Private Tales Kristen the Impaler

[Kristen Pirian]

"Do you understand," said Proctor Magomo, leaning in dangerously close, "what it is you're asking me?"

Kristen stood rigidly at attention in his office in the Proctors' Building of the Academy. She was keenly aware that the door behind her was closed.

"Yes," she said, her voice quiet but steady, her eyes locked forward instead of precisely at Magomo's own piercing gaze. "I have learned from many of my erstwhile peers of the graduating class the methods by which their magic was...honed."

Proctor Magomo made no immediate response. He was as close to Kristen as he could be without touching her, and his aura was terrifying in its intensity. Though he was shorter than her by a couple of inches, she felt as though she were shrinking around the sheer weight of his scrutinizing regard. Her heart was pounding in her chest, awful embers smoldered beneath the entirety of her muscles, and yet she forced herself to stay resolute. She couldn't imagine what he would do if she crumbled now after making the request that she had made.

Yes. Before he had threatened her with it, back when she requested leave to hunt the spawn of Dark Ones in Alliria. Now, she was openly asking for it.

Finally, after pacing ever so slowly around her, he spoke, "Once you are committed to this path...there is no turning back. And understand this, Initiate Pirian. I want to see you become a weapon of Vel Anir—you are no use to anyone dead. But if you get cold feet and decide you're not committed enough anymore, if you even think about turning this around on me, suggesting even in the slightest that this was not wholly your idea...your body will never be found, and your family will never know what truly happened to you. Do. You. Understand. Me?"

Kristen wanted to swallow, wanted to wring her hands, wanted to cry even, all of the tells both big and small to vent out her anxiety, but she didn't—couldn't—allow for any of them. Not even a single stutter in her response.

She waited until she knew she was able to speak. "Yes, Proctor Magomo. I understand."

"This is your last chance to back out and make it so this conversation never happened. Do you wish to continue?"

She waited again.

And spoke with a little more steel.

"Yes, Proctor Magomo. I want this."

* * * * *​

Proctor Magomo burst into the girls' dormitory, Kristen trailing in his wake. Initiates who happened to be in the halls all but threw themselves out of his way, flattening themselves against the walls or fading back into doorways to allow him to pass. He rounded one corner and Ambrosie, a nice enough girl from Kristen's understanding, wasn't quick enough and Magomo simply shoved her offhandedly from his path, yet it was rough enough to send her crashing into the wall.

"Move faster next time," he said to her without looking back.

Proctor Magomo had explained their next few steps. He was pleased that she had learned a deadly spell ("Oh, finally got something lethal, have you?" was all he had said, but Kristen knew him well enough to understand that, yes, he was in fact pleased) and he was given over completely to Kristen's desire to have it honed. She would even say that he was eager to employ some of the old methods on her; that was, perhaps, the scariest part.

Yet she followed after him. She was committed to this road now.

The only question would be who would end up being their, as Proctor Magomo called it, "assistant." He told her flat out that they were going to need a healer for the regimen he had planned—which was to include a "proving ground" phase and then deployment in an actual battle (and then as much more as she wished).

Proctor Magomo had in mind a very suitable pick, especially when it would come to the battle phase. But, he told her, it would be up to Kristen to convince her and to swear her to secrecy. Proctor Magomo was diligent, careful, and was ensuring by all means that it would not seem as though this were coercion of any sort on his part. After what happened during Graduation, Kristen could easily place herself in his shoes and see why.

They approached Marcella's door now.

And Proctor Magomo banged on it hard enough that Kristen worried it might fall of its hinges. "INITIATE ITEIUS. OPEN THIS DOOR."

 

[Marcella]

She'd been drawing when it happened.

A simple hobby she'd picked up after everything had changed. All you needed was a bit of parchment, charcoal, and an imagination. Some of the new Proctors the Anirian Republic had brought in suggested that students picked up hobbies like this one. Marcella liked it because she could be alone yet it was still something she could improve at.

But then it happened. Well, wait, maybe we should back up.

She had been known only as a healer in her early youth. Her first days at the academy were filled with Proctors doubting her due to her lackluster martial ability but her healing powers had been some of the best the academy had ever seen. Her raw talent for magic was likely the one thing that kept her alive as a Dreadlord with lackluster combat skills was not Dreadlord at all.

But then the other part of her magic revealed itself. And the Proctors realized how useful she could be for "experiments" and outright torture. She was shocked that none of the other students had ever tried to killed her in retribution. Perhaps they had and she was simply shielded from it.

It was why she enjoyed drawing. No torture, no fighting, just a simple escape. But it happened, her free period was interrupted by a raucous banging at the door. The booming voice of Proctor Magomo, oh god why did it have to be Magomo, put an end to her doodling for the day.

"Coming!" Her shout was panicked, surely if Magomo was here she'd done something wrong. Forgotten some appointment. "I'm coming," she cried out once more as she twisted the knob of her dormitory and swung the door inward to reveal that the Proctor was not alone.

Kristen Pirian had entered the academy after Marcella's days of forcibly tormenting students had ended but it was still a shock to see the girl there. "I - um, hello."

She bowed her head low and waited for whatever punishment awaited her.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Proctor Magomo's bellow disappeared. He spoke in a level, almost quiet, voice as he said, "Take your time."

And then he simply turned on his heel and started back down the hall, leaving the two girls by themselves. Kristen could only imagine how baffling it must be for Marcella. She didn't know her, such was true, but placing herself in Marcella's shoes and seeing things from her perspective was easy enough. Even with the advent of the Revolution (or perhaps, once they went into the heart of the discussion, especially because of it) such an incident was odd.

Kristen held her hands in front of herself, the prim posture of her upbringing on full display.

"Hello, Marcella. There is something..."

What word could even suffice?

"...important I wish to speak with you about."

She studied the girl's expression, but mostly it was the harried assurances a moment ago that prompted Kristen to add, "I shall allay any concerns or worries forthwith: neither of us are in any trouble with Proctor Magomo."

Then after she let that sink in she asked, "May I come in?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

What trickery was this? Magomo just left as the Pirian noble spoke. Was this the kind of privilege that the nobility was granted now? Kristen was practically a Proctor herself.

"Y-yes, you can come in," she chimed after a short delay.

Marcella ushered her in with both arms before grabbing at loose garments and knick-knacks to do some last minute tidying up for the young noble girl. As a finality a sheet was thrown over the small desk Marcie possessed which housed most of her drawings, they weren't fit for the site of an Anirian noble.

Or at least, she didn't think so.

Only after the other initiate was within her dormitory did the meek girl dare speak. "You're sure we aren't in any trouble?" Marcella always seemed to get herself into some sort of mischief. Usually it was all her fault.

That was just what happened when you were a routine failure. "What's the important thing you wished to discuss?" She didn't wait for an answer as to whether they were truly safe, no one was ever truly safe in the academy, instead she just wanted to hear what awful thing awaited her next.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen watched passively and patiently as Marcella did some hasty cleaning around her room. She didn't think much of the sheet tossed over the desk (really, couldn't think much, what with the weight of the forthcoming discussion looming).

She was standing close by the door still when Marcella spoke.

It all seemed so straightforward, so simple, to explain, at least in the confines of the mind where all rough drafts of ideas were perfect. Translating everything out into speech, however...ah, was this not the perennial problem of lucidity and, furthermore, eloquence?

At present, she would settle happily for lucidity.

After a moment of considered thought, Kristen said, "Marcella...at any point in this conversation, you may back out, and the exchange of words in here will have never happened."

The same thing Proctor Magomo had told her. Not much help in allaying those potential concerns and worries, surely, given how enigmatic it must all sound to her ears.

"You can be trusted to keep something in confidence, can't you?"

And at this Kristen studied Marcella's expression carefully. This was the most important step.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

She could back out? What did that even mean?

You almost never got a choice about anything here at the academy. The very notion of getting to 'choose' whether or not you declared for reserves after graduation was a concept she still hadn't wrapped her brain around just yet.

"I can keep my mouth shut." It's not like she'd had any friends anyway. The only person she was likely to tell was her stuffed animal, Geoffrey. "I'm not sure that I'm the person you want though... there's much better initiates than me."

Marcie had been practically at the bottom of her class the entire time she'd been here. The only thing that had ever saved her life was the nature of her magic.

She stiffened her back and looked straight at the Pirian noblegirl. Her neck was held straight, her elbows set, "if I can help though, I will." So rarely was she of any use to anyone here and although Magomo scared the daylights out of her the thought of actually being somewhat useful for once filled her with a tinge of excitement.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

I can keep my mouth shut.

Kristen nodded. She felt a little queasy, the whole covert nature of this affair striking her with a quiet but sharp pinprick in her gut just by the way Marcella worded her response. She had told Marcella that she could back out at any time but the thought worriedly presented itself to Kristen instead. This all felt...sordid, now that she was here with Marcella. Involving her.

She didn't like it. But she was resolved to improve her magic...and...not just that...

It is not fair that you have been made to endure the terrible hardships of the past and that I have been spared them, yet we are of the same class! I can never experience all that you have gone through, but I ask of you, if by foul chance there comes no further opportunity for this in the future, to at least allow me this brief window into what you have suffered, that I may know some small taste of it.

Her own words, spoken to Noel a full year ago now, coming back round now. Her opinion of many things had changed in the interim time as she learned more and more about the Academy, and yet...this feeling never truly went away.

Marcella said she would help.

"Good," Kristen said. "Because you are, contrary to your doubts, the exact person that I need."

She wet her lips, her tongue peeking for just a second, as she again considered her approach.

"A question, if I may." She could only hope this was the right way to go about this. "Marcella, what do you think of your magic, and of the Academy's training pertaining to it?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Good," Kristen said. "Because you are, contrary to your doubts, the exact person that I need."

Wow, Marcella was actually needed. And by another student to boot. It was the nicest thing another initiate had ever said to her.

Normally if someone needed her it was a Proctor and in the old days it was so they could torment some poor student for hours, in the past year it was often because someone got harmed and they needed her to mend them up.

Her brief elation was interrupted by the question that Kristen posed. It completely threw Marcella off guard.

"My magic?" Oh no. This was some sort of test afterall. Was Magomo getting Kristen to do his dirty work for him? "I'm very grateful for everything the Proctors have taught me." She spoke loudly enough for anyone standing within earshot of her open door to hear.

Marcella looked Kristen in the eyes and lowered her voice to be barely above a whisper. "I hated it."

At first she'd just been a healer and likely was only kept around because of how well she could heal. Once the Proctors discovered her true potential though she was used to torture nearly every initiate at the academy. Typically by force or under threat of severe punishments.

"But," she swallowed while keeping her voice at that same whisper-like volume, "I probably would've failed out had they not helped me refine my magic."

And back in those days 'failing out' was synonymous with 'deciding to stop being alive.'

 

[Kristen Pirian]

It did not escape Kristen as to why Marcella began her response with a hearty full-throatedness and then shifted to a close whisper. Only was it surprising that the second half, the quieter half of what she said, was even shared at all. The one and only common feature amongst her former classmates were degrees of guardedness, this changing only as the end of her second year (and their ill-fated graduation) drew closer.

That Marcella hated what had been done was to a good extent expected, though a touch concerning nevertheless. But that was why Kristen was here, speaking of her own volition, and not Proctor Magomo. What she was closing in on saying might well be shocking to the other girl.

Diplomatically (she couldn't help it), Kristen began, "Now things are changed. No mean feat is it to be an Initiate here at the Academy even in the wake of the Revolution, certain bemoaning voices aside. Exacting, punishing, harsh, and necessarily so to prepare us for the duty which awaits."

Then Kristen, like Marcella, lowered her voice, "Yet...the methods by which you had your magic refined are relics of a bygone time, no?" She paused. "It is no secret that my enrollment into the Academy was distinctly after such times."

A breath. Taken in slowly through her nose. She was nearing the heart of the conversation.

"Were it you, Marcella, coming in to the Academy during the era that I have, spending your selfsame decade in said era instead...would you feel yourself better prepared for battle?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

For a time Marcella simply stood in her room, hands behind her back, and listened as Kristen spoke.

There'd been a time, probably three or four years ago now, when she'd been called by a Proctor on an urgent trip towards the city of Vel Anir. It was there that she entered a manor owned by cousins of House Urahil, their son had suffered a horrific injury and was clinging to life. After all was said and done she overheard one of the nobles speaking in a manner quite similar to Kristen.

Then, she perked up, realizing that the other student had finished speaking after she'd dozed off in her daydreaming mind.

All the nobles she'd ever met, which weren't very many, had a funny way of speaking that made you both relaxed and confused. The Dreadlord Academy did a good job of educating its students but there wasn't a doubt in her mind that Marcie would never be as well spoken or as intelligent as someone like Kristen Pirian - the daughter of not just a noble house but a great noble house.

"O-of course, a bygone time and, relics..." um, no, there was a question there. She was certain of it. "Prepared for battle?"

That was a loaded question. Combat had been Marcella's worst subject the entirety of the time she had been at the academy. However, "yes. I'm much more lethal because of how my magic was developed."

Marcella had likely never even discovered the other side of her magic and she'd already been in situations where she, or others, might have died had she not been able to break someone's arm with a touch or lacerate their waist after they tried to grabbed her.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

And here it was. No more preamble. What Marcella herself just said was the justification Kristen wanted to be voiced aloud.

She took in a breath.

Said softly, "I, myself, wish to become more lethal."

The implication hung loudly in the quiet.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella's irises suddenly contracted as her eyes went wide.

"More lethal?" It was a low whisper, a quiet question.

Was this girl simply mad? "I don't want to hurt anyone." If Marcella was required to torture the Pirian scion then this entire venture out of the question. "I'm happy to help, otherwise."

Her widened eyes narrowed a bit as she peered outside of her dormitory towards Magomo. Towards the academy that had delivered such harsh memories.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Marcella picked up on what Kristen was saying. The implicit, made manifest. Though Marcella's interpretation was imperfect.

"Oh no, you shall not be doing harm to my person," Kristen said, speaking in that quick way of reassurance. "For what must be done, we will need a healer. You will be helping me."

Kristen's more formal, more rigid, posture relaxed, and she stepped a little bit closer toward Marcella. Not directly, but tangentially, her head lowered slightly in thought.

"Long have I known extravagance," she mused aloud, her tone somber. "While you and others of our class were enduring hardships unimaginable even to the most seasoned of soldiers, I was living a life of luxury. We Pirians profess to be friends of the people, and yes, such is true, yet we are inescapably of noble blood, and thus with all the trappings thereof do we adorn ourselves."

She looked to Marcella, her expression softened with earnestness.

"I cannot possibly claim that my experience in the Academy will ever be like yours. Yet nor should it be like those gifted children who are being enrolled now in the newest classes, caught as I am in this tenuous middle ground between the brutality of the old and the humanity of the new. Though it remains, in my sincere conclusion, that I must know as much hardship in the Academy as I possibly can. Not only to temper the aforementioned extravagance of my childhood, but, in a much more necessitated and dire sense, to best prepare me for the duties of a Dreadlord which await. The Academy has changed, but the adversities which you and I will face from the enemies of Vel Anir upon graduation have not. In this regard, I make my entreaty to you, Marcella."

Kristen reached out, touched the curves of Marcella's shoulders; one hand of flesh and blood, one of porcelain. In this latter, the proof that the Academy had changed Kristen already. But yet, the knowledge—there were still changes to come.

"Will you help me?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella nodded along as Kristen spoke. Gulping once or twice as the noblewoman, quite eloquently, described what she wished to do. Suddenly the fact that Proctor Magomo was present held entirely new meaning.

There were certainly worse Proctors than Magomo but he would hardly have been her first choice if she were to endure punishment.

Him being around and Kristen's insistence that they needed a healer meant... well, it wasn't good. She was used to seeing people in pain, ignoring their screams, but much of that had been behind her. At least she wouldn't be the direct cause of said screams in Kristen's proposed plan.

She tensed as the hand plopped upon her shoulder, a meek squeal escaping her lips. "Y-yes. I'll help." Her gaze never left the comforting sight of the Pirian woman's boots. Making eye contact was, well, uncomfortable at times. Though for a brief second Marcie forced herself to look at the face of the initiate before her. "You're sure you want to do this?"

The damage absorber was far too timid to challenge the noble but she wanted to hear that Kristen truly was committed to this path. She wasn't sure, precisely, what awaited the other girl but she knew that Magomo knew how to be quite cruel. And if she was going to be present no amount of begging or pleading would help, Marcella would simply heal as the Proctor ordered her to.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The Darling Daughter would have backed out in an instant.

But the Darling Daughter had been left behind on the shores of the Blightlands. Mayhap, even, checked at the gates of the Academy two years ago, when first she passed through them. Who Kristen was now was not who she had been.

And not yet who she needed to become.

"Yes. Not only must I do this..."

The shimmer of resolve covered her eyes in totality.

"...I want to do this."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

She wanted this? Truly? Perhaps she did not understand what she was asking for. By the end of the day Kristen would have a bloodied lip, broken bones, tears in her eyes, and her lips would proclaim how bad it all was.

Everyone was different. That much was without question. But when it came to suffering?

Everyone begged. Everyone bled. Everyone pleaded. Everyone broke.

Perhaps this girl before her was still too noble, still too delicate for the academy. After today that would likely change. After they were finished with whatever barbarism she requested any semblance of her old self would be deadened. No one who knew what Marcella knew would ever ask for what awaited Kristen.

"Okay," she said in a low tone, "I'll be there to heal you."

And hold her hand. And look at her with sorrow.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

It was only half a spur of the moment thing. Kristen was happy that Marcella assented to helping, and she wanted to convey that in undeniable terms.

So she reached over and gently hugged Marcella, leaning down slightly to accommodate the shorter girl.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Marcella."

When she pulled back, Kristen was beaming.

"Let's go talk with Proctor Magomo."

* * * * *​

The Proctors' Building was a relentlessly fearsome place. One always felt unwelcome in here, the very air holding a certain tenseness that seemed anathema to the existence of any Initiate walking its halls. This place was indeed the apex of the Academy, such was Kristen's view of it.

But she and Marcella weathered the stifling atmosphere, and proceeded briskly (always walk with a purpose whilst inside these halls, lest you be set upon by disciplining Proctors) to Proctor Magomo's office.

The door was shut when they entered. Kristen stood rigidly at attention before him.

Proctor Magomo looked both Kristen and Marcella up and down, as if his scrutinizing eyes were scanning them for any trace of weakness, any sign that they might renege on their agreements. And the first thing he said was: "From this point forward, you will refer to our extracurricular activities as 'remedial training' and only as 'remedial training.' It is in your best interest to not fail in doing so. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Proctor Magomo."

After the confirmations he turned his attention to Marcella. Jerked his head toward Kristen. "Did you tell her some of the things she can expect?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Oh," Marcella tensed as Kristen moved in and hugged her. She'd given plenty of hugs, for much of her life simply to whatever scant piece of cloth the academy had given her as a blanket and in more recent memory to her stuffed animals once such things were allowed, but so far as she could tell this was the first time in her life someone had hugged her.

She wasn't certain what one was meant to do in that situation. So she stood there, arms stiffened to her sides, and returning the girl's beaming smile with a small grin of her own.

The hug was nice. She just hoped it didn't make it harder to see Kristen screaming in horror.

---

They entered the wing of the academy that housed the Proctor's building and Marcella simply stuck to Kristen as closely as she could manage. She had been summoned here numerous times in her life but the place always felt wrong. You always stepped quickly and went precisely where you were meant to go. Never stopping to peek in no matter what sounds or sights you believed you saw.

As they entered Magomo's office Marcie adjusted the bag she had slung around her shoulder slightly. Inside she'd brought a canteen of water, a piece of bread, a woolen blanket, and her stuffed giraffe Geoffrey. It had been awhile since she witnessed someone be tortured, or go through excruciating pain over and over again, but she found that water and a bit of food went a long way to keeping them from losing their sanity.

Plus the blanket was useful if some sort of cold treatment was used since her healing could correct frostbite but it wouldn't warm the victim up very much. Geoffrey was there for Marcella.

When Magomo inquired about her she snapped to attention and simply nodded. "Sir. I am to heal Miss Pirian. No one knows I am here." The initiate had learned long ago that the less one said, the better. And she suspected that Proctor Magomo had recommended Kristen select her not only because of her ability to heal but because... frankly... the girl had basically no friends.

It wasn't like there was anyone she socialized with to tell what was going to happen here today.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Proctor Magomo smiled thinly at Marcella's response, almost as if he meant to say something to the effect of Saving it for a surprise, eh?

Instead, he slowly turned his gaze onto Kristen and said, "Wait until you see."

Kristen didn't want to ask the begged question. But a prompting look from Proctor Magomo, a little inviting wave of his hand, gave her full permission. "Wait until I see what, Proctor Magomo?"

That thin smile never left his expression until he finished saying it.

"The woman you will become when I am done."

* * * * *​

Like every other thing and place in the Academy, it had a sterile name. Marcella would know it as the Cellar. Kristen didn't know it at all. It was a place of many purposes in the old way.

Chief among them: private sessions of torture. A place where screams couldn't be heard, where punishment could be administered unseen, and cruelties would never see the light of day.

Kristen felt a certain chill crawl up her spine just from being down here, and she found herself wishing for the relative comfort of the Proctors' Building. Chasmine, for what little time Kristen had known her, spoke of various hauntings around the Academy, but the lack of evidence and direct experience left Kristen doubtful of wayward ghosts. But here...she swore she could feel the cold, tragic lamenting of the dead in tactile form. Somehow the bright, stark white lighting in these dark gray hallways made it even worse than darkness ever could. Light could have a smothering, oppressive quality to it.

Proctor Magomo led them to a room in the middle of the long hallway. Opened the heavy metal door.

"Step inside for your remedial training, Initiates," he said, intentionally loud. The Cellar had been repurposed for other primary uses since the Revolution, so they weren't completely alone in these halls.

Kristen did step inside the room. And a bare sight it was. There was but a thin wooden table at the far end of the room and a single wooden chair for decor. The lighting from the magical etchings on the ceiling were just as bright as in the hallway. A rectangular mirror almost the length of the wall was to their right (another door leading to an adjacent room beside it). And a small circular drain grate was in the center of the floor.

"Wait here," Proctor Magomo said, and then he turned and went up the hall, leaving the door conspicuously open.

Kristen couldn't help it. A small lapse: she bit her bottom lip in nervousness (oh but it was the anticipation which in all cases was always the worst!). It lasted only a second, but it happened.

She glanced to Marcella. Tried to make a stupid, lighthearted joke to ease her nerves. She gestured to the chair, "At least your stuffed giraffe can have a seat there."

The very walls seemed to trap all sound within them from escaping.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Being in the Cellar again brought back a wave of memories. Many of them just blurred together as the chief emotion Marcella typically exercised in this room was apathy. It was the only way one could survive without having a fractured mind. Be apathetic towards the agony, towards the screaming. Just an unfeeling, unthinking, body of flesh that transported their mind elsewhere.

That or you reveled in it. Became a sadistic animal like most of the Proctors. Like most of the students.

She'd never had the stomach for it though so apathy was her emotional drug of choice. But there was always the cooldown period after a day in the Cellar was over. When one's mind couldn't help but reflect on the horrific things she'd done. The pleading of students she saw every day whose pleas she'd ignored because if she disobeyed it'd be her tied to that...

"Yes," she said snapping out of her aloof state, "maybe I'll let Geoffrey take a load off his feet later." Marcie forced a smile, scrunching her nose and narrowing her eyes. Kristen truly did not know what awaited her or she would not be so remarkably calm. Granted, Marcella was just as much in the dark as to the exact nature of Magomo's work today but odds were pretty good it'd be Kristen in that chair at some point.

Or possibly chained to the walls if the good Proctor went off to retrieve the shackles that the Republic had forced the academy to 'rid itself' of.

Marcella swallowed hard and stared at the auburn-haired girl beside her. "You should know that once this starts, it won't stop." She forced herself to look forward at the barren, uninviting, walls of the cellar as the glimpse of that time a Proctor had gouged Cedric's eyes out. Then he'd demanded that Marcella heal it, then give him the pain and loss of sight once more. Over and over again for hours. The memory of a boy her age crying without eyes forever seared into her mind.

She reached her hand out and gave Kristen's palm a light squeeze. "I can't stop it. It'll keep going until he says it's done." She released the girl's hand with that and tried to go back to her old self. The uncaring, unflinching, and unfeeling girl who'd caused so much torment in this room.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"I..."

Know wasn't the appropriate word, was it? Even understand felt inaccurate.

"...anticipate that this will be so."

Yes. That amiable little squeeze of her hand from Marcella was likely to be the last pleasant thing she felt today.

Yet this was why she was scorned by many of her peers, was it not? The Darling Daughter of House Pirian, the Pirian Princess, the soft and pampered noble girl, coming in late to the Academy, this enrollment timed oh so perfectly after the abolition of the Academy's most brutal practices. She was loath to admit it, but Edric had put it best: You are not a real Dreadlord. Living amongst those who had suffered, being in effect exempt from that suffering herself, those words bore a harsh truth. She could not endure years of it. There simply was not the time. But as she had said to Noel, she needed to know some small taste of it. This was the least she could do. This was as fair as she could make it.

Proctor Magomo had not yet returned. Kristen suspected this was likely wholly intentional on his part, likely to see, now that she was standing on the edge of the cliff, if she would back out.

Kristen looked to the drain gate on the floor. Then back up to Marcella.

"Let not my tears persuade you. Let not my cries and lamentations either."

She wanted to be sweet. To be warm. Marcella was indeed a soul unlike many here at the Academy.

But, much like it was for the other girl, the time for smiling was over.

"I must know what you have known, if ever I am to be considered your equal."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

At least Kristen understood that it be useless to ask Marcella for help. It didn't mean that the Pirian noble wouldn't still beg and cry and plead for help... but at least she'd know deep down that those pleas needed to be aimed at Proctor Magomo.

That likely wouldn't matter either. Plenty of times in the past a student would beg Marcella, going so far as to ask Marcella to fight the Proctor in the room. Trying to convince her she could heal them up and team up to fell a Proctor who's magic was powerful enough to easily kill them both.

But in those situations, when the body is under that much stress and pain, logic tends to fade away.

"Why would you want this?" Her words were blurted out before she realized what'd she even said. "I hate this place."

Sure, the grate in the center no longer reeked of urine. Sure, the chains had been removed, the dried blood scrubbed clean of the walls. But much of the depression and pain that Marcie had experienced from torturing others - and being tortured herself - resulted from this room.

And had she not be capable of using her magic for torment it was likely that only death would've awaited her in the old world. She probably would not have even survived to see the revolution.

She shook her head and stepped further away from the Pirian girl towards the wall, dropping her sack against the intersection of the floor and wall. "It isn't worth it." A lesson Kristen would learn far too late.

There was no doubt in her mind that Kristen would end up stronger for it but the old Kristen would be dead and buried. She'd have scars on her mind from this affair that would never heal no matter how well Marcella patched her up.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

I hate this place.

This is what threatened to break her. Kristen, insomuch as she could, thought that she could weather what torments Proctor Magomo would bring to her inside this room. Surely it was possible, for Marcella herself had weathered her own torments, Edric his, every Initiate she could name had done the same as well. Such knowledge would not make these agonies any less harrowing for her, and she fully expected to be cursing herself for her stupidity long before the day's end, and cursing herself again as the sun rose for a fresh batch of hell. But the Academy had revealed hidden depths of endurance, an extension of limits Kristen had never thought possible for herself.

So yes, she had confidence that she could weather these things herself. But...for her actions to bring agony, mental or otherwise, onto Marcella? That was something which did not sit well at all in her gut.

It isn't worth it.

Kristen watched as Marcella set her things down by the wall. She tried to keep the frown which edged at the corners of her mouth from fully forming.

"Neither my birth nor the timing of my enrollment exempts me from this," Kristen said quietly. "I am not one of the new generation. I am of the age which places me among those who hold the memory of cruelty and suffering. It is not right that you bear the lingering weight of these tribulations and I do not."

Kristen closed the distance. But she kept her hands primly down in front of her. Clasped.

"Everything that happens in here is my decision, Marcella. Be happy for me, if nothing else, and look brightly to the future. This agency afforded to me: is it not more than you ever received in your time here?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"But," she stopped herself. Marcella wanted to protest and complain about how maybe what the academy had done hadn't been right. No, it wasn't a maybe it was a definite.

Forcing her to torture her classmates had been wrong. Being tortured herself had been wrong.

There wasn't anything to doubt or question about it and some insane noble girl who wanted to feel pain she'd never imagined possible before wasn't going to change any of that. All of her classmates hated her because of what Marcella had done to them. She'd accepted it years ago.

At least with Kristen someone might actually think fondly of her for a change. Unless Marcie managed to somehow screw it up again. Or, worse, the Pirian was just using her. That was definitely it. "Alright. I'll try and be happy for you."

Being happy for the girl before her was an impossible task. You couldn't be happy for someone writhing in pain with tears running down their cheeks. Unless you were one of the twisted mongrels who came out this place so broken that inflicting pain on others brought you some sort of strange joy.

The healing initiate didn't bother addressing the question about agency or choice. The concept of choice still felt far too foreign.

Footsteps rang outside the room as she assumed Magomo approached. Or perhaps just another proctor was passing by. Either way this moment of solitude wouldn't last much longer, she was certain of that. Marcella reached into her sack and pulled out the loaf of bread and canteen of water.

She showed both objects to Kristen. "If you need either, just ask." Though it was likely Magomo would deny it, "worst case I'll save these for you for... after it's over."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Of the bread and water, Kristen said, "Indeed I will." And, hearing the approach of someone outside the room, she only had a little more time to add, "Your consideration is uncommon, and all the more special for it."

Proctor Magomo swept back into the room. He closed the door. Locked it, the dull thunk of the locking mechanism engaging sounding to Kristen like a small lifeless body striking the floor.

Kristen was at attention, but Magomo ignored her at present. He opened the door to the adjacent room and disappeared into it briefly. He came back out dragging a wooden target silhouette (the silhouette's head, naturally, having pointed ears) and he set up the target at the far end of the room after shoving the table out of the way.

Magomo stepped back to the center of the room and wordlessly motioned Kristen to come over. She did. And then he instructed, "Let me see your magic."

"Yes, Proctor Magomo."

Kristen faced the wooden target. Stretched out her porcelain hand (her artificial hand was becoming more and more of a useful focus for directing her magic). She set her will and her intent. Practice, of course, helped, since it was a fluke to begin with during the raid on Godendrung that she discovered her Impaler spell to begin with. She had to tap into a specific manifestation of will to do harm, of killing intent, molding these into a specific shape within her mind to cast the spell. Such will and intent did not occur to her easily...in most circumstances. Thinking on Dominic Foresend, on Duresh, on Garron Banick, aided tremendously in this effort.

After a moment, a large spike of metal—an Impaler—burst violently from the floor and skewered the wooden target, lifting it off of the ground even. The Impaler's pointed tip was stopped only by the ceiling of the sterile room.

Magomo gave no sign of approval nor disapproval.

Without looking at her, he asked, "Initiate Marcella, when does a Dreadlord stop fighting?"

She had better give the right answer.

Marcella