Dreadlords Lets Talk

[Edric]

Undisclosed Location - Near Vel Anir

"Little bastard shouldn't even be getting a trial." The words rang out loud enough to be heard even down the long dungeon corridor, probably on purpose. Edric had learned shortly after arriving at...wherever it was they had stuck him, that Dodwin, the man now speaking, didn't much like Dreadlords.

Apparently one had scorched his brother or something of the sort, the other Guard hadn't been particularly forthcoming when he'd asked. It was a good enough reason to hate a group of people, Edric reasoned. Besides, a little bit of mistreatment from a Guardsmen was practically a hug compared to what the Proctors used to do.

Not that he'd been inviting any of it.

Ever since Ivan had taken him prisoner in Fel'Darrah-well, ever since Ivan had given him Duncan's coin Edric had been surprisingly well behaved. After half smashing in Lord Forbarr's face from behind the bars of his wagon-cage, the young rogue had done little else but cooperate. When told to do something, he did it, when asked for information, he gave it.

Just as Duncan had told him to do.

Edric didn't much understand the logic of it, but he did it anyway.

He did it because he knew eventually he would break out, because he knew eventually they would come for him, and he knew that once they had; he would seal their trust in him. "Everyone deserves a trial, Dod! Even the worst of em! That's what the Republic means! Plus he's just a youngin!"

"Fuck they do, kids a freak! Barely human if you ask me. That magics of his the stuff of devils. Fuckin, I heard you can cut 'is head off and it'll grow back!" Edric frowned, realizing that he didn't actually know whether or not that was true. His lips thinned for a brief moment as he glanced down at his chains, thankful that his time with Gilram had taught him more than a few tricks. "Besides, he's a traitor. Those Dreadfucks are good for one thing, and he cou-eh?"

Edric frowned as he heard a door move, his head tilting slightly as he tried to hear from his distant cell. "Who are you?"

 

[Soleil Verdane]

"Me? Soleil Verdane," came the response from down the hall, an airy tone that didn't match at all with the sternness of the question asked. "Come to see him."

There was some murmuring between Dodwin and his compatriot—difficult to hear. After some time there came the jingling of keys, the metallic groan of the cell block door being opened and then shut, then a series of incredibly light footsteps and the swish-swish of a dress.

Soleil Verdane came to stand before Edric's cell, blissful smile on her face as if she'd not a care in the world. Her bright swirling eyes gazed in through the bars, just watching, watching. Fissures of flesh, small and subtle, opened and rippled across her face and neck and sealed again.

She stared at him for a long moment.

And then said, "Hi."

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric stared at the girl standing in front of his cell, head tilting to the side. "Who the fuck are you?'

 

[Soleil Verdane]

"Nobody," Soleil said. Her expression was unbroken, and she'd spoken the word with an air of whimsy.

She trilled her tongue.

"You? Behind bars. Funny!"

She whistled, her gaze glanced about the meagerness of his cell, and then she looked back to him.

"Comfortable in there?"

Edric

 

[Edric]

A frown pulled over Edric's lips, rage instantly flickering through his chest. "No."

He disagreed.

"It's not funny." His teeth clicked together, fingers slipping between one another as he pushed down the anger he still felt. Duncan had told him to enjoy the 'vacation', but it was never easy being in a cage. Not with the dreams he had. "And it's not particularly comfortable."

Though, truthfully, the cell was not much worse than what he'd had at the Academy. "Why is a nobody here to see me?"

The rogue asked. "I've had a General, Grand Inquisitor, a few Dreadlords, but not a nobody."

At least that was new.

 

[Soleil Verdane]

I've had a General, Grand Inquisitor, a few Dreadlords...

She noted that.

In answer of his question: "You? Attractive. Many girls crave. Secretly. Won't admit. Me? Would take you, before execution." She jerked a thumb back toward the cell block door. "But Dodwin watching. No sex allowed."

She knew he was listening. So using a truth was a great way to conceal a lie.

"Instead...story-time! Ready?"

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric blinked. "What?!"

He demanded in confusion.

"Is this some fucking weird noble thing?" The rogue demanded, not entirely sure what to make of whatever the hell this girl was talking about. "I'm not interested in any...stories."

Tales like that were ones he did not need to hear. His time with Maui had taught him enough. "Who are you? What is this about?"

Edric demanded.

 

[Soleil Verdane]

"You," she said to his second question while simply glossing over the first. And, as well, she didn't care to pay any attention to his disinterest in the story; she was going to tell it anyway.

"At Academy, your name? Feared! Many won't admit. But talk is talk. Hushed tones say much! And word spreads. Oh, Edric there, on this mission. Oh, Edric there, on that mission. Them? Think: will he come for me? They see what happens. They see Cassi Azura."

She paused, and as a little aside said, "Only coma. Mistake? Should've hit harder!"

Soleil let loose a lilting laughing, her shoulders heaving, head gliding back and up before her gaze came to center on Edric again.

"But now? You here, they know. Now talk is boastful. They say, Edric dead! They say, Gilram finished! Edric! Big scary! Defeated by metal bars!"

She flicked one of the bars with her finger (it didn't quite make the sound it should have from a normal finger striking it), and then set off with that lilting laughter again. "See? Funny!"

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric's head slowly tilted to the side.

Was this a game?

Had the Guard finally grown tired of his silence and decided that torture of the regular kind wouldn't do? The way this little bird chirped at him Edric couldn't help but think that was true. For a moment he remained seated on the bed, then slowly he stood. "It probably was."

The rogue Dreadlord said as he began to walk towards the bars.

"It would've been easier to leave her dead and buried." Edric's voice was a steady calm as he spoke, the lies flowing from his lips with shocking ease. "I guess I had a sentimental moment."

It had to be a trick. Probing him for something more.

He knew that eventually Duncan and the others would break him free. He had to play the part, had to be what Dodwin and the others thought him to be. What this little spy was trying to pin him as for the Republic. Their attempts to pin him as guilty so painfully obvious even he knew to lean into them. "I didn't make the same mistake later."

Edric said, a smile drawing on his lips. "Did I?"

 

[Soleil Verdane]

"No. Because lazy."

She grinned.

"Many you could have killed. Didn't. Lazy. Better Rogues than you."

She punctuated that by trilling her tongue.

"Gilram? If army of Edrics? Really would be finished!"

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric's chains clinked as he reached the bars.

He towered over Soleil as he stared down at her, his expression one of grim indifference. A scoff echoed from his throat. "Cute."

The rogue said.

"Is this the Vigilite's new idea?" He prodded. "Send a little girl to poke at me until I get so angry I'll spill all my secrets?"

Fingers wrapped around the bars of his cage, his face drawing closer to his guests. "A wake of corpses doesn't make for many friends."

He answered Soleil, quoting Duncan.

 

[Soleil Verdane]

"That's why you have none."

She looked up at him, smiling the same smile she had come into his presence with. Fissures in her flesh flapped open almost like gills in her cheeks.

Then she mouthed silently:

That's why I like you.

And to cover it up for Dodwin's ear to hear, she said, "Vigilite smart. Vigilite get you. Sooner. Or later."

Edric

 

[Edric]

The smile on his face didn't falter as the sting of her face reached him. Though his eyes seemed to still as he stared down at her.

There was something wrong.

Edric couldn't place it, but the girl was off. His mouth pressed into a thin line as he watched her lips trail in silence. Head tilting to the side ever so slightly, eyes studying her as he puzzled out what she meant.

Her louder 'answer' coming just a few seconds later.

For a moment Edric seemed to hesitate, then he countered. "Tell them to bring the knives back."

His fingers unfurled from the bars of the cage, and he took a step back as he began to move away. "At least they'd actually ask me questions."

 

[Soleil Verdane]

"You? Won't be here long," she said, the words laced with dual meaning for those with the appropriate knowledge.

Soleil turned to go, and then almost as a matter of addendum said, "Other guests will visit." She made a popping sound with her lips. "Some nicer, some meaner. Some may even have people openers." A little joke, that last part.

Then she waved enthusiastically and said in a cheery manner that jarred with just about everything she'd said previously, "Bye!"

And with that she walked down the dungeon's hall and to the cell block door, and after a moment of familiar metallic groaning and a slam, she was gone.

Edric

 

[Chasmine]

"Do you believe that?" said a small, familiar voice behind Edric. One that would not carry or echo beyond his immediate presence, hushed as it was.

He would not see her, but he would feel her there. The cold touch of the air, the faint sting of ethereal.

 

[Edric]

Edric nearly jumped out of his skin as Chasmine's voice whispered from behind him. "Kress fuck!"

Glancing over his shoulder to where he thought the ghost might be.

"Don't do that." He warned. "Or like, get a bell or something."

Edric said, though truthfully, it was strangely good to see her. He had begun to doubt Duncan's words. Not that he couldn't break free on his own. "Yes, I believe it."

The Rogue added finally in answer.

 

[Chasmine]

Her invisible presence hung near the bed he'd previously been sitting on, though still Chasmine's form did not emerge.

"It is curious that you do," her disembodied voice answered him, either oblivious to or ignoring the fact that she'd startled him, answering in a tone as if he'd just told her he thought grass was purple.

A moment hung where there might be some questions, maybe some doubts, if Chasmine's word held any weight to him at all. Curious that he would not be here long? Were the others not coming to break him out?

"I think you have more friends than you know."

 

[Edric]

For a few long moments Edric stayed quiet, then he finally answered. "I hope so."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Days passed before that groaning heavy door to the cell block opened again at an irregular time. Bootfalls of a different tenor than those of Dodwin and the other jail guards could be heard.

These were the freshly shined boots belonging to Kristen Lucretia Pirian. She wore her Academy fatigues, though it was clear that she had taken the time to clean them, to take a hot iron to them to smooth out the fabric, to look as presentable as possible. She even wore her House Pirian tabard, cleaned and pressed as well, proudly displaying the colors and the symbol that were her birthright. Her hair was cleaned to a shine. She had felt this incessant urge, no, more than that, an almighty need to separate herself as much as possible in image from the man with whom she come to speak with today.

And she was nervous. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she could feel its mighty pulses in the lobes of her ears. But more than that nervousness, that anxiety which would have crushed her in years prior, she felt something else. Something far more powerful.

Vindication.

And when Kristen crossed the threshold of visibility into the appropriate cell, when she saw him there, that nervousness, built up and magnified mostly by the anticipation of what was to come rather than the actual destined meeting, dissipated away and all that was left was the fire in her veins.

But she did not yet speak. To do so now, upon first glance, would have been a mistake. Her emotion would have gotten the better of her. So she stared at him through the bars. Waited until she was ready, standing there with a posture more refined and more regal perhaps than ever before in her life.

And then she calmly said, "It would have been better if you had done what you always wanted to do...what you told me aboard the Kammerund...and fled."

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric picked up his head from where it had been laying, popping one eye open to peer down the hall through the sliver of light.

He blinked a few times as the tall, armored figure, slowly approached his cell. Disbelief flickering over his features for a brief moment before he took a deep breath.

Eyes fluttered shut once more as boots came to a stop just before his cell.

His chest slowly rose and fell, but he didn't move to get up, didn't face her.

"You're probably right." Edric answered finally, agreeing with Kristen as he laid a hand across his face and rubbed.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"And yet you did not. You could have gone to some far-flung corner of Arethil and lived the rest of your days in seclusion. Perhaps even gained some measure of peace. It would have been good for you."

If only he had the strength to do it.

"But here you are, doing what you have always done."

The sight of him in the cell stirred no pity in her, for he deserved none, and thus she spoke the truth.

"Allowing evil to penetrate deep inside of your soul and have its way with you."

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric let out a long breath.

"Yep." He said, his eyes opening finally. "That's me. So super filled with evil."

His hands jutted up. "The bane of all that is good and holy."

Edric scoffed.

"Sorry. I really try my best." It was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic. He let his head roll over on the bench so he could look at Kristen. "Is there a reason you're here?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"You hold not even your own life sacred," she said, shaking her head in slight disbelief, even then thinking that surely this was the one thing which he did. "Faced now with death, even as the grim hour approaches, you cannot hold yourself to account and at least scrape together some small amount of dignity."

As the scope of it dawned on her more, her slight disbelief became that of contemptuous incredulity.

"What demon birthed you?"

Edric

 

[Edric]

"That assumes they're going to pull it off." Edric said, his head turning back towards the ceiling. Fingers reaching to thread together behind his head. "I haven't met an executioner yet who can do the job."

He continued to jape, hoping to simply drive Kristen off. When suddenly freezing as she spoke her last.

For a moment Edric stayed quiet, his jaw setting as he seemed to chew over the words. "My mother."

He said to the ceiling.

"From what I can remember." Edric's words grew bitter. "Was a wonderful, loving, caring human being."

His eyes darted over towards Kristen. "Maybe I wouldn't have killed all those people if they hadn't taken me from her."

Edric looked back up at the ceiling.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"So you are human," Kristen said. It had been exaggeration, suggesting that it was otherwise, but it was in the service of driving home her point. To Kristen, at least, the manner in which Edric conducted himself left plenty of room for doubt.

He finished speaking, and Kristen scoffed at his closing comment.

"Why do you insist on blaming others? As if you are not your own man, but rather a slave to any who would claim you? As if you lack agency in all that you do, like some feral animal? Take some accountability for yourself."

These were his final days. Lord Aionus, it was the very least he could do.

"Your mother, this person who is everything you are not. What would she think of you, if she could see you now?"

Edric