Private Tales An Old Flame

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
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Selene Avar

Great Desert Sea - Amol Kalit
Maho 'Jerik' Sparhawk


She felt power coursing through every inch of her being, an almost indescribable strength that sparked inside of her as she bathed in the rays of the sun.

Selene felt powerful here. The heat of the sand, the light of the sun on her skin. It was almost therapeutic in a way. Here in the desert it was rare for anyone to survive, but she felt as though she could spend an eternity here.

Her rebirth in Van Helth had done something to her. She was more than what she had been, more than human. Heat radiated from her flesh at all times, her eyes were set with a constant glow, and she could almost feel the fires ready to burst from her. Magic was no longer just something that she did, no longer just a tool, it was set into her very soul.

The newfound power she now carried meant it was time for the next step.

Back home she had already set things into motion, and now there were just a few things left to take care of. Personal grudges that had to be pushed aside before she could make her move.

That was why she had sent a missive to a man she had once known to be a Professor. A man that had lied to her, a man that shared a bond of fire with her. She had asked to see him here in the sands, and it was here that she would either learn the truth, or they would turn this sea into glass.
 
"Maho, you don't have to-"

"Yes. Yes I do."

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When he received word from Selene Avar, esteemed Dreadlord, that she wished to meet him in the Great Desert Sea, he knew exactly what she was asking for.

He'd heard the rumours. As a Vizier, he requested to be informed on the magical outgoings of some of the more dangerous Sorcerers in Arethil, perhaps no more than Selene. He knew she was an incredible Pyromancer, a natural born prodigy. But, as of recent, he'd heard she had undergone something that had made her abilities tenfold in power. He knew there were now very few in Arethil that could challenge him, but - if what was said was true - she could very well be the challenge he was looking for.

That's what the warriors and mages never understood. When you dealt with power of that magnitude, fighting lost its luster. No longer did he have to think outside the box or invent with his magery, when all he had to do was blast someone with fire hotter than the surface of the sun, and they'd be gone forever.

She, however, proved a challenge. And, although he suspected she wasn't looking for a fight, if she did want one, he would not be opposed. He wanted to know he could feel something. Anything.

He had prepared himself days before, meditating in the dungeons below the Palace to focus himself, and his arcane energy. He had asked for a set of Immortals armour to be made for him, in the same style of the warriors that followed the Captain of Gerra's army, Uvogin.

He didn't have to be in the Great Sea long before he saw her in the distance.

He felt the sun on the back of his neck, as it warmed his body through. He felt his blood boil and his excitement heighten, as he saw someone who was potentially his equal.

He made his approach on horseback, his mask reflective in the harsh sunlight.

"Selene." He said, his tone respectful.
 
"I abhor liars." Selene said as she slowly opened her eyes.

The voice was one that she recognized, the mask she had seen him wear during the coronation. It had been all but destroyed then, but it was the same make. Her lips thinned in disgust, reminded of the events of that day.

Vel Anir was all about politics, it was all about games of deception and lies. She was used to it. Used to the betrayal and the knives in the back. Selene had spent most of her life coming to expect that.

Perhaps it was her own silliness that made her feel this way, the fact that after their short time together she had felt some small fondness towards this man. Not any semblance of love or any girlish emotion, but in him Selene had seen a kindred spirit.

Someone who could understand not only the forge life, but the burning fire that dwelled inside.

Anger prickled across her skin, heat fluttering from her finertips. "Take that ridiculous thing off your face."

She gestured to his mask with clear disdain.
 
"I abhor liars."

Good start.

She hadn't changed much since the last time they'd met. She had that same slender, strong frame, and that long, flowing red hair, accompanied by similarly coloured eyes. Even if you had never met her before, you could judge that fire ran in her blood. It was a feeling, an instinct. And you could tell, just from the look of her, that she could set a man on fire as easily as she breathed.

She clearly held some distaste for him, going by her tone. He held no ill will towards her of course, but - then again - if he were in her position, he'd be confused as well. Although he was no liar, from the path he walked down, no one could quite tell what was going on.

He existed in obscurity.

"Take that ridiculous thing off your face."

Somehow, that struck him a little. She could've said a million things, but calling it 'ridiculous' hit a little hard.

"I don't take orders from Dreadlords. And I am no liar." He snapped, his harsh, grainy voice, still damaged from inhaling flame and smoke, echoing off of his mask.
 
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"But I am so much more now." A small smile touched her lips, though it remained there only for a brief second before she took a single step forward.

Surprisingly, she found that she did not want to kill him.

Anger still sat in her chest, rage, but death was not her objective here. She wanted to know what this man was, she wanted to know the truth of the situation. What had happened, why there had been any deception at all.

"In this desert there will be one of two things." The Dreadlord declared. "Truth or blood."

She abhorred the mask, but if he wished to cling to it like a child then that decision was his. "What are you, why did you come to Vel Anir?"

Did his soul reflect hers?
 
He took a deep sigh. Regretful. He hated talking about his past. As far as he was concerned, the man he was had been dead for a very, very long time. But, for her sake, he needn't lie.

"You knew me as Maho Sparhawk. Years ago I signed my soul away to a god, in exchange for immense power. I thought I could repent by teaching others to not repeat my mistakes. I came to Vel Anir... because I thought I could be a teacher. But I realised..." He hesitated.

He looked at his arm; lifeless, a stone imitation of what it once was.

"...I realised I should stop pretending to be something I'm not. The cost for power was greater than I could possibly imagine." It was cold.

Sometimes even he struggled to fathom the amount of bodies that laid still on his path to power. First, he thought was for the greater good of humanity. For a cause. Gerra still thinks in that idealistic fashion. But Sparhawk learnt the hard way, that once you wage war, there's never a path to peace. Ever.

"I'm sorry." It was sorrowful, as he looked at her with those injured, tired eyes.

He wasn't sorry for doing anything wrong. No. He was sorry that she too was a tool of war.
 
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For the first time in this encounter Selene hesitated slightly.

Not because of fear, never again, but because she wasn't quite sure if he was telling the truth. He found it difficult to discern, hard to tell from just the barest glint of his eyes from behind that mask. Lips thinned, and she took a step forward.

"Take off your mask." She said again. "Please."

The words were not a plea, but a soft request.

It was the first time she had used the word in as long as she could remember. Selene did not ask for things. She demanded them. That was who she was. "In Vel Anir. I felt we were the same. Mirrors crafted in the same backroom, separated only by different buyers."

Her head cocked as she watched him.
 
Perhaps she's right.

He rose his hand, and clasped onto the front of the metal mask. He wrenched it off his face, and dropped it to the floor.

Compared to how it was, his face was horrifying. It was distorted. Although most of the scars had healed through his completion of the contract, his features had been permanently effected, his nose strangely proportioned, his eyes greyed, his hair long and unkempt. He looked like he'd been thrown in a furnace.

"Maybe. But this is something I chose. I made a conscious decision to take so... so many lives. You have a choice. You can walk a different path, if you chose." He looked at his hands again, diverting his gaze from Selene.

"This isn't something you come back from."
 
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"There is no going back." Selene stated plainly.

No horror crossed her features as Maho revealed the marring of his face, no terror even entered her eyes as she saw the disfigurement he had suffered through. To her, he appeared the same as before. The core of himself intact.

The core that mirrored her own.

"Not now." She remembered that moment in the Cathedral, where she had broken into pieces, where she had brought herself back. "Not for either of us."

Her features suddenly shifted, changed. The skin on her face began to shift, the muscle and sinew smoking and then slowly burning away.

Ash slipped from her skin, and slowly fire took the place of flesh. "I have no skin to scar. No face to mar."

An inferno now faced Maho, something all together different than what she had once been. They were two broken things, cracked reflections staring back at one another.
 
A being of pure fire...

A rare sight. Even being one of the leading experts in Pyromancy, it was something that wouldn't be seen in a thousand years of searching. For someone to become a fire-elemental, or at least have the capacity to become a being of pure flame... one had to go through the extremes of humanity, and be on the brink of mortality.

What has she done...

It seemed, at least to him, that war had changed them both. He couldn't tell which one of them was more human. Perhaps our flesh was all our soul was.

"What did you do..." He was taken aback.
 
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For a brief moment Selene didn't say anything, the odd eyes set within the flame glancing down at her hand. The flesh of it still seemed to linger, but smoke rose.

Once the mask was broken in one place, it slowly fell in others. The Magic she kept around herself to hide what she had become was not strong, not once it had been fragmented. She would need to find a way to make it better. "I took a step."

The young Dreadlord said.

"And found myself falling into a pit." She could still remember what happened in that cathedral, the fire that had consumed her, burned her alive. It was the first time she'd felt heat in decades. "I suppose we both wear masks now."

A small chuckle erupted from her.