Private Tales First Contact (Evie)

[Salak]

Frustration was always a reckless emotion for Salak, more so now that it was compounded by what he could only perceive as recklessness and on the part of a Proctor no less.
He had barely finished the reports on some of the so called lessons that this particular Proctor had devised when he was writing his own counter report on them.
Now he held that report firmly in hand as he marched himself to the office of Everleigh Ebersol.
*Clack, clack, clack* His cane beat a furious rhythm as he went. The reports on Ebersol had been in depth and full of heinous oversight.
Poisoning students. Insulting staff. Breaking curfew and no small number of minor infractions but perhaps the reason that drove him the most was the fact that from what he had read they had no shared qualities save one. In his years he had never met another such as he, so cut off from the world yet so close He was determined to meet the only other Venomancer he knew existed. Thankfully he had more than enough justification to sate his curiosity so he supposed he should be thankful to Miss Ebersol for that at least.
He stopped at the door to Ebersol's office raised his cane and used the carved serpent head to rap three times sending his impatience through with each knock.
Then he waited with the patience of a spider.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh was busy, as she always seemed to find herself, organizing the scores of the third years. She had gone from teaching the soon-to-be graduates to helping train the little kids learn martial combat. A demotion by all means. A reason to prevent her from using her magic. So be it. It would work in her favor regardless.

Lifting up her head from the busywork, she sensed poison. Coming down the hall. Towards this room? How curious. A test? Maybe a student wanting revenge? It had to be for Marianne instead of for her, toxins would do little to the poison eater. Everleigh stood up, her lips tilting downward slightly.

It was the office belonging to Marianne Goetsch that Salak would find himself waiting outside. Although, on the wooden plaque hanging on the door, one would see Everleigh’s name in small, sloppy letters underneath the fine calligraphy of Proctor Marianne Goetsch. Only to be expected, Everleigh joining the title of proctor (pro-tempore, everyone had clarified for her time and time again) was a after-thought.

It killed two birds with one stone, as the saying went. She had her apprenticeship with Marianne Goetsch and helped out as needed with a good chunk of the proctors from the year before either being dead or exiled.

Everleigh opened the door immediately after he knocked, having to look up at him. He wasn’t a student, as long as she had been at the Academy, she had never seen a student with a face like his. She would’ve remembered even if she didn’t remember everything.

“Who are you?”

Salak

 

[Salak]

The one thing all the reports in the world cannot prepare you for is how someone looks.
Even Salak had to admit that Miss Ebersol was undeniably beautiful. He was not prepared for this. Though he did not fail to notice her take in his own features, turning his pock marked side slightly away from her in an uncharacteristic moment of embarrassment.
Then she asked who he was and his mind solidified again. He cleared his throat before speaking.
"My name is Salak. Dreadlord of the fourth rank. I have been stationed here for the time being." had to grit his teeth through that part
"You are Miss Ebersol, correct?"
He usually hated letting people know his rank but shame serves little purpose. It was time.
Tucking the report under his arm to free up his hand he extended it to Everleigh with as much a genuine smile as his face could wear.
Which always looked more like a grin than he wanted.
"It is a pleasure to meet you."

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Oh, someone to help teach as well? She raised a brow. Everleigh didn’t know the name Salak, which meant he was older than her. She looked down at his hand and took it, giving a firm shake. Yes, she could sense poison, that oily feeling in her gut telling her that he was toxic just as she was.

How curious. Another like her. Or was he more like Trix? Only time would tell. Regardless, he was a fourth-level. Couldn’t be too dangerous.

“I am Everleigh Ebersol. Third-level.” She was eyeing the report that was mostly hidden by his long robes now. Why was he here? Was it because of Zael? Because he was missing? Was Salak trying to collect information on him? Did they know about the plan he made with Sable and Noel?

“The pleasure is mine.” She lied, letting go of his hand and stepping side, opening the door wider. “You’ll have to forgive me for being so blunt but something tells me you have something to discuss with me behind closed doors.” Everleigh grinned then, her eyes curling up much like her lips. “One of my many hidden talents is detecting bullshit. So come on in.”

Salak

 

[Salak]

As soon as Salak felt her hand his mind cycled through the myriad poisons he could identify in her system. She had taken some recently and it was potent.
He absorbed the trace amounts of it that their brief contact allowed and for a moment he feared it would overwhelm him. The tingle on the skin of his hand mistaken for toxic reaction and chemical burn but he identified the source a moment later.
Human contact. Such a novel experience for him that he'd quite forgotten the pleasance of aftertouch.
He had planned to enter with quiet resolve, to toss his report on her desk and demand answers for her behaviour but... He kept staring at his hand.
"Remarkable..." the word was a shadow of a whisper in his throat.
He tried to remember how long it had been since anyone touched him willingly. Not since before he graduated and it had not been a pleasant experience.
In the world outside his mind Everleigh had invited him in with some smart remark but he was only vaguely aware of that happening.
The report fell to the ground and he nearly followed it.
He felt his cheek tingle and he thought his pock marks were leaking but when he reached up to touch it he found it was a tear.
It brought him back to himself somewhat.
His sleeve made for a hasty wipe as he rubbed his eyes dry. *foolish*
"Excuse me. I... I don't know what's come over me." *weakness*
His leg began to throb with pain but he couldn't ignore it this time. His training was failing him. *failure*
For the first time since he first left the Academy Salak had no idea what to do. So he pawed at his face again and again until his face was dry.

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

She pulled her hand back, looking at her palm in confusion. She hadn’t done anything to hurt Salak, had she? He had offered his hand to her and she hadn’t taken it as was customary.

Everleigh regarded Salak with a cold, analyzing gaze. She tilted her chin up as if she expected him to admit to some foul trick that she had caught him. Instead, he seemed to press his hands to his face to no avail. The file was all over the floor now, pales flying along the ground and sliding along until they hit something.

He was crying, Everleigh realized. Just like she had cried when Zael had finally touched her willingly on his own at the Festival of Freedom.

Her body didn’t stop being rigid, every muscle tense just in case. Yet her violet gaze softened.

“Come inside. Don’t let others see you like this. You know what they’d do to you.” The Republic did little in erasing the ideas of the past. The worst transgressors against dreadlords showing emotion were the dreadlords themselves.

Everleigh bent low, beginning to pick up the papers.

Salak

 

[Salak]

As the mind lapsed into chaos the body followed. He had to collect himself.
Miss Ebersol was correct, if he was to maintain any reputation here at all then he would need to not be seen in such a state. He barely got the words out, his vouce warbled somewhat.
"Yes. Thank you, Miss Ebersol."
With no small exert of will he demanded his body shuffle into the office where he quickly took a seat and whipped his hood back off his head. His grey hair was premature and quite complete as it fell to his jawline in waves.
Outside (if Everleigh cared to look upon the skattered sheets even briefly) she would see a methodical hand written report in neat cursive entitled "Concerning Lesson Plans and Executions of temp Proctor Everliegh Ebersol"

He needed control. He was vulnerable and that was unacceptable especially in this place. Frustration turned to uncertainty and now he worked to forge those two elements into hate. Hate served well when it was tempered. Cold. A deep breath stoked his emotional furnace and when he let it out he let out all the impurities of himself. His weakness left and by the time Everliegh returned with his report his was somewhere back to his composed self. The cracked pieces had been slid back together withing yet the structure was still fragile. It would have to do.
Kind as Miss Ebersol had been to give him respite in her office her deed did not erase the fact that she herself was counted among those he needed to protect himself from now.
Still.
For now at least he would wait and see if she would betray herself as one of false kindness. Though a large part of him expected her to be just that a mote of his being hoped she was genuine in her attempt to keep his reputation as a Dreadlord intact.
When she returned his green eyes were calm and his face still as stone.
"Forgive me, I find myself unprepared for such..." he flexed the fingers on his hand, the feeling lingered there still "... an extreme reaction."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Concerning Lesson Plans and Executions of Tempore Proctor Everleigh Ebersol?

Everleigh continued to pick up the various pieces of paper. She didn’t have to pause and read over them, a glance was enough. She could skim over the information, pretend that she had no idea what these papers were. But things stood out to her: poisoning students, attacking a esteemed proctor (since when was Proctor Palahniuk considered a esteemed proctor, that lazy asshole) and comments over the trials she had devised.

She didn’t even frown, continuing to pick up the papers. Everleigh stood up, shutting the door. A part of her thought about melting the handle off with her acidic touch. She refrained. She handed the file back to Salak. If he looked he would see that the report was in the same order it had been when he had dropped it.

Everleigh didn’t go to the other side of the desk and sit down, that seat was for Marianne and Marianne only. Instead as she walked without making a sound to the other side of the desk, she remained standing. She held her hands behind her back, looking down at Salak.

“You have a awful poker face. Not a gambling man, are you?” Everleigh smiled. It didn’t match her eyes. She was on the offensive.

Salak

 

[Salak]

She had organised the file fast, clever, orderly, this was good.
“You have a awful poker face. Not a gambling man, are you?”
"Heh." She wasn't wrong, he felt he could not convince anyone he was wearing blue right then.
"Solitaire has always been more my game." He flashed a smile while he wiped his face again though it was dry as bone now.
Clearing his throat he tried to get his composure back a bit.
The report he put on the desk and did not look at again. He knew what it said and had a guess that Everleigh's mood betrayed her understanding of the document at least in brief.
"I'm sure you understand now why I am unused to such novelties as handshakes."
He cleared his throat again.
"Your file denotes that you can sense toxicology in others at short distances. I'm curious what you make of me."
Everleigh was waiting to strike, he could feel it. That same feeling that haunted his days here as an Initiate so he wanted to delay that until he was better prepared for it.

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“Does my opinion of you matter?” Everleigh asked plainly, not changing the expression on her face. Not a single micro-expression would be out of place as her violet gaze bore down onto Salak. “Or are you asking me if I want to eat you?”

Salak

 

[Salak]

"What a question." he asked clearly bemused.
"Of course it matters Miss Ebersol. We're colleagues now and we have a duty to this Academy and these Initiates to do the best we can by them."
His emerald eyes held her violet glare despite still recovering from this episode.
"As for eating me..." he continued furrowing his brow further than it seemed possible " you cannot be serious."
His disbelief just added to his bemusement yet still he held her gaze.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Her lips curled up into a devilish grin, her fox-like eyes curving up in response. Was this a trap? A duty to the Academy and the initiates? It had to be a trap, although a poorly placed one. If he was trying to suggest that she were a rebel… well he’d have to try harder than that.

“I think, fourth level Salak,” Everleigh said slowly, holding up her chin higher. “That you are a perfect match to that ordinary game of Solitaire you like to play.” Her words lingered in the air between them and Everleigh waited for them to settle in before moving on. She used her hand to gesture towards the file sitting between them like oil that was waiting the first lick of flame to turn into a roaring fire. “I thought you came prepared to challenge me? But it seems you haven’t even read my file, or maybe not given access to it.” The look on her face was smug, the signature look of Everleigh Ebersol.

“So if my opinion of you matters so much, here it is: boring. Lame. Bare minimum.” Counting them on her fingers, and would you look at that: three, his favorite number. As if to prove her point, she yawned. “I could never live my life like that.”

Salak

 

[Salak]

"It's the only way I can be sure of an honest game *temp* Proctor Ebersol."
He bite the word like a grape between his teeth then slid the file away from between them and stood up.
"If it is challenge you seek, then I'd not disappoint an *Honoured* 3rd Rank."
He met her gaze and crushed the last of his weakness like glass under a brick.
"Everleigh Ebersol you are easily the worst instructor currently stationed at the Academy. Under your watch there have been maimings, near fatal injuries, breaches of conduct beyond counting and no less than one instance of " He flipped to the fourth page of the report with a practiced hand "ah yes, "uncontrolled outburst of fatal power" requiring the intervention of both Proctor Palahniuk and Goetsch to contain. Whom I believe is pregnant so we can add that innocent soul to the growing list of the victims of your carelessness."
He stood crooked as a crank but stared her down. It was just like being an Initiate again. For a moment he did not see Everleigh's face but that of another, one that was impossible. One who was dead.
"Does that satisfy thee Miss Ebersol, is that honesty enough for thee now?"
His leg ached and his arm shook but he did not balk.

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

The grin grew, turning into a knowing smirk but her violet eyes danced for Salak. Everleigh didn’t look upset, on the contrary, she looked excited. She leaned forward, even taking a step closer to the man sitting on the other side of the desk. She watched him have to open the file, watched the way he had to read from the page before he stood up.

“I’m warning you now,” she said, her voice calm and steady. “I don’t play fair. I play to win.” As one should, especially as a dreadlord. “And I never reveal a card that hasn’t been asked of me to show yet.” And that was the difference between the two of them, or so Everleigh would presume, and why their ranks were different.

“So thank you for the honesty. Maybe I’ll keep it mind when Proctor Palahniuk is still freezing student’s blood when they misbehave or when Proctor Goetsch breaks the little one’s arms. I’ll keep it in mind when Proctor Penworth uses magic on the initiates or when any proctor sends an initiate to initiate Marcella.” She kept eye contact with Salak, confidently placing her hands on her hips. “You failed to write in there the multiple solutions the initiates could have used to handle the trials without getting a single scratch on their bodies if they stopped for a moment to think.” She was like a coiled viper now. “Should the Academy not imitate real life? We’re not making weapons anymore, we’re trying to make battle mages with something in between their ears now, aren’t we?

“So tell me, why me?” But Everleigh knew the answer and she gave Salak a pointed look. “I got approval on it. So everything about the initiates being hurt doesn’t matter to the Academy. No one had any lingering complications. Even my blindness was healed. And if you care so much for Palahniuk and Goetsch, I have to wonder why. Close friends of you? Or maybe…” the look returned, the look of a devil playing disguise with a angel’s face. “Maybe you see me as what you fear about yourself? Be honest with me once more, Salak. You’re like me. We’re not like the other initiates of our years.

“The others were taught how to go all out. You and I? We were taught to hold back, to always hold back. And you’re still doing it.”

Salak

 

[Salak]

"And so are you!"
His leg felt like it was burning but he ignored it. Let it fuel his hatred for this place.
"Gods blood Everleigh do you have any idea of the potential you've wasted here?"
He gestured again to the record and almost fell over, steadying himself with his free hand on the desk. Still he refused to back down.
"You of all the other Proctors I have researched see this institution for what it can be instead of what it was, what it still is in many ways. I think that is why you test them like this, why you try to remove them from standard methods. You know that victory cannot exist within our parameters alone here and you want them to be able to take it for themselves."
Was he getting flush? He felt he might be going red in the face.
"I come to you because I REMEMBER what this place is and what it does to those who do not shine in a way that a Proctor fancies. "
Subconsciously he tilted his head away from her again, lightly obscuring his pock marks.
"Because disruption is needed and it needs to come from within for it to mean anything real. Penworth and Goestch do not concern me because they are set in their ways as both Dreadlords and Proctors. They cannot help me...!" He collapsed forward, his energy all but spent and the capstone was his exhaustive plea. It was perhaps the most honest thing he had to say.
The question asked without asking.
With effort he eased himself back into the chair and wiped his brow again. His breath was short but his eyes still locked with Everleighs, Perhaps daring her to take advantage of his state. To prove him either right or wrong.

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Gotcha, Everleigh thought. His outburst was her victory. And now she knew why he was here, how he would proceed with things and most importantly, where his priorities were. Yet while she couldn’t ignore her way of thinking, one had to be critical when it came to survival, it didn’t mean she couldn’t listen and hear his words for what they are.

They weren’t the same. Not at all. Because Everleigh had never been the selfless sort. At least, she had never saw herself as such, especially before Tinker and Liliana and Zael. And then graduation had happened and against her better judgement she had ran to his side, protected him as much as she could, and… worst of all, she had been willing to betray Vel Anir if it meant he could get the help he needed.

She wasn’t here because she wanted to see change in the Academy. She was only here because she thought for maybe one or two initiates, she could help them in the ways she never received help. Even if it was only one initiate that she could protect, she’d take it. One was better than nothing, wasn’t it?

“You want me to help you.” Everleigh repeated, her expression looking dull. She paused, considering his words. He had gall to do such a thing in Marianne Goetsch’s office, a telepath. It was like talking about treason in the King’s throne room. “Have you considered that maybe I think teaching to kill is worse than killing?”

Salak

 

[Salak]

He hacked a cough into his sleeve.
"If you believed that, then you wouldn't be here still."
He wiped his mouth and ignored the blotches of darker than usual spittle.
"You have more than enough aptitude for a military commission, anywhere you'd like. Several of your year abandoned the Academy but you didn't. "
With his cane he steadied himself and took a deep breath.
"You are no coward, so you didn't stay out of fear. That leaves only loyalty. That's two things we have in common. Not to this place, Hells Bells I would rip it down stone by stone if I could and I'm willing to bet you have little love for this Academy either."
A look of simple sincerity came over him and he let out a mirthless chuckle to himself.
"You see what this place does to us, turns us on each other. It does it to everyone. It's like malice was poured into the foundations of it. These Inititates don't deserve that. Taken from their lives, sold to us, given as bargaining tools and then sent here." He gestured all about the room and to the grander building beyond. "And for what purpose? To learn how to become weapons. That's what I am Everleigh. A weapon. A knife in the hand of Vel Anir and I'm tired. Tired of murdering people I don't know, tired of a life that is not my own so if I have a chance to stop one of these Initiates from ending up like this," He ran his hand down the side of his mutilated face but the gesture meant more than that. He seemed to encapsulate his whole being with it. The scars, the isolation, the unspoken things he'd seen and done as an Anirian Stalker. All in one neat motion along the side of his head. "then I'll not let anyone stop me."
His face and hand fell, he seemed to look past Everleigh, past the wall and into the beyond somewhere. He would not meet her gaze then.
"Nobody deserves to be me."

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“You know nothing about me,” Everleigh was quick to interject. Why was she here teaching? For the initiates? Partially, but it was obvious to her and her unspoken plan: spend a year or two here, and then Zael would return from his mission with Noel and Sable to get Kimble. They would join the guard together, maybe request to be in the same unit, and if both of them had some merit to their names then it could be done, couldn’t it?

She could be by his side. As long as they were together, everything would be fine. Only he accepted her ugly, selfish, blackened, poisonous, toxic heart.

“You call yourself a weapon, what do you think they called me these last fifteen years?” She challenged him, “I wasn’t ever fit enough to be a weapon, just the poison used to coat a blade.” There was a harsh, bitter laugh that had Everleigh pause from her words. “You think they didn’t disfigure me, too? Believe me, they made sure I was in better condition physically only because I am a woman and we’re supposed to be beautiful. Beauty matters little in a man.” She used her hand to gesture their differences, the height, the width, the curves or lack thereof. The piercings on either side of her middle finger glinted from the light of the windows behind Everleigh.

“That didn’t mean they wouldn’t mark me and show me that I belonged to Vel Anir.

“So don’t lecture me on you and I not winning the genetic lottery. I’ve accepted it. So should you.” She turned her head and huffed. “You should’ve gone to D’Amour, she’s the proctor with the same ideas as you.” Everleigh wouldn’t be able to go against Marianne. “She’ll probably find this report intriguing, I bet you and her could have lots of fun ripping to me to shreds.” Everleigh took the report and then tossed it to the side. She could hear the papers scattering about.

Both palms slammed onto the desk as she glared up at Salak.

“But good luck with that,” she practically hissed at him, “if the proctors couldn’t take me down I doubt you ever could. They couldn’t even kill me at my graduation, instead I killed them.”

Salak

 

[Salak]

Salak didn't move or say anything for what felt like a long time.
The pieces were fitting together in his mind. He was never a picture of health but his mind was sharp as needle and there were few things he missed when his full attention was brought into focus.
Salak had been informed of Everleigh killing a proctor at her graduation. In fact there was rumour that it was that very act that put her marks over the bar.
How he despised the Dreadlords ruthlessness and the waste of it all.
But even this outburst didn't fill in the missing pieces it only gave more questions and ruined his report a second time.
"Then why are you still here?"
He stood up again with fury he didn't know he still had in him. He worked all day on that report.
"Damn it tell me what you're doing here?"
He struck his cane upon the floor, his own outburst now adding to the heat of the room.
"I'll ask it plain shall I? Is it Elbion interests you champion? Has the Empire slipped a viper into our tent?"
Staring at her he brought his face close to hers perilously so for anyone other than them.
"Who? Who has your loyalty? Who benefits from all your chaos? What power commands you to remain in a place you hate, with people who tortured you at a position you loathe and forces you to do nothing?"
He really did work quite hard on that report.

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“You’re calling me a traitor now?” Everleigh scoffed at the man before her. “With what proof do you have to make such claims?” She jeered at him, grinning at him, her violet eyes utterly and undeniably crazy. There was nothing she liked more than to push others into the sweet state of sanity that unraveled with one’s passions. She leaned her face forward, even closer to Salak. Their noses touched.

“Wouldn’t you say, my dear fellow proctor, that the true essence of femininity is being unpredictable, uncontrollable?” Her teeth were showing, and she tilted her head just so, allowing her nose to caress along the curve of Salak’s. “I’m here because I want to be here.” The truth, at least, a good chunk of the truth. “Because I’m such a good Anirian citizen.” And there was the lie.

Salak

 

[Salak]

"What ... What is this?"
He jerked his head away as reflex. Brushing the sensation off his nose with his hand. It tingled more than his fingers at her touch.
"Stop doing that. I cannot be seduced."
Years of self restraint served him well. Not touching, not anything.
It overwhelmed him at first but now he was merely irritated by it and by Everleigh's blatant attempts at using it to distract him.
*A good Anirian citizen*
His eyes widened.
"I wouldn't know. The *essence of femininity* as you put it is as a cloud is to a centipede. Chiefly, not my concern. And as for a good citizen, I've even less a notion of what that is."

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh leaned back, quirking a brow at Salak’s words.

“I wasn’t trying to seduce you.” That much was true, she would keep herself for Zael. After their shared kissed in the infirmary room, she couldn’t imagine ever wanting someone else. She removed her weight off of the desk, using a hand to push her braid back over her shoulder and onto her back.

“Sounds like you’re the traitor if you can’t figure out what being a good Anirian citizen is.” She said, moving on from Salak’s shock. She glanced out towards the window. The sun was beginning to set. Was it already so late?

“You’re right though, the Academy doesn’t have my loyalty. But I owe it to someone to do my best.” Everleigh brought her gimlet gaze back to Salak’s. “That being said, I can’t help you in… whatever cause you suggested. But I won’t tell on you, either.” Everleigh moved away from the desk, placing her hands behind her once more.

Salak

 

[Salak]

It would have to do for now.
"It is not a betrayal to want to fix a flawed system."
His eyes fell to his scattered report and he laughed to himself that he thought so much for something so frail.
"As for whom you owe so much. I'll not pry further."
With effort he bent to pick up his work. Methodically putting each part back in order.
"Everyone is entitled to their secrets."
When he was done he stood, steadying himself on his cane.
"Just, can you promise me one thing before I go and in return I'll promise to bring you no more reports on your, methods."

Everleigh Ebersol

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“What an interesting deal,” Everleigh murmured, “or rather, that you think you can barter with me.” Her lips curved up once again. “What is it?” She could assume what this promise could be and wondered if she would be surprised by it. “Maybe I’ll consider it.”

Salak

 

[Salak]

"Don't rub your nose against mine again. It's altogether too intimate for a professional relationship."
Salak was as ever, utterly serious in this. He brushed the tingle from his nose again to emphasize the point.

Everleigh Ebersol