Fate - First Reply A Deadly Dance and A Lonely Soul

A 1x1 Roleplay where the first writer to respond can join
With his life at last laid bare, Len wept. In his tears was a sorrow Kassa never thought could exist, yet here it was. She recalled, with irony, the words her mother once told her – that it took a man to cry. That to cry was not a lesson in humility. Nor was it a demonstration of weakness, but a sign of admittance, of acknowledgment of the obscene.

What did it matter anyway? When it was only them, beneath the waning moon and the flickering flames of a lonely fire? There was no one to see or care but she and her lover, two people bound together by the chains of tragedy and ongoing disaster.

And love, of course. Who could forget that? Kassa’s face kept its serene expression, but inside she was cold with a foreboding fear. Her gaze into the future condemned her, and while she refused to cower in the face of the oblivion awaiting her, how would Len handle it? When it came to claim her, what sort of tears might flow then? He refused to leave her, and she could no longer doubt his love for her, nor she for him, but everything seen now had to come to a bitter end.

But Len was a man, she thought, a great man with a greater destiny. What sort of destiny she did not know, but without a doubt there was something waiting for him. His awakening, his resurrection, was merely a catalyst for something tremendous. She was just a bystander. He would recover, and move on, and find his way. He was strong enough, more than he knew.

Still, he wanted to hold her, and she complied. If she couldn’t always be there for him, if she couldn’t promise she would be there forever, she could at least give him that.

She laid on the ground, curling up against him, hands against his chest as she kissed him. With it she placed a very clever trick, something she had learned long ago, on her own. Without the help of any dark source.

Dark… dreamless… sleep.

A gentle breeze blew over them as she closed her eyes. The fire spurted up once more and then died, leaving them in the perpetual darkness of the night and their own unspoken fates.

When the sun rose the next day in welcoming warmth, it was to the sound of the creek and a second crackling fire. A breakfast of spicy soup and ripe fruit was ready.

As he, under much prodding, ate and she readied the horses, she asked him a question not founded of jealousy - there was naught to be jealous about - but of idle curiosity.

“Tell me about her, darling. What was Yura like?”
 
Len had been somewhat melancholic the following morning. His sleep had been restful, and waking up with Kassa in his arms, to her lips pressing against his own was uplifting, without any shadow of a doubt. Still, there had been a lack of finality with the previous night. He had bore himself to Kassa, pledged to never leave her side. Even so... he sensed that resignation to her fate still within her. Behind her comforting smile, tender touches, and soft words, that darkness still loomed.

Perhaps she did not think her destiny unchangeable, but Len would fight whatever twisted fate she thought herself to have with all that remained within him. That determination would never leave him, and it was with that silent resolve that he relented to her insistence that he eat and prepare to continue their journey. By the time they were ready to leave, it was nearly midday. They had slept long, certainly.

“Tell me about her, darling. What was Yura like?”

Len hoisted himself up onto his horse as he peered over at her question. Yesterday, the query would have felt like salt in an open wound, but now it was merely a dull ache. Kassa was likely the only one who could get away with asking such a thing from him, regardless-- She was the only woman he'd ever bedded besides Yura, the only one besides her that had ever gotten so close to his heart.

"She was not unlike you, in many ways." He admitted as he turned his head back forwards, spurring the horse to carry them back to the road from where they'd pulled aside. "Determined, unwilling to change who she was for anybody, protective of those she cares for to the point of moving mountains." It was that fire inside Kassa, he'd realized, that had initially drawn him to care for her. Over time, of course, he'd learned of her differences, and grown to cherish her for who she was, separate from the woman of his memories. Still, the similarity remained.

"She cared for many of the Kingdom's gardens, Life seemed to flourish wherever she walked. I would have given anything to be with her, to skirt my duties and be by her side until the end of our days." His assignment as a warrior had forbidden him from wedding a woman of another branch. Fatherhood, his superiors worried, would be a distraction. "I offered to run away with her, our first night spent together during training. She refused."

A glossy look of reflection shone in his eyes.

"Her only wish was that I was remembered forever. That I never be forgotten."

A moment of silence as they rode, before B-taa turned his head slightly towards Kassa, speaking before he thought better of it.

"I loved her. Just as I love you, Kassa."
 
Ahead of them, stretching away from the oasis, out into the horizon, was nothing but a great expanse of grass. Green, gold, and bronze colors swayed as a gentle wind played over the stalks, shining as sunlight washed over them and sent the last remaining drops of dew aglow. It was a beautiful, soothing sight, but Kassa knew that in that seemingly endless beauty was something dark and defiantly evil. They were close to the cabin where that darkness waited. She could feel its presence… feel Him.

For now, though, she listened to Len’s description, sad as it was flattering to hear a woman that he claimed was similar to her. Was she really like this Yura? While Kassa did not feel jealousy, she did feel a slight worry that she might not live up to the expectations Yura may have set. She glanced over at Len as her horse trotted alongside his, in time to see the shine in his eyes.

It was clear someone had remembered Len. Enough to resurrect him. It was not, she was certain, the way Yura meant for Len to be remembered.

She flushed a light pink as Len professed his love for the both of them. She could never really get used to that word, to hearing it for herself. Oh, man and even woman had claimed it before. But it was always then a fleeting thing. Impermanent and, in the end, wholly false. Kassa had learned to never believe in such things, as they had always played her false and sought to expose a weakness she couldn’t afford. Not until now did she ever put faith in such foolish feelings. Not until now.

Imperceptibly her hands tightened around the reins of her horse. Was she weak now, having met Len? She needed to be strong, now more than ever. How things had changed since he had literally fallen into her life! She knew she wouldn’t have wanted to never have met the Grand Terios, but…

“We’re close,” she said, after a time. She stirred her horse’s straight trot into a slanted canter. “This way. Len…” she paused before giving him a pointed look. “Please don’t do anything stupid. You’re wonderful and a dear, but sometimes you’re the very personification of stupid. I know you don’t mean to be; you just are. But try, all right?”

She knew it was far too much to ask, but she had to at least give the effort. “The Masterful One… He isn’t something to fight, or even argue with, darling. You don’t know Him as I do. He will be generous, even gracious, but only if you are. If you try to fight Him… you’ll lose and shame us both. He might even see fit to take what He gave me away. I can’t have that, Len.”

The cabin was not yet in sight, so Kassa asked the one thing she feared, wondering if she was digging too deep and hoping not to raise Len’s ire… or sorrow.

“Darling? How did Yura… die? You said you trained together, but she doesn’t strike me as being a fighter.”

In truth, she sounded more like a castle servant and general gardener more than any sort of warrior. Kassa pursed her lips, suddenly wishing she could have met this lady love. Kassa had often dabbled in botany herself, researching plants and roots for their medicinal properties, even down to poisons and hallucinogenic effects. She’d shown as much in the fire of last night. Perhaps Yura could have shared some knowledge, perhaps even knew of plants that existed in the past and no longer grew now.
 
The ancient one took no offense from the lack of a similar declaration of feeling. He realized that things were not as black and white as they both wished they could be. Kassa still operated on the belief that her fate was set and unyielding.

To admit her feelings in words would be to give herself hope, and that was a gift she so stubbornly refused to receive. Len merely stared ahead at the path before them, listening to her words.

He had little to say in response to her pleas. Try as he might, B-taa could not fathom her relationship with his seemingly omnipotent being she seemed to revile and revere at the same time. The warrior did his best to contain the sneer on his lips to the side of his face she could not see, at least. It was the last thing she'd said, about shame and loss of gift, that caused him to pull the reigns of his horse and come to a stop.

"I have heard enough." He stated plainly, no longer hiding the ire in his gaze as he continued to stare ahead, and not into her own eyes. Composed as he prided himself on being, the statement she made had perhaps touched the wrong nerve. "You're speaking of shame to me? After all that I shared with you last night, you tell me that what will truly shame me is to balk at a false god?"

Len would have been willing to entertain conversation with the being, perhaps even bargain, but the implication that to not comply would mean a stain on his soul was too much even for him. There was anger in his voice, though not so much at her as at her 'Masterful One'. However, there was also a hint of hurt beneath the aggravation. "I will speak with this 'Masterful One' with a modicum of respect only because you ask. But do not expect me to change who I am, or to bend my beliefs to suit his whim." It was becoming clear just how devoted she was, and though it wounded him, it solidified the choice he made next.

"However... if your gifts are truly that important to you, I will not fight him." Len spoke softly now, as he kicked his horse to move once more, holding back the frustration building in his chest. "If he asks of me what I am not willing to provide, I will leave you with your gifts and your Master, as you desire."

It would rend his heart to make such a choice, to leave one he'd grown to care so deeply for. He would never come before that dark being she worshipped, though, and he would not allow his own emotions to cost her the life she wished to lead. If his own sorrow spared her, so be it. He looked over his shoulder, after a moment, shaking his head as he finally met her gaze.

"I... I apologize. I'm..." A look of genuine puzzlement settled in his eyes as he looked ahead again. "She died on the battlefield. Sent in when we'd run out of soldiers in our pointless wars. I never even got to tell her goodbye... So if I must lose you too, I would rather do it on my own terms..."
 
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Kassa’s face flushed red. Not with embarrassment or shame, but with rage. As Len was again lost in the past and already returning to his noble self, Kassa could do nothing but fume. There were many things she wanted to say, so many that the words were too jumbled together to get out. Perhaps it was for the best; none of them were kind.

Len misunderstood. She just wanted to keep him safe, was that so much to ask? Maybe she was wrong. Wrong, but only in bringing him into this mess, into the whole conflict between her and the being that lurked within the shadows. He was going to deal with things he, regardless of what he thought, was not prepared for. He was going to be in the presence of something he could never understand. His arrogance, his pride, could very well get him killed – again.

Kassa respected the Masterful One. She didn’t want to, but the kind of power she had seen from her malevolent benefactor demanded it. She feared Him too, but she needed Him. Yes, she had unleashed a power that didn’t belong in this world, opened the gate He was enclosed behind, but now that He was summoned, the authority He wielded was Godly, if He Himself was not. She was now powerless before Him, and forever indebted to Him as long as she lived… and perhaps forever after.

She was more than certain He could dispose of Len if He pleased. She had waited so long for someone like Len, and yet…

And yet, atop his mount and with that damn noble attitude and holier-than-thou aura radiating around him like some goddamned sun shining only for him, he spat her intentions back in her face and buried it all under a mountain of disgrace. Stating that if she desired, he’d leave her with her gifts and Masterful One.

How dare he!

She hardly heard Len talk about Yura. She was no longer interested.

By the time Len met her eyes she was more than furious. Before she could think, before she could remedy the action, her hand came up and around.

SMACK

As hard as she could. Straight in the face.

“Don’t you DARE try to shame me!” she snapped as her hand came down to grip in a white fist. “Don’t you DARE talk back to me! You think I don’t know? Think I don’t care about this mess, and you? Yes, you!” Her voice rose to a wrathful shout. “You, and goddamn you for that! You make me sorry I ever saved your sorry ass. After all that, you think you can sit there and act so good and pure, and state you can leave whenever you want because I didn’t matter if I had to do whatever He says! Not like I want to. It’s not my choice! But you don’t get it, do you? Fuck you!

“Yes, my gifts matter to me! They’re all I have, all I’ve ever had. I live to avenge my mother and everything those bastards took from me and made me do!

“Go then!” she screamed. “Leave, like everyone else! I don’t care! Do you hear me? I don’t care, you fucking fool! Go and prove the Masterful One is the only one I can count on! Your terms? NO, MINE. Not everything revolves around you, Grand Terios! FUCK YOU!”

She kicked her horse in the sides. It reared and took off, galloping away from the one person she thought she trusted.
 
The slap did not bother Len, not so much as the rageful words that came after.

Kassa cursed him, damned him, and openly regretted saving him from the brink. All the while Len stared at her, a blend of anger, confusion and disbelief on his face as she again proclaimed her need for her gifts, for her Masterful One and all that He offered her. In the same breath she used to decry the shame he'd made her feel for her actions, she again raged at him for refusing to bend his knee to her Master.

What exactly was she expecting of him? Only yesterday he'd spoken of how submitting to a Master he knew to be wrong had caused his prior life to fall apart around him, forced him to bleed it dry with his own hands. Now she was angry that he would not do the same for a new Master? B-taa cared not if it was God or Monster. If he was to die, rather than become subservient once again, so be it.

Perhaps it was she wished him to live, despite her words. That her wish to keep him away from the situation she was in was a way of protecting him. That too, was a fallacy. He was already involved. He had been the moment that Masterful One had confronted him in her old home, and even more so when she'd accepted him into her bed. Whether she liked it or not, they shared a bond now, and as such, her problems were at least somewhat his own. Now she took that vulnerability and threw it at his feet, as though it changed nothing, as if it had no bearing on what he should do.

For all the poison she spat at him, she was just as out of line.

Of course, Kassa wouldn't give him time to say any such thing. Instead, she rode off in a fury, throwing spears of guilt behind her aimed at his heart as she did so.

Not everything revolves around you, Grand Terios!

That was what hurt most of all.

Because Len Dy't B-taa had never thought of himself in these ordeals.

The reason he disapproved of the Masterful One was His control over Kassa, the iron grip He had on her mind, on her every waking moment. If he were to die at the strange being's hands for resisting, it would only drive her further into grief. His proposal to leave her was exactly what she'd seemed to want, for no other option had been presented to him that wasn't 'ignore the situation'.

And, for a time, Len sat there atop his horse, watching her as she rode into the distance.

She would never choose him over her 'Master'. She would never choose him over vengeance for her family. What would he bring her by continuing to follow her but more pain? He could not obey whom she obeyed, could not condone her servitude with an open mind and calm hand. She wouldn't even let him try to help her, after all that they'd accomplished.

So what then, was the answer she'd wished for? He was a fool for walking away, but a fool for fighting back.

With a sigh, Len reservedly kicked his horse to slowly follow her. He would give her space, hope that time would clear her head and let reason prevail. If she insisted on forcing his hand, on pushing this ultimatum unto him...

She'd truly leave him with no choice.

Kassa Lia
 
It had been years – so many countless years ago – since Kassa had last shed tears. Of sorrow, of regret. But she shed them now as she drove her horse through the hills of grass gold and green, fully intending to leave Len behind. After what she had said, she expected to never see him again. She didn’t deserve such a gift, after all. Any other man would have left her in disgust, a disgust greater than she felt for herself, growing with every passing moment. She almost fainted with a terrible relief when she heard Len’s horse galloping behind her. He was truly insane.

She didn’t know quite what she wanted in life, other than vengeance for all the things the witch hunters stole form her. Right now, she wished she could apologize to Len. So much that she slowed her horse, almost to the point that Len could easily catch up to her if he wanted. But for some reason she couldn’t get the words past her lips. As if simply an apology was not only not enough but would be insulting. Like child, she couldn’t apologize. Like a child! She bit her lip till it bled.

Please forgive me, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say it. She couldn’t.

Some people couldn’t be forgiven. They didn’t deserve that grace.

She screamed, with all the rage she felt at herself, letting her frustrations out with the sound. A great wind rushed through the air, and the grass, whipping around and past her, froze at the tips. Her horse snorted at the sudden cold; flakes of ice and snow flitted past Len, melting quickly in the sun. More built up around her hands and crusted the reins, though she didn’t feel the biting discomfort or the burn.

The cabin came into view even before she stopped screaming. A poor, decrepit pile of wood and thatched grass, surrounded by a small plot of land that had once yielded a few vegetables and fruit, which now held only weeds and hewn dirt. There was a scrap of leather hanging from a frame of wood and rope, and a rusted iron bench strewn with equally rusted, broken tools. It was clear no one had lived in such a pale for some time, yet in the glassless windows there was a single bit of light. A candle, half gone, flickered weakly. She leaped off her horse the moment the dying fire was visible, stumbling as she hit the ground. The horse too stopped, its hooves grinding to halt, refusing to go farther. She left it.

The door to the cabin opened, slowly, creaking against its cracked iron hinges. The candle died completely, leaving a deep darkness awaiting within. A cold wind, felt even from a good distance away, blew from it, a sigh of anticipation. Kassa stopped before the door before she even dared to enter.

What the hell was she doing?

She didn’t know if he still followed her. He really shouldn’t have. But…

“Len… oh gods, what am I doing? What am I doing? I can’t… I can’t go in there!”

She could feel it, the darkness, the presence in there, the call for her. He was close, inside, waiting, patiently beckoning. Her hands went to her mouth and she bit her fingers, her eyes wide, afraid as she had never been afraid before. This time, it would be different. Everything would be different.

He was waiting, not just for her…

But for Len.


Len Dy't B-taa
 
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