Fable - Ask Oddities

[Malphias]

As the woman shed his grip he crumpled to his knees, as though she'd been the only thing holding him upright. His gaze fell from her, downcast, like she were some recently found god he'd chose to worship and beg forgiveness of.. "Heike...". The word tumbled out laced with desperation and exhaustion. He wasn't accustomed to begging, or honesty and it took all of the restraint he had in him not to allow his frustration to bleed into his expression or tone.

"You're right.. Of course you are." he answered with a slow shake of his head. Did he deserve to live? In his mind, of course he did, but in reality? Probably not. His lips pressed tightly, keeping his thoughts locked behind his teeth for fear of saying the wrong thing. His life seemed as much in his own hands as they were in hers, but he was being too fucking desperate to live to create any grand display and he couldn't force her. It didn't work like that..

"I wasn't always this way.." he recalled quietly with a sigh in defeat, his voice void of it's usual bravado. "Sarah was all I needed. When I met her I realised that I was capable of caring for something else other than myself. She was gentle.. delicate. If she'd thought for a moment I'd have hurt anyone she'd.." he shook his head and swallowed the ache in his throat. "I just didn't. I couldn't lose her." his jaw clenched..

"Adelaide found a way to summon me.. She dragged me away, plucked me out of my perfect life that I never deserved in the first place but where I'd happily have lived an eternity. She used me to do her bidding and decided that she wouldn't share me. She told me, that if I swore never to see Sarah again she wouldn't harm her... That vision you saw, wasn't how it ended. Not really. I left her that night, with no memory of me. Like I never existed in her life.. Because I chose to protect her and let her find happiness rather than risk her life because it was what I wanted." he frowned and finally lifted his gaze toward her.

"I stopped caring. The more Adelaide used me, the more she hurt me, the less I cared. I am a coin with two very different sides, Heike. Capable of using both. Adelaide had no interest in my human side and chose to hone the demon in me for her own gain.." he paused, staring at her for a moment as though considering whether or not to tell her what he'd rather she didn't know before he sighed in resignation.

"Perhaps I don't deserve to live. Perhaps you'd be doing me a favour.. It's your choice, not mine. But if you choose to let me live, I am beholden to your will to summon as you please.." his brows knit, and it was clear just how much he despised that fact. He didn't view Heike as someone who would abuse said power, but he wanted nothing more than to be the captain of his own soul. Fact was, he enjoyed tormenting people, he enjoyed hurting and occasionally killing, but if she forbade it, he had no choice but to accept it, at least until he found a way around it.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike watched Malphias below her nose, down on his knees. Wholly unsure if he was a man putting on an act of penitent prostration in shrewd desperation or if perhaps there was a glimmer of goodness worth saving and kindling.

More of his story fell into place when he spoke of Sarah. Could it be a lie? Yes, of course. But if these illusory memories--wishfully altered or not--were based in a healthy degree of sincerity as Heike suspected, then this Sarah did truly exist and she shared with Malphias something of what Heike had witnessed for herself. It stood to reason that there was an actual humanity to Malphias, and not merely some put-on guise that he donned solely for the purposes of pure malevolence.

And Adelaide seemed ever more the despicable person she had initially appeared to be. Wickedness by proxy implicated her as well: whatever this honing of Malphias's demon side entailed for her gain, then that guilt rested upon her shoulders, the appropriate and lawful punishments merely awaiting their exacting.

Heike doubted that she would be able to summon Malphias. Nor would she ever want to, save in one case: to perform some aforementioned exacting of justice herself, if she were to discover that he had committed some unspeakable crime. And even so, even if her strain of vampirism prevented her from properly summoning him, she could hunt him down--just like the other fugitives.

At last, she said, "Stand, Malphias." It was perturbing to Heike how much it appeared as though he was kneeling before her, and she was loath to be in such a position.

"I have decided to aid you. I do not wish to 'summon' you, nor have you be bound to my will and perform my bidding, nor do I wish to dictate how it is that you should live your life. Such notions are abhorrent to me. You are your own person: all of the responsibilities of freedom should be, and will be, yours to bear."

She hoped dearly that this was not a grievous mistake; that her choice here did not spell doom for an innocent father, an innocent mother, a daughter or a son or a sister or a brother, somewhere on Arethil.

Heike took in a false breath. Said, "What is it that we must do, exactly?"

Malphias