The soft roll of the waves lapped at the ship as the blackness above and all around enveloped all save the soft light given by the deck lamps.. His cloak hung around him the soft whispers from the blackness of his mind unrelenting in their inquisition…
They could say what they would about his aging weakness, his fading hearing and his faulty memory, but damn them all, his eyes were still sharp as ever. In truth he hadn’t been entirely certain at first, but sure as fire was hot, a lift of his latern revealed a pale form huddled silently a few feet away. She was crouched beneath a tree, knees pressed up against her chest and appearing as much alone and lost as any young woman he would expect to find this deep in the woods. Damn but it was dark, and despite the aid of his lantern, it was, as ever, threatening to flicker out. He had meant to pick up oil, he’d forgotten. In truth he had been rushed. Damn but she was paranoid. She had wanted him home quickly, too many rumours as of late about this or that, blah blah blah… he had become accustomed to tuning her out. In that, he was thankful for his fading hearing. Well, she’d have to forgive him this one. He wasn’t much for heroics but he also wasn’t much for leaving young girls to be lost in the woods and weigh on his conscience either.
He moved the lantern closer, dim light casting over dirtied skin, dirtied clothes and dirty hair. His expression soured at the sight and thought perhaps his smelling must be going to, for surely this tattered urchin stunk to the heavens.
“Miss?”
No movement. He cleared his throat.
“Miss, ya’lright there?” he ventured louder though it came more as a froggy croak in his equal effort not to startle her. By the gods he hated when women screamed.
A moment more passed and finally the dirtied girl raised her head with the same sort of expediency one would expect from a groggy school-child roused reluctantly in the early morning. She murmmered something unintelligable, though he thought that perhaps that was his own fault, and her head wobbled back into her folded arms. He looked her over and his frown only deeped. Was she drunk? He didn’t smell that either. He gave her a cautious sniff to be sure. No, only the smell of earth and…
His lantern swung closer. What he had thought to simply be the lengths of the matted red hair spidering across her arms and clothing was what appeared to be, and smelled like, blood. He cursed inwardly that perhaps his eyes weren’t so keen afterall.
“Aye, girl, hey now, what happened here?” He did his best to project a fatherly sort of tone, but that too came in an awkward throaty croak, sounding more curious than concerned. And really that was the truth of it. How could he not be? He looked her over, what little of her flesh he could see, and for the life of him could not pinpoint a single wound from which that much blood would spring.
She murmmered something again. Damn but if she would just lift her head to speak. He set the lantern down and kneeled into the sticky mud beneath them, calloused hand reaching out to place tentatively on her shoulder. She didn’t recoil, and so he pressed onward.
“Hey now, I need’ya to speak up, girl, I’m an old man, ears ain’t what they used to be.” He wasn’t quite sure what he’d do even if he got an answer, but well, he had to start somewhere. Nearest town wasn’t too far, if nothing else, he could heft her onto the cart and dump her at the closest inn. Leaving her to the woods was one thing, leaving her to a city where, surely, some altruistic soul might take pity on her, was another. She shifted under his hand and her head raised again, no more quickly than before.
Bright green eyes stood out in startling contrast against the dirty, bloodcaked face that rose to meet his own. He reflexively tumbled back from the surprise of it, his already shameful balance failing him and sending him arse backwards to plop sinking into the sticky mud. He groaned with exasperation and upon opening his eyes after having shut them against the pain of the fall, quickly noticed the lack of the lantern’s light. It, and the last dregs of its oil, had been knocked over and decidedly snuffed out. Damn but he’d wished he’d-
And yet, they were not quite as engulfed in the darkness as it had initially seemed. Those green eyes stared over at him, unblinking and unnatural in thier brightness, as if illuminated by some otherwordly light. Had he not been near pissing himself, he might have been fascinated by them. But as it were, he was alone in the dark, arse deep in mud, and faced with what was seeming less and less like a helpless young woman.
It felt like they sat there for eternity, enough time passing that he started to feel awkward, stupid really, sitting and staring as he was. He thought about all the stories he’d tuned half-way out from his wife, all the tales from when he was a boy. What had that thing been called? Wasn’t this when the monster lunged at him, tearing him limb from limb? Maybe he was wrong, maybe it was some trick that did that to her eyes.
He worked his tongue nervously over the dried surface of his lips, letting out a weak laugh. He made some self-deprecating excuse as to his fall and attempted to lumber back up and fish about for his lantern. All the while those green eyes watched him, and so he felt the fear creep back into his spine. Did she have to stare like that? He let out a muttering curse as he knocked a knuckle against the lantern’s edge, plucking it from the mud forcefully as if it held some burden of blame for his perdicament.
He fiddled with the oil well in the darkness to no avail, frustration prickling his already frayed nerves. Just as he was about to toss the damned thing into the woods, the lantern ignited with a bright and all-too intense flame. He squawked in surprise, nearly dropping the lantern and tumbling back into the mud again. But, only to add to his confusion, something kept him upright and the lantern in his hand.
It was the girl. When had she moved? Damn but she was fast. She stood before him, eyes fixed intently upon the brilliant flame, one hand atop his that grasped the lantern and the other gripping hard under his elbow to prevent his fall. He could do nothing but stare at her though the firelight. Magic. It gave off no heat, no sparks, did not flicker or falter. As sure as fire was hot, it was cold. It was as cold, and as lifeless, as the creature that stood before him.
With the glint of fangs revealed beneath the unnatural light, the word came unbidden from his shaking lips.
“Strigoi…”
At that her gaze flickered away from the aether wreathed about the fuel-less wick and into the eyes of the terrified man. He had been there for some time, of that she was aware, but had paid little head to his presence in earnest. He was too old and her thirst too sated for him to draw her eye, or her ire. But at that word…
“Where did you hear that?”
He was visibly shaking now, her voice seeming to have brought some measure of the reality of the situation to him.
“Wh-what?”
“‘Strigoi'” she repeated, affecting an accent she had far from mastered and was, in truth, somewhat still ashamed to attempt. However, she felt it might ease him. “Tell me where you heard that word.”
He looked utterly baffled, as if she had asked something more perplexing than the world’s greatest minds could riddle out. But his words came soon anyway, they usually did when faced with what many saw as their last moments. What had they to lose? Perhaps in their jabbering, they might spit out something worth more than their life and stay the visit of death for yet another day.
“T-tales! common… common tales!“ she wrinkled her nose in disgust, his words punctuated with the slow but thorough wetting of his trousers. Having must thought her unsatisfied, he carried on in a more desperate voice. “The R-Romani! Come ’round, every now and then, tellin’ stories!“
She released him with such suddeness that he once again he found himself arse deep in the murk, but by the gods, this time he thankful for it. Sore, but alive, his eyes darted upwards to her, one hand thrusting the still-lit lantern up at her as if a ward against evil. Though she had created it of course, damn but he was stupid sometimes. Though, she merely remained, as still as a gravestone there in all her dirtied, gruesome nature. Her eyes seemed to stare at nothing for what felt like eternity before she spoke again, voice soft, almost shakey. She suddenly seemed very fragile to him, and against his better judgement, a measure of pity welled up above the fear.
“Where… where is he?”
He turned hesitantly to look over his shoulder in the direction of her gaze. Nothing but darkness. Surely she was talking to him? He looked back to her, all confusion and uncertainty with a heaping helping of terror, but still, curious all the same. His brow wrinkled and he parted his lips, more than ashamed at the squeek that eeked out of his throat.
“…h-he?”
Once again she seemed oblivious of him, and once again her voice came in that same demanding, pleading, shaking tone as before.
“Where…”
He cracked his lips to question again but stopped short as something… changed. He wasn’t sure at first, but damn what else they said, he had good eyes. And so he saw them. He saw the shadows. And moreover, he saw that they moved.
They swirled, snaked, shifted and turned like a great undualting mass of everything and nothing all at once. It was there in the corners of his eyes, and it was there right in front of him. But the aetherial flame seemed to keep it abated, or did it stay back of itss own wishes? Its own wishes? By the gods, what was he going on about? He shook his head, felt like the damned fog had rolled right in and settled low and creeping in his aching head.
He looked back up to her and she seemed no less confused, no less worried than he did himself. He wondered, could monsters feel? As quickly as the shadows began to move they had stopped again and left nothing but a sort of emptiness about her. Her lips seemed to part as if to attempt another question, but nothing came except that damnable pit of pity in his stomach welling up again.
“Where…” she seemed as if to start again, but her eyes shut tight, opening again with a more resolved look, her voice losing a measure of its shakiness. She looked to him instead and he felt his blood run cold.
“Where is the nearest city?”
He hesitated, biting his tongue. He couldn’t set this creature on his family, his friends. Well, a couple he might not mind her visiting, but all the same, best to not. What he did not stop however, was the unintentional flicker of his eyes in the direction of Narrowhaven. And she, bright green gaze upon him, did not miss the gesture.
And without another word, and without a sound, she was gone.
And damned but if he wasn’t still stuck arse-deep in the stinking mud.
He felt as if he floated in some black water.. he could not make out the stars above but because of the darkness.. he knew it must be night.. Floating as he was he found it odd he could not move.. his mind struggled trying to put form to what had happ…
He had been unsettled somehow since he had left her, and so set to familiar path. Using what had calmed him always he fell to hunting, Killing.. Attempting to lose himself in the comforting dance of death. Still peace eluded him though he could not pl…
And so she died, no surprise. Kiara was as dead as any other mortal could classify themselves as alive. She, inevitably, suffered the same fate as her predecessors, and the mortals who would come after her.
And yet I must live on. And yet I must continue to be eternal. Any yet I must continue to be the one object for which is most despised, but cannot ever outlive the hatred.
And yet I am so made that I cannot care.
My son is born, I ripped the squirming, disgusting, shouting little imp from her lower abdomen, and snuggled him to me. He is but all that remains, and he will also die before I die. He is indelibly stamped with the same repulsive sentence anyone else of his condition is born. He was born mortal, and not made eternal.
She bled to death, and while I may very well have stepped in, why should I? Mortals die all the time, and I am prohibited from interfering in that. My duty is balance. Nature has graced by with the judgment and ability to supersede it. I am eternal, and that is the fact, not the exception.
So my son will grow, as all things grow, and I will watch him die… but I will still teach him in the manner his mother would have taught, and I will be a hypocrite. I will tell him to do all that is good, I will instruct him in the manners of his mothers will, because he deserves that much. I could not possibly teach him in the reason that governs me, he is but mortal, and I am but forever… The finite cannot understand the infinite.
I have never known love before it was spell with the letter “K,” but only one “K” may remain. If love may be eternal, so is pain, and I am tormented by the rupture of her tiny abdomen. I am tormented by the gentle eyes that stare still upon me, expecting everything… but doomed to nothing.
There is but one more letter “K” which affords me the eternal luxury of love and pain. And still, too, I have failed her. I have been unable to protect my entire heart, and I am doomed to the misery of my failure, but graced with the eternity to feel the misery. Kairi is engaged, but still mine… always mine. Who could not be mine?
Everything is always mine.
I am the King of All things. I have many pretenders. I am often emulated, but never duplicated.
I am eternity, the beginning and the end. I am the ice before water, and the water before steam, and the steam before water again, and then ice again.
I am the diamond before dust.
I am the light before dusk.
I am the darkness, and the shadow, and I am the source of the shade.
Stealing and Detect Hidden update. You can now steal items and stay hidden, based on weight of the item. Detect Hidden has been split into two new abilities: Detect and Reveal. Both use the skill DetectHidden for computations. Use the DetectHidden…
——
“It calls to me..”
Awareness.
A scream.
It struggled to break the crushing silence that pressed in all around her. When nothing came, her long-still hands flashed to her mouth, searching in an unnaturally animated frenzy for the binding of her voice. Dirt-caked nails dragged at the roots discovered snaking down her throat, like some god’s forsaken mockery of the worms that should have otherwise inhabited her lifeless form. She choked and gagged as she pulled what felt like endless lengths of barbed rope from within her body but with the last of it, her cry ripped uncaged into the darkness, carrying with it all the anger, loss, and hunger from countless years passed.
A stillness settled on her with the release, lasting for but a moment before the desperation, and the desire, took to her again. She began to claw at the soil. Piled heavy upon her body, its earth was thickly caked and packed tight with the ever-present press of time. But set before her unabated nature, it mattered little.
The surface quickly broke with the flurry of her hands, fingers tangling with the thick brush sprouting above her resting place. The press of thorns pierced her flesh, drawing a bright crimson against her dirted but otherwise strikingly pale skin. Yet the wounds did little to slow her, sealing closed with a sort of languid effort and only driving her hunger, pressing her onward.
With another cry she ripped herself free of the thicket, sending up a shower of crimson rose petals as she fell to the shattered surface of the earth. In the darkness she lay there, for a time drained of what little energy she had possessed. The echo of her cry had faded into the shadows and the only sound that remained was the pitter-patter of petals that fell soft and gentle about her. Their colour mixed with the dark crimson of her hair, but with the touch of her flesh however, they soon turned black and brittle, leaving little piles of ash marring her porceline skin.
A flash of bright green and her eyes were open. A searing red the colour of sanguine rimmed the irises to circle slowly, inwardly, until all the was left was the bloody brilliance of her Hunger. It was forefront and it was all consuming and her nature would see it quickly sated.
and then…
With a fluid motion she rose before the high moon, tattered dress and tangle of crimson hair drifting about her. Long quieted lips parted to reveal the glint of fangs perched there on a whisper…
“-I- call to you…”
—-
He watched her depart the chamber leaving to her rest.. his mind a tumult of thoughts.. feelings long since absent raging through him like some great storm at sea.. stirred both by her, and by what he now thought upon. He had considered this but once …
A small, bloodied hand set upon the center of the large altar the child lay upon, her broken, ravaged body crawling in a desperate, yet futile attempt to reach the still outstretched limb of her mother.
The twisted, macabre scene of her mother’s lifeless, mangled corpse as it lay, rendered near fleshless had been burned into the forefront of her memory where it would remain a haunting testament to her father’s weakness.. his utter inability to control that which he sought to seize from the unforgiving clutches of the nether..
“Sweet little morsel.. so like your mother..” The ragdoll body of her mother was jerked from the floor, escaping the small, shaking hand that failed to reach her by scant inches as the beast above her wrenched the butchered cadaver up by it’s hair, the dark mahogany tresses forever stained in the deep crimson of her life blood.
“Father! WHY?!” Utter terror, pain, anguish and betrayal echoed from the small girl in a voice so unlike her own.. the harsh rasping of a throat raw from the tormented wails of unbridled agony. He had taken everything from her.. everything that had been the safe cocoon in which she had thrived until this moment, and still the beast that had once been her father stood above her, poised and laughing through the ghastly gape of its mouth.
Even as the young child wept, her face smeared in the fetid amalgamation of tears, dirt, and the carmine of her blood she continued to utter the softly spoken incantation. Every syllable, every enunciation left her lips with such a perfected understanding that the demon that stood above her took pause, its gruesome visage twisting and contorting with a hatred born of pure jealousy.
“You hope to succeed where he failed, little girl?!” The deep baritone of his voice boomed in a dark cacophony of sound as clawed fingers grabbed at the nape of the child’s neck, hefting her broken body from the ground even as her mother’s was thrust against the cold, stone wall of the ritual chamber. A sickening crack of the woman’s bones elicited a shrill cry from the young girl that struggled in vain against the crushing grasp of her captor.
It was pure terror that drove the girl now, her hands clutching helplessly at the wrist of the demon that held her, dangling above the altar and as she closed her eyes, the child seemed almost accepting of her fate. Death awaited her, just as it had claimed everything that she had held dear.. everything that had once been precious to her.
Vicious claws hovered above her, their bloodied tips aimed to rend the heart from her chest and yet as she braced herself for the inevitable agony of her final moment, the deep echo of his laughter that had pierced her ears cut abruptly short.
The soft hitch in his throat, the gentle sigh of encroaching death that passed the demon’s lips forced the child to open her eyes. The scene before her wavered as the beast’s heart landed in a sickening thud upon the dirt beneath them, the darkness that sought to claim her narrowing her vision until only a single entity lingered at the apex of her distorted sight, and as her body crumbled upon the floor, two arms took her into their shelter, reverently cradling her in such a way as to remind her that she would never truly be alone.
” ..Sallos.”
He remained with her long after she had slept, one hand smoothing her hair, one wrapped around her shoulder.. a blanket separating them to keep the warmth. Even flushed with her blood as he was now, he knew it would not last long and she would need th…