Dreadlords Lets Talk

[Chasmine]

Silent and resting, Chasmine had taken up residence of the cell in its spirit-realm mirror within the corner. As a spectral being, discomfort was no longer something she experienced, and so in curling up on the floor she lacked any signals of pain from being there, enabling her to remain by Edric's side untasked in the way of expending energy.

The arrival of the children and Everleigh, however, was keenly of note. Not only did they bring with them warmth, but magical and emotional energy. A feast for the spirit who had been subsisting primarily on the emotions of the other inmates of the prison and the Guards that looked after them. Chas was alert and watching, unknown and quiet in her corner, as the interaction unfolded.

Curious how different Everleigh was here from what she had been in the forest many nights ago. Curiouser still that she was shepharding the next generation of students about. So she was a Proctor? Chasmine felt the wistful pull of envy for her.

She'd always wanted to become a Proctor.

To teach the things she loved that were sorely lacking in the Academy. The education of these young ones had clearly changed since the Revolution - they were quite shy and jumpy, making Chasmine wonder if she might've done better alongside them. She might've learned Sign, which in turn would have helped her in understanding what Edric was trying to say. Sadly, given how late she'd arrived to the Academy and her meak nature, the Proctor's had not bothered to school her on Sign with the younger students. Hadn't thought it necessary for her to learn - it wasn't as if she were going to survive to graduation anyway.

But though she did not know sign, she recognized it when she saw it, at the very least.

"I'm afraid I do not understand," sounded her disembodied voice from the back corner of the cell as Chasmine moved forward toward the cell bars to join Edric, there her figure slowly formed as she drained the children of their high emotions and the disappearing girl of her magic energies. The apparition then seemed to lean down to look at them at eye level, "hello there."

Now they were looking death in the eye. Edric was still living.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh heard the voice and recognized it immediately. The initiates, however, did not. Initiate Vern began to wail and then disappeared completely, unable to be seen or heard or remembered or… actually, no, she was there still. Everleigh could still see her and remember her name. The other initiates had stopped their whispering, but some looked sick.

Except, it seemed, Augustina, who was pale and holding onto her head as if she had a bad headache.

“IT’S THE GHOST OF HIS DEAD GIRLFRIEND!”

“The orc lady?”

“No, dumbass, it was a ogre, not a orc, and that wasn’t his girlfriend, she killed his girlfriend because she liked grinding his bones into bread and he kept growing back his bones!”

Everleigh turned her head from Chasmine, ignoring Edric completely so she could look at the initiates behind her. They didn’t recognize the look on her face, and if they had, maybe they would have shut up and realized they were all on thin ice.

“P-proctor Ebersol, I’m g-gonna…” Vern put a hand over her mouth.

“Don’t. You. Even. Think. About. It.” There was a sternness there that Everleigh had never used before. The kids brought it out in her. When she was nice, no one listened, but when she was mean? Well, she always found it ironic how everyone could suddenly do as she asked.

“O-okay. I won’t.” A moment later, Vern spoke again. “Please don’t put me in the cell with Edric and his dead girlfriend.”

“It’s giants that ground your bones into bread, idiot. Ogres are worse. They’ll make a soup from your freshly peeled skin, shave your liver and put it on ice before squeezing the jelly from your eyes!”

That was enough, Everleigh had enough. She was starting to get a headache and this whole thing was now making her feel like a idiot. It was instant, the moment her eyes glowed purple, the initiates all fell asleep. Falling over one another. She’d rather deal with one of them having a concussion than hearing their bickering for a minute longer.

Her head turned back to Edric and Chasmine.

“I don’t even think I want to know what you meant by ‘what’s even more exciting than looking.’” She said with a pointed look at Edric. But to Chasmine, she softened for a moment. “So is it him? He made you kill people?” It had been on her mind more than she would like to admit.

Edric Chasmine

 

[Edric]

"Goddamnit." Edric swore to himself quietly. "That would have been really funny."

The murmur was almost inaudible compared to the trite shit spewed by the Initiate's. His eyebrow raising with every new word, face twisting in a mixture of confusion and disgust.

Ogre? He thought to himself. Kress, if Maui heard the kid he'd be reduced to a fine paste.

Memories of the orcess flickered through his head for a minute. The vibrant color of her skin, the press of her thumbs into his skin, the sweet taste of her-"Hey! I didn't make her do shit."

Edric said in accusation, snapping back to the moment and noting the children now lay unconscious on the ground. He glanced at Everleigh, the to Chasmine, not having noticed which one had actually done it.

"What the fuck am I now? The scapegoat for all Anirian problems?" He objected, and then gestured to the fallen Initiates. "Next you're gonna blame me for them."

 

[Chasmine]

A deep frown settled into her ghostly face at the young one's sudden wailing. Each face she looked at beyond that set Chasmine's unbeating heart clenching. Had she...done that? She hadn't meant to! Oh gosh, was it happening again like before?

Frozen on the spot and staring, a small horror began to boil up within her and was near ready to burst once the children all passed out in unison.

Edric's yell snapped her out of it and even the ghost startled, realizing that Everleigh was looking at her questioningly without knowing the question.

"I... I didn't mean to-" children were afraid of her. Gods no, that was not what she wanted!

"I'll go," she nodded fervently to herself, clearly she'd done that to the children even if she didn't know how, "I'm sorry."

Then she dissipated from sight and after a few moments the coldness was gone.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“No, Chasmine, don’t.” But it was too late. Her attention split between Chasmine and Edric, and now the chill was gone and with it Chasmine. Which just left her, Edric, and the sleeping initiates. Everleigh sighed and looked at Edric. She snorted.

“Oh, stop complimenting yourself already,” Everleigh rolled her eyes, one hand on her hip while the other waved off his words as if they were nothing more than an annoying fly. “You’re too stupid to know that the Dornoch Giant Sparrow Bee uses eight different chemicals in it’s venom and one of them helps in relaxing the prey by putting it to sleep.” She didn’t say it but the look in her eyes clearly did: dumbass.

“They’ll wake up in five minutes.” She added. “Sometimes you need a break from children bickering. Now bring Chasmine back.”

Edric Chasmine

 

[Edric]

Well...none of that was supposed to happen. Chasmine fled, the kids were unconscious, and now Everleigh was blaming him for that too while at-

Oh fuck off.

"No." He answered simply. "Not until you apologize for calling me dumb."

"You've been an utter fucking cunt for no reason. Bringing these kids here, laughing at me, insulting me." He shook his head. "Why would I do something you want now?"

Edric shook his head. "Maybe I'm not the smartest in our class, but I deserve to be treated with some fucking respect, the same way I treat you."

He said pointedly.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

NoT uNtIl YoU aPoLoGiZe FoR cAlLiNg Me DuMb…. It took nearly everything in her not to roll her eyes and mock him further. She was giving him plenty of respect already by not interjecting and talking over him. She let Edric make his points, even if she felt every point made was childish.

Perhaps she was being childish, too.

“You never treated me with respect.” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Aina o Ka La, with second-level Dreadlord Mareou. Do you remember what you said? I’ll tell you, ‘believe me, I'm well aware of what you can do,’ while looking me up and down like I was less.” Everleigh’s memory was flawless, many knew of her uncanny memory to just know. She took a step forward as if she were bigger than Edric— greater and stronger and faster and deadlier than him. As if she could ever intimidate him. “Not even like I was a poorly crafted weapon but a cask of poison to dip blades in. Don’t tell me that’s what you call respect.”

Edric

 

[Edric]

"What?" Edric said in confusion, blinking at her.

He could remember that moment, their mission together. It had been one of the grim ones. One where they hadn't been sent to fight soldiers or kill the enemy magus.

There had been children that died there.

The Rogue Dreadlord stepped up towards the bars. His gaze met hers, fully, snake like eyes searching for something. "Everleigh."

Edric said simply.

"I didn't-don't think you're less." Kress, back at the Academy he had thought she was one of the competent ones. Sure he didn't like to play her little games, but the efficacy of her magic could hardly be questioned. "The Proctors, they used to..."

His head shook as he reached the bars, now standing opposite her. "They used to take your poisons, concoctions. I don't know what they actually were, but some were lethal...some just caused pain. I know they were yours though."

They would tell him every time.

"There was one...it burned me. They painted it on my skin. Just my arm, and then gave me a knife." His eyes looked distant for a moment, as if remembering something. "I can remember the agony as the seconds passed. It felt like every nerve was on fire and every second the pain only got...deeper. Until thats all it was. Just...pain."

He paused, then said. "They wanted me to take my own arm off..."

Edric said the words almost absently, though didn't say if he'd actually done so, then refocused on Everleigh.

"How can someone who can create something that hurts me, so much, be 'less'?" He asked, following his own simple logic.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh visibly stiffened, not from Edric coming forward but from his words. She had always known it, deep down, that her poison, her venom, her toxicity, her acid, her anything was used without her permission on others. She knew it wasn’t just initiates, but so many others. So many innocent people that she would never see were six feet under because of her.

She felt stupid, a petty grudge that had festered regardless, even if Edric had healed her on that mission a year ago. What could she say to Edric? That the proctors didn’t have her permission? She was property belonging to Vel Anir and the Academy at that time. Her and anything from her belonged to them. Should she apologize for sounding like a brat?

Over her dead body. Which was exactly why the grudge and fear had never left. Everleigh had always thought herself to be fearless but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. She felt fear. She understood fear so intimately it was like knowing the back of her hand. It was overcoming that fear that had her able to raise her chin up high. Even now. Even if she needed those bars in between them, Edric in chains and fetters, and his magic nullified.

“Because the proctors said I was.” It wasn’t about hurting Edric. “Because the proctors told me and everyone else that if we went in the tower the most unlucky one of us all would be the one who faced against you: the Academy’s Golden Boy.” Everleigh shook her head and sighed. “It doesn’t matter anymore but I’m still jealous. You’re dumber than me and in jail about to be executed— and I’m still jealous because you won the magick lottery. Ugh. It’s like I’m seventeen again.”

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric listened patiently as Everleigh replied, his head shaking.

'...won the Magic Lottery'.

He wondered how many people thought the same thing. More than a few he suspected. Especially his classmates, especially those whom he'd killed. A frown pulled at Edric's lips, and he wondered why he wasn't more upset by her comment.

Perhaps because he knew she had gone through every bit of torture that he had. Because he knew she had done so without his gifts. "Fuck the Proctors."

Edric said succinctly.

He glanced down at the unconscious children, watching them as he began to speak. "I used to think our magic was the only thing that mattered."

His voice sounded absent, as though he were remembering some memory.

"I used to think that people like you and me were the only ones who deserved to make it off that tower." Edric continued, his gaze slowly returning to Everleigh. "But I was wrong."

The admission came, and he had to keep himself from looking over his shoulder. "They took everything from us, Everleigh."

He said softly.

"Our parents. Our families. Our whole lives." Edric came to rest his head against the bars. "They even tried to take us from each other."

The Academy would have done it with the Tower. The Republic would have sent them across Aniria. Gilram? He was doing it right now. "I'm not going to let them any more. I'm not going to let them take whatever semblance of a family I have left."

Why was he telling her this? Why was he sounding like a mad man?

Because jealousy or no, insults or no, Everleigh was his family. A sister that might have wanted to drown him in one acid or another, a sister whom he rarely spoke with, but a sister nonetheless.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

There was something about big, muscular men opening up their hearts to her that made Everleigh soften. Everleigh sighed. It had to be some inward motherly instinct that she couldn’t tap into but appeared at the strangest of times.

What Edric said wasn’t wrong. She agreed with it in her own way. She looked back at the initiates behind her. She was glad she was putting them to sleep. They didn’t need to hear this. They shouldn’t hear any of this.

She hoped that when they graduated then it was something as silly as finger painting. Why couldn’t enduring be enough? They were tested already on any subject someone could think up. Why did the ultimate test have to be killing each other?

“Well, you’re not my family.” Everleigh said, wrinkling her nose, but her eyes were playful. “I don’t want a brother that fucked a bunch of my sisters.” And she took that step forward, reducing the safety that the metal bars between them gave her. “Now, if you phrase it a lil differently,” she held up her hand, showing the little gap of space between her thumb and index finger. “Sure, I can get behind that.” The smile faded though as she looked at the gap. She closed the space.

“I know it was the proctors. I’ve thought about this, all of this,” she gestured with her arms but the gesture went beyond the underground prison. “I know it was the Academy, Vel Anir, the nobility, everybody else but us. We were kids. Some of us were younger than kids.” She came up to the bars, placing her hands around them as well.

“I get why everyone left. I get why so many went with Gilram. Sometimes I think I’d belong there better than I would here. I stayed back because I thought someone needed to look out for them.” She jerked her head back to the snoozing initiates. “But I’m awful at it, Edric. Should’ve just stuck with what I’m good at: killing.” Everleigh laughed, short and bitter. “Believe it or not, I actually didn’t come here to gloat.”

Edric

 

[Edric]

Edric couldn't stifle the grin that spread on his lips as Everleigh drew closer to the bars. A hint of color touching his cheeks for just a moment as she jested. "Well, maybe family is the wrong word..."

He admitted with a chuckle, shaking his head as Everleigh wrapped her hands around the bars. Her face growing somber for a moment, words drawing Edric's attention to the sleeping Initiates on the floor. He glanced at them, as she spoke, a frown pulling at his lips.

"It's hard." He said softly. "They spent our entire lives training us to be something."

Edric frowned and shook his head. "The Proctors."

A small, sad frown pulled on his lips as he remembered them. The excuses for humans who had raised them, the faces of those who had taken...a special interest in some of their class flickering in front of Edric's eyes.

His frown deepened.

How was Everleigh supposed to teach when all she'd known her whole life were shitty teachers? How were they supposed to do anything besides what they had been made for. It was a point he'd tried to make to Kristen and others. He was a killer, there was no doubting that, and perhaps he might have always been one, but the Academy has taught him too.

There was no disputing that fact.

"You're good at killing because it's the only thing they taught you to do." Edric said finally. "Give it some time, you'll get good at this too."

It was poor advice, but the only advice he had to give.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Strange how after all this time had passed they could come to a agreement. Stranger yet was coming to this agreement when they had hardly spoken to each other. It was a shared atrocity between the two of them, more so than many other initiates.

“Now that’s how you give a compliment. You’re a fast learner after all, aren’t you?” The smile didn’t leave her face. “One day,” Everleigh said, “I want to see the kids like you and me— the dangerous and untrustworthy ones who weren’t allowed their innocence— not be forced into a mold because they have a magic that others fear.” It dawned on her then why she still stayed. It wasn’t just one reason but many. Like books on a shelf, separated until opened and the words read. “I want to see kids be kids.” The initiates behind her deserved that. The ones still at the Academy deserved that. And if it were ever possible she’d want her own children to be just that: children, not weapons for anyone or anything.

“I’m sorry.” Everleigh relented finally, flexing her fingers against the bars. “If I hurt your feelings.” It was never too late to start learning new things, and she supposed she could learn how to apologize when she was wrong. It would be something important to pass on to the little ones, to admit wrongs and apologize for it. A novel thought for the dreadlords but not for the rest of humanity.

Edric

 

[Edric]

A small chuckle escaped Edric, his smile never wavering as Everleigh went from telling jokes, to a confession, and then finally to an apology.

There was no taunt in the expression, no smugness.

It came from a place of joy. Happiness at finding a common cause with someone who had the closest experience to him at the Academy. Warmth at the idea of children like him actually getting a chance, of someone like him never existing again. Triumph, that perhaps slowly, he could claw back his image as the thoughtless monster.

His fingers tightened on the bars, and he nodded. "It's alright."

Edric offered.

"Not like I haven't earned the reputation." He glanced around himself, chuckling lightly and shaking his head. "But...I just want to be more."

Edric said softly.

For a moment he paused. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. Glancing at the still unconscious Initiate's. A frown pulled at his lips, and then was almost immediately replaced by that same smile as his eyes drew back to Everleigh.

There was a moment of hesitation, and then slowly, very slowly, Edric reached out and put his hands over Everleigh's. The touch was deliberate, and obvious, pulling away would have been easy, but if she kept her hands in place then the Rogue would simply fold his hands over hers.

"Take care of them." He said quietly, his hands squeezing hers softly.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

She didn’t move her hands, whether rightly or wrongly, there was still a part of her that was curious to see who would touch her. Who would be daring enough, after knowing what she was, to touch hands that knew only how to kill.

There was something about Edric’s words that made Everleigh decide against confirming with Chasmine who her murderer was. To her, the answer was obvious. Edric had a self-awareness to him that she hadn’t thought him to have before. There was clearly a sort of reverence of life in Edric now, but more importantly, it seemed he regarded those in his class as family. No, Edric wasn’t Chasmine’s killer, this much Everleigh could confer inwardly.

A small piece of the puzzle filled. Edric’s hands over hers. She felt nothing sucking away her life. She felt no ill will. She felt no fear. Looking into Edric’s eyes and the way his smile matched them, Everleigh nodded her head. A promise was made between them, even if it was a promise that Everleigh felt like she couldn’t keep.

She wasn’t strong enough to keep it.

“I think you can be more.” He always had that potential, didn’t he? “At the end, you rebelled.” A pause. He had joined Gilram. Everleigh herself had almost joined him at his promise of freedom, at the possibility of keeping Zael alive. She should have brought him to Gilram sooner. Even if now when she considered Gilram showing up at the moment that he did to be nothing more than manipulation. She was certain, even if she couldn’t quite prove it yet, that he had been there waiting and he had let so many of them die before interfering to reap the most rewards.

But that was a conversation for another time. Or perhaps a conversation to never be had at all.

“Your hands are kinda sweaty, am I making you nervous?” Everleigh lied, pulling her hands away from his and flipping a strand of violet over her shoulder. Haughty and smug, she lifted up her chin, a impish grin replacing the once serious line of her lips. The mask was back on; time was up. “Don’t tell anyone I was nice to you. I have a reputation to uphold as an utter fucking cunt.” The initiates began to stir and Everleigh stepped away from the bars.

“Right, right, get up,” she began prodding the bigger ones with her boot, leaning over to help up the smallest initiate, “nap time’s over. We still have two more—“

“OMIGOD HE’S STILL HERE! My bird bones!” Initiate Vern shrilled and passed out, this time on her own. Everleigh blinked, then glanced back at Edric. With a motion that would go unnoticed by everyone else, she waved a quick good bye, and then went to Initiate Vern, picking the slight girl up and throwing her over her shoulder.

Within the next minute, Everleigh and the initiates were gone.

 

[Chasmine]

The next day...

For all the lonely and quiet hours of his cell since Everleigh's departure, there had been a distinct lack of ethereal cold. Yet shortly after Edric's afternoon meal arrived, the back corner of the cell near where he laid his head on the cot very suddenly filled with a freezing cold draft of air.

Chasmine wanted to make a gesture of reassurance to him, even if it wouldn't mean terribly much in her current state, but ever since their ... experiment at Vel Janix she'd forgone any such interaction with him. Proximity alone, with the frigidity of her presence and the tingling along the skin would be enough for him to know of her arrival by now.

"They're in the city," she said quietly after he stirred, "not much longer now."

 

[Edric]

Edric opened his eyes with a chilly breath. "Cutting it close."

He mused quietly, though still seemed to be clinging to the same mirth as before.

"Whose coming?" The Dreadlord wondered out loud, not really expecting Chasmine to answer the question. "Fermin, maybe. Think he still believes he owes me for that thing in Salesia."

 

[Chasmine]

Close indeed. If what word Chasmine had gleaned from around the prison, Edric's day was fast approaching. If the boy who could not die feared his own death she could not say, but the idea of it was certainly a curiosity to her. What did death do to someone who had no soul? Almost as curious as his powers of regeneration and purported immortality. Gilram did not say much on the matter to her, but he had made it clear that Edric was important.

Important enough to break from her pursuits at the academy and keep an eye on him. A request, not an order. She'd never yet received an order from Gilram.

"No," her voice sighed in response, "Fermin is away on another mission."

The cellblock was quiet and there had not been a guard patrol in some time. Chasmine opted to appear, feeling that perhaps the next bit of news would be better received if it was attached to a familiar face rather than a disembodied voice. From where she hovered she leaned over a degree to look down at Edric where he lay, almost as if his head were in her lap - but not quite.

"He is coming for you."

 

[Edric]

"Oh." Oh shit. Edric completed in his head, his heartbeat seizing for just a brief moment as Chasmine appeared above him. The smile that had been on his face disappearing.

He was coming?

"Tell him-" Edric blurted out suddenly before he could stop himself, cutting off as he took a breath and shook his head. Realizing where he was. "Am I..."

He looked up at her. "How can I...feel you?"

Edric asked softly.

 

[Chasmine]

That was quite a bit of dithering. It did not seem to confuse or deter his companion - one who lived in a stream of dithering consciousness for the majority of her life. Strangely enough, her mind was more clear the further away from the Academy she went and her return there had brought back quite a few memories that were not as welcome as she had hoped for.

Frowning as this thought and the continued loss of the intangible, the ghost of Chasmine Gray blinked down at Edric's question. Or was it a request?

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

"What do you mean?"

 

[Edric]

Wordlessly, Edric slowly reached up. His hand sprawling as he dragged his fingers through the soft curls of her hair. Feeling them, as though in that moment, they were real. Not their ghostly, translucent form.

At least to him.

 

[Chasmine]

She was expecting for his hand to pass right through, as all other living and tangible things did, but the moment Edric's fingers slipped through her hair Chasmine's world-weary expression shifted to one of sudden alarm. Like a deer caught in headlights, her eyes widened and she went very, very still.

He could feel her. He could interact with her. He was touching her hair. How was this possible?

Tentatively, Chasmine lifted her own hand to reach for his and somehow made a strange sense of contact.

 

[Edric]

His fingers slowly wrapped around hers, in a tentative, almost terrified touch.

Edric's breath caught as he realized he really could feel her. As though her skin was real. As though she were anyone else. Even as she could pass through walls, furniture, and floors...he knew almost intrinsically that he could touch her.

The sensation of her touch was like calm made form. A serene blessing that was almost impossible to put into words. A warm blanket and a hot fire on a cold winters day. A feeling that so many others received so often, but that Edric had lacked for most of his life.

He didn't know how. Nor did he really understand.

Slowly he swallowed, his fingers closing around hers. "Me?"

Edric asked softly.

"Or you?" The words were curious, but it was clear the answer didn't matter.

 

[Chasmine]

Ghosts did not breath, but were Chasmine living she would have been holding her breath. As still as a statue beyond the moment of her hand in his, it was not fear she felt but a sudden overwhelming trepidation of something she'd not experienced in over a year: physical contact with another being.

Even if she was never alone in the spirit realm, it was a wholly lonely existence. Not that she had much in the way of physical affection in her living days - but she'd still had those rare doses of warmth in between the pain and suffering. Her mind skated through memories of her family, to Melinda the cook in Academy, to her time spent secretly away with Dorian, then to the short life she'd had at Azzerin's side.

She had been alone for so long she'd forgotten what this felt like and the sudden realization of just how painful her existence in the spirit realm had become broke the damn of her emotional cage. The stinging sensation of tears welled up in her eyes but did not, could not manifest, "I don't know," her fingers squeezed between his, clutching at his knuckles like a last lifeline as she brought the backside of his hand up to the side of her face and nuzzled into it.

 

[Edric]

His hands, though calloused and worn were surprisingly soft. His touch against her cheek lingering as she guided his palm into place.

Slowly his chest rose and fell, and as she answered him Edric only nodded in silence.

He didn't know either, and in truth he didn't care.

Her skin felt...calm. There was no other way to describe it. Touching her sent a feeling of serenity through him, vanquishing the anger that loomed above him and offering a sense of tranquility. If only for a little while. A blessing, he might have called it.

If he even knew of the notion.

No words passed Edric's lips, but as they sat there in silence, his thumb slowly stroked across her cheek. Dashing away tears as he peered up at her, holding her softly in his grasp.