Private Tales Kristen the Impaler

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen's hand slowly rose, fingers coming to half cover her mouth.

For clarification, she asked (though it was dreadful to do so):

"Will you feel it...or will you experience it?"

In her mind's eye she saw all of her own wounds erupting onto the elf prisoner's body that first day. She was tormented by the imagined sight of that being Marcella instead; Marcella, in effect, being tortured for Kristen's own benefit.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Both."

Her head tilted like a bewildered animal at the gesture that Kristen was making. She thought that part was fairly obvious, although perhaps it needed more clarification. "It hurts a lot, I might pass out, and Magomo will be furious."

Marcella wasn't really certain if he'd try to rush her to the infirmary or if he remembered how it worked and just left the girl down in the cellar for a day or so.

"I'll heal rather quickly though. Maybe a day or two. It'll make your training slower but then I won't have to hurt someone else," her neck straightened and she smiled, "so, see, no one has to get hurt and we can still help you improve."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

So the worst was true then.

In Kristen's mind there in those moments when she was approaching Proctor Magomo's office to first make this request, it was all so very simple. Proctor Magomo would oblige her request, put her through the hell of the old way of training, and a healer would be on standby to simply erase all of the damage done—that would be it. Was there...was there some ulterior motive of Proctor Magomo's for having chosen Marcella? Did he know exactly what he was doing? Did he want to make it part of Kristen's training? Pain which was not merely physical?

Kristen brought a hand up to run through her hair, and it settled on cradling her forehead.

"You will...in effect...be suffering for my benefit. Taking on all..."

That hand slid down her face and came to cover her mouth—fully this time. It was a moment before she could speak again. Her voice was quiet, and in it a longing for things to be—

"Marcella...do you ever wish that your magic was different?"

A wish dear to Kristen herself as well.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

The question gave the younger initiate pause as a hand came up to and she nestled her chin in it. This was a gesture that others did when they were deep in thought so she believed it would look smart.

Truthfully she didn't know how to answer immediately so the motion merely served to stall for time.

Consider exactly how honest she wished to be with the Pirian noble, how much of herself she should truly reveal. After a few seconds Marcie decided that it was only right to be as transparent as possible, to lay all of the cards on the table. "Yes, I do."

Her hand fell and she clasped both of her palms together before her. "When I first came here they thought I was just a healer. So did I." She broke eye contact as she continued to regale Kristen, "then I built up too much. The Proctors saw me writhing in pain, physical injuries visible upon me, one of them even suggested they just put me down."

Believing Marcella to be 'defective,' believing that she possessed a flawed healing ability.

"It was Proctor Norris who insisted otherwise. He discovered exactly how the other half of my magic worked. Without that discovery I," she retook Kristen's gaze if the other student would allow her, "I probably would've died a very long time ago."

But that didn't change the fact of what she asked. It didn't get at the heart of her inquiry. "If I was just a normal healer though, or if I possessed a magic that was as powerful as some of the others, I'd probably be a lot more popular." Or at least, that's what she told herself.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

If only she were worthy in the sight of Aionus. If only He saw her fit to be granted the power to bestow Blessings. She would not be able to Bless herself, but it did not matter here. Marcella could take her pain and injuries from her, suffer them herself when her store ran over, and then Kristen could then in turn relieve all of that pain—something like this, or very much like this. Instead she was here, praying to Aionus everyday and still deficient, helpless now and helpless tomorrow when the horror would truly begin.

Kristen did not know it, but it was here that the seed for a crisis of faith was at last definitively planted, and it would bear some terrible fruit when she would find herself trapped with Olvir Weiroon and Reynard De Eramant in the Keep of Vel Hetren.

Like the Proctors of Marcella's story, Kristen would soon see Marcella in the same way, writhing in pain upon the cold floor of the Cellar, all the injuries once afflicting herself visible on Marcie.

With a meekness that sounded much like the Kristen of two years ago, a meekness that she quickly found herself ashamed of hearing, Kristen said, "Is this...what you want?"

Kristen had come to Marcella's room ostensibly to end her torture of others if that is what she so wished. But now, it seemed, she had not the wherewithal to save the girl from the torture of herself. For what could she say to Marcella, when it was her own motivation for all this to endure horrid hardship and blinding agony—her own torture—as a method to make herself stronger for it?

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella looked at Kristen for awhile after the other initiate posed her question. It was a simple ask, one that she could've answered with a single word. Yes or no. The truth of it was the prospect of feeling all of that pain was terrifying. Having to answer to Magomo was, in a different way, equally terrifying.

But instead she answered with the first thing that really resonated in her mind. "I want you to like me."

Initiate Iteius blsuhed at that confession. It was honest but one of those things that was some embarrassingly truthful that she couldn't help but feel rose coloring her cheeks.

Still, there was more to it than that. More to it than simply being liked by a fellow student at the academy.

"But, more than that, you've worked so hard. Endured so much this last week. I want you to succeed."

And as a result she was willing to suffer for it instead of passing it along to an innocent victim who's only crime was likely just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wished to be done inflicting pain and torment on others for once and the only way for her to do that while also helping the Pirian noble before her was to take it unto herself.

This was the only path forward.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen's lips bundled together into a tight, tormented knot as Marcella spoke the first part of her answer. How inept her own choice of words in beginning all this, saying so forwardly that she had been disturbed by their noontime conversation. For upon what ground did she stand now? She had practically tempted this motivation from Marcella in so doing; she had fallen upon the sword of honesty.

I want you to succeed.

Yet even then, facing a renewal of those dark years from the Academy's brutal age, Marcella was wishing her well. It was too much, and an effluence of warmth from Kristen's heart bid silent tears to roll down her cheeks.

"I thought you to be a coward."

She swallowed.

"Yet you needed only some help to begin the work toward reaching your best."

And tried for a smile.

"Just like me."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

A blush came over her as she listened to the noblewoman in her room. Despite the fact that the initiate in front of her was clad in nothing more than a nightgown Marcella couldn’t help but think that she was one of the most regal people she’d ever met.

Perhaps it was simply because of how well-spoken Kristen seemed to be.

”No one who survives this place as long as I did is a coward.”

They were words spoken in earnest, even if it was something that Marcella normally wouldn’t have stated. Every coward tried to flee or hide and all of them perished. Anyone who was still alive by their final year had managed such a feat by being, at a minimum, emotionally strong.

She returned Kristen’s forced smile with a genuine one of her own.

After an awkward few seconds the healer finally spoke again. ”I’m glad you pushed me. To be better. I want to give you the same gift.”

Tomorrow would be a challenging day. Depending upon how Proctor Magomo reacted it could be the last day that they worked on this together. Regardless, she was here to aid Kristen Pirian in whatever manner the other girl, her new friend, required.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Tomorrow, then," Kristen said, "may it be that we both grasp for that which we reach."

* * * * *

THE CELLAR ROOM​

Kristen collapsed flat to the floor, her head bouncing once off of the cold tiles. She was barely cognizant, having suffering a severe concussion from Magomo's penultimate blow and this draping an insensate haze over her awareness. Blood leaked out from the lacerations on her arms, her stomach, her bare back, these from Magomo sprinkling in whippings amongst his other methods. The chestwrap Kristen wore was darkly stained.

She had failed again. Even with Marcella's idea, she had failed. She thought she had been close, she could vaguely feel the power to conjure her Impalers after the agony had begun, and she had reached for it...but was not quite able to yet grasp it. Her imagination, manifesting make-believe scenarios of Val, of Amelia, of her older brother Pedrig in mortal danger, was at present insufficient as a motivator. The pain had conquered her yet again, and Magomo chided half-way through this session that Kristen was destined to be a "fair-weather caster" unless she proved him wrong.

Magomo tossed away the whip in his hand. Whether he was disgusted, disappointed, irritated, or actually was just plain indifferent was hard to tell, for he didn't wear any strong emotion on his expression. He went to the side room, pulled out a new elven prisoner, bound and blindfolded like all the rest, and forced him to kneel in the room.

And then he said to Marcella of Kristen, "Heal her."

Kristen, with what focus she could muster, managed with her one unswollen eye to look up at Marcella from the floor.

Uncertain. Wondering. Hopeful.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella watched the day's affair with a growing lump in her chest. Knowing that every time she was called to act they got closer and closer to her well filling up. Closer to the moment she'd have to feel everything that Kristen had felt on this day.

The current session was particularly violent and to drive home just how intense it was the Proctor had pulled out a bounded elf for Marcie to dump her reserves into.

"Yes, Proctor Magomo."

A nod followed and the chestnut-haired girl nodded bounded across the room. She swallowed hard, feet gliding across the floor of the cellar as she approached the bloodied mess of a girl instead of the elf that had been presented for her benefit.

Kneeling down and resting a palm upon Kristen's shoulder Marcella closed her eyes. It was good to be lower to the ground, she'd likely have collapsed with a hard thud if she had been standing. Then it began, relief washing over the injured student splayed upon the floor. At first it was gradual as with each tick of damage repaired Marcella could feel the discomfort grow, feel her body screaming at her as the reserves approached full.

"Initiate Iteus, what are yo-"

The good Proctor's words fell flat as the Pirian noble became almost fully healed and simultaneously Marcella's body began to bear the same wounds that had been inflicted upon Kristen all throughout the day.

"Agh," it was a sharp, shrill, gasp before silence. Before Marcella collapsed onto the floor, bloodied and broken and comatose. It'd likely be hours until her magic worked off the over-exertion and a few days until her natural healing ability repaired the damage she'd just allowed to occur upon her own body.

Magomo's face resembled a tomato as he shouted a singular, "fuck!"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

There was a moment, when Kristen was capable of more coherent thoughts after Marcella healed her, when she was worried that Marcella wouldn't do it and worried that she would. And it was this latter worry which came to be.

A year ago, two years ago, Kristen would've closed her eyes and looked away. Flinched from the abrupt violence that burst out all over Marcella's body, the gruesome replication of Kristen's own wounds, this as if some unseen tormentor delivered them all at once. But she watched Marcella fall with a horror and a touch of astonishment.

She had done it. Marcella had kept her word and done it.

Proctor Magomo, in a bout of anger at the sight (and all the implications thereof), shouted, "FUCK!"

Silence held the bleak Cellar room for a time. Proctor Magomo all but stabbed his hands onto his hips, his head downturned in rapid contemplation, swinging left for this thought and right for that thought.

Then, much quieter, much heavier, troubled and affected, he said again, this barely above a whisper, "Fuck..." Kristen kept dead silent, yet her shock and surprise at this was immense. It was the first (and perhaps only time) she had ever heard Magomo have a moment of genuine care and concern.

Likely it was his Dreadlord upbringing, or perhaps a natural part of his personality, but that quiet moment of humanity fled and the anger returned and he jabbed his finger down at the unconscious Marcella there on the floor as he shouted, "YOU STUPID FUCK! IF YOU HAD DONE WHAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DO, YOU WOULDN'T BE A MESS ON THE FLOOR!"

Heavy nasal breathing, slowly cooling down, and then Magomo, with a calmness far distant from the explosiveness shown only a couple moments ago, went over to the elven prisoner and took out a dagger and stabbed him through the heart and dragged his body back into the side room. He came out and went right up to Kristen, who now was standing up straight and rigid.

"You came to me."

"Yes, Proctor."

"You asked for my help."

"Yes, Proctor."

"And you remember what I told you."

He didn't have to specify. Your body will never be found. "Yes, Proctor."

"This is not coming back on me."

"Yes, Proctor."

"Because you're going to stick to the story I tell you."

"Yes, Proctor."

* * * * *​

"Leave," was the first word, spoken by Proctor Magomo, that Marcella would hear upon finally waking. She and Kristen and Proctor Magomo were all in the Academy's infirmary, Kristen sitting by her bedside, Magomo farther away by the wall. The attending nurses at Magomo's command vacated the "room" made by the partitioning curtains.

"There you are," Kristen said to Marcella, leaning forward slightly. "That was an awful training accident. How are you feeling?"

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

Marcella's eyes fluttered open slowly, pain still resonating throughout her physique. Her mind was a hazy mess as her vision cleared and she took in the forms of Kristen beside her and Magomo standing by the wall. "Ugh," the simple groan was all she offered at first as she didn't bother to lean up initially.

Then the memory rushed back to her. Clicking into place the realization of what had happened.

"I feel... not great," she allowed herself to lift her shoulder and rise slightly, "but I've been worse." Clearly the nurses within the infirmary had done something to hurry along her recovery, though it was no where near as perfect as Marcie's own healing magic.

A gulp of saliva followed as her gaze chanced a look towards Proctor Magomo. She'd known that if she went through with her promise to Kristen there was a chance the Guard would catch wind of what he was doing in that cellar.

And given recent events that would mean imprisonment for Magomo at a minimum. Perhaps even the gallows.

Marcie looked back at Kristen, unable to gauge whatever expression it was that Magomo wore, and nodded in agreement. Forcing a smile. "An awful accident, was I clumsy again?" If anyone was going to take the fall for this it would almost certainly be Initiate Pirian or Initiate Iteus and if Marcella could help it she was going to absolve as much of the blame as possible.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Oh, you needn't be so hard on yourself," Kristen said. "I myself would prefer to say you were overeager rather than clumsy."

"Happens all the time," Proctor Magomo commented, his gaze turned from the two girls and looking instead out along the wall, watching as nurses and healers departed from this wing of the infirmary, slowing shrinking out and away from earshot. His expression was still one of a hard neutrality.

Kristen could only hope that this trip to the infirmary was the end of any inquiries. Proctor Magomo had spoken to everyone he needed to speak to, did all of the talking essentially. Kristen was, as ever, a notoriously bad liar, so the story was as generic as it was bland, lacking embellishment. The Academy was still a place of hard training, more so than the Guard, and when one threw magic into the mix, the results could indeed be volatile at times. So the story was plausible enough.

"You've been so good in helping me with my remedial training," said Kristen, not yet making any effort to keep her voice low. All part of the theatrics for those departing sets of ears down the hall. "And Proctor Magomo! I can't thank him enough for being a live target! Why, we were so close to a breakthrough in my magic, I could feel it. We just all got...carried away."

A smile, just as forced as Marcella's own. If she hadn't made the gesture, she feared her words (the parts which weren't so true) would've sounded tinny and hollow.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Yes, you were so close!" The faux enthusiasm led to a racking cough, some of the potions the academy's infirmary had were powerful stuff but they tended to have illness-inducing side effects. "Proctor Magomo is a very good tutor."

Her voice was lowered for the second part.

She still wasn't completely sure what was being communicated to the academy's staff but she at least had the good sense to know that what really happened was absolutely not allowed. Until she got a firmer grasp of the situation she'd just have to play along as best she could.

Catching a look into Kristen's face she added a small quip. "I suppose this means your special training is at an end?"

Even without all the pageantry that was a sad thought. Kristen hadn't made the breakthrough she was trying for and Marcella truly believed the girl was getting closer. Not to mention the real reason it made her sad, they'd only just started to become friends and Marcie knew that after this special training was over the Pirian Noble would have no real use for her.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen was made uncomfortable by every second of this charade, but at least Marcella was playing along with it flawlessly and it was, presumably, almost at an end. And Kristen's presumption happened to be right.

Proctor Magomo, satisfied that any ears which did not belong to one of the three of them had gone well out of potential earshot and prompted by the question asked by Marcella, came off from the wall and grabbed a chair and spun it around beside Marcella's bed—opposite Kristen—and sat, resting his arms on the chairback.

Still he spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. "I do not know why you did what you did, Initiate Iteius and I do not care. Not one of us is going back into the Cellar. Understand?"

He didn't wait for an answer, nor did he especially need one.

"You are a weapon of Vel Anir," he said firmly. "Now tell me: how committed are you to turning Initiate Pirian likewise into a weapon?"

Kristen could only keep silent, this until Proctor Magomo spoke directly to her or otherwise allowed for her to speak. Yet her eyes told of the conflict within her well enough: that Marcella would say she was committed and thus put herself at more hazards of the body and soul; that Marcella would say she was no longer committed, and Kristen would be left grasping, finding nothing, when she was so close to achieving significant improvement in her ability.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

”Y-yes, Proctor Magomo, I’m a weapon of Vel Anir.” Her response came quickly after the Proctor finished speaking.

She knew better than to leave that particular part of his question without an answer.

Years of beatings, of her own torturous ways, had drilled into her head that she was not a person. She was a weapon, a tool for the Anirian war machine to utilize in whichever way it felt best suited.

The second part of his question cast a doubt into her mind, however.

Pupils darted towards the silent Pirian Noble, hoping for something to assure her of what the correct answer here was. She found nothing though as Kristen offered no words or gestures. Eventually, her eyesight found its way back to the Proctor who had been staring at her intently.

A gulp came and the deceptively innocent face of the girl who’d witnessed dozens of her fellow initiates suffer at her hands took in the Proctor. She could either refuse, hindering Kristen’s growth but negating the possibility that she would torment her own body (or another innocent being), or she could accept.

Which decision would Kristen want her to make? Which path did Marcella herself wish to take?

After what felt like an eternity she finally answered. ”I wish to help Initiate Pirian, sir.”

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen had to contain both her relief and her worry, to keep the countenance of a stolid model Dreadlord in Proctor Magomo's presence. That duality yet persisted. She was excited to continue working with Marcella on furthering her own ability, and as well worried that what may come would again push her fellow Initiate to a moral threshold she did not wish to cross.

Proctor Magomo all but confirmed that worry.

"We won't be going back to the Cellar," he repeated, driving that point home. "We'll be going out to a battlefield." Sliding his gaze over to Kristen, he said in a challenging manner, "That is how you seem to learn best: being thrown into the deep end of the lake."

What was she going to do? Say no, that's not how I learn best? "Yes, Proctor."

Proctor Magomo stood. "Be forewarned. I'll have a mission for the two of you in a couple of days. And you'll learn, Initiate Pirian. That, or..."

One glance to Marcella, to her current state, bedridden and in the aftermath of extensive healing and treatment, was all he needed to do to communicate that particular point. And with that, Proctor Magomo stepped out of the partitioned room, the sound of his boots echoing down the infirmary hall and fading.

Kristen just looked to Marcella with wide eyes.

"Blessed Aionus..."

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Yes Proctor Magomo, thank you." Her voice was monotone.

She watched the Proctor step out of hte room before looking towards the wide-eyed Pirian noble. Marcella just nodded as the other girl spoke the name of the divine being she held her faith in.

Timidly she finally rasped out, "it's ok. You're going to do it. First try."

The reassurance was all that Marcie could manage to say. There was certainly some degree of truth to it, she believed in Kristen and thought that Kristen could definitely achieve her goals. But there was also the other part of it all.

The part that ate at her stomach and caused a sense of looming dread. The logical part of her brain that was screaming, 'this girl just spent a week in the cellar and now she's going out into the field to test her ability?'

And this time if Kristen failed there wouldn't be a safety net of Magomo and infirmary nurses. Marcella would be forced to choose between healing Kristen, unleashing her well of damage on someone, or risking her own life if it came to it. The prospect of having to make that decision was...

She forced a smile at Kristen, not wanting to show the girl any of the fears she was currently hiding.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Marcella's encouragement was, of course, most welcome. A rare gem for anyone to find here within these walls, and likely all the rarer, if not entirely consigned to oblivion, in the old days.

Still, a small sigh inescapably found release through her nose. "That is the purpose to which we aspire, to be warriors of formidable caliber upon the battlefield."

A business, quite ugly, often grim, that Kristen had reconciled within herself, a process that was by no means quick or easy, starting well before Vel Acan and culminating in the promise she made during the Festum Libertatis celebration. The written word, these from all the books she had read in her younger years, recounted more the intangible glory of a battle won or tragedy of a defeat than the bloody business common to both. Killing on behalf of a just cause could not cover up the sights, the sounds, the smells that accompanied manifest victory.

And so Kristen had that resolve despite all this. The resolve, plainly put, to do harm where harm was needed.

But Marcella?

Her brows curled in concern. "And you? Will you be...alright with this? On a battlefield, there is no guarantee that you will be spared from..."

Hurting others.

Marcella

 

[Marcella]

"Yes."

She looked on with as brave a face as she could muster. Kristen wasn't wrong to hint towards the challenges they'd face in a live environment, to make sure the person she was going with wasn't going to be a liability. Wasn't going to put both of their lives in danger.

"If it's to defend myself or my fellow initiates I will do what's needed," because even if she didn't like it that was the way of the world.

That was the life she'd been destined for when she was brought to the academy as a child. If someone intended to harm her, or Kristen, she would use any means available to stop that from happening.