Private Tales Kristen the Impaler

[Marcella]

Marcella flashed a smile towards Kristen which immediately evaporated once Magomo entered the room.

In front of Proctors it was best to show a placid face. To be a block of stone that could easily be molded into whichever physical or emotional reaction the Proctor requested at that time. So, she simply stood there as Magomo grabbed the elven practice dummy and ordered to see her magic.

Although it was difficult for the meek initiate to suppress awe as she saw the Pirian scion flex her magical muscles. The sudden appearance of the Impaler that materialized and skewered the wooden elf was an amazing feat to behold.

Sure, she'd seen more impressive magic on campus before but based on the murmurs she overheard she had assumed that Kristen had no such ability.

It seemed that she'd either learned this trick recently or else many at the academy underestimated the girl before her. Marcella was so transfixed on the demonstration that she was almost caught by surprise when the Proctor asked her a question that she had heard before.

A lump in her chest formed as she forced an answer out, "Never, Proctor Magomo." Her voice stern as she tried to sound brave.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Never," Proctor Magomo said, echoing Marcella's answer.

Then he punched Kristen as hard as he could, his fist crashing into the side of her face. Her head whipped around from the force. She spun and fell to the floor with her hands splayed out. She tried to get up but as soon as she was on her hands and knees a savage kick to the gut sent her back down.

Proctor Magomo stepped a bit closer and just began to stomp on her with his boot. Crushing fingers. Breaking her elbows. Mashing her face onto the hard floor. All this punctuating her couple of words of what he was saying:

"I do not care if you can use your magic in fair-weather conditions. Any snot-nosed Elbion brat can do that. Any prissy Allirian fuck can do that. There's one thing that sets Dreadlords apart from every other mage on Arethil, Initiate Pirian: we do not quit a fight. Ever. If a Dreadlord is alive, he is a dangerous weapon. No amount of pain can stop him. Do you hear me?"

Kristen, gasping raggedly, groaning horrendously, said in a shaky voice, "Y-Y-Yes, Proc—"

Proctor Magomo swung his foot back in a huge arc and then kicked Kristen in the face with all of his might. Her head snapped back and she went flopping over. The sound of teeth clattering around the room followed, one in particular getting stuck in the metal drain grate. It was a broken incisor.

"Can a maggot speak?" Proctor Magomo said. "The only thing I need from you, Initiate Pirian, is a nod and for you to cast your goddamn spell again."

Kristen nodded. Meekly.

And Magomo rewarded her by picking her up and throwing her into the wall. Her body hit it sideways, and into a heap she fell to the floor. Stringy blood and saliva clung to her lips.

"Well, Initiate Pirian? I'm waiting." Proctor Magomo said, casually taking out his knife as he walked over to her miserable form. "Where's that deadly magic of yours now?"

And Kristen tried. Held her porcelain hand out and tried desperately to conjure another Impaler on the target dummy. But she couldn't.

Couldn't, as she was too busy screaming as Proctor Magomo was carving off her fingernails.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

She told her. She'd warned her.

A few times Marcella's spine shuddered as Kristen was abused and thrown into the ground, into the wall, occasionally as the girl stuttered in an attempted to answer a rhetorical question. She stood as if she were simply a statue observing, so long as statues shook with goosebumps from time-to-time.

And then, eventually, the screaming started. Marcie had to avert her eyes away from that. She'd warned the Pirian of this. Of the horrors of it all, of the torment and awfulness that accompanied what Kristen had asked for. She'd even told the initiate that she could not stop it.

In fact, if she asked for it to stop there was a good chance that Magomo would begin tormenting her instead.

However, perhaps there was a chance to convince the Proctor that what he was asking for wasn't feasible. That there was no point in going on because he'd already broken enough bones, caused enough internal damage, and was creating plenty of superficial damage to suffice for the point he was trying to make.

"Proctor Magomo," her voice pierced the carnage in the room before her, "perhaps I should heal the initiate. She can't focus on her magic."

It was a risky question to ask. Getting Kristen to the point where she could focus, despite the pain, was the entire goal.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Magomo ignored Marcella. He wiped off his knife with Kristen's ponytail and sheathed the weapon and then stalked around behind her and crouched down. He slid a thick arm around Kristen's neck, placed a hand to the back of her head, and started to apply pressure.

"It's nearly over. The battle before you is almost finished. You're beaten. Bloody. The enemy's given you more than you could've expected. But there's one left."

Proctor Magomo, his head next to Kristen's, nodded toward the wooden target dummy dangling from her summoned Impaler. Kristen could only make some strained gurgling noises.

"He's right there. And he's coming for you. He's coming to kill you. Because that's what he's here to do. It's either you or him. All you need to do is finish it. Finish the fight. One more spell. One more."

Kristen's eyes were bulging in their sockets, slowly rolling up into the back of her head. A pitiful wheeze was the last audible breath to escape her throat.

"Is this how you're going to die? Choked to death by some soldier you could've killed in a second?"

Kristen's head lulled as she succumbed to the blood choke. Magomo held her for a second, two seconds, then threw her limp body to the floor as if he were tossing down a sack of potatoes. The jolt stirred her from unconsciousness, and Kristen writhed and shivered on the floor.

Magomo stood, took the waterskin off of his belt, and then finally said to Marcella, "Heal her." He walked over to the other side of the room and stood beside the mirror on the wall and leisurely took a drink of water.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella was bothered by Magomo's lack of an answer. She didn't expect one, in fact, she would've been surprised had he acknowledged her concern at all. Instead she stood there, hands together and watching silently as the beatings continued.

Quietly, in her mind, she hoped that Kristen would rise above the challenge. Summon the strength to strike at the dummy once more.

The Pirian noble went limp and unconscious rather than meeting Magomo's demands.

She nodded at the Proctor's instruction and moved forward, kneeling down besides the shivering girl and placing a hand against her forehead. Closing her eyes Marcella exhaled and took the noble's pain, the damage to her body healing, her fingernails regrowing as if nothing happened, the bruising around her neck fading back into their normal flesh-tone.

Marcie leaned over and whispered in the initiate's ear, "good job," before she stood and glanced in the direction of Magomo. "Finished, sir." The initiate wasted no more time as she moved back over towards her side of the room and caught Kristen's gaze.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

From all ends of Kristen's body did pain flow up to assail her mind. It was all she could think and focus on, and indeed it seemed as though Arethil itself was hidden behind a thick curtain of agony, even the cold floor proving distant to flesh which was insensate to anything other than the echoes of the beating endured.

Then it all went away. In a strange reversal of suffering, wherein even her fingernails and her teeth came back, her body was made well. Pain, so it seemed, had been shut back inside the grim box from which it sprang.

Good job.

Kristen's eyes were able to focus, and they found Marcella as she retreating back from her whisper, coming to stand once more. Her heart warmed from these two little words, and Kristen wanted to give Marcie something in return...but alas, with Proctor Magomo present, her gesture in kind would have to wait.

Proctor Magomo stalked forward, producing a thin, serrated wire in his offhand. "And now we go again."

* * * * *​

For hours it continued.

A pale shadow compared to what Kristen's peers had all survived. Yet in the moments of blinding pain, of agonies once thought unimaginable, there seemed little difference between hours, days, and years, all of it falling into the same torturous eternity.

* * * * *​

Kristen was once again on the floor. Her back was broken. The flesh of her arms and her inner thighs had been flayed off. The room, once pristine, was stained red with blood that was cold and blood that was still warm. She had not yet been able to conjure any Impalers while under Proctor Magomo's pressure.

Finally, after hours of work, Proctor Magomo took out a small handkerchief and dabbed the single bead of sweat which formed on his forehead. He gave his instruction to Marcella. "Heal her."

And, shortly after, he said further, "I understand how your magic works, Initiate Iteius. Therefore..."

He walked to the door leading to the adjacent room by the mirror. He opened it. Stepped inside. A moment passed, wherein Magomo could be heard saying something low and menacing to someone. And then he came back out, leading a male elf who was blindfolded, had his hands cuffed behind his back, and wore naught but threadbare trousers.

Proctor Magomo took the baton from his belt and struck the elf in the back of the knees, forcing him down directly to his knees on the floor. He grabbed a fistful of his hair.

"...an enemy of Vel Anir, whom you can release your store on."

Kristen, still laying on the ground, paled slightly. She remembered clearly what Marcella had said to her in her room.

I don't want to hurt anyone.

Magomo, meanwhile, tapped the elf's chest with his baton and looked to Marcella expectantly.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

She watched on for hours. It wasn’t the longest session she’d ever been in but it lasted far longer than she’d anticipated it. She watched it intently other than the occasional breaks to heal the Pirian noble, snuggling with Geoffrey when the screaming became too intense, and nibbling on the bread she’d meant to save for Kristen but had gotten too hungry to resist.

Marcella had been waiting until her stores filled up. Magomo, like most of the Proctors from the old days, had a rough idea of her limit. Once she surpassed it she’d start to inflict those injuries upon herself and the results could be agonizing.

Her plan had been simple, wait until just the brink and then tell the Proctor they’d need to stop. She’d heal Kristen one last time, they’d call it a day, and she could slowly work off the damage she’d built up on her own body for a few weeks until it dissipated.

It was fool proof. Nothing could go wrong. Pretty soon she’d be in the dining halls with her new best friend (or, more accurately, only friend) and they’d talk about happier things.

“Heal her.”

”Yes, Proctor Magomo, but,” her words ceased as Magomo indicated he already knew.

Oh. Good. He was likely going to the back room for some food, it was past dinner time. She hoped it was fish, ever since the revolution they got fish from time-to-time and it was so lovely.

Salmon, halibut, cod, it didn’t really matter. She enjoyed the taste of all of them. And she’d done such a good job today! Ever since things had changed she’d get rewarded for when she did well. It was so much better than in the old days when she’d be forced to do things that she hated. Forced to hurt others. Forced to take lives even.

But instead of fish, or even pork, Magomo returned to the Cellar with an elf.

”B-but, Proctor Magomo I don’t want to,” she looked down at the elf before her. They were meant to live centuries so she never could tell precisely how old they were. This one looked not much older than Kristen or herself. He had long redhair that was braided, piercing emerald eyes, and a defeated look upon his face.

Just how long had he been down here? How much torment had they already put him through?

“Initiate Iteus. He is an enemy of Vel Anir. You need to replenish your healing. We haven’t finished Initiate Pirian’s training.”

Her gaze broke from the bound elf and caught Magomo’s face. He was serious, wrinkles forming around his forehead and sweat beading all across his skin. The Proctor likely had hours more of torture in him for poor Kristen, the only thing stopping him was her own body’s ability to cope with the pain. A problem that Marcella alone could address.

”Sir, I don’t think I can do it.” She’d hurt so many people after the Proctors ordered her to do so. Killed people on their request. She thought all of that was over for her, thought it was all gone. She’d even told Kristen that she couldn’t agree unless…

“You agreed to this Initiate Iteus! And don’t act like it’s nothing new to you. I was in the room to see what you did to Initiate Calvin. This is what you are.” The Proctor dangled the belt in front of him as if it were a familiar threat that the girl would recognize.

Marcella froze where she stood, refusing to make eye contact with the elf any longer. Instead keeping her vision trained on Magomo. After a few seconds of simply staring at one another she nodded and walked forward.

Marcie pressed a hand against the elf’s bare chest.


Then he started screaming.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The elf hit the floor, his skull bouncing off of the tile with a dull thump. He trembled, convulsed, his lips and his lungs unable to form another scream after his body had been wracked with so many injuries. Terribly familiar injuries, as it so happened.

Kristen could only just stare with a hollow and horrid amazement at what she saw, a light chill running up her spine. She had not been so sure what Proctor Magomo had meant when he said Marcella could "release her store" on the elf. Kristen was vaguely aware of the reputation Marcella had amongst their peers, the aversion many of them had toward her. She could not understand it then...for all she knew of Marcella was that she was a healer. That was it.

And now she saw. Now it all made sense. Now, clear before her eyes, was the lethality that Marcella was capable of and all the grim weight which came along with it.

"We've got another hour or two before lights out," Magomo said casually. He was eyeing the quivering elf as if dissatisfied that he was not yet dead. Then he looked to Kristen. "Let's see if we can't squeeze something worthwhile out of you."

He spun the baton around in his grip.

And stalked toward her.

* * * * *​

The first day would end in disappointment. Kristen, under heavy pressure, was simply unable to conjure her Impalers. Proctor Magomo berated her as much as he, in his own stern and gruff and starkly realistic way, tried to encourage her. As the last two hours wore on he demanded less of her. He wanted merely for her to be able to cast any spell while under intense agony...but even then she couldn't do it. And this was the part which dismayed Kristen the most, for she had been able to cast her Withering Chains, her Crucifixes, her Curses while under pain and distress before.

But the utter shock of this first day had proven to be too much.

Proctor Magomo released Kristen and Marcella to return to the dorms, and he instructed them to report back to his office after breakfast tomorrow to continue their "remedial training."

Kristen, despite having been healed such that her body was physically fine, walked stiffly. The flesh had a memory all its own, and the ghosts of agony ran their terrible spectral fingers across the whole of her body. What happened in that room followed her like a shadow.

Out of the Cellar, walking across the Academy grounds, Kristen said quietly to Marcella, "I...I did not know..."

About the other half of Marcie's power. About the captive elf. About the true horror of what Initiates faced in the old way.

All of it.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

It hadn't been that difficult of a thing. Even if she regretted it, even if Marcella would have nightmares this evening, even if it brought her sadness tomorrow. The look in Magomo's eyes, the belt he brandished, she knew that if she didn't go through with it she'd be beaten. So, she did what she always had to.

Detached herself. Cut off her emotions. It was a trick she learned years ago.

Tormenting the elf was a logical decision. A step-by-step recipe to avoid punishment and pain that awaited herself. A survival mechanism so that she wouldn't be discarded like the other initiates who couldn't measure up.

And now she accompanied Kristen Pirian, a proper noble, back to the dormitories. The pair traveled in silence at first, the sounds of the first crickets of the evening chirping, the beginning of dusk coloring the entire campus. "It's alright," she imparted as the other one struggled to find words, "you did very good today."

Kristen had barely cried, she didn't really beg or plead, she was learning to compartmentalize it all. Learning to wrap her mind around what it meant to be a Dreadlord. Finally uncovering the harsh truths of it all, the truths that Marcie had warned her she didn't want. And Kristen was handling it all braver than many of the other initiates Marcella had witnessed firsthand.

"I'm sorry you had to see," for a second she looked intently at the pride of Pirian before lowering her gaze and staring at her own feet. Silence once again permeated their walk, interrupted only momentarily by the chirps of crickets.

"I'm a monster."

It was why, even years since the revolution, many of her classmates recoiled at the idea of Marcella touching them. Refused healing from her and requested anyone else, even if they were worse healers. Why so many avoided even being in the same room.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen found Marcella's praise to be quite heartening, and she was grateful for it. Hobbling out of the Cellar, Kristen thought she had, as was dismayingly common for her first attempts at anything here in the Academy, done woefully awful. Kristen spared no thought for any difference between herself and Marcella—that she was a noble, that she was older—nothing save for Marcella having endured the pre-Revolution Academy. This, to Kristen, gave her praise weight, and she was humbled and honored before it.

I'm a monster.

Kristen immediately laid a hand to her arm as they walked (a good thing indeed for the relative lateness of the hour, given the openness of the gesture and where they were). "No, Marcella, you are not. Far are you from such a loathsome description, and I believe I shall have a cross word or two with anyone who speaks so of you in my presence."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Thanks."

Her head didn't shift as Kristen touched her or used all of that flowery language, instead she simply kept her vision trained on her feet and walked one step at a time across the academy. It was a lot of words spoken that didn't really meant much to her.

Though they were kind. If nothing else could be said it was true that Kristen Pirian was a kind person.

"You have to go numb," she finally spoke, "it's how I do it. Deaden the parts of you that make yourself... well, you."

Maybe the noble girl was simply too kind to become a Dreadlord. Perhaps she couldn't just sever the part of herself that felt things as trivial as survival or fear in the way that Marcella could. Truthfully, many of the other initiates couldn't do such a thing either, it was part of why Marcie always thought she was a broken monster.

As they approached the dormitories she imparted one last nugget. "If you need anything, just ask." Not many people, if anyone, here at the academy was as kind to her as Kristen had been. At a bare minimum Marcella would do whatever she could to keep the older initiate safe.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Before they parted ways to their separate rooms, Kristen called out to Marcella and waited for her to turn and look.

And then she smiled, raising a covert thumbs-up to the other girl down the hall.

"Thank you. For everything."

* * * * *​

The next few days of "remedial training" saw the same results of the first. Kristen was able to conjure her Impalers just fine in good conditions, but once the torture began, it was as if all capacity for magic abandoned her.

Proctor Magomo's imagination for inflicting pain seemed endless. Each of those days, for all the hours in them, he came up with something new or a slight twist on something he had already done. Actual weapons, innocent household implements, jugs of water, anything in his hands became a source of agony for Kristen. One of the worst was a simple contraption he had set up on the third day: a box, suspended from the ceiling, that Kristen had to stick her head inside, and it was so that the box was high enough off of the ground that she had to stand on the very tips of her toes at all times...for the hole she stuck her head through was lined with inwardly tilted blades which would cut into her and choke her should she relax her feet.

Magomo, as well, seemed to have a steady supply of "prisoners of war" for Marcella to inflict suffering upon. Kristen didn't want to know how he was getting them...or how he was disposing of them.

It was hardly a week of this.

And Kristen was already engaged in a mighty battle between anguished doubt and dogged perseverance.

* * * * *​

A small reprieve on the sixth day. Only a half day, as Proctor Magomo said he had some other business in which to attend.

So Kristen was eating lunch with Marcella in the dining hall. Dark bags had begun to settle in ugly fashion beneath her eyes. She was thinking now of what she had been thinking in those restless nights: what Marcella had said to her on the evening of that first day. Deaden yourself.

She brought it up. Quietly. This, as she pecked and played at her food. "I don't...I do not know if I have the capacity...to...do what you do."

Kristen glanced up from her food.

"I want to be a capable Dreadlord...I yearn for it...yet..."

What could she even ask of Marcella? How do you smother your human spirit and become a weapon? It seemed ludicrous. It seemed to her that it was either something you could do or something you could not.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Although the day-to-day of it all was awful, she was having to both witness and heal a broken and battered Kristen while also having to go back to inflicting terrible pain to prisoners that were likely doomed to die, this entire experience had been so wonderful!

Marcella was used to eating her meals by herself. Yet here she was, with a noble and her new best friend, eating at the academy's cafeteria.

It didn't even matter if the food was to her liking, just having company that didn't immediately

Then Kristen broke the silence and spoke her mind. Marcella simply stared at her, waiting for her to slowly put to words what she was thinking. Each syllable she took in fully, waiting a time until she was certain that the girl from House Pirian was done speaking. "You're doing fine."

It was a lie.

But a lie that was told because the thing she feared most was that she'd lose the one person at the academy who actually engaged with her. She had other friends, of course, but Aelita or Houri didn't engage with her they just patronized her. They were still her friends but... Kristen was different.

"I grew up in this," she spoke while dropping her fork, "you're just learning. Progress will be slow."

There was truth to that, but more importantly, "maybe you should try a different approach?" Kristen was so kind. Too kind. Maybe what Marcie had learned to do as a child wouldn't work for Kristen who was practically an adult. "One thing that worked for other initiates," initiates who screamed as Marcella's deadened mind was pumping bone fractures and flayed skin into their bodies, "was imagining that the practice dummy was trying to harm the people they cared the most for."

A defense mechanism where primal rage and instincts took over. Maybe it would work for Kristen too.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Progress will be slow.

One would be hard pressed to find truer words spoken in Kristen's case. Did not these four words mark the whole of her tenure here at the Academy? Perhaps there was something of an irony to this, given that she was supposed to be on an accelerated track of training and learning, yet it remained the case nonetheless. She had to wonder: how many other Initiates struggled so immensely on their missions? It was only in recent months, after Kristen had quite a few missions under her belt, that she felt any level of confidence in her capacity to successfully accomplish them. And the less said of Vel Acan, the better.

It ought to come as no surprise, then, that learning how to adapt to the brutish techniques used to forge the Dreadlords of old would be similarly challenging for her. Progress would, indeed, be slow.

But Marcella came through with something remarkable, a possible solution, and Kristen's eyes lit up with excitement and amiability.

"Marcella...that's brilliant!"

Kristen had done something similar when trying to learn her Curses, imagining hated foes like Duresh and Dominic to be her targets and generating the negative mindset needed to shape and cast them. Marcella's suggestion could work wonders here!

"Do keep this in confidence, but...when I was part of the prior class, I was on a mission—"

Of sorts. Too much to explain, and it didn't bear anything on the point was going to make.

"—wherein I and Edric were to infiltrate a manor in a coastal city—Salesia. It was quite the harrowing experience overall, and what I am about to share was the pinnacle of it."

Her eyes looked left. Looked right. Everyone else in the dining hall was minding their own business, yet Kristen still kept her voice low.

"I am not sure how much you know of Edric, but suffice it to say he is a deplorable human being. We had been spotted by a serving girl in the manor, and he, being the barbarian that he is, swept over and tried to kill her. I...was terrified. Here was this poor serving girl, purely innocent and simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet who was I to stand against Edric, woefully incapable before such strength as he possessed? Yet I could not let it simply happen. Armed with only raw empathy for the serving girl, whose name I did not and do not even know, I managed to overcome my fear and rushed Edric. I cracked his skull with my mace—an inconsequential wound for the likes of him—and freed her."

She smiled, and held on to the hope that the serving girl was still alive to this day. That she had escaped the massacre Edric went on to unleash upon Salesia.

"Perhaps this, and things like it, could imbue me with the strength and wherewithal I need to overcome the challenge I face now."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Kristen was many things but Marcie had learned one thing for certain these past several days. She was far too good for the academy.

Why in the name of kress her family had condemned her to come here was a riddle she doubted she'd ever find out. The girl had put her life in danger to protect a serving girl and was explaining it to Marcella, a person who'd unleashed horrors on a myriad of people that Magomo had whisked in one-by-one.

"I know who Edric is."

For a second fear overtook the initiate. The Proctors had always taken an interest in him and on more than one occasion they'd instructed Marcella to unleash her storage of physical harm upon the older boy. Each time he experienced less than he should've, each time he was far more resilient than should've been physically possible. It terrified her.

"You should stay away from him. He is a brute." Her agreement wasn't the same as Kristen's necessarily. It was more driven by her suspicion that the man wasn't even human but something else far more sinister.

The fear resided though and instead a look of joy sparked, content that perhaps she'd helped the Pirian initiate after all. "I'm glad I could help. I know you can do it." A face with bright eyes and a beaming smile framed the sentence even if that last part was a lie.

However, from observing other friend groups at the academy she'd picked up that students often lied to one another in an effort to encourage them to push further. If she could do that for Kristen then she would.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The subject of Edric was beside the point, but...Kristen couldn't help but to spare a word on it.

"You needn't worry about that these days."

Kristen was aware of the schism that had happened within her former class. Names had trickled in slowly during those first couple of days, the truth of it all competing with speculation and rumor. But Edric had been one of those who went with the Archon Gilram. He went rogue, and to be quite honest about it, Kristen wasn't very much surprised. Edric was a miserable excuse of a man all around, and here now he couldn't even exile himself right as he had wished. He was out there, killing Anirians, being exactly the thing his false tears and falsely lamenting voice claimed to loathe. Was a man like him even redeemable? If not, then may the gods damn his immortal soul to the worst hell imaginable.

On to better subjects.

I'm glad I could help. I know you can do it.

"Thank you for that."

Marcella was gracious and encouraging, and it was in these words that Kristen again found some warmth of heart despite the horrid days she had endured and the horrid days ahead. So it left her wondering.

She paused in her eating. Said, "Marcella...it seems to me that this 'reputation' ascribed to you by our peers is wholly unfounded. I hope that I am not speaking out of turn, but surely they had to understand, even back before the changes from the Revolution, that you had no choice in the matter? If they are not like Bull or Charon, so far gone that none of good heart should heed what they say on anything, then...how shall I phrase this?...then the vindictiveness perpetrated upon you is unjust, for they erroneously see a 'monster' where in fact there is naught but a kind soul."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella nodded at her final quip on Edric. Kristen spoke truth, that their time of having to endure him was over. He'd declared himself an enemy of Vel Anir and as a result his days were ultimately numbered.

If there was one thing she was certain of it was the unstoppable might of Vel Anir.

As Kristen continued to speak however the healer's demeanor shifted slightly. She stared down at her food and poked at a piece of boiled lamb, the food truly had improved in the cafeteria after the revolution. Gone were the days of an unidentifiable gruel as the initiates now regularly ate things you could distinguish on sight alone.

"Would you understand it?" Her voice went quiet as she spoke the words. "The first time you experience your arm being fractured and it's the girl you sleep near at night? Skin being ripped, then healed, then ripped again."

Marcie shook her head and finally peeled her gaze away from her partially eaten meal to look directly at the slightly older girl sitting across from her. "I did have a choice, Kristen. I could've chosen to fight, or die, but I was scared. And I didn't want to be the one getting tortured."

Even still she tended to keep to herself. Too ashamed of the things she'd done and well aware that many of the students at the academy regarded her with distrust or outright hate. "So, I did what the Proctors asked. I hurt other people so that they wouldn't hurt me."

"Maybe that means... maybe it means I'm not a monster but," she looked away, back down at her lamb, "it does mean I'm not a very nice person."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Marcella voiced her own opinion on the matter, and it was here that Kristen's appraisal of her suffered irreparable damage. The argument that Marcella did have a choice was the killing blow, the part that Kristen could not refute. This struggle and ultimate failure to find that rebuttal played out across Kristen's expression in small motions: a tensing of her brow, her lips pulling to one side or the other, her jaw setting and relaxing.

Kristen found in the wake of this that her own words were premature. Her very own experience with Edric and the serving girl, topically enough, disproved the notion that if Kristen was in Marcella's shoes she would have acted in the manner she had acted, doing as the Proctors bid. Perhaps it would have led to her death if it was so (and it was all Kristen could do to credit the grace of Aionus that she even made it out of Salesia alive). But there were things one could do which degraded the soul, and servility that blatantly disregarded one's own morals was one of them. And who knew how deep that fracture of cowardice ran in Marcella's heart?

Kristen didn't hate her, no. It remained to be seen if her remorse was genuine and strong enough to prompt a meaningful correction in her, or if she like Edric would merely cry false tears and persist in abominable error. She didn't hate her, but she knew she could not see Marcella in the same light again.

"I see," Kristen said, slow and measured and this deliberately so to buy a few extra seconds to think of a more substantive response. But none truly came. None other than this:

"I can only hope that times change."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcie had, to no surprise, messed things up yet again. Why did she always do this?

”I haven’t had to hurt anyone since things,” she stopped herself as her utensil danced around her food some more. She didn’t finish the thought as she didn’t need to.

Without the aid she was offering Kristen she wouldn’t have had to torture the people she had these past few days. Though even that wasn’t a real excuse, she had a choice there too. If Marcella let her magic build up it would be her that would suffer the full extent of the injuries she healed from Kristen.

It was a burden she didn’t wish to bear. Likely a burden that Proctor Magomo may not have let her bear.

But she hadn’t even tried to resist it. Hadn’t even tried to stop the torment. Magomo had presented her with prisoners and she had, without question or hesitation, released the damage she’d healed.

The quiet girl dropped her fork and stood. ”I apologize, it’s quite late. I should probably get to bed.”

They could resume their regular exercises the next day. After some more thought, after a full night’s rest. Because Marcella was now convinced of the choice she had to make. The choice that Kristen had laid out before her.

She would refuse Magomo tomorrow. Whatever pain Kristen suffered she would eventually suffer. If only so she could impress her new friend.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The night found Kristen tossing and turning in her bed, hopelessly searching for sleep which would not come. Her mind, like a ball spinning around the downward slope of a funnel, always inevitably arrived at the same point: the poor departure that she and Marcella had from one another earlier in the day. She alternated between chastising herself for carelessly bringing up the topic which led to the awkward rift (oh how good intentions were no guarantor of good outcomes), thinking in a grim manner that some version of what happened at lunch was inevitable given the differences between them, and considering whether there was any merit at all to continuing with the 'remedial training,' knowing now how Marcella's magic worked and how Proctor Magomo was solving the problem and that Kristen had never intended for Marcella to hurt anyone throughout this whole process.

This third quandary won her attention in the end. It was, she reckoned, the source of her restlessness. What Marcella had done in the past was irrelevant to the fact now that Kristen was, essentially, coercing her to use her magic for harm when it was clear that she did not want to. Perhaps it was uncharitable to use the word "coerce" to describe it, but that was how it felt to Kristen, there tormented in the dark of her room with her bed providing no comfort at all and her gaze drilling for answers in the ceiling above.

Kristen finally sat up.

"Very well," she said to herself, resolving that she must at least go and speak with Marcella before the new day dawned. In truth, she didn't quite know how she might coax a sincere answer from Marcella, seeing as how the girl did not assert herself very well, but she had to try.

Clad in her nightgown, Kristen's bare feet made hardly a sound as she crept down the hallway of the dormitory. If she got caught by the night Proctor then...well, she had experienced worse this past week, had she not?

She made it to Marcella's door. Rapped softly upon it with her knuckles, hoping the noise would be just loud enough.

"Marcella?" she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. "It's Kristen. May I come in?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

She’d grabbed Geoffrey off the shelf the instant her door shut from her meal with Kristen. Without even bothering to shed her clothing she fell into the cot that served as the standard bed for every initiate at the academy. Marcella pulled the thin sheet over her head and clung tightly to her stuffed camel while laying on her side.

It took a bit, tossing over the tidbits of conversation she’d shared that day, but eventually sleep caught up with her.

Lids closed, dreams overtook her.

Then, she was awoken by a soft knock on her door and the whisper of her name. ”Mm?” Marcella rubbed at the sleepiness in the corner of her eyes, groggily standing on legs that felt far too heavy. ”Coming,” it was a mutter that was likely unintelligible due to her mind’s current state.

The doorknob turned and she looked through the crack she had created hesitantly. Consciousness fully overtook her as she perceived the Pirian noble just outside of her dormitory adorned in nothing more than a gown. ”Yes, come in.”

With the door now completely ajar she gestured for the brunette to enter. Confusion and worry sprang to the forefront of Marcie’s brain as she couldn’t imagine what her fellow initiate could possibly want at such a late hour.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen entered and closed the door softly behind her. It wouldn't do to be interrupted by the night Proctor if she was carelessly too loud.

She held her entwined hands in front of herself. Her lips were pinched tight. Somehow, now that she was in Marcella's room, she was the one who was nervous. There was much potentially to be gained from Proctor Magomo's remedial training, but the cost was severely in question.

The only way she could get started was with full honesty—how she always approached things.

"Marcella, I must admit to you that I was disturbed by our conversation at lunch."

Some of the tension went out of her hands finally.

"But, where you bear fault in the past, I bear fault here in the present. You said that you do not want to hurt anyone, and I refuse to claim ignorance of the nature of your magic as an excuse for myself. I should have put a stop to the training on the first day once all became clear, and yet, thoughtlessly, I allowed for it to continue for a week, despite your wishes. You are a kind soul, but I have dragged you down to being 'not a very nice person' once again."

Shame pulled her gaze down, but resolve brought it back up.

"I want to atone for my error, and respect your sincere wish."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Kristen was disturbed by their conversation earlier.

Oh gods. The Pirian noble was here to kill her. Appearing upon her doorstep dressed only in her nightgown to disarm her, the brunette was prepared to use the impaling talents she’d learned and tried to hone in training to end Marcella’s life.

Heartbeats fluttered, skin paled slightly, and then everything relaxed as the girl inside of her cramped room began to continue speaking.

”You just want to get better,” Marcie admitted behind a guilty glance. None of what the girl before her stated was wrong, if anything it was all too correct. Just to impress someone she’d been willing to go back to that place.

That uncaring, unloving, apathetic place where inflicting harm was a decision driven by instinct.

No emotion, no thinking. Nothing at all.

Just healing, followed by harm, as if it were one of their algebraic functions. ”You don’t have to atone for anything.” She pulled her own gaze down this time. There was no resolve to bring it back up. ”I could’ve refused. I will refuse tomorrow. I promise.”

The torturer fell silent after that, simply staring down at her bare toes in the dim light of her room.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen's eyes widened with an expanse of worry. She felt a cold and tiny shiver go crawling down her spine.

Blessed Aionus.

"Marcella...what...what will happen to you if...you do not...?"

Proctor Magomo had called it "her store," and indeed, all magic had limits, all magic had costs. If Marcella's transfer of wounds was not performed, if that store was filled to the breaking point, then...then what?

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella saw the surprise swell on Kristen's face, the sound of terror attached to her voice.

For a brief moment she considered lying to the noblegirl standing across from her. Telling her some fanciful tale that would ease her nerves. But, no, she decided to be honest.

"Well, normally I can work off some of it, slowly, over time," mild pain akin to a toothache or a sharp shoot up one's leg, "but if we're doing a session it builds up too quickly." Too many abrasions, too many fractures, too many lacerations.

Marcella steeled herself briefly before continuing. "If I build up too much it... comes back up.". Perhaps it would signal just how melted her mind was but the healer let out a giggle in the awkward silence that followed.

"I'll feel every single thing I healed."