Private Tales The Fall

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer

Raziel

Tiefling Blood Mage
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Sharp teeth pierced the cork. The bitter smell followed the stopped as he yanked it free with a twist of his neck. Raziel spat it off the balcony towards the mob below. It followed the same fate as the Baron, who Raziel had thrown over that edge just minutes ago. He wondered if it had struck the corpse.

He lifted the naked bottlento his lips, liberated from the cold and dusky cellar of a man who was slowly cooling on the flagstones below. Raziel took a long swig, deep burgandy spilling from his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and laughed at the moon.

"There's a problem."

Raziel turned to drop a withering glare on the two men who dared interrupt his moment.

"What?"

"We just counted, one of them is missing. She must have snuck out the..."

"You fucking cretins," Raziel hissed, tossing the bottle of wine to the floor. It shattered, dark fluids turning black in the moonlight as they slowly spread. "I will deal with this."



"Finally," Raziel sighed. A moment ago he had been a shadow. One that had slowly detached from the alleyway with a feline grace.

He tilted the wicked, long dagger at the two women who had been fleeing towards him. One dressed as a noble, fine clothing hidden as best could be underneath the travelling cloak. The other in leather armor.

The flames were rising higher in the distance, reaching for the twinkling stars, setting the sky aglow. The screaming had died down, the clash of steel on steel.

Raziel was irritated. Having initiated the bloody revolt, personally killed most of the nobility and then plundered their wire cellars he had been expecting a night of debauchery through the burning town. Instead one of the family had escaped. With a sense of their blood already tied to their magic he had been forced to track her down. Like a common hound.



He was a slender man. He carried a slender knife. He was no brute, broad shoulders blocking the alley. Yet there was an animal cunning in his eye, a curve to his smile and a grace to his poise that suggested a truly deadly creature was in their path.

For the last girl from the noble family, he was doom.

He drew a small vial from his belt. It was filled with a thick, crimson liquid. There was power in blood and this was hers. Taken from her family that same night. Far, far more than that one vial had been spilled by his hand.

The sound of the vial being cracked in his hand rang out. The shards of glass cutting his own palm, mingling the royal blood with his own. The pain was a hot lance, thrust into every vein in his body at the same time.

The bodyguard stiffened.

"How very quaint," he sighed. "Drop. That. Sword."

The metal clattered to the flagstones. The 'noble' turned sharply. A simple rouse. The bodyguard would have pretended to abandon the noble girl who was secretly the guard all along. They even looked quite similar.



Seeing one last chance for entertainment to salvage the night, he wrapped his illusionary magic around the situation. The noble was his puppet now. He had her step aside and replaced her with an illusion of herself. To his gaze there were now two of her, the illusion remaining in place beside her bodyguard.

Raziel grinned from ear to ear, sharp needle teeth catching the light of Arethil's moons. It was only his eyes that reflected the distant fires.

"If you kill your own charge right now you can walk," he told the bodyguard. They must have dressed the woman into the noble's clothes quickly. He could see several rips in the seams. "Do it and I'll escort you from the town."

Raziel tilted the knife towards the sword. The noble girl was held fast by his blood magic, an unwitting member of the audience of this theatre. She had delayed his pleasure. Sensing a bond between the two, he would make her watch her own friend and loyal guard cut an illusionary version of herself down to save her own life.

"Do it…" he hissed. The illusionary girl closed her eyes and braced. The bodyguard picked up the sword. "...I'll even throw in a bag of gold for your own future."

"If you can, run," the bodyguard told the noble. Raziel's expression fell.

"How very droll," he groaned. He casually tossed his own knife over his shoulder. No one noticed that it didn't make a sound as it struck the floor behind him. "Well then…"

The bodyguard lifted her sword and charged on. One last act of self sacrifice. Pointless. Stupid.



Raziel barely moved.

One step and he turned his shoulder forwards. His tail snapped forwards, releasing the knife it had caught.

There was a dull thud as it caught the guard in the belly. She kept coming, her charge slowing right down. Finally the sword fell from her weakening grip. Her eyes widened in panic. She dropped to her knees.

With a resigned sigh, Raziel strode forwards. Stalking prey that had disappointed him. He grasped the travelling cloak and twisted her around.

The bodyguard was left on her knees, facing away from him. Facing the woman she had come to protect.

Raziel let the illusion disperse. He released his blood magic hold on the noble brat who had evaded his massacre.




"Look at her," he said to them both. His scarlet fingers crawled around the guard's neck, then he cradled her cheek as if she was a lover. Already she was getting weak, but she managed to look up.

His expression shifted, lip curling back into a sneer. The next motion was a sudden jerk. The other hand had held a knife. Raziel kept the guard's head up, facing her change as he opened up her neck. Blood bubbled forth, from the wide gash, from her lips.

Raziel's heart thrummed as he felt her own blood slow. It was always intoxicating, the moment the heart gave its final flutter. Warm blood rushed across his fingers and his eyes half closed in bliss.

The guard's eyes finally fluttered closed. It was almost as if she had gone to sleep.

Raziel pushed her lifeless body to the flagstones. Her blood had no colour any longer. Just a dark stain on the stones. He pointed the blade at his real target.

"Would you like to beg or barter now?"
 
"Don't look."

Sorcha's hand shot out to grip hold of her arm and she spun her against her chest, a hand taking a gentle grip of her auburn locks as she forced the young woman's brow against her shoulder. Fey drew in a gasp of smoky air and willingly closed her eyes tightly, her knuckles white with tremulous grip on her protector's cloak. The strangled cry of her father had pulled both women's horrified gazes skyward, she'd seen him plummet, she'd been about to scream out, but she was dragged into her guard's muffling embrace in time to spare her the sight of his death. Sadly, there was no protecting her from the sound his body made when it collided with the ground. She heard every bone shatter, every organ in his body turn to mulch and the sickening splat of his blood soaking the cold stone. Feyre's legs gave in and she slumped in Sorcha's grip, but the woman supported her back to her feet as she cast another glance across the courtyard.

"We have to move, Fey. Come on..that's it." she coaxed, her tone urgent but thick with a sympathy that Feyre wasn't used to from the older woman. "I've got you." the guard assured as they stepped through the back gate.

Feyre managed to run but she wasn't sure how. Her legs were carrying her of their own accord. It felt dream-like and weightless, and the sounds of screaming and clashing steel were muffled by the ringing that grew louder in her ears.

The hellish nightmare they ran through looked nothing like her home. Flames caught, as flames tended to do, on everything they touched, and in less than an hour the city was alight with a ghastly orange grin of unfettered inferno, devouring hungrily, licking and lapping at everything that stood in it's way, twisting and swaying in a dance without rhythm. People ran here and there, buildings crumbled and collapsed, and the streets were strewn with the dead, waxy faces like ghoulish mannequins, many of whom she knew well.

"Don't look..." Sorcha repeated every now and then, but her eyes betrayed her and rather than resist a glance, they sought out each body, and she heard their voices in her mind. Men, women, children she'd known. Gone.

The smoke grew thicker, forming a heavy, glowing fog through the streets that was almost impossible to see through. It stung at her eyes and filled her lungs which protested in wheezed coughs as she stumbled further away from the chaos. But she was not far enough, and Sorcha gripped her wrist tightly when she noticed the devilish man who stepped onto their path. The pair skidded to a halt, and Fey lifted her blade, hoping to all of the gods that she wouldn't have to even attempt to use it.

Both women coughed as they panted for a clean breath of air, their skin and clothes blackened with smoke and their cheeks flushed from their attempted escape. Tears had run treacherous pale lines down her sooty face, where no such betrayal marked her guard, but otherwise Fey stood as firmly as she could and stared the tiefling down, clenching her jaw to suppress a shudder of fear. But regardless of how convincing her act was or was not, the moment the demon's fist cracked open whatever vial he had, her actions were no longer her own.

She drew in a breath, her golden eyes wide and glassy with panic, but aside the beat of her heart, no muscle would move and the young noble was rigid with paralysis. And how quickly her body bowed to his whim and dropped the sword as per his demand, and she stepped to the side to watch his charade. Her mind swam and her skin crawled with the sensation of being manipulated like that, but it couldn't compare to how sick she felt at seeing a perfect copy of herself stand in her stead.

'Run'. She heard her own voice say in her mind, but they'd never make it past her lips. One syllable shouldn't have been as much of a mental mountain to climb but the word turned to stone in her chest and there she was, utterly silent, utterly still, and forced to watch in horror as her last living friend refused his challenge and charged toward her inevitable death. Even as she saw the flash of steel and heard the sickening thud of it hit home, she could express no horror over it until he released her from her invisible bonds, and the desperate cry overflowed from her lungs as she stumbled forward.

"Please!"

Such a pointless word, she was about to find. Feyre ran toward them, her hand splaying outward toward the pained face of her guard, caressed by the crimson hands before they cut through her throat and spilled her life onto the stone with the others.

"NO!!" Another pointless word, a fruitless plea that was already much too late. Fey skidded to her knees on the stones to catch her friend as the demon discarded her, cradling her head and desperately stroking her face, unwilling to believe this more than a cruel nightmare. But the blood that flowed from the woman's throat was hot as it poured over her and the woman's face, so beautiful in life was frozen and slack.

Fey's body curled forward as she sobbed over Sorcha's body, but as her murderer spoke, her gaze rose slowly to meet his without sadness or fear, but with a venomous rage so foreign to her that her body physically shook in protest. "Neither." she seethed through gritted teeth.

"I will not run, nor fight." she frowned, her words breathed out like flames as her hand curled around her coppery ringlets to pull them back from her neck as she titled chin up to bare her throat and she stared up at him defiantly before closing her eyes and awaiting the same fate as the rest of her family.
 
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There was no joy in surrender. So much anger in her eyes and yet she offered up her lifeblood. Acceptance and dismay hidden by the mask of outrage.

Raziel flinched, knife in hand, just to see how she would react.

"Not so easy," he purred. "It will be one of two things for you. The mob might pass you around and tear you apart by hand. Or to appease them we might see how you dance with the flames beneath you."

Raziel found little joy in mundane torture, despite his fascination with blood and death. There was a defiance that he needed to see broken.

Of course, if it couldn't, then perhaps it was better to take his payment and move on.

Not that the payment mattered. The long game to incite the rebellion was a reward in of itself.
 
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Oh, she was afraid. Afraid of death, of pain, of how utterly alone she was and above all right now, she was afraid of him. No amount of anger could mask it. Her eyes closed tighter and she flinched as he did, but she didn't recoil, she simply braced herself for pain and inevitable death.

Neither came, and as the devil spoke, Fey's eyes opened on him with a flicker of fear at his words. "Have you not done enough?" she asked, the words tumbling desperately from her lips and her jaw and fists clenching in frustration. She would not beg. Not for him to spare her, nor for him to kill her. He and the mob of whom he spoke had taken everything from her in a single night, and so she had absolutely nothing to lose.

She pushed Sorcha's lifeless body from her lap and stood, her body shaking with everything but cold as she took a step toward him. At once her hand swiped her knife from her hip and she lifted it into the air, her aim; his heart, though it was apparently an incredibly small target.

"Is this what you want?!" Feyre growled at him as the blade plunged toward his chest. She wasn't much of a fighter, such things weren't for ladies to partake in, and so she doubted she'd be dexterous enough to win the battle she picked. Though, to lose it and lose it quickly was a better option than either of the two he'd presented her thus far.
 
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He tried to hide his glee. There was some fight left in her. The final last gnashing of teeth and claws of a wounded animal. Clearly, the threat of the mob or the flames was something that resounded within her still.

Raziel stepped aside, sweeping his right arm in the opposite directions to catch her forearm and drive the blade wide.

The girl put far too much of her weight behind the strike. As she passed him by his tail flicked out and struck the side of her ankle.

"Technically, no, I haven't done enough."

There was no need to spell out exactly what the terms of his contract required. There could have been ears close by.

"You don't like the idea of the fire then?" he asked.
 
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She stumbled as his tail caught her ankle and she landed on the cold stone with a wince, her hands and knees grazing and she spilled her first few drops of blood. Her lungs tried to rid themselves of more of the smoke she'd inhaled and she coughed, dragging in another few sobbed breaths.

Fresh tears spilled as she closed her eyes and she pressed her head down against the road and let out a scream, a desperate outpouring of her grief, her fury and her frustration. As though murdering her entire family and destroying her home and city wasn't enough, he was toying with her, taking pleasure in her torment as though she was a source of entertainment.

The blade had clattered just out of arms and she lifted her teary gaze to it and crawled to curl her fingers around the handle. She couldn't beat him. He was drawing out the inevitable, she'd only be subjected to torture, mobs, flames..

She stared at the knife in her hand and her breaths shallowed, her sobs silenced. She watched as her knuckles paled with her tightening grip as she made her decision, her hand trembling with the weight of it. She ignored his question, she pushed him from her mind entirely and her other hand secured the first's grip on the knife.

The smoky breath that she intended on being her last was drawn in and she turned the blade's tip toward her and pulled it toward her to drive it into her own chest.
 
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"No!" he cried out.

The pain lanced from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tail as he called upon the last of the blood magic he had.

It was a battle of wills now. He tried to tense every muscle in her body, before making her drop the knife. Nothing was perfect and he was already tired. If her will was indomitable not only would she managed to plunge that knife into her own chest, but he would end up corrupting his own blood.

"Drop it!" he hissed. He vied for control of her body through the magic.

Was this worth it? If she finished the job for him he could simply drag her body back to the Magister and be done.

Raziel didn't want to 'be done'. His job was artistry. He was no common thug. The money was just...money. It was the was you accomplished the challenge that was important.

He heard cries from behind him. Perhaps part of an angry mob. His hand was going to be forced either way it seemed.
 
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She felt the cold steel touch her skin when her body rebelled, her muscles seized and seemed to burn as she protested. She felt whatever force he used attempt to pry her fingers from around the weapon and she clenched her teeth and growled in the pain of the struggle. It took every bit of willpower and even more physical strength to fight it.

She wouldn't give up easily, and her cry was a a brilliant sound when she felt the knife bite into her skin, guttural chokes mixed with an agonised roar as the struggle caused her to drag across her flesh rather than drive. She watched the blade slice through her skin and she willed it to disappear, to pierce her heart and end it. It should have been quick. Now hot crimson raced downward, soaking her leathers as it flowed freely from the open wound.

The searing pain only served to weaken her resolve further, it was difficult to want to continue with ones very own torture, and her strength was waning. All at once she let go with another growl in defeat and misery and she collapsed onto her back, convulsing and trembling like a rabid animal. The sweet, coppery tang of her own blood filled her nostrils and she rolled onto her side to throw up. Dread filled her, and her honey hues rose glare up at him as she sat up, her arms quivering as she leaned on them.

"Why?... What is my life to you? What was the cost of theirs?.." she asked him in a shuddered breath with a glance to Sorcha, but a glance was all she managed and her gaze settled on the tiny puddles of dark blood that dripped from her chest, her shoulders slumped in resignation.
 
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"Watching idle opulence being burned to the ground is payment enough," Raziel replied.

It wasn't a complete answer. There was certainly gold involved as well. The answer was carefully constructed to do the most harm. The idea that the lifestyle her family had inhabited was enough to draw people who would tear down everything they had seemed a suitably painful concept.

He had never considered the torture of trying to actually stop someone from ending their own life. It span off a hundred smaller ideas in his twisted mind, but he was too tired to actually entertain them now.

The mob was coming.

The sound of shattered glass heralded their arrival. An empty bottle of wine dashed across the floor. Raziel turned to see a mix of militia who had turned on the ruling families mixed with peasants. Celebrating their victory.

"What the fuck are you?" came a cry.

Raziel gave an elegant bow and yanked Feyre to her feet, turning her about to face them.

"This isn't going to be pretty," he hissed for her benefit.

"That's the daughter they're looking for!" one of the drunken louts cried out.

"Yes, yes," Raziel replied. "Caught for return to..."

As he spoke they were surrounded. They went for him first. Several men grabbing his arms and yanking him away.

"Now...now..." he said loudly. "No need for that. I am an agent working for the Magister to hunt down..."

"Magister's dead," gunted the militia man who seemed to be directing the others.

"What?" asked Raziel. He tilted his head to one side curiously. The old bastard had been safely tucked away from the fighting, chanting and whipping his supporters into a frenzy. The magister was the only other person in the town on the payroll of their rivals to enact this bloody revolt.

"Yeah, stabbed in the back. No one saw it. Funny cos...that's a lot of knives you're carrying there."

"Don't be a fucking cre..." Raziel started to reply.

"Kill him. She goes on the fire."
 
Idle opulence?..

So this was her punishment, her family's punishment, for being born into nobility? She didn't understand, she never would. Her mind was reeling, stumbling over it's own thoughts as it tried to catch up and make sense of it all. Her body trembled in shock, as though the mental trauma wasn't enough, the pain she'd caused herself did not recede, if anything it burned hotter and spread through her body and down her limbs and she soon felt rigid and weak.

Feyre was, undeniably, fortunate. She had never been hurt before, she'd broken bones and suffered some minor cuts and bruises as a child, but nothing like this. Her blood soaked through her clothes and she ran her fingers tremulously across the deep wound and stared expressionlessly at the vibrant red on her fingertips.

She could hear the mob approaching, and she let out a gasp as she was pulled so effortlessly to her feet and whirled around to face them, her eyes wide with fear as she watched their menacing approach. She squirmed in the demon's grip as his warning came, trying to pull herself away from him, from them. She took in only a fraction of what was said, and she quickly realised that her family were not the only people that this mob had turned on.

She was pulled from Raziel's hold by a man who reeked of stale mead and tobacco. She screamed out, adrenaline flooding her system and surging so fast she almost vomited again and her heart rattled in her chest so hard she feared it might burst. Fey writhed frantically enough that the man lost grip on her and she went to the ground and started to crawl. Her feet were grabbed and she was pulled back along the bloody flagstone and turned onto her back. There was laughter, groping, some comment about getting their fun out of her first, but there was a moment when her brain simply shut down from utter terror and the next thing she knew the blade she'd picked up was in the drunken man's neck and he stared down at her, his eyes wide in shock and blood gushing from his neck and mouth, soaking her.

Feyre coughed and gagged on the spilling blood as the man's dead weight came down atop her, but he was soon lifted and discarded by the next who grabbed her by hair to drag her away as another few circled the demon.
 
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"She had a knife!"

"They were together!"

Raziel scowled. On the outside he was frustrated by this pack of inebriated. Inside his mind was reeling from the news the Magister was dead. He could only assume that some assassin of the nobility had been trailing him and when the revolt had started acted too late.

That meant that the nobled had gotten wind of some of their plots or had simply started to act at the sight of the power the Magister had started to surround himself with. The latter felt more likely. The Baron hadn't been known for his keen wit, but he did hold his power with fastidious care.

"Last chance to back down," Raziel said, with a sigh of resignation.

The nearest one swung his club. Raziel snatched it from his hands before it came close to his head. He tossed it end over end at the one running at his back.

Some thought there was an elegance to fighting with a knife. It was not really true. It was a brutal weapon for close in murder, even if it required precise strikes. Raziel had stabbed men several times before they even slowed down before. The body could be slow to catch up.

He was on the next thug in a heartbeat. He grabbed the man by his tunic with his left, keeping the blade in his right out of reach. Three quick thrusts: neck and both lungs.

They called him a demon because of his appearance, but Raziel was just a tiefling. As a whirlwind of destruction in a pack of vagabonds he certainly exuded a demonic air.

"Get up girl!" growled the man with a fistful of hair, but he was too late. He dropped her and turned to run but was cut down within two strides.

The alley was eerily still. A pile of corpses and just the soft sound of Raziel wiping his blades on the cleanest looking cloak.
 
Feyre screamed and pleaded, and growled and scratched like an animal when it went ignored. She could feel his skin come away under her nails as he dropped her and she fell, dragging in a few rasped breaths as she sobbed. She was blinded by blood and her body tensed in fear in her vulnerable state, fully expecting to be grabbed. Her shaking hands wiped frantically at the blood on her face so that she could open her stinging eyes as she heard the last man fall and she peered around at the litter of bodies the devil had left in his wake.

Misty plumes streamed into the air with every short, sharp breath in panic, and she attempted to get to her feet but her legs gave in. She had nothing left and far too much to process. Her family were gone, her home destroyed, she did not know what the tiefling was going to do with her, and she had just killed a man.

Golden eyes stared up at him behind a sanguine mask, hardly an inch of her skin not drenched in blood. The smell of it turned her stomach, and the sight of the dying man's shock as he choked on his own blood was burned into her mind.

She didn't speak. There was no point. She could only hope that he'd had enough of torment for one night, and that she might meet her end swiftly.
 
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Raziel stood, surveying the scene without a hint of regret. He didn't even look down at Feyre for a few seconds. The thugs were all dead or dying. The energy that had flowed through their veins was slowly slipping back into the aether.

He cast a curious glance across the girl and her victim. Her hands and her heart were heavy with the weight of the blood they had been stained with.

"If you fight with that ferocity you might get out of the town alive," he said dismissively.

Raziel collected his blades. His hands barely moved and yet they vanished into various hiding places around his clothes. He stepped away from the girl, looking towards the edge of the town.

Raziel started to walk away. He paused at the far end of the alley, considering his options.
 
Ferocity?...She'd never been described in such a way in her life, and she let the thought disturb her for a moment before realising what he'd said..

"Alive?.." There was a lilt of disbelief in her tone and she almost laughed, as though she'd already accepted that surviving this night was not in the cards. Silent tears washed new, pale streaks through the blood as she stared up at him, watching him so casually conceal his knives and walk away from her.

Why he hadn't just let her be dragged off to the fire like he'd threatened, she didn't know, but she kept the question locked behind her teeth rather than tempt him with doing so himself. A quick death was now the only thing she wanted in this life. How violently her life had changed.

She frowned as she watched him stop and consider, and she summoned what energy she had to quietly push herself to her feet. For a moment, she forgot how to walk let alone run. Her legs shook unsteadily under her weight and her eyes blinked a rush of dizziness that made her stagger. She kept her balance, but only barely, and she turned to walk away from him as casually as one would leave the table after dinner. There was no goal, no purpose, nowhere to go, but the ground was no place for a lady, and Feyre lifted her bloody chin and squared her shoulders as she walked.
 
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"You don't want to go that way," he said quietly. His tone was devoid of emotional weight now.

Which way do I go? The question formed at the same time. Feyre would be disgusted to find out that it was actually blood relatives who had orchestrated this. Paid for this. He was the one pulling the strings - or had been.

Raziel didn't need to coin but there was a principle in being paid. They had to know that his services came with a high price, everyone did. The Magister was supposed to have cracked down on the revolt within a few days, pacified the town and left it ready to be occupied by its neighbours.

The baron who looked after the lands east would accept the lands held by his third cousin and moved within the courts to elevate himself to a Viscount. Raziel was so fascinated by the struggles of simple humanity. He was less enamoured with his own plans unravelling.

"This way if you want to live," he said, turning to face her.

She was the loose end. Perhaps if he brought her then the situation could be improved. She could be married off to one of the Baron's sons to secure his power. Or perhaps Raziel could simply bring her head along as an offering.

He did not want to carry such a grisly gift the entire way. She could walk her own head there.
 
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“I didn’t want to be dragged from my bed and told my family were all dead either but here we are..” she answered him bitterly. Her emotions came in waves, each threatening to drag her under and drown her. The anger was preferable to the crushing grief she felt as she thought of each member of her family, of Sorcha.

She turned to look back at him, knuckles white from clenching her fists too hard, her jaw clenched from her effort to remain silent, her entire form exuded an animosity like acid – burning, potent. Under the slick blood on her face, her cheeks were flushed with rage and as he offered her an option she drew her eyes away from him in a scowl and made up her mind. He’d have to damn well drag her.

“If you think I’ll go anywhere with you, you’re mistaken. I’m going to get my horse, so, you can either kill me or politely fuck off.”

She didn’t know what to do, all she knew was that she wanted to be as far away from this creature as was physically possible.
 
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Raziel looked to the sky, fixing the two moons of Arethil with a long stare. Silence fell for a few seonds. Finally it was broken by a bark of laughter. Raziel shook his head, chuckling to himself. The silence of death, the flicker of flame and his macabre laugh.

"But here we are..." he mused. "Very good."

There was definitely more life left in the girl. And he had gone and assumed that she was already broken beyond repair. There was nothing finer in life than seeing a great work of art shatter just so...

"Then I will fuck off on whatever terms I decide. Good luck with no dying," Raziel replied.

He turned to leave, the shadows seemingly welcoming one of their own back into the fold. Raziel would not go far. He still had that faint tie to her family's blood. If she was going to a stable then he would follow at a distance and find a mount himself.

Why leave on foot?
 
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"I am glad you find me so amusing..." she called back to him without a hint of glee at all. She felt broken. Numb to her very core and waiting on the dreaded moment when it all hit her. It was inevitable, but right now she wanted to move. She wanted to leave her burning city and the bodies of the dead. She wanted to fall into delusion and denial, sleep, death. Anything.

"Very good.." she repeated his words as he wished her luck in not dying.

She didn't look back. She didn't remember the walk to the stables, but suddenly she was there and her horse, a dark clydesdale mare named Epione, was rearing in her paddock as were the others. Fey unlocked the other stables and set her family's horses free before settling and saddling her mare. She could smell the smoke thickening in the air, she could feel the fire's warmth in the breeze and see the orange glow of it in the sky, but her movements remained rigid and dazed.

Feyre stared at her reflection in the water trough for a long moment. The unrecognisable rippling image of a homeless orphan and a murderer staring back at her. She was too tired to cry any more, and she washed the blood from her face and hands as best as she could before throwing some extra blankets over Epione's back and pulling herself up into the saddle and kicking her heels gently at her sides to lead her aimlessly into the dark.
 
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He didn't always get on with horses. They weren't the brightest of creatures, but they had an instinct for danger. The girl freed them before he could slip inside and get one tacked up whilst it was restrained. They could smell the fires in the distance.

By chance she had Raziel chasing after a mare whilst she was having a moment with her own reflection. When he returned to the stables she was gone.

The clouds were hanging low in the sky now, obscuring the moons. They provided light of their own, reflecting the warmth of the fires. It was past time to be gone.

The trail wasn't cold, but it was waning. That also meant that his level of control through the blood would be weak now. Raziel had done far more with bluster and wit in his life than he had with magic. He would manage. He dug in his heels and set off after Feyre.

It wasn't long before he caught up to her. He saw her before an angry mob, which was to their favour.

"This is not the way to the gate," he hissed. The fact that he was now on one of her family's horses revealed exactly what he had done.

"You don't really want to die here do you?"
 
Feyre had physically closed her eyes for a few minutes, letting Epione choose her course as sleep slowly caused her body to slump forward.

The sound of hooves caused her to straighten up and her head to turn, her expression contorting into an instant scowl as she looked at the tiefling on her father’s horse. The black Friesian was throwing his head, and regardless of everything else, she instinctively held out her hand to the horse’s face and hushed to mollify his discomfort as he pulled up next to her.

Her tired gaze shifted to the tiefling and her hand recoiled as though she’d held it too close to a flame, and his words caused a sneer but she didn’t answer his question.

“What does it matter to you? You said you were going to fuck off, and yet here you are following me. If you intend on killing me then please, do get on with it and desist from the torment. If I could kill you instead, I would.” She dragged her eyes away from him and turned her horse about to take another path.
 
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"Oh I know you would. However by lying I can now avoid walking."

Raziel gave a gentle nudge and turned to follow in her wake. He quickly drew up alongside her once more. The girl was still bleeding. She looked pale and tired. If he had to kill her now he was going to have to carry her severed head in a bag for days and days.

"You are wounded," he observed. "And I do not like having my plans ruined. It is...Frustrating. I had a very simple plan. Kill you, get paid by the Magister. That plan has gone very wrong.

"But!" he declared, ignoring her ire and raising a finger triumphantly. "I have a new plan. You are in need of a new protector. Nothing personal. I can deliver you to your father's second cousin and get rewarded that way."

There was no need to outline that he was behind the revolt. As far as her family knew he was a staunch ally.

"And I would not like my plans frustrated for a second time. I would be deeply upset."
 
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"Frustrating?!" she halted Epione and glared at him incredulously. "I am terribly fucking sorry that I did not die for your coin. I'm sorry your night has been ruined!" her voice cracked. Fey couldn't remember a time in her life when she'd felt anger like she did in this moment. She'd never had cause to be driven to the sort of rage necessary to take a life, but she knew right now, if she had means of killing him slowly and painfully she'd have done so.

She was so angry, that she lapsed into a hysterical sort of laughter as he suggested that he switch role from hired murderer to valiant protector, so long as he was being paid, it didn't seem to matter to him which job he fulfilled. Her shoulders shook with the laughter and she let her head fall back, laughing so manically that she coughed on the smoky air and tears streamed from her eyes.

"I wouldn't want... You to be upset... or inconvenienced..." she told him between more bursts of laughter that was verging on insanity. Perhaps she had lost her mind. She had every cause to.

"I would rather hack off both of my legs with a rusty fucking axe than go anywhere with you. I want you to die the most horrific death, I want to do it with my own bare hands." she grinned at him and grit her teeth. "Now get...away...from me."
 
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"You might get a chance," he called out. His voice was suddenly cold. "Days on the road, maybe I'd make a mistake. Maybe you'd get to come good on that promise."

Raziel barely shifted. It would be impossible to describe how his posture had changed. One moment he was a simple rider, keeping pace beside her. In the next there was a poise to him, a readiness. The suggestion of movement whilst perfectly still. Enough to elicit a strong prey reaction even in a human.

"Or you can find out what I might do just for having my plans come undone," he hissed, lips revealing those sharp teeth.

He didn't have much magic left. She didn't need to know that. Just a single pulse, a heat in her veins and an echo of the way he had stolen all control from her body before.
 
Manic hysteria quickly gave way to another outburst of tears as he persisted, her frustration growing until she broke her voice screaming at him. "Enough of the threats and just do it!!" Epione trotted anxiously in place and Fey pulled firmly on the reins, turning her around to circle the tiefling.

"You murdered my best friend in front of my eyes! How many of my family did you kill?! All of them? You take everything from me until I beg for death and you deny me and now you seek to torment me with your presence?! I just want..." she paused when so many alternative statements clashed together in her mind, and she halted her horse by his side to stare at him, her gaze glassy and broken.

What was the alternative to death? Nothing could counter her grief, nothing could undo what had been done..

"To forget." she breathed out and her brow furrowed at him, her heart pitching at the idea. "Can you make me forget?.."
 
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"To forget?" he asked rhetorically. He was clearly giving the matter some thought.

There was a strong temptation to be done with this. She was close enough. One leap and he could have dragged her from her horse. It was grisly, messy work to remove someone's head from their shoulders with a knife.

He didn't even have a serrated blade. Despite his fascination with death and blood and pain he was an artist, not a butcher.

"Magic can do anything," he said, deciding not to oversell another lie. "I cannot, but there will be any number of druids and wizards who can. Your father's cousin would care for you I'm sure. You won't make it there alone."

If she was truly past the point of caring for her survival then he was just going to have to get this over with now.