Completed A Duel Renewed

[Petra Darthinian]

Dragon and rider made the decision for the lingering kindred. Great talons came crashing down and shoved that snarling creature into the earth. Caged in by merciless black irons. How the kindred did not notice the great dragon diving from the sky, no matter how silent, was beyond their ken. But all the same, Norvyk lowered his snarling maw to blow hot fetid breath between talons. His breath stinking of carrion and wrath. How easy it would be to tear this being into scraps. But the foulness of its blood was more than enough to stay the crushing snap of dragon teeth.

Confident that the kindred was going nowhere, Petra turned a questioning look at Valborast, she had done her part and now would follow his lead.

Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Impaled by blade the buckled backed one, imprisoned by talon the more dignified of the kindred messengers, the two interlopers of the surface did hiss and reveal their natures. Of pain and panic from the one that did amble with crooked spine, spasming fingers taut from Riven's sinister nature. Of loathing hatred and grim composure by the other more dignified thing, so caught by dragon talon pressure.

Crimson eyes stared up at the dragon who loomed, a contemptuous snarl at the circumstance.

The vampire so pinned under claw spoke with a sneer, lifting his head to reveal a necklace of thick gold bands that ran about his neck. Beneath the clothes was something resembling a heart of crimson, a thing of great portent.

"I carry a heart of woe, fool," he said.

Valborast looked up in hearing this, his face carrying all the hatred for the circumstances.

The one so impaled by the blade Riven was wretchful in it's movements, clawing at air as it did give protestations as Valborast's voice raised.

"Hold your fire! If that one is killed-"

"If I die, the heart explodes, incinerating us all! So slow your pulses everyone, or no-one gets out of this. Even you, dragon. So let's talk terms."

Valborast gave a guttural growl of contempt at this development. The one who carried the heart spoke on.

"First of all, no diabolrie on my underling! Or I activate the heart," the one under claw said with disgust at the word. "I hadn't thought that I'd have to tell a human of all things not to commit such a vile act, but here we are, in this sick world of yours Valchek."

Valborast spat a reply.

"What has become of my son, degenerate? Speak!"

"Second. Vow to allow me to return to Zakron without harm. I hear you are a knight now. Bound by conduct. Vow this, and I will speak on that. Oh, and kill my underling. So that he does not regale the Court of these negotiations."

A panicked and pained whimper came from the other one at this request so easily spoken.

A request that was swiftly acted upon. Riven was drawn out and cast wide across the neck, severing it with an angered grunt from Valborast.

The body slumped and turned to ash, that buckled back finally straightening out at the final moment as ash became it.

Valborast sheathed Riven, and walked to the dragon. His head held high as scorn felt abated for such a dispatch as he looked down at this prisoner who would detonate should they meet the same fate.

"I swear on the stone I carved I shall honour your request. You shall come to no harm and you will be allowed to return. Speak. This letter of riddles as to the fate of my son. Speak plainly on it. Is he dead? Or was he turned against his will? Do you torture him?"

A dry laugh eminated.

"Answer me!" Valborast seethed.

"He chose to become kindred. Such a thought didn't occur to you? He did it to quench all doubt of his loyalty. Not much of a mortal life ahead of him if he didn't. He serves the Court rather well now, with honour and distinction. He is not pained. Except, by news of what you do to us. What you carry to perform such cursed deeds. Hence the letter to wrack you. To leave our Courts in a fit of violence is one thing. To imprison souls of kindred in the binding of that blade, is another entire. Another torture shall come Valchek. Mayhap from your own son's hand, if he has his wish answered. He has nothing but contempt for your disregard of our ways. You should have been content with the misery of knowing not of your son's fate. Now let me go. Unless you are nothing more than a husk of a knight in addition to being a depraved mortal practitioner of diabolrie, Valchek the Voracious!"

Valborast seemed to age ten years in the face at such news, such a moniker for his actions towards the kindred, lines etching firmly into his features. He took a step back, blinking a few times as if to refocus his eyes.

He looked to Petra without the confidence of his usual self. It was as if the flame of his soul had been snuffed out, and all that was animated was but smoke. He nodded at Petra.

"Let him go," he said with dry hoarse tone, his eyes distant as he tried to reach an understanding within himself at what has been told to him.

Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Norvyk's eye flared with indignation at being given any demands from such creatures, but a silent word from his rider and he acquiesced with a soft rumbling snarl of disgust and tail lash that gouged divots into the earth behind him. His talons wrenching from the earth and freeing the prone kindred.

Petra noted the aggrieved expression on Valborast's face. The sharp poise of his very stature seemed to deflate, and she felt a swell of retaliatory contempt rise in her chest on his behalf. She glared balefully at the vampire-kin, the way he moved on the ground, making to stand upright, reminded her of the panicked slithering of a snake. And she felt an intense compulsion to stamp the pest back into the dirt.

"Speak, filth." The elf quipped in a commanding voice. "Were you also tasked with bringing some sort of reply back to your master?" Nefarious intent built silently between her and her dragon. How this creature answered her questions next would determine the execution of that intent.

Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Shadows resumed their movements across the kindred so liberated from dragon claw, ripples of blackness that did lovingly course across the messenger. He scoffed lightly at the suggestion and leaned from foot to foot as a cutting retort was considered yet dismantled internally.

"Our," he spoke and gave quick glance to the ash that did dissipate into the air and corrected himself, "my part is played. The letter the first dose of poison, the truth so pursued and rendered a further hemlock. I wasn't expecting a possible avenue for distinction in this task, but you both provided it. I am the Carnal Court's courier," the kindred said with brimming pride that scored out contempt in the final utterance, "And I would not sully my duties with carrying his traitorous reply."

He flexed his fingers as if the thought of carrying Valchek's word wracked his digits.

He turned side on, and with eyes upon Petra.

"That ungrateful bastard was given everything. And now, for his ingratitude, rejection and defiling to our ways and values, his mortal legacy is beyond him eternally. But more pain can always be rendered. Remember that. Now, I am away. To look upon his form offends my senses, and is almost ruining my appetite," the kindred said with revulsion, and gave one more withering look to Valchek that looked at the face that was a front and the blade that was a gleaming taboo.

He looked back to Petra.

"Almost," he said, and gave small smile, and the physicality of his person dissolved into more shadow liquid, and began to make high speed away before the sunlight might render him moot.

Valchek watched Petra blankly, a multitude of frostly thoughts refusing to thaw as his rage and caustic bitter personage was smothered moment by moment in dreadful facts that did roil.

Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Petra sensed Norvyk's intent before she felt him tense beneath her. Like a predator readying to strike, his head snapped up, spines flaring down his proudly arched neck.

"Unfortunate that I made no such promise." Came the dragon's sibilant reply, his eyes on the fleeing dark creature. The air began to crackle with the burn of ozone and Petra's knuckles whitened with their grip on her saddle a moment before a great dirge of lightning spilled from Norvyk's roaring jaws, bolts sailing through the air. Faster than flight. Faster than shadow.

They hit the fleeing kindred with the force of a storm. Flaring blue light battled with black smoke. The vampire-kin's body seizing back into corporeal existence. His mouth frozen in a silent scream of agony as deadly energy ravaged his body.

A high-pitched whine began building around him, the pressure of it pressing on their eardrums with a frantic frequency— until a crack rent the air and the kindred's heart of woe exploded. The force of it gouging the trunks of several trees nearby and a cloud of fiery black smoke billowed around a small crater where his body had been.

Naught but ash now beneath the golden eyes of a dragon's satisfied glare.

Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

It seemed dreadful facts had a want to culminate within Valborast, so sudden and quick this addition to his maladies was this act performed. The messenger had been wreathed in lightning in a snap of bestial outlashing, Valborast winced from the bright emination of power that outpoured from both the drake's maw and further bristled him from the erupting detonation of the heart of woe. It made the hairs of his neck raise and he felt his joints grind against themselves in reverberations of the implement so sundered.

The smoke rose in statement of the fact of things. The kindred was nought but soot. As was the vow that Valborast had made to his condemnable messenger, so rendered moot through such coursing devastating light.

Valborast's frame was dumbfounded by the result of the dragon's impulse, but like a shattering field of ice did the surface of cold response crack in sudden spasms. Fingers that curled about his cloak in apoplectic rage at the sight of being being rendered so moot in intent, brow that furrowed and eyes that were full of scorn. He took a few steps towards the forest that had been detonated, shoulders shuddering in rising motions, raising his hands to the very sky for strength as his voice finally made introduction to his opinion.

"Trice damned this terrible lizard that mocks my word, so rended into so much soot! A knight makes venture to offer protection for information and you, what," Valborast seethed, the floodgate of emotion firmly open to the roiling turbulence that was his opinions, arms descending down as if he might command his own bolts to sunder something. He paced, this fresh irritance and rage displacing what sorrowed and consumed him.

He paced, casting baleful eye to the dragon, all sense of self preservation gone and all momentum granted to him with scant caution cast to the wind in favour of his own all consuming outrage.

"Think that might afford you the chance to make further mockeries upon mockeries? Petra, is this a declaration of contempt to my door? For what honour I have upon the surface is further driven into that black of below, by such, by such, defiance of intent!" Valborast seethed, stumbling over his own words as the rage did make further mockeries of his intent. He continued.

"I had no love for that kindred, but I gave him my word I would provide safe passage! Do you content yourself with mocking a vow made upon the stone laid by a fellow knight in their formation? I asked you not to fetter my cloak so instead of rip my honour to ribbons? Does this amuse you so? This, this, tarnishing? This abasement?" Valborast seethed.

He looked to the dragon and Petra with the cinders of rage so expressed foul upon his tongue.

He smoothed his hair back and the rage simmered within him, for what wisdom was his in command made him aware that this was not in any position to deliver any self edifying thought against the desire to lash out with more than word.

Grim and full of vitrolic essence, he uttered, "I am at so many losses tonight I can scarcely keep inventory, so please, I do implore you," Valborast said as he made mocking sarcasm the hallmark of his derision, "help me understand why I should not some...knightly satisfaction, for such a reckless disregard of a fellow knight, Petra Darthinian!"

Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Great draconic wings flared as Norvyk reared up, almost knocking back Valborast in his enraged approach. The ground tremoring when he slammed himself back down, talons gouging the soft earth.

He snaked his head closer to the man, staring at him in challenge as he spat, "Do not mistake our bond for one of master and slave. She is not my keeper and I am not bound by your morals and oaths."

His wings fluttered in agitation and his tail lashed. "I am a creation of the very forces of nature themselves. My dominion over the skies is the most natural thing that mankind has ever recorded in your history books. I belong here, for I am what I am."

A great hiss escaped his maw as his eyes sparked malevolently. "So I shall not suffer such blood-filth to live in my presence. Their life is wrong and unnatural, and I will reset the balance every chance I get, because that is my RIGHT."

Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Valborast did not abate in his indignation. He looked to the dragon with spite in his candor, hand flexing near Riven should he need make quick escape. He spoke low and steady.

"What could an indulgent beast such as you understand of honour and accords. You demonstrate yourself a maverick, entitled to wanton destruction that makes mockery of parlay. You are a slave to your indulgences, and in so doing, render Petra a slave to your wrath. I thought dragons powerful once. Now all I see is hubris made hulking, a siege engine that thinks only of its want to destroy, both friend and foe. You have wrought enough damage, drake, both to my honour and Petras in such indulgences. Shame it seems, is beneath you. You thirst for destruction without heed of consignment rivals that of kindred. If you attack me, Petra would be expelled from the order. Your lack of discipline is a liability, dont make it the end of her career. Get out of my sight. Petra, stay if you care to fix any of this brute thing's error. Go with it promptly if you see no issue with subverting a vow of a Knight via your animal."

 

[Petra Darthinian]

A war of emotions battled for victory in Petra's chest. Indignation, guilt, pity, anger, and a deep well of reluctant empathy that pulled at her heart at hearing the anguish in Valborast's voice.

This was a man of secrets. Of principles. Of promises that he had broken and now paid dearly for.

Suddenly, the flavor of his bitterness became a familiar bed fellow. One that had scorned her before and left deep trenches where they had torn through her heart so many decades before.

She didn't immediately react. Instead, she watched him in silence. Her eyes tightening the longer she looked at the desperate man before her. And it was a struggle to speak past the weight on her tongue, but she felt a gentle rumble echo up through her legs from Norvyk. Who was suddenly uncharacteristically quiet with his opinions. Yet his comfort gave her the momentum she needed to offer her fellow knight as much of an olive branch as she could. Though its stem was thorned.

"I will not fault you for speaking out of grief, Valborast. I know my condolences are a pithy and unwanted thing. But you have them all the same."

"I had hoped that you of all people could understand a monstrous beginning. That you could separate one's true nature from the crucible in which they had been formed in."

She paused; her expression growing contemplative. "I will not ask you for redemption or forgiveness. Because just as Norvyk claimed. I am what I am." Her dragon adjusted restlessly beneath her. Preparing them for flight.

"I have never, nor would I ever ask you to split your nature to fit the mold of my own expectations. The merit of who you are now has always been enough for me. Otherwise, why would I have fought next to you time and again?"

"I hope in time that your scorn will turn a keener eye to the wisdom of what happened today. Until then, I pray you do not end up drowning in your shallow shadows."

The wind that they left in their wake was cold and hollow in the empty field where they left Valborast. Finally, alone.

Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Valborast's binary choice laid before Petra granted exeunt, enough words spoken from bitter indignant reaction, better parting words that in tone and in meaning would do much in time to provide knightly clarity to caustic opinion so entangled. Valborast turned his back as the wings crashed to provide lift, knowing his own temperament embroiled in his mood, knowing that he had spoken enough in a rush of angered zeal. His eyes felt as weapons, he sealed them as solitude was gifted to him.

The sound of crackling dying flames from the heart of woe's statement mingled with the whine of adrenaline in his ears, balancing, abating each as tense breath was drawn. With each breath came the impulse to indulge in the rage further, to bring further heat to his frame. He felt the flush of anger in his face, the tension in his brow, the rigidity of his fingers as they longed to lash out. His legs stood bolt straight as he endured the toil of his own mood, eyes closed, inhalations sharp, mouth sneering at his condition and flared state.

He snatched at the grip of Riven, as if using it as rudder in such uncertain seas. Yet the bridge between them was not lowered, for in such state, neither wished to communicate. Merely rest, affirming the other's existence wordlessly, as time did it's work to lower the fire within his blood and the outrage that fed his heart. The cold of the metal was almost painful from how harshly Valborast did grip, as if he sought to wring blood from stone in vicious twist.

Long moments as fires snuffed. Leaves of green now ash sifted through air, knuckles white before relinquishing pressure.

Valborast felt the lure of Petra's council in the periphery of his wisdom. Yet he sequestered it, bid it wait it's turn. Resolutions in bitterness would be made in the dark, counteractions in hate, yet conclusions about many a thing would be tempered by those words in time, when the dawn would rise and Valborast's perspective would adjust in the harshness of daylight.

He made slow step towards his place of residence, the halls of duty to which he was bound, and it felt with each step as if he grew distant to a portcullis that would one day need be assailed. He felt the fatigue of his emotions ruin what plans he might draw up in haste, and knew such things would be failed ventures for his all too human frailties. In his pride and self preservation, he let not his decisions eat at him, nor the plight of his progeny. A thousand cuts would render any low. Self preservation to act another day meant to put the tortures of the present to proper pace and rhythm.

Time enough for such labours, he thought.

There was but one retort, internal, not of Riven but of his own bitter synaptic thought, reactive and kneejerk, providing intrusive commentary to his calmer perspective, before being silenced through act of will.

Time eternal for him for such labours.

It took all of Valborast's will to snuff the candle of his own pessimism as it did bid him into the deep trench of despair. That was a fruitless place, he knew, a place of death before death. But with such will enacted and enforced, tensing, shaping his mindset, was the gentle light of daylight breaking.

Such rays of light that did shift the colour of the scene, dismissing the shadows of schemes and uncertainty and replacing them with permissions to indulge in the parting words of Petra.

And as such, came allowance for the notion of sympathy to anything at all.