Private Tales Repercussion

[Ashuanar]

You can't trust anyone...

Well at at least not family.

​

There had been several times during his captivity, that he felt as though he were no longer truly a part of himself anymore. Every lash, every kick, every taunt. He felt them all, but almost more like one who witnessed another experience some dreadfully familiar sensation. It was like he could see it unfold, slow it down, speed it up. But it only ever ended when they said it did.

Sometimes he wanted to break. Sometimes he wanted to cry. To tell them everything, and anything they wanted to know. But no. He could not bear to give those... demons, those heretics what they wanted from him. To hear him beg. He, Vizier of the Imperial Army, the arm of the Empire, crushed.

Maybe it would have been better for him to give in.

But he would rather have died.
Maybe.​

He walked. Around him, the environment struggled to find a foundation. Shapes here, images there, but nothing concrete. Nothing solid. Like small flecks of glass, twisting through the air capturing blurred and incomplete images. Overhead was like unto a dark, rolling cloud, broken with shades of grey and almost white. Cracks and rumbles of thunder roared in the distance, but seemed to shy away.

The farther he walked, though he knew he moved forward, his place never changed. Instead things moved by him, and even should he stop to look back, onward they continued. Parts of faces came to him, vague shapes or arrangements of cities. He knew them all, perfectly, somehow.

He looked around, and carried on, not guided by or looking for anything.

Aimless.

Restless.

Fieravene ​

 

[Fieravene]

Listless was the walk of a man who moved irrationally through his fears. Seeking not to find or to follow, but simply to wallow. A tiger in a cage. Pacing along bars. Venerable. Immutable.

Fiera knew that look, knew that feeling. She'd lived it herself many, many years ago. She'd suffered at the hands of people who she'd come to trust and know as family, too. There were many similarities between Ashuanar and she, but the largest difference remained that her suffering had been entirely voluntary.

Two red eyes glowing balefully within the bleak and foggy unknowns of the realm peered out at the image of the man in much the same way they had in his cell.

"Hello, Vizier."

 

[Ashuanar]

Ashuanar's feet found footing on seemingly nothing now, the blurred dark and broken images beginning to whirl around him as he came to a halt. He looked around at it all in a tormented observation, in a sick admiration of the handiwork that had been employed on his mind.

He saw them in the distance ar first, but with a blink they were nearly upon him. Those quiet, red eyes. Staring at him. There was a clarity that her presence brought, as if the nether of his unconscious was stifled, constrained. He welcomed it. He welcomed her. While he could not say the initial onset had been the most... pleasant, Fieravene's assistance at the insurgent's headquarters had been beyond exemplary. Beyond what gratitude he could likely show.

"Hello, Vizier."

"Fieravene," he said, "welcome."​

He seemed calmer, in much better sorts than they'd last spoke. He appeared as though nothing had transpired - just as he had the day he'd left Ragash. But, on the outside his body still worked fervently to mend itself From the brutality of his sister.

Despite the composure he kept - he was changed. He hid it not, but the expression of it yet eluded him. Instead it spoke, only in the storms that raged in the distance.

Fieravene ​

 

[Fieravene]

The shadow figure shifted before him, eyes blinking slowly as it took him in. In the Dreamsphere things were not what they seemed and, she noted with bemused curiosity, the absence of hair on the man's head could have merely reflected a new choice of style or more deeply signified a change in the man. Or both.

Prying into the depths of his mind and psyche would have lifted the mystery, but she wasn't here to play those sorts of games presently. The welcome, however, was warmly received and a nice change of pace. Most people weren't so welcoming of foreign entities within their mind. Perhaps the Abtati had prior experience with the phenomenon.

"Thank you," the dark mist replied, "how are you feeling?"

 

[Ashuanar]

Indeed, unbeknownst to him, his visage had changed. He had not truly realized, but he was a much different person than he had once been. While his mind had already come to reflect this, his physical self was yet healing, yet weak. There was much time for him to recover... if that indeed was what he wanted. He did not even truly know. To him, he assumed life would simply need to go on.

As for Fieravene... had she not came to him in the manner she had while he had been chained, and beaten, her presence now may have perturbed him. But there was still a great gratitude in his being. The horrors there had been great indeed, and the reprieve given had been a tremendous blessing to him.

So, as he beheld her now he felt no fear. No uncertainty.

Before him she appeared as a vague figure of black flame, wreathed in a ghastly shadow. From her back, dark wings of smoke and dread spread out across his vision, and her eyes pierced through it all like a lighthouse through thick fog. Her image comforted him, sang of the pain that had gripped his heart and crushed all joy from it, frosting over it a seated hate.

He nodded his head, pondering her question.

"I am..." he looked off into the distance. It seemed to draw nearer, than farther, rising up like the rage of a great ocean storm. But it did not seek to encroach on them, or drown. Only to be beheld, observed. It was confusion.

It was madness. Stayed by whatever it was he clung on to.

"I was weak. I allowed myself to be fooled," there was a deep sense of failure in his voice, "I refuse to be so naive again."

He paused, curiosity suddenly overriding his thought, "tell me. How is it you come to me now?"

Fieravene ​

 

[Fieravene]

Those red eyes narrowed in an amorphous sort of expression, one that had there been a face there to see would have shown quiet mirth. Fieravene maintained her reticence, allowing the elf before her to work out his own psychological revelations. Smart people didn't need help with such things, they just needed to get out of their own way to do it. Apparently days of torture and a near-death experience was just the ticket.

Pain and death had a way of revealing things about people.

"Dreams are curious things," the shadow fiend replied, abyssal wings flexing behind her with images of horror seeping through as if from another realm entirely, "sometimes they show us what we want to see..." the figure eyed him pointedly, gaze slipping down and up his figure with silent intent, "and sometimes they show us what we need to see."

"Other times they make no sense at all."

Perhaps he was conjuring her all on his own in some weird fever dream. Maybe her essence he had imbibed upon to keep from passing continued to linger within him. Or maybe the dark elf had more secrets than stories.

"But here I am," she continued, "what do wish of me?"

 

[Ashuanar]

"You come to me as an angel of life," he began, expressing his esteem for her, "but in truth you seem a harbinger of death, a wielder of fear," he stepped toward her shadowy self, not drawing too near.

He took a long breath through clenched teeth, "I must admit, that even now," he said, running his fingers through the tendrils of shadow that stretched out passively from her image, "...I feel the apprehension, the dread... I can almost taste it...

...almost embrace it."

Fieravene

​

 

[Fieravene]

Silence again from the fiend of oblivion, eyes following the larger elf's progress toward her and noting the distance he chose to keep. That same gaze briefly watched his hand as he played at the vestiges of dark and shadowy nothings. They did not hurt him here in the way they had hurt those in the living realm. Ashuanar had not witnessed such things so he could not recreate them now. His instincts weren't bad, though.

"You paint me in a rather bleak picture, Vizier... perhaps one that I deserve. But I am not here to visit dread and fear upon you, unless of course that is what you want."

 

[Ashuanar]

"Bleak?"

A wry grin found his features, "you misjudge my perceptions. Though in truth," with his arms he gestured out, and he looked toward the havoc around them, "only recently have they been made what they are. Nevertheless..." his eyes again met with hers, "yours is a presence I have found comfort in."

He stepped forward.

Indeed, he was unsure if she was truly here, or a figment of his wild imagination. But in his time of captivity, he had retreated into the depths of his mind on many occasions. He had grown familiar with those intimate inner workings that so often eluded the many. At least somewhat. He felt that perhaps... in some way... she was.

"What is it to know this dread," he spoke softly now, almost whispering,"what is it to wield this fear?"

Fieravene​

 

[Fieravene]

Comfort?

Well there was a curious surprise. The impression of deeper mirth filtered into that sanguine gaze, seeded with questionable intent. The shadow upon which the elf encroached shivered with a frisson of dark electricity, moving to envelop him completely. It slipped like intangible silk across his form, spreading jolts of conjured terror and abhorrence in its wake.

A heady scent followed: the acrid, lingering tang of blood; the heavy odor of decay; the choking perfume of ash.

Fiera remained statuesque, as much as a writhing fiend of black fire and flame and smoke could, hideous wings stretching slowly upwards to the tune of distant wailing. Truly, Ashuanar had a curious imagination on him - not that it was far from reality, but it was approaching an edge she did not think him ready for.

"It is to know death," the geist replied, shifting just slightly, the faintest traces of a figure within the chaos filtering through, "intimately." A face leaned out from the heedless fathoms, pitch of skin save the mark of red across lips and within eyes. Ebony framed the visage in long lengths, tattered like raven feathers in the wind, falling well past the chin and back into the depths of flame.

"And welcome it as an old lover."

 

[Ashuanar]

He looked around as the dark came upon him. Not in fear, no. But he trembled, and it stirred within him his weakness.

But he faced it.

As its cool touch ran across his skin, his hair stood on end. It gripped him, and his breath was stolen from him.

But he stayed his fear.

"It is to know death,"​

His fists formed at his sides. His teeth clenched tightly. But his eyes. Beneath his hard pressed brows burned determination to see through the abyss before him...

"intimately."

And she appeared, the shadow parting to reveal her visage. She looked... different, than he remembered. But even still, the sight of her brought an ease to him, as though the familiar image offered solace amid the nethers.

But then... he did not truly know this elf. But her she had come to him, a second time - and though the provoked feelings of terror and grief in him... he welcomed it. He almost basked in it.

"And welcome it as an old lover."​

He took another step. Hesitant, but purposeful.

"I have brought death upon others... but never has its grasp touched me. Even in that place, I did wish for it, but..." he breathed in as a particular cruelty ran up his back, "...never have I truly known what I have seen in the eyes of so many.

But I see something far more in yours."

Fieravene

​

 

[Fieravene]

She smiled, red lips splitting over bright pearls of teeth. It was the kind of expression one wore when the terrors of the abyss were their friends and death their bedmate.

"What do you see in these eyes, Ashuanar."

 

[Ashuanar]

"I see one who like me, perhaps at one time, was a stranger to this... someone who was not born of it, but ensnared by it. Molded by it..." he surmised, "...and then it by you."

He did not know. He could not be certain. But what he was sure of is that now, this unholiness answered to her. It was horrid, and it was beautiful. It seemed unhindered by space and time, and had quietly laughed it the face of his enemies. He wished to know of this power. He wished to feel it.

"I see what weakens the hearts of man and beast, and ushers them to their doom.

Blissfully.

Terribly."

These things he had felt. That long breath he had taken, that stabbing cold that had filled him. The brief euphoria of his alleviated pain. The feeling in his lungs was palpable, the memory so fresh. So lucid.

"I see the gateways to both life, and death."

Fieravene​

 

[Fieravene]

For a moment that smile behind her lips spread broad, wide, gaping like the maw of a heathen come to devour him. The darkness he stood within enveloped the elf, casting Fieravene's face from view. When it passed she was no longer there, but returned to the shadowed geist form with just those eyes remaining.

This wasn't about her. This was about him.

"What do you wish of me?" she queried him once more.

 

[Ashuanar]

His features hardened, her smile both alluring and daunting to his eyes. He searched her as the darkness began to hide her once more, leaving only that burning glare. He was silent for a moment, weighing his words.

"I wish to see as you do," he said, "I wish to know this power."

He held his breath.

Then, with a trembling release he uttered,

"I wish to welcome it."

Fieravene​

 

[Fieravene]

"Sorry darling," the shadow geist responded, "this I cannot do for ... many reasons. But I am curious as to why."

The realm around them shifted and changed, darkness becoming pale silver spilled across the lands of Annuakat and beyond. Ashuanar found himself standing atop a great temple with a dry wind in his ears and the full spread of the Empire's army awaiting below.

"You are a Vizier of the God Emperor," Fiera spoke from his side, now in her familiar state of dark elf wrapped in light black leather armor, "you are respected by the masses and your peers. You have the power to command a vast and great army and the eye of many prized women of noble and regal rapport."

"And yet you want for darkness and fear."

 

[Ashuanar]

Disappointing, of course. But so too did he understand, and though his mouth curled somewhat in disatisfaction, he nodded his head with affirmative hum. It was not as though if someone came to him demanding command of the Army...

... or perhaps more astute, requesting control of his gifted armband and the creatures beholden to it. Not likely.

He took in a deep breath as the world rematerialized around him into the more familiar. The more real. It was rigid, and crisp, not like the turmoil of his mind. It was however comforting in its clarity. It allowed him the capacity to truly appreciate her question.

"And yet you want for darkness and fear."

"Indeed... there is no shortage of, luxury I'll say, that has been bestowed to me. However..." he looked out across the ranks of their great army, "...our lord is a being of great benevolence. His heart burns brightly for the cause he has been anointed unto."

A moment of quiet thought, "but I have seen that while there is light, the dark retreats - but it remains. Just there. And when the light fades... there is only dark.

There is only fear.

And I would wield it on my lord's behalf - so that he would not - his benevolence insured. The hatred of his necessary evils directed unto me.

To be the devil every god needs."

Then he looked out again, "but perhaps I can make do with this."

 

[Fieravene]

Fieravene joined him in gazing out upon the empire below, detached from any sense of wonder or belonging he might've felt toward it. She let him speak uninterrupted and gave him plenty of time to express what unintelligible notions sprawled across the dreamsphere well beyond the realm before them. Things only he could truly understand about himself.

"Perhaps," she replied at length, a dispassionate tone quietly leveling his last words with bidden doubt.

"Perhaps is a word used by the uncertain."

"Gods don't need devils," the dark elf continued, "Gods don't need anything but loyal worshippers. Men need devils to explain their blasphemous predilections toward the dark in a world that readily ostracizes the mere mention of them. If you wish to be a devil," her eyes slowly turned upwards at him, the man nearly a whole head taller than her, "you must shed the tethers of humanity that hold you back."

 

[Ashuanar]

Quietly he hummed, considering her words. There was little doubt in his mind regarding their wisdom - she was beyond him many times in this regard, he quickly came to understand.

He looked down to meet her eyes, "I see clearly now why the Emperor elevates you to such esteem."

His eyes fell and he nodded, as though confirming something to himself, "and the lady Medja as well."

He turned out once more to the display, folding his arms against his chest. In the company of such giants, he felt somewhat... small. While he carried himself with weight, it was only an emulated behaviour, one so easily undone by the guise of his sister's love.

Indeed.

He would need to shed himself of this weakness.

"I thank you for your insights. They have given me much to dwell on."

 

[Fieravene]

"I see clearly now why the Emperor elevates you to such esteem."

Couldn't help the derisive bite of laughter in her throat at that. Clearly the man was still delusional, but she couldn't be fussed to correct him.

"Of course," the dark elf replied, "but don't dwell too long, hm? Then you're just brooding."

Fiera offered him her signature smirking mirth before taking two gentle steps backwards and falling away from the edge of the temple precipice. A soft whistle of wind followed before both she and the setting around him dissipated back into a fathomless nothing.