Private Tales Alive Twice

[Risen Soleil Verdane]

In Marris but one emotion was evoked, plainly evident even beneath his wild tussle of hair and beard: concerned love. For all Marris's unpleasantness, his surliness, his abrasiveness to nearly everything and everyone around him, still there remained that one ember in an otherwise cold heart.

"My little Soleil? She needs me?"

Without hesitation he rolled up his sleeve and thrust out his naked arm toward Heller.

"Take it! Take it! Take everything you need, Dreadlord!"

Rennick held up his hand. "Not here. It's not necessary here." And then he added, "It may need to be fresh."

Now Rennick didn't know if that was true or not; Heller was the expert. But it didn't matter. Prudence dictated that they secure Marris and bring him to the site. That way, Heller would have ample amounts of material for his magic.

Everything he might need, as Marris himself said.

Kian Heller

 

[Kian Heller]

Fresh, yes.

The distance from here in Vel Yuna to where Soleil was to be ressurected was too great of a distance to have anything go wrong now. Kian sighed as he approached Marris, shaking his head as his gloved hand pushed his offered arm down.

"Not here." He gave a small smile, mesnt to be seen as friendly, but Kian was unsure if he was about to put this man through something grievous. "You need to come with us. Help can only be given back in Vel Anir."

He looked back, and Heller gave Rennick a heavy frown.

"We need to hurry back. Our time is running out, and if we miss our chance now, she may take more convincing to return."

Heller needed to keep his words vague. He needed Marris' cooperation on this, a surety that all of this would not go to waste.

"Well," Kian turned back to Marris, offering a hand as he smiled wider, "ready to help your granddaughter?"

 

[Risen Soleil Verdane]

Marris nodded vigorously.

"Yes. Let's go, and let's go without a moment's delay!"

* * * * *

VEL ANIR
THE GARRISON COMPLEX​

Again the Complex had been given over to Heller and his work, the Guardsmen granted leave for the duration. The time was approaching, Rennick thought, to see if this would happen or not. If the latter, then an intolerable setback would be incurred, and Sabien Diemut's machinations—for Rennick's intuition said that there were some, and that their wheels were surely turning—would be left unchallenged for longer. No doubt also that the treasonous Diemut would gorge himself on his own supposed cleverness.

"The stage is yours, Kian," said Rennick when the three of them stood in the training ground and by the ritual site. "Work your art."

And with that, Rennick again departed, giving the Dreadlord the space and time he would need for the final act of his magic.

Marris paid little mind to Rennick. He seemed not even to notice the strangeness of the ritual site, nor the lack of his granddaughter being present. Perhaps he had concocted in his head some kind of satisfactory story already, one that explained everything, or almost everything, and what details his eyes could see or his ears could hear just slotted themselves without difficulty into this fancy.

His gaze looked not quite at Heller, but at angle to him, as if there were someone behind the Dreadlord. And Marris said, "My little Soleil. Grandpa brought you his blood. It's gonna be alright, Sol. It's gonna be alright."

Kian Heller

 

[Kian Heller]

Kian looked over his shoulder, saw nothing, but his magic and connection allowed him the glimpse of energies lingering at the site before the grave he had dug. "Now, friend, I will need you assistance on this. Your help will be appreciated as it will help your grand daughter." He turned back to Marris, a furrow between his brows. "You are willing, yes? Tying your life source to... helping Soleil?"

He beckoned Marris to follow, so that between them would be the patch of dirt loosely piled into the grave where a layer of sand rested. It used to be a girl, all those grains, but soon she will be here.

Returned.

Alive, once more.

"I will pass this knife to you, Marris. A slice on your palm should be enough blood." Medic kit waiting to staunch any more bleeding. "Then I will ask you to hold your hand over this earth. We will summon her, bring her home, and you will see her again." Kian plastered a smile, hoping he looked kind and gentle. It was unnatural for his face to hikd such muscles to appear that way, but any good Initiate that survived graduation and spent a couple of years playing spy in Amol Kalit taught him a few masks to wear.

Heller handed the knife to Marris by the blade. Ensuring the older gentleman could get a comfortable hold on the nondescript knife. The handle was wrapped in leather. The blade old and sharpened.

"I will call her the moment your blood touches the earth." Heller explained, now crouching to one knee and drawing a circle in the dirt.

Risen Soleil Verdane

 

[Risen Soleil Verdane]

...helping Soleil?

Marris looked to the Dreadlord after he spoke, those words like a kind of magic summoning his attention. At Heller's beckoning Marris followed, and he took the knife so offered. The elderly man held it in his hand, gazing at it for a while, and he came at last to say:

"There's not a lot of good that came out of my life. Not a lot of good that came out of my damn wife's belly either, that sluggard son of mine. I did what I could for Vel Anir and Vel Yuna, even if it wasn't much. But my little Soleil..."

He looked up to Heller then with the most intent and lucid gaze, like a madman renewed to sanity and purpose.

"...she's gonna do great things."

And with that Marris unflinchingly tore a red trench into his palm with the knife and did as instructed, holding his now injured hand over the earth and offering his dripping blood to the ritual site.

A crucial component now added. The same blood.

But there was one last thing, for perhaps Heller could feel that success was close at hand, and the one final offering was all that kept the veil between the dead and the living unbreached.

Life for life.

Kian Heller