetite, the remorseful Skyknight turned her gaze to the flames of the fire, feeling as though she did not quite deserve to meet the warm gaze of Haraldur's green eyes. "You have my word that my... help ends now, and I hope you can accept my apology. That is all that I ask." Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she pressed a sigh from her chest and closed her eyes. "I would argue that I am not the best company to hold, but if ever you with for company where there is none... I would be happy to take that place." With a surge of courage, she smiled and returned his gaze. He looked so tired, so defeated, but there was still something left in that tortured soul. She saw it, even if he did not want her to. "I understand what it is like to be alone in a crowd, Haraldur. I live it every day of my life."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Alster, as per the drug's modus operandi, stared ahead of himself, much apart of another cursed dream realm than as a resident in the land of the living. He scraped against his teeth and muttered incomprehensible sayings in between the abrading of his upper and lower jaw. But he was calm, no longer a danger to himself, and despite Elespeth's observations over her lover's death-like possession, at least he felt no pain. Just an all-abiding numbness for the world, and for himself. Elias was no happier for the administration of the drug, which was highly-susceptible to addictive behaviors in patients who were treated with frequent or even semi-frequent doses. Choices, however, were limited. Between Adalfieri pressuring him to revert Alster to the closest possible definition of normalcy, and of the unique properties of his fragile and unpredictable condition, the Clematis healer admitted, with grudging acceptance, that the drug was all they could do for the traumatized caster.
"For now," Elias began, making certain to exude a detached yet informative professionalism in place of agitation and impatience, "we must sedate him with the drug. He is still beyond reason and prone to fits of hysteria and confusion. To prevent harm to himself, this measure is unfortunately a necessity. Once he reaches longer stretches of stability and sanity, I will begin to wean him off the drug and inject him with milder doses. I am already beginning to do so, but this process is a gradual one. But," he hesitated, considering what uncharacteristic addition he was about to utter, "you do wonders for his mental health. Keep to his side and his recovery time, I daresay, will be greatly reduced, as will the need for the drug."
Once Elespeth fell to an exhausted slumber, Elias turned to his medical supply table and engaged in the routine cleaning of his tools and hands, ignoring the slight tremble of his fingers, his clammy palms, and the feverish sheen of his skin--hot to the touch. Instead, he opted for the curl of a smile as he side-turned to invite Daphni into his space.
"There. You can no longer say that I am not engaging the patient in an encouraging, hopeful manner. I am not so heartless as to suggest that 'love' is never in itself a cure. Though I don't believe it, myself, I won't ruin the mystique for others, if it will help them to heal. It is, I admit, a contributing factor to recovery--especially in this case. Without the other in their lives, Elespeth and Alster would not recover at all, so I will take this rate, in all its sluggishness, as a small success." His smile dropped at the former Sybaian's mention of his own ails. He laid his syringe, now clean, on a dry cloth and wiped the water that clung to his hands, hiding his tremble.
"I do see that, Daphni," he said, with an exasperated snap. "I am doing everything within my power to balance my healing duties and my health. Short of retiring and relinquishing my abilities, which I cannot do in the foreseeable future, I am without many alternate plans." Though it was said in an argumentative tone, his voice escalated to nary above a raspy whisper. He tried to clear his throat, but the rasp only worsened.
"Are you to take me out back and put me out of my misery? Or forcibly tie me to a bed and make me," he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, "'convalesce'? Or are you planning to heal me with your empathy? Dare I follow?" Shades of that smile returned, impetuous and uncooperative. Yet, despite his closed-off stance and his contrary snatches of flippancy, he full-turned towards Daphni, and followed.
"I would not risk it again," Haraldur warned, an ominous frown scarring his face into jagged, severe edges. "Whether you suspect my hand to deliver mercy or not, don't base your decisions upon a misplaced faith in me. You'll save yourself the guesswork if you always assume the worst. You don't know me well enough to decide, with confidence, that I would not have done you any harm. So please, for my own peace of mind--don't engage me again, however highly you think of a relative stranger."
It baffled him, really, why she insisted on ingratiating herself into his good graces, especially after his assault on her just a handful of hours ago. If she based all her questionable decisions on the man she knew from the past, and was projecting that long-destroyed image upon the slashed-up remains of his person, then she would soon find nothing but disappointment. It was why one should never meet their heroes--if she even regarded him with such reverence. Heroes, or saviors, were always made to disappoint.
"Maybe it was better off that you thought me dead," he said, as an appendix to musings that occupied much of his mind. "That I should continue to be dead. A 'savior,' as you so define me, is not meant to last. They're an ideal, better preserved in a sepulchre than by walking and breathing and interacting and undoing all the good that they'd ever done. I have nothing else; you're only searching for something that's gone. But," he heaved a resigned sigh, "that's your prerogative. Believe what you wish, so long as your beliefs don't place you at the end of my sword."
With some deliberation, Haraldur sat beside Vega on the log, picking at the last of the food on his plate. "I accept your apology, and your word. Forgive me, as well. And if you think little of the quality of your company, I make a horrid companion." He scrunched his face at that, electing for a bit of humor, however self-deprecating. "Really, you're able to do better." He smiled, though like many of his expressions, it was touched with that world-weary sorrow that crinkled at the eyes. "At least a court jester can make you laugh, if he's any good. Whereas I'm quite miserable all-around. Even loneliness is better company."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
It was completely on reflex that she reached out to feel the healer's forehead with the back of her hand. When his cheek, too, proved to be of a moderately healthy temperature, she dropped her arm to her side. "To what do I owe this uncharacteristic change in attitude?" The former Sybaian asked, furrowing her brow. "Are you playing me, Clematis? Because if that is the case, you will come to find that my sense of humour does not include being mocked..."
On the contrary, though, Elias seemed... genuine. And there was something about his words. It was encouraging, and, frankly, lent a much lighter air to the gravity of an inescapably heavy atmosphere. "Come on. And drop the assumptions before I change my mind."
Taking him by the arm to ascertain he did follow, Daphni led her colleague out into the night, offering no explanation as to where she was taking him. They passed residences and the Rigas estate, making their way through old town until they happened upon a plot of undeveloped land that was no more than grass. It was as if the citizens of Stella D'Mare had purposely avoided building on that area, which must have been more than a fortunate coincidence, particularly for a city so full of magic users. They sensed it, just as she did; not to mention, it offered a scenic view of the vista beyond. "The earth provides us with zones that promote our healing," she went on to explain, before taking a seat on the cool grass, and beseeching that he do the same. "This is one of those such spots. The energy here is renewing... it pushing the darkness from your pores and puts your body in a far better position to recover on its own."
Turning her blue eyes on the Clematis healer, she flashed a smile. "It will not cure your aliment, but you seemed open minded enough this evening that I thought I might show you... it felt wrong to keep this opportunity to myself." Daphni closed her eyes, then, and spent the next few moments in silence, as if drinking in the purifying atmosphere that this little gem of land had to offer. Through the placid peace on her fair face, however, there was no mistaking the unease that lurked behind it.
"Can you keep a secret without holding judgment against me?" She asked at last, breaking the silence of the quiet night. And for a second, just a second, the strong empathic healer seemed very small, and very vulnerable. "All that I have left is this war. It is the only meaning and use for my skills outside of my former clan that I ever might find again... and for that, Elias, I cannot deny that I hope to go down with you, if Stella D'Mare does both of us in. In part, because I do not wish to live on without meaning... and in part because I have no resources left to cope. Whatever happens..." Her smile, then, was despondent, yet genuine. "You will not have to see it through, alone."
"I apologize, and you have my word. I will not be so foolish as to tempt your hand again," the Skyknight agreed with a sincere nod. "Although I truly believe that you do not give yourself credit for the self-control that you can exercise, even in the face of sudden adversity."
It was odd, how a stranger sounded so reassured in her faith in someone who she barely knew. Perhaps she really was deluding herself, playing on the memories of the man who had made a new life for so many desperate refugees. But if that was the case, then Vega Sorde must have preferred this delusion to any alternative truth.
Taking another bite of the meat on her plate, the deserter queen of Eyraille finally stood, suddenly uninterested in the hearty meal that she had sought so early in the morning to claim. "But you are right: I have no right to call you a hero or a saviour or to place you upon some pedestal that you do not desire. That is a significant identifier that only the subject should allow as part of their identity, not onlookers or bystanders. Nonetheless, Haraldur..." Placing her barely touched plate upon the log, she smiled, and even dared to put a hand on the warrior's forearm. "You do not realize the significance of what you did for those people who have settled in my kingdom. I do not ask you to absorb the deed as a part of who you are, to enrich your sense of self, but I do hope you can come to realize the happiness that you have created. Follow me."
Gesturing with her shoulder, Vega led the mercenary away from the campfire without any indication as to where she was taking him. Only glancing over her shoulder once to ascertain he followed, she continued to cover ground until they found themselves in the shadow of a giant, golden-winged bird. It gazed down at its master with equally golden eyes, and let out a shriek before she placed a hand on its massive body. "At ease, girl," the Skyknight murmured. "He is a friend." Offering no explanation, she began to don the leather armor from one of the satchels hanging from the great beast's body, and tossed Haraldur a handkerchief. "Tie this around your mouth so you don't swallow a fly," was her only advice, and only hint to her intentions, as she likewise tied a strip of fabric across her mouth. "Do not decline, Haraldur. There is something you need to see; and there is no better way to greet the morning than to take to the air."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
Ever since his chanced encounter with the necromancer named Vitali, Elias, when afforded the time (of which he had very little), plunged into deep contemplations over the fate of his soul. Death, an assured yet abstract concept, always far out of reach despite its proximity as his constant companion, now loomed ever closer, and on occasion even brushed his arm or neck with an icy, fatalistic grip. After the necromancer's depiction of that willful hand curling towards his heart, Elias, now armed with a second, confirmed opinion, was both assured of his imminent death and given an image, a sensation, to accompany him in his descent to the grave.
And what else could he do but carry on? He had never ceased working towards a cure, but with the increased demands of his worsening illness and of his patients, he had less free time to spend on research and experimentation when most of it filtered into much-needed rest. His mood, predictably, started to suffer, and surrendered to whatever whim took up temporary residency within him. After all, he was soon to die. What did he care for the preservation of posterity? Say what you want. This has never stopped you, before.
With a high head, Elias followed Daphni through the etherea-lit Rigas estate, past the permission of the guards on duty, and down the rambling stair corridors of the darkening city. While he did not utter a word in complaint for the Sybaian's pace, he was certain she heard it in his labored breathing and routine breaks where he pressed his body against the sides of the cool alleyway walls. He did not look forward to the return trip--all uphill.
At last they reached their mysterious destination: a nondescript patch of grass. Elias scowled at it, scowled at Daphni, about to utter a cutting remark, but he bit his tongue and listened to her explanation. As a magic-user who had an iota of inherent skill and only later acquired more through ritual, he did not bear much in the way of intuition outside of his practice. He was out of his range of expertise, and again, found himself deferring to Daphni and her magic healing grass square. With a haggard sigh, he sat down opposite her and brushed his fingers against the individual blades of dry, brittle, bleach-green. "With the distance you made me hike," he said breathless, "this healing zone had better promote more than mood-enhancing vibrations, though if it is effective, you might have given me cause to send the Rigas caster down here as an alternate option for the drug before he becomes addicted to its effects."
He silenced the stream that flowed out of his rattling mouth, and concentrated that stream elsewhere, converting its energy to the ground and copying Daphni's meditative posture. He seldom meditated; he'd rather sleep, or keep awake, for it seemed pointless to hover between two states that hindered any productivity towards one or the other. But he closed his eyes, and evened his breathing, and tried to follow the path of healing energy. After a few minutes, he felt his sinuses open, his head clear, and his fever give way a little. The heat that doused his skin sloughed away, and he even found it easier to breathe. To breathe deeply. To breathe without fear of coughing into a fit and losing all control. He fluttered his eyes open, looked over at Daphni, and voiced his approval via snort. "Either this place is legitimate, or it creates one hell of an illusory effect over the mind. When we leave this patch...will I leave behind," he struggled for the words, "this feeling?"
When Daphni spoke again, he met her eyes, his a cross that struggled between his requisite cold anger and something a little more...receptive. The former won, even in the midst of feel-good energy--but the words were less harsh on his lips, and his glare only a mere squint.
"It is easy for one to wish death upon themselves when they are not in immediate danger of dying. Were it possible, I would trade health conditions with you. I assure you, Daphni, staring in the face of death with constant vigor as I have been doing...it deepens your appreciation to live. I, who have nothing, no further meaning, who has lost home, country, family...want to live. I have never wanted anything more. Yes," his glare, in full, returned, "I am judging you, because you have something that I want and you desire to throw it aside because you do not know what to do with it. May I suggest this, then? Do not follow me," he spat, but his anger was almost plaintive, his hazel eyes nearly wild with a memory of several years' past. "I want to see through it alone, because that insures me that no one else is dying, or dead." Unbeknownst to him, he reached for her hands and held them tight in his trembling grasp. "What does it matter, a life without meaning? Does it mean nothing just to live?"
Haraldur gazed, with some discomfort, at the half-eaten plate of food that Vega had discarded on the log. Growing up in a poverty-stricken village in the middle of a terrible famine, which was then absorbed by a greater country that rationed meager portions to its people, the mercenary seldom turned down a meal, or left a plate unfinished--with the exception of last night. He almost pulled the plate towards him, and asked to finish her leftovers, or to deliver them to someone who had not yet eaten. But at risk of sounding gluttonous, he kept silent, and stood up with her, trying to ignore the abandoned plate. It would not be abandoned for long, he reasoned. Not in a camp brimming with equally hungry, opportunistic men.
Luckily, he became distracted, when the Skyknight commander sought his arm. "If a man has any sense of proportion, or dignity, he will never call himself a savior. That is for other people to decide--as you have decided for me. Nonetheless, it's a title I can't accept." Much as I want to, he almost added. And perhaps he would accept her praise--if his tenure as a mountain guide hadn't ended in such unmitigated disaster. No, one horrible end did not undo the success of those who had reached the borders of Eyraille and settled into their new lives, but it soured his perspective on the entire affair because..he had allowed people, many people, to die.
Because...he had allowed Arina to die.
Because...he abandoned them. Abandoned her.
Horrible, unforgivable deeds always weighed more than selfless acts of heroism. No multitude of assurances and recognition by Sir Vega Sorde would outweigh the bad.
He lowered his arm, feeling undeserving of her touch, but his self-consciousness wavered in place of slight confusion when she bade him follow. He almost declined, but she seemed insistent on his continued company, which he failed in persuading her to reject.
As he had anticipated, they arrived at the ring of tents where housed a makeshift pen for her giant roc. He thought they were only paying the fiercesome avian a visit and he bowed a friendly, albeit awkward, nod to the bird. But when Vega handed him a handkerchief and instructed him to don it over his face, he smiled nervously and returned it to her. "It's probably for the best if I remain down here. Not that I am afraid of heights, or of birds, but the act of flying..." he averted his eyes and shuffled his feet, embarrassed. "...It's not as though I haven't flown on your roc before. But on a full stomach? And," he glanced around camp, watchful, "have you been given clearance to fly? Our enemies will doubtless spy a giant golden bird sailing across the sky."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
She was only half-joking, and had it been in her power, she would have set to the task, herself. It was not fair that he was guaranteed a reprieve from this war, from this world, forever, when she was stuck to suffer its pain. "I have been frequenting this place for my own health. No matter where I travel in this city, I feel naught but pain. It is as if happiness no longer exists, or that no one can feel it, and it... it's killing me. The world is unkind, as things stand, and all the worse if you can feel it..."
Of course, he disapproved her death wish--and had every right to. Life was a luxury when it was not a guarantee, and she must have come across as selfish in her desire to throw away what was left of it. He must have thought her an idiot, a despicable, ungrateful--
But then he took her by the hands. And she didn't know what to think anymore. "I can't answer that question," she responded, quietly, but with all honesty. "Because it is not only my own life I am experiencing, but that of everyone around me. It is exhausting..." She shook her head. "When I was among the Sybaia--part of them--it was not so prominent, or at the front of my mind. Not when everyone else experienced it every day. But alone..."
Daphni trailed off, looked down and away, and withdrew her hands. "I cannot thrive without that sense of belonging, despite how much pain it brought me. I was born into it; it is who I am, and to act apart from it, I... I do not think I am quite strong enough to endure it alone." And however tempting it might have been, sitting forever on that spot of land, with its clarifying and balancing energies, was not a feasible option.
"I do happen to know for a fact, sir, that you are neither afraid of heights, nor flying," the Skyknight drawled, that determined glint in her eye not fading in the least as she continued to prepare her roc for flight. "Because this is not the first time you have taken to the skies on a roc--on this roc, to be specific." Patting the side of her enormous bird's neck, Vega plunged her other hand into the satchel, removing a small lump wrapped in thin cloth. She tossed it to the reluctant mercenary, who caught it on reflex. "Ginger root," she explained passively. "Chew on it; to calm your gut and prevent air sickness. If I recall correctly, you did not seem to have a problem with it, before."
It did not appear as though the fiery redhead was impelled to take no for an answer. With a surge of strength, she hoisted her body upon the roc's, settling just behind it's massive shoulders. "It is not uncommon to see giant, golden birds soaring the sky around Eyraille's mountains, I assure you; we are no more discern able to those on the ground than a bird without a rider. Come, now, Haraldur; you should know to trust that I will take it easy for you in the air."
At that, she extended her hand to her comrade on the ground. "Please. If I did not think that it was of the utmost importance that you see what I wish to show you, I would not be so headstrong. Join me: just one flight. If you suffer nausea and lose your breakfast, I will personally cook you another one and will never endeavor to persuade you to mount a roc again."
Vega could be patient--when it mattered. And she believed that this man required nothing but patience and understanding, to allow him the space he needed to open up on his own terms. Which is why she waited, then, for him to either take her hand and take to the sky, or to walk away and leave her in his metaphorical dust. The choice is yours, Haraldur; I won't pressure you further.
And, of course, she meant it. But that was not to say that she did not secretly hope that he would take her hand. It had been too long since she had flown with a passenger... it was so much less lonely, up in the large and limitless expanse of the sky, when you had company.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"So the first solution that you can conceive of to combat your emotional exhaustion is death?" He flicked his hazel eyes back to her, with their natural proclivity to glare and to appear disagreeable, even in the best of moods. They stared balefully at her, but in them a modicum of worry shone to the surface. "That is the same logic and reasoning as succumbing to death in order to cure a disease. You are a healer, Daphni. With all of your expertise, you do not try to manipulate life, and rather allow life to manipulate you? You would rather invite defeat, thinking it as a cure, instead of searching for a way to silence the rabble in your mind?" He tilted his head at her, the bounce of his brown curls, slick from perspiration, sticking to his forehead. "It is possible, Daphni. I have seen empaths master this shift between the extreme and relative normalcy. You may even find more success in controlling your ability in this city of magic than I have in gathering ingredients for an herbal remedy. You cannot say that there are no other options open to you."
He leaned back, spreading his hands behind him in the grass. He removed his intense gaze, and looked skyward, at the sprinkle of stars visible in the fading lights in the gathering dark.
"My mentor, my sponsor," he began, reticent and faltering in his continuation, "the man who welcomed me into the Clematis brotherhood, who advocated for my initiation and stood by my side during my rigorous years as a neophyte, decided he would rather die than face the inevitable siege of our city. And he did. He jumped from the battlements, to his death, and I was privy to it all. No one else knew of his whereabouts...so I told the brotherhood slanderous lies about his involvement with the enemy. He had gone mad. He was an informant; he betrayed us. Any lie was preferable to what he had done. Any apocryphal betrayal spouting from my lips paled to the real betrayal that he had dealt me. Do I regret what I said?" He closed his eyes and gripped the soft grass, feeling the dirt beneath his fingers. "Yes. Of course I do. In fact, I am fully convinced that this illness I have contracted is an act of retribution by the Eight-Colored God, and that I should die from it as penance. Perhaps I will, despite all my efforts to fight against my destiny. I have never been a faithful acolyte, after all. So," he sighed, "consider this as my contrition."
He fished through the leather pouch attached to his belt and produced a small amber vial, its dark honeyed surface too opaque to view the substance sloshing within. He proffered the vial to Daphni. "This contains a dram of highly concentrated cyanide, called cathario. Relatively painless. Fast-acting. It will kill in a minute." He pressed it into her hands. "Take it. If life is really so unbearable, then drink it and die. I will not stop you. However," the rasp of his voice seemed to vanish in place of a sharp, acerbic hiss as he clawed his hand over hers, over the vial, "I will make certain that your name, your deeds, and your memory die with you. Every act, every contribution--gone."
As he withdrew his hand, his expression smoothed over into a sheen of placidity, a jarring look when juxtaposed with the near-murderous chill he had exhibited towards Daphni just moments ago. "Now, about that house..."
As he rolled the ginger root around in his hands, Haraldur appraised the majestic roc, recalling all those years ago when he gripped at the bird's silken feathers, felt the thrum of her wings and the ripple of wind that pulled at his golden-brown hair. With every winged downbeat, his stomach made several revolutions and his ears had lost all sense of direction. He was at the mercy of the roc and its driver. But when they had kicked off the ground and he viewed the world in an even more unlimited perspective than atop the jagged, lonely mountains of his frequent travels, he had reasoned away the minor discomfort. The veins of the earth, blue-black and writhing beneath the fingers of the range, the webs of the valley, pink as a newborn in the bask of the wakening sun...he floated over existence, and all appeared calm. No wars, no borders, no strife. Just a relief map projecting all he'd ever known, and the invigorating chill of the thin, thin air gasping through his nostrils.
His heart knocked against its confines from the memory, in fear and excitement, urging him to step forward and relive one of the most rewarding experiences of his varied and troubled life. It's time to feel alive, again, if only for today...
Still, he hesitated.
"From what little you know of me, are you surprised that I'm rather skilled at hiding my apprehension?" He crossed his arms over his chest, in a last-ditch effort of defiance, and to further cage his yammering heart. "But now, I--"
He paused. Did she say Eyraille's mountains? A frown of suspicion crossed his face. "Where exactly do you plan on taking me?"
He looked again at the roc. She gazed back at him with intelligent golden eyes, cocking her ponderous head with some curiosity--and almost in a posturing stance, as if to challenge him. I dare you to walk away, she seemed to say. You walk now, and you will lose the opportunity, the spirit in you which thirsts to be reborn. Even your heart wishes to take flight. It will leave you behind, and you will possess nothing but your own defeat for the rest of your days.
He bowed his head against the pierce of those exacting eyes, sighed with the resignation of the coerced, but not of the convinced, and finally, took Vega's outstretched hand. Propelling over the distance and settling himself into the saddle behind the Skyknight commander with little effort, he bit the end of the ginger root and reclaimed the handkerchief meant for him. After tying it around the back of his neck, he curled his arms around her waist and glanced out at camp, as if he was to see it for the last time.
"To Eyraille, then?" he said, and the doubt in his voice overtook all his attempts at cool-headed apathy. If that is the case, do not take me to see the refugees. I'm not ready...
But when will I ever be?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come
"You felt abandoned," she clarified quietly, when he concluded his sad tale. "Betrayed. And that is how you would think of me: a traitor, a coward. One who prefers to give up than to see through to a solution." The hard truth was, he was not entirely wrong. "I... cannot begin to offer my late condolences to what you have been through, Elias. And you have every right to your feelings, just as I have every right to mine."
She observed the swirl of the dim amber liquid in the vile before taking it from his outstretched hand. What exactly, then, was his purpose for carrying it with him? Had he his own plans for a quicker, more painless demise than what his chronic disease might offer? Or was this reserved solely for people like her; people in incessant pain that sees no hope for an end? For the ill and the suffering, as a final act of mercy when nothing he could do would restore them to a better, happier and healthier state? You have not failed me, Elias, she thought, as she held the vial delicately between her fingers. I have failed myself.
"So you would waste your limited time and breath on erasing me. Why does that not surprise me." Unbidden, a smile curled at the corners of her mouth, and before she knew it, she was laughing. "How very like you, as a punishment. Although I daresay, there is not much of me to erase, to begin with. The lives I have restored have already forgotten my name, if ever they knew it. My accomplishments are nothing that are not merely expected of me. Everything that mattered..." The former Sybaian paused and shook her head. "It all vanished when my mother died. When she told me she would return, and instead, embraced death. So I will not begrudge you to dissolve whatever is left. Perhaps... it might even be for the better. And, besides," she couldn't help but offer a wink in his direction. "So long as someone remembers the person who helped hm find this plot of land, then that is all that matters. Regardless..."
Daphni paused, then, and was suddenly overcome by an urge. Perhaps it was the feeling of finality, holding that small vile in her hand, and the overwhelming sense that nothing else mattered, not when she had the means to her own end before she could take no more. Whatever it was, it instilled in her the courage to lean forward and plant a kiss on his prominent cheekbone, light and chaste, but present. "This is perhaps the single kindest thing that anyone has ever done for me," she confided in a whisper. "And even if you forget me... I will not forget this."
But reality returned, once again, and on realizing what she had just done, Daphni withdrew in embarrassment. "But... let us speak with some of the higher ups of Stella D'Mare. I am certain that with the right persuasion and argument, even temporary safehousing, particularly for those who must restore themselves in a timely manner, might be a possibility to install here. I will see to putting in inquiries in the morning."
The grin on Vega Sorde's face could not be wider, although it was concealed beneath the rough cotton of her handkerchief. Nonetheless, it reached her eyes as she hauled the mercenary onto her waiting roc, and waited until he was sufficiently settled. "What fun is a surprise if I must give you the details ahead of time?" She teased, her azure eyes meeting the sea of green what was his own source of vision as she looked over her shoulder. "Trust me. After all, you did, once before." A time which seemed so long ago... But, perhaps, revisiting it would be what Haraldur needed to take on a new perspective of himself.
"Hold tight, warrior." Turning back, she leaned forward and took the reins of her enormous bird, who poised to take flight. "Lean forward; don't be shy, now. It won't do you any good, a hundred feet into the air."
When her passenger finally felt secure, Vega gave a swift kick of her feet, and the roc took to the sky in a rush. Another smiled broke out beneath her handkerchief, taken by the rush of the wind as she always was when she ascended. It came as no surprise when she felt the body of the warrior tense around her back and abdominal muscles; flight, to those who were not used to it, could take the lack of gravity as quite a shock. "Relax," she called over the wind. "If you can balance on a horse, you can balance on a roc. I won't let you fall."
The roc soared just below the clouds, where the air was not too thin, gliding over trees and villages and far beyond Tadasun's encampment, to the tall mountains that belonged to its neighbouring kingdom. Eyraille was an elevated habitation, built among the natural habitat of the fierce rocs which had taken generations of hard work, patience and perseverance to tame. If nothing else, the nation was picturesque in its design, with elegant bridges built between peaks, and homes typically decorated the colour of the sky, the sunrise, and sunset, with the capital's palace overseeing all towards the very top; a formidable edifice crafted right out of the mountain itself, as much a piece of the landscape as its natural design, sculpted by nature.
"Does this look familiar?" Vega called again, over her shoulder. "A little different, maybe? Take a good look at the farms. All of those crops, we never thought we'd be able to successfully grow in a sustainable way. We have the refugees, the ones who you saved, to thank for this prosperity... and they have you to thank for the opportunity to settle into this new way of life." Her voice had taken on a reverent and grateful tone that emphasized the meaning of her words. "Would you like to take a closer look?"
He glanced at the amber vial, which she had palmed with all the eagerness of a beggar who has been offered alms, or of a pariah searching for absolution. A solution. The poison was Daphni's solution: a final, all-consuming end from which she could never undo--barring any interference from a certain necromancer, of course. Not that he would enlist the man's questionable aid to pump Daphni's heart back to life; much as was his instinct to facilitate recovery and vitality, Elias, true to his word, would not interfere with her departure from the world. But if he could not heal her, could not save her, then he would influence the trajectory that would result in her ultimate death. The poison was his own insurance just as it was her salvation. If you are to die, he thought, watching as an otherworldly sheen caught on the highlights of the amber bottle, we do this my way. For I deliver death as equally as I preserve life.
"There is enough to erase," he said, but the cold snap that manifested in his ravaged throat provided more of a salve for his own unavoidable disease than of the chilliness he had summoned just to bite at her, "starting with you and me. You also cannot deny your contribution to the revival of Alster Rigas's celestial magic. That deed will, of course, be quite simple for the caster to forget, since he already struggles with memory loss, and his warrior lover is quite on the single-minded path to restore her beau to some sense of normalcy--so she may not consider you at all. The dissolution of your hand, as far as I can track its healing touch, is not such an arduous task. I will be done in time to take my tea. As for this plot of land, I--"
He cut short his scathing dialogue (or it would have been, had his intended tone reflected in his views) when the former Sybaian leaned forward and brushed her lips over his cheek. In reflex, he shot his hand up press against the affected area, as if she had injected him with the very poison he presented to her. "This..." he said with a waver, a vocal interpretation of the flush that his cheeks had felt, but did not show, "changes nothing. I ignore your flattery, and disavow you, Daphni." As if to prove his point, he rose from the grass to his feet, noticing that his time in the healing space had eased his transition from sitting to standing. Like a rusty gate slathered with oil, his movements no longer creaked and ratcheted with jerking twitches.
"Do not worry yourself with the boring vagaries that plague the living, so. Your life is forfeit, and I do not consult with those slated for death. I will make my own appeals to the Rigas council. If it is for the sake of their own, they will listen to my proposal. Good night, healer."
Without another word, he turned on his heels and marched back up the long series of stairs that would convey him to the top, where the Rigas estate awaited him. If Daphni had followed him, he ignored her presence and continued on his way, a slow, faltering step, but nonetheless improved by his soak in the energy of the square of land. While he trekked upwards, he thought, against his own wishes, of Daphni. A sigh escaped his lips, and it spoke all of his apprehensions into the air. Wait until I die first, Daphni.
Let me die first...
While Haraldur tried to prevent the reflexive tightening of his muscles around Vega's waist, he squeezed himself against her when the giant avian pumped her wings forward, nearly toppling the ring of tents in the strong wind. As they took to the air, losing the firmness of the earth beneath them, he dared not move from his positioning. He practically anchored himself to the Skyknight commander during the varying dips and rises in elevation as the roc and its rider tested the skies for the most stable currents of wind to drive them forward with the best of ease. In the all-encompassing weightlessness, he chewed the root, remembering the spicy kick of the ginger that sat in his mouth, all but forgotten in the exhilaration of take-off. As he chewed, his head in a dizzying spin and his bloated stomach flattened against his spine, he chanced a look beyond and then below him. Perched on its cliff surrounded by baked yellow grasses and bare-top hillocks that acted as mountains, stood Tadasun's camp. He saw little figures dart around in the spot where the roc had rested in her makeshift pen just earlier. A wave of nausea moved his head from its tilt towards the ground to upwards and ahead of him--at the open, blue sky. At the fluttering gold feathers of the majestic bird. At the strands of Vega's copper tresses, escaped from her tight bun and trailing like banners in the brisk morning wind.
"Are you sure that this flight won't damage your alliance with Tadasun?" he called out to her, at last relaxing his iron-grip. "They don't look too happy about your unplanned expedition."
His initial worries drifted aside, however, when he looked to his right, and in the distance caught the glimmering sea and the red sun that dangled like a pendulum above it. In the backdrop, a shadowy hulk of a mountain stalked. It, too, shone and flickered with sparks of opalescent light, like little stars invigorated to life by the coming of day. It was Stella D'Mare, awakening from slumber. His eyes trained to the dome-shaped mountain's summit, where the corona of the Rigas estate lay, quiet and undisturbed from a distance. Elespeth, he thought, please remember me...
He remained silent for the duration of the trip. Even if he was in a rare talkative mood, the batter of the wind against their ears and the poor acoustics were not conducive to a lengthy conversation. Instead, he enjoyed the ride, which improved for his wavering equilibrium as his body acclimated to the new environment, and as the roc coasted over a stable opening of sky. Over the course of the flight, he watched the change in landscape, from ocean to bay to fields to patchy forests and tall, jagged peaks pinched from the earth. But his mood, which, for a while, was of a silent, childlike awe, transitioned to pitted dread that agitated the flips in his stomach--when he saw the borders of Eyraille.
The sky-top kingdom was as august and beauteous as he remembered it, perhaps moreso from his years in its absence, and from the positive changes that improved its infrastructure. He noticed the crops that sprang in places where they had never grown, the addition of a few bridges that would have facilitated his oft-trammeled treks with the refugees in tow, and the fresh, almost new appearance of once dilapidated buildings, their roofs pointed with a defiance that almost erased all traces of its past history of bloodshed and tyranny. The sharp, intoxicating aroma of mountain air filled his nostrils. He glanced upon the stretch of spruce and juniper trees, the dotting of short-lived autumnal wildflowers waving to him on the mountainside --and he wanted to land, to walk again on the trails that he missed, to tour the kingdom and observe its improvements, to...visit the refugees.
And...he wanted to disappear.
He shrank into the saddle, closing his eyes from the sight--but he could not ignore the sprawl that had enticed him to look, to keep looking and to absorb a place that had become home for so many lost and displaced and afraid. That had almost become home for him--lost for so long.
"Yes," he told Vega, his faltering voice almost stripped by the wind. "We've traveled this far. I'll...see what you want to show me." The doubt returned as he opened his eyes. "But how do I know that this is the work of the refugees? That they are even alive, or thriving? That they have...made this country their own?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
But the surly Clematis was already rising from his spot on the ground and turning his back to her in some childlike resolve to convey a silent treatment. If that really was his wish, then all she could to was respect it. "All right. If that is what you desire, then do you best. Erase every fragment of me that has ever existed, for I am not so narcissistic as to hang on to the possibility that I or my deeds might be remembered. I seek peace, Elias; and for an empath, nothing short of death can grant that wish."
She worried to watch him walk off on his own, a shadow against the remaining lights of the city that was going to sleep, but she did not pursue. However, she continued to sit on the single resolve that there was one thing that he could not take from her, and that was her final act of thanks. She would personally consult with the head Rigases, before he had a chance to speak with them, and ensure that a house was built. It is the least I can do for your wayward kindness, you stubborn, surly idiot, she thought with an air of despondency as she looked skyward to the stars.
The satin feel of his soft, cool skin, prickled subtly with stubble, remained a phantom sensation on her lips...
The weight of the small vial in her pocket remained a constant reminder that she finally had the power to find her own peace, at any moment, whenever she wanted. But now was not the time, and regardless as to whether or not Elias truly meant to erase her memory and her deeds, she still had tasks to perform, such as looking after the well-being of the Rigas caster in the infirmary, and his insufferably devoted Atvanian warrior. So early the next morning, after consulting abruptly with one of the Rigas fellows concerned with the city's maintenance and development and planting a bug in his ear about building upon that special plot of land near the Rigas estates, she ventured to the infirmary to find Alster still sleeping, but Elespeth, awake. "Good. I had hoped that you'd have risen by now," she commented, approaching the warrior with an air of reluctance. So much sadness swirling in her aura... It was almost like staring into the sun, a light so bright that you could not help but squint. In contrast, this was a sentiment so heavy it felt a weight upon her own chest, and reminded her once again as to why she sought peace. "Come, you need to eat something. You promised me that you would."
"Could you not simply bring me a meal, here?" Came Elespeth's monotonous reply. She didn't move an inch from her seat next to her sleeping lover, clasping his hand as if she were worried he might float away if left untethered.
Daphni frowned. "Do I look like your maidservant?" She returned, annoyance plain in her countenance. "You will not recover if you associate only with the sick. Come; I saw to it that something was prepared for you at Alster's estate. If being there alone proves too difficult, then I am happy to provide company."
With a tad more convincing, and a great deal more assertion, the former Sybaian healer succeeded in extracting Elespeth from the Rigas caster's side, and accompanied her out--fortunately, before Elias decided to make his presence known at the infirmary. It was not so much out of respect that Daphni sough to remove herself and avoid the Clematis healer, but rather, that she simply hadn't the desire to see him, either. The more distance that grew between them, the less hesitation, she knew, she would have when it finally came time to allow herself the peace she so craved.
"You will know," Vega assured her passenger, flashing a smile over her shoulder that reached the crystalline azure of her eyes. "I promise. Now hold tight while we make a landing."
The Skyknight manipulated her roc's reins, signaling the colossal bird to take an abrupt dive as it made for Eyraille's soil. If Haraldur had not been clasped tightly to the rider in front of him before, he certainly was now, his strong arms gripping Vega's waist enough to disrupt her breathing. It made her want to laugh aloud, exhilarated by the rush of air and her guest's reluctant excitement. The roc took a nosedive towards the mountainous kingdom, making a beeline for a wide, open field on the outskirts of what appeared to be a farming village, where it landed with a grace that a new passenger such as Haraldur might not have expected--especially considering she had perfected her landing since the last time they'd met.
Vega dismounted with equal grace when the bird settled, and helped the mercenary down without asking if he needed a hand. "You held up well," she commented, tucking the handkerchief around her neck. "How's that stomach of yours? If you need to be sick, then now's the time."
Of course, Haraldur had held out relatively well, save for some residual vertigo once his feet his the ground that prompted Vega to keep a hand on his arm. "Come with me. There is so much that I can show you, but this is by far the most important."
The farming village was ripe with crops and sturdy homes that were no older than a handful of years. Trees had begun to spring up in young orchards, vegetables and grain colouring the landscape like a painting. Against the clear, blue skyline, with hills and mountains in the backdrop, it was as picturesque as a paradise. "You were here once before," the Skyknight informed Haraldur as she led him between the crops, where busy citizens worked their magic on the produce. "But it was nothing, back then; deadened, undeveloped land. This is but one feat of the refugees you brought to my kingdom. With the help of some of Eyraille's native denizens, the homes here were built in record time. In exchange, they brought with them seeds of crops that we never could have imagined this cool, mountainous climate could sustain. Look."
Vega crouched down to lift a ripened tomato vine, its fruit heavy and crimson and dropping, ready to be plucked. "They are all agricultural geniuses. And as soon as we have the resources, we plan of helping to expand this village, offer grander living quarters. And this is but one, small segment of what your refugees have offered. And look at how they live: day to day, without fear of death, simply working to better their own lives." Straightening her posture, she turned to Haraldur with a grateful smile. "Would you like to see more? The artisans, the tradesmen, even the healers, who bring the benefit of their own practices? You have no idea how Eyraille has grown, Haraldur. Your hand in helping make this possible is far from insignificant."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He brushed his cheek upon where she planted him a kiss, and the blush that refused to appear finally surfaced. Damn you, Daphni. He kicked an errant pebble aside as he struggled up the long stairs, a new kind of ache plying at his tiring muscles.
He uttered the same expletive the following day, when he arrived at the Rigas council room, only to discover that his proposal for a safehouse on the plot of land had already been motioned--by Daphni.
Of course you would continue to cross me, you insolent twit.
With additional weight pulling down his legs, Elias thumped into the infirmary shortly after Elespeth and the twit in question had made their exit off to wherever their little hearts desired. He was about to mutter aloud his frustrations when he paused in his diatribe, and regarded Alster, who, awake, aware, and upright, watched him with a guarded gaze.
"Where are they heading?" he asked the Rigas caster, who appeared calm, too calm--almost deceptively so. "And why did you not go along with them?"
"I pretended to sleep," he said, fingering the little patches of gauze where hid the bloody scratches from his late-night throat clawing. "She won't bother me to sleep if she already thinks that I'm slumbering." He looked beyond, at the door to outside. "They went to my villa for breakfast. But..." those haunted blue-green eyes drifted back to Elias, "I had hoped to speak with you in private."
"Oh?" Elias leaned against his table of medical instruments and bandages, trying to redistribute the weight that had grounded him like unwieldy roots from a tree. "What of?"
"Elespeth is hiding something from me." The wrinkles beneath his eyes intensified, aging him into something timeless and withered, a fragile monument that would topple in the lightest breeze. "With our blood bond so damaged, it would have affected her gravely. Pushed her to the brink of death, but she admits nothing of this."
"And you want to me to reveal what I know of her purported condition while you were asleep," he stated, crossing his arms over his chest.
"If you would." His hands traveled from his throat to the bed sheets. He bunched them together and collected a few mollifying breaths before continuing. "I know that I'm far from well, and that this information won't possibly improve upon my condition. But I am certain of what happened to Elespeth. She almost died." His shoulders hunched together in a shudder. "I can feel it through the cracks in our bond."
"Yes," he said with a glib immediacy that stymied Alster out of his practiced calm--but only for a flicker. "You are correct in your conjectures. The near breaking of your bond drove Elespeth into a critical condition. She would have died, were it not for your cousin, and," he hesitated, then sighed, "and Daphni. They pulled her from the brink. She owes her life to them."
Alster nodded, his jaw pressing tight, as if to stifle the panic that steeped into his blood and twitched at his muscles, like a parasite ready to control him from the inside. "What...was the catalyst behind the breaking of the bond? Do you know?"
While Elias hesitated his answer, Chara stepped into the infirmary, a walking ball of sun and glamour and a trailing floral perfume that he smelled from clear across the cavernous room. She carried with her a small basket filled with various breads and cheeses. She stopped beside Alster and stared at Elespeth's empty bed in perplexity.
"Well, this is certainly a sight! Where is the warrior? She finally decided to evacuate her bowels after all this time of holding your hand?" However, her expression and the stab of her words had softened once she noticed the distress bordering on an all-consuming revelation that had attacked Alster's wounded face.
"What did I do, Chara?" he asked her in the gasp of a whisper, staring down at his shivering hands.
She reached out to touch his shoulder, and frowned. "Pardon? Why, you have done nothing, quite literally, for several days straight!"
"No." He brushed away her hand, eyes narrowing. "No games, Chara. Tell me... how I almost killed Elespeth."
At the sudden change in air pressure, Haraldur fused himself to Vega's back once more, his head practically resting upon her shoulder from his leaning proximity. In his new position, his breath heated and dampened the side of Vega's neck. "Forgive me," he said into her ear, shifting with some discomfort in the saddle. His hands perspired, both from the anticipation of the land and of his forced intimacy with the rider of the mount. But his breath literally bellowed out of his mouth and nose as the roc dipped into a steep and fast descent. Water appeared in the corners of his eyes, almost burning them closed. His iron-grip returned around the only stable, immovable thing closest to him, and he no longer cared about his very generous embrace that ringed like a noose around her waist. Through his half-blurred, half-opened sight, he watched the ground rise towards them at an alarming rate. We're going to crash, he thought. The roc is carrying too much. This won't end well at all...
He braced for impact. The impact did arrive, but not as expected. When the thrash of the wind and the changing elevation had ceased all together, he blinked the senses back into him, which threatened to escape into the thin mountain air. The world spun, but when he dared to look below his feet, he saw that they were standing on firm earth. He sighed, long and heavy.
Then--despite the inevitable encounter and the bittersweet return to his past (or perhaps in spite of it all)--he laughed. A soft, baritone chuckle. Though short-lived, it resonated in his throat and in his voice long after it had vanished.
"I actually thought we were going to die," he said, brushing back his wild, wind-tousled hair into some semblance of order after pulling off his handkerchief. "Though, that is far from a bad way to go."
Though he did not think he needed it, for he recovered enough equilibrium on his own, he took Vega's hand and landed on the ground, which still moved, as malleable as water, beneath him. On reflex, he leaned into Vega's steadying hand. "I'm fine. Once the earth starts behaving more like earth, I'll even be able to walk." He smiled at her, and at the bird, but the smile faded when he realized where he was: Eyraille. At a farming village populated by the refugees that had once trusted in him to escape. To escape...or to die.
At first he did not budge, attributing his petrifaction to the lingering aftereffects of vertigo, but eventually, he followed Vega, making sure to stay behind her at all times. With his tall stature, however, there were few places where he could exercise his abilities at stealth and inconspicuousness. ...Not when they arrived on a giant bird and thereby alerted the village to their presence.
He lowered his head to ignore the rising heads of the farmers who were curious about the newcomers. Look away, look away. You don't recognize me...
"I do remember this land," he said in a whisper, in case his voice carried and a villager or two familiarized themselves with its cadence. He crouched in time with her, observing the juice-engorged tomato and its red red sheen. "I have never heard of tomatoes growing with much, if any, chance of success at this altitude. And," he scoured the land and its cornucopia of carrot stalks and cabbage patches, broccoli leaves and potato sprouts, "this is..."
He silenced himself, afraid to speak or soak in the bounty before him, in case he could no longer hold together after witnessing such an inspiring story told, not only by Vega, but by the movements of the farmers, themselves. Their once bone-white hue and bone-clattering limbs were now colored in and filled in with sun-kissed shine and lithe, healthful sturdiness. Their faces were unperturbed, untroubled, save when dealing with any pressing conundrums of the farming and agricultural variety. Some herders in the distance conveyed their goats and sheep to the nearby hill-top covered in lush, verdant grasses. Haraldur's eyes moistened, but not from the wind. He could only nod, his words lodged in his throat, not strong enough to manifest into life.
And that was when a farmer spotted him.
She was a girl, but had grown since last he saw her nearly six years ago. Once so small, she had risen from the ground with tomato vitality, all red and rosy-cheeked and sprightly, her burnished hair flowing from her head in waves. Her eyes widened at him, this girl who could be no older than twelve.
"Klara," he murmured, unaware of his dreamlike utterance until his eyes also widened. "No, I...her name is Thora. And she knows...She's looking right at me. We need to go. She'll approach--she's not shy."
He pulled Vega's arm and headed over the crest of the hill, with hurried yet silent steps, to where the great avian waited.
"If we do visit the merchants and the artisans," he said, climbing atop the roc, "stay at a distance. Just a distance. It will be sufficient." He glanced uneasily at the small, well-kept village, anticipating Thora's pursuit. "For now. At least, for now..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
But they were only dreams... and they could not touch her in the waking world. So long as she did not pay them any heed...
"How are you, otherwise? I figure I might as well make myself useful by picking up any slack your condition is leaving untended. Idly passing the time while Alster becomes human again does not sit well with me." With the basket unpacked, it was not long before Lilica's hands became antsy again with lack of a task. And her mind drifted to less than pleasant thoughts, which weighed on her chest like hot coal, burning to the point where she couldn't keep them contained any longer. "Lysander... what sort of power does the Serpent hold over casters with chthonic aptitude?" It was a risky question, she knew, one that would make her more suspicious than she was already perceived. But for whatever reason, perhaps due to the frequency of their encounters, she felt her rapport with Chara's father was stable enough that she could at the very least consult him in confidence.
"I just... wonder, for the sake of my own protection," she added hastily, staring down at the pattern of the marble floor so as to avoid meeting his eyes. "If there is anything that I should look out for. I would have consulted Chara, but her propensity to overreact makes me think that I am better off not bringing up the topic with her. And you know Stella D'Mare and its history well. I want to be useful in this front against Messino; not a hindrance. So..." Drawing a breath, the chthonic caster gathered her courage to meet Lysander's eyes. "What can you tell me? I am not so foolish to think that I can walk Stella D'Mare, unaffected by its dark undertones." Is it the cause of my nightmares? Of my waking lapses in reality? The voice and image of my stepfather that is beginning to follow me everywhere? She wanted to know, but she feared the answer; or rather, she feared that she already knew it.
"You know--on the other hand, nevermind. We have enough to deal with in the here and now, there is no need to entertain farfetched possibilities." And just like that, her feet went cold, and she regretted initiating the discussion to begin with. Whatever her rapport with Lysander, it was still too risky, lest his opinions influence Chara. Deny it though she did, the celestial caster had more respect for her father than he let on. "Though, I would ask you... not disclose this conversation to anyone, particularly Chara. I... I do not want her to worry or jump to any haste conclusions. She has enough on her mind."
As she was leaving, both the former Sybaian healer and the Atvanian warrior crossed her path, such that it was impossible not to acknowledge them. Daphni offered only a nod, and Elespeth, a small smile. It would have been socially unacceptable, at that point, to remain silent. "Have you happened to have seen Chara, recently?"
"On her way to check up on Alster, I believe. As are we," Daphni replied. "You are welcome to join us."
Although she had little inclination to 'join' them, it only made sense if they were headed in the same direction. So the dark mage shrugged and resumed her pace with her two allies (she could not very well call them 'friends'), until they reached the infirmary--at which point all three of them stopped in their tracks at the heavy atmosphere of the room. Daphni was, of course, the first to react, shaken by the toxicity of the dark auras that surrounded the other trio in the infirmary. "What is amiss, exactly?" The former Sybaian dared to ask, purposely avoiding eye contact with Elias. For now, she had nothing to say to him, and she was confident that the feeling was mutual. "Aster, you seem... unwell."
Vega observed her passenger's reaction with keen eyes, noting every flicker of every microexpression that crossed his world-weary face. As she had hoped, among those microexpressions that betrayed his stoic deadpan was the shock of joy: of the realization of what a difference he had made in the lives of people to whom he had owed nothing, and yet to whom he had given so much. But it was not pure in essence; rather, it shared equal space in the creases of his face as somberness, a look of loss and regret. And she anticipated what might result from that unyielding discomfort.
"Haraldur..." Before she knew it, the mercenary was dragging her back to the crest of the hill, suddenly so eager to leave... all because he had been spotted? "Wait. Hold on a second." He was fast, and had managed to mount the patient roc before she could stop him, but that was as far as he could run. The bird would only take off at Vega's command. "Stop running," she whispered, hearing the footsteps of the young girl in pursuit. "You cannot run forever."
"You... it's you! You came back..." The girl to whom he had first referred as Klara, and then revised to Thora, was red in the cheeks by the time she caught up to them on the hill. "I... we did not think we would ever see you again. But you came back to us."
"Seems as though you were important to someone," the Skyknight murmured close to his ear, though otherwise granted the warrior and the girl some space to allow things to unfold organically. He couldn't turn a cold shoulder to a young girl, could he?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He was beginning to look forward to Lilica's visits, perhaps moreso than the brief appearances that Chara, when not preoccupied with Rigas council matters or watching that her betrothed not crack his head open on the floor, made in her spare time. They were routine, and obligatory for her, as evidenced by the half-closed, almost indolent look in her eyes. The dark mage, on the converse, though she tried to hide it, appeared concerned, and expressed interest in his health and well-being. Rather than it sounding rehearsed, he believed her words more genuine than that of Chara. Such a realization, that a stranger cared more for him than his own daughter, put him ill at ease.
Therefore, he was thankful for the distraction when she asked to know his expertise on the Serpent. He did not inquire as to why she waxed curious, for it was obvious to him why she, a chthonic caster, sought details. Ignoring the withdrawal of her request, he prepared for her a lengthy explanation.
"As far as our histories reveal, only the Rigases, by virtue of our blood ties, have any sort of connection with the Serpent," he began, taking a seat in a rigid, straight-backed chair, avoiding something soft and cushier, in case he faced difficulties in trying to stand. "Due to this, encounters with casters of chthonic ability have not been recorded. Not in Rigas libraries, anyhow. Moreover, because of the stigma associated with the 'blood of the Serpent,' or 'Serpent bane,' as such magic is known, Rigases born with chthonic capabilities tend to hide their dark talent from view--though doing so never fooled Adalfieri, or his predecessors, I wager. My cousin, Valente--I did not know of his chthonic inheritance until after his death, but it explains why he seldom stayed in Stella D'Mare, even to see his wife and son. It made him uneasy to remain here long--that much he revealed to me, but I suspect he kept buried some grim, uneasy secrets."
"So while there is no written documentation on chthonic energy and Serpent 'sickness,' it does not mean that there lacks any solid information about such a case. I would refer you to Alster on this matter; he has extensive knowledge and experience on the subject. He has seen the Serpent's face, and carried Its thoughts. But," he sighed, and threw his arms up in surrender, "he is a lost soul, now." He raised his tired cornflower blue eyes, which softened as they focused on the dark mage. "Do take care of yourself, Lilica. If you are having concerns of this magnitude, do not wait for them to fester. Consult who you can, even if your sources are half-mad with grief, or," he chuckled lightly, "easily provoked and quick to anger."
Alster almost lost his resolve when Elespeth, accompanied both by Daphni and Lilica, entered the infirmary. It was too crowded, too stifling, and he grabbed for his throat in reflex, terrified of choking from the lack of air. He took a breath, shaky but effective. He took another breath. In out in out in out.
Chara, after much prodding, revealed only a minimal amount of information, and in such a roundabout way that, had her recollections not triggered a sharp, visceral churning of his stomach, he would have dismissed them as unhelpful and evasive. As it were, she confirmed what he had spent all night sorting and tumbling in his beleaguered mind: he was responsible--activelyresponsible--for Elespeth's brush with death.
Before he devolved into a fit which would send him down another endless spirals of daze and sleep, he kneaded and milked and wrung every bit of cold logic and pragmatism to the fore of his thoughts. He sang, to soothe the tumult that threatened to mash him into a senseless pulp, and he performed mundane swirls of magic in his open hands as a distraction. It was in this state that Elespeth, Daphni, and Lilica found him, but at least, he assured himself, he harnessed a spark, an iota, of control. Small though it was, it commanded him through the motions like a puppet on a string. His eyes locked on Elespeth and still, he did not crumble, did not waver.
"I only want to speak to Elespeth," he told the menagerie that surrounded him in the infirmary. His voice hardened, but he did not flicker his attention from his intended target. "Please grant me this moment. Chara and Elias will regale you all with the news, if you must know what we discussed."
When they at last herded themselves out of the vast chamber, Alster closed his palms, dispelling the magic. In out in out in out.
"Elespeth," he said, concentrating every pinprick of energy into speaking without fault or shaky vibrato, "tell me the truth. This is something I must hear, from your mouth. Did I," he struggled to maintain eye contact, "attack you in dream? Did I sever the bond? Did I," he grimaced, to stifle the rush of throat-closing panic, "murder you?"
They had dallied at the hill for too long, allowing time for Thora to search them out, and follow their trail. Now, Haraldur was separated from the girl only by the height of the roc and a small strip of grass. Otherwise, she was close enough to touch his leg and he, the top of her cherry-colored head. Her eyes were still that youthful blue, like the sky in Spring, and her cheeks round, like the paunch on a newborn. It was haunting, how little she changed, save for her height and the pitch in her sweet, dreaming voice. He tried to focus elsewhere, at the mountains and beyond, but could not ignore her call, pitched so with hope and relief. When I never returned for her...she must have felt so abandoned...
"Thora," he said, dismissing whatever secrecy and denial he had planned on feeding her. She was no idiot, and already discerned his identity. "I'm not back, no. Only for this visit, to see...how you are all faring." He managed the tiniest of smiles. "And you are all doing well. But I...I can't stay. Please don't tell anyone else that I was here. It's better off that they don't know." He reached out his hand and placed it on her silken head. "I'm sorry it had to be this way, Thora. That I..." he trailed off, letting his hand slide away and drop to dangle at his side. "Forgive me. And Arina. She tried to come for you. She loved you. And I," he shook his head, "needed...need, to disappear. ...Goodbye."
When Vega had finally mounted the great bird and launched them into the air, leaving that sad, distressed girl looking wonderingly up at them, he called out to the Skyknight in the wind, ignoring that rush of excitement that tingled in his bones, hummed in his ears, and whipped at his hair. "There's something I want to show you, before we proceed any further." He pointed ahead of her, at a nearby mountain, its tall, slanted crag beginning to show its first spots of winter snow. "Go to the base of that mountain, on the north end. There, I'll tell you...what happened."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
But not this time.
There was something about his demeanor, some unhinged paranoia in his eyes, the way he fixed them on her, that made her want to run. A guilty sentiment, given that Alster so obviously needed to not be alone, but she dreaded the trajectory of this conversation the moment she entered with the others... and especially at the point where they were all asked to leave. What could possibly be troubling the Rigas caster so much that he felt he could only speak to her alone? What was it that he had to say that he wished for no witnesses, and no distractions whatsoever?
Perhaps the most difficult part was that she knew--she knew exactly what he was about to ask her. But she could not run away, not now. He was too unstable... and the only thing that she feared more than this confrontation was what he might do if she were to leave when he so clearly needed to talk.
Taking a steadying breath, she moved to take a seat at his bedside, she took one of his trembling hands into her own, ignoring the gentle burn of magic at his fingertips. "But... I feel as though you already know the answer, Alster." She met his eyes with helplessness and sadness, which, alone, should have answered his question. "But if it is torturing you so much that you haven't heard it from me... then yes. You unconscious mind interpreted me as a threat whenever I tried to reach you... it tried to eliminate me. But... Alster, you had no way of knowing. The life you were living, in that dream, you thought it was real. You'd even dreamed up another version of me, one... one that had taken your last name." A feat that was impossible, anywhere beyond a dreamscape, that much she knew. "You severed the bond; but you didn't murder me. Not if I am still here."
Running her fingers over his white knuckles, the former knight's shoulders dropped at the look of horror her confirmation incited on his pale features. "Alster, we cannot concern ourselves with what might have happened... that will not help anyone. But if you really need a reason to clear your conscience, then know this: before Chara... retrieved me, I... I was able to speak with Farrin again. I saw him, I was near him, and I never thought that might be possible. I was able to tell him that I missed him, that I was sorry, and he told me that he bore no grudge. Don't you see?" The faintest of smiles graced her tired face. "Had none of this happen, I'd still be suffering nightmares of my brother. But you... helped me. Because not only do I have the closure with him that I never thought I'd get, but I still have you. So... please, Alster, the last thing I want is for you to be beholden to your guilt. I was afraid that might happen, which is why I was not forthcoming with this information to begin with..." Gnawing on her lower lip, she averted her gaze to her lap. "I hope you can forgive me..."
"What have you done? What did you tell him?" Daphni confronted Elias as soon as they had exited the infirmary, concern and panic written all over her features. "Because if you disclosed precisely what I think you did... then you should have known better. Alster Rigas's aura is still fractured and flickering, and he is in no state of mind to be told that he very nearly killed the woman that he loves, however involuntarily...."
"I think it is safe to deduce that that is precisely what went down," Lilica interjected, folding her arms across her chest. "So it is pointless to debate it. What was done was done, and perhaps this is what he needs: to negotiate it through Elespeth. Not to be coddled and lied to until he is able to endure a night without clawing at his own neck." But Lilica knew that she was wrong as soon as she spoke--and knew that any hope of consulting Alster Rigas on the Serpent, and its potential effects on dark casters, was lost, at least for now. Like Lysander had said, he was a lost soul... and a lost soul was helpless but to help one that had been lost for so much longer.
The former Sybaian healer shook her head in opposition with a sharp exhale, the early afternoon light glinting fiercely in her pale azure eyes. "Do not presume to be the expert on fragile psyches, here," she all but hissed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "This is what is so frustrating about you lot. None of you knows what is good for you, let alone anyone else. It is exhausting and irritating... and I cannot undo the sort of damage that you have done." Without a backwards glance, Daphni stalked away, feeling the familiar weight of the very despair that prompted her to keep that lethal vial in her pocket; on her person, at all times, so that she would be prepared for the moment when she realized she was no longer able to endure.
Lilica watched her depart with a despondence that she refused to betray, one born of the very hopelessness that the empath was feeling. "What is done, is done... all that is left is to left it unfold," she mentioned, glancing sidelong at Chara, who looked distant and worried. With little care that Elias was there to bear witness, she took the celestial caster's hand a gave it a gentle squeeze, one that left any further words unnecessary.
Vega had pushed Haraldur before; she had pushed him beyond his limits, and had come to know the consequences very quickly. The Skyknight therefore knew better than to repeat the same mistake, when it was obvious that this hero-turned-mercenary was weighted down with too much baggage that he had yet to face, sad though it was to watch him turn away from that young refugee girl. The elation and hope in her eyes to see his return, all turning to stone cold disappointment when he retreated back to the roc... It broke her heart. But she could not, and would not pressure him when she had already encouraged him to come with her in the first place. It was unfair to him; she was being unfair to him, and he deserved better.
"You're pale... are you all right?" She asked Haraldur, ascertaining that he was secure before nudging her roc to take to the skies again. What he meant to show her towards those mountains, she hadn't an inkling, but there was obviously a story behind it.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have forced you to speak with that girl," she called over the wind, genuinely remorseful. "It's just... the look in her eyes when she saw you... I don't know, I suppose I expected something different. Hold on tight, we're coming in for another landing."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Throughout Elespeth's dialogue, Alster lost any ability to gaze into her eyes. He lowered his head, retreating into a tight, armored position, with his arms tightly wrapped over each other. Shades of malaise threatened to pull him back into that foggy night where the infliction of his existence would feast on every last dram of his sanity until dry. He swallowed the dread, his forthcoming loss of reason, and sawed his teeth over his tongue to circumvent his descent, tasting the rust and iron of blood in his mouth.
He wanted nothing more but to fall into Elespeth's arms, to cast aside his self-punishment and accept her as she still had accepted him in spite of all his crimes. But however much she forgave him, however much she reasoned that he had done her a boon, the less he was able to forgive himself. This should not have happened. The one person I promised to protect from...from myself...and I could not even accomplish that much. Not at all...
"I was unconscious, and I still harmed you," he said in a shaky whisper. "I am a danger to you, even when I'm asleep. No matter the benefits you received by crossing so close over the threshold, this does not negate nor change what I've done to you. I thought I was above this. Above myself. That I could carve through deceit. That I could save a life, rather than..." he tightened his eyes closed, "destroy everything that I love. I can't...Elespeth...I can't have you fall by my hand. If that means that I must stay away, then..." he choked out the last words, "then so be it."
He half opened his eyes, which were filled with tears. "I am weak. I'm not fit to be responsible for another life, much less my own. But I will take responsibility for the harm that I've caused you." He caught his tears with the back of his hand before they found the momentum to fall. "I don't know who I am anymore, Elespeth. I can't serve you this way; it's all too...overwhelming. Staying here, with me, as I am now, will only cause you more pain. You've already sacrificed too much. I'm thankful for it all, and that is why I won't watch you suffer." His voice hitched, on the verge of hysterics. "Please understand, Elespeth. I love you. I love you, and I want to be with you. But not now. There's too much in me that needs to die. I'll get stronger on my own, and maybe, one day, I'll surmount this guilt. Will you please do this for my sake, Elespeth? We'll be together again soon, but, in this state of mine, and with a war brewing over our heads...we can't last." Finally, he raised his eyes, meeting a pair of fractured green shards of glass. She, too, would be fragile to the touch. He would surely break her if he made contact. "I want to save us. Let me save us. We need...to be apart."
Elias's cold gaze skirted over Daphni's head, landing instead on Chara and Lilica. He spoke, but refused to address the former Sybaian, even while answering her question. "I disclosed what he wanted to hear. I do not pander to my patients, particularly in times of war. Such a process for recovery must be expedited, considering the circumstances."
"We both told him," Chara confessed, running her fingers down the virginal red skin of her healed burns, a mainstay of the virginity she otherwise lost (if one would categorize her intimacy with Lilica as any kind of loss at all). "I know him better than any one of you...especially better than empathic healers and their impervious opinions." She leveled a glare at Daphni. "He already knew the part that he played. He learned it all on his own. We only provided him with context. The ambiguity would have gnawed through the growing holes in his mind." She threw her hands to the sides. "He has recovered from such news before. He will recover again. He is resilient, though he does not look it, and I will be here to offer him support. Heavens know he will need it, after what he plans to tell Elespeth."
At Daphni's heated departure, Elias also excused himself, walking in the opposite direction--towards the garden. She heard troubled bouts of coughing in his wake. With a frustrated sigh, Chara turned to Lilica, accepting her hand with a wearied nod and a squeeze in return. "I did not do wrong," she said, mostly to herself. "I tried to prevent this turn of events, but Alster is obsessed with seeking truths, even at his great detriment. It is as if he wants condemnation, thinking it easier to handle than false hope and pretty lies. He will be fine." She tugged Lilica's hand, urging her closer. "But I shall stay here, just in case. You need not do the same--for I too shall be fine."
Haraldur remained silent throughout the short trip to the mountain he never wanted to glimpse, even from a distance, and certainly never wanted to touch. Nonetheless, they flew to that intimidating peak, the sun-caught clouds that surrounded it glinting gold in the afternoon haze. He did not respond to Vega's inquiries, but acknowledged that her voice was heard in the scream of the wind by leaning forward and strengthening his grip around her waist as instructed. They landed at the base of the mountain, a much smoother sweep from sky to ground--unless he had grown accustomed to the plummet, or at the very least anticipated the coming sensations that floated into his ears and head. He did not wait for Vega to dismount before he swung his legs over the side of the great avian and planted his feet in the dirt, experiencing vertigo from the suddenness of his movements, but hiding his discomfort and his sway from the Skyknight's scrutiny.
He looked before him, at the felled pines and hemlocks that lay denuded and dead and supine in long stretches over the rises of the hills. Ahead, the summit of the mountain broke from its cocoon of clouds and presided over its domain with stalwart stillness, as if in mockery as to what occurred just five years ago.
Haraldur, once able to walk without a waver, headed towards a gnarled pine, thrashed almost parallel to the ground, but its roots held strong, and the tree, surviving the assault, continued to grow upwards, alive and sturdy, yet wrecked and alone in a grave of all its fallen brethren. He touched the bark, then touched his chest where beneath, a pendant designed to resemble a bare tree resonated with the unspoken exchange of pain and loss and emptiness.
When Vega ventured close, Haraldur, without looking back at her, began his story.
"I was not the only one," he began, leaning his shoulder against the tree as if to push it upright. "Not the only guide. There was Arina, too. She was much apart of this operation in the latter two years of her service. Under her additional leadership, we accomplished conveying a larger procession of refugees through the mountains at one time. I would take those who were better able to keep my pace, and she would stay behind with the old, the infirm, and the children. She was a healer, a mountaineer, and quick on her feet. She proved herself to me, and I no longer worried as much for her safety. But that was a mistake, because however prepared, however competent and strong and cautious, we were no match for the might of nature." He tracked his eyes to the slope of the mountain that emptied directly into their path, a dangerous funnel to facilitate the passing of snow and mud.
"I had my suspicions about this mountain on the day we prepared to cross up and around its summit. We started our season early that year, before the passes were fully cleared of snow. But security in Mollengard was tightening, and the refugees were restless, afraid, and willing to take the risk of an early departure. We had made it this far with no repercussions, and the only way through this snowy pass was up. I went ahead with my group, fearing the worst, but telling no one of my fears--not even to Arina, who remained behind with her group at base camp. I knew that if I stayed with her...we would all perish. If we combined our groups and hiked up together...we would all perish. So I left her group behind, only telling her that they should backtrack, but knowing it would do her no good. They would not reach to safety in time. I hoped that my fears were unfounded, that the mountain would stay stable. But," he stared at the ground, at his feet, "once I crossed over the danger zone with my group, there was an avalanche, as I suspected. It engulfed all of base camp, though I still thought that they evaded it all. But I heard screams, and I saw blood from my vantage point, and I could do nothing but to keep going." He swallowed a large, difficult lump in his throat. "I brought the remaining refugees to Eyraille, and then I immediately returned here, to base camp, but..." he shook his head. "...I even waited until the snow melted, so I could...confirm. All dead. All the elderly, and the...children, and..." he pushed himself from the tree, assailed by a fit of otherworldly shivers, "my wife."
"I buried them here. Arina...she's under this tree. I..." he gripped his chest again as he staggered forward, away from the tree. "This is why I run, Vega. This is why I..." he lapsed again into silence and drifted back to the roc. He stroked the back of her feather-down neck, wanting a positive reaction from the bird. Of joy. Of pleasure. Of...something he could feel. "Let's go. Back to Tadasun's camp. I don't want to see any more. Nothing else..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Apart. Separated. Where they had once functioned nearly as the same unit, so close to one another that they might as well have been part of the same being... but no more. Alster meant to go further than simply severing their blood bond: he wanted to sever them completely, as the intimate unit that they were. And there was nothing that she could do about it.
"Then you should have just let me die." Pulling away from the Rigas caster, putting all the more distance between them, the shattered fragments of what was left of Elespeth's heart reflected in the pale green sea of her eyes. "Don't you understand? I live for you, Alster. You are the only reason that hope still exists for me because you are all that I have left." Unbidden, her slender fingers clenched into tight fists. "I was prepared to die in Atvany because it meant making peace with my brother... and because you turned away from me. But Farrin is dead. I can never return to Atvany, and my place here... it does not exist. Not any longer."
Elespeth's throat grew hot and tight, an unpleasant marriage of sorrow and agony as she backwd away from Alster's bed. "You turned your shoulder to me when we met. You turned it again before I fled Messino's camp, but always... I always kept room for you in my heart, Alster. But now--if you turn away from me now, once again, then do not expect me to anticipate your return. I will no longer be played a fool by my own damn heart." Her hands trembled, as pressure built behind her eyes, but she could not shed tears. Not in front of him. "So if this is what you want... if I am such a burden to you, then consider this my last act of love and respect. But this time... know that this time, I... will not look back. This is your decision, not mine. And I..." Of all the things that she could say, all of the things that she wanted to say, all that came out was, "I wish you the best."
True to her word, Elespeth Tameris left the infirmary without a backwards glance, and grabbed the arm of the first soldier that she found. "Tell me," she began, without allowing him a beat to protest, "what is the fastest route to Tadasun from this standpoint?"
"What? Don't tell me you're off to that place," the soldier grunted, shaking his arm free of her grip. "Nothing there than you can't find here. You don't look like you're in any shape to--"
"I did not request an opinion on the matter," she snapped, startling the man with her bite. "I want directions. I will take a horse; this place owes me that much."
"Your life, not mine." The soldier shrugged at last, and indicated northward. "If you're taking a horse, then head northward for a few days. You should find their encampment on a cliffside, from what I understand... though I am curious as to why anyone would suddenly defect from Stella D'Mare to Tadasun." He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "You do realize we're all on the same side."
"Not that I owe you an explanation, but it isn't about sides," came the former knight's terse reply. "I am still committed to this cause... but circumstances dictate that I must take another angle. Thank you for your help."
Without another word, Elespeth Tameris--a mere fragment of the person she was before--set off to put the wheels in motion. If this was the end of such a tender part of her life, then all that was left was to move on and find meaning elsewhere.
Perhaps, this was what she should have done all along: not defining herself by her love or allegiances, but by the mere essence of who she was. It was time to contribute to this cause in ways that had nothing to do with the Rigases.
Nothing could have prepared the commander of Eyraille's Skyknights for the story that Haraldur divulged. She allowed him the space that he needed, and offered her full attention to what he had to say, reading all of the despondent tells in his posture. Arina... why did that name ring so familiar in her ears?
Wait a second...
"I... I knew her." The words slipped past her lips, unbidden, and immediately she wondered if it was too soon to confide. But those words could not be retracted... and they warranted an explanation. "I knew a healer, five years ago, who undertook the same task as you. Our paths did not cross often, but the day of that avalanche, I was awaiting the refugees on the other side... the ones whose lives ended up lost." The memory dawned on her with the weight of a rain cloud. In that moment, it was as if she could touch Haraldur's pain, like something palpable, something heavy and toxic.
Vega did not pry. As soon as he was ready, she fulfilled his request and took to the skies once again. This time, the ride through the clouds seemed slower, as if the weight of Haraldur's loss equated to additional weight on the roc's back. They flew in silence, the skyknight not daring to engage the heartbroken soldier with a shattered soul, until their feet touched the ground once again. "I..." Only when she opened her mouth did she realize she could not find the right words. Any, then, would have to do. "I realize no apology will suffice. I never thought... I knew you had suffered loss. It is in your eyes, but the extent of what casts those shadows under your eyes... I am deeply, and truly sorry."
How is it that you are so talented in burning bridges before they are built?, a voice deep in her mind wondered and nagged. She urged it away, but it yelled as crisp and clear as the cries of the rocs, those still untamed and who inhabited the mountains. "I'm sorry," she repeated more quietly, turning her face away from the sun, lest it, too, mock her for insensitivity.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And the guilt had compounded upon itself, ever-growing--and gnawing away at his guttering soul. His light, his star--snuffed by his own hand.
"This will not last, El," he said, desperation drawing him close while she in turn drew away, a reversal from just moments ago, when he had been the one to retreat from that oh-so-welcoming hand, always outstretched, never raised to harm or hurt....
And no matter what he did, no matter what he tried to prevent, he always caused her so much pain and anguish. I am not fit for you, Elespeth. Not like this. Not like this...
And yet, he almost rescinded his decision, almost pulled her into his embrace to ensure that he meant not what he said, that he was mistaken, that he wanted nothing of the sort. But he imagined a stream of his celestial magic exiting his hands and renting her in twain while she screamed and sputtered her betrayals at him. He flinched--and remained where he sat.
"It's only temporary. You know that I can never leave you behind--and I never will! Even if you continue...to have this opinion of me." She stood up, then, and he almost launched after her; instead, he lowered his eyes in defeat. "We had always known...that war would separate us. But separation does not mean a severance. If it did, I would welcome death readily. I could not go on, otherwise. Not without you." Tears sprung anew in his eyes. "You are never a burden to me, Elespeth. Please know that. Never...Never. Never..."
He was unraveling, and quickly. His mind swarmed, taking from him the ability to be present in the developing hellscape of his own creation. And as his awareness--the grip of his hands on the bed, the polished floor at his feet--receded, he threw an outstretched arm towards Elespeth's retreating form. She grew lesser, and lesser, while he remained the same. A statue of ice, frozen and yet melting at the same time.
"You'll never be alone, El," he called after her, using the last of his fracturing sanity to speak. "I'll look after you, even from afar. You won't even have to fight! I'll protect...you don't have to leave here at all. It's not the end; don't think that it is! You don't have to leave the city. I'll arrange...I'll arrange everything. You'll be taken care of. Please--Elespeth. Elespeth!"
But she was gone, and he was shouting into an empty room. The echoes of his frantic breaking pitch returned to him, inflicting his ears with their deep, lacerating wail. He stared at the door of her egress, staring and staring until it disappeared, until everything disappeared, and when he blinked back into awareness, the Clematis healer and Chara hovered over him. A needle was punctured into his arm. Chara held his hand, the hand that she...that Elespeth...just earlier...
"Gone," he said, greeting the numbing parameters of his new, dazed reality. "Elespeth is gone and so am I." A stifled laugh croaked from his throat, manifesting into a low, injured moan.
So am I...
A curt nod in Vega's direction offered recognition for what she shared, of her dealings with Arina. He nodded again, towards the tree, and before climbing onto the roc, said, "She deserves much more praise than what you've reserved for me. Give it all to her."
They were the last of his words, having exhausted everything inside of him but the ability to stand and to breathe and to perform mundane tasks, separate from the killing throb that threatened to envelop those practiced movements of his--the ones that told others he was fine. He could still hold a sword. He could still fight. He could mount a roc and follow instructions and do all else that the world expected of him. He had done so for much of his life--even when he felt the hot, rolling droplets of his humanity, his emotions, drip drip drip, and evaporate.
It was then when his instincts took form, and controlled his actions with rust-worn, yet precise poise. He climbed the roc and waited patiently for Vega to follow suit. He looked on ahead, past the dead and gnarled trees, past the mountain where the snow was mere decoration than danger at this time of the season, and past the memories of all those sundered lives.
He recalled nothing of the trip back to Tadasun, but at the moment they had landed within the perimeters of camp, he turned on his false-fronted facade, the one that fooled so many into believing him strong of mind and spirit--including himself.
As he dismounted, he pivoted on his heels to Vega, returned her handkerchief and the rest of the uneaten ginger root, and flicked his apathetic eyes at her. "You didn't know," he said tersely. "I didn't tell you. All the same," he paused, "I can't fault you for your intentions. Just...cease them altogether. At least...don't involve me in them." With a shallow bow of his head, both to Vega and the roc, he added, "thank you for the ride. I'll talk with the Tadasun officers about our unauthorized trip. I'll make our reasons sound enticing. Patrol, of the sort. Until then," his tone flattened, deadened, "we are strictly allies fighting for the same cause. Nothing more." He walked away from the princess of Eyraille, stiff-footed yet purposeful. The gait of a soldier trained only to fight and kill. ...Nothing more.
That evening, he attempted to end his life. It was difficult, almost unbearable, waiting for someone else to kill him just to delude himself into thinking that his life would be meaningful if he died with honor. Haraldur clutched the knife in his left hand, the one which attempted to sever the source of his killing all those years ago. The knife shuddered, trembled, in his grasp. And before he could stop them, those hot, rolling droplets sprang from his eyes, and drip drip dripped onto his hand.
All conviction was lost.
He dropped the knife, and sank into the despair he tried to kill before it reared up and attacked. Now, it grew too much in power, and he could not thwart such a decimating, debilitating force. Perhaps...this was his battle to the death. The one inside his head. The impossible enemy. The valiant yet doomed counterattack against his fated adversary.
He only hoped that it killed him before night's end.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Elespeth's decision was no one's business, and thus she confided it in no one, save for the lone soldier from whom she has asked directions. Her belongings were sparse, and she opted to leave behind the fine clothes that Alster had helped her to pick out to keep her haul light--and to hurry her departure, before her heart once again got the best of her, and she went running back to the source of that pained voice that she would never forget, calling her name with such raw desperation that its echo hurt her head. Elespeth... Elespeth!
Elespeth knew better. Knew now that there was no room for love, in war, and that whatever meaning she could glean from her miserable life must be sought elsewhere, fighting for a cause; not fighting for the love of a person. So with nothing but the clothes on her back and a blade slung across her shoulder blades, she acquired a horse (unawares to the stable boy... but surely they would not miss a single, nondescript steed), and made to leave Stella D'Mare forever.
But not before she encountered the empath, who somehow must have read into her intentions. "Elespeth," Daphni intercepted her on the horse, a lone obstacle between her and Stella D'Mare's grand gates. "Please. I beg you to reconsider this decision. You are hardly fit for travel..."
"You, of all people... you should know that I need this." The Atvanian woman pressed her lips into a thin line and gripped the horse's reins. It fidgeted and snorted, as impatient to move along as she was, kicking up dirt in its wake. "If I mean to heal, Daphni, then I... cannot be here. It is nothing that you can do to help me; I must do this on my own."
It was so difficult to discern madness from resolve, when one's conviction was so strong and convincing that it could sway an entire kingdom. But there was something in the former knight's tone of voice, a sort of desperation that was not void of self-awareness, that ultimately made Daphni realize the best course of action was to simply stand down. You cannot save everyone; you should know this by now. "You can run from the source of pain, but the wound will still fester," she informed her, but it was followed by a defeated sigh, and a slump of her shoulders. "But I will not claim to know what is best for you at this given time, if you yourself are already convinced."
"Why don't you come with me?"
That was certainly not the response she had expected. Dumbfounded, the former Sybaian blinked against the sun's heavy rays. "What are you proposing?"
"You clearly are not any happier here than I am; if this place isn't good for me, then I can only imagine the effect it has on you. After all," she arched an eyebrow. "They are at no shortage of healers; so what is keeping you here?"
What, indeed... or rather, who.
Daphni admitted defeat. "You might be right. But it is ill-advised to abandon while at war... I hope you find the happiness that you seek, warrior. But..." She paused, almost reconsidering the question she was about to pose. Almost. "Do you truly believe that you will not harbour regret down to the very fibres of your soul, knowing you left the man you love in the condition that he is in?"
"Aren't you supposed to be an empath? Can you not already tell that my whole damned life has been build upon regret?" The former knight seethed, leveling Daphni with a glare, all the more fierce upon her horse and haloed by the relentless sun. "This decision is not mine; it is Alster's, yet on my terms. And it is because I love him that I am setting him free of me... it is not as though anything could have come of us, with Rigas tradition, in any case."
She offered not another word of explanation to the concerned healer, digging her heels into the steed's flank and taking off at a gallop. And no matter how desperately she wanted to look back, one last time, she didn't.
There really must have been something to be said about the fiery dispositions of those with fiery fair, for it seemed that Vega Sorde was something of an expert on burning the very bridges that she meant to build. No sooner and she and Haraldur arrived back within the boundaries of Tadasun's encampment that he was walking away from her, professing that they were better off as no more than strangers fighting on the same side, and her heart took a dive. "Wait... Haraldur..." But the mercenary was already walking away, steadfast and stubborn and on alert as if they were on the battlefield.
She had gone too far-- again. And once more found herself alone amid a senseless war that hardly concerned her, beyond her skills as commander of Eyraille's skyknights. At least it awards me some purpose...
It was not her place to interfere with the mercenary's life; she'd had no right to do so, in the first place, and if his wish was to keep distance from her, then she was obligated to respect that. But that was not to say that she could not make a final gesture, an offering of peace for the pain she had uprooted in the tortured man. So early the next morning, she placed a carefully folded handkerchief just outside of his tent; the very same one that she had offered to him during their impromptu flight upon her roc. The message it denoted was benign, and simple: If you ever wish to fly, you know where to find me.
Vega took her breakfast alone the following morning, opting to eat inside her tent instead of suffer the awkward casual small talk of the Tadasuni soldiers. She could not relate to them, and they were, after all, resistant in relating to her. It was nothing new; what was the difference between sitting and brooding in a tent in a foreign kingdom, than in the luxury of her own room, back in Eyraille?
Pushing the food around on her plate with a fork, she had just given up on eating when the rising voices of the soldiers beyond caught her attention. Something about a prisoner... Prisoner?
Intrigued, the skyknight finally found a reason to leave her lonely tent.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The Clematis healer and Chara stayed diligently at his side. After several days of regulated drug use and forced sleep, Alster contracted a rather nasty illness. At first, Elias believed it similar to his own ailment, as it paralleled very similar symptoms. However, he eased out of this apprehension when, with further investigation, he concluded it was a common cough made worse by the separation of his lover, his poorly mental constitution, and, in his theory, his magic amplifying a fairly benign disease into much greater proportions.
Whispering amongst the Rigases said as much: Alster will never be right. He will never function as proper. That Atvanian warrior was the keeper of his sanity, and they shamefully admitted that they should never have released her--for Adalfieri relied on the soundness of this caster with the highest magical aptitude in recent Rigas history.
However, when Lysander arrived for an audience with the great Rigas leader, the silver-haired, silver-eyed man did not seem ruffled. His face was a mask of serenity, his positioning on his driftwood chair as flexible as a tree, swaying rhythmically in the breeze.
"You are not disturbed," Lysander said after his customary greeting, the kissing of his hand and an accompanying bow, was given to the man of incalculable age.
"All is not favorable," Adalfieri revealed, in a honey-sweet hum. "But I suspect that the news you bring shall reinvigorate our cause."
"Reinvigorate?" Lysander raised an eyebrow, puzzled.
"You are here to express concerns for our chthonic magic visitor. The one who has impressed upon Chara's heart." He tilted his head, his glassy gaze tracking Lysander's movements with crystal ball alacrity. "And yours, as well."
Lysander shifted the weight in his legs, which, owing to Lilica's herbal concoction, were almost back to proper working condition. He coughed, then took a sudden interest in the painting behind Adalfieri's head. "She has asked me," he began, ignoring the Rigas head's probing comment, "about Serpent influence in those of chthonic birthright. I daresay she is sensitive to the energies here, and highly susceptible to the sickness. Not only has she questioned me on the Serpent, but I have seen her lose her footing in our trek through the den. For her own safety," he paused, self-consciously smoothing out the fly-aways in his tied hair, "I suggest we remove her from the estate. Our safety, as well," he added, hastily. "Alster, himself, is radiating dark energy, which will only worsen the natural magnetism of the other two chthonic casters we are harboring at this estate. This will only add additional stress upon the wards, and--"
"And," Adalfieri interjected, waving his hand in a flourish, "this places us in quite a predicament...were our circumstances normal. But this is not a normal circumstance for us. To reclaim Stella D'Mare," he said, the silvery sheen of his eyes shadowing over, "we are going to have to reclaim our dark past."
"You cannot mean--"
"Lilica remains on our grounds," he said, with a tongue roll of authority. "Do not aid in her recovery. Do not aid in Alster's recovery. They are vulnerable. Susceptible. And the necromancer...he is an additional power source, playing to our favor." He dropped his hands to the arms of his chair. "Let all take its natural course. Events should spin quickly now that the Atvanian warrior has driven herself out of the city."
Lysander chewed on his lip to hide the bitter frown that contorted his face. "And Chara--?"
"Perhaps this upcoming storm shall guide her back on the correct path. And if Alster still lives in the end--they shall marry. Alas," he about purred, "Lysander, do not worry. I value Chara and her ambition, her passion for life. She will find a most elated position on my council after we reclaim what is rightfully ours. But," he lowered his voice in warning, "that also depends upon you, my dear Lysander."
After his dismissal, Lysander roamed the grounds of the estate, his frown never receding, having bled a permanent stain against his visage. His legs shook, but not from the strain so much as the outrage. Too much. He now knew too much, and worse yet, he was beholden to obey, to keep silent, and to watch on passively as everyone's roles were urged to the surface by Adalfieri's prodding finger--all for Chara's sake.
He paused in his sulking scuff when he saw Chara exploring the garden with Lilica, the both of them spending a rare moment of unblemished, stress-free company. With a forlorn sigh, he skulked out of their view, and doubled back to his apartments. Let them have this time, this small window of peace...before all descends into madness.
Haraldur awoke the following morning, very much alive--though in body only. The night was long, inexorable, a stretch of road with no conceivable end. Even with the knife clutched to his throat, to his chest, beads of blood trickling down the blade's point of entry, the road never ceased its meandering trek through all of life and creation, in opposition to his desires. Life goes ever on, and you are slave to its whims. You will not die by your own hand, and you know it.
But could he die from memory? From the hauntings of his past raking spectral hands against his flesh until he turned blue, suffocating and freezing under a mountain of snow from which offered no escape?
The answer was no.
He rolled out of his cot, in the tent he shared with four other men of equally low rank. As he stepped outside and welcomed the morning not as a day, but as another obstacle that he must survive, he found a familiar handkerchief at his feet, along with a note. While he could not read, never having the education or a need to learn on his own (with the exception of a few words), he understood the gist of the message. With a sigh, he pocketed the handkerchief and the note, and shook his head at the gesture. The thought of flying once more in that carefree sky filled him both with anticipation and remorse. After the events of yesterday, the very act of taking to the air was tainted, filled with too much pain, too much emptiness. And Vega, herself, the unwitting harbinger and envoy to all that he could not face...was best avoided.
As he waited on line at the mess tent for his morning meal, a few soldiers behind him began to chatter in excited tones.
"Another one, eh? Why are warrior women so attracted to our camp, all of a sudden?"
"This one seemed eager, too," the sentry said with a confused shrug. "She up and accepted her chains. Put up no fight as we dragged her into camp. We'd just have sent her away, but she was determined to fight for us. Even had a sword with her, and armor, n' everything. Said she rode all the way from Stella D'Mare for this purpose."
"She must be barking mad, this one! There's no other sensible explanation!"
"Where is this woman being held?" Haraldur turned around and asked the two men, his brow furrowing with interest--and a bit of perplexity. Could they be talking about--?
"North of camp. By the officer's tents. What, you fancy her for yourself? A nice Northerner lass, eh?" The first soldier winked at Haraldur and gave him a knowing smile. "First the Sir, and now this prisoner?"
But Haraldur did not stick around for the lighthearted browbeating. He nodded his thanks, removed himself from the line, and took off to where the soldiers had instructed him to go. He found the prisoner's tent guarded by two sentries. He stood before them, and tried to peer through the gaps between the tent flaps.
"May I see this prisoner? I might know who she is, and can identify her as friend or foe."
The sentries, who exchanged uncertain glances at each other, then at him, hesitated a bit before nodding their assent and allowing him inside.
His suspicions were, as he feared, true. Sitting before him in the dirt, manacles around her wrists and shackles at her feet, was Elespeth. Sallow-cheeked and bruised, with bones protruding from her skin at sharp, biting angles, she looked completely malnourished...and dispirited.
"Elespeth," he said in a disbelieving whisper, crouching to her level and meeting her shattered green eyes, "...why are you here? What happened?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Enough, for now. But how long was now to last?
"Do you frequent these gardens traditionally, on your time, or do you merely entertain the prospect of a peaceful walk surrounded by flora and fauna for my sake?" Hand-in-hand with the blonde Rigas mage, the cthonic caster shot her a curious glance. "Don't get me wrong; I appreciate the effort, and I am coming to love the fragrance of these gardens more and more. This, for me... this is luxury. But if there are other places where you would rather pass the time, to take your mind off of this city's current complications, then just know... I would love to see what brings youpeace."
If anything could bring her peace of late, that is, particularly with the state of one Alster Rigas. Lilica could share in the worry and disappointment: after all, he was the only person whom she trusted to consult about the potential pull of the Serpent's dormant presence on her own obsidian aura... Without his expertise, she had no one to whom she could turn, not even Lysander. Much though she had grown to like the elder Rigas, who welcomed her into his home without pretense each and every time she paid a visit, he was still fiercely loyal to Rigas law... and if that law could barely protect Alster, who had summoned the beast in the first place, then she--a dark mage, a stranger, a suspicious shadow and blemish walking the streets of Stella D'Mare--did not stand a chance.
But that did not mean she would allow that despair infiltrate every part of her being, so much as to have her lose sight of the beautiful, yet unattainable company she had of late kept so very close.
Turning on her heels, Lilica halted Chara's pace, stepping in front of her and reaching for her shoulders. "Or if you'd fancy something a little more... private..." A lazy, unpracticed grin spread across her face; there was no better way to take Chara's mind off of the source of her ire or concerns than paying her some careful attention betwixt the bed sheets...
But it was not enough to divert her own concerns when, completely out of the blue, the chthonic mage found her staring into a shockingly familiar face over Chara's shoulder: her own face. Years and years younger, smaller in stature, but there was no mistaking it...
On reflex, Lilica stumbled backwards, hands falling limp at her sides as her very own dark eyes stared back at her. But how is this possible? I am here. I am me, but then who is... who is...
"Stop lying to yourself," her own mirror-image of years and years ago spat, as if reading her mind. "We are one and the same. You have not changed."
Lilica reeled, hands shaking when the minuscule menace that mirrored her own dark eyes advanced on her. "No... no, th-this isn't--"
Her child doppelganger hissed and lunged, grabbing her by the arms, a touch that burned right through to her core. "You cannot run from this anymore. Embrace it; we are one and the same."
It wasn't true... it couldn't be true, not anymore. Not for years and years and... "No!" The dark caster all but screamed, struggling to pull away from her tiny assailant, but her hold was relentless, stronger than any child's should be, and her heart took a plunge as she feared the worst, feared that her own darkness had finally caught up to her, and would consume her from the inside out, through her skin and organs down to her very life essence.
And then she blinked; a single involuntary flick of her eyelids, and the girl was gone. And in her place, her face written with concern and confusion, was Chara, holding her by the arms. Lilica all but went weak in the knees with relief, but managed to maintain her balance as her scattered mind struggled to make an excuse. "Chara. I'm sorry. I..." Clearing her throat to stall, she straightened her posture. "I feel a little dizzy... I thought I saw something, but I was mistaken."
But no words could conceal the way her heart raced in the aftermath of that vision: a merciless reminder that the very essence of her being might not be quite so transformed as she had hoped, on awaking from that decades-long slumber. Of course, she should have been aware of this dark fact the moment she realized that she could not make use of her own magic against its will without suffering the consequences.
"...Haraldur?" In was not insomuch that she could not see him, but rather, that the former knight of Atvany doubted her tired senses on looking up from her bound feet. But the image did not flicker: it moved, it spoke... and she hadn't the imagination to merely imagine what she was seeing, just now.
Unbidden, her dry lips stretched almost painfully into a sad smile. I am not alone, after all. "My friend... I did not think that I would honestly see you again, when word spread that you had left Stella D'Mare."
Elespeth shifted her weight in her uncomfortable sitting position to something a tad more tolerable, she rolled her shoulders back, in hopes it granted the illusion that she sat taller and appeared stronger than she really did. She could only guess how Haraldur perceived her, then and there; and she wondered if he could actually be fooled. "I... Haraldur, I am as invested in this war as you. I have persevered for all too long, fighting for a cause and a people that I shouldn't have any reason to care about--and yet I do..." I don't want to explain. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to bring my reasons for leaving Stella D'Mare into my reasons for seeking out Tadasun. Gnawing at the dried skin on her lower lip, she sought a shortcut through the tumult of her emotions, as well as the extent of her exhaustion. "I just need... a new perspective, is all. Something the same yet... different. Look at me: does it appear as though Stella D'Mare is particularly favourable towards my health?" She'd have quirked a wry smile, then and there, but her face was not in the mood nor the shape to expend that kind of energy.
"In all honesty, I did not expect this... 'welcome', on offering my services, here. Although perhaps I should have, given what you told me. I... if you are under the impression that I am encroaching on or crowding your space, here, then I profusely apologize. And I hope that you will believe that that is not my intent. Do you think..." Elespeth trailed off, reluctant to finish. Suddenly, the request seemed all too daunting, and all too much to ask. But she asked anyway. "Could you... speak in my favour to the Tadasuni? Or at least convince them that I am not a threat so that they might release me, if they will not first allow me to fight among their ranks?" And could she blame them, should they determine her useless? She looked the part of a shallow, hopeless wreck; a hole into which people toss their broken dreams and wishes when at last they see fit to give up.
Except, Elespeth Tameris had not given up; not yet. She had simply let go of the impossible, and embraced the inevitable... Because the only alternative was despair. And she was not ready to visit it depths against, quite so soon.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And now, he bemoaned his choice, mourned her departure, cried that it had all gone wrong, that he never wanted her to leave for the front, that he would fetch her...and by then his frenzied ramblings would devolve into sudden, rapt silences as he stared out at the far corners of the wall and would say, in calm, disembodied whispers; "They're writhing again. The serpents. Coming alive. They see us all and they're coming alive."
...Or some equally ominous variant, which would die on his lips as the Clematis healer would dose him with the mysterious drug. Alster in his placid daze was the only time that he acted relatively normal...and the only time she felt able to leave his side and relax, if such a term even existed now that the lovelorn imbecile had to go and worry himself into a high fever and a rattling cough!
"I swear," she had complained to Lilica during her rare moments with the chthonic caster (outside of the bedroom), "should I find any gray hairs on my head, I am blaming them all on him."
On such a rare moment, she walked with Lilica in the garden, a place to which she held no particular fondness, but found it a neutral territory: not far from her commitments should any Rigas require her services, yet hidden enough that it provided something of an oasis amidst the chaos. She said as much to her companion as she bent over and tickled the royal purple underbelly of an iris, an unusual sight this time of year--as with most of the flora cultivated with dirt, toil (and a touch of magic), in the immense garden on the estate.
"I do not mind where I go with you, so long as it is far enough away from, yet somewhat close to, all of my very needy appointments," she snorted, thinking exclusively of Alster and his bottomless troubles. "I shudder to imagine what shall happen if I dare leave the estate, even for an hour or two. I hope you do not mind, Lilica; this must be dreadfully boring for you. But now," she sighed dramatically as she stroked the dark mage's hand as delicately as the petals on their route, "my 'charge,' as I shall call him, is spouting doomsday scenarios about the Serpent coming 'alive,' and---Lilica?" She paused in her vexations when she saw that Lilica had grown deathly pale, her eyes almost prying themselves out of her skull as she looked beyond, to some faraway horizon. Chara knew that look; it was the same one that Alster himself had exhibited with increasing frequency. It was the stare of one who had departed all reason in favor of a distant universe. And in that universe, one did not need eyes in which to see, or a body by which to move. But the mage had spoke aloud. Nonsense words, yes, but her voice was the medium between the two realms, and an audible indication of what she was witnessing and experiencing. Chara used that voice as a guide to help send the distressed caster home--and into her arms. She gripped Lilica firmly by the shoulders and managed an even pitch, as she did many times with Alster.
"Whatever you see, it is not there, Lilica," she cooed, applying a firm, yet gentle hold on the smaller woman, afraid that if she applied any more pressure, she would break. She began to scream and fend her off, flailing her arms and making a concentrated yet feeble effort to attack her as she would an assailant. Chara tightened her arms into an embrace and planted her feet into the earth, whispering the same comforts into her ear until the dark mage settled down, and her eyes awakened to reality. Still, Chara did not release her hold until she was certain that Lilica had stabilized. With reluctance, she loosened the tight lashing of her arms and rested them, instead, on her shoulders, alighting them airily on those bony frames as would a sparrow, in case the delicate structure would collapse from the weight.
"Do not apologize, Lilica," she said, after the small episode had passed and her companion had enough time to recover. "And do not hide your ails. You did see something. Was it," she frowned, thinking again on what Alster had said just earlier that day, "the Serpent?"
"Come," she said hurriedly, before giving the time for Lilica to answer. "We shall retire early for the evening. You need a cold bath, some nourishment in your thin, thin, frame, and...a little stimulation--to distract the mind." Though she did not say the latter with her usual friskiness, instead offering it as a doctor would prescribe a health regimen to a patient. She was spending too much time in the infirmary--but if the infirmary taught her one thing, it was that the ones she held closest to her heart...their minds were in danger. She could lose them, were she not careful. It terrified her, but what more could she do but delay their path to destruction, whether self-destructive or otherwise?
Delay, nay, distract...it was all she could do to help.
At the utterance of his name from Elespeth's lips, Haraldur offered his own response to her smile, an upturn of the mouth that was equal parts sad and wistful. There was only one reason why he continued to smile: for the sake of other people. For the sake of Elespeth, who needed every encouragement after whatever ordeal she had faced in the short time since they last saw each other. "That was the plan," he admitted to her with the shallow bow of his head as he glanced at her shackles--an excuse to avoid eye contact. "I had assumed you would stay in Stella D'Mare, but I hadn't any time to say my goodbyes in person. I didn't think you would take notice, honestly," he said, with the beginnings of a self-deprecating smile, meant more as a joke than as serious statement. "And I didn't think that I'd see you here, of all places."
He wanted to pry, wanted to wrench more details out of the reticent warrior, for he knew she withheld some pertinent information. He had felt invested, responsible, even, for some of the events that came to fruition in Stella D'Mare. Alas, he muffled his curiosity, knowing how it felt to be on the receiving end of concern and of a vehement, almost militant desire to help, despite his dismissals on all such offers.
I don't want help, as I have told you, Vega. I don't want any help from you...
Yet, he wanted to help--in the least intrusive, most impartial way possible. With a solemn nod, he listened to her request, rising to his feet as he looked behind him, at the guards who watched with not-so surreptitious glances from the tent flaps.
"They will want to know why you fight for Tadasun, when you once fought for Stella D'Mare," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I was once in your position. A prisoner of Tadasun. They do not so readily trust defectors, or those who switch sides, regardless of the alliances held in place. I offered them information as a sign of my loyalty, and took on the most dangerous of their missions. What will you offer?" He cocked his head to one side, locking eyes with Elespeth. "Are you willing to reveal Stella D'Mare's secrets in exchange for your service? You could be effectively betraying the Rigases--for Tadasun does not trust Stella D'Mare and its politics, despite their shaky alliance." An intensity glinted in his green depths. "I am putting this in perspective for you: is this what you want?"
"I'll do what I can for you," he said, after a thoughtful pause. He withdrew his gaze and righted himself into a stiff, practiced posture. "But my word in your favor can only do so much. I will recount to them our last mission together. That might sway them...unless they don't believe me. For--and I'll be frank with you," he lowered his voice so that the guards would not overhear, "they do not appreciate women warriors."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
There was no forgetting those eyes.
Deflating with a sigh, she leaned against the celestial caster's supportive frame, the very pillar of strength that she needed, then and there. Food, a bath, frisky intimacy... could it all really shake the chill that had just settled in her bones? If this truly is the doing of the Serpent... What does that spell, for me? Is it only to get worse? "I'd like that." Lilica, shoving her doom and gloom thoughts aside, feebly agreed to Chara's suggestions, and allowed her to lead her off the floral grounds, and back to the villa.
Sadly, evening following a shockingly cold bath, some fruit and cheese (most of which the chthonic caster had forced into her body to appease Chara), and basking in the joys of alternating power and submission beneath the celestial caster's bed sheets, that image which had burned itself into her brain remained. Lilica did not sleep that evening, instead watching the gentle rise and fall of Chara's chest; beautiful, peaceful in slumber. She wished she could be half as peaceful. "You are more than I deserve..." She whispered gently, pushing herself into a sitting position, taking care not to wake the slumbering Rigas caster. She pressed her lips softly, deftly against Chara's fair cheek, before sliding out of bed and retrieving her clothes.
In one last breath of feeble hope, Lilica slipped out of the villa and into the cool of dusk, where she made her way down to the relatively empty infirmary; empty save for a single, recovering Rigas caster, whose mind had only begun to return to him, of later. What use he could actually be remained to be seen, in his questionable condition, but a chance was more favourable than no chance at all.
"Alster..." A shadow emerging from the moonlight-dappled darkness, the chthonic mage made her way to the Rigas caster's bedside, resting her hands on the thin mattress. She noticed by the whites of his eyes that he clearly was not asleep; at least, then, she had not been guilty of a rude awakening. "I need your help. Something is... I don't feel right. Since entering Stella D'Mare I have heard and seen terrible things that are not really there. And I wonder if..." Lilica swallowed, half-choking on her own suspicions and fear. "Am I... susceptible to the Serpent's presence, here? And what... what does that mean for me?"
"Haraldur... I can count my friends on the fingers of one single hand. Of course I noticed when you left." Elespeth squirmed in her uncomfortable bonds, though if Haraldur's words gave her pause for concern, it did not show on her face. After all, once hitting the bottom of the well of despair, it was not possible to sink deeper. But there were shadows of resolve carved into the warrior's face that accompanied those of fatigue. She was tired, void of hope, and yet... not defeated. Not as of yet.
"I suppose I really don't have a lot to offer, save for sharing a common enemy," she admitted, tugging at her dry lower lip with her teeth. "And my vendetta against Messino is deadly personal, now. He is responsible for the death and damage of those I love, through his actions, and I cannot let go of that. Whether or not I fight directly with Tadasun, I will oppose that man and bring him down. But..." Something suddenly occurred to her, cutting off her musings. Messino's army had not trusted her at first, either; they had thought her useless at first sight, just a wayward woman carrying a sword that she hadn't a clue as to how to use.
But she proved them wrong. And she could do it again.
"It is not my place to betray the Rigas's secrets, and they would do no good for Tadasun, in any case. But I did not get this far with my life and health through incompetence... I can prove my worth to them. Haraldur," she leaned close, a fierce glint in her green eyes. "Tell them I challenge them. I will take on their best melee warriors; if I win, they must give me a chance. And if I lose, they can do away with me, for all I care. The Tadasuni like games, from what I gather... and if they think me as ridiculous as I anticipate, then I believe they will be eager to see me either triumph or humiliate myself. Please, Haraldur..."
Struggling to lift her shackled hands, the former Atvanian knight laid them upon Haraldur's arm. Their grip was desperate. "Do this for me. From a friend, for a friend. I will be in your debt."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He dreamed of never waking. He dreamed of Elespeth uttering hate-filled diatribes while torturing him until dead. He dreamed of the Serpent slithering its way through the cracks in his mind, now deep gulleys, thrashed into chasms by the great beast's barreling tail. He dreamed of The End, multi-tiered destructions raining spits of fire and soot. The ashes of the incinerated. Swirls of blood forming macabre patterns at his feet, staining the ground and staining him with a wine-colored brand, a stigma, which splotched across his skin, which bruised it purple, which blackened it into rot, which putrefied and oozed away from his bones like a viscous puddle.
He always woke gasping, his arms lashed to his sides as if releasing them would spill his guts to the floor. And his heart, what little was left, would trickle through his rib cage and melt into all the refuse that his body deemed unusable and wished to extract. It was all rubbish. A midden heap.
"Yes, Alster. You are fool to believe that you are useful beyond the magic that constitutes your very person. It is all that glues you together. It is all that you are, and all that you ever were."
He bobbed his head weakly, and answered that hidden voice in the night. "Yes, Mother. You are right. Always, you speak truth. Forgive me. I was misled." That dead, monotone chant was interrupted only by the shivering coughs reminding him that even his body rejected its sole purpose in keeping him alive. It tore at him, wrenched at him, ran painful splinters into his skull and inflated his heart to near bursting, until all he could feel was the dull throb of etherea wisping around his fingers, whispering their reassurances into his soul. We are the glue. The glue...
He ejected a gob of phlegm into a handkerchief and nodded again, a feverish little waddle. He leaned into his rhythmic reverie, half-closing his eyes and singing a disjointed tune beneath the rasp of his rusty throat...
Until a foreign voice jarred him upright.
"Who's there!?" He barked, and summoned a stream of etherea into his upturned palm. He directed it to the shadows, which receded to reveal the dark mage, Lilica. And she was corporeal, the voice existing from outside, in that world that tethered to him with pleas for him to stay. Stay, Alster. Stay...
In the pale, wan light of his magic, Lilica could see the worn lines creased across his weary face. Cheeks that once were so full and rosy were sallow and sunken, aging him past his boyish features. But it did not age him with grace; he looked more as a spectre, drained of age and time and care. All virility was gone from his joyless eyes. They were faded, like linen abandoned in the sun and bleached of its full, vibrant color. His hair, which was mired down with sweat and cropped close to his forehead, was in disarray, and visible, even in the dim light, were a few prominent strands of white hairs. They glowed in the stalks of gold, draining, subsiding, into silver.
He looked over to her, but not at her, lolling his head to one side and saying nothing, nor even registering that she spoke to him at all. He seemed more preoccupied with the far wall, obscured into oblivion. But after some time passed, he spoke, slow, languid, and detached.
"The Serpent grows in power. I see It everyday, watching in my periphery...always." He closed his eyes, and a reflexive shiver rattled through him, even in the proximity of his etherea. "It has been awake this whole time, and making easy prey of those who are susceptible. It has you, as it had me...as it has me, now. Chthonic magic...it beckons to the Beast. The Serpent attaches Itself to it like a parasite. It feasts on negative energy, and twists it into something ugly..." He opened his eyes and the fire shuddered in his hands. "It made me do...horrible things, even when it was weak. When it was...asleep. Now...It can influence more than the Rigas family, whose ancient blood binds It to the earth. It can influence the weak-hearted...and the chthonic, and woe be to anyone who exhibits both." A wheeze of a laugh echoed through the vast chamber. "Like me. And..." his eyes bore through Lilica's own, unblinking and ominous, "and like you...Lilica."
With a long, breathy sigh, Haraldur nodded at Elespeth's request. "Of course I will help to establish you here. Why would I agree to seeing you kept in chains? But," he warned, uncrossing his arms and letting them loose at his sides, "the challenge that you propose--a Tadasuni soldier will not raise a hand to harm a woman--though they seem to ignore that on the battlefield," he muttered the last part as an aside, not wanting the guards up front to hear them speak ill of their customs--and of their negligence of them. "It will be an unfair match. They won't have the conviction to fight you. However," he paused, then looked down at his sword, "mercenaries or those who are not of Tadasuni descent--they are not exempt from this rule. And Tadasun does not employ many mercenaries. They are a very exclusive society, and generally spurn outsiders. That means," he cleared his throat, "you may have to fight me, or one of Eyraille's soldiers, should they agree to the terms."
His expression was grave. The last time he fought someone he did not intend to kill, he almost struck her the killing blow. He did not reserve any confidence for a friendly sparring match to remain as one. Better for her to fight Sir Vega Sorde, if that was what entertainment the Tadasuni thirsted to see. However, the result would be thus: mere entertainment value, and not proof of one's mettle. If one woman bested the other woman, she would not convince the army that she could fight toe-to-toe and head-to-head with a man.
"I will speak to the officers. I will regale them with tales of your heroism on that day. Your plunging of the sword into Messino's chest. They love a story. The longer, the better. And, if it comes to it," he sighed again, and touched the pommel of his sword, "then you will have your challenge. But I advise you to change the rules. It is not a matter of besting the competition, Elespeth. You're weak, exhausted, and in need of food and water. You are not fighting fit. Soldiers who overestimate their clout will fall to the blade quicker than those who are aware of their shortcomings. I know you need to prove yourself, but do not lose your head." Then, in a gentler tone, he said, as he took Elespeth's reciprocal arm in his; "You only need to endure. ...And survive."
With a word of goodbye, he made his leave of Elespeth and the tent, and set out to convince the officers of the former Atvanian knight's worth--though he knew that they would dismiss his review of her...in favor of a fight.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"What am I to do? Tell me what I need to do..." She gnawed on her lower lip until she tasted blood in her mouth. This madman was supposed to be her last hope... and yet, she could not help but feel that by hearing his verdict from his own mouth, she had condemned herself; because now, her fears, her demons... they were real. "I keep seeing... I see my father. My stepfather who left me for dead. His face is everywhere. And my mother, who could never look me in the eye, who would have been happy for me to disappear. And... and just yesterday, I saw myself. The child who murdered her parents in cold blood. She stood before me and told me I would not be rid of her... is it true? Will I be rid of none of this torment if I remain in Stella D'Mare?"
There was her answer: she could leave. Adalfieri and the Rigases could not force her to stay, much though they might try during such a sensitive and vulnerable period in their war. Of course, if it meant ridding themselves of a potential danger, then perhaps they would simply let her walk, after all... especially if it meant ceasing her involvement with Chara. I will follow you, until you go where I cannot follow anymore... Lilica's throat swelled at her promise. Was this it? The catalyst that finally ended the sweet dream in which she had been living since her arrival? But it was only a dream... of course, it could only be a dream.
"I will leave... I will leave this place, if it means I am no longer at risk of endangering anyone. That must be the answer. Alster..." Her pale face, even paler in the moonlight, was shadowed with defeated, shadows where there had not been shadows previously. "I know you do not owe me anything; and you might not even remember, given your state. But if... when I leave--and please do not breathe a word of it beforehand--then would you tell Chara... tell her that I am sorry? And that I would have stayed, had the option been viable. But if she is interested... if she can so much as forgive me, then I will be back at the encampment. Perhaps I can be of more use on the front lines, and away from the Serpent's influence."
But would proud Chara Rigas understand? Would she forgive her, for taking off with little to no notice, in an attempt to make a clean a break as was possible? We both knew this was coming... it isn't as though this turn of events was not anticipated. And she had known from the very start that it could not be avoided; after all, the fate of Lilica D'Or could not be nearly as grandiose and full of splendor as that of the Rigases.
Straightening her back, her spine feeling stiff and brittle as a fallen tree branch, the chthonic mage backed away from Alster's cot. "I'm sorry. I will not involve you any further in my ails; you have your own..."
Then like the shadow she was, Lilica retreated back into the shadows, in hopes to return to Chara's bed before the celestial mage knew she had ever been gone.
"You are right... they might pit the two of us against one another if they accept my proposal to show them how I fights." By the monotone of Elespeth's voice, either she was so far beyond exhaustion that she was beyond expression, or she had already considered this possibility prior to putting it into words. "But we could make it work, between the two of us; I have fought alongside you, and you, me. Careful foot and swordwork is feasible. But if they pit me against this other woman warrior you speak of... then I will know that they will not take me seriously. Not if I am not given the opportunity to best a man. So if that is their decision--to use me merely for entertainment value..." She pressed her lips together, and a look of determination settled in the sharp hollows of her face. "Then I will request to up the ante and take you both on. Haraldur..."
Shifting her weight to reduce pressure from her lower back, Elespeth leaned toward her comrade and only friend, lowering her voice to a near whisper. For all the pallor of her weary face, the spark at the core of her moss-coloured eyes. "I am a knight by upbringing; I am a warrior by necessity. And it is time I reclaimed that integral part of my identity, for it is all... it is all that I have left. I will do what I have to."
Haraldur relayed her message to the Tadasuni, true to his word, and spoke her praises, in the end, but the former knight ended up waiting hours still without food and water before she had an answer. And, it was, the best that she realistically could have expected:
She would fight Haraldur, one on one, until one of them fell and was unable to continue. I owe you, my friend, she thought, as they finally unshackled her wrists and feet and provided her with her first meal in days. Much though it made her stomach cramp, she practically inhaled the meat and bread, eager to return to the strong fighter that she was; or, at the very least, to return to being strong, at all. "You've got a day. Think you'll really be up for this, missy?" she was asked when a Tadasuni soldier was sent to retrieve her plates. "Rather a lame way to readily dispose of one's life and health, don't you think? Your mercenary friend--he's a killer." A smug smile curled his lips. "Don't think he'll go easy on you; I don't think he's capable."
"Make whatever assumptions you so desire. But you do not know me," replied the Atvanian, without dignifying him with eye contact. "That is all I am going to say."
No sooner did he leave that the quiet that had endured beyond the tent where she was being kept, well-guarded, broke by voice of an assertive, distinctly feminine tone that awakened her senses. "What is this nonsense? A fight? You will have a weakened prisoner with no ill intent towards your kingdom and its allies fight, to earn a place to... help you?"
"Last I checked, Sir Vega, we need consult you for our decisions regarding recruitment," the familiar voice of the Tadasuni soldier snarked. "Anyway, these were her terms. We're only giving her what she wants: a chance to prove herself."
"Something that you never asked of me, despite that I am also a woman wielding a weapon."
"No one is going to question a lady flying in on a fierce, giant bird, with a lance at her side and a bow slung over her shoulder. You are already a proven ally; don't jeopardize that."
A giant bird... does he mean... Elespeth frowned; for it very much sounded as though she may have the word of an Eyraillian Skyknight on her side, if the conversation outside that tent was any indication.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"It will follow you. If you leave Stella D'Mare, you will not break the hold that It has over you. For, It infiltrates the mind, and roosts there in a dark corner, incubating...wearing away the holes so that It may slither to your core...and influence your thoughts. I was far from Stella D'Mare when I...when the Serpent...and I murdered..." Two voices screamed in the night. Their tones complemented the other; a low timbre and a high pitch, twisting together into an agonizing crescendo. He looked around, bewildered, his flame a mere flicker around his fingers. "Do you...do you hear the screams?" He placed a free hand upon his chest, his breathing shallow and troubled. "I hear them all the time. It's them. My parents. Constantly suffering the attack that I inflicted on them. And, and...and..."
He closed his eyes, concentrated on singing a little ditty as his light extinguished and left them, again, at the mercy of the engulfing dark. "Leaving will only prolong the inevitable," he said, after summoning the courage to resume. "It will have you all the same, though it may take years. It took forty for the Serpent to find me again. I...." he opened his eyes, and an iota of sanity sparked in those dull blues, illumined by the thin shaft of moonlight that streamed from the overhead windows. "I wish you the best, Lilica. Fight Its manipulation, though you must run even farther from the encampment if you wish to sever Its grasp...if possible to sever it at all. I'm...I'm sorry you had to get dragged into my mess. It's mine to clean."
My mess to clean...
Another spark of recognition coursed through him. By then, Lilica had departed, as silent and mysterious as she had arrived. He looked up, at the glow of the moon, then at his smoking hand where once perched the fire. He stoked it back to life and watched the embers leap and coalesce into themselves. He only wished to do the same. Coalesce. Reform. Achieve wholeness. I don't want to be broken. I don't want to worry others...infect others...doom others.
After all, the Serpent...is my mess to clean.
Lysander had strolled the grounds late that night, exercising his recovering legs as an alternative to sleep. He had tried to close his eyes, and had even retired early, when the sun still angled low on the horizon. But Adalfieri's words kept his mind buzzing and puttering with no indications of ceasing its inexorable output. Instead of suffering from that excess, restless energy, he decided to expel it by walking amongst the grounds, providing an extra body for night patrol until he tired...or collapsed.
It was then that he crossed the trail that passed before the infirmary...and it was then that he saw a figure emerge from the doors and creep away, so as to avoid detection. Lilica. So she hadconsulted Alster. At least, it appeared so. He was about to let her go, to pretend their paths hadn't crossed, but he instinctively looked over his shoulder at the main house, at the indoor light glistening against the windows of Adalfieri's bedchambers--and he blanched. Was Adalfieri watching? Was he aware of Lysander's late night romping and the dilemma he now faced?
Of course he was.
"Lilica," he whispered, having used his stealth magic to appear behind her unnoticed, "what are you doing out so late at night? Did you...speak with Alster?" He motioned his head over to the infirmary doors, a nonverbal gesture that insinuated his knowledge of the correct answer--should she choose to lie. "What," he hesitated, "...did he say?"
For your sake, Elespeth...let's hope that we never fight.
Why did those who barely knew him think so highly of his self-control? First Vega, with her unwavering faith in his ability to stay his sword, and now Elespeth, who was assured of his honor?
And what had she meant, that she lost all but her dignity as a warrior and knight? Did something happen with Alster? Had he, after all the toil and arrangements made to restore him to the world, perish--somehow? It gnawed at him to know the truth, to learn if his hand had caused more harm than relief, as it frequently did. Alas, he kept silent, out of respect for her wishes...and out of respect for his own. After what he had revealed to Vega, the outcome left him teetering on a vast precipice, his body frozen in place, his mind and spirit having already plummeted. They still awaited the final crash, where sky met ground and the ensuing release of life into death--but it never came. If Elespeth was reduced to the same broken mess, he did not wish to push her for information. After all, he had more pressing matters to see into fruition.
As expected, his recounted tale did not move nor sway the Tadasuni officers out of their seats. They looked at him with quirked eyebrows, doubting his validity despite the accuracy of the information he had delivered about Messino and the machinations of his camp. Looking at him with renewed interest and indulgent smirks, they suggested that he fight the 'woman warrior,' (as they said with perplexed head shakes), if she really impressed him that much. No matter what he said to fight against this unfortunate outcome, they had decreed it so. The following morning, shortly after breakfast, he and Elespeth would face off against each other.
He spent much of the time leading up to the 'match' in quiet meditation, willing himself and his hand to behave. He spouted mantras in his head until a nosy soldier or two would interrupt his concentration.
My sword does not kill my allies. I do not kill. Do not kill. Won't kill. Won't...
The morning sun streamed over the mountains with the steady speed of one also eager to see the challenge between the two warriors. After swallowing a few heavy, tasteless lumps of food and guzzling water as he wished it were a strong, debilitating ale, he appeared in the small field at the center of camp, usually reserved for military briefings and sparring sessions. He stood aside and waited, betraying no emotion on his stony, disciplined face. Elespeth arrived on the field, surrounded on all sides by a retinue of soldiers. They gesticulated to her with their swords and pointed to the field. Not far behind her, situated in the ring of people, was Vega, who had reserved for herself a prime viewing spot in the dense crowd of eager spectators. Their eyes met, for an instant. He looked away, focusing instead on his quarry. No. His ally. His friend.
Elespeth stood before him now, sword drawn. He had done the same, pulling his own blade out of its sheath, and holding it in a defensive posture. "The rumors, they're true," he told her, his jaw tightening in opposition to the icy tone that froze his spittle into icicles. "I am a killer. My apologies...for what I might do."
However, he did not move, did not spring forward to meet his opponent. He stood there--and waited for her to make the first move. Every muscle in his body resisted the urge to attack, to gain the upper-hand, but still, he remained sedentary. A statue with a killing gaze, and the killing hand--struggling to change positions. Struggling to annihilate the target.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Lilica jumped when Lysander's voice reached her ears, spinning on her heel to face the Rigas caster. It was strange to see him out and about, yet oddly uplifting, simultaneously. What seemed like not so long ago, he seldom left the safety of his villa, for fear that his own two legs would fail him and he would duffer the indignity of crumbling before important peers. Yet with perseverance, and the dark mage's herbal remedies to help speed the natural healing of his leg muscles, he now evidently strode on his own around the city--albeit afterdark, presumably when no one would see him stumble. She couldn't help but wonder if he would still have reached this stage of recovery so quickly, were it not for her frequent visits and floral concoctions...
But that was a side-thought that stood in the shadows of the Rigas caster's question to her: What did he say?
"Lysander. I..." It was only for a split second that she contemplated betraying his trust and lying. But he knew; she could tell from the intelligent glint in his blue eyes, and his gesture towards the infirmary, that he knew precisely why she was out and about at that hour. A lie would only harm their camaraderie, and for some reason... the thought of that possibility bothered her. So she opted for honesty. "Alster. He... he confirmed my concerns. About the... Serpent." She fidgeted with her sleeve, unable to maintain that eye contact, for fear of judgement or abhorrence. "It can reach me. Anyone with chthonic blood and a... a weak heart, he said. And I fear it already has reached me, from the moment I set foot in passage which brought us to Stella D'Mare."
The night suddenly felt colder. Lilica wrapped her arms around herself as a result, before forcing her gaze to return to the face of Chara's father. "I don't know if I can escape it. Alster says that it can... it will follow. It may take years to catch up, but that its infiltration is inevitable." It infiltrates the mind, and roosts there in a dark corner, incubating... But why her? Surely she was not the first dark caster to step upon the soil of Stella D'Mare... and what of her wretched brother? Did the Beast have him, as well? "I could be... no, I am a danger. To myself and those around me, if what he says is true." She thought about suddenly realizing that Chara had her by the shoulders, shaking sense back into her distraught mind. What would she have done had she not realized the illusion sooner?
What if she had come to harm the one person she loved in all the world...?
She wouldn't be able to live with herself if that ever came to pass. "Lysander, I believe that... there is no alternative but for me to leave Stella D'Mare, forever." Her already hushed tone was drowned now with unmistakable sorrow, bringing it to barely above a heavy whisper. "I am afraid. I don't know what is going to happen, and if... if I were to come to harm someone like Chara through the Serpent's influence--I will never forgive myself. And I would rather leave now, knowing that there was a chance that she survived all of this mayhem, than stay and possibly see her come to harm... at my own hands."
Pressure built behind her dark eyes as the pesky urge to shed tears crept up on her, second after second. But not a single one fell, as if she had none to expend; sometimes sorrow surpassed even that. "You and Chara... made me feel welcome, here, when you had no reason to do so. I have never felt more like I belonged, for as long as I can remember. You can rest assured that I won't forget all that you've done for me." Now she was certain that should she remain, those tears would fall. This was all the explanation she could offer. "I should go. I need to ponder both how and if I should divulge any of this to Chara... she might well not forgive me."
Lilica was gone like the night, then, taking off into the shadows from which she had emerged. What little time left she had by Chara's side was coveted; she would waste none of it.
It was a spar that set everyone up for inevitable failure; Vega knew it, as did Elespeth. But that small fact did not change the warrior's mind on her decision to prove herself as a potential asset to Tadasun in their endeavor to vanquish Messino and his forces.
I wonder if it is that I harbour a deathwish... she mused to herself that morning, as the vermillion sun crested the horizon and she donned the simple leather armor with which the Tadasuni had provided her. Leaving Stella D'Mare and Alster behind had provided a sort of catharsis for the weary warrior, one from which she had transitioned to feeling all to much to not feeling anything at all. It was not ideal, this flat state of monotone that had settled deep in her core, but it allowed her the opportunity to perceive the world anew, in a featureless, neutral light. And in that light, she finally realized how little she cared for the outcome of this face-off with Haraldur. The trouble was, she did not know why; whether it was a sudden disregard for her own life, for the war, or a despondent realization of the inevitable. Death, loss, sorrow... it was a force greater than she had ever expected. Greater that she had ever prepared for.
If it comes to it, if my skills to not measure up to being a worthy asset, would it really be so bad to fall at the hands of a friend?
She didn't think so. Were her opinion otherwise, she would not be following through with this.
Soon after sunrise that morning, the former Atvanian knight stood across from her trusted comrade and friend, the sky's amber rays glinting off of the steel that she held at the hilt. The weapon felt unfamiliar in her hand; the Tadasuni were not known for being master bladesmiths, and she realized that that might lead to being a terrible disadvantage, particularly where Haraldur had at least familiarized himself with the make, at this point. Yet that small fact did not phase her, for if she was certain of anything, it was that if she was meant to best, then she would best. And if she was meant to be bested...
Well, that was up to fate. Do not hate me for forcing you to fight me, Haraldur... I need this, more than you can know.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"I would not readily believe everything that Alster tells you," he said in a gentle, coercing baritone. "He is sick. I fear that your visiting him before he has had the proper time to recover his mind, body, and memory has only colored your initial preconceptions in the most negative and hopeless of lights. Not to say that he has not offered you the truth, but it is his own convoluted version of events. He is nursing a broken heart, among other horrors. It is possible that he is confusing his own experiences, and spinning them into a much more dire interpretation. A highly personal one, which is in no way objective, and more harm than aid."
He transferred his hand from her arm to the small of her back as he led her past the small garden outside of Chara's villa. "Do not yet make any hasty decisions, Lilica. It is best that you rest as much as you can. It is not right to punish yourself by fleeing far from those who would worry during your self-imposed exile. You do not have to shoulder this alone. We shall help you surmount what is ahead. In Stella D'Mare, there are capable healers and casters that will be of indispensable service to you." As he released his gentle grip on her bony shoulders, he retreated a step, positioning his hands behind his back. He offered her a small, reassuring smile. "Do not yet think the worst, Lilica. For you may think it the worst, but in actuality, opposing Chara in any capacity ," his smile cracked wider, "is the worst of fates that one can possibly endure. Good night, Lilica. Pray I see you in the morning."
He waited until Lilica disappeared through the ornate oaken-carved doors. Then, with a forlorn sigh, he turned on his heels and made his funereal approach to the Main House, where the shadow of Adalfieri waited in the light of his flickering bedchambers.
That morning, Chara awoke with her head resting on Lilica's chest. She lay there a while, listening to the dark mage's erratic heartbeat, fast and puttering, belying her supposed slumber. She opened her eyes, one slit at a time, and wriggled over in a position advantageous enough for her to plant a kiss upon the dark mage's lips. "Good morning," she said sleepily, though the sharpness never faded from her discerning blue eyes. "You have not slept, I take it? Even after your midnight jaunt?"
With a fluttering yawn, Chara rose from her bed sheets, patting down the wild strands of hair that stuck out of her head like straw. She lumbered out of bed, throwing a robe over her silken night dress, and opened her mouth, not in a yawn, but to further interrogate her companion on her whereabouts--until she heard a flat knocking upon her door.
"What now?" she muttered to herself as she wandered through the bedchambers en route to the foyer. "I shall return," she called over her shoulder to Lilica. "For I am curious to know the details of your very important rendezvous."
A Rigas guard awaited her on the other side of the door.
"What?" she demanded, dispensing of the formalities.
"Well," the guard muttered to his feet, then, in a bold maneuver, shot his head upright and met her eyes. "Is the dark mage in your custody?" He spoke in whispers and darted nervous glances between Chara and the space behind her head--in case the subject in question materialized in a puff of noxious smoke.
"Custody? What do you mean? If you mean she is inside, then yes, she is. Why must you know?" She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently for the answer.
"You see," the guard quailed as he watched the foot, "it is but a precaution. Do not keep her from your sight. Adalfieri's orders." With a brisk nod, the guard retreated down the steps and crunched across the glistening grass, peppered silver from the morning dew.
With a puzzled last glance at the skittish envoy, Chara shook her head and closed the door. She reentered the bedchamber, leaning her shoulder against the doorjamb as she regarded Lilica with a curious eye. "What did you do last night?"
Haraldur tightened his grip on the sword, readying to defend against Elespeth's attacks. But...
Why is she not moving?
The two stood at an impasse, neither moving to meet the other. A shiver ran down his blade, a quaver of frustration marring his otherwise practiced form. If he shifted from defensive to offensive, and ran for her first, his self-control, which beaded sweat of concentration at his brow, would surely break, and his chances of causing her great harm, or death, went from incremental to almost assured.
"Don't do this," he said against the grit of his teeth. "Come at me! This is your final chance!"
That final chance had ended when still she did not budge. The quaver of his hand transitioned into a fluid stillness as his sword sliced against the air and pointed ahead of him, at Elespeth. Cheers erupted from the impatient crowd. His stance had changed, his legs angled, pressure applied to the pads of his feet, and the killing hand was ready to dole out a casualty.
He rushed to meet her, in a burst of speed. His ears flooded with hoots and hollers. The sword thrust forward, intending to aim for the unprotected area of her stomach that her armor did not cover. When he got close, however, and she moved to parry that attack, he feinted, and changed directions in mid stride. Taking advantage of that split second before she realized the trick, he whirled his sword upwards, aiming for her throat. But she had already seen his intent, and guarded the redirected thrust in time. He staggered free, and acquainted himself with all the other weak points that she exhibited in her form. There, he noticed that her left foot sustained a light sprain. Her weight redistributed itself to her right leg, disturbing the posterity of her balance.
After a continued barrage of back and forth parrying and clashing, Haraldur had at last reached his desired position of attack. He waited until their swords met in the middle. He landed a powerful strike at her blade, which threw it backwards and vibrated it violently in her hands. At this brief distraction, he flipped his sword, hilt facing the ground, and smashed the pommel downwards, at the instep of her right foot. Now that both of her feet were out of sync with each other, Haraldur shoved Elespeth against her shoulder, forcing the former knight against the hard-packed earth. He stepped on her sword before she could lift it to oppose him, and twisted his own blade, cruel and flashing, before her face...before those lost eyes of hers, so resigned to death, to elimination, swift and exacting...and just.
He held the sword of justice aloft, about to ram it through that soft underbelly beneath her armor and thus end her life...when a figure darted toward them on the field. Immediately, he pulled a knife from his belt with his free hand and threw it at her; it grazed the flesh between her neck and shoulder, but did not embed itself within the skin as it whizzed past her head. She was not deterred. She ran, unimpeded for them, for him, bearing ever closer. He relocated his sword from Elespeth to the new threat...until recognition stymied his movements.
Vega. I had stopped myself from attacking her...before. But...how?
His sword vacillated between conflicting thoughts that assailed its owner's head. Somehow...he dropped the weapon to the ground. The killing hand flexed and gaped as if it were a fish struggling for water on land.
"Take...her," he whispered to Vega, his voice choked and bitten into bloody, half-formed nubs. "Take her...now."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She found that consolation in Chara's father. In the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder, in the sweet concern in his voice with regard to her plight. His reassurances touched her sore spots, such that those tears behind her eyes inevitably trickled down her cheeks. You do not have to shoulder this burden alone. No, she didn't want to be alone. Not anymore, not now that she had found a place where she felt some semblance of belonging. But it was impossible to shake Alster's foreboding tone, the certainty of his words... They clung to her skin like a thick fog, obscuring her vision and hampering her struggle for a positive outlook. Ultimately, she merely felt more lost than she had before.
"I have never found happiness such as I have found it here, near Chara and... you," the chthonic caster confessed, her voice soft and distant. "And it is because of this--because I owe it to you both that I cannot bear to put you in danger. And if that means a self-imposed exile... then do me the favour of perceiving it as a final act of... of love." Lilica wiped the tears from her face, embarrassed to be coming apart at the seams in front of Lysander, of all people. Weeping like a child in the presence of a father. "Know that I do not want to leave. But I fear you have more faith in me than I can realistically embrace. All the same..."
As she approached the door to Chara's villa, she turned to face the elder Rigas caster, her dark eyes tired, but glimmering with genuine interest. "I must thank you, for all that you have done for me. You have suffered much loss; more than you deserve, and yet you and Chara have still made the effort to ascertain that I am welcome in your homes. Come what may, I will never forget Chara... but know that neither will your kindness ever vacate my mind." Bowing her head, she bid him goodnight, and quietly returned to Chara's side, where she lay for the remainder of the night; eyes closed, but wide awake, plan baafter plan to flee and the logistics if leaving Stella D'Mare rushing through her mind. When at last Chara stirred, moving her head from her chest and planting a kiss on her lips, Lilica realized she hadn't been so stealthy during her nighttime endeavor as she had thought.
Her sleepless mind hadn't the faculties to conjure an excuse, and even if it could, Chara and her sharp eyes never missed a trick. It must have been serendipity, then, that someone knocked on the door, coaxing Chara out of the room before she could ask for details. At least, that was the dark caster's first thought, up until she overheard snippets of the conversation taking place in the foyer. ...do not keep her from your sight. Adalfieri's orders.
Lilica's blood ran cold. Had her twilight outing been spotted by a pair of the Rigas head's mobile eyes? The dark of the night had seemed absent of waking life, aside from...
No... Lysander wouldn't. It couldn't be... He had not advised her to leave, but... what reason would he have to ascertain that she remain on Stella D'Mare's cursed soil?
Blood rushed into her cheeks as soon as Chara returned, standing in the door frame and blocking any means of escape. Despite that unlikely visitor, it did not seem as though she held suspicions of her planned self-exile. She intended to keep it that way. "I was... unable to sleep. So I went for a walk." It was not a lie; her weary face displayed no tells. "I suppose I must have come across as suspicious, a lone bearer of darkness wandering the night... I suppose I can't blame their judgment. Chara..." Her already quiet voice softened, and she extended her hand to the beautiful celestial caster. "Will you come back to bed? I might yet find myself on the precipice of sleep if you are near..." And every moment with you is at this point, more precious than gold.
There had never been any question for Elespeth as to whether or not Haraldur fought with honour; of course he did. But what she had failed to comprehend, prior to accepting the terms of the Tadasuni and facing him in combat, was that the honour of a mercenary and the honour of a knight were altogether two very different things.
Standing before her friend, sword in hand, she did not instigate the fight for fear that she might lose her footing in an attempt to lunge. At some point, between leaving Stella D'Mare and arriving a prisoner of Tadasun, she had managed to roll her ankle, spurring the slightest bit of swelling around the lower bones that connected to her foot. It did not hurt to walk, but any sudden, fast movements would draw attention to her minor injury, which was precisely what she didn't want.
So she allowed Haraldur to make the first move, pivoting away from his calculated aggressions, and bringing forth her own every chance she got. Elespeth's sword was an extension of her arm, and she swung it with surprising ease, even in her fatigued state. And the fight unfolded as follows: Haraldur would make a move, miss; she would make a move, miss. It almost appeared as though they were matched as warriors, and that the fight might conclude in some form of stalemate, where the two of them collapsed in exhaustion before either one or the other could be injured. And perhaps that would have been the best outcomes, after all... but that was not how the spar met an end.
In a brief moment where she left herself too open, Elespeth unwittingly allowed Haraldur just enough room to exploit the very weak point that she had been trying so hard to conceal; that of her injured foot. And that was all it took to take her down.
Gasping in pain, the Atvanian warrior hardly realized that she had been thrown off balance until her tail bone came into agonizing contact with the hard ground, and her eyes were suddenly fixed on the blue, blue morning sky, so bright that Haraldur's looming form appeared a dark shadow by comparison. That was when Elespeth closed her eyes. It's all right; this is all right. This is how it was meant to be, after all. It was a blessing that the last thing her eyes would fall upon prior to impending death was the face of a friend.
The sudden scuff of running feet, too light and coming from too far to belong to Haraldur, prompted her eyes open when that final blow never came. She found herself staring up not at Haraldur, but the form of a copper-haired woman, brandishing an ornately carved lance. "This ends now," she declared, in an authoritative tone that hushed the aghast crowd that had gathered to witness the spectacle. "Tadasun! You will not win this war by pitting allies against fellow allies for the benefit of your own damned amusement. This woman has proven herself as best as can be expected from someone who is too weary to be in fighting form. And if, still, you will not welcome you into your ranks..."
Her blue eyes met Elespeth's stunned gaze, a hint of pity as well as challenge mirrored in the blues. "If you will not have her... then she is more than welcome to fight alongside Eyraille, as a warrior under myself. Should she so agree, that is."
Elespeth could do little more but nod, an infinitesimal bob of her head that made her dizzy all the same. If it meant that she would be putting her all into opposing Messino among powerful forces that might well achieve victory, then she would pledge loyalty, even temporary as I might be, to just about anyone. Death, after all, was not her choice; it was merely the only alternative to fighting that she could conjure.
Satisfied, Vega turned back towards the crowd. "If she will not fight with you, then she will fight with us; for if we are not fighting together, then I do not know why I am here." In her peripheral vision, the wan form of Haraldur, ashen at the realization that he had nearly killed an innocent for the Tadasuni's entertainment, stood looking as though he would rather flee than stay. Which was more than likely for the better. "Go," she told him softly, before turning back to the woman on the ground, offering her a hand up. "My name is Vega Sorde; you might not find a friend in these people. But you can, in me."
Friends... And wasn't she desperate for such support? For a hand up, a shoulder to lean on, a mere confidante? She would make amends with Haraldur later, when he had time to process what had happened. But for now, she took Vega's proffered hand.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
At mention of that wretched creature, Chara dropped her hands, her expression softening. With the defeated coo of a sigh, she walked over to the bed and sat beside Lilica, threading fingers through her fine sheen of obsidian-black hair. "You musn't do this to me," she said, almost in supplication, as she weaved a small section of hair into a braid. "It has happened already. Alster, he kept his secrets when I had abandoned him all those years ago. No one was present to stand guard and watch for his suspicious activity--or to stay, here, as we are, as a companion offering solace. He awakened the Serpent, and was successful, because no one had a care. So if you think," the hard edge returned, and her entire body stiffened with resolve, "that I am going to sit back and abandon you, then you do not know me very well at all." She dropped the braid and tilted Lilica's chin upwards, black eyes meeting blue. "Do you understand? I am not to let you from my vigil. You are my prisoner--as it should be." She gave a grin of triumph, and pushed Lilica onto the bed, where they played with each other until midday.
Afterwards, Chara's eyes began to droop with the hypnotizing pull of sleep, but she refused to answer the demands of her body. Instead, she splashed cold water on her face, never allowing Lilica to wander out of her periphery. She accompanied her to the wash room, during moments meant to spend in private. They took their meals--always together. Never did they leave the villa, for Chara, at peering out the window, saw several guards stationed all arout the perimeter, and did not want to arouse more suspicion than was already had by mentioning this formation to Lilica.
At some time between dinner and bed, Chara, inexplicably tired, dipped her head and shuddered her eyes to a close, her vigil having been exhausted from the constancy of her hyper-awareness. When she opened her eyes, Lilica was gone.
Lysander was given the unfortunate task of apprehending Lilica, should the dark mage escape the house security set in place at Chara's villa--which was an assured consequence, considering Chara's eventual need to sleep. He, however, did not imagine the breach would occur so soon after the order was delivered and put into motion. Unless--Chara had let Lilica go, which, too, was a possibility.
It was hard for him to focus as his thoughts wandered on the night before. Lilica's tear-strewn face, her desperate grip for absolution, for unconditional love, for...for a father to hold her hand and smooth a comforting salve over her bruised heart. And then were her words.A final act of love, she had said. Love. For him. Each heartfelt, genuine comment almost bowled him over, threatening to cripple him anew. And he feared that, if his legs faltered a second time, they would never stand again.
He watched over Chara's villa from a distance, cloaked with magic and out of sight, when, that evening, he noticed a shifting in the dark, as if an even darker shadow tried to blot out what existed by commanding it to turn shades deeper. Lilica was using a form of concealment, but Lysander was experienced in all forms of disappearing, magical or otherwise. She may have slipped past the guards undetected, but Lysander followed her, slow and slinking, ready to raise the alarm, to, alert all on patrol of her location, to apprehend her...to betray her trust. To lose her trust. To lose her love--one that he was unsuccessful in receiving from Chara. Could he release that love a second time, and lose both Chara and Lilica?
He hesitated on his orders. Then, he remembered Adalfieri. He could ruin Chara, destroy her, make it look like an accident. He had seen the man orchestrate something of a similar caliber, once before--'out of necessity,' the man explained to his council. And Lysander had already crossed the Rigas head one too many times in the past to test his patience. Adalfieri would deliver on his promise.
Lysander, his eyes moistening, shot his hand into the sky, and let loose a blast of etherea, which popped and crackled in the air above Lilica's head.
She was surrounded in moments, and taken into custody.
Lysander slipped away, having done his part--and praying that she never learned of his ultimate betrayal.
She will know. She will know... He cupped his head in his hands, and walked, no, stumbled, into the night.
Abashed, Haraldur lowered his head to the ground, staring at the sword that almost took Elespeth's life. He gripped his hands together, to prevent from retrieving it, and, during Vega's speech to the crowd, he took his leave. The stunned audience allowed him to pass through their ranks, too spooked by him to offer any resistance or restraint. He disappeared within the mass of humanity, and was gone.
A Tadasuni officer, rising to Vega's challenge, spoke into the eerie silence, as he pushed his way through the throng and appeared in the circle. "You are more than welcome to serve us..." he hesitated as he glanced at the woman, held upright by the Skyknight Commander, "warrior. You have proven yourself a worthy fighter, but we will not begrudge you should you choose to ally with Eyraille," he said with a persuasive air. The other Tadasuni in the crowd bobbed their heads in assent. "It was not out of disrespect to you that we took such precautions in accepting you into our ranks, but we all agree that a woman needs protection, and should not find herself in such a place, for women are vital to our society and must not fall to the blade. We still do believe this credo, though it was out of oversight that we pitted you against a known bloodluster." He bowed his head, in respect. "Please do accept our apologies, both."
After a time, the crowd dispersed, Elespeth was released into Vega's care, and the vicissitudes of camp life more or less returned to normal.
Two days had elapsed since the challenge between Haraldur and Elespeth, which had gone awry. In that time, Haraldur did not speak or interact with anyone at camp. It did not prove an impossible task, for the Tadasuni who wandered in his path were quick to change direction and offer him a wide berth. He whiled away the time with drink, which he bribed out of the man in charge of supplies and food rations, and he drank the swill until he no longer remembered his appropriated name.
During rare moments of sobriety, he had clasped a dagger in his killing hand, and stared long and hard at the arrangement of his fingers over the grip, and the sharp, tapered edges of the blade. Arina, he pressed the cool pommel against his forehead, Every good intention...it falls to pieces in my hands. Is there anything left for me...but failure?
On the third day, he found Vega milling outside of her tent. His strides were long, purposeful, and fleet of foot, despite his continued recovery from his long night of drinking. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair tousled and mussed, but he stood straight and unwavering as he caught her exiting the flaps of her canvassed residency.
"How is she?" he asked, opting out of mentioning her by name, in case Elespeth used a pseudonym. Regardless of the arrangements made by Messino when he offered the former knight in exchange for ceasefire, Tadasun was still allied with Atvany. They no longer provided them with troops, but they supported them by equipping the army with high-grade weapons, armor, and foodstuffs. She was close to Atvany by entering Tadasun's camp, and thus in danger of recognition by any of the soldiers driving the supply wagons.
"I," he began, then seeing passing eyes target them with curiosity, he shook his head and guided her inside a vacant tent. "...Thank you for stepping in, the other day. If you did not..." he trailed away, and left that last, unspoken segment lodged behind his tongue. "I wanted to believe in this unerring faith you had placed in me, but so far, I've been nothing but a disappointment. So," he sighed as his eyes lingered on the bandaged square on her neck, where his knife had bit her, "I'm leaving. I'm going back...to the only place I've ever really considered home. I won't tell you where...but I thought I would tell you this much, at least." He rummaged through his pouch, and handed her, for the second time, the handkerchief she had gifted him. "Thank you for trying. And for showing me some good news." With a nod, he turned away from her, and walked towards the outside. "Farewell."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
So she expressed her love for her for the remainder of the morning, until the two of them finally saw fit to rise. Lilica bathed while Chara stood watch, enduring the slight indignity with grace, and then sat down to a meal with her--something that did not deviate from their routine, and was actually quite pleasant. Fortunately, Lilica did not find herself haunted by demons in her peripheral or direct vision that day; she felt in control, which was a blessing, given the horrendous deed that she found herself forced to perform. During their dinner that evening, Chara, after consuming a glass of wine, dropped her fork onto the floor. That handful of seconds was all that Lilica needed to sprinkle a strong herbal concoction into Chara's second glass of red wine, so dark that the tiny fragments of herbs were obscured by the murky hue. The slightly inebriated Rigas caster did not appear to notice an off taste, in any case, as she downed the glass as quickly as the first. Lilica's heart sank into the hollow of her chest, harbouring no pride for what she had just done. Will you forgive me, Chara?
It was not long following the meal that Chara began to fade on the ornate sofa where the two of them sat; for, her head began to droop, until she could not hold it up anymore, and her eyes closed in preparation for a deep slumber. With trembling fingers, Lilica touched her lover's fair cheek. "I'm sorry... I do not know how to say goodbye," she whispered, rising to her feet. "But I will never forget you."
It was obvious by glancing out any window that the villa was heavily guarded; Adalfieri obviously did not underestimate her will to flee. But she was not out of tricks, just yet.
In spite of the fatigue that she felt deep in her bones, Lilica mustered the concentration required to summon a dark cloak to camouflage her features and form in the darkness of the night. The safest escape route was through a window, not at all a far drop from the ground, carrying her into the twilight for the second time in twenty-four hours. The air wasa cool on her face, which ran hot with trepidation as she slipped past the soldiers, making her way from the Rigas estate. She was going to make it; the cloak only need hold up until she reached the gates at the very bottom of the cliffside...
A sudden eruption of etherea over her head startled the dark mage, enough that she temporarily lost her footing--but that was not what led to her eventual arrest. Before she could fully regain her balance, she found herself surrounded by four sentries, two wielding weapons, and two casters; one who had stripped away her cloak, likely having sensed it. She was caught; her plan foiled, any hope of escape far beyond her. "You don't want to do this," she pleaded with her captors. "Let me go. Please..."
She was not set free, needless to say, but taken to a holding cell where prisoners awaiting a verdict on their sentence. It was a small chamber, not entirely devoid of light, but as far as she was concerned, devoid of hope. Lilica's already weary body was further weighed down by the enchanted shackles that bound her wrists, temporarily sealing her magic to prevent any further attempts at escape. They weakened her, both magically and physically, such that her small body slouched against the wall, with no will or ability to hold itself upright. She kept her eyes closed, conserving energy save for the few times a sound or voice prompted her to open them. Finally, her weary eyes beheld a familiar face: beautiful, livid, and concerned. Nonetheless, she greeted Chara with a small smile as the door opened and she stepped into the small cell. "Are you angry that I have become someone else's prisoner?" Humour likely had no place in this tense moment, but she could not help but make the futile attempt to lighten the gravity of the room. Chara's scowl didn't budge...
"I'm sorry, Chara. I know I owe you an explanation, maybe several. But please know that... what is going on, it has nothing to do with you. In fact, I..." Her exhausted voice broke, and had she the hydration to spare tears, she would have. "I... am doing this to protect you. From... me."
In the time that followed that unnecessary battle, Vega had come to know very little about the woman to whom she had offered her camaraderie. The first day, on helping her, limping, back to her tent to rest, the young woman had done little more but sleep, after being offered a herbal tea to ease the pain in her now well-sprained foot. The Skyknight did not see fit to bother or to rouse her, and remained patient for the next morning. Yet even then, when the foreign woman was awake and no longer in any noticeable pain, she said very little, answering questions in short, one-word replies. Her name? Eris; just Eris. From where did shed hail? From all-over, a nomad, not unlike Haraldur, it would seem. What led her desire to fight in this war? Retribution--and that was all. But Vega sensed something more about this 'Eris' from afar. As if something was unsettled deep in her core... a broken heart or broken spirit, or both. It was not her place to ask; she had learned that well from her experience with Haraldur. What was it, exactly, about this Tadasuni war encampment that attracted such fractured souls?
'Eris' was still fast asleep, the morning when Vega encountered Haraldur unexpectedly just outside her tent. He appeared worse for the wear since his fight with the woman slumbering in her tent, and she couldn't blame him. That made it twice in one week, after all, that he had come close to causing undue harm and possibly, death. It had not been a very good turn of events for one so haunted by his past and his hand... and while she was pleased that she had been able to help, she was sorry that he'd ever had to suffer it at all. "You mean 'Eris'? If that truly is her name; she hesitated when I asked her," Vega told him, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "But she is faring well. Her foot and ankle are healing, and she has been eating regular meals. She should have her strength back in no time, if her secrets do not continue to weigh her down."
Perplexed at his sudden indecision with words, she allowed herself to be led into an adjacent tent to hear our his heartfelt thanks for what she had done. But it was so unnecessary, and she would have put a hand up to stop him, if she didn't think he'd just turn and walk away. "I'd have done it for anyone in a position such as your own, or such as hers; there was no point to such a spectacle. You are both better off reserving your strength for the battles to come..."
Except he made it clear that he did not intent to be a part of those battles; news that struck Vega with surprise and despondence. "Haraldur..." The Skyknight pressed a sigh from her lungs, and her shoulders sank. "What you do is your prerogative. And I know that you do not seek my advice, but I will offer it all the same: and it is that I know you will not find peace if you continue to run away. Especially if it is the result of being put in a situation which you could not have won, regardless of the outcome of that spar. But... on the other hand, perhaps time away from war isnecessary for your own means of healing." Pressing her lips together, she refused the handkerchief that he now offered back. "Keep it. Whether as a friend or a mere ally... keep it in hopes that one day, our paths will cross again."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Chara awoke to the memory of those words, still fresh like an open wound. Her cheeks had flushed an amorous red when she heard them spoken aloud, so taken aback by an utterance that never needed a voice, for it was implied that they harbored a deep affection for each other. But she did not realize how much she wanted to hear that truth that their hearts both shared. Her ears felt tickled by the gentle breeze of that simple cadence--though she did not repeat the melody in reply. She did love Lilica, but she feared she was not ready to commit, what with factors that would separate them when the war at last ended and the family returned to peacetime politics. And she could not help but notice the tone of finality in Lilica's short confession, as if in a farewell dressed all in frills and lace.
That should have been her first clue.
And now, when her eyes opened, there was no trace of Lilica. How long had she dozed? Hours?
With rekindled verve and energy, she scoured the villa before storming outside, whereupon she heard the news from the guards on duty. Lilica had been captured as she attempted escape, and that the team responsible for her apprehension was led...by Lysander.
She could have crushed her own teeth into grist just then, but she demanded yet more details on Lilica's containment and, before they could stop her, she marched over to the holding cells. They were carved against the side of a cliff, offering a dizzying view of the drop far below, all crashing waves and jagged, spiny rocks. She smelled the sea brine as she entered the small dungeon. The guards, not under any orders to deny her entrance, guided her to the cell where inside, sat Lilica--in chains. Chara peered into the slats through the door, and her glare could have rusted those metal bars into brittle little twigs that she'd snap in twain--as practice for when she reached Lilica and her waif-like body.
"Consider yourself fortunate that the door between us is a sturdy one," she hissed, disregarding any of Lilica's attempts at lightheartedness. "Were it not, I'd have blasted it into smithereens about now--and you along with it." The two guards, watching from close-up and hearing the rancor in her words, smiled nervously and put distance between themselves and Chara, whose rage sparked in the air in a static that raised the tips of her fine blonde hair.
"Yes, I would like an explanation. Several, in fact! Why did you think to flee the estate without telling me a damn thing!?" Her hissing turned almost lethal, like it had grown sentience and reached between the bars to strangle Lilica into a confession. "If this," she lowered her voice, "is about the Serpent, the answer is not making yourself an enemy of the Rigas family by turning tail and running in the most suspicious way possible! Now they see you as some shifty adversary, and you know who will shoulder the blame for it? Me!" she almost shouted, her voice reverberating throughout the cave.
"As is, this is a horrid place for you. I daresay it is closer to the influence of the Serpent. If you have nothing else to say for yourself," she crossed her arms, her voice softening but still burning with acidity, "I will speak with Adalfieri about keeping you prisoner in a more hospitable place. And I will speak to my deadbeat father about his hand in your arrest." She frowned, severe lines contorting her mouth. "I thought the two of you were getting on well."
"...And in better circumstances," Haraldur said, finishing off Vega's statement of friendship. This time, he did not shy away from the sentiment, nor did he reject her token that she insisted stay with him. With a shallow nod, he returned the handkerchief in his pouch. "Please look after Eris, and tell her I'm sorry for everything. I wish I could have stayed...at least for her sake." With one brisk nod of conclusion, he grabbed the tent flaps and drifted back into the din of camp-life, turning away, yet again, from those so intent to extend him affection and a welcoming hand. He was running. Always running...
That night, he packed up his things and slipped out of camp with relative ease. He knew the blind spots, and had memorized the shifts and subsequent changing of the guards to be able to escape without fuss.
Once he cleared the camp and the surrounding area, he set his sights to North. Towards Mollengard. A place where he never wanted to return, but it was the only place that could calm the tumult in his hammering chest. The only place where he might find a measure of peace. He had since given up on the idea of dying in battle; his killing hand would not allow such an outcome to pass, and he was not honorable enough for a warrior's death. But at least... he might be able to wear away his days in quiet repose until his life saw fit to end on its own.
He found a ditch on the underside of a boulder that in turn was nestled into a hill, relatively hidden from view. There, he took his rest, keeping his sword slung against his chest in case soldiers or bandits found his little hidey-hole.
He was standing in a rolling field, the long, wiry grasses at his feet rippling like an ocean of green in the sweet-smelling air. Floral hints passed his nose. Flower petals drifted in the breeze. Beyond, a range of white-capped mountains appeared to stalk ever nearer to him, like behemoths whose every step counted one hundred years of human civilization. But with the stark shadows playing at the base, those movements seemed exaggerated, even expedited.
Out of those shadows emerged a figure. A very familiar one, though Haraldur did not know of him well.
"Alster?" He asked, eyeing the man's well-tailored royal blue tunic that contrasted with the drawn and frayed appearance on his calm, yet sorrow-lined face.
"So you do see me," the Rigas caster responded, nodding at himself for some unknowable accomplishment of his own doing. "This is not a magic I possess very well, so I'll be brief. This is not just a dream, so do well to remember what I ask of you."
Haraldur furrowed his brow, baffled by the entirety of this ludicrous exchange, but he said nothing, and waited for the celestial mage to continue.
"I'm still able to trace Elespeth's whereabouts with the tattered remains of our bond. She is in Tadasun's camp. This I know. And you're there, too?"
Haraldur said nothing. Alster, unperturbed by the mercenary's reticence, resumed.
"She met with you, when I was..." he lowered his eyes, but cleared his throat. "She told me that you helped return me to Stella D'Mare, and contributed in my awakening. For that, I thank you. But I need to ask another favor. I'll reward you with whatever you desire, but please," his eyes almost cracked, as if they were fine porcelain subjected to a sudden pressure, "look after her. Protect her. Make sure she stays alive. And tell her nothing of this arrangement. She musn't know...I'll one day return to her after this dreaded war comes to a close...even if she renounces me. Rejects me. And hates me. So..." his body turned transparent; it faded with the shadows, with the mountains, "please...be her shield in place of me..."
He vanished, but the desperate notes still played its sad tune across the valley.
Be her shield...
Haraldur woke with a start, clutching his sword and his chest beneath the blade. "That...was that just a dream?" he found himself uttering aloud, having no experience with significant reveries of the prophetic or even communicative variety. Mostly, he contended with nightmares, mundane snatches of the day's events, or black, barren dreamlessness. But this...this was different. It was a call for help. A request. A mission.
A purpose.
But he still had no assurances of its validity. For all he knew, it could be a holdover from his inebriated slumber, all half-crazed and drowning in the beginnings of feverish delirium.
By then, dawn filtered through the gaps in the low-lying hills. He stood and stretched, no longer able to return to sleep--suspicious of what else might linger in his subconscious, waiting for his presence.
He resumed his trek through the uninhabited fields that lay in his way to Mollengard, but did not travel far before he saw a conflagration in the distance. Curious, he crested a nearby hill for a better vantage point, and saw a small camp, ablaze, the blue and white stripes of the tents that were still in tact a characteristic feature of...
"Stella D'Mare," he huffed under his breath. He tracked his eyes and saw an encroaching army, easily twice the size of the tiny encampment, which had since moved in the time he last entered its borders. From his knowledge of the region's geography, it had moved closer to that grandiose port city, as if in retreat. But the camp did not make it close enough to Stella D'Mare before it was assailed in the night--by Messino's troops. A quiet, covert operation--a repeat of that time when they had captured Alster in the chaos of the attack.
"I have to tell Tadasun," he muttered, and descended the hill, breaking into a purposeful run.
...And found himself returning to camp, out of necessity...and out of a promise made in a dream.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Yet in spite of her fury (one that was wholeheartedly deserved), Chara still expressed the desire to speak on her behalf. To vouch for her, fight for her... which was reassuring when it appeared that, after all. Chara Rigas was truly her only friend. "Lysander... you mean your father, he..." He had known... because she had confided in him. Leaned against him like he was the pillar that she so needed, let him see her cry, even. And he had sold her confession.
A pain resonated through the chthonic caster's chest; sharp and throbbing, like a thorn stuck in her battered heart. "Whatever his reasons..." She murmured, eyes fixed on nothing in particular far in the distance. "They must have been crucial... I have no doubt."
Slumping against the cold, stone wall, Lilica looked like little more than a defeated heap of clothing and pale skin. Like her hope was slowly but surely being siphoned out of her soul. "Do whatever you feel necessary. Perhaps... the solution was available to me, all along." She held up her hands, the shackles weighing heavily on her thin wrists. "If my magic is locked, sealed, then even if the Serpent were to consume me... I would be of no real danger to anyone. It is not as though I can fight without magic." She offered a small, faint smile before Chara took her leave, triggering the smallest thread of hope in her ravaged center.
A shame, how quickly that hope would disintegrate.
She sat upon the fountain ledge with Chara, her body resting heavily against the celestial mage's, hands and fingers entwined. Awash with peace, she watched the colourful cirrus clouds move gently through the sky on a the evening's soft breeze, basking in the scenery and the company. "I don't know where life would have taken me if I had not met you," she confided in the Rigas caster, lazily trailing her fingers up and down her arm, "but it would not have been anywhere good. I think we... I truly believe, now, that this is where I belong. With you..."
Her confession was met with silence, naught but the sound of leaves and flowers rustling in the breeze. Lilica wondered if, during their quality time, Chara had fallen asleep. "Don't tell me I have bored you into slumber," she teased, her lips tugging into a bold grin. "Shall I kiss you awake?"
She shifted her weight to face the beautiful Rigas caster; just a mild adjustment of her body, but that was all it took for Chara to crumble like a lifeless doll upon the tall fountain's ledge. Lifeless azure eyes fixed upon the sky without seeing; she bled from a deep laceration across her throat, and the bodice of her lovely gown was stained a deep crimson. What was most terrible, however, was not the shock of the sight of her dead lover, but the sticky, dark substance on her hands, on her arms and in smears on her own gown, struck fear so deep into her core that I cut like a blade. "No... no no no," she muttered, scrambling to her feet as she struggled to wipe the blood from her hands. It clung like a shadow... "I did not... I could not have... it isn't real. This cannot be real!"
"The sooner you admit that it is, the faster you will be at peace." The source of the second voice was that of her own reflection, grinning triumphantly at her from the surface of the water. The ripples distorted the image into something disfigured, grotesque. "This is who you are. Find power in it, like you once did."
"You're not me. I am not... I'm not this person anymore!" Lilica's voice trembled, along with her hands as she plunged them into the water the scrub the guilt from her fingers. The attempt was futile when the water itself began to thicken and run dark as the colour of the very blood that she spilled.
Lilica screamed and collapsed in panicked hysteria...
...and when she opened her eyes again, she was surrounded by the dark walls of her holding cell, curled up upon the stone floor, drenched in sweat and shivering. And in the doorway stood Daphni, Lysander, and a handful of other sentries.
With little feeling in her tingly limbs, the chthonic mage struggled to her feet, holding her arms close to her cold body as the group looked on in concern. "You are to be relocated," one of the sentries announced in monotone. "This cell and location has somehow been deemed unfit for you."
"Of course it is. Look at her," Daphni hissed, pointing at the wretched creature in chains. "She is not fit to be kept so close to a deadly source of dark magic. I agree with Chara's appraisal; this place is... toxic."
Lilica was escorted from the cell, with Daphni accompanying the guards who led her, and with Lysander at the back. She thought long and hard about asking the question that weighed like lead on her shoulders, but ultimately, she came to the conclusion that she had nothing to lose. "Lysander..." Her voice was soft enough that only his ears were privy to the words. "I don't understand... tell me what it was that I have done to earn your scorn..."
"So he... left?"
It was the first time that the foreign young woman, Eris, had initiated a conversation with Vega since she had saved her from humiliation and certain death--which had been almost one week, passed. The Skyknight knew not to take it personally; it was more than obvious that the warrior was struggling with demons that she would rather keep under wraps, but feeling a tad slighted came naturally to the Eyraillian royalty. Sordes were known for their quick tempers, and her blood was pure.
Vega glanced over her shoulder from adjusting her roc's harness, quick, yet long enough to register the concern on Eris's face. "He? You mean the man who very nearly introduced you to death with his sword? Yes, he has been gone some days, now. He did not feel right remaining here after what he nearly did. He..." She paused, hands gripping the leather straps. "I believe he harbored a good deal of remorse. He did not want to kill you; and I daresay, it was rather unfair of you to put him in the position that nearly forced his hand. Why do you ask, anyway?"
Eris looked uneasy; healthy, stronger, but uneasy. There was colour to her face again, and the injuries that she had acquired in that fateful spar had been tended to with care, and had almost healed in entirety. And yet, she seemed none the happier for it; hadn't this been what she wanted? To be accepted as part of Tadasun's offense? evidently, there was more to it. "It's that... well, he was--he is a friend. That's all."
The pieces fell into place all at once. Vega dropped the leather harness, recalling the sleepless concern Haraldur had harboured for this woman. How it had torn him up on the inside to fight her, and given what he had confided about Arina... Gods, he thought he would nearly destroy a lover all over again... that must be it. "I'm sorry." Sighing, she turned to Eris, granting her her full attention. "Is that why you returned? To seek him out? But then... why would you insist on fighting him? If you are his... friend, as you say, then surely you'd realize how it shattered him to realize that he had nearly killed you."
"Seeking him out was not my intent in coming here; it was merely a fateful reassurance." Eris's green eyes fixed on the scuffed tips of her boots. "And now guilt is my own burden to shoulder, for chasing him away... at least I know that he can hold his own and will be safe. But that is not why I am here, right now. I suppose..." She gnawed on her lower lip, searching for the words. "I owe you thanks--and a great deal of it. For what you did for me, a complete stranger... it made me think of your offer. And that in return, I do owe you the use of my right arm and sword, if you would still have me."
"You needn't settle into the service of my kingdom, Eris; Tadasun has already accepted you as one of their own."
"And yet, it was you who showed me camaraderie the day that you saved my life; not them. Please, Sir Vega Sorde. I... I never thought I would find myself saying this again. But I would be honoured to serve you and yours."
"'Again'? What ever do you mean?" Vega's brows met in the middle. "You are a skilled warrior; and if this truly is your decision, then I gladly accept. But... just who are you, Eris from afar?"
Fortunately, Elespeth would not have had the chance to answer that question, even if she wanted to, for the sound of of deep horns to summon the troops dominated the air, as if on cue. Both she and Vega turned their heads in the direction of the amassing soldiers. "I don't understand," the latter muttered, keen eyes scanning the premises for a threat as they picked up their feet towards the sound. "We are not being invaded..."
"Which means someone else must be." Sharp lines of determination had etched themselves into Elespeth's features, and before Vega could react, she took off ahead of her. "Stella D'Mare... it must be Stella D'Mare! Come on!"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"I am not here to make amends," she clarified, crossing her arms over her chest when she spotted Daphni in the herbal garden, collecting a few specimens out of some strange avoidance of the infirmary. "But as a healer, I request that you investigate the condition of the holding cells, and find if they are in direct contribution to Lilica's continuous dip in health. Then, report to me your findings, posthaste. I shall deliver this information to Adalfieri, and appeal to him. For her self-preservation, we must keep her above ground. In the meantime, I shall wait for your return in the infirmary, with--"
"If you are looking for Alster," came the voice of the Clematis healer, having just stepped into the garden, "he is no longer in the infirmary." Chara turned around to allow Elias passage through the narrow pathways that wound through the small, well-manicured thicket of herbs and spices. She looked up, and saw that his face was absolutely gaunt and pallid. His forehead sparkled with a perpetual smear of sweat, as if he were some amphibian who necessitated the need for moist skin, lest he face death from drying out. As if to defy Chara's puckered mouth of a reaction, Elias challenged her with his bleary, yet drilling hazel gaze. Before he opened his mouth to explain Alster's whereabouts, she witnessed that Daphni had disappeared from her periphery. The Clematis healer seemed not to notice, or care. "He returned to his villa yesterday. There was no longer any reason to keep him imprisoned in that vast, lonely chamber. Now," he quirked a derisive grin, "he is imprisoned in a slightly less vast, lonely chamber."
The following day, at Chara's insistence and Adalfieri's approval, Lilica was relocated from her dripping, dank holding cell to a modest yet comfortable apartment located in the annex of Main House proper. The proximity to the Rigas Head and that of the guards' headquarters ensured a constant, rotating vigil in effect for the questionable chthonic mage, and provided a more than efficient prison should she attempt a second escape. Lysander accompanied the sentries as they coaxed the wretched shadow on the wall to a standing position, and prepared her for the short trek to her new cell.
As he oversaw the proceedings and positioned himself at the rear of the small cavalcade, yet close enough to the 'prisoner,' he expectedly awaited her disdain. Instead, he received genuine hurt and confusion reflected in the depths of her eyes, which he regarded as much, much worse than anger and hatred.
"You have done nothing," he whispered. Before continuing, he looked askance at the guards, and when he confirmed that they paid no heed to their clandestine conversation, he began his vague confession. "Chara...was in danger. I did not want this done to you--I promise you that much. But you must think of me now...as your enemy."
Unable to say any more, he followed the procession through Main House and into the living quarters of her well-dressed dungeon. The windows, while barred, offered a view of the garden below, and a filter of sunshine drifted through the cracks between the blue-velvet curtains. A light supper of breads, cheeses, and a fresh garden salad was set upon the cherry-wood table. The draping canopies belonging to a eiderdown bed peeped out from inside the room in the far corner. Lysander saw a shiver of light there, noticeable as water glinting in the noonday sun, but he chose to ignore the glimmer. While conspicuous to one well-versed in detecting concealment spells, the other guards seemed unfazed by this phenomenon.
Clearing his throat, Lysander addressed Lilica, affecting a commanding, uncompromising air. "You are to stay here until further notice. You will receive meals three times a day, and are allowed visitors--within reason. Adalfieri welcomes your request for an audience and will visit in due course. Until then," he gave her a grim, remorseful nod, "should you require anything, you need only ask." With another nod, this time to the guards, they all took their leave, closing and barring the door behind her. At first, she appeared alone. Then, after a few minutes elapsed, the shimmer in the next room grew in intensity, and materialized into a human form, huffing and coughing from overexertion.
"Haven't...done that...in years," came the sputter in the next room. "For certain, he noticed me."
After recovering from the unpracticed bout with rusty celestial magic, Alster emerged from the bedchambers, as ashen and bedraggled as before, but with a determined glint in his blue-green eyes, which, for the most part, retained a reasonable shade on the spectrum of stability. Sanity, however...was another story.
"I don't think they'll let me visit you unaccompanied," he explained, before Lilica raised any questions about his sudden presence in her new holding cell. "I know too much...and I'm a liability, to boot." He sidled near her, appraising the gossamer-thin threading of her adjustable shackles, deceptive in appearance, but as strong as well-tempered steel. "In case you're wondering...why I'm here," he began, self-consciously fiddling with the rim of his collar as it brushed against a fresh scratch on his neck, "I want...to help. With...your Serpent sickness."
Haraldur reached Tadasun's borders within the hour, to the surprise of the sentries on duty, who thought him long gone.
"We should have had you arrested long ago," one of them spat, preventing the mercenary entrance. "Your constant disappearing and reappearing acts, and your troublesome alliances...you have brought nothing but instability to this cause! And all for a smattering of information that hardly proves useful to us. I should ring the intruder alarm; have you executed at once!"
"Now is not the time," Haraldur exclaimed. "There is a fire beyond that mountain to our right. It's blowing downwind, so we can't see it at this vantage point, but Stella D'Mare's encampment...it's ablaze, and surrounded by Messino's troops. They need aid--and this would be a perfect opportunity for an ambuscade."
"And how are we to trust you at all?" chimed the second sentry, pointing his spear at the mercenary's throat. Haraldur swallowed the urge to draw his sword and hack away at the wooden shaft of the polearm, but his fingers twitched and fluttered with the desire, however much he tamped down the need to fight.
"You need only one of Eyraille's rocs to take flight and you will know for yourselves," he explained, stepping away from the jagged tip of the spear. "And...should you arrest me, or inflict upon me any punishment or death, Tadasun will be in direct violation of Eyraille's alliance, for you conspire to eliminate one of their own," he said with conviction, and only hoped Vega would vouch for his blatant, on-the-spot deception once they demanded her confirmation.
The sentries looked at one another incredulously. "Since when!?"
"Since I was given permission by them to scout the land and report on my findings--one week ago. Now," he huffed impatiently, "go find the officers--and allow me to rejoin with Eyraille's forces."
With looks of resignation, one sentry ran off to inform the officers, while the second sentry prodded him through camp by the spear-tip, delivering him to Sir Vega Sorde just as the horns blared, and just after Elespeth had fled in worry.
"This traitor claims he is with Eyraille, Sir," the sentry drawled, ignoring the chaos of the camp's call to arms and the scramble to prepare the troops. "Is this true?"
After the sentry was satisfied enough with the Skyknight commander's answer, he nodded and trotted away, shaking his head disagreeably all the way to his station. Once the sentry vanished from sight, Haraldur shot his attention to Vega, and wasted no time on anything but his most pertinent inquiries. "Where's Eris? Which direction?!"
Once more, she cast a tired glance on the regal man who, in the short time she had known him, had treated her with more kindness than the 'father' who had died by her hands. "And... do what you will to keep Chara safe. Whatever it takes..."
Left alone at last, Lilica took a seat on the canopied bed, dark eyes focused on the shackles that encircled her wrists like delicate bracelets. Yet they weighed like lead on her arms and her very being, dragging her down into a state of exhaustion that prohibited her to muster both strength and magic. It is better this way. I may not be safe, but Chara... she will be.
To her left, a sound and a flicker of light caught her attention. On her feet immediately, she poised to cast a spell in defense. This must have been a set-up: perhaps they had taken her here to be killed in secret, no longer a threat to anyone. It could have been for the best, except that, taken by surprise as she was, the possibility dawned on her that she would never get a chance to say goodbye to Chara; hell, she couldn't even defend herself, with the magic silenced in her veins. This wasn't fair! It wasn't...
It wasn't at all what she'd expected, when Alster appeared, coughing and hacking and still looking a mess. The confusion must have been spelled out in plain language on her face, for he spoke before she could question his presence in her brand new cell. "You want... to help me?" There was no confidence behind her words; she didn't even so much as flash a smile. When she had approached him for help days ago, she might have been open to this offer. But that had been back when she had still harboured some modicum of hope. "How can you, when you can nary help yourself? It is only a matter of time, now... these binds will not endure forever. Not if the Serpent has found a place in my mind..."
The dark caster took a seat once again on the bed, the mattress so high that her feet didn't even touch the ground. "I keep having these horrible visions, these nightmares... I believe they are harbingers. That I will return to being the person I thought I had left behind over seventy years ago... and destroy the people I love." The image of Chara's murdered body, limp and bleeding across her lap, had imprinted like a painful brand on her mind. Had she food in her stomach, she likely would have expelled its contents at the very memory of it. "I... I tried to leave. To put distance between myself and everyone here, for even then if the Serpent were to consume me years down the road, you would all still be safe. Alster..."
Looking at the Rigas mage's wan face felt like looking into a mirror: pale, uncertain, exhausted... they had so much in common, the two of them. And, like Lysander (even in spite of his blatant betrayal), she owed Alster for the kindness that he had offered her. Even at those times when she did not deserve it. "The real difference between you and I... you have a future. You have always been slated for something great, something significant, with or without someone like the Atvanian warrior in your life. But I am... I, on the contrary, do not belong. Not anywhere, not to anyone, when my presence is so detrimental. I have always known this, even while I basked in that brief period of normalcy... I will carry that memory with me until the end. But you..." Her dark eyes trailed down to his feet as sadness settled heavily upon her frail shoulders. "You have a purpose. And now that you are regaining your strength, unless you mean to help me escape so that I may succeed in my initial precaution... I can only suggest that you focus whatever energy you have in your reserves on something more worthwhile." Something that was not, ultimately, a lost cause...
Vega lost sight of a frantic Eris before she could catch up. The woman, one who fought at ground level, was far nimbler than she, and with longer legs, could easily outrun her. "Damnit... she doesn't know what she could be getting into," she hissed, pushing her way through the crowd. Imagine her surprise when, led by spearpoint, she encountered not exactly the person she was looking for, but the one who had managed to dominate her thoughts from the time he had left. Why had he returned? And why did the Tadasuni officers treat him like a common prisoner? These people have not the slightest sense of kinship or camaraderie...
"What is the meaning of this?" The authoritative tone, with a bite that could only belong to the Sorde bloodline, fell naturally from the princess's lips. "That you treat an ally as an enemy? Have you no regard for those who fight for you?"
"This traitor claims he is with Eyraille, Sir," the officer snarked. "Is this true?"
Taken by surprise by the claim though she was, Vega's mind did not hesitate to confirm the plea. If Haraldur needed to identify with her kingdom to reconvene with Tadasun's forces, then something must have been terribly amiss that had driven him back to a place that he had resolved so unyieldingly to leave. "Yes. This man is in fact a high-ranking officer among our foot soldiers, and receives Eyraille's loyalty and protection in return for his own loyalty. I command that you lower your weapon this instant."
The Tadasuni soldier did so, and sulked off, with nothing more to say. Turning to the ally who she thought she might never see again, the Skyknight parted her lips to inquire into what had brought him back, but Haraldur beat her to it with a desperate need to locate Eris. The strangest feeling in her chest pulled at her heart, like lead particles had formed along its surface. Of course. He returned for her... of course he would. "She has gone to see what is causing this commotion; towards the call to arms," she told the mercenary, nodding in the direction in which she had last seen Eris take off. "We can find her together. But Haraldur... why are you here? What has gone amiss?"
She was to find out soon, in any case, regardless of his answer. Eris had been right: no sooner had she reached the assembly that the commanding officers declared a state of dire emergency for the Stella D'Mare war encampment. Not only was it under siege, but it was ablaze, and the soldiers had been taken unawares. "As our allies, we are obligated to help," the officer declared, and his eyes fell immediately on Vega. "Eyraille's rocs are most suited to arrive posthaste, if Sir Vega Sorde allows it."
"Of course I condone it," the Skyknight commander agreed immediately, just as a familiar voice piped up, "I am going, too."
Eris stepped into Vega and Haraldur's line of vision, a challenging and prepared hardness to her features. "I might have left them, but as part of Eyraille's forces, I wish to join Sir Sorde in this endeavor."
It was beyond Vega to deny her, although Haraldur's hard stare at her back made her reconsider. "Your wish is not up to me, soldier. But," Vega lowered her voice, so that the sound waves reached only Eris's ears, "you might wish to consult with a comrade." Stepping aside, she cleared the short distance between Haraldur and the woman he had been so desperate to find. Immediately, Eris's face softened.
"You returned," she breathed, but there was no room for a smile in her voice. "My friend--let us lend aid to Stella D'Mare together."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He spent one more day at the infirmary, forcing down meals and going for frequent walks, denying his regular doses of the drug that Elias provided him, in a bid to convince the healer to release him--or to at least allow the return to his empty villa. With the condition that he would make frequent house calls, Elias condoned the relocation.
Upon entering into the foyer, the first thing Alster had noticed was stacked neatly on a nearby side table: the clothes and weapons that he had bought Elespeth, during that carefree moment, when nothing mattered but each other's company. When he had forgotten all that was wrong and rotten in his life. In a sea of memories, some reflected through murky, indistinguishable waters, some as crystalline and pristine as the bottom of a spring lake, the ones he spent with Elespeth shone like clear glass in the light of the sun. The accompanying glare hurt, and stung his eyes--and he almost retreated, back into that foggy, dim world with the sinister whispers. Almost--but he channeled his longing into a healthier alternative.
Instead of losing heart, he honed his magic. He surrounded himself with his father's crystals, in which was stored latent bursts of celestial magic, and he researched books and materials left behind in the villa's small library. That was when, after tirelessly working with little sleep, he managed to contact Haraldur in the world of dream--and had succeeded. It was all he could currently do for Elespeth in his absence. He only hoped that the mercenary took heed, and followed through with his request.
He hadn't much time to dwell on the results of his spotty dream infiltration abilities, however, when Chara had paid a visit, and revealed to him Lilica's unsuccessful escape and subsequent imprisonment. So, she hadn't made it to freedom, after all...
"Let me help," he told Chara, and continued before she could protest. "You do what can be done for her, and in the meantime, I'll play my part. This concerns us all. The Serpent...It must not ruin another mind." He shook his head, vehemently. "I can't let that happen."
That was when he found himself waiting in Lilica's new chambers, cloaked in a concealment spell that had fooled all--but for the one person whose presence would strip him of his disguise. Lysander... He did not know if the man would report this break-in to Adalfieri or keep silent, but Alster could not rely on the loyalties of any Rigas--sans Chara.
"I know," he admitted to Lilica, sitting beside her on the bed, once she identified him from the shimmer of his magic and processed the reasons for his visit. "I'm not...well, myself." He picked at the scratch at his neck, skinning away at the thin flesh. "But I can't wait for that day, should it ever arrive, when I wake up and find myself unburdened and...made right," he said, withdrawing his hand and staring at the fresh blood caked beneath his fingernails.
"The Serpent...It plays on our fears, and also our desires." He nodded, a wearied bob of his head, which hid away the flinch that shivered in his shoulders when she uttered aloud his very concerns. I don't want to destroy the people I love... "Somehow," he spoke into the silence, "I believe that the Serpent no longer has a hold on me. It has tried, but those whispers and those visions are wisps in the ever-growing darkness. They can't define oblivion any more than a shadow can. Everything melds together, in the end." He sighed, and tried to shake away his forlorn observations. "But I don't think the solution is to douse all the light. Simply, I think the Serpent can't hurt me because I've become immune to Its specific calling. I can identify it, even amongst all the voices that I...I hear, sometimes."
He closed his eyes, and returned his hand to the now bloody scratch on his neck. "Lilica," his voice was a soft, muffled mutter, "my future was never my own. None of it mattered to me, because it was a destiny that I did not choose for myself. In some macabre way," he opened his eyes, staring at the far wall, "...I chose the Serpent. That is now my future...and where my future ends. And as a consequence for my past actions, all I can do is fight It--and to help others fight It. I don't see what's more worthwhile than facing my misdeeds and mopping up all of the blood left in Its wake. In my wake."
"It's no longer feasible for you to run," he exclaimed, shifting the subject to their more immediate predicament. "Many times as a child, I ran from this estate. Running from that future, that destiny that I abhorred so much. I never made it far before a Rigas would apprehend me. Once, they even locked me in this very room. To 'monitor' me, as they claimed. That's why I know its secrets all so well." A ghost of a smile possessed his cracked lips. "Still, it won't do you any good to run. They'll always find you. They'll always catch you. And Adalfieri--he doesn't want you to leave, so you are here to stay unless he deems it otherwise." He looked over at her, his eyes shading over in sympathy, and in empathy. "Instead, we'll have to make do. And I think I know where we can start." He pointed to her forehead. "Where it always starts. In dream."
Before they hurried over to the horn blast denoting the call to arms, Haraldur responded to Vega's fable with a bemused frown. "A high-ranking officer? A lowly private would have sufficed. And been more plausible." But he didn't have the time to argue semantics, and the two of them rushed to the expansive field where Tadasun's army had gathered. There, Haraldur spotted Elespeth, who appealed to both Tadasuni and Eyraillian officers in her decision to join, as both armies agreed, the small task force that consisted of the rocs, which would contribute by lending aid to Stella D'Mare's camp, and the foot soldiers, who would meet Messino's retreating troops in an ambush. At the appropriate moment, Haraldur stepped out of Vega's shadow and advanced towards Elespeth, offering her the smile that she could not manage. "As penance for my wrongs," he said, sweeping his arm forward in a shallow bow, "allow me to fight by your side--till the end of this war."
Since they had agreed to take part in aiding the besieged camp beyond the hills, Elespeth and Haraldur were obliged to mount rocs, driven by experienced Skyknights, and thus separated out of necessity, as only one soldier could ride, in addition to the rider. Haraldur climbed the familiar avian and secured himself behind Vega, for the second time since their reunion of five years. He pulled the handkerchief from his pouch and, before tying it around his head, quipped, "I can understand now why you made me keep this."
The small flock of rocs took to the skies. At Haraldur's request, the roc upon which Elespeth flew would be positioned to their right, within sighting distance. Although the flight was just as exhilarating of a rush past his ears, Haraldur focused on the view ahead, at the spirals of smoke and the sparks of flame as the conflagration bore closer. At their destination, the rocs dipped downwards, low enough to the ground so that the soldiers were able to jump to the earth with relative ease, while the birds, as directed by their riders, snatched great mounds of dirt in their mighty talons and regained their altitude. Sprays of dirt, like rain, littered from the sky, sprinkling over the tongues of flame, which hissed and flickered in protest.
After having jumped off the bird, recovering enough of his footing (and equilibrium) to continue, Haraldur searched for Elespeth in the increasing amount of passengers that leapt from the rocs. By the time he reached her, she had sunk low to the ground, cradling the head of a man whose entire body was mangled beyond repair. Yet, he turned his head to glance upon her, and as Haraldur rejoined the Atvanian warrior's side, the dying man, who he recognized as the Rigas commander, sputtered words from his blood-soaked lips.
"W-why are you...here? And not with...is Alster safe?" The man coughed up gouts of blood, which did not distinguish itself from the fresh crimson running in rivulets all over his contorted, ropey limbs. "A-alive? Is he---"
"Yes," Haraldur responded, with confidence. "Alive, and safe."
"Pr..." he fought against the light, which was quickly leaving his eyes. "Protect him...Adal...Adalfieri...will...will--"
The gray in his eyes lost their luminosity. The light was gone, and Canopus was dead in Elespeth's arms...among the ruins of his once-proud camp.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Alster's sanity was, indeed, a concern that came to mind, despite his resolve to help her. He was an expert, perhaps the only thing close to an expert on the matter, but that was of no consolation to her if his judgment was clouded by the drugs in his veins, and the pain of a broken heart. And yet... what other choice did she have, but to endure this pointless incarceration? Would she ever see Chara again? Or was the celestial caster too bitter and bitten to care to pay her a visit?
"You have already seen the state of my mind," she reminded him, recalling that botched attempt the Sybaian healer had made to cleanse her darkness from the inside out. "It frightens even me. Alster, if I can nary stand against my own nature, battle my own darkness, what chance do I have resisting the Serpent? I don't... I can hardly discern what is real, anymore. You have had longer to learn the Serpent's ways, identify what differs it from the stirrings of reality. I can't possibly see what hope I left for me..."
This was precisely the sinking feeling that had descended on her as soon as she had entered Stella D'Mare, that seed of defeat that she had been nurturing and harbouring all this time, despite her coveted time with Chara, living in a dream that did not really belong to her. But... what if there was, by some stretch of fate, a chance that it didn't have to be a dream? That she could shake free of this dismal fate and continue on a path towards a possible life with Chara? It seemed like such a slim chance, but... what if Alster Rigas really was the key to reclaiming herself, if not from her own blood-bound darkness, but at the very least, from the Serpent?
"...if it... were possible... if you really could help me, then what are even the chances that I could continue to be with Chara?" For, depending on the answer, it may or may not be worth it in the end to embrace this madman's high scope ideals.
It was a scene directly out of her worst nightmares. Elespeth watched in horror from her aerial perspective upon the roc as Stella D'Mare was bathed in flames and blood. Nary a tent was left standing, and from the looks of it, what few survivors remained were barely able to stay standing own their own two feet, let alone tend to the wounded. The only comfort to be derived from this harsh tragedy (if it was at all possible to find solace in a bloodbath) was the fact that Alster had not been part of it.
The air stank of ash and burning flesh and the metallic odor of lifeblood. They had been too late, even in taking to the skies, to prevent this onslaught of death and destruction, but they could at the very least tend to those who were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be grasping the last threads of their life.
Canopus, as it turned out, was one such person.
"No... no, no, please no." The former Atvanian knight hurried over to the old Rigas caster's mangled form, and gently took his head into her lap. He was still breathing, raspy, fluid-filled breaths, but for how long... "Canopus. It... it will be all right. We have Eyraille's rocs; we will usher you to Stella D'Mare, you will have the best care..."
She knew, however, how futile her words rang. Sad defeat reflected in the dying man's tired, grey eyes, and without realizing it, she grasped his weathered hand. "The Rigases need you..." She whispered, just before his bloodied lips choked out word that cut her straight through her injured heart: Why are you... not with Alster... Why, indeed. But as much as she wished she could offer an explanation, she was certain that in his distressed and rapidly fading state, he would not understand. "I am sorry." Was all she offered, tears streaking her cheeks before she echoed Haraldur's words. "He is safe. I promise he is safe... Adalfieri will see to it, surely." At least, that was how she interpreted the Rigas commander's last words, before the light left his eyes, and she found herself weeping over a body, not a person. One of the only Rigases who had accepted her presence, her help, and her involvement with Alster... and now, he was gone.
"W-we need to take him to Stela D'Mare," Elespeth pled, her shoulders shaking with sobs as she sought Haraldur's gaze, craving reassurance. "He deserves... to be buried, to be regaled with honour. Th-they will want his... remains..."
"It may not be safe, warrior," came Vega's words instead. The Skyknight approached, covered from chest to ankles in blood that was not her own, supporting the weight of a wounded Sybaian healer whose ankle looked shattered beyond repair. She was barely even conscious. "To fly to Stella D'Mare will attract too much attention. A small band of Tadasuni have been sent to inform Stella D'Mare of the details, here; they should return with healers and horses posthaste. But I do not advise we intervene any further beyond providing first response medical aid to tide over the wounded while they wait."
"We cannot just leave him!" The warrior countered with vehemence. "We can't... we cannot..." Overcome with grief, she folded her body over the fallen form of Canopus and wept, and Vega could only look on with pity and concern... She has lost so much... it is no wonder she and Haraldur need one another, now. So why, then, was she rendered feeling so empty, herself? Why, when she commanded an army of aerial warriors and was wont for nothing, especially compared to Eris? You have nothing to grieve for, Vega Sorde. You have no right to feel alone. You have no room to be weak.
"Be there for her," She murmured to the mercenary as she passed, pressing a soft sigh from her lungs. "She needs somebody. I... I will help see to the wounded, here. The dying... they should not have to die, alone."
And so she left Eris in Haraldur's care and tended to the wounded, binding bleeding lacerations and setting bones and helping them eat and drink what little they could. And for those beyond hope, she sat with them quietly until their hands went limp and the light left their eyes. You have no right to grieve. "Whoever you are," she whispered, to a young soldier whose life had recently slipped away with his spilled lifeblood, his hand still warm in her own, "I am sorry that I could not be there for you when you most needed it. But I am here for you now." It is not enough.
Doing all that they could, only a small handful remained with the victims of Stella D'Mare's encampment until denizens from the city would arrive to collect their wounded and their dead. Vega, Eris and Haraldur were not among those who remained, returning instead to Tadasun, where they relayed the details of the massacre to the rest of the army. Vega disappeared as soon as she landed, conferring with few and seeking the presence of no one, until much, much later that evening.
"I left him alone... I left them all to die, I abandoned them. What if Alster had been among them..." Elespeth murmured Haraldur, who had seen her back to her tent that evening. "Canopus died resenting me... he must have..."
Those were the thoughts on her mind until at last she fell asleep on her cot, brow furrowed with worry and sorrow. It wasn't long after that someone else appeared at the flaps of her tent, red hair damp and hanging in wavy, copper ringlets from the bath she had taken to cleanse the day from her skin, and eyes tired and rimmed red. At least she was no longer covered in blood. "How is she?" She inquired, avoiding eye contact with Haraldur in case it was obvious that she had taken to a good deal of red wine that evening to wash the events of the day from her mind. It was a miracle that she was coherent and standing upright. "If you don't mind me asking, as her friend... what ties does she have with Stella D'Mare? She does not seem adept in magic, not to mention her accent suggests her foreign nature... after how she reacted to the massacre, it just made me wonder."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
It was no secret, but it was certainly strange for the Rigas head to share a sudden interest in an energy that opposed the celestial, a dreaded art long considered corrupt and sinister, ignoble and deceitful. The man was always an enigma, never one to unveil intentions and opinions, but by favoring the chthonic so indiscriminately when he seldom coveted anything before, the entire operation began to color itself in a suspicious, alarming shade of red.
Alster bit his lip, but continued on in his flat drone. "I won't try and bolster you with false hope. The Serpent is an ancient, otherworldly entity that, as far as we know, is invulnerable, and cannot be killed. We are fool to believe that, even with our generous inheritance of magic, we could bat away the hypnotic pull of Its persuasion with ease." He sighed. "You are right. I've had decades of experience with the creature, while you have little defense or expectation. But maybe, with my experience, I can cull, lessen, or even divert Its dealings with your mind. I'll have to consult with Daphni about this procedure, for we'll have to explore the inner trappings of your subconscious core...and often." And if I can, I'll take it all into myself. I'll absorb the darkness. It belongs to me...
Standing to his feet, he directed his gaze at Lilica, but with his faraway eyes, it looked as though he stared through her, seeing her nightmares and speaking only to them, in that netherworld to which he crossed. "It's unknowable." A bottomless sorrow drenched his words. "Will we ever gain what we truly desire? Adalfieri wants me to wed Chara. It's been arranged, for over forty years. But if I didn't believe that one day I might reunite with...with," he stared down at his scarred right hand and balled it into a tight fist. "...Sometimes we have to deceive ourselves in order to live. Keep deceiving yourself. If you fall now, then you'll never know if the lies you planted have bloomed into truths." He turned away from the dark mage to face the barred window. "I'll return later, and then we'll get started." With concentration, he crossed through the bars of the window--and vanished from sight.
In a careful yet firm grip, Haraldur helped Elespeth to her feet, and twisted her shoulders so that her attention was directed on him. "Look here. Listen to me," he said in a patient, almost filial timbre. He squeezed her shoulders, a gesture meant to exude comfort and support. "Help me tend to the wounded in this camp. We have to focus on the living. They need us. We can do nothing here but wrest in our own defeat. Do you understand? We are not yet dead. You are still alive. But others may not be so fortunate."
As she rose, he slung his arm around her back, and guided her into the smoke-pillared avenues of the ravaged camp. While the fires had been smothered, the blaze, seemingly supernatural in design, raced across every corner of camp and gorged on the canvassed minarets and supply wagons and on soldiers, its amorphous body distended from the feast and in want of more. It was not satisfied, even when it swallowed the whole of camp, but having no more fuel to guzzle, the fire had died and was buried, its gray-black ghost now haunting the burnt remains of its conquest in steady, wispy streams.
Together, Elespeth and Haraldur searched for the living among the mounds of blood and bone and bubbled, black flesh. Among them, they found three still alive under a pile of debris: two Clematis healers and what appeared to be a Rigas caster, her body covered in burn blisters and one eye melted shut. After administering immediate aid and deeming them fit enough for movement, they delivered the wounded to the rocs and Skyknights, who in turn flew them to Tadasun's camp for better, more effective treatment. Haraldur and Elespeth took the last rocs back with the rest of the recovery team, having exhausted all possible efforts to salvage the site, the dead, and the injured.
Shortly after returning to base, a bit of good news flitted through the busy encampment. Tadasun had succeeded in dealing a heavy blow to Messino's retreating forces, but they did not give chase for long, fearing that a trap awaited them within the bowels of Andalari's territory. After clipping down a large swath of the enemy, Tadasun's small unit returned to reconvene with the rest of the army at camp.
Haraldur, meanwhile, ushered Elespeth into her tent, and stayed with her for the remainder of the day and well into the evening. He brewed her hot tea and draped a blanket over her shoulders. Joining her on the cot, he massaged the knots in her back with tender kneading motions, listening to her words and offering his arm in case she drifted to sleep against him.
"You didn't leave them to die," he assured her, repeating affirmations to oppose her doubt and guilt. "Alster is safe in Stella D'Mare. The Rigases won't make the mistake of sending him back to the front so soon after his convalescence. And Canopus..." It almost sounded like the old, grizzled commander was trying to send them a warning, but he wasn't certain, "died with his men. He died fighting." Something which I will never experience...
After Elespeth had eased into slumber, Haraldur placed her head upon the pillow of her cot just as Vega stumbled into the small tent. Knowing well the nonverbal and physical signs of a drunkard, he merely nodded his head in acknowledgement and offered her the chair in the far corner, pulling it close to the cot and where he sat at its edge.
"She's sleeping, at least. And I was able to coerce her into drinking some tea. No solid food, though." He paused in his report and cocked his head at her question, wondering if he was in any liberty to discuss the nuances of Elespeth's private life while she was unconscious and unaware, especially as her relationship with a Rigas was considered a taboo and could subject the warrior to defamation of character. "That is for her to tell you, when she's ready. All I'm able to say, from my own observations, is that she was closely allied with a caster of Stella D'Mare, a dear friend of hers, though I no longer know the details of that alliance. But she's still loyal to him...and he to her."
He wiped Elespeth's troubled brow, glistening with perspiration, with his handkerchief, sighed, and returned his attention to Vega. "...Do you have any more of that wine?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The former Sybaian healer had not left the safety of her modest dwelling since the news had reached her ears. The carnage and the blood and the bodies, and the devastatingly low number of survivors, none who had escaped entirely unscathed. And the entire sect of her former clan...
Gone. A handful left wounded, by the majority killed or engulfed by the flames, Sedra among them. It shouldn't have matter to one who had left the sect of her own free will, but the fact remained that Daphni Adela could not erase all those years of her life spent among her former clan. They were as close to a family as she had ever had, and though they had established dire differences between them, to have them suddenly wiped from the face of the earth upon which they walked... it felt surreal. It felt unbearable, unlike any loss she had ever had to endure since the death of her own mother.
It was hard to function. She felt both heavy and empty, lost yet with no destination, and unbearably helpless. Time passed as she sat next to the window, knees pulled yup to her chest, hunger and thirst not once occurring to her. It wasn't until a curious and unexpected visitor came knocking, and entered without verbal consent, that her hours upon hours of heavy solitude was interrupted. "Alster Rigas." Daphni enunciated his name as if she were trying it out for the first time, pale blue eyes still fixed on the window in which his image reflected like a ghostly apparition. "I cannot even begin to divine the reason for this audience."
Of course, the Rigas caster filled her in, surprisingly more coherent and more full of hope than she had seen him since before he had fallen victim to Vitali's spell. There was no arguing that something about him was still off; his mannerisms, his nervous habits, those scratches on his neck, and yet... That resolve, as he explained how he sought her help for something very specific (and very dangerous), was unyielding and steadfast, as if the emotionally unstable man might actually know what he was doing--and be on to something.
At least, that was what she might have thought, had the former Sybaian been so optimistic. "My greatest advice to you, Rigas caster, is to turn away from this plan altogether." Pulling her knees to her chest as she sat in the window seat, Daphni stared without really looking at the picturesque sunset. "Especially without the aid of an empath. We have already tried and failed to reach the core of what troubles the dark caster, let alone the added influence of the Serpent, of which I know very little... Lilica D'Or holds tight to some core belief that she is innately terrible. To vanquish that belief is to find it, and I doubt even she would recognize it if she saw it. However... were it possible to see success in such a feat, I believe that might grant her the distance between her and the Serpent's influence that she so requires. To recognize herself--her true self--is likely the penultimate tactic in recognizing the manipulations of the Serpent. Still..."
Looking away from the window, her tired features faces the Rigas mage, who, for once, harboured more faith than she. "I cannot guarantee the results, and I am in no state to be of any help to you, or to anyone else. Your greatest advantage, if you do plan to go through with this, is that you have already witnessed the chthonic caster's psyche. The door is therefore already open for you; but the task remains as to how to enter--and exit--unscathed, the both of you. And for that... for that, I am unable to provide you with any more answers."
The hard glass of the vial clutched in her palm, that last resort escape route that Elias had given her (and for which he resented her), was the only reassurance that kept the empath grounded, even as she spoke to Alster of potential hope. Because hope was all a theory; and she could no longer rely on theories. "Nonetheless, I wish you well and the best... and for what little hope I have left, I do hope you find the outcome that you seek."
Vega nodded grimly, understanding the need for privacy. Perhaps it was something that Eris would tell her in time... but for now, she did not have the same connection with the warrior as did Haraldur. She did not, in fact, have such an intimate connection with anyone. Just another segment of the burden she bore, as a result of her past decisions. "Of course," she agreed, running a hand through her damp, copper locks. "The fragility of friendship... and of love, in times of war, is a sure source of pain. I wish I could tell her I can empathize, but..." But the truth was, loyalty did not equate to friendship and camaraderie. And when even her own brother resented her, it was difficult to feel anything but isolated in a crowd.
Nodding at Haraldur's unexpected request for wine, the Skyknight led him back to her tent, where a tall, dark bottle sat, only half full, upon a small table. Filling a glass with maroon liquid, she handed it to the mercenary, and contemplated another for herself. "I do feel for Stella D'Mare's loss... the damage was significant. All the worse when there was all but nothing we could do... Many of the wounded have already died in our care. Their injuries were too far beyond the skills of Tadasun's healers..."
Convinced that she was not yet numb enough to sleep dreamlessly, Vega ultimately poured herself another glass of wine, her tired body collapsing in the wooden chair angled towards the table. "It puts things in perspective, makes me think... what if that had been Eyraille? What if, in my absence, the people who I fight for lay on the ground, spilling their own blood? While I am here, fighting for people who are not mine... I do not know if I could forgive myself. I do not think it would be possible. What if..."
Expelling a long sigh, she drained half of her glass, before deflating like a sack without air or bones, resting her head atop her arm. "I have already let them down... were anything to happen to them, I do not think I could call Eyraille my home, anymore. And yet I leave them only partially defended, in hopes that Tadasun might one day stand for us, as we stand for them. What am..."
Bit by bit, her eyes began to close, succumbing to the soothing weight of red wine in her veins: heavy, warm, numbing... "What am I even doing here... when my brother needs me. He might resent me... but he needs..."
Vega's thought remained unfinished as her tongue grew too heavy to form words; seconds later, she was plummeting into a solid, dreamless sleep.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"What happened?!" The artificial calm pumped into himself by Elias had diluted its influence from his bloodstream, which allowed the burgeoning mania to arrest his heart. "What is...what--"
Chara eased up on his arm and turned her head toward him, revealing her puffy, bloodshot eyes and careworn face. Alster swallowed his dread, and reached an unhindered, yet quaking hand to her, resting it gently upon her lap.
"The encampment," she muttered, but with a resonance that vibrated in his ears. "Canopus...and Danos. Tivia. The healers. The Rigas volunteers. They are...they are all..." she grabbed his hand. "They are gone. They are gone, and now...Messino is asking for our surrender. Adalfieri...he plans to agree on the terms. All of Old Town, besieged. Surrounded on all sides by Andalarian loyalists. And our ties with Tadasun--severed. We," she tightened her eyes closed, "we have lost."
It was, at recovering from the wake of that crushing, suffocating news, that Alster visited Daphni, all the more determined to wrench open the slightest sliver of an opportunity for a miracle. For an answer that would deliver him out of the encroaching claws of ultimate despair. Those claws constantly raked his throat, digging ever deeper, leaving bloody streaks across the surface of his raw, raw skin. He picked away at the raised flesh, twisting away at the flakes that clung to him like translucent leaves on a tree.
He listened to the former Sybaian's expertise, all the while staring at the vial of dark liquid that she held with a sort of desperate finality. We are all losing the battle. Not to Andalari, but to ourselves...
"I will not abandon this plan," Alster said, with an edge that many, including himself, thought long gone, buried beneath heartbreak, forgotten memories, and mind-altering injections. "The majority of D'Marians may not consider the Serpent an immediate danger, but It is, and can easily leech power from those who are most vulnerable. If I sit by and do nothing, then Lilica not only will be lost, but that creature will rebuild Its strength, and will expedite the inevitable breaking of the blood seal that binds It to this land. This is no matter of choice; this is necessity. If you do not wish to help, and I understand that it is not your responsibility, then grant me the knowledge so that I may stand even the most minuscule chance of success. That's all I ask."
Once satisfied enough by Daphni's response, he nodded, lifting his gaze to meet her tortured expression. "I have failed in everything. In family, in duty, in decency, resilience, sanity, and," he rubbed his blood oath scar, "in love. I won't fail in the sole reason I was conceived. I won't fail in magic. Otherwise," he laid the nubs of his nails, cut short to prevent further scratching, against his stinging neck, "what else do I....why else...am I still here? In this world?" His hand fell limp at his side, swinging in figure eights in a futile attempt to answer his question. He watched the infinity knots and whorls, mesmerized by those invisible strokes in the air. "I'll find that core," he said, mostly to himself. "I may know what to look for. I...I think I've seen it, before. I'll make this work. I have to. ...I have to."
No more failures. No more. No more...
"Take care, Daphni," he said, nodding towards the vial she tried to hide from his view. "We already have too many casualties. Please...leave here--before it's too late." The faraway look returned to his sea-green eyes. "This city...is damned."
On entering Vega's tent, Haraldur took a seat on the cot and accepted the proffered glass of wine, sipping it in silence as he watched the exhausted Skyknight slump in her chair and sink into the dregs of her vanishing mind. Forgoing any sort of etiquette, he emptied the glass in seconds and refilled his second helping to the brim. "Don't fall into hypotheticals, Vega. 'What ifs' are useless to us, here. There's enough to worry about, without foisting a nonexistent threat on to yourself. Just..." He removed himself from the cot and led her over to the thin, battered mattress. "Rest." She fell against the pillow without any additional persuasion. Pulling the glass out of her slackening grip before the container and its burgundy liquid sloshed to the ground, he finished its remains and set it upon the table. He pulled the blanket up to her neck, as he did earlier with Elespeth, and, after taking one more swig of her wine, blew out the candle that illuminated her tent, and wandered back into the night, too numb to feel anything but the coarse pathway at his feet and the torch-fire that played a delicate, lambent warmth on his face.
He returned to Elespeth's tent and fell asleep on the cold, hard floor--and the chill kept him company.
A bit of positive news sprinkled the camp. Tivia Rigas, the only Rigas to survive the massacre at her encampment, was slated for recovery, albeit a painful process that would leave her permanently disfigured. The healers of Tadasun reassured the conscious caster that she did not sustain any life-threatening damage from the fire that ravaged the left half of her body, frying her silver-blonde hair into cinders and melting her ruined eye closed. But Tivia made no indication of hearing their diagnoses nor of her improving condition. She turned her one good eye forward, at the crack of light from the outside that streamed into the inviting darkness of her tent, and the sunbeams that touched her seared flesh reignited that memory anew. The memory of burning alive.
She screamed, a foreign sound in a camp mostly populated by men. It carried through the sunlit crack and penetrated the world beyond, an earth-rending sound that interrupted the morning minituae of soldiers who wanted only to steep themselves in routine, and not turn to answer the hauntings at their camp. Instead, they crossed themselves and hurried along, while others lingered at the entrance to the tent, curious but too shy, too afraid, to approach a pained woman's cry.
One brave hand sewed the flaps of the tent together and the screams, eventually, muffled into silence.
"What's going on?" a voice signaled from the small crowd. Haraldur had joined the menagerie, regarding them with half-narrowed eyes.
"It's that dratted Rigas woman you dragged from the fire," one soldier spat and simultaneously shuffled his feet in discomfort. "We can't send her back to Stella D'Mare in this condition. An' she's frightening all our dogs with that wailing!"
"That can't be helped," Haraldur said, sighing in frustration. "How did you expect she would react, considering what she's suffered?" His steely glare cut through the feet-shuffling men as he walked past. "I'll fetch a healer."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Alster was right: it was high time she left and put an end to all of the shared pain that came at her expense. At least she finally had the courage to do it. The little vial in her hands, warm from clutching it as her will struggled to do what needed to be done, began to feel as heavy as her shoulders and head, so much that she feared she would drop her only hope of escape before she could take advantage of Elias's last (albeit reluctant) act of kindness for her, and so at last she averted her attention from the brilliant golden sunset. That tiny glass container seemed so harmless, so incapable of snuffing out life in contrast to the heavy blades and offensive magic to which she had borne witness this past handful of weeks, it was hard to believe that its purpose was ultimately more effective than hacking off a limb and bleeding out.
If I do not do this now... she thought, her heavy heart racing more quickly than what should have been capable for it, then I might never find the courage again, and merely go on suffering. It had to end now.
Daphni's fingers trembled as she tugged at the cork at the top. Sensibly, it was stuck fast, so that the its lethal contents did not accidentally spill, but in pulling too hard, she feared it might go flying and seep out, all the same. "Come on..." she huffed, shaky fingers pulling carefully at the cork up top. "Please... I need this. I need to do this now..."
With every fruitless second that wasted her frail effort, the former Sybaian healer's resolve began to crumble. That steadfast determination to die, now that death was literally in her hands, was not stuck as tightly as that cork; it waned until finally, just as she thought her trembling grip might best the stop at the top of the vial, all the strength in her hands gave way, and the poison-filled vessel fell harmlessly into her lap, its contents still safely contained.
Daphni wept. There was little else to do in her grief but bemoan both her circumstances, and the fact that she simply could not take her own life. Elias is right... I am a coward, after all. The Clematis healer had been right about a lot, it seemed, especially of late... Perhaps, then, it was time for her to formally admit defeat.
Dragging her heavy body from where it had been sitting for hours, she left her humble abode for that of Elias's, whether he wished to see her or not. Knocking on the door, she waited for the Clematis healer to answer, and was taken aback by how his illness seemed to have progressed. Had she been there for any other reason, she might have commented on it, but that was not her motive. And he had likely long grown tired of her pointing out what he already knew, far better than her. "I won't keep you. In fact, I do not plan to stay long at all..." Reaching for his hand, she opened her own palm and returned the vial to its rightful owner. "You win. If I cannot go through with it now, after everything that I have lost... then I will never find the courage to put an end to my pain. Not like this, at least..."
Swallowing the subsequent tears that threatened, she took a step back, focusing so intently on the floor beneath her feet that her gaze alone could have burned a hole through it. "But I am leaving. I cannot... this place has nothing left for me. It is destroying me, and I am not ready to be destroyed."
Daring to look up, to meet those intense Hazel eyes, Daphni offered a nod--and a silent apology. "I will make it easier for you to forget and to erase me. But I do wish you well, in your health and further endeavors... Goodbye, Elias."
Elespeth was not deaf to the screams that cut through the air from one of the medical tents. Although she was not a healer, and her knowledge in the practice was limited, Haraldur had failed to convince her to spend her time convalescing instead of tending to the wounded. At the very least, she was able to give them water to ascertain they were hydrated, help those with injured limbs eat, and overall provide what little comforts that was in her realm of capability. These people had fought alongside her, at one point; they might resent her for her desertion, but she still felt an obligated ghost of camaraderie to them... This was, quite literally, the least she could do for those who had fought and suffered in her selfish absence.
And, of course, it came to her attention that no one cared to tend to the screaming woman in the lone tent, for her hysterics. She might have shied away from the task, as well, were in not for overhearing Haraldur's conversation with some of the Tadasuni. "Rigas..." Her breath caught in her throat. Chara? But she couldn't... it couldn't be, not with Alster in the state in which she had left him. Chara would not leave his side, surely.
But what if she was wrong?
Lips pressed together and heart racing, the former knight pushed past the tent flaps, and was ashamed to exhale in relief when it became clear that the burn victim was not Chara. "Tivia?" She breathed, before noticing how the distraught woman cringed from the sunlight. Promptly shutting out the daylight and tying the flaps in place, Elespeth rushed to the Rigas woman's side and took her one uninjured hand. "Tivia--it's me. Ta-... Elespeth Tameris. But they know me here only as Eris..."
After a moment, as soon as recognition sunk in, Tivia's hysterics subsided into mere breathless distress, and Elespeth dared to pick up a cool wash cloth and gently apply it to the side of her burned face. "Tivia... I am so sorry. For what you have suffered, for... for leaving. You did not deserve this; no one did."
Lowering the cloth, she dipped it into the cool water and reapplied the newly chilled rag to the poor woman's burns, in gentle pats. "You should let the healers tend to you," she advised in a gentle tone, when it appeared the Rigas caster had reached a suitable level of calm. "Some of the Clematis are here; I have seen what they can do for burn wounds, they could be of great help..."
But she will never be the same. Even if her wounds healed, even if the fire had not left her disfigured, nobody ever really, fully recovered from a tragedy such as what had befallen Stella D'Mare.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Consequences. Too many consequences stemmed from this ill-planned coup, and Elias was wasting away in the middle of it all, awaiting his death in the most tragically poetic manner.
Is this what I deserve, Eight-Colored god? Elias prayed, clasping his clammy hands together and starring feverishly at the window to the right of his grandiose four-poster bed. Is this your retribution? It is far too late for me to change. Too late for me to awaken. In the end, I lost it all. Even if I should find a cure, and I circumvent death--what then? I am trapped, fated to repeat history a second time. If this is a test of my tenacity and faith...then I am afraid I have already failed.
With difficulty, Elias rose from his knees, clutching the end of the bed's post for support. The breath wheezed from his lungs and a disconcerting pressure unseated his already poor equilibrium. Construction on the safe house had come to a halt, but the Clematis healer made routine visits to the site, sitting cross-legged on the grass and attempting to meditate. The small patch of land was his alternate medicine, the equivalent to his herbal concoctions that steadily lost potency as his condition worsened. But now that security at the estate and in Old Town proper tightened its grappling hold, his sojourns to the healing haven would come to a brisk end. Soon, he would face the fast-approaching inevitability of death. And he, for the first time since he contracted that accursed disease, began to resign himself to the idea.
A knock on the door jarred him out of his thoughts. He reached the latch with faltering strides, feeling every shiver and feeble-footed shuffle of his movements.
He was not surprised to see Daphni standing on the other side of the doorjamb. But he was surprised to see her return the untouched vial of poison. Plucking the little amber container from her outstretched hand, he scrutinized the glass, warm to the touch from her body heat. His appraisal of it gave him an excuse not to look her in the eye as she vocalized her goodbyes.
But she also vocalized his little victory over her--and he could not help but offer her a triumphant smirk.
"So you have at last come to your senses," he said, his voice raspy and feeble, like pebbles breaking on the shore. "I thought for certain I would find you dead on the floor of your chambers before long. I do not like to admit any errs in my judgment, but for this, I am relieved to be wrong."
He pocketed the vial before she changed her mind about returning the poison. "Where will you go?" He swung the door wide, and invited her inside. "...do you have time for some tea, perhaps? Now that you are no longer slated for death," his smirk returned, "there is no reason for me to treat you as though you are a non-entity. ...Nor should I have, in the first place," he muttered, almost inaudible under his rattling breath. "Not when I will soon be my own ghost, and erased from this world."
Tivia, in her hysteria, could not identify the dark figure that approached her with intent. She appeared from the sliver of light that waxed and waned with her eclipsing shadow. The Rigas caster squinted at the shoots of filtered sun, calming like the eye of the storm as she remained frozen, uncertain, and unblinking.
Some form of recognition crossed the unmarred half of her ruined face. The rest remained contorted and grotesque, a patchwork of that senseless massacre branded forever and for all to see. As the flaps closed and the blanketed darkness returned to the space, and that storm-eye calm, that wary and false calm, transitioned into some semblance of relief. She knew this woman! Elespeth Tameris--Alster's beloved warrior. Dirty, uncouth, insufferable--a groveling worm unworthy of the dirt under which she writhed. Such were Chara's words, but Tivia knew to never challenge them, especially when her commander was riled into one of her wrathful moods. Elespeth, through Chara's glowing disapproval and scorn, was by association disliked...and not to be trusted.
Yet...
Tivia scampered from the warrior and the dampened rag, a hiss rumbling low in her throat. But before she reached the end of her cot and toppled to the floor, the cloth pressed against her face, and the hiss transformed into whimpers of pain, which left her a trembling mass of shivers and dry sobs.
"Stop," she begged, arching her head away from the agonizing pressure. "I do not like it. Stop...STOP!."
She swatted at the warrior, knocking the rag out of her hand. Crouching on the bed like a wild animal, she stared with an unflinching eye, her stance vacillating between two extremes. Trust? Or chase?
Hurt. She brings hurt. She brings pain. She brings memory of a time that is dead. All dead. All dead. Dead dead dead...
She cupped her hands over her ears. Another scream rang out, a wail with such power that its lash and pierce seemed ready to carve chunks out of her lacerated throat. The tent flaps from beyond eased, fanned outwards, and in walked two more figures.
A Clematis healer rushed to Tivia's side, waving both Haraldur, who brought him, and Elespeth out from the tent. With a light press upon her arm, the mercenary led the Atvanian warrior from the bereaved keening of a woman who had lost her mind to that day. To that time where nothing else existed but the fire and the flesh. And the fall.
"The healer will do what he can for her," he reassured Elespeth once they passed earshot of the heartbreaking screech of Tivia Rigas. "Did you know her well? It may help for her to see a familiar face, but I don't know if she's ready yet. To remember..."
As they continued to bridge the distance between the tent and themselves, a Tadasuni envoy approached them, but swerved towards and addressed Elespeth exclusively.
"I've just come from Stella D'Mare," he informed her, stiffening in her presence as if still uncomfortable in regarding her as a warrior. "Before I left, a Rigas approached me. Told me that this is yours and that I should give it to you." He raised his arm, revealing a well-dressed sword, in near-pristine condition, cocooned inside its sheath. "He was insistent about it. Told me that if anyone else used it, it'd blow up in their faces." He pressed it into her hands, as if eager to rid of it should the threat be true. "I'd want nothing to do with it, anyway. It's enchanted." He soured his face at that, then without another word, trotted back to whence he came.
"Well, now we know that Alster is safe," Haraldur said, viewing the sword and Elespeth with a small smile. "And that he wants you to be safe, as well."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Taken aback by the gesture, the former Sybaian hesitated, before stepping inside, going no further than the doorway at first. "I accept, although I am not sure how long I can... how long I should stay." Stepping inside just enough for him to allow the door to close, she clasped her hands in front of her, feeling odd to be welcomed in his home, and not like she was imposing on him; but it did not make her uncomfortable. Nonetheless, Daphni Adela, since her excommunication from the Sybaian clan, had begun more and more to resemble that of a flower struggling to survive without ample sunlight: faded, tired, wilting. Even a positive (albeit smug) attitude from someone so typically cynical as Elias was not enough to change that. It was something that she and the Clematis healer now had in common.
"I anticipate a nomadic lifestyle; there is nowhere I will ever feel at home, but provided the environment is safe... that it does not cut away at what little resilience I have left, then it should suffice." Her eyes wandered her colleague's abode as he poured tea, taking in the extravagance of the furniture that he likely had not requested, himself. "I suppose... a life of solitude is the only way that someone like me will survive, lest the world otherwise extinguish my flame. Perhaps that is why the Sybaia live the way they do; they would rather use themselves up in the presence and care of their kin, than live a long life completely alone. Frankly, I do not know what it worse, but... I know what is left for me."
Accepting the mug that he offered, she let the beverage warm her hands and took a seat on a floor cushion. "I do hope the city comes through for you in completing that safehouse on the land that I suggested... it may not be the cure you are looking for, but it will do more good for you than sitting around, here. Even if there is no roof, I hope you at least continue to take advantage of it, while you can. Before this entire place crumbles under the weight of war..."
She did not refute his dismal prognosis; Elias did not look well, did not sound well. And he knew better than anyone the intuition behind his longevity. Perhaps this decision was, then, the best for the both of them. That way, he would not need to worry over the result of her fate... and she would not have to remain to watch him wither into nothing. She wasn't sure she could bear it, even if the nature of their camaraderie had always been fluid, and always in question.
"If this is the last time I will see you, then allow me to at least offer you a small bit of reprieve; I still maintain my magic does not harm... but if you are so certain of your imminent demise, then it shouldn't matter, should it?" Her lips curled into a weak, albeit smug grin as she put down her barely touched drink and reached towards him, pressing the pads of her five fingers to Elias's sternum. Closing her eyes, she took in a breath, and the her hand ached as it absorbed the pain in his chest. His lungs cleared, however temporarily, granting him a sense of peace and normalcy that would not last. "At the very least, it is reassuring to see your aura another colour than broken shades of grey."
"Tivia... Tivia, it's all right. It's going to be all right..." Despite Elespeth's every genuine effort, there was no consoling the terrified and devastated Rigas caster, for what little was left of her sound mind. The warrior could relate to that utter peak of despair; there was no way around it, no way to avoid it... Only to see it through, to the very end. To a point where there were no tears left in your eyes, and no screams left in your lungs.
She could recall that state of hysteria well, the night that she had finally fallen to pieces over the tragic death of her brother. A pain that only Alster Rigas had ultimately been able to soothe...
But she was no Alster to Tivia Rigas. The woman hardly knew her... and, perhaps, there truly was no one who could soothe her pain the way that Alster had soothed Elespeth.
Helpless but to endure her screams, the Atvanian saw little choice than to leave by request of the Clematis healer, who was promptly followed by a Sybaian, into Tivia's tent. There was little doubt that the distraught Rigas would have the absolute best care possible... and yet, there was no guarantee that it would be enough. I am so sorry, Tivia...
"No. I do not know her particularly well... no better than any other Rigas," she told Haraldur, her shoulders in a defeated slump. "But I may well be the closest thing to familiarity that she has, here. And it will not be enough."
Gaze downcast with fatigue, it took a moment for Elespeth to register that the Tadasuni official who had approached them was addressing her; and as soon as she saw the sword in his outstretched arms, she knew why. Something tore anew in her broken heart as she retrieved the weapon from the man, and acknowledged him with a brief nod. "Rest assured, as far as I know, impulsive detonation is not characteristic of this sword," she told him with a half-grin. Of course Alster would threaten something so ludicrous, so as to ascertain the sword ended up in the right hands. "But thank you. I am more familiar with this blade that the ones crafted here... I think I can be more useful to you with it."
When the soldier departed, the warrior's shoulders slumped, and the sword felt almost too heavy in her arms. She strapped the scabbard across her back for fear she would drop it, otherwise. "Of course I am glad that he is safe," she sighed, wishing not to dwell long on the subject. "But he would do best to forget me and disregard my safety... as I would be far better off forgetting him. It is time that I moved on with my life; maybe one day I will even find meaning for it."
Almost as if on cue, an opportunity to quickly change the subject of conversation, she spotted yet another familiar face and waved her down. "Vega!" She called, offering a small smile when the Skyknight looked up as she and Haraldur approached. Her smile was not long for this world when she saw the exhaustion that lined and darkened Sir Sorde's face. "With all due respect... you look as though you have seen better days."
"Haven't we all?" Vega lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, lips curling into a smile just barely, before flattening into a straight line. "I have been back and forth from Stella D'Mare since dawn. With any luck, this should be my last trip... there is great benefit in keeping busy, you know."
Elespeth did know. She knew well, and that made her worry. "You are still entitled to rest... why not let someone else take the torch?"
"Because I happen to want to make myself useful." Her tone was far less friendly, by that point; Elespeth reasoned it was a side effect of fatigue, but the Skyknight had made it clear she was not currently inclined to light conversation. "Please excuse me, Eris, Haraldur. Perhaps I will see you later."
The Atvanian watched the Skyknight depart with curiosity and concern, wondering at what was eating at all of the life and vigor in her demeanor. After all, she had no real connections to Stella D'Mare, did she? At least, not in the way that the Atvanian warrior did... "There seems to be even less of her every time I see her," she commented, glancing sidelong at Haraldur. "There may be nothing left of her by the time she is to return to her kingdom... is this what war does to us? Strips us of our very existence, with and without taking our lives..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
After pouring for himself the dregs of the tea, Elias joined Daphni on the cushion opposite her, scrubbing off a soot smear that marred the wooden finish of the table.
"It seems that no matter what you do, your 'flame' cannot subsist in any environment," he said, in that snarky tone typical of his interactions with Daphni--or with anyone. "Might as well head for the bottom of the ocean, for all the good tending your flame does you. No place is quieter." He sipped his tea, a purposeful slurp that offset the serene silence enjoyed by the undersea.
"And frankly, I think the city has more to worry about than contemplating roof logistics. Though...I make do, until that appointed time where I will discover what will kill me first: the siege or the disease." He spread both palms forward, weighing each option as if placed on a scale. "Either way, I will have the most poetic demise. Do I fall to the repeat of my home city's fate, or do I fall to my own failure as a healer? The anticipation is gnawing at my insides. ...Unless that's the atrophying of muscle I'm feeling." He rested a hand over his thinning wrist, as if to prove the latter half of his speculations true.
Pausing in his macabre observations, for it no longer served him to hope for survival, he looked askance at Daphni, keeping silent yet not refusing her offer to help. The former Sybaian, taking his reticence as a sign to continue, shimmied closer and pressed her hands over his chest. He closed his eyes and allowed the invasive energy to flow through him, in a circular pattern. With an intake of breath, the energy caught the impurities in his system, like offending dust motes that clung to the corners of a room. As he released his breath, the dark matter ejected from him, in a circuit that transferred such toxins to its recipient. As he fluttered his eyes open, he breathed again, and found the task easier, less rattled and more fluid--without bubbling forth any actual fluids: phlegm or spittle or blood.
"Gray, huh?," he said, with less strain and scratchiness. "Have I ever deviated from that color of aura? Unless, of course, you dangle a cat before my eyes." A sideways smirk overtook half of his face. It quickly transferred into a sigh, as he slumped his hand forward, touching the fingertips that had unraveled the knots of his surface pain. "I would...ask you to stay." He pursed his blood-stained lips, paling them so as to discourage his wan cheeks to bleed a similar color. "But that request is purposeless for us both." He withdrew his hand and fused it to the surface of his mug, starring at the remaining liquid in lieu of the woman for whom he harbored...some affection. "...Goodbye, Daphni. Rekindle that flame." He raised his tired, bloodshot eyes and glimpsed into her own, a silent plea which his words confirmed. "Do what I cannot."
The smile faded from Haraldur's eyes as Elespeth shrank from the weight of her burden. But he discerned, before the envoy's departure, a hint of buoyancy and amusement that bespoke the gift in which she received. It was fleeting, and perhaps she did not realize it at the time, but her affection for Alster shone though the haze that enveloped her like a dark, opaque cloud. Hope remained for her, and for him. Otherwise, why did Harladur feel so strongly when he caught sight of the sword? It hearkened back to the dream he could not gauge as message or fantasy. But he still heard that shaken timbre reeling with desperation, and he knew he could not imagine such a display of raw emotion. Be her shield in place of me...
Seeing that sword stirred a visceral reaction in him. And before he could cease musing on the subject, his inner thoughts were spoken aloud. "He'll never forget you," he muttered, more to himself, for himself, than he initially realized. "This I know well."
He stood aside, silent in the slow-churning ache that occupied his mind, and watched with detachment Elespeth's interactions with Sir Vega Sorde. He nodded politely when the Skyknight took her leave, feeling at once empathetic towards her plight--which Elespeth captured rather accurately, in words.
"Has war ever acted different?" He fiddled with the chain of his necklace, under which the pendant was tucked snug under his armor and over his chest. "It's no companion, nor has it ever pretended to side with humanity. Yet...it's all many of us have ever known. And all that we have left." He turned his eyes, olive green pits of emptiness, to her, then beyond, to the sword at her back. "To survive the draining of your existence, you either need to surrender to nothingness, or attach yourself to a purpose. To a person. I have my purpose and my person. You must find yours...or you are lost. Like Forbanne," he muttered again, and tracked those far-reaching eyes farther beyond, to the direction of Vega's departure.
A purpose or a person. Does she have either?
That evening, after the rush and scramble of dinner had settled into a level din, Haraldur searched for Vega in the crowd. She did not make an appearance at the mess tent or in its vicinity, which he had expected to happen, considering her dispirited bout of exhaustion from earlier. Operating on mere conjecture, he, with an extra plate of food, crossed to the edge of camp, where the makeshift pen contained the rocs that had roosted for the night, and found her on the ground beside her trusted avian companion. He set the plate of food within her reach and, while already on one knee, fell into a reverent salute at her feet, his right hand curled into a fist over his chest.
"I pledge my loyalty to you and to Eyraille," he said, his head bowed low. "You accepted me into your army without question. For that, I am yours to command...within reason." He raised his head, and the touches of a defiant grin crossed his lips.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She was about to rise, to put down her tea and bid her comrade farewell, until the unexpected happened, and Elias brushed her fingers. A small and unnecessary gesture... yet one nonetheless the he felt necessary, for whatever reason. And his words near broke her heart. "I... it would benefit neither of us to watch one another wither and fade into nothing." The sadness seeped from her eyes and into her voice as he withdrew his hand, and with sad resolve, she got to her feet. "For whatever is left for either of us... I bid you goodbye, and good luck. It is not too late for you yet, Elias; I can feel it."
With one last smile and a final nod, the former Sybaian left, taking off into the night, with the intent to never return, and leave all of the sadness and tragedy behind her--if even it were possible.
She felt sick and restless. There was no other way that Lilica could possibly describe how she felt, cooped up and incarcerated in a room with richly carved wood, and bars crossing the windowpanes. As Lysander promised, a voiceless guard delivered her three meals a day, provided new water in the wash basin, and otherwise all else that required cleaning or replacing was tended to by voiceless servants. She did little moving and even less sleeping, barely touching the meals that were replaced like clockwork, holding her breath for the inevitable doom that she was certain would befall her. And yet, on occasion, when she managed to find her own voice, she would make a single request, over and over. One that was never fulfilled.
"Chara... can I please see her?" Each and every time, her plea was met with silence, which both irked and relieved her. The possibility that her message was being ignored and not conveyed to the appropriate recipient suggested, after all, that Chara was oblivious to her desire to see her, and not simply choosing not to visit. There was also the potential that the celestial caster was being barred from seeing her, possibly out of concern for her safety... as it should be.
But she missed her. Lilica sorely longed for the opportunity to lie next to the woman she loved, take in the floral scent of her hair and skin, weave their fingers together and to return to feeling as though she was not alone in this unforgiving world. At times, even Lysander would cross her mind, but the thoughts always delved deeper and deeper into despair. He was her enemy, now, for political reasons. Ones which involved keeping Chara safe... but his words to her never faded at the back of her mind: I did not want this for you.
The chthonic mage did not know what to think, anymore. Did not know what to hope for, or even if she should hope at all. It sent her long days and even longer nights into a miasma of uncertainty and somber darkness, where she was lucky to find the energy to rise from her bed, nightmare after nightmare as the Serpent continued its assault on her mind. It was only a matter of time before she gave up, before it infiltrated her completely, transforming her into a servant of its own, sinister will...
She was contemplating just that, as a servant entered and scoffed at the plate of untouched food she retrieved from a small, round table in the middle of the room. No sooner did the door close, however, that a glimmer in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and seconds later, she found Alster Rigas standing before her, fighting to catch his breath as though he had been previously running for his life. Up until just then, the dark caster had completely forgotten that she should have been expecting him. It might only have been a matter of days since they had last spoken, but Lilica's sense of time had been swallowed whole by her sorrows.
"You still think you can help me?" She shook her head with a sigh. "Do not put yourself at risk by being here... do you not, after all, have your own demons to face, Alster Rigas?"
"My purpose is to see that Messino and all of his evil are wiped from the world of the living entirely." The assertion passed Elespeth's lips like a hiss or a curse. "For all of the pain and suffering that has come to pass as a result of his actions. And when that is done... then my only purpose will be to live a life that my brother would have wanted for me. So that his death shall not be in vain. But... that is also where I find uncertainty on my path. I am not sure where to go from there..."
It had never been for certain that her future would be with Alster. She had no place in the intricate web of Rigas politics, after all, and for all intents and purposes, he was still betrothed to Chara. It was best for them to wish one another well, and be done with it. But the warrior had never taken the time to consider just how much she had invested of herself and her future in Alster; and that, if nothing else, was something she would need to reconcile.
Unlike Elespeth, who was painstakingly reevaluating her future and its core values, Vega had never really taken the time to deeply consider either. Living by the opposite means of her late tyrannical father was about a clear a guideline as she followed; living for the sake of her resentful younger brother, Eyraille's king by her abdication, was about the only thing the only person, that she had to live for. There was little to return to in her kingdom's slowly developing independence and strength, which was perhaps while she had left in the first place. In search of something better, with the greater potential for hope... something that would ignite that vital spark in her resolve to defend Eyraille from a distance.
And instead, all she had found was another broken kingdom with broken people... where was the hope and inspiration to be found in that?
By day's end, the Skyknight hardly had the energy to fraternize with the Tadasuni in the mess tent, and even if she had, she would have chosen not to. She had nothing in common with those people aside from a mere alliance... frankly, the rocs made better company for her. As they always had.
"What do you think, my girll?" Stroking her avian's wingtip with reverence, Vega leaned her tired head against the giant bird's solid yet soft form. "Are we doomed to revisit Eyraille's unhappiness wherever we fly? It seems to be attracted to the likes of us... a nation whose history is bathed in blood. Perhaps it is only fitting."
She closed her eyes, just for what felt like a handful a seconds, before hearing the distinct thud of footfalls. When she opened her eyes again, Haraldur knelt before her, with a plate of food and an arm on his knee. Of all of the things for which she had been prepared that day, this turn of events certainly was not one of them.
"Haraldur..." Unbidden, a weary smile tugged at her mouth as she rubbed a hand across her brow. "Whatever possessed you to pledge your loyalty to me... please know that it is not necessary. You are my ally, and if it means merely keeping up appearances now that the Tadasuni think you are an officer of Eyraille's army, I am more than willing to do that. It is far beyond me to ask you to offer your loyalty to anyone but yourself... and your lady." Of course, she was referring to Elespeth. "Or is she the reason why you have come to this decision? To ascertain that the two of you are, in fact, fighting on the same side, and for the same thing? For if that is the case... well, far be it from me to deny you. Believe it or not, I understand your need to see to her safety. That said..."
Her grin broadened, just a little, and she leaned forward. "I hope you are prepared to fall under my command. My Skyknights do seem to respect me, although I cannot say the same for the rest of Eyraille... or for any of Tadasun, for that matter."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
First, he chased down the departing Tadasuni envoy and handed him Elespeth's sword, which he had enchanted to swing faster and cut deeper, for delivery. Whether he'd ever reconcile with her, or even see her again in that life, or the next, providing her support from afar was far less painful than slapping a too-small bandage over the festering wound that she carved and pretending that he did not bleed. It was a productive attitude, and a feckless one, but Elespeth and assurances of her safety were integral to his cleaning-up progress.
Second, he began his own strict magical re-education. To help build up his stamina and reconnect with his tenuous grasp of the celestial, he borrowed from Debine's brutal teaching instruction from the past and worked on rigorous exercises of body and mind, forcing on himself repetitious practice and punishment. He did not stop until the results were close to perfection--or until he fainted. Elias had argued and threatened to chain him to the bed posts if he continued to abuse himself so wantonly, without regard to his health and recovery, but Alster had convinced the dying healer that neither of them had any more time to play the coming days and weeks with care and caution.
Third, he spoke with Chara, when possible. His cousin was not so coincidentally swept up into Adalfieri's fold as she spent her days entrenched in Rigas politics and councilman duties, of which she held a junior role. They were primping her to take over the spot that Canopus had, by his death, left vacant, and her ambitions refused to ignore the opportunity to secure herself in a position of influence.
"Can't they allow you to visit Lilica?" he asked her one morning, when he caught her just long enough to inquire. She swayed on the veranda of her villa, looking uncertain and conflicted by the question.
"I want to. You must know that I want to see her. But Adalfieri thinks it best that I not excite her too much, in her...unstable condition." Her sway intensified, as she glimpsed down at her beaded shoes. "You told me that Lysander claimed I was in danger. Then he too is aware of Lilica's predicament. We are all taking the precautions we had overlooked back when these warning signs first developed," she hesitated as she raised her head. "In you, all those years ago."
"If you're trying to prevent another disturbance of the Serpent," Alster said quietly, "then let her go. Let her leave this city with the best healers we can afford. Or if not...at least go and visit her. She needs you. ...Don't walk away a second time, Chara."
But Chara shook her head, and walked off without another word, her confident gait troubled and wobbly at the knees.
Despite all his preparation to ready himself for the task at hand, Alster still needed the drug in order to wake up and crawl out of bed on most days, for every shade of inky black emotion awaited him on the other side of that drug-induced partition. And if it found a breach, if it leaked through, if it crashed through the wall...
He shuddered at the thought.
Alster sneaked into Lilica's apartments through the open door, concealed with magic as he avoided the guard, and managed entry just as the door was shut and locked. He materialized a few moments later, shivering from the sensation that his exhausted, untrained body could not handle at long intervals. He ignored his bone-weariness, and joined Lilica at the table whereupon sat her untouched food.
"My demons are your demons, Lilica," he said with haggard breath as he popped a few cherry tomatoes from her ignored salad into his mouth. "I can help inasmuch as you believe me able to help--which means you must help yourself, as well." He slid the plate over to her. "Please eat. Eat everything they give you, even if you're not hungry. Keep yourself active. Exhaust your body so your thoughts don't have the energy to molder. Passive inactivity will only allow the Serpent a much greater hold on your mind. I'll bring some books for you to read, and parchment for writing--if you want to pass along any messages to Chara. I'll make sure she reads them. She still cares very much for you," he said, addressing what he assumed she desired to know most. "That has not changed." He didn't want to tell her that Chara had walked away, because he did not believe that was her final answer.
"I'm going to travel into the core of your soul," he explained, finishing his last tomato. "Similar to the techniques of the Sybaia--as far as I can replicate their practices. But first, you need preparation. ...We both do." He pulled at his collar, yearning to undo the buttons that tightened the cloth against his scratched throat, but he reconsidered, and dropped his hand. "We're going to meditate. To empty the mind. To exhale harmful thoughts and energies and to allow positive energy to flow inward. To box away our worries, our fears, and to banish them from view. I know it's an imperfect technique, and susceptible to failure, especially when the mind is preoccupied with all that is wrong, and all that is gone...but that's why we're starting with meditation, first. To fail at this level is low-risk. We lose nothing. But it will, at least, help shape the proper mindset for when we're ready to explore the deepest recesses of your core." He stood and beckoned her into the next room, where he clambered on the bed and invited her to sit across him. "We'll do only meditation for the first day or two, before we go deeper. We'll ease in," he gave her a small, mollifying smile as he placed a gentle hand over her own. "All right, Lilica?"
Haraldur did not break from his salute until he descried a smile from the exhausted Skyknight. At what he took as a dismissal, he unfurled his hand, and sat on the ground opposite her. He quirked an eyebrow at the title she had given Elespeth. "My lady? ...Is that what you think?" He cleared his throat at that, and distracted himself by glancing upwards, at the towering avian that twisted her feathery head at them in curiosity and whose glittering golden eyes shone in the firelight. "She's my comrade in arms, and I've done her a great disservice when we locked swords and I..." he lowered his head, and fussed with his thumbs in lieu of finishing his sentence.
"That's why I returned," he continued, opting out of revealing the dream sent to him by Alster, not only out of requested secrecy, but so Vega would not wonder of his sanity. "Because I'll never hope to face my wrongs if I'm always running from them. But don't confuse my intentions," he told her, with an amused smile. "Yes, I need to protect her, to insure she remain alive, and such a task is facilitated when we are under the same banner. But I follow her out of friendship and duty. The reason why I've come to you now, and pledged as much loyalty to you as a mercenary can willingly give, is an extension of the same. I've withheld it from you before, because I didn't see a reason to maintain a relationship solely built on the past. But now, we share the same present, and I've ultimately involved myself in the affairs of this camp, and in the affairs of Eyraille...for the second time. So...I'll stay," he concluded, and offered his hand for her to shake. "For Eris, for Eyraille, and for your friendship."
Choosing to befriend Vega was a decision he first made out of necessity. With Elespeth attaching herself to the Skyknight with every passing day under her command, Haraldur found it best to follow suit and open up to the other woman warrior. And, much as he wanted to forget, he could not discount the history that the two had shared, or her attempts to reunite him with all that he left behind.
It would be an insult to you, Arina. And to all who have died...following me. The pain won't vanish just because I ignore this woman.
He transferred the plate from the ground to upon Vega's lap, and pointed to the meal. "You should eat...Sir." The honorific rolled off his tongue. "A soldier should never lose his or her appetite...and I fear your roc may claim it all for herself if you're not fast enough." He pointed upwards, at the hovering head that stared at the plate longingly and drew ever closer to them. "What's her name? Has she been with you long?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She longed for her lover's companionship, for the reassuring pressure of her arms encircling her small shoulders, for those intoxicating bouts of passion that took her mind off of all of her doubts. Some nights, when her heart ached like an open wound for the celestial caster's company, she would lie in bed and force her plagued mind to piece together the image of the one woman who had managed to help hold her together. Sometimes she was so focused, she could almost swear that Chara was lying next to her, chest rising and falling gently, silken blonde locks splayed across the pillow, rouge lips parted ever so slightly...
But then, she would reach out to touch that apparition, heart swelling with a seedling of hope... and the woman next to her would vanish, altogether. It was then that the chthonic caster was no longer sure of what was making her sicker: the Serpent's pull, or her own heart, breaking with fissure after fissure.
The frequent nightmares, paired with this despairing loneliness, eventually rendered her listless and lifeless during her waking hours. And such was how Alster found her, sitting at the small table with a plate of untouched food, staring into nothingness. Their previous conversation had not left much of an impression on her mind, but the Rigas caster appeared eager to help, nonetheless. Staring down at the plate that he pushed in front of her, she looked as thought she didn't know what to do with the food; like eating was a foreign concept to her. "Every night. The nightmares come every night, now," was all she said, hardly inclined to nourish her dying being. "Each one worse than the last..."
And Chara was not there to hold her. To tell her that everything would be all right. And now, her only hope appeared to be Chara's wayward betrothed...
With little reason not to follow, Lilica joined Alster atop her bed, and sat across from him, shoulders slouched and head down. "I see the dark recesses of my mind every night... I don't know how this will help me," she admitted with a sigh. "But if it is even a small hope... then I will do it."
Swallowing her apprehension, the chthonic mage closed her eyes and exhaled a deep sigh, as the two of them prepared to once again attempt what the Sybaian healer, Daphni Adela, had failed to bring to light.
"Your... comrade in arms?" The evening breeze suddenly became cooler against the Skyknight's face, as it reddened until it near matched the colour of her hair. What a fool she had been, to make such a bold assumption! Am I so desperate to find connection that I am now seeing it so deeply in others where it does not exist...? She smiled, in spite of herself. "Well, now... Don't I feel a simpleton." Scratching the back of her neck apprehensively, Vega met her companion's eyes, noticing their amused twinkle. Somehow, it put her spirits more at ease. "Please accept my apologies, Haraldur. I should not have assumed, as I did; I simply do not see the sort of dedication that you exhibit towards your comrades. It is a foreign sentiment, in Eyraille. That said..."
Straightening her shoulders, Vega made an attempt to shake off the fatigue that coloured her features, and picked up the plate of food in front of her. "I accept your friendship--and your loyalty to Eyraille. The past might weigh on our shoulders, but there is nowhere to go but forward."
For all her lack of appetite, she made an effort to pick at the food on her plate. He was, of course, right; there was nothing to be gained by exhaustion and despair getting the best of her. Not when she led an army of airborne, spear and bow-wielding knights. "Please, simply call me Vega. The honourific is merely to establish myself as a capable military body in my kingdom; 'Lady' does not ring with the same importance." She stroked the rocks soft feathers, reaching almost as high as it shoulder. The large bird clucked in appreciation, low in its throat. "Her name is Aeriel. And she has been my closest companion since I was eight years old."
Recalling the events of her past was about as appealing as it was for Haraldur, but the time spent with her roc, growing up alongside the avian, were memories that she could recall with some fondness. "She fell from her nest high upon a cliffside when she was only a chick. I found her one morning, when I'd sneaked out of the palace to avoid my father. She was injured and scared, and tried to attack me when I lifted her into sheltered woods nearby, but after some time she came to trust me. Stubborn though she was." Vega gave the bird a gentle nudge. "I fed her, helped her become strong, and eventually she learned to fly by observing other wild rocs. I thought for sure that she would leave me once she made use of her wings, but... she never went away. She stayed, waited for me in those woods day after day, as we both grew. That was when I knew it was my destiny to become a Skyknight, not to rule a broken kingdom. Our bond... it meant the world to me. In many ways, it still does."
Vega managed to clean about half of the plate of food before she put it down, and sure enough, Aeriel was prompt in helping herself to the remainder of the meat. "Rocs bond for life; if not with a mate, then, if tamed, with their rider. They do not know betrayal and cannot betray, their sentiments are genuine... they can even learn to interpret human facial expressions into emotions. I do not know what would have become of me as a young girl, had I not met my partner in battle.
"But... I will not bore you further with my attachment to giant avians." The Skyknight commander grinned, though there was something insecure about it. "I regret to inform you that I am not all that interesting a person, otherwise. What about you? Past aside, what will you do if we see victory? Do you plan to continue to look out for Eris, or will you part ways when you are no longer required to fight alongside one another? Or... please excuse me, if that question is too person. It is not necessary for you to answer." After a bashful pause, she could not help but then add, "Should you be looking for a place to go... once again, Eyraille would welcome you. You would find a home, there. If a home is at all what you seek, warrior."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"This is where I go when I feel like I can't survive a moment longer," he said, his eyes reflecting the color of the ocean. "I think of this version of the city, this impossible ideal that I will never have, but somehow...it comforts me. Because I'm able to return, and although this place is a farce, and the memories therein, it brings me a sense of calm. Nothing no longer exists in this realm, nor am I allowed to stay here longer than what is necessary. I know this because I tried, twice...to return here. To live my last days here. Something always calls me back, and the dream...it ejects me. But," he traced his fingers over the ridges in the rock, "I'm glad at least that these pocket-sized havens still exist in me. I show this place to you because I know that you also have a sanctuary of your own. ...Please...take me there."
In the next session, they traveled to the fountain where she and Chara had spent a memorable moment together. Alster stood to the side, not wanting to interfere with such a timeless spot that had embedded itself in the shallow pools that illumined the vast darkness of her mind. He nodded with approval and, so as not to interrupt any sense of joy or wonder from the dark mage and her tender recollections, waited until they had awakened from the meditation before he gave her any feedback. "Draw power from that place, Lilica. Light exists, there, and it's very bright, like the sun at zenith. It warms you." As if to confirm, he wrapped a hand around her wrist, feeling a fluttering pulse and a pleasant heat radiate from her usually chilly skin. "The Serpent will try and taint these places, if It hasn't already. That's why you have to feel this incorruptible memory, take it into yourself, and protect it from psychic attack. I'll teach you how to do it." Something of a sly smile crossed his lips. "Next time."
In the intervals between sessions, Alster brought what he had promised Lilica: books, parchment, little wooden games with colored baubles, suggested exercises, and an unyielding determination to have her eat. "Mind and body are connected, Lilica," he told her as he pushed the plate of food to her side of the table, yet again. "You neglect one, you neglect the other. It doesn't matter if you build up resistance to psychic attack if you'll exhaust your energy due to your almost non-existent stamina." Oh Gods, he thought with a bit of unease. I'm sounding like Elias.
The appointed "next time" arrived the following day, but it was not Alster who passed through the open door. It was Chara.
She did not sneak in like her cousin. Fully visible, and dressed in a breezy purple gown that billowed about her legs, she seemed to glide over the open threshold. The guards allowed her entrance without any preamble, and closed the door firmly behind her. She spotted Lilica sitting on a chair in the far corner of the room, then the untouched plate of food on the table, and a livid sheen of red colored her cheeks.
"What is this, Lilica?!" she demanded, pointing to the brimming plates. "If you do not eat, you will not fit into the fine clothes that I spent a mint purchasing for you. I shall not deign to speak with you unless you make the effort to chew and swallow at least five mouthfuls."
True to her word, she crossed her arms and looked the other way until she was satisfied enough with the bits of lettuce, olives, and slivers of cheese that Lilica forced into her feeble mouth. With a nod of approval, Chara swerved in her seat by the table, and laid her eyes on the diminishing dark mage. A drawn breath almost transitioned into a gasp, but Chara clamped her tongue, and the excess air dispelled into a lowing sigh.
"I apologize for my absence, Lilica. Adalfieri has kept me busy...but he has finally allowed me the permission to see you. To ask how you are faring seems a ludicrous question, but..." she lowered her eyes, and shuffled her feet self-consciously. "...I hope you understand that we keep you here--for your protection. But it will not last," she said, pressing her hands over Lilica's emaciated shoulders. "Not at all."
While Haraldur's smile faded, the receptiveness did not fade from his open expression. "I don't normally express any dedication to my comrades," he admitted with the bob of his head. "So I understand how it must look to an outsider observing the connection between Eris and me. As in Eyraille, it's foreign in Mollengard, but strangely, it is in both places where I experienced that sort of camaraderie." Without referring to it by name, he had, of course, meant his time with the refugees as a mountain guide. "Eris, in a way, reminded me of how I used to be. I'd do well to remember, lest I slip...lest I become Forbanne, once more," he said quietly, and his expression transitioned into its own battlefield between the pain of humanity and the steel of the well-oiled soldier, moving each limb with fluid, calculated grace--and exhibiting a cold, metal heart. Either decision left him with nothing, in the end. At least the latter option did not inflict him with an emptiness stemming from loss. It was only an emptiness stemming from yet more emptiness. Nothing in, nothing out.
He shielded the brief leak in his wavering convictions by closing his eyes, and resetting his expression to calm neutrality. "Do your soldiers call you 'Sir'?" He asked, opening his eyes and looking over at her. "If they do, I will refer to you as such, in their presence. But here," he smiled, "Vega it is."
His smile only widened when she recalled her encounter with Aeriel. He witnessed how light she had become in detailing the story, as if she were flying atop her trusted roc, cresting higher and higher with every spoken word. The bird in question trilled as if in understanding before returning to the scraps of her meal. "No, I'm not bored, but then again," his voice turned a little conspiratorial, as if in on the joke, "I, too, am lacking on the 'interesting' front. It might not be the same," he began, though hesitant to go on; he cleared his throat to continue, "but I experienced a similar bond, as you have with your roc. Only--she was my sister. Klara." He clutched the chain of his necklace, as if for support. "She was born...as others would say, 'funny.' 'Simple.' And broken. Her legs didn't work. She took my mother away--and my father was devastated. He didn't want her. Didn't even name her. She became Klara, after the nursemaid who helped me raise her." As he continued, his words became disjointed, disconnected...and faraway. A memory steeped in fog and mist, almost obscured by more dominant personalities of his fractured past.
"I loved her. Looked after her. Gave her rides on my back. Built her a sled, and pulled her along with me everywhere. But she was so weak, and we had so little food, and..." He shook her head, not daring to share the notes on her ultimate demise. "I suppose that's what I saw in Thora. She was so young, and on her own. She took to Arina, and to me...almost immediately. After this is all over...I would like to...in an ideal world, I'd like to...to see her again. That is...if I don't end up running. But I'm tired of it all. Running, fighting..." Realizing all that he had revealed to Vega, a bit of color splotched his cheeks, and he lowered his head to hide his slight discomfiture. "I want to return. To Eyraille. If I can find it in myself to go. And if I do," he paused, then reached a tentative hand towards the great roc's downy neck, which he rustled with care. "...Would you allow me to ride with you and Aeriel?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And yet, Alster hadn't hesitated to invite her into his sacred haven. It had not changed anything for him...
"My heart... still exists, in this place." The chthonic caster murmured when at last her reluctant mind granted Alster entrance, and the two of them stood, a solitary duo, before the gently flowing waters. "The Serpent would have to find my heart to find my haven. And nothing... nothing is more guarded that my heart, that I can guarantee." And it is only for Chara to break or to mend, she almost added, but it was surely understood without being said.
Unfortunately, for whatever hope she held for her new safe haven, eating was still a chore for Lilica. Food tasted like ash on her tongue, and her stomach rolled unhappily in response to anything that hit its bottom. Whether or not it was the Serpent or her own, quiet defeat, she did not know, but try as she might to heed Alster's advice, the vegetables and fruit and cheese and bread had never seemed so unappealing.
That is, until the presence of a coveted someone brought along her long-lost appetite as a companion.
"Chara..." The name fell from Lilica's lips like a wish, as if she weren't entirely convinced that the Rigas caster was standing before her. It wasn't until that familiar, cutting tone broke the calm of her gilded prison that she realized the woman who stood before her was not a mere reverie, but flesh and blood and fire.
It came as no surprise that the haughty blonde withheld conversation and contact until the dark mage cleaned at least half of the plate before her, and Lilica did not hesitate to comply. The food no longer tasted of ash and dirt, but spurred her appetite forward until she had taken not three bites, but very nearly cleaned her plate. It was only for the cramps that churned her stomach from eating too quickly that she eventually had to stop and catch her breath. "Chara, I..." She cleared her throat to strengthen her voice, one which went unused, for the most part. "I didn't know if you'd given up... I asked time and again to see you, but you never came... I so hoped I would soon see you."
She wanted to kiss her; how she longed to throw herself into the celestial caster's arms and feel safe again... But she wasn't. Not even locked away, her magic shackled at the wrists. "Chara, please listen to me... I know not of what Adalfieri has told you, but I fear... and Alster fears that your leader may not have my best interests in mind. Or yours, for that matter." Taking the Rigas mage's warm hands into her own bony fingers, she lowered her voice and slid her chair close to the other woman's. "Alster has been helping me. I am beginning to think... that all may not be lost. But it will not be through the orders of Adalfieri. There is a possibility that he may be seeking to use my dark potency for his own means... and it is therefore not for my safety that he is keeping me here. I suspect... that he is merely keeping me contained, until he sees fit to use me."
Those accusations could be enough to condemn her; of that, she was aware. But keeping her suspicions from Chara had not ultimately benefited her in the past, and with her rank, it could very well be that she was the only one with any hope to help her. "I don't expect you to believe me. But... believe Alster. If I do manage to emerge from this room, intact and better off than before..." She met Chara's eyes, and hope burned in the black depths of her pupils. "Then it will be because of his help... and because of your support. I trust your instincts, Chara... and I hope that you will trust them too."
When silence settled, and the distance between them became too much, Lilica threw her hesitation to the wind and encircled the celestial mage in an embrace, pressing her cheek against her shoulder. "I'm afraid, Chara," came her whispered confession. "I promised that I will follow you anywhere. Please... do not let me get lost."
"My soldiers, depending on their mood, call me a great deal of different names. Some that are rather crude." A wry smile twisted Vega's mouth as she chewed a piece of meat from her plate; the reality of her authority did not seem to bother her much. "But to my face, yes, they refer to me as Sir or Commander. Few refer to me by my given name... I suspect it is because they are loathe to acknowledge me as a worthy identity. I'd be honoured if you would be one of those rare few."
The Skyknight fell silent and finished her meal as the words of Haraldur's story stirred her insides, for better and for worse. There was no remedy for loss but time itself, and even then, it merely dulled the pain. It made perfect sense why he had run from Thora on his last trip to Eyraille: she had stirred up so many memories at once that he wasn't able to face. "I believe it would be good for your heart to reconnect with young Thora," she encouraged him with tentative words. "She remembers you and what you did for her. Family is what you make of it... and you would undoubtedly find it in her. And in Eyraille; you are always welcome there."
Finishing the last dregs of her meal, the Eyrallian pushed her plate away, and tucked a loose tress of copper behind her ear. "I... understand the lure of running. The appeal, the ease..." Her eyes drifted to the darkening horizon. "It would be so easy to take Aeriel, and just... fly away. From war, from Eyraille, from guilt, from everything. But my decisions... and my role in the monarchy, they keep me bound and tethered here--and for the better. Running, after all, only turns your past into a shadow which follows you and haunts you forever."
Vega ran a hand down one of Aeriel's massive feathers, and for a brief second, the enormous bird almost seemed to smile. "Let me assure you, Haraldur, that you will always find welcome in Eyraille. And you will always find a friend in me... if you so desire." Unbidden, colour rose to her cheeks, tinting them a shade lighter than her hair. She was helpless to hold back a quirky grin. "I bid you to keep that handkerchief for a reason, you know. You will need it, if you plan to fly with me and Aeriel. We do not take to the skies and winds lightly."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
In the gap between her last interaction with Lilica, Adalfieri had taken a personal interest in Chara. Not only did he save for her a spot on the Council where Canopus once sat (and if she accepted the position, she would be the youngest Rigas to hold such an honor), but he had offered her the opportunity to study under him and to assist in his affairs. The attention of the Rigas head, and his recognition of her fierce dedication, summated everything that she had worked so hard to attain for herself, and it was all coming to fruition! She wanted to feel giddy at this spike of good news, for there was precious little to celebrate, but her promotion happened when all else around her took a severe turn for the worst:
Alster's only purpose seemed only for Lilica and the eradication of the Serpent. He obsessed over the subject and pored over complicated texts in the library whenever she encountered him, as if those words and those spells would stitch together the fissure that remained of his existence. Lysander, too, spent much of his time reporting to Adalfieri with the mien of one who had been subjugated into defeat, and his legs bowed more severely with every subsequent meeting. Their resistance against Andalari was snuffed in the flames of that horrible massacre on the field, where they had lost so many, and she had felt the personal losses of Danos and Tivia, her subjects, her responsibility...her companions. Old Town was under a barricade, its ports closely monitored. All exports and imports, after careful investigation, were reported to the enforcement at New Town. None could leave or enter through Old Town's gates or ships: all traffic was directed to the seat of Andalari, through New Town. Food and supplies were rationed out to the "insurgents," and even the Rigas's impressive stores were fast depleting.
And now, there was Lilica, trapped and barred away from the outside, and from her. Lilica, whose support she needed most, whose warmth she wanted in order to fend off the cold that constantly perched on her chest, and who...she needed to keep imprisoned--lest they see a repeat of Alster's interference with the Serpent all those years ago.
"I have not given up," she snapped, controlling her situation and her emotions in the only way she knew how, despite Adalfieri's training: anger. "Why else would I be here, Lilica? It is through a favor from Adalfieri himself that I am sitting across from you right now. He does not believe you should become too overexcited. But," she heaved a sigh, "he allowed the risk. I know that neither you nor Alster believe Adalfieri's intentions," she transferred her hands into Lilica's receptive palms, which were chilled to the touch, "and I understand, given what the two of you have suffered. But I must trust in my Lord, as I also trust in you...and in Alster. If it puts you at ease, I shall keep a close watch on Adalfieri, as I am by his side much of the time. You needn't worry," she crooned, sliding a loose strand of lustrous black hair from Lilica's face. "I know that you are afraid, but your containment here...this is not permanent. I would not allow this for you, were it permanent." She tightened into Lilica's embrace, locking her arms around her back and brushing her lips against the dark mage's open mouth. "I shall try to visit you as many times as I am able," she whispered, her hot breath huffing against Lilica's wan cheeks. "But if not...write to me. I am never far. And by the stars," she hissed, "eat, while I am away, or I fear I will break you in twain." A firm smile puckered her painted lips, before she loosened them, and planted them against Lilica's own in a long, passionate kiss.
Several hours after Chara's visit, Alster smuggled himself into the room during the next meal-time, and appeared at the table once the guard had delivered the new plate of food and departed. "Your aura is cleaner," he said, with the hint of a smile. "Chara's work, no doubt. That will help you to reinforce the barriers that we'll place over your sanctuary. It will not only act as a barricade against the Serpent, but as a central hub that we will use to connect to other branches and memories in your life where you have experienced something bright and warm." He idly drew a pentagram in the air, as if to demonstrate. "The more we connect, the more powerful a spell-form we will create in your soul. This will trap the Serpent on all sides....and together, we'll expel It from your mind. Whenever you're ready," he said, nodding towards the bed in the next room, "I'll be waiting over there. And then we'll begin."
Before meeting with Vega, Haraldur had downed a few mugs of ale at dinner, which accounted for his openness to the Skyknight that would not have occurred as easily, were it to blossom on its own. Even with the ale relaxing his mind and tongue, the mercenary found it difficult to discuss the segments of his life which dredged up powerful memories. They confused him, threatened to lock him down, to trigger the conditioning of his Forbanne years, which was always on the fringe of returning in full. He already maintained one Forbanne failsafe: the shut-down of all emotion, a tunnel-vision that shielded him from injury, blood-borne or otherwise. But to invite its complete return was to throw his newly-attained friendship into the fire. While he would try to walk the line between his warrior numbness and his newfound reciprocity, he knew that the tenuous balance would soon tip in favor of one condition over the other. And the tip--it dipped towards companionship. Once again, he found himself opening the locks that allowed entrance into the fortress that guarded his soul---and he blamed the ease in which it opened on the alcohol.
"Family," he said, almost inaudibly. He tilted his head toward the blue-black sky, as an excuse to turn his attention away from her appraising stare. He looked at the stars, clusters of dust that formed constellations. Constellations that formed, in a sense, a family. The door to his fortress threatened to slam shut. To combat the twisting that writhed inside of him, he pulled out a flask of rum, and took a quick swig. He offered the flask to Vega, in return. Family...is what I want most. But he dare not speak his greatest wish aloud.
It's something that I will never have...
"It's harder to run...when you have an entire nation behind you," he said, with the lift of a smile, helped along by the rum. "I had to fake my own death, just to escape the Forbanne. But there are some things that you must run from, because if you don't...you become the shadow. But our situations are not comparable," he concluded, with a wave of dismissal. "Your kingdom...it has a future. And if that future is solidified, and made better...you won't need to run."
At his last bit, he rose to his feet, taking with him his flask with the remaining swill. "Let's hope, then, that I don't get your handkerchief mixed up with the one meant for cleaning my sword, or blowing my nose. That's none too dignified an accessory for flight." He returned her grin, which he ended with a shallow bow. "I'll leave you to your affairs." He gave Aeriel a parting head rub. "I'll see you in the morning--Vega."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And now, the woman she loved had also fallen into a similar trap, one where she truly thought she was helping her. Alster was, truly, her only hope. "I am afraid," she confirmed, reveling in the warmth of her lover's touch, for all she knew it might be futile. "Chara, I have a feeling... I do not foresee a positive end to any of this."
But it was what it was, and the Rigas caster would not budge; she was too content with the chthonic mage's imprisonment, and could not see through her own loyalty to Adalfieri.
Alster Rigas, on the other hand, was not so easily misled by Adalfieri's vision. And Lilica was more than happy to see him that very evening. It was time to face what she had subconsciously been avoiding for years... and he was the only one capable of helping her.
"Now. We need to do this now," she insisted, and followed him into the bedroom. "I need control. If I cannot learn to trust myself, to recognize when I am being misled, duped... then there is no hope."
Taking a seat across from him on the bed, Lilica took his hands, her own fingers shaking with trepidation. "I don't know what we'll see... but you must prepare to witness the very worst of me," came her cautionary whisper. "I cannot guarantee that this is safe, or that either of us will emerge, unscathed..."
It took a while for her to find her calm center, this time around. Her heart raced for so long she wondered if it would be impossible to relax... until the next thing she knew, she opened her eyes to find herself standing in a dark forest with Alster. There was an unmistakable chill to the air that sent the dark caster's nerves alight. "Alster..."
Breathing his name was all she was able to do before the dark swallowed her frame like liquid mist, and Alster found himself standing all alone at the heart of Lilica's fearscape.
She was gone. Search though he might, the Rigas caster was all alone... until the ground beneath his feet began to moisten as he tread, sodden with a dark, crimson substance. It was followed by the gruesome remains of human beings, inside and out, littering the forest floor like discarded object: a severed hand here, entrails there, a bottom jaw forever agape in a silent scream.
And at the heart of it all stood a little girl, up to her knees in the discarded remains of what was once life, pale skin stained crimson and brown. Her dark tresses hung over her shoulders, heavy with the weight of blood at the very tips, her face smeared with scarlet fingerprints, and anyone could bet that none of that blood had come from her own veins.
As he approached, young Lilica looked up from the still beating clasped in her bloody hands, her gaze neutral, impassive. "They can't hurt me if I kill them first." With one firm squeeze, the beating heart stopped, oozing more lifeblood that dripped onto her bare feet. "I'm good at it, too. It's my gift. No one can touch me, but I can tear them apart..."
So neutral and matter-of-fact, the seemingly seven-year-old dark mage spoke as if she knew her own destiny, with such certainty and calm. It was with that same certainty and calm that she looked Alster dead in the eye, the broken heart still oozing blood from its limp place in her palm. As to whose heart it was, was anyone's guess. "I wouldn't touch me. Don't come near, or I'll tear you apart, too."
Alster had not found Lilica's safe haven; he had stumbled upon the core of her very own hell.
Vega gratefully accepted the flask that Haraldur offered, never one to pass up the chance to calm her nerves with a little swill. It was refreshing to meet someone else who understood the need. "I do hope your are right, and that I am not deluding myself with some dim hope of a future," she sighed, as the mercenary stood up. "Goodnight, Haraldur. Be prepared for me to call on you the next time I make an impromptu trip to Eyraille."
The next morning, Vega did not find it so difficult to rise from her bunk and greet the day early in the morning. Tying back her copper tresses and donning her lightweight armor, she found the appetite to venture to the heart of the encampment, where breakfast was being served, hot off the spit. And Haraldur had already beaten her to it.
"Save some of the good parts for me, hm?" The Skyknight teased, traipsing up to him towards the back of the line and nudging his shoulder. "You were the one encouraging me to eat, after all. If I don't get the tender part of the flank, I might become cranky."
Pausing until the tongue-in-cheek air ran its course, her smile wavered. "Far be it from me to cut in line, though I just wanted to say... What you said about running away. About how we might not need to, if the future is solid. I..."
She searched for the words, but either found herself unable to find them, or to say them. By the time she parted her lips to speak, two Tadasuni soldiers approached her, perspiration on their face, and their breaths coming short, as if they had been hurrying.
"Word from our scouts... Andilarian spies are on their way to reporting back to Messino. They managed to infiltrate our camp in all the confusion following the events at Stella D'Mare..."
"And you need me and my Skyknights to take to the air and catch them before they reach Messino." Vega knew their plea before they could breathlessly voice it. "We have the advantage of speed... I will assemble my knights and depart immediately."
Turning to Haraldur, Vega flashed an apologetic smile. "We'll talk later," she promised, then turned and hurried away with the Tadasuni soldiers. Never had she been more reluctant to walk away from a conversation.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Lilica, this is not...your fear has intercepted us. Let's find a way out." But when he turned to his side, Lilica had vanished. A dreadful sense of deja vu closed up his throat as he stood, inert, watching the shadows from a bleached sky trace across the wet-soggy ground. The surroundings did not frighten him as he tread a narrow path between the trees in search of the dark mage, skirting past disembodied limbs and fleshy patches of human remains. Not only was he accustomed to the macabre accommodations of Lilica's hellscape, but that of his own, which reflected its own horrors of blood and dark, whistling emptiness. But her whereabouts, where the mire had dragged her--he needed to locate her, lest they remain trapped, just as Daphni had warned of happening when before, they explored the depths of the tortured mage's psyche. This time, however, there was no Sybaian to guide them out of the chasm. With fast-growing unease, Alster realized that he was on his own. That he was the healer, the psychopomp, the sole responsible party--and he had lost his ward. No one would eject them out of this world...save for themselves, together.
He waded through the muck, which dragged against his boots in coagulated clumps of rust-red, and called Lilica's name. Each step became halting, more difficult to tread. Hands brushed at his ankles like shriveled, sinister weeds. As he turned a corner, the path displayed a litter of severed entrails and organs in a swamp made damp and moist by the collective of blood and gore. He was close to reaching...something. Someone.
Her.
A little girl, one he had once seen over the bodies of her dead parents, awaited his arrival. She stood in a ring of all that she had harvested from the corpses, which festooned and encircled her like some kind of protective spell-form. Lilica was not lost. He had found her, or at least, an aspect of her. This was her core of her soul: the girl who welcomed the darkness and the fear, when life and all else had failed her. If he could reach her, connect with her, it was possible to recover the older Lilica who drifted within the dark wood--somewhere.
He padded nearer to her with tentative steps, but remained outside her circle, and returned her gaze with a sad, emphasizing look.
"I have a gift, as well," he told her, upturning his palm and forming a starry blue and purple ball of light in his hand. "Celestial magic. There's a beauty to it, a charm. It radiates warmth, and light." The spell faded and a dark stream of smoke replaced the ethereal glow. "Chthonic magic. Ugly and deadly, cold...chilling. I've used both to tear people apart, as have you. But I've also used both to mend them together, as have you, with your magic."
He dared to move closer, and entered her circle.
"Do you want to tear me apart, Lilica?" He dispelled the smoke and offered his hand out to her. "I won't touch you, but you may touch me, if you wish. I trust that you won't tear me apart." A twitch of a smile appeared on his face. "And if you do, I can't say that I don't deserve it. But Lilica--if you take my hand, I'll show you something. The person that you become. The lives you have saved. The love you've found. If in the end, you don't want any of it, you can take my heart and crush it." For then I will know that I have failed you. He nodded at the one that oozed from her clenched fingers. "We don't have to exist in a loop. We're not bound to it. Help me to break this cycle." His voice dropped into a drowned whisper as his outstretched fingers trembled. "Help me, Lilica..."
The morning sun crept across the slat in the tent flaps and rested on Haraldur's face. He woke to light, to a welcome heat, and he basked in his cot to enjoy the sensation--even if it was at the expense of missing a prime spot on line for the morning breakfast rush.
Eventually, he rose, washed up, and dressed, but as expected, the queue was a long, snaking route that ended all the way at the supply and weapons' tents.
Midway through the wait, Vega joined him. He smiled and bid her a good morning.
"I doubt anyone this far back in line will be receiving more than gristle, fat, and bone marrow," he said, giving her a pitying shake of the head. "Unfortunately, since I overslept, I have extinguished my use to you as line-holder and food fetcher. Although," he regarded her with the tilt of his head, "why don't you use your officer privileges? You'd never have to wait, then."
But her answer, and whatever else she had tried to convey to him about last night, was interrupted by two Tadasuni scouts, who had needed her to fetch a few runaway spies on the front. He wanted to join the mission, and expressed as much, but Tadasun wanted only to use the Skyknights--for now. He was given the option of standby, should the situation grow dire--but he doubted that they'd find him useful in the specifics of their task.
"Make sure you're properly fastened," he called after Vega, his tone half in jest as he nodded at her departure. "Don't fall off, now."
He spent the rest of the day with Elespeth, though he left the Atvanian warrior on her own when she again visited Tivia in the darkened tent. He found it best to nix his company from the traumatized and unstable Rigas caster, and instead occupied his time near the edge of camp, where he watched the sentries scan the skies with spyglasses, and was offered a peek through the lens.
The Skyknights, in his magnified perspective, were returning. But something about the flight pattern seemed--off. It was in a defensive arrangement, the birds all bunched up in a tight formation as they sailed overhead and landed in the designated roc fields behind camp. As he returned the spyglass to the sentry, he headed in the direction of the Skyknights in a hurried pace, for he thought he had seen Vega hunched over in her saddle--and covered in blood.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
It was her: Lilica, in every sense of who she was, old and young at once. Retaining only those memories of the pain that she had caused, enough to validate the monster who stood before Alster, barely three feet tall. Both sinister and innocent, simultaneously... She regarded his outstretched hand with interest, clearly contemplating whether to take it. A cold breeze picked up, carrying with it heavy snowflakes that landed on Lilica's shoulders and hair without melting. Much like they had the day her stepfather had hoped to abandon her to the cold and leave her for dead. "I kill everything that I touch. One way or another, it dies," she warned the Rigas caster, dropping the bleeding heart to the ground. She had no interest in it now that it had stopped beating. "You'll just be condemning yourself, Alster Rigas. But if condemnation is what you seek, then I will grant you that wish."
Her freezing hands still wet with lifeblood, she took his hand. The chthonic mage's small form might as well have been made of ice, by the chill it sent through him, her flesh so cold that it practically burned. But she did not seem to notice any of it; she felt nothing. "I hope I will not be bored," she commented, her breath so cold that it did not mist the frosty air that surrounded her. "Show me something interesting."
Tivia had only become begrudgingly receptive of Elespeth's company, of late. And it was only because the Atvanian was perhaps the only one she saw who did not all but force her to eat and drink, or to painfully change bandages or dab at her wounds. Much of the company that she provided was quiet, being a presence without demanding conversation, and only occasionally asking if there was anything the broken Rigas caster required or desired, and she knew better than to overstay her welcome--at which point she sought our Haraldur, her only other safe point of contact in the Tadasuni encampment. She found him in a curious place, intently watching the skies.
"You won't find any stars out at this time of morning," the former knight teased, taking a place by his side. "Or are you admiring cloud formations? That one just overhead resembles a rabbit... if it were decapitated."
Stars or no, there was something up ahead, Elespeth soon noticed. A formation of birds: giant birds, in the shape of a diamond. "The Skyknights?" She guessed, furrowing her brow and squinting for a better look. "Do they not typically fly in a V-shape? Where had they been?"
But as they neared, she gradually became aware of what was causing the sudden tension in Haraldur's shoulders and brow. Something wasn't right. They birds flew in a rush, keeping up with those encased in the middle of the diamond formation... at the heart of which was Vega, atop Aeriel, a study in copper hair and dark, crimson lifeblood... "Oh gods... what has happened? What is going on?"
The rocs landed in record time, making evident that the riders at the heart of the formation were the wounded: two men that she did not recognize, bleeding from the chest and the back, and Vega Sorde herself, blood already soaking the bandage that staunched a wound on her leg. The Skyknight Commander did not dismount her roc, so much as she fell off, into a heap on the ground.
Elespeth and Haraldur practically acted on reflex, finding a place at her side in seconds, while Tadasuni officers and the few knights who had not been injured immediately drew their attention to their wounded. Vega's face was pale and drawn, and she did not hesitate to wrap an arm around Elespeth's shoulders for support as the Atvanian led her to a medical tent. "They were armed... and with back-up," Vega breathed, wincing and groaning at every step. "We felled them, but... but we were underprepared..."
"Where are the healers? The Sybaia, the Clematis?" Elespeth looked to and fro, catching the attention of a young man who she recognized as one who had served as the healers' assistant.
"The Clematis have returned to Stella D'Mare," he explained, his tone shaky and uncertain. "The Sybaia... they just disappeared. We don't know--"
"Well we need a healer, some healer, now!" Elespeth barked, sending the boy running to retrieve a Tadasuni medic, if any were available. Laying Vega upon a cot in a tent just outside a small campfire, she balked at the amount of blood gushing from what appeared to be an arrow wound in her thigh. "It's her artery," the Atvanian turned to Haraldur, panic written on her face. "She's losing blood too quickly. We don't have time..."
Without another thought, Elespeth rushed out of the tent and drew a small dagger from her belt, which she then held over the small flame of the fire until the vicious steel practically glowed. Her visage was a screwed-up mixture of determination and regret when she returned to her fallen ally. "Haraldur... hold her down," she requested quietly, kneeling to tear away the leg of Vega's trousers to better access the wound. "Find something for her to bite on. She can't afford to lose any more blood."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"I've hurt you, too, Lilica," he said, settling down on one knee and ignoring the wet, mucky cold that penetrated his trousers at the point of contact. He wanted to be level with the small, shrunken child, despite his kneeling in a pile of carnage. "I nearly killed you, in revenge. I would have ended your life, but Chara stopped me. You are not the only one here...who has done wrong." He thrust his hand toward her, again. "And now--let me show you what you've done right."
The child placed her frigid hand upon his own, and he closed his fingers, still warm from his previous spells, over it, and concentrated. Since he was inside of Lilica's mind, he was privy to her memories. Although he could only access those in which he knew had occurred, or those in which he himself was present, he hoped it was enough to prove to the waif child that her entire existence was not fraught with the taking of lives and the lack of love. The memories flicked across their linked hands, projecting images like ghostly wisps before their eyes. In them, he showed her how she had aided in understanding and controlling his own chthonic magic, and how she too had delved into his mind to find the trigger point of his power. He showed her the lives she had saved--Elespeth, Chara, and himself--on the battlefield. He showed her how she assisted him numerous times, and how she fought against her own nature in order to further along the Rigas cause, when she needn't have.
Then--a different set of images appeared, unprovoked. Chara. Their relationship. The grudging respect the two had developed for each other. The support that Lilica had given to the blonde caster. A shoulder to cry on. A relied-upon friend. Their lips touched together. The new scene purpled with bougainvilleas behind which a fountain, spurted with aquamarine glory. They warmed each other in Chara's enormous bed. Lilica had whispered I love you and they walked together in a beautiful garden, hands linked. Finally, the swarm of images ended with Lilica tending to Lysander's leg impairment, a look of fondness crinkling the older man's wrinkled brow.
The images faded, and the world returned to its monochrome, desaturated pallor. Alster opened his eyes, and lowered his hand. "There still is a light in you, Lilica. But it has been obscured by the life you had no choice but to follow. The world abandoned you at such a young age. You were never given the chance to grow, as you should, with guidance and love. But it's not too late." Suddenly, an idea dawned upon him. "Have you ever...do you like games, Lilica?" He again produced the ball of etherea in his hand. He threw it into the air, and it exploded into a burst of multi-colored sparks. He reached out to touch a floating spark, and it popped like a bubble of light. "The object of the game is to eliminate as many sparks as you can--before I get to them." He began to pop more of the glimmers of disseminated light, and even burst one that alighted right at the tip of her nose. It disappeared in a sheen of colors like the rainbow. "You'll have to act fast, Lilica." He gave her a sly smile. "I'm good at this game."
The mad dash to the landing site of the Skyknights revealed what he and Elespeth had already witnessed from afar: several of the warriors were severely injured, including their commander. Blood soaked through her clothing and the ratty, makeshift bandage that did naught to stop the flow. All survival instinct flooded his countenance immediately. He took to Vega's side, opposite where Elespeth offered her support as a crutch. Together, they settled her in a nearby tent, laying her across an available cot and cutting away the cloth that stuck to her grisly injury. It was not large: only about an arrow's width in size, but it was deep, and the blood spurted from the torn opening of flesh, which confirmed Elespeth's assessment: her artery had been severed.
Staunching the wound with a tourniquet was, at this rate, a fruitless effort. The blood loss was too substantial, and unfortunately, their only available option was to burn the wound closed.
With a firm nod of understanding, Haraldur dug into his pouch and uncovered the very handkerchief that Vega had gifted him and about which they had joked just the other night. He crinkled it into a tight ball and stuffed it into Vega's mouth. Then, he climbed onto the cot, over the Skyknight, and pinned her shoulders down. "Vega," he said, looking her in the eyes, obscuring the view of her own leg, and the hot knife that would soon be pressed upon it. "Stay with me, all right? This won't last long."
He rummaged through his pouch again, withdrawing his tin flask from last night and pouring the liquid over the wound to sterilize it, before the onerous task was to take place. "You owe me some swill," he said, with a small, jocular smirk, as he returned his attention to the injured Eyraillan commander. He kept her distracted by telling her a story about two Mollengardian sheep-herders who had an unfortunate run-in with a wild roc and who had been mistaken as sheep, for the freshly sheared wool that they had carried in their hands. The roc ended up flying off with the wool, a cloudy stream of fluff clutched in its talons.
The searing knife touched Vega's flesh. She thrashed and tried to scream through her gag, but Haraldur kneed over the tops of her kicking legs and kept his hands fused to her flailing arms, preventing her escape.
The hot knife was applied a second time, and Haraldur repeated his stance, pressing himself against Vega until eventually she calmed. It was done. The wound had been properly cauterized. With one more warning to the ailing Skyknight, he poured a little more alcohol on the ravaged area of skin, and removed the gag from her mouth.
"Here," he gave her what remained of his flask. "You deserve this." By that time, the medic had arrived, and Haraldur removed himself from the cot, patting Vega's shoulder as he did so.
He and Elespeth were shooed out of the tent by the impatient medic, but they returned later that evening, once she had been given the necessary healing aid and some rest.
"How are you faring?" he asked, handing her a mug of tea brewed fresh from the fire, and a plate of lamb flank, a tender cut colored a deep, juicy red. "Your recovery hinges on drinking plenty of fluids, and eating a good amount of meat. Considering your wishes from this morning, it's not a bad way to end your day."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She lost interest in the answer as soon as Alster proposed a game--an activity with which she was hardly familiar, but the challenge intrigued her. "You think those little fireflies can survive here? Can survive me?" She teased, grinning as she reached out to burst the sparks as well. They had no feeling, no substance, and yet the tiny lights were some strange joy to watch as they burst into rainbows. Young Lilica lost track of time during this game, lost track of where she was... until a change in scenery drew her attention away from the sparks, and she found herself staring at... herself. A replica, one hunched over at the base of a tree, not covered in blood. Alone and shivering.
"Oh." The word dropped from her mouth in a sigh of annoyance. "This is where I was supposed to die. Where that girl died, and where I was born of her naivete."
Glancing at Alster, whose expression resembled sadness, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "It was inevitable; it's too late for that girl. You cannot survive in this world through trust and unconditional love. Look where it has landed her: she died, over and over and over again. Relives it, never learns from her mistakes. Never learns that she will always be alone, and will die alone."
Her expression turned impassive, as she looked on at the girl--at herself--without pity. "I rose where she fell, succeeded where she failed. I will not let anyone hurt me... not like they hurt her."
Though weak and delirious from bloodloss, Vega was no fool, and knew exactly what was to take place. But Haraldur was quick, and stuffed the handkerchief into her mouth before she could voice her protests. Shaking her head in a desperate plea, she struggled against the mercenary's strong hold, heart racing in anticipation of what Elespeth was about to do. She hardly heard a word of his story before the scent of her own, burning flesh reached her nostrils, accompanied by an excruciating pain.
If she could have screamed, she would have, but the bloodcurdling (in every sense of the word...) shriek was muffled by the gag as her body thrashed in response to the pain. The Skyknight fought Haraldur with every ounce of her dwindling strength, tears springing to her eyes, half-convinced she might be sick from the searing of her skin. In reality, Elespeth was fast and precise in her maneuvers, and the painful procedure did not last more than two minutes, but it felt like an eternity trapped in the aroma of burnt, human skin. She was barely even conscious, hardly aware of when it finally came to an end, when Elespeth grasped her shoulders and spoke her name in a soothing tone, reassuring her that it was over. It was over...
What followed was also a blur, some nauseating mixture of people forcing a bitter concoction down her throat which allowed her to sleep, the frequent application of a pungent salve on her wound, a hand on her wrist and her neck to monitor her pulse. It wasn't until suppertime, when the sun just began to set, that the Ilandrian princess regained some sense of lucidity, and perked up--only ever so slightly--at Haraldur's arrival. Accepting the mug of tea with both hands, still void of strength from what she had suffered, she turned her face away from the plate of succulent meat. If it were possible, she grew a shade paler, her freckles prominent against the blue tinge of her skin.
"You cannot possibly expect me to eat meat so soon after having my own flesh seared, worse than that lamb," she scoffed, the corners of her mouth curling into a frown. The Skyknight had the attitude of a child, angry with their elders for making a decision that they found unpleasant... albeit necessary. But there was nothing worse than being so wounded, so vulnerable, that one has no say over the treatment of their own body. Being gagged also provided little help. "I should be surprised if I ever touch animal flesh again. But... thank you, all the same."
Tucking a whisp of damp hair behind her ear, Vega peered into the murky waters of her tea, avoiding Haraldur's gaze out of her own, stubborn guilt. "I wish I could resent you and Elespeth. I've never felt such pain in my entire life, but you... saved me. I'd lost too much blood; I know there was no other way..." Sheepish and uncertain, those pale blue eyes averted from the mug of tea. "When I am able to return to Eyraille... both you and the Atvanian woman will be granted our highest honour, that I can guarantee. For what you did was both the most brutal, and... and the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me."
"So I needn't worry about you seeking revenge?" Just then, Elespeth pushed past the tent flaps, a clean outfit over one arm, a towel over the other, and a bowl of water in her hands. "And here I was feeling such remorse for your pain that I thought you might like a little help feeling less like a patient and more like the dignified warrior that you are."
Vega watched as she placed the bowl and clothing on the ground, knelt next to her cot, and began to clean the blood still caked in the Skyknight's nails with care. "Out," Elespeth told Haraldur, unable to keep the smirk from her lips. "You're free to provide any help you wish, but leave matters of undress to us women."
That was enough to coax a blush into Vega's pale cheeks. The princess cleared her throat. "Haraldur... you were trying to tell me a story, earlier. I can hardly recall it. Would you mind... when we're through here, would you recount it for me?"
"Don't go too far, then," the Atvanian besought her mercenary companion, still smiling oh so knowingly. "We shan't be long."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
His smile widened when the child took part in his game, shades of joy and amusement flickering across a face that before was statuesque: a hard slab of granite. He continued to attack the sparks in his vicinity, feigning a competitive desire to defeat the young girl, though it was all for show. In the end, he let her win, but only by a small margin so that she wouldn't suspect any foul-play on his part. He slapped his hands on his knees after all the sparks had disappeared, expelling an exaggerated sigh of frustration. "That was hardly a challenge." He gave a good-natured whine, jabbing his finger into the air, at her. "I'll make it more difficult. Next time, I'll--"
His words vanished when the child's attention focused on a nearby tree, where another child--the same child--sat, discarded as if she were an old, broken toy. Something visceral stirred within Alster in witnessing this scene. He clutched his stomach in reflex, remembering a detail from his childhood that his own recovering memories had begun to reveal. He envisioned himself under that tree, hugging himself, only he was in a dark, fathomless room. The blackness was so thick, his small, terrified voice could not even pierce through the depths, the layers, of his isolation. He called into nothingness, and received only one answer: a flash of yellow, slitted eyes---watching with a patient interest.
Alster clutched his arms and shivered in time with the newest iteration of Lilica. He rose to his feet and glanced at the child beside him. "Maybe she would like to play, too," he said, softly. Nodding at the blood-soaked girl in a bid for her to follow, he approached the shivering Lilica at the base of the tree, and knelt before her.
"You're not alone," he said, casting a fire spell in his hands, to help warm the freezing child. He made shapes in the flames: galloping horses, hopping rabbits, and soaring birds with long, trailing tails. "Warm yourself here, Lilica. And when you're ready," he looked up at the blood-soaked child with an inclusive head gesture, "we'll all play a fun game. Would you like that?"
It's not too late, he repeated his phrase from earlier, to himself, more emphatically than before. And it can't be too late for me, either...
Vega's reaction to the meat plate impelled Haraldur to remove it from her line of sight. He set it on the counter of a far table, and shielded her from its offending appearance. "I figured it was worth a try," he said, with an apologetic smile. He did not elaborate by mentioning that he had seldom turned down a fine cut of meat, no matter how gruesome a battle or his condition, and in fact had eaten a few slices of venison shortly after having to cauterize one of his own jagged gashes--but he chalked it all up to his survivalist tendencies. He did, however, give her a nod of commiseration, and sat on the edge of her cot.
"It's not a pleasant procedure, I know. And it's also not necessary to commend me; I didn't do much. That honor goes to Eris, though I daresay I'm quite skilled in restraining unruly patients." He, too, needn't explain those set of credentials, for he often assisted Arina in her treatment of the injured and infirm. The smile faded when he thought of those shining brown eyes of hers, always afire even in the wake of all the tragedy she had suffered. The loss of her previous husband, and of her son...Yet still she was able to move on, and resume living. He, on the other hand...
He hadn't time to sink into that errant memory, however, when Elespeth entered the tent and set upon the task of cleaning the detritus that accumulated on the Skyknight's skin and nails. He relocated from the cot to the tent flaps, about to pull them aside and leave the two warrior women to their devices, when Vega called her attention to him. With a compliant smile, he nodded. "Of course." And took his leave.
Later, with Elespeth's go-ahead, he returned, giving the Eyraillan princess a nod of approval at her newly buffed and clean state of dress and appearance. He settled near her bed-side, and told her the story anew.
"To this day," he concluded with a note of facetiousness, "I believe that's the real reason why Mollengard despises Eyraille. They simply tired of cleaning up after roving bands of wild rocs. I do wonder what became of the purloined wool, though, and if the roc thief ever fashioned it into a nice hat."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The Lilica beneath the tree hovered her hands over the fire, the ice on her cheeks melting back to normal tears. "When... when will he come back?" Her voice was so quiet, so rapt with broken and intermingling emotions. Her small hand, ice cold, came to rest on Alster's wrist. "He told me to wait, right here..."
"He's not coming back. He left you to die." The mirror-image Lilica with bloodied hands hissed. "Maybe you should, already." Glancing at Alster, she pouted. "She will not be any fun in a game. And she won't move from that spot to play..."
"No--I... I would like to." Trembling at the knees, the shivering Lilica stood at last, hugging herself around the middle. "I've never played with other people before. But... what if he comes back and I'm not there?"
The air suddenly grew colder, as the shy girl's bloody counterpart took a step forward. "You're an idiot. You'll only hold us back..."
"I won't! I promise. I can... we don't have to stay." Worrying her lip, she sought Alster's gaze. "We don't have to stay. I want to play..."
Though raised a noblewoman, Vega had no problem abandoning her pride enough to allow Elespeth to help her out of her ravaged and bloodstained outfit. In al honesty, she appreciated the gesture, especially when standing sent her injured thigh muscle into painful spasms. It allowed for a less than formal interaction with the she-knight, who opened up to her a bit. She learned that Eris was still silently mourning the loss of a brother, and the desertion of a family. Pain and tragedy, it seemed, was what tethered them together; she and Eris and Haraldur, alike.
"I am sorry for what you have suffered," she told the Atvanian woman when, at last, she was clean and dressed in fresh clothing. "And I hope you can find the means to heal."
"I already have; through camaraderie. Friendship." Elespeth stood, smiling without remorse. "Haraldur has helped me more than he even realizes. Stay by his side... I can guarantee he will not let you down."
The former knight did not wander off until she found Haraldur again. Laying a hand on his shoulder, she could not help the grin on her face. "I am through, as promised. Vega is in far better spirits now; she is profusely grateful for our help. I couldn't have done it without your assistance."
Not a word of it was a lie, but Elespeth took care to emphasize Vega's gratitude. There was something in the interaction between the Skyknight and Haraldur of which she did not think they were aware. "Go and keep your promise, now. I think she'd like to hear the rest of that story."
Sure enough, Vega--who looked cleaner, better rested and far better dressed--welcomed her friend's return and sat up to listen to what turned out to be a comical story. It drew laughter from her tired lungs; lungs that were hardly accustomed to laughter, but welcomed it all the same. "The wild rocs even give native Eyrallians a run for their money, you know," she informed him. "Never doubt the intelligence of rocs; they can and will outsmart you, if they can. Though I am certain that Mollengard can find many another reason to despise Eyraille... and I could not entirely blame them. Speaking of rocs..."
Inhaling deeply, she chanced stretching out her injured leg, enduring the burn of the injured muscle being stretched. "How is Aeriel? I need to see how she is faring; I was too delirious to even see if she is injured." Turning her azure eyes on her friend, she ended a hopeful hand. "Could I bother you for a hand up?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
As he rose to his feet, he dispersed the fire from his hands, but the heat still radiated off his skin. He took the crying Lilica's frozen fingers and helped her upright, smiling as he wiped the tears from her face. "We're not journeying far from this tree, Lilica. If he comes for you, he'll see that you're right here. The time will go faster if you're having fun. And if the two of you beat me in our game," he shot a few sparks into the air, as a sampling of the reward they would receive, "I'll show you something wonderful."
The game that he proposed was similar to the one he played with the blood-covered Lilica, only he added a few "bonus balls" that would only count as points if the two Lilicas touched the iridescent surface together, at the same time. Once they were accustomed to the structure of the game, he then turned some of the balls into animals: weasels that skittered on the ground, or birds that tried to escape to low-hanging branches, and out of reach. By the end of the game, he huffed a stream of breath into the air and wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. "The two of you really gave me the run-around," he said, peppering his dialogue with well-placed pants of exhaustion. "But I've calculated the points, and the two of you have defeated me. In fact, I received a pretty sound beating. You both did very well. And true to my word," he lifted both hands into the air, "I'll show you what I've promised the winners."
With concentration, he threw balls of multi-colored light into the surrounding trees, shaping and forming the colors into spirals and whorling formations. Each tree erupted into glittering towers of coruscated brilliance, and each tree displayed a different pattern from the rest. One was decorated with flashing purple bougainvilleas. The tree beside it contained coral-colored sea shells and ocean waves. A third tree was a menagerie of exotic animals, and the fourth, a rainbow-colored fountain, with the high-climbing branches representing gushers of azure water.
Before Haraldur had reentered Vega's tent, fully expecting Elespeth to follow him inside, he turned around and saw that she was gone. With a suspicious frown, he resumed his return to Vega's bedside, had completed his story, and received the desired result from the Skyknight's quaking lips of laughter. He wasn't certain of the veracity of such a story, but he had learned a few amusing anecdotes from Arina and many of the refugees, and they proved more useful than his strict Forbanne years would have had him believe. It had taken a while to develop a sense of humor, but he never regretted learning the art of comedy, for it made the blackest of days a mite more tolerable, especially when the effects on another person were this poignant. Even he completed the tale with an amused smile in turn.
"Oh, I've been on the receiving end of your own roc, in fact," he began, turning his eyes upward, in recollection. "A few years ago, when I had taken a ride on Aeriel. She tried to steal my necklace." He pulled the chain around his neck and extricated the tree pendant from beneath his cuirass, a tarnished silver gleam in the low lantern light. "Almost ripped it off my neck, but I told her not to, that it was special, and she seemed to listen, for she never attempted it a second time."
His expression turned from wistful to dubious as she had wished to move out of her cot so soon after her minor surgery and resulting loss of far too much blood. "Aeriel appears well, but I don't think it's wise to wander around camp in your condition. I'll offer my services as a crutch, but if I see that you're having any complications, we're turning around before you end up fainting." He pulled her to her feet, careful of her injured leg as he wrapped his arm around the side in need of extra support. "I'm beginning to tire of handling unconscious persons. Ask Eris. She knows about this very well."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"But... together, we have a better chance of winning," the other Lilica pointed out in a soft voice. "Please?"
"What do you even care? Why would you want to associate with me? You hate me." Bloodied Lilica pressed her lips together firmly. "We cannot both exist at the same time."
Her mirror image only smiled, soft, sad, but not void of hope. "You're angry because he never came back... so am I. Just... differently. I don't hate you. Let's team up and see what happens. We can help one another."
Though nearly imperceptible, a change suddenly came over the more sullen Lilica, then. She said nothing, looking on at her tear-streaked counterpart with confusion. At last, when she turned back to Alster, it was with a pointed look at determination. "I could win without her help," she declared with certainty. "But if, together, we can win more quickly..."
It was decided. And without further ado, the two Lilicas joined forces and went at Alster's game with all they had. It was over in no time, and the two girls who were one and the same clearly enjoyed themselves, like any little children would. They watched the show of lights that the Rigas caster put on for the two of them, dazzled by the spectacle with wide eyes. When it was through, and Alster turned around again, the little girls had vanished, and in their place stood the fully grown Lilica who had vanished. Tears streaked her face, but otherwise, she seemed unharmed.
"I didn't think... that it was possible to forgive myself," she breathed, as the scenery shifted, the wood disappearing and the fountain reappearing, all sunlight, shining water and bougianvillas. "I feel... different. Lighter. Alster..." Her lips twitched into a gentle smile. "Thank you..."
"You have a history of people fainting into your arms?" Vega couldn't help but tease as she slung an arm around Haraldur's broad shoulders, wincing whenever she put weight on her injured leg. "Well, you have my word to only lose conscious when you are not present and required to help. Deal?"
Her smile reached her eyes, and she stepped carefully out into what was left of daylight. The air felt refreshing on her face, which had regained its colour since early that morning, and she'd have endured a little muscle pain just for the opportunity to breathe fresh air, even if it weren't for Aeriel. "I apologize retroactively for Aeriel's attempt at theft," she said to the mercenary, but not without a grin. "Rocs are like any other bird and happen to be attracted to all things glimmering and sparkly. If it catches their eye, then in their mind, it belongs to them. That said... Aeriel knows better. Though it took her a while to get there."
Shoulders shaking with a small chuckle, the princess recalled one of the many times she'd had to scold the bird for theft. "When she was newly grown, I once discovered a nest full of cutlery and decor and even some coins... pounds and pounds worth. You'd never guess who that nest belonged to. That little brat almost got me into a lot of trouble; the palace thought that I was stealing from it!" Leaning heavily upon Haraldur, the Skyknight turned eagerly towards the makeshift stables where the rocs were kept. She wasn't even within ten feet of it before she heard a familiar, piercing squawk that made the both of them cringe. "Aeriel! By the gods, I can't move as fast as you desire."
One step at a time, she neared her avian companion who, to her great relief, had not sustained any injury. "Did she give you a hard time?" Vega asked Haraldur as she stroked Aeriel's beak. "She can become unruly when it looks as though I am being taken from her. Broke a man's arm, once... Needless to say, she is my greatest guardian."
The bird clucked sounds of approval, nuzzling her rider so fiercely than she nearly knocked the two humans over. "Aeriel!" the Skyknight tried to caution the enormous bird, but Aeriel's affections were too strong, and before long, Vega found herself in a heap on the ground, with poor Haraldur buffering her fall with his body. Hissing in pain, she pushed herself into a sitting position, her cheeks aflame as she looked down at Haraldur. "I... am so sorry." Came her bashful apology, biting back a groan as she removed her body from his lap. "She is overly excited... Are you all right?"
If she could forgive herself, then I could forgive me, too. ...Could I?
...Would I?
"Your young self--selves--there's nothing to fear from them," he said, squinting into the sparkle of water. "They're not looking to destroy you. They only wanted a little attention. Some nourishment in the form of play. And understanding. I'm sorry that you didn't experience that kind of carefree awe and wonder earlier on. But at least now, they can reconnect with you---and you can help each other as one unit, no longer fractured and seen as different or fearsome."
As he positioned himself in the center of her sanctuary, which was right in front of the fountain, he took Lilica's hand and gave her a small, encouraging nod. "Now, we reinforce your sanctuary. This place is the veritable fountain through which all other memories will flow and connect. The Serpent won't be able to touch you here, once we are through. All you have to do is concentrate on all that has happened here--and let your mind wander to all else that has influenced this moment into existence. Those will be the points of connection. Concentrate," he repeated, as he began to draw symbols into the air, "and I'll do the rest."
Haraldur shrugged helplessly. "...Guilty. But to be fair, I was the cause of one fainting spell in particular," he said, recalling when he, to prevent Elespeth's reckless pursuit of Alster's assailants, forced her into an unwilling sleep. "Though in our current circumstances, I should probably just resume my role. Someone has to do it," he said, with a lopsided grin.
As they walked, swerving past the main avenues of camp and taking less crowded pathways so to avoid any curious onlookers or traffic, Haraldur listened with a tilted head of interest to Aeriel's exploits, his necklace of previous avian interest bouncing against his chest as they moved. "Considering your kindgom's investment with roc mounts, I can only imagine how confusing it is when dealing with thieves, and having to determine if they are man or beast. You must have a thriving black market. Or, a sizable population that has chunks of flesh missing, for I can't foresee that stealing from a roc's cache is without its risks. And eternal scorn."
They reached the stables right as dusk began to subside into night. But there was enough gloaming in the sky to identity Aeriel by her ponderous, lolloping body as she half-stalked, half fluttered to them with continuous trills and shrieks.
"I'm still in one piece," he called over all the jubilant noise, "and nothing is broken. So no, she didn't--"
He never finished his sentence before he ended up backwards on the ground, sandwiched between the dirt and the pressure of Vega having slammed into his stomach. He coughed in reflex, joining the Skyknight in an upright position as Aeriel lorded over them with excited half-flaps of her giant wings and the clicking of her beak. "No, I'm fine--how's your injury?" With care, he helped Vega back to her feet and brushed the dirt off his trousers. "...It appears that your roc is either trying to adopt me into her fold or to break me until I fold," he said, with a smile that bordered on a chuckle. "And I thought horses were willful enough."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And so, as she took Alster's hand, wiping her face free of tears with the other, it was Chara that she focused on.
The warmth of her shoulder and embrace, the gentle pull of her hands as she wove flowers into her hair, her breath in her ear and the pleasurable chills that traveled down her spine, the plush velvet of her lips...
"Chara," she murmured, softly and with reverence. "It is Chara that roots me to this spot. Everything between this... it all pools here, in the ripples of the water and the sun's rays that glint off of them." So strange, how two people so visceral, so functionally destructive, were so tenderly connected that one had a place in the other's heart that could be touched by no evil. Lilica D'Or and Chara Rigas had the power to destroy one another; instead, that heated passion had found a very different path, one that was very possibly the chthonic caster's saving grace. Her one and only defense against the Serpent's powers of delusion and deception.
Lilica stood before that fountain, basking in the memories to which her fondness was tethered. When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her gilded prison, sitting across from Alster on her bed. And she felt... rested. Renewed. Like she didn't need to be locked up for her own protection or anyone else's. "I owe you, Alster Rigas," she sighed, surprised to find her cheeks were wet with very real tears. "And I have one more favour to ask of you, yet. Just a moment."
Leaping from the bed, the dark mage hurried to the other room, where upon a table sat the parchment and inked quill that the Rigas caster had brought for her. Scribbling a quick note to Chara, emphasizing the urgency to see her again soon, she folded I and brought I back to Alster. "Give this to Chara. Please. Adalfieri has been keeping her from seeing me... Maybe she will find another opportunity if she knows I have news."
"You have most definitely been adopted into her fold," Vega confirmed with a laugh, graciously accepting his hand up. "My leg is fine; as fine as it can be after nearly bleeding out and then coming under a hot knife. I guess I owe you for buffering my fall, among everything else you've done for me."
Placing a firm hand on Aeriel's beak, the Skyknight gently albeit firmly talked the roc back to obedience, until she settled once again in the stalls. "Believe me, you will find no more spirited a familiar than a roc," she explained to Haraldur as they made their way away from the stables. "Horses can be fiery, but they have been tamed by humans for far longer than the rocs. They say it requires a lifetime of patience to temper one, for that I how long I can take to have them become obedient enough to ride. With Aeriel... well, I got very lucky. Not to mention, rocs have a sense of gratitude, and I have a feeling she thinks she owes me her life."
With a bit more effort than it took to move from her tent, Vega managed to make it back with a good deal of Haraldur's help. "You know... if you do choose to settle in Eyraille, when this is over," she turned a cheeky grin to her rather heroic friend. "You would be welcome among the Skyknights. It's not a path for everyone, and you could certainly use a reprieve from all things war, but you certainly have a way with rocs. You could even ride Aeriel in my place from time to time, with a little specialized training."
Easing herself back onto her cot, she winced as she stretched out her leg which still throbbed from the fall. Fortunately, the wound had not reopened; she wasn't sure she could realistically endure it being cauterized a second time. "I cannot speak for how good a Commander I am, and I realize you take issue with authority," she added with a wink. "But... the offer will remain. My knights could use a well-seasoned lead to follow when I am not around, or unable to lead them."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
As he finalized the last bits of the spell, however, he felt a snap, a rebound, within the protective river. It tried to ford across with its pendulous tail, churning the water in an attempt to cause a disruptive current. The Serpent. It was caught, upended from its roaming grounds and surrounded on all sides by defensive energy. But it thrashed and it wriggled within that shield with a worrying amount of determined force. Before, however, he could think on how to redouble the barrier, he opened his eyes, and found himself atop the bed before Lilica. She looked as grateful and rejuvenated as he had seen her at the fountain, and knew he hadn't the heart to dash her mood by revealing what he witnessed at the conclusion of his spell. The Serpent was, as per his plan, trapped within the magical barriers--but he didn't know how long it would hold. And as those barriers were tied to Lilica's emotional state, they too suffered from fluctuating states of stability.
"Let's not worry about whatever debt you feel you owe me," he said, smiling softly as he took from her the written letter. "I'll see to it that Chara visits you in all haste. Until then, Lilica...take care."
He left the gilded cell in search of Chara, who he found with relative ease as she was heading back to her villa for the evening. Pressing the letter into her hands, he urged her into the direction of the cell, and made to leave with just as much haste as he had when first springing upon her. For, once he reached his own villa, he collapsed with exhaustion atop the marble floors of the foyer.
Chara, who read the letter and frowned, had expected the worst possible situation awaiting her in Lilica's cell. But by Alster's expression, a cross between bone-weariness and hope in the most tangible of its iterations, her own throat closed up as she considered the most outlandish of possibilities. Did Alster succeed in leeching the Serpent influence from her mind? Was she well? Content, even? Her anticipation and curiosity, coupled with the desire to see her again, forced her to move down the hallways and demand her entry into Lilica's quarters, which the guards had allowed with a nod and a bow. She opened the doors, and saw the dark mage upon the bed, and though her appearance was the same, her entire bearing, her very presence, was absolutely foreign to her. She shut the door behind her and approached with tentative steps, eyeing Lilica in careful, disbelieving scrutiny. "Lilica?" She asked, as if unsure of this doppelganger that occupied her lover's place. "Are you--did Alster give you any strange medicines!?"
"So it seems that I still catch falling persons. Thank you, Aeriel," he eyed the now-contained mount as she backed into her stable, "for helping to realize my unshakable destiny."
They tracked the distance whence they came, the sky now an abyss of stars that made space for the inevitable rise of the moon. He still acted as her crutch whilst scouting the area, in case another roc, or a man as large as one, toppled them to the ground a second time. "I believe you," he said with an emphatic nod. "I've not had the opportunity to bond as you have with your roc. As Forbanne, we disposed of our steeds once they lost their value to us. No chance to forge a connection; they were simply tools, and nothing more. They were often abused." His voice lost its good humor, and did not return even after they entered Vega's tent. He helped her into the cot and stood aside when she had settled back into the cushions. But his face had become stony with her every additional word, and his eyes distant.
"I'm no leader, Vega," he explained after a stretch of silence formed between them. "Maybe I was, once, but I had that opportunity fall on me not long ago, and the results...were not favorable." He thought of that small group of Rigas and Tadasuni dead as they were poked on all sides by Messino's army of reanimated corpses. "Besides," he added, more reasonably, "your Skyknights would take offense if an outsider, from Mollengard's own Forbanne, no less, led them through the skies. It's not necessary to give me special treatment. Think of your own men. I am, after all---Enginn. No one."
He clasped his hands behind his back as he addressed the Skyknight, adopting his soldier's positioning: stiff shoulders, spaced apart legs, and a clenched, firm jaw. It was his shorthand to welcoming the numbing sensation that spread over his skin like a soothing salve.
However, so as not to leave Vega on a sour note, he added, before bidding the Commander a good night, "But I may be interested in roc-flying lessons."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
It was late that night when at last her lover made her dramatic entrance, all but bursting through the doors with a note of panic in her fierce, cerulean eyes. Lilica was unable to withhold a grin. "All is well, Chara. That is why I brought you here... No medicines, I promise."
Standing, she approached her baffled lover, standing on her toes as she lovingly grasped her forearms. "Alster... he managed to do what the Sybaia could not. I feel... I don't think I am tethered to my darkness anymore." There was no real way to know, not with the shackles about her wrists that bound her magic, but she could sense the change in her own energies. They had changed for the better.
"And the Serpent... he has trapped it. It won't invade my mind anymore, not with the defenses that he helped to put in place. Don't you see?" Her dark eyes glittered with hope and elation. "I don't need to be here anymore; I'm not a danger. I can return to you... to us, with no barriers. No obstacles."
It was a bold move to make, gently pushing her astonished lover onto the bed, lacing her fingers through hers and capturing her mouth with a kiss. "I want to return to us, Chara. I want to return to your villa, your bed... I want to fall asleep and wake up next to you." She breathed in the Rigas mage's ear, and teasingly nipped at the pierced lobe. "I want you again... the way we were, before the Serpent's hold. Don't you... do you reciprocate that feeling?"
Ever full of mischief, Lilica sought to sway Chara's answer in the direction that she wanted. It was almost as if their roles had reversed, with the dark mage taking what she wanted, while the celestial caster was taken off guard with perplexity. Her red lips moved to Chara's neck, where they planted passionate kisses and soft bites, ever quiet so now as to rouse suspicion of the guards outside her door. "I need you to trust me, Chara. I'll hold nothing back... but staying here, alone, isolated, it isn't helping me. Don't you see? Being with you... it grounds me. It brings me to that sanctuary in my soul that the Serpent cannot touch."
A wandering hand traveled down the Rigas caster's torso, teasingly caressing her breast on its journey, until it settled on and began to caress that sensitive spot between her thighs, through the silken fabric of her gown. "Everything will be all right, now... Why don't you let me show you just how confident I am of that."
"As I said... the life of a Skyknight is not for everyone," Vega nodded her understanding, feeling rather silly for assuming that her friend would care to pit his faith and loyalty so far, so soon. "But do not sell yourself short, my friend. You are not Forbanne; you are not expendable. Please believe that."
A smile graced her weary features at his interest in lessons, and whether or not he said as much in a mere attempt to humour her, her eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "Teaching others is, in fact, my favourite part of what I do... so consider it done. You can practice with Aeriel, for now; she's a conscientious girl and won't let you get hurt. We'll start as soon as it is safe for me to ride again." The tone of finality in her voice seemed to solidify the plan; there was no going back, now. "Goodnight, Haraldur."
The following morning, so as to leave Haraldur to tend to Vega (she simply expressed that she was too busy), Elespeth visited Tivia in her tent for the first time since the poor, injured woman had arrived at the Tadasuni camp. She looked marginally better, scarring setting in as her burnt skin healed, but she knew better than to bring up the woman's appearance. If Chara was any indication, her appearance mattered perhaps more than it should. "I thought you might like something fresher than what the medics bring you," she commented, laying down a plate of freshly baked bread and cheese.
Unsurprisingly, the Rigas caster met her remarks with silence, at first. Tivia was not an easy nut to crack. "I know that Chara has taught you to despise me, but I am not your enemy, Tivia. I want to help, however I can. Just because Alster and I... just because our differences have placed distance between us, I still care about Stella D'Mare and your family. And if you decide you want a friend here, until you are well enough to travel back to Stella D'Mare... then you can find one in me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Finally, she dropped her jaw, and worked it into speaking order. "Alster did this?" she almost croaked in reply. It [i[did[/i] explain his sallow skin and trailing gait, though such a look was commonplace for him nowadays. If she didn't have the context in knowing where he had gone just before their encounter, she never would have predicted such a dramatic change in Lilica. At least, not so positive a switch, and in so little time!
"Of course he did." She concealed her incredulity, pretending she hadn't just voiced aloud her shock, as she tossed her blonde head of hair and gave the dark mage a prideful smile. "He is a Rigas, not a silly Sybaian charlatan. But as knowledgeable and skilled as he is in these matters," she bit on her lip, doubt and suspicion clouding her ability to enjoy Lilica's rejuvenation in full, "how do you know that you are free of your own darkness?"
Chara allowed her overzealous lover to guide her to the bedroom, wherein she about launched atop her, kissing and pawing and necking her with all the pep and affection of a puppy. Unprepared as she was for such an assault, she felt unable to keep the pace--which was wholly unlike her. But Lilica was more than eager to take control, and Chara soon found herself submitting to the raking and kneading of her partner's everything.: her suckling kisses, from lips to ears to throat, the saw of her teeth and saliva gliding across her skin, the plying of her fingers as they worked their way around her breasts down to the space in between, which throbbed in anticipation...She hitched a breath and lifted the hem of her dress for ease of access, and undulated against Lilica's spry little fingers massaging and working every sensitive fold of skin in a way that nearly forced a pleasurable scream from her mouth. But she kept silent, mindful of the guards posted outside of the doors, who could walk inside and check in on them at any moment...
And that knowledge, the very real danger of the situation, mounted her levels of desire until she peaked, feeling like a waterfall thrummed against every surface of her fire-hot skin. She sucked in a breath, again preventing another scream, and her muscles relaxed as she rolled against Lilica on the bed, twitching from the aftermath, her chest heaving in gasping, grateful breaths.
"You have...convinced me..." she said, with difficulty. "I believe now...what you say." She propped herself to one elbow, gazing at Lilica with a renewed fondness. "That was...how am I able to keep away from you, now!?" she said with frustration, using her free hand to disentangle the damp strands of her hair from her perspiring forehead. "My being here...it is not sanctioned by Adalfieri. But I may be able to arrange for you to speak with him. He will determine if you are no longer afflicted. But to do so," she again worried on her swollen lip, "I will have to mention Alster's involvement in your recovery, and that will not bode well for him or for me. But I wish you free from this prison as much as you." A roguish grin colored her already glowing cheeks. "Especially now."
Ever since the day of that horrible massacre, time refused to budge for Tivia, who still relived it in waking and in sleeping hours. The fires, the screams, the excruciating immolation of her body surrendering to the unnatural inferno which no casters could extinguish...it played and replayed in her head so often that she was shaken into near-hysteria when any change occurred in her new surroundings.
However, with the tireless efforts of Sybaia and Clematis both, they had managed to ground her into some semblance of reality. Now, they were gone, but with a parting gift: the seed, however small, of recovery. Already, she began to understand, with gasping realizations, her current position and status. She was in a Tadasuni war camp. Everyone else who had fought by her side had died. She was disfigured such that she could never look at herself in a mirror, nor would she want to. Reading the ravaged lines in her face, which splintered with painful stabs at her touch, was enough to dissuade her curiosities. At least the light from Outside hurt less, frightened her little; yet, she always tensed when the tent flaps opened and a broad beam of light speared through her comforting circle of darkness.
The interruption that split her reconstituting thoughts in twain was, of course, a woman she half-expected to see: Elespeth Tameris. She watched with her one good eye as the knight from Atvany approached with food that stirred no appetite in her, and rather made her sick to view. She turned away from the plate and the woman, instead staring at the ground as if it provided much better company.
But then she mentioned names--Chara, Alster, Stella D'Mare--and her eye welled into a tear of longing. She missed home. She wanted her family, the carefree life that had been taken from her, but it was not to be. The city had surrendered. She overheard some soldiers say as much in front of her tent. Under siege by King Marius and New Town. Could she ever return? Even if she were able--would her Rigas brethren accept her broken, desiccated shell of a body and mind?
Her lips quavered. She closed her eye. "We are locked out of Stella D'Mare, can you not understand?!" More tears flowed down her cheek. "I shall not see my family, and you will not see Alster. It is presumptuous of you to assume that you are my enemy, Elespeth. You do not compare to what I have lost. You are nothing to me...but a reminder," she half-opened her blue eye, "that you, too, are separated from what--who--you love. That there are no assurances for us. Only a goodbye, a farewell---that we did not choose." She shook her head, shivering from an unknown chill in the air. "So why do you insist on your loyalty to us? We have lost." The good side of her mouth curled in a mirror image of her burned half, which was scarred into a perpetual grimace. "You will gain nothing from this unnecessary charity. No favors--nothing at all but defeat."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
But above and beyond all that, Lilica could not deny that she also loved their give and take of pleasure; loved to know that she could satisfy someone, make them feel this way. Make them want more and... want her. Just as much as she wanted Chara. "I know it's gone, Chara. That darkness... not in my magic, but in what was tethering my magic. What was making it hurt me, holding me back, keeping me... cold. See?" Grinning, she cupped her lover's cheek with a warm palm. "I feel free. And I... I think I can have hope. Real hope, that the end of this war will not mean the end for us." Pulling her close, she crushed her lips against Chara's, feeling the rapid thrumming of her heartbeat through her silken dress. "I'm willing to do what it takes."
Of course, she understood and shared the Rigas caster's concerns. Her key to freedom from this regal holding cell was through convincing Adalfieri; and to do that, she would have to confess to Alster's involvement, when he should not have had any involvement with her at all. Surely, there would be consequences... perhaps such that she would be excommunicated from Stella D'Mare, never to associate with the Rigas family ever again. But even if that were the case (and in all honestly, it seemed like the worst case scenario), that did not necessarily have to spell the end of her and Chara. They could--would find a way. Because she could no more keep away from her lover than the haughty Rigas caster could from her. "It will work out; we will figure out a way," she tried to assure her. "I am not a danger any more, and he has no further reason to keep me here. Any excuses will only draw suspicion to him... and I know that you feel you must trust him, but please, trust me and trust Alster first. We might not be able to square away your prestige in the Rigas family the way you might want, but we have your best interests in mind." And more, softly, she added, "I have our best interests in mind."
Elespeth expected that attitude of Tivia. It was, after all, so very close to Chara's general mentality to tread upon her as if she were little more than the soil beneath her feet. Fortunately, circumstances had thickened her skin to the point where insults and nihilism from a Rigas no longer resonated with her. Perhaps she did have haughty, explosive Chara Rigas to thank for that. "Stop saying that, or you will certainly come to believe it. Listen, Tivia..."
Leaning forward, she rested gentle fingers atop the injured woman's uninjured hand. "You will see your home again; you will see your family again, and you will have family left to see. That, I promise you." Her gentle features hardened ever so slightly in emphasis of her determination and conviction. "I know this because I do not fight losing battles, Tivia. I pick my fights, and I pick them well. And I will see the life leave Messino's eyes, and his reign fade along with him, even if it is the last thing I ever see. Even if it means never seeing the ones I love, ever again."
The ones she loved... Alster, Haraldur. Even a budding affection for the Skyknight, who had stood up for her when no one else would, convincing the Tadasuni warriors that she could make a worthy contribution to their cause. Not so long ago, she wasn't sure she'd have had the same conviction. The thought of never seeing Alster again had been nothing less of a nightmare, an existence that she'd never thought she would want to lead. And she missed him, still: the warmth of his body, his kisses, that voice that sang her to sleep at the most vulnerable of times... She missed it all. But she had already grieved that severance, that separation from to one to whom she had been so spiritually and magically bound, and there was no turning back, no glance into the past. Because the only thing that she could count on was the future, and she would not find that by looking over her shoulder.
She missed Alster--would always miss him, and secretly, quietly, prayed for his well-being, to whatever god, goddess or deity happened to be listening. But she could not count on him as a part of her future... not anymore. And for that, hope for a life with him could not hold her back from doing what was necessary. The feeling was both liberating and disheartening... But it was what it was, and all that was left was to make the best of it and find those shards of light in the inky darkness that was war.
"I am not looking for favours, Tivia. I consider myself allied with you and yours for several reasons: for one, we both desire the demise of the same person, the fall of the same reign. And another..." The Atvanian woman pressed her lips together and withdrew her hand from atop the broken Rigas caster's. "Because I will never forget Alster. He has helped me, saved me, and I owe it to him--and therefore, to you and to every other Rigas--to see this through."
Elespeth stood, urging the plate of food towards the miserable caster who refused to be placated. "Try and eat something; if I've learned anything, it's that starving yourself won't help. Won't change anything. Even if you don't have an appetite. Take care, Tivia." With a nod, she moved towards the mouth of the tent. "Don't give up so easily, on yourself or the fate of Stella D'Mare. The war is not yet over; we haven't lost." At least, not yet...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
However, despite the warring that took place in her mind, Chara was elated by Lilica's verve, and wanted to take full advantage of the dark caster's playful, headstrong, irresistible mood. Before long, even she found herself swept into the infectious pull of her dreamy assurances regarding their ultimate fate, which she, as of late, began to second-guess. "We shall have no end," Chara exclaimed, drawing her thumb and forefinger into a circle. "Connected...and reunited. You know that I share in this life for us, Lilica. But," her fingers broke the circle, "Rigas law dictates a certain set of procedures, which I, as a councilman in training, must follow and adhere. I am only useful to you and to Alster, if I am in a position of influence. But I shall fight for you. For...for us." The familiar fire blazed in her eyes as she grabbed Lilica's warm, warm arms, tickling them with teasing fingers. I shall place my faith in you, Lilica. She fell over the dark mage and began to take hold of the control she so missed in her partner's absence. Even though I fear the worst...
"No!" Alster's face folded into a sour frown of protest. "Chara, if you so much as alludeto my involvement with Lilica, Adalfieri will--"
"What else can we do, Alster!?" She had found him the next morning on the floor of his villa, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a tangled mess. She had carted him to his bed, but not without some cheese, fruit, and water to help refresh his failing stamina. But he shot out of bed at her declaration to speak to Adalfieri about releasing the dark mage from her confines, and paced in fervent, nervous strides. With a huff of frustration, she continued. "We cannot keep Lilica imprisoned."
"I know that we can't, but do you believe that appealing to Adalfieri will free her? It will further condemn her! And you--and me!" He ran a hand through the strands of his unkempt hair in a bid to distract his wobbling legs into a full-stop. "She is not yet ready. The Serpent is not expelled from her mind. However, at this stage in her healing, it is imperative that she be given some leniency. If not full exoneration, at least unlimited visitation and the right to roam the grounds. If it legitimizes your argument," he said, his breathing easing into a bastardization of calmness, "take the Clematis healer with you. He will emphasize her need for fresh air and for company--if that will even sway Adalfieri at all," he added, bitterly. "But do not utter my name, Chara. He will not be so understanding when he uncovers my hand in all of this."
Adalfieri knows a great deal,, she thought, after leaving Alster to bedrest and approaching the Rigas head in his main chamber, with Elias in tow. Even if I mention nothing of Alster's involvement, he will sense it, if he is not already aware...
The very next day, a courtesy knock sounded on Lilica's door, followed by a small procession of guards delivering a man on a palanquin. They lowered the small seated booth in the center of the main living space, revealing Adalfieri staring out from the curtain with his glassy silver eyes. They rested on the dark mage, and a smile beset his smooth, wrinkle-free face. "Lilica. Come. Join me here at the table. We shall have ourselves a chat."
Tivia listened to Elespeth's speech in baffled silence. She stared at the warrior through the thin filter of her leaking eye, and wondered if this woman was not some very convincing hallucination, for the words she spouted had no basis in reality. Yet, she spoke them with conviction, with a truth bordering on delusion. She honestly believed such hogwash? That there was a battle still left to fight? That Stella D'Mare could be saved, and the residents therein? That she would return, and find acceptance from her family, despite all her failings?
"You are mad," she whispered, clutching Elespeth's hand so tightly that she saw the mild discomfort flicker in the former knight's eyes, and it placated her--but only just. "No wonder Alster fancies you so. He has the Serpent's madness, and is attracted to those of like mind. But," she shook her head, releasing her hold on the warrior, "who am I to deny you your self-sacrificial ways? Why else would you fight for our cause, if not to die as a result?" She egged on the warrior, her breath a rattle in her throat. "Because he is gone, and you have nothing left. I know of your motivations; you are only emphasizing your nobility in order to conceal the glaring flaw in your broken existence. That you chase a shadow in the dark. There is no glory in what you do. No higher purpose. Only your own foolish fantasies."
But as the woman turned and passed through the tent flaps to Outside, Tivia grabbed for the plate of food and nibbled on a wedge of cheese, tasting nothing, yet somehow feeling...reassured, but not in the way the warrior intended. I am not that silly. Not that doltish. She is an outsider desperately seeking a purpose that has abandoned her. I, however...I am still somebody. I still...matter. I am Tivia Rigas.
The unmarred side of her face twitched into the ghost of a smile.
Over the next few days, Haraldur routinely visited Vega at her tent, keeping her company and offering her plates of food--sans the meat. He seldom lingered for long, however, not wanting to overstay his welcome for one, and because, though he professed friendship to the Eyraillan princess, he still thought it best to keep a healthy enough distance between the two. Then why did I accept roc-flying lessons? he asked himself, berating his unclear motivations, which he meant to make perfectly lucid when next he encountered the Skyknight--who was now up and about the camp, though shakily.
It's because I want to fly...
But is that all? a conflicting voice argued. Is it also true that you genuinely enjoy her company?
He did. But he banished his thoughts and what they had implied.
He hadn't seen much of Elespeth, at least not when he was in Vega's company (for which he found a mite odd), and was on his way to locate her, when he saw the Skyknight hobbling her way to the stables. Before he could stop himself, he fell in line with her and bumped against her good shoulder, but not hard enough to lose her balance; he understood that at times he underestimated his own strength.
"Oh, sorry." He gave her a mock apologetic smile. "I didn't see you there, flame-hair. How's your leg?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And so the dark mage rose early the next morning, washing her face a smoothing her hair with her fingers as she awaited the Rigas head's pending arrival. During that time, she took the opportunity to plan what she would say to the old man, cognizant that what Alster said may be true: that he might have no intention of releasing her, so that he may use her darkness to his own end.
But even if it turned out that that was the case, she had to rein in her fury, and take the situation with a diplomatic an air as possible. Anger would not convince him that he was fit for release... Though she hoped that Chara would be successful in doing most of the convincing.
Sure enough, later that morning, the Rigas head entered her gilded prison, accompanied by a number of stoid guards, none who mirrored his (eerily) wrinkle-free smile. Lilica preferred the stoicism to that smile. "Adalfieri." The dark mage briefly nodded her acknowledgment of the Rigas head. With a tad reluctance, she moved her rigid body to take a seat from across him, dark eyes surveying every muscle in his face, the glint in his eyes, endeavoring to read him. As she expected, she could not.
"I trust Chara has informed you of my progress, or else you would not be here. It was charitable of you to let her come and see me." It took all of the will-power in her slight being not to inject venom into her words. "I understand you are keeping me out of concern that I might be a danger to others, and potentially myself. And I can inform you with certainty that I am no longer such a threat to anyone... my darkness, and the Serpent, do not control me." Meeting his silver eyes, she lifted her chin in emphasis of her confidence.
"If there is a way that I might prove this to you, then I implore you let me know. Please..." But would her word and Chara's, ultimately, be enough if this man had already solidified his own agenda in his mind? Nonetheless, she would keep up her facade of suspecting nothing sinister of the man's intentions. Not yet. "I am recovering. And I cannot recover fully, confined to this room... surely, you in your wisdom and judgement must realize this, as well. Chara is... my friend." Her countenance couldn't help but soften ever so slightly. "Her camaraderie has helped me--and continues to help me--more than I can even begin to express."
Recovery felt slow--as it would, undoubtedly, for anyone who was as apt to being up and about as much as Vega Sorde. Instructed by Tadasuni medics to adhere to bed rest for the next week, at the very least, ambling about was so discouraged that she was almost tempted to stay put as opposed to deal with the indignant chastising from both Tadasuni officers, as well as her own skyknights. Fortunately, she did not have to spend those long bouts of idleness alone with herself.
Haraldur, for whatever motivation on his own part, visited her every day and often, bringing her food, which was both a blessing and a disappointment (were she to wait in line for daily meals, at least she'd have had an excuse to get up and leave). But it was far beyond her to begrudge an act of kindness, especially when... well, she'd done nothing for him so deserving of his friendship and kindness. Nothing more than offer her own loyalty as a friend and a comrade. Not to mention, having the good grace not to serve her meat after her adverse reaction to it not long ago, the least she could do was express her gratitude to him and indulge his decisions.
But the mercenary from Mollengard never stayed long enough for her to delve into deeper conversation with him. It always remained rather light and idle: the weather, any new occurrences in the war, the haughtiness of the Tadasuni and what Eris was up to, since she saw so little of her since returning from that fateful mission that had left her injured. Not to say she couldn't appreciate small talk, but it always left a weight in her chest to watch him go, and each and every time she watched him disappear through the tent flaps, she silently berated herself for not asking him to stay, just a little longer. Perhaps he doesn't wish to; he suspects I will ask too many questions that he does not want to answer, bring up topics that he would simply rather not dwell on... can I blame him?
Driven by this fact, then--that her friend was not one to pay long visits--as soon as she could stand for a good amount of time before her muscle burned with fatigue and forced her to sit or lie down, she decided to endure the ridicule from the medics and pay visits to Aeriel, who never minded long bouts of her company. It was doing one such of these excursions, that she bumped (literally) into Haraldur, who had the gall to smirk. Anger was the last thing on her mind as she lightly shoved him right back, a smile pulling at her lips. "You really have it in you to compare my hair to fire after holding me down while heated steel burned my skin?" She teased, folding her arms indignantly. "I'm fine; not as fast as usual, and I need to take more frequent breaks from being on my feet. But, you know... the great thing about being high in the air is that there is really no pressure on your joints or muscles. Good thing I'm not a foot soldier, hm? Speaking of..."
Reaching out, she rested a hand on his shoulder, for once not out of the necessity to stay upright. "What do you say we try your first flying lesson? Aeriel is probably as stir-crazy as I have been; she'll love getting back into the air."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He had learned of Alster's 'lessons' by a combination of his own intuition and the specific scrying abilities of his magic, which helped him to See snatches of the Present, but only of his fellow Rigas brethren. Whenever he turned his focus on Alster, however, the picture was muddier and hard to decipher, which he attributed to the sheer power of his Gift that far outshone his own. But it was not difficult to piece together Serpent Bane's whereabouts and predict his motivations. Soon, he concluded that Alster, indeed, was helping Lilica to combat the Serpent sickness--but Adalfieri chose not to act. The greatest curse in his ability to view the present natures of his family was that to force his hand and to change undesirable events often tailspinned out of his control. Better to watch, to observe, and only guide, with a gentle push, his subjects to the desired result. He did so with Alster and Lilica, allowing them to continue their meetings. But he knew that to welcome this diverting path in his ultimate plan was to cease avoiding Lilica, and nudge her back on the right path.
"Yes, she has," Adalfieri said, maintaining his pleasant smile as the dark mage sat across from his palanquin. The guards had since departed, leaving them alone in her chambers. "She has told me that you are doing very well, and while I did not sanction her latest rendezvous with you," his glassy eyes flashed in a knowing gleam, "she has been quite adamant in convincing me of your release such that she has even recruited the Clematis healer to give his expertise on the matter. Both are in favor, and I am of the mind to take their counsel as I would one of my seasoned advisers."
"However," he continued, brushing imaginary dust off his lap, "I fear that I cannot condone your release. Do hear me out," he raised his arm into the air, in case she opened her mouth in protest. "I know you have been receiving help. Alster has seen to you, contrary to my desires. Unfortunately, despite his good-hearted intentions, he may have worsened, instead of bettered, your situation." He frowned, looking genuinely concerned. "The Serpent has his mind. He cannot defend himself any more than you are able, much as he thinks himself immune. He is not a trained healer, and may have done you undue harm by reaching inside and disentangling your natural defenses. The Serpent is still in you, Lilica. I can feel it thrashing against its bindings. It will snap them, and the ensuing rebound will leave you completely vulnerable to Its influences. You were protected, before. While uncomfortable in your imprisonment, you remained safe. But now," he shook his head with a sad side-to-side swipe, "you are even more of a danger to yourself, and to others."
"I apologize, Lilica, but we shall have to increase security. No more visits--until we can better handle your plight. Alster, too, will be under careful watch. Apprehended, if the need arises. He never realizes his folly, until it is too late, and the damage has been wrought. Chara's activities will be under close scrutiny, though she will remain under my instruction, for I very much wish her to sit at my Council." He cleared his throat, ready for his closing remarks. "I shall review you, and your status, at a later date, and from there, we shall determine the next step forward. Again, I am most regretful of the severe turn in this most tragic of circumstances, but I do hope you come to realize that you are most important to me, Lilica, and I wish you well. For your own safety, please do not associate with Alster. He is unstable. But I shall see about Chara." He offered her a magnanimous smile. "That is all I can promise you at this juncture."
While the vagaries of camp life kept his mind occupied, as he participated in small reconnaissance missions and land surveying excursions, drawing up maps and discovering new terrain for advantageous natural traps or caches in which to store explosives, Haraldur had always found time for Vega. And she, too, found a way into his idle thoughts, controlling them enough so that the most mundane of his daily observations out on the field became subjects he looked forward to sharing with the red-haired roc-rider. From discovering puddle-sized patches of sun-baked white-green roc guano, to consuming a hunk of tenderized meat, something, anything, would remind him of Vega. And now, his mind unconsciously went about locating her, even in the busy, well-trodden paths of the camp's main thoroughfare.
Do not think too much into the phenomenon, he thought, as he walked alongside the Skyknight in question, listening to her responses with receptive air and a slight smile. She is part of your past. Of course she resonates with you on some level.
"Shall I compare your hair to rust, then?" he said, feigning a contemplative mien. "Or will you also associate rust with a knife, which will then remind you of the steel that scorched you? If I compare it to the sun, will you associate it with the fire that sealed you? Or blood, like the wound---you see my predicament, here." He shrugged helplessly. "One of these days, we will have to compare scars. I've a few burns that may have something to say about your little sun-blemish."
He clamped shut his good-natured heckling when Vega made mention of the flying lessons that he had still wanted, but thought it best to decline. However, when he opened his mouth, he surprised himself by voicing the very opposite of what he had prepared to say. "Yes. So long as you or Aeriel do not decide to test out my own flying ability. I don't know what they teach native Eyraillans, but I assure you--I will drop to the ground like a stone."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
All of that lightness, that hope that had filled the hollow void of her broken heart since Alster's help dissipated as soon as the Rigas head uttered those words. And, in its place, doubt and sorrow settled; sentiments with which she never thought she would be reacquainted, at least, not so soon. No, perhaps it is too soon to despair, her desperate mind attempted to delude itself, protecting against the hopelessness that threatened to sink into her pores. Perhaps he can still be convinced, that there is still a chance...
No.
She should have foreseen this, given what she suspected of Adalfieri Rigas. He had no intention of releasing her, and, she was now certain, that it was not for fear of her being a danger to anyone. On the contrary, it was because she was healing... because he was not content that she had lost touch with the darkness upon which he had hoped to feed, which--she not knew for sure--that he had planned to exploit to his own end. He knew well that permitting her leave, to breathe fresh air, would only refresh her newborn hope, that granting her access to Chara would only further her recovery from that dark period into which her life had been plunged for so long. He knew, and he wanted to hinder that recovery as much as possible.
Heat creeping into her cheeks, she inhaled and exhaled slowly, staying her anger as best she could. "Two days ago, I might have believed you if you told me that," she began, clenching her hands around her knees, nails digging into her flesh. "I might have been inclined to believe that you were right, in the miserable state that I was in. Nothing seemed hopeful, everything was so foggy and faded... It would have seem possible that what Alster did for me only made my condition worse. But I have lived in my own body long enough to know when there has been a difference, for the better... and I know that you are, to some extent, lying to me."
She was bold, but not for her anger so much as the conviction of her certainty. Adalfieri was too at ease, too... manipulative. "It's because you want it, am I right? You plan to use my darkness to an end which you have not told anyone. You are keeping me here in hopes to keep it suffering..." Tilting her chin downward, she looked the Rigas head in his silver eyes, challenging. Cognizant. "You might be able to pull the other Rigases strings, Adalfieri, but I am not a Rigas, and you won't manipulate me. For the first time in my life, I have some clarity. And I will not be part of your scheme. Especially if it is detrimental to my healing."
"Are you attempting to belittle my pain through your own anecdotal experiences? Have some honour, soldier!" Vega playfully swatted his arm, a playful gesture that was not without a tad annoyance. "Show some respect to your flight instructor. I may be the reason you don't fall to you doom. Come on."
Lips twitching into a grin, she added, "And, contrary to your belief, Eyraillians are not born with the ability to fly. Or else we would not have such a strong relationship with the rocs. Over here: Aeriel hasn't seen you in some time."
The Skyknight led him the rest to the way to the makeshift stables, the sound of screeching and worbling growing louder as they approached. Aeriel's piercing cry was unmistakable, as soon as the roc's sharp, golden eyes fell upon the pair. "Hello, my girl," Vega laughed, greeting her beloved animal familiar with deep strokes into her massive feathers. "Try not to knock us down this time, hm? We are going to teach someone to fly."
Glancing over her shoulder at Haraldur, the Eyrallian princess winked and tied a scarf around her mouth. Fishing through Aeriel's saddle bags, she found another, spare scarf, which she tossed to Haraldur. "Don't lose this one--or gag anyone with it." She was only half-teasing. "Now, let's have you in front. You've taken the back enough, and it won't teach you how to fly if you don't face the wind head on."
Oddly compliant, Aeriel bowed her neck to allow the mercenary to mount her great back, followed by Vega, who wrapped her arms around his waist. Heat crept into her cheeks; he was warm... "Now take the reins, and plant your feet firmly in the stirrups. The best bit of advice I can give you is to keep your upper body relaxed and move with Aeriel. That comes with practice, obviously, but you can trust her to take it easy until you're ready... and we won't let you fall."
When her riders were prepared, Aeriel let out a screech and took to the skies, a gradual incline until they well cleared the camp.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Well, I cannot change your perceptions of me or of my alleged ulterior motives," he said with a conversational lilt, as if did not just condemn her to solitude and isolation. "You may choose to imagine me in any skin you wish, but it will not change the very real threat that faces you, Lilica." He tilted his head, his eyes half-closing as if bothered by the readings of her vacillating aura. "The Serpent. It feasts on you. It will continue to harm you even if you should travel outside the confines of this most lovely apartment. If you take nothing else from my precautions, know of this very real truth." Something dangerous narrowed in those placid pools of quicksilver. "It has claimed you, and It has no intention of releasing Its fangs from your side." He snapped his fingers, calling the guards back inside the apartment. As they lifted his palanquin, he looked down upon the dark mage, his expression unreadable. "Please stay well, Lilica."
As Alster had predicted, Adalfieri did not take to Chara's news with tolerance and understanding. On the contrary, he made no concessions whatsoever, and had tightened the constraints that bound and gagged Lilica to his will--comporable to that of the Serpent. The otherworldly creature, as far as he could determine, simply desired freedom, much like Lilica. Adalfieri, however...
He wanted escape from the subjugation of Andalari's rule. A freedom in its own right, but it was tied to the struggle for power and conquest. And in his single-minded goal, he cared not for who he sacrificed, especially if that sacrifice was an outsider, or the family pariah, like himself.
But what plans did the Rigas Head have for Lilica? For him? Did he expect the dark mage to lose control of her chthonic ability? No. It would only cause untold damage to the estate, and magic cuffs bound her hands, sealing away her power. What then, did he actually want from them?
The Serpent...
...His eyes widened with dread.
He materialized into Lilica's sanctuary. She sat by the rim of the fountain, drawing her hands through the shivering water. Joining her on the cool touch of stone, he folded a hand over her knee in a bid for her attention.
"Lilica...I'm being watched, now," he said, dropping his hand from her lap. "I won't be able to visit you by normal means--at least at this juncture. But I have learned to move through Dream. It's easier with you, as we have forged a connection. Until further notice, this is how we'll meet."
He pushed a purple petal around with his boot-tip as he tried to collect his thoughts. "We're...we're both in terrible danger. This is all conjecture on my part, but I have reason to believe that..." he hitched a breath, folding his shoulders inward and gripping his arms. "That...Adalfieri plans to unleash the Serpent. We need to flee Stella D'Mare." His fingers turned white as he sank his nails under the skin. "We need to run, and run far. However improbable our escape...we need to go."
"There is honor in comparing battle scars. One would say it's a time-honored tradition, in fact," he said, and held up his arm in protest as she made to swipe it. "Well, that's going to leave a scar."
They arrived at the stables several minutes later. Haraldur hailed Aeriel, and considered the high keening of the avian as a sign of her continued affections, much as it threatened to split his ear canal into bloody ribbons. He smiled shyly at the bird, and rubbed her downy ruff in acknowledgement of her call. With the other, he caught Vega's handkerchief, threw it back, and fetched the gag in question from his pouch, which he tied around his mouth. "No need. I washed this one. I must pay for my infractions against you by tying this object of destruction against myself and hoping that the wind will stuff it into my open mouth. I feel that will be most just."
At that, he climbed atop the roc and settled into the saddle, hiding his apprehension and inner shivers with well-practiced, military calm and stability. With a firm nod, he held the reins, and his muscles tensed as the bird, without much warning, took a running start and darted into the air with a grandiose pump of wings. The sheer force of the roc's generated gale near sent his balance askew and caused him to lean severely to one side. He righted himself in time, and lowered over the bird, his view temporarily obstructed by the bouquet of feathers in his face. He shifted in the stirrups, trying both to see around him and to remain sheltered in the crook of the avian's massive shoulders. Noticing that he did not feel as air-sick, probably from the concentration needed to focus on the task, he tested out the mount's reins, veering right and then a wide, swooping left arc. He looked below him, seeing little cloud puffs which partly obstructed the sprawl of Tadasun's camp, all unassuming little folds of cloth nestled at the edge of a cliff.
"How do I ascend and descend?" He called to Vega over the whip of the wind. "It's best that we keep climbing to avoid any arrow-fire. Oh, and...how am I doing?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She was right. And whatever Adalfieri intended for her... it was far from within her best interests.
And with that new psychic burden (something that the Rigas head had intended), the only means by which Lilica knew she could avoid it was to return to sanctuary. The one place where she knew the Serpent could not sink its fangs into her, not after Alster had secured it with protective spells. The dark mage, then, in an attempt to flee her own darkness and all that lurked beyond, sat quietly in the same type of meditation that she had practiced with Alster, until she fell into a calm state of mind that hovered somewhere between dreams and sleep and the placid eye of her soul...
The sun shone upon the crystalline waters of the fountain, painting it with gold and glitter as a warm, afternoon gale tousled the ripples. Lilica, once again, found herself surrounded by beauty and serenity: alone, but not lonely. She couldn't be lonely, not in the single place where her soul was nourished, her tortured psyche relieved. Exhaling and taking in a breath of cool air, she took a seat upon the fountain's edge and ran her fingers through the water's surface. "What am I to do..." She sighed, not expecting an answer. "If I told Chara... if I were able to tell her, would she even believe me? Would she even attempt to help, if it means going against everything she has ever known and believed in?"
It almost seemed like serendipity that someone responded to her, a voice that she was not expecting to hear. Looking up from the hand that rested atop her knee, she looked into the worried blue eyes like Alster, swimming with apprehension like little pools in and of themselves. Not the person she wanted to see the most, perhaps, but she doubted that Chara would make her way into her dreams just to talk to her. Chara desired contact that was a little more physical, and a lot more sensual. "Alster... I am glad you are here," she told him nonetheless, and it was not a lie.
He had a reason for his being there, she knew well, and fell silent to hear the Rigas caster out--and it was exactly as she had suspected. Except that it was much, much worse.
Adalfieri was not looking to use her magic: it was her, a beacon of dark magic to which the Serpent was attracted. It all made sense now, why she had become afflicted with this sickness, why he kept her locked away...
Alster was right; they needed to flee, and soon. "He is mad," she breathed, dropping her jaw. "But how can we flee this place? You are under watch and I am imprisoned..." The dark mage's eyes sought Alster's, and then it dawned on her. "Chara. She has sway, if not with Adalfieri then with those beneath him. She can help us... if we can convince her that your Rigas leader is not sound of mind and should not be followed."
One advantage at taking a back seat was that Vega was in the optimal position to keep an eye on her trainee and nudge him in the right direction. "Easy!" She called, leaning in the opposite direction with a tight hold around his waist to help correct his balance. Maintaining proper statue on a giant bird had its vast differences from riding a horse, but the mercenary at least had that going for him. And, frankly... he made fewer mistakes that the novice Skyknights that she had trained. Although that perhaps had something to do with Aeriel's affinity for him.
"Good! You've got a good hold." Vega assured him, smiling behind the scarf that covered her face. "Pull down on the reins to prompt her to ascend, and upward to descend; gently! The harder you pull, the more quickly she will take it." The Tadasuni below did indeed appear baffled at the free-flying taking place up ahead, but recognizing the Eyrallian commander, luckily no arrows were freed from bows. "They see is; I doubt they'll shoot. Just keep climbing steadily."
Intuiting a new rider, Aeriel fortunately took few sharp turns and ups and downs, adapting to the comfort level of the man at her reins. This was, of course, a luxury that Haraldur would not have were he ever to acquire a roc of his own; he was lucky that Aeriel had taken so kindly to him--something that still perplexed Vega. Her roc was notorious for giving in the stable hands a hard time... So why, then, had her difficult avian companion changed her demeanor so quickly towards someone who was barely more than a stranger to her?
"Good, good... you've found your comfort zone. Don't think too hard," The Skyknight commander advised her trainee, resting her chin on his shoulder so that her voice reached his ear without yelling. "Just feel the flow of the wind and land whenever you feel you're ready."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"If those wards weaken, or are destroyed, only the blood seal will keep It contained. But as the Serpent is leeching power from this direct vein of chthonic energy that you, your half-brother, and I are providing, every protection we have is failing. It's possible that the wards have already been destroyed, and the blood seal..." he paused, staring down at his hands. "...It falls to me to break it. It's all speculation, I know, but over forty years ago, I awakened the hellbeast by using blood magic. We are linked, bonded, and by that logic, it stands to reason that the Serpent will respond only to my blood and my magic. Perhaps it is in part because I am a Rigas who possesses both celestial and chthonic magic. Like my father, who often ran from this city. Like Rigel, our founder, who sealed away the creature thousands of years ago. So..." he bit on his lip, to prevent from losing composure before he finished the end of his lecture, "I am ultimately responsible for this...this turn of events. If I hadn't awakened It in the first place, perhaps Adalfieri wouldn't have been inspired to see this wretched plot to such a maddening end. I don't even know what he plans to do once the Serpent is unleashed. Does he think we are able to control it? Does he wish to use it to destroy all of New Town, and the entire ruling family? Does he want it to destroy all of Andalari? I..." his entire body began to shiver, even as the warming sun threw its dappled light across his skin. His eyes focused on a faraway point, and his voice, too, began to depart from its awareness of Lilica and her attention.
"...And if I die here, all my magic will return to this earth and to this sky. That, too, could cause something cataclysmic in Stella D'Mare. No. I have to escape. We all do. If I flee far enough, if I die well beyond the gates of this cursed city...they can't use me. And I won't see them use you, either." He blinked, returning to some semblance of his company as he glanced at her through his periphery. "I really am to blame. ...More than I could have possibly imagined. But--I'm going to...we're going to...Chara will have to rally to our side. Adalfieri wants the Serpent to destroy you; it will generate more power for the unsealing. If she truly cares for you, and for me...But Lilica," his disjointed dialogue, in all its drowning distress attempted to realign itself to her presence, "involving her...it will endanger her, as well. Kill her, even. Not that the whole of this city even stands a chance of survival if this creature escapes Its bindings, but..." he nodded gravely, and swallowed the last of what his unspoken words would imply.
I only have one more prayer, he thought, as he looked beyond the enfolding trees that hinted at a realm beyond Lilica's welcome sanctuary. That Elespeth will...that she'll make it out of this alive...
Please gods...make it so...
Through watering eyes, Haraldur guided the roc with the downward flick of the reins. Aeriel complied with a strong thrust of her wings, propelling them into a higher atmosphere. But as they ascended, they hit a patch of turbulent air, which buffeted the giant avian and the riders who clung themselves to her feathery back. As steadily as they climbed, Haraldur hurried the descent, but with care, as Vega had instructed. Having not the experience in sailing through unstable wind gusts and eddies, he decided to keep their elevation at a safe height, just below the troubling territory up above. Not that he had no faith in the bird's ability to navigate their way out of the treacherous patch; he did not want to cause any stress on mount or her riders when he was too inexperienced to handle more than calm, gentle skies.
As they flew around the vicinity of camp and its surrounding area, he wondered if it was the roc who drove him, instead of vice versa. Aside from the jet-stream that they had encountered, the journey through the skies seemed to fare without incident, each turn and elevation change met with immediate obeisance.
"She's very responsive," he called to Vega, giving the roc an affectionate pat on the neck. "Not at all like the mischief-maker you made her out to be."
Not wishing to overspend his good fortunes, or the roc's energy, he began their descent, aiming to land at the strip where he had seen the other Skyknights disembark. "How will she know to land?" he called, but did not need to worry. Aeriel had reared her fierce talons and fanned out her ponderous wings, slowing her descent and landing gracefully onto the ground. He bounced and shuffled in his saddle from the impact, fusing his legs to the sides of the avian until at last they smoothed to a complete stop. Expelling a small sigh of relief, he turned to Vega and pulled the handkerchief from his mouth. "From the look on your face, it doesn't usually go this smoothly for first-time riders...does it?" he said, as he silently commanded his legs to stop quivering. "And I know this isn't due to my minuscule talent in horse-riding."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And who was left to trust but Chara Rigas...? Haraldur had long since departed for Tadasun, to whom he now owed his allegiance. Daphni had disappeared into the night without a trace, following the slaughter that had occurred at Stella D'Mare's encampment, killing all of those who she had once considered brethren. Elespeth had chosen her own selfishness over lending a hand to Stella D'Mare in its greatest time of need. Lysander had made it very clear to her and everyone else where his loyalties and priorities truly lay, and it was not with her or her well-being, and so... who was left? The Clematis healer, Elias? It was not within his best interests to betray to trust of Adalfieri, who had employed him and his Clematis brethren and welcomed their stay in the city. Or her half-brother, the necromancer, Vitali... Even if that conniving, plotting, insidious bastard had offered to lend a hand Lilica was not certain she'd have taken it, for it would have put her (as well as Alster) in his debt--and Vitali Kristeva never forgot about those who were indebted to him.
Inevitably, the Rigas caster and dark mage were caught in a situation where there was no best case scenario; something would go wrong, something would be sacrificed. Lilica only hoped that that sacrifice was not Chara; not on her behalf. "We have no choice," she breathed, staring into the fountain's placid waters, as if it could solve her problems by showing her a solution. This was supposed to be her sanctuary, a place where no one could hard her and nothing could go wrong... and yet, it offered nothing. "We cannot do this alone, Alster. And I... trust Chara. Even if this endangers her, she surely stands no chance at all if we do not act. We need to... convince her. Alster..." Lilica leaned forward and lay a hand upon his, searching his eyes. So unhinged, desperate for hope... They were not so unalike, the two of them. Trapped in a web with which they wanted nothing to do, wanted no part in, and yet had been born susceptible to its influences. A shame they had not taken advantage of the time that they'd had to establish a more solid camaraderie... Perhaps now was their one and only (and last) chance. "What you're doing now, with me... you have infiltrated my dreams. Could you not do the very same with Chara? Enlist her help by contacting her this way, if Adalfieri is keeping too close watch over the both of you? Or even..." Dragging her lower lip between her teeth, the chthonic caster, once again, dared to hope. "Could you teach me? Chara respects you, I know she does. But if she is to be convinced... If you cannot sway her, then perhaps I have more of a chance. I've nothing but time on my hands right now, and if there is a means by which I can use my own dark energy to find Chara in her dreams, then we can get this underway. After all..."
Glancing at the horizon and beyond, a serene landscape that resembled Stella D'Mare and yet which was wholly its very own thing, she watched the cloudless sky, the stillness of the trees. Nothing ever changed here, not the weather, not the vista, not time. Unfortunately, they were not so lucky with the worrisome passage of minutes and hours, in the waking world. "If we do not act soon, we might pass up our chance. Just because I refuse to use my chthonic abilities does not mean the Serpent will likewise leave well alone...
There was still a chance--she had to believe it. A chance to escape unscathed (or escape at all, for that matter...). A chance for Stella D'Mare to recover from this in the end. A chance... a chance for her and Chara.
But if they wanted any chance at all, then they needed to act, and now. Even if it meant putting the woman she loved in danger.
Vega was as baffled as Haraldur was pleased with his first flight. The Skyknight could recall vividly each and every time another rider had attempted to take to the skies with her bird (out of necessity), and needless to say, none of those happenstances had come to pass without bloodshed--and not on Aeriel's part, that was for certain. Had she not been rescued in infancy, Vega was half-convinced that her roc would have been one of those with blood far too wild and fiery to tame, and thus would never have become a suitable ride for herself and her knights. It had only been over the past hundred years or so that the Eyrallians had developed methods to tame the rocs, leaving even an estimated fifty percent of those raised in captivity unfit for riders and Skyknights, due to the potential harm they were capable of causing. Aeriel was no exception--far from it, even in spite of her tight bond with the Eyraillian princess.
So what, then, had caused her to take so quickly to the mercenary from Mollengard?
"I am honestly rendered speechless," Vega confessed as she dismounted, pulling the scarf from her mouth and down around her neck. "This is... to be very honest, not particularly characteristic of my fierce girl. This is the same bird who bears the shame of having snapped her groomer's wrist like a twig, simply for an attempt to do their job." Sporting a half-grin, she ruffled the roc's feathers teasingly, although the set of her mouth suggested that she was serious. "For whatever reason, Haraldur, you seem to have gained a friend in this roc. And for that, I am not going to lie--but you in part performed so well for your first ride because this roc ascertained you did. Not to disavow whatever natural talent you might have for riding upon a roc. but... she went damned easy on you. Maybe for your next lesson I'll have you ride with another seasoned knight to see for certain... Oh, put your glowering away, Aeriel."
Raking a hand through her copper locks, she supplemented the weight of her injured leg by leaning on her roc, narrowing her eyes pensively as she regarded her comrade from Mollengard. What was it about the man that her avian companion had taken to? And why was Aeriel so determined to show it?
"Regardless. Good first lesson, soldier. Even if the judge might be a little bit biased." Vega nudged the roc playfully. "But, well, I can't hold that against you, unless you somehow managed to conspire with Aeriel. Would you be so inclined as to accompany me for supper?" In part, because the ride had worked her injured thigh muscles and an arm to lean on would be convenient... but predominantly, because she enjoyed Haraldur's company more than she cared to let on.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"I'm sure I can communicate with Chara through dream," he confirmed with a nod. "It's a fairly new technique I've been teaching myself, which I've learned through my experiences with El--" he silenced his tongue before he uttered her name in full. "...But I was able to infiltrate Haraldur's dreams, and his mind is so guarded, it's a wonder I even reached through to him at all. Chara is not nearly so impenetrable. I may be able to use myself as a conduit to link the two of you together, once I contact her. I'll also teach you, if I can, but the former method will be less time-consuming, and we need to act in all haste."
He warmed her hand between his palms, massaging it with a gentle stroke as he stood to his feet, and released his hold. "Just keep your mind open to me and to Chara. One of us will contact you as soon as possible. In the interim, be sure to stay sharp, and protect yourself." With a final, wearied bob of his head, he disappeared from her sanctuary, leaving her to bask in the calm before the inevitable storm.
It took two days just to reach Chara, who seldom slept or offered herself a calm moment in the tumult of her newfound station. Finally, he commanded her attention, pulling her into dream, and relaying his revelations with the utmost urgency. She listened, her face a mask of conflicting opinions. In the end, she veered, albeit reluctantly, towards his beliefs, however "farfetched" his claims.
It was also on the same day that Alster forged a connection between Chara and Lilica by transmitting his cousin's subconscious self into the fountain sanctuary.
Chara appeared in the small space, frowning at the familiar gurgling of the font, the proliferation of purple flowers, and the feel of cobbles at her feet. There, Lilica sat, waiting for her company, which she provided by sidling beside her dark mage companion on the fountain's stone edge. "I did not realize this place would have such an impact on you, that you embedded it so in your memory," she said, with an uncharacteristic coy smile. She reached out to remove a stray piece of dark hair from Lilica's forehead. She felt the grain between her fingers, surprised that the sensation was so realistic, even in a dream-state. It made all the more sense why Lilica and Alster had been so convinced of their realms of reverie in which they'd been trapped.
"Alster tells me," she began, hesitating. "...He tells me that Adalfieri plans to unleash the Serpent, using you as the tool, and him as the summoner. Do you...you believe him? He is taken to overreaction at times, but...I know that he has put much thought into this projected outcome. I..." she pressed her hands over her cheeks and planted her elbows over her knees, a posture that she did not often adopt. "If this is true...this is too much. What am I...what are we...even to do?" She looked over at Lilica, her blue eyes wavering like the lapping of water below them. In them, there was uncertainty. Self-doubt. Questions towered upon questions, but with no answers to steady the failing foundation.
As Haraldur dismounted from the easy-going--so far as he knew--roc, he gave the bird a wink that he made certain Vega had seen. Then he whispered, with a rasp that was sure to be heard: "Good work, Aeriel. As promised, you'll get extra offal in your dinner tonight." With an innocent smile, he aligned himself beside the Skyknight and her bad leg, offering the unspoken support that she had requested of him as he slung his arm around her shoulders and helped her away from the stables. "I hope that my 'rough riding' did not reopen your injury," he said, but with with an air of seriousness that won out over his jesting tone. "I'll check on it after we sup."
With a nod and a farewell to Aeriel, he and Vega strolled back into camp in a slow, leisurely pace. He ignored the amused grins of Tadasuni soldiers and the confused looks of the Skyknights as they passed on by, and queued up for their meal behind the mess tent. Why, he wondered, did everyone act so strangely at their coupling? Even Aeriel, an animal with a cognitive ability that still lacked the nuances of humankind, had responded with an attitude that belied her more wild nature--according to her rider, anyhow. Barring Aeriel and her behavior, Haraldur could only conclude that Vega, a princess commander and he, a commoner, made for an almost laughable juxtaposition among those in camp. And he doubted that their continuous pairing would garner much respect among her own noble rankings. It was possible that Vega had marriage prospects awaiting her at home, and her fixation on Forbanne scum...it didn't seem right, for her to insist on associating with him with a familiarity that others would not view as so innocent. She needed the respect of her men, whereas he needed nothing but to continue protecting Elespeth--of which he began to neglect.
As he double-checked the crowd, and the stares that settled in their vicinity, Haraldur looked down at his feet a moment, then back up at Vega. "You don't need to wait on this line for my sake. You have officer privileges. You should exercise them once in a while, lest you'll be eating offal and bone grist with Aeriel every night."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The Rigas head had no intention in helping her recover; quite the opposite, he wanted her back in that dark, hopeless place that she had hoped to leave behind. And the only way to ensure that she remained on that preferred trajectory was to take away her single saving grace, the one person who could make pain stop and stay her fears when her mind took the darkest turns. And even Alster, as strong an ally as he was at this point, was not capable of being that pillar of stability that she needed. While he might have warded her sanctuary against the Serpent, and taught her how to maintain her own peace and sanity in light of recent events, the chthonic mage knew that although she was already relieved of more emotional baggage than she had ever been in her life, she would find no further recovery alone. Not without Chara to help oversee the healing of those emotional wounds, from which all of the psychic infection had been drained.
Needless to say, overjoyed did not do justice to the well of relief that bloomed in her core when she looked up from the crystalline waters spilling from her fountain, and laid eyes upon something far more beautiful and valuable to her than this place at the heart of her mind's defenses. Her full lips tugged into a broad smile as Chara took a seat next to her upon the fountain, like she had in the flesh, not so long ago, it seemed. "This place left an impact on me from the moment I oversaw the city from your villa's terrace," she reminded her cheekily. "It is better... more meaningful than anything I could have dreamt up on my own. If I cannot visit it in person... at least I can, here, anytime that I wish." Longing to take her into her arms, Lilica hesitated, even when the celestial caster reached out to touch her hair. Afraid that whatever tentative connection Alster had no doubt painstakingly established between their minds would shatter if she moved too fast, dared too much. Chara seemed as fragile to her as her smooth reflection upon the rippled surface of the fountain.
As fragile as the love between them, that suddenly seemed to be threatened by so much more than Rigas politics and class stratification. "He... Alster is not lying, Chara. I believe him, because I saw it for myself, when I met with Adalfieri a few days ago..." Pulling Chara's hands away from her face, she took them into her own with a gentle squeeze. It frightened her to see steadfast, confident Chara Rigas look so... lost. So helpless and confused. And made her all the more nervous that she was, for once, the one who had to dole out the reassurances, when she herself suffered from just as much uncertainty. "He does not want me to recover; he wants my dark magic to fester, as it used to, so that it may attract and strengthen the Serpent. Which is why he will not let me see you, why he is keeping such a close eye on you and Alster... Chara, you must believe that I am speaking with utter clarity of mind when I ask you to trust me, now. Fully and wholly, because we are all in danger. And if we do not act... then Stella D'Mare will be doomed, and all those who dwell within its walls.
"So I am asking... and it pains me to ask this of you, for I know what you have striven for all of your life. But it has become clear to me that you cannot have the prestige that you desire, as well as ascertain the safety of those you care for... and who care for you. I'm... sorry." Lilica's dark gaze drooped to her lap, afraid of what would manifest in Chara's eyes. Hatred, disappointment, or that characteristic anger that would not have bothered her, under any other circumstances. But she was, for all intents and purposes, making her choose between love, and a successful future--if she even lived to see it. "Adalfieri's intentions have only his own best interests in mind. I cannot make you believe this, though if you are able to get close to him, you might see it for yourself. But... regardless of your decision, whatever it may be, I want you to know that I understand."
Running her thumbs over the backs of Chara's hands, she pressed a sigh from her lungs. "Alster and I are attracting the Serpent with our chthonic energy--not to mention my abhorrent brother, as well. We have no choice but to leave the city as soon as possible, if we manage to find a way before it is too late. Of course, I want you to come with us... but that decision is not mine to make. All I ask is that, with your connections to the Rigas leader, you help us find a way out of the city. And if you choose not to come with us..." Gaze ascending, she met Chara's azure eyes, her own dark irises hopeful and imploring, yet simultaneously melancholy. "Then promise me that you will find a way to stay safe, no matter what it takes."
"I should be fine--just a little sore. I'm sure you can already agree that soaring through the air on a giant avian is far more difficult than riding the planes upon horseback." Nonetheless, the Skyknight placed a little bit more of her weight into her helpful companion, and glanced over her shoulder at the roc in question, who had settled into a resting position, looking particularly suspicious for a reason that she could not comprehend. Cheeky bird... she has her reasons, and will never let on. "Let us take a place in the line before there is nothing left but bone and gristle."
And speaking of such, Vega was more surprised at herself than the comment that Haradur made as they did take their place in the line for supper. Two things hadn't occurred to her: for one, when she spent time around genuine people such as the mercenary, she often forgot about all of her statuses, from being royalty to the commanding officer of Eyraille's most specialized military force. And, another... that others could see the discrepancy between her status as compared to Haraldur's, and that it stood out more than she'd ever have thought. As one who had made a solid effort to distance herself from royalty, it did not strike her as odd to be walking next to someone like Haraldur in such obvious proximity. They were just two soldiers, allies in arms, in line for a meal. And... maybe, a little bit of good company, which was much preferred to a prime place at the front of the line. "You know, I might exercise them... if I cared to so much as look at meat. Which I do not." That aversion, it seemed, had stuck, even well into her healing, which was progressing without worry. "It's difficult enough to bring myself to feed Aeriel, but it's not like I can expect her to rely solely on dairy, grain and vegetables. I'm just fine waiting at the back of the line and picking at leftovers; especially if it means I don't lose my human crutch." She winked, teasing, and nudged his side.
Later, after eating until sufficiently sated, Vega made a proposal almost entirely out of the blue--although it was more than likely spurred by far too much time alone, of late. "Will you share some wine with me?" As an aside, the Eyraillian princess was quick to add, "I owe you some swill, after what you had to waste on me when I was injured."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Therein lay her conundrum. Her loyalties, which never before needed questioning by virtue of alliance to the same cause, were beginning to divert, to wander down contrasting, conflicting paths. She needed to weigh which was more valuable to her, but the valance in her head refused to tilt. It wanted everything, no compromises. She had been fighting for decades to climb to the top, and now that she had reached the summit, the way back down was fraught with boulders, loose pebbles and uneven footing, challenges that she had already surmounted and was reluctant to face a second time, with all of gravity against her.
And yet...in her quest for success, she had abandoned Alster, who in retaliation had awakened the Serpent. It was her greatest regret, one that the forward-thinking Chara had wanted to go back and change, so that she could do right by his desperate cries for a friend. For someone to stop him before he caused something destructive and irreversible. She was partly to blame for the Serpent's climb to power, and therefore her responsibility to choke off the great beast's source of energy, which happened to be stemming from the two people she loved most. However...it was possible that Adalfieri did conceive of a plan to eliminate the Serpent. Through unconventional means, yes, but...
I cannot keep making excuses! she interrupted herself as she lowered her hand, ashamed to stroke Lilica's hair all too familiarly when she was almost condoning Adalfieri's treatment of the chthonic mage. If I do not stand by Lilica and Alster, then any gains I reap by opposing them will taste wrong, sour...positively unbearable. I cannot turn my back a second time!
"No...I believe you both," she said, staring down at the hands that Lilica so tenderly grasped. "I wish to do what I can, but that is where I am at a loss, Lilica. I do not know if I am able to help." She avoided eye contact, not wishing to fall into her companion's depthless irises, for she doubted she'd make the return trip to home, and reality. "Adalfieri can see into the hearts of others. If I bear these thoughts of rebelling against him, he will see what I harbor within myself. Considering I am constantly at his side, it will not be long before he takes action. My very intentions are a danger to you and Alster. By allying myself with you, I condemn you two to your doom." She fiddled with her fingers, which were still trapped inside Lilica's protective prison. Like Adalfieri's supposed protective measure against the dark mage's unreliable power.
"I..." before she could stop them, tears welled into her eyes. "I want to help, Lilica." The tears leaked down her cheeks. "But I have...I have no power. Not when Adalfieri has such a tight hold on my mind. You are in danger...just by associating with me." She closed her eyes, shutting herself from the beauty around her, and the beauty before her, who held out so much hope in her ability to save the lives of those she so cherished. She didn't want to see those hopes dashed, swallowed away in the black of her gaze. "I am of no use to you. Forgive me..."
More aware now of the spectacle that they created by simply waiting in line together, Haraldur reverted to his stiff-shouldered posture, which bled the emotion from his face, shedding away the humor lines and his jocular behavior. It was inappropriate, really, how he chose to associate with the Eyraillan princess. While he often disregarded any claims by authority who insisted they owned him, or authority in general, he was also never on good terms with a person of high influence before, and his concerns for Vega's questionable associations extended beyond himself. He did not care, but he worried for her, and how her favoritism might affect her ability to command and rule. He did not help matters, either; in fact, he had enabled her by disregarding his conservative approach at communication. By being too receptive, he had lost his purpose in pledging loyalty to her: he was beholden, and he wanted to keep a closer watch on Elespeth. Yes, he offered a hand in friendship, but he never thought it would escalate to such a frenzied point, and so quickly. He needed to slow the spiral, but he feared it would continue to spin further and further out of his control. And what then?
And what was he protecting himself from?
"If meat still sickens you," he said, as they supped, turning from her at an angle so she would not watch him eat the offending slabs of carnage, "I can feed Aeriel until further notice. You need only command it of me." He left it at that, not wanting to facilitate the task by asking for officer's rights, feeling he had already benefited too much from her company.
When they finished their meal, and Haraldur returned after cleaning off their plates, he frowned a bit at Vega's request to continue their meal in liquid form. "I really should be getting along, actually." But he hesitated, when he saw the hopeful look cross over Vega's ice-blue eyes. "But if you command it of me," he said 'command,' rather loudly, to appease any eavesdroppers in their vicinity, "...I'll stay for one drink." Though, even as he said 'one drink,' he knew that it wouldn't stay one for long.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And Chara had not taken her hand, but taken her into her arms, in reply.
It was her turn to reciprocate, to be the reassuring shoulder to cry on. Without a word, Lilica pulled the distraught Rigas mage into her arms, running her fingers tenderly through her long, golden locks. "You have never underestimated yourself before, Chara Rigas. Do not do so now." She spoke, gentle yet firm, into her lover's ear. "You need to trust your heart. We will find a way, together. You need only keep in touch with me and Alster; we will work together, and we will be victorious. Because none of us three fights losing battles."
Pulling away, she allotted just enough distance to crush her lips against Chara's, passionate and wanting and sincere. She never wanted to kiss another mouth, and even if this meant the last time she would ever kiss Chara, even if it meant they could not see one another again, she would forever cherish the memory, which had consolidated itself in this place. This sanctuary, that had all been made possible thanks to the hot-headed blonde Rigas. "Above all, no matter what happens, I want you to ascertain your own safety. I want to be assured that you are alive, no matter what. Alster and I... we can defend ourselves. But we can't escape without your help."
Smoothing Chara's hair behind her ears, she then captured her hands again. A plea crossed her face, one that she was eager to put into words. "Let's not imprint this place with worry and doubt. You had a hand in establishing this safe haven for me, the day you took me to this place, showed me kindness, even in the presence of your father..." The corner of her mouth twitched into a placid smile as she lost herself in the depths of the Rigas caster's eyes. "Hold me, just for a while? I miss feeling your touch."
Leaning into Chara, she enveloped her in her arms, drew on her warmth and reassurance. In her presence, there was only serenity, and the endurance of a dream that was far more fragile than the dark caster was willing to admit.
Vega smiled her appreciation at the mercenary, pretending not to feel too perturbed by Haraldur's strange shift I attitude since taking up a place in line with her for supper. It was almost as if the man was at odds with himself as to how to feel about how close he wanted to be to her: at times, he seemed to genuinely want to be a friend. When he had helped tend to her in the early stages of her healing, when he had lent her a hand in line for supper... Even now, as he offered to feed her roc due to her aversion to meat, it was a kindness that no one who simply stood beneath her command had to do--it was more than that. Above and beyond both what she expected, and what she deserved.
And yet, simultaneously, he sported these periods of unbreakable stoicism. One that almost seemed to manifest as a sort of regret for the aforementioned kindness that he dared to show. It, in turn, twisted her guts with regard to how she should feel about the one person to whom she was the closest in all of Tadasuni's encampment. How much should she open up to him? At what point was she overstepping her bounds, overshooting what was appropriate for someone with her authority?
"I would command of you no such thing, soldier." The Skyknight commander chose to put a light, jovial spin on what would otherwise come across as an authoritarian comment. The air about them was becoming far too heavy for her overburdened shoulders to bear. "I must find a way to conquer this aversion to meet somehow, after all. Although if I must make it a command for a bit of good company... then I suppose it is. I can only hope you are not entirely unwilling. Come on."
She led him back to her tent, where she procured a bottle of dark wine from a rack, pouring herself a glass, and Haraldur one as well. "Are you truly interested in learning to soar upon a roc, Haraldur?" She asked after a beat of contemplative silence. "Or are you merely humouring my wiles? I only hope you know I will not be offended if you decide otherwise. I value your camaraderie too much to pressure you into anything of the sort..."
Valued. Was that really the word? Did it really do justice to the feelings that fluttered like butterfly wings in her guy whenever he was around? And was it really what--a few more glasses of wine later--prompted her to give into a deep-seated desire of which she had not been cognizantly aware, and seize his lips in a chaste, albeit daring kiss?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"I am aghast," she managed to say, as she slid her arms around Lilica. The tears had since dried and her vision cleared. Her eyes opened to watch the halo of the sun shine over the crown of her companion's raven-black iridescence. "That I am in need of such inane comforts. That I am so pitiful to you at a time when you need me most. That you must provide me assurance and hope, when I..." trailing away, she leaned her head against Lilica's shoulder, listening to the fountain's gurgle as she looked out into the leaf and tree-covered horizon. "No. You are correct. Let us enjoy...what we have. There is no need for me to sully your sanctum with my despaired distractions. They do not serve you here."
They sat, without another word about their uncertain future, as they kissed, kept close and warm, and enjoyed the other's presence until Chara's mind blinked out of Lilica's existence and returned her to the waking world which she, for the first time, felt grossly unprepared to handle.
In the weeks that passed, Alster stretched his aching body and mind in innumerable directions, keeping so active and busy that it was simpler than first postulated to wean him off the drug that Elias provided him. He swore off the mind-altering substance, as well as any wine, swill, or hashish, electing instead to train his endurance levels, spell-casting forms, and his communications through dream. He taught Lilica to use the technique on her own in addition to the Serpent eradication exercises that they, together, had tested in her subconscious. The great creature, rising in power by the day, had predictably stayed unmoved and unperturbed in its moorings, leaving Alster little option but to maintain the barrier spell with Lilica. But each time proved more difficult, more taxing, and he knew that Its release from the dream wards, and by extension, the den in which Its corporeal counterpart dwelled, was inevitable, and forthcoming. That appointed day breathed down his neck, wetting and prickling his already chilled skin into nerves he could not shake, no matter what distractions he sought.
Little to no comforts sailed his way. On the war front, two days' east of Stella D'Mare, Tadasuni and Eyraillan troops had fanned out on the field to barricade Messino's men, thwarting their advance as the Andalarian army had failed to push back their aggressors and make for their home-base in New Town. They were needed in Stella D'Mare, to quell the dissidents in Old Town and keep the area properly manned, in case full-blown rebellion and anarchy spilled out on the streets. The Rigases no longer supported the coup, though Alster had already theorized that their sudden withdrawal was all a ruse by Adalfieri to appear more docile, well-behaved, and cooperative--whilst he made preparations to unleash their ultimate weapon. By that vein, the Rigases no longer supported Tadasun in its claim over the disputed lands for which the entire war over Andalari was initially fought. While Tadasun proved successful in pushing back Messino's troops, Alster reserved little hope for the outcome, once the Mad Prince learned how to snap the elasticity of the southern and northern nation's collective. And in the crossfire, those who fought under her banner--Haraldur, and...Elespeth, they...He feared the worst.
The only bit of good news, and it was not good news so much as bitter confirmation, came from Chara, during routine gatherings between him, her, and Lilica in dream. Through her close watchfulness of Adalfieri, she had discovered two important snatches of information. One, that a small group of Rigases was seen near Castle Di Andalari shortly before Old Town's surrender, an area where Alster knew several wards were established. And two: the nature of Adalfieri's magic was foggier, more unpredictable around Alster and especially around anyone who did not carry the blood of a Rigas.
"How did you come across such information?" Alster had queried as the three of them sat at the beach in his own peaceful sanctum, taking in the waft of the refreshing breeze.
"I..." Chara played with the coarse sand at her feet, working her mouth into the awaited response. "...Lysander. He told me. In secret," she hurried, seeing Alster's frown. "He is also quite gifted in noise concealment spells. He wanted to teach you how, but you are well-guarded and he could not reach you without attracting suspicion, so you will have to contend with learning from me."
"And we can trust him?" Alster said, glancing sidelong at Lilica before returning his attention to his cousin.
Chara hesitated. "...I do. It is ludicrous, but I do."
By faith alone, he felt obliged to believe her.
On the rare day that he left his villa, Alster roamed the gardens en route to the gazebo on the cliffside with his guards in tow. But before he reached his destination, he saw Lilica's half-brother, Vitali, out of his periphery, and turned to face him. He had not forgotten the man, or the curse inflicted upon him that, on awakening, left him less of a person and less of a soul than he had been before, but the necromancer was also chthonic user, and his very presence at the estate endangered him--and further fed the Serpent.
He cast the noise concealment spell that Chara had taught him. Its purpose was to mask a conversation by garbling it over with convincing nonsense-speak, a benign nothing talk that was not worth noting by eavesdroppers and the like.
"They can't hear us," he said, shrugging his shoulders towards the guards, who kept at distance. "At least, not what we're actually saying. Tell me," he began, wasting no time with a preamble, "do you feel protected here? Or can you also sense the sinister plottings that are afoot?"
With a compliant nod, Haraldur followed Vega into her tent, keeping at a close trot behind her in case she needed assistance with her bad leg. When they reached the enclosure and she settled down on the cot, he relaxed his apprehensions now that they were free from the judgmental stares and gapes of the soldiers at camp. Sitting down on a nearby chair, he accepted a glass of wine and sipped it, slow and polite.
"It might seem that way," he said, absently swishing the dark burgundy in his glass. "That I'm merely agreeing to lessons as a gesture of friendship. But there is a selfish reason for my interest, and it's that I simply like it up there," he confessed as he drained his wine and asked for a second glass. "It reminds me of when I'd stand on the summit of the tallest mountain and look down on the world, happy in knowing that I'm far removed from everything in life that's dissatisfied me. And flying...there's a weightlessness that can't be duplicated on the ground, and..." In an embarrassed pause, he drained his second glass and worked on his third, in silence.
He did not recall how much wine he drank when Vega had knelt in the chair beside him, making to refill his glass, but instead, planting her lips against his. They were closed, firm, and though the deed was done quickly, it was in earnest. He felt a need course through her, through the radiance that she shared, which burned through the warm glow of his half-drunken haze. It, too, burned through the haze, and he found himself standing, now in full awareness of her impulses. And of how her impulses made him feel, made him react, with a flutter and a jolt. "I've...Clearly I've stayed for more than one drink," he said, placing his empty receptacle on the side table and backing towards the tent flaps. "And in so doing, I abused my welcome here. I'll...take my leave."
Before she could say another word or make another motion, he stumbled out of her tent, his face aflush and his muddled mind trying to reason away the exchange of lips. It was an exchange, because he had responded by moving his mouth with her own...briefly.
She's drunk. I'm drunk...That's all.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
But the fact remained that the necromancer had always been drawn to the weird, the twisted, and the unexplained, and there was something insidious beneath the cobblestones of Stella D'Mare's streets had had intrigued him from the moment he had set foot in the city. Something that writhed and squirmed, with an aura that tainted the atmosphere with a bitter odor and weighed the air with a pollution that could not be seen with the naked eye. Something that he could feel was drawn to his own aura, slithering ever closer to the surface, and that he felt was, perhaps, being just the tiniest bit enabled.
This something, he knew well, was the Serpent of the city's rich and colourful--and bloody--history. And he needn't speak with Alster or Adalfieri for confirmation of this.
Not to mention, there was the added intrigue of this sister, who had been, last he heard, incarcerated against her will, seemingly for her 'own protection'. Lilica, of all people, who he had never known to get involved with anyone, or in anything, had become inextricably involved in this place and its people, in this war that had nothing to do with her. It was not out of any familial or blood loyalty that he maintained an interest in the mysterious implications that connected his half-sister to whatever scandal was brewing at the heart of this war-torn city, but rather, how exactly her presence was augmenting and exacerbating the growing chthonic miasma that hung in the air like dark clouds. It was one thing to sense dark energies, and in a city like Stella D'Mare, it certainly was not uncommon. But for one with darkness in their blood--one like Lilica, like Alster, and like him--it was not characteristic for the dark to amalgamate, to congeal, to attract things darker than the wielder themselves.
Of course, the necromancer had his theories, but they were just that; theories, ideas, hypotheses, all unconfirmed because for all his curiosity, he could not get close enough to who (or what) was driving these forces to glean the details for himself. Not yet, anyway.
The curious weight of a concealment spell seized his attention as he wandered the grounds one day, unsure of what he sought, exactly, but knowing he would recognize it when he saw it. And then, he saw it, and greeted it with a jovial grin. "Alster Rigas. To what do I owe the pleasure?" The presence of the guards raised his eyebrows in a curious arch, and he indicated them with a nod in their direction. "Quite the intriguing company you're keeping, if I do say so. I was convinced that my dear half-sister was the only one with guards watching her every move..."
Interest in why this man, of all people, had cast a concealment spell to speak to the likes of him was almost immediate, which was what prompted Vitali to lend an ear to Alster's questions and concerns. He could not say with honesty that he had an inkling as to what he expected from the Rigas caster, but likewise was not at all surprised by the questions proposed. "Safe?" The necromancer repeated the word as though it was foreign to him; as if he did not understand its meaning any more than jibberish in a different language. "Is it ever really possible to feel safe in the midst of war? No, I cannot say that I feel particularly safe here. But the war is not to blame for that."
Turning on his heel, he looked over the gazebo to the horizon and the beautiful vista that it offered. How much longer could Stella D'Mare maintain such superficial beauty amidst war, while it continued to harbour something so insidious at its heart? It was only a matter of time before the city collapsed under all of its efforts to conceal secrets; nothing was invincible or impervious to the truth. "As for your second inquiry: why do I get the impression that your question is rather rhetorical in nature?" He looked over his shoulder to glance sidelong at Alster, a knowing glint in his dark eyes. "I know about the Serpent. I can feel it writhe deep within the layers of earth and stone beneath our feet, I can feel it getting stronger. Though I do believe that the beast happens to be your area of expertise, not mine. I know little beyond sensing its presence.
"So then." Facing him full on, once again, Vitali tucked his hands casually into the pockets of his long, lavender coat and cocked his head to the side. "Clearly you are not here to glean what I happen to know or not know; experience has taught me that others have the tendency to approach me either to lay threats, or because there is something that I can do for them. For the sake of your spell and its fragile longevity, then, let me ask you this: since you are obviously not here to threaten me, why don't you tell me what you know of the sinister happenings in this city? Why does it involve my sister? And in return, perhaps we can come to some symbiotic agreement."
It wasn't a regret--nowhere near. But it had been a mistake.
In the days that followed that evening where the two of them had shared more than a single glass of wine in her tent, Vega noticed a substantial lack of the mercenary's presence in her life. He did not seek her out to speak with her, did not initiate any further interest in learning to soar the skies upon a roc, did not share meals with her or check in on how she was faring since her wound had almost completely healed from the cauterization. She didn't like it; didn't like that she suddenly felt so drastically alone in a crowd again, didn't like that she soared all alone upon Aeriel's back, didn't like that she had potentially caused Haraldur to rethink spending his future in Eyraille. But in the grand scheme of things... she could not blame him for his purposeful avoidance.
What was I thinking? The thought recurred over and over, playing like an echo in her head as she groomed Aeriel one evening, running a coarse brush over the roc's sleek feathers. Not a job that she herself was required to do, but the large avian had been her only company of late, and after the fate of Aeriel's last groomer with their broken arm, she was loathe to let any other else attempt the feat for fear they would feel the fiery roc's wrath. With each stroke of the brush, she turned over solutions, possibilities, anything that might possibly remedy her bold misstep and repair her valuable friendship with the mercenary from Mollengard--who was also a hero to Eyraille. Would an apology suffice? A peace offering, a promise to keep her distance from now on...? How could I have thought he would act differently when he still mourns for his dead wife...?
It was futile to mull these questions over, when contemplating them wouldn't change anything.
Dropping the brush, Vega stroked Aeriel's feathers and breathed a sigh. "I'll finish later, girl. I've got a wrong to make right." And the roc seemed to coo an understanding, in response.
The Skyknight found Haraldur not far from his barracks, sword in hand, looking as though he had just been passing the time with some intensive training. And, for a moment, she hesitated. Contemplated walking away and leaving him to the solitude that he desired. But she knew well that she wouldn't forgive herself if she left things between them the way that they were; and, above all else, he deserved an apology.
Before she could think twice about her decision, Vega intercepted him before she lost him behind the flaps of his tent. "I'll let you be; but hear me out. Just for a moment," she pleaded, her stomach in knots. What could she possibly tell him that could clear the air between them? Would an apology even suffice? Perhaps not. But it was all she had to offer.
"I... I'm sorry. And I know full well that an apology is not enough, but you deserve it all the same." Heaving a sigh, she shook her head, unable to meet his eyes. "There's no excuse for what I did, and I don't know what I expected... I can't even blame the wine. And... perhaps that's the worst part." That realization in and of itself sent her heart racing, and all of a sudden, she wanted the encounter to be over and done with far more quickly than even before. "Regardless, I overstepped--severely. And if nothing else, I just want you to have that apology."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Of course, any cooperation was not without an exchange of sorts, and Vitali, in place of coin, wished for information. Alster had fully planned on doling out everything that he knew, but not where they stood, surrounded by guards and with only a short-lived spell to protect their interests. He looked beyond, at the garden where the late autumn flowers were in full flourish and the leaves of the deciduous trees were blood-red against the overcast sky--the first such day in months. Then, he chanced a peak behind him at the guards, who watched with hooded, but unfocused gazes, as they seemed to have favored their ears instead of their eyes, of which he was relieved. He did not know how a concealment spell appeared to witnesses, or if they could read lips and sense that the speech did not match to the mouth and its movements. But mercifully, his back was to the guards. To be safe, he lowered his voice, not quite into a whisper, but it was decidedly softer.
"We'll talk later. In dream, tonight. Open your mind and allow me passage inside."
That night, Alster appeared in Vitali's dream. As he approached, something of a bitter smile spread across his face.
"I can't help but wonder, if my increasing ease in traveling to subconscious minds has anything to do with the special state I was under not long ago. Some inexplicable side-effect of your curse. Lilica, too, shares some adeptness in this skill." He tilted his head, almost offhanded. "Oh well."
Next, he addressed all that Vitali had requested of him. He spoke about the Serpent, the wards that he suspected were being destroyed by Rigases in league with Adalfieri's plan, of the weakening blood seal that he could feel lose its potency due to the link between himself and the infernal creature, of Lilica and Vitali's dual roles in providing the Serpent a feast of dark energy, and of his dreaded part as unwitting summoner--once all the pieces were put into play.
"I can't confirm any of this at all," he continued, raking fingers against the scars on his throat. "They're only suspicions. But each day, we uncover more proof angling us towards this theory. And even if this is not true in its entirety, Adalfieri is up to something disastrous, and it involves the Serpent. I don't know why he believes he can control It to do his bidding. Perhaps that's why he wants my involvement, for I'm the only living Rigas known to have..." he hesitated, "...controlled it." He shivered, spurning that nightmare of a memory, still fresh even across the span of two lifetimes. "...Briefly."
"As for you," he reset his gaze, a colder replacement to his prior apprehension, back to Vitali, "if you don't wish to be used as a beacon, an inadvertent part in these sinister operations that I've no doubt will destroy this city, and you along with it, you can join us in thwarting Adalfieri. We need to escape. You, me, Lilica. I've been trying, without success, to find a path out of the estate and out of Stella D'Mare. This estate is under unbreakable surveillance, and the city in siege--a convenient little result that aids most in Adalfieri's favor. If you are able to request an audience with him, and try to glean any information at all..." he thumbed his chin in thought. "You may yet succeed. For Adalfieri has trouble in reading your aura and your mind. The trick is to attract his attention so he will have no choice but to attend to you."
Once again, Haraldur reverted back to his state of cool detachment.
Over the next few days, he decided it best to avoid Vega, at first meaning only to bridge some distance between them until their drunken moment faded in memory. But as he continued to keep away from the Skyknight, old habits roosted in the nest that was left empty by his ousting of the woman who had showed him nothing but kindness and patience. Those old habits caused him to enforce and embrace the emptiness that comprised much of his person. He returned to that void without fully realizing he had wandered back down into the nothing. But once there, he found it familiar territory, and chose not to venture from what was comfortable.
He did on occasion drift back to that evening, reliving the short but significant closing of lips, her wine-scented breath rimming his mouth, the drawing of her arms....and he had to blink away the reminiscences before his mind inevitably walked down the path that led to...her. To Arina. For so long, he expunged his late wife from all his thoughts, daring not to feel, to relive, to pine for and mourn. He had buried her over five years ago, and had intended for her to remain in the ground. But she had haunted him since then, fused to his shadow, and influencing his every decision. Her crinkled brown eyes and coy smile featured in his memory whenever he interacted with those who might ever care for him beyond his skills as a soldier. Who might care for him as a person. Who cared enough to kiss him, even if the wine had influenced the action.
When those stray thoughts of several days' past appeared in the pale of his gray-colored world, he touched his lips, banished the emotion to where Arina had gouged a hole in the stony earth of his mind, and went about the minutae of a soldier at a war camp, shunting away all unnecessary distractions. He sharpened all of his weapons, practiced dance patterns with his sword, helped unload supply wagons, and volunteered for every scouting mission that presented itself to him. In keeping with Alster's promise, he did visit Elespeth, overseeing her well-being and offering a companionable hand to her, when needed.
On the fourth day since his last encounter with Vega, he had just finished sword practice. As he slid the weapon into its sheath and wiped his forehead of all perspiration, he felt a familiar presence, which he whirled around to face. It was her.
"Vega," he said, his expression stony, but polite. He nodded her welcome, and deposited his sweat-soaked cloth into his pouch. The only sign that her words had any effect on his impenetrable facade was by way of a small, airy sigh. So, she really did harbor an affection for him. And the worst part for him...was that he knew. He just chose to ignore it, hoping that by ignoring it, and ignoring her, all affections would disappear. But by ignoring her feelings, he humored them, led her on, and was perhaps too accommodating, too receptive. In working to combat his stoicism, he feared that he had overcompensated.
"I should also apologize," he said, looking to her eyes, but not really seeing them. "I acted too loosely around you. I may have led you to the wrong conclusion. I'm sorry--and I'll leave you alone, unless you have need of me."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The truth was, it was only because he knew that Alster had come to realize that he would make no real gains by exacting revenge for what he had done to him that, ultimately, the necromancer decided to humour the request. Not to mention, it didn't hurt that it served the potential of sating his own curiosity for answers, as well.
"You know, that is something that I never considered: the mysterious benefits of hovering at the very precipice of death." Unlike other dreamscapes, either joyful or terrifying or a curious mixture of both, Vitali had taken care not to open up his subconscious mind to its very pulp for the Rigas caster. They met instead in a dark space, void of much detail save for an overcast sky and an earthen terrain: barren, boring, and completely devoid of the imagination of a slumbering mind. Even in his dreams, he remained an enigmatic shadow. "I have no doubt that my sister is long practiced in the art of finding any way possible to escape her miserable existence, regardless of the spells she casts upon herself, but you... well, I cannot speak for you, obviously. Regardless, I do agree this phenomenon to be intriguing."
With attentive ears, he necromancer listened to what the Rigas caster knew--or what he theorized, in the very least. Alster's suspicions surrounding the Rigas head, Adalfieri, came as no surprise to him: he, too, had come to question some of the decisions that the old man had made of late, namely that of incarcerating his half-sister... But as Alster drew parallels to the Serpent, it all became very clear. Imperceptibly, his mood shifted from curious to bothered... and it took something significant to bother VItali. So the old man sought not only to use Lilica has a source of dark energy upon which the Serpent could draw, but him, as well?
He was not a pawn in anyone's game. Not even his own; and he intended to keep it that way. "I do admire your devoted leader for his ambition, I must say." Folding his arms, Vitali twisted his mouth thoughtfully to the side. "Though I do question his sanity. If any of you Rigases survive this madness, I do suggest you ultimately elect a new leader. Preferably one who is not losing his mind to senility, if all that you suspect is true. That said... I am curiously willing to invest in your intuition, Alster Rigas. And if I must make a scene to be heard by your great leader..." Vitali's lips twisted upward in a grin that spoke of absolutely no good. "You will find that I am just as adept to being present as I am to disappearing. Leave it all to me. Oh, and Alster... I would avoid drinking from the well that supplies the Rigas residences with water, if I were you."
The very next day began with a city-wide epidemic of coughing blood--at least, in the Rigas district of the city. Nary a single household was spared, save for a choice fortunate few (namely Lilica and Chara, to whom Alster had managed to deliver the same warning as he had received from the necromancer) who happened not to drink from water supplied from the Rigas well. The infirmary was full and overflowing with the sick in no time at all, beds filling up just hours after the sun had risen, and not a single healer could keep up with the demand, particularly when so many were themselves afflicted. For several grueling hours, the cause of this sudden pandemic went completely unknown... Until a certain necromancer happened to request an audience with Adalfieri, himself, much to the bafflement of the few guards still standing, not yet afflicted by the sickness. "I do hope your esteemed leader is well enough to receive guests during this crucial crisis," he said, feigning concern, but only for a moment. Such was not a charade that would endure. "For I have a hunch I might know what is amiss, and how to remedy the situation before there are any casualties. Do tell Adalfieri that one Vitali Kristeva requests an audience with his divine self."
"Please, do not blame yourself." Vega raised her hands in silent protest. "This is no fault of yours, and you need not apologize. You were not the one who acted out of line. I used my position of authority wrongly and led you to feel pressured into acting in a way that you would have otherwise not been inclined to do... I am ashamed of myself. And I am so sorry."
Had he been leading her on? The Skyknight bit the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, thinking back to their encounters and interactions. Had he truly ever acted like anything beyond a true friend and confidant to her? Had he ever been untoward in his advances, leading her down a path that did not exist? The answer, of course, was no. Quite the opposite, in fact, he had kept his distance from her up until she had forced her way into his life, unrelenting. Memory of Arina kept him solitary and quiet, not in the position of seeking anyone to ever share those same affections as he had felt for his late wife.
And she had bullied him into it. Almost.
"I have not been respectful of your wishes," she went on, focusing her eyes on the ground. It was easier than looking him in the eye, and recalling the pressure of his lips against hers. A memory that should have never come to pass. "But that will change, now. You have my word that I shall leave you to your space, if that is what you desire. This will... I shall not misuse my authority again. Nor will I misinterpret your acts of kindness as anything more than camaraderie... As you will, soldier."
Offering a formal bow, the Eyraillian princess turned and left him to his devices, a faded shadow against waning daylight as she retreated to her own tent.
Elespeth, who happened not to be far off at the time, had overheard and witnessed the exchange with a sinking heart. She noted the despondent droop of the Skyknight's shoulders, the heaviness of her steps that had nothing to do with her nearly healed wound, and her heart sank for Vega Sorde. After all, she knew that feeling well: that utter aloneness of one without an accepting family and so few friends, and on top of that, Vega had the weight of her kingdom upon her shoulders. She knew what she sought in Haraldur, and it was the same thing that, not so long ago, she had sought in Alster: a sense of otherness, of belonging to more than your past and your destiny.
Something that Haraldur could use as well.
Deciding not to hold back, the former knight approached her friend before he could enter his tent, foregoing any greetings or hellos. Instead, her face sported a solemn countenance. "You once told me to find a person, or a purpose for being." She said to him, recalling that long-ago conversation. "The same goes for Vega. In fact, she was so sure she had found that person and purpose, all wrapped up in one... surely, you have noticed. And can you tell me in all honesty that you don't feel the same?"
Elespeth studied the mercenary's face, as if to hold him accountable for his own feelings. Feelings that she knew he reciprocated with the Skyknight, even if he wasn't yet aware. "I've seen the sparks between you. I've seen the way you relax your guard around one another, the way you took care to reassure her when she was nearly bleeding out. There is something there, something valuable that you are passing up... Haraldur." Laying a hand upon his arm, she exhaled a disappointed sigh. "I know you miss your wife. But do not deny yourself those feelings in someone else... You do not need to stand alone."
With a shake of her head and nothing left to say, Elespeth returned to minding her own business and made her way back to her small tent. She could not force him to acknowledge the feelings that she knew to be there; but she did hope that he, at least, would consider them, before altogether passing up the opportunity to be loved all over again.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
What if I am, yet again, the cause of my family's downfall?
But there wasn't any time to feel horribly for his rash decision-making.
Meanwhile, Elias, reviving himself from the bed that had claimed the brunt of his energy, dashed to the infirmary, all the while cursing Vitali under his breath and promising to poison him if the chance should arise. He bounced from sick patient to sick patient, preserving his magic only for the most dire of cases, should he drop dead from overexertion. It would be just his fate, he thought, to die from healing a magical curse that could be rescinded from the user on any whim--which, according to Alster, was a possibility. And if so, the Clematis healer would not waste the final dregs of his staggering mortality for so disposable a cause. If the necromancer was trying to make some macabre sort of statement, Elias was in no way moved or awed by such antics. Any regard, however little, he held for Vitali Kristeva had oozed, like pus, out of an infected wound. And it smelled just as rank.
Adalfieri Rigas, as if anticipating this outcome, did not drink from the well. In any case, he preferred wines and the natural nectar of fruit fresh from the garden, using the water primarily for bathing and washing his fine, indigo-pressed tunics and robes.
When word of the Rigas-wide epidemic had arrived from Arrakis and the other guards, Adalfieri, balanced on his favorite driftwood chair, pursed his thin lips into a grim, albeit knowing line. So they know, he thought, as he drummed his fingers on his atrophied legs, themselves as gnarled as the decorative pieces of his white-bleached chair. He resigned himself to the fact that someone like Alster would realize his intentions to reclaim Stella D'Mare by dealing with the threat of the Serpent--and using It to advantageous ends. But Serpent Bane had speculated the details too quickly, and somehow curtailed many of his precautionary measures. Though, to cause widespread illness and panic, in protest? No, that was not his style, not his method.
It sounded like the doings of a certain chthonic caster gifted in the necromantic arts.
His suspicions proved true when a guard arrived in his cavernous chambers to pass along the message given to him by Vitali. While kept busy delivering orders and overseeing the status of the Rigas infirm, and only now returning to his chambers for quiet contemplation of events as they had unraveled thus far, Adalfieri nonetheless welcomed the chthonic mage into his study.
"I heard tell that you are most capable in resolving this sudden tragedy that has befallen us," the leader said as Vitali made his arrival at the grand double doors, which echoed shut behind him. "No doubt it is due to our enemies at New Town. Di Andalari are not so forthright in their promises to ensure our safety should we surrender to them, and will resort to nasty tricks of this ilk, I daresay," he said, loftily. "But you have for us a spot of good news? My, I hope that you do. ...Did you and Alster have a nice conversation yesterday?" he added, with a conversational air, which floated upward with the sweep of high-perched hands. "For I cannot imagine he had much to say that was not laden with conspiratorial backwash and inevitable doom for us all. But I am most ready to hear what manner of good tidings you have brought for me and my ailing brethren."
After Haraldur watched Vega's retreat, he rounded for his tent, but another body urged itself in front of him and stopped his advance. Elespeth. He frowned, but listened to her concerns with the slight shaking of his head. Why was she investing her time observing the nuances of their relationship, and why did she think it necessary to interfere? Was she, after allegedly losing her love with Alster, wanting to live vicariously through the life of another, or did she believe herself qualified to detect the sparks of a to-be blaze in others?
"While I appreciate your opinions," he said, in that dead voice that trilled both calm and apathy, "they're not needed, Eris. I've made my decision. Go and make use elsewhere. You're wasting your time here with me." After the Atvanian warrior slid her arm from his shoulder and wandered out of his field of vision, Haraldur curled his quaking hand around the hilt of the sword, enjoying the abrasiveness of the wound wire steel grip and the lessening of the aches that knotted and nerved his old wrist injury. It hadn't bothered him in a while, unless he simply took no notice of the pain, considering all that had kept him occupied. Like Vega...
He unfurled his hand and brought the offending wrist scar level to his eyes, tracing the puffy, jagged thing until it triggered a reaction in him. The scar was proof that he could feel, that his life wasn't dictated by the lack of something. It was horror and resentment towards his actions that impelled him to saw off that killing hand. Now, the scar remained as a stigma, a caution againstreverting to his old, murderous persona. The infliction led him to better days, to Arina, his person for being, and to a purpose by way of the refugees--as Elespeth had reiterated to him. Why shut off the repetition, the resurgence of that which made him feel alive? Because he thought it would all go sour? Because he was not prepared for the journey? Because he was still punishing himself for how it had all ended, five years ago?
"What am I doing?" he said aloud, his eyes squeezing shut as he slowly dropped his killing hand to his side, where it swung in benign little circles. Let her in. Arina would kill me if I never tried...
That night, Haraldur went to Vega's tent. When she opened the flaps to see who called for her, he presented her with his best smile, along with a curt bow. "Will we recommence our flying lessons tomorrow, Vega?"
Several weeks had passed since Haraldur decided to open himself to Vega. Since the day that he made that important stride forward, he committed to his friendship, visiting the Eyraillan princess on the regular, joining her for roc lessons, and offering a hand to help and an ear to listen. However much he solidified his camaraderie to her, he did not proceed from that point, much preferring to cast aside their drunken night in the tent--for now.
In those weeks, the war began to worsen. Half of Messino's troops were in retreat, en route to their home base of Stella D'Mare, as they were needed to oversee the siege on Old Town. The other half still engaged with Tadasun, who, through no loyalty to the Rigases and their allies, only fended off the prince's divided troops so to weaken their forces and take advantage of their split attentiveness. The following skirmishes, while small, were bloody, and Tadasun's camp moved frequently to keep up the demands of Andalari's erratic armies. They succeeded in holding back all units in their entirety, but it was only a temporary stand-off, and one that portended something destructive to come, in all the quiet that lingered when none had before existed.
During the calm stretch in between battles, Haraldur, who suggested to Vega that they postpone roc lessons until it was safer to explore the skies, holed up in his tent, adding some finishing touches to a carving that he had whittled and refined from a hunk of wood taken from a broken table. It had been a busy and chaotic month, and he hadn't the opportunity to visit Vega aside from business matters. Only now did some free time afford itself, which he used to complete the figure perched in his hands.
At last, when he deemed his work complete, he cleaned off the wood shavings that wedged themselves in the notches, held the finished sculpture to the lantern light at his bedside, and went out in search of Vega. The cool evening air refreshed his skin, which breathed little in the stuffy tent, and breathed even less as his face flushed in anticipation of what he was to do.
He found her traveling back to her tent, her gait languid and dragging. A late training night, he gathered. As he caught up to her, he hid the carving behind his back and greeted her with an uncertain smile.
"Not to bother you or anything, but," he hesitated, the carving rolling around in his fingers, "I've taken up whittling when I want to keep my hands busy. A sort of creative alternative to combat, and it still allows me to use a knife and hack away at flesh--of the sort. And...well," he silenced his tongue, and presented her with the carving. It was small, able to fit upon his palm, and it was of a roc, wings outspread, with fierce, deep-set eyes and grooves all along its body to indicate feathers. The wood had been hewn into a smooth finish, and lacquered to a shine. He placed the small creature into her hands and backed away, looking suddenly interested in his feet. "It's to thank you for the lessons."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"And, yes. Alster Rigas... well, he had certainly expressed a few suspicions to me." Steepling his fingers, he furrowed his brow in thought. "As to how outrageous they might be, I feel that is not for me to judge so blindly, with little else to go on but his word. But I did not come here to speak with you about Alster Rigas: indeed, I do think I can deliver some reassuring news. It appears that the well supplying your water has been hexed with a very insidious curse..." His smile faded at the edges, emphasizing the severity of his words. "Untouched, I fear that those who are now afflicted from the well water will succumb to a slow death. Fortunately enough, I happen to deal in the business of death, and I can assure you that the hex can be lifted; and I am one such enabled to lift it. Of course, in return, I was hoping that you could help me out as well, sir. You see..."
A glimmer shone in Vitali's obsidian eyes. It could easily have been a trick of the light... "Word on the street has it that my dear half-sister... perhaps you know of her; Lilica D'Or ring a bell? In any case, it has come to my attention that she has been detailed for no foreseeable reason. Now, I know well that she has had her troubles in the past, but has since been on the path to... well, I daresay, recovery. Coming to terms with her chthonic aptitudes and all; not unlike your Alster Rigas. Surely you can agree, that with the threat of the Serpent, keeping her behind lock and key is not within her best interests. Or mine, for that matter." Lifting a single shoulder in a half shrug, he lifted his hands, palms up. "Do not misunderstand, if you see reason to keep her detained, then by all means, it is beyond me to interfere. I have simply come to seek your words on the matter, for my own clarification, you see. In return, I would be more than happy to tend to that curse upon the well--preferably sooner than later. Some of your kin have appeared to show dangerous progressions of the hex's effects, after all."
Vega hadn't an inkling as to what to expect, following the moment that she walked away from Haraldur, shrouded in shame and disappointment. She had retired early to her quarters that evening, too emotionally spent to think much on any matter, including her former plans to prepare drills for her Skyknights, come morning. What is it you were expecting? That he would confess an undying love for you? Truly, after everything that he has been through, and everything that he has lost?
She had been foolish to hope, driven by a need to not feel so alone--only to end up feeling more alone than ever.
It went without saying, then, that she was taken aback with surprise when Haraldur showed up later that evening, just before she was prepared to retire. Asking if his lessons upon a roc might continue, for that matter.
A purely formal and reasonable request; not one that falsely promised love, or even friendship, for that matter. Little more than whatever camaraderie could be expected between a soldier and a an officer. And yet, she could not help but respond with a smile.
The weeks that followed played an odd tune upon Vega, as she seemed conflicted in her mannerisms and behaviour towards the mercenary from Mollengard. Not unlike Elespeth, who appeared uncertain about having ever thought to involve herself in Haraldur's personal life. For the most part, she purposely kept her distance, and was most frequently seen walking the grounds alone and keeping busy with whatever work was delegated to her. And when she was not busy, she stayed out late, watching the stars by firelight, her green eyes always sparkling with what looked like a glimmer of tears. But nobody asked about it, and she did not offer to speak.
Not until the evening that Haraldur sought out Vega, a carving in his hand as he made his way across the encampment with an uncertain gait. The Atvanian warrior had thought much on what she needed to say to her friend, and had found the words days before. It was only now that she mustered the courage and humility to face him, for the first time in several weeks. It felt much like facing a stranger who she had once known, one who greeted her with all the politeness and etiquette of someone who knew how to carefully temper their emotions and their affect. For the first time since they'd met, Elespeth Tameris felt shy before him.
"I owe you an apology," she said, foregoing preamble, mossy-green eyes trained on the toes of her boots. "It was not my place to involve myself in your personal relations with another person. I suppose I... perhaps I thought it was my prerogative to interfere for the benefit of what I thought was your happiness, and Vega seemed so heartbroken... but that is no excuse. And I hope we can still be friends."
Biting her lower lip, she added, albeit quietly, "If I cannot be happy, then I thought I could at least ensure that others were. But your happiness is yours to master; not mine. Please forgive my interferences, Haraldur."
She was gone before the mercenary could reply, leaving him with only the option to continue on his way, to whatever task occupied his time and attention. That was when he encountered Vega, on the way back to her tent, weary and overheated, perspiration causing her tunic to stick fast to her back. She might not have taken notice of Haraldur, had he not spoken her name, and although she was pleased (as always) to see him, the flush on her cheeks deepened in what might have been embarrassment. After all, she wasn't exactly in the most presentable of states. "Haraldur," she breathed, hardly able to find her voice. "To... what do I owe the pleasure?" The Skyknight listened with curiosity, then, as her companion unwound his disjointed tale of whittling wood as a way that he passed the time. Much though she appreciated his company (for, regardless of the circumstances of the past few weeks), she wasn't entirely sure of the direction he meant to take... Until, in his outstretched hand, she took note of a beautifully carved avian. A roc, to be more precise.
Needless to say, she was rendered speechless for a good, long moment. "Haraldur... that's... so kind." Despite her hesitation, the sincerity was evident in her tone. "But I don't... you needn't thank me for teaching you to fly. I gave you the lessons because I wanted to. Because you... showed interest. That meant something to me." But who knew hhow long it had taken him to carve such intricate detail into that tiny wooden bird? So that he was not offended, and to acknowledge his hard work, she took the proferred carving deftly with her fingertips. "All the same... thank you. You are very talented; I can hardly imagine how long this must have taken you." Time that he had specifically taken to care it for her.
But she knew better than to read too much into it.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"As for your, well, conditions," his face scrunched, displeased by so ugly a word, "and you must forgive me for referring to your selfless aid as such, I will, in good faith, see to your dear half-sister. Lilica D'Or, through no fault of her own, possesses a rather immense inheritance of chthonic magic. If we are to release her, she will find herself nabbed by the hands of di Andalari, who are far crueler in their methods to detain, all for the sake of gain--as you are well aware," he said, tilting his head at the necromancer. "However, in providing sanctuary for Lilica D'Or, we Rigases must take precautions, for her chthonic magic resonates with a creature that sits below our feet, encased in this earth, as we speak. The Serpent would take advantage of her if we allowed her the freedom she so desires. But if you should find it unwise to expedite the arrival of Stella D'Mare's resident hellbeast by releasing your half-sister, then perhaps you would like to take her place?" He rested a hand against his unblemished cheek, thoughtful.
"We, of course, cannot have two chthonic casters running roughshod over this estate, but we also cannot so insensitively leave you to be snatched by Di Andalari's greedy talons. But two, rather, three chthonic casters gallivanting in this small space will, I fear, cause a cataclysmic response in the creature that all Rigases are sworn to oversee and prevent from ascendance. And, once It ascends, It will seek out all those of chthonic energy, and feast on their corpses. We cannot save you if our numbers are harried by disease. I feel it is in our best interests that you restore my family's health so that they can further serve and protect you, lest we all fall to the might of this terrific blight that plagues this fine city. In turn," he rubbed his shoulder blades against the chair, the fabric brushing against the wood with a swish that the chamber seemed to amplify, "I shall see into Lilica's incarceration. But as this is a delicate situation, you must decide if you wish her fate upon yourself, Vitali. What filial love. Oh, to have a sister or a brother, so that I may know such self-sacrifice!" He twittered, and then presented the necromancer with a vacant smile.
"Thank you in advance, for providing your expertise in lifting this nasty hex. You may work with the Clematis healer, if you so need additional assistance. And Alster, too. I take it he is expressing an interest in healing practices, and the two of you seem to get on so well." He stretched his arms outward, popping the joints in his shoulders. "Is that all, then? You may go, Vitali. I am certain we shall speak again."
Elespeth's words drifting in his head all the while, Haraldur watched with a semi nervous air as Vega plucked the wood carving from his hands and examined it. He stood before her, stiff on his feet and at attention, as he was wont to do when he did not know how to act in the appropriate manner. His posture, at least, lifted his head from its trajectory with the ground, returning itself to her level, to her eyes. "I carved this for you because I wanted to. For all that you've done me, I'm already in your debt. Think of it as a service in exchange for services rendered." He frowned at his wording. How impersonal, to refer to his gift as a simple exchange with nothing implied but repayment, when he had attributed its creation to something more. But what was the 'something more'? Why did he primarily carve her the roc?
Before he could stop his footing, he had closed the space between them, and rested his hands upon her arms. He held her steady, returning his gaze to her tired blue eyes, struggling for the words he wished to convey. "No, it's a gift...it's there as a reminder that I..." A flush colored his cheeks. "I won't forget you, Vega." Then, losing whatever courage he had gained in his movements to her proximity, he retreated before he thought to press his mouth to her lips, though he had considered. ...Wanted to.
He severed their connection, withdrawing his callused hands, which had plied and kneaded at her upper arms with some sort of...desire that had betrayed him to her ever sharpening scrutiny. She looked at him with a roc-eyed intensity, and it had unnerved him, defeated him. With a small bob of his head, he bade her a good evening and wandered away from the Skyknight, his heart fluttering to stay aloft as it fought and fought against plummeting to its death. His footfalls hammered on the ground as he fled to his tent. Everything about him seemed amplified. The fires burned brighter. He could hear the stars bend and twist overhead. His mouth felt sticky, his tongue adhering to the roof. When he moved through the tent flaps and found his cot, he sat hard on the thin cushions, checked his shivering palms, and pressed them to his face.
...What...what now? Do I...?
Tivia Rigas, who in the last several weeks had recovered enough to walk about the camp, in daylight as well as evening hours, had made herself useful--not from any kind of solidarity towards Tadasun, but to prevent her from reliving the massacre that she refused to have rule her life. Though the army found her unfit for battle, she utilized her magical gift to help facilitate chores that were otherwise harrowing and laborious. She volunteered her time at the mess tents, tending to the cooking, or organizing the weapons after battle, when swords and polearms littered the ground in a haphazard pile.
She could not sleep that evening. Not that she ever found any solace in slumber, but on this particular night, she preferred to walk around camp instead, watching the stars that winked above her and pining for home.
She did not walk long before stumbling upon Elespeth, who, at the edge of camp, was also scanning the sky with that same, sad, wistful kind of longing. Sidling up beside the Atvanian woman, Tivia absently ran a hand along the short, clumpy wires of white-blonde hair that grew out from the unburnt half of her head--and sat down.
"You are looking at Aerione," she said, after keeping silent for a long stretch of time. "The star of my namesake belongs to the same constellation. It will never be so bright as Alster, but," she traced her finger across the sky, to a small, flickering thing, perched diagonally from the white-blue intensity that dominated the shape of the Heron, "it is there, nonetheless. Half-formed. Oblong and ugly--I suppose my new appearance should come as no surprise to me. It was already written in these stars." As if on cue, the star of Alster flashed, then, a brief blink in the black, and Tivia twitched her lips into a very tiny smile. "That star very seldom moves. I daresay that it is responding to you. Perhaps it is saying, 'Hello.' Or, if it is anything like its mortal counterpart, it is attempting a casual greeting, and failing miserably. A stumble in the night." Her smile twitched wider. "Appropriate."
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, the necromancer rocked casually back on his heels, unfazed by the Rigas's head's transparent facade. "I hope you do not take offense to me speaking so freely, though I do believe, however, that you are far underestimating the abilities of myself and my kin. You see, I have had no trouble seeing to my own protection in all the time I have been alive. Neither has Lilica, to be very honest; I can assure you that she only remains detained because she is choosing to cooperate. No doubt out of her...camaraderie, if you will, with miss Chara Rigas. I cannot imagine your esteemed brethren is very pleased with my sister's isolation. It does her no good... and will not keep out the evils of which you speak. The Serpent, I imagine, cannot be stopped by way of lock and key.
"But, I do have a solution to those deep concerns, as well: allow myself and Lilica leave from this city. Even if it does not necessarily ensure our safety, our gift of the chthonic will no longer serve as a beacon to the Serpent. I do feel that you and yours, and Stella D'Mare in and of itself, deserves that much, for all of the hospitality that you have offered." Bowing his head as if in supplication, Vitali even made a gesture of clutching at his heart to further emphasize his appreciation of the Rigases. The charade between himself and Adalfieri, so exaggerated as it stood, could very nearly be considered comical, were it not for the heavy gravity of the matter being discussed. "Of course, the decision is entirely yours, although I do hope you will take my input seriously, good sir. I like to think I can speak on behalf of any and all chthonic users present in Stella D'Mare, my sister and me aside. But I shall not waste a moment more of your time; not while the majority of your brethren are exsanguinating themselves through these hideous coughing fits. I do hope you manage to find the scoundrel responsible for this heinous act."
Formally taking his leave with a final, deep bow, violet coattails swishing behind him, the necromancer sought out a rather exhausted Clematis healer in the infirmary. The place smelled of bitter antiseptic and metallic blood. "Why, you certainly look as though you have had better days," he commented, frowning as he looked over Elias from head to toe. "There is more death in you than life, even! But that is not what I am here to discuss." Pressing his hands together in a loud clap, he then spread them with dramatic flare. "Look before you, for you will find the saviour who will lift the hex from the Rigas's primary well system. Quite a nasty curse upon it; fortunate that I am here, hm?"
Raising his eyebrows, he indicated that Elias follow with a wave of his hand. "Come. Surely you cannot expect me to concoct the cure and carry it from the hill to administer it to the sick." With a knowing wink, he added, "You do still have some life left in those legs, yes?"
I won't forget you, Vega.
And how in all hell did Haraldur expect her to interpret that?
Abashed by the mercenary's gesture, followed by his haste retreat, Vega agonized over the meaning of his words and the intricate carving all night long, hardly sleeping a wink as she turned the small piece of wood over and over in her hands. Her heart fluttered on the precipice of excitement and anger; after all of these weeks, after he had expressed that the single kiss they shared had been naught but a foolish mistake, suddenly it seemed as if... as if he was changing his mind. Does he even know what he wants? Have I become the object of his unending indecision?
That confusion pumping the beats of her frantic heart finally gave way to the anger, early the next morning, after she'd barely slept a wink. This is not acceptable... I will not be toyed with. I deserve an answer.
And with more resolve than she had felt for a good deal of time, she left her tent as the first rays of dawn peaked on the horizon, and made directly for Haraldur's tent. Most of the soldiers were likely in the midst of readying themselves for the morning, pulling on their boots and tucking in their cots... Luckily enough for Vega, she had not arrived moments earlier, when Haraldur had been in a state of undress. The mercenary was just adjusting the belt around his waist when she pushed past the flaps of his tents, not bothering to announce her presence under she was before him, paying his startled expression little heed.
"I want an explanation, soldier. And a clear one, at that." Standing before the sunrise, golden rays catching her copper hair and haloing it in a ring of fire. As if her demeanor needed to be any more obvious, her temper any more ignited. Without hesitation, she took the roc carving from her pocket and held it before her, arm oustretched, as if it were a talisman. "What is this, Haraldur? Why the time and the effort, the detail and care you put into this carving? All to express that you will 'not forget me'--what does that even mean?"
He did not respond; hardly knew what to say, and while she couldn't blame him (her visit had, after all, been very abrupt), she still expected an answer. She deserved that much. "You do not put such care into a gift such as this for a comrade; you do not express to a mere friend that you wish never to forget them, the way you did to me. So tell me, Haraldur, because I will not have my emotions toyed with, and I deserve to know." The Skyknight lowered her arm and stepped straight up to the mercenary, more than an entire head shorter than him, but she felt taller, in that moment. "What am I to you? What... exactly, do you feel for me? Tell me now and tell me clear, and I will... I will reciprocate accordingly. But I need to know."
Having been left well alone for a good period of time, by both the Tadasuni and the few friends she had, Elespeth least expected to see Tivia Rigas of all people approach her during one of her many quiet moments of contemplating. The disfigured celestial caster took a seat next to her and spoke of the stars, in much the same way that Alster had once done. It made her heart lurch with ache. "No star is crafted to perfection; it is their uniqueness that makes them exquisite. Just like yours... and you." She couldn't help the faint hint of a smile that touched her lips. Tiviam like every other Rigas, had no reason to be kind to her. But here she was, finally coming to terms with her wrecked body and emerging from her tent, to be of some small company to the former knight. It was more than Elespeth could ask for; perhaps more than she deserved.
But even the Rigas woman's attempt at lighthearted converation had the opposite of it intended effect when she turned the subject to Alster. He was already on her mind more than she cared to admit.
"Alster... would do well to forget about me," she said quietly, turning her gaze to the ground. "I am no good for him, as I am sure your kin would agree. I... still care. I always will. But as we'd predicted, war has torn us apart. It has a way of doing that to happiness." She went silent, then, and for a moment it appeared as though she had no intention of continuing the conversation. But before the Rigas caster could leave, she spoke her name, quiet and contemplative. "Tivia... you will make it back to Stella D'Mare when this is all over. And when you do... there is something that I must ask you."
She turned to face the disfigured woman, completely unfazed by her ruined face and the damage the fire had left. She was still Tivia, still a Rigas; and conidence shone like beauty. "Look out for him, please. I know that he has Chara, but her concerns... her affections are reserved for another, and she is hard on him. Terribly so, as his mother used to be. Ascertain that he is all right, reassure him for me. In my absence... I merely wish to know that he is well. Even for one who stumbles through life such as him, there is much in store. So much potential... he deserves that happiness."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
With the clearing of his throat, he added, "Would that if I could, dear Vitali, but I and my family, too, are prisoners here in Stella D'Mare. We are enslaved to our estate, and by extension, the whole of this city, until Di Andalari sees fit to end its siege on Old Town...or until we revolt. If you or Lilica were to go wandering about this city, why, I could not insure that the two of you would remain unharmed, your impressive chthonic output notwithstanding. And were either of you to utilize your magic near or about this estate," he tutted with the shake of his head, "The Serpent would find itself a tasty morsel of energy to consume. Please be aware as you move about the area, Vitali. From one concerned party to the other."
He returned the necromancer's bow and, with a nod towards the double doors, dismissed his company. "A savior, you are, Vitali Kristeva. Should you require anything else," the doors opened by themselves, "you need only ask."
Two healthy guards led Vitali to the infirmary, where they watched from afar, but otherwise left the chthonic mage to his own devices. Elias, hands covered with blood, watched the small procession, and the headliner of that procession wend his way over to his side. He did not hide his contempt as he washed his hands in the basin before wringing a towel over a clean bowl with a violent, exaggerated squeeze. "Funny, that," he muttered, as he hobbled over to a nearby patient, replacing the old cloth on his forehead with the new, damp one. "Here I thought that my health was a sparking beacon of life. Thank you for the prognosis." While the healer looked absolutely vampiric, with a shriveled, hunched over gait, a gaunt face as white as seafoam, and blood-speckled lips, his eyes flashed with an indignation that no amount of death or dying could sate.
He paused in his mundane deliveries, his administrations of worthless comforts that did naught to relieve the infirm, to turn to Vitali with crossed, impatient arms. "I am looking. Kindly point him or her out to me--or else quit blocking my view." Dropping the dirty towel onto his station, Elias harrumphed at the invitation and grudgingly followed the insufferable man out of the infirmary.
"I have enough in me to stomp you silly with these legs of mine," he croaked, his voice a scratchy, albeit forceful exclamation. To prove his words true, he bounded before Vitali, keeping pace with only minor huffs and heaves of his failing lungs as they mounted the hill where the water well resided. "I ought to punt you into this well," he said, breathless, as they reached the hole in the ground, by which its water was transported by aqueduct to a secret place in the mountains beyond. "For all the stress that your 'hilarious' prank has done me and all its victims. If I am not dead before dark, do be careful where you tread. A not so friendly word of caution." His tone spat venom and vitriol, all at once. However, he relented, as his body swayed to a more comfortable, albeit shaky stance on the hill. "Now, what aid do you possibly think I can offer you up here?"
Like Vega, a sleepless night awaited Haraldur, its passing hours as hollow as a log, a log in which he envisioned carving without cease. He chopped and hacked and eviscerated, but still he made nary a notch or a nick on the impregnable wooden surface. Enginn cannot make his mark on the world, a voice mocked, in the back of his head. Because he is No One. But a Named One is able to work the wood. To carve it to its will, to its intended face. What do you want, lost as you are? Do you wish to be Nameless, or do you wish to create? Out of this wood, a new life and a name?
New life and a name.
He opened his bleary eyes to the dawn. Watching as his bunkmates prepared for the day, he too fell into old, comfortable habits that would delay the assessment of his troubled thoughts from that fitful night of rest. He washed up at the basin, pulled on his armor, his boots, and attached his belt, with his sword and sundry weapons, when in walked the woman he was not yet prepared to encounter.
"Vega," he said, standing from his cot and with a mechanical attentiveness that shielded the brunt of his emotions from her view. He was startled by her presence, but beyond simple surprise, he was taken by how the light illuminated her from behind. He wanted to reach out and touch her head, to see if it were actually alight in a corona of flame, but he kept his hands motionless at his sides. Better not to get burned.
But something changed in those moments when she demanded answers and he responded with reticence and eyes trained to the ground. Looking at her blinded him, but looking at her also stirred his stone heart into pounds and quakes, mainstays from the previous night, when he had almost...
He caught her gaze, his olive green eyes narrowed with concentration, with determination. He regained his footing, his ability to stand before the Skyknight with the same amount of poise that she exhibited when she knew what she wanted. And he...he knew what he wanted.
Create, Haraldur. Build the life that you want...
Speaking not a word, he enclosed the space between them, hands rounding her shoulders, head lowering to adjust for their disparate heights, and he kissed her tenderly.
Tivia's lips twisted, the good half of her face trying to masquerade as the disfigured half. "Aren't you the romantic? Sappy and sophomoric. Next, you will tell me that I am beautiful as I am, and that no amount of ravaging can destroy my integrity of mind and spirit, where actual beauty presides," she said, almost as if reciting a passage she read in a long-ago story. She again twisted her features, and redirected her attention to the sky. "It is a sentiment that only exists in the hypothetical. Something that poets who think themselves profound spout to their would-be lovers. Not that I know much of love," she said, with a withering sigh. "Rigases know little of this abstract concept. But I cannot ignore it when I see it true. As a former romantic, myself, I am keen on knowing when it is real. You and Alster," she sighed, rubbing her arms against the chill of the late autumn evening, "are genuine. It will not so easily fade into the night, just as his star will not subside into nothing."
At Elespeth's request, she clamped an arm over the Atvanian woman, her expression snapping into a glare that flickered just the same as her star counterpart. "Unless you plan to die, I do not see why you cannot return with me to Stella D'Mare and tell him, yourself, of your intentions to sever all ties. Let Serpent Bane writhe in his agony and despair. And if you can walk away, regardless of the pain inflicted on him, then yes, I will coddle his wounds, but no--I am in no way responsible for his happiness. Besides," her good eye took on an otherworldly sheen, with all the stars reflected on it like crystal glass, "it does not appear that it will end well for him. Or," her voice, too, pinged like glass, small and unaware of its sound. "...or for Stella D'Mare."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
While Vitali hardly broke a sweat, and did not sound particularly out of breath, poor Elias, by comparison, sounded as though the climb would very well be the death of him. A shame he was not tending to such an ordeal with someone with the capacity for a tad more sympathy. "Hurry up, now. The lives of those suffering are your responsibility to uphold, am I wrong?" Glancing over his shoulder with mock impatience, he flashed the Clematis healer a grin as they approached the well. "Simply, I require your healing magic to counteract my own. And I know not of any other healers who would be so willingly to work with me... or trust me. Of course, you really haven't much of a choice, if you expect me to lift the nasty hex upon this well. Might I please see your hand?"
From inside his brilliant white coat, Vitali drew a slender, black-tipped blade, and not without noticing the skepticism that crossed Elias's world-weary face. "Relax; for once, I am not endeavoring anything particularly insidious. Though I do require your blood." When at last the reluctant Clematis healer surrendered his hand, the necromancer, with the tip of the small dagger, drew an intricate rune upon the vulnerable, pink flesh. It was so sharp that nary any pressure was required to prick the skin. As soon as he finished, he carved an identical rune into the scar tissue upon his own ravaged palm, unflinching, and returned the small blade to its pocket. "Perfect. Now, if you please: press your palm to the stone. We shall do so simultaneously."
Readying himself, he pressed his palm to the cool stone of the well as the same time as Elias. Nothing appeared to happen, except that a sound, faintly fizzling like hot coals after a fire is extinguished, filled the air. Seconds later, it faded, and in the place of intricately carved open wounds upon the palms of the two magic users, the runes were now dry and black, as if they had been cauterized closed by a hot poker. "Well, that should do it," Vitali declared with a satisfied nod. "Do make sure to inform Adalfieri of your invaluable help in this matter. You will want to be on the man's charitable side, after all, lest you end up a sacrifice in his scheme." His tone was jovial, but there was something about the hard glint in his eyes that more than hinted that the matter was one to be taken seriously. And on that note...
"By the way, you haven't happened to see Alster Rigas around, by chance? He and I have had a conversation that warrants continuation."
Vega knew better than to hope too strongly and, truth be told, she had approached Haraldur's tent with the full expectation that she would, once again, retreat with a bruised heart. Nonetheless, she wished... No, this time, she did dare to hope that that would not be the case.
And, as the moments unfolded... she was relieved to find that it wasn't. And that for once her hopes had not been in vain.
Is it painfully obvious I've not been kissed before? the Skyknight wondered as the mercenary's lips moved so softly against her own. Haraldur had loved before, and knew how to love in such a way, but she had always been awarded the position of mere observer to others' affections. She hadn't any clue as to what she was doing, but knew only that she wanted it. That she wanted him... Someone to trust beyond mere comrades in arms. Someone who might see her as more than a high-ranking military officer, more than an Eyraillian noble, more than the shadow that whispered advice in her brother's ear. Someone whose heart would ache, even just a little, if this war were to take her life. Someone who saw her as more than a pawn in this grand scheme, who valued who for who she was... Whoever that person was. Even she wasn't sure, herself; but maybe Haraldur could help her figure it out.
Fingers knotting into the fabric of his tunic, Vega pulled him closer by a fraction of an inch, afraid to seem too eager, but wrapped up all the same in the excitement of being an object of affection. Did it make her beautiful? Dessirable? A mere opportunity? Even if the latter were true... she could live with that. For it was reassurance enough that she was worthy of attention, and worth more than her title, her duties, her blood... although something told her that Haraldur was more genuine than that. And that a man who so horifically lost his wife a mere handful of years ago would not be so quick to invest intimiately in someone who was to him little more than a convenient opportunity. "I... I hoped you wouldn't turn away, again," she confessed quietly when at last they put some space between them. She appeared so relieved in that moment, as if for the first time in forever, she had inally let the breath leave her lungs. And on the tips of her lips, which moments ago had been pursed and so stern, was a tiny smile that illuminated her more than the sun hitting her copper hair from behind. Love illuminated her.
"Come back to Eyraille with me, when this is over." He had already confessed as much desire to return to her homeland, but her words did not quite reflect the meaning with which they were so saturated. Her azure eyes, though bleary from a sleepless night, were bright with hope. "There is a place for you, there; there always has been, just waiting for your return. You do not have to live as a hero or a saviour, but simply as Haraldur. The person who you want to be. And if that means that you shall wish to put down your sword..." She reached for his dominant hand, and caressed his knuckles with her fingertips. "Then leave it behind, and never look back."
"Alster has already been in agony and experienced despair. I have already walked away; and he watched as I did so." Elespeth was by no means proud, and her voice reflected no trace of relief or happiness in what she had done. But that was likely already obvious by her reclusive nature, since leaving Stella D'Mare. "You must understand, Tivia, that I have no intention to return to your home city. There is nothing left for me there but broken feelings and the bitterness that your family feels towards me. Which is why I ask simply that you watch out for him... intervene if he attempts at anything stupid. I still... I do love him. That will no change. But a clean break was the best for both of us. Perhaps he will see that, in time."
The Atvanian warrior did not like the finality of Tivia's tone, of her ill prognosis of Alster and for Stella D'Mare... But wasn't that just typical Rigas melodrama? Chara was guilty of the very same thing, predicting the worst of outcomes because it was always easier and safer than getting one's hopes up. After all, disappointment did not resonate so painfully when failure was already expected. Nonetheless, she refused to be roped into that downward spiral. "Do not create a self-fulfilling prophecy for you and yours, Tivia. There is hope yet in this war, or you already would have given up--and so would have Alster." With a shake of her head, she stood, offering the Rigas caster a hand up. "Nonetheless... I appreciate your ill-fated effort to get my spirits up. I have already lost so much to this war... it never hurts to have another ally. Though I hope you can forgive me, my unyielding optimism, in light of your nihilism."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Is this permanent? A sign of your conquest over me? Why--" Unrolling his handkerchief, he spat out a few rattling coughs, staining the freshly-cleaned surface with bright crimson. "Why did you require my aid? You mean to tell me that you cannot reverse your hexes without requiring a pawn to lend you a dram of healing energy?" A wheezing laugh shook his shoulders. "How much irreversible damage have you wrought in the past? For, by your own admission, I cannot imagine you had such trusting 'companions' offering you any sliver of their power to help you temper whatever out-of-control pestilences you've created." He scooped out water with a small cup attached by a string to the bucket on the well. "We might as well drink to your 'successes'," he said, taking a bold swig of the cup and then giving the rest to Vitali. "Remember, when I die, you are reviving me, whether it be here or a week or two later." He brushed his hands back into his robes and made to descend the hill. "Alster is in the infirmary, assisting other healers and myself. We'll return now, because I for one am most curious to see if your little magic trick somehow leeched all the sickness from the already infirm."
Alster watched as Elias and Vitali entered through the infirmary doors. After taking from a patient a half-empty glass of juice that he'd provided in place of water, he settled before the table of medical implements, feigning the busy washing of the station until the two men caught up to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he surveyed the infirmary, ensuring that no guards were nearby or upon him. Then, he cast the spell that would muffle their words into the din of the crowded hall.
"You've spoken with Adalfieri, I take it?" he said, but did not move to address Vitali or Elias as he washed out the juice glass with a rag and a bit of magic. When the Clematis healer excused himself to check on the health of the patients, Alster half-turned to the necromancer, his eyes narrowing into a glare. "I hope your antics were worth it." He waved a hand at the entirety of the infirmary. "Many of them won't take food or drink from me. They think me responsible--and they're not wrong." With an overstressed sigh, he snapped his full attention to Vitali, abandoning his pretense of cleaning. "What did he say?"
It had not been five years since Haraldur last kissed a woman. In previous war camps, he had engaged, as did many of the men, in entertainment as displayed by roving gypsies in need of coin. And he, in need of company, missing the warmth of another at his bedside, accepted the desperate offers of several. Unless he discovered that they were merely children, for he would not take advantage of ones so young, he opened himself to the passions that would make him feel in the least bit--alive. But they were just distractions. More often, he felt even emptier after the women departed, and instead had resigned himself to welcoming the void that had dictated many years of his cold, numb life.
It had been a long while since his last tryst, and all those previous women were faceless, featureless landmarks on the far horizon. But before him, and locked against his lips, was a light, a fire, that he'd long neglected, but never did it disperse. Vega had long burned for him. He had felt the heat, wanted it, but out of courtesy, respect, and fear, had chosen not to act on their like-minded whims. The Skyknight was too familiar, too much a threat to the past that she had rent open with her lance, too notable a landmark and too conspicuous to forget--little like those other women who, like sand, blew across his recollections, fading into time itself. Perhaps it was why she stood out so blatantly to him. She was familiar. Comforting. The closest he'd ever reach to home. Time could not damage her.
He had succumbed, at last. All resistance had sloughed from him like old snakeskin. He kissed her with a welcoming fervor, raising his hands to brush through those copper tresses that tingled on his fingers like licks of flame. And when at last they separated, he kept a hand cupped over the back of her head, feeling the burn that he was so determined to deny.
"I tried to," he began in a breath, opening his eyes to her, and quirking a small smile. "But you put up quite a fight. And it was one that I couldn't win. I was foolish to think it possible." With some hesitation, he dropped his hand, a lock of her silken hair sliding from his gentle grasp. But she took his wrist, concealing that puffy scar of his, and something surged from deep inside of him. Take me, he wanted to say. Take me anywhere. I'll go there.
He nodded, settling his fingers in the crook of her hand. "I've already given you my loyalty. If you have need for it outside of this war, and in your homeland, with sword or without sword," he bowed his head to her, "then I'll follow you there." He leaned forward, and kissed her a second time. Though it was short, it held a promise, one that he spoke aloud after he pulled away from her lips. "Tonight. I'll call on you tonight. Unless," his mouth curved into a teasing smile, "It's too much a distraction from your important duties."
Tivia did not realize Elespeth was addressing her until she blinked out of whatever reverie had abducted her from the moment. She looked shocked, cupping the blemished side of her face as if suddenly self-conscious, though she was undeterred by her appearance just earlier. Shoulders had stiffened, fingers clawing into her knees. Her head dipped, chin almost to chest, as she blocked out the stars, and the proffered hand of the warrior who, as she now stood, belonged to that realm of sky. She shuddered, refusing to look heavenwards, even if it was to snub Elespeth and her well-meaning gestures and her ignorant, dismissive words.
"I do not know what I--the stars, they told me...whispered to me that..." She closed her eye, and held hands over her ears as if shield them from the gossiping convention up above. "Stella D'Mare will crumble. The Serpent will rise. Alster will---" she cut off her speech, her voice bordering on hysterics, her composure breaking. "...They're so loud! They scream. Stop screaming!" She shouted, her pained wail threatening to rupture the air in twain. "Aerione descends in the West. West. We all fall...Fall...STOP!" She reached desperately for Elespeth, digging her nails into the other woman's arms. "Make it stop!" A dry sob racked her body. She thrashed against unknown assailants. Seizing up on the ground, she at last released her captive, her consciousness bleeding into bludgeoned, eerie silence.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The necromancer followed the Clematis healer back to the infirmary, where the patients--albeit pale, dehydrated and relatively weak--appeared to already be bouncing back from the lifted curse. They rested, exhausted, though so many still refused food and drink. They likely would for the remainder of the day, Vitali knew, although Alster seemed to be taking that small fact rather personally, the poor fool. "Now, you told me I needed to give your esteemed Rigas leader a reason to want to speak with me," he reminded the Serpent Bane, in light of his accusation. "And I succeeded, did I not? What, pray tell, short of all the lives of his own kin and bloodline in danger, would possibly convince him to speak with the likes of the likes of me?" It was a rhetorical question, and Alster knew the answer just as well as he did.
"I believe," he leaned in, lowering his voice, just in case the Rigas caster's concealment spell fell short of quality, "that your suspicions of Adalfieri's intentions might have some truth to them. It is not on behalf of my sister's best interests that he keeps her incarcerated, any more than keeping you under close surveillance is to your own benefit. The man is frustratingly transparent without giving a single thing away; a man after my own heart, in many ways. But..." His coy grin faded as he leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. "This plan of his cannot come to fruition, if you care for the fate of Stella D'Mare. I am frankly disgusted to be a part of any of this, but I can make an escape on my own, easily enough. Your leader is wrong to think that I could be contained. But you and Lilica..." Vitali clucked his tongue. "Your situation is more complicated than mine. I am not entitled to help you, and honestly, am not entirely sure that I can. Although, if you require any further distractions or crises-on-demand to further whatever you have planned for your own escape... I wouldn't mind wreaking just a little more havoc."
His smile reached his eyes, and it couldn't have been more obvious that he was not only willing to further lend his services in such a way, but would take great pleasure in it.
"I am of the royal Eyraillian bloodline; we have a history of not taking no for an answer, for better or for worse, it seems." A grin full of mischief contradicted that tiny hint of regret in Vega's eyes. It was because of that very attitude that Eyraille, during her father's rein, had been a tyrannical nation, conquering and controlling with little regard for the trail of blood left in its wake. She could take solace only in the fact that she reserved her stubbornness for far less detrimental purposes--she hoped, at least. "Know that I can and will respec your wishes, soldier, but... admittedly, not without a fight. Though I will treat this surrender mercifully..."
Had he requested some space at this juncture, time to think and to consider, the Skyknight would have granted him as much, and gladly. Reluctant commitment to even a transient tryst was not her desire or her intention, and this was the last effort that she had promised herself she would make to decipher Haraldurs feelings for her. And yet, far from what she had anticipated, he was kissing her a second time, his lips less careful, more wanting, and promising something that brought a shade to her cheeks that near matched her hair. A fire that leapt from her heart and into her face...
Her fingers, knotted as they were in the front of his tunic, were reluctant to release the stiff fabric. "Tonight," she confirmed, mirroring his grin. "I reserve my important duties for the waking ours, unless in the case of some emergency. But after dusk... I am yours to call upon. Until then... I shall leave you to ready yourself for the day. I hope you can forgive my intrusion."
She passd the remainder of the day feeling curiously light-headed. Not insomuch that it interfered with her work, although she was rather relieved not to cross paths with Haraldur, lest her stomach fill with butterflies and the status of her feelings for the mercenary become apparent to the rest of the Tadasuni encampment (and her own knights, among them). In the interim, she took her Skyknights through their drills, all the while watching the phases of the sun out of the corner of her eye. And when the day was done and the bright orb in the autumn sky began to descend in the west, time seemed to slow, agonizingly so, towards the coming of night. Vega wanted to see him again; wanted to put down her lance and rid herself of her armor, and partake in another part of mortal existence that had nothing to do with war and the military... I do not have to live a life without love. She had never believed it before; but Haraldur had finally given her a reason to.
Just as he had promised, when at last the majority of the encampment slept, she found him at the mouth of her tent; without a sword, for the first time since she had met him. Unarmed, and shockingly vulnerable, despite his expansive height. Funny, how a woman who stood a whole head shorter than him feared she could do him harm, even as she stood on her toes and reached for his shoulders to pull him into a kiss. She knew the Haraldur who wielded a weapon; now it was time to get to know the Haraldur who went unarmed. "I hoped you would come," she breathed, releasing her hold on his shoulders and lips. Not unlike him, she too was void of weapons and armor, and could have been any ordinary woman in her simple tunic and belt. She hoped, at least, that for at least that night, she would be ordinary. "Though I regret to keep you from well-deserved rest... well, just a little."
"Tivia?" Something wasn't right. Elespeth furrowed her brows at the Rigas caster's utterances about the stars, only to find herself helpless but to watch as the woman began to unravel like a raving lunatic. She cried and clung to Elespeth's arms, her fingernails piercing her tunic and digging into her flesh, inconsolable and lost to herself. "Tivia... Tivia! Listen to me, listen to my voice." The former knight's voice took on an authoritative tone. "Nothing is going to happen--do you understand me? I promise you this, and while I maynow have a reputation for breaking hearts, I do not break promises. Are you listening, Tivia? Are you understanding me?"
What was more worrisome than the woman's hysterics and her inconsolable sobbing was when she finally fell silent, her clawlike fingers releasing their hold on Elespeth as her form crumpled to the ground. Swearing a silent oath, the Atvanian woman dropped to her knees and checked for breathing and a pulse on instinct. "Tivia. Tivia, can you hear me?" She was alive, her heart beating strong and fast and her chest rising and falling with the intake of breath, but her catatonic state was less than reassuring. With a grunt, she grabbed Tivia's arm and hoisted it over her shoulder, rising to her knees with the woman's added weight, rose painstakingly to her feet. Casters... oh the aliments they suffer. One heavy step at a time, she took the stricken woman back to her tent, where she laid her upon her cot, checking once again for signs of life. "I am going to stay until you can find your tongue and order me to leave," she sighed, grabbing a blanket to warm Tivia's body against the cool night air. "So you'd best find it soon, or prepare to inherit yourself a tentmate."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"You already have Adalfieri's attention, so it's no longer necessary to plan another ostentatious display such as this," he nodded, again, at the infirmary, and at the dying Elias, who suffered most from the sudden onslaught of the sick. "Keep in contact with him. Learn as much as you can, and if you must," he gave a patient sigh, as if conceding to a petulant child, "you may cause a stir. But keep it contained, and small-scale. We need chaos, yes, but if we go too far, we'll all be apprehended before we can even begin to retaliate against Adalfieri's plan. Yet," he paused, and appraised Vitali in a different, more favorable perspective, "you said that you can choose to leave whenever you'd like. If that is so," he lowered his voice, in case his spell did not so effectively block out his words, "can you reach the borders of Stella D'Mare, where the soldiers are patrolling the perimeter? And," the smile of the necromancer appeared in his own blue-green eyes, which were made more green by the prospect of mischief, "how many of those crowd-incapacitating spells have you up your sleeve?"
The day went by with all the speed of a snail trapped in a jar, running glistening trails in circles. The sun did just that, spinning around in the sky and dispersing its light behind clouds, concealing the rate of its trajectory, which Haraldur had suspected was negligible. To further exacerbate the problem, camp was woefully without many tasks for him to do, and he toiled away at mundane bursts of activity that would only carve away an hour or two at a time, at which case he was forced to look again at the sky and curse the plodding progress of that mocking, vengeful orb and its sadistic pleasure in watching him squirm.
He could scarcely remember the last time he had been so eager about anything in his life, barring his instances with Klara as a child and those brief moments with Arina at his side. Was he really so lonely for human companionship? Had he really not mastered his shield of indifference, able for so long to enact it at will but for some reason could not do now? It was nigh impossible to shut out the world. Not when his appointed meeting with Vega had dominated his thoughts, leaving room for little else.
At last, the sun granted him mercy, and subsided into evening. He arrived before her tent, wearing nothing but a tunic, belt, trousers, and boots, feeling a sort of raw vulnerability at the sword missing from his hip. For so long, he donned the ornamentations that had defined him by the things he carried, and by the tasks he delivered without a thought. He was a warrior. A mercenary. Forbanne. The sword was his mind, his body, his soul. His reason, his purpose, the contract that he had signed with his own blood which would bind him until the day he died.
But tonight, he'd do without that essential piece of himself. It was not all of him, and not what Vega wanted from him. He was flesh. He was a man. And he had a name.
They met, and greeted each other with a kiss. He welcomed the whir of her lips, the list of her body as she reached for his towering height, and the fussing of her hands on his shoulders. After they parted, he led her into the tent and settled on the edge of the cot, inviting her to sit beside him with the pat of his hand. As she alighted near him, he checked his boots and frowned, pulling out a small dagger in each, which he discarded at their feet. "Force of habit," he told Vega, with a chuckle. Only then was relieved to have earlier removed the small blade that he kept lodged inside the cavity in his rear-end. Thinking about it colored his cheeks a slight, burnished red.
"Well," he began, banishing a lewd thought from his mind as his hands tugged on the strings that kept his tunic laced together, "I do believe I've suggested we compare our battle scars. Haven't I?"
He shed the tunic off his body, discarding it on the ground beside the two extracted daggers. Sporting a warrior's physique, with well-toned shoulders, arms, and chest, he also possessed a collage of innumerable scars, all in a multitude of sizes, most of them with a story demanding to be told. He pointed to a long, jagged burn that ringed his upper arm in an almost half-circle. "This is my cauterized wound. From a hunting trip gone awry. A wild boar tried to gore me open. Nearly succeeded. I ended up cooking and eating the beast after I, well," he gestured to the old scar, and left the story unfinished, in case Vega was still sensitive about her own operation under the hot blade. He moved to a strange, oblong-shaped one on his chest. "A barbarian had cornered me. Thought it a good idea to carve his initials into my chest before he killed me. He never had the chance." He shrugged with a detachment that indicated his Forbanne days, where memory and recollection were not tied to emotion or pain. "And this," he indicated a splotchy-looking discoloration just beneath his ribs, "a tree fell on me. A pointy one. And it speared me." He smiled, a little coy. "A very humbling experience. I'll never take another tree for granted." He stretched, his prominent muscles flexing the accompanying scars, which accentuated the curves on his well-traveled body. "This isn't all a mere show of bravado," he winked, "though it might be. The reason I'm taking the time to point all this out to you, is so you won't be as alarmed when you see this."
He turned around, exposing his back to her view. A litter of raised, worm-like lines grew in every available space, resembling the bare, outstretched branches of the tree necklace he always wore. "Forbanne training," he said, simply. "They favored the whip. Especially the ones with spikes and glass. It's not," he sighed, "so ideal a picture, I know. I'm a little too battered, a little less human. Just...one big scar. Are you," he began, lowering his with a twinge of doubt, "is this...Are you fine by this?"
Tivia was unconscious for a full day, trapped in a place between worlds, where day met with night and stars only dusted the pasty purple sky. She stood in a pool, the shallow waters so still, she felt not the slightest ripple or motion. Nothing tugged, nothing pulled. She merely existed in the center of a vast waterway, so stagnant and mirror-like, that the whole of the sky trapped itself in its liquid reflection. Her eyes (for she possessed both in dream) looked to the twin skies, so alike, so seamless, that she lost all sense and orientation. Was she standing? Was she upside down? Was she in the sky? Was she a star?
Her skin shone, a golden-yellow flicker of a firefly in the summer eve. Other firefly flickers appeared all around her, displaying flashes of blue, white-silver, and red. They overtook the twin skies as they circled her, circling and circling until she fell, screaming, down down into the mirror of yet another sky, which engulfed her like water...
She shot out of bed, immediately feeling the space around her, pressing against the sponge-like surface of her newfound sanctum. It was firm. Opaque. Dark. Starless. Enclosed. She was at Tadasun's camp, in the safety of her tent. She last remembered sitting outside with Elespeth, speaking and then falling, falling, falling...
She could discern the shape of someone lingering at her bedside. Casting a ball of etherea to lighten the room, she confirmed the warrior's presence. "Elespeth?" she said with a hoarse, shredded voice, appearing confused. "Why are you--? How long have I--?" The ball in her hands started to pulse. Yellow-gold. "The stars. They had screamed so horrifically. My head felt about to split, and..." She checked one ear with her free hand. A crusty, crumbly residue met with her fingers. When she scraped away a sample and held it to her etherea, she saw it to be dried blood.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Each and every scar was unique in its shape, its colour, and its origin. They were not by far the only thing to which her blue eyes were so adamantly drawn--not with every muscle in his body standing out as sculpted to perfection, but they were what he had wanted to show her, so she at least made the effort not to become too distracted.
But perhaps the most shocking factor was that he had worried she would not be all right with what she saw. That she would find it repulsive and... what? Change her mind? Send him away? Surely he did not think so low of her, regardless that she had been raised as royalty for the majority of her life. She was no ruler: she was, like him, a warrior. And she had expected nothing less, and nothing different, than what he had mustered the courage to show her that night.
Without expending a breath for permission, she reached out and touched the lash scars across his back, her fingertips deft against the scar tissue. "These scars are what make you unique as a human, Haraldur. Not less than one." She traced a rope-like scar from his shoulder to the small of his back, wincing internally at how much that must have hurt. She could not imagine all the things he had endured... "I... admire you, these. They are signs that the world has attempted to tear you down, time and again, and yet you still stand. You cannot be felled. And I... well, you already put me to shame, in that aspect. I can hardly compare..."
Vega's heart leapt to her throat as she made an impulsive decisin that wine would have well facilitated. Turning away, her fumbling fingers unlatched the belt around her waist, and untied the strings that tied her tunic together. With her back to her companio, she let her tunic drop around her ankles, and pulled her crimson hair over her shoulder. The Skyknight's skin was, for the most part, entirely unmarred, save for a single, long scar, several shades darker than her fair complexion. It spanned her shoulder blades, ending midway down her back, where the dip in her spine met her hips. "You will think me a poor excuse for a warrior... but this is all I have to show. And it was not in battle," she confessed, sounding self-conscious. "My father abused my mother to no end. So, once... I decided to take a hit for her. With the blunted blade of an old sword. He was... particularly inebriated that night. I do not think he would even have noticed, had he killed me..." She had only been nine-years-old... but this scar would never dull. And she hoped that it did not, as a constant reminder of the reform that she fought for in her kingdom. "My father never apologized, to me or to my mother. But it was, as far as I knew, the last time that he ever struck her. As for my only other battle scar... well, you've already seen that. Helped to form it, in fact; to which I owe you my life."
Blowing a puff of air for her lungs, she left the tunic at her feet a she turned to face him. True to her word, the front of her torso, though toned from frequently taking to the air on her roc, was void of any imperfections. Certainly, she had the occasional scar here and there, ancient scratches on her arms and even across her hipbone from her earlier days in training with her lance, but beyond that, she truly did resemble any other, ordinary woman. "Haraldur, you need to know that I accept and appreciate you--all of you. Who you were, who you are now, who you want to be. If... if you can accept all of who I am. Bloody history and all..."
Shy for perhaps the first time in his presence, she stood on her toes one more time to draw him into a kiss, and to draw their scarred torsos together.
Out of a personal sense of obligation, Elespeth did not leave Tivia's side for the remainder of the following day. As a precaution, she requested a healer to come and offer his opinion on the Rigas caster's condition, but he could tell her little more than what she could already discern. Tivia was alive and well, her heart pumping blood and her lungs taking in air, but her mind was somewhere else, in some (hopefully, temporary) coma from which only she could awaken on her own. "What do you mean, there's nothing you can tell? Look at her ear," the Atvanian warrior insisted, indicating the blood that had seeped onto Tivia's pillow.
"She's alive; it couldn't have been an aneurysm," the healer declared, dull and monotone. "Magic can wreak havoc on the body. Beyond that, all we can do is monitor her condition, but it is far too early yet to deem this an emergency."
With that bit of advice, the healer left, but Elespeth did not. And it was with no shortage of relief that, later that night, the Rigas caster finally awoke with a start, disoriented and confused. "Thank the gods," the former knight groaned, raking a hand through her hair, "for sparing me the necessity of informing your family that you had spontaneously dropped dead after an otherwise fortunate recovery."
Passing the startled woman a cup of cold water, she urged her to drink a handful of sips before going on. "And here I was hoping you could articulate exactly what had happened... What do you mean, the stars? What were you hearing?" The crusted blood that had seeped from her ear remained a point of concern for the Atvanian soldier, but she seemed no more cognitively off than what surviving that fire had rendered her. "How is it that you are shocked at the effects of your own magic on your body? You are a Rigas, are you not? Does that not make you nearly a century old, if not more?"
Frustrating though it was, however, she could not fault the poor woman for her lack of understanding. What she had suffered was no less than horrific; who knew what the experience of nearly being burned alive had thrown off? Tivia would never be the same person she had been. Perhaps that went for her magic, as well. "We can figure it out when we get you back to Stella D'Mare. Surely someone there will have answers for you." Reaching out, she gave Tivia's hand a reassuring squeeze, and even offered a tired smile. "I am simply relieved you are all right. Although, until then, you could perhaps partake in a little less start-gazing... wouldn't you say?"
Never in a million years would she have thought the night sky to be so detrimental to any one person, even a Rigas. But she would be sure to keep the ravaged woman inside her tent during the twilight hours, just in case some sort of cosmic energy had been responsible for what she had suffered.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He said nothing in response, for he hadn't known how to verbalize how much her reassurances had meant to him at that moment. But he took her hand, turning it over in his steady grip, and gave her fingers a thankful squeeze as he looked over his shoulder at her, meeting her eyes with a small, sorrowed smile.
Now, it was his turn to spectate upon the canvas that Vega had allowed him to see. As she stepped out of her tunic, exposing her prominent shoulder-blades and the muscled, yet feminine curves that ran with the bulge of her spine, he noticed the scar, and listened to the tale of its conception. She had briefly mentioned the cruel nature of her father before, and the state of Eyraille just ten short years ago confirmed the man's standing as a ruthless tyrant. But the scar, to him, was tangible, irrefutable proof that he, in all ways, had been corrupted by power so absolutely, that even his family could no longer save him. His own father, surrendered to the drink, took a similar standpoint, but it was out of grief and not conquest that he betrayed those who still relied on him. "It's not the quantity of scars that make the warrior," he said, planting a kiss between her shoulder-blades, at the scar's apex. "It's forged by one's deeds, one's bravery. A scar is nothing without the story. That night, you became a defender, fighting against those who would oppress you, and fighting for those who can't fight, themselves. The warrior that you are, now--it started, here."
As she turned to face him, her skin bare, creamy, firm and warm and springy to his touch, he planted two tentative hands on her shoulders, trailing them down her arms where they lingered, for a bit, near her pert breasts. "You know that I do," he said, though kept to himself the bit of protest that wished to question her dismissal of a past she was--thankfully--not privy to witness. For, if she saw what he had actually done, what had driven him to take that blade and saw it against his own hand...
He swallowed the trepidation, and focused on her raw lips against his, the hypnotic sway of her body, and the press of her bosom pillowed against his chest. None of his misgivings mattered, now. She would never let him escape, besides--at least, not unmarred. And running was the last thing on his mind.
Leading her back to the cot, he laid her over the coarse sheets, climbing over her as his mouth suckled against her own with a fierce passion that had been absent from him for so long. Pausing only for breath, and to travel to places he had not yet explored--nibbling on her ears, pecking at her neck, pawing at her breasts, touring every aspect available to him so that she would not be wanting--he tugged at her belt, kissed her once more, and asked, green eyes warm and in need, "Do you...? Are you...ready?"
Rubbing away the crust between her fingers, Tivia accepted the water from Elespeth's hands, drinking in thankful gulps and trying to ignore its reflective surface, which trapped the starry light of her etherea in wicked bursts and glares...
She almost choked on the water before forcing the cup from her parched lips and returning its half-filled remains to Elespeth, arranging the warrior's fingers over the container's circumference. "I do not wish to see it sparkle, so." And, in retaliation, she dimmed her spell of etherea, until it resembled little more than choked embers in a dying fire.
Fire. Water. What element would next unseat her? A mere rattle of air? A cloud of dust kicked up from the earth? These concerning thoughts both agitated her and filled her with the fear that she would never again function as a whole. She existed as little more than a collection of fragments. She was a scattering of stars.
"I am trying to articulate," she snapped at the warrior, her fingers scaling across the horrid burn marks on her face. "But you know nothing of magic. How we sometimes are bestowed with some other gift further along in life, about which we have no previous knowledge. I have never," she wet her tongue, "possessed this ability. Hearing the stars speak...The last known Rigas with that sort of power...Lyra Rigas, seven hundred years ago. She lost her hearing before she turned one hundred twenty. And her mind." She clutched her aching head, overwhelmed by this observation. "Just...wonderful."
However, at mention of Stella D'Mare, her eyes widened, recollecting and piecing together all that she had heard. Though the stars spoke in disjointed wisps, she had gathered enough meaning to discern the warning. "Stella D'Mare...I have to return. The city, and all its inhabitants are in danger--if my brush with madness has any merit. They told me...the Serpent will burst from Its confines and destroy the city. And..." she bit her lip as she established a reluctant eye contact with Elespeth, "Alster. If he fights the Serpent...he will be lost. Aerione descends. Aerione hunts, skimming its legs across the western horizon. When the star of Alster hibernates for the winter..." she shook her head, daring not to complete the sentence. "I am afraid I will...need to continue star-gazing. For...for clarity. To know for...certain." She trembled at the very idea. Her ears, she swore, filled again with blood.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And he was not. Not to kiss her or touch her or to tug at that aggravating barrier of her belt. Not caring that Eyraillian royalty ran thick in her blood or that she outranked him in her military standing by that one virtue, and it brought the utmost sense of relief, when Vega had been half-convinced that he might pull away and reconsider his actions. The Skyknight purred and sighed from his attentions, fingers gripping him so hard her blunt nails left half-moon indentations in his skin. A fire had begun to stir in her netherregions, and her trousers grew more and more uncomfortable, as the need grew in her to shed them and bear all, any shyness or bashfulness long since lost in the passion that they shared.
"Yes," came her breathy reply as Haraldur, for the first time, hesitated, in need of consent. So she gave it to him, with an added edge of impatience. "Yes, Haraldur... I want this. I want you. Please..."
So as to facilitate his task, the Eyraillian princess squirmed out of her trousers as he managed to unclasp the belt, reveling in the cool, evening air against her bare legs as the garment fell uselessly below the cot. Her fingers then, just as greedily, reached for the belt securing his own trousers, but not without first looking to him for the very same consent. "I... don't want you to have regrets," she breathed, pulling at her bottom lip with her teeth, nervous that he might just take the out that she had offered the mercenary. "But I... I know I will regret it for the rest of my life if I do not have you now."
As if Haraldur required further enticing, the Skyknight parted her legs ever so slightly, inviting him into the space between. She was not asking, in that moment, for commitment, although she'd have welcomed it wholeheartedly. But even just one night, of being loved, of experiencing the throes of mutual passions, would fill that void deep in her heart, albeit only in transience. Haraldur, to her, was more than a mercenary, more than a soldier, and far more than a hero. He was a person deserving of compassion and love... and for one night, just one single night, she wanted to be the same to someone. "You... can have me, if I can have you..."
"So you are telling me... that what has happened to you, this incident that left you incapacitated for an entire day, is a result of some other, latent magical ability that you did not possess before?" Elespeth massaged her temples. How was is that these events seemed to surrounded the Rigas family, like they were a magnet for bad luck? She recalled Chara expressing concern for the same reasons, paranoid about the paths down which magic could take you, and entirely against your will. What a dangerous gift to have... Even that time during which she had been connected to Alster, his energy and magic channeling through her body, had drained her beyond comprehension. A mortal body could only tolerate so much...
Shaking her head, she handed the cup back to Tivia, insisting she take another drink of water. Twenty-four hours without the intake of fluid could wreak havoc on the heart. "Take it easy. We willreturn to Stella D'Mare, even if I have to escort you there, myself. But in the meantime, you need to recover your strength. Whatever the stars have told you... I think you have heard enough, at least for the next little while. And when we return to the city, you can disclose what you saw to the other Rigases. They will take it from there. But..."
Placing a hand on the woman's slim shoulder, she met her one good eye. "Do not over exert yourself. If you want to keep your mind and its faculties intact, and hope not to end up like Lyra Rigas, then stay inside at night. Block the stars out, until you feel you are strong enough to heed their warnings... please, Tivia." Pressing a heavy sigh from her lungs, her shoulders sagged in a sort of self-inflicted defeat. "I have likely already destroyed a part of Alster that he might not recover. I do not want to have the ruination of another Rigas on my hands... we are both of more use to one another while alive and sane, don't you think?"
Knowing Tivia could see through false smiles, Elespeth offered a genuine grin, forcing herself not to fall victim to this woman's nihilistic tendencies. And here she had thought Lilica had been the worst, for that... "Whatever you have divined will happen to Stella D'Mare, you must realize that it has not yet come to pass. We still have time, we still have a chance. Do not admit defeat so easily. What do you say?"
Extending her hand, she looked down at Tivia's wrist, hoping to find her agreeable.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He eased open her legs, which offered no resistance and had widened willingly for him. Repositioning himself atop her, he planted his hands around her cot, rooting himself like the tree she thought him to emulate. As if to punctuate this comparison, his necklace dangled from its chain over Vega's head, the silvery tree pendant rocking in small, pendulous movements. Their bodies touched anew as he lowered himself, their skin firing sensitive bursts of energy that intensified by pressure. Head to head, face to face, he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on it, distracting her as he, with the lower half of his body, thrust himself in between her legs and entered.
Following the natural rhythm of his partner, he complemented her pulse with a counter-beat, his hips swinging and oscillating forth as he buried himself deeper and deeper. He pulled away from Vega's lips, concentrating on the throb of their connected parts, feeling an elation blossom and envelop his head with a frothy, bubbly sensation that flowed and overflowed, assailing his nostrils with a sweet-salty scent, which increased his hunger, his want. With a growl, he lunged forward, sprinting up the mountain, searching for the peak, scaling and scaling, higher and higher, into the skies where frost glistened in the air, and he touched upon it, felt its electricity blast him from the mountainside, and he fell, crashing, crashing, his breath mounting, his muscles tensing, his fingers gripping the sheets as for purchase, his head burying into the crook of the fair mountain's neck. And as all senses escaped him, blacking out before slowly returning to existence, he pulled free of her, edging to the side of the cot--what little space it offered. His chest fluttered, his breath ragging out of his mouth. He checked his partner, running a hand over her hair with a softness that contrasted the vigor that he had pumped in her just moments ago.
"I wasn't...too...much?" he asked, in an apologetic tone. "I mean, for your first time--?" Cheeks tinging a bit, he added, "no need to worry, either, about...I did not impregnate you." He reached over and pulled something off of his lower extremities, which he discarded, for now, on the floor beside his clothes. As he resettled on the bed, hugging her from behind and regaining control of his heartbeat, he burst out with a laugh. "Well, this is a new one for me. I fucked Eyraillan royalty." His laugh subsided into a simper. "Was it as scandalous for you as it was for me?"
With hesitation, Tivia accepted the tin of water, but did not drink from it, and did not stare into its contents, afraid that she'd unintentionally scry the esoteric meaning behind the gentle sloshing of the liquid against the inner surface. Sound seemed to come to her as through a long, echoing hallway, casting reverberations and distilled noise, confusing her ability to center on its location. Was she already losing her hearing? Or was she just imagining this auditory delusion, out of fear of the seemingly inevitable?
"Yes," she said, as an answer to Elespeth. She honed her eye on the warrior, channeling all concentration on her sense of sight so that she would not conjure up any illusory battles between herself and the pieces she would lose. "It is uncommon in the Rigas line, for celestial magic is a more rigid discipline, and not so versatile as the chthonic arts, or other terrestrial practices--but it has happened before. Trauma or a great upheaval in one's lifestyle," she indicated her devastated face. "It can facilitate the change. It happened with Alster, did it not? With his chthonic magic?" She was tempted to give Elespeth a book about all the nuances of magi-craft, in the hopes that it would slap away that befuddled look in her eyes and spare her that pained stare, the one that suggested an oncoming headache. If the warrior was so adamant about maintaining her alliances with a magical family of high renown, it would behoove her to stay informed on the subject, considering her past, intimate involvements with one of their number. She didn't want her very existence to inflict her only--she flinched--"companion" with the pain of incomprehension.
"There is little time for recovery," she muttered, shaking her head at Elespeth's sheer lack of urgency. How could she stay so ignorant? So unruffled? "And if you think me as your replacement pet in Alster's stead, I will not play that role!" Her throat scratched as she raised her voice. "You are not responsible for me, Elespeth. So please, do not condescend to me on manners of which you know so very little." She threw a frustrated hand up at the canvassed ceiling. "I cannot block the stars just as I cannot block the sun. And yes, hiding inside might muffle their speech, but they do speak. I do not need to stand outside and behold them in order for them to communicate, so what lot of good will sitting here do for me!?"
Out of consideration for her strained voice and for Alster's stray puppy who, oddly, she did not wish to alienate, she lowered her pitch and sighed. "I am not admitting defeat. I am being realistic. I cannot make haste and convalesce simultaneously. Are you overestimating a caster's might? Or do you simply believe that anything is possible?" Regardless of the warrior's answer, Tivia, with one last, guarded look, relented, and shook the idealistic moron's hand. "You had better be right."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Her train of thought was interrupted as he took her lip between his teeth, and she wanted to badly to capture him in a lingering kiss, until she felt a thrilling pressure between her legs, which she welcomed with a low groan. If there was any pain, the Skyknight hardly noticed, tingling from the tip of her spine to her toes with throbbing ecstasy. Matching Haraldur's rhythm, she hooked her strong legs around his back, pressing their bodies ever closer. Contrary to her own inexperienced nature, Haraldur knew what he was doing, knew how to move against her, their bodies harmonious in a conjoined rhythm. While one hand gripped the mattress, simply for something to hold onto, the other reached between her legs to rub that sensitive knot at the top of her opening, in addition to the thrilling throes in which she partook. Inexperience did not, after all, equate to naivete. And she knew what made her feel good.
Evidently, so did Haraldur. The mercenary, while starting at a steady rhythm, picked up his pace just before she was about to beg him to do so. It was around that time that she lost all control. Her heart raced and her breathing picked yp as that ecstasy began to build, up and up, like she was picking up altitude on her roc... Haraldur took her higher and higher, until she reached her peak and felt herself plummet with a shuddering sigh, every nerve in her body awakening, every muscle relaxing, even ones that she had not realized she's tensed. And in the aftermath, as she opened her eyes, she saw spots and stars dancing in her vision. She was winded. Exhausted. Exhilarated.
Her partner's hand in her hair, she turned her flushed face towards him, blue eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. "Not too much at all; you were... wait, was it... really so obvious?" She could feel the flush of her cheeks darken, if that was even possible, and she half-contemplated reaching between her legs to check as to whether or not she had bled, suddenly self-conscious. In an attempt to put it out of her mind, she pressed an eager kiss to his mouth again. "I'd have been disappointed I you held back... though I might have to reconsider mounting a roc, tomorrow."
Settling on her side, her back pressed against his front. "Pfft. The possibility of becoming pregnant is the least of my fears and concerns... although I appreciate the gesture on you part." His laughter almost took her off guard, and she lay, confused, until he ventured to explain. "Scandalous? Hardly, she quipped, the corner of her mouth quirking into a grin. "If I was the future queen of Eyraille, perhaps. But as it stands, I fucked a hero recognized by the whole of Eyraille. I might lack experience, but you could say I just happened to save myself for the best and most suitable."
It wasn't long before Elespeth realized that she was going about her approach all wrong--and that Tivia was completely misinterpreting her. She was a Rigas, and no matter what anyone said, the poor, ruined woman would always find something stronger to retort. The Atvanian warrior was fortunately used to this breed of behaviour, by now. "I am not... implying that you are, in any way, filling some 'role', Tivia. Nor do I claim to be responsible for you in any big way, beyond that of a friend. I am not the stupid, selfless warrior that Chara likely told you I was. In fact, this... this is probaby the most selfish that I have ever been. Because everything I am doing, for the the first time in my life, has something in it for me..." Tivia wanted her to be real; that much was obvious. So she decided to give the woman what she wanted and expected. "I am trying to be here for you now, because if I were in the same position, then I would hope someone would extend a concerned hand to me. And because I feel I have already done so much damage to your family... I want to help. I want to be of help, even in some small way, before this war ends, and it is time for me to move on again."
A wan smile graced her tired features, as her eyes fell upon the damaged half of Tivia's face; but not for the reasons that the Rigas caster likely thought. "If only that fiire had taken part of my face, and not yours. If I didn't look as I do now, I might have been able to return to Atvany, after all; a new name, new beginning... but I know I cannot have that, and I am not fool enough to waltz straight into my own death. And I hope that you aren't, either."
Giving Tivia's hand a reassuring squeeze, she grinned at her small victory. It was no easy feat to win a Rigas over; even Alster, when she had first gotten to know him, had given her the cold shoulder for a good deal of time before she earned his trust. "How about this: right now, you focus your energies on recovering, and I will find a way to get you back to your city. I trust and have of late gained the trust of the Eyraillian Skyknight commander, allied with Tadasun. Let me just see if I cannot convince her to fly you in, as a favour to me. If not... we will think of something else." As if she hadn't already interfered enough in Vega Sorde's life... But perhaps the Eyraillian woman would do her one last favor. She was willing to be in her debt, if it meant helping Tivia, so that her name would not forever be a curse upon Stella D'Mare... "I do believe that anything is posible; or rather, that nothing is impossible. And I am not wrong when I say all will turn out well. You have my word. Otherwise..." She couldn't help but grin. "Feel free to call me out on it and publicly shame me for a poor prediction. Get some rest, Tivia, and don't hesitate to ask if there is anything else I can do to help."
After she left, and crossed the sleeping encampment on the way back to her own tent, she passed by the Skyknights' designated section and, unmistakably, that of their commander. And although she shold not have, Elespeth could help help but pause several feet away, wen laughter and hushed voices emanated from the otherwise dark tent. She might not have thought much of it, if she had not recognized the second voice. Haraldur... Did you take my advice, after all? A smile crept into her face, and as she quietly continued on her way (eavesdropping on intimacy wasn't exactly her intent), she couldn't help but feel a flicker of warmth in her heart. Let them be happy... they deserve ot be happy. They deserve one another.
If her greatest and truest friend could find happiness, and somewhat due to her own interference, then she would not leave him, this encampment and this war, when at last it ended, feeling less empty than she imagined.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
As she turned in the tiny bed towards him, he pressed his forehead against hers, their mouths nearly touching. "The least of your fears?" The mirth lines in his eyes disappeared as he considered her words with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. "What would you have done, if...that happened? No, forget I asked," he blurted, closing his eyes for a moment and allowing his discomfiture to pass. The truth was, the least of her fears was one of his worst. If she were pregnant with his child, what would that have meant for her? And what did she mean by so offhandedly discrediting such a possibility? Was she confident that pregnancy would not occur? Would she shed the unborn child? Was she infertile? Was she unconcerned because she did not mind if she gave birth to that which represented their union? Or, was she just being flippant, scattering what she deemed as unimportant to the winds because the war was more pressing, more a priority? And if she did give birth, and the child was his...the fear constricted tight around his throat, choking his laughter and his words, but it did not last long. He mastered himself, took control over his lapse of worry, and opened his eyes to stare into those blue, lucid pairs that watched him. I should take her stance he thought, as he kissed her lips and rekindled his smile, and his laughter. If I'm careful, there's nothing to worry about...
"Hero is a little too ambitious," he said, modestly. "You fucked a mercenary at a filthy war camp. Were your subjects more discerning about who you cavort with, this news could wind their heads around with panic." But his tone was light, jovial, even, as he explained this to her. "And even if they don't care, I've now become your..." he grasped for the word, "paramour. And you're not in line to marry? If you are, this could cause an even bigger stir by traditionalists and those who favor the 'right' kind of blood. But," he cast aside his thoughts spoken aloud and stretched another, more carefree smile across his face. The hand upon her shoulder began to massage it in small, concentric circles. "I won't tell if you don't."
Tivia snorted. "That is not selfishness, warrior. Wanting to help another because you wish for the same treatment if our positions switch--that is called 'empathy.' I am not so naive to believe that true altruism exists. Of course you are trying to fulfill some need. Perhaps it is the need of someone needing you. Which," her eye crinkled with defiance, "I do not." They were harsh, the words she sputtered, but even as Elespeth defended herself and her intentions, Tivia still saw within her a lost soul that yearned to nurture another, just for the simple sake of companionship. It was pathetic, and the half of her that had felt so much hurt, so much indignation from the universe who had thought it laughable to light her aflame and watch the results, wanted her to hurt, so that she could reap the benefits of catharsis. Elespeth had already suffered, still recovering from the wounds of her own proclaimed self-infliction, but it wasn't enough for Tivia. She wanted to see the woman writhe in her pain, not rise above it and act like it did not faze her. But Tivia realized that she was being silly, incredibly petty, and her eye lowered with shame for what she had so unthinkingly blurted. People felt loss in different ways, and coped accordingly. Elespeth's method of coping, of fighting her loss, was to provide succor. To try and heal the damaged, even if that made her seem invasive, nosy, and ignorant. And Tivia--she fit the description.
But before she mustered the words to apologize, Elespeth commented about her face and she bristled, her hand tightening like a vise upon the warrior. "I wish this on no one," she said in a haunted whisper. "Do not make such inane requests, Elespeth." Then, before she could stop herself, she added, "Alster would cry," and smiled with the smallest iota of humor.
"You go on and do what you like," she said, with a dismissive air, as she dropped her hand. "And I will do the same. If we meet in the middle, then all the better. My priority is getting home. And the stars, their priority is to make me go daffy. I will discover, in time, what reaches me first, and we shall see if your 'word,' which all honorable warriors like to fling as if it means something, as if they are prophets of the highest order, or conjurers of silly dreams, holds water." At her mention of 'water,' she cradled the cup, which she had disposed with disinterest, and to 'please' the simple-minded knight, she drank her fill, emptying the tin, and handing it back to her. "Yes. More water, if you will. Good," she hesitated, then bobbed her head in a nod, "good night, Elespeth. And," she crinkled her face, "thank you."
The following day, Haraldur, who had spent the night with Vega, scurried out of the tent before dawn, as they agreed it was best to avoid the scrutiny of the camp, especially that of her own subjects. He had collected all that he needed, including the small bag of sheep-skin that he used as a protective shield against himself when inside of her. As he wandered across camp to the stream to wash out the bag, having some time before breakfast, he came across Elespeth, who was crouched and filling a tankard of water by a piling of rocks. A bit taken aback, he hid the evidence in his pouch belt, unclipping instead a waterskin and pretending he had arrived to do the same.
"Good morning," he said, an easy smile filling his face as he scooped up some gurgling water. "I, ah," he began, thinking back on when they last spoke a few nights ago, "we're still friends, if that's your concern. You interfered because you meant well, and I can't begrudge you that. In fact, I'm also guilty of interference," he confessed, and his promise to Alster hovered on his lips--but he daren't reveal it. "I had returned here, to see to your safety. You didn't ask for me to stand by you and fight, but I did...and I'll continue to do so. That will not change, no matter the circumstances," he assured her, in a roundabout manner, that his involvement with Vega would not dampen his duty to protect her in battle.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
It didn't take long, deciphering the lines of worry drawn into his face as they discussed the topic. He was afraid; reluctant to sire a child... But why? Unless..."Do not mistake me... Even if such an event were to occur, I would not expect you to stay involved in my life or the child's... Unless, of course, you wanted to, but..." Colour tinted her face again, and she shook her head. "Regardless of what would happen, I hope you do not think that I would use it as an attempt to hold any power over you. Anyway, I was growing dull of being a virgin; I wanted this. Like hell I'd hold it against you, that you finally caved to my whims."
Grinning, she nudged Haraldur's shoulder and chuckled. "I'm Eyraillian royalty, and hero or mercenary, I choose to fuck who I like. And I happen to like you." She pressed a cheeky kiss to his lips and cupped his cheek. "Of any possible paramour I could have, I feel that scandal would resonate the least with you, anyway. Eyraille already sees you as a hero, whether you like it or not, and to be honest, the people couldn't care less about my decisions, at this point. I abandoned the throne and lost their trust long ago; their princess is practically dead to them. Who knows..." She shrugged one shoulder. "Perhaps being associated with you would even brighten my tarnished reputation."
"Sometimes the 'right' kind of blood isn't always the best blood, anyway." Wearing a soft smile, they lapsed into silence then, only the sounds of night disrupting the solitude. After several moments passed wrapped in one another's arms, she requested in a quiet, timid tone, "Will you... stay for the night? Just until the hour before dawn, if you worry about being seen..." She wasn't sure from where inside her the sudden shyness manifested over such a simple request, far less consequential than the act in which the two of them had just participated...
But her concern was for naught, as he agreed without much hesitation, and before long, they drifted off into a peaceful slumber, their bodies mutual sources of comfortable warmth against the cool autumn night.
When Vega awoke at dawn, that sweet source of heat was no longer there, and a chill had settled upon her exposed skin. Though it was what she had expected and what they had agreed upon, a mild sense of disappointment settled in her heart, as she sat up on her cot, staring at the space that Haraldur's body had previously occupied. Perhaps it was out of a dim hope that that encounter would not be their last... paired with the possibility that it would not have to be.
A tiny smile played on her bleary face. I could get used to this feeling. She hoped that she would find the opportunity to get used to it.
Elespeth had risen early the following day, as she did most mornings, to steal what was left of the quietude of dawn before the distinguishable sound of heavy boots and steel weapons filled the air. And, as usual, she found that quiet place down by the water; still and calm and undisturbed. Always, she hoped some semblance of calm would emanate from the water and make an impression on her restless mind, but sadly that was never the case, not even the seemingly positive resolution to her discussion with Tivia making a difference. Kneeling at the water's edge, she dipped her portable tankard into the fresh waters to fill it for the day, avoiding the distorted reflection that stared back at her. Though she wasn't unwell, something had taken its toll on her since leaving Stella D'Mare. That something had dulled the light in her eyes, dulled her hair dulled the colour in her cheeks... And no amount of physically taking care of herself changed it. Suffering flame would not detract from anything, she thought, recalling Tivia's aghast reaction to the suggestion. So much of me has already faded... looking different, disfigured, would at least allow me an entirely new identity. Perhaps even a chance to go back home...
Rising to her feet, she very nearly stumbled out of the way, startled as she was to see Haraldur standing there. How long had she been kneeling at the water's edge, lost in her own mind...? "Haraldur," she breathed, and nodded, as if in a small apology for her overreaction. "I didn't see you there..." Fortunately, the mercenary dispelled any of the awkwardness that she'd expected with a casua and easy smile, one that she could not help but return. "Well, I feel relieved that you still consider me a friend... though I never would have pegged you as one to likewise intervene in another's life. So... why, then? Our friendship alone cannot be the reason for your dedication to my safety, even if..." The reason hit her like a stone to the face; she could not believe she hadn't deduced as much, before. "Alster... he requested you look out for me, on his behalf. I should have known..."
The Atvanian warrior sighed and raked a hand through her long hair, which of late she had been braiding less and less. It wasn't so much that she couldn't be bothered, but rather, that she didn't care. She seemed to care about very little, these days, without the Rigas caster in her life; Tivia aside, that is. "Haraldur... the fact is, I still love Alster. I likely always wil. But our union... it is too destructive, particularly for him. And it is in his best interests to forget about me, safety and all. So you needn't worry yourself about me. I can take care of myself, and I do so intend to. And, anyway..." Her green eyes glimmered with conspiracy, as she lowered her voice, just in case of eavesdroppers. "Is there not another woman you should perhaps be focusing your energies on? One with flaming red hair, and who soars through the skies on a roc? For I did not think you were one to make late calls to others' tents..."
At the look of pure horror that originated on his face--one that spoke of being found out--Elespeth laughed aloud, and placed a reassuring hand on her friend's arm. "Relax. I won't breathe a word of it... I am thrilled, in fact, that you are finally doing something for yourself. You and the Eyraillian princess... You are good for one another. When this is all over, I hope that the two of you can help one another find some meaning in this bleak world..." Averting her eyes to the rising sun, she took a pause to inhale slowly, and exhale. The morning air refreshed her body, if not her mind. "If I live to see the end of this war, I think I will return to Atvany. My youngest brother still believes in me... not all is lost, there. I will endeavour to find a way to alter my appeareance, either physically or by way of magic, if a caster can help me... Oh, and speaking of that."
Elespeth turned back to her friend, recalling the strange occurrence that had ailed Tivia the day before. "Tivia Rigas must return to Stella D'Mare; I promised that I would help her find a way. She has... something has befallen her, a new sort of magic that she did not before possess. And she thinks the city to be in dire danger, for some strange foresight that rendered her unconscious for an entire day... I do not believe it should be dismissed as lunacy. Not yet, anyway." She shrugged her shoulders. "If you think that Vega might be able to spare a roc or some time to fly Tivia back to her city, I would appreciate it--and, inevitably, owe you. Although part of me feels as though I already do."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
The very idea of fatherhood kept him up all night as he cradled Vega in his arms. And when he departed from her tent to wash up at the barracks and reattach his sword to his hip to where it belonged, the image never faltered. He saw Klara. He saw Thora. All smiles. Their hands stretching out to him, eager for his attention. For the clasp of his fingers. An unspoken promise. And then he also saw...he also saw...His wrist throbbed, painfully. He had to concentrate on Elespeth, on her words and mannerisms, in order to banish the trepidation that was like a bittersweet pang on his chest.
That was when he noticed the other woman's appearance. Her hair, stringy and in clumps, fell to her shoulders in tangles. Her green eyes were like hollows in her sunken face, and all color seemed bleached out of her. She looked as little more than a piece of driftwood washing to shore. "Are you well?" But he did not discover the answer to his question, as Elespeth had inferred the reason for his return and reported her findings. Pursing his lips just slightly, he turned away and focused on the flow of water lapping up inside of the waterskin, which bobbed listlessly in the stream. "How would he? The last time I saw him, he awoke from his curse and was delirious." But he knew he could not deceive Elespeth, particularly when she knew Alster, his mindset, and the actions that drove him forward.
With the shake of his head, he pulled the waterskin out of the stream and screwed on the top, raising olive green eyes to meet her pair of mossy green. "Elespeth--even if it was Alster who initially urged me to look after you, I'm still going to see to your well-being, and do what I can to insure your safety. I owe it to you. You almost died by my sword. Now I have to keep you alive by my sword. My purpose and my person--they were both you." At her mention of Vega, he froze, remembering the sheep-skin bag that he'd tossed in his pouch, which needed washing. Unbidden, his cheeks flushed a light red.
"Vega...she'll be fine." He did not say those words with much conviction. If an arrow could pierce her so far up in the sky, and almost bleed her out to death, she was just as vulnerable as those consigned to the ground. He chose not to analyze all that could go wrong. "She has her Skyknights. Who, Elespeth, do you have to watch your back? But," he lightened the mood with a small chuckle, "I'm glad you ah, 'approve' of my ambitious liaisons." He gave her a pointed look. A suspicious one. "Were you eavesdropping by her tent? Is this how you know?" And now, no longer having nothing to hide, he whipped out the sheep-skin bag and began to wash it in the stream--once he assured that she no longer needed any more water. All the while, he snorted and muttered good-naturedly about voyeurs and Elespeth's newfound obsession with his love life.
"Since we're both placing our hands on each other's lives," he said, a little more seriously, as he laid the drying bag on a rock, "I'll say this much to you. Alster won't let you go. As far as you may travel, he'll always try to watch out for you. He came to me in my dreams," he said, rubbing his temples with the memory. "He told me to be your shield in his absence. I didn't even think it was feasible to infiltrate my mind, due to..." he clamped his tongue, considering the words he almost spilled. He shook them away and continued. "He was tired. Looked like half of himself. But he still tried to reach me--to reach you. And he succeeded. You may think your involvement with him is destructive, but he sees the opposite. Your very existence protects him from whatever monsters are trying to hunt and destroy him. When this is all over," he parroted her own words, his smile soft, "I hope that the two of you find each other again. If for nothing else--you at least need the closure."
He made to rise, clipping the waterskin to his belt and taking the incriminating sheep-skin bag from the rock before any onlookers noticed and made the connection between him and the Skyknight commander. Listening to Elespeth's request, he nodded, but frowned as he considered the logistics of such a trip. "It would be incredibly risky to fly into Stella D'Mare, not with innumerable archers trained to shoot any aberrations that may try to breach the city's walls, or overhead. Eyraille is Andalari's enemy, and a roc an attempt at invasion by the enemy. It would be better to send an envoy to Stella D'Mare and request for Tivia's return to her family. Even then, they might take her in for questioning. But, I'll ask Vega's opinion on the matter." As he stowed away the bag and turned to leave, he paused for a moment, and regarded Elespeth from over his shoulder. "You're not alone, Elespeth. Unless you want to be. Come find me, or Vega, if you need our company." Then, he left, allowing her the solitude to contemplate her surroundings and her life.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"You owe me nothing, I hope you know. In fact, you have already pulled me out of enough hot water that I am convinced I owe you many life debts already. And, for your information," with a small grin, she gave him a playful shove, "I do have better things to do with my time than eavesdrop on you and Vega and your personal lives, despite that I do encourage your liaison. But for your information, after I left Tivia's tent last night, I could hear the two of you from Vega's from several meters away. You'd do well to keep the throes of your passion better contained!" She couldn't help but poke fun at him, knowing how it made his cheeks turn pink and turned the steadfast soldier into a flustered pillar of embarrassment. A good thing they were still friends, or he might have interpreted her harmless jibes as real criticism.
The light-hearted grin that she wore faded when the mercenary insisted on bringing up the topic of Alster, yet again. She only held back her temper for the fact that she had done the same to Haraldur some weeks ago, insisting that he give up in his resistance towards drawing closer to Vega. The former knight wasn't too good not to get what she had given. "All that I can say is... I hope you are wrong," she sighed, raking her fingers through her tangled hair. "I hope that he will forget about me in his extended life. He has too long to live, and anyway, we never had a future. Not only will the rest of his life be determined by Rigas politics, but I will be long dead from natural causes before he has even begun to live his life. And if I do see him again..." She sighed as she faced the hard truth, one that she herself had avoided pondering until now. "Then it can only be for a final goodbye. Alster can and will heal from this. I asked Tivia to keep an eye on him when she returns... and I do believe that she will keep her word."
But getting Tivia Rigas back to her home would be a feat in and of itself, it seemed, given Haraldur's sensible appraisal of her suggestion. "You're probably right..." Elespeth sighed. "Inquire with Vega all the same, if you could, but I will see if I can think of a better way for Tivia to return. I think the consequences of returning to Stella D'Mare are still more favourable than having her remain here. She can find help there among her family, people who might understand the magic that ails her so... I do believe that it would be worth the attempt to have her return."
Would Tivia's sfe return to her city and family really help her feel somewhat fulfilled? On a level more profound than Elespeth was willing to ponder, she knew the answer. But there had already been too much loss; too much that threatened to drown her, and focusing her energy on another person was at least sufficient in keeping her mind off of the inevitable. Searching for a friend in Tivia Rigas just happened to be that very peripheral quest that kept her occupied; she hoped it wasn't too glaringly obvious to Haraldur, but the mercenary realized more than he let on.
"Thank you, Haraldur." She nodded to the man as he readied to set off and begin his day. "I am most fortunate to have a friend in you." But for now, the only real company that she desired was that of her own. And he was wise enough to intuit that.
Vega had gone about the morning as she had any other, regardless of that light-headed glee in the aftermath of her tryst with Haraldur that she could not shake. Rising and washing and downing a light breakfast, she took her fellow knights through drills upon their rocs for a handful of hours, filled with a vigor that she had not thought she would find so early on. By the time they finished, clearing the skies as the clouds parted and resulted in more visibility (and more danger to the riders, therefore), her team and their enormous mounts were in need of rest, and on dismounting Aeriel, her own knees very nearly buckled as her lower abdomen cramped up--just in time for Haraldur to pass, as she settled her avian companion in the stables. "Don't you dare laugh," she warned the mercenary, with a barely concealed grin as she leaned against a wooden plank to regain her bearings. "My old injury is acting up. Soaring on a roc for several hours will do that..."
But Vega could hardly lie to herself, let alone him, and was unable but to suppress a chuckle that she barely muffled in the crook of her elbow. It appeared that her allusion to difficulties on her roc resulting from their joint physical activity the night before had, in fact, come to fruition. Straightening her posture, it caused the jostling of a trinket that hung from her neck, one that Haraldur would immediately recognize as the small, wooden roc that he had carved for her. She had woven a thin strip of leather through a loop of feathers on the top, effective making it into a necklace that hung at her bosom. "Oh... I decided I would keep this on me as a good luck charm," she explained, lips curving into a grateful smile. "Luck in battle, and all. So as to hopefully avoid any further arrows."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He was already invested in the lives of the separated lovers, besides. He had journeyed to fetch the necromancer from Messino's camp, had contributed in negotiations with Canopus to allow him inside the Rigas estate, and escorted the curse-bringer to Stella D'Mare, all so he could see Alster awaken and reunite with Elespeth. And while he did respect her right to withdraw, as he was wont to do himself, her situation, unlike his own, was never a lost one. Alster was alive. They both pined for each other. And politics--he hardly put much stock in their staying power. Always shifting. Always loopholes to be discovered. Perhaps most of all, he wanted them to be together--because it gave him hope that the world could be just and loving. That suffering was not absolute. That he, too, could find salvation. Saving. An end. Even if that end meant death.
With such weighty thoughts on his mind, his aimless travels through camp led him to the roc stables, where he paused to watch the woman he most wanted to see. Eyes trained to the sky, he noted the impressive formations that streaked and zigzagged with all the precision and intuition of a murmuration of starlings. As the rocs landed, one by one, and their riders dismounted, Haraldur quirked a grin at the wobble in Vega's legs, a problem that she alone, even amongst her warriors, had faced.
"Naturally," he agreed, with an emphatic nod, but the smile, which had become sly and conspiratorial, lingered on his lips. "Hours of sky travel places quite the strain on the muscles. For certain. But," he cleared his throat, his smile fading as concern took its place, "are you all right? Your, ah, 'injury,' ...it's not too detrimental?"
But then his eyes passed over his carving, which dangled from her neck on a leather thong. On reflex, he closed a hand over his own good luck charm, the silver pendant, and a wistful smile touched his features. "Well, that's one use for it. Can never have enough luck on the battlefield. I've always thought," he lowered his hand, releasing his necklace, "that this was my protective charm. It belonged to my mother. It was rumored that she was a witch, and could enchant objects. She gave this to me not long before she died, and I found a way to keep it with me ever since. I'm convinced it saved my life many times. And even though I often wished for death...I would never get rid of it. Silly," he said, shaking away the memory with an embarrassed laugh, "the things we covet. May that rough-hewn trinket of mine be of some use, then. Though I doubt I inherited my mother's alleged skill of blessing small objects." And I hope, he thought, a little darkly, that I didn't end up cursing you with luck of the bad kind...
Suddenly remembering the latter bit of his conversation with Elespeth, he changed the subject and looked beyond Vega's shoulder, in the direction of Stella D'Mare. "How feasible do you think it is to smuggle a Rigas into Stella D'Mare? Eris wants to see Tivia back to her family, but flying by roc is too dangerous, and surrendering her to Andalarian sentries at the border doesn't seem too wise a plan, either."
Tivia Rigas, once confirmed of her solitude, traveled outside of her tent shortly after Elespeth had retired to her barracks. Despite the warrior's suggestion to rest and to remain inside, she could not deny the allure and the terror that the stars promised her, in equally portentous whispers that grazed her ears even from within her quarters. They were more muffled in the relative safety of her canvas-walled hovel. Loud, still, but unclear. The garbled speech was bothersome. Even if it did not hurt her ears or cause them to bleed, the uncertainty, the unknowability, of something that could become knowable if she just opened the tent flaps and gazed skyward, drove her to kicking away her sheets and walking to the edge of camp, where the stars were at their brightest. She sat on the long grass, drew in a deep breath, and inclined her head, opening herself to the mercy of the universe and the secrets they revealed. Or, at least, the secrets that they felt were pertinent to share.
Like a swarm of bats in a fathomless cave, the sounds inundated her ears, bouncing from every direction, and screeching with amplified intent. With a whimper, she willed herself to concentrate on one voice at a time. Find what speaks loudest. Loudest...
But they all wanted to be heard. They all spoke, nay, screamed their pleas, their answers, their riddles, their questions, and their prophecies, unfiltered, into ears that trickled with renewed rivulets of blood. Her head, too, sang in a retaliatory pitch, so overloaded with information and noise that it begged for liberation. She began to shut down, her mind drifting, her eyes narrowing into a tunnel vision that became so severe, she could only see a small pinprick of light at the end of a long corridor. A four-pointed cross tail. A cold, discerning blue.
And it was in her state of near shut-down that she heard a voice. No. Two voices. Twin voices. They spoke from that staid pinprick of light that shone at the very end of her consciousness. The only light that existed for her.
The star of Alster.
Tivia searched for Elespeth once she awoke. Having collapsed on the patch of grass for the remainder of the night and well into the day, she roved around camp in a half limp, her good eye straining against the glare of the afternoon sun. She found the woman at the training grounds, ignoring the repulsed stares she received from other soldiers who had been ogling the ruined half of her face.
"Elespeth," she croaked, her mouth dry from lack of water, her lips cracking from the strain. When she gained the warrior's attention, she pointed at the sky, her sole blue eye wild with revelation.
"Last night. Stars. Spoke," she breathed, attempting to catalog her errant thoughts. "Alster did. His star. It is not one star, Elespeth. It's a binary star. Twin stars! That is why it appears so bright in the sky. They share the light. The two stars spoke to me. Alster Rigas--can be saved. He does not have to fall into oblivion. Because he has a twin star." She jabbed a finger in Elespeth's face. "You. It makes the most sense. You are the twin. You save each other, because without one, the other fades. It...this..." she ran a hand through the stubble of her white-blond hair, "it is that which you seek, is it not? The idea that all is not lost? That there is still a chance, however small, of a hopeful end?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Funny, how just some weeks ago, eliciting personal anecdotes from this man was no simpler than squeezing water from a stone. How he had opened up to her, like a flower facing the sun, its petals spread... It blanketed her with a sense of warmth. She hadn't even besought the story of his mother's pendant; rather, he had offered it freely. Like friends do... like a lover would do.
Returning his smile, she shook her head at his commen pertainting to seeking his own death. "Well, it seems that you've been going about chasing death the wrong way, if that little piece of silver has kept you alive this long," she teased, and in a gentler tone, added, "I often wondered if there was anything you weren't good at. It turns out that that one thing is dying; and I could not be more relieved." It was no wonder he was the very essence of a perfect fighting machine... Even in his deep desires to find peace in death, his survival instinct still prevailed. And that, she hoped, would not change.
Too soon for her liking, however, their conversation took on a strictly business tone as Haraldur asked her opinion on what felt like a very random matter, and certaintly secondary to the day to day crises of the war on Andalari. "Tivia... oh! She was the caster who suffered severe burn wounds from the assault on Stella D'Mare's encampment, was she not? Not very open to accepting help, if I recall correctly... I wonder what drives Eris to desire this." She could hardly venture to guess; it had been a while since she so much as had a brief conversation with the sword-wielding she-warrior, for which she felt inadvertently guilty. In all of the time she had spent brooding over Haraldur's initial rejection of her, she could have been kindling her friendship with Eris, who helped her to feel validated in her own standing. They had enough in common that there was no reason their camaraderie should not have blossomed into something more substantial, by this point... but was it really within the realm of feasibility that she or her Skyknights could successfully smuggle someone into Stella D'Mare, which stood at the very heart of this bloody war?
"To be honest, I cannot say with certainty that such a feat would see success, at this stage of the war." As much as it shamed her to admit inability, it was far more irresponsible to make promises that could not be kept, and pretend to stand taller than she was. Eris deserved honesty and transparency, even if it meant she could not be of the assistance that the she-warrior required. "What you are asking is a mission in stealth, and our rocs, though mighty, are not exactly good at hiding. It is impossible not to see them in the skies, and even if I did manage to deliver Tivia Rigas to her home city without suffering the threat of arrows and siege cannons, we sould likely be discovered as soon as we landed. At best, they would apprehend the roc and its rider, and at worst..." At worst, both would end up dead--and perhaps Tivia as well. But that much was likely obvious, and did not warrant comment.
Disappointed that she could not provide any hopeful insight, Vega shrugged and shook her head, kicking up dirt as she walked alongside the mercenary. "I do not want to say no, for greater miracles have happened and the impossible has come to pass... but given my own experience, miss Rigas might be better off taking a horse. There is no means of concealment in the skies, but taking to the forests, particularly if she is aware of more clandestine routes into the city... it may be a far better bet." Haraldur appeared to be on the very same page, at least, evidence by the skeptical cadence of his voice. "Funny, though... I never did peg Eris as someone who would cavort with the prestigious Rigas family. They are all a little... well," In an attempt to search for a descriptor that was both accurate and not entirely impolite, she shrugged her shoulders and bit on her lower lip. Ultimately, she was at a loss. "You know. Intense isn't quite the right word... but Eris strikes me as being one too solitary in nature to tolerate such... intensity. Though if there is anything else that I might be able to do to help... Please, tell her not to hesitate to ask."
The great irony was that Vega's guilt for perceiving herself as having been distant towards the Atvanian warrior was all for naught. After all, Elespeth had mastered the art of distance since being accepted into Tadasun. Even in the face of Sir Vega Sorde's blatant and genuine kindness, reaching out to her when no one else would, she had fallen so deep into introspection (and, formerly, interfering in others' personal lives...) that seeking out company hardly ever occurred to her. Even her visits with Tivia had, admittedly, been out of a sense of duty and distraction, and it did help to ground her, caring for someone who was, in many ways, worse off than she was. The difference between she and Vega was that she couldn't even muster the same extent of guilt for failing to reciprocate kindness, and instead, had attempted to manipulate the woman's lovelife behind closed curtains. Ever indirect... and even now, that she sought her help, she did not have the gall to face her, and demand such a favor. Hence why she had hoped to filter it through Haraldur, whose standing with the Skyknight was... well, just a tad more significant, to say the least..
When she was not staring helplessly up at the night sky, or insisting her camaraderie upon Tivia Rigas, the former knight kept herself occupied on the training grounds; and never had she trained so hard. Her muscles ached, everywhere, and had grown firmer and more discernable. Her speed and balance had improved, and she even deigned to fight with the poorly made, Tadasuni swords, in the event that the enchanted one that Alster had crafted would not be handy for the moment of truth: the moment that she personally saw to it that the light left Messino's eyes, forever.
In the absence of love and of purpose, vengeance was, after all, a passable substitute to keep the heart beating, the blood flowing, and the spirit sharp. War changes us all... for better or worse. It is inevitable.
"What is it?" Panting and coated in sweat, Elespeth frowned on the men with whom she had been sparring, as they suddenly lowered their weapons and stepped back, a look of disgust on their faces. "Are you already sour at the possibility that a woman might yet beat you again? Really, now..." But their gazes were not directed at her, she realized as soon as she looked out of her shoulder. Looking as wretched as she was desperate, Tivia Rigas, of all people, pushed her way onto the training grounds, determined to reach her. No sooner did she open her mouth to demand what was wrong that the Rigas caster went into some barely intelligible ramble about the stars, her voice hoarse and breathless. Elespeth couldn't get her out of there fast enough, at least for the sake of what was left of the poor woman's reputation.
Sheating her blade, she draped her arm around Tivia's shoulders and led her away from the cruel stares, all the way to the safety of the woman's tent, where she immediately sat her down and placed a tin of water in her hands. "If you do not want to be perceived a lunatic... keep your prophecies quiet and clandestine." But Tivia's words had not been lost on her, in all the confusion. And she wanted to know more. "I told you not all was lost for Alster, did I not? But... how sure are you of what you saw? Or rather, how you interpreted it?" The Atvanian warrior bit her lower lip and, for a split second, she dared to look hopeful. "I have brought Alster Rigas nothing but pain and bad luck... He may have a star, Tivia, but I do not." I will share mine with you, he had once told her. Oh, how she had wanted to believe him...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"There's plenty of other things I'm bad at," Haraldur countered, returning to the hearthfire warmth of Vega's candor with a smirk that concealed the dominion of his morose thoughts. "I can't carry a tune. I can scarcely read, or write. My drinking arm needs a little work, and I'm not very skilled at wielding polearms. I do poorly on boats, and...I would probably make a terrible sheep herder." As if satisfied by this comprehensive list, he crossed his arms and nodded to punctuate his point. By the facetious look on Vega's mirthful face, however, he didn't do a very good job at convincing her. "Just another thing I'm bad at," he added with a triumphant air. "Explaining myself."
But conversation soon turned to the matter at hand, and he set aside his bantering tone for one more analytical and contemplative. "It's as I thought," he said, bringing attention to Tivia Rigas' conundrum. "She lost her window to travel with the Clematis and Sybaia back when the city was accepting the return of its war-fighting citizens. But she was unfit to travel then, and she seemed to have been forgotten among the few survivors of her own camp. They up and left without arranging her a way back home." He shook his head, frowning. "The best case, in my opinion, is having her surrender to the border patrol. They will see she's a Rigas, and their venerable Head might hold some sway over her treatment and reintegration. But the way to Stella D'Mare is fraught with enemy soldiers and ambuscades, and there isn't a safe place for a Rigas to go in Andalarian territory. I think we can both say with some certainty that Tivia Rigas is well and stuck here at this camp--for now. Not what Eris would like to hear, but," he shrugged, sighing, "it's a difficult situation. She'll understand."
As Vega expressed her perplexity at Elespeth's unlikely associations with the exalted and ever-exclusive Rigas family, Haraldur considered revealing to the Skyknight his own connections with both Elespeth and the celestial casters of note. He told her, several weeks earlier, that any questions concerning the former knight were not his to answer. She deserved her secrecy. But it was no longer a secret that Elespeth willingly fraternized with such influential people, and with no logical reason as to why. With a defeated nod and silent apologies to Elespeth, he jerked his head toward Vega, indicating they walk in order to discourage any eavesdroppers.
"Eris's caster friend I told you about? The one in Stella D'Mare?" He muttered, his voice low as they skirted past the main avenues of camp and meandered through barracks and back alleys. "He's a Rigas. They were battle partners back when we all fought for Messino." Still skirting the topic of 'lovers' so to avoid the scandal that he had no right to address, he continued. "The reason I returned here, to this camp...He sent me a message, asking to protect her. I am currently under his service. Above all my duties," he hesitated, "even to you, it's one that I must see through. As I pledged to you last month," he smiled from the memory, "I am loyal to you and to Eyraille--but within reason. I do have my concessions. But," he eyed her tent in the distance, "I see no reason to renege on my duties to you and you alone," he said, with a head waggle and a suggestive smile. "Whenever you can find it within your busy schedule. In between training and nursing your 'old injury,' that is."
On the flight from the training grounds to the private calm of her awaiting tent, Tivia became aware of the eyes upon her. They shone like stars, and judged like stars, though they did not speak, for which she was grateful. But she did not need words to know the condemnation apparent in those glares of cold-fire. Hideous. Deranged. Disgusting. Keep her away from me...
She covered the branded half of her face with a sleeve as her chin traveled to her chest. Her downturned position made it harder to keep pace with Elespeth's wide, purposeful lopes, and she would stumble on her feet, or trip over a grommet off the side of a tent, or, with the loss of her left eye and her depth perception, miscalculate distances, which saw her nearly crashing into those very men who spurned her appearance, and her alleged madness. For she was known in camp as the wailing demon. What other aspersions would they cast upon her, now that they had descried her appearance? And what, in the the superstitious eyes of the Tadasuni, ranked higher than a demon? She'd rather not know.
They reached the inside flaps of the tent moments before Tivia suffered a total collapse. Even now, her knees buckled from the strain of exhaustion and public scorn. With help from Elespeth, she reached the edge of her cot and was given a tin of water, which she drank greedily. In a shiver of realization, she wondered how Alster, Serpent Bane himself, had handled the constant defamations of his character. But the monster others saw in him existed on the inside. Her monster was marked upon the face, and oft times was a worse defilement than that of one's past actions. One could hide their past, and dwell among strangers with ease. But one could not hide their scars, no matter the stranger, the distance, or the past.
Once she drank her fill, and her reeling mind churned to a languorous, water-lapping beat, she looked askance at Elespeth, still hiding the left half of her face with her sleeve. "The twin star of Alster--it's representative of someone in his life," she said, quietly. "That is how I interpreted it. They are together. They shine brightly for each other. They fall together. They rise together. Who else would tie their fate so closely to his own? Not Chara. And his parents are dead. They all have their own stars, besides." She fiddled with the tin cup. "The stars tell me that Alster is fated to die around the time of Aerione's descent--which is less than a month from now. But the twin star--it can take on that destiny, and influence its change. The twin stars are in constant flux, one agleam when the other is dim and guttered. If you do indeed represent that twin star, Elespeth, your light...it can restore Alster. He will shine on, and live. If you claim that star, you can prevent him from colliding with his own doom. Lest," she hesitated, "he does die. Whatever bad luck or pain you feel you've inflicted him in the past...something up there still burns brightly." She locked one intense eye on Elespeth's dual greens. "We must return to Stella D'Mare. Somehow. Save the city. Save Alster. Save," her eye became haunted, "my family."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Of course, this led her thoughts in alternate directions that she'd rather no consider. Nobody really, truly, gets what they want... So, then, what did that mean for her? The woman who had both consciously and unconsciously been falling for Haraldur since her arrival at camp Tadasun? It did not feel as though the night before had been some fluke... so, then, what was the source of this sudden pinching in her gut, a if she expected the worst to arise out of nothing and nowhere?
It wasn't until Haraldur went on, explaining Eris's ties to the Rigas family and what they involved, that the nagging feeling finally served its purpose: that being the knowledge that Eris was Haraldur' purpose. Romantically involved or not, the she-warrior, his dear friend, was the reason he stayed, the reason he kept sharp and kept an eye out for her. To say that the revelation stirred jealousy in Vega would not have been accurate; it was something more akin to disappointment... though, really, there was no good reason why. The mercenary had not really noted her as anything more than a good lay. She should not feel so disappointed.
"So long as you do not prove to be a traitor and an enemy of Eyraille, then how much you invest your loyalty in me or my kingdom means nothing," she assured him with a dismissive hand gesture. "I think that your dedication to Eris is noble and commendable. To be there for someone, as their guardian and shield... it really provides a sense of purpose, does it not? I used to find purpose in defending my brother, Eyraille's king, with every drop of my blood. But every day I feel he comes to resent me more and more, and... I confess, there are some days that I awaken not really knowing what I am fighting for anymore, or why." The Skyknight lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "For a sense of identity, I suppose, but beyond that... I don't know. I am glad that at least one of us knows their purpose. Eris is a woman rich in fortune to have a friend as devoted as you. Even if you watch her predominantly out of duty for someone else..."
Imagine if she had that. Imagine if her life was worth guarding just as much as she guarded her kingdom, guarded her brother... Now Vega understood the source of her disappointment.
Shaking her head once, she Skyknight returned his grin and nudged his arm. "If you paid attention, you'd notice that my schedule is not quite as busy as you suggest," she teased him. "Between the drills with my knights and the upkeep of my own personal training, you'd find I spend a disproportionate amount of time sitting next to Aeriel. Birds don't say much, but damn, do they make impeccable listeners. So to answer your question..." She winked playfully. "I think you'll find my 'old injury' doesn't bother me so much when I am distracted with good company."
So Alster was a twin star... I'll share mine with you, he had told her. Except, perhaps he needn't share, after all. Perhaps she'd had her own star, all along, from long before she had even met the Rigas caster... that is, if Tivia's appraisal of the situation did hold the credence that the woman so believed. That would explain why she had gained uncanny access to his magic, when still their souls had been linked by both love and enchantment... Why they shared dreams and had so easily accessed one another's psyche. Why she had been able to take damage from his body and invest it in her own, resulting in a matching scar over her heart...
Still, it was all speculation. And she had only the word of a broken woman slowly going mad from which to draw on any of this speculation... "I want to believe you." The Atvanian warrior sighed. "I want to believe that it is true and possible. But I... so much afflicts Alster. More than he will even confide in me. What if I am not enough? I have no magic, I am not secret weapon... Even if this is true, how can one such as myself defend him from the wrath of the Serpent?" I am not enough. That thought circulated her mind over and over, and ultimately, had been part of what had driven her away.
But, it seemed, the stars thought differently.
Taking the empty cup from Tivia's hands, Elespeth refilled it with water from a decanter, and then handed it back to the exhausted woman. "We will save Stella D'Mare, Tivia, and your family along with it, " she promised, resting a gentle hand on the distraught caster's shoulder. "I have already planted an inquiry as to whether or not the Skyknights can get you back to where you belong. I am not sure that my own presence would be quite so welcome as that of a returning Rigas..." She bit her lip at the thought of how livid Chara would be, at the audacity of her returning. She knew the proud woman would never forgive her for walking away from Alster, and almost feared for her safety on facing her again. "But I... you can perhaps relay to Alster what you told me. And I will speak with him when next I see him. Until then, he had better not give up hope."
Grabbing an extra pillow sitting to the side of a table next to her cot, Elespeth tucked it behind the only already cradling Tivia's head, to provide more of a cushion between her skull and the ground. "I am glad you told me this. It... does bring me hope." She offered a weak smile alongside her sigh of defeat. "But you must take care of yourself. No more stargazing, like I said; there must be ways for you to block out the voices of the stars, and we must find that way, lest Stella D'Mare receive only a shell of the woman it once knew." She felt nearly as helpless to aid Tivia as she did Alster; how was she to protect the woman from an unwanted gift brought on by the trauma she'd suffered? It isn't my job to heal her; only protect her, for now. And she would, to the best of her limited ability, until Tivia was in the hands of her family, and those who could do more for her.
"Please, get some rest. I will bring you supper when it is served, but I implore you, do not walk under the night sky. Just... for now."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She spoke, then, and the words, lined with the same hurt that her eyes possessed, elaborated on the answer he sought. He stopped walking, pivoting to face her so he could take in all that she confessed, without the distractions of movement about the camp. Much as she tried to conceal her emotions, the barb of her words stung him, as he felt that she was accusing him, in a roundabout manner, of being dishonest with her. By inferring that his heart, his fight, was allied with someone else, she had also assumed that she didn't matter to him. That she wasn't worth protecting.
Stepping closer to the jilted Skyknight, he placed firm hands upon her upper arms, holding her in place and forcing her attention into his eyes. "Vega. I'm a mercenary. Anyone can pay for my loyalty, and I'll almost always accept their offer. That mission becomes my purpose. When the mission is ended, or is aborted through reasons unspecified, I seek other opportunities, other purposes. Eris is my current purpose. Yes, it helps that she is my companion. I won't deny that I want to protect her, regardless of profit. But I pledged my loyalty to you, without wanting or accepting anything in return. It was through my own volition. That means, when my mission with Eris is complete, instead of seeking other opportunities, I'll be seeking your approval of me, as I fight under your banner. Don't take this lightly, Vega." He narrowed an intense stare in her direction. "I've never tied my loyalty to a nation without monetary incentive. Unless I am there by force or slavery. I don't like to be bound, as you know. I did so because of you. Out of gratitude for the homes you gave to all who fled Mollengard in fear, who placed their trust in a strange nation. And my purpose--I can have several, at once. It's not a singular thing." With a sigh, he released his hands and lowered his gaze, breaking all contact. "May you find that which drives you to fight." As he turned and walked away, he looked over his shoulder and gave a small, albeit gentle smile. "I'll see you tonight. Whether for companionship alone or something more."
Tivia thrummed on her tin, enjoying the distraction of its playful noise and cool surface--but Elespeth yanked it free from her grasp. It was only for a moment, but she felt as though someone had knocked her off her feet, and was helpless to comment or continue sharing her findings until it was returned to her, heavier and less tinny in sound due to its burdensome water-weight. She sipped the water, listening to Elespeth's doubts and wanting to deflect them by adding that Alster would say the same thing of himself, and no wonder they were twin stars because they were equally insufferable. But when the warrior made mention of remaining behind at camp out of fear of rejection, her fingers gripped the cup so hard, each digit bent backwards in severe angles, as if about to snap.
"Do you understand nothing, Elespeth?" Her voice was like a thunderstorm in the far off distance, rumbling ever nearer. "This whole blasted situation is time sensitive! Do you really think we have the luxury to wait for Alster to receive my message, act upon it, somehow break through Stella D'Mare's defenses, which are no doubt trained on him, a high-profile Rigas, just so he can arrive here at camp and coddle your wounds, make you feel wanted again!? Then and only then will you choose to help? If you do not act now, he will die. Is that not apparent!? Is that too cloudy a reading for you to comprehend?" By now, she was in near-hysterics. The storm had descended, in full force, on Tivia, who sloshed her water tin side to side and pounded upon it in a frenzy. "If he dies by the Serpent, my family is forfeit. The city will buckle. People will die, and you are worried that Rigases will hate you?" She spat. "You sicken me. Where is your honor? You are nothing but a selfish coward!" Dry tears welled up in an eye too dehydrated to produce water. "How is this for hate? I hate you. And I want you out of my sight. Chara was right to detest your very existence."
When Elespeth refused to budge, Tivia dropped her tin full of water to the ground, which clattered and released its contents into the dirt. She raised both hands and cast a spear-tipped wedge of etherea in the space between them, which pointed its harsh yellow light towards Elespeth's chest. "Leave. Or I really will disfigure your face beyond all recognition. It is what you wish, is it not?"
At last, the insipid warrior exited her tent. Dispelling her weapon of light, Tivia stared at the purple, blotted projection where the spell once radiated with vengeful fury. As she swallowed the lumps of her hysteria, she awoke to find herself like the vessel at her feet. Spilled, discarded, and emptying itself of everything that once made it whole.
If Elespeth refused to accompany her to Stella D'Mare, she would fight her own way through the barricades.
By the following morning, she was gone.
The morning brought with it another grim series of events. Messino and his forces, which were on the defensive for the past several weeks in their bid to reach Stella D'Mare, had whipped around and formulated an offensive strategy in the hills beyond Tadasuni and Eyraillan range. For, their secret gatherings had taken place in a bunker underground, made into being by a sizable unit of earth mages recruited from Old Town, who aligned their loyalties to Andalari. Weeks had elapsed as the brunt of Messino's army danced to Tadasun's instruments, while beneath the surface and unbeknownst to all, tunnels were crafted, and men were conveyed from one area to the next without notice. At last, when the day to retaliate had arrived, Andalarian troops surrounded Tadasun's camp on all sides, by way of the tunnels.
Fortunately, Tadasun was quick to prepare for siege. Officers immediately called for the Skyknights to take the south flank, which was populated by the brunt of the earth mages. Since their magic manipulated ground but could scarcely harm the sky, Tadasun provided each roc rider a bag each of explosives, which they would drop all around the area of attack in the relative safety of their elevation.
Ground troops were scattered among the three remaining zones. Haraldur and Elespeth, other mercenaries, and those of low rank, were consigned to the eastern front, which comprised a mix of Andalarian foot soldiers and mages--a dangerous assignment that would assure death to many. Anticipating the importance of defending this line--for it was where the brunt of the supplies and rations were stored, Tadasuni placed a unit of their strongest, most elite in a position that was only a messenger's short run away. That did not, however, detract from the fact that the most undesired of Tadasun's army was sitting on the front lines.
Haraldur and Elespeth, under Eyraille's control and thus better favored soldiers, were placed closer to the elite force, but regardless of where they stood, they were in less-than-ideal territory.
Before taking his spot beside Elespeth, Haraldur, fully decked in armor and weapons, visited Vega in the roc pens before she was to join her Skyknights.
"You're fairly removed from the brunt of this battle," he told her with an encouraging nod. "Eris and I...we're in the thick of it." Clutching his tree pendant, he managed a smile. "Wish me luck. Our charms will keep us safe." With one last, lingering look at the Skyknight, he leaned forward and planted her with a quick kiss on the lips.
Standing now with the Atvanian warrior, Haraldur watched the opening of the field, where Mesino's men advanced with weapons, magic, and the uncanny undead. Before drawing his sword, he caught her gaze, a cold readiness in his green eyes. "We stay together. At all times. All right?"
The horns blew. The battle ensued.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She wanted to know; wished for more clarity. But that would have to wait until after the battle.
It went without saying that she worried for Haraldur and Eris, for their place on the front lines of this unanticipated battle. As she took to the skies with her knights, all following in a concise V formation as their avian mounts were wont to do, she had to promise herself not to become preoccupied with looking for her comrades below, keeping an eye out for their safety. Just as Haraldur's duty was currently tied to Vega, hers must be tied to her knights, to their cause in this battle, which was keeping the peril of the earth mages at bay. The earth could not touch the sky, but the sky touched whatever it desired. With such a low threat to the rocs, and explosives in their possession, victory would be theirs in no time, at which point they could possibly venture to aid the troops on the front lines.
At least, that was what the Skyknight commander had thought. But things did not take quite such a positive turn, in the end.
The explosives took out a good number of the mages before they even deigned to muster an attack, and Vega and her knights did not pause in their relentless assault. They had agreed that overwhelming the enemy at the very start was their best strategy, taking out the vast majority and then dealing with the stragglers in the aftermath with their spears, lances and rocs' talons with relative ease. And, for some time, it seemed to work. Enemy after enemy dropped, overwhelmed by the explosions or otherwise blown to pieces, soon leaving the mages nearly outnumbered by their opposition in the skies. It inspired such confidence in Vega that victory was at their fingertips already, that the bold Skyknight, with light but deadly spears on either side of her hips, sought to take out some of the remaining Andilarian soldiers, one by one.
But the trouble was Eyraille's widespread unfamiliarity with magic. Vega did not know just what these mages were capable of, nor did her troop of knights. And it had not occurred to her that despite their element being that of the earth, that they might not find ways to reach for the sky...
A handful of magically-adept enemies all huddled just out of sight for a handful of time, but not enough to conceal themselves from the Skyknight commander's bird's eye view. "I've got you," she muttered to herself, spear in hand as she prepared to skewer the three of them together like thread through a sewing needle... But she was too slow, only by about two seconds, before something came flying towards her. Or, rather, a lot of somethings, sharp and brutal that pierced her armor and her skin too quickly for her to defend. Letting out a cry of pain, she glimpsed at a makeshift spear that had impaled her shoulder, grasping it and yanking it out. Wood: more specificaly, a thin tree branch, that looked as though its tip had grown to pierce, and its tail had grown to fly, like an arrow... Trees are part of the earth, she realized with horror, as tapered branch after tapered branch shot towards the general direction of her and her Skyknights. "Fall back! Fall back now!" She cried to her troop over her shoulder, just as Aeriel intuitively made a swoop upward to deliver her and her rider from danger...
Not fast enough. Something piered her back, and the her other shoulder, and before Vega could register what was happening, she was falling, falling...
It wasn't until moments after she hit the ground that pain registered. Both of her shoulders were aflame with searing pain, and she dared not move, lest she'd broken a bone. "Help..." She called, which irritated her throat and forced her into a violent coughing fit. Every rib in her body ached. Blood speckled her lips, and she wanted to stand up, to yell louder, to do anything but lie there in pain as her strength seeped out of her... This was not the end for her. It couldn't be, for she had so much more to accomplish... and there was Haraldur. She could not leave him; he had already lost far too much, and she needed to pave a future for him in Eyraille...
But just like the circumstances of her life, death was not up to her. At least it was not cold, as so many suggested; on the contrary, it was a warm embrace, heavy, inviting. Not so unlike sleep...
"I am worried... I cannot find Tivia. I mistakenly upset her last night, and she was not found in her tent this morning." Elespeth confided her concerns to Haraldur as they prepared for battle, weighted with newfound guilt, as if the heavy steel of her armor was not enough. Her mind and body needed to be in tune, and moving to the tune of war... it was dangerous to find herself so distracted. "I fear she might have left to return to Stella D'Mare all on her own, and with this siege... I will not forgive myself, let alone the Rigases."
Standing beside him, sword in hand, she turned to her friend, green eyes imploring. "I will not leave your side," she promised with a nod. "But only if you promise me that if either of us finds Tivia alive... we must see her to safety. Promise me this, and I will abide any other rule you declare."
But there was no time for discussion, as the battle was underway in no time, blood spilling and steel hitting steel. At least Elespeth was physically prepared: her training had all but turned her body into a rock, nothing but lean muscle and agility, and most importantly, no hesitation. With her compassion at an all-time low, the Atvanian warrior cut and hacked away at the gruesome undead, and her sword swung with just as little mercy for the living. The old Elespeth Tameris might have spared the lives of enemy soldiers by merely incapacitating them, injuring a limb to render them useless for battle. No longer did she indulge such mercies, for she hadn't the time to take care not to destroy lives. Every soldier clad in Andilari's uniform was an obstacle, and it wasn't until she fought her way through all of those obstacles that she would reach her true target: Messino, be he here or hiding safely in Andalari. She would make her point that crossing her and thos she loved would be the last wrong he ever committed.
For the first little while, she hardly allowed Haraldur to let his own sword connect with an adversary; in fact, it was as if she had taken on his role as protector, determined not to let thes Andalarian scum so much as brush shoulders with her good friend. But it wasn't long before she became reckless: she forgot herself, forgot her purpose, and forgot that she had a reason to be stay alive. All it took was a shove in the right direction, at just the right angle to knock her off balance; she fell flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her, and the sky above was blocked by the bodies of both dead and alive swarmed her to make the kill...
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Your endurance won't last!" He warned the woman, whose chest already began to heave from the exertion of her attacks. "Don't tire yourself!"
Haraldur fought to ward away the enemy advance, consigning himself to a small area instead of sweeping the field like some macabre broom that cleared the room of offending dust and dirt. He was exact in his technique, exploiting weaknesses, disarming weapons, and spearing men with swift surety. Dead bodies began to litter themselves around their defensive line, and with that, a gap in the rush of Andalarian assailants as they retreated temporarily in order to regroup.
Using the time to relax a moment, Haraldur searched the southern skies, scanning the unit of low-flying rocs who had descended to finish off their quarry. Satisfied that they succeeded in crippling the earth mage unit, and that all the Skyknights seemed accounted for, he was about to return his attention to his own fight when a sight froze all the blood in his veins. Twisted, wooden, vine-like tendrils shot into the air, gathering on all sides around a roc rider, and jabbing the defenseless Skyknight several times through the shoulders, the back, and the chest. Slumping forward in the saddle, the rider, weakened, rolled off the roc. The angle of the sun caught on the Eyraillan's bright copper hair, sending it aflame in Haraldur's eyes.
And then she fell out of the sky, her roc soaring away without seeing, without realizing. Overlarge wings pumped farther and farther from the fall site. He swore he could hear those wings, as fervent as his racing heartbeat, and those mournful cries, overtaking the primal screams of men and beast alike.
Aeriel called for Vega, lost in her search. And Haraldur, attention fixed in the distance, felt himself plunged back into the past.
The avalanche. Arina. He forfeited her life, and the lives of the old, the infirm, and the children--so that others may live. Never could he save them all. But she was so close, surely he could reach her. Arina. No. ...Vega.
A clamor sounded from behind him, jolting him out of his state of shock. His feet, unbeknownst to his awareness, had moved him closer to the southern front, to Vega--and away from his charge. His surroundings returned, revealing Elespeth, knocked to the ground, with three soldiers and two undead bearing down on her. Too far. He was too far from the south. Save one, damn another. He could never save both. But he could at least save her...
"Elespeth!" Something wounded and enraged cried out of him, like an injured bull on the charge. Within moments, he slashed away the living soldiers and decapitated the two undead, pure adrenaline and hate fueling his monumental reserves of strength. Then--he heard a fizzle and crack in the air. A whistle of light. It flew towards the prone Elespeth. Haraldur flew with it, overtaking the spell in time to throw himself upon her, sheltering her from the attack, which hit him square in the back--and did nothing.
The mage in his vicinity lobbed another spell. When reaching Haraldur, it guttered into useless sparks. Getting to his feet, and helping Elespeth upright, he wheeled toward the mage who, in desperation, threw out a bunch of fire and light attacks, which bounced uselessly off the advancing mercenary. Having reached striking range, he plunged his sword hilt deep into the magic-user's chest. The man coughed, spluttering blood all over his front--and crumpled into a heap beside all the other dead bodies.
When Haraldur faced Elespeth, his eyes like stones, his face streaked with blood, the stained sword tight and steady in unwavering hands, he looked like a man unhinged, yet thriving in an environment made expressly for him. A berserker on the field. A Forbanne.
"We're leaving this post!" He growled to her over the fray. "Vega--down!"
They ran, skirting over corpses and skirting past enemy resistance. He mowed down all who dared to cross him or Elespeth, and continued to take fired spells to the chest, to no effect, while he kept his charge safe behind the shield of his body. When they reached the southern front, the area had been abandoned. The remaining earth mages had retreated after the damaging assault to their numbers. All around them, the battle began to taper off as Andalarian soldiers were forced from the vicinity by the sheer tenacity of Tadasun's fighting might.
It didn't take long to find Vega's body. Aeriel, who had doubled back in the sky in search of her rider, was there, standing vigil over the fallen form, head bowed and screeching with the pain of loss. She almost didn't allow Haraldur and Elespeth to proceed, seized as she was by grief, her golden eyes wild, feral. But she recognized him, and stepped aside to allow him entry.
He crouched over the still woman, already expecting the worst, already knowing the answer...but he needed to go on believing otherwise. That she carried his charm. That she was protected. That those deep puncture wounds, the growing puddle of blood, her twisted arms meant nothing, because they had fixed her once before.
He checked her injuries. Felt her pulse. Felt it again. Wanted to change the truth. The result that he feared, yet knew would happen--as it always did. As it always would.
"She's dead," he told Elespeth, his voice flat, matter-of-fact...strained. He withdrew his fingers, which were painted in her blood. He saw the roc carving glued to her chest, also soaked in red, as if it, too, had died with her.
"Dead," he repeated, as he pulled away the remaining shafts of wood still lodged in her flesh. They made a sickening sucking sound, but he was unfazed. Once cleared of all the pieces, he threw the splinters aside. Then, carefully, he lifted Vega from the ground, and presented her to the roc.
"Aeriel." As if the avian understood his request, she lowered herself to the ground and stretched out her massive wings. Draping the woman over the saddle, he mounted up behind her, and grabbed for the reins.
"Elespeth." He addressed the warrior but did not look at her. His attention was to the sky. "Go back to camp. Find Tivia Rigas."
Securing Vega's body around his arms, minding her injuries to insure that more blood did not run, he flicked the reins forward, urging Aeriel into motion. He half-expected the disconsolate roc not to fly, but the bird obeyed and took to the air. Together, they left the battlefield, Tadasun, Andalari, and the camp behind, and soon, their direction became clear.
Stella D'Mare.
To find the one who could bring back the dead.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Vega... down.
That was all she required to be spurred into dire motivation. Keeping close to her comrade, she fought her way through the throng of bodies (both living and dead, as well as undead), watching in astonishment as--yes, she was not merely seeing things!--magic literally bounced off the mercenary's body and disintegrated in sparks that fizzled out in the air. He's not hurt... he 'cannot' get hurt! Not by magic, but... but how? Was he even aware? And if so, how long had this uncanny ability endured? When did it begin, and why had he never mentioned it to her...?
Those questions would have to wait. It felt too long, too long before they reached Vega's fallen form, too long, given her condition at first glance, for there to be any hope... "Haraldur..." The Atvanian warrior reached out to lay a supportive hand upon his shoulder, but the mercenary was already moving towards the figure of the fallen Skyknight. She looked all wrong, impaled with wood through her abdomen and shoulders, her arms at angles that should not have been possible for human arms to achieve, blood speckling her lips, soaking her armor, and growing in a pool underneath her. There was absolutely nothing about seeing her in such a state that inspired hope, and Elespeth knew it, but Haraldur had to be sure, and sure again, and again...
Her heart broke from him. For both of them.
"Haraldur." She approached him with a gentle voice, realizing how devastated and unstable he must be feeling as a result of this dire tragedy. "There is always time to mourn, and I believe you... we should. But she would not want either of us to bear this burden with guilt. We cannot prevent all of the tragedies brought on by war's hand..." She was doubtful that he even heard her words. There was a faraway look in his green eyes that shone with pain, and she could not begrudge him when he knelt, tugging the wooden stakes from where they were embedded, and lifting her from the ground, cradling her broken body in his arms. Tears, unbidden, sprung to her eyes: he should not have had to hold her like this. The Eyraillian royal's heart should have been beating against his own, her arms around his neck, her head tilted upward and kissing his mouth. This should not have been goodbye...
In spite of her own advice, a dark thought made her heart sink deeper into that hole that was her chest cavity: Haraldur could have come to her more quickly if not for my recklessness... is this my fault?
She never received an answer to that question. Without warning, Haraldur tread towards the distraught Avian, who calmed in his presence. He wasn't thinking that... wait, was he? "Haraldur, what are you doing?" Did he mean to fly her body back for a proper burial? If that were the case, they needed only walk a third of an hour, at most... or if he meant to return her to her home, Eyraille, his presence might not be taken to so kindly with her dead body in his arms. Haraldur was smarter than that; he must have had something else in mind. "Haraldur, where are you going? What do you plan to d-- wait!"
That he would not confide in her his plan did not inspire confidence that his intentions with the deceased Skyknight were neither safe, nor sane. Inwardly, she began to panic for his safety, as well as the fact that deep down, she did not want to be left alone. "Haraldur!" Her voice carried into the sky, but did not hold a candle against the windwhirl flapping of the massive beast's wings. Her companions (alive and dead) ascended, up and up, until they were no longer in her sight. Once more, Elespeth found herself alone, all alone, amidst this bloody war.
Though she likely was not the only one with no one to watch her back, and Haraldur's final advice to her resonated, reminding her of the primary concern that had plagued her in the first place.
Tivia...
Nothing would be accomplished by worrying for Haraldur now. Whatever his fate, it was in his hands alone, and she was helpless to interfere any longer. But there was someone else who could use her help... if she had managed to survive this siege, that is.
The fight continued until the evening, when both sides, having realized they were at a stalemate, decided it was best to withdraw. The metalltic scent of blood hung thick in the air, and there were not nearly enough healers and medics to tend to the injured and the dying. It was with no small amount of guilt that Elespeth knew she was not among either of those unlucky groups for the sole fact that she had avoided the remainder of the battle, since finding Vega's lifeless form in the thicket of a wood. Instead, she had dedicated her time to searching for Tivia Rigas, dead or alive. Regardless of the caster's condition, she needed to know what had become of herm realizing that she had more than likely been the reason for the woman's rash decision to flee, alone.
Exhausted, dehydrated and covered in blood, much which did not belong to her, she found the frightened woman at last still within the perimeter of the encampment. Tivia's body was curled under bushes, her clothes stained red not from blood (thankfully), but from the berries that her floral shield budded. The Atvanian warrior all but collapsed in deep relief.
"Tivia... thank the gods you are all right." She did not wait for permission, and didn't care if the woman disapproved as she pulled her into a brief embrace. Vega was dead, Haraldur was gone... If Tivia was not her ally, then she really, truly, had nothing. "I'm sorry. You are right: I am a fool and a coward and I fear that facing Alster again will turn me into the soft and useless fragment of a person that I was before, but... I am no better, as I am now." Helping her out from the bushes, she relayed the grim news to the questionably stable woman about her friends. "This battle has been a bloodbath. The Skyknight commander and Eyraillian princess Vega Sorde is dead, and Haraldur... he is gone. I do not know if he will return." Shaking her head, she pressed her lips together. "I am sorry for upsetting you and devaluing your insight... We are going to return ot Stella D'Mare, as soon as possible. But for now... For now, we must hold back, wait for the storm to settle, for Andalari to force itself to regroup. But I can promise you one thing, regardless of what comes to pass."
She met Tivia's one good eye, her own gaze intense and as honest as she could be, given the uncertainty that hung in the air. "I will save Alster. If that is my destiny... then I will have it fulfilled. I will not let him, your family, or your city fall. Do you understand? I won't... I will not let you down again."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
With the Serpent on the rise, no thanks to his undeniable role in the chthonic creature's inevitable escape, he could either stand idly by and allow others to use him as a puppet, fight an unwinnable battle, or sacrifice himself in blood and fire.
He chose the latter.
From what he had researched on blood bonds and the Rigas blood seal, which had kept the Serpent contained for generations, the spell-form could be reinforced, and remotely, but only if a Rigas had forged a special connection with the subject in question. He, by his reckless tampering with the beast from fifty years' past, had awakened the Serpent by disrupting the blood seal. He had slashed his palms, the drip-drip of his wound soaking the seal in his hue, aura, and will, which, by extension, allowed him control of the Serpent. A one-way blood bond, but it was effective, at the time.
Until he had lost control. The Serpent had thrashed, and thrashed, and thrashed, and a small section of the city sundered to dust, killing hundreds.
But he should have little problem strengthening the blood seal. Fifty years ago, he was young, inexperienced. And he had only sacrificed a little bit of blood. Now, Alster would sacrifice all of his blood, and all of himself, which, if his ritual was a success, would trap the Serpent to the earth for another several generations. He could not, however, perform the ritual at the estate, for his chthonic energy would leech from him at expiration and return to the earth--feeding the Serpent. And that little bit of power might be all that the creature needed in order to break the blood seal--and slither to freedom. Even if he did not have to worry about chthonic magic bleeding back to its place of origin, he had to contend with the ever-watchful Adalfieri and his spies casting eyes over his every move.
He only found the privacy he so desired at night, tucked into his bed, with guards preventing his escape, but stationed, at least, on the other side of the door. That was the night he decided to prepare for the ritual. The more he accomplished beforehand, the less he'd have to set up once he was clear of the city, and was ready to enact his spell-work.
They were difficult hours for him, in that space between moonrise and dawn. Using a knife with a wicked edge, he carved into his skin. Starting from the chest, minding the comet-tailed scar that filled him only with bittersweet memories of Elespeth, he began to draw a replica of the Rigas blood seal. It was a diamond-shape, starting from his collarbone and ending at his lower abdomen. Then, he gouged both arms and his palms with scratchy runes that would encourage the flow of his magic, and concentrate the form. They were like directional arrows, or a river moving sediment from its source, to its goal, at the mouth of the delta. In the dark, he tried not to cry out, as blood trickled from his torn, raised flesh. His hands shook and shivered. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. It was the tedium that disturbed him. The continuous back-and-forth, the agitation of his raw skin, the antiseptic he slathered on the wounds to prevent infection, the lightheadedness stemming from blood loss, and the constant, burning reminder...that he had no future. No promise of a tomorrow. No chance of a life with Elespeth--if that had ever remained an option at all.
When finished, it was already sunrise. He cleaned up the bloody sheets with magic, bandaged up his self-inflicted injuries, and dressed himself in a long-sleeved, regal blue tunic with a high collar (concealing the claw-marks still evident on his neck), and fingerless gloves, to hide the evidence of his dark, ritualistic workings branded on his skin. His appearance, otherwise, did not suffer. On the contrary, he, with the exception of the droop of his tired eyes, was healthy. His normally tan skin was a burnished, sun-kissed sheen. His hair was trimmed and well-kept, the errant white hairs plucked or out of sight of his natural sandy blond color. He was at a stable weight, exhibited a moderate appetite, and had worked his muscles into fighting readiness, slaving daily on his endurance training. He was fit, well-groomed, and clean. But now, it no longer seemed to matter. Now, he felt as if he were primping himself for the inevitable sacrifice at the pyre instead of his originally intended goal: seeing Elespeth, at least one more time. And he wanted to be in peak form--for her.
What a fool I am, he thought as he looked in the mirror, running frustrated fingers through his hair, untidying it in rebellion. An inane, moronic fool. It's over now, Alster.
And perhaps it's always been over...
A few hours later, after picking through an unsatisfying lunch that he could neither taste nor smell, a loud disturbance from outside had thrown him to his feet. There were shouts. The unmistakable firing of spells. A strange, whirring motion, like eddies of wind that often blew from the ocean to the mountainside, whistling and whipping and vibrating with a life all its own.
He left the villa in a hurry, the guards at his heels, also apprehensive of the commotion. They ran to the sprawling green lawn at the center of the estate, where, to their surprise, a giant avian had landed, its fierce wings sending out concentrated bursts of air in defense of itself and its riders. Alster squeezed through the gathering crowd, just as stupefied as the rest--until he recognized the man atop the mount. He was heaving, blood-soaked, exhausted, an arrow lodged in his side, but no doubt, it was Haraldur. With him was an unfamiliar woman who donned the armor of a Skyknight. But she was limp in his arms, and it was not from sleep. She was dead.
Above the din of pumping wingbeats, sparking spells, and collective shouts of protest, the mercenary on the roc struggled to be heard and understood, but his voice was lost in the chaos. Alster aimed a spell at the man. It amplified his speech, which bellowed clear across the estate. Everyone was silenced. Even the roc.
"I'm an ally," he began, surprised at how loudly his words had carried. "I wouldn't have come here at all. I know that my being here endangers you, but this is an emergency." He jerked his head to the woman slumped over in the saddle. "This is Skyknight commander and princess of Eyraille, Sir Vega Sorde. She fought bravely to ward off Messino and his troops, helping to keep them at bay, preventing them from reaching Stella D'Mare. And now...she is dead. I require the services of a necromancer. Give me that much--and you may do whatever you want with me. But don't harm the roc."
"If my input means anything," Alster called into the now eerie quiet as he stepped forward, addressing the bemused crowd, "he can be trusted. He's partly responsible for my awakening."
"You heard him," a wheezy voice sounded from the back. A few Rigases parted to make way for the Clematis healer, Elias, who bounded toward the roc, the wounded man, and the dead body. "Someone fetch the necromancer. This is a time sensitive operation. We need as many healers as can be spared. Anyone who can stitch a wound closed with magic or set broken bones, I need them now." He turned to face Alster. "That includes you, too."
"If one of you needs to tell Adalfieri, then tell Adalfieri," Alster said, alighting to Haraldur's side as the mercenary dismounted from the roc, holding the lolling woman fast in his arms. "But we can't wait for his approval on this. It will take too long, and she'll be lost."
"In Adalfieri's absence," another voice piped up, and Chara appeared in the congregation, "I condone this action. Take them to the infirmary. Now!"
When Tivia set out that morning, she did not make it far out of camp before the horns sounded and the entire area became a stampede. The ground thundered beneath her as the sounds of screams and clashing drew ever nearer. In a frenzied panic, Tivia dove for the nearby bushes, not yet prepared to face another battle, when the last one she participated in had still painted itself so freshly on her mind, and left its ever-lasting mark upon her ruined face.
She remained there for much of the day, curled into the fetal position, her hands over her ears and her eye closed so tight, she saw nothing but purple spots floating around in the coated black of her vision. She muttered to herself, recalling fun little anecdotes and sunny memories out on the beach. Sand between her toes, the smell of brine, the warm, swelling water washing off the sweat that glistened on her skin which rolled down her back in trickling, tickling beads...
Something called for her, in a place beyond the dark. She ignored it, much preferring her warm memory. The calling was insistent. It grabbed for her, slinging her against something alive and breathing and slimy. Nothing at all like the ocean and the sand--unless she ran headlong into a hunk of seaweed. But there was desperation in that cry, in those words, and familiarity won out over fantasy. She opened her eye, and looked into the grief-stricken face of Elespeth, whose clinging arms coated her with blood. Though she was frightened of their proximity, and the intensity of the warrior's embrace and her relation of the news, Tivia did not budge. Instead, she considered the woman's words. They were all she had. All that each other had. Suddenly, her actions from the night before seemed a decade in the past. Far and away. Another life, another Tivia. Between then and now, she was faced with the inevitability that she had refused to consider: they were trapped. Stella D'Mare was as good as a universe away, for how futile it was to reach its borders. Absorbing this shock of information, she gave Elespeth a small, forlorn nod, and, with a show of emotion, buried her head in the warrior's chest--and sobbed.
What do we do? Where do we go from here? Can...any of us be saved?
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
But disappointments aside, the more he investigated, the more credencce he gave Alster's theories. The dark undercurrent of unsettling magic that lurked beneath the city was steadily growing in intensity: at first, he could only feel it with his bare feet upon the earth, but weeks later, he felt it through the sturdy leather of his knee-high boots. It was like a vibration, growing ever stronger, one that soon would not be able to be contained. Not with his magic, Lilica's and Alster's dark adeptness mirroring the energy from which the beast drew its strength...
It was not something that he could prevent; perhaps nobody could. His departure might prolong the calm before the storm, but even he knew that the storm was inevitable. Alster likely did, as well, but he had not seen much of the wayward Rigas caster in the days past...
"You." Vitali stopped walking, mid-stride in one of his contemplative jaunts through the Rigas gardens, and turned around. He recognized the young speaker as an apprentice to one of the healers at the infirmary, breathing laboured and face damp with perspiration. "You are... I have been instructed to take you to the infirmary right away. The matter is of the utmost importance... time-sensitive. Your skills are required."
"Is that so." The necromancer arched an eyebrow and tapped his chin with a finger. "While I am flattered that someone has thought of me, I am not one to have my services solicited against my will... and never without a price."
"Please, sir. Just come... come and see, for yourself."
It went without saying that Vitali was intrigued. Up until now, since he had helped to pull Elespeth from the brink of death, much of Stella D'Mare had more or less insisted on pretending he was not infecting their beloved city with his dark presence. So what had occurred that would suddenly urge the denizens to enlist his help?
Or, more specifically, who had died?
Deciding there was more entertainment in compliance versus refusal, he followed the frantic young man down to the infirmary, where people had congregated just outside the doors. Not far from the crowd stood a giant avian with fierce golden eyes, next to which no one stood, for honest fear that the thing would do them harm. Vitali frowned. "Well. This is certainly unexpected... rocs are native to the mountainous kingdom of Eyraille, are they not?"
I all became clear as soon as he stepped inside. The woman lying limp upon the bed. Her uniform, beneath the bloodstains, bore the colours silver and blue--the colours, if he was not mistaken, of the kingdom of Eyraille. It took hardly a second for Vitali to piece the information before him together and deduce the most likely conclusion.
Striding past the healers, the Rigases and an all too familiar mercenary, he made his way over to the fallen woman, who had been hastily cleaned of dried and crusted blood. There was no need to assess her wounds to know she was dead; he could see the shroud of death surround her from several feet away. The real question was: how much was left of her to recover?
Without a word, the necromancer placed a hand upon the deceased's forehead and closed his eyes. He said nothing, and fortunately, no one asked anything of him for several moments as he stood, silent and unmoving. When at last he opened his eyes, he stepped away. "She is in limbo."
There was a pause. And then, a bold healer demanded, "Well, what in all hells does that mean? Can you--"
"Bring her back? Well, it's like this." Vitali folded his hands behind his back. "There are three stages of passing on: transition, limbo, and absolution. Your dear Atvanian warrior was merely in the stage of transition when you," he turned to Chara, "brought her back. She was dying, but not lifeless; she had no crossed over. But this woman... she is dead. Both her body and soul have accepted this, and her soul seeks the portal to the other side. In the first stage, retrieval is relatively simple; the second, it is far more complex, and there is no guarantee. And by the third, it is too late, and the deceased is no more than an animated corpse, such as what Messino had created for his army."
"So you can revive her, or you cannot? What are you saying?" The aforementioned healer demanded with incredulity. "Tell us!"
At first, the necromancer said nothing at all. But when he faced the healer (and the rest of the people waiting with bated breath), his eyes were dark and intense." All of you--get to work on this woman's wounds right away. Patch up the gauges and mend any damaged organs. She probably needs blood, as well; if I am able to find her, then her soul must return to a body capable of living, or the effort will be futile, and she will be doomed to die all over again. Now, hurry!" He all but shouted at the healers to begin. "The longer we wait, the less of a guarantee I can offer that she can be returned to the land of the living. But I have one last question."
His dark eyes spanned the room: the Rigases, the healers, and the mercenary. They sparkled with something unreadable. "Who, here, is designated to pay for my services? This will by no means be a simple task, and pardon my bluntness, but I am a necromancer. Not a charity."
"Are you sure--"
"Yes," Haraldur interjected, his impassive expression honed on the infirmary doors, which curious onlookers had opened for them, despite their looks of guarded suspicion. "You would do the same."
"I have done similar," the Rigas caster admitted with a shallow nod, remembering when, in order to save her life, he placed Elespeth under a death shroud, stopping her heart, not knowing if it would ever beat again. "I understand. But," he watched the sway of the Eyraillan princess's limp arm as Haraldur rested her on an available bed, "this is tricky. There's a chance she'll die all over again--or not come back at all. Be wary. If she does return...she may not be the same. Or her mind could be gone, like Messino's puppets."
"If that's the case, then I'll be the one to kill her," he said, in a drone of an answer. His hands now free from their burden, he used them to undo the clasp of his pendant. He pooled the necklace into his palm, trying to recall when he last detached it from his person. Leaning over Vega's contorted stillness, he looped the silver chain around her neck and affixed it into place, where it rested over the bloodied roc carving.
Alster watched the exchange with the curious tilting of his head, but quickly returned his attention to the arrow in the mercenary's side. "Before we get started here, let me heal that." But Haraldur turned away before he could reach the fletching, dyed in the unmistakable Andalarian colors of dark blue and gold.
"Don't waste your energy," he said, gripping the arrow shaft to shield Alster from investigating the wound any further. "Use it on her." He pointed to the body, which once housed the soul of Vega Sorde. Then, with a sigh, he added, "I've done what I can for you. In your stead. For Elespeth. She goes by 'Eris' now. I apologize for slacking in my duty. For leaving her."
Alster, eyes half-closing with the news, folded his hands together, almost flinching at his raw, runic incisions pressing against each other, threatening to bleed through their bandages. But through the pain, he felt it. Felt their blood oath scar, hiding beneath the intricacies of his ritual markings. Before he could open his mouth to comment, to thank the mercenary for the protection he'd offered thus far, and to apologize for the sour turn that destroyed the woman for whom he harbored much affection, the infirmary doors blew open, streaming in all the Rigas healers, Elias, Chara, and the necromancer. The two men beside Vega's body cleared away at Elias's insistent sweeping of his emaciated hands. In their place stood Vitali, who inspected the dead with a thoroughness that bespoke of pride for his work. His sense of care and attention to detail almost bolstered Alster's confidence in the to-be proceedings that very well could revive the Eyraillan princess. But it was a conservative, wary kind of almost. He trusted the necromancer very little, but nonetheless fell in his direction and joined the healers, helmed by Elias, in patching together Vega's broken pieces. They peeled off her armor and clothes, stripping her naked save for the two necklaces (which Alster suggested they keep on her). They cleaned her deep, penetrating wounds with water-soaked rags and alcohol--and began to heal up the ravages of Vega's battle-crushed body. As he was not a healer, only skilled in healing magic, Alster followed instruction from Elias and the other Rigases, who assigned him to mend her flesh wounds, while they left the internal damage and broken bones to their own expertise.
Haraldur, listening to the details of the necromancer's procedure, and watching the progress unfurl before him, reacted little to the information or his surroundings. He approached Vitali, dull green eyes regarding him with minimal hope and expectation and with that, no regard for whatever price asked of his services.
"I'll pay," he said, ignoring the pointed look he received from Alster in the background.
"No, I'll--"
"--I'll pay," Haraldur repeated, interrupting Alster and his unnecessary offer. "This was all my idea." He gripped the hilt of his sword. "I'll give you my protection. I'll fight for you. I'll kill--if you have need of it. But not children--unborn, undead, or otherwise. Now," he thrust his arm forward, "take my blood, if it will do."
At hearing those final words, Elias, who had just mended Vega's broken arm with magic, excused himself briefly and advanced towards Haraldur and Vitali. Without warning, he pricked Haraldur's outstretched arm with a needle and collected a small sample in a vial. Holding the glass to the light, he peered into the opening, closing one eye as his white-sparkling hand waved concentric patterns into the air surrounding the trapped blood. "...It's compatible," he concluded, stoppering the vial with a cork and pushing it into a pouch pocket. "I will take your blood, but," he scrunched his nose at the arrow embedded in the warrior's side, "you will do me no good if you lose too much blood before I am even ready to take it from you."
Again, Haraldur clutched the arrow, and backed away from the healer. "Your healing won't work," he said, at last. "Magic won't help." Before anyone could question his enigmatic statement, he continued. "But my blood can help her. So use it. I'll deal with the arrow later."
"...Very well," said Elias, coldly. "Come here. We'll use your blood."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He waited a beat, before his somber and serious expression dissolved in an unsettling grin. "Relax, warrior. I have no want or need of any children. Though it is not often that those who require my services set limitations on what they are willing to offer in exchange for someone else's second chance at life. I am known to name my price. Although, in your special case..." He looked over the weary mercenary, wondering if he would even live long enough to provide payment of any sort. But he was a survivor; it would take much more than an embedded arrow and blood loss to extinguish his brightly burning flame. Vitali could see where death's fingers had struggled to grip the man, but to no avail. He was a resilient soul; there were few quite like him.
"I think I will call in a favour." He declared with a decisive nod. "Not now, but when I need it. Don't think I can't find you when need be." Clapping his hands together once, he turned back to the dead warrior, lying lifeless and naked as several healers worked on repairing her broken body. Who knew how deep into limbo she had fallen, at this point?
He would find out.
As the mercenary offered up his blood to replenish the dead woman's dry veins, he moved towards the head of the bed placed a hand upon Vega's forehead. She was already cooling to the touch, and nothing stirred beneath her corporeal shell. Not like the Atvnian warrior; this Eyraillian Skyknight had drifted further, and drifted quickly. He guessed that her death had been a relatively quick one, likely due to organ failure as opposed to bloodloss, though the latter might even have hastened the former, sending her quickly through transition, and into limbo.
And he was the only one capable of walking the in-between.
"Her name. What is it?" Vital looked pointedly at Haraldur, who sat at the dead woman's side as the Clemats healer siphoned his blood to pump into her dry veins. "Tell me."
Vega Sorde. The name fell slowly and clearly from the mercenary's lips. Short, concise; the necromancer committed it to memory with ease. "Vega Sorde. Of the Sorde monarchy in Eyraille? Well, now." His lips curled into a smirk. "Your standards are taking a high aim, I see. Let us hope your princess has not ventured too far into the in-between." Without another word, he withdrew his slender, obsidian blade, and ignoring the healers' pointed glares, carved an inrticate rune over the fallen warrior's heart. He dug the same rune into the scarred flesh of his palm, lay a hand over its mirror image, and met Haraldur's eyes once more. "Well, then. Wish me luck."
Vitali closed his eyes. He shut out the room, the voices, the white noise of bodies hurrying about. There was only silence and darkness, peace and nothingness, the bliss of the void... and, if he sent his senses on high alert, opening up his mind and spirit to that which most were unable to access until death, he could feel it. The fabric of another plane of existence, one from which souls should not be able to wander and return...
The air grew cold. Darkness beyond the blackest ink surrounded the necromancer, and the silence transitioned into a million voices. They were all the voices of the dead, whispering and speaking and yelling, all wishing to be heard. The restless ones who yearned to return, who had not come to accept death; who, perhaps, did not yet realize they were dead. Hands grasped as his arms, his legs, his hair and cottails, but Vitali shook them all off with little regard for their plight. The longer he dwelled in limbo, the more difficult it could be to return; in fact, he risked his own life and existence to bring back the dead by these very means. "Vega Sorde." Her name echoed in the nothingness of the void, and he moved through the darkness, in spite of the clinging hands and fingers. "I seek Vega Sorde. Vega, if you hear me, then you must follow my voice."
Nothing. No response, no indication that she was anywhere within shouting distance. The other voices continued; the hands dug into his flesh. He shook them off and continued onward, moving deeper into limbo. "Vega Sorde." Vitali raised his voice, taking a commanding tone. "If you hear me, then I command you to my side. Immediately." Still, nothing. Vitali frowned, taking his feet reluctantly further. It grew colder; he could not feel his fingertips or toes. "Vega Sorde!"
And suddenly, there she was. Standing still and straight, azure eyes blank, emotionless, unseeing. She did not turn in his direction--but she was there which meant it wasn't too late. "Vega Sorde." The necromancer articulated her name once more and placed his hands on her shoulders. "I have bound you by magic to the world of the living. You are thereby obligated to abandon limbo and return with me." He did not provide any preamble before tugging her tunic aside, where--to his great relief--the newly carved rune bled freely. As did the rune on his palm. "I apologize, but we haven't the time to wait for you to be ready." Before she could blink her eyes, the necromancer covered her bleeding rune with his own--
--and opened his eyes to the room full of healers and mages, standing around with bated breath. None were lookingg at him; their eyes were fixed on the woman in the bed, eyes closed, form still, no sign of a heartbeat of breath. Vitali frowned; there was no reason why she should not have returned. Never in all of the time he had dealt in death had he experienced a failure, and the idea that the woman's soul had not followed him back tainted his tongue with a sour taste.
The foul taste went away in seconds, when the dead woman, drawing a single, deep breath, sat up right, eyes wide open. Hyperventilation set in, punctuated with violent coughing, as her limbs trembled. "What... wh-where..."
"Your name." Vitali took the woman by the shoulders before anyone had a chance to react. "Tell me your name. Now!"
Tears trickled down her cheeks, and she clutched her shoulders, trembling and sobbing. "...S-Sorde. Vega... Sorde." Despite her newly mended bones, she doubled over, hardly aware of her naked state, and continued to weep. "Hurts... everything is so... it hurts..."
With a satisfied smirk, the necromancer pulled away from Vega, and nodded to Haraldur. "Glad to be of service. Keep a close eye on her until the rune on her chest heals; her soul will be vulnerable to return to death if she sleeps for more than four hours at a time. She is more vulnerale now than she has likely ever been in her life, which is not my jurisdiction. I leave that to you." With a final nod to the small congregation in the infirmary, Vitali took his leave, unperturbed by the state of the sobbing woman who he had literally just pulled from the tight grip of death.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
While all major wounds, breaks, bruises, and interior damage--sans the prick made in the arm for ease of blood-flow from Haraldur to the patient--were healed, Elias frowned, dissatisfied with the rush job. "By sight, her injuries are healed," he muttered, stepping aside to give Vitali a wide berth in which to work, "but they cannot be soothed of the residual pain, should you succeed in awaking her from death. In addition, her neurons will be firing an overload of information at her, exacerbating her phantom injuries even further. I cannot imagine the shock of revival is a pleasant transition." With the blood transfer complete, Elias pulled the needle out of Haraldur's arm and bandaged the small welt with gauze. The mercenary stood, wavering on his feet, his face ashen, cold sweat washing away the thin streaks of clotted blood that had dried on his forehead. "Go lie down," he barked up at the towering man, who made no indication of having heard the healer. With an exasperated sigh, he at least succeeded in herding the battered warrior away from Vitali's immediate work-space.
Once the necromancer began his preparations for ritual, carving into unmarred skin that the healers had mended only moments before, Elias had to direct yet more people from the scene, only they were a gaggle of disgruntled Rigases, perturbed by the desecration of their labors. He was not so irritated. On the contrary, he was fascinated, mystified, even, at the prospect of witnessing the dead rise from the outer fringes of the void itself. If this is the last thing I see before I die, he thought, clutching his handkerchief against his mouth to stifle his coughs, I'll expire without kicking Death in the face.
Everyone watched the proceedings, transfixed, silent--but for the muffled hacking of the Clematis healer. Then, right when a few Rigas healers wondered if the necromancer had fallen asleep, and that the entire enterprise had all been an elaborate ploy to humiliate them, Vitali awakened, looking about as drained and haggard as the teetering mercenary.
A few long, drawn seconds later, a pained gasp filled the cavernous room, and the crowd gathered in to watch as Vega Sorde, once dead, burst into life. Elias's surprise was uncontained. His jaw slackened, but he was otherwise possessed into complete inaction. Blinking out of his stupor, he directed healers to soothe the disoriented woman's ails and finish the job they had started.
Alster, previously skeptical of the revival, looked about as stymied as the seldom-fazed Clematis healer. He watched from a distance, questioning the legitimacy of the act, wondering if it would last, if there were any adverse side-effects, and if her mind would always be tuned towards death, always seeking the call for the place where her soul truly belonged. As if to answer the latter part of his musings, he looked down at the necklace that Haraldur had looped around the Skyknight. With his magically-trained eyes, he caught the intense, white-gold aura of the pendant, a strong protective charm at full activation, the kind which could only be conjured by a caster approaching death--for life, and its threads of complexity, was the greatest of materials, beyond blood and earth and sky. Did Haraldur know of his pendant's special properties and give it to Vega as a precaution against further mortality? If not, Alster, at least, knew well of the existence of such a phenomenon...for wasn't he to eschew his own life for a similar result? One that, he hoped, would protect the city, and his family, for generations? But not Elespeth, he thought, lowering his eyes to his hands, his self-inflicted wounds beginning to show through the bandages. Despite our separation...I doubt that my death will benefit her at all...
He shook away his dark introspections and refocused his attention on Haraldur, who, at Vega's sign of revival, had stumbled forward, his eyes overbright. The fortified indifference, his shield of a face, broke, replaced with an amalgam of relief and confusion, disbelief, awe...and something stronger. Like he had just witnessed a miracle, but did not yet know if it was just. If he had blessed, or cursed. If he had damned her to a purgatory of horrors, or saved her from one.
By then, Vitali had departed the infirmary at a clip too quick for Alster to follow, and he would have, for he had many questions--but they would need to wait. Instead, he sidled over to Haraldur, who stood near an opening of healers, watching with a contorted brow as the sobbing woman cried and flailed and withdrew from the overwhelming amount of aid that surrounded her on all sides. Haraldur's hand twitched forward, as it to reach for her, to offer comfort, a literal handhold to keep her from falling through the earth. But his body shuddered violently, and before Alster could catch him, as he oft did for others, the man collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Elias dashed to his side, kneeling to check the man's pulse, nodding to notify the others that he was still alive, albeit very weak. "We heal his wound," he told two other healers, who stepped away from Vega to drag the leaden warrior, his weight bogged down with armor, to the closest bed. "We shall see what he meant when he said that magic cannot heal him."
Alster, left at Vega's side with the three remaining healers, passively observed the Eyraillan princess, and a memory stirred him into action. He saw Elespeth, hugging her knees, rocking in time to the knells of her own agony, hearing nothing, knowing nothing but the pain... Taking a large airful into his lungs, Alster cupped Vega's hand and, despite the cuts in his flesh, held it with a reassuring squeeze. "Your name is Vega Sorde?" he said, his voice soothing, conversational. He bowed his head to her, in a show of respect."It's an honor to meet the princess of Eyraille and her chief Skyknight." Turning away for a moment, he addressed the healer beside him. "Get her some food and water. We need to keep her grounded."
As the healer departed for his task, Alster returned his attention to Vega, smiling gently. "My name is Alster Rigas. You're at our estate right now. Your roc is outside, safe and unharmed. And Haraldur," he saw the unconscious man from his periphery, laid upon an adjoining bed, stripped of his armor. The arrow was finally extricated from his side. "He is fine. But he needs rest." Though his voice was calm, inviting, he spoke with a loud timbre so that Vega, he hoped, would have less trouble hearing it over her sobbing. He forced his company on her, continuing his one-way conversation, trying to distract her from the pain, the confusion, by providing for her a focal point.
"Could you tell me a little about your kingdom?" he asked, taking a scratchy blanket from the side table and draping it over her naked, shivering form, giving her a tactile grip on her reintroduced reality. "I'm fascinated by your skytop nation. I've always wanted to ride a roc. How long did it take you?"
By then, the healer returned with a plate filled with bread, cheese, grapes, and a tin filled with water. Alster first offered the water to the woman, trying to gauge her current state and condition. "Drink up. You came to us quite injured. We've patched you up," he did not specify the details of the 'patching,' "but you're still very weak. Some food and water will help. Rigas food is exquisite, I daresay," he popped a grape into his mouth, as if to demonstrate. "Not a regretful taste to endure on your tongue at all."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Wh... I don't, I can't... Caris. Caris! Is he... I must know..." Trembling, Vega clutched her shoulders as her brother's face dominated her present state. Wasn't that her primary cause? To defend her brother and her kingdom? But then, what was she doing here, among these strangers, in a place that seemed so far from her home? "The war. Eyraille is.. is fighting. But not for itself, for Tadasun. W-we need allies... Caris is far, so far away, and I am... I am..." Where was she? What was her part and her purpose? Bit by bit, and all on its own time, the young woman's memories pieced themselves together. It hurt, like a throbbing migraine, and she dug her dull fingernails into her temples to distract from the pain that she could not control. "Tadasun. My name is Vega Sorde, I am fighting for Tadasun, I command the Skyknights, and my ride... my roc.. My roc, what is her name? She is precious to me, s-she is my only companion... I have known her since she was a fledgling. I--yes, I saved her, I tamed her... how could I forget her name!"
Inconsolable and oblivious to any and all help that surrounded her, Vega pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her forehead into them, sobbing hard and uncontrollably. She hurt, everything hurt and nothing made sense, and not a single face in the room was familiar.
Except...
Eyes bloodshot from sobbing, something struck her core on a profound level when she looked up and met the green eyes of a man standing before her. He was bloody and ashen and looked positively wretched, like he, too, had been through hell and back... but she knew his name. Somewhere, in her fractured memory, she knew his name was there... it had to be! "You... I... I met you. I know... you. We have fought together... you are not of Eyraille, and yet, you are so significant. I know your name... I know your name... I know it, damnit, I know what it is!" The Eyraillian princess tugged at her tangled, russet locks of hair, grinding her teeth with such force that her jaw ached. His name, it was there, in her memory. She could sense it presence, and she reached, reached, and reached even further, despite the pain... "Haraldur! Haraldur... your name is Haraldur." Her breath escaped her in a shaky sigh of deep relief. "Your name is Haraldur... you have significance to me. You... matter to me. I don't... I can't recall why, but you matter..."
As if the resonating shock of her revival was not enough for her taxed mind to contend with, this man who mattered so much to her then collapsed before her very eyes. He was there one minute, conscious, and then the next... he was...
Healers scrambled to tend to the fallen man, just as another unfamiliar figure approached her and took a seat at her bedside. A man with blonde hair and green eyes, unfamiliar, though she did not know if it was due to the fact he was indeed a stranger, or because of her failing memory. His voice was gentle, calm, as was the touch of his hand. That very kindness that he displayed, however, only moved her to further tears. "I don't know you." She sobbed quietly, her face streaked with the wetness of her tears. "So why are you kind? Why do you... why do you want to help me? Can you tell me... what has happened?"
Vega listened to Alster's explanations with about as much grace as someone newly risen from the dead could do. So she had been wounded, and... ended up in Stella D'Mare? But how? "Aeriel! My roc is Aeriel. Her name is Aeriel..." She recalled suddenly with a small laugh. "She brought me here, didn't she? She knew I was wounded, she could sense I needed help... I want to see her. Where is Aeriel? Let me see her!"
Instead of granting her request, the Skyknight commander found food and water being forced on her. Alster insisted she eat and drink, though the stricken woman could hardly identify hunger or appetite beyond her shock and pain. "No, no, I can't, I don't want to... take it away! I don't want food, I want, I want... I want..." Vega's shoulders shook as another sob broke free of her body, and she clutched the blanket that Alster had provided, feeling the coarse fibers with her fingers, feeling its scratch against her skin... It was oddly soothing, to focus on the feel of something so unpleasant. It reminded her that there was something that she could be sure of: that it was real, that she was real, that she had been wounded, but she could heal... she could heal...
After the sobbing subsided, she reluctantly took the cup of water into her shaking hands and swallowed a mouthful. Perhaps this man named Alster Rigas was right: she was weak, she needed strength, and with strength, everything would begin to come together.
She wasn't ready; at least, her body wasn't. No sooner did she swallow the mouthful of water that she gagged, unable to keep it down as her physical form was still coming to the slow realization that it was alive, and able to process food and drink again. "I can't... I'm sorry, I can't..." But the Rigas caster was understanding, and the healers knew better than to force food and drink on her in this state. "Everything feels wrong... I want to remember. I just... want to remember..." Drawing a shuddering breath, she clutched Alster's hand even tighter, as if to remind herself that he was real. He was here. "Don't leave. I don't want to be alone... I'm afraid to be alone. Please..."
Moments passed, as the Eyraillian princess willed her body into a more relaxed state, until at last she drifted into a light slumber, curled tightly in the fetal position and still gripping the Rigas Caster's hand like it was a lifeline. But as per Vitali's instructions, she was awoken a mere two hours later, for fear that she might slip back to the realm of the dead. When she opened her eyes this time, however, though still shadowed with trauma and exhaustion, their pale blue shone with just a little more clarity as she met Alster's watchful gaze. "You're Alster Rigas." Her voice was quiet and still mirrored her own uncertainty, but her hysterics had at least died down to a muted mystification. "I had heard Rigases were proud... and cold. But you are nothing of the sort." Pushing herself into a sitting position, Vega clutched the blanket around her body, aware and self-conscious of her nakedness. "Please.. can you... can you tell me what happened to me?"
Glancing to the bed next to her, the red-haired woman let out a gentle exhale at the sight of Haraldur, fast asleep, bare and bandaged chest rising and falling in slumber. "He is hurt... Did he..." She swallowed once, and exhaled to calm herself. "Did he get hurt because of me? It doesn't make sense; he was with Eris. He was protecting Eris, not me. I can... I thought I could take care of myself..." Evidently, she had been wrong. How much else, then, was she wrong about? Glancing downward in self-imposed shame, she noticed the pendant for the first time. Not the roc that Haraldur had carved out of wood; the dainty, precious pendant that the mercenary himself never would have parted with. So then, why... Why was it dangling from her neck? Before she could think twice, she removed Haraldur's pendant and painstakingly reached across to the adjacent bed. Her newly mended ribs ached with the effort as she laid the charm upon Haraldurs sleeping chest. "I'm... fine. But he... this was a gift from his mother. He needs it."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He worried for Vega. That her path would parallel his own. That she would lose years of herself, as he did when awaking from his farcical life. He still conflated memories from those dual worlds, filling in the blanks when he could make little sense of the flow of events. He remembered much of the past several years, and of his childhood, but the space in between, the moments with his parents as they explored the larger world... it was all a blur. And they were not around to give him a detailed account of those stray forty years of exile. Perhaps, in time, he would recover those jumbled memories. He had, after all, lived a longer life than Vega. It would take a while to sort out the conflicting timelines. But the Eyraillan royal was already piecing together the fragments of her world with an impressive rapidity, recalling her roc's name and Haraldur's name with no prompting at all. She is stronger than me. More capable, he thought. She'll find her way back. They both will. He peered sidelong at Haraldur, where Elias was, indeed, bandaging the arrow wound in place of using magic. Strange. Did the mercenary really exhibit magical resistance of that caliber?
Before he could ponder the unique qualities of the enigmatic warrior, he snapped his attention back to Vega when she, in a burst of renewed energy, had tried to vault from the bed in a bid to locate her fearsome steed. "You will see her soon!" He called over her plaintive cries for the roc--Aeriel. "I promise! But she needs to rest, too. You both need the time to heal." He wrestled his hand in hers, trying to steady the distressed Skyknight, but she had resettled into the bed, distracted by the blanket, which seemed to placate her. Even though she did not take the water, and spurned the food, he was relieved, at least, that she had found a modicum of stability in the tumult that spun like a wayward vortex around her head. And even when she tightened her grip on his hand with a vice-like squeeze that agitated his already bleeding incisions, he knew that he could not deny her the company. In fact, he was so starved for the attention, himself, that he closed his aching fingers over her hand, and nodded gently. "I won't leave. I'm here. Don't worry..."
He whispered those assurances until she eventually drifted into sleep. Though her brow was knotted and bunched with the wrinkles of her terrific ordeal, she had drifted, at least, into another sort of limbo. A living one, as evidenced by the steady rise and fall of her chest. And he watched as those wrinkles slowly disappeared. He, too, closed his eyes, inviting the warmth of another human touch, thrumming and beating beneath a hand that he had shredded so wantonly that he was surprised it could feel anything other than the raw ache of his afflictions. He, too, almost drifted into that infinitesimal, yet euphoric sensation of life, of living, of being alive, but a muffled voice in the background had stirred him back to full alertness. He opened his eyes, tracing the source of the mutter. Elias, hunched over Haraldur's bedside, hand to his mouth with a near perpetual expectation of catching coughs from conception to inception, continued his monologue.
"I have only seen few other cases where a patient could not take in magical healing, and even so, he was not completely impermeable. This man...his body accepts not even the slightest..." He paused when he saw Alster peering out from his vantage point on Vega's bed, and sighed his frustration. "All people exhibit some form of magical resistance," he continued, waving his hand to include the curious Rigas into his commentary. "But never to this extent. It is as if his preexisting ability has been tampered with. Bolstered. Made stronger. It seems almost unnatural, but all the same, complete. Somehow." He looked at the unconscious warrior greedily, as if he were a specimen.
Alster coughed, to awaken the man from his reverie. "It's not 'complete,' as you say. His mind can be accessed. I've done so to speak to him in dreams." Then, as an afterthought, "A Sybaia can probably heal his wounds."
Elias, predictably, responded with gruff, stern silence, and wandered away from the sick beds. He did not make it very far before collapsing into one nearby. Luckily, the other healers were there to tend to his abysmal constitution, no doubt made worse by the frenzied spree of healing that he needed to conjure, in rapid succession.
Not long after the Clematis healer's fall, Alster decided to wake Vega. Bleary blue eyes sprang open at his firm jostle. Her hand moved against his with the shifting attitudes of her newly reconstituted body. He smiled when she spoke, her voice less wavering, her face more aware. With encouragement, he nodded at the utterance of his name. "I am, yes. But," a shine of playful defiance shone in his eyes, "not all Rigases are complete blowhards. Granted, most of them are. And maybe I'm not all that kind, either. It's just," his expression dropped as he looked at her with sympathy, "I've been in your place. Or something like it. I know the feeling. Waking up confused, your memories a scramble, unreliable and unhelpful...Nothing seems real. Nothing makes sense. You're gasping for air, unaware that you've been breathing in water the whole time...that it's been killing you, but it's the only way you know how to breathe now. And it takes everything you have...just to remember...to inhale...and exhale." His free hand placed itself over his throat, drawn by the desire to scratch. But he shook away his morose metaphor with a small, self-conscious laugh and ran that same throat-clutching hand through his hair. "Rigases are also known for their dramatics. I know I've inherited that in full."
They both glanced over at Haraldur, who was much in the same condition from earlier, asleep and with a strong, rhythmic breath. He would make a fast recovery--even without possession of his necklace. "Haraldur arrived here with your roc. You were draped over the saddle, severely wounded," he said, having thought over what to reveal about her demise, which she would discover--eventually. But not now. "Haraldur and I know each other. Not well, but...we share a connection. With Eris." He tested the unfamiliar name on his tongue. "I was the one who asked Haraldur to protect her. From my limited conversation with him, and through my own," he hesitated, looking down at his crushed right hand, "intuition, I...I'm certain she's alive. Anyway," he continued hurriedly, "he knew that the Rigas estate houses many capable casters, including the Clematis healer, Elias. That's why he brought you here, into our care. And," he directed his gaze to the dull gleam of Haraldur's necklace, which she had detached and delivered atop the mercenary's chest, "that's why he gave you that pendant. It contains immense protective energy. He wanted you to have it. ...To keep you safe."
"But," turning back to Vega, and realizing that she was, indeed, naked beneath her blanket, he reddened a little, and twisted his head away. "I...I should grab you some clothes. Yours are soaked through with blood, so...you'll have to contend with the garb of the proud and mighty Rigas elite." He quirked a smile, but not in her direction. "I hope you don't mind."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Then, he mentioned a name. One that resonated as familiar in her ears, but that she could not immediately place in her broken memory. Eris... Who was Eris? Vega struggled to picture the individual, but could only dredge up images of nothingness. "You and Haraldur... share an acquaintence? Did I... is it someone I should know, as well?" The answer was obvious by the expectant tone of his voice, along with the concerned microexpression that skittered across the Rigas caster's face. She could feel her own expression sink with worry. "It is, isn't it? Damnit Why... why can't I remember?"
The Skyknight rested her forehead against her knuckles, head pounding with the effort to sift through the fog in her brain. Everything hurt and nothing made sense, and as reassuring as thhis kind man's presence was, it could not take off that edge of fear that accompanied all the pieces of a puzzle in disarray, lost somewhere in the deep depths of her conscious mind. There was something... something that flickered into recognition behind her eyelids. Bright images that seemed almost too good to be true. "I remember... wait. I think I can recall something. I was with my mentor--the man who taught me to command a roc. I thought... I could have sworn he had died years ago. But I feel that I stood with him, recently. We were on the precipice of one of Eyraille's cliffsides, his roc with him. And he... he invited me to ride with them. I accepted, climbed onto the bird's back, and the sunset... it was breathtaking. Beyond that, I remember nothing. Perhaps... it could be that I merely dreamed it..." Dismissing her reverie, she looked up into Alster's face again and sighed.
"I am making no sense whatsoever... am i?" An apologetic look spread across her tired face, and she rubbed at her eyes with a fist. "Yes... of course, I'd appreciate something to wear, if it isn't too much trouble... thank you."
Waiting patiently for his return, the Eyraillian princess pulled her knees to her chest and wracked her brain for answers that she wasn't sure she had. Eris... why was that name familiar? Who was this person? Someone who Haraldur had sworn to protect, and who Alster desired to protect... they must have been important. They--
At last, recognition washed over her like cleansing water, putting her rapidly beating heart at ease just a bit more, as Alster returned with clothes draped over his arm. "Thank you," she murmured, taking the pale blue gown, pulling it over her head just after the Rigas caster turned his back to leave. "Wait, Alster," she besought, before he could fully depart the infirmary. "I... think I can remember. Eris, that is."
Pulling the garment down past her knees, she attempted to stand, placing a hand on the wall to steady her painfully stiff legs. "Eris came to Tadasun from Stella D'Mare. Haraldur was her only ally... I know how it feels to be alone in a crowd, so I reached out to her. She seemed... distant. Something always weighing on her mind... It was you, the one who has been looking out for her all along?" A touch of a smile graced her face. "To have sustained such loyalty from people like you and Haraldur... she must be a far more incredible person than I have yet had the chance to fully know. That charm should be dangling around her neck, not mine. She deserves the protection..."
But there was something more in Alster's green eyes. More than mere camaraderie from one battle partner for another; a warmth, when she mentioned Eris's name. He cared for her beyond a level that he was perhaps willing to admit--and that she had been willing to admit. Something profound and sacred...
So, whyever would she have left him behind?
"I can take you to her, if you like. To Tadasun... when my memory has returned and have regained my strength." Her small smile broadened into something hopeful. "You can ride with me upon my roc--she is all right, isn't she? Well enough to fly? I think... it would benefit Eris to see another familiar face. Someone who cares about her well-being, no less. What do you say?" Reaching out, she lay a feeble hand upon his shoulder. "One favour deserves another... I'd like to be of use to you, if I can be."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Vega," he said, his voice almost melodic in its gentle cadence, "don't force the memory. It will only frustrate you further. Give it time. What helped me when I had trouble remembering," he slid his hand from her hold as he made to stand, "...I sang. Mainly lullabies from my childhood. Not only will it calm you, but it focuses the mind and facilitates recovery. For me, anyway." A small smile crossed his face. "At the very least, it made me a better singer. Marginally."
Before he turned to leave, she mentioned her "reverie," and Alster tried not to bite his lip. It sounded more like she was about to cross into absolution. They had reached her as she about traversed the the sunset upon her mentor's roc. Were they moments delayed...she would have been lost forever. And the fact that she remembered something that, for now, seemed a jumbled up puzzle with a few of the pieces missing, meant that she would eventually arrive at some approximation of the truth. That she had died. He had to tell her before she reached the conclusion all on her own. Guiding her into that horrible realization was far better than her learning it though nightmares and fits of hysteria followed by a long, living oblivion, no better than death itself. But...it was still too early. Too soon. The time was not ripe, yet...when was it ever an appropriate moment to tell one they had suffered death?
Just as there was never a time that he could handle the news of Elespeth's near-death...at his own hands.
With a promise that he would return, Alster traveled to the far corner of the infirmary and rummaged through the storage closet, which was brimming with linens, towels, and clean rags. Finding a silken shift, a robe, and matching slippers, he presented the outfit to Vega and drifted from the bed so she could dress without worry. But at her call, he ceased all movements and, checking first to see if she was decent, turned back toward her. She mentioned Eris. So she was able to remember her affiliation with the woman...
Rounding on the Skyknight to act as a crutch to aid in her walking, he listened with rapt attention at her memory of Eris and smiled, though it hurt to do so--for behind that smile hid a measure of pain. The pain of longing. The pain of knowing...that it would all end for them, with swift surety. That he may never have another chance to hold her, to lift the burdensome weight from her chest that he no doubt had dropped there. To entwine their hands over their scars. To close lips and hearts and...and...
He lowered his blue-green eyes, the lids too heavy to keep level with Vega and her praising gaze. "She...she is," he managed in a soft, breaking whisper. "But," he hurried on in a much louder voice, "you deserve the protection as much as she does. Haraldur would not have given it to you otherwise. He--"
He silenced himself as his eyes widened at her offer to transport him to Tadasun's camp. Admittedly, he had thought about changing his strategy of fleeing Stella D'Mare the second he saw her roc appear on Rigas grounds. Already, he began conceiving of a plan where he, somehow, could make use of that great avian and take to the skies, flying high and fast...
But far. Well beyond Tadasun's camp. Out of Elespeth's reach. Out of anyone's reach, really. He needed to be alone, where no one could find or interrupt his sacrificial ritual. And yet...Elespeth had suffered so much due to his folly. If he wandered off to his death, without even bothering to tell her goodbye, then he truly was worthless, and undeserving of her love. It was her love of him, which had caused her so much hardship and agony. Therefore, it was his responsibility to lessen the strain that he had so selfishly plucked and pulled and stretched. To free her of him, if at all possible.
His eyes grew misty, then, and he closed them, just as Vega lay a hand of support on his shoulder--when it should have been the other way around. He should be providing her with the ability to stand. But he teetered in her grip, and he surely would have quavered more, but her show of strength, fresh out of bed, fresh out of death, inspired him to open his eyes and return her expression of hope and determination with one of his own.
"You know...you remind me of her. Eris. No wonder the two of you became friends. I thank you," he bowed his head, "...for helping to keep her safe. I'm sure she appreciates it, even if she hasn't said as much. But I...I would like that. To go with you to Tadasun. If it's...feasible." That was the most difficult venture to face them. Vega did not yet know that Alster could not leave the estate, or that he was under near-constant watch. Neither did she know that Adalfieri did not sanction her roc's arrival, and that Andalari would soon demand a reason for such flagrant disregard of the Rigas terms of surrender. Haraldur's stunt was, indeed, a serious breech in the farcical 'treaty' that Adalfieri had forged with Andalari. And then...there was Haraldur, himself. What would become of him? His actions could destroy whatever plans that the Rigas head was brewing into fruition--which meant that he may come to a great deal of danger.
Keeping such concerns to himself, Alster tilted his head at Vega. "But what of Haraldur? Can your roc carry three people? Could we all leave together? And oh," he nodded toward the half-closed infirmary doors, held ajar to allow the brisk autumn air to filter into the vast building, "would you like to see--Aeriel? If you keep to my side, and we walk slowly, it shouldn't be a problem for you. Though--I recommend you at least eat or drink something first, if you're able."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"I suppose... Eris and I do have some qualities in common," she mentioned, leaning on his arm as they very slowly made their way towards the entrance of the infirmary. Towards the sunlight that was already beginning to make her tired eyes ache. "Beyond both defying female norms, even. I... I wish I could recall more. These memories fade in and out... nothing feels concrete." With a humourless smile, she added, "I fear I might even begin to forget who you are if I do not see your face for some time... It's frightening. Knowing that one moment, recognition can be there, and the next..."
She trailed off, biting down on her lower lip to ground herself before her fluttering heart gave way to further panic and despair. The sunlight, brilliant and striking, all but made her flinch, enough to hide her face in the Rigas caster's shoulder, squinting so hard it made her temples hurt. Until she heard a shrill sound; the cry of some unnamed beast...
No. The beast had a name--she knew that cry. It belonged to...
"Aeriel--that is her, isn't it?" A shuddering sigh escaped her lungs, turning into a laugh as she dared to open her eyes. The roc stood before her, its gold eyes agitated and slim on patience as it was surrounded by armed men, all ready to stay it should it make a sudden move. Its feathers, a brilliant array of warm colours, glittered iridescent in the sunlight, a truly fierce and beautiful force of nature. It was as if Vega was looking upon her for the very first time, and yet, she knew her. Recognized the patterns of those feathers, and knew that she had a place upon the enormous avian's back.
Her first friend: that was what this bird was. And she couldn't be happier but to see her at a moment when she most needed a familiar friend.
A grateful laugh erupted from the Skyknight's throat. She wanted to throw her arms around the avian's large neck and nestle her face into Aeriel's feathers, but she could not yet recall the temperament of rocs--not even her own roc. And she did not want to take a chance at startling the dangerous skybound predator. "Aeriel... you're my Aeriel, aren't you?" Vega crooned as she slowly approached the bird. "My lifelong companion... you can help me. You can help me to remember myself. I know you can..."
Brazen and affectionate, she reached up to stroke the bird's vibrant feathers--but not before Aeriel reeled back, a piercing screech rushing from her massive lungs. She wouldn't let Vega touch her. "Shh, shh, it's all right--it will be all right, Aeriel!" The Eyraillian princess attempted to placate the roc, albeit in vain. "These people won't hurt you--or me, I promise. Look at me, girl; it's me. You know me. You know to trust me..." But her throat suddenly felt dry, and doubt dawned on her like a shroud of lead. "...don't you trust me? I'm... not mysel, girl, but I am still me. I am still... still..." Her eyes widened as her frantic mind grasped for her own, given name. Something she should have been able to recall without a thought. "Vega! I am still Vega... don't you know me? Please, can't you--"
Too bold, and too fast. The roc did not take kindly to her persuasions, to her advancing, to that raw fear mirrored in the eyes of the person who looked like her rider... but who smelled like death. A shrill cry, and Aeriel dragged her talons across Vega's cheek with such force that the Skyknight fell to the ground, where she stayed, in shock and in pain, until Alster pulled her to her feet, and back towards the infirmary. "Aeriel... don't you know who I am?" She demanded, tears streaking her cheeks and mingling with the blood that seeped from the lacerations across her right cheek. How can she recognize me? How can she possibly know who I am, when even I can hardly recall my own identity, beyond meaningless snippets of faraway memories?
"I am no one, without her," the once strong princess whimpered, her legs very nearly giving out before she made it back to her bed. "I am no one. Not a Skyknight, not a warrior, just... just some shadow without a past. She doesn't recognize me, does she? She doesn't recognize me because I... I am not me anymore. I am no one..." When the Rigas caster made to gently press guaze to her bleeding face, she turned away. "Go. Just... go, Alster. Let me be. I want to sleep... I need sleep..." It did not matter what she did or did not remember when her mind was preoccupied with reveries, floating on that unconscious tide of deep dreams.
She was about to like down and bury her bloodied face in the pillow, when a stain on her gown caught her eye. It was blood, that much was obvious, but it was the pattern in which it had imprinted itself on the textile that intrigued her. Perplexed, she tugged at the collar of her flimsy gown, exposing the carving which had yet to scab over. The rune upon her heart, something that she was only now noticing, during one of these brief moments of lucidity. Whatever it was, it was not a wound; no design so intricate could be accidental.
Shoulders trembling, Vega turned back to her Rigas comrade, pale blue eyes swimming with fear and confusion. "Alster..." His name was barely audible upon her dry lips. "What... what happened to me? I need to know... I need to remember what happened, or I will never remember myself again." With those last words choked by a sob, she reached for his hand. "Please... can you help me? Please..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
While wondering if Vega's visitation of her roc was a sound idea and if he should dissuade the Eyraillan royal from proceeding, they had both arrived at the fierce-eyed avian's pen--too late to withdraw. The resplendent bird, all ashine in gleaming gold and russet, owing to the scattered rays of the marine sun, appeared frightened by their presence. Aware that many animals did not fancy him, and that it was likely due to the distinct death essence of his chthonic magic, he withdrew from Vega, releasing his hold of her and retreating a few steps, hoping that his surrender would placate the roc. Unfortunately, he knew that he was not the problem. Aeriel's liquid gold eyes maintained their contact with Vega alone, and as the woman continued to appeal to her trusted mount, they contracted with fear. She screeched, quailing notes of terror so shrill, it rippled the air around them. Before he could reach to defend his charge in time, the roc reared back and swiped a talon forward, embedding scythe-like claws into Vega's cheek.
"Vega!" He raced to her side, while the Rigas guards persuaded the unruly roc within the parameters of her magically-activated pen. Helping the distraught princess to her feet, he urged her inside the infirmary, closing the double-doors shut with a blast of magic, which sounded with a clang and silenced the continuous shriek of the frenzied bird.
"She will be fine," he said, settling Vega back to her bed and rummaging through the closest medical station in search of alcohol and a gauze pad. As he tended to her wound, sterilizing the deep gazes and blotting away the blood, he recalled the scene from just moments ago, and with a silent bob to himself, confirmed his conjectures true: intense emotional situations could unseat her from reality, and from the very idea of the self. Of I. Me. Who am I?
He seemed to recall that he told Elespeth something very similar during their last and final encounter, when he chased her out of his life, possibly for good: I don't know who I am, anymore...
And I am not any closer in knowing. Perhaps I'll never know. But at least I'm not alone.
"Vega," he said, his voice soft, but strong. "You are Sir Vega Sorde. And I...I am Alster Rigas. No matter how unfamiliar these names sound on our tongues...they belong to us. These names tell the story of our lives. A shorthand into our memories. The key to our identity. If they disappear..." he trailed off, hesitating. With a shake of his head, he swiped away another welt of blood. "...We don't let them disappear. All right?" With his unoccupied hand, he spurred on small white, healing sparks of etherea, preparing to heal the bloody scratches on her cheek. But she had turned away from him, and wished him gone. "I'll let you sleep...but I'm also responsible for your recovery. At any rate, this is my fault. Let me at least clean my mess, Vega." He would say her name as many times as it took for it to sink into her mind. Managing to slap the gauze pad on her wound, he rose from her bed and was about to honor her request for solitude...until he saw her observing the blood-stained rune inscribed on her chest, with the ensuing question dangling on her lips. No. Not this soon, Vega. It's far too early for you to know.
But would he deny her request for answers, as others had done for him, back when he was so desperate for the truth? Yes, the discovery had ruined him, and stunted his rate of convalescence. He had lost his mind in the process, and all, including himself, were convinced that he would never function as an entire being. He existed as a space, an atmosphere, an abstract concept. Not flesh or blood or mind. Just...energy, floating without purpose or cognizance. However, he understood the raw necessity in her broken words. It was her right to know what had befallen her that day. This was his opportunity to ease her into the truth; if he denied her, then he no longer had any control over how and when she would inevitably learn of her death. And that unknown factor terrified him more than the actual revelation. How, too, could he ignore that plea for help? The sobs that racked her body? She was the woman who had lost it all, only to gain it back, but in the process, had lost even more than what she once had: herself. And if he could aid her in making sense of the senseless, in reclaiming the final piece of her that Death had held for ransom...it had to be done.
With a small, defeated sigh, Alster nodded his assent, and took her hand, holding it tight in his own, despite the pain of his rune-carved palm. "There is no delicate way to say this," he began, his eyes troubled as he looked at her sorrowed face. "It's true that Haraldur brought you here. But there's a reason he brought you to the Rigas estate specifically--and it's not wholly because of our healers." He scratched at his neck with his other hand, scraping his nails into thin flesh. "We only healed your body in full. Wiped away your lacerations, mended your broken bones and contusions, gave you blood...Actually," he interjected in his narrative, to point towards Haraldur in the next bed, "he donated a great deal of his own blood for you. He was already weak, with an arrow lodged in his side, but he refused to hear reason." His pointed hand returned to scratching. "We leeched away as much pain as we were able, but...the real damage was lodged far deeper. Unreachable, even in the most trained of healing hands. No...Haraldur took you here because," his scratching drew blood, "because he needed a necromancer. To...to revive you. Vega," he searched her pained blue eyes, "you were dead. That's why you had that 'dream' about your mentor. He was leading you into absolution. That's why Aeriel is frightened of you. She senses your residual death shroud." He did, as well. His chthonic magic reacted to it, wanted it for its own uses, but Alster kept the dangerous energies at bay. "I'm sorry, Vega...but that's the truth. You died...and we brought you back to life."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
And her body, scarred and sore and bloodied anew, inscribed with strange symbols that had not resulted of any natural cause, war or otherwise. And she could tell that Alster, whose conflicted face betrayed that he knew far more than he was letting on, had answers that she sought. "Alster... tell me, please. Tell me... tell me if there is something you know."
A sickening mixture of relief and concern churned in Vega's gut when the reluctant Rigas caster turned and took a seat upon her bed, clasping her hand in his own. It felt warm, against the trembling of her relatively chilled fingers... But that warmth did not reflect in his eyes. They swam with worry... and with regret.
You were dead.
At first, it was as if she did not hear or comprehend the words. Like they were too farfetched, too impossible to hold any actual weight in reality. Because people did not come back from the dead. You could not toy with death in such a way that it could be completely undone, nullified. So then why... Why would he say that? How...
You died... and we brought you back to life. No. No, that was not the answer. That was not possible... "Why... are you saying this?" Vega's azure eyes stung with tears, with hurt. As if Alster, whom she had already decided she trusted implicitly, had betrayed her. "Like this is... is some sort of joke? How can you... how could you mock my situation, so?" She didn't know Alster. She was unfamiliar with his sense of humour, or what tactics he might employ to lighten an otherwise heavy mood. But despite her denial of his words, something about his authentic demeanor insisted that they were not words he would speak lightly...
Her face reached a shade of pale that revealed the blue veins beneath her skin, panicked blue eyes searching the meaning behind his somber expression. "But... but... how?" Vega's voice trembled, its timbre barely above a whisper. Her hand trembled as it returned his grounding grip. "How could I... be dead? And then alive, all over again... I don't understand. I-I don't... how is any of this possible? And what does it have to do with the way I am now? With broken memories and... an no sense of self." Swallowing her grief, she allowed salty tears to trickle down her cheek and sting the cuts left by her roc's talons. "How can I even be sure I will ever be me again? With this... this shroud of death surrounding me..."
Better off dead; she could not shake the possibility that that thought rang true. Wouldn't it have been better to die and find herself--her whole self--in another time and place altogether, than to return to the world which she had left, only half of the person she was before? What virtue had Haraldur seen in dragging her from eternal sleep to suffer such uncertainties? He did not know.Certainly, he couldn't have known how the procedure would leave her, empty at heart...
Her chest heaved uncontrollable sobs as the Skyknight shrank in on herself, her unoccupied hand unconsciously clawing at the rune carved about her heart, tearing away the clotting and bleeding it anew. "What now? What, then? Do I... do I start over, a new, different person? Aeriel may never accept me as her rider again. And..." Forlorn, she turned her attention to the sleeping mercenary in the bed next to her. His chest rose and fell in gentle, steady motions, oblivious to the chaos surrounding the one he had so sought to revive. "Neither... neither may he. I might not be enough if I am not the person he remembers. I cannot even recall the person he remembers me to be. I can't... my name. What did you say it was?" A shuddering sob escaped her lungs. "Why have I forgotten? I can't... I cannot live like this!"
Before Alster could react, the distraught and traumatized Eyraillian princess sprung from the bed, making a beeline for a tray of instruments that had likely recently been cleaned from patching up Haraldur. The surgical knife in the middle, gleaming in the waning daylight, was too convenient to ignore, and she grabbed for it, prepared to put an end to this blasphemy, this once-was, once-again version of life...
No sooner had her fingers curled around the cool handle that they released--completely unbidden, and would not retrieve it, much though she tried. As if her hand had suddenly taken on a life all its own...
"How disappointing. Here I come to check up on my great success, only to find her trying to undo all that I painstakingly achieved." Vitali stood at the entrance of he infirmary, hands comfortably stuffed into the pockets of his violet waistcoat. His dark eyes centered on Vega, whose shocked expression came as no surprise. "Mind you, I never expected gratitude, but the very least you could do is keep that stubborn heart beating. I imagine it was difficult enough to patch up pysically, nevermind the necromancy."
"Who are you? What do you want?" Vega's demand was sharp and panicked. This man looked at her as if... as if he knew her. On a level that she herself could not even place. Was he yet another shadow of her past, then? Another featureless face that she ahd forgotten?
No. Much worse than that. "Me? Why, I was the simple key tool in your revival, my dear. I commanded your soul back to its body. And until you have rerooted in reality and tethered yourself, body and soul to this world..." He narrowed his eyes, ever so slightly. "It is well within my power to command more. Try to pick up that knife again; go ahead. Try."
She couldn't, try though she might--but Vitali was already well aware of that. So freshly torn from death's clutches, her waking soul responded to his will, to the timbre of his voice, and it could not pick up the weapon that she so wished to use to end her fractured life. Helpless and afraid, the once fierce Vega Sorde fell to her knees and crumpled, a pitiful heap of breathy sobs and trembling limbs.
The necromancer did not so much as bat an eyelash. "Relax; I am not so notorious as to abuse that power. And it will fade as the days heal that rune." He addressed his reassurance to Alster, who looked both none too pleased, yet greatly relieved for his intervention. "In the meantime: do us all a favour and keep a close eye on this one. The further from life they drift, the more unstable they return, at least for a time. I am sure you can empathize, on some level. Well, then."
Lips curling into a grin, he offered a shallow bow. "I will be back tomorrow to make note of her progress... or lack thereof. My advice? Shelter her. Do not prompt memories; the most important task is establishing her in the here and now. Everything else... well, we will have to hope that it will unfold in good time."
And then he was gone, just as silently as he had arrived.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Anticipating a swell, a spike, in her emotional levels, Alster leaned closer to the Skyknight and her failing well-being, reaching for her other hand--but she had retracted it and turned it towards her chest. He pressed against her wrist, his firm yank preventing her from exacting any damage to the rune-shaped wound beyond the scraping of skin. The blood flowed freely, but the shape, at least, was in tact, not widened or deformed by her picking. He feared that tampering with it in any way would spell her death, or worse. He managed to wrestle that wrist into both hands as he tried, best as he could, to command the situation.
"Listen, Vega. Vega!" He forced his face into her eye-path, forcing her against the headboard and shielding any attempts to escape with his body. "You will get through this! This is not a permanent state of mind. You are still you. Look at me." He hardly thought himself an ideal example, but he hadn't a choice. "How do I look to you? Do I seem sound of mind? My memories are also broken, Vega. But I am me. It's still possible. You will surmount this. Your death shroud is only temporary!" Or I will eliminate it myself, he almost said. His teeth ground against her wild undulations. He could not hold her at bay much longer; she was strong, and hysterical. "Vega Sorde!" He shouted over her cries, weakening against her struggling limbs, "Stay with me! I'll help you through this. You're not yet lost!"
But she had found a breach in his human shielding, and struck him off balance. He fell to the side, which allowed her the opening to make a dash for the scalpel on the nearby table. Before he could throw his hands to shoot a spell at the tray, or aim a concentrated air arrow to knock the knife from her possession, her hand dropped the instrument all on its own. At first he thought that she had done so of her own volition, finding a a sliver of clarity breaking through the cloud of all her doubt and fog. A dreadfully familiar voice piped up from the background, and Alster's eyes narrowed in reflex. He spun around and saw Vitali standing by the infirmary doors, his expression smug.
"You can...contro--" but he did not finish his outspoken thought, as he watched the exchange between necromancer and the woman who probably looked to him as nothing more than his arisen experiment, and therefore his to command. He hid a small spiral of etherea beneath his sleeve, in case Vitali chose to test out his puppetry skills, with her as his subject, but he was quick to allay Alster's worries. His spell dispersed, and all he could do was nod, as the other man vanished from the room. He could not help but wonder...if Vitali had been waiting for this moment to act, all along.
Shaking away the pinpoints of static that surged up and down his arms, he crawled over to the disconsolate Skyknight, and did for her what he had done once, for Elespeth. He took the shivering woman into his arms, closed his eyes, and sang her a lullaby. He sang until she stiffened. He sang until her tears dried. He sang until she fell into a silent heap, seemingly no better than she was before. At last, he terminated his song, and hauled her back into bed, brushing the sheets over her body and the rune-mark on her chest, which he had cleaned and bandaged out of sight. "You won't be alone," he told her unresponsive form in a tired whisper, looking about ready to keel over just as his predecessors, Haraldur and Elias, had done before him. Sitting at the far corner of Vega's bed, he looked over her...and scratched his neck until it was completely bloody.
The wind screamed in his ears. He saw nothing but muddied blurs, as if he were peering through smoked glass. Even though he could not hear beyond the wail, nor see beyond his nose, instinct had told him where to fly. They swerved through the sky, roc and riders, evading the arrow-fire, diving and climbing, only to dive again, pirouetting, rising, the rush of air pressurizing all around them. He tightened his hold on the limp woman, securing her position on the saddle as they danced all across the horizon, slaves to the fickle wind. Nowhere was safe but up. They were pummeled, but he he held fast. He felt the pump of the great roc's wings against his frozen cheeks. The sting of something bit his side. An arrow. The bloom of red, searing pain cleared his vision, all blurriness gone.
He saw her, then. The back of the once-living Vega Sorde. His entire purpose for traversing dangerous skies.
She was no longer limp in his arms.
Suddenly, her head swiveled toward him. Wide, dead eyes rolled up in her head, exposing only the whites. Skin fell off her face in swatches, exposing the bone and sinew. Her lips rotted away, exposing a wide, toothy grimace. The clatter of those teeth opened and shut, as if trying to form sound, but the decomposition tore at her throat now, eating at her vocal chords.
A sibilant hiss, instead, rattled through her bones, melding with the wind, streaming through his numbed, throbbing ears.
Now I can never die. Never. Never. Never.
A skeletal hand reached for him. He recoiled, losing his balance on the roc.
Never.
He fell, screaming through the sky, the ground rushing up to swallow him into a wide, unhinged jaw. Closer and closer and...
Haraldur gasped himself awake, sitting up so quickly that his head protested with agonizing blooms and a woozy spin that triggered a shortness of breath. As he sat there, panting, a glint of something slid from his chest and made a soft, tinny sound as it hit the ground. Curious, he looked over the side of his bed, reached down, and recovered a silver necklace with a circular tree pendant hanging from its chain.
Recognition swam back into his fuzzy, half-conscious state. He darted his head around the room, ignoring the whinging agony of his senses as he did so, and determined his location. The infirmary. The Rigas estate. He felt for his side, feeling the gauze of his wrapped arrow wound. And the necklace. He had given it to--
Then he saw her in his periphery. In the adjacent bed lay Vega, her eyes open, her chest leavening like bread in the oven...but no awareness registered on her features. Sitting in a chair at the head of her bed, Alster watched through heavily-lidded eyes, slumped and with only the halfhearted use of his elbows to prop his head and shoulders upright. He blinked, and noticed Haraldur. A wan smile ghosted across his face. "You're awake. Here." He reached for a tin of water and handed it to Haraldur. "Please drink. Please eat. She won't. She won't do anything at all."
He took the cup from Alster's wavering hands with a thankful nod and drank. He ate from the plate of grapes and nibbled at the cheese, but avoided anything hard on his jaw, which felt as if it had been punched and moved out of alignment. After a time, he ventured to speak. "Is she--"
"--It's all my fault," Alster interrupted, lowering his head into his hands. "I told her. I told her she had died and she....well," he pointed at the prone figure on the bed. "She's just like me now. How I was. And I don't...I can't reach her. I've tried my best to keep her grounded, but, but..." he grabbed fistfuls of his hair, but said nothing else as he shook his head again and again and again. Haraldur noticed that his throat was scraped raw, a collage of rust-colored red and fresh, oozing blood.
Haraldur tested his feet as he climbed out of bed. He had no idea how long he slept, but it couldn't have been for very long. The healers had dressed his naked body in a long, silken robe. It swayed as he swayed, overwhelmed as he was by vertigo and the bandaged tear at his side. Clutching the necklace in his hand, he used a surge of strength to anchor himself to the other side of Vega's bed. The hand which held the necklace lowered onto her shoulder. He set the pendant upon her chest, and released it from his fingers.
"Vega," her name expelled from his lips in a sigh. She was alive. Alive and breathing. But was her existence, her involuntary reentry into the world, the right choice? Should she remain in the limbo of an unnatural life, trapped in a world that perpetuated her suffering--all because he could not accept her death?
And what if--as unlikely as it sounded--she could no longer find peace in death? Or in life? Anywhere?
Never...
He had committed an act far worse than murder. He had destroyed someone's soul.
"Do you want to die, Vega?" He asked her, not expecting an answer. Alster looked at him, eyebrows knitting in concern as he saw the mercenary's stoic green eyes fill with moisture.
Haraldur backed toward his bed, uncovered his boots, which were deposited haphazardly on the floor, and pulled a dagger from inside of the closest one. He returned, unsheathing the small blade and pointing it to her chest, between the necklace and her bandaged rune-mark.
"Haraldur--"
"You were right," he said, his voice unwavering. "This was never a good decision. How could she live when her life has already been devoted to death?"
"She needs time to recover!" Alster snapped, rising from his chair. "I was there, once. She will come to. This is a process. Please, just help her!"
"What can I do?" he said, his words lost, uncertain...afraid. The dagger-point pressed on her flesh, but otherwise did not move. "There is nothing--"
"--Stay," he said, and nodded to the chair he had evacuated. "Try that, first. Just stay. And be there for her."
After moments of deliberation, he withdrew his dagger, and did as he was told.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
There was nothing. And it was pure bliss.
Hours passed, evening turned to night, and night to morning. From time to time, she became vaguely aware of voices, glimpses of faces, but could not follow what they were saying nor find the energy or motivation to respond, as if she had been afflicted by some waking coma. A hand would brush her arm, touch her forehead, and she was present for it, yet simultaneously absent. No pain, no pleasure, just the cloud upon which she drifted, its fog serving as a barrier between her and the whole world...
Even when another voice struck a chord of familiarity deep inside of her. A baritone, soft and concerned, but powerful--or at least, she could sense the power behind it. If only she could recall... If only she could place that special familiarity.
But she did not try. Only listened, a fly on the wall, a passive observer who couldn't really bring themselves to pay attention. Even at the faint touch of something cold and sharp on her flesh, the Eyraillian princess didn't so much as blink in response. Whatever happened was meant to happen, and she had no part in it, because she refused to take part, lest it interrupt that blissful state of numbness from which she refused to budge...
It finally occurred that at some point, the young woman's eyes fell shut, and she drifted from blurry reality into a world of equally blurry dreams. Pictures no clearer than her broken memories flickered across her inner vision, accompanied by strange sensations that stirred something alive in her dormant core. The brush of someone's lips against her own, a warm hand against her cheek, and warm, green eyes...
And then, entirely out of the blue, she was drowning, yet in the absence of any water. Her lungs burned for air, and her body thrashed, fighting against some unknown force. She reached for help, but there was no one there in the darkness. She was all alone, and she was going to--
A hand grasped hers and gave a sharp tug. Seconds before she felt as though she might give up, her head breached the surface of the darkness, fresh air rushing into her desperate, aching lungs. Coughing and sucking in deep breaths, she registered a face in her speckled vision: a warm one, a kind one, with green eyes and from whose throat dangled a silver pendant that she knew she had seen once before...
"I know you," she breathed, reaching out to touch the face--a man's face--with her fingertips, tracing the curve of his cheekbone, his lips... "You... you saved me..."
Vega opened her eyes without warning. The room was still, quiet, the rays of a late-morning sun spilling gold across the thin, cream sheets draped over her body, and she welcomed the silence for the painful throb in her temples, a sharp jabbing that pulsed with every heartbeat. Her mouth and throat felt dry and raw, every muscle in her body tender and stiff. How long had she been asleep? Lying stationary on that bed, completely unmoving, oblivious to the world around her?
Perhaps they can tell me... The dark blur in her peripheral vision alerted her that she was not all alone in the solitude of the near-empty infirmary. Against her better judgement, she twisted her stiff neck to get a better look.
That face--that man, the hand that had reached for her, that had saved her in her dream. He was here, barely awake, but there nonetheless, watching over her. Curiously, her heart fluttered with an odd feeling; a warmth and a pain, yet comforting. Hopeful. "I know you." The words that slipped past her dry lips appeared to startle the man into full wakefulness, his green eyes widening, fixing on her face. Though the muscles in her cheeks ached, she could not help but smile. "You're important to me. You... saved me. You saved my life... didn't you?"
Arms trembling, Vega pushed herself into a sitting position, gritting her teeth against the ache that spread through her limbs. She felt so terribly weak... when was the last time she had eaten or had water? "I'm sorry... I am so sorry. That I can't remember your name..." Genuine apology glimmered in her blue eyes. Of all the things to forget, the name of the man who saved her life--however he had gone about it--was beyond lacking in gratitude. And yet, she was so grateful, her chest practically swelled with it. "I will... I'm sure. I will remember everything, eventually... won't I? Maybe... maybe you can... even help me to remember."
She reached for his hand, covering his knuckles with her slender fingers, in hopes that some semblance of recollection would return to her at a touch. It did not; but, unlike when she had first awakened, it did not appear to concern her at all. It was possible that the princess's catatonic lapse had been a blessing in disguise; another chance to rediscover herself and her world, but this time, grounded by familiarity. Beyond familiarity, even, for although she could not for the life of her recall why, there was one thing she knew for certain. "I think that... I don't know why. But I think I might... love you."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Whatever news Alster had uncovered outside the infirmary doors, he chose not to say, electing to focus his conversation on Vega, her recovery, Haraldur's wellness, and a few inquiries concerning Tadasun's camp. Namely, he asked after Elespeth, who the mercenary assured was alive and faring fine, and in fact was looking after Tivia Rigas.
Alster blinked, a cross between surprise and relief. "Tivia is alive? How is she?"
"Half of her face is burned off, and she's manic much of the time. But Elespeth has been helping her. Lending a hand of companionship."
A small, pleased smile crossed Alster's haggard features. "Good. I'm glad." His smile dropped when he glanced over at Vega, who had since fallen asleep, her breathing a rhythmic trance that belied the flurry of her panic only days before. "Don't let her sleep too long." He felt her forehead, checking for ague. With a nod of approval, he turned and exited out of the infirmary.
Aside from the both of them, the infirmary was occupied by the Clematis healer, in a bed far across the vast chamber, and attended by two other healers, but they had kept to themselves and drew a sheet around Elias's bed, for increased privacy. He wondered if the healer had died, and if they were conferring with each other ways in which to entice the necromancer's aid.
Vitali...Thoughts of the self-assured mage-for-hire filled him with a mix of anger, disgust...and a strange shade of gratitude. Without the man's bought services, Vega would not have been given a second chance at life. However...anger and disgust drove his attitudes primarily, as he was now convinced that no one should harness the power of resurrection. The dead should stay dead, no matter how much the abandoned would pine for his lover to rise again. Haraldur often wished for such ability when he felt at his lowest. To see Klara, Arina, his mother, even his father--all those refugees dead and buried under the base of the mountain, the last hurdle before their well-earned freedom...
But he never factored in the feelings of the dead. That, perhaps, they did not want to return. That returning against their will would rend their souls in two, and their living counterpart would subsist as a mere ghost, too disconnected to find any meaning in a place that stopped existing, as they did. Would Vega surrender again to Death's embrace, too fractured, too split, to survive another day? And, were she ready to reject her prison of the soul, could he release her? Could he really twist the blade into her heart, and watch as she stilled a second time? It was, after all, his fate to watch loved ones die. And now that he had cheated his fate, the only way to placate the wrath of the universe was to sever her frazzled threads of life. To saw her free. Death was a release, her release, one for which he had yearned to partake, and he had so callously taken it from her--because why? Jealousy? Anger at whatever resentful gods roosted high in the heavens, laughing at his ill luck? Fondness?
...Love?
He didn't realize he had lowered his eyes into a half daze until he heard three tentative words drift into his ears.
I know you.
He snapped to attention, and settled his gaze on the bed. On Vega, whose open eyes were trained on him, conscious and aware of his presence, but not of his significance to her. His name was forgotten on her lips, and perhaps it was for the best. He was always, after all, Nameless. Her faulty memory would not accommodate him. He could use it to his advantage, tell her that she was mistaken, excuse himself and slip away, disappear from her familiarity until he was nothing more than a stranger. I am nothing to you. Not important at all.
But then she grabbed his hand, and spoke the words that stymied his mind into stillness. I might...love you.
His hand tightened around her wrist. And then his thoughts surged forward, a flood that he could not stopper or control. No. No, Vega. Why are you grateful that I stole you from death? That I am the reason you suffer? Why even think about loving me?
But he could not express such feelings aloud. Instead, he cleared his throat, grabbed for the tray of food and water on the table, and offered her a tin filled with the liquid. His necklace, which he had left at her bedside, seemed to watch him with a sentience that almost seemed alive. He ignored the otherwordly gleam of his mother's old keepsake, and focused on the lost woman at his side. "Vega, please drink." He guided her fingers to the tin, folding each digit over the containment until she held it independent of his touch. "It will help you return to a state where you can remember. Just worry about regaining your strength, and all else will start to make sense." As she listened to his advice and began to drink from the tin, he said, though uncertain about revealing anything of their history to her, "You know me as Haraldur. But I don't remember my name, either. So," a small, painful smile reached his lips, "that makes two of us, doesn't it?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
She waited as he poured her a fresh glass of the refreshing liquid, which she drank just as quickly, her thirst near unquenchable after days of neglecting her newly revived body's physical needs. After a third refill, she put the tin down at last, azure eyes searching the man's familiar face. His face betrayed weariness and hardships endured, but there was nothing but kindness in his warm green eyes. Eyes that in which she was certain she could both lose and find herself. She knew those eyes, there wasn't a doubt in her mind... Their glimmer triggered something deep in the recesses of her broken memories. Feelings, sensations that had no roots... Not yet, anyway.
"Haraldur." She tried the name on her tongue. It tasted as familiar as it sounded, and brought a faint smile to her lips. "It is lovely, even if it is not your true name... I can't seem to remember mine, either. It is as if it's on the tip of my tongue, but it is a part of my tongue that I am not able to access..." A small, low chuckle--the first since she had risen from the dead--shook her shoulders. "We have that much in common, I suppose... Until I can remember my given name, you can feel free to call me whatever you want. "
Looking down at the blanket covering her knees, her fingers picked at the thin fabric. "Unless... you already know my name?" The weary princess looked up at the mercenary with tentative hope, yet her eyes still mirrored an intrinsic confidence that suggested she knew she was right. "I was dreaming... and in my dream, I was drowning. At least, I think I was... I couldn't breathe. It was so dark, I couldn't find my way out of it, but then... someone grabbed my hand. Pulled me out of the darkness, and I could breathe again. And I saw..." Pausing, she trailed her fingers up to his face, just like she had done in her dream. Traces his cheek and brow bone. "I saw your face, Haraldur..."
So she is lucid... calmer. That is progress, at least. When Vitali next went to check the progress of his latest resurrection, he kept his distance, observing her from afar just outside the entrance of the infirmary. From what he could make out with the door slightly ajar, she was still amnesiac, having lost much if not all of what she had remembered from before, but her awakening this time around was far less harsh. So he maintained his distance in an effort to sustain her stabler mood, intrigued by her interaction with the mercenary. "She doesn't remember him... and yet, she knows him," he murmured to himself, his mouth twisting with curiosity. "Interesting."
Stepping away from the door, the necromancer shot his arm out sideways, blocking the advance of the person behind them. "She is awake--and calm, at the moment. If I were you, I wouldn't disturb that." He turned his head, glancing sidelong at Alster Rigas. The man looked as though he hadn't slept a wink since the two newcomers had arrived on the back of a giant Avian just days before. He really was taking this task upon himself more heavily than he probably should have; after all, it had been Haraldur who had requested his special services to revive the Eyraillian woman. The responsibility should have resided with him alone, injured or not; Vega Sorde was breathing because of his decision, after all. "She seems to be doing well with the mercenary. Let us leave it at that for the moment; I fear that any further interference at this point will be more of a hindrance that a help. A darn shame, too..."
Vitali turned on his heel and clasped his hands behind his back, nodding for Alster to follow. "How closely are we being watched?" He asked first, his lips hardly moving to the sound of his hushed voice. Taking note of Alster's quiet response, a curt nod of his head that signaled Lilica's half-brother to proceed, he draped a casual arm across the Rigas caster's shoulders. "Now, if you want her to make a full recovery, listen carefully to my advice." Speaking at an exaggerated volume, to sway any eavesdroppers into thinking they were still discussing Vega's well-being, he steered Alster away from the heavily populated roads and paths, until he was satisfied that they were not in danger of being heard.
"I have been thinking: that roc of hers could make for a very convenient getaway, don't you agree?" Dark eyes trained on the horizon, analyzing, calculating. "The trouble is, the beast is so bonded to its rider that it will not soar unless our Eyraillian princess is upon its back. Even magic cannot control it; rocs are notorious for being too headstrong and stubborn. Hence why Eyraillians have spent centuries trying to find the best way to tame them. So," dropping his arm from Alster's shoulders, he folded both across his chest, "it stands to reason that we will need this woman's full recovery, if it will resist her until death's fingerprints have disappeared from her completely. But all that aside, it leaves one final conundrum. And that is,"
He turned, standing in front of Alster and arching an inquisitive brow. "Who? Which of us shall accompany the Skyknight out of this large prison, and how might that person find liberty for those of us left behind? I am opening up this conversation for your input, you see." Vitali spoke as if by letting Alster have any say whatsoever, he was, in fact, being charitable. "You might be a fool, Rigas, but you are at least an honest one. Which is the only reason why I open myself now to your suggestions, and their reasons."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Relinquishing the food tray to her, he saw that she was less interested in the meal and more interested in him. Her eyes were luminous, like sun crystals in the water, and he shifted a little in his chair from the intensity of her unerring stare. She regarded him with curiosity and interest, like a housecat who had discovered a new, non-threatening object in the room. But there was no recognition: only the desire to know him. The sorry condition of her memories, both long-term and short-term, put him ill at ease. What if she lived the rest of her days with such debilitating amnesia, never able to place what she had said ten seconds ago, let alone recall the duties to her nation and to the whole of her army? And he alone was responsible for what she became. What could he do? Did he care for her, a position he had not fulfilled since Thora and before that, Klara? Did he fly her to Eyraille and leave her under the watch of her brother, the already resentful king? Or did he end her life mercifully, relieving her to a fate already intended for her, which had already happened, and which he had disrupted and damaged?
Would she return to some semblance of normalcy, or did he well and truly alter her life for the worse?
He owed it to her to at least try to help her recover what she had lost.
"Your name is Vega Sorde. Sir Vega Sorde," he said, returning the empty water pitcher to the table. "You are the princess of Eyraille. You command the Skyknights. Your roc, Aeriel, is with you. We rode here to Stella D'Mare upon her back. Your brother, Caris, is the king of your nation. You are here as an ally to Tadasun. You and your men are fighting against Andalarian forces. I," he hesitated, "am your loyal subject."
The words sighed out of his mouth when she placed the pads of her fingers on his face, brushing against his cheeks and temples, mapping out his features through touch, as if she were blind. He did not stop her tactile roving and remained still, adopting his Forbanne sense of unshakable response. Feel nothing, he told himself, urged himself. I am stone. Nothing moves me. Nothing...
"That's understandable," he said with a detached, almost disembodied air. "Your dream. We knew each other, before your accident. Can you remember anything at all? Even if what you can recall seems trivial," his tone became more encouraging, "tell me what you know. I'll help where I can." Unless...it's about us, he thought, lowering his eyes to his necklace upon the table. That part...should remain dead.
Alster dared not even daydream about sleep.
It had been two days, and he had not given himself any significant amount of recuperation. There was too much for him to do, and if he surrendered to his baser needs, what would occur beyond his closed lids? Would Andalarian forces invade the estate? Would Vega regress, and undergo a second death? Would the Serpent destroy the blood seal, and slither out of Its den? The world would continue on, despite his state of consciousness. Better to stay awake, to keep alert, than to sequester himself in a closed-off space, silent to the cries that would never cease.
Eventually, he knew that he would need to rest. Already, his steps became more languid. His mind, unfocused and muddled, raced from one idea to the next, and his heart was a constant badump-thump-thump against his rib-cage. Hands twitching, mouth consistently dry, head spinning and thoughts afloat, he drifted from one issue to another, taking in all required information, but remembering nothing of the in between moments, the transition from one errand to the next.
In those days between watching after Vega and searching for any news on the Rigas slight against Andalari's "reasonable" demands of surrender, Alster had rebandaged his fresh wounds, spoke with Chara, visited with Lilica in dream (the only time he had gained any reasonable amount of sleep), and checked the infirmary for the status of not only Vega, but of Elias, who was barely conscious and sinking further and further into fevered delirium.
On his fifth trip to the infirmary that day, he was stopped at the door by none other than Vitali. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows, narrowing his bloodshot eyes. It was pure reflex that caused his expression to sour whenever he so much as looked upon the cocksure necromancer. Though the man had been helpful, in his own, self-serving way, every encounter with the him always yielded unpleasant results. Therefore, even with the his sharing of positive news, Alster did not smooth his restive expression.
Peeking his head through the infirmary doors, to see for himself if Vitali spoke the truth, he stepped away after spotting Haraldur and Vega at the far end of the chamber, chatting with each other and drinking water. With a silent, approving nod, he followed the necromancer away from the building, surreptitiously casting his muffling spell in the space around them.
"My regular guards have been kept busy by recent events," he said, but he darted his eyes to and fro, to confirm his certainty. "Haraldur's disruption has really bought me some well-needed privacy. But I'm forever cautious." He tensed under the necromancer's touch, but played along with the charade until they were well out of earshot and concealed between a stand of bushes in the vast garden. While he had innumerable questions concerning the mage's grandiose show of resurrection and his frightening control over the awakened dead, other discussions had more priority, and he dealt with them accordingly.
"I have pondered that, yes," he agreed, running an absent-minded hand over the prickly needles of the well-manicured hedge. "Haraldur can ride that roc, if need be. Though, now that the avian has seen her rider enshrouded in death energy, she's become very feral. Unhinged and out of control. I may have a solution, though." He looked down at his bandaged hands, twitching the fingers experimentally. "I can leech that shroud of death from her, and take it into myself. I dare not implant it into this cursed earth, with the Serpent so near."
His head bobbed wearily at Vitali's next question, ready for the answer that he had been turning over in his mind ever since Haraldur's arrival on the roc. "I'll go. There's something that I'm sure only I can do. I will re-bind the Serpent, but I can only perform this ritual remotely. If successful, there will be no need to move any other chthonic casters out of this city. But we need contingency plans." He turned his eyes towards the main house, where Lilica was imprisoned. "Lilica is safest here with you all. Chara and Lysander are working on ways to smuggle her out of the estate and the city. With your so-called ease and mastery of stealth, it should be no problem for her, and for other chthonic casters, should you choose to lend your assistance." A contemptuous smile pursed his lips together as he clacked against his change-purse. "Do you need further incentive?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
He, on the other hand, cared for no one, and unless his efforts directly or indirectly benefited him, his interest in lending assistance was null and void.
"Why, Rigas, I am always open to more incentive," he drawled, returning his attention to the wretched looking caster. "But in this case, I already have an arrangement at stake, should I decline any further aid." He was, of course, referring to Haraldur. Leaving the mercenary to the fate of the damned city led to the possibility that collecting from the man would be impossible, should it spell his untimely death...
His services never went without adequate payment of his own approval. And if he wanted to ensure that, then his aid in this great escape would be necessary. Alster, of course, knew as much.
"On the contrary, my sister isn't safe anywhere. Not from the Serpent. And certainly not from her miserable self," the necromancer scoffed with a shake of his head. "She is doomed, one way or another, I am sure. But I suppose there are others who would benefit from my skills, and as an act of good faith on your part, I will be of assistance where I can. Otherwise, I will leave the detention of the Serpent in your capable hands." He was curious as to what remote procedure Alster claimed only he could perform, but decided not to pry. After all, he would find out eventually. Nothing of that magnitude could ever surpass his keen attention.
The Rigas caster was powerful; capable, perhaps more than he realized. But Vitali was not ignorant of it.
With a grin that was eerily serene, Vitali nodded his assent to Alster's plan to hasten Vega's recovery; though unfortunately, it was not quite as simple as the Rigas caster thought. "Very good. This should all work out for the best, although I must caution you that interfering with the Eyraillian woman's newly resurrected state so early in her revival." That smile faded ever so slightly, to emphasize the heavy gravity of the imperative warning. "Lift the shroud if you see fit, but not before she remembers herself all on her own. She is still sifting through reality and trying to make sense of what happened; until then, that shroud buffers her to some extent from further trauma. Tearing it away before she has managed to ground herself could result in permanent memory loss, past and short term. Do tread lightly, Alster."
"Sir... Vega Sorde." The Eyraillian princess tested the name on her tongue, every syllable slow and deliberate, to see if it felt right. It did; once again, familiarity broke through the surface of the fog. "A Skyknight..." Closing her eyes, she reached for those strange, tangible memory fragments that attached to no source. Something soft beneath her fingers, a sensation that she recognized as being frequently experienced... "Feathers." Vega let out a small laugh. "I remember feathers... the feeling of feathers between my fingers. It must be my roc that I am recalling... al feathers, amber and gleaming. And... eyes. Golden eyes, am I right?"
She searched Haraldur's face for an answer, and smiled with satisfaction when his otherwise stoic expression confirmed she had remembered correctly. "So Andalari... is an enemy. And you, Haraldur... If you are my loyal servant, as you say, do we fight together? I feel as though we do. More than that, I feel..." With her cognitive faculties sharpening, the Skyknight was no longer oblivious to embarrassment, and the idea that she and this man shared more than allegiance... It felt too soon. And she was only making a fool of herself to propose such unfounded assumptions. "I'm sorry... forget I ever said anything." Her smile was apologetic, and uncharacteristically shy. "It is a relief to awaken to a familiar face, at least... I hope you can forgive the inconsistencies in my memory."
Which only led her to another question. Testing a piece of fruit on her tongue, Vega's pale brow furrowed with thought. "So, where... is this Eyraille, then? I'm sorry, but none of these surroundings seem at all familiar to me..." The cream-coloured walls, the line of beds, the high ceiling and limited windows... none of it struck a chord with her. In fact, something about it seemed inexplicably... wrong. "I can only assume I must have been hurt... and that you brought me here to recover. What else would cause amnesia to this extent?" When the fruit did not disagree with her stomach, she attempted a piece of bread, suddenly aware of how ravenous she was. "Whatever happened, I know I have you to thank for saving my life, Haraldur. I owe you a great debt."
More than what she could ever repay. He must have known that; his loyalty truly knew no bounds.
With that in mind, Vega felt reassured and secure. Her cerulean eyes glimmered with shards of hope. "How long have I been lying here...? I'd like to get up... move around. I won't get my strength up remaining in bed."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"You have my good faith if I have your word," he said, holding his hand out as a symbol of their agreement, despite all past differences. "We'll reconvene once I have a solid plan, and figure out your role in that plan. I assure you, your contribution will not be a boring one. In the meantime," he lowered his hand as he dragged his overburdened eyes towards the infirmary, "I'll try and expedite Vega's recovery. Until then," he bowed out of their conversation, and made his way to Chara's villa, to continue discussing their strategies for Lilica's escape.
Then, he promised himself, he would sleep. For an hour or two, at least.
Instead of incurring Adalfieri's punishing gaze and his clucking tongue of disappointment, Chara enjoyed a rather unexpected show of praise from the Rigas head, as she stood in his hall, awaiting appraisal.
"In mine and the council's absence, you took charge," he told her with a favorable spreading of hands upon his favorite chair. "Commendable leadership, Chara. Your gumption contributed in resurrecting Sir Vega Sorde from her grave. Eyraille is our ally by proxy, even if we choose to play ignorant for the sake of Andalari's peace of mind. The Skyknight princess, once she convalesces in full, will not forget our hospitality and will report to her king the kindness of our family."
"Yes, that is all well and good, Esteemed Adalfieri," Chara said, leaning all her weight on one leg, "but--and you will excuse me in saying so--what of Andalari? They are bearing down at our gates, demanding to speak to us regarding the violation of our truce. They are threatening war on us, with no quarter, and on these hallowed grounds!"
Adalfieri waved a placating hand, silencing Chara's outspoken frustrations. "We cannot yet recommence war with Andalari. We are far too weakened, and they have the upper hand on us. We must, therefore, kowtow to their demands, but all the same, conceal our involvement with the Eyraillan princess." He reached for the wine goblet, which sat on a table beside his chair, matched also from the same driftwood pattern. "To keep her safe from Andalari's grasp, we must offer someone in her place."
"The mercenary?"
Adalfieri nodded, taking a sip of the heady elixir. "Andalari is not aware of the mercenary's high-profile passenger. They only know of the mercenary. We play down his importance, claiming he is a rogue and a dissident who took off with a roc with the express purpose of laying waste to our family. We apprehended him, and killed the roc in self-defense."
Chara's mouth twisted with distaste. "We are killing the roc?"
Adalfieri chuckled in his wine goblet. "Of course not. We want to maintain our budding relationship with the Eyraillan princess. No, we conjure an illusion, or inject the avian with a heart-stilling potion, to convince and fool Andalari that the roc has been eliminated. Then, we hand over the prisoner, and our neighbors kindly overlook this err in our otherwise ironclad truce." He smiled with theatrical enthusiasm. "Under cover of night, and your father's concealment charms, we send Sir Vega Sorde and her noble mount on their way back to Tadasun's camp."
"What if," Chara considered, "Andalari chooses to keep the 'dead' roc's body? As some sort of macabre trophy? Roc feathers are very valuable."
His smile became sly. "They will not want the avian if they believe it has been melted into disfigurement by an errant fire spell."
Chara could not help but return his expression of utmost confidence and resolve with one of her own, though it wavered some.
"Now," Adalfieri clanked his goblet upon the table and threaded his hands together, in a cat's cradle, "for your alacrity, integrity, and loyalty...I do believe your friend, Lilica D'Or, is in want of company."
Haraldur watched as Vega whisked her fingers through the air, her eyes closed, a serene smile on her face as a result of whatever strings of memory she had plucked. Unbeknownst to him, he also smiled as he pretended to ride on that roc with her, feeling the rush of the wind, the openness of the world, the gut-flipping, yet invigorating dips in elevation...
The arrow wound in his side, the fight for survival in the skies, the mad descent through the clouds, the screaming of the world as he dropped, surrendered and waited for an absolution...or a dissolution.
The smile fell from his face, but he still held fast to his encouragements, and nodded emphatically at Vega's question. "She is a dear friend of yours. She fell out of her nest, and you took her in. You've been inseparable ever since." Knowing that he could not take her to see Aeriel, as the avian's adverse reaction invariably led to her days' long catatonia, he rummaged through his pocket and withdrew the blood-stained roc-carving on its leather thong. He had taken it from her during her resurrection process, believing it to be unsalvagable, but he had collapsed from exhaustion before he was able to discard it. It was useless rubbish, anyhow, carved by inexperienced hands--and it did not protect her on the battlefield. At least it could serve him some purpose, now.
Haraldur handed the carving over to Vega. "It's a crude likeness, I know, but your roc looks something like this. Here, take it." He pooled the offensive thing into her open palms, and returned to his position on the chair.
"We have not fought together," he said, with more flagrant dismissal than he would have preferred. If they had fought, side by side...
I could have protected you.
"We haven't," he repeated, reconstructing his small outburst into a more practical explanation of the why. "I'm a melee fighter. You're a Skyknight. We were never meant to fight together. ...Forgive me," he bowed his head and sighed, again having revealed too much, and crossed a line that could instill in her further upset. "That was...unnecessary of me to say."
Half so that he did not stew in his own discomfort, half to oblige her request, he stood from his chair, and carefully hoisted her from the bed, to her feet. Minding the wound in his side, he looped an arm around her shoulders, steadied her body against his...and tried not to draw parallels to when he helped her around camp in the same manner, back when she suffered the gash in her leg which they had needed to burn closed.
"There's a map on the other side of this infirmary. Here, we'll walk together." Slowly, and with patient determination, they shuffled over to the far wall, where, hanging from the paneling, was a tacked on strategy map, left behind by the last patient who had occupied the bed beside it. "We are currently here." He pressed his pointer finger at an inlet on the south portion of the map. "Stella D'Mare. The capital of Andalari. This," he traced his finger up north, inland, towards an area surrounded by mountains, "is Eyraille. Your home." The map served as a welcome distraction for him, as, he realized, he had ignored her questions about her condition, her memory, and the state by which she found herself in unfamiliar land, surrounded by unfamiliar people. And he, a familiar face...was no better than a stranger to her.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
One thing over which she did have control was the advice that Alster had offered; advice that she had, since, found the energy and the will to follow. Even when her appetite dwindled, Lilica made certain that she ate at least a little of every meal she was offered. She washed herself with the water and clothes that she found awaiting her every morning, and stretched her tired albeit unused muscles for at least an hour each evening, taking care of her physical body to the best of her ability, under the circumstances. She occupied her time with the paper and ink that Alter must have seen to delivering to her as often as possible, and during those frightening moments of doubt, when she feared for the worst, she wrote words of hope to ground herself in a more positive reality. Dwelling on fear and cynicism was what had kept her trapped in her own darkness for so long, and it was high time she developed alternative coping strategies. Of course, she meditated and returned to her guarded, safe haven as often as possible, if not for her own protection, then to escape the stagnation of captivity. But those meditations could never last for more than a couple of hours a day, lest it interfere with her good night's rest, another routine to which she tried to adhere--which is why she fell back on her written words, at a loss to feel hope any other way.
Namely, those words of hope revolved around Chara.
The sun, adversary to the knight, glitters and is amplified in the tresses of her golden hair. I can see it in her eyes, yet another mirror to the sky, with beauty to rival it even at its loveliest. Never has the warmth of one's flesh struck me with such comfort, and not even my fountain, my haven, can compare to the reassurance of lying in her arms. And no other could possibly rival her conviction, that she gets what she wants, always finding a way. She wants me freedom... I will have my freedom from this room. I will have it because she wants it, and she gets what she wants. And then, someday, I will get what I want, and our strolls to the fountain will no longer need to be clandestine in nature...
Lilica D'Or was in no way a master of prose, spoken or written. As a result of slowly teaching herself to read and to write over the years, with lack of a mentor of any kind, every sentence required a good deal of thought, and her inconsistent handwriting could in no way compare to the trained hand of a nobleman, whose literacy had been a right, and not a privilege. Neither had she even ever established a dominant hand, and as such switched between her right and left, causing the letters to tilt at awkward angles, into and away from each other. But she was not writing for critique; these words were for her and her alone. To nourish her struggling soul in the absence of company or reassurances; and, to an extent, it worked.
It was at one such moment in time, while the dark caster was immersed and wholly focused on filling the blank pages at her feet with hopeful words, that her spell of solitude and isolation was pleasantly interrupted by Chara's face, present and in the flesh.
It is not too late. For if it were too late, then Alster would have dissolved at the absence of his lover. He would not have been able to help me... and yet he did. And I overcame the darkest part of my soul in this very room. So not all is lost, and I have not seen Chara for the last time. I will hold her again, kiss her again, I will follow her anywhere, because I promised--
As if prompted by her words, like they were magic in and over themselves, Lilica looked up from the small end table near the room's ceiling-length window as the door to her gilded cell opened, and in walked the very Rigas caster who was the subject of her writing. Her heart and throat ached with surprise. "Chara..." Standing so fast that she nearly upset her chair, the chthonic caster rushed to greet her lover, stopping only feet in front of her when she remembered she was still holding the paper upon which she had scrawled. Suddenly, uncharacteristically self-conscious, she crumpled the sheet and tossed it aside. "It's nothing. My convoluted thoughts," came her hasty explanation, betrayed by the hint of colour in her cheeks. But she was quick enough to divert the topic. "How... are you here? Did your 'benevolent' Rigas head permit you to see me, as some patronizing reward for acting to his liking?" For all the time she had spent alone, praticing with words, Lilica immediately regretted those ones. Her expression twisted in apology..
"I'm sorry--I did not mean it like that. You are only doing what you must to distance yourself from his suspicions... Forgive me if I cannot hold your leader in high esteem for his decisions." She chewed on her lower lip. It had felt so long since she had last seen Chara, this was not how she had wished to greet her lover. Yet even the proud Rigas caster's molten anger, she would have welcomed that moment, because it was characteristic of Chara. And right now, she needed something--anything--real. "I have missed your company... sorely missed it," she confessed, drawing closer to rest her hands upon the blonde woman's arms. "Isolation has never bothered me to such an extent as it does now... I never used to have anyone to miss..."
"Oh--of course. Right. I am... I'm sorry." Vega's cheeks reddened when the mercenary asserted that they had never fought together; just another assumption that she had foolishly made on a vague gut feeling that was evidently just a misguided as her broken and absent memories. "I fight in the sky, you on the ground... It only makes sense. Please forgive me, Haraldur, I am struggling to make sense of feelings whose source I have not yet connected..." And yet, it hurt her to be wrong. That they had never fought alongside one another, and that he was so adamant to set her straight. Don't be foolish. He is only trying to help; to set you straight, as any friend should, not coddle your fancies.
That is... if he even considered them to be friends. She wanted to ask, but quickly reconsidered, lest the answer be less than what she hoped. She did not trust herself not to crumble.
Instead, she managed a small smile. "Please do not apologize. I appreciate your help... and your honesty, above all." Leaning on him, the Eyraillian princess took small, yet steady steps to the other side of the bright infirmary, listening as Haraldur drew her attention to the map. Good--this was good. A visual would surely spark her memories back to life, and provide her with some much needed background on her identity, and what had happened. "Mountains... Eyraille. My home..." She repeated the words as if they would connect themselves, thereby triggering recollection. In the hand that was not pressed against the mercenary for support, she felt the grooves of the carved roc, the shape of the feathers, the beak, the talons... "Mountains. The rocs dwell in the mountains... It is why the Skyknights came out of Eyraille. I think I can recall..." Closing her eyes, she did not force her mind, but rather, let it drift, gently nudging at images that tickled her recollection. Her smile grew. "The mountains... always snow-capped at their peaks, but beneath lies the most fertile ground. The rocs... they nest somewhere in-between."
She opened her eyes to refocus her attention on he carving in her hand. It was stained with blood, and yet that did not detract from its beauty, the intricate detail that must have taken the crafter hours of careful concentration to perfect. "Does this belong to me?" Vega inquired, and at Haraldur's nod, she looped the pendant around her neck, where it hung below her collarbone. Immediately, she felt blanketed in a soft feeling of reassurance, like something important had just fallen into place, even though she could not name it. "This must have been--must be precious to me. Do correct me if I am wrong, but I do not feel as though I am one to adorn myself with trinkets or pendants of any simple sort. Thank you for protecting it."
Turning from the map, the Skyknight faced Haraldur, placing her free hand on his other arm as she met his green eyes. The colour of fresh moss, warm... and inexplicably sad. "Haraldur. Will you take me to see my roc?" She had no idea of the weight of that question, but luckily, the mercenary was spared the imperative need to deny her as her azure eyes dropped to his bandaged side. The blood that marred the off-white fabric was a deep red, suggesting that it was either still bleeding, or had only recently stopped. "Gods... you are wounded," she breathed, brows knitting together in concern. "Forget my request. Here I continue to demand answers and help of you, yet you are more injured than I... and I didn't even notice." Was she really such a heartless fool, or was it her own absentmindedness that had caused her to miss something so obvious? Either way, she felt ashamed. "Come--you should be resting. I am so sorry to have made such demands on you..."
With a gentle tug, this time she managed to find the balance to lead him back to his cot. "I am stronger than I thought I might be; I can fetch a healer to check on your injuries, if you like. At the very least..." She paused a moment, then brushed the back of her fingers against his forehead. "You should have some of that water. Were you any warmer, I'd think you were developing a fever..."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
It was a difficult game to play, as they were near-constant fixtures at Adalfieri's side, and always watched by guards during their leisure hours, which were often staggered, so they seldom saw each other. But when they were able to meet, they spoke in a code that they had conceived through painstaking trial and error, for their minds were not quite in sync enough to divine what the other's words meant, even when in perfect context. All conversations were also spelled with the muffling charm that Lysander had taught to Chara, and she to Alster. Together, they also learned mind-blocking meditations, which did not stop Adalfieri from telepathically reading their intentions, but helped to discipline their thoughts when in the Rigas head's presence, thus controlling what he was able to extract.
During one recent conversation, in a lull that did not pertain to escape plans or magical training, Chara, while handing him a cup of herbal tea that relaxed the pain in his atrophying legs, decided to ask him a question that had been on her mind for weeks.
"Why now?" She sat in a chair next to him, sipping on her own brew. "You claimed that the reason you contributed in Lilica's incarceration was because you feared I was in danger. What we are doing now...it endangers us all. What has changed your mind?"
Lysander blew a cooling wind past the rim of his cup and sat there a moment, following the rise of the steam as it wafted from his tea. "Even when Adalfieri teased his intentions to me, I thought all would work out, because you would be safe. But," he shook his head, and took a scalding slurp, ignoring the scorching sensation on his tongue, "I realized that, should his plan come to inception, all our lives are forfeit--including yours. And Lilica," he sighed, watching ripples form on the surface of his beverage, "she has been kind to me, and I have wronged her. In doing so, I have wronged you, yet again. If it is at all possible," a wan smile touched his lips, "I want to save you, both."
What doggerel for the demonstrative old codger to say! However, in retrospect, she was almost...moved by his emphatic statement. He was foolish, yes, but genuine, repentant. And, perhaps for the first time in her life, she trusted him, leaned on him...relied on him.
However, she had still weakened at Adalfieri's croons of praise and approval. She ate up his every word like a starving dog given scraps of meat. He validated her, made her feel important, respected, and powerful. He, as well, was far from an unreasonable man, as evidenced by his generous allowance to visit Lilica, a prospect that excited her so much, she promptly forgot about all else, and spent the next hour gussying up for her encounter with the woman she had seen only in dream for the past several weeks.
When properly dressed, hair done in an elaborate braided bun, curls of hair framing her done-up face, her eyes rimmed with kohl, cheeks stained with rouge, lips crimson and sublime, she returned to Main House, drifted towards Lilica's door, explained her situation to the guards, and was led through the threshold, into her lover's lush prison accommodations. When her blue eyes rested on the object of her affections, appearing much healthier despite her isolated living conditions, she about sprinted towards her in a bid to throw her into a tight, vice-like embrace. But she contained herself by concentrating instead on the crumbled up paper, her manicured eyebrow raising in question. "Oh?" She teased, but did not grab for the discarded ball at her feet, much as she wanted to view the parchment for herself. "I shall set those convoluted thoughts of yours straight for you, then." She drew Lilica into her arms, ready to plant her full, wine-dipped lips on ones so pale, but so inviting, so delicious to taste...
But her bitter-ended words drew Chara back, her face surprised and flustered. Even she did not understand why Lilica's retort had offended her, when her imprisoned companion had every right to revile her position, and the man who locked her into solitude. "I have toiled, labored, done what was asked of me, all for the mere possibility of this meeting," she said, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "Think what you will of Adalfieri, but he at least has given me this opportunity, when others would deny me."
However, her burgeoning ire dissolved in favor of Lilica's apology, and she welcomed the woman's hands on her arms with a lustrous smile. "You have been out of touch with the outside world for far too long. And no, I do not count Alster as adequate company, though bless his bleeding heart, he tries. No, you need this--and I need this." She thrust her neck forward, and closed their distance with a passionate, forceful kiss. "Let us have fun, first," she whispered, in between well-needed gulps of air. "Then we shall talk business."
As Vega pored over the map which denoted her homeland, Haraldur tried to ignore the enormous landmass that fringed the north end of the map, and threatened to swallow the smaller nations surrounding its borders--including Eyraille. However, he could not look away, and instead stared at the area where his own mountainous home--Astrador--once existed. Only now, a blocking of stout letters crossed over the space, letters he knew to read Mollengard.
"The ground in Eyraille is so fertile," he contributed, returning to their conversation, "that farmers are even able to grow tomatoes. And the wildflowers in spring and in autumn--their color surrounds you, and their smells drift on the winds. Lupine and buttercup and marigold--waving in between the shrub grasses." He, too, closed his eyes, just for a moment, and imagined Eyraille for himself. A certain yearning thrummed at his heart. But when he opened his eyes, and saw her staring at the bloody roc carving, reality struck like a gong at his chest, and the jarring juxtaposition between fantasy and the truth sobered him into apathy.
"You are not wrong," he said, "but there is another trinket that belongs to you." He jerked his head towards her bed, and the table whereupon his pendant rested. He did not want to relinquish his prized possession, especially when it had come back to him when he first tried to rid of it--but what use had he for it now? He could survive on his own, without the sentimental press of his mother's talisman. She needed it more, while he...never wanted to feel again. Surrendering the pendant would ensure the shut-down of his emotions. "The silver necklace," he continued, speaking over her request to visit Aeriel. "On the table. It..." He did not, however, finish his sentence, before he took a misstep, and stumbled, gripping to Vega's anchoring arms in reflex. He glanced down at the stitched wound held taut by a bandage, which had lapped up a measure of fresh blood. Sucking in a small breath to conceal the pain, he shook his head, and tried to allay her worries with a smile. "I've had worse. You needn't worry." But he didn't argue when she insisted on guiding him back to his cot, and he drank his share of water once he sat upon the mattress. He did feel a little dizzy, chilled, tremulous and dehydrated, but it was nothing compared to rising from the dead. "I'll be fine. Go back to your bed and rest. Don't forget the pendant."
He did not have to fight any of her possible protests for long, however, before Alster reentered the infirmary, carrying a stack of clothes and an extra pitcher of water. He looked absolutely spent, but he still managed a cheerful smile at Haraldur and Vega both.
"Glad to see that you're awake, Vega. We managed to clean and press your clothes for you." He set the bundle upon her cot. "Yours as well, Haraldur." When he slid the stack of clothes beside the mercenary, he cocked his head at the growing stain soaking through his bandage. "I daresay that your sutures have been torn from too much movement. I'm not qualified to stitch it myself, but I'll get you a healer." He frowned at the glimmer of defiance that shone from Haraldur's eyes. Alster returned it with one of his own. "Lie down. Rest." Then, he turned to Vega, his smile returned. "You won't mind if I keep you company for a time?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Chara," she only had time to speak her name, before her lover captured her lips in a hungry and forceful kiss, their bodies connecting as if they were trying to become one. At a gasp for breath, she managed, "Time is of the essence, Chara. We need--"
But she would have none of it. Chara Rigas gets what Chara Rigas wants; and right now, she wants to forget about this deadly ordeal that we all face... Not that the chthoni mage was at all unhappy to oblige, for she, too, ached for some semblance of what they had had, before she had been foolhardy enough to think she could escape the city under Adalfieri's careful watch. Those long nights and lazy mornings spent in one another's arms, spiting the war and Rigas tradition and politics, taking Lilica to a place to which even her safe haven could not compare. To have those moments again--this was what she was fighting for. This was why she needed to escape.
But not right now.
It went without saying that she was helpless to Chara's advances, opening herself up to the proud Rigas caster and welcoming her hands and lips as they explored her body, the clothes of both parties quickly tossed aside. Just for a bit; just once, she promised herself, allowing a quick romp, but she had nearly forgotten that Chara Rigas's appetite for passion had the tendency to be insatiable--particularly when guards and locked doors were keeping the two of them apart. Chara set her senses aflame, holding nothing back, taking her to the edge of a precipice where she fell over and over again into a sea of complete satisfaction for what must have been hours; until the two of them lay, exhausted, next to one another beneath the cool sheets of Lilica's bed. Eyes half-lidded and her heart hammering against her ribcage. Her fingers were still entangled in the Rigas woman's tresses of blonde hair, which had longe since come loose of its intricate bun, about as quickly as the rouge had been kissed off of her lips. But this--hair damp with perspiration, lips swollen, cheeks flushed with increased circulation and the colour on her eyelids faintly smudged--was what defined Chara's beauty. These moments, post-passion, when she was nothing but one hundred percent herself, no embellishments to impress or intimidate or persuade; just naked, raw, and entirely genuine. This was the Chara Rigas with whom Lilica had fallen so helplessly in love.
And now that she had tasted her lips again, she was loathe to let her go. "Stay. Please..." She begged the tired woman in an equally weary whisper, her breath hot against Chara's neck. Evidence of their intimacy spotted her collarbone in tiny red splotches (which, of course, Lilica's skin sported at least twofold--Chara's hunger for passion had made sure of that), and she wondered how they would conceal their relations well enough that the guards would not suspect anything. Perhaps it was even too late for that. "Adalfieri did not specify how long you might visit, did he? So at least stay the night... it has been so long. And we need to make plans.." Lilica trailed her fingers through Chara's tresses of gold, and pressed another kiss to her swollen, red lips.
And what if this is the last time? What if Chara does not find a way to my freedom before it is too late...?
But she refused to dwell on that thought, for fear it would only strengthen the awakening Serpent. Instead, she pressed another kiss to Chara's lips, using her denial of acknowledging the possibility of failure as a shield against the reality that she faced.
Returning to her bedside, Vega picked up the silver pendant to which Haraldur has referred as her own. It was dlicate and simple, instribed with a symbol she did not recognize, and had more the look of a talisman than some ornate jewelry. It was familiar, that much she knew, the moment the cool silver came into contact with her fingertips, but... something felt off, and she couldn't quite place what it was. "Are you sure that this belongs to me? Not to someone else I perhaps know?" Why else would it have been on her person if it had not belonged to her? A question that she could not answer, which only led her to the conclusion that the memory must still be lost to her, which meant there was no reason why she should question what the mercenary had told her. Haraldur was an honest man, from what she could gather, and it was not as though it would benefit him to make up an untruth over something so seemingly small and insignificant.
So she took his word with a smile, and was about to place it around her neck to accompany the roc carving, when someone else entered the infirmary.
The young man had sandy blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a kind smile, all which instantly endeared him to the confused Skyknight. There was a weariness about his movements and the dark half-circles beneath his eyes into which she wanted to inquire, but it became evident as soon as he addressed both her and Haraldur. This man must have been a denizen of Stella D'Mare, one to whom Haraldur must have turned when he'd arrived with his wounded passenger upon the back of a roc. But those tired, blue eyes, and that inviting smile... She thought she had seen it before, if for no other reason than because he did not strike her as a complete stranger. Perhaps I caught a glimpse of him in some earlier, delirious state, she concluded, brushing off the nagging feeling as she returned his smile. "Forgive me--both of you. I asked Haraldur to help me up... I did not realize he was injured. His sutures must have torn from the strain... please accept my apology." The last words were directed at Haraldur, to whom she flashed a look of deep, genuine concern, and a hint of shame for being so oblivious to his compromised physical state.
"Please, do send for a healer," she encouraged Alster (whose name she had yet to recall), nodding her thanks for his help. "And thank you for the clothes; surely I will feel more myself in these. Is there somewhere I might clean up and change?"
Following Alster's arm as he pointed out privacy curtains in the far corner of the infirmary, she accepted the newly cleaned and pressed clothes and stood from her cot. At Haraldur and Alster's brief looks of concern, she shook her head and offered a reassuring grin. "I think I should be fine on my own for a moment," she asserted. "I have my wits about me enough to call for help if I take a fall. I should only be a moment."
As Alster took off to quickly fetch a healer, Vega took her clothes and disappeared behind the curtain, where she mercifully found a clean wash basin. Stripping out of the shift and slippers, the Eyraillian pricess paused as she glimpsed at her bare skin for the first time. Bandages... so many of them, all stained with old blood. The inquisitive part of her, that part that yearned for answers, wanted to peel back the bandages, see the extent of her injuries for herself... Not yet; I'm not ready...
The Skyknight settled for cleaning her body and dressing without knowing the extent of her injuries, and by the time she finished, Alster had returned with a healer to patch up Haraldur's wounds. There was so much more she wanted to know, so much she wanted to ask Haraldur, but the poor man deserved rest of his own, and she dared not disturb the healer who endeavoured to patch up the mercenary's sutures.
But, surely, he was not the only one who could answer her questions... "I would love to have your company," she told Alster at last, meeting him at the entrance of the infirmary. "Maybe... you can help me, as well. To remember." Pressing her lips together, Vega turned her gaze towards the toes of her boots. "I cannot recall if I have we have met before... forgive me that I cannot remember your name, if so. Could I... would you take me for some fresh air?"
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
They attacked each other without restraint or fear of discovery, until the late afternoon sun streamed its light in through the bay windows, stabbing their already sore bodies with shafts of pure, radiating energy. Which, instead of reinvigorating Chara, preparing her for another several rounds of their back-and-forth volley, had exhausted her to the point of torpor. She lay on the bed, her tangled hair haloed around the pillow behind her head, her naked body open to the cool whispers of air that slowly extracted the heat of her passion, sending it out the window and catching on the already brilliant sun.
After awaking from her trance-like hibernation, she turned on her side, and noticed that balled up piece of parchment wedged in the open doorway between the bedchambers and the main living quarters. Taking care not to sit up too quickly, she trotted over to the discarded piece of Lilica's convoluted thoughts.. Thinking her lover asleep, or at least indisposed, as she herself was until moments ago, she began to read the steam of consciousness writing, squinting to make sense of the contrasting loops of letters and constant style changes of the author's questionable penmanship.
Then, she began to laugh, a raucous caw married with a guffaw that she was certain would rouse Lilica from bed, if she was not already slumbering.
"Convoluted, indeed!" As if to replicate the words scrawled so haphazardly on the page, she stood beneath the filter of sunlight beneath the window, ran fingers through her golden hair, and waited for the chthonic mage to notice her there. "You do have one part correct, however." She half-leaped, half scrambled to the bed, and reunited their swollen lips in a hasty kiss. "I get what I want."
"Now," she said, releasing her lips and straining out the note in a half-sigh, half singsong moan, "with our good time out of the way--and thank you for the laugh; your prose was wonderfully, flatteringly trite--I suppose we shall return to the issue at hand." She cleared her throat, and sat on her knees, adopting a more staid, closed-legged position. "I am not certain that we are allowed the entire night, but I shall stay here as long as I am able. I have been speaking with both Lysander and Alster. And," she hesitated, "Alster has teamed up with your half-brother. He believes he will be of great use to us, however suspicious his intentions."
"Lysander and I believe your best escape route will be by water," she continued. "The docks are closely monitored, yes, but we are a busy shipping port, and there is a constant influx of import and export vessels circulating the harbor day by day. Alster is friendly with one of the harbormasters, and has successfully sent him a message explaining our situation. He is able to stow you away on a ship heading to the Fallow Islands. We have decided on the islands for a few reasons: one, they are our allies in secret. Two, they are far enough away from the mainland to insure you remain better hidden from those who wish you harm. Three: we have an embassy located there. Long-abandoned and well-protected from rogues and thieves. It is as near to a haven as we can offer you. All we have left to arrange," she sighed and indicated the room, "is smuggling you out of the estate. Lysander will be able to mask your presence once we are free of the front gate, but we still need to liberate you of these rooms, Main House, and the grounds without detection. Vitali, unfortunately, may need to offer his 'services,'--as a diversion will serve us well in this instance."
Once Vega had vanished behind the curtain to change, and before he wandered off in search of a healer, Alster turned to Haraldur, and cast the muffling spell for which was fast becoming his greatest asset. For increased precautions, he lowered his voice, and leaned close to Haraldur's ear.
"I have just spoken with Chara. She tells me that our 'most venerable head' intends to turn you in to Andalari, to protect our truce. He wants to use you as a scapegoat, to prevent our enemies from discovering Vega. They fear her capture. She will be released with her roc once she is well enough to fly, but you--" Alster looked uneasily at Haraldur, who had responded to the news with placid, unruffled compliance. He drank a few more sips of water, and merely nodded.
"I expected as much." The mercenary set down his empty tin, and absently observed the pooling of blood beneath his bandage. "Vega must return to camp with her roc. If that means I offer myself to Andalari to ease her departure," he glanced to the back of the room, where the woman in question was changing, "then I'll do so. What other choice do I have? Escaping from your estate is a fairly difficult endeavor--"
"But you have magic resist--"
"And," Haraldur interrupted, his eyes steely, "if I'm required to stave suspicion off your family and off Eyraille, then my way is pretty clear, wouldn't you agree?"
Alster, about to open his mouth in protest, saw the stubborn lines appear in the mercenary's rigid face, and sighed, dropping his hands with curled, wringing frustration. "Let me find you that healer."
By the time Vega emerged from her privacy curtains, Haraldur had at last heeded everyone's advice, and rested on his bed. Whilst he lay there and closed his eyes, a healer knelt at his side, reinforcing his sutures, and cleaning off the leaking blood with an alcohol-soaked rag.
"Well," Alster addressed Vega at her return, nodding in approval at her wardrobe change, "those clothes suit you far better than any of our Rigas opulence, that is for certain." Offering his arm, as a gentleman would at a ball, he led her out of the infirmary, and into the crisp autumnal afternoon. Vega's roc had since been relocated to the rock-strewn outskirts behind the vast estate, leaving the show-piece that was the front gardens open and accessible for absent-minded exploration. Together, they wandered down a path that wound over to the cliff-sides, which afforded a picturesque view of the sapphire seas and the variegated buildings, with their multi-hued roofs, dotting the mountainside far beneath them. The sea-wind whipped its salty brine into their faces, a refreshing scent with hints of perfume and citrus.
"This is Stella D'Mare," Alster said, concealing the bandages about his throat with his high collar. "Star of the sea. Jewel of the Crown--Andalari. This is the Rigas estate. We are of an ancient and noble celestial magic heritage. I'm Alster Rigas, and yes...we have met before. Though," he smiled, a little shy, "you don't know me well, nor I, you. I don't know how much help I'll be to you, for we met at the onset of your amnesia." Though he kept a pleasant, affable air about him, his eyes darkened a bit with the memory of how badly he blundered his last attempts to guide and heal her. "But I'm also a sufferer of amnesia, myself, so perhaps we can try some techniques that have worked for me. Here." Releasing her arm, he rounded on her so that they faced each other, and gently took both of her hands. Tugging on them with his own, he urged her down into a sitting position, upon the soft, rustling grasses at their feet. "I'm going to guide you through a meditation. All you have to do is close your eyes, and listen to my voice. Open your mind to me, and let me inside." His voice carried with the wind, airy and smooth. "We're going to sort through your emotions, which act independent of memory. Those emotions have shaped who you are, and often, they are the keys to opening the gateway of lost things. Lost ideas, faces, recollections, communication--it all starts with what and how we feel. It is our most ancient, primal method of being, of existence. Tell me...what is it you feel right now? Concentrate on that feeling," he closed his eyes, "and I'll hone in on it."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"You are awful," she groaned, feeling foolish for not disposing of those silly words she had written, as they hadn't been intended for any other eyes but her own--especially Chara's, who was the ethereal subject of so many of them. "I was heeding Alster's advice, not attempting to become a master of prose. My choices were to stagnate in my own boredom and growing despair, or put my positive thoughts onto paper so that I might read them over and over, and remind myself that not all is lost." Though visibly defensive, her embarrassment unraveled at Chara's bright smile as she pounced her and kissed her again. "For one who taught herself to read and write, I happen to be proud of my progress, for your information." But there was no bitterness left in her voice at that point, and she fell into the Rigas caster's arms with gusto.
To her great relief, Chara diverted the subject back to more imperative matters at hand, and filled the chthonic caster in on what she, Alster and her father had planned in order to spring her free. A seed of hope bloomed in the pit of her stomach; this was good. Not only for the fact that Lilica needed to be free, but it meant that Chara was directly acting against her venerable Rigas head's plans and wishes. Acting entirely of her own accord, regardless of what Adalfieri wanted... and all for her. Her loyalty towards Lilica had won out over her loyalty to her leader and mentor. Maybe love really does conquer all... and here I thought it was all only a musing of poets.
That relief what short-lived, however, as soon as she heard mention of her brother. Her face drained to a shade paler.
"What? No--no, we cannot involve Vitali in this. He cares for no one's well-being but his own," she hissed, reluctance twisting her formerly placid features. "We cannot trust him, Chara." But the least that she could do was hear her lover out. She and others were going behind Adalfieri's back to see her safely out of Stella D'Mare... And with lack of any other plans, perhaps it was worth musing over. Who knew? Maybe Vitali would come through as a decent individual, for once.
Unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility.
"Listen. I do not trust him; I never will. But I trust you. And Alster, and... even Lysander." Her heart could not help but sink just a little, recalling the man to whom she had grown so attached, only to have him betray her to Adalfieri. "I want to believe he did not want to do what he did... And if you are all in agreement that my half brother should be involved, then I trust your judgment. Just keep a keen eye on the situation, and do not find yourselves duped by that wretched necromancer. Otherwise..." She reached out to caress her lover's face with her knuckles. "Just promise me I will see you again, when all of this is over."
The midday sun came as a shock to the Skyknight, who had spent the past handful of days in the dark. She was forced to squint against the brilliant rays, absently placing a hand on Alster's arm, relying on the Rigas caster as a guide as he took her to the cliffs, where she beheld a sapphire and cobalt and viridian seascape beyond. "This is beautiful... You are so fortunate to have a place such as this as your home." She flashed a smile at her benevolent host. "I am sorry that I cannot remember you, Alster Rigas... But I hope that we can get to know each other better, now. From one amnesiac to another." With Haraldur as her only known ally, it would be nice to connect with another--reassuring, that she was not fighting through the fog of her lost memories all alone.
Vega knew little of casters and magic; perhaps she had known more, at one point, but it was all lost to her now. It hadn't even occurred to her that these magic users might help her along in retrieving her memories, by means that she never would have imagined; and when Alster offered his help to do just that, nothing could have prompted her to refuse. "You can do you? I mean... you truly think you can help me grasp the past that I have lost?" Allowing him to take her by the hands, she took a seat upon the lush, green grasses, her mouth twisting in uncertainty. "I have never practiced meditation before... at least, it feels that way. I cannot guarantee that I will be very good at any of this..."
But it was worth a try, and any hope was preferable to no hope at all. The Skyknight closed her eyes and relaxed every muscle in her body, hoping she was going about the right way of opening her mind, as he had requested. As to how she felt...
Vega found herself stumped, unable to place the emotion that stirred in her chest. So bewildered had she been since awakening from her catatonic state, that feeling anything at all, beyond confusion, hadn't even occurred to her. But something swam in her gut, some primal sensation to which she hadn't given any attention until now. So she focused on it, let herself feel it...
When she opened her eyes again, she saw through the eyes of a child, and they were wet and warm with fresh tears. A tall, muscular man stood before her, shouting at a diminutive woman with russet hair, who also appeared to be weeping. The room stank of spilled alcohol, and so did the man, who picked up a vase and tossed it against the wall, where it shattered on contact. "He gets angry, sometimes... a lot," she said to the blonde haired man who appeared to be standing next to her. "Even when no one does anything wrong..."
Her blue eyes widened as the drunkard picked up a blunt, ornate sword from the wall, shouting at the cowering woman before him as he faced her, with the clear intention to do harm. "No... I can't let him hurt her again," young Vega breathed, her muscles tensing. "Not with a baby in her belly..."
Without another word of warning, she darted in front of the enraged man, just as the sword was about to come down upon his wife's shoulder. It struck his daughter, instead.
Alster never had the chance to witness the impact, for in the blink of an eye, the scene changed, like turning a page in a picture book. The Eyraillian princess was older, and in the presence of a boy who looked approximately as old as she had been just moments ago. His platinum blonde hair gleamed in the sunlight, but that gleam did not reach his eyes--identical to those of his sister's. "You love that roc more than you love me." His accusatory words were laced with betrayal and anger. "So much that you force me into something I never wanted."
"That isn't true, Caris." The young Skyknight's blue eyes reflected despondency and inevitable guilt. She reached for her younger brother, but the young new king of Eyraille withdrew. "I did what I did because I love you more than anything. And that I cannot protect you or our home, weighted down by a crown."
"You don't mean it. That is what you tell yourself, but it isn't the truth." Caris Sorde clenched his hands into fists, turning away from his elder sister. "I won't forgive you for this, Vega. I won't."
Once again, the scene flickered and changed before Vega could respond. One second she and her Rigas tagalong stood in the palace's lush courtyard, and the next moment, they were at the precipice of a cliff, with Aeriel at her side. The very day before she had left for Tadasun, to aid in the war against Andalari. A flask of ale was in her hands, the only buffer against the harsh reality that she was very much alone in her burden and plight. She had been for a long time. "She is all I have; the only creature in all of Eyraille that does not resent me." She spoke to Alster, though did not face him, taking a swig from her pewter flask. A hereditary habit that it appeared even the most steadfast determination could not shake. "I wonder if Tadasun will be just the same. Who can take seriously an armor-clad woman upon a roc?"
When she turned to the Rigas caster, there were tears in her eyes. "If only it were possible to take to the skies and soar away from it all... But I think I would sooner take my own life than live on with the guilt of deserting my brother and my kingdom. After all..." She averted her eyes to the ground. "What else is there that would validate my wretched life?"
That was when Vega opened her eyes for real, returning to the grassy cliffside where Alster had brought her, cheeks damp with real tears. Meeting his eyes for only a second, she was quick to look away, ashamed. "I'm... sorry." Her apology was quiet, sincere. "I didn't realize that this was what my amnesia blocked from my mind. This... sadness." Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, she turned her attention to the seaside vista below. "I cannot help but wonder if it would have been better not to remember, at all... I am sorry that you had to witness that, Alster."
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
No, it was simple. She belonged among the outcasts, the abandoned, and the downtrodden. Try though she might to break away from her less-than-savory associations, determined to rise above mediocrity and all who leeched on her achievements, she always found herself back on the bottom rung, where it had all started. Perhaps, though, the circuitous route of her ambitions was meant to take her back around, so that she would never forget her origins--her values.
She valued the lost. Those without a voice, or the means to speak. She had protected Alster as a youth, for that very reason. He had allowed others, especially his mother, to belittle him, an injustice that had fueled her desire to rise from her own morass where none had cared to hear her pleas, seeing her only as a mutt: the amalgam of a once high-ranking caster and the lowliest of Rigas stature. Along the way to self-actualization, however, she had dismissed her ideals, and instead craved the allure of positive attention, of influence, popularity, of a voice that mattered...
And as a result, she cut ties with her father and with Alster, who needed her more than she had realized. He still remained as a tool to move ahead, yes, but only so. He was no longer a person to her.
Such gross superficiality had endured for decades. Even now, in the face of her highest pursuit, the approval of Adalfieri, she began to falter in her convictions. Everything that she ever wanted was presented before her by the Rigas head, himself, such that she began to second-guess her truest desires. What is it that I really want? The adulation of strangers, or the sincerity of friends and family? To rule, or to be loved, genuinely? Not out of respect or fear?
She pondered these existential conundrums as she listened to Lilica's concerns regarding Vitali's contribution, and merely nodded her agreement, though it was less enthusiastic than her lover's rancor. "I know that he is an unreliable, self-involved schemer. He did, after all, poison most of my family," she narrowed her eyes at that, "but Alster believes that as long as he feels he has something to gain through his assistance, he may prove somewhat useful to our cause. We have, after all, little to lose should he offer his aid. We were also privy to his," she paled a bit, in recollection, "necromantic abilities. He resurrected the princess of Eyraille, from complete death. We cannot ignore his talent. Better to have him with us, than against us. Though sometimes I wonder if there is any difference at all," she scoffed, and shook her head until silken blonde strands flew into her face.
"Lysander," she brushed the hair away from her eyes, "thought that he had no choice but to imprison you, due to," she hesitated, feeling too much respect for Adalfieri to besmirch his character, "a misunderstanding between him and Adalfieri. He believed I would fall to danger, of the unspecified sort, if he disobeyed our esteemed head's directive. But he knows that the real danger is in keeping you locked away. That we all shall fall, if this current arrangement persists." Chara leaned into Lilica's circular caresses, and closed her eyes. "Rest-assured, Lilica, you will not be alone for long. Alster may even join you, if his alternate arrangement falls sour. But whatever should happen, we shall be together soon, because," a small chortle parted from her lips, "I must hear more of your wretchedly endearing poetry."
Alster desperately fought off the cloying paralysis of sleep as he concentrated, not on the dizzying draw of his own unconscious void, but on the emotional noise of the woman to whom he was connected. He drifted for a while in the chaos of sound, bounced between Confusion and Fear--until a dominant force surrounded him, and it sang him a sonorous melody, a vibrato that resonated in his bones more than any other emotion present. They were undeniably attracted to one another, him and Sorrow and all its subsets: Loneliness, Hopelessness, Remorse, Rejection, Heartache. His own soul sang in response an elegy, which was echoed by the originator. He was too drawn to the emotion to prevent it from entering himself, too weakened by exhaustion, too careworn, to take the proper and most necessary of precautions. And as Sorrow opened the door and manifested into the associated memories of Sir Vega Sorde, Alster absorbed every pang, every tear, every anguish, as if they were all his own.
He stood beside Vega, in all her iterations. First, as a child, defending her impregnated mother from an assault by her drunken father. Though he did not see the result of the sword biting into the child's back, he almost cried out in pain as the blunt weapon embedded itself from his shoulder-blade to his lower spine. He scarcely had the time to recover before the scene changed, and they were in the palace courtyard some years later, facing her brother, whose words dragged further slashes to the wound. But the hurt bloomed elsewhere, and he found himself clutching his chest, instead. Again, they traveled, to a day in the not-so-distant past, enjoying a view off the edge of a jagged cliff. It was a long way down, and he wondered, not for the first time, how it would feel to let the sky claim him, if but a little while, before it threw him, plummeting, into the earth. But those stray musings felt fuzzy, seen as though through murky water. He was lightheaded, inebriated, but it did not lessen his belief that no one else would care if he died, save for...
Aeriel.
Aeriel? he thought, confusion spearing through his fugue. What? That isn't right. She is not...but then, who is? Who is important to me?
The scene darkened. The void, his void, encircled him. Only him. Nothing defined the depths of his oblivion, but he felt as though he were falling. Slowly.
Who am I? Am I dead? Where...is this place?
He tried to locate his body, but it did not exist. Nothing did, but pure energy. Deconstruction. Extinguished life. A death shroud. Absolute. Commanding. The end and the beginning, all as one.
It cocooned him, enfolded him. Wait...him? He was...a being? An identity?
I. Me. A star. No...two stars.
Alster Rigas, something said, in the far-reaching darkness. Something...no. Someone. Female. Achingly familiar. Twin pinpricks of light swam in the limitless space.
Come back, Alster Rigas. You are alive. Alive...
Was that? Did he hear...?
Elespeth.
The twin lights, the stars, illuminated the darkness, burning away the death shroud, goading him back toward a cacophonous, disharmonious place. But it was home. It was life. It was where he belonged. And so, he invited the menagerie of senses, overbright, shrill, acrid, decaying, tumultuous and unbalanced.
But he opened his eyes to it, to the world, to Stella D'Mare, the cliff-side, his hands connected to another person, to his Rigas blood, to Vega Sorde, to himself...
He gasped for air, defensively releasing himself from his charge and hugging his arms, his skin chilled, his shoulders shivering. A sticky warmth slid down his back, and with a questing hand, he investigated the curiosity. Blood stained his fingers. A long scratch, not deep, but still significant in scope, soaked through his tunic, stinging with a raw, nascent throb.
Once his frenzied breaths subsided into regular inhales and exhales, he wiped an arm across his face, combating the very idea of tears, as he was too dehydrated to shed them. "Don't...do not worry," he managed through a cough, continuing to hide his face behind the crook of his elbow. "I only had an empathetic reaction. I did not shield myself enough....that's all. It's," he huffed, trying to rise to his feet, "good progress for you. We can't control what we decide to remember...Vega. But...it's still important. You need them, these memories, this sorrow. It's cathartic. It grounds you. Leads you farther from...from death." No longer able to remain conscious, he closed his eyes, and slumped forward on the grass, falling into much-awaited sleep.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
Though as much as those questions teased her mind, they were not the one that weighted on it the most heavily. Not by a long shot. What she really wanted to know was exactly what business her half-brother had, bringing that poor girl back from the dead.
That, and who it had cost to perform the deed, for Vitali was not inclined towards charity. "Who paid? And what did they promise?" She asked Chara, gripping her lover's arm, though not too tightly. "Chara, those are the deals to which Vitali clings... The ones he ascertains that he never forgets about. And the prices he asks in exchange for cheating death are never worth the feat itself..." Did the poor bastard who had vied for the Eyraillian princess's resurrection have any idea as to what they had been getting into? No; impossible. They'd never have made the bargain in the first place if they knew Vitali.
And yet, here she was, agreeing to a plan that involved his services... Her judgment might be no better.
"He is never with anyone but himself." The dark mage pressed a sigh from her lungs and raked her hands through her hair. "Our only saving grace is that, as far as I know, which isn't a lot, it would not benefit him to see us all destroyed. If the potential for gain is not there, then he does not expend his energy on turning against us... but do not assume he has genuinely taken our side. Still, if you believe that his involvement in this plan is crucial, then you couldn't find anyone more capable of creating diversions..." With any luck, he would refrain from poisoning a large fraction of the city, this time around... Not that there was any potential to tell him what to do and how to do it.
As Chara diverted from the topic of Vitali, and concluded what Lilica had hoped of Lysander, the chthonic caster could not hold back a smile. "So he dies care, after all..." It warmed her heart to know that Chara's father was determined to right his wrong, that he did not wish for her to stagnate and rot in this decorated cell, festering in her own dark magic to conjure a tasty treat to strengthen the Serpent. "How did I get so lucky to have an entire party endeavoring to grant me freedom?" She chuckled, her heart swelling with something she had never before experienced: the feeling of being someone who matters. The feeling of being loved.
"Those 'poems' are not for you, you know; they are for my own sanity." She wrinkled her nose, unable to help the smile that tugged at her lips. "Maybe after some practice, you will be lucky enough to see more."
"Alster..." All of the sadness that the young woman had just endured, at the mercy (or lack thereof) of her own sorrow, temporarily vanished at the sight of the Rigas caster, exhausted and pale and barely able to utter words. Gods, what had she done to him?! What had the depths of her mind stolen from him that he looked about ready to faint? "You... you need help. You are not well."
But he seemed to know as much, despite that he encouraged her not to worry. He wavered on his feet, his breathing laboured, and before the Skyknight had time to react...
"Alster--!" Vega cried out again as the magic user slumped forward, his form limp upon the soft grasses. She could not leave him like this... Pressing her lips together in determination, she hooked her hands under his arms and hauled him to his feet, slinging one arm around her shoulders. Every muscle in her body ached and trembled, like she wasn't used to exerting herself, and she was inclined to doubt that she couldn't make it all the way down the hill burdened with his weight.
And she was right; about halfway down, she collapsed, her ankle twisted painfully, but not before she was spotted by some Rigas guards. The two men helped her back to her feet and took the unconscious Alster off her hands, escorting her back to the infirmary, where she was urged to lie back down on her cot as they found help for the weak Rigas caster.
Haraldur was awake, unmoving upon his own cot, his sutures replaced and the bleeding having subsided. She cast him a helpless glance at his inquisitive look and shook her head. "He helped me," she explained, "and it took a toll on him. He helped me... remember. Just a little bit, but..." But the profound depth of that sadness, those heavy instances of her life, already felt like a burden. She wouldn't have been inclined to try and recall more, even if she were able. Not now... not yet. "But it was so... I did not realize that in forgetting my identity, I had also forgotten all of the sadness. Haraldur..."
The Skyknight shifted in her cot to face her mercenary ally, her eye lashes still dotted with the tears that she had yet to wipe away. "Is that really all that there was--is? My father, harming me and my family over and over, my brother resenting me because I abdicated Eyraille's throne... All of Eyraille resenting me, in fact. I did not realize how alone I have been my entire life..."
Azure eyes downcast, she picked at the loose threads of her cot. "But... was I ever happy? Do you know?" She raised those eyes to meet Haraldur's, warm and green and so inviting. "Or is this the extent of all of my memories--my past and my present? Have I ever had someone or something to live for?"
It was not fair to put him on the spot like this, to demand answers to such delicate questions, but she needed to know. She needed hope, or at least closure and confirmation in that there was none, and perhaps never had been.
Re: [r.] I know you will follow me until kingdom come [18+]
"Whether or not he knows, your brother accepted his payment--but how the mercenary will be able to return the favor, I cannot say. Adalfieri is turning him in to Andalarian authorities as a sign of good faith, and to cover up our involvement with the princess of Eyraille. Would," she played with the ends of Lilica's hair, to hide away the twisting of her nerves, "Vitali retaliate, once he learns that his deal faces arrest, and possible execution? Would he target us, the party responsible for his lost asset?"
Twisting pieces of the chthonic mage's tresses around her fingers, she finally ventured to ask the question that had curlicued in her mind since her first encounter with that most reprehensible of human beings. "I know he is only your kin by half, but it sounds as if you have some lurid history with this necromancer. Has he...caused you great harm in the past? Is there something for which we should be aware, Lilica? You must tell me if that is so. If he dares to enslave us by his very whims." She did not realize she had gripped Lilica's hair so tightly, she had ended up yanking it. With a emphatic apology, she released her hands, and shook away their tension.
"We shall all get out of this," she said, with a shaky smile. "Before long, we shall be at my villa, drinking wine, listening to your recitations of your ode to yours truly. I want it twenty-one quatrains in all, Lilica!" She shook a finger of warning at the dark mage, her shoulders at last relaxing. "Then, perhaps, my meddling father will show his face, if he so dares, and we shall cast aspersions on him and drive him away, for I still do not believe he wishes our involvement to be...so intimate." She leaned forward, and kissed Lilica's forehead, then brushed her lips to the gentle slope of her nose. "But we shall change his mind. He fancies you, so. You are a better daughter to him, I daresay, and I," she licked her lover's lips, "cannot begrudge him that."
Haraldur hardly felt the pulling and needling of his ravaged side, nor did he notice the presence of the healer who sewed the wound shut, as he closed his eyes and urged himself to sleep. To, for a time, forget, or simply not care. But his eyes kept drifting open, and they kept rolling towards Vega's empty bedside, staring, transfixed, at his silver pendant that still could not wander far from his possession. Why won't you leave? he almost wanted to demand of the innocuous-looking piece of metalwork. Look after her, not me. What else can I do? I led to her ruination.
It was at that moment when the trudging of various footsteps, clamorous and clumsy, confident and nimble, were heard outside the infirmary. The doors burst open, and in walked two Rigas guards. One carried an unconscious, bleeding Alster to the nearest bed and hailed a healer, while the other helped along Vega, who hobbled on past with a twisted ankle, her expression vastly troubled.
"What--" he sat upright, ignoring his newly-stitched injury, and listened to the Skyknight's fractured telling of events, followed by her crisis of remembering all the undesirable, yet unavoidable moments of her life. He knew that Alster had meant well in whatever magic he had used to restore pieces of Vega's memory, but if it further damaged the woman's already fragile psyche, how would she ever recover all of herself, if she could not accept what she was learning?
Worst of all, was how she looked at him. Her voice was drowned at sea, limp, tossed around by crashing waves, foundering under the surf. Tears rimmed those oceanic eyes as they, too, threatened to pull him into the ceaseless current of her sorrows. She was so desperate in her search for meaning, so trapped atop the precipice of life and death as she waited for deliverance. Why did she think she would find it in him?
...But where else would she find it?
Carefully, Haraldur rose to his feet, hiding his flinch as he half stepped, half slid over to Vega. He did not remain standing for long, as he relocated to the head of her bed, and settled beside her pillow. He urged her upright, his words gentle in his request, and once she had obliged, pivoting in his direction, he wrapped his arms around her middle, and took her into his soft embrace.
"You were happy, Vega," he said, raising his arm to the back of her head, pressing it against his shoulder. "You'll be happy again." It could not be with him, he knew, though he much wanted to remain there for her, filling her in on the details of their tryst, bolstering her spirit with stories of whatever relationship began to blossom between them--but what would that do but overflow her with yet more sadness once he was escorted from the premises, and into Andalari's waiting dungeons? And what of Vitali, who would surely be in want of payment? Who, he wagered, might wreck vengeance on him and his aggressors, if his conditions were not met? If he did not comply with both demands, however impossible it was to balance them, Vega's life could again be forfeit. It was better to deny her any expectation of their alleged partnership, when he would only have to wrench it away from her so soon after its retrieval. And, once she understood that it was he who motioned for her revival, that he pried her away from the death that was meant for her...would she despise him? Curse him? Revile his name until the day when she would encounter death for the second time? "Please believe me when I say...there is someone for you." But it is not me. He closed his eyes, feeling a moisture begin to well behind his lids. He no longer had a place in her second chance at life. It had died, along with the old Vega.
"When you return to Eyraille--and you will, with Aeriel--please look after the refugees. That is something you can do. Look after Thora. She's still young, and growing, and I'm sure that she's also lonely." He drew back his arms, and opened his eyes, mouth twitching into a half-smile. "You may not remember them now, but I know that you will...one day, Vega."
